Heritage and Shimmer Read Online Free Page B

Jayce might be justified to strike that
caretaker, she feared such an assault would land him in jail, so
that their wedding would have to be conducted in some county jail
cell and their honeymoon ruined.
     
    “It doesn’t matter what that caretaker says,”
pleaded Beverly. “The shimmering holograms tell us the truth. We
just have to press the buttons to know what really happened in New
Bethany.”
     
    Simon shook his head when Jayce didn’t throw
that threatened punch. “Doubt there’s anything in this cemetery
going to shake whatever faith the both of you have carried to these
stones.”
     
    Beverly took a breath before following Simon
to the next memorial. Jayce’s body language clearly conveyed that
he was not happy, and that Simon had stoked her fiancé’s temper by
his crude comments regarding those memorialized by the shimmering
holograms. She hoped the Starwatch academy instilled a sense of
patience within Jayce, as well as it had given him a commitment to
duty. Living upon the world’s remnants took a toll on the hardiest
soul, and it was a safe assumption to suspect that the years
might’ve severely weakened the caretaker’s mind. Simon was an old
man, and Beverly hoped Jayce’s uniform taught her fiancé to
practice forgiveness. But Beverly didn’t know what the academy
taught its cadets; for all she knew, Jayce might’ve learned that
anyone defaming the heritage of resistance so displayed through
that cemetery’s glowing holograms deserved brutal punishment,
regardless of age, regardless of lucidity.
     
    Simon made a few turns and took them to the
very center of the cemetery, where he lifted his long arm to point
at the statue of a rifleman perched upon a marble column that rose
several stories into the air. A stone tomb rested in the background
of that rising column, weeds and vines growing across the sealed,
double doors that separated its dead shadows from what survived in
the sick world of the living.
     
    “There’s where New Bethany’s greatest hero is
supposed to rest,” Simon smiled. “They say that the Starwatch even
locked the remains of their rifleman within a tomb, so that the
earthworms wouldn’t gnaw their way through to their hero’s sealed
coffin. They sure erected one heck of a monument for the poor
man.”
     
    Jayce didn’t look at the caretaker as he
strode to the base of the marble column. “I imagined the monument
would be larger,” he sighed. “It should be built of alabaster and
silver, with gilded gold all over the walls. There’s never been a
hero in the annals of humankind more deserving of a temple. That’s
the resting place of the rifleman who almost single-handedly
repelled the alien invasion with nothing more than a hunting rifle.
That’s the tomb of Landry Jones.”
     
    Simon winked. “Go ahead and press that button
on the column and learn what this memorial wants you to know.”
     
    A bell chimed from within the tomb when Jayce
pressed that button, and the vines and weeds creaked and snapped as
the stone double doors opened to reveal the tomb’s darkness. A
trumpet blared, and then another march of drums and horns filled
the graveyard with yet one more wholesome and patriotic song.
Several holographic projectors positioned around that memorial
winked to life, and a handsome man, with a chiseled chin and golden
beard, walked out of the tomb before winking at the guests who
arrived to stare at his ghost. Beverly swooned when that rifleman
raised a muscular forearm and saluted her. That hologram was more
realistic than any of the others. Dozens of projectors whirled to
weave that rifleman into a complete palette of colors, and Beverly
thought she might reach out and place her hand on the broad
shoulders of that rifleman who emerged from the tomb. That figure
looked so corporeal. That figure didn’t shimmer at all. Beverly
hadn’t realized holographic technology had advanced so far. That
hologram appeared as alive as Simon Turner, even as real as