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

seriously, he’s a good guy and I love him. You’ll have a great time together.”

Rosalyn dimmed her smile. “Is there any news about our parents?”

Sam didn’t break stride. “No, sweetie. I wish there was. James Bouchet is very hard to find, but we are looking. Thousands of people are looking. We’ll save your parents. I promise.”

Michael was impressed. Sam showed her best Chancellor face: A naked lie delivered with a reassuring smile.

“They’re going to hate you when they know the truth,” he told Sam a day after the kids arrived.

“Yes, they will,” she said before dropping the subject.

Michael tried to talk her out of this move, insisting the children were not their responsibility and she was housing them out of guilt. She agreed but had no intention of changing her mind.

“And what happens when they’re officially orphans?” He asked. “They can’t go back to G’hladi. You’re not thinking about adoption.”

“No. Their descendancy is bound to have distant relatives on Earth or another Carrier. We contact the necessary agencies.”

He saw a familiar crease form above her brow, suggesting she didn’t believe her own words.

Soon after Sam left for the GPM in her personal Scram, Michael plunged into the role of babysitter. He wasn’t much into planting anything, so he had a novel suggestion.

“Ice cream. How about ice cream out on the veranda? Cool?”

Rosalyn crinkled her lips, insisting she was fine in the observatory, but Brayllen was all for it.

“Cool. You can teach me more words like nutsacks.”

Michael smiled, but he wanted a drink.

20

Intercollectorate Presidium of the Unification Guard

Great Plains Metroplex, NAC

 

S AM ENTERED BATTLE ONE-HANDED. The first three times she visited the cavernous, opulent GPM, Pat was her tour guide. Pat introduced her to vital contacts, whispered in her ear when Sam needed encouragement, and made sure to arrange policy documents and intel in Sam’s admin stack for easy retrieval. They built a system, found a chemistry which guaranteed Sam would never look like the biggest fool in the room. Communicating with these people through holocube was simple enough; breathing the same air was a game meant for steel spines.

They assembled on Level 25, a conference room with a long, rectangular table looking out onto a spectacular view of the Atrium Aeterna, which sparkled with the forged crystals of every Collectorate world as it scaled the building’s height. Drifting holocards indicated each guest’s seat. Wines, liquors and a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, and hors d'oeuvres lined either side of the room.

Sam gravitated toward her closest allies: Ezekiel Mollett and Lucinda Blanche of the Pynn-established Americus Presidium; Evan Augustine of the Vancouver Presidium; and Malcolm Rainier of the Coronado Presidium. While she knew many others, none seemed to appreciate Sam like these four. Lucinda and Evan were each eighty-two, holding outward trappings of old-world Chancellory prestige but new-world views. Malcolm and Ezekiel were only a few years older than Sam. All five allies shared a common thread: Loss.

Lucinda lost both her daughters in SkyTower, while Evan’s oldest son was a rare peacekeeper combat fatality many years ago. Both younger men inherited leadership of their descendancies when their parents vanished. Malcolm’s disappeared over the Pacific when their Scram exploded in a presumed assassination. Ezekiel and Sam shared a close tie: His parents never returned from the disastrous mission to protect Jewel hybrid Rayna Tsukanova on another Earth’s Ukraine.

The conference table sat fifty comfortably, and no chair would be empty today. Representatives arrived from all over the world – a broad mix of Presidium leadership and second-tier proxies along with three members of the UG’s Admiralty.

“I heard Celia Marsche might be attending,” Sam told her group, closely huddled as they drank wine.

Lucinda wagged her forefinger. “I heard the same outrageous rumor. No truth, I’m afraid. I strolled the room to survey the holocards. Unless she’s arriving under assumed name … knowing that disgusting woman, she probably turned them down when she wasn’t guaranteed a spot at the head of the table.”

Evan laughed. “I met Celia decades ago at a symposium in Oslo. She was second-generation in her descendancy, not even the oldest child. But I needed ten minutes with the woman to know she’d remedy those impediments in short order.”

“So, you believe the rumors?” Lucinda asked.

“No one reaches her status on the backs of living humans.”

“Now see, that’s what we have to change.” Malcolm, a former peacekeeper severely downsized after recursion therapy, spilled drops of wine as he became animated. “This murderous arrogance will be the death of us all. We’ve been living on the productivity of indigos and Solomons for so long, we think of it as our eternal right.” He faced Sam. “You said something in our circastream last week – a word I’d never heard before. Leech. I forgot the exact context of the word, but you described a leech as a tiny creature on your first Earth that attaches itself to people and draws blood. I haven’t gotten it out of my mind. The Chancellory, we’re like leeches. When Hiebimini fell, we lost our number one source of blood. When the last reserves of the extract are consumed, what then? We’re not doing anything to prepare, and this bloody damn arrogance is leading us nowhere but to an early fire.”

The first time Sam heard the term “early fire,” it mystified her. Pat clued her in: It referenced incineration – the only way Chancellors dealt with corpses. Graveyards littered the colonies, but only the tombstones uncovered by pre-history archeologists existed on Earth.

“You should speak today, Malcolm,” she said. “There are going to be hardliners here. They need to hear you.”

“Indeed,” Lucinda said, and the five clinked their glasses. “I must say, Samantha, I am surprised our new ally is not here. Finnegan Moss. I would have expected …”

“Finnegan and I agreed we already have enough representation