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

sun rise over the open ocean as a warm Atlantic breeze ruffled them. Fifty meters below, at the base of the slope upon which the facility was built, waves pounded the seawall.

“I could stay here forever,” he said, “if I didn’t think somebody might shoot at me any time now.”

“It’s beautiful,” Sammie said. She admired the facility, built as a series of concentric hemispheres jutting from a rocky hillside. “Brey told me it was built eight hundred years ago, but it looks almost new. You would think the wind and salt would have worn it down.”

“Probably made of marosilicate,” he said with nonchalance.

Sammie gave him an eye that demanded an explanation.

“Oh, look at that,” Michael teased. “I know something you don’t. It was in my Tier 1 program. Architecture. It’s a superpowered bonding material. They used it on their first spaceships. Then near about everything else. Totally climate resistant.”

She nodded. “That explains what Daddy meant. He once said when the Chancellors build something, it stands for centuries, never growing old. I thought he was using a metaphor.”

    “Metaphors.” Michael groaned. “That’s when Language Arts went downhill for me.”

She laughed. “No. You lost out on Language Arts when you stopped reading and decided life was about bingeing videos.”

He didn’t argue, but he appreciated the momentary distraction. He forgot they were assigned to this platform along with one mercenary. The woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties—although Michael stopped making assumptions since meeting peacekeepers—took a seat at a café-style table along the promenade. She retrieved a beverage and fruit dish from a mobile serving kiosk to fit in amid the residents who might venture out for their morning meal.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Patricia told them when they received their assignment. “Don’t behave suspiciously. You are aides on a scientific mission. For now, you’re just acquainting yourselves with the facility.”

“And if we suspect trouble?” Sammie asked.

Patricia pointed to the mercenary, Sergeant Linton. “Give her this sign.” The Chief scratched twice beneath her right eye. “Otherwise, take no action. We cannot afford to stir a disruption.”

Sammie frowned. She must have hated being relegated to a supporting role. She was the destroyer of helicopters and a trained, stone-cold assassin. But proper Chancellors didn’t do the dirty work of their soldiers, and Ophelia needed Sammie for her family’s money, not to fight a civil war. Like Michael, she had unfastened her side pouch for quick access to her gun.

“You’re not buying this setup, either,” he told her on the platform.

She shook her head. “You remember the last time we were together at sunrise? With Jamie?”

How could he forget? A swim in Lake Vernon to wash off the bloodstains from two bullet wounds in the back. Still processing how his best friend healed him with a touch. A moment of peace. A moment of hope. And then the helicopter raining bullets.

“Running down that beach,” he said, “I wasn’t even sure I was alive. Thought I’d died and gone to hell. Made a shitload more sense.”

She nodded to Michael, and they faced the sea. She closed in.

“The Chief is an experienced UG officer, but I think her tactics are flawed. She’s spreading us too thin. We have people positioned on four levels. She thinks we’re covering our bases, but I think we’re leaving the landing port vulnerable.”

She nodded east, along the rocky shore. The multi-tiered transport center was a hundred meters distant, connected to the main facility by a pedestrian bridge. Their own shuttle was visible inside the open-air building, parked in a slot two tiers from the top.

“We docked in a full landing bay. That means the other Jewel’s shuttle will come in above or below. We need to have a defensive position when the shuttle arrives, not be over here playing lookout.”

Michael hummed. “I thought she sold that part well. Spread us out, make the enemy not realize who we are, if they’re here at all. When the Jewel arrives, we close the net, make the transfer. Easy peasy. Makes sense, unless the Chief has her own plans.”

Sammie bowed her head. “Come on, Michael. She’s not a traitor.”

“Well, somebody is. Remind me again. Where are Brey and Rikard?”

“Level 2, with a pair of mercs.”

“Cool. So, if one of them is the two-face, he can’t do anything without a bunch of eyes on him. And the Chief?”

“Mobile. That’s all I know.”

“In other words, she could be anywhere. And their amps are working again?”

“Yes, but she ordered them into circastream mode. They’re only connected to each other.”

He bowed his head. “Hold the phone, Sammie. Ain’t that the mistake Ophelia made back at the fold? She thought she knew everybody connected to her, but turns out, some smartass brought in Perrone, too.” When she nodded, he finished. “Sorry, Sammie, but I can’t stand by and wait for this thing to go sideways.”

“What are you saying, Michael?”

He gave her the high-sign, a scratch below his eye. “Hang loose.”

Time to act, dumbass, he told himself as he straightened his bodysuit and made a beeline for Sergeant Linton. In another context, he would have been fascinated with her beauty. Hazel eyes, wide and Nordic. Moonlight blond hair pulled into a bun. Graceful pose, eating fruit with a refined etiquette. But it was a con. She was a soldier on the big stage, ready to obliterate the enemy.

He pulled up a chair and joined her. Linton never made eye contact as she sipped a pink fruit beverage.

“I get it,” he told her. “Don’t wanna make like we know each other. So, you go on and eat your grapefruit. I’ll talk.” She hesitated, but just when Michael thought she’d rip him a new one, Linton set down her beverage and stabbed at another piece of citrus.

“I reckon you got peacekeeper smarts in you, which means you figure this scheme has