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

to his tally during this morning’s incursion, which ended faster than the nearly tragic battle two days earlier. As he remote-directed the drone scoopers to the dead Mongols, Michael took small solace. The cleanup was moving along swiftly; less than two dozen corpses to collect. He needed to be done an hour ago. Today was too important. Today was everything.

First Lt. Percy Muldoon provided levity as Michael’s duty partner. He carried a load of Lin’taava swords lifted off the bodies.

“Cooper, I know you got a bug up your butt about the Anchor test, but you’re staring down a win-win proposition, my friend.”

Michael raced his fingers through a holocube, bringing a clamp down upon a Mongol whose head no longer existed.

“How do you figure, Muldoon?”

“If the Anchor works, we toast over some jube. If it don’t, you’re going to be feeling like a damn stud anyway. I saw how Col. Broadman focused her laser beams on you before the crack of dawn. She’s going to have your meat, one way or the other.”

Michael didn’t try to dispute it.

“Jealous, Muldoon?”

“Cud, yes. I’ve been trying to spark Broadman for weeks. Not a damn bite. Shit, Cooper. I figured maybe I wasn’t her type. But all the scuttlebutt says she don’t have a type. And if she’s gonna let you shove your black driver into her glory cave, then what the serious fuck is wrong with me?”

Michael liked Percy. They made a good team. They saved each other’s life on more than one occasion. Outside of Maya Fontaine, Percy was Michael’s best friend in the station. But Percy was, in the end, as condescending and xenophobic as most other Chancellors he’d known. Exhausted by it all, Michael rarely showed his justifiable indignation at these people anymore. On first Earth, he might have come out swinging – literally – but now he had far bigger concerns. Best to keep Percy on his side. Plus, Michael drew a measure of satisfaction in hearing much of his Southern slang, vulgarity, and colloquialisms popping up in the soldiers he served alongside.

“What can I say, Muldoon?” He raised a fist toward the sky. “Black power.”

“What’s that? Some kind of magic?”

“Thought you people didn’t believe in magic, unless it came out the smart end of a blast rifle.”

“Yeah, well, been rethinking that whole concept. Saw some stream vids of what your old buddy James Bouchet can do with a touch. If that ain’t magic, Cooper, whatcha gonna call it?”

Michael sighed. “Don’t know. Don’t care. If you want to find out, better get to him before I do.”

“Yeah, yeah. The invasion force will send you in first to cut off the head and leave mop-up for us.” Percy dropped the sword collection into a drone-powered mobile furnace. “You got to admit, Cooper. If we could harness that asshole’s magic sauce, we could solve a lot of problems. And I’m not just talking Chancellors. Every colony has issues, especially with the food supply chain. Shitload of indigos think he’ll solve it all.”

Michael didn’t want to slow the body disposal process, but he felt a familiar impatience whenever anyone suggested James might become a useful resource. He never forgot the last conversation with James and Samantha. Onboard a Scramjet leaving the Isle of Seneca, James made clear why he had to move forward on his own:

“I am a killer,” he said. “It’s part of who I am now. It feels natural. It’s this hunger. What you saw on the island … that last man without his weapon? I stood over him and I aimed my rifle at his head, and I felt like a giant. I enjoyed it. I wanted more. I still do. I always will.”

Everything Michael heard or saw since proved James’s savagery. He pivoted to Percy.

“Trust me, Muldoon, he can’t solve all their problems. Even if he could, he wouldn’t try. Dudes like him put on a show because they know most people are stupid as fuck. You win them over with shiny things and magic tricks. We had these TV shows on first Earth called infomercials. Thirty minutes advertising some gadget or makeup or weight-loss vitamin that was gonna change your goddamn life. Couple of smooth talkers on stage. Usually some washed-up actor who couldn’t find a job doing nothing else. And the audience? Lobotomized halfwits smiling like four-year-olds waiting for a bowl of ice cream. Trust me, Muldoon. Whatever James is selling won’t produce anything on the back end but blood.”

Percy offered a thumbs-up. “I don’t understand half your references, Cooper, but I’m sure you make perfect sense. I hope you get your wish to blow away that cudfrucker.”

“Me, too,” Michael whispered and continued his work.

An hour later, that hope stood on a knife’s edge as he waited in the Level 1 research facility for the first live test of the Anchor system. He arrived fresh from disposal duty, seconds before the scientific team, led by Frances Bouchet, briefed observers on the procedure. He reported to his commanding officer, Maj. Aiden Nilsson, and shared a hopeful nod with Maya, who observed from a distance beside her boss, Cm. Aldo Cabrise.

The facility – Michael thought the official designation “laboratory” was an understatement – defied the claustrophobic limitations of the top two levels of the station. Originally a massive cavern fifty meters long and half as wide, the laboratory was brightly lit, its glow radiating a surprising intensity for anyone who hadn’t been outside to experience sunlight in a while. In other words, most of the staff. At the rear, a series of black globular machines interconnected by huge conduits housed the energy drawn directly from the Void. Crates of equipment, brought in periodically by Scramjet, lined the walls on one side. In the center, three islands of light tables displayed holowindows, each a transmission from the sites targeted for today’s test. But all eyes, Michael’s especially,