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

attacker, he heard another jolt of weapons fire from behind the counter. The large deputy, Martha Lynn, screamed as she rose up and let loose her fury upon the intruders trying to enter through the back door. She gasped at one point like a child receiving a penicillin shot then collapsed.

Jamie turned the pistol down the corridor. As the first bullets from the M16 missed high, Jamie again tapped into the Jewel’s self-preservation program. He saw a tunnel through a wreath of blackness. At the heart of that tunnel, he saw the intruder’s eyes. He kept a steady hand, allowed himself to indulge in his own rage, and fired two shots. Jennifer Bowman swayed, dropped her weapon and grabbed her face, which opened up as the second bullet cracked her left cheek. She fell.

Jamie didn’t waste a second. He reached down and grabbed the driver’s M16, which he slung over his shoulder. He checked the clip in his pistol and handed the weapon to Michael.

He sensed other shadows close by, coming in through the rear. He allowed the Jewel to see beyond these walls, but the results were murky, more intuition than anything. He had to get his friends out of here.

He swung about, saw Jennifer’s rifle lying in the corridor next to the dead deputy and knew what had to be done. As soon as he was sure Sammie was OK, he pointed to the corridor, told them to take the first left past the jail cells and then …

“Be ready for anything,” he said without emotion.

Michael didn’t respond. Jamie saw the look of awe and terror in his best friend’s eyes. They were surrounded by splattered blood that was in large part his own doing. Jamie felt nothing.

He grabbed the other M16 and handed it to Sammie as they passed cells and threw open the back door. They heard a thunderous slam not far away, followed by brief automatic weapons fire. Once outside, they scanned the largely empty lot behind the station.

“Where now?” Michael asked.

“A car,” Jamie said. “Any car. We’ve gotta get out of town.”

They twisted about, weapons hot, looking for signs of the enemy as well as an opportunity for a quick theft. What they found instead was a patrol car covered in water and soap suds, clearly in the process of being washed. Beside the car, a hose spilled water next to the body of a black-haired boy perhaps no older than Jamie. The boy’s blood intermingled with the water and formed a river of swirling red along the pavement.

“Oh, hell,” Michael muttered. “They’re killing everybody.”

Jamie heard the shadows coming. The Bidwells. He told his friends to duck behind the patrol car. As if on cue, Agatha and Christian Bidwell raced out the other rear door. Jamie raised the M16 and prepared to take out his final living enemies. Christian opened fire, blowing out the car’s tires and shattering its windshield.

 

56

S AMMIE DROPPED IN a defensive crouch alongside Michael and Jamie. She despised the notion of being taken down by a Bidwell even more annoying than Agatha. Eight times she trained in the Louisiana bayou alongside Christian, who pronounced on their second outing that he would take her virginity within the year. She was 13 at the time and unimpressed.

Still, she had to be practical. She looked for the most likely exit strategy and pointed toward the town park adjacent to the ASPD parking lot.

“There,” she said over the hail of bullets. “That’s where we have to be. We’re too exposed out here. More police are bound to show up any second. I’ll provide cover. Pin these two down. You guys know how to steal a car, so do it. I’ll catch up to you.”

She didn’t wait for her friends to protest. Sammie leaped into a semi-exposed position and laid covering fire on the Bidwells, who found themselves pinned down behind an air-conditioning unit. When Jamie and Michael took her cue and raced in a crouch toward the park, which was covered in a heavy canopy of trees, Sammie decided to take the offensive.

Her father’s favorite motto was, “No surrender, no retreat.” She refused to disappoint Daddy again. She embraced the seductive beauty of her rifle and allowed all the Chancellor training and cold-blooded philosophy of her father to guide her.

The screams of desperate, fleeing townsfolk echoed from the park as the report of high-powered weapons ended the ageless peace of Austin Springs. She exchanged more volleys then made up her mind.

“You would have been proud, Daddy,” she said as she advanced.

With visions of a downed helicopter buoying her ego, Sammie stepped from the patrol car into an exposed position. She ran laterally across the parking lot, firing every few steps, until Christian rose and fired back.

As she aimed to return fire, Sammie knew her entire life led here. Her father said a true soldier of the Guard not only knew how to kill without mercy but also mock those he was about to kill. Through this, he told her, the lesser castes were kept in place.

Stand in the open, he told her during discussions of tactical strategy. Show them you are unafraid and will defeat them anyway. They will cower before such courage.

Those words lifted her. I am a Chancellor. Thank you, Daddy.

Her body jerked as she fired. Christian twitched as Sammie shot the rifle out of his hands. He dove for cover to retrieve the weapon. She saw Agatha’s head peek around the corner of the AC unit, and she prepared to make a final, decisive assault on their position. If she never got a chance to see the Collectorate, at least she would truly understand what it was like to be a member of the Unification Guard.

Her legs did not take her forward, however. Her vision blurred. Only as the sound of a