Free Pulse: When Gravity Fails (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 1) by John Freitas Page A

pocket and broke it in half. Roman accepted the half he was offered. “Yum. The breakfast of an American champion, no?”
    Michael took a bite and unlatched the canteen from his belt. “You need to stay off the Internet, Roman.”
    “I have for years now,” he said between bites.
    Michael nodded. “So your family got you into this trouble?”
    Roman shrugged. “Not so bad a place until the invisible tiger started crushing towers with me inside.”
    Michael smiled. “It would be a beautiful place if the Russian army wasn’t hunting me and the trees would stop falling down on us.”
    Michael offered Roman the canteen, but Roman waved him off. Michael knew Roman needed to drink, but he did not have the energy to try to force him, so Michael just took another swallow for himself.
    Roman said, “You know family names are new in Russia?”
    Michael narrowed his eyes. He thought this was the opening for a joke, but Roman wasn’t smiling. Michael said, “You didn’t used to have a last name?”
    “Less than a hundred years,” Roman said. “Most families made them up during the census after the czars and the communists. Russia needed them to track the people, so we made them. If not for the census, I would just be another Roman with no family name to be punished for. Most Russian names mean ‘belongs to.’ So, we all belong to someone and all the trouble that family brings.”
    Michael nodded. “I guess that is true of all families.”
    “Does Captain Michael and Brother Carter come with trouble?”
    “Sometimes.” Michael smiled. “Our father was a religious man, a part time preacher.”
    “He would have liked my mother, no?”
    Michael nodded. “Probably. It was a strict house. Lots of demands. Carter and I spent a lot of time trying to do better than the other so that our dad would ride the other about doing better. It made us competitive for our parents’ approval.”
    “That is how most brothers work, I think.” Roman smiled and finished his power bar.
    “I love him, but we both cast shadows that make life hard for the other one. It made things tense sometimes. It made it hard for people outside our families to love us, I think. Neither of us is married or has kids. I think that made our parents sad while they were still around. Just another time we disappointed them. We spend a lot of our lives chasing something, but what exactly, I don’t know.”
    Roman pointed at the entrance of the cave. “Now you are being chased.”
    “True.”
    “So Captain Michael becomes US Airforce fighter pilot and Brother Carter becomes American hero firefighter and that is not good enough for either one of you to think you made it?”
    “That about sums is up, Roman.”
    Roman nodded. “I’m in exile for my mother’s dreams of a better Russia. You and Brother Carter exile yourselves when you already live in an awesome democracy.”
    “It sounds bad when you say it like that.”
    Roman laughed. “Don’t pay attention to me. I learned all my English from movies on the Internet.”
    An explosion outside vibrated the ground under them. They looked at each other and crawled to the mouth of the cave together. Smoke rose up, but then raced back down and crawled along the ground. Soldiers collapsed and lay on their bellies about a quarter mile away.
    “We need to go for the station now,” Roman said.
    “The sun is still up,” Michael said.
    Roman pointed. “The invisible tiger is over there, but not here. We need to move now while they are held down.”
    “The gravity might travel over us here. It has happened the other times.”
    “It might not,” Roman said. “We should go now. Trust me.”
    Michael looked at Roman and nodded. He looped Roman’s arm over his shoulder and they limped out of the cover of the cave together.
     
     
     

14
     
    Dr. Paulo Restrepo – Colombia
     
    He held his cellphone out at arm’s length so he could see it as the woman dabbed make-up on his cheeks. “I’m announcing a