The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📕

James wrapped his hands around Valentin’s neck and squeezed with an unbridled fury. A hunger to fuel the dark. Another day to survive.

But Valentin did not surrender so easily. Calling upon kwin-sho techniques, Valentin twisted his legs around James’s torso and flipped his brother. They rolled. Jamie lost his grip on the neck.

Amid the grunts of fighters battling on a leveled field, Perrone’s voice commanded the chamber.

“Round 2.”

Metal clanked against the floor, feet from the struggle. Valentin broke away first, wheeling about until he grabbed a 10-inch-long, curved blade that gleamed in the spotlight. James sensed the other knife lay just beyond his reach. He angled to Ignatius, who nodded.

“I should have known. Perrone expected the change. He knew you would survive. When this is done, demand answers. But first …”

“He’s already dead,” James said. “I wish I’d gotten to know him.”

Regrets did not interfere with the moment. James allowed the Jewel to show him the geometry of the chamber, to diagram distance, velocity, and maneuverability. He saw the endgame before Valentin took the first step forward, his knife gripped at shoulder level and ready to plunge. Jamie flipped, grabbed the blade, rolled again, and tossed the knife underhanded. He listened to its whisper and followed its upward trajectory. Valentin moved to defend, but the throw was lightning-fast, the blade true to its target.

Valentin gurgled as the knife pierced his larynx and sliced through his neck. Only the hilt remained visible as blood poured from the wound. Valentin dropped his own blade and flailed at the merchant of his death, his eyes locked on James in stupefied wonder.

James saw unexpected beauty in his dying brother. He remembered all those who ever mocked him or beat him, all the bastards he once called friends who tried to kill him. In Valentin’s blood he saw their blood.

In this moment of victory, he no longer cared about his humanity. The dark told him to relish the vision, to go forth and seek more and better, to teach all of them a new and painful truth.

He stood eye-to-eye with Valentin when he grabbed the hilt and pulled out the knife. Blood spurted from the wound, and Valentin coughed blood on James while drowning in it.

“You’re the abomination,” James whispered as Valentin collapsed and died. “All you people are.”

The crumpled corpse struck James as a diminished version of the monster he met outside the interdimensional fold. Human. Fragile and ordinary. Valentin’s glassy eyes, which stared into a void, no longer betrayed the boy’s age. For the first time, he looked like someone Jamie Sheridan might have known at Albion High School.

When he turned to face the other peacekeepers, they took several steps away, both reaching for sidearms. I could do you now, he thought. One hand for each of you. I’ll watch you burn.

He didn’t advance because he didn’t need to. The door from which they first entered slid open, and Perrone’s giant frame entered. He ordered the soldiers to lower their weapons and stopped just beyond James’s reach. The general smiled.

“I doubt you can grasp what you have accomplished today, James. All those theories about blending the Jewel with Chancellor DNA … I considered the lot of them mad. Even my late wife. But they were right about all of it. Look at you.”

James did not take his eyes off the general, who tapped his stream amp. You’re gonna tell me everything, you bastard. Perrone raced fingers through a holocube then tossed a three-dimensional rectangle in front of James. It morphed into a full-length mirror.

He was a different man, unrecognizable. His brother’s blood stained his chest and stomach like grotesque tattoos, but he looked past and through the blood to the monster who filled the mirror.

Taller, wider, harder. As big and as mountainous as Valentin before the fall. A terminator. A Schwarzenegger. And just beneath his steeled features, traveling islands glowed a soft blue. Still repairing the damage, still growing, still building toward an uncertain end.

Perrone swiped away the mirror.

“Needless to say, you and I have much to discuss. But first, how about we clean you up? Some evening clothes, perhaps. And then … dinner. I have a suspicion you are starving.”

17

New Stockholm City

North American Consortium

M ICHAEL COOPER CONVINCED HIMSELF the past thirty-six hours were an elaborate dream. Then someone slapped him awake.

He was attached to the still-seat that carried him to a deep sleep.

“Flex your fists and push away,” the pilot Rikard insisted.

“Dude. What the hell? Feel like I’ve been asleep for a week. What’s going on?”

“We are here,” Rikard said, a frown framing his words. “You have only been out for two hours. The still-seats have that effect.”

“Where’s everybody else? Where’s Sammie?”

The ship was empty save for Brey working at the forward deck.

“Making plans to keep us alive. At least, that appears the idea. Chancellors tell people like us what we need to know. Never more. The girl left with Tomelin and the Chief. Said you needed to sleep.”

Michael stepped away from the still-seat refreshed.

“What you mean, ‘people like us.’?”

Rikard rolled his eyes. “Fresh out of the cradle, aren’t you? This will be a difficult ride, Michael.” He sighed. “By us, I mean anyone who is not one of them. A Chancellor. Not me, not you.” He glanced toward Brey, whose back was turned, then leaned in to Michael.

“Dr. Tomelin says she’s going to do everything to protect you, but you need to be careful. We have a simple hierarchy: The Chancellors and the Solomons.” He pointed to the triple-crest logo on his shirt. “They pay us well for our skills but make no mistake: We exist at their pleasure. It’s bad enough you’re proto-African. If their plans take a wrong turn, they will see you as