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

Even their burial place was remade during terraforming. I’ve forgotten their faces because I can’t look at them anymore. I will say their names tomorrow, out there.” He pointed to the lake. “The last breath I take before I go under. An old man, dying alone. A pitiful exit, but the one I earned.”

He ate the last of his fish and threw the bones into the fire. James studied this broken creature, looking for clues to a larger purpose, some reason for the obvious manipulation. After a long, awkward silence, James chose his next words carefully.

“I see what this is,” he said. “We’ve been brought together so I can learn from your mistakes. You are an object lesson. The Jewels want me to learn from you, so I don’t make the same errors.”

Hadeed nodded. “That’s your assessment, is it?”

“Do you deny it?”

“I didn’t walk this planet four times and face the guilt of my atrocities in order to sit here and tell you to play nice or else your boys will die. No, James. Again, you miss the point. Delusional, insecure, and desperately stubborn.” He broke stride with a laugh. “Sounds like me in the old days. No, James. You are going to die soon. There’s no path where you survive what’s to come. It will be a death well deserved, just like mine.”

“Impossible. You already said you can’t see the future.”

“Not how you’re going to die. No. Although I must say, the notion of who seems increasingly probable. Too many paths are converging exactly as the Jewels projected – even before you were born.”

“Bullshit. The Jewels preordained my rise. If not for me, there’d be no one here to occupy their new paradise. I’ve seen the coming of the Divine State. I’ve seen thousands of years beyond my own life. I am going nowhere for a very long time.”

Hadeed sighed. “Spoken like a true megalomaniac. James, contrary to what you allow yourself to believe, the Jewels are neither allies nor enemies. They don’t care how we’ve gotten here, only that their Algorithm of Causality proved accurate. Their only vested interest is in their predictive math. The entire construct is based upon triggers, resultant free will, and observation. Think carefully, James.

“The future is a product of infinite variables. The only way to assess its potential is to develop a control group. In the case of the human race, you need to find individuals of such strong, indomitable will that no force can get in their way. Think Johannes Ericsson. Think Chancellory. Elevation Philosophy. Competing forces swept aside. Free will exists only in the indomitable. Paths are narrowed.

“From time to time, the algorithm needs refinement. New triggers are introduced to steer new outcomes. The possibility of the outcome is not guaranteed because the indomitable can choose to change their minds at any point. But humans, when highly motivated, are not likely to alter course. If anything, they will guarantee the desired outcome.”

James sensed where this argument was headed, and every instinct told him to walk away. Yet he felt compelled to sit and listen.

“Your point, Hadeed?”

“The Fall of the Chancellory was inevitable. One part of Ericsson’s line of descendants knew of it for centuries, even carried The Father in their blood. Passed it down to their sons and daughters. The time, place, and form, the names of the actors on stage … these were the great unknowns. However, the final members of his line did their duty to introduce the final triggers. Three times, a man named Ephraim Hollander entered my life while I was a child. He showed me the true nature of the Chancellory. Then he killed my gene-father and butchered the only woman I ever loved. He set me on my way.

“The other trigger was his own son. He turned Ilya Hollander against the Collectorate. And Ilya, as the last Ericsson descendant to live with The Father in his blood, delivered the crucible that brought an end to this world and brontinium. Which set the stage for the new chapter. Which is where you come in, Brother James.”

“No.” James remained defiant. “We are not connected.”

“Aren’t we? Ilya Hollander appears as Ignatius Horne to be my defense counsel. He sacrifices his life for me. Another Chancellor takes the same name and lives with you in a small town and sacrifices himself protecting you at your most desperate hour. Then he returns as an avatar of the Jewels to guide you into becoming what you were designed to be, knowing full well you will destroy him when you reach your potential. He is a crucial trigger in both our stories. There’s something else you don’t know, James. A piece of your old life buried so deep the truth eluded you. Even now, as a god, you don’t see it.”

“See what?”

“Deputy Ignatius Horne murdered the people you thought were your parents. He slaughtered Tom and Marlena Sheridan to protect your brother Ben, the only one who knew the secret to saving you. Without that trigger, without your grief and rage, the Jewels might never have known what you’d become. And you would have died three years ago.

“You were tested. You passed. And here we are. All paths at last are intersecting.”

Hadeed gathered the plates together. For the first time since his final day in Alabama, James felt a soul-crushing sense of defeat. He recounted the events of Tom and Marlena Sheridan’s deaths, his sudden rage thereafter, and Ben’s steady downward slide over the following two years. He must have known.

“You’re saying we’ve been pawns,” James muttered before raising his pitch. “I am no one’s fucking pawn!”

“No, no, not at all. Pawns? Those are poor cuds who play their tiny part and vanish from the action. We’ve been far more important than pawns. We shifted the course of history, you and I. Pawns? No. We blazed paths of death