“That’s what she said.”
“So why do I think this place has been ghosted?”
“It’s early. The sun hasn’t been up for long.”
“Everywhere I been, there’s always people up before the sun.”
Michael didn’t care for what Sammie said next.
“Let’s find out. Let’s knock on doors.”
“Hold the phone. Wasn’t it you said not to draw attention?”
Her eyes radiated indecision. She wanted to take command, as she did at every perilous moment in Alabama. But she couldn’t read her own people as well on this Earth, and Michael knew that terrified her. Her training had not prepared her as well as she thought.
“Maybe you’re right. Why don’t we backtrack? Go to ground level. We’re bound to run into one of our people. We’ll… wait.”
Sammie raised her gun and moved forward on cat’s feet. Michael cursed under his breath but followed. Outside the first landings, which were across the corridor from each other, Sammie placed a finger over her lips and pointed to a spot just above each door.
That’s when he saw it: A tiny red pulse, about the size of a laser pointer. She motioned toward the other landings. His eyes refocused; Michael saw the same pulsations. She leaned in and whispered.
“It’s some kind of security. Maybe they’re under a lockdown.”
His stomach churned. “From what?”
She looked down at their guns. “People like us?”
He remembered the quarterly drills at Albion High School.
“Huh? We’re not active shooters.”
“But what if there are?”
“Well, shit. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They retraced their steps and returned to the lobby just in time to catch movement outside on the promenade.
Two unfamiliar men—peacekeeper tall and wide—appeared in blue body suits, each bearing a silver weapon with long cylindrical shaft. Far nastier looking than thump guns, the shafts resembled military-grade silencers. He and Sammie ducked into the corridor and realized they needed to take another route.
As they scampered down the corridor, which appeared to extend two football fields, Michael’s palm sweated against the pistol. He kept his voice low.
“Who were those guys?”
“Not ours.”
“Looked like they were hunting for somebody.”
“You want to go back and ask them who?”
“Is it too soon to say we’re screwed?”
“Yes. Too soon.”
“I just don’t wanna keep running from guys with guns.” His breath quickened. “Already played that.”
“Don’t worry, Michael. This isn’t like before. We’ve got people on our side. They knew the enemy might be here. They’ve got a plan.”
“If they do, they sure as shit didn’t let us in on it.”
As they reached the corridor’s end and Sammie put a finger over her lips, Michael and she stood at the top of the stairs and listened for footsteps below. The stairwell banked against the western end of the outpost. A multi-level window revealed the island beyond. The Atlantic smashed against a rocky shoreline, and just above it, a thick tree line guarded the island’s interior.
Sammie motioned downward, tapping thumb and forefinger together to indicate slow, gentle steps. As they took the first steps, she extended her weapon, gripped in both hands. Michael followed suit. You can do this, dumbass, he told himself.
They found no resistance as they reached Level 2. Signs directed them to research labs, not residences. He’d seen enough movies to know better and was relieved when she motioned downward to the main level.
Halfway there, the building shook. He thought earthquake, but Sammie knew otherwise. She didn’t have to say a word.
He did. “Blowing stuff up? Really? I’ll never trust a sunrise again.”
And down they went, pistols aimed. At the main level, they faced two options: Exit onto the promenade overlooking the ocean or exit the rear of the outpost. They split up, each checking a different option to deliver the all-clear. Sammie peeked out onto the promenade and retreated. Michael studied a walkway that cut like a snake into the stone hillside and scaled twenty meters to the tree line. Weapons fire above on the ocean side made the decision easy.
They scampered along the uneven path, exposed. The outpost towered above them, blocking the sun and creating a dawn effect. When they reached the trees, the land flattened, and multiple walkways offered options. Weapons fire came in short bursts, all in muddied echoes. The shooters were not close.
“Suggestions?” He asked.
“We have to find our people. They’re our best chance.”
“Assuming these other assholes aren’t picking them off right now.”
“What are you thinking, Michael?”
“What they told us during those drills at school. You hear shots, run the other way.”
Sammie nodded, but Michael anticipated her next words. “That’s for kids who don’t have guns. Besides, I thought you didn’t want to run from people with guns anymore.”
“I don’t. But I also don’t wanna see you dead.”
He sensed something unexpected and undefinable when he said those words. He drew a smile from Sammie.
“I came too far to die today,” she said. “But thanks.”
He shrugged. “So, we’re heading toward the gunfire?”
“We need to help our team.”
“Then away we go.”
They made their way east, crouching at moments where the foliage thinned out, exposing their position. As they neared what Michael thought resembled a gazebo, movement scaled the walkways from the main facility. In the distance, a shout and a cry preceded more weapons fire. Silence.
Michael thought he heard a familiar hum behind them and deep into the forest. Then it vanished.
A fist-sized rock rolled out of the trees and across the walkway. He and Sammie understood.
They fell to the ground a second before tracer fire cracked the morning air inches above them. They heard many footsteps. Faster and faster. Closer and closer.
As the shadows took form and rounded a bend just ahead, Sammie pulled her trigger, and Michael followed.
A man howled and stumbled. His allies came into full view and aimed long, silver weapons. They were wide-open targets, but when Michael fired, he missed. Sammie hit one shoulder high, but he only bounced back a half step. Four of them, all upright, the same blue bodysuits as seen on the Level 3 promenade.
Michael shifted his final thoughts to the parents he left behind in another universe. They would never learn how he died…
The tracers came as expected, but not in his direction. A landslide of flash pegs tore apart the four, who danced toward death as their bodies shredded. Two of their faces disintegrated. Arms separated. Blood sprayed. And then they were down.
Neither Michael nor Sammie had time to think. Their savior rode in on red, falling from the sky and landing between them and the dead. Just as Michael witnessed outside the fold, a massive peacekeeper in a crimson, armored bodysuit and matching helmet obliterated the enemy. The soldier stepped toward the defeated, looked over them, and turned his blast rifle to the man Sammie hit in the leg. He shot the enemy through the head.
The peacekeeper motioned for Sammie and Michael to hold still. He looked in every direction, tapped the side of his helmet, nodding his head as if receiving orders, then waved the two forward. Two other peacekeepers came into view, also as if dropped from the sky.
“You OK?” Michael whispered to Sammie, who nodded.
As they approached the peacekeeper, Michael couldn’t help but think he cheated death more than his fair share.
“Damn, you guys are wicked,” he told the soldier. “You always time things out like this?”
“Apparently,” the soldier said beneath his full-facial helmet. Michael could have sworn the voice sounded just like… he didn’t want to think it. Then the peacekeeper tapped the s
ide of the helmet, and his face plate folded away.
“This was my first time,” he told Michael. “But yeah. We pride ourselves on our timing.”
Michael dropped his pistol. “Jamie?”
35
UG Admiralty Scramjet Ericsson
20 minutes earlier, over the Atlantic
J AMES BOUCHET STEPPED FROM THE RECON TUBE clothed in the crimson armor of a peacekeeper, holding his helmet at his side. Valentin was right: The fabric fit his body better than a glove. It stretched and bent with every ripple and flex, every curvature – no matter how subtle. Yet it left him room to breathe, neither heating nor cooling his body. It expanded and shrank as if organic.
A full-body shield. Armor of the gods.
No wonder so few peacekeepers had died over the centuries. How hopeless the colonists must have felt when these red-suited beasts dropped from the sky.
James now understood his brother’s pride in the UG, in the glory of keeping the colonies at bay, in the slaughter necessary to cull the herd of discontent. James, as tall and musclebound as the six other combat-ready peacekeepers, tapped into Valentin’s pride. He embraced the adrenaline drawn from his commanding physical prowess, an intellect expanding exponentially through the trigger of keywords, and a taste for where the dark might lead him.
Valentin approached and pounded fists on his brother’s shoulders.
“You wear it well,” he told James in a hushed tone. “Too bad they deprived you of your prime fighting years.”
“Better late than sorry.”
“This will not be a simulation, brother.”
James pounded the shoulders of the brother he killed three days ago. “I need no more practice.”
He was right. The simulators taught him everything he needed: weaponry, tactics, protocol. In less than a day, the Jewel granted him access to years of peacekeeper training, restructuring his mind and heart into a creature prepared for any battle scenario.
So, James wasn’t surprised when Perrone and Maj. Marshall announced an emergency combat rescue and demanded James take part. In three days, he journeyed from prisoner to front lines.
Before departure from the Great Plains Metroplex, the admiral revealed a surprise: He installed James Bouchet into the Unification Guard registry. James’s combat history, including commendations from three different battalions, was a staggering forgery never to be uncovered, Perrone insisted. His twinkle reflected smug confidence and said this practice was not uncommon. It was also, as Valentin pointed out, necessary.
“The others have to know you’re one of us,” he said of the peacekeepers dispatched to the admiral’s Scramjet. “If they knew your true nature, they would never accept you.”
James wondered what they might think of Valentin, the immortal. In the back of his mind, James sensed a future not too distant where Chancellors might have to make these judgments: Concede to the next evolution of humanity or fight them to the death.
Until then, these unexpected turns played into his hands, and James did not minimize his good fortune.
Minutes later, they gathered around a holographic construction of their target zone on the Isle of Seneca. Admiral Augustus Perrone, who boarded without his No. 2, Maj. Sexton Marshall, displayed the southeast quadrant of the island and established the mission parameters. His first message: Avoid civilian collateral damage.
“We have triggered the facility’s lockdown protocol,” he said. “All potential combatants have been isolated and identified. Their stream implant frequencies will be relayed to your DR29 grids.” He nodded toward the helmets each soldier carried at his side. “We see no civilians on external scans. For now.”
“And the combatants, sir?” A peacekeeper asked.
“Two groups, one under the payroll of our allies, and the other subject to extermination.” He brought up an additional layer highlighting human movement within one hundred meters of the facility. The differentiation became clear at once. Fifteen signals flashed red, while twelve flashed white.
Perrone pointed to the red beacons. “Isolate and kill the enemy with prejudice. No negotiation, no quarter. Do we understand?”
The admiral’s eyes circled the soldiers, but he stopped at James, who did not hesitate to nod.
You think I might hesitate, he thought. You’re testing me. Good.
“We will blanket the island with a global stream block once you hit the ground. The block can withstand countermeasures for eighty seconds. Therefore, you must annihilate the targets with efficiency. Gentlemen, I do not have to tell you that initiating a GSB on Earth directly violates the Chancellory’s privacy protocols. We must allow none of our targets to report this maneuver. Understood?”
“Aye, sir,” each soldier said.
“Once the enemy is neutralized?” Valentin asked.
Perrone pointed to locations east and northeast of the facility. “Team A,” he said, nodding to soldiers at his right flank, “will rendezvous at the transport center. Gather our allies and prepare for immediate departure via their own shuttles. Team B,” he nodded to James, Valentin, and a soldier two inches taller, “you and I will meet at these coordinates and proceed on foot north. We should rendezvous with our Ukrainian package soon thereafter. Our cleanup team will land behind us and remove the bodies. Final extraction should be complete within fifteen minutes after you hit the ground. Then we will disengage their lockdown.”
A soldier flexed his brow. “Sir, this Ukrainian package. May I inquire as to the value of this individual?”
“You may not, Specialist Holland.”
The soldier nodded in full compliance.
James relished the idea of a peacekeeper rookie knowing more about the Ukrainian than anyone on the Scramjet. Ever since she first appeared in his dreams a day ago, the other Jewel seemed to whisper in his ear. He had the vaguest profile of her features, but he sensed the same pent-up anger and need to kill he experienced when the Jewel first twisted his mind in Austin Springs. He heard her desperation, understood how a lifetime of betrayal shaped her. And like James, this girl was also not compliant to Chancellory commands. She needs me.
This was not the time to dwell upon her. Mission first. Show the admiral what you are. Again.
The soldiers attached their helmets to the neck brace. James tapped the side; the helmet folded over him. Small nodes in the full-facial shield transmitted perfect peripheral view of his surroundings. His DR29 grid alighted before his eyes. Along with the others, he grabbed his Mark 10 Alexis blast rifle, which synthesized with his left arm and formed a deadly new appendage.
They took their positions behind the starboard exit panel. Seconds before arrival, the DR29 flashed instructions to trigger his gravity modifier boots. He did, with a simple stamp on each heel. A gentle breeze rose beneath him.
The exit panel vanished, and a spectacular view of an island paradise after sunrise opened before him. The Scramjet hummed as it veered across the landscape and slowed thirty meters above the tree line. His blood rushed, and fire surged in his belly.
For an instant, Peacekeeper James Bouchet remembered the sad, lost puppy he was just a few days ago. Jamie Sheridan—the hopeless curiosity of Albion, Alabama. A common thief, disoriented and headed nowhere fast.
“I’m not wrong to love this,” he told Ignatius Horne between blinks. “I’m not wrong to want these kills.”
“True,” Ignatius replied. Together, they stood upon a viewing platform overlooking the remains of a nuked Earth city.
“You’ve become the man born into you,” Ignatius continued. “In your position, I would resent the old me. My namesake, the liberator of Hiebimini, also resented his birthright. But I caution you to consider: The road Ignatius took to his own destiny was dressed in blood, scorn, and agony. He found happiness, but only for a short time.”
James remembered Ignatius nuking this city from orbit during their last visit deep inside his mind.
“Why didn’t his happiness last?” James asked.
“Because his fate was decided before his birth. Rather than resist, he chose self-sacrifice in the name of a greater purpose. For one day, he was the most powerful human being in the Collectorate. And then he was gone, all but erased from official memory.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because Ignatius Horne left a legacy founded in love. His wife and daughter continued to give voice to him and his sacrifice. If you embrace the innermost impulses of your new self, what legacy will you leave that is not drenched in blood and covered in ash?”
James wanted the last word.
“You don’t trust me. You don’t believe I can control this. You’re wrong, Ignatius. I only intend to kill people who need to die. When my mission succeeds, I’ll be done.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps killing will become an intoxicant.” He pointed to the decimated city. “How many do you believe died here? Does it even matter? In my experience with humans, numbers only matter as long as they remember the faces. When they reach a certain threshold, the morality of murder dissolves. It becomes mere process. A means to control, and no more. Take heed, James. If you forget their faces, you will justify any atrocity.”
“Not a chance,” he insisted. “I have you along for the ride, and you’ll keep me sane.”
“You can hope, my friend. Now, follow orders and enjoy your kills.”
James blinked and reentered his exhilarating reality.
He jumped.
36
H E RACED DOWN INVISIBLE STAIRS as he descended upon Seneca. The gravity modifier boots propelled him forward in a predetermined arc; James dropped no faster than if attached to a parachute. His rifle poised, James studied the DR29’s ground sensors and the target zone where he would soon land. He assessed his options, adjusted his landing radius, and prepared to fire.
He scoped five enemy targets, designated in red, closing in on two allies. Judging by the pace of the white simulations, these two did not understand they were walking into a trap.
He widened his external grid, evaluated the landing arcs of the other five members of his team. Each jumped according to a plan allowing maximum dispersal across the combat zone. Only Valentin would come down close enough to assist, but his arc was fifteen degrees to the left flank, and he jumped ten seconds after James. The other member of Team B, Specialist Boone Holland, would land fifty degrees and thirty meters beyond both brothers.
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 48