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

Valentin always saw Marshall at the admiral’s side, a dutiful No. 2. Marshall allowed Perrone to do most of the talking, but Valentin recognized who did the heavy lifting. The major was the largest physical specimen Valentin ever saw among high command, his stature more imperious than Perrone. Yet, Valentin sensed why Marshall never rose to the admiralty despite twenty years of UG service. He wore an old battle scar along his right jaw – a deficiency easily removed. The popular perception among peacekeepers was that officers who kept their scars longed for the days when they took orders rather than doling them out.

“Gentlemen,” the major said. “They are alone. I trust you will follow the protocols we laid out?”

“We will do our best, sir,” Valentin said. “But my parents pose a special challenge. They are unique.”

Marshall smiled, his hands cupped behind his back.

“Aren’t we all, First Specialist?”

Valentin held back; the major wouldn’t care for his answer.

“You should know,” Marshall continued, “that although we have nullified their stream capabilities, we granted them access to their internal amp. We wanted them to wait in comfort.”

“Understood.” He turned to James, who stood abreast. “Internal amps allow them household functions, limited entertainment, meal requisition. No communications whatsoever.”

“Sure,” James said. “It’s like having the hard drive but no wi-fi.”

“I don’t recognize those terms, but I’ll assume it’s an apt analogy. Are you ready for this?”

James placed a hand on the door. “To meet my second parents, who were also my first, but threw me away in another universe and now want me dead? Seriously? I can’t wait to meet these bastards. Lead the way, brother.”

Valentin placed his hand over a glowing seal, and the door disappeared in a scurry of pixels. He steadied his nerves. He never felt this terrified on a battlefield.

46

J AMES SAW ENOUGH OF THE COMPOUND TO DECIDE his parents were well beyond redemption. These weren’t humans. They were vampires, and the human race was their feeding ground. As he entered the communal suite beside his brother, James searched his memory and recalled the only messages his parents ever sent him. Each came to him in the waning hours of his first life.

He blinked. “They sent me to my death,” he told Ignatius. “They tried to manipulate me into thinking they cared.”

Ignatius sat upon a white stump in a white forest.

“Perhaps they were acknowledging your inevitable fear in the final hours. Do not discount their humanity.”

“Why? Because they showed me video of this Earth? Because they showed a photo of the three of us on the day I was born? Ignatius, they ended each message the same way: ‘With Fondest Regards.’ Who speaks to their own child that way? Did they even craft those messages? Lydia could have been manipulating me.”

“All possible. But as your brother requested, hear them out. You will know if they bear even the slightest remorse.”

“And if they don’t? If they want me dead? What’s stopping me from killing them where they stand?”

“Shall we make a list?”

“I’m not interested in your sarcasm. When I return, you explain what this,” he pointed to the white forest, “is supposed to mean.”

He blinked. The communal suite was designed as a theater in the round but with four tiers. Sofas, staggered tables both oval and rectangular, bed-size pillows, and floating lamps decorated the tiers along with food and beverage kiosks. In the circular well, a black monolith glowed in the many colors of the spectrum.

Above it all, perhaps forty feet across, an open window to the world two miles above the surface dominated the suite. Small sheets of white clouds passed through, as if projected in three dimensions, and purple storm heads built in the distance. A flash of lightning. Seconds later, a hint of thunder.

“It’s a projection,” Valentin whispered. “But it is a live view from just outside.”

“And that?” He pointed to the monolith.

“UNIFAC. Unified Facilitator. Audio-visual, lighting, atmospheric controls, kiosk management, staff interface. Everything.”

“I saw that in a movie once. There were apes dancing around it.” They shared an awkward moment. “There’s room in here for hundreds of people. When do they …?”

“Five hundred. We moved my fourteenth birthday. Not big enough.”

“You know I’m not impressed. Right?”

“You shouldn’t be. They denied you this.”

A man’s voice arose from the lowest tier.

“If you intend to stand up there and whisper, we will not have a productive conversation.”

Valentin took the lead, walking to the edge of the upper tier, stopping at the height of the stairs.

“Most of my life has been whispered, Father. Why should this be any different?”

Emil Bouchet sat on a table-sized pillow, his legs extended and crossed. He faced away from his sons and appeared to be piecing together a holographic jigsaw puzzle. On the opposite side of the tier, Frances Bouchet removed a tray of cookies from a food kiosk and sorted through them with minimal interest. She sat them on a café table and picked up a book.

“Oh, Valentin,” his father replied. “Are you going straight for the dramatics? Your mother hates that side of you.”

“I think Mother hates everything about me, but I’m sure she will let you do all the hatemongering.”

Emil followed an audible sigh with, “There’s a nice white wine in the kiosk closest to you. Have it pour glasses for you and your brother. Then show your parents the courtesy of standing before us so we might have a proper conversation. Can you accomplish that, Valentin?”

James reached for his sidearm. “Has our father always been such a raging dick?”

“He has his moments. Do you …”

“I don’t want his damn wine. I’d probably be dead in five minutes.”

James took lead down the stairs and held his weapon, a short-pulse gun, at this side. He stamped into the well and aimed