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

what she endured. But Sam dared not allow the moment to extend. She’d fall apart at the most critical juncture. The system ship with Earth’s envoys was on final approach. It would dock within minutes.

Steady. Graceful. Poised.

*

The months in her cell were worse than midnight. There were no stars, no ambient light, no hope of dawn. She heard one sound: The low, steady hum of the ship’s engines.

After the first few hours of crying, Sam pulled herself together and decided to crawl. The floor was cold but tolerable. She had no sense of direction and only a feeble memory of the room before the lights vanished. She spent her last minutes before darkness locked in self-pity, listening to the clippers snip away her hair and watching Rayna’s immense glow of satisfaction.

The floor’s smooth, well-buffed surface offered no clues – until she came upon the hair left behind. Something of her own.

She grabbed a clump of locks.

In the pitch, her strands felt longer. Sam remembered growing up with hair that bounced across her shoulder, of tying it into ponytails. It was all part of the act, of course; but until she arrived in the Collectorate, Sam identified herself with long hair. She loved taking her time washing it out and brushing in front of the vanity. Yes, she was meant to become a fearsome soldier – Daddy insisted this was her destiny – but Sam needed to be reminded she was a girl. The external beauty would be lost once she became a soldier of the Guard; there needed to be something leftover inside.

She never cut it until months after SkyTower. She hesitated because he always waxed poetic about how beautiful her hair smelled in the morning. He loved to run his hands through it like spaghetti while making love to her.

His voice. His eyes. His heart.

She dropped the loose strands and resisted midnight tears. Sam refused to say his name. She knew it would break her – exactly what Rayna wanted. As she crawled about the abyss, Sam remembered a technique she used to call upon at her most dire moments. A technique to save her from collapse. A technique to provide balance after she claimed her first kill during Dacha.

Six, five, four, three, two, one. Reset.

It worked, for a brief time. What it did not do, however, was give light to the black hole into which she’d been cast. The more she crawled, and eventually walked, the more disoriented she became. Only when she found a corner did Sam feel the slightest measure of protection. In time, as the dismay turned into stark resignation, Sam closed her eyes and curled up on her side.

When she awoke, the first few seconds filled her with hope of a new day, but stubborn night gave life to the truth.

Sam had no concept of time, her stream amp having been nullified the day she arrived on Lioness. The dry pinch in her throat and the twang in her stomach meant little at first.

She suffocated as the room seemed to shrink in the following days. It felt more like a sarcophagus.

Six, five, four, three, two, one. Reset.

She awoke in a pool of urine and with an intense desire to lap it up with her tongue, so fierce was her thirst. Yet she pushed herself away from the mess, ashamed and disgusted. That’s when her arm flailed into the black hole and found an unexpected treasure.

A water bottle. Small, perhaps half a liter, but enough.

They came while she slept. Did they leave anything else?

She crawled like a crab, her hands grasping for any semblance of food. Maybe clothing? A blanket?

She fell asleep before she hunted the entire cell.

When Sam awoke, she smelled it. Meat. Vegetables. Inches from her face. It was kiosk food, but it was also glorious.

She brought the tray close and raced her tongue over it. When she was done, and a new bout of sleep stymied her, Sam tossed the tray across the cell. They were watching. They were drugging her.

She cried herself to sleep.

Six, five, four, three, two, one. Reset.

In time, she lost control of her bladder and bowel. They rarely cleaned her while she slept.

Nothing changed. Days. Weeks. Sam couldn’t distinguish.

“Do you know how he pleasures me?”

The Ukrainian voice woke her with a start. She wasn’t sure it was real, or the remnant of a nightmare.

Rayna slapped her. Question answered.

“I asked, do you know how he pleasures me?”

“Rayna, I … please don’t …”

“At first, he was more powerful with light of the Jewels. He would stimulate me by touch anywhere on my body. But he had great passion, and never did he stop. He has tool bigger than God. He thrust into me for hours. He opened my soul to light of a billion stars. Never would he give you these gifts.”

Sam smelled her sulfuric breath. The hybrid was bending down, talking over Sam from behind.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Now that I am heavy with babies,” Rayna said, as if ignoring Sam’s question, “he enters me with delicate form. He places fingers beneath ears and traces path to temples. Is more than stars he shows. I see babies become as me, and they are happy and loved. They are warriors like their mother. Never will you have this love.”

Rayna placed a water bottle in Sam’s left hand.

“Drink and sleep, Samantha Pynn. My husband will call when he is ready for you. And when task is done, you will be done.”

Rayna said nothing more. Sam gave in quickly to the primal urge and consumed the water, knowing it was drugged. She tried to remain awake as long as she could, hoping for a glimmer of light outside the cell. But Rayna did not leave until sometime after