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

what you sacrificed to cross the fold. She wants you to have the best start.”

The girl surprised him again. Michael felt like a jerk, but he couldn’t look at Sammie. Instead, he zeroed in on topic No. 1.

“Jamie’s got a mission, and it’s gonna take him… shit, a long way from Earth. I said I’d be with him. We both did. If we stay behind, and I’m Sammie’s hired dude, how am I supposed to live with that?”

Ophelia tapped her amp. The barrier fell along with the sound lock. She pointed inside the extravagant landing.

“Michael, you could live with it quite well. Solomons do. From what I have been told, James is in no danger. In fact, he appears to be in excellent condition. I don’t know what his mission is, but James is a human-Jewel hybrid, and we will fight dangerous battles over him and his kind. People will die. If you and Samantha give up this opportunity and join James on his mysterious mission, you will die. In days, a month, a standard year.” She opened the door. “His struggle does not have to be yours. You have an out, Michael. It is neither cowardly nor a betrayal. But it is a choice, and I will need yours before we leave.”

She left them alone. Michael’s emotions hit overdrive. He looked down and realized Sammie still held his hand.

He saw it in her eyes and in the crook of her smile.

This wasn’t even a choice.

27

The Interdimensional Fold, Ukraine

April 4, 1885

One standard day earlier

 

R AYNA TSUKANOVA CHARGED TOWARD THE MASSACRE on horseback, her rifle aimed. Five bodies lay ahead, three more several meters beyond, their horses scattered about the open pasture. To her west, the nuclear cloud roiled half-a-mile high like a vicious storm front, tinged brown by expelled Earth as lightning flickered orange and red. She paid no mind to her apocalyptic creation as she jumped from her horse, rifle extended, and examined the bodies. Rayna recognized five Doroshenkos and rejoiced, but triumph morphed into rage as she spotted the colors of her family on the three others.

Observers, all of them, but also friends and protectors. Two had pleaded with her to escape to the fold rather than rescue her father; the third broke his left leg and knew he’d be useless to Rayna. Yet you died anyway, Sasha. The man’s rifle lay at his side. I hope you killed a Doroshenko before the end.

Movements along the tree line shifted her aim in a flash. Before she recognized them, she heard a familiar voice.

“Rayna,” a man twice her age said in Russian. “You survived.”

Misha Tsukanov, her “cousin,” threw his arms open as he raced to Rayna. The tallest and blondest of the observers, Misha did the most to teach Rayna fighting techniques. Rayna’s rage fell as he approached.

As they hugged, he said, “The others doubted, but I told them our mission would not end in failure.” He looked past her. “Pyotr?”

“Dead. They slashed his neck. It was a trap, Misha. They also killed Arkadi and Galina.”

His brows furrowed. “I feared as much when we were ambushed. I should have been with you.”

“No. You would be dead. It was your place to defend the fold.”

“And a poor job I did of it.” He pointed to the dead Tsukanovs. “The Doroshenkos rode across the pasture, hailing us as friends. They were upon us before they reached for their weapons. Their first shot took Alina in the head. Before the others fired…”

Misha looked up to the nuclear cloud. “The explosion gave us a reprieve. The Doroshenkos panicked. Their horses threw them. In the chaos, we killed three, but they returned fire.” He looked down again. “Fedir and Yana fell.” He pointed to Yana. “I loved her, but she never knew. When she fell, I hesitated. Then they came.”

He pointed to a Chancellor in a tight yellow-and-white bodysuit. She was taller than Misha, but slender of build, her ebony hair pulled back to highlight well-sculpted features. The Chancellor carried a silver weapon fashioned like a glove over her right hand.

“She was one of three Chancellors who crossed the fold, concerned about our fate. The weapon is a thump gun. The blast leveled our enemy, but not before they shot two of her colleagues.”

“Are they dead?”

The Chancellor replied. “You have caused enormous disruption, Rayna. And this,” she pointed to the cloud. “An unacceptable use of your most powerful feature. We will discuss this later. For now, we are pressed for time, and we have enemies on the other side.”

Rayna raised her rifle. “You speak Engleshe. It is trash language.”

“But one you have been taught, and also the official language of the Chancellory. You are done playing Cossack. Time to rejoin the world you were bred for.”

Rayna uttered a curse in Russian. Mentor checked his pocket watch.

“I told you the Chancellory would not be pleased, my dearest. They expected compliance, and here you are curling this one’s patience. She’s right. Engleshe will be the only game in town.”

“Then I will teach them a new language.”

“I think not. Your observers learned fluent Russian in three hours using a program. Chancellors can master any language, but they never leave Engleshe. My suggestion, dearest: Drop the attitude. Just because you can make one of those,” he nodded toward the cloud, “does not mean they cannot kill you on a whim.”

Rayna spoke halting Engleshe. “I go back with you,” she told the Chancellor. “But I have condition. My name stays. I am Rayna Tsukanova. You will not give me fake Chancellor name.”

The Chancellor laughed. “Not fake, Rayna. Legal, actually. But I’m sure we can work with you. My name is Penelope Harkness. Our team—what’s left of them—will be eager to meet you. I gather from these events, you have had