The Intangibles Read online

  THE

  INTANGIBLES

  Book One

  The Intangibleworld Series

  by Alex & Kris Astremsky

  Intangibleworld.com

  © 2019 Alex & Kris Astremsky. The Intangibles. All rights are reserved and protected by copyright law. No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any form or by whatever means – electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, posting on the Internet and corporate networks for private and public usage – without written permission, with the exception for brief quotation in critical articles and reviews. Coordinated usage of material is made with the author.

  About The Book

  Max, the main character of the first book, The Intangibles, is a young scientist who discovers a way to dematerialize a human body. That is, he finds a way to become invisible, go through walls and even teleport.

  After being betrayed by his assistant, Max becomes the target of the hunt for his invention by his evil enemy.

  And when it seems that nothing can save Max from the ruthless and fanatic enemy – the cult of professional assassins who have taken it upon themselves to “punish people for their unprofessed sins" – Osiris, “a man from the past” who has been in an intangible state for thousands of years, comes to his help.

  About the Intangibleworld Series

  After an extraterrestrial ship crashes on Earth, the alien crew gets reborn in the bodies of regular earthlings to confront the enemy who are intent on enslaving humanity. Faced with this malice, the crew members discover their unusual mental abilities and the “intangible” world where they have to learn to do things without their bodies. Meanwhile, their mad rival also becomes more and more unpredictable and dangerous with each passing day.

  About The Authors

  The pen name Alex & Kris Astremsky is being used by the married couple Alexandеr and Christy Astremsky.

  Even before they were married, they shared a mutual passion for reading and writing. However, they had different tastes. Christy was fond of mysticism and thrillers. From a young age she had read all the Stephen King books, as well as many by Ray Bradbury and Herbert Wells. Alexander is a writer, screenwriter, and author of the book "Story-Flash: The Technology of Plot Development". He prefers adventures and irony; his favorite authors in the sci-fi genre are Harry Harrison and Robert Sheckley.

  As a result of mixing their different tastes, an explosive, creative tandem was born, bubbling up with non-standard sci-fi plots and solutions.

  According to the authors, when they came up with the idea of Intangibleworld, they wanted to write a series of novels they would enjoy reading themselves. To do that, they made a list of what they both loved in books and movies.

  The result was a very long list. It included: suspense, an action-packed plot, vivid and complex characters, realistic and explicit scenes, irony, unpredictability, live dialogue, carefully crafted plot, authenticity, real character development, friendship and teamwork, a supernatural theme, gadgets and futuristic technologies, the hidden potentials of the human mind, discoveries and inventions, and extraterrestrial civilizations.

  Based on this list, they developed their plot, and the first book was completed in 2016. But the authors weren’t in a hurry to release it as they decided to make it a 3 book series.

  Upon the completion of the first book The Intangibles, it was tested on a group of beta-readers. Then the book was finalized. In 2017 the authors started working on the second book The Immortals, and in the process of writing this, the first book was revised again. The same thing happened during the writing of the third book The Unstoppable — the first two books were again revised and finalized. Thus, the first book has matured much like a good wine does. It is the foundation on which the plot of all the following books rests.

  The Intangibleworld is a seven-book series that the authors plan to complete in 2022.

  What People Are Saying About This Book:

  I’ve known Christy and Alexander Astremsky for a while and worked a lot with them as screenwriters. I really appreciate Alexander’s plot development technology covered in his book Story-Flash. So, when I got the offer to read the first chapters of the Intangibleworld series before they were published, my interest was piqued. The subject of “intangibility” is actually something I have first-hand experience with as my company sold over a million copies of augmented reality books; plus, I really enjoy good sci-fi.

  When I was reading it I realized this is a new wave of sci-fi genre for me. I asked myself, “What’s new here and why am I so fascinated?”

  And here are the answers I’ve come up with:

  There are 3 books written at the moment and all of them are action-packed. Each one pulls you into the next with more and more action. It actually should be called sci-fi action.

  The writing is incredibly cinematic, meaning reading is just like watching a movie.

  There is lots of intense suspense and action, with great dialog — effective and heartfelt. It doesn’t drag on and on. You can binge read these books.

  The characters work as a team, especially in the second book. That’s the same character dynamic that makes you love movies like Mission Impossible and The Fast and the Furious.

  This is a story for adults, so it has many explicit and realistic moments, just like in the Game of Thrones.

  When I was reading Harry Potter I remember being impressed with the invisibility cloak. Here everything is based on a similar premise.

  All 3 books maintain a uniformly high standard unlike other book series where the story gets boring after the first or second one.

  I’m sure it will be made into a cool movie or a TV show.

  I’m looking forward to the fourth book. If they keep up their good work, the authors will be able to please readers again and again.

  Edward Akhramovich,

  Executive Producer of the group of companies “Art Nation”

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1: The Man Who Is Not

  CHAPTER 2: The Sex Chess

  CHAPTER 3: Spider for the Stud

  CHAPTER 4: Stiger

  CHAPTER 5: The Abduction

  CHAPTER 6: The Poison

  CHAPTER 7: The Intangible Stranger

  CHAPTER 8: The Range

  CHAPTER 9: Osiris

  CHAPTER 10: The Drills

  CHAPTER 11: Breaking the Natural Laws

  CHAPTER 12: The Succubus

  CHAPTER 13: The Main Weapon

  CHAPTER 14: Twelve Thousand Years Ago

  CHAPTER 15: Under the Pyramids

  CHAPTER 16: Sophie

  CHAPTER 17: The Temptation

  CHAPTER 18: At Stinger’s Place

  CHAPTER 19: The Familiar Look

  CHAPTER 20: Flower and Dagger

  CHAPTER 21: The Chase

  CHAPTER 22: Angels Have Two Faces

  Prologue

  Three colossal, shiny pyramids towered in the center of the biggest megalopolis on Earth. Beside them thousands of cars stood still, covered with water drops, sparkling after the recent rain.

  Silence didn’t ask permission to fill every nook and cranny around. In fact, there was nobody to ask. It had taken just 24 hours for the entire planet to become a barren desert.

  Yet only yesterday the energy had been pulsing through this metropolis. Yesterday it had been a hive full of flying cars swarming among the skyscrapers. Yesterday the capital city of the planet’s main sector had been living its everyday life.

  And then everything had gone nuts.

  As if the gods themselves had taken some hard drug and decided to crush the civilization of which they’d become too tired. As if by pushing some secret bu
tton they were trying to reboot the entire world.

  Perhaps they were watching the cars fall to the ground, wreaking havoc and death. Perhaps they were even discussing the people who rushed down the streets, bumping into each other like bugs in a closed jar.

  People were stumbling and falling, and the crowd that could no longer stop trampled and buried those who didn’t get up fast enough.

  A woman was running down the street in panic. At some point, she managed to break away from the crowd and bumped into a man on one of the side streets. He stood there, trying to overcome convulsions that were making his entire body shake.

  Then, all of a sudden, he vanished. Like he wasn’t there at all. And the only thing that remained of him were his clothes, which dropped onto the ground like an empty sack.

  The woman grabbed her head and screamed in terror, so loud that the windows around her all but cracked. She rushed forward, but after a few steps, she vanished too. The wind, as if it had anticipated this, raised her thin silk robe into the air and slowly set it down a few feet away. Seconds later, this bright piece of fabric disappeared under the feet of the roaring crowd. However, running didn’t save them one bit. One after the other, people vanished, and soon the place became empty.

  Over the next few minutes, there were more and more people vanishing. An incomprehensible and inevitable danger was devouring them just like the quicksand devours a wanderer who’s lost his way through the desert. People vanished, and their clothes on the sidewalk were the only sign that they had just been there.

  One could still hear screams and car alarms here and there until they also faded away. Streets became empty. The city sank into dead silence.

  The same thing happened in all other sectors of the planet. Having reached the acme of development, the entirety of civilization ceased to exist.

  The following years and centuries did not show mercy to its remains. Skyscrapers turned to dust, shrubs and trees populated what once had been streets, squares, and parks. The former splendor of the place was covered with sand dunes, and once-exuberant vegetation withered and changed into brier.

  And only the grandiose pyramids withstood the pressure of the eons. Their shine wore away, but they towered above the desert, securing the mysteries of the bygone civilization.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Man Who Is Not

  While practicing, Max called himself the man who is not.

  He was moving through concrete walls on the twentieth floor of an unfinished skyscraper. In his mind, he was counting down: 53, 52, 51...

  In less than a minute, his body would become tangible again, and he could add an entry to his diary, “New record of intangibility achieved with the Switch: fifteen minutes.”

  Having passed through another wall, he found himself in a spacious hall. Instead of one of the walls, which was supposed to be all glass, there was a gaping void. A panoramic window would have been very appropriate here.

  Instead, there was just an enormous, red-bearded guy. He was standing on the very edge, and the breeze stroked his hair.

  “Everyone has sinned,” he said, and scornfully spat into the abyss.

  It was well past midnight and the dim lights around the construction site were fading into the thick fog that embraced New York City.

  A flashlight lay on the floor nearby. He moved it with his boot covered in dirt, and abeam of bright light revealed a girl lying on the concrete floor. She was tied up.

  Her unnaturally white face, smeared with mascara, seemed to gleam. In her mouth was a ball gag, the kind that might be used for bondage. Her long blonde hair was spilling across the floor. The sleeve of her pink jacket was torn. Her wrists were tightly tied up with a rope and looked white as she constantly tried to move them about. Her hips and torso were bound with a safety line, the kind that would normally be used in mountain climbing. The other end of the line was in the hands of the red-bearded guy.

  He’d gotten the line through the hook on the ceiling and was attaching his end to the safety gear belt that he had on. When he finished, he ran the line through the belay device on his waist and gave it a few jerks. The line was moving freely and yet was securely held with the stopper. He chuckled.

  The girl looked no more than seventeen. She sobbed occasionally, and her big round eyes were full of fear.

  The big guy lifted her by the safety line as if she was a rag doll and moved her closer to the edge, so that her head was right above the abyss.

  Max recoiled. For an instant, he even forgot that he was in the intangible state and nobody could see him.

  42, 41, 40… This state was about to end.

  The girl murmured something. A blast of wind made her hair look even wilder.

  “Everyone has sinned and this is fine,” grunted the red beard, tightening up the line that connected him to the girl. “But sins pile up, and one needs to get rid of ’em. For example, by confessing. Or if one can’t get rid of ’em… one needs to be punished for ’em.”

  The girl began to twitch, moving her head and mumbling. Her mascara, mixed with her tears, made it hard for her to see anything, causing her eyes to tear up even more. But the big guy didn’t seem to pay attention and continued his speech.

  “You didn’t wanna confess willingly, so I’m gonna have to force it out of you. I’m telling you, I’ve been waiting long enough. But another sinful day of yours went by and I’ve lost my nerve…” He paused, scrutinizing the girl who was staring down into the abyss with horror. “Here’s what I say: You don’t wanna repent, it’s your choice. I do know your biggest sin. You just go on reeling ’em off one by one and when you tell the biggest one, I’ll take it as your confession and let you go. Deal?”

  The girl shook her head and mumbled again.

  The guy sighed with disappointment and rolled his eyes.

  “Well, you gonna say again that you haven’t done anything wrong? Seems like you’re not quite getting it.”

  He bent down, grabbed her safety line, and lifted her up again. Three times as big as her, he easily moved the girl even closer to the edge, causing the upper part of her body to hang above the abyss. She was now literally within an inch of her life.

  The girl twitched even harder, trying to move away from the edge, but the heavy boot pressed her into the floor, making her totally immobile.

  “So…”

  The girl began to nod desperately. The red beard smirked and pulled her back in to her former spot. He touched her soft wet cheek. She stared at him, stunned and terrified. His paw slipped down and stopped by her neck. Suddenly, the big guy took out the gag, causing her to break into a fit of coughing.

  “I will… I will tell all…” Her voice sounded like a bell trying to ring above its pitch.

  The guy smiled and squatted next to her.

  “My sin… My biggest sin was that I didn’t listen to you and… and… I didn’t come to your church.”

  The man lifted his eyebrows and exploded with laughter.

  “Come on! Is that a sin? You were simply stupid. That’s not your fault.”

  “Please let me go! I didn’t do anything to you!”

  “Give me your biggest sin,” he kept on going, “I just wanna help ya.”

  The girl sobbed again.

  “I… I slept with my science teacher before the exams.”

  Her eyes glistened and lips curved down. She looked away and started to cry.

  “Hmm. What do you know?”

  He shrugged and reached for her face. “Look at you, you’re all…”

  He tried to rub off the mascara smear under her eyes but made it even worse. Irritated, he started rubbing harder. The girl screamed and tried to dodge him but he was holding her tight. He grabbed her hair so she couldn’t move her head and started rubbing the delicate skin under her eyes. He started breathing harder, his face too close to hers. Now she looked totally terrified and desperate.

  Max could not watch it any longer. He wanted to materialize now!

  Suddenly, th
e guy shoved the girl away so fast that her head bumped against the floor.

  He started to grit his teeth so loudly that Max almost could hear it.

  “Well, you see? You must feel better now,” said the guy.

  The girl was no longer crying. She seemed hypnotized and stunned, so all she could do was nod.

  “Too bad though that you still haven’t given up your biggest sin.”

  “I have.”

  “No, you have not. That’s not what I expected to hear.” His voice grew softer. “Look, I am just doing what I am supposed to. Remember the symbol of my church?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I do. The spider.”

  “That’s my girl. The spider. The cosmic creator, the great spinner, the weaver of the universal fabric, the adviser to gods. But… you are not a goddess, are you? Perhaps that’s why you never made it to the church.”

  Max had already started to suspect something, but now he was certain. Eddie, his assistant, has been going for a while to a church, which he referred to as the Church of The Spider. Eddie had talked about it a few times, and now Max recalled his stories. They sounded pretty much like the ideas of the red-bearded guy.

  “You gonna kill me?” Her voice broke and she could hardly breathe.

  “Why would I?” He raised his eyebrows. “However, I believe that you can see for yourself how utterly vulnerable and frail it is, this thing you call your life. Your sinful existence…”

  He moved in toward her face again and grabbed her by the hair, causing her to look up. The girl winced in pain.

  “Give me your sin, Chloe…” he groaned.

  “I…I…”

  “Give it to me!” He yelled. Tears sprang out of her eyes and she flinched.

  “I slept… with two classmates…”

  He let her go and recoiled. “Two! At the same time?”

  She nodded. Her shoulders jumped up and down and tears poured out of her eyes.

  “And what did you get out of it? You felt happier?”