The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

passing through the students. Her class on Modern Collectorate Principles was replaced by a free period.

It seemed as if Pinchon was waiting for someone to make the next move. Weeks later, Kara added new words to her daily vocabulary:

Reprisal and collaborator.

The accusations, protests, and attacks began in the continent’s metropolitan zones. Though she never heard talk of open civil war, the message was clear: Issues that simmered without hope of resolution under the Chancellory now boiled to the surface. People demanded change, pointing fingers to the institutions they blamed for generational woes. The angriest sought immediate retribution. Fires were set. Men were hung. Kohlna distribution centers were bombed.

In the past, Chancellors would send battalions of Guard soldiers to quell any civil violence. Now, only local law enforcement and drone security stood between enraged Hokkis and oblivion.

Amid the growing terror, peace held in the exclusive Haansu District where Kara lived. Each family meal was an exercise in deflection with the deliberate message: This will pass.

Five months after the Carriers retreated, the Guard suffered the most catastrophic defeat in its history while attempting to destroy the terrorists. The clear bottom line: The Chancellory’s great city-ships would not return to the colonies. By then, however, the news was met on Hokkaido with collective shrugs. New paths were being forged.

Kara never saw it coming.

The morning she learned the truth was chillier than normal but sunny. She walked as usual next door to the Baek estate, looking to spend time with Chi-Qua before heading to school. She didn’t notice the unusual quiet until she rang the front door, and no one answered. The Baek staff knew Kara’s morning routine; someone typically opened the door as she approached.

She waited. Nothing.

That’s when the odd silence drew her attention.

No vehicles. No gardeners.

She walked around the main house, spied into windows, saw no lights and no movement.

Kara pulled out her hand-comm and told the AI to contact Chi-Qua. Silence preceded a message she did not understand:

Chi-Qua Baek is no longer identifiable by this code. Please reset the code using the metric database.

“Wait. What?”

She saw her best friend fifteen hours ago. They talked of nothing special. They laughed. They gossiped.

Kara ran home and asked for her father, but Perr was en route to Nantou headquarters. Her mother, however, sat relaxed in the main parlor, enjoying tea and listening to a symphony by Sibelius, one of the greatest Chancellor composers.

“Where is Chi-Qua?” Kara asked. “What happened to the Baeks?”

Li-Ann seemed neither surprised nor put off by the question. She sipped tea and returned the cup to its saucer.

“You should be in school, Daughter.”

“Answer me.”

“You will hear the news soon enough. I’m afraid the Baeks have had a sudden change of fortune. Their extensive collaboration with the Chancellors was uncovered. The details are too numerous. Suffice to say, their family name has fallen into disgrace. The Baek name is being removed from the Nantou Executive Charter this morning. But don’t worry, Kara. I’m sure Chi-Qua will do just fine in her family’s new accommodations.”

“Where?”

“No idea. Somewhere in the city, if they can afford the lodging. The penalties and reparations they face are staggering, you see.”

“For doing what?”

“They were collaborators. What more do you need to know?”

The words fell from her mother’s lips with the casual drip of indifference. Kara unleashed the volcano within.

“Collaborators? We were collaborators! No one benefited more from the Chancellors than Syung-Low.”

“I disagree, Daughter. Our family has worked very hard to build Nantou, and Nantou has benefited all Hokkis. Our corporate records are clean. Any association with the Chancellory was peripheral. The Baeks, on the other hand …”

“Were sacrificed! Isn’t that right, Mother? I heard rumors about scapegoats being handed over to satisfy the vendettas, but I never thought we’d betray our closest friends.”

Her mother crossed her legs and raised her ears to the music.

“I cannot reason while you’re in such a state. Be glad your Honorable Father does not see you this way.”

“Why, Mother? Why destroy the Baeks?”

“We didn’t. Their ruin is their own. Be glad they won’t face imprisonment. I’m sure the family will make a solid go of it in time.”

The chill was strong in the parlor. Kara backed away.

“You’re not honorable, and you are not my mother.”

“Go to school, Daughter. Fulfill your duties.” As Kara turned to leave, the music died. “Remember this, Kara. We have two heirs. A third might be considered an extravagance. Never raise your voice in that manner again.”

Kara did not go to school. Instead, she changed out of her uniform and into casual clothes. She retreated to the garden, pouted for a while in the gazebo, and turned her eye to the giant bullabast tree.

Minutes later, she found a cubby where she was camouflaged and might cry and rage without interruption.

She was sixteen, but Kara wished she was six again. It was so much easier to be blind. The lies gave comfort and insisted all would be well until the end of time.

But the age of gods and lies was over, and Kara knew the truth was far from fully exposed. The pain, though desolate and unforgiving now, was bound to intensify in the coming months.

A cancer was spreading through paradise.

    2 To be a Kohlna

 

 

Standard Year 5359

K ARA SYUNG FOLLOWED AT THE REAR because she did not want to draw attention from her guide. She preferred this pompous ass in a lab coat to indulge the whims of the tourists, regaling them with his boundless bio-marine expertise and tossing about terminology that echoed through their empty minds and fell into the ether. This might have been their first experience inside Nantou Global, but her family shared responsibility for running it. She wasn’t here to gawk, but Kara’s