The Last Everything

by Frank Kennedy

  He waited until the boat was a mile inland, having passed several bends, before speaking.

  “How did you do it? How did you save our skins?”

  She cracked a resigned smile.

  “When I saw the helicopter coming, I knew the shortest route to the boat was a direct line through the brush rather than going around the point. I also knew we wouldn’t get the boat away in time. I needed the M16, and your brother lost it at the perfect moment. I got lucky.”

  He swallowed. “What I can’t get over is how anybody could be that brave. You stood up on those rocks and put everything on the line for us. I heard those bullets coming down like a hailstorm. If your aim wasn’t perfect, they would’ve blown you away.” He almost reached out to her. “I reckon what I saw … you up there on those rocks saving our lives … it was probably the most incredible moment of my life.”

  Sammie kept the rifle steady. She carried half a smile, and Jamie thought he saw a gleam in her eyes resembling the little girl who used to fawn over him. He knew in his heart he’d never see that person again, but Jamie felt unexpected pride in the young woman who more than redeemed herself for her earlier betrayals.

  Up front, navigating Ginny’s Creek proved to be an adventure for Ben, as it twisted like a rattlesnake in motion, often narrowing to less than thirty feet wide, the water dark and shallow beneath heavy, overhanging trees. Ben wanted to go far inland; his inability to open the throttle frustrated him. The hole above his collarbone still bled, albeit slowly. To his left, Michael Cooper couldn’t stop jabbering about being alive.

  “Here’s my problem,” Michael said. “You Chancellors come from another Earth where you’re swimming in tech that probably makes our best stuff look like pop guns. But you use pistols and rifles. What gives?”

  Ben swung the wheel hard right to avoid low branches.

  “We came here as observers. We weren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves. Laser pistols might have been a problem, don’t you think?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Cooper, bullets are just as effective. Were you paying attention back there? If you need to kill somebody, a gun is all it takes. Believe me, I know.” He locked eyes with Michael, who examined the pistol in his lap. “Get your act together. This is serious business.”

  “Yeah, dude. Sure.”

  Ben didn’t want to explain the complexities and cruelties of Chancellors. Michael knew more than he should have; better that he go home to a simple life and appreciate the ease of it. He wouldn’t understand a universe made of people like the Hugginses, Sheridans, or Bidwells.

  “Trust a Chancellor once,” Ignatius told him two years earlier, “you’ll taste your own blood. Trust a Chancellor twice, you’ll be served to his friends with a glass of white wine.”

  Ben ordered Michael to the stern. “Huggins, up front. Pronto. Chancellor business.”

  Sammie frowned but obeyed. Ben pulled back on the throttle.

  “I got two issues,” he told her. “I expect you to be straight with me on both. The last time I saw your father, he said there was ‘help on the way.’ He said he made sure Jamie would be protected until the end. What did he mean by that?”

  Sammie stumbled over her words. “Daddy didn’t fill me in on all his plans. I thought we were going to hold Jamie until an hour beforehand, give him a sedative, then wait for the rebirth. That’s all he ever told me.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Daddy made many decisions without us.”

  “And you wouldn’t be buying time for him, now would you?”

  She looked away. “Whatever else you think about me, I love Jamie. I made my choice.”

  “Fair enough. For now. The other matter is that we need a place to hide for a while. An empty cabin would be perfect.”

  Sammie winced. “How would I know about …?”

  Ben groaned. “I thought the act was over, Sammie.” He remembered the story Walt told him in the SUV. “You finished Dacha in these woods.”

  Sammie’s cheeks turned red, and she glanced at the boys, both of whom appeared interested albeit confused. She turned her attention to the land, surveying the topography.

  “We’re close. The landing is farther up, a quarter of a mile.”

  Sammie led them to a hidden landing with a steep rise and the trunks of many water trees twisting over the creek. They pushed the boat under the protective cover of long, low branches. Ben’s left leg couldn’t handle the climb, so he allowed the boys to give him a lift. Once on firm ground, Ben limped the rest of the way.

  Although the woods appeared pristine and thick, occasional signs of human presence intervened in the form of a rusted bucket, the ashen remains of a campfire created months ago, and a path that appeared to have been hacked clear, as one might in a jungle. Sammie recognized the path and told the others to follow.

  Ben’s mind was a track meet of strategies, memories, guilt, and suspicion. This was his final chance at making things right with Jamie, and he yet sensed something would get in the way – again. He knew he should’ve been grateful for what Sammie did, but he couldn’t escape the reality: She was a sleeper no more. She was a full-fledged Chancellor, her training as a UG peacekeeper informal but effective. Ben couldn’t escape the possibility that she was formulating a scheme of her own.

  Ben tried to keep his focus on the impending task. Crisp golden sunlight cut through the trees in precise beams like a special effect created on a movie set. The trees swayed and murmured, their voices almost audible. From time to time, he looked behind him to observe Jamie, who was trailing the silent group.

  He tried to read Jamie’s mood, but the boy seemed alien. Some protector, he mused. Just another piece of crap, I am. Once, as he glanced back, Ben did catch an unexpected detail. Jamie seemed to have an intense curiosity about the pistol in his right hand. He flipped his gun about and rubbed his fingers along the barrel as if admiring its craftsmanship, the notches and curvature. Ben wasn’t sure what to think.

  “Over here.” Sammie pointed through the brush.

  They turned off a well-worn path, cut through a stand of tall, wild grass and came upon a shack. It appeared to be little more than a gray collection of rotting planks holding up a tin roof. A few clumps of untamed wild grass prospered around the foundation. Thick shade kept weeds and vines at bay.

  “A regular Holiday Inn,” Michael muttered as he shook his head.

  Ben told Jamie and Michael to lag behind as he and Sammie surrounded the shack, rifles high. Ben removed a wooden latch and flung the door open before nodding Sammie through the entrance. She raced inside with cool efficiency. Ben limped in as her backup. Seconds later, they emerged with guns bowed and motioned to the boys to join them.

  Jamie asked, “How did you know about this place?”

  “Hiking. Daddy used to bring us back here.”

  Ben applauded the cover story. After all, that’s what Chancellors did: Covered themselves. Just as he and Ignatius Horne once did.

  Two years earlier, on an empty service road many miles from town, Ignatius did not apologize for his actions.

  Ben screamed. “Damn you, Iggy, they were my parents.”

  “And they were going to make you disappear.” Ignatius maintained composure and warned Ben to get hold of his own. “What else did you expect would happen when you asked me to fix the situation?”

  “I didn’t want this.”

  “You’re a Chancellor. Of course you did. Go home to Jamie.”

  Ben did as he was told and tried to be as strong as his parents would have been. Unfortunately, Ignatius didn’t warn Ben that the guilt would never end, that the ability to look Jamie in the eye would be trumped by the need to find refuge in a bottle and the comfort of random women.

  He pushed the ghosts aside and hurried Jamie inside the shack.

  “Look, we don’t have time to spare,” he warned the teens. “That chopper going down won’t do a damned thing except bring more attention we don’t need.” He t
old Michael and Sammie to stand lookout. “You hear anybody coming this way, see anything move, give me a head’s-up. Clear?” Ben looked only at Michael as he completed this command.

  Ben pointed to Michael’s pistol. “Take care with that.”

  “Dude. Chill. I’m the black guy, remember? I’m supposed to be good with a piece, now ain’t I? Besides, I got GI Jane here for pointers.”

  Ben and Jamie entered the one-room shack. Dust gathered like a blanket on a wood stove, a fetid cot, and rickety homemade chairs. Ben limped to the cot and fell upon it without reservation, pleased to be off his bad knee. A dust cloud blew up around him. A fitting end, Ben thought. How could I have come to this?

  He stared his little brother square in the eyes and prepared to carry out the only good deed he had left in his heart.

  38

  T WO CARS SQUEALED as they turned off Highway 39 onto an unmarked, unpaved side road. After a quarter-mile, they stopped. Inside the red Camaro, two sets of eyes focused on Agatha, for whom the past several minutes produced nothing but setbacks. She kept her speaker phone on as Jonathan Cobb made visual contact with his targets at Ginny’s Creek and opened fire upon them. She felt an unprecedented rush of adrenalin.

  Then the cell phone crackled and the connection died. Agatha knew the truth before it was confirmed by the police scanner. A police chopper reached the scene, its pilot describing the burning wreckage and a single body on the shore.

  Agatha told Christian to get them off this highway to someplace less visible. They passed two patrol cars, each flashing blue lights.

  “We’re not backing down,” Christian jumped in. “We just need a break to fall our way.”

  Agatha nodded. “How far are we from the crash?”

  Arthur studied his laptop. “Under two miles, due west.”

  Agatha leaned forward and pointed to the screen. “And the land between here and there is largely unpopulated?” Arthur nodded. “Few roads? Heavy forest?”

  “The highway cuts through the middle. Otherwise, yes.”

  “Good. If they intend to protect James until rebirth, they will use the forest as a shield. We have to go in after them.”

  Arthur grimaced. “Agatha, we have no idea where to begin.” He pointed to the screen. “This is unfamiliar terrain. With Jennifer in Austin Springs, there are only five of us. If we get separated, we are more likely to encounter police than Chancellors.”

  “Retreat is unacceptable.” She glanced at her phone, which delivered a live image from a remote camera installed by the observers twenty miles north of Albion. “What if Walter was not bluffing? What if he did arrange to bring Shock Units here?”

  “You said yourself, nothing has come through the fold since the Caryllan transmission,” Arthur countered. “If Walt did leave behind secret orders for Shock Units, what else didn’t he tell us? Walt Huggins is a brilliant man, but I think we give him too much credit.”

  “Or not enough.” Agatha thought through her options. “Lester Bowman and Reginald Fortis were Dacha Masters during their time in the Guard. Put them in a setting where they can track their prey as they did decades ago, and their brilliance will emerge.”

  “I want to go with them,” Christian insisted. “They can track Sheridan, then I’ll kill him.”

  “No,” Agatha said. “I admire your bravado, but Arthur is correct. We should avoid stretching our resources too thin. Lester and Reginald can hunt down their location, then – and only then – will we respond to provide fire support. Understood?”

  Christian crossed his arms like a petulant child, a move that pleased Agatha. She would have lost faith in him had he accepted her decision without protest.

  “Calculate the most effective search pattern, Arthur. We need to hope this is one contingency for which Walter did not plan.”

  39

  J AMIE SAT ON the fetid cot beside his brother, the pistol firm in his right hand, finger next to the trigger. He felt empty and alone.

  “Tell me there’s a way out,” he said. “If you ever loved me, please tell me there’s a way out.”

  Ben held the flash drive in his right palm.

  “You’ll find this hard to believe, J,” Ben stammered. “I’ve been searching for the answer to that question for years. The proof is right here.”

  Jamie studied the memory casing as if it were a surreal joke.

  “Fat lot of good that’s gonna do out here.”

  “You’re right, but we don’t need a computer to finish this. It’s all up here.” He tapped his skull. “I was searching for truth, and I found it. Everything in a new light. The universe the way the Chancellors never believed. And maybe, Jamie, just maybe …”

  Jamie turned to Ben. “Am I going to die?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  Jamie cocked his pistol. “You’re pushing me, Ben. I can blow your freaking brains out right now. Give me a reason not to.”

  “Faith,” he said. “Faith that despite how crappy a brother I’ve been, maybe I love you more than I can stand. And Jamie, maybe have faith that I wouldn’t bring you in here unless there was at least a little hope.”

  Jamie aimed the pistol between his brother’s eyes.

  “I don’t want any more doubletalk,” he said. “Straight and simple. You tell me why we’re here and whether I can beat this thing.”

  Ben nodded. “If you lower the gun and let me explain.”

  Jamie saw the growing bloodstain from Ben’s bullet wound and the torn pants revealing a gimpy knee. Ben never looked more helpless. Jamie could heal those wounds with a touch, but he chose not to reveal his newfound strength until Ben did something to make up for this nightmare. He dropped the gun to his side but kept his trigger finger firmly poised.

  “Be quick. In case you ain’t heard, I’m gonna die this morning.”

  “Bottom line,” Ben began. “There’s more going on inside you than you realize. The Jewel isn’t just some algorithm. The truth is bigger than the Chancellors, than all of us. Nobody would’ve discovered it if we never came to this Earth.” He pointed to the flash drive. “The proof is here, J. The answer to the question nearly everyone on this planet asks: Is there anything beyond death?” He paused. “You remember how I started attending church in the last year before Mom and Dad were killed?”

  Jamie shrugged his shoulders. Mostly, Jamie recalled it as the year Ben became a different man and began pulling away.

  Ben continued. “We’d always been taught to stay away from religion, that it was a primitive way of coping with irrational fears. The early Chancellory wiped out all divine faiths thousands of years ago, during prehistory. That’s what repulsed our parents most about living here: The very idea of heaven and hell, a God and a savior. Chancellors don’t believe in such things, but they do value extended life - have even sought the keys to immortality. The Jewel hybrids are the precursors to that path.

  “So when I went to church, I wasn’t looking to be converted. I just wanted to understand. I wanted to be a good observer. But I got so much more than I expected. I’d been studying religions of the world, reading theology, looking for common threads among all these belief systems. Over the years, I pumped Ignatius for everything he knew about the origin of the Jewels and their integration with our DNA. His father led the bioengineering team that learned how to weaponize Caryllan Wave energy.”

  Jamie scoffed. “That’s the one where I go all nuclear?”

  “A Berserker. Potentially. Yes. At any rate, I was curious about the endless anecdotes I read of what might happen to the body and soul at the moment of death. The very idea that a human being was a vessel containing a soul, and the soul left the body to pass into a higher plane of existence … this was impossible. Yet, there were enough testimonials that I couldn’t ignore the evidence. Anecdotes of a ‘white light,’ a tunnel from one life to the next, out-of-body experiences. These reports have been floating around for centuries, the same ideas discredited after the rise of the Chancellory.”
<
br />   “And what the hell does this have to do with me?”

  Ben paused. “I believe the human soul and Caryllan energy are one and the same. The Jewels of Eternity were designed by an ancient race to preserve its legacy. Some have theorized that the collective consciousness of that race is embedded within the Jewels. They call it consciousness, I call it souls. Human souls are the same energy but in a purer form, a part of the natural fabric of all things. What people see as a spirit ascending to a higher plane is simply the energy of the universe returning to its natural state.

  “Look, Jamie. I know don’t about God or Allah or Buddha, but I do know this: We are vessels. We do carry something inside. You are literal proof. Most important, we are part of a greater mosaic and have a power no one has truly understood. And you are the most unique of us all.”

  Jamie was dumbfounded. Ben may as well have grown tentacles, sported three noses and sang “Yankee Doodle” while flapping his fins.

  “Everything I been through today,” Jamie muttered. “All this hell, and you stand here wasting what time I got left with some kind of … it ain’t even religion. I don’t know what it is.”

  Ben nodded as if he agreed. “Here’s my point, Jamie. The engineers who designed your genome to include the Jewel energy did not believe in human souls. If they understood the relationship, if they truly knew the greater picture, they would never have finished their work.”

  “Oh, really?” Jamie laughed. “And why’s that?”

  “Because they would know that the human soul just might be strong enough to alter their program. Maybe even defeat it.”

  Jamie almost dared to hope. His heart made an extra, tentative beat, as if unsure whether celebration was in order. He could think of no words, the fear too great that what he just heard was a mistake.

  “Are you saying I can beat this thing?”

  Ben’s eyes flickered away for an instant, but Jamie didn’t have time to pass judgment before his brother answered.

  “There is life. There is death.” Ben paused for a beat. “Neither one of those on their own can save you. But there is a third option. It is the most dangerous and the most fleeting, but it is all you have left.”