“Shit.”
He had to know; Michael couldn’t leave the child if it was alive.
Michael pulled back the cloth and winced.
He didn’t need to take a pulse.
Michael spit in Rayna’s face. “You were the worst fucking mother in the universe. I hope Hell is the real deal.”
Echoes of intense rifle fire still cascaded through the streets but appeared more scattered now. The railguns were active, their beams chasing a few attack ships. He didn’t see showers of energy slews bombarding JaRa like earlier. Michael sensed the battle turning in the right direction but wasn’t about to let down his guard. His diversion with Rayna took him off-mission.
Five blocks to go. Where are you?
Two blocks from the hybrid sector, Michael encountered a cluster of fighters wearing the red and gray and most of the remaining hybrids. Few bodies were intact. At least six children. The habitat domes facing south on the side street showed significant black scarring.
He theorized what happened. A Guard unit broke through the lines and waylaid the hybrids. At least one tried to hold them off with a Berserker but was shot before releasing the full nuclear storm. Michael did not move on until he checked the bodies. He had to make sure.
No Sam. No James.
The picture was clearing. James appeared to be the only hybrid able to absorb flash pegs. Was Rayna correct? Did the Jewels favor him above the others of his kind? Michael couldn’t answer those questions, and he doubted the Jewels would admit to playing deadly games with all these lives.
On the tenth block, Michael detected no composite energy signs. What choice did he have but to search house to house? He leaped into the closest dome, anticipating a holed-up hybrid with an ornery disposition. The dome was quiet but not empty.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said, admiring luxurious accommodations resembling a penthouse suite. “For terrorists and lunatics, they were living right. I’ll give them that.”
Two more domes. Nothing.
Up the side street to the northern edge of the city. Nothing.
The hybrid sector spanned two blocks. The instant Michael turned west onto block eleven, he came within a millisecond of killing one of the most important people in his life.
“Maya?”
She lowered her laser pistol, breathing heavily. She knew death almost took her.
“Michael! I wasn’t sure what happened to you.”
“What are you doing here? Have you seen Sam?”
“No, but I have an idea. Come with me,” she said, pointing to the closest dome. “There’s something important you need to hear.”
“The only thing I need right now is Sam.”
“Michael, he doesn’t have long. You need to hear him out.”
“Who?”
“Maj. Nilsson.”
Michael forgot about his tense exchange with Nilsson once the ceremony began and Sam appeared. Now, his memory cleared.
“Damn, Maya. I’m sorry I didn’t check back in. Everything went insane. What happened?”
“Nilsson was on a special operation. He was supposed to retrieve live hybrid specimens to be sent for study back home. He was …”
“Yeah, I ran across Rayna. She told me before she died. Guess those assholes wanted their prizes to be safe before they wiped out the city. Goddamn, Maya. They were snatching babies. Hybrids, yeah. But still. How is it you survived?”
“At first, he wanted to use me for leverage.”
“You mean to steal the babies while he kept guard, so to speak?”
“Something like that. Michael, I talked him down. There was a firefight with the immortals. Nilsson protected me, but like I said, he doesn’t have long. Please, Michael. See him. We wouldn’t be here without him.”
He despised another delay and felt Sam’s hope fading with each passing minute. But Maya was right. Without Nilsson’s help, they’d both be dead on Tamarind.
The habitat dome was empty save for a bed without covers and a single chair. Nilsson lay sprawled on the bed, the mattress steeped in his blood. At quick glance, Michael saw the damage and had no idea how the man still lived. He took three flash pegs to the abdomen. His face was bathed in sweat, and his breathing was labored. Nonetheless, Nilsson was conscious. He forced a smile of relief when he saw Michael.
“Cooper. I’m glad you made it. The others … they didn’t survive.”
“I know. It was Percy Muldoon. He fought to the end. Gave us time.”
Nilsson grabbed Michael’s hand with a fierce grip.
“I tried, Cooper. I tried to follow orders. That was my job. They fucked us. You understand?”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else from those assholes. What are we gonna do about it, Major?”
“You. Cooper … Michael, you do it. You’re a leader. I saw it in you from the first days. There are things you need to know.”
“I’m listening, Major.”
“Even if they lose today, they’ll keep coming. Yes? I know how to stop them.”
Michael listened to Nilsson’s confessions. Afterward, Michael processed the intelligence and made sure Maya stored the data on her admin stack. She would have to act as a backup in case Michael didn’t survive his next stop. Nilsson never lost consciousness.
“Major, I have to go,” Michael said, holding his hand. “If this is the last time we talk, I want you to know something. You didn’t follow orders a hundred percent of the time, and I couldn’t be more grateful. You saved me. Maybe there’s a chance now for me, Sam, and a lot of kids who deserve another shot. It was an honor.”
He left Nilsson with a side-nod salute.
Maya pointed Michael to the habitat dome where she saw a giant of a man slip in during the firefight. It was only a glimpse, she said. She wasn’t sure if anyone was with him.
“Stay here,” he warned. “Stay alert.”
“Take care, Michael.”
“Time to put an end to this shit, once and for all.”
72
M ICHAEL KNEW HE FOUND THE RIGHT habitat dome because of what lay outside. The last of James and Rayna’s children, the gangly boys who carried their sisters to the stage, were shot to pieces. They lay slumped against the base of the dome, their blood smudged along the wall starting from where they fell. Michael thought they were executed. His gut told him who pushed the trigger.
“You poor kids. At least you won’t see what I do to your father.”
The door was open. The lights were on.
Michael entered with both rifles primed to fire.
Like another dome he visited, this was decorated for royalty. Two giant beds with silk coverings, furniture ornately carved and padded, shiny trinkets and wall decor. Plush carpet. More shiny things. The trappings meant nothing to Michael.
He smelled the creature. Burnt flesh?
The door slid shut, and the lights dimmed.
“Here we go, dumbass,” Michael whispered.
The creature stood at the dome’s rear, leaning over empty cribs.
He wore a full-length golden jacket, fresh as new. But the jacket did nothing to hide the disaster above his neck. James’s long mane was gone, his scalp burnt, the remaining skin leathery gray and blistered. His left ear was not there. The burn pattern extended along his neck and across his cheek. The eyes, however, were untouched and as frightening as the last time Michael saw them. The red pistils in the corners glowed between shades of red and orange.
“Where is she? Where is Sam?”
James forced a smile. “You come into my home, and that’s the first question you ask, Michael?”
“And I’ll keep asking until you give me a fucking answer.”
“She’s close.”
At least he knows. Michael’s bitterness deepened.
“What did you do to her?”
“I saved her, Michael. I was walking through the fire after the slews hit. There she was. And much to my shock, she was alive. She woke up.” He moved away from the cribs. “I didn’t
know she was immortal. I asked the Jewels. They told me. They also told me about you. The truth about all three of us.”
Michael remembered how Trayem Hadeed phrased it: “The three-winged beast of the impossible future.”
“Where is she, James?”
“Closer.”
James’s frightening eyes glanced past Michael.
Was it true?
He couldn’t handle another trick, another disappointment, another near miss. He holstered his weapons and surrendered to hope.
“Michael.”
He retracted his helmet and swung around. Michael melted like the first time he saw her.
In the dimmed light, Sam was beautiful in ways he never appreciated before. She was wiser and stronger, a grown woman whose love he barely deserved. She was all the goodness left inside him. And he refused to live another day without her.
“Hi, babe.”
He kissed her like it was the first time. He wanted it to be as real, as magical, as full of possibilities. More important, Michael had to convince himself this was not a dream. The journey was over.
“I love you,” they told each other between thick, wet kisses that might have gone on for hours.
“This feels like the time when I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,” he said. “I was so scared it was a fantasy. Of course, you were in a medpod near death. So, it almost was.”
The flashback to Philadelphia Redux drew a twinkle in her eyes. God, he loved that twinkle. Waking up to it every morning was the greatest time in his life.
“How, Michael? How did you find me?”
“Long story short? I got hold of your address and walked over.”
She wiped her tears and draped her hands over his skull.
“You shaved your dreadlocks. You’re so much bigger.”
“What can I say? Trying out a new look. You like?”
“I’ll love you anyway I can have you, Michael. Always.”
Sam winced and grabbed her side. Her neck healed, with only a minimal scar visible, but the dried blood remained. She was not wearing the yellow dress from the ceremony. Instead, she was draped in a purple silk blouse, ending below her knees. A sickening thought chilled Michael.
“What’s wrong, Sam?”
“It’s my side and my back. I was burned pretty badly.”
Her eyes darted away then back to Michael. Her smile vanished.
“It was to be my wife’s,” James said.
The creature took a seat on the bed and studied the blouse.
“I tried to convince her to put away her Cossack playthings. I thought purple would be her color. It’s the color of royalty. But she refused. In many ways, she never left Ukraine.”
Michael despised this beast staring at Sam.
“She’s dead,” he said with satisfaction. “I watched her die.”
“I already knew.” He tapped his disfigured scalp. “I stopped hearing her. All their voices are silent now. Did you kill her?”
“No, James. The honor goes to Sam.” He kissed her. “Rayna never removed the knife. You did good.”
Sam didn’t seem to take much solace in her success.
“James, why did you shoot your boys?” Michael asked.
The creature shrugged. “So you would know where to find me.”
“Oh, you have got to fucking be kidding me. You sick mother …”
“And because if I didn’t, someone else would. At least the last thing they saw was their father’s face.”
Michael held Sam close.
“Right. And probably scared shitless when they realized their father was going to kill them. Tell me something, James. Do you know what’s happening out there? Who’s winning?”
“Sorry. I haven’t kept up with the news.”
“This war’s almost over. And guess what? The immortals are going to win. That means your brother and all those children are going to run the show around here. I reckon it ain’t gonna take long to forget you and your sorry lot. How does that look from the perspective of a god?”
Sam tugged at him. “Michael, please.”
He heard the fear in her voice.
“What is it, babe?”
“Look around, Michael.”
“What? What am I missing?”
She kissed him. “You. Me. Him.”
Shit. He so lost himself in Sam’s embrace that he forgot how this began. He forgot his mission.
James crossed his arms as he stood.
“We began together,” the creature said. “We end together.”
Michael reached for his rifle.
“Oh, no, you bastard. No chance.” He glanced at the closed front door. “Two of us are walking out of here alive.”
“You already saw how the rifle doesn’t hurt me.”
“Yeah, that was pretty damn impressive. But I’m betting you got your limits. I unload both of these suckers into you, those Jewels won’t be able to keep up.”
“Possible. But you’ll never have the chance to find out.”
“Let’s see about that right now. Huh, James?”
The creature walked away as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“It has to end here, Michael. I explained this to Samantha. The three of us are impossible. We shouldn’t exist here.”
“Oh, I see. You’re sad you don’t get to play God anymore, but Sam and I will never die. Our love will literally last forever. So, you’re gonna take your ball and go home. About the size of it, big guy?”
The creature was silent as he returned to the cribs.
“They gave me everything, Michael. Now look at me. Even if I wanted to live, who would worship this?”
Michael turned to Sam. “Is this the kind of shit he was moaning about before I got here?”
“More or less.”
“You know what? This is some fucked up business right here. James, you are still the same whiny, self-loathing prick you were in Albion. There was a reason you could count your friends on two fingers. The whole school was not against you. Hell, half of them pitied you because of what you went through and might have been your friends, but you scared the shit out of them. You sulked, you made up weird fucking nicknames for them, you kept your head down whenever anybody tried to talk to you. They got to thinking you were a school shooter waiting to happen.
“And me? Dumbass that I am, I defended you. I said they didn’t know your heart. I said a dude couldn’t ask for a better friend. And I believed that shit. Hell, maybe we smoked too many joints together. I don’t know. The Jewels didn’t make you a god. They just gave you license to show off who you really are.”
The creature’s eyes turned orange.
“And who am I, Michael Cooper?”
“You’re a killer. You’re a monster. You gunned down your own sons, for God fucking sake!”
He moaned. “And what are you, Michael?”
It was the question Michael asked himself every day.
“Me? I’m a killer, too. The only way I was gonna take you down was to be like you. But I know what I am, and I know my heart. Sam is my heart. As long as I’m with her, I can find my way back to being a good man. James, you’re not gonna do this to us again.”
He let go of Sam and started toward the creature.
He holstered his rifle.
James pivoted toward Michael. No tears, no remorse, no soul.
Michael did not believe a word he said would make a difference. This creature was going to unleash a Berserker out of sheer spite. The Jewels glowed beneath his skin, just as they did in the amphitheater as he absorbed the energy of dozens of flash pegs.
“We began together,” James said. “We end together.”
The creature balled his fists. His eyes burned like the sun.
Michael stood close enough to smell his putrid breath. Michael flashed his right hand in a solitary maneuver.
The Lin’taava sword pushed into the creature’s chest, driving through its target until nothing but the hilt remain
ed visible.
“How fast can the Jewels eat steel, motherfucker?”
Michael locked on the eyes until their color dissipated, the sun fading into the night, and not even the pistils remained.
Blood dribbled from the creature’s mouth.
“It was always going to be you,” James said.
Michael backed away, leaving the sword embedded.
The creature dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
Michael turned. He and Sam stared in disbelief. Was it real? Was it over? He wasn’t going to press his luck. Michael lifted Sam into his arms and made for the door.
“I love you so much,” he said. “Goddamn, I love you so much.”
73
M ICHAEL WAS CARRYING SAM DOWN A LONG street in pursuit of medical help when the Jewels of Eternity arrived to finish the day’s business. Red gridlines filled the sky, covering the region under a dome. They dispensed thousands of flares which fell to the surface and did their job in seconds. They pulverized the bodies of Guard soldiers and hybrids.
They worked with remarkable efficiency, cleansing JaRa of its enemies in minutes. The flares retreated, the dome vanished, and all weapons fire ceased.
Michael shook his head. It was another in a ridiculous list of miraculous twists. He was also irritated.
“Imagine that shit,” he told Sam. “We do all the heavy lifting, then these clowns roll in for mop-up duty. Why wait so damn long?”
Sam grinned with that ‘you-have-to-ask?’ certainty.
“Yeah, OK, babe. I reckon they needed to know we were serious about wiping out all the hybrids, including the head asshole.”
“The older brother,” she said. “I think the J’Hai feared him right to the end.”
“Whatever it was, I just hope we’ve seen the last of them. They got their revenge. Imagine that shit? Sitting around for a million years stewing over a grudge? One thing I don’t understand is those towers. The Guard destroyed them. How did the Jewels …?”
“I don’t think they ever needed the towers, Michael. They were probably just giant props. The Jewels rebuilt this whole planet. Maybe they just have a thing for towers.”
“Me? I’ve had enough of towers. Nothing good ever happens around those suckers.”
One day, after peace was secured and the business of charting a new future was underway, they’d sit down and talk about their visions of the J’Hai. They’d wonder why the Jewels chose them as emissaries. There would be many conversations about the past five months, some of them painful but necessary. For now, Michael and Sam agreed, it was time to put talk of “why” and “how” to bed.
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 149
