Read Online Initiation of the Lost (Book 1) by M.R. - Free Book Online

research facility on the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of North Carolina. The alliance initiated between Sutheford and President Gardner was one of mutual respect, a tradition now carried on over terms and generations, continued by Sutheford’s grandson Daniel Sutheford, and President Laurey.
    The Livable Space Program has reignited research in space exploration and interplanetary colonization. Furthermore, the program has been praised globally by the people for being nonmilitaristic and leading to a myriad of advances in energy, recycling, and waste management. The domes may have been devised to colonize the universe in event of the apocalypse, but their very existence has extinguished doomsday prophesies from prophets fearing climate change. The inspiration of hope and a better, cleaner tomorrow paved the way for The Planet Constitution, regulations that have literally cleaned up the way people live. Some have declared The P.C. restrictive and intrusive, but as long as Hyperion steers the course to prosperity, the constitution and President Laurey are here to stay. For the first time, America truly seems united.
    However, despite political cartoons caricaturizing the White House and Sutheford as betrothed (the president as bride, Sutheford as groom) there is suggestion this blessed union is not monogamous. The Livable Space Program may compete with Leviathan and Samurai as a Great Project, but it's center is not a union of governments in turn centered around a few key governments. Instead, it is a corporate helmed project with the nation's resources–subsidies, universities, and national laboratories–at it's full disposal. Sure, the tone is nationalistic, but there is no mistaking that the government is playing assistant. And now, as Hyperion has cemented labor, research, and grant contracts with Mexico and India (as well as meeting with the German government), it seems Hyperion is becoming the focus of its own Union, and not the White House. Opponents have latched onto this criticism for the past two elections, to no avail. Ultimately, with Daniel Sutheford the idealistic face of America in The Great Era and other corporations, such as Beckett Protocols, working under the radar on the military technology to maintain superiority over Leviathan and Benzaiten, the United States, through a fusion of government and corporation, has found the recipe for prosperity. But how long before the beast chews off its own arm?
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    Nighttime. Hyperion Academy. The students were asleep. Team Blue, tranquilized, recovered and revitalized in rejuvenation beds, mechanical platforms where the body and subconscious are bathed in healing energies and Bach. All members were there except Connor Bishop, whose body laid twenty-five floors beneath his friends, in the morgue. He would be alone soon, but now Cassandra Farling stood over his corpse, looking into his face. No words. No thoughts. Feelings...but she was numb to them. She zipped the black bag over his mouth...his nose...his eyes...and slid the body back into the darkness of the metal cabinet. She trekked back down the hall, to the elevator, and ascended through the levels of the earth, back to the surface, back to the grounds of the academy. They'd say he died crossing the street, an accident.
    Under moonlight, she returned to the academy. First, she visited the laboratory, checking on her charges in their rejuvenation beds, then on her students sleeping in the dorms. All were asleep except for Meghan, whose feelings were tangled as she picked up on the vibrations of peace and terror sloughing from the fields of Derek and the others. Cassandra knew she was awake, knew what her student felt, and let her feel her own fear and guilt. She didn't know why, but someone needed to know. Maybe it wasn't fair that Meghan be the one, but here they were.
    Cassandra closed Meghan's bedroom door gently and went into her office. She went to the metal nub, placed the tip of her floral pump on the