False Future Read Online Free PDF

but to him it’s been months.
    “Peter’s not back yet?” I knew as soon as I entered the apartment. Somehow I could feel it.
    “No, he isn’t.”
    There’s a kindness in his eyes that I last saw from Dr. Tycast. Noble holds his arms out and I hug him, briefly.
    “I’m sorry,” is all he says, and I accept.
    “I understand.”
    I finally take a look around the apartment. To my right is an open kitchen stacked with boxes of gear. The breakfast table is littered with guns and ammunition. I see a grapnel gun with a spool of wire, like the one Tobias used to keep me and Grace from falling to our deaths last summer.
    “Noble got us some new toys,” Rhys says. “He’s been scrounging while you were gone, borrowing from the military when they let him.”
    “These aren’t toys,” I say, running a finger over the barrel of an assault rifle.
    “You know what I mean,” he replies. And I do. “You should see the guest bedroom. He turned it into a lab for making memory shots out of stuff you can buy in a bodega.”
    I smile my thanks at Noble. Rhys and Peter are capable of taking care of themselves, no doubt. Still, knowing Noble was watching over them, I feel better about my absence.
    Sophia walks in from another room and gives me a hug. Her black hair has grown out enough to tie into a short ponytail. She must’ve put on ten pounds of muscle. No doubt she’s been training with Rhys and Noble. Now that she’s not eating out of a gutter, she doesn’t look like a frail little girl anymore.
    “It’s so good to see you,” she says, like we’re old friends who just haven’t had a chance to hang out in a while.
    I nod. “You too.”
    To no one in particular, I say, “I need to go to the roof.”
    “This way,” Noble says.
    We take the elevator up.
    “Peter was meeting with troops the government has hidden in the city when the attack began,” Noble says on the ride. “I haven’t been able to reach him on the comm. It seems all communications are down.”
    “I was worried about Rhys out there all alone,” Sophia says to me. “I’m glad he had you to protect him.”
    Rhys snorts, then sobers quickly. Sophia gives him a playful shove. He catches her hand and holds it for a second, before letting it drop reluctantly. Interesting.
    “So if Peter was working with the government,” I say, continuing where Noble left off, “where’s the counterstrike? I saw some jets and tanks, but that’s it. Where’s the defense?”
    “We’re not going to win with force alone,” Noble says. “Throwing everything we have into one assault will only result in us losing. We need an edge. We need to organize, then strike.”
    “While people die,” I say.
    No one responds.
    The doors open at the roof, revealing the Hudson River and New Jersey beyond it. Everything is cold and gray from this height, though the snow has abated to flurries.
    The wind catches my hood and flips it down. We walk to the edge of the roof and see exactly what True Earth meant when they said the perimeter has been secured. Several of those four-engine jets hover near the waterline, dropping box-shaped loads. As we watch, the boxes unfold and enormous guns that take up two lanes of the highway are left standing. There seems to be a gun every hundred feet. As soon as the first jets bank away into the city, more swoop in and continue to drop boxes.
    Across the river, two military helicopters hover near the shore of New Jersey. The guns down on the highway swivel on their bases until they’re lined up with the helos, then contract suddenly, crackling with blue electricity. Across the river the two helicopters explode in enormous clouds of flame.
    “My God,” Noble says.
    Farther off, more military jets cut back and forth across the sky, but don’t dare come any closer.
    “Look at this!” Rhys yells. He’s at the other end of the roof. We jog over, my heart already in my throat. The view of the park is even more breathtaking from up here. The