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

“Which is where?”

“Here, Michael. Hiebimini. Where all paths will intersect.”

Michael realized Aldo was also overwhelmed and more than a little suspicious, too.

“So, let me get this straight. You have been manipulating us. You knew this was coming, and you made sure we got here alive.”

“No. Michael, I knew nothing with certainty. The Jewel left me months before I ever met you. It never told me what to do, never suggested my path would bring me to Hiebimini. Any number of decisions would have shifted our fates. I only decided to join you on Praxis when I felt pulled toward space.” She turned to Aldo. “I asked to become your aide when I learned of your history with Hiebimini. I saw our paths narrow. The Jewels are right. There is an algorithm, more complex than any human math, and a strong predictor of the future. But not a guarantee.”

Michael had to ask. “Are you immortal, too?”

She didn’t hesitate. “No. The best I can hope for is to grow old and die. I can’t see beyond the horizon any better than you.”

Aldo struck a cynical tone. “When I recognized those stones as being from Messalina, you acted skeptical. You questioned my judgment about the changing river current. You said, ‘I’m sure we’ll find the answers.’ Hah! You already knew them.”

“No, Aldo. I knew we landed on the right planet. Beyond that, not a clue. Your discovery made me think we were on the right track. I do know this much: We are where we were always supposed to be. The three of us together.”

Michael wanted to believe her. Maya always had a way to set his mind at ease amid his most dire anxiety, to adjust his perspective toward the bigger picture. As best he could remember, Maya was right on a very important point: She never once told him what to do. Always advised, proposed possibilities, asked rhetorical questions. She rarely judged and never condescended. She was a friend. And yet …

“A few minutes ago, you said I was immortal, but I was also impossible. What did you mean?”

“Michael, when I conversed with the Jewel, it was never in words. Only emotions, visions, sounds. The Jewel never showed me the future because it couldn’t. However, it did show me the past. Months later, after I realized you were the man in those visions, I saw the paradox.

“That week while we hid in the Appalachians, you told me the story of your final day on first Earth. How you, Sammie, and Jamie ran for your lives. Remember? You told me how Jamie sacrificed himself rather than become the monster he was designed to be. You and Sammie tried to stop him, but you were too late. Yes? A pair of machines called Shock Units were waiting. They turned their weapons toward you and fired, but in the same instant, those machines were obliterated, and a nuclear explosion spread across the land as far as you could see. And then, behold, you discover Jamie is alive, and he was responsible for the destruction.”

“When you put it like that, it’s still hard to believe,” Michael said, as Aldo’s jaw dropped. “He took eight bullets. They tore him apart, but there he was. Right as rain.”

“Michael, he did not save you. The Shock Units incinerated you and Sammie.”

“Wait, what? That’s nuts.”

“Michael, I saw it. The Jewel showed me. The machines killed the woman named Agatha Bidwell seconds before you arrived then they turned their weapons on you. The agony was horrifying but brief. Your screams stayed in my nightmares for months.”

“No. Maya. The vision wasn’t real. I think I’d remember being burnt to a crisp.”

“You would? Michael, you live because Jamie Sheridan violated the cardinal rule of time and space. He found a way, in the moment of his death, and despite the resistance of his Jewel counterpart, to reset time. No more than a few seconds, but it doesn’t matter how long. Time is immutable. It is the one and only path that cannot be altered. There is no travel backward or forward through time.

“That brief violation of the most important law of the universe did not create a new timeline. Instead, it created a schism within the only timeline. A paradox. The three of you are dead. But the three of you live. Thousands lived because Jamie died. Thousands died because Jamie lived. You brought that paradox to this universe. No one died on SkyTower. A hundred and thirty thousand died on SkyTower. It goes on and on. It followed the Bouchet brothers into space, to forming Salvation, to realigning the Collectorate, to killing two million people on those Carriers. It followed us to Hiebimini.

“The Jewels of Eternity saw every path intersect here, but not in this fashion. They predicted the Chancellors’ creations would turn against them and lead a violent insurrection ending on Hiebimini. They saw rebellion and strife on the colonies and on Earth. But it happened faster than they imagined because they did not predict the impossible. In all their calculations, they never assumed a violation of time itself.

“Michael, you cannot die because you already did. In simplest terms, you exist outside the laws of time. You, Samantha, and James have created an impossible future, no matter what lies ahead.”

His first thought surprised him: It’s all true. A roar deep within blocked out all other rational considerations. Somehow, some way, it explained everything which always nagged at Michael from the deepest corners of his soul.

“Philadelphia Redux,” he said. “Sam and I were shot. We thought leftover Jewel energy saved us. We took bullets back in Alabama, and Jamie healed us. We thought … but it wasn’t him at all, was it?”

“No. You were shot at close range by a professional assassin. He didn’t miss. You died