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

you are men,” she yelled, “kill me like true Cossacks.” She leaped from the horse. “What can I do against the nine of you?”

She saw their predictable confusion. They knew her as a warrior, but also as a girl. Did they wonder whether God would punish them for butchering a girl? Rayna started toward them at a leisurely pace, her arms extended, hands open-faced. The Doroshenkos and their allies smiled, deciding to take up butchery by gang. They dismounted. Seven left their rifles behind and unsheathed their blades. Two stayed beside the horses, their rifles at the ready.

“Dearest,” Mentor said. “You are not ready for this feature.’’

“After I leave this Earth, they will never solve the mystery of what happened here today. But they will tell stories. Create mythology. They will say a messenger from hell visited.”

“That sounds a tad messianic for my taste. Please, Rayna…”

She ignored him and fell deep inside her soul, reaching for the dark and grabbing hold of it. She listened to its song, swayed to its rhythm, and fueled it with every morsel of unbridled rage.

The dark swam through her blood and vibrated her muscles. It rose like bile into her throat and burned beneath her skin. At last, it took the form she demanded.

Her eyes closed, Rayna lifted her arms above her head, the dark now concentrated inside her closed fists. In her mind, Rayna imagined her victims and the dust of their remains. The men, the horses, the train and its engineer, the countryside she came to love so many years ago. One word echoed inside her soul: Burn.

Rayna threw her fists forward and became a Berserker.

The earth shook beneath her feet, and a cacophony of death followed. Rayna witnessed none of it.

When the cloud lifted and she opened her eyes, Rayna lay on her side, staring at the forest. She tried to push up against an unexpected weight, and a dull pain radiated from everywhere. She caught movement to her rear, twisted, and found her horse grazing a hundred meters away. The world was quiet until a bird sang. She blinked uncontrollably and tasted blood.

Mentor flashed before her in segments, as if a jammed transmission trying to break through. He spoke to her but without volume. He blinked as often as she did.

Minutes passed before she found the strength to stand. When she did, Rayna looked north along the railway and discovered what she expected. It terrified her nonetheless.

The railroad ended twenty meters ahead of her, as did all features of the land for at least a mile in every direction. A large brown cloud of debris hung over the distant horizon.

“They will never forget Rayna Tsukanova.”

The blinking slowed, and with it, the Mentor returned, this time with volume. His jaw fell, incredulous.

“As I said, dearest, you were not prepared for this feature. You may not realize now, but this,” he pointed north, “will haunt you to the end of your days. And as for the others forgetting you? They will not if you fail to reach the fold in time.”

Her memory of the ticking clock, once shrouded in her need for vengeance, returned with a force. She whistled to her horse.

“I wish I had time to ride to Kiev,” she said. “I would destroy the entire city just to turn Vasily Shkuro to ash.”

“Yes, I’m sure you would, but you will have to settle for one act of madness today.”

She struggled to mount the horse, slowed by dizziness. It did not, however, prevent her from tapping into the Caryllan pulse and its terminus point at the Interdimensional Fold.

When she at last took comfort on her steed, Rayna gave herself a moment to say goodbye.

“One day, I will come back to this Earth,” she said. “You cannot hide, Vasily. I will whisper into your ear. Then I will take your head.”

Rayna grabbed the reins and fled toward the fold.

 

22

Great Plains Metroplex

 

J AMES USED TO LOVE SLEEP. NOW, HE WONDERED whether he’d ever bother again. By his best count, he’d been awake fifty-six hours and should have been eager to find the closest pillow. Instead, his mind buzzed with intriguing possibilities, his interludes with Ignatius Horne intensified, and his new body—ten pounds firmer since the post-fight feast—craved action, not sleep.

He talked Perrone into providing him what his evolving body needed most: Combat discipline. “I can’t accomplish my mission if I lack the tactics of a soldier,” he told Perrone. The admiral obliged, ordering nervous technicians to dress James in a full-body simulation amp designed for aspiring peacekeepers. Two hours later, James stood alone on an observation deck on the thirtieth floor of the GPM, facing the Atrium Aeterna, engulfed in a holographic training cube.

His trainer emerged from the cube’s ornate algorithms and built itself into a spot-on clone of James Bouchet. The techs gave James fair warning, saying the program’s ability to duplicate a trainee’s exact musculature and body movements was its greatest strength. See yourself. Respect yourself. James was exhilarated as he stared down his doppelganger.

He blinked.

“It’s me, Ignatius,” he said. “The me I was always supposed to be. If those rednecks at Albion County High got a look at me now, the girls would drool, and I would scare the boys shitless.”

Ignatius sat cross-legged on a leather command chair fit for an admiral, decorated in countless medals. James stood at his side, looking out a ship’s viewport and studying the Earth below.

“You’ve come along much faster than I anticipated,” he said. “If I might, one suggestion? Pare back on the testosterone-laden cockiness. As soon as you consider yourself greater than others, you will open the door to your own downfall. Your potential is limitless, but they can kill you at any moment.”

“True. But I spent the last few years running away. They’ll never put