Mccade

SJ Roebling

Description

Two teenage brothers’ lives are forever changed when they steal their father's time machine for a trek back to the Old West.
It is 2080 in Terlingua, Texas, when fifteen-year-old twin brothers Christian and Vallie McCade sneak into their father's laboratory and use his time machine to embark on what they believe will be a short trip back to the Old West. However, the trip turns out to be anything but when the time machine is damaged, and the boys are left stranded. Christian, the older of the two by one hour, is prone to violent outbursts and sociopathic behavior. He blames his brother, Vallie, for their dilemma and beats him unconscious. Vallie awakens several hours later to find Christian gone and his world turned upside down. With only an antique Colt .45 and his father's compass in hand, Vallie sets out to find his way in a period two hundred years before his own, where saloons and cathouses are a man's choice of entertainment—horses, wagons, and coal-burning trains are the only means of transportation—and cowboys, bounty hunters, and sheriff's rule the land. But as Vallie is about to discover, life can be full of surprises, and sometimes our destiny has a plan of its own.

Sujets

• Fantastique
• Romance fantastique
• Romance
• Romance paranormale
• Western
• Fiction
• Outlaws
• Time machine
• Guns
• Time travel
• Western (genre)
• Bounty hunter
• American Old West
• Gunfighter
• Viejo oeste
• Westerns
• Billy The Kid

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 24 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663246714
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

McCade
A Novel
SJ Roebling


MCCADE A NOVEL
 
Copyright © 2006 SJ Roebling.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
 
 
iUniverse
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4672-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4670-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4671-4 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022919060
 
 
 
iUniverse rev. date: 02/23/2023
Contents
Prologue
Part One ~Vallie McCade~
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part Two ~Damon McCade~
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Epilogue

For Nicholas and Jared… my greatest heroes.

In loving memory of:
Frank Thomas Roebling
December 7, 1925 to March 13, 2010
&
Joseph W. Baxter
February 23, 1928 to January 22, 1974
Prologue
Little is known of the McCade’s origins beyond being a family of Texan ranchers dating back to the late 1800s. However, that all changed in the year 2058 when seventeen-year-old Franklin Thomas McCade decided to break away from family tradition and instead attend an institute of higher learning. After earning a Bachelor of Science in both Theoretical Physics and Mechanical Engineering, he went on to obtain Master’s in Quantum Mechanics and Applied Mathematics, as well as a PhD in Astrophysics. Franklin received his first Nobel Prize in 2063, during his fourth year of college when he created a tiny ‘quantum’ black hole in the science lab at the University of Texas. Six months later, he met and married the girl of his dreams. In 2066, the same year his fraternal twin sons Christian and Vallie were born, he received his second Nobel Prize for developing an autopilot atomic deactivation satellite that all but ended the threat of nuclear war forever.
His third and final Nobel Prize was awarded nine years later for his further contribution to astrophysics and the transfer of matter beyond the speed of light.
Franklin McCade was not finished, though. In 2079, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, he began to build a machine capable of teleporting two persons forward and backward in time. Unfortunately, before he could test his new invention, his sons, now in their teens, would decide to take it for an unauthorized trial run.
This decision would end up changing all of their lives forever.
Part One
~Vallie McCade~
Chapter 1
Terlingua, Texas. October 24, 2080
10:30 p.m.
Vallie McCade waited, silent and still, in the dark hallway beyond his father’s bedroom door. Beside him stood his fifteen-year-old twin brother, Christian, fidgeting.
Finally, the light disappeared from the gap beneath the door, and the two boys headed for their father’s lab in the basement, two floors down.
“Good God, I was beginning to think the old man was never going to go to sleep!” Christian said upon reaching the lab’s door first.
Vallie sighed.
However, Christian was not done with his griping. “Lucky for you, he did because if he hadn’t, I was ready to skip out on whatever you’ve got going on here. So what’s the passcode, genius .”
“4,2,7,9,8,3, and can you try to keep it down? At least until we get inside. You know Dad has wolf ears. Remember, if you mess up on the code, you’ll set off the alarm,” Vallie reminded him.
Christian gave his brother a stony stare. “Would you give me a break? I’m not an idiot. Now, if you want me to open the door without setting off alarms, I’m gonna need you to back off.”
“All right.” Vallie took a few steps to the side and watched as his brother carefully typed the numbers into the lab’s security system panel. For him, each keypress sounded loud enough to wake the entire household. He breathed a sigh of relief the moment the thick steel door clicked open.
“Unbelievable. It worked,” Christian said in his usual cynical manner.
“It should. If you only knew how long it took me to hack into Dad’s computer to get that….” Vallie stepped in front of his brother and entered the lab, stopping just inside the doorway. He couldn’t help but stare as he cast an eye over the metal skin of his father’s latest, personal creation, the Teleporter—an invention that could have been modeled after NASA’s Apollo 17’s lunar module, except that its mission was to travel through time and not space.
Christian brushed past him and headed straight for the Teleporter. As soon as he reached it, he glanced over his shoulder. “What about the code for this thing?”
“It’s the same,” Vallie said before carefully closing the lab’s door and starting toward his brother.
Christian turned his attention to the Teleporter’s security keypad and began to type in the numbers. “You sure as hell better know what you’re doing.”
Vallie frowned. “Why would you say that? Of course, I know what I’m doing.”
“So you keep telling me.” Christian punched in the last digit, and the Teleporter’s hatch popped open a second later. “After you,” he gestured mockingly toward the entrance.
Jumbo backpack in hand, Vallie boarded the Teleporter.
Christian followed with a large satchel of his own. However, as soon as he stepped through the opening, he stopped when he saw the capsule’s intricate instrument panel.
“Are you sure Dad is done building this thing?” Christian gave his brother a skeptical look after noticing a couple of loose wires dangling from its underside.
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Vallie. “As a matter of fact, Dad told me just the other day that he is planning on taking it for a trial run next week.”
“Yeah, and now we’re doing it for him. Dad’s gonna kill us unless you do it first,” Christian scoffed.
Vallie remained silent. He would’ve loved to have given his brother a piece of his mind, but considering Christian’s temperament as of late, he decided it best not to. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And no, Dad won’t because we’ll be back before he wakes up.”
Christian rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, dear brother. Just so we’re clear, I’m still leery of this whole thing. I know we’ve done some crazy things in the past, but nothing like this. You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that. Though I’m still not sure how I let you talk me into this.”
Vallie took a seat in one of the Teleporter’s bolted-to-the-floor swivel armchairs. “I could have gone over all of the details with you a week ago, but you told me you didn’t want to. I understand you have concerns, but trust me, I’ve got it handled.”
Christian secured the hatch and then plopped down in the Teleporter’s second swivel chair. “You better pray to God you do.”
Vallie turned and faced him. “What is your problem? If you have questions, Dad’s notes are right here,” he gestured to a pile of papers sitting on the console. “I printed them from his computer, so I could bring them along. You’re welcome to take a look at them anytime you want.”
Christian reached over, grabbed the arm of his brother’s chair, and turned him back, facing forward. “No thanks. Now, how about you quit talking and do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing unless you’d rather we call this whole thing off. I don’t care either way.”
Vallie sighed, turned his focus to the console, and quickly keyed the instrument panel. His fingers were deft and sure as they manipulated the correct sequence of keystrokes, only pausing for a few moments here and there as he recalled the instructions included in his father’s notes. A second later, the entire board lit up in a brilliant display of colored lights.
“Whoa. Impressive. I’m assuming y