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

admiral, and wondered whether he would even care when she did not return. Perhaps Christian would find his father someday ...

Agatha glanced at her watch. 9:53 a.m. If still in Albion, she would be concluding her exam, preparing words of backhanded support to send off dumbfounded juniors into the summer.

“I suppose I fancied those children,” she whispered.

The Shock Unit emerged from its cloak, a shadowed nightmare from deep inside the subconscious. The fire incinerated Agatha. Her body melted in two seconds, and her ashes drifted away on the gentle spring breeze.

 

67

S ECONDS EARLIER, AS Michael neared the top of the final incline, he heard the familiar report of an M16. His spirit sank, and he feared the worst, but he didn’t stop running.

As he cleared the forest, Michael heard Sammie clambering up behind. He raced toward the outcropping, his rifle extended, and could not fathom the horror he saw before him.

Black Death unleashed a stream of fire upon Agatha, who was gone before Michael thought of aiming his rifle. The monster, fully unveiled, was fifteen feet tall but lorded over everything as Michael expected if Satan arrived on Earth. It was shaped like a headless robot, its mechanical feet and arms harshly jointed at the knees and elbows. The chest seemed to bulge, but these were not the features that reduced Michael to a whimpering bowl of jelly.

The machine appeared to be covered by millions of black serpents intertwined, crawling through and around each other but never exposing the machines’ innards. Strangely, the ever-changing organic surface glistened in the sunlight.

Only when it heard Michael did the machine turn. A split second later, a second machine emerged from its cloak.

They fired.

 

68

I F YOU BELIEVE …

When Jamie died, the first thing he saw was a tiny, flickering point of light in an otherwise empty universe. Soon, the flicker grew into a pulse, and it tugged at him. The pulse became a beacon, like the guide sailors followed across the seas, or wise men depended upon in ancient legend. He reached out, grabbed the light, and wrapped it around him. He leaped through the light and stood above the Earth. Jamie saw endless miles of green, and he was at peace.

He had no sense of direction or time, only of thought and heightened senses. He heard songbirds, their chirps undistorted and pure. He imagined listening to them forever, resting here in the clean, crisp spring air. Their songs formed an unfamiliar rhythm, but one that embodied bliss.

Jamie bathed in the natural sights and sounds of a pristine world devoid of all the corruptions he once knew, a final resting place cushioned in the embrace of his soul. He was ready to look into the face of eternity, to see his brother once more, and never consider what he left behind.

Then he felt a different tug, this one more aggressive than the last and forcing him to look backward. There, Jamie saw the essence of his soul passing over the green earth in a thin, sparkling stream like clouds carried on a narrow current. The stream narrowed and swirled down into an emerging maelstrom of crashing light and thunder. He tried to resist. Jamie had a sense of what was pulling him back, and instinct told him to fight it.

Even as his essence splintered and was drawn toward the maelstrom, Jamie did not feel pain or anger; rather, he sensed a mild impatience. He knew this return would be temporary, a nuisance on the path to forever.

Just before he entered the maelstrom, Jamie saw the land beneath him and observed specific details with curiosity. Four physical beings – two mechanical, two human – appeared locked in place on a giant rock. The black, diseased creatures extended their arms, from two of which emerged a ball of compressed fire, also frozen in time. A boy and a girl yards away stared at the creatures with looks resembling an emotion Jamie vaguely recalled. He searched his memory and realized he had none. He knew the frailties of a mortal being were not of consequence here. Still, the sight beneath caused him pause.

When he fell at last into the maelstrom, Jamie understood why nothing on the green earth was moving. The knowledge of his soul, which was awakening and teaching, whispered the secrets of time. In his new life, time was whatever he made it; time was neither a physical construct nor a controlled sequence. It did not value the laws written by beings of flesh and blood. The voice of his soul grew louder, and he heard a familiar echo.

“You are the beginning and the end.”

At once, he knew something was very wrong. He was starting to remember. The voice … he knew it. He had grown to hate it.

Surrounded by lightning, thunder, and a whirlwind of letters, numbers, and symbols, Jamie felt the emotions of human frailty. He sensed rising pain and grief, the fear of impending doom. And then he felt her breath all over him like frost on a winter morning.

If nothing else, Jamie thought he’d been rid of her. He stared into the storm, and Lydia’s bloated and bruised face stared back. She smiled, but Jamie knew it was a mask to hide her pain. The instant she spoke, all his mortal memories flooded back, and the knowledge she possessed became his.

“You were much in a hurry to leave,” Lydia growled, her voice straining against the whirlwind. “I prefer that you stay to the end.”

“No,” Jamie said. “I learned your secret. When I died prematurely, we joined forever – your program and my soul. Now I am in control. It’s what you feared all along.”

He looked inside the Jewel and was amazed by what he saw. Knowledge as vast as the history of the universe – and beyond – cascaded through and