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

The ground arrived in a brilliant rush, but the grav-mod boots provided a gentle, stable landing.

He stood over the bodies and realized he knew nothing of these men, only assumed who they might be fighting for, and decided he did not care. Their blood splattered rocks and undergrowth along the walkway. He tasted the dark and relished the moment. Then James focused on the fifth enemy combatant, a man whose left quad took a hit from a bullet and who squirmed in agony.

“You need to die,” James said then shot the man in the head.

What did Ignatius call it? An intoxicant?

Whatever, James loved the smell of it.

Behind him, the people he saved began to stir. He heard them rise, caught their forms out of his peripheral, and motioned for them to remain still. He needed to reinsert the soldier, put away the monster.

James took stock of his position, tapped his helmet and reported the five kills. Orders came back. His zone was clear. Proceed toward the rest of Team B, now landing, and then to rendezvous point.

He looked behind. Coop. Sammie. What the hell?

The admiral said nothing about them in the mission report. Last James heard, they were safe in New Stockholm. He fought to refocus. He had orders; the combat zone wasn’t secured. Yet his heart told him to be joyous, to relish a reunion he thought might never happen after Perrone took him away.

“Damn, you guys are wicked,” Michael said, wide-eyed as he approached with Sammie. “You always time things out like this?”

James recognized a new dynamic at once: Michael, Sammie, a different relationship. What did they go through to get here? He risked the moment and played along with Michael.

“Apparently.” Then he tapped his helmet, which folded back. He knew this was a dangerous move. “This was my first time,” he told Michael. “But yeah. We pride ourselves on our timing.”

Michael dropped his pistol. “Jamie?”

In their astonishment, he understood they probably had a hundred questions, but now wasn’t the time for any of them.

He smiled. “I’ve had a growth spurt. And yeah,” he focused on Sammie. “It’s real. I’m in the UG.” He said to them both: “Everything has changed. But I need you to follow my lead so I can move you to safety. Coop, pick up that gun. Sammie, I understand now why you always dreamed of this. We’ll talk later. For now, follow.”

James tapped his helmet, which shielded his face. His weapon extended, he reassessed the ongoing engagement and led his old friends toward Valentin.

He did not look back. His joy for the reunion dampened when he realized what they must be thinking. Was their friend still inside this body? He wished the answer was a simple ‘yes.’

Did he go too far with Sammie? Would she feel he was rubbing this dramatic twist in her face? He blinked.

“I’m thinking like that kid back in Alabama,” he told Ignatius. “Drama and paranoia.”

“Yes. But perhaps that kid, as you call him, holds what is left of your humanity. You are a man now, a fighter, and they will respect you. Be careful they do not come to fear you.”

He blinked and joined his brother. Valentin tapped his helmet and received a new order. A second later, blasts echoed through the trees ahead as Specialist Holland took fire.

“We need to engage,” Valentin said then addressed Michael and Sammie. “Stay low and ten meters behind us. Your flanks are clear. The only danger is forward.”

In an instant, James found himself again and nodded to his brother. They headed into their first real battle side by side.

He invited the dark back in.

37

M ICHAEL SAW THE FACE AND HEARD THE WORDS, but they did not elicit joy. The voice of the boy he met years ago swimming naked in a creek now sounded like every authority figure he dared not challenge. A principal. A sheriff. A coach. His father. Firm and confident but riled to anger. A man holding the high ground and unlikely to compromise. Not Jamie Sheridan.

As they crouched behind their friend toward rifle fire, Michael saw the same bewilderment in Sammie. This was a moment destined for hugs, smiles, and tears. Instead, he felt as displaced as the day he entered church wearing jeans and a collarless shirt, only to be handed the evil eye by old women in big hats and costume pearls.

He tried to whisper the obvious. “He’s seven feet tall. Seven feet tall,” he told her, although he wasn’t sure she was listening. “It’s only been three days. Right?”

She kept her pistol at a steady aim, her eyes flittering across the cluttered subtropical landscape. She resembled the battle-ready Wonder Woman he witnessed at Lake Vernon and after the scrum at the IDF. But Michael sensed the crack inside her. He wanted to hold her hand, even if she’d have none of it.

The peacekeepers raced into the fray like legendary heroes sent to Earth by the gods. They moved with stunning agility and killed without mercy. By comparison, Michael felt useless, his pistol no more important than a pop-gun on sale for $9.99 in the toy department at Walmart. He and Sammie trailed the firefight, as ordered, but he saw enough. The enemy fought with ruthless efficiency but died the same way. Even as the defeated lay sprawled amid the forest, James and the other two peacekeepers walked over them, firing an additional headshot into each. Weapons blasts echoed around the outpost, reaching a crescendo and then silence, as if timed to a scripted end.

The trio conversed in whispers, then James waved his friends ahead. Michael walked close to Sammie, who lowered her gun.

“J is right,” he told her. “Everything has changed.”

“I almost got us killed,” she said. “What was I thinking?”

“You did