“Well then, I suppose the next obvious question is, do you have any nukes left?”
Mina smiles. “We’re still the United States.”
That’s a big, fat ‘yes.’ The only country with more nuclear warheads than the United States was Russia, and the last I knew, we had roughly 7,100—enough to destroy the world more efficiently than the Apocalypse Machine, several times over. With that number in mind, I still think it’s entirely possible that the Machine has saved us from extinction, rather than caused it.
“We have twelve.” The man who entered late steps through the crowd and presses his fists against the tabletop. He’s dressed in military fatigues and wears a dirty olive-drab shirt stained with blood over his large, powerful body. His cheek has a fresh cut, sewn up by someone lacking a surgeon’s steady hand. There isn’t any military situation in which his current state would be found acceptable, especially in the Situation Room, in the presence of the President. He’s young, but carries himself with the air of a seasoned warrior, like Graham and Mayer, confident and in control, totally oblivious to the rules of diplomacy.
Normally, the man’s appearance and insertion into the conversation would have earned him a strong rebuke, if not worse, but no one says a word. This isn’t just some random soldier, it’s the President’s son.
My son.
Ike.
“The aberration stopped thirty miles outside Yellowstone, and since we haven’t heard the eruption yet—and we will, when it happens—we can assume it’s remained stationary. This might be our last chance to do something, anything to stop it.” Ike turns to Ishah, his eyes glancing past my face, not seeing my teary-eyed fascination, as my son-turned-powerful-man volunteers to save the world. “If you can give me something to create that electrical charge—” he turns to Mina, “—and if you can give me a nuke, my men and I will get the job done.”
“Sir,” someone says, “you just got back.”
“There is no one better trained or with more experience than—”
“That’s not exactly true,” I say.
Ike appears to enjoy being interrupted as little as his mother does. He reels around on me. “I don’t know who you are, or what...you...” My heart breaks in time with his hard shell. He goes from anger to confusion and visible denial in seconds.
“It’s him,” Ishah says, smiling wide.
“It’s me,” I say, and I stand to my feet. For a moment, I think Ike is going to close back down, that after all this time he holds nothing but contempt for me, but then he leaps across the table with all the grace and speed of a soldier in action. “Dad!” His big arms enfold me, lifting me up. I’m dropped back down onto my feet and then pulled close again. We stand there, two men hugging in silence, the room watching us, not interrupting, understanding the significance, or perhaps simply not wanting to mess with Ike.
There’s a moment where I wonder why he’s not saying anything, but when I feel his big, muscular form shaking up and down, I realize this hardened soldier is crying. There’s nothing else that needs to be said. He’s still my son. I’m still his father.
I look down at Mina, who’s holding back her own tears. “I’ll do it. Don’t let him go.”
Ike pulls back. “I’m going. My men are ready.”
I motion to Mayer and Graham standing across the room, dressed in military garb and looking rock solid. “So are mine. And you have kids now. You need to meet them. You need to be with them.”
Ike wipes both of his eyes. “So did you.”
“I shouldn’t have gone.”
“I’ve always been proud of you for it.”
His words stun me. Proud of me? For abandoning them? For running away again and again?
“‘Sometimes the best thing you can do with your life, is risk it for others.’ Those were your words. The night you left. When you thought I was sleeping. They’re why I am who I am today. Why I’m a Ranger. You inspired me then. And here you are, alive? After fifteen years, out there? You inspire me still.”
We stand there, eye-to-eye for a moment. Then I turn to Mina and say, “We’ll both go.”
42
Things get done fast at Raven Rock, mostly because they’ve spent the last fifteen years dreaming up ways to attack the Machine, but never implementing them. They’ve literally been waiting for this moment for much of their lives. Like that Phil Collins song about a lover longing for vengeance. They have new weapons systems, a variety of nuclear payloads and delivery systems, body armor designed to protect soldiers from sudden environmental changes. But they’ve never field tested any of it, and they’ve avoided all direct contact with the Machine since the failed assault in Canada, all those years ago. The best way to survive the apocalypse, they thought, was to hide from it.
But not now.
With a plan in place, the entire base rallies to make it happen, and fast.
We’re all aware of the ticking clock. Every slammed door makes people jump, wondering if Yellowstone has finally erupted. When it does, the sound will reach the East Coast, but beneath the mountain, it might just be detectable as a quivering rumble. Still, we will know. The many outposts scattered around North America will all hear humanity’s final death knell, loud and clear.
But until that moment, when we know all hope is lost, the residents of Raven Rock move with a purpose.
I shouldn’t be surprised when I find myself dressed for battle, standing outside the door of an Osprey. The vehicle is one part helicopter, one part airplane. Its tiltrotor design makes it capable of vertical takeoff and landing, as well as a 310 mph top speed, which means we will reach Yellowstone in roughly six and a half hours. It’s the fastest anyone has traveled anywhere in a very long time, but with the Machine poised just outside the super-volcanic National Park, it doesn’t feel quite fast enough.
Despite that painful urgency, leaving...actually leaving—again—is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
We could live here. Survive. Under the mountain. The world above us might wither and die, but I could live to be an old man with Mina and Bell and my sons. But what about their children? What about all those faces I saw in the vision, for generations to come? They won’t exist. The human race will be extinct. Every time I feel doubt and my own selfish desires creep back in, I look at the faces of my grandchildren. I know that if we don’t do this, if we don’t succeed, then they will die here. Miserable, likely watching their own children, my great grandchildren, die as well.
So I have to go, no matter how painful.
And Ike feels the same. He’s met his twin sons. He’s wept over them. And loved them. And he’s proposed to their mother—a promise to return. But he is still going, because it’s the most loving thing he can do for them.
I don’t know if he’ll make it back.
I don’t know if any of us will.
But even if they grow up without a father, they will learn about his sacrifice, and be better for it. Just like my sons. Despite my absence early in their lives, traveling for one story or another, hiding from the awkward situation that was my love life, all my sons really remembered is that their father went off to face a monster with the power to destroy planets. It helped define them as men. As fathers. Ike and Ishah became very different men, but each of them is a reflection of me—the man I was, and the man I became.
Saying goodbye to Ishah is hard. He volunteered to come, but his request was denied, quite strongly, by Ike. The two had a hushed but heated argument, at the end of which, Ishah agreed to remain behind. And now, as I hug my son goodbye, I get a sense that he doesn’t expect to see me again. There is a finality to his goodbye.
“You did the right thing,” he says into my ear. “You’re doing it again. Thank you.” He pulls back and glances at his wife and five children. They’re standing with Ike’s fiancée and two sons. “My family thanks you.”
His family.
“Time for you to go,” says a warm, loving voice. I’m freed from Ishah’s embrace and wrapped in Bell�
�s arms. Her hug is firm and powerful, and part of me thinks she should be coming. But she’s needed here, for Mina. The women balance each other. Always have. And the pressure crushing Mina’s spirit needs the kind of support only Bell can provide.
“In a hurry to get rid of me?” I joke, my eyes moving from her smiling face to her hair, which has been shaved short, like mine.
She slaps my body-armored chest. I barely feel it. “In a hurry to get you back. The sooner you leave, the sooner all this will be over.”
I appreciate her confidence, whether it’s genuine or not.
She kisses me, gently this time. Then she pulls back and gives me a playful slap on the cheek. “Take care of Ike.”
I nod and turn to Mina, who’s approaching. She looks serious. Presidential. “Abraham. I wanted to—”
“You know, I can’t say I’ve ever fantasized about being with a President before, but you’ve changed that.” I pull her close, holding her until she remembers she’s more than just a president, and she relaxes into my arms. “Seriously, it’s like a sexy librarian thing, but forbidden.”
“We’re married,” she says.
“Even better.” I lean down and kiss her. She starts to unravel, all her pent up emotions threatening to spill out in front of everyone, again. I understand why the illusion of control is important, so I separate from her and say, “Are you going to slap me, too?”
She smiles. “If it takes you fifteen years to come back, yes.”
The Osprey rotors start to whine, spinning slowly. We’re still underground, so it’s not about to lift off, but it’s our signal to wrap it up. Graham and Mayer are already inside, getting to know Ike’s crew: Edwards, Felder and Gutshall. They’re all very young, but willing and able. They’re still more civilized than Graham, Mayer and me, but they’ve seen action. They’ve faced their fair share of Scions and come away alive. They might not have found their inner savage side yet, but they’re not going to flinch in the face of mortal danger.
Mina surprises me with a hard kiss. “Love you,” she says, and then she steps back.
“Love you,” I say, stepping back toward the Osprey’s open rear hatch. I turn to Bell. “Both of you.”
Bell wraps an arm around Mina, who leans her head on the other woman’s toned shoulder. I give Ishah a wave, and all his children return it, smiling brightly, unaware that they might never again see the grandfather they’ve just met.
I walk up the ramp backward, each step feeling like a knife in my heart. The hatch rises, sealing shut with a thunk that hides my family from view.
When I turn around, I’m greeted by the soldier named Edwards. He extends his hand. “It’s an honor to be serving by your side, sir.”
I shake his hand. “I’m not doing anything more than you.”
“No offense, sir, but you are.” Edwards motions to the rest of our crew. “We’ve all been trained for this. It’s our job. The Sergeant Major told us about you. About how you faced the aberration. You were a civilian. A writer. But you answered the call when your country needed you. You risked your life. And you fought, for all those years to get back to your family, to get back to us, to bring us this gift.” He motions to the nuclear device attached to an armored ATV with oversized wheels, all of which is strapped to the Osprey’s floor. “And now, after finding your family, you’re answering the call again, this time for the world.”
“You trying to talk me out of going?” I joke, feeling a real tug toward the hatch. I could still leave. I could let them do this without me. But Edwards’s next words root me in place.
“I don’t think we could do it without you. Without your strength. And courage. And leadership.”
“Leadership?” I ask.
“You’re the boss,” Graham says. I look around Edwards and see the others seated on the benches lining both sides of the gray, utilitarian Osprey. All eyes are on me. Graham is the ranking officer on this mission, recently promoted to General, his knowledge of combat and the world outside Raven Rock dwarfing his counterparts. Technically, he shouldn’t even be here. He’s still got a hole in his arm, now patched up right, and Generals don’t go on missions. But being a General, no one could really stop him, either. “We need brains and brawn this time around. You’re making the calls.”
I’m dumbfounded.
And intimidated.
But then I look at Ike and see the confidence in his eyes, and the assurance he feels that his father is larger than life, fully capable of tackling any problem. And like the good father I should have been, I do my job, and fake it. “Well then, what are we waiting for?”
Graham gives me a knowing grin and a nod, seeing through the charade, but approving. Then he thumps his fist against the cockpit door and shouts. “Take us up!”
Edwards and I take our seats and strap in, as the Osprey shakes and then heads for the surface, lifted by powerful hydraulics. Light streams through the windows as the hatch above us opens and we ascend into the noon-day sun. The rotors spin faster, reaching a relaxing hum, and then lift us off the ground. We rise a few hundred feet in the air, and my stomach churns as our upward motion shifts forward. I watch the wings rotating, transforming the dual prop helicopter into a fixed-wing aircraft. Then we’re hurtling through the sky, accelerating to full speed and cruising west, chasing the sun and our fates.
Six hours later, I’m woken from a sound, dreamless sleep. As my eyes blink and my mind sharpens, I try to recall the words that roused me, but fail. I know it was one of our two pilots, speaking over the intercom, but I’m not sure what he said. I rub my eyes and turn to see Edwards looking out the window. He notes my attention and says, “Sure is an ugly sonuvabitch.”
His words are punctuated by a clap of thunder that shudders through the aircraft.
I shift around in my seat and look out the window.
My guts seize.
I’m gripped by an old fear.
Anxiety blooms like a long forgotten flower, surprising in its sudden and vibrant potency.
I half expect the Machine to turn in our direction and face me down. But it doesn’t. It remains motionless, standing still amidst Wyoming’s natural splendor, now mixed with a variety of Scionic life, both animal and plant. Despite many of the trees below us standing a hundred feet tall, the forest looks like a close-cut lawn around the eight massive legs. A miles-wide path of destruction leads west. It stretches all the way to the coast and ends at this point, just outside Yellowstone, where the Machine’s incalculable mass will punch through the landscape and set off the largest eruption Earth has seen, since the last time this super volcano erupted.
Which begs the question, why hasn’t the Apocalypse Machine set it off yet? Its efficient remaking of the world has been performed without pause or hesitation for a decade and a half.
Why has it stopped now?
Lightning arcs through the roiling, dark gray sky, illuminating the scene as a torrent of rain lashes the Osprey. Rivulets of water run across the windows, beading and sliding away. A second lighting strike makes contact with one of the tall spines reaching up into the sky, spearing the clouds. Light crackles over the black surface, and then dissipates. For a moment, I doubt our plan. The Machine is unaffected by lightning strikes. But then I remind myself that the electrical charge we’ll be hitting it with is a very specific frequency, far less powerful than lightning, and we’ve seen it work in the lab...under controlled conditions.
Stop worrying, I tell myself. This is happening.
I scan the creature’s body, searching for clues as to why it stopped, but it’s like looking at Manhattan from a distance and trying to figure out what its population is thinking. The Machine’s black, translucent shell, burns with orange-red energy from within, the nanobots that comprise the body still hard at work, generating energy, maintaining the most powerful form to ever walk the Earth. The coils of tubes outside its body glow brightly, but they aren’t quite how I remember them. The color is constant. Steady. They were swaying before, slowl
y undulating. But is that because it was moving? I’ve never seen it standing still before. Long tubes and spikes dangle from its body. Limp.
And dry.
That’s the difference.
The few times I have seen the Machine, in person or in video, it had been expelling material. Sometimes leaking, sometimes spewing, it seemed to be in a constant state of matter regurgitation. Or shedding.
My eyes move down the miles-high spines, now still, like great towers, to the vast plates lining its back. I look at the seams and find them smooth. There is no mash of goo and eggs between the plates. The Machine is no longer shedding new life.
“It’s done,” I whisper.
“Done what?” Mayer asks, standing behind me, looking out the window.
“Done shedding.”
“Then what’s it doing?” Graham asks, looking out the window with Edwards.
I shrug. “Evaluating its work? Making sure it set things right? Maybe it’s looking for us. Seeing if we’re still around.”
“Here we are,” Ike says, looking out the window, defiance in his eyes.
“But I think there’s no doubt about what it’s here to do. It might be done reseeding the planet, but I don’t think it’s—”
All six soldiers in the plane, and myself, see the Machine’s big black eye shift in our direction. We step back as one, gripped by primal fear. We’ve been spotted. Fight or flight instincts kick in.
Was it waiting to see if we’d show up? Should we have stayed hiding in Raven Rock? Maybe it would have avoided Yellowstone, if it thought us contained. But here we are, flying through the air, toting a nuclear payload that it probably can detect. Maybe this is what it wanted? A boost of radiation to kick off another round of accelerated shedding and rebirth?
Calm down, I tell myself. Evaluate the situation. Find a solution.
I step forward and return the Machine’s stare. It might see me, but I see it, too. We’re not defenseless anymore. And whether or not this thing had a hand in making the human race, it’s our planet, too. My children’s planet. My children’s children’s and generations to come.
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