- And where do we go when we are trapped inside?
She left his mind. A second later, James heard words cross his lips he didn’t expect. Words they needed to hear, even if it broke their hearts.
“No,” he told Michael and Sammie. “Your answer is no. You’re not coming.”
42
J AMES STEADED HIMSELF. “ADMIRAL, MAY I SPEAK to them privately?”
Perrone frowned. “In my office, I assume?”
“Yes, sir.”
Perrone tapped his amp, and the cloak rose over the aft portion of the ship. “Be quick about it. We have a narrow timetable.”
James whispered to his brother, “I might need you.” He passed Rayna, who did not touch his mind but stiffened her shoulders. As he led his friends to the cloak, Rayna demanded Perrone show her the clothing options before she entered the ReCon tube.
James took a quick lay of the land when behind the cloak, which provided a sound-dampening barrier. Three chairs – one behind the desk, high-backed, cushioned, comfortable; the others small, built for subservience. James chose his strategy and spoke to Ignatius.
“They have to see our paths are separating. But I’m confused. How honest should I be?”
Ignatius, rubbing the remains of a pink child’s toy amid the nuked city, appeared amused by the question.
“What is the more painful truth? The one unvarnished, or the one designed to fulfill a function?”
“Can’t they be the same?”
“Yes, but only one leaves additional revelations to play later.”
“This isn’t a game. They’re my only real friends.”
“Then your obligation to them supersedes any other aim.”
“An obligation to do what? To kick them out of my life?”
“If doing so ensures they don’t follow you down this path,” he pointed to the ashen city, “then you will say your goodbyes.” Ignatius studied the storm clouds passing overhead. “Unless, you want them to join you in this theater of madness and death.”
James blinked and asked his friends to take the seats across the desk from him. He perceived how this looked, so he leaned forward and placed his fists together on the desk, imitating the admiral.
“It’s the only way,” he began. “Look, I’m sorry. I am. We made promises to each other, but nothing’s gone how we expected. We can’t help each other like we used to.”
“Bullshit.” Michael said it as an afterthought. “What you’re saying is, you don’t need Sammie and me no more cause … look at you, dude. Seriously. You’re part Thor, part Hercules, part Schwarzenegger. After what you did on the island, you’re a badass. We get it. You don’t need a couple friends from the backwater tagging along. Feel my speed?”
“Michael, it’s so much more than …”
“Seriously, just don’t, J. Jamie … oh, sorry. James. James Bouchet.” He turned to Sammie. “Don’t wanna piss off this guy.”
“Michael, I’m sorry about what happened on the island. I was lost in the moment. I didn’t expect you and Sammie would be there. I was excited.”
“More like digging the whole scene, if you ask me.” Michael leaned in this time. “Dude, look, I saw you kill people before today, but it was always different. Self-defense, or maybe you were being controlled. But that shit back there was something else. You were in control and loving it.” He pleaded to Sammie: “You figure I’m going overboard right now because your folks trained you to be just like these mountains in red pajamas.”
Sammie cupped a hand over Michael’s lips.
“It’s OK. I understand. You’re not out of line, Michael. We’re all trying to figure out the next step.” Then to James: “I can’t say I wasn’t jealous. Look at you. In three days, you became everything I grew up thinking I’d be. I guess your growth shouldn’t surprise me. We realized the Jewel would change you somehow. I just want to hear it straight. Are you officially a peacekeeper? And if so, how is that even possible?”
James wanted this to be over with. He leaned back.
“You can’t see my most important improvements. Sure, I’ll admit, I like this new body. I suppose it is badass.” He grinned at Michael. “But it’s what’s happening up here, in my mind, that matters. All I need is a keyword, and I know everything about it. I spent one day training with my brother, and I learned every battle technique of a peacekeeper, how to use every weapon, how to design combat strategies. I could lead a battalion into a firefight, and we’d win.
“I’m wearing this uniform because it suits Perrone’s agenda. It opens every door I need. The places I have to go, I can’t take you.”
Michael started to speak, but Sammie grabbed his hand and held tight. James saw the power she had on his best friend, and he wondered what they shared with each other these past few days. They were closer – more than even they realized.
Sammie spoke for them both.
“And where are these places, James? How are they any different than what we were facing when we crossed the fold?”
“Sammie, we left Alabama because we were out of choices. We were stupid enough to figure if we survived that shit, we could pull ourselves through any-damn-thing. Maybe we could, but now …”
“Now what?”
“Now, we can put names and faces on our enemies, and we know these Chancellors are bastards on a good day. Worse, they’re playing for keeps – their whole existence. They’ll sell out anybody, kill anybody, with competing agendas. Just because I’m wearing this uniform don’t mean I’d trust Perrone far as I could throw him. He’s out there talking about invading SkyTower to reveal a conspiracy. Sammie, Michael: There’s no conspiracy. It’s a cover. All of it. Perrone has another agenda. I haven’t nailed it, but there’s a thing between him and my father. He’s obsessed. It’s like the book his wife had us read in English. Moby Dick. I think my father is the admiral’s white whale. But why?”
Michael groaned. “Shit. Ain’t it obvious? Your father stuck his willie up the ol’ Queen Bee. Hell, Christian might have been your half-brother. See, dude? Guys like that are the same everywhere. They wanna prove who’s got the bigger dick.”
“Whatever it is, Michael, there will be bodies. I have a feeling we’re walking into something savage. Maybe even a trap. The people who survive will be the ones who never hesitate and don’t waste time making moral choices. Do you get my speed, Michael?”
Michael looked away. James saw the doubt he needed.
“Yeah, dude. You don’t reckon I’ll cut the mustard when it comes down to us against them.”
Sammie didn’t allow James to respond. “Michael, he’s saying you don’t have the experience to …”
“Wait, what?” Michael pulled his hand away from Sammie. “As if he’s been pulling the trigger since he was a young’un? Hell, Sammie. Your Daddy took you in the woods to gun down people like animals, and Mr. Universe here don’t want you around. So, I reckon you also don’t got enough experience, either.”
The awkward silence and the pooling water in her eyes told James he was making progress. Michael set him up; now he needed to finish. Their choice had to be an easy one.
“C’mon. Please, both of you. This isn’t about experience. We know what it’s like to kill. But there’s a world of difference between people who’ve killed and people who are killers. Sammie, they trained you to be a soldier, and a soldier kills when she has to. Michael, you killed a lousy son of a bitch who had it coming. You’re alive, and so is Sammie. You’re not a killer.”
The next words sat behind his tongue, harder to unleash than he expected:
“But I am a killer. Maybe it’s what I always was, but the Jewel brought it out. It’s part of who I am now. It feels natural. It’s this … hunger. I don’t have a better way to describe it.” His heart raced as the confession slipped through his lips. “What you saw on the island … that last man without his weapon? I stood over him and I aimed my rifle at his head, and I felt … I felt like a giant. I shot him and watched his brains blo
w out the back of his head.” His throat felt parched. “I enjoyed it. I wanted more. I still do. I always will.”
James brought them to tears, but he mustered none of his own. The mere talk of killing fueled the dark within. His stomach roiled with mounting anticipation. He wanted to be alone with Rayna, to go deep inside her mind, to explore her fuel for mayhem.
“Dude,” Michael choked back tears. “If you wanted to shove us out the door, I reckon you done a damn good job.”
“I just want you both to be safe. You can make a life here. You’re already doing so well. Ophelia has contacts. She can make…”
“It was going to be the three of us,” Sammie said, clearing her tears. “We knew the odds were against us from the start. If we died together, at least we’d go down fighting.”
“No. It was never the three of us. It was only me. My path was always gonna be different. I just didn’t admit it.” He swiveled his seat and stood, ready for this to end.
“Guys, I’m not even human anymore. I don’t know how many humans I’ll kill before I die. But the rest of my journey is about me, Rayna, the other Jewels, and my brother. This much is certain. If you went with me, you’d die before I could save you. Then I’d just be angrier and kill even more people.
“You have each other. Start a life here. No one will come after you, Coop. I promise. Sammie, you’re wealthy. Do this. For me?”
He didn’t need a response to know he defeated them. Their defiance washed away, their faith in him dissipating. He saw which way this would go, and his heart broke of necessity.
He started for the cloak. “Take a minute to get it together,” he told them. “Perrone and Ophelia need you to be certain.”
“You mentioned your brother,” Sammie said, her voice meek. “Will he stand by you the way we have?”
“He will. We didn’t know about each other until three days ago; but now, it’s like we’ve known each other our whole lives. He’s my blood. First real family I’ve ever had. He’ll be with me to the end.”
When neither said a word, James passed through the cloak.
He refused to look back.
43
Hinton Transport Station
Philadelphia Redux, NAC
T HE MOMENT OF SAMMIE’S DREAMS ARRIVED, but she was in no mood to appreciate it. She and Michael stepped off the Scramjet onto one of hundreds of tiered landing platforms at the largest transportation hub on Earth. They arrived in the military sector, where shuttles, Scramjets, Uplift carriers, and interplanetary cruisers came and went in a dazzling symphony. It was the place where every new peacekeeper on the western continents arrived for departure into UG service off-world. It was, in so many ways, a monument of the Chancellory’s enduring legacy. As Sammie took in the visual spectacle, she focused on a future now lost in a fogbank.
Michael, however, tried to bring perspective to the moment.
“Holy Mary and Jesus. If this was a summer flick, I’d be like, ‘That’s some wicked CGI.’ But this? I can hear it. I can smell it. I can feel the heat. It’s like I’m living inside my dreams.”
She whispered, “I know,” and said nothing more about the future she’d never have.
Sammie wasn’t sure how she miscalculated so horribly. She remembered Jamie a week ago – moody, wandering, a lost boy always on the verge of tears, but someone she loved. She felt pity for what he’d lost and what fate would yet take from him, but she had planned to be there. A source of solace at the darkest hour. A fresh face when he was reborn into a compliant hybrid. A loyal friend to help him chart the future of Chancellors, even as she fought indigos on the colonies.
Then he threw her away. Not a hug, a kiss, a regret. Just, ‘See ya. I’ve got a real family now.’ She wanted to hate him.
Neither James nor his new brother said a word to Michael and Sammie during the final thirty minutes of the flight. Rather, they huddled at various times with Rayna or the admiral. The brothers entered the ReCon tubes and changed into a more rugged, dark green ensemble equipped with side-weapons. James pulled Rayna aside and showed the basics of his new toys. She smiled with relish but insisted on a pouch for her curved Cossack blade. If his mission was a clean, cold cut from the past, he succeeded.
After a minute viewing the Hinton Station theater, Sammie looked back, hoping to find him standing outside the ship, prepping for a formal farewell. No such luck. Instead, she saw Ophelia finger a cube and toss it to Dr. Talan Langdon, one of the team members ordered to disembark here. Ophelia designated Langdon as her proxy before the Reclamation and Descendency Sanctum, which would approve Sammie’s inheritance to the Pynn family fortune. Sammie was about to become a rich woman, but at the moment owned nothing more than the borrowed clothes on her back.
“He’s moving on,” Michael said. “Goodbye ain’t his thing.”
He wrapped an arm around her. Sammie wiped away the tears he must have noticed but stayed in Michael’s embrace. She always envisioned Jamie Sheridan’s skinny arms warming her body and following with a long, sweetened kiss.
“You heard him,” he told her. “James said we can build a life here. Maybe he’s nuts, or maybe he knows what’s coming. Either way, he ain’t the guy we grew up with. This new man, he’s walking straight into some deep, dark shit. I think maybe he’s right: This ain’t our fight.”
“So, we just give up?”
Michael chuckled. “Hell, no. C’mon, Sammie. Look at all this. You kidding me? We got a shot at being born again. Get my speed?”
“You’re right. We’re as helpless as newborns. No jobs, no skills. Michael, I’ll be sixteen next month. That’s two years as an adult on this Earth. I always thought I’d be ready, but my parents … ”
“They’d ease you into things. No sweat. I figure if we got each other’s back, and if Ophelia survives whatever the hell she’s about to do, and you get hold of your inheritance …”
Sammie’s mind had drifted so far away from the money and prestige, Michael’s pat solution to their dilemma seemed too easy.
“So, you think as long as we live off my bank account, it’s all good? And you’re willing to live that way?”
“Sure. We can open some doors, learn some ropes. Hell, we could travel together and see the Collectorate on your dime.”
“Despite what it would mean for you?”
She looked him in the eyes. Was he willing to subordinate himself after everything he’d been through since he arrived? After what generations of his family endured in Alabama?
“Look, Sammie, I’m not a moron. The only way I can live on Earth is by being a Solomon. It’s not as if them people are walking around in chains. Rikard and his husband are living mighty damn fine. You heard Ophelia. I’ll be your first designated Solomon. It’s all legal. We’ll be together. Anything else, we’ll work it out.”
“Michael, the way people looked at you, the things they said … it won’t disappear because you work for a rich Chancellor. You see that?”
Michael polished off a wry smile, but she saw the torment in his eyes. At least back home, he had family and friends in abundance who saw the world through the same lens. She almost said, “You’ll be alone here,” but she couldn’t bear him even considering the possibility of returning through the IDF.
“I ain’t punched any of these bastards yet,” he said. “Keep my head up and my shoulders sturdy. That’s what Gramps always said. It’s OK, Sammie. I’m chill. What choice do I got?”
As he said those words, Michael looked past her. His smile disappeared. She pivoted.
There he was, standing at the far edge of the platform, back turned to her, looking out upon the city. James stood next to his brother, hands clasped behind his back, a hulking monument to a Chancellor design she was coming to fear. She wanted to go to him, to say a proper goodbye, to demand he change his mind, to tell her the whole truth. Anything but this.
Yet she did not budge, and Michael would not let go.
“Can’t imagine what they’re planning,” he
said.
“He never even told us details about his brother, or what happened between them. Three days, Michael. Three days!”
He tightened his hug. “I used to kid Jamie when he was going through his bodybuilder phase. Remember that? About four years ago he got into weights and started bingeing them powerlifting videos on YouTube? He gave it up about a month in when he weren’t seeing progress. Guess he found the easy button.”
“Like you said, he’s not the same man anymore.”
“And that’s why, if I never see him again, I’m just gonna remember the old Jamie.” Michael sighed. “First time we met, he was swimming butt naked in the Alamander River. I was throwing rocks at him. Instead of being sore, he invited me over to share peanut butter sandwiches and draw in his sketchpad. He was a good kid, before all the other shit came.”
“Before he learned his life was a fraud.”
As they watched, the second Jewel joined the brothers. She was a few inches shorter, but Sammie reckoned it was only a matter of time before she evolved like James.
“That girl, Rayna, I don’t get her. She grew up as a Cossack in nineteenth-century Ukraine. She comes to a world like this, and nothing seems to faze her. I think she’s like James … she’s a killer.”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “Bad vibes all the way. Deep, dark shit. But if you wanna say goodbye to him anyway, I’ll walk you over.”
She swiveled around to face Michael, inches from his lips.
“No.” The response came faster than expected. “He has his family now. We go a different way.” She kissed him. “You’re a new man, too. I’m proud you’re my friend, Michael.”
“Coming from the real Wonder Woman, that’s cool.”
His tone changed; that quip wasn’t Michael the comedian. It was someone who saw inside her. She felt it: He wanted another kiss.
Before she could make sense of the moment, Dr. Talan Langdon waved them in his direction. It was time to enter the bureaucracy, to claim a fortune, to be born again.
Yet as they slipped away toward the terminal and into Philadelphia Redux, Sammie looked back and saw three titans. She feared what chaos they were about to wreak on humanity.
The Risen Gods Page 23