Kesten E. Harris - The Red Revolution

Kesten E. Harris

The Red Revolution: The Explorer Book Four

First published by Stardust Books 2019

Copyright 2019 by Kesten E. Harris

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Kesten E. Harris asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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Contents

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Chore List

F OUR MONTHS. THATS how long Id been involved in the war. It had all started when President Frost had sent me after her lost shield generator. Then Id teamed up with the people whod stolen it. Reality had pretty much imploded after that. Frost had turned out to be both evil and the murderer of my parents. Now I was allied with the Aggressive Intellectuals (AI), who had been at war with humans for centuries. It made me sound like a traitor, and maybe I was. But Frost needed to go down. I was Wander Locke, and I wasnt about to let my involvement in the war stretch into five months.

How many times do I have to ask for that energy cartridge?

I blinked and looked down at my hand. I was still holding the glowing red container that Id picked up before launching into my mental monologue. I did a lot of those nowadays. It was what happened when your mind was all over the place.

I handed the cartridge over to the silver-haired girl in the wheelchair: Nessa. She was my girlfriend, and I never got tired of announcing that. She took the container with her metal-coated arm, inspected it, and shoved it into a rifle.

We were in a room with light blue walls: one of the forges project rooms. All sorts of weird little models were floating around the virtuaboard in the back. Thanks to our new partners, the AI, we had a lot of new ideas we wanted to put into action.

I was just making sure you understood how dangerous that cartridge was, I said. It came straight from Epsilon. You cant be too careful with it.

Nessa sighed as she set the rifle down on a suspension table. Weve been messing with their tech for weeks. If I hadnt been careful since the first week, Id be dead by now. Anyway, dont lie to me. What were you thinking about?

What arent I thinking about? Ive got so much on my plate that I wont need seconds. I should just live in this room, where my responsibilities cant reach me.

I was a mechanic, a teenager, the former Epsilon Explorer, and the current Alpha. In addition to all of that, I was now the unofficial ambassador for either humans, AI, or both. That allowed me to skip a few ranks to become one of the three alliance leaders. I was no stranger to leadership, but Id never had this much pressure on me before.

You know I can help, right? Nessa asked. My legs are ready now. Its about time I started using them.

Technically, her legs were ready, but I was still iffy about letting her use them. When we had fought her father, Alhabor, hed beaten her by sucking the power out of her legs. From then on, I preferred keeping her in her wheelchair, where she was safe.

The only problem was that it made me feel like a hypocrite on account of my bionic blue-and-black right arm. Id gotten it from Frost. But, after last month, Nessa, Opifex, and I had done some work that had turned it into something completely different. I didnt need the cannon her engineers had given it, so, after we removed it, the limb became small enough to fit on my arm rather than my suit. I liked it better this way. It felt more like an actual arm and less like a replacement.

I shook my head. Nope. Im the Alpha, not you. No need to worry about my chore list.

She raised an eyebrow. Are you sure you dont want an official title? Having all those duties just because youre the Alpha doesnt sound right.

My last official title was Epsilon Explorer. After the woman who gave it to me turned psycho and stole my hometowns population, I grew to hate it just a little. After that, I dont mind just being called Wander or Alpha. Anyway, Id better go check in on the sharpshooters. If I dont leave now, I wont have enough time to make sure everythings going fine at the Punch Factory. And then

I get it already. Come here. Nessa tugged on my arm, signaling that I needed to crouch down. I did so, and smiled as she pecked my cheek. Her lip gloss stained it as usual, but I wasnt about to complain. Ill see you at dinner. Remember to tell Anderson that hes a waste of space.

Youd think she would have realized that I wasnt going to say that by now. I walked out of the project room and into the rest of the forge. Suspension tables, machinery, and weapon parts decorated the metal-scented room. The room was usually dark, but thanks to all the glowing ammo cartridges, it was bright enough. This had been the space where people had come to invent things for fun or for the good of the base. Now it was more of a weapons factory.

Standing in front of two teenagers was a tan man with a bushy beard. He was as big as both of them combined. That was Opifex, the guy whod taught me everything I knew about technology. Id greeted him when Id come in earlier. I would have said bye, but he seemed busy explaining something to the kids. Thank goodness he was up and about. His life had changed for the worse when a man named Alhabor had killed his mom a month previously. He wasnt too down about it...anymore. That was partly because of his new job in the forge.