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

Sammie and Michael bent down to hug him. His eyes, blurred by water and salt, looked beyond the world of the present and took him through the shadows of the past until finally, he felt the security of big, warm arms and soft, comforting words. He looked into Mommy’s eyes and saw the one who always made everything OK. He smelled her rose-petal perfume and liked it when she kissed him on the cheek, leaving an imprint of her lipstick.

Just like that, the past vanished with the breeze, and Jamie remembered the truth: His parents were the monsters who made sure he was doomed from the start. Even the imitators who raised him had no interest in watching him grow into a man. He was nothing more than the instrument at the heart of their mission.

Jamie made no effort to resist the sobs, and he allowed his belly to convulse until he was in pain. Only when he felt the well of misery drying up did Jamie run his hands across his face.

“I can see everything,” he finally said, his voice raspy, coughs interrupting the words. “I can see the world where we were conceived, Sammie. I can feel all those people. There’s so much hatred. The Chancellors holding down billions of people. There’s a war. It’s coming soon. Billions of souls, so angry. And the Jewel … it knows something the rest of them don’t. It’s …” His eyes bulged. “It’s just gonna kill. It’s gonna wipe out everything. All those people. The Chancellors were seeking immortality, but they created an army of monsters.”

“Jamie, c’mon,” Michael whispered. “You’re seeing things because you’re delirious.”

Jamie grabbed each of them by the hand.

“Nobody should have this. Gotta be stopped. They were right.”

Sammie coughed out her words. “Who was right?”

“The Bidwells. Everybody that’s been trying to kill me. If I’d just let them waste me back on Main Street, everything would be OK now. Everybody else would be alive. Ben. Your parents.” He looked at Sammie. “All the others. That kid back at the police station. He was just washing the car. Probably got a summer job, maybe saving up for his own car. This Jewel … it’s worse than evil. It’s not just a program. It’s alive. Understand?”

Lydia whispered in his ear. “Kill them,” she said. “Put them out of their misery. They have nothing left. They will be blamed for everything. We have seen to that.”

For a mere instant, his anger spiked and his temptation to kill returned like a thirst he felt in the corridors of the police station.

No. Jamie rose to his feet, wiped the last remnant of tears away, and stared into Sammie’s eyes. He saw the frail innocence that seemed ever present before the deadly soldier emerged. He ran his hand over her cheeks, caught droplets of water and smudged them away. He thought of what might have been if he’d been given a few more months with her.

He wrapped his arms around Sammie and kissed her as he thought a man in love might do. He gave her all the warmth and hope he could muster, and he felt the gift returned in her sweet, soft lips. When he pulled away, Jamie nodded, but he had nothing more to say to her.

He turned to Michael and reached out his hand.

“Give me the pistol.”

Michael swung it around his back, but Jamie grabbed him.

“No, dude. This ain’t the way.”

Jamie took the pistol. He offered his right hand again, and this time the best friends shook with a firm grip. Michael wouldn’t let go as he wrapped Jamie in a hug.

“I’m gonna wake up from this,” Michael whispered. “I’m gonna call you first thing, and we’ll hook up. Do some fishing. Got that?”

Jamie pulled out of the hug determined to fend off more sobs.

He stepped away. “Listen, you take the car about another half mile, OK? There’s a hard left. You stay on that for about three miles, then take the first right. You’ll be back on the highway soon.”

His throat dried, but he managed a few final words for Michael.

“Look after Sammie. OK? She needs somebody now.”

He took a mental snapshot of the two best friends a nobody from a nowhere town could ever have before he said, “Goodbye.”

Jamie felt like an empty vessel as he turned and ran.

60

9:33 a.m.

A GATHA NEVER IMAGINED such an inglorious end for her son. From the day Christian was born to Lt. Commander Agatha Perrone and Rear Admiral Augustus Perrone, his parents expected great things for their only child. When the opportunity to cross the fold and protect the second Jewel came her way, Agatha debated sending Christian off-world to visit his father at Earth’s most distant colony. Fifteen years later, that choice haunted her.

They drove through the back roads of rural Alabama in a stolen patrol car that was badly shot-up, stopping at frequent intersections to inspect the roads for fresh tire tracks. She did not burden Christian with a truth that might distract him and reduce their already-slim chance for victory. She did the calculations based upon prior knowledge: The Shock Units would be arriving within fifteen minutes – twenty at the outside. Nothing would come between them and the Jewel.

Agatha rose in her seat and stiffened as they rounded a bend. She smiled at the sight of an empty convertible less than fifty yards ahead. They stopped well back of the convertible, exited slowly with their rifles extended, and started toward the car.

“Gotta be close,” Christian said. “We could wait for them to appear.”

“No. The Jewel has almost finished re-sequencing. They’re preparing. We have to go in.”

Christian showed his tracking prowess by discovering bent grass along the edge of the woods fronting scrub brush. Agatha