The Impossible Future: Complete set

by Frank Kennedy

“It’s OK. I understand. You’re not out of line, Michael. We’re all trying to figure out the next step.” Then to James: “I can’t say I wasn’t jealous. Look at you. In three days, you became everything I grew up thinking I’d be. I guess your growth shouldn’t surprise me. We realized the Jewel would change you somehow. I just want to hear it straight. Are you officially a peacekeeper? And if so, how is that even possible?”

  James wanted this to be over with. He leaned back.

  “You can’t see my most important improvements. Sure, I’ll admit, I like this new body. I suppose it is badass.” He grinned at Michael. “But it’s what’s happening up here, in my mind, that matters. All I need is a keyword, and I know everything about it. I spent one day training with my brother, and I learned every battle technique of a peacekeeper, how to use every weapon, how to design combat strategies. I could lead a battalion into a firefight, and we’d win.

  “I’m wearing this uniform because it suits Perrone’s agenda. It opens every door I need. The places I have to go, I can’t take you.”

  Michael started to speak, but Sammie grabbed his hand and held tight. James saw the power she had on his best friend, and he wondered what they shared with each other these past few days. They were closer – more than even they realized.

  Sammie spoke for them both.

  “And where are these places, James? How are they any different than what we were facing when we crossed the fold?”

  “Sammie, we left Alabama because we were out of choices. We were stupid enough to figure if we survived that shit, we could pull ourselves through any-damn-thing. Maybe we could, but now …”

  “Now what?”

  “Now, we can put names and faces on our enemies, and we know these Chancellors are bastards on a good day. Worse, they’re playing for keeps – their whole existence. They’ll sell out anybody, kill anybody, with competing agendas. Just because I’m wearing this uniform don’t mean I’d trust Perrone far as I could throw him. He’s out there talking about invading SkyTower to reveal a conspiracy. Sammie, Michael: There’s no conspiracy. It’s a cover. All of it. Perrone has another agenda. I haven’t nailed it, but there’s a thing between him and my father. He’s obsessed. It’s like the book his wife had us read in English. Moby Dick. I think my father is the admiral’s white whale. But why?”

  Michael groaned. “Shit. Ain’t it obvious? Your father stuck his willie up the ol’ Queen Bee. Hell, Christian might have been your half-brother. See, dude? Guys like that are the same everywhere. They wanna prove who’s got the bigger dick.”

  “Whatever it is, Michael, there will be bodies. I have a feeling we’re walking into something savage. Maybe even a trap. The people who survive will be the ones who never hesitate and don’t waste time making moral choices. Do you get my speed, Michael?”

  Michael looked away. James saw the doubt he needed.

  “Yeah, dude. You don’t reckon I’ll cut the mustard when it comes down to us against them.”

  Sammie didn’t allow James to respond. “Michael, he’s saying you don’t have the experience to …”

  “Wait, what?” Michael pulled his hand away from Sammie. “As if he’s been pulling the trigger since he was a young’un? Hell, Sammie. Your Daddy took you in the woods to gun down people like animals, and Mr. Universe here don’t want you around. So, I reckon you also don’t got enough experience, either.”

  The awkward silence and the pooling water in her eyes told James he was making progress. Michael set him up; now he needed to finish. Their choice had to be an easy one.

  “C’mon. Please, both of you. This isn’t about experience. We know what it’s like to kill. But there’s a world of difference between people who’ve killed and people who are killers. Sammie, they trained you to be a soldier, and a soldier kills when she has to. Michael, you killed a lousy son of a bitch who had it coming. You’re alive, and so is Sammie. You’re not a killer.”

  The next words sat behind his tongue, harder to unleash than he expected:

  “But I am a killer. Maybe it’s what I always was, but the Jewel brought it out. It’s part of who I am now. It feels natural. It’s this … hunger. I don’t have a better way to describe it.” His heart raced as the confession slipped through his lips. “What you saw on the island … that last man without his weapon? I stood over him and I aimed my rifle at his head, and I felt … I felt like a giant. I shot him and watched his brains blow out the back of his head.” His throat felt parched. “I enjoyed it. I wanted more. I still do. I always will.”

  James brought them to tears, but he mustered none of his own. The mere talk of killing fueled the dark within. His stomach roiled with mounting anticipation. He wanted to be alone with Rayna, to go deep inside her mind, to explore her fuel for mayhem.

  “Dude,” Michael choked back tears. “If you wanted to shove us out the door, I reckon you done a damn good job.”

  “I just want you both to be safe. You can make a life here. You’re already doing so well. Ophelia has contacts. She can make…”

  “It was going to be the three of us,” Sammie said, clearing her tears. “We knew the odds were against us from the start. If we died together, at least we’d go down fighting.”

  “No. It was never the three of us. It was only me. My path was always gonna be different. I just didn’t admit it.” He swiveled his seat and stood, ready for this to end.

  “Guys, I’m not even human anymore. I don’t know how many humans I’ll kill before I die. But the rest of my journey is about me, Rayna, the other Jewels, and my brother. This much is certain. If you went with me, you’d die before I could save you. Then I’d just be angrier and kill even more people.

  “You have each other. Start a life here. No one will come after you, Coop. I promise. Sammie, you’re wealthy. Do this. For me?”

  He didn’t need a response to know he defeated them. Their defiance washed away, their faith in him dissipating. He saw which way this would go, and his heart broke of necessity.

  He started for the cloak. “Take a minute to get it together,” he told them. “Perrone and Ophelia need you to be certain.”

  “You mentioned your brother,” Sammie said, her voice meek. “Will he stand by you the way we have?”

  “He will. We didn’t know about each other until three days ago; but now, it’s like we’ve known each other our whole lives. He’s my blood. First real family I’ve ever had. He’ll be with me to the end.”

  When neither said a word, James passed through the cloak.

  He refused to look back.

  43

  Hinton Transport Station

  Philadelphia Redux, NAC

  T HE MOMENT OF SAMMIE’S DREAMS ARRIVED, but she was in no mood to appreciate it. She and Michael stepped off the Scramjet onto one of hundreds of tiered landing platforms at the largest transportation hub on Earth. They arrived in the military sector, where shuttles, Scramjets, Uplift carriers, and interplanetary cruisers came and went in a dazzling symphony. It was the place where every new peacekeeper on the western continents arrived for departure into UG service off-world. It was, in so many ways, a monument of the Chancellory’s enduring legacy. As Sammie took in the visual spectacle, she focused on a future now lost in a fogbank.

  Michael, however, tried to bring perspective to the moment.

  “Holy Mary and Jesus. If this was a summer flick, I’d be like, ‘That’s some wicked CGI.’ But this? I can hear it. I can smell it. I can feel the heat. It’s like I’m living inside my dreams.”

  She whispered, “I know,” and said nothing more about the future she’d never have.

  Sammie wasn’t sure how she miscalculated so horribly. She remembered Jamie a week ago – moody, wandering, a lost boy always on the verge of tears, but someone she loved. She felt pity for what he’d lost and what fate would yet take from him, but she had planned to be there. A source of solace at the darkest hour. A fresh face when he was reborn into a compliant hybrid. A loyal friend to help him chart the
future of Chancellors, even as she fought indigos on the colonies.

  Then he threw her away. Not a hug, a kiss, a regret. Just, ‘See ya. I’ve got a real family now.’ She wanted to hate him.

  Neither James nor his new brother said a word to Michael and Sammie during the final thirty minutes of the flight. Rather, they huddled at various times with Rayna or the admiral. The brothers entered the ReCon tubes and changed into a more rugged, dark green ensemble equipped with side-weapons. James pulled Rayna aside and showed the basics of his new toys. She smiled with relish but insisted on a pouch for her curved Cossack blade. If his mission was a clean, cold cut from the past, he succeeded.

  After a minute viewing the Hinton Station theater, Sammie looked back, hoping to find him standing outside the ship, prepping for a formal farewell. No such luck. Instead, she saw Ophelia finger a cube and toss it to Dr. Talan Langdon, one of the team members ordered to disembark here. Ophelia designated Langdon as her proxy before the Reclamation and Descendency Sanctum, which would approve Sammie’s inheritance to the Pynn family fortune. Sammie was about to become a rich woman, but at the moment owned nothing more than the borrowed clothes on her back.

  “He’s moving on,” Michael said. “Goodbye ain’t his thing.”

  He wrapped an arm around her. Sammie wiped away the tears he must have noticed but stayed in Michael’s embrace. She always envisioned Jamie Sheridan’s skinny arms warming her body and following with a long, sweetened kiss.

  “You heard him,” he told her. “James said we can build a life here. Maybe he’s nuts, or maybe he knows what’s coming. Either way, he ain’t the guy we grew up with. This new man, he’s walking straight into some deep, dark shit. I think maybe he’s right: This ain’t our fight.”

  “So, we just give up?”

  Michael chuckled. “Hell, no. C’mon, Sammie. Look at all this. You kidding me? We got a shot at being born again. Get my speed?”

  “You’re right. We’re as helpless as newborns. No jobs, no skills. Michael, I’ll be sixteen next month. That’s two years as an adult on this Earth. I always thought I’d be ready, but my parents … ”

  “They’d ease you into things. No sweat. I figure if we got each other’s back, and if Ophelia survives whatever the hell she’s about to do, and you get hold of your inheritance …”

  Sammie’s mind had drifted so far away from the money and prestige, Michael’s pat solution to their dilemma seemed too easy.

  “So, you think as long as we live off my bank account, it’s all good? And you’re willing to live that way?”

  “Sure. We can open some doors, learn some ropes. Hell, we could travel together and see the Collectorate on your dime.”

  “Despite what it would mean for you?”

  She looked him in the eyes. Was he willing to subordinate himself after everything he’d been through since he arrived? After what generations of his family endured in Alabama?

  “Look, Sammie, I’m not a moron. The only way I can live on Earth is by being a Solomon. It’s not as if them people are walking around in chains. Rikard and his husband are living mighty damn fine. You heard Ophelia. I’ll be your first designated Solomon. It’s all legal. We’ll be together. Anything else, we’ll work it out.”

  “Michael, the way people looked at you, the things they said … it won’t disappear because you work for a rich Chancellor. You see that?”

  Michael polished off a wry smile, but she saw the torment in his eyes. At least back home, he had family and friends in abundance who saw the world through the same lens. She almost said, “You’ll be alone here,” but she couldn’t bear him even considering the possibility of returning through the IDF.

  “I ain’t punched any of these bastards yet,” he said. “Keep my head up and my shoulders sturdy. That’s what Gramps always said. It’s OK, Sammie. I’m chill. What choice do I got?”

  As he said those words, Michael looked past her. His smile disappeared. She pivoted.

  There he was, standing at the far edge of the platform, back turned to her, looking out upon the city. James stood next to his brother, hands clasped behind his back, a hulking monument to a Chancellor design she was coming to fear. She wanted to go to him, to say a proper goodbye, to demand he change his mind, to tell her the whole truth. Anything but this.

  Yet she did not budge, and Michael would not let go.

  “Can’t imagine what they’re planning,” he said.

  “He never even told us details about his brother, or what happened between them. Three days, Michael. Three days!”

  He tightened his hug. “I used to kid Jamie when he was going through his bodybuilder phase. Remember that? About four years ago he got into weights and started bingeing them powerlifting videos on YouTube? He gave it up about a month in when he weren’t seeing progress. Guess he found the easy button.”

  “Like you said, he’s not the same man anymore.”

  “And that’s why, if I never see him again, I’m just gonna remember the old Jamie.” Michael sighed. “First time we met, he was swimming butt naked in the Alamander River. I was throwing rocks at him. Instead of being sore, he invited me over to share peanut butter sandwiches and draw in his sketchpad. He was a good kid, before all the other shit came.”

  “Before he learned his life was a fraud.”

  As they watched, the second Jewel joined the brothers. She was a few inches shorter, but Sammie reckoned it was only a matter of time before she evolved like James.

  “That girl, Rayna, I don’t get her. She grew up as a Cossack in nineteenth-century Ukraine. She comes to a world like this, and nothing seems to faze her. I think she’s like James … she’s a killer.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “Bad vibes all the way. Deep, dark shit. But if you wanna say goodbye to him anyway, I’ll walk you over.”

  She swiveled around to face Michael, inches from his lips.

  “No.” The response came faster than expected. “He has his family now. We go a different way.” She kissed him. “You’re a new man, too. I’m proud you’re my friend, Michael.”

  “Coming from the real Wonder Woman, that’s cool.”

  His tone changed; that quip wasn’t Michael the comedian. It was someone who saw inside her. She felt it: He wanted another kiss.

  Before she could make sense of the moment, Dr. Talan Langdon waved them in his direction. It was time to enter the bureaucracy, to claim a fortune, to be born again.

  Yet as they slipped away toward the terminal and into Philadelphia Redux, Sammie looked back and saw three titans. She feared what chaos they were about to wreak on humanity.

  44

  J AMES DIDN’T CARE ABOUT THE CITY he viewed from the platform’s edge. Even as Valentin pointed out the favorite haunts of his formative years and reminisced about his triumphs in the Philadelphia Redux Kwin-sho Dome, James steadied his eyes on the stunning expanse that dwarfed one of the world’s largest cities.

  Three miles due north, SkyTower rose from the Earth in pure white like a dream of the impossible given form. A two-kilometer-wide spike planted in the ground by the gods. Its skin delivered a polished sheen that blazed in full sunlight. Thousands of landing platforms and windows flickered in different colors of the spectrum. Scram and shuttle traffic orbited the great beast like mosquitoes looking for places to land, their green fuel nacelles twinkling.

  James turned his eyes north, dizzied as the space elevator rose into visual infinity. Clouds appeared to pass through the structure, which climbed beyond the stratosphere, punching through blue skies, toward low Earth orbit. James searched his burgeoning knowledge base and envisioned the entire climb. SkyTower’s two-kilometer diameter decreased in stages. Down to 1.4K at two miles high; down to 0.9K at 10 miles; down to 0.4K at 50 miles; down to 0.2K at 120 miles; down to 500 meters at 200 miles; down to 100 meters at 300 miles to its terminus at 620 miles above the surface.

  “And our father hasn’t left SkyTower in twenty years?”

  James’s question
caught Valentin off-guard.

  “Um, no. At least not in my lifetime. Perrone says twenty, but I never talked to Father about it.”

  “Was life good there?”

  “Above the clouds? Honestly, you don’t even realize the difference unless you open a portal. I had everything I needed. Or, most everything. A few childhood friends lived in landings near us, but most lived here in the city. Especially my kwin-sho partners. Without them, I never would have joined the Guard.”

  “But he objected to you joining, right?”

  Valentin nodded. During the hours of conversations that built their bond, James heard only a brief reference to the disagreement. Valentin still harbored anger.

  “I thought he’d use his influence to block my admission.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “Mother. She hated the idea as well, but she also knew they couldn’t afford to lose me. Now I realize why.” He sighed. “I stopped loving Mother before I was ten. Father at least I respected. But she … you’ll see, James.”

  James swept his eyes from SkyTower to his brother. He remembered his own early disconnect from Marlena Sheridan, the woman he grew up assuming was his mother.

  “Tell me, Valentin.”

  “It’s hard to put into words. I don’t know what Father ever saw in her. James, you’ve met enough Chancellors to realize we are not tender creatures. We keep our hearts locked away. But Mother is something else. All she knows is strategy. Relationships are necessary only to fulfill the design.” He gazed upon the city, his eyes shining with water. “I cannot remember the last time she allowed me to touch her. When you meet Frances, you’ll understand.”

  James had no words of comfort but sufficient empathy. He blinked and returned to Ignatius Horne.

  “I need to ask you about the man whose name you took.”

  They were walking through a library, its roof and two walls having disappeared. Books lay strewn and shredded amid ash and rubble. Raindrops fell in steady beats.

  “What of him, James?”

  “How deeply did he love? Was he like other Chancellors?”