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

understand. I’ll bet Jamie doesn’t either. I think the Mentor made him do it.’ ” He closed the diary. “Explain yourself, Pumpkin.”

“Daddy, it was just for me … and, and, don’t tell me you and the others didn’t think the same thing? What Jamie did, it’s not natural for anybody. I wasn’t going to tell. Besides, who would believe me?”

He grabbed her by the ponytail and tugged.

“The chance of our secret escaping – and anyone believing – might be a million to one. But it is my job to assure the one never happens. We have two enemies – the authorities here and the United Green on the other side. We are to possess no evidence of our heritage, our plans, or our technology. You put us at risk.”

He terrified her in moments like this, no different than how he took her through the strictest paces during military training exercises in Louisiana. Yet this time, she decided, he was being unreasonable. Sammie almost found the courage to fight back.

“Daddy, I’m thirteen. I’m in middle school. Nobody would …”

“Stop it, Pumpkin. You’re making a scene. I read this entire collection of childish garbage. You have lost your objectivity with James. You love him.”

Sammie didn’t realize how hard she was crying when her father cut to the quick.

“Daddy, I … he’s only got twenty-seven months to live. His whole identity will be wiped when he transitions. He deserves some happiness. What’s wrong with having feelings for him?”

“The same problem with keeping a diary. It compromises our mission.” He let go of her hair and wiped her tears. Walt leaned back and lowered his voice. “I’m sorry, Pumpkin. I had not intended to bring out the diary today. Go to your room. Change into more appropriate clothes. I’ll be up shortly.”

She followed his orders, as always. Sammie also knew he was right on every count. She did step over the line by even referencing the Mentor. You’re supposed to be tougher than this, she thought as she ascended the stairs. You’re going to be a soldier of the Guard.

She changed into a simple blouse and blue jeans then sat in silence on the edge of her bed.

Walt and Grace told her for years not to fall for the emotional bait that humans on this Earth used to manipulate each other. Stand firm against the judgment of the devout, they said. Ignore the petty material concerns of her peers, they said. Rather, she should utilize her classmates for leverage by understating her true abilities.

All of which worked reasonably well for Sammie until Walt and Grace pushed her more deeply into Jamie’s orbit. She was old enough, they told her at the start of sixth grade, to be Jamie’s primary observer. Ingratiate yourself, they said. Find common interests, they said.

The work proved harder than she expected, especially when Michael Cooper dominated Jamie’s time. Not that she ever dared voice these concerns to her parents. She liked Michael, too, and feared what they might do to him simply to shift the balance.

Sammie didn’t know when the feelings first emerged, only that she was now the only one in this universe to truly understand the boy Jamie kept buried deep inside. Was it so wrong to fall in love?

Walt knocked before he entered.

“Much better,” he said after looking her over. He carried a small black case, familiar to Sammie. “Pumpkin,” he said, taking a seat beside her. “The past cannot be altered. I have destroyed the diary. What’s in this box is all that should matter now. The future. All our dreams for you. In less than three years, you will earn your first stripes fighting for the Unification Guard. What you do in the coming months will set the tone. Yes?”

She opened the box. The Glock lay in its padded compartment, clean and polished – the way she left it after the last training.

“It’s a beautiful albeit simplistic weapon,” Walt said. “But you mastered it with incredible speed. Your techniques with a pistol have demonstrated you are a natural born soldier.”

Sammie grabbed the pistol. Her father was right: The weapon felt like a logical extension of her body from the first time she fired it. Over the past three years, she demonstrated mastery, both in precision aim and body positioning throughout even the most difficult scenarios. The Glock was her starter weapon; rifles followed, most recently her first encounter with an M16. Yet these weapons did not compare to the Mark-class blast rifles of the Guard. Her father told her stories of the staggering power of these rifles, which became literal extensions and fired hundreds of rounds of flash pegs while communicating with the soldier’s thoughts through a DR29 helmet sensor.

“You love this gun,” he said. “Yes?”

Sammie smiled. “I do, Daddy. I really do.”

“Your future is in the Guard. A protector of the Chancellory. Samantha, you will be the mirror opposite of the meek child you project on this world. Our descendancy holds enormous sway – and wealth. When we return with the Jewel, we will strike a new path for Chancellors. We will be celebrated for our fifteen years of sacrifice. And you will wear the crimson of the Guard.”

“I know,” she said, her heart soaring at the vision her father preached almost daily. “And I want it, Daddy. I do. But I can’t help how I feel about Jamie. I do love him.”

“Love is an unwanted complication on the best of days, Pumpkin. For a soldier of the Guard, it can be fatal. In a few months, you will be ready for Dacha. If you become conflicted by the same empathy that spawns love, you will not be able to finish the mission.”

Dacha. The hunt. Track a man through the wilderness and execute him with a single shot to the head. Sammie wanted to believe she could