When Grandover announced the news most citizens of Earth never hoped to hear, Sam felt death wash over her. She didn’t need to hear more to know what happened. The hardliners won over the military. She saw it all: Deployments in the streets. Raids against anyone opposing the hardliners. Progressive Chancellors dead. Solomon defenders dead. Forced peace. Forced unity.
“No,” Sam whispered, but no one heard her.
Others reacted in dismay.
“This is the true reason Tolliver is resigning,” Grandover said. “He refused to deploy the Guard.”
Adrian pounded the table. “But you went along with this madness to become Grand Admiral?”
Celia gave Grandover no chance to respond.
“He had no choice, Adrian.” She turned to Poussard. “And now neither do you.” Poussard bared her teeth but made no aggressive move. “I will simplify the picture for all of you.
“Over the next several weeks, we will restore order in every corner of our world. And by order, I mean both the natural and carefully legislated order. We will reestablish the biological hierarchy on which my ancestor found the Chancellory. Johannes Ericsson’s Elevation Philosophy proved Chancellor supremacy among all humanity. The armies who fought in his name annihilated the dangerous and destructive institutions of deity worship and ensured the lesser amalgams of the human race would be forever dependent upon the Chancellory.
“We have lost sight of our heritage. We have become confused and distracted since the fall of Hiebimini. We have questioned our right to the pinnacle of Elevation. We have begun to view Solomons as potential shared citizens of Earth.”
She turned her deadly glare toward Sam. “We have been mesmerized by cancerous notions of equality among subsets of humans. We have been strangled by the wiles of new faces and new voices. We have accepted the dilution of our genetic purity as some of us consort with Solomons for carnal pleasure. Even so much as to defile oneself with a proto-African.” She pointed at Sam. “And you allow her into the heart of the Unification Guard? Into the chambers of power that steer the Chancellory? She brought Bouchet to this world. She remains his agent and his beacon, even as she shares a bed with an indigo not worthy even of the Solomon designation.
“If the Chancellory moves forward to recapture its legacy, this one must not.”
Sam did not hear the shouting. She did not hear her allies’ passionate defenses or the rising tide of support for Celia. She felt Lucinda’s hand on her shoulder, but the world was spinning. She had not felt this light or helpless in two years, not since a laser pulse tore through her in Philadelphia Redux. Not since she looked at Michael in dismay, saw a hole open in his chest, then fall away into darkness.
A few seconds before she fainted, Sam thought of Michael.
Run. Please run.
23
Pynn compound
M ICHAEL DID NOT WANT TO RUN, but he had no choice. He agreed with Rikard’s assessment that if he remained in the compound, mounting a defense behind the security wall, he endangered Sam, the twins, and the staff.
“Yes,” Rikard said, “they’ll kill everyone who comes between you and them.”
“I’m not that damn important.”
“If you’re dead, no. They’ll burn your body and pretend you never existed. For the ones who do remember, you’ll symbolize the futility of standing against the Chancellory.”
“And what are they gonna reckon if we go into hiding?”
“Who said we’re going to hide?”
Michael and Rikard moved with furious speed. Michael called in three Solomon staffers who supported equity and explained what he had to do. Since none had taken an active role in the movement’s covert operations, they might not be targeted, but neither he nor Rikard could be sure. Their choice was simple: Stay behind but remain vigilant or flee in Rikard’s uplift. Two vowed to look after the children and Sam when she returned. But a cook named Helene Yaffetz insisted she was tired of hiding in the shadows. A slender, demur woman with chocolate hair and hazel eyes, Helene said she had no fear of what might come next.
“If we lose now, we won’t have another chance. They’ll fight us even as every last Chancellor dies off.”
The three made haste for the compound’s small-arms closet, created after the Solomon treaty was altered to allow Solomons to possess weapons. The law stipulated ownership must come at the discretion of Chancellor clients, but growing paranoia among Chancellory factions in the wake of SkyTower sent purchases to unprecedented levels.
Laser pistols. Thump guns. Pulse guns. Pulse rifles. UG-issue Mark 8 blast rifles. Michael knew how to use them all. He killed with two, including the Ingmar Pulse Gun, Model 16. He learned how to modify the gene-stamp to slip around peacekeeper protocols on the Mark 8.
They worked in silence swiping most of the armory, dropping weapons, flash peg cartridges, and pulse initiator pills into cases. The unreality of the moment, that Michael was running for his life again – this time as fugitive, soldier, or both – felt unexpectedly exhilarating. Though the terror was palpable and Sam still incommunicado, Michael couldn’t help but think all roads led to this day.
He’d found love in a relationship forbidden by law. He’d been mortally wounded more than once. He’d spent two years building up his body and learning to kill. All this, while his former best friend was murdering people by the thousands. He should have known it would end this way. The steady diet of jubriska and poltash weed kept him from seeing the truth.
“I really thought I could marry her one day and we’d live happily ever after,” he told Rikard as they reached the massive central foyer.
“It’s not over yet, Michael. There are more of us than the hardliners realize. An army. And we do have a plan. You’ll be back.”
“In how many pieces?”
Merton Bayfield, Sam’s trusted estate manager, greeted them at the foyer.
“I wish there was another way,” Michael told the Chancellor, one of the few he ever met who showed a semblance of loyalty. “Let Sam know when you can. Looks like I’m going dark for a while.”
“Of course, Michael. I’ll keep the place in hand for your return.”
A boy shouted from the top of the staircase ascending the foyer. Shit, Michael thought. He’d forgotten.
He handed his case to Rikard as he looked up to Brayllen, standing beside his sister Rosalyn.
“Go on,” he told Rikard and Helene. “I’ll be coming up the rear.” He muttered under his breath, “I’m the world’s worst babysitter.”
Brayllen started down the stairs despite Rosalyn’s hissing demand that he stay put.
“Are you leaving, Michael?”
“Yeah, dude. So, look. Urgent business came up.”
“Are you coming back tonight? Remember, we were going up to the roof and I was going to show you the G’hladi system when it rose to position.”
“Don’t reckon I’ll be back for a few days, at least. You and Rosie will be great until Sam gets back from the GPM.”
Brayllen frowned. “Is it because of what I did on the veranda?”
“What? No. In fact, if you have a hankering for more poltash, we have more pipes. Ask Merton here.”
“You never introduced me to your friend.”
“Sorry, but that friend’s waiting for me, Brayllen. I gotta blow this joint. For everybody’s sake, just hang out with your sister and you’ll be fine. Ain’t it about time for dinner?”
Brayllen crossed his arms. “Does Sam know about this? You said you’d watch after us.”
Michael felt his patience slipping. “Didn’t you say you’ll be an adult in three months? Right now, you sound like you’re nine.”
A pall of shame fell over the boy’s features. “You’re right, Michael. I don’t know what comes over me.”
“Here.” He gave the boy a cursory hug. “Check out the stars without me. Good man?”
They high-fived, but Brayllen did not smile. Michael didn’t have time to play counselor.
After he left the house, he turned back once and saw Brayllen at the vestibule, Rosalyn standing at his side.
He hoped Rikard’s prediction was accurate: The enemy would not attack a Chancellor residence without Solomon combatants.
As the sun set, Michael jumped onboard Rikard’s uplift and prepared for his impossible journey to take another unlikely detour. He was going to war.
24
B RAYLLEN HELMUT HAD HIS FILL of being lied to by adults, bossed around by a sister born three minutes before him, and being treated by everyone else as a child half his age. He lost all patience when he heard lines beginning with in time, you’ll see, be patient, trust me, I’ll be back, tomorrow is, and the worst of all – be strong.
Michael seemed a promising change from the typical Chancellor harangue. Didn’t care about protocol, didn’t try to manipulate, had his own bizarre language. But now he was out the door, too.
Brayllen’s darkening mood got no boost from his sister, who ate dinner with him in their guest suite. Neither wanted to eat in the dining room without Sam or Michael. Both picked over their food.
“They’ll move on from us,” Rosalyn said, her tone indignant. “They’re just waiting for confirmation.”
“Confirmation of what?”
“That our parents are dead.”
Brayllen set down his fork. “I know.”
“So, you see it, too. We’re only here because Sam feels guilty and Michael feels obligated. They treat us like children because they aren’t from this universe. They don’t understand how to relate.”
“Michael thought I was too young to smoke a pipe.”
“You see? They don’t know what to do with us.”
“Do you think they know about Mom and Dad and won’t tell us?”
Rosalyn chewed and swallowed. “They probably assume. If they had confirmation, they’d move on from us. Contact an agency.”
“What if they never find out for sure?”
“They’ll manufacture an excuse. Besides, we’ll be adults soon. We’ll have control of our parents’ holdings, or what’s left of them. Brayllen, I told you not to get close to these people. This arrangement isn’t going to last much longer.”
Brayllen dropped his eyes and sighed. “You’re right, like usual.” He dug into his food before another thought crossed his mind. “I still think they’re lying about Freida and Carmen. They told us both were killed in the terrorist attack on the station, but I think it’s something else.”
“I’m sure of it. They were alive when we were rescued, but no one ever spoke of them again. Remember, Brayllen, the only people we could ever truly trust lived on G’hladi. Earthers are different. Even the best Chancellors here can’t be trusted.”
Brayllen smiled for the first time in hours. “First thing I’m going to do when I take my inheritance, I’m going to book passage for G’hladi. Earth just isn’t what I dreamed.”
For the next two hours, Brayllen distracted himself with visions of life on the colony where he felt most at home. Every time he opened a holocube for game play, he quickly fell into boredom.
He did admit one thing: The wide-open spaces of the Pynn compound – including his bedroom suite – were liberating.
When at last he felt sleepy enough to dose off, Brayllen pulled back the silk covers and dimmed the lights. A sharp echo from the past bounced off the shadows. It was Mom.
“Brayllen, stay close. Brayllen, don’t go with him. Brayllen …”
He slumped onto the bed as the room flickered in and out of his vision. He was still here, still in the compound. And yet, Brayllen also knew he was somewhere else.
The mattress dipped when a visitor joined him nearby. Brayllen smelled a familiar host. It was a wonderful perfume, deep and intoxicating, sweet as cherries and pungent as basil. Brayllen faced his visitor, a tall bearded man, and all his anger washed away.
“Hello, Brother James. What took you so long?”
PART TWO
ATTRITION
There’s twenty kinds of shit I regret, but I guess the worst was leaving you in the dark. I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through, or what the hell they’ve been saying about me. Just know I didn’t have time to make a smart decision. I went with my gut, which pretty much always spelled trouble. No different this go-around.
I’ve gotten my sorry ass caught in the frying pan more times than I can reckon. Somehow, I always come out the other side, either on account of dumb luck, an angel on my shoulder, or hell, maybe there was a plan for me.
Not this time. The place I’m going, there’s no coming back. That means I’ll never say this to you in person.
I love you, and I’ll never forget you.
25
Marsche Compound
Ericsson Fjord, Scandinavian Consortium
Six weeks before the attack on Vasily Station
C ELIA MARSCHE RELISHED THE STORIES other Chancellors told about her. The Empress of the North, they whispered, lived as a recluse with a messianic complex. They said she became matriarch of the original Chancellor descendancy by murdering competitors: Specifically, parents, aunts and uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins. They said she began her treachery as a child by mapping out her family tree and developing a bloody, thirty-year plan to ascendancy.
“The stories are wrong,” she reassured her oldest brother Eldric, who confronted her about the rumors as they hiked the Ordsson Trail one summer’s day. “It was a twenty-year plan. I made mistakes.”
Then she pushed him over the edge, where he fell long and lonely into a rainforest ravine thick with titanic spruce trees. He never screamed on the way down. She hated him for it.
None of them ever screamed or whimpered into death. Cold, rigid, and too arrogant to acknowledge their terror. They were mere shadows of their ancestors, unworthy of Johannes Ericsson, the man who gave birth to the Chancellory and to Elevation Philosophy. The man whose wars cleansed the world of divine worship and took humanity out of the darkness of pre-history. The man who built the oligarchy which sent humanity into space. And in the end, to claim Earth for itself.
“A man of staggering vision,” Celia told her handmaid, Ester, who was running a brush through her mistress’s thick, sun-bright hair. “He saw how far we could reach as a species. He was unafraid to sacrifice his life in pursuit of that potential. I tell you, Ester, if I had the ability to traverse the laws of time and space, I would sell all my holdings to spend a day with Johannes.”
“Yes, Miss,” Ester said with courtesy. “I imagine it would be quite the adventure.”
Celia gazed into the vanity’s mirror but not at herself. She studied the slim wrinkles on the Slavic Solomon who attended her needs since she was a little girl.
“Tell me, Ester. What do you think of Solomon equity?”
Ester furrowed a brow. “Can’t say as I’ve considered it, Miss.”
“But you must have an opinion. Are you not tied into the public streams? Surely, your family follows the infotainment stacks.”
“Can’t speak for the others, but when would I find time, Miss? You keep my life full. And when I’m not here, I’m tending to my children.”
She grabbed the brush. “Very nice, Ester. The amulet, please.” As her handmaid opened a jewelry case, Celia probed further. “What do you think of their cause? Should Solomons have the right to own property and be represented in the Sanctums?”
Ester paused, as if she were contemplating the matter for the first time. “To be honest, Miss, I don’t see what would change. We are handsomely paid. We want for nothing. By all I know – and I can’t claim there’s much banging around up here,” she tapped her forehead, “we live in luxury compared to everyone on the colonies. I’d say our families made the right decision to stay behind.”
“And no one in the Chernik clan has voiced support for equity?”
“We’re old blood in these parts, Miss. We’re born to ritual.”
“Strong roots. Yes? Like the oldest birches a
nd the king elms. They dug deep into the earth and held on for three millennia. Johannes Ericsson planted those saplings. He made sure the soil was firm, the sun plentiful, and the air pure.”
Ester rested the jade amulet over Celia’s chest and fastened its chain behind her neck. “If I might make an observation, Miss, you are especially reflective today. I’ve known you to be this way on special occasions, but there’s nothing on your calendar.”
“I am always reflecting,” Celia said. “I am always thinking about what we were and what we might become. It’s my special talent, Ester. No one else in my family bothered. Perhaps that’s why they lived shallow lives. Perhaps that’s why they left me all too soon.”
Ester bowed her head. “Such tragedies, Miss.”
“Tragedy is a term reserved for those we remember. My family lost its way generations ago. Did you know my father went his entire life believing the Solomon Treaty was the Chancellory’s single biggest mistake? Yes. I overheard him speaking to Uncle Frederick when I was nine. This was after the fall of Hiebimini. He said the Chancellors would slide into irrelevance without brontinium extract, and we would regret not having equal partners to guide us into that gentle night. He'd given up, even then. He did not deserve our historic descendancy. There have been no tragedies in my life, Ester. Only surrenders.”
Celia grabbed Ester’s hand. “And you.”
“I’ll always be here for you, Miss.”
“Yes, you will. But not for the next several hours.”
“Beg pardon, Miss?”
“I do have plans. A guest. He’ll be here shortly. I wish for you and the other staff to retire to the north lodge. Nullify your amps. Prepare a feast and drink from the vintage stock. Perhaps you’ll even stay the night and enjoy each other’s company.”
Celia saw the suspicion creep into her handmaid’s eyes.
“Of course, Miss. I’m sure we’ll appreciate your generosity.”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 77
