Jamie wondered whether he was sentencing his friend to a life of endless pain in hospitals or in a wheelchair. The bullet holes were so close to the spine. He didn’t expect Michael’s forgiveness, only an understanding that his No. 1 had to do everything in his power to keep Michael alive.
Sammie didn’t realize Jamie was standing, but she kept her word: The boat indeed headed for Austin Springs. Jamie saw the town’s twinkling lights and the vague outlines of stores along the lakefront. They were still more than a mile away. A mile from …
Something didn’t make sense. The lumbering stiffness vanished; he felt refreshed. The extreme exhaustion that grounded him before reaching the dock disappeared. Hours should have passed to feel this invigorated.
“I don’t get it,” Jamie said, looking at his wristwatch.
6:06 a.m.
“Just ten minutes. Can’t be.”
The full reality of his predicament strike him. Jamie realized the lights of Austin Springs were broadside to the boat, which was veering away toward the western shore. His grip on the pistol tightened as he realized Sammie was betraying him yet again. Was she such a cold-blooded Chancellor she would allow Michael to die?
Jamie didn’t wait to find out. He rushed forward and jammed the gun against her head.
“What are you doing, Sammie?” He yelled over the outboard. “What are you doing?”
She pulled back on the throttle and pointed to the boat’s port side.
“Look. Over town. It’s a helicopter, Jamie. It’s coming this way.”
Jamie kept a steady aim while shifting his eyes toward Austin Springs. Then he saw the lights. They didn’t match the steady twinkles from the storefronts. Green and red flashers. Through the hazy dawn light, Jamie saw an ovoid shape emerge. The familiar echo of a chopper’s rotor was faint but distinct. They were still almost a mile from town but sitting dead in the center of the lake, the refuge of the eastern and western shores each a good half-mile away.
“Throttle up, Sammie. We’re not changing course.”
“Jamie, that doesn’t make sense. We’ll head right into them.”
He cocked the hammer for emphasis. “Too late to back off. We have to save Coop.”
“Jamie, I’m swinging the boat west. Ginny’s Creek is right over there.” She pointed. “It’s a good place to hide.”
“No. That helicopter … it might not be them. It …”
“You’re not thinking this through.”
Sammie gunned the throttle, but this time grabbed the wheel and made a hard right. He wasn’t going to let her run again. Not when they were so close to help.
He demanded she head back toward town. She didn’t say a word; he didn’t know what to do with her defiance. A moment ago he was ready to shoot her, but the girl’s determination in the face of death confused him.
Jamie sensed a shadow moving behind him but didn’t have time to react before he heard a familiar voice shouting at him.
“Dude, that is not cool.”
Michael Cooper stood rigid behind them, his weary, mud-splattered face casting a disbelieving sneer.
He reached for the gun.
Jamie looked into his best friend’s bewildered eyes, dizzy.
“Coop …?”
27
T HE BLUE HAZE of dawn terrified Ben. The sun would be up soon, and with it the final hours of his brother’s life. Ben knew what he had to do, but he wondered whether he possessed the courage. All his life he played the Chancellors’ games, succumbed to their iron will, and went along with their mission to protect the Jewel until the day of its rebirth. Even when he finally saw the light of ultimate truth – a revelation bigger than all of them – he did not find the fortitude to take a stand. Instead, he cowered in the shadows and deep into a bottle when they rejected his truth.
Now, as he rode shotgun in Walt Huggins’s secret, black SUV – pine trees whizzing past along back roads around Lake Vernon – Ben knew he had no choice but to kill again.
In the minutes since their hasty escape, Ben learned how insidious Walt could be. The hulk of a man produced a hand-held Global Positioning Satellite, modified to track the Caryllan Wave energy coursing through Jamie’s blood, a signature unique in the world.
Walt boasted of his careful planning, even while he tracked a speedboat’s progress across Lake Vernon, headed toward Austin Springs.
“Be thankful, Sheridan,” Walt said with confidence. “If I had not considered every contingency, we’d have no way to track him.”
Ben failed to hide his sarcasm. “Yeah, that’s what a good Chancellor does. Every contingency. So, did you plan for the Caryllan pulse to arrive three days ahead of your prediction? Did you also plan for Grace to die like that?”
The words fell off his lips like icicles. Walt neither mentioned her name nor showed evidence of grief, as if her death were less of a concern than a paper cut. Ben was still trying to make sense of their final minutes in the lake house and how calmly Walt carried himself.
Walt studied the road but never changed his stoic expression.
“My wife understood sacrifice, Sheridan. She played her role, and now she’s gone. We have an important task at hand: The only mission that matters.”
Ben cursed in silence. He reached into his pocket and felt the flash drive. If he reached Jamie for a few minutes, maybe the impossible could be conquered. Ben glanced down to the butt of the pistol tucked between his pants and belly. If only the SUV weren’t moving so fast.
All he had to do was fire a single shot, take the wheel then use the GPS to find Jamie. It would have been easy; if only the biggest, most fearsome Chancellor he ever knew wasn’t sitting to his left. The last time he tried to defy Chancellors older and more committed than himself, Ben failed miserably. All he wanted to do two years earlier was confront his parents with knowledge that could change their mission, alter their entire view of history. But he was warned against such tactics.
“Change is a concept few humans embrace willingly,” Deputy Ignatius Horne told him that day. “Chancellors, on the other hand, have a tendency to exterminate opposition to their ideology. What you are proposing could bring the entire caste system to its knees. Your parents will not be pleased, Benjamin. Tread with great care.”
He did not listen, and the shadows followed him ever since.
Walt rounded a sharp curve while minding the GPS.
“Appears our young ones have made a course correction.” He flipped the monitor toward Ben. “Turned west. Interesting decision.”
Ben wasn’t familiar with the geography. “Where are they going?”
“On present heading, Ginny’s Creek. There’s one paved road into that area. Otherwise, dirt access. Could delay our reunion.”
“Why?”
“The creek has a snake-like pattern for almost five miles. The surrounding forest is quite dense. If anyone wanted to evade pursuers for a few hours, this would be a wise place to hide. Fortunately, Samantha is familiar with the terrain.”
“Why would she know that area so well?”
“Thick woods. Scattered residents.” Walt turned to Ben. “The perfect location for Sammie’s Dacha training.”
“Dacha? Seriously? She’s a kid. If you wanted her ready for the Unification Guard, you could have done it proper after the mission here was over. You’re a sick bastard, Huggins.”
Walt laughed. “Because I do my job as a father? And where precisely have you been for James the past two years? Drowning in the bottle. You have no credibility.”
“Pull over.”
“We’ll stop when we find Samantha and James.”
Ben winced and grabbed at his bullet wound, which was bleeding less. “Pull over, Huggins. I’m lightheaded. I need to dress this thing.”
“I suspect you’re suffering more from a hangover than loss of blood. You can wait.”
The safety was off; Walt would never see it coming. As long as Ben grabbed the wheel, he could gently guide the vehicle to the curb. The pl
an made sense, even quick and easy. Too easy. And that’s why Ben hesitated. He tried instead to play a final card.
“We need to pull over and talk about Jamie.”
“There’s nothing to discuss, Sheridan.”
“Walt, it doesn’t have to end this way. Jamie doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him.”
“No, he doesn’t. But that matter was settled fifteen years ago. Don’t tell me you’ve decided to intervene at the eleventh hour.”
Ben gritted his teeth. “Screw you, Huggins. Pull over.”
Walt didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I have nothing to say.”
Ben recognized Walt’s hardened, capricious aura.
“Did you know?”
Walt wrinkled his brow. “Know what?”
“About the attack. Both of them. You rigged both your houses to blow. Why be so prepared if you didn’t know it was coming?”
Walt said nothing, but Ben saw the birth of a smug grin.
“I was always told about you, Huggins. How attentive you were, how no one dared try to get anything past you. The others at our final meeting … you knew their true plans?”
“That they would betray me? Of course.”
“How? Was one of us working both sides?”
Walt laughed. “You think small – your inane theories aside.”
“What does that mean?”
The SUV slowed to a halt at a stop sign. No cars approached the intersection, yet Walt did not press the gas.
“Sheridan, I was not just our mission leader but by definitional responsibility, the chief archivist. Before we crossed the fold, I consumed every available archival detail about each observer, their family history, and their allegiances. Every detail.”
Ben felt stupid. “Of course. That’s why you were always a step ahead. No wonder they never challenged you to your face.”
Ben reached for his weapon as Walt tapped the wheel.
“Yes,” Walt said without emotion. “A Chancellor who cannot create leverage is hardly a Chancellor at all. And nothing was going to stop this mission. The future must be served, Sheridan.”
Rage rose toward the surface. Ben struggled to contain it.
“You allowed us to leave our homes behind and live in this primitive shithole long enough to turn against each other. Chancellors killing Chancellors. You ruined us. You …”
“Saved the future of the Chancellory. Now, reduce your sanctimonious blabbering, Sheridan. After all, if I had warned your parents, then you would not have had the chance to kill them.”
Walt beamed with satisfaction and hit the gas.
Ben turned cold all over.
28
J AMIE DROPPED THE pistol as he stared into the impossible. Before he collapsed, Michael ran forward and caught him. He set Jamie on the passenger seat.
“Damn, dude. What’s gotten into you?”
“Coop? You’re … how did …?”
Michael twisted around to Sammie, whose dropped jaw mixed astonishment and joy. “What the flying fudge is going on with you two?”
“Coop,” she said, struggling for words as she held onto the wheel. “I don’t think you should be walking. You’ve been …”
“Shot,” Jamie said as he tried to gather his wits. “I don’t understand. They shot you, Coop. In the back. Don’t you remember?”
Michael shuffled his baffled glare between his two friends, mumbled something inaudible, then slipped to one knee.
“Holy shit on a stick,” he said, this time loud enough for everyone to hear. He examined the blood-splattered front of his shirt, felt the mud on his face and twisted his head over his shoulder, yanking at his shirt where it was still drenched in wet blood. “They shot me. Yeah. I was … they took me from my house and …” He paused then formed a strange smirk for his captivated audience. He looked around. “We’re on our way to heaven, right? Them bastards killed us and now we’re taking the fastest boat to …”
“No, Coop,” Jamie said. “Not heaven. We ain’t that lucky.”
Jamie twisted his eyes toward Sammie, who lost her grip on the wheel, also speechless. Nobody said a word until, at last, an ominous mechanical rhythm broke their silence.
Sammie looked east. “The helicopter. It’s coming.”
Jamie swung about. The chopper was beating a hurried path no more than a hundred yards above the water. Yet Jamie realized it wasn’t changing course to pursue them. In fact, the chopper was continuing due north, from where the three of them came.
Michael chimed in. “That’s a police bird. I can see the markings. Wait. I don’t get this. It’s supposed to be night. Where the heck are we?”
Sammie pulled back on the throttle until the boat idled. The chopper’s roar dimmed as it shrank into the murky dawn. Only the putter of the boat’s motor broke a stunned silence.
“It’s real,” Jamie whispered. “It’s happening.” He flung himself out of the seat, threw his arms around Michael and embraced in a hug like none before. Jamie ignored the blood, the wet back. All he knew was that somehow, defying all ludicrous odds, Michael was alive. “You’re OK,” he said. “You’re OK. Dude! You’re OK.”
Michael didn’t react at once. Gradually, however, he lifted his arms and wrapped them around Jamie. Tears blended into the mud stains.
Michael whispered, “I don’t understand.”
“You’re alive, Coop, and nothing else matters. When we found you, I was so sure …”
“Found?” Michael turned to Sammie. “Help me out. He’s babbling.”
Sammie tapped Jamie on the shoulder, and that was enough to snap him out of his ecstasy. “Jamie, I think we better sit down and sort this out.”
He felt too good to do anything other than follow Sammie’s suggestion. Michael started the conversation.
“This is too much. How did I get from wherever to out here?”
Michael remembered being in the car with the English teacher from hell and his ex-track coach.
“They were gonna kill me sooner or later, I reckon. After …”
“Do you remember anything else?” Sammie asked.
“I was falling. Couldn’t stop. Then there was this light.” He smiled with recognition. “Yeah. A light. You know, like folks who say they died but didn’t make it all the way?” He frowned. “Next thing I see is my No. 1 here near about ready to blow your head off, Sammie. Would somebody tell me what’s up with that? And if they shot me, how come I ain’t dead?”
Jamie felt Sammie’s undeniable glare. She looked him over as if he weren’t human.
“C’mon, Jamie. You have to see it.”
“See what?”
“The re-sequencing program. Nothing else makes sense.”
Every corner of Jamie’s logic centers insisted he knew what Sammie was talking about, but he couldn’t acknowledge the truth.
“Jamie,” she said, her voice softening. “Michael was shot two times in the back. We saw the bullet holes. He shouldn’t be alive.”
Jamie couldn’t take his eyes off her. He flashed to her bedroom, when she first appeared as an angel of mercy. She wasn’t able to find the bullet holes he knew were once there. He then recalled the overwhelming exhaustion that gripped him as he carried Michael; the sense of his own life draining away. Jamie thought about his ten-minute nap that seemed to go on for ages and yet was so refreshing, as if all the energy was restored. He looked down to his own, upturned palms, stained in Michael’s blood.
“Hello? I’m starting to freak over here,” Michael said. “And I didn’t think anything was crazier than the crap I went through last night.”
“It’s me,” Jamie whispered. “What’s happened to me?”
Michael threw up his hands. “Well, dude, that’s my question. Look here. I didn’t imagine creepy old Queen Bee storming my house in the middle of the night and wacko Christian putting a gun in my mouth and them trying to hunt you down. And you’re not one to put a gun to people’s heads. And I’m soaking in blood like a pig in a s
laughterhouse. How about a few answers?”
Jamie stared at his upturned hands and thanked whatever might be responsible – God, the Chancellors, the program that was killing him.
Sammie reached out and grabbed his hands, saying softly:
“I don’t think anyone imagined this. Not even your designers.”
He snatched his hands away and turned to Michael.
“You’re going to be OK, Coop. Really, truly OK. I’m sorry I got you into this. I didn’t know … none of it.”
“None of what, dude? Your designers? What’s up with that? You got some answers?”
“Yeah. But you’re not gonna believe them any more than I did.”
Sammie opened the throttle and resumed a course for Ginny’s Creek, but this time Jamie didn’t stop her. He needed to sort through his swirl of emotions, to recount the madness that invaded his life, and to appreciate the good news that came of these horrors.
Michael was alive. For the time being, nothing else mattered.
29
B EN HAD EVERY reason to put a bullet through Walt’s skull, yet he felt naked in the face of Walt’s accusation. He couldn’t escape the memories that drove him into dark places for two years.
“How?” Ben mumbled. “Did Ignatius tell you?”
“No,” Walt said. “Although I was certain he played a role. In truth, your father consulted with me the day before he died. He was prepared to take any necessary action to silence you and your maniacal theories before you took them to the other observers. For all Tom’s dissatisfaction with this Earth, he believed in the mission. I’m sure you had more than an inkling of what he might do to you. I was not surprised when the call came.”
“I’m sure you weren’t. But since you didn’t lift a finger to stop it, I also don’t think you much cared.”
Ben knew he couldn’t put this one on Walt. After all, it was Ben who confronted his parents with the research he’d been putting together since moving out several months earlier. It was Ben who should have known they would never believe a word.
On that day, Tom and Marlena Sheridan reclined on a sofa as Ben placed a file folder between them and slapped his clammy hands together.
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 13