Michael sighed. “OK. Well. That don’t exactly clear up much, but hey …” He kicked at the water’s edge. “Why not? What’s another big adventure with my No. 1 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 host. That was the purpose of the Chancellor’s design. I realized that right before I died. But then I saw you and Coop. I couldn’t let you go. I just wanted to give both of you another chance. I saw a way, even a way to heal myself. But she warned me. She knew what would happen.”
“Who? Lydia?”
“I saved you by setting her free. It was me all along, Sammie. I became the Jewel reborn. And now, I’m something more.”
She sat beside him and laid her head against his shoulder.
“It’s OK. We’ll do what we have to do.”
“I’m different now,” he said. “I see how it fits together. I know things I shouldn’t. I’m not human.”
“We’ll make this work, Jamie. Whatever we have to do.”
“I can’t stay here,” he whispered. “I’m dangerous. I have to leave.”
“I know.”
He turned to her. “Will you come with me?”
She smiled. “Are we going home?”
“Yes, Sammie. I reckon it’s time to go home.”
72
7:26 p.m.
The Interdimensional Fold
20.1 miles north of Albion, Alabama
T he fading sun burnished the dying forest in murky tones of amber and sepia, the only light forced through the dust-filled sky and the tall pines of these hardscrabble woods. This was a place rarely visited by humans. They were often hunters or hikers; recently, they were mechanical monsters, their weapons tested upon arrival, given the scorch marks in all directions.
Yet none of these things interested Jamie as much as what this place represented. Fifteen years ago, he arrived here with twelve adult observers, two older children, and an unborn girl. He did not remember the arrival. He was glad he was too young to understand.
The exile, however, gave him a chance at life and most of the observers time to reconsider their mission. What most amazed Jamie was how he understood Agatha Bidwell in a way she never allowed in the classroom. She was far from the monster he once assumed; she was simply trying to destroy the real monster. Jamie supposed that if he endured the same exile, he would have made the same choice.
Now, as he stood feet away from the interdimensional fold rift, Jamie wanted to explain everything he processe
d the past nine hours since they fled. He wanted to tell them about his internal conversations and the secrets he was uncovering. He wanted to tell them that he was now in control, that he could no longer be infused with a programmed thirst to kill. Yet Jamie was in no position to make promises.
He could not shake the Jewel’s proclamation that the Chancellors overreached, that even they did not know how powerful the Jewels of Eternity were. We will show them the way home, and the dark will follow. Jamie knew this was bigger than them all, and he could not believe his audacity to think he might fight something so fearsome.
Yet he saw no option: The Jewels could not be allowed to exist in the universe of the Collectorate or any other.
Two hours earlier, as the dust-shrouded afternoon faded, they gathered food and survival supplies into a duffel. They stole a car without incident and took the long way around toward the fold, the location of which Jamie sensed by instinct. They traveled the interstate north then cut west across back roads as far removed from the disaster zones as possible.
As they neared the fold, Michael became jittery and suggested he was having second thoughts. When he first learned of Jamie’s plan to leave this universe, he took a carefree approach.
“What the hell?” He laughed. “A little holiday with your Chancellor buddies, assuming they ain’t trying to waste us, too? I could be down with that. We take care of business, do a little sightseeing on the U.S.S. Enterprise, and we’re good to go. Right?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Jamie said. “My plan has a pretty reasonable shot at getting us all killed.”
Michael rationalized his decision, knowing the world considered him dead – a fate probably better than if he turned up in public.
However, on the drive toward the fold, Michael insisted his parents must have been going out of their minds with grief. How could he put them through that? If he at least called them, he could say he was all right but couldn’t come home again.
Jamie pulled the car over and wanted to give Michael an out, but he didn’t need to say a word. Michael stiffened.
“No, dude,” Michael said. “This is best. They’ll move on. It’s better than me in jail hurting them the rest of their lives. Besides,” he added with a grin, “we ain’t wrote the end of this turkey yet. Who says we can’t come back someday? The fold ain’t going anywhere. Right?”
Jamie looked at him in stunned silence.
“What if we don’t pull it off, Coop? The Collectorate is a dangerous place. At least there’s still some love on this Earth. But the Chancellors … they’re empty. They’ll do anything to hold on to what they got. They built those Shock Units. They bred people like me. An army of Berserkers. You might never see this place again.”
“Reckon you’re right. But hell, I ought to be a ghost. Must be some reason I got a second chance. We all did. You get my speed?”
Now, as they stood near the fold, Jamie faced his friends. They met him with eyes that conveyed equal parts trepidation and excitement. He exhaled all the burdens of the past day.
“This is where it started, fifteen years ago,” he said. “They came through the fold somewhere near here.” He pointed to a spot between a pair of tall pines. Although they saw nothing, Jamie beheld the fold as a throbbing red seam inches wide. “My so-called parents and yours,” he told Sammie. “They thought they were doing the right thing. So are we.”
He led them to arm’s reach of the fold and said where to walk.
“Think we’ll feel anything freaky?” Michael asked.
“Be ready,” Sammie interjected, clutching a pistol. “There’s no telling what we’ll find or how they’ll respond to us.”
Jamie kissed her.
“Trouble’s gonna come,” he said. “Once the bullets are gone, we’ll figure out something else.”
“So, you can see the other Earth before we even travel to it?” Michael asked. “That sort of tool could come in handy.”
“No, Coop. It’s instinct. Something I never used to have.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Swell. So, you got a plan worked out?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure you want to know the details just yet.”
“Hey, you’re my No. 1. Whatever you need me to do …”
Jamie decided to offer a little hope.
“I know a couple people on the other side,” he said. “They might help.”
“Cool. Although I can’t rightly imagine how, but maybe I shouldn’t ask. You know where these folks are shacked up?”
“Not exactly. Doesn’t matter. I know their names. Emil. Frances.” Jamie squatted down and reached toward the ground with his left hand. “Emil and Frances Bouchet. They knew me once – for a little while.”
Michael persisted. “Sure, J. Whatever you say. Let’s make this happen before I turn chickenshit and run home.”
Jamie pressed his left palm against the bare ground. The Earth vibrated, and loosened soil danced. Pine needles twitched, zigged and zagged. The ground buckled, and crevices the width of fingernails radiated outward through the forest.
The low rumble of a tremor followed.
And then, in a flash, the crevices became white-hot; flames launched like hundreds of tiny torches, burning blue on their tips. The flames swirled and dived around each other as if choreographed, until they merged into a larger conflagration. The fire raced onward and charred everything.
No footprint remained, and all that was green fell into black waste. The fire swept in a circle around the teenagers, but they did not feel its heat.
Just as quickly, the fire died. The forest was ashen for a hundred yards in any direction.
“Holy shit on a …” Michael said. “I need a new catchphrase.”
Jamie grabbed each of his friends by the hand and smiled.
“I’ll look after you as long as I can, just like you did for me. The Chancellors won’t say no to me. I won’t give them a chance. We’re not running anymore.”
There were no more words. He guided them forward, and they stepped through the invisible tear between universes.
Before he followed, Jamie placed his right hand on the ground and blew upon the ashen soil.
The Earth trembled again; but this time, the only color emerging from beneath the surface was green. All around, as far as he could see, life took shape. It twisted and snarled into being, forming a thick carpet of grass, wild herbs, and moss. Whole thickets of shrubby bushes reached toward the sun, transforming from newborns into full-leafed, mature plants in no more than the blink of an eye. The pines shook off their coat of ash and grew a new dress of bark. High branches stretched outward with thick new clumps of needles.
Vines wrapped the base of the trees and sprinted upward. Mushrooms opened, the aroma of the herbs drifted on the breeze, and the distant chirp of birds grew closer.
Jamie knew in his heart he was saying goodbye forever, but he was not sad. On the contrary: The fear and anger were gone, shed from the soul of someone he no longer recognized.
He made peace with what he had to do: For this nightmare to never be repeated, the child named James Bouchet had to erase all others like him.
Jamie looked to the sky, said farewell to Ben, and left behind a life that was never his own. Then he stepped through the fold.
A wash of golden, late-day sunlight cut through the forest.
The dust cloud disappeared.
The saga continues now in The Risen Gods …
The
Risen
Gods
The Impossible Future: Book Two
Frank Kennedy
c. 2019 by Frank Kennedy
All rights reserved
PART ONE
STRANGERS
I used to play in the river when I was little. I swam naked because nobody was around. I liked peanut butter and jelly. Skippy was my favorite brand.
I wanted to draw comic books for a living.
When I was twelve, I started smoking. My best friend and I walked the
long way home from school and shared a cigarette at our hideout.
We decided to become world-class burglars. We weren’t very good at it, but we stole our first car when we were fourteen.
It was fun, and nobody got hurt.
We knew our hometown could never contain us. But we weren’t stupid, so we planned to wait until graduation, then we’d be off. Where? Who knew? We just wanted to have fun and ignore as many rules as we could.
Maybe it was all a dream.
Maybe I was never that boy.
Maybe I will stop killing people someday.
Maybe they will figure out how to kill me before the dark drowns them all.
1
The Interdimensional Fold
J AMIE SHERIDAN FELT HIS HUMANITY peeling away like thin sheets of sun-ravaged skin. He transformed just as the Jewel of Eternity promised, but with the unexpected burdens of memory, love, and compassion. His DNA was realigning. He sensed the coming stages of his next evolution.
How much time do I have?
He turned from the Earth he knew and disappeared into an impenetrable fog between universes. Inside the fold, he looked around for Sammie and Michael, who entered before him, but he saw nothing through the gray soup.
“Seriously. Dude.” Michael Cooper’s voice rose a few feet ahead. “This is not cool.”
The air was stale and thin.
“It’s OK,” Samantha Huggins said. “Just keep walking. We’ll be there any second, Coop.”
“Dude, I’m right behind you,” Jamie said.
“Sweet,” Michael said. “No. 1 has my back. Seriously, guys, I got doubts about these pistols. I mean, if one of them giant machine-monsters is waiting for us, we gotta bring out the big guns. Reckon that would be you, J. No pressure.”
“Shock units,” Jamie whispered.
He destroyed those walking mechanical nightmares ten hours ago, but he replayed the moment on a loop. He could not shake the nagging fear of having made a horrible mistake. Yes, the machines would have reduced Michael and Sammie to ash in seconds. Yes, his friends deserved better, a chance to salvage new lives. But was the cost too high? If Jamie remained dead, he would not have unleashed the Jewel’s power on the Shock Units – and everything else for miles.
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 29