Read Online Final Empire by Blake Northcott - Free Book Online

figure out who I can trust, I’m not going to take any chances.”
    “And I’m not going to take any chances with my future husband,” Peyton said. “Your headaches are getting worse.”
I opened my mouth to protest and her hand darted out, covering my mouth.
    “Shush. Not a word.” She tapped her wrist-com and it illuminated with a projection. A map of Switzerland. “I contacted a neurologist there. He’s one of the best in the world, and he’s completely discreet. We can be in and out of his office in an hour and we’ll have plenty of time to track down McGarrity before tonight.”
    “But I feel—”
    “You’re not fine,” she interrupted. “Don’t even say it. And you’re doing this. Now.”

“The road to the New World will not be paved, as it does not yet exist. We must forge it as one, blazing a trail that only the believers may follow. Do not fear this journey. It is your destiny. Embrace it.”
     
    - Herald of The Order (Darknet Holoforum )
     

     

Chapter Four
    “I’m going to be honest with you,” Doctor Zbinden said, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “It doesn’t look great.”
    I’m not sure why, but when a doctor delivers bad news it sounds exponentially worse in a German accent. It must be my conditioning from a lifetime of watching villains in action movies.
    The doctor exhaled through his nostrils, sending a pair of grey plumes through his dimly-lit office.
    “You see this?” He traced a line through the air, motioning at the holographic depiction of my brain; the glowing blue projection hovered mid-room, rotating slowly to display every angle. “This red portion is much smaller than it was before your visit to Cerveau-N, but...”
    “It’s still there.” I knew it was there – he didn’t need to remind me. It’s all I thought about all day, every day.
    “But you’re feeling healthy? Aside from the headaches?”
    “Yes,” I lied. “Aside from that I’m fantastic. Never better.”
    “Ah, okay. Good, good...” The cigarette hung loosely from his bottom lip, dripping ashes as he swiped through my file on his tablet. He rattled off the names of a dozen different drugs that my last doctor has prescribed me: some to relieve pain, some to keep the mass from expanding, and the rest to cope with the side effects that the other drugs were causing. “So tell me a little more about these headaches.”
    “They’re sharp. Sometimes triggered by bright sunlight.”
    “Uh huh...that is common. Are they getting more intense? Give me a number between one and ten.”
    “Nothing worse than a three,” I shrugged, not willing to admit that just an hour ago a freight train rushed through my skull that could have easily been classified as a solid ‘eleven’.
    He scribbled a note with his finger before flicking his eyes back towards me. “And what about memory loss? Hallucinations?”
    “Yeah, well...my short-term memory has been on the fritz since the operation...but my IQ seems to be intact.” I explained that aside from the splitting headaches and occasionally forgetting what I ate for breakfast, I’d been in decent shape. That much was more or less true.
    “Nothing else?” Doctor Zbinden prompted.
    “If you mean hallucinations,” I chuckled, “no, nothing like that.”
    “Don’t laugh.” He took a final drag before twisting his cigarette butt into an overflowing ash tray on his desk. “A patient told me last week that the giant man made of marshmallow from that old movie was chasing him... the one about the busters who catch the ghosts?”
    “Yeah, I’ve seen it once or twice.” Or several hundred times, but I wasn’t keeping count.
    The doctor sat on the edge of his desk, taking on a slightly paternal posture. I sat across from him on a padded examination table covered with a white sheet of paper that crinkled loudly whenever I shifted my weight. “You do realize that there is no cure for this,” he said flatly. “If Cerveau-N could not get it all, no