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

“If you wanted to shove us out the door, I reckon you done a damn good job.”

“I just want you both to be safe. You can make a life here. You’re already doing so well. Ophelia has contacts. She can make…”

“It was going to be the three of us,” Sammie said, clearing her tears. “We knew the odds were against us from the start. If we died together, at least we’d go down fighting.”

“No. It was never the three of us. It was only me. My path was always gonna be different. I just didn’t admit it.” He swiveled his seat and stood, ready for this to end.

“Guys, I’m not even human anymore. I don’t know how many humans I’ll kill before I die. But the rest of my journey is about me, Rayna, the other Jewels, and my brother. This much is certain. If you went with me, you’d die before I could save you. Then I’d just be angrier and kill even more people.

“You have each other. Start a life here. No one will come after you, Coop. I promise. Sammie, you’re wealthy. Do this. For me?”

He didn’t need a response to know he defeated them. Their defiance washed away, their faith in him dissipating. He saw which way this would go, and his heart broke of necessity.

He started for the cloak. “Take a minute to get it together,” he told them. “Perrone and Ophelia need you to be certain.”

“You mentioned your brother,” Sammie said, her voice meek. “Will he stand by you the way we have?”

“He will. We didn’t know about each other until three days ago; but now, it’s like we’ve known each other our whole lives. He’s my blood. First real family I’ve ever had. He’ll be with me to the end.”

When neither said a word, James passed through the cloak.

He refused to look back.

43

Hinton Transport Station

Philadelphia Redux, NAC

 

T HE MOMENT OF SAMMIE’S DREAMS ARRIVED, but she was in no mood to appreciate it. She and Michael stepped off the Scramjet onto one of hundreds of tiered landing platforms at the largest transportation hub on Earth. They arrived in the military sector, where shuttles, Scramjets, Uplift carriers, and interplanetary cruisers came and went in a dazzling symphony. It was the place where every new peacekeeper on the western continents arrived for departure into UG service off-world. It was, in so many ways, a monument of the Chancellory’s enduring legacy. As Sammie took in the visual spectacle, she focused on a future now lost in a fogbank.

Michael, however, tried to bring perspective to the moment.

“Holy Mary and Jesus. If this was a summer flick, I’d be like, ‘That’s some wicked CGI.’ But this? I can hear it. I can smell it. I can feel the heat. It’s like I’m living inside my dreams.”

She whispered, “I know,” and said nothing more about the future she’d never have.

Sammie wasn’t sure how she miscalculated so horribly. She remembered Jamie a week ago – moody, wandering, a lost boy always on the verge of tears, but someone she loved. She felt pity for what he’d lost and what fate would yet take from him, but she had planned to be there. A source of solace at the darkest hour. A fresh face when he was reborn into a compliant hybrid. A loyal friend to help him chart the future of Chancellors, even as she fought indigos on the colonies.

Then he threw her away. Not a hug, a kiss, a regret. Just, ‘See ya. I’ve got a real family now.’ She wanted to hate him.

Neither James nor his new brother said a word to Michael and Sammie during the final thirty minutes of the flight. Rather, they huddled at various times with Rayna or the admiral. The brothers entered the ReCon tubes and changed into a more rugged, dark green ensemble equipped with side-weapons. James pulled Rayna aside and showed the basics of his new toys. She smiled with relish but insisted on a pouch for her curved Cossack blade. If his mission was a clean, cold cut from the past, he succeeded.

After a minute viewing the Hinton Station theater, Sammie looked back, hoping to find him standing outside the ship, prepping for a formal farewell. No such luck. Instead, she saw Ophelia finger a cube and toss it to Dr. Talan Langdon, one of the team members ordered to disembark here. Ophelia designated Langdon as her proxy before the Reclamation and Descendency Sanctum, which would approve Sammie’s inheritance to the Pynn family fortune. Sammie was about to become a rich woman, but at the moment owned nothing more than the borrowed clothes on her back.

“He’s moving on,” Michael said. “Goodbye ain’t his thing.”

He wrapped an arm around her. Sammie wiped away the tears he must have noticed but stayed in Michael’s embrace. She always envisioned Jamie Sheridan’s skinny arms warming her body and following with a long, sweetened kiss.

“You heard him,” he told her. “James said we can build a life here. Maybe he’s nuts, or maybe he knows what’s coming. Either way, he ain’t the guy we grew up with. This new man, he’s walking straight into some deep, dark shit. I think maybe he’s right: This ain’t our fight.”

“So, we just give up?”

Michael chuckled. “Hell, no. C’mon, Sammie. Look at all this. You kidding me? We got a shot at being born again. Get my speed?”

“You’re right. We’re as helpless as newborns. No jobs, no skills. Michael, I’ll be sixteen next month. That’s two years as an adult on this Earth. I always thought I’d be ready, but my parents … ”

“They’d ease you into things. No sweat. I figure if we got each other’s back, and if Ophelia survives whatever the hell she’s about to do, and you get hold of your inheritance …”

Sammie’s