Trine

ANGRY ROBOT An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd Unit 11, Shepperton House 89 Shepperton Road London N1 3DF UK angryrobotbooks.com twitter.com/angryrobotbooks Third Time’s the Trine An Angry Robot paperback original, 2023 Copyright © Chris Faraday 2023 Cover by Kieryn Tyler Edited by Robin Triggs and Alice Abrams Set in Meridien All rights reserved. Chris Faraday asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it. Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd. ISBN 978 1 91520 244 4 Ebook ISBN 978 1 91520 262 8 Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Ltd. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 d_r0 The Gracious Gazette Sunday, May 9, 1897 FIREBALL INSTILLS FEAR WITNESSES to the fireball streaking across the nighttime heavens last Monday believe it was an omen of dark tidings. Mr Charles Gibbons, manager of a farmstead on Lower Berman Road, said he was awakened by persistent neighing from the horses. He was walking to the barn to investigate when he heard an uncommon noise from above. “I looked up and saw a dazzling burst of light as brilliant as the sun,” Mr Gibbons proclaimed. “A band of vapors trailed behind it, in thrall to its power and heralding doom.” Indeed, the very next morning, a calf from his herd fell into a ravine, impaled itself on a fence post and perished. “A sign of its evil,” he said. Miss Henrietta Angstadt, of Pear Street, was in her back yard when the luminous object appeared. She said it made a harsh sound like bacon strips sizzling and appeared to descend toward Copernian Ridge. “It gave me such a scare that I took cover under the nearest roof, which happened to be the outhouse. When I emerged, everything seemed different. A mist hung low over the land and the shadows were ill-defined. Later, when sleep finally took me, I had the most peculiar of dreams, that something vile had entered the world, and that the future would be darkened by great trials and tribulations.” But Professor Robert Summersby, of the School of Natural Science at Pennsylvania State College, believes the fireball was a natural event, although quite rare. “It was likely a meteor that survived its plunge to Earth,” the professor stated. He and his research assistant made the two-day trip to Gracious on horseback with the intent of searching the mountains for where it came down. “If we can locate the meteorite, or even just fragments that survived the dramatic fall, its composition may answer important questions about the universe and our place within it,” Professor Summersby said. TABLE OF CONTENTS THE FIRST PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN THE SECOND PART SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THE THIRD PART THIRTY-THREE THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE THIRTY-SIX THIRTY-SEVEN THIRTY-EIGHT THIRTY-NINE FORTY FORTY-ONE FORTY-TWO FORTY-THREE FORTY-FOUR FORTY-FIVE FORTY-SIX FORTY-SEVEN FORTY-EIGHT FORTY-NINE FIFTY FIFTY-ONE FIFTY-TWO FIFTY-THREE FIFTY-FOUR FIFTY-FIVE FIFTY-SIX FIFTY-SEVEN FIFTY-EIGHT FIFTY-NINE THE FIRST PART ORJOS: The discordant one is fatally compromised. Repressed pain has created narcissistic instability. His self-destructive behavior will continue unabated. SILSO: No doubt he is troubled. Yet he is not the tragic figure you suggest. Profundity resides within him. ORJOS: A lost cause. When confronted by the Pestilence, he will capitulate. SILSO: Hidden strengths may yet emerge. ONE The Mercy of Gracious, yeah yeah; The strength of its bones, yeah yeah; Forever calling, yeah yeah; Its wanderers home. The ridiculous song splashed Brad Van Reed like a bucket of slime, its abrupt recollection a consequence of geography. He was turning onto Rural Route 57A, the main road into Gracious, Pennsylvania. A wanderer home. It was a cool Friday steeped in sunshine, the air alive with scented breezes, peppermint and pine, as pleasant a late May afternoon as these mountains were likely to offer. He fought an urge to steer his old Ford pickup onto the shoulder, make a U-turn and accelerate in the opposite direction with the haste of a man being pursued by a starving T rex. The Mercy of Gracious. Yeah yeah. The upbeat melody and on-the-nose lyrics had been composed in that prehistoric and overrated boomer era – the 1960s – by some Beatlemania-stricken local. “The Mercy of Gracious” had been given the seal of approval by the Gracious Chamber of Commerce and drilled into generations of elementary school victims by teachers dedicated to brainwashing young minds. The truth was, the town and its environs did not represent the center of the universe, something Brad eventually realized after growing to understand the manipulative nature of adults. An interstate-deprived town surrounded by wilderness on the edge of nowhere should never be mistaken for merciful. The song triggered another unpleasant memory: his initial escape attempt from Gracious a decade ago. He’d been a fourteen year-old videogame junkie harboring a black attitude to match his goth-chic attire. During active-shooter drills at middle school, he sensed teachers and classmates watching him like a hawk, all convinced he was the kid most likely to get hold of an AK-47 and make the nightmare real. Such hatefulness had never crossed Brad’s mind, not then, not now. He’d been too proud and tough to show it, but their suspicions hurt, and left him feeling even more isolated. Then had come the night his aunt and uncle