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

“Please, Michael. You’re the love of my life, but I’m not blind. And I have contacts. You’ve been more deeply involved in the equity movement than you’ve let on. Right?”

He felt like a kid caught with a cookie in each hand. He wasn’t going to betray what they had.

“Yeah. Um. I’ve been an agent for them. Trained.”

“Trained in what?”

“I … I’ve killed people. Look, Sam, it’s just that …”

She cut him off. “How many did you kill at Entilles?”

“Three.”

“And they all had to die?”

“It was me or them. Only way I come out alive.”

She poured another glass and sipped. “Good.”

“Just … good?”

“Michael, the only thing I hated was you not telling me. I suspected, but I also understood why. Sweetie, you’re a stronger man than you were two years ago. I’m glad you’re killing our enemies. The only way you and I survive and grow old together is to fight. And sometimes, that means people die.”

“I wish I could’ve talked to you, but I just got in so deep. I don’t regret any of it. Not a single one of them fuckers.”

“Are you sure? Is that why you drink so much?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I just …”

“It’s OK. It’s not like I don’t walk around with a perpetual buzz. Our lives don’t make sense. Look at this place. Are you kidding me? We should be on the top of the world.”

“Sometimes, I think I’m gonna wake up in my bed in Albion. Sam, I didn’t tell you because I figured you’d think less of me.”

“No. My Daddy trained me to kill when I was young because he knew I had to be ruthless to survive here. All this,” she pointed in every direction across the estate, “made me soft. Made me think I could use my wealth and allies to solve my problems. But you took action. I’m proud of you. Daddy used to say, ‘Don’t wait to kill your enemy until after all else fails because by then, you’ll be dead.’ It took James about a day to understand that lesson, and he hasn’t let up. Neither should we.”

Her bloodthirsty tone shocked Michael. This was the GI Jane he saw bring down a helicopter with an M16 and blow away an armed mercenary rather than negotiate.

“Listen, babe, I got no problem taking out my enemy. Ever. But I can’t be like him. I’m never gonna be a killer.”

“No, you won’t be. You have too big a heart. But all this,” she glanced again at the estate, “won’t mean anything until we finish our business – here and out there. It’s time to fight.”

“Sounds like a plan. The soldiering life for Michael and Sam.”

They shared a long, quiet kiss, and Michael dreamed of the bed in the master suite. Patience, dude. Patience.

He lost the mood two hours later when Finnegan Moss joined them for dinner and delivered terrifying news.

 

15

E VERY EXPERT AGREES,” FINNEGAN SAID halfway through the entree. “The terrorist escape ship arrived at Vasily by wormhole. The spatial distortion you witnessed, Sam, is identical to the field created when a ship leaves the Fulcrum through a local Nexus. The consensus opinion: Bouchet’s group can program and navigate wormholes on demand. In theory, they can arrive anywhere, anytime, with no way to detect them in advance.”

Nothing on the table appeared appetizing after his news. The four of them – Finnegan brought along his Chief of Staff – sat in silence until the first wave of shock dissolved.

“OK, it’s like this,” Michael said, holding Sam’s hand. “I ain’t a science guy. That Tier 2 education – all the business about relativity, quantum mechanics, you name it – I get headaches trying to sort through it. But I’ve seen enough Star Trek to know what you just said is a royal no-go. You can’t just design a wormhole.”

Finnegan grimaced. “What is Star Trek?”

“TV, dude. I was making a joke. Remember, I’m a bad comic. Seriously, how is what you’re saying even possible?”

“It shouldn’t be. In a thousand years of trying, the Chancellory has never been able to manufacture a stable wormhole, let alone one with a malleable path. We’ve always failed when trying to establish a transverse field. In simple terms, the exit window.”

“How do you know so much about this subject?” Sam asked.

“During my first Guard tour, I became fascinated with Fulcrum history. Here was this network of wormholes – clearly constructed by an intelligence far beyond our own – connecting forty systems, each with at least one habitable planet. Virgin worlds, all of them. No evidence of a previous civilization. As if they were waiting for us. We spent more than a century learning how to navigate the Fulcrum, install transit beacons, and explore the systems at each Nexus point. The colonial migration began a few generations later.”

Sam knew little of this history, but she had a horrible feeling the answers she dreaded were fast approaching.

“Has anyone theorized about who built the Fulcrum?”

“Nothing for the official record. Only in the last few decades, since we discovered the Jewels of Eternity, have there been any sound theories. None for public disclosure, of course. The most prominent: Whatever race created the Jewels, likely built the Fulcrum. The radiation signatures in the Jewel bonding syntax are similar to the natural radiation inside the wormholes.”

She didn’t want to hear it, but everything made sense.

“Is it possible the Jewels hold the knowledge of their creators?”

Finnegan flexed a brow in recognition. “More likely than not.”

“So, if a hybrid were to absorb all his Jewel’s intelligence …?”

“Whoa, babe,” Michael tapped a fork against his plate. “I’m barely keeping up, but I see where you’re headed. No. No way.” He turned to their guests. “Two years ago, Jamie Sheridan was skateboarding through a shithole town