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

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.

“OK then,” he whispered to himself. “All of them it is.”

He allowed the dark inside and froze his heart. Life was glorious.

As James prepared to fire, the white sims morphed into extended creatures, meaning they had fallen. But the DR29 captured exchanges of fire. They were defending themselves.

James locked in.

Before the enemy might see him falling from the sky, James targeted his weapon and fired. And fired. And fired.

The flash pegs ejected as a staccato symphony. He made slight, blink-of-an-eye adjustments and tore apart four targets. Their white sims vanished from the grid. The lone survivor had taken a hit