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

hombre and his girlfriend, the Queen of the Amazon?” Michael offered a crooked smile, to which Jamie and Sammie responded with grins. “Dunno where we’re going, dude, but I got a piece of advice. You better get a bath before we get there. Folks tend to get a might suspicious when they see a fella walking around with blood caked in his hair. And another shirt. Damn. How many shirts you worn today?”

Jamie managed to laugh, even as he considered an uncertain, more dangerous future.

“Time to go,” he told them.

They took off their sneakers before they crossed the creek. Shortly after they reached the other side and began their journey, they heard the familiar rhythm of approaching helicopters. They did the only thing they could think of: They ran.

 

71

3:30 p.m.

25 miles north of Austin Springs

J amie couldn’t bring himself to tell them the truth. Now, as he stared into the face of a cataclysm of his own creation, he doubted he ever would. He knew of one certainty.

They were enthralled by the shocking images and heartrending news beamed to them on a small television inside an empty house they broke into after finishing their long trek around the military cordon far from ground zero. Outside, the debris cloud hovered like an apocalypse descending, and most residents who hadn’t high-tailed north were holed up inside their rural homes – shotguns at the ready.

Each of the three was exhausted and tried to nap before figuring out the next move, but they spent most of the time transfixed to the television, which documented chaos, destruction, and panic. Aerial shots of the stolen earth and satellite images of the advancing particulate cloud moving into Georgia and South Carolina were no match for the scenes of towns along the fringe that were now on fire. Most of Austin Springs was reduced to ash, and parts of Lake Vernon were boiling.

Theories ran wild – from nuclear explosion to meteor strike to a new form of weapon to the one considered most cuckoo of all, alien invasion. Nobody made sense of it, and most failed in their attempt to connect this with the earlier shootouts and home explosions in the nearby region. The military wasn’t talking, and reports of the missing and dead were sketchy and unconfirmed. A panicked report from Birmingham suggested that the governor and his top aides had been taking part in a weekend retreat well inside the blast zone.

Jamie stopped watching. He didn’t need further confirmation of the nightmare he unleashed. He said the briefest of prayers, knowing his words changed nothing. His conversations with the Jewel taught him one certainty: Guilt would be his lifelong partner.

He walked into the bathroom where he showered before later gorging himself on sandwiches. He looked into the mirror and studied the strange young man who hardly remembered what he was twenty-four hours earlier. The faces of the people once so integral to his fate – his fill-in parents, Ben, Ignatius, the Hugginses, even the Bidwells – were fading. They seemed not so much human but more like role-players set out on a chess board designed for one purpose only – to move Jamie into checkmate. The lessons they taught him, the warnings they offered, the threats and farewells they delivered – none seemed to have any relevance except for one.

He heard the echo of Walt Huggins one last, infuriating time:

“The future will be served.”

Jamie nodded. “You were right. But there is another way.” He raised the scissors in his right hand. “It’s more dangerous, and I have to try.”

He cut his flowing golden hair with a steady hand. The shorter the hair became, the greater his zeal in finishing. Within moments, the long blond locks that were his message of defiance to a repressive town vanished. Stubble remained. This, he knew, would take some getting used to. Yet it was necessary. He was not that boy anymore.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, Sammie was waiting. She said nothing, but he saw the heartbreak in her eyes. He wanted to explain to her what he was becoming, but the thought of putting it into words frightened him enough for them both.

Sammie nodded. “OK,” she whispered.

She came bearing gifts. “I found these in a foot locker in one of the bedrooms.” She handed him a fresh pair of blue jeans and a crisp red t-shirt. “Your size. Coop’s in there now picking out something for himself.”

“I reckon we can’t pay for all this stuff we’re stealing?”

“I don’t think they’ll care after everything that’s happened.”

“Sammie, look, I …”

She stopped him. “I know. It’s OK. We’ll do what we have to do. Everything’s changed now. We’re not supposed to be alive.”

He wanted to tell her the truth, and he also wanted to make love to her. He wanted at least a moment’s opportunity to be a man, to feel human again before taking the next, irreversible step. He bent down and kissed her, and he felt the warmth of her soul, her own desire to show him how much she loved him, too. Yet every part of him resisted the urge. He raised a wall and refused to allow her heart inside.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “So many people died. I killed them, Sammie. All of them. And they won’t be the last.”

He found an empty bedroom and changed into his new, stolen clothes. He tried to refocus his thoughts on the supplies he needed for the next journey, and how to break the news to Michael.

Sammie did not give him many minutes of peace.

He sat on the end of a bed without linens and stared at her. She was more beautiful than he ever remembered.

“It wasn’t you,” she said. “The program killed them. The Jewel.”

“No. The Jewel couldn’t be detonated without the willing participation of the