The Impossible Future: Complete set

by Frank Kennedy

  “I chose this system for a reason,” James said. “Forty years ago, the Jewels of Eternity were being held in an off-book facility. They were captured during a deep-space mission and taken to Lease Station XF-41. The plan was to weaponize them into planet-killing Berserkers. A Chancellor means of absolute control.

  “Fortunately, a man named Ephraim Hollander liberated them and destroyed the facility. His decision set in motion the events leading to the fall of Hiebimini and the desperation of the Chancellory. Without his actions, the hybrids would never have been created, and I would not have the opportunity to burn down the Chancellory.”

  Valentin knew that name. It came quickly.

  “Hollander? Yes. He was there. At Hiebimini. It was he and his son. They were working together. Hollander’s been a fugitive ever since, assuming he’s still alive.”

  “Correction, brother. They did not collaborate; they fulfilled a destiny. The Jewels saw it coming. For three thousand years, they saw the end. And they also viewed the end as a new beginning.” He reached out and helped Valentin stand. “I’ve seen it all, brother. Ever since I ripped Ignatius Horne out of my mind two years ago, the Jewel has shown me an entire history. This is where you and I come in. This system is the perfect place to prepare for the beginning. Valentin, I know everything we need to do. I always have.”

  “If this is true, James, why not trust me to the full plan?”

  “I do trust you. Valentin, I love you. Whatever happens, I promise we’ll be at each other’s side to the end. We’re monsters, you and I. Killers. Yes? But I worry. When you realize how far I’ll need you to go for me, I’m not sure you’ll have the stomach for it.”

  This was the most honest his brother had been in some time. Valentin searched with care for his next words.

  “James, will your plan guarantee a home for both our peoples?”

  “It will.”

  “Will your plan guarantee a safe future for generations?”

  “It will.”

  “And you have no doubts?”

  “None, brother.”

  Valentin took a long, deep breath and then the plunge.

  “You kept your promise, brother. We’ve rescued five hundred immortals. I’m with you, no matter the cost.”

  James’s features softened, a generous smile which reminded Valentin of the joyous creature who took to space travel and acts of terror with childlike abandon two years ago. Who celebrated the birth of his children as the single greatest day of his life. Who shared in liquor-soaked celebrations after each of their early victories.

  “I’m glad,” James said, his voice tender. “Let’s share a drink.”

  “And then you’ll tell me how we burn down the Chancellory?”

  “It’s going to be beautiful, brother. My best work yet.”

  12

  Special education sector

  Lioness

  V ALENTIN LOVED ALL HIS CHILDREN, though none shared his genes. They ranged in age from five to sixteen. A few were raised in the protective covenant of Ark Carriers, but most were brought up by indigo families on ten colonies. Their Nordic similarities displayed the selective breeding patterns of Valentin’s parents, Emil and Frances Bouchet, whose team designed these immortals. But they arrived at the Salvation fleet with a hodgepodge of dialects, cultural beliefs, worldviews, social skills, and educational levels. Most resisted their “liberation” until made to see the truth of their abomination. All five hundred shared something else in common: Each was killed and reborn.

  Valentin made a point of being present for each validation.

  He designed the procedure himself. He would test each new arrival the only way an immortal could: By being killed. A flash laser delivered one peg point-blank between the eyes. Typically, dead children resuscitated within fifteen minutes. All but five passed validation. They deemed the others record-keeping casualties. Best estimates suggested more than two thousand immortals remained hidden across the Collectorate.

  Valentin knew he’d never have the time or resources to find them all before Salvation made its big move. Yet he took solace in not being alone anymore and in the adoration of five hundred kin. Every day since the first liberation, Valentin dreamed of building a family in lieu of the biological one his parents denied him.

  Now, standing in a converted kwin-sho dueling arena on Level 3 of Lioness, Valentin shared the love with his permanent family. The immortals greeted him in twenty disciplined rows aligned in ascending height from the front, dressed in matching olive bodysuits, a right-fisted salute over the heart.

  From the rear, his squad leaders – the immortals closest to Valentin’s size and age – led the cheers.

  “Hail, Admiral Bouchet! Onward, Admiral! Onward, Valentin!”

  The salute cascaded toward the front in choreographed fashion, ending with the five-year-olds who were the giddiest of all and struggled to maintain rhythm. He allowed them to repeat the pattern three times before he signaled silence.

  “We have come so far,” he told them. “We have so many light-years to go. The Chancellors created us as a gateway to their own eternal supremacy. Now, many of those same Chancellors are hunting us. They wish to destroy us before we replace them. Will we allow that to happen?”

  The response came like thunder. “Never, Admiral! Never!”

  After they settled, Valentin paused until full silence.

  “Never,” he said. “Forever.”

  They repeated his words in hushed tones, their exchange a months-long ritual. Each time, he felt a greater depth to their loyalty. He loved the comradeship they formed despite their disparate backgrounds, ignoring differences to create a uniform, rabid pack.

  An army willing to die because death posed no obstacle.

  He called out his leaders in the rear. “Seniors, arrange your squads into pre-combat sequence. Take them through all seven routines.”

  The five hundred – a few dozen of whom already participated in combat missions – grouped themselves into concentric circles based upon age and linked arms to begin their routine. Cheers and growls filled the arena. Then one member of each circle took the center and used every available tactic – high kicks, chops, body-blocks – to fend off annihilation as the circle drew closer, the pounding more furious. One of two outcomes followed the five-minute assault: Survive the beating intact and rejoin the circle; or suffer a crippling injury and be dragged outside the circle until healed. One in a hundred died (usually a neck or head injury). In those cases, one volunteer agreed to wait at their side upon rebirth, which was a disorienting event.

  The routines mirrored Valentin’s early kwin-sho training, where physical agony and imminent threat of death were guaranteed.

  “Could you have made this more savage?”

  Valentin didn’t realize Ophelia Tomelin strolled in while he watched his brethren practice.

  “Again, Ophelia, with the morality lecture?”

  “Yes. As often as necessary to bring you to your senses.”

  Ophelia bore little resemblance to the woman who helped Valentin, James, and Rayna escape SkyTower. Two years had aged like twenty on the woman. She balled up her thinning and increasingly gray hair. Her piercing eyes bore the weight of a grueling, bloody war that exhilarated everyone else in the fleet.

  “You look horrifying,” he said. “When did you last sleep?”

  “Hard to say. I close my eyes, but as soon as I start to remember, I splash my face in cold water.”

  “Remember what?”

  “The atrocities, of course.”

  “Says the woman who worked on my parents’ team for years. We’re here because of people like you.”

  “Immortals were designed to be survivors, not psychopaths.”

  He wagged his finger. “We were designed to be superior. If that means we kill everyone who needs to die, so be it.”

  “Ah. Brother James’s morality. ‘We only kill the people who need to die.’” She groaned. “He keeps redefining need. Or maybe he
never particularly cared one way or the other. I truly believed the two of you would represent something different. But look at this.” She pointed to the fighting circles. “How are you creating a mentality any less dangerous than the Unification Guard? Ruthless, coldblooded killers. Mindless, subservient, xenophobic.”

  Valentin heard this tune in varied notes for months, but Ophelia’s tone said she wanted to take the rhetoric a step further.

  “Follow me.” He walked toward the training circles, hands clasped behind his back, in his typical observation mode. He took minute steps until Ophelia sneered but obeyed his command. He resumed when she reached his side.

  “As I’ve told you many times, Ophelia, they need to be inured against pain and the fear of death. This will give them a tactical advantage over the enemy.”

  “It will also inure them against assigning a value to life. Mortal humans will become disposable. And should I remind you, Valentin, there are thirty-five billion in the Collectorate?”

  “And only five hundred of us. What threat are we? Even if we kill a million of them, their survival rate will be 99.9977 percent. But if they destroy even one of us …”

  “Hah. Again, you sound like your brother. Statistical justification for genocide. Excuse me, Valentin, but I thought you were the less-psychotic Bouchet.”

  Valentin laughed as he walked, nodding approval to groups he passed. He stepped over a ten-year-old girl who lay moaning outside her circle, her left arm hanging limp in a sickly contortion.

  “Hold steady, Anissa,” he told her. “You’ll be back in the circle soon.” The girl thanked Valentin for his words. He turned to Ophelia, who bent down to lend comfort before wisely pulling back. Her action would have been a violation, and shame for Anissa.

  “I am my brother’s right hand,” Valentin said as they moved on. “He and I share a common vision. Where you might be confused, Ophelia, is that I tend to be more of a pragmatist. As a combat officer, I put greater stock in logistics. For example, here’s something you might not know.

  “Last year, after James broke the conditioning web on the other hybrids, he came to me the same day and said you were no longer useful and should be killed. Immediately. But out of deference, he left the decision to me – just as he did in SkyTower.

  “I saw how good you were in counseling the first immortals we liberated, taking them through the induction process. Especially the little ones. So, I convinced James of your value.”

  Ophelia nodded. “I suspected as much. I suppose I should be thankful for the reprieve. Out of curiosity, how often has the Great Savior talked of killing me since then?”

  “More times than I can count, Ophelia.”

  “He loathes me that much? After all I did to save him?”

  “James does not believe in redemption or forgiveness. Almost everyone in his life betrayed him.”

  “Oh, please! We’re Chancellors by birth. We eat betrayal with breakfast every day of our lives.”

  Valentin found a clearing distant from the circles and stopped. He leaned into Ophelia.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “What I want, you can’t give. But I’ll settle for the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “Do I have any chance of leaving this fleet alive?”

  Valentin refused to dodge the inevitable.

  “No. This is your last home, Ophelia. You know more about what we do than anyone outside the Command Council. My advice: Pull yourself together and work with our new arrivals. You’ll have reason to rise in the morning.”

  “And what if you and His Greatness win your war?”

  “If we win, I’ll execute you myself. Unless you prefer the way James does it.” Her shoulders sagged and her eyes dropped. “One other thing, Ophelia: If you refer to Brother James in those derogatory terms again, I will make sure you suffer indescribable pain for days. Then I will snap your neck. Understood?”

  She mumbled, “Yes,” her air of defiance annihilated.

  Valentin was sick of her. This wasn’t their first go-round. After every previous encounter, Ophelia returned the next day in higher spirits. This felt different. Though she retreated from the arena, he wondered whether he was allowing a security risk to roam free. All he had to do was give the order.

  He put the woman out of his mind and watched the pre-combat routines play out. Defying a trend, no one died during the circle assaults. Either his brethren were toughening up, or their killer instinct was cracking. He refused to make a snap judgement.

  Midway through the fifth routine, as Valentin expected, all training came to a sudden halt. Eyes widened in awe when they knew Brother James was among them. Valentin gave his squad leaders a hand signal. In seconds, the immortals returned to strict lineups.

  Valentin greeted his brother under his breath.

  “I didn’t warn them,” he said. “They will be stunned.”

  “Every immortal is here?”

  “Absolutely. We erected the audio distortion field. I assume the other Jewels will be listening in?”

  James tapped his forehead. “Right here with me.”

  Valentin faced his legions. “My brother has a message for you. A message from our savior, our leader, our future. Welcome him.”

  All five hundred took a right knee and bowed heads.

  “Stand,” James ordered. “I want to look in your eyes.” They did as told. “More important, I want you to look in my eyes.” His voice rumbled through the arena without challenge.

  “These eyes,” he continued, “have seen a million years of history. These eyes have seen everything humans have ever built. These eyes have seen the lives destroyed by those same humans. And these eyes can see a million years into the future. In that future, there are no humans. Just as there are no humans in this arena!”

  Gasps and awe-inspired whispers echoed from the rows.

  “I was like each of you. An experiment cast off into hiding. An angry and confused child of little worth and less hope. They created us to be their servant monsters. They would have denied us our greatness and used us as tools to fix their self-induced genetic failure. Then they would have killed us all.”

  James laid a hand on Valentin’s shoulder. “Our parents were the leaders of these criminals. At their first opportunity, they tried to kill us both rather than embrace us as their children. They would have killed the woman I loved, the mother of my boys.

  “Know this: The Chancellors created all of us – Jewel hybrids and immortals – for their design. As long as we oppose their design, they will try to kill us. Therefore, we must kill them.”

  Fists rose high and chants intensified.

  When they calmed, James continued. “We are slaves to no one, and our future belongs to us. We deserve to live by our own design, as do all those who have been held under the Chancellors’ thumb for centuries. This means we can no longer remain hidden away in this dark corner of space. We must begin a more aggressive campaign. In the coming weeks, we will launch the next phase. We have selected three colonies and an Ark Carrier. There will be many more. We will bring miracles and fire in equal doses.

  “We will not kill hundreds. We will not kill thousands. Before we are done, we will kill millions. We will not do this for the sake of blood or revenge. We will do this because we intend to burn down the Chancellory and realign the Collectorate. And in doing so, we will claim what is rightfully ours.”

  James paused a few beats, leaving his audience hanging. Valentin was impressed. He saw the love, admiration, and unquestioned loyalty in the eyes of his people. James quashed any rumors of a hybrid conspiracy.

  “We will settle on a home world of our own. A planet rich and fertile. A place that will be the envy of every mortal human in the Collectorate. It will surpass even Earth. It will be a world for our united family of Jewels and immortals. We will protect it against invasion. It will be a planet where others will come to worship and learn from us. We will be their living gods.”

  Tears
fell from many cheeks and some dropped to their knees.

  “We are a distant echo of homo sapiens. We are one race forever. Beginning today, we will know our peoples as The Promised Few.

  “It’s time we get to work.”

  James took a bow, which led to raucous cheers. James leaned into Valentin.

  “What did you think, brother?”

  “Your best speech yet. How long did you rehearse?”

  “I didn’t. And I never will. A god doesn’t rehearse.”

  “No.” Valentin chuckled. “I suppose he doesn’t.”

  13

  Philadelphia Redux, Earth

  8 standard days after attack on Vasily Station

  M ICHAEL COOPER STEPPED OUT ONTO a landing port at Hinton Station for the first time since the day SkyTower fell. Since the last time he saw James Bouchet in the flesh. The spectacular hubbub and dizzying array of ships arriving and departing amazed him. It was if nothing had ever happened here.

  That the station survived was a miracle by any standard. SkyTower’s collapse skirted Earth’s largest transport facility by a few hundred meters, but falling debris and the concussive force of the crash crippled half the ports and brought down vital sections of the superstructure. Most Earth and interstellar traffic was diverted for months. The Chancellory, once past their stunned paralysis, threw all their energy into repairing the station, the Redux industrial zone, and cities devastated down the coast. They hailed this resilience as the start of a new era, something Michael saw as an extension of their denial about the looming threat.

  Even now, as that very threat returned to their solar system and killed with impunity, they buried their heads. Perhaps they were satisfied by the UG promise of a tactical fleet being stationed in near-Earth orbit or of rumors suggesting the terrorists exposed themselves too soon and were now on the run from the Guard.

  “I still don’t understand you people,” Michael told Finnegan Moss, who joined him on the platform along with most of Moss’s security apparatus. “You got more money than God, and you build it bigger and … golder … than He ever could. The bigger your dick, the bigger the castle. It’s just a damn pissing match to show how amazing you people are. Tell me I’m wrong, Finnegan.”