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

throbbed for a split second. Then, with a gentle breath behind it, the energy of the Jewel manifested itself. Jamie hurled a piece of it from his soul, and the Caryllan energy weapon dug into the impregnable shell of the Shock Units, ripping through to the human core, tearing the bodies of the operators into billions of cellular pieces, sweeping the black monsters’ fire into the sky, where it disappeared as puffs of white smoke.

Jamie saw the equations ravaging every ounce of his bullet-shredded body. Even as he attempted to repair what was lost, Jamie knew he had one more thing to kill. He gathered the equations close to his soul, felt the impending return of flesh, and knew he had to act quickly.

Jamie tore at the Jewel, breaking the program’s coding, and tried to cast it out upon the Earth with the same force he used to kill the monsters. He decided that it would vanish into the spring sky with barely a whimper.

Then he heard Lydia’s gentle, mocking laughter. He could not see her face, but he heard her voice. He knew at once what he had done, the mistake he made.

“Thank you,” the Jewel said from a distance. “You were always a remarkable plaything.”

A feeling of doom overcame Jamie. He realized Lydia tricked him all along. She distracted him, led him down the path she needed him to follow so she could be reborn upon the Earth in all her fury.

He beheld the sensation of solid ground beneath his feet, and the Earth trembled. Then, finally, he encountered something he expected before he died. He was bathed in a pool of white light.

 

69

J AMIE ROLLED ONTO his side, the myrtle bush gave way, and he slammed into the hard-packed ground face-first. He grunted and laid there, his head tingling and back aching. His heart beat like a sprinter, but he sensed that it was slowing. His mind was a blank slate, and all he saw around him were shrubby growths and moss on rocks. He heard running water and felt the warm sun on his back.

He swallowed hard and waited for his heart to return to a normal beat before he sat up. He swiped tangled hair from his face and wiped his soiled hands against his shirt. That’s when he felt wet all over. Jamie gasped as he stared at the shirt steeped in moist blood, some of it having splattered onto his arms and his pants. Gripped in fear, Jamie looked around and saw only nature, a land of green unfamiliar to him.

Jamie stared again at his shirt and noticed the holes, four of which were in the center of his chest over his heart and lungs. He grabbed at his shirt, fully intending to rip it off. Then he remembered gunshots, felt the bullets shredding his innards. Jamie knew this place: The giant rock, the peaceful valley, and the sparkling stream. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

He grew angry as the memories struggled to return. Jamie brought the shirt over his head. As he removed it, his hair fell back into his face, the blond strands mottled red.

Alien sounds, screams of anger, and visions of walking black terrors filled Jamie. They meant something, all of them, and he wanted to know who he was and why he was here. The person wearing that shirt should be dead. He should be …

Just before he heard other footsteps and a familiar voice, Jamie found a second’s peace. He remembered his name. He saw the people he once believed to be his mother, father, and brother. The past eight hours flew in on the wings of an imaginary vulture. When he looked to the top of the outcropping, Jamie saw two people who were more than memories.

He couldn’t smile. Not yet.

“Jamie?”

Sammie clasped her hands over her mouth and burst into an ocean of tears. Michael muttered, “No … fucking … way.”

Jamie didn’t move as his friends made their way down the treacherous slope. He dropped the putrid shirt at his feet and waited there until he saw them up close. When they reached his side, Sammie and Michael touched him as if unsure he was real. They said nothing for a minute, their eyes exchanging disbelief.

Jamie knew his friends must have been through a war as well. Sammie’s hair was a scrambled mess, she had scratch marks on her left cheek, and blood trickled from behind her right ear. Michael had a busted lip and a torn shirt. Both had a strange gray dusting in their hair and both sweated profusely. Jamie realized this was not an illusion and began to gain focus on what should have been the final minutes of his life.

Michael stammered. “Dude. I don’t know where to start. How can you …?” He reached down and grabbed Jamie’s blood-soaked shirt. He held it out and paid special attention to the bullet holes. “The Jewel?”

Jamie remembered Agatha Bidwell, the Shock Units, and Lydia taunting him on the rock. He saw Agatha aim and fire. All of it – the scope of recorded time – flooded his thoughts at once, and Jamie was numb. Words seemed meaningless. The sun was high and the day was warm, but Jamie felt a repressive chill all over.

“What just happened?” Sammie asked. “How is this possible?”

Jamie searched his memories. “I don’t know. She shot me.”

Echoes of words from outside time blended with the realities his mind’s eye barely comprehended. He thought these words – messages stern and violent – were recent, but Jamie saw darkness where the bridge between death and rebirth must have existed.

“Dude,” Michael said. “Looking at this shirt, the Queen Bee blew you away.” Michael tossed it into the bushes. “But after what I just saw, hell, I’ll believe anything. I’m already sick to my stomach.”

“What happened?” Jamie