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

and circumstance will reveal themselves. The exactitudes of strategy will be understood through patience and endeavor.”

“Is this what the algorithm shows you?”

“It shows us the final steps not yet taken.”

“Final steps before what?”

“Before all paths intersect.”

“Show me those paths.”

“Not everything can be your province, James. The future is the collective masterpiece of trillions of individual choices. You must allow the others to proceed according to their will.”

“But I am meant to be their God. You showed me this. You promised me this.”

“Did we?”

Their tone stunned him in that moment, but James decided they were testing him. Of course, they promised. From the moment he rose up and first killed his brother; to the moment he experienced the beauty of unleashing his Berserker on those who designed him; to every moment where he blew fiery death from his lips or raised bountiful harvests from his fingers.

“You promised. You showed me the path.”

“To this paradise. Yes. But all paths have yet to intersect.”

“What will happen when they do? I demand to know.”

“Clarity. Calamity. Certainty.”

“Explain what you mean.”

“You already know the answers, but they will not reveal themselves until the moment demands them.”

“Why?”

“Because your actions might then endanger the intersection and by extension, the fate of this world. The dark may yet drown them all.”

“I deserve to know everything.”

“What you deserve are the consequences of your choices. This is the true nature of causality. Embrace this world, James. Examine all around you with great care. Walk the forest and hear the messages of those long gone, of those who are damned, and those who are unfinished. Their voices will speak out as the paths converge.”

After that day, the Jewels called out to him as distant and incoherent echoes. He kept an internal eye on the white forest, deciding early on that the “message of those long gone” must be Ignatius Horne. Before the truth arrived in the form of the planet’s last surviving Hiebim, other answers landed at appropriate times, as predicted. Some political, some economic, some technological.

They told him when to open negotiations with the Chancellory and this would be Samantha’s purpose. As he prepared for her return and decided whether to kill her publicly, the next answer turned his eye to the new city. Samantha was meant to finish her life down there.

The convergence neared. He felt it, as if the Jewels still walked alongside. But why prolong her life? She was neither immortal nor hybrid. What did the Jewels see in her? Which voice did she represent? The long gone? The damned? The unfinished?

The newest answer revealed itself as his wife prepared for labor.

Everyone would be distracted by yet another celebration – the second in three days. Valentin would let down his guard.

This needed to be done. Hadeed could not have been clearer. “As for the one who will kill you,” Hadeed said, “I see two potential prospects, but only one who seems made for the purpose.”

James understood now: Two will try. One will succeed.

Who was best made for the purpose?

Made. Designed. Trained.

James dismissed his wife’s nonsense about Valentin’s continued fealty. No one on Aeterna or beyond had more to gain by killing James. Who but his brother? Who but the one James loved most? Who but the one best positioned to tell the story of Brother James to countless generations of the faithful?

The Jewels promised clarity, calamity, and certainty. This, James reckoned, was the moment of clarity.

They will never forgive you, his conscience shouted.

They will never know, James shouted back.

The rest of it came together with ease. Alone in his quarters, James opened a bicomm to his brother. When Valentin appeared as if standing a few feet away, James saw the nearby scene. Valentin was supervising immortals as they installed another segment of the secondary defense perimeter.

“Admiral Valentin,” he said with gusto, knowing the others would likely hear. “How is the installation proceeding?”

“On course. The entire perimeter should be ready for testing in three days. Is there anything else, brother?”

James shook his head and uttered their private code.

“Know me.”

Valentin’s features darkened. “Absolutely, Brother James! We all know your wishes and we’ll work as hard as we can to speed up the timetable. Of course, we’ll be certain to watch the births later today.”

“I’m sure you will.”

James silenced the bicomm, giving Valentin time to find the necessary privacy. They established this code two years ago, as the fleet and the army of immortals expanded. It was meant for emergencies of the gravest nature, where information dared not pass to anyone else. James based his code words on the moment in SkyTower when he became what his designers envisioned and unleashed a nightmare upon the Chancellory. Valentin insisted this cloak-and-dagger approach would be unnecessary were James to install a stream amp, but James said no hybrid mind would ever be tainted by a tool of ordinary humans. His vision called for the bicomm to one day replace all stream amps, including those in the immortals.

He grew impatient as minutes passed and Valentin did not reply. James was expected to meet Rayna at the birthing center. She’d be hounding him soon enough. He needed to take care of this matter now.

“I apologize for the delay,” Valentin said as he reappeared, sitting in a rifter. “I had to answer questions before I could excuse myself from the work site. Tell me, James. What’s happened?”

James looked as far as the bicomm field allowed. Valentin wasn’t far from the lake, albeit on the opposite side from where Trayem Hadeed appeared. The brush was thick, no one near.

“We’ve been lied to,” he told Valentin.

“By whom? About what?”

“All our plans may have to change, but I might be overreacting. Valentin, I trust your judgment. Meet me at Tower 6. Exactly two