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

Hedgecock unholstered his pistol and aimed, yelling for Jamie to drop and place his hands behind his head. Simultaneously, Martha Lynn reached for her weapon. None of them was as fast as Sammie, who reacted with a single Chancellor-trained maneuver that stung Hedgecock behind both knee caps and allowed her to grab the pistol before he knew what happened. Hedgecock fell to his knees in a moan, and Martha Lynn turned her revolver toward Sammie, who aimed squarely at the agent’s head.

“No, child,” Martha Lynn said. “You don’t wanna do this, baby.”

“You don’t understand,” Sammie said, “and I don’t have time to explain.” She turned to Michael. “Give him your pistol. Do it. Now.”

“No, ma’am, I will not.”

“I don’t want to hurt anybody. But I swear to you, I’ll shoot him. All you have to do is let the three of us go. You’ll never see us again.”

From the corner of his eye, Michael saw Jamie stand up with the other deputy’s revolver. However, Michael’s focus changed at once.

Martha Lynn’s blood-chilling scream signaled the end to their dubious escape plan. Michael heard the destructor coming before he saw it. Sammie swung on her heels, and Hedgecock rose, prepared to jump her.

The double glass doors of the Austin Springs Police Department were no match for a giant black SUV driven by an ex-track coach born in the Collectorate. The oversized car brought hell on wheels as it barreled through the entrance, shattering the doors, sending a swarm of glass toward everyone in the lobby. The doors broke from their jambs, their steel frames bounding forward along with debris from the ceiling and either wall.

Sparks flew, tires squealed, and one door frame flew end-over-end, smacking Martha Lynn and Michael simultaneously, while the other landed on the SUV’s hood. Sammie threw one hand over her face and turned away from the flying glass, but not fast enough. Something blunt pounded her back, and the momentum threw her forward. She fell into Hedgecock, who was on his feet, scrambling. She lost the pistol and saw nothing but tiny pieces of glass as she fell. All at once, both hands exploded in pain, and a great shadow fell upon her.

The SUV swerved, coming to a stop at a forty-five degree angle to the welcome counter. Sammie smelled gas and looked directly up at the vehicle’s grille, which was mangled. The rest of her lay under the monster. For an instant, the room fell silent save the hum of the SUV’s engine and the tinkling of more glass upon the floor.

The silence turned into chaos. Sammie heard the driver-side door open and looked over her shoulder to see two feet in black shoes standing firm. Agent Hedgecock, dazed and sporting a small cut on his forehead, scrambled past Sammie and reached for the pistol she lost. He tried to rise.

Hedgecock was halfway to his feet before the lobby erupted in the thunder of automatic-weapons fire. He contorted like a marionette and collapsed in a heap, his body riddled in bullets, his eyes staring into forever.

Sammie got a glimpse of Michael’s legs as her friend scrambled behind the counter. She heard Martha Lynn ranting into a phone that they were under attack and an officer was down. The driver unloaded his M16 on that area. Bullets pounded and ricocheted, papers flew, more glass shattered.

Sammie never felt so helpless. The pistol lay next to Hedgecock’s body, five feet away. She would have to crawl over glass to reach it, but Sammie saw no other option. The driver was rounding the vehicle and would see her in seconds. She had to reach. She had to reach.

55

H AIR FELL IN his face, but nothing disrupted his aim. Jamie was one with the deputy’s revolver as he fired in rapid succession, moving steadily forward all the while. He put three bullets into Arthur Tynes, who grunted and collapsed a few feet from Sammie. Jamie pressed forward. Machine-gun fire raged from the rear of the station, and Arthur did not stay down.

Jamie’s anger became a perfectly-focused tunnel. He did not recognize the man who was once his running mentor. Rather, he saw a beast who would kill Sammie if given the chance. Jamie pulled the trigger five times. Blood sprayed against the wall behind Arthur, who crumpled in a heap with bullet holes in his face.

An instinct driven by the Jewel told him to make sure the lobby was secure. He scanned the now-jammed entrance. Behind the counter, the large black deputy who gave him a t-shirt fired toward the rear, where light shown in through an opened door.

Michael raced out from the counter, stained in Arthur’s blood.

“Gonna need a new coach, dude,” he said through his jitters.

Jamie lowered his weapon as he stepped on glass without care, reached down and grabbed Sammie’s hand. He felt nothing beyond a vague sense of responsibility to his friends.

“C’mon,” he whispered. “We have to go.” As he grabbed hold of her bloody left hand, she screamed in agony, but he reassured her, “They’ll heal. Just hold me.”

As she stood up, however, bullets flew again, this time from the far end of the corridor in the direction of the cells.

The smaller deputy who lost his revolver to Jamie was racing toward the carnage at the base of the SUV. He screamed, demanding everyone stay down. Somewhere in mid-sentence, however, he contorted as two bullets exited through his chest. He fell face-first. Behind him, Jennifer Bowman advanced with an M16.

Jamie pushed the hair from his face and whispered to Sammie.

“I’m out of bullets. Give it to me.”

She laid the pistol in his hands. He told her to get down. As Jamie aimed his pistol over Sammie and knew the Jewel would help him take out the advancing