Rayna stiffened her shoulders and her resolve.
“No, Kamily Doroshenko, you are wrong. This train will never reach Kiev, and that bastard Vasily Shkuro will never see his gift.”
She tossed aside her rifle and grabbed the hilt of her shashka.
“You have lost all honor today, Kamily. But you wish to regain some measure of that honor. No? Kill me in the way of a true Cossack, not by putting a bullet through my heart.”
His eyes revealed his humiliation. Just over his shoulders, the Mentor nodded.
“Careful, dearest,” Mentor said. “His is a weaker mind, but the property of a stubborn old man. He may choose the simple path.”
Kamily stepped back two paces and lowered the rifle.
“I stand corrected,” Mentor said. “He does still have a slice of honor. Kill him quickly, dearest. The fold awaits.”
21
R AYNA LEARNED ABOUT DEATH on her third birthday, less than two months after she set foot on this primitive version of Earth. They came for two of her “uncles,” Chancellors who ignored local Cossack customs. Her father saved her during the attack, but he did not spare her from the sight of men slashed by masters of the blade.
Pyotr tried to keep her safe, teaching her the etiquette and responsibilities of a Cossack girl. Yet her mind twisted in many directions after the Mentor appeared out of nowhere on her seventh birthday. He showed her other worlds, other possibilities.
She learned, she watched, she waited for her moment.
Seven years later, she tracked the son of a Cossack who killed her “uncles” and gutted him along the banks of the Dnieper. No witnesses, no reprisals. But the blood….
“You will die an honorable death,” she told Kamily as he dropped his rifle and reached for his shashka. “And when you are dead, I will kill every man outside this train. And then I will unleash a fury to do for the Doroshenkos what Vasily Shkuro could never have imagined. I will be the demon who will haunt your family to the end of time.”
“No, Rayna,” he said. “You will haunt only me and my memories.”
They each took a defensive posture, their blades high and angled for a strike. Rayna sensed the flow and rhythm of the battle before it began. She anticipated each move and countermeasure. You made a mistake, Kamily. You taught me everything you know.
She did not wait for the old man to move first. Instead, she leaped to her right, landing upon an empty seat and gaining the high ground on her opponent. As she expected, Kamily pushed off, intending a similar maneuver. But she lunged at him as he entered mid-flight, her blade swinging down across her chest left to right, a decisive arc guaranteed to slice into his vulnerable side. At impact she swung through; Kamily grunted as he repositioned himself. Rayna thought of that boy along the Dnieper, how she stalked him on cat’s feet and delivered the mortal blow without warning. How the blood gushed from his mouth as he gagged.
She twirled on those same cat’s feet and brought the blade in for the kill. But Kamily blocked the maneuver, their blades clanging at a brief impasse. She relished his fear. He might yet hold her off, push her away, unlock the blades and counterattack. No matter. Victory was inevitable.
Rayna turned inevitability into finality. Her free left hand, which she kept at her side throughout her maneuvers, reached into a pouch on her kaftan. With a nimble grab rehearsed dozens of times every day for months, she snatched the hilt of a second blade, this one straight and serrated. A blade crafted to her own specifications.
“God will never forgive you,” she told Kamily as she drove the second blade deep into his gut. He heaved as she twisted the knife.
His eyes revealed his mortality, and his shashka gave way with one more surge. With her right hand, she brought the blade across his neck, the blood spewing much as it must have when they cut her father’s throat.
She took a final look at the body and spit on Kamily Doroshenko.
“Fortunately,” she said, “There is no God to forgive you.”
The Mentor applauded from the seat behind.
“A delightful parting shot,” he said. “And the second blade? Very crafty, dearest. Now then, about this business of killing the others outside. Might I recommend you consider the speed of your mount. We have places to be, and the surviving observers will, I suspect, need your immediate assistance.”
Rayna understood Mentor’s sense of urgency, but she could not bring herself to run away. She turned to her father.
“If I leave this, they will take him to Kiev. Vasily Skhuro will gloat. All the Tsukanovs will be gone, either way. He cannot have a victory, Mentor. Not today.”
“He will if you take on all these Cossacks, and they put a bullet through that bone cap protecting your stubborn brain.” He checked his pocket watch and started toward the rear door. “And Vasily, he is little more than a rodent. He scurries about this forsaken land in search of cheese. He will find his poison soon enough. Let us leave these unfortunate rabble. History will bury them.”
Rayna accepted the logic in Mentor’s argument, but the code of vengeance at the center of her principles weighed upon her. She grabbed both rifles – hers and Kamily’s – and started toward the rear of the train. She allowed the Jewel to sense her surroundings like radar, to detect her enemies moving toward the rear with her. They will come to see me lying dead next to Father. They will gloat.
She raised both rifles. Her blood stirred.
“I hear it, Mentor. It’s coming. I see it like a waking dream.”
“Beg pardon, dearest?”
“I tasted it the moment I died and became the Jewel. It flows through me. It wraps around me like the thickest fur. It was there by the river when I slit Anatoly’s throat.”
“Do not lose focus, Rayna.”
She closed her eyes as she reached the rear door.
“It is hungry, Mentor. It wants what I can give it, and it will guide me to my destiny. Father’s enemies will be consumed.”
“Careful, Rayna. You are not prepared for that particular feature.”
She shut herself off from Mentor and plunged ahead. Her targets were where she expected. She pulled the trigger on each rifle. To the left, to the right. Two Cossacks fell. She scanned the tracks, found her steed and called to him with a familiar whistle. Black as coal, the horse galloped to her with urgency.
After dropping the rifles, she leaped over the railing, landed square upon the saddle, and grabbed the reins. She whispered to the horse.
“Make them think we are running for our lives.”
She snapped the reins, and the horse surged over the rails and toward the tree line. They shouted from behind; their rifles cracked. Once she hit the tree line unscathed, she sensed they were regrouping, quick to pursue on horseback. That gave her the time she needed.
Rayna changed direction, leading her horse through the thick forest but never beyond sight of the railway. She counted, just long enough for her pursuers to group. Then she whistled as she pulled the reins to steer her steed back out of the woods and into the open.
As expected, she caught them together: nine on horseback, fifty meters away, racing to the trees. They pulled on their reins when they saw her. She raised her arms, showing she had no rifle.
“If you are men,” she yelled, “kill me like true Cossacks.” She leaped from the horse. “What can I do against the nine of you?”
She saw their predictable confusion. They knew her as a warrior, but also as a girl. Did they wonder whether God would punish them for butchering a girl? Rayna started toward them at a leisurely pace, her arms extended, hands open-faced. The Doroshenkos and their allies smiled, deciding to take up butchery by gang. They dismounted. Seven left their rifles behind and unsheathed their blades. Two stayed beside the horses, their rifles at the ready.
“Dearest,” Mentor said. “You are not ready for this feature.’’
“After I leave this Earth, they will never solve the mystery of what happened here today. But they will tell stories. Create mytholo
gy. They will say a messenger from hell visited.”
“That sounds a tad messianic for my taste. Please, Rayna…”
She ignored him and fell deep inside her soul, reaching for the dark and grabbing hold of it. She listened to its song, swayed to its rhythm, and fueled it with every morsel of unbridled rage.
The dark swam through her blood and vibrated her muscles. It rose like bile into her throat and burned beneath her skin. At last, it took the form she demanded.
Her eyes closed, Rayna lifted her arms above her head, the dark now concentrated inside her closed fists. In her mind, Rayna imagined her victims and the dust of their remains. The men, the horses, the train and its engineer, the countryside she came to love so many years ago. One word echoed inside her soul: Burn.
Rayna threw her fists forward and became a Berserker.
The earth shook beneath her feet, and a cacophony of death followed. Rayna witnessed none of it.
When the cloud lifted and she opened her eyes, Rayna lay on her side, staring at the forest. She tried to push up against an unexpected weight, and a dull pain radiated from everywhere. She caught movement to her rear, twisted, and found her horse grazing a hundred meters away. The world was quiet until a bird sang. She blinked uncontrollably and tasted blood.
Mentor flashed before her in segments, as if a jammed transmission trying to break through. He spoke to her but without volume. He blinked as often as she did.
Minutes passed before she found the strength to stand. When she did, Rayna looked north along the railway and discovered what she expected. It terrified her nonetheless.
The railroad ended twenty meters ahead of her, as did all features of the land for at least a mile in every direction. A large brown cloud of debris hung over the distant horizon.
“They will never forget Rayna Tsukanova.”
The blinking slowed, and with it, the Mentor returned, this time with volume. His jaw fell, incredulous.
“As I said, dearest, you were not prepared for this feature. You may not realize now, but this,” he pointed north, “will haunt you to the end of your days. And as for the others forgetting you? They will not if you fail to reach the fold in time.”
Her memory of the ticking clock, once shrouded in her need for vengeance, returned with a force. She whistled to her horse.
“I wish I had time to ride to Kiev,” she said. “I would destroy the entire city just to turn Vasily Shkuro to ash.”
“Yes, I’m sure you would, but you will have to settle for one act of madness today.”
She struggled to mount the horse, slowed by dizziness. It did not, however, prevent her from tapping into the Caryllan pulse and its terminus point at the Interdimensional Fold.
When she at last took comfort on her steed, Rayna gave herself a moment to say goodbye.
“One day, I will come back to this Earth,” she said. “You cannot hide, Vasily. I will whisper into your ear. Then I will take your head.”
Rayna grabbed the reins and fled toward the fold.
22
Great Plains Metroplex
J AMES USED TO LOVE SLEEP. NOW, HE WONDERED whether he’d ever bother again. By his best count, he’d been awake fifty-six hours and should have been eager to find the closest pillow. Instead, his mind buzzed with intriguing possibilities, his interludes with Ignatius Horne intensified, and his new body—ten pounds firmer since the post-fight feast—craved action, not sleep.
He talked Perrone into providing him what his evolving body needed most: Combat discipline. “I can’t accomplish my mission if I lack the tactics of a soldier,” he told Perrone. The admiral obliged, ordering nervous technicians to dress James in a full-body simulation amp designed for aspiring peacekeepers. Two hours later, James stood alone on an observation deck on the thirtieth floor of the GPM, facing the Atrium Aeterna, engulfed in a holographic training cube.
His trainer emerged from the cube’s ornate algorithms and built itself into a spot-on clone of James Bouchet. The techs gave James fair warning, saying the program’s ability to duplicate a trainee’s exact musculature and body movements was its greatest strength. See yourself. Respect yourself. James was exhilarated as he stared down his doppelganger.
He blinked.
“It’s me, Ignatius,” he said. “The me I was always supposed to be. If those rednecks at Albion County High got a look at me now, the girls would drool, and I would scare the boys shitless.”
Ignatius sat cross-legged on a leather command chair fit for an admiral, decorated in countless medals. James stood at his side, looking out a ship’s viewport and studying the Earth below.
“You’ve come along much faster than I anticipated,” he said. “If I might, one suggestion? Pare back on the testosterone-laden cockiness. As soon as you consider yourself greater than others, you will open the door to your own downfall. Your potential is limitless, but they can kill you at any moment.”
“True. But I spent the last few years running away. They’ll never put me in that position again. And truth is, before long I will be better than them. That’s the whole damn point of me.”
Ignatius tapped a button on his chair’s armrest, and a giant flare blasted outward from the ship, descending toward Earth.
“Do you mean like that? Press a button, have command over the fate of millions? Even humanity itself? James, do not allow Perrone’s words to catalyze your ego. ‘Risen gods,’ he called you and your brother. What staggering arrogance. The words of a madman.”
James took offense. “A madman who will open every door I need. And as for Valentin, he’s something else entirely.”
“Such as?”
James didn’t want to focus on his brother. They parted before Valentin’s larynx healed, the admiral insisting Valentin rest until recovered. Hours later, the sting of Valentin’s return remained: The brutal way James killed his brother, stood over a bloody corpse, relished the sight, yet came to realize it was a mere test.
He knew Ignatius was right: Perrone orchestrated everything, dangled the threat of killing Michael, and planned to settle some unspoken score with the Bouchet brothers’ father, Emil. A madman, for sure. But so, so useful.
He blinked away from Ignatius and refocused on the training program. James’s duplicate took a broad stance, his legs angled apart, arms tucked to his sides. The lesson began.
“The way of a peacekeeper,” the trainer said, “is grounded in his ability to maintain harmonic control over every part of his body. Each bone or muscle, each heartbeat, even the pace of blood flow and perspiration, should be regulated toward the peacekeeper’s strategic goals. Such control begins with a disciplined mind capable of seeing each individual movement before it occurs. Using this mental capacity with mission-critical orders enables the peacekeeper to achieve maximum efficiency in combat, rendering the soldier unstoppable.”
Although the teacher was James’s physical doppelganger, his voice was not. It sounded closer to his old Earth’s voice-activated assistants with names such as Siri or Alexa.
“Question,” he interrupted the teacher. “How long does this training require?”
“They designed this primary program for Tier 2 initiates. The typical initiate would be eight years old. Your body, however, is far more advanced. Its current composition and your life experience might conflict with normal protocols.”
“Which means what?”
“Given a consistent regimen of two hours per day, you should advance to the next tier in four months.”
James snickered. He thought of the Jewel, his ace in the hole during his duel with Valentin.
“Not likely,” he said. “And I don’t have that kind of time anyway. What happens after the training?”
“Typically, you will advance to Tier 3, where you will learn kwin-sho. The art of reconfiguring your body to achieve superior effectiveness is the final prerequisite for placement in the Unification Guard. Is that not your ultimate goal?”
“No.” He thought about his actions since
crossing the fold. “But I need discipline. So, what do you say we get the ball rolling? Show me what you got.”
The doppelganger offered a side nod.
“Begin by duplicating my stance.”
Simple enough, James thought. He studied his teacher’s frame, the angles, and firmed himself into a similar position.
“Incorrect,” the teacher said. “Your legs are positioned inconsistently. Extend both to 30 degrees. At present, your left is 28 degrees, the right is 27.”
James tried again and received another rebuff.
“You have overextended to 33 and 31 degrees, respectively. Compensate, James.”
The teacher did not like his third attempt either. “You are neither listening to your body nor following my lead. You now hold at 28 and 31. All elements of your stance must find harmony. Reposition your shoulders, pull back your torso three degrees.”
“Look, I’m trying, but it ain’t like I got a measuring tape on me.”
“The mind can control measurements. Reposition now.”
James detected impatience. “OK. Sorry. Here we go again.”
He held the new stance for several seconds as the trainer eyed him in silence. The program glitched for a split second.
“You are still unaligned, but I detect an unexpected anomaly. Your musculature is changing at a steady pace. You have evolved by 9.8 ounces in the past two minutes. This rate is unnatural and will require constant recalibration to the program.”
James smiled, proud of himself. “Didn’t they tell you? I’m going through a growth spurt.”
“Then I will modify the requirements for your initiation. Reposition to this stance to the best of your ability, James.” It waited for him to do so. “Acceptable. Now, hold this position for ten minutes. Regulate your breathing to a minimal flow with your lips closed. Most important, do not blink. Not even once.”
The instructions seemed doable except for the last one. He’d fail, but that was the point. He thought about giving in, allowing the Jewel to help him, but James knew better. He blinked.
“As long as you’re with me,” he told Ignatius, “I’m not complete.”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 41
