The Impossible Future: Complete set Frank Kennedy (freenovel24 .TXT) 📖

ago. A cataclysm, she said. The Chancellors will die out in a few generations because of it. They created things like me to become an army to wipe out your enemies. Berserkers, she called us. Walking nuclear bombs.”

He nodded. “Yes, well, that is one feature among many, and not a productive one at that. James, you are more than a weapon. You’re the future. That cataclysm? It all happened on a colony called Hiebimini.” He pointed, and the most distant world from Earth glowed. “The very resource Chancellors depended upon for centuries for physical and intellectual superiority was destroyed. It was a mineral called brontinium. We have enough reserves of its extract for thirty years. It is as essential to our survival as the air we breathe.

“Men like me will become an anachronism. Then a memory. But men like you will carry on the Chancellory name in a new form. A new species. Human and Jewel. Unstoppable. Infinitely adaptable. And when challenged? Weapons of mass destruction. Better than your creators. Exactly as evolution demands. What you did tonight proved the experiment a success. You have given hope to the hundreds of millions of Chancellors who have no idea you exist.”

James wondered what Perrone would say if he knew James planned to kill all those evolutionary wonders and then himself?

“I might keep mum on that detail,” Ignatius said.

At that instant, James recalled the rest of Lydia’s story – and the name of the man who brought about the Chancellory’s cataclysm.

“It was you,” he told Ignatius through the growing fog. “She said it was a man named Ignatius Horne. He did the Chancellors in.”

“Yes,” Ignatius said. “He and I, together. He was a good man who found redemption at the end.”

He faced Perrone. “So, what happens next?”

“We retrieve the others like you. Operations are beginning across the Collectorate. As I speak, we are tracking the Jewel who crossed the IDF in the Ukrainian Expanse. In the short term, we tread carefully, avoiding factions who consider your species to be an abomination. In the long term, we create a new civilization. You and your penis will be uncommonly well exercised.”

“Holy shit,” he told Ignatius. “He wants to farm us.”

“On the bright side, James, you have never been fond of being a virgin. Your status should change soon enough.”

Laughter pierced the fog. Perrone asked an unexpected question.

“Do you feel invincible, James?”

“What? I don’t know how to answer. I mean, I’m bigger, stronger, and I can sense things like I never could before. But I can be killed. It already happened once.”

Perrone rapped the table twice. “Good. Do not let these changes go to your head. You are evolving into something unprecedented, but immortality was not built into your design. Even once you are trained in how to kill with efficiency, a round of enemy flash pegs can still tear your innards apart. Death will always stalk you, James.”

“Tell me something new. Why are you …?”

“Do you regret killing your brother?”

He stumbled over his words. “I … I didn’t see any other choice.”

“So then, no regrets?”

“No.”

“Because you sensed Valentin was the first of many to come.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Hard to explain. I can see the future opening up to me.”

“Like a prediction? A vision?”

“No. Just feelings. Certainty.”

“Certainty of what? That you will kill people?”

He swallowed hard. “Thousands.”

James didn’t understand why the number fell from his lips with ease, or why it didn’t bother him.

Perrone reacted with a wry smile. “Sounds like the Berserker in you.”

    “Or I’m realistic. I met my brother a few hours ago and then I jammed a knife through his throat. That’s just who I am now.”

“Maybe.” He turned to the aide who stood silent sentry and nodded. The aide left the dining room.

“James, in recent weeks I became aware of extraordinary details not only about the Jewel program but also about a competing venture. An attempt to breed immortal humans. The ultimate stride toward godhood itself. A typical Chancellor lives about one hundred forty standard years. What if the final, immutable law of nature could be broken? What if one-forty becomes one thousand?”

James had a bad feeling about this.

“Live forever? How’s that possible? Are they Berserkers, too?”

“Until this evening, I had no idea. I thought immortality was as ridiculous a concept as the blending of Jewel and human. So, I tested the proposition.”

He looked into the admiral’s eyes, and they betrayed Perrone’s secret before the words crossed his lips. The madness of it all bore down on James. He didn’t need to consult with Ignatius this time.

“Are you serious?” James said.

“Bring him in,” Perrone shouted.

The door vanished, and the aide returned. At his side, Valentin Bouchet looked good as new, dressed in the same form-fitting, brown-and-white bodysuit James wore. No blood, no hole in his neck, and his eyes no longer filled with a savage need to kill.

“Come, Valentin,” Perrone said. “Sit with us.”

“No way,” James muttered. “There’s no way.”

“I wasn’t sure either,” the admiral said as Valentin sat, struggling to make eye contact with his brother. “The wound did not heal for almost ten minutes. His heart restarted twenty minutes after that, and the rest of him … returned to form. Still a delay with his larynx. Repairing itself. He’ll be able to speak in time.”

James couldn’t take his eyes off the brother he killed.

“You were testing us both.”

The admiral patted Valentin on the back. “My risen gods. Brothers who will reshape humanity. Brothers mightily deceived.

“Gentlemen, we have so much to discuss. But first, I think it should be clear to both of you that Emil Bouchet, your father, while a brilliant man, does not understand how to raise sons. I think you need to have a poignant conversation with the man when next you