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

will indulge me, I wish to bring them instream to witness this moment.”

She tapped a node implanted above her right eye, releasing a holographic cube. She ran a finger through the convoluted images and opened a panoply of faces.

Michael whispered. “Sweet. I have got to have one of those.”

Maybe you will, Jamie thought. But please, keep your mouth shut, Coop. One wrong word…

Ophelia Tomelin continued. “We are connected. Everyone, I stand here at the IDF, where our mission appears to have borne fruit.” She turned to Sammie. “You are the daughter of Walter and Grace Pynn of the Americus Presidium?”

Sammie hesitated. “I … Pynn? Yes. My pseudonym was Huggins.” She angled to Jamie. “They didn’t tell me my true surname until yesterday at the lake house.”

The woman eyed Jamie.

“You are James Bouchet, son of Emil and Frances Bouchet?”

“That’s what I been told,” he replied. “Until about 12 hours ago, I was James Sheridan. But none of that much matters, does it, Ophelia?” He added a touch of snark as he dug in. “Let me tell you what you’re dying to learn. Yes, ma’am, I am the Jewel of Eternity. The next great evolution. Everything you people been working for. Except for one little hiccup. I know everything I’m not supposed to, and I remember everything I ever did before all this came down on me. You will not be the one giving the orders here.”

Jamie saw the shock creeping in between the cool air of Ophelia’s disdain. She responded in halting words.

“You have a poor sense of your place … James. Now, where are the others? Your parents? Her parents? All the others?”

Sammie trying to lock her fingers with his, but Jamie pulled away. Not here. They can’t see our weakness.

“Dead,” Sammie said with grave finality. “All of them.”

“No one else is coming through,” Jamie added. “Your observers are gone. And guess what else isn’t coming back?”

When Ophelia’s features turned pale, Jamie saw he had her.

“That’s right. I took them both out myself. Not even Shock Units can stop me.”

Jamie realized he edged into a dangerous bravado, but as he studied Ophelia’s guards, he sensed a turn in their demeanor. To his left, he detected a twitch, as if the man were prepping a new maneuver. Jamie caught a bead of sweat on the man’s brow. Yet Jamie never took his focus off Ophelia, who stepped closer.

“That cannot be, James,” she said. “We programmed the Jewel for absolute obedience to our commands and those of our agents. Is it possible you never evolved? Did the program fail?”

“You’re not listening, Ophelia. I am the Jewel, but not the one you expected. You can’t control me. They can’t either,” he said, pointing above, where thunder continued in bursts. “But they want me dead. Ain’t that right?”

She grimaced. “Ain’t? Strange dialect, James. I believe we …”

“Your enemies are everywhere. You can’t trust anybody.”

Jamie sensed the cold, resolute ambition of the guard to his left, and saw the weapon tilt upward ten degrees. The eyes unveiled the man’s treachery. Jamie looked Ophelia square in the eyes:

“He’s not yours. He can’t believe he got this lucky.”

The guard moved with swift precision, shifting on an axis in a fraction of a second. He fired multiple bursts, and the cold cavern air thumped as the translucent concussions hit the other, unprepared guard in the head, contorting his skull amid a meager yelp of agony. As the unsuspecting man crumpled, and Ophelia stood statuesque, horrified, Sammie opened her pistol on the assassin. The first two bullets skidded off his mesh body armor, while the third drew blood under the chin.

The assassin fired into the teens. Before the oval burst of thump energy lay upon Sammie, Michael crashed into her with a hip-tackle. She grunted as the weapon glanced off her shoulder and dropped her pistol. As Michael wrapped himself around her and prepared to take the second blow, a new vibration consumed the chamber.

The assassin shook, dropping his weapon, his eyes glowing sunset orange as they retreated into his head. He gasped for air as puffs of steam exited every pore. His bodysuit became flimsy and oversized as he shriveled, his skin bursting into flame beneath the surface. The suit caught fire and exploded in a cyclone of fury. Perhaps three seconds after it began, the man and his suit flickered out of existence, a smoldering ash pile the only remains.

Jamie, on bended knee, turned to his friends. He saw the agony in Samantha’s eyes and the burn on her right shoulder. In Michael, he witnessed the same disbelief as when Jamie brought him back from the near-dead on Lake Vernon. While he expected his friends to understand his action was necessary, that it came from love, he wasn’t sure about the others.

He thought of Dr. Tomelin and those watching from a safe distance. Now they know. They see me for what I am.

He rose from bended knee and faced the ash pile. A streak of black lightning scarred the floor from where he laid his hand to where the assassin once stood. He felt neither regret nor remorse.

No. More. Running.

Jamie turned to the last greeter. She telegraphed fear and awe.

“You’re welcome, Ophelia. My name is James Bouchet. Take me to my parents. Now.”

 

2

Mongolian Desolation

Standard Year (SY) 5355

Far side of Earth

V ALENTIN WAS LOSING HIS EDGE. One flicker of hesitation, an extra second’s twitch before tapping another volley of flash pegs – just enough time for the insurgents to cut down one of his best men.

It was every peacekeeper’s nightmare: To lose a fellow soldier of the Guard because of his own incompetence. To allow even a split-second distraction to interfere with the job at hand.

Emotions on the battlefield were unacceptable, regardless of the context.