Free Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm by Alex Albrinck Page A

memories are happy.” He glanced at Sarah. “Michael and Katherine both seemed prime candidates to lead this group, but it’s someone else, isn’t it?”
    Sarah nodded. “There’s a natural overlap in training techniques between the Defense Squad and our group. We both need to know how to fight, how to disarm our Aliomenti opponents, how to escape notice of the Hunters, and so on. Our tools are different, and some concerns don’t cross between groups. We don’t have to worry about our Energy being detected. We also can’t use Energy to fight or escape. There’s been more strategy of late to mix the groups together because of the unique strengths each brings.”
    Fil nodded and glanced around. “So… who’s the leader of your group, then?”
    “Someone else who thinks of Pleasanton as home,” Sarah replied.
    Fil felt the strong Energy presence as the woman teleported into the room. The signal seemed familiar, though he was certain he’d not sensed that exact signal before. He turned to find a woman standing before him, her jet black hair framing a friendly face featuring sparkling jade green eyes.
    She held out her hand. “Fil, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Gena Adams.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    V
    Formula
     
     
    2060 A.D.
    Angel sat back in her chair and rubbed her eyes, both to relieve the eyestrain and to motivate her brain to find the answer to her questions. No answers came, and she allowed her arms to drop with a soft thud into the comfortable cushions while laying her head back. Perhaps she’d find answers more quickly without looking at the figures on the whiteboard before her.
    That assumed answers existed.
    The cool air of the room brushed against her skin, a caress the likes of which she’d not felt since her mother’s disappearance twenty years earlier. She tuned into her mother’s life force. Fil called it her “seventh sense,” her innate ability to feel the presence of another no matter the distance or effort to conceal. That seventh sense told her with absolute certainty that her parents were alive. The intensity strengthened and weakened over time, varying as they traveled the globe, aiding humanity in their own fashion.
    She sighed. If only she could see her mother again.
    She knew she’d see her father again. Will would arrive in the future, one hundred sixty-nine years from now, in a time machine that hadn’t yet been invented. It wouldn’t be the same, though; that was the man she’d never met, the Will Stark not yet hardened through a thousand years of living and sacrifice, all meant to ensure she, and her brother, would exist. She was here now and her parents were gone, absent from her life and invisible to the world. She had only that seventh sense to give her comfort in times when, even as she turned thirty, she’d still prefer her mother’s embrace to a faint caress of existence.
    At least Hope was alive. If Angel didn’t solve this problem, they’d all disappear in time.
    They’d overcome all manner of problems in this odd journey through time. They’d leveraged Will’s own memories of his past and their future, along with messages on a computer diary resembling a scroll, to know with unerring accuracy what was to come, and what they must do to ensure everything happened according to plan.
    That had worked until 2030. But Will had no memories of this time, and the diary had, to this point, remained silent. Why had she not added messages to guide them through this time? Why hadn’t Fil?
    She opened her eyes. She had no answer to those questions. She’d settle for guidance about building the time machine so integral to her very existence. She just couldn’t make the numbers work.
    It had been her obsession for fifteen years, a distraction from the turmoil of her family situation. When her father had spirited their mother away in the early morning hours that fateful day, she’d been thrilled he’d taken action to save Hope’s life. Others