When our eyes meet, I actually smile. Miles in the air, rushing toward my plummeting son, while a city-sized monster disintegrates behind me, and I’m smiling.
Because he’s been spared.
And I know that I can save him. I might have been the king of nerds once upon a time, but now, this is who I am.
“Lose the chute, Ike” I say. The tangle of flaccid canvas and twisting ropes could keep my parachute from functioning right, and then I’ll just be a very confident stain on the ground. When the parachute flutters away, yanked in the opposite direction of the nano-clouds, I reach my hands out.
“I’ve got you, son.”
I flare my arms and legs wide, increasing the drag on my body, trying to match Ike’s speed. We fall together, nearly within reach of each other, trying to get closer without colliding too hard. Our fingers touch, but a gust of wind separates us, pulling us apart.
“Dad,” Ike says. His voice carries a tone of finality. And it’s not hard to know why. We have just seconds until impact.
“I’m not letting you go,” I tell him. “We both live, or we both die. Now get your ass over here!”
We both lean in, diving toward each other. Before we collide, I open my arms and bring my legs down. Ike slams into me with enough force to break a few of my ribs, but I barely notice them when I feel his arms wrap around me, linking behind my back. Then his legs wrap around me, link and squeeze.
“Hold on!” I shout, and when the grip around my body is so tight that I can’t draw a breath, I pull my parachute’s ripcord. The chute rips out and deploys, filling with air and slowing our descent. Ike slips a little, but he holds on.
At the mercy of the whipping winds, we’re tossed from side to side, and then slapped against the Earth three times, before coming to a stop.
On the ground, at the center of a wide open field.
Alive.
On my back, wracked by pain, I reach up and yank my helmet and facemask away. Water pelts my face, disguising my tears. Ike doesn’t move when I take off his helmet and facemask. “Ike,” I say, fearful that he didn’t survive the impact. “Ike!”
He smiles. “Remember when we used to wrestle like this? How much Mom hated it?”
“That’s because we knocked the perfectly folded laundry on the floor.” I grunt. “You were a lot smaller then.”
“Sorry,” he says, and he starts to move away.
I hold him tight, not wanting to let him go.
He rests his forehead on my chest. “Thanks for saving me.”
“I don’t think it was me.” I know he’s referring to the parachute maneuver, but he should have died a few minutes before that, too. Did the Machine honor his sacrifice, by sparing his life? Did that seemingly insignificant act of expiation apply to the rest of humanity?
“Heads up,” Graham says, his voice coming through the comm still in my ear. I look beyond Ike and see Graham and Mayer descending toward us.
Ike and I roll apart in separate directions, giving Graham room to land, which he does, while holding Mayer, without falling over.
I’m about to call him a show off, when I notice the epic display taking place in the sky above us. I climb to my feet and watch in silence as the others join me.
The Apocalypse Machine is almost wraithlike now. Its massive form is still present, but sifting apart in great churning clouds of black, stretching down to the ground, into Yellowstone. The now-dark form is backlit by near constant streaks of lightning, as though the entire natural world is aware of the Machine’s passing and has come to bid it farewell. Or perhaps mourning its savior’s passing. Without the Machine, the world would have become a wasteland, and now the whole world will flourish. And mankind...we’ve been given a second chance.
“You all want to get out of the rain?” the Osprey pilot asks.
I turn my eyes upward into the now lashing rain propelled by the Osprey’s rotors, as it descends to the field.
Graham removes his helmet and lets it fall into the grass. “In a minute.” He helps Mayer remove her helmet, too. She’s injured, but not mortally. Ike and I join them, watching the Machine peel itself apart, sliding down into the ground itself.
“How is this possible?” Graham asks.
“I wasn’t sure fifteen years ago,” I tell him. “And I’m still not.”
“But you spoke to it.” Mayer asks. “Another vision?”
I nod. “The deal was simple, my son for the world. I thought he had to detonate the bomb.
“I tried,” Ike says.
“And it seems our willingness to do so was enough.” I smile at the dark cloud that only slightly resembles the Machine’s massive form.
“Then it’s over?” Ike says. “We beat it?”
“Over? I think so.” I pat my son’s shoulder. “But beat it? No. Not a chance.”
“Then what’s it doing?” Mayer asks.
“Returning to the volcanic hell from whence it came,” I say. “Where it will watch, and wait, and the next time we, or our ancestors a thousand generations from now, threaten life on Earth again, it will return.”
I turn toward the Osprey and see the pilot watching us. I wave him down and squint my eyes against the water as the big aircraft descends, rotating so its opening rear hatch is facing us.
Ike steps forward, raising his hand in a salute. “For Edwards, Felder, Gutshall and Wittman.”
Graham joins him, offering a salute as well, and naming the members of his squad who died on our first mission, ending with, “Baker, Tremblay and Somers.”
“And Zingel,” Mayer adds, naming the Mossad agent we left behind on the day we escaped Israel.
“For Holly,” I say, surprised when I start to choke up. “Philip, Diego and Kiljan.”
We finish the salute to our fallen comrades and then enter the Osprey in silence. As we lift off and start east, knowing we’ll have to land within a hundred miles to refuel, I watch the last of the nano-cloud slip into the Earth and disappear.
The world was evaluated and found wanting. But it seems we’ve also been forgiven. If not forgiven, at least given a second chance.
If we can survive the trials ahead.
Our world is now full of Scion, hungry and happy to claim the planet as their own.
I don’t know if the human race will survive.
But I know we’re going to try, and if the Machine is true to its word, my family will one day be like grains of sand on a beach.
How did it know? I wonder. How could it know? That I would survive? That I would be here, at the end of its time on Earth, able to offer my son as a sacrifice?
Long before I come up with an answer that makes sense, my thoughts drift to my family. To Mina and Bell. To Ishah and my grandchildren. We’ll be home before morning, and then for the first time in fifteen years, Hope will be more than just the name of my boat.
ONE YEAR LATER
Epilogue
Abraham
“Did you ever think this would be possible?” Mina asks.
She’s standing beside me atop Raven Rock Mountain, overlooking New Washington. It’s not much as far as cities go, resembling a medieval fortress more than a modern city. But its tall stone walls protect a modern-enough neighborhood, with streets, running water and electricity, supplied by Raven Rock. Our territory stretches for miles, and the Scionic predators in the area have already learned to avoid humanity. There are still roving packs to worry about, but we have safe houses scattered throughout the mountainous region, not to mention modern weapons. Fuel and ammunition is limited, and will one day run out. We’re using what we have to give civilization a kick start, but we’re under no illusion that we’ll be able to live at a twentieth century comfort level forever. But we’ll use it while we have it, and not just to grow our small city, but to reach out to others around the world.
Let them know the Machine is defeated.
That humanity carries on.
That they are not alone.
“I never really tho
ught this far ahead,” I reply, smiling down at my wife, dressed in a black military uniform, long straight hair tied back—her preferred hunting garb. Since freeing the world from the Machine, Mina has been working hard at adapting to the New World. No longer hiding beneath a mountain means learning how to defend yourself, how to fight and kill. She’s efficient at all three, from a distance, preferring the bow and arrow to close up combat. And with a compound bow, there isn’t much game that can escape her. She’s become one of our best hunters. And she’s no longer President.
That title has fallen to me.
There was no election. No coup. Everyone, including Mina, agreed to put me in charge. I didn’t ask for it. But I didn’t fight it either. I get it. I know a lot about a lot—Old World and New—and with so much at stake, there’s no room for misguided leadership. So I took the job, and the first thing I did was retask the Secret Service. New Washington needs more protection than I do. And I’ve got three deadly shadows nearby at all times. I told Graham, Mayer and Ike that I didn’t need protecting, but Graham and Mayer pointed out all the times they’d saved my life over the years. I have yet to need rescuing, but I do feel safer knowing they’re lurking nearby, keeping watch.
I smell Bell’s arrival before hearing or seeing her. She’s fragrant. Earthy. From working the farms, where we now grow crops and raise livestock, which requires the most guarding. We’re domesticating wild pigs and turkeys that managed to survive and later thrive. We’ve also got a few different Scionic animals, which show promise of domestication and are somewhat tasty. Bell is in charge of it all, working the land and finding the peace of her old self again.
“Thought I’d find you two up here,” Bell says, as she steps from the woods and onto the ledge overlooking the town. She steps to my right and takes my hand in hers. I look down at her fingers. At the ring. Funny thing about being a leader in a new world without formal laws, bureaucracy or squabbling councils? You can pretty much do whatever you want, within reason. So I married Bell, no wonky religion required. And I’m not alone. The end of the world has left humanity with a two to one ratio of women to men. And since repopulation is one of our goals, men—especially the younger generations—are making like it’s 1700 B.C. and marrying multiple women.
Not Graham or my sons, though. Of course, Ishah and his wife, with their sixth on the way, could probably repopulate the planet on their own. While I’m technically in charge, my focus is mainly on growth, infrastructure and defense. Ishah has become a man of the people, using his mind to better people’s lives, and keep them healthy. Especially the children, of which there are now fifty-three, more than half of which are under a year old. He’s also in charge of our outreach program.
It sounds corny, like something an Old World church might have done, but it now involves trying to contact other pockets of humanity around the world. Most communication is via radio, but since Graham and Ike led a team to Cheyenne Mountain, home of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), we’ve been able to reconnect with several satellites. And we use them to find people by looking for the one thing humanity always seems to generate: heat. Fires mostly, burning at night.
We now know there is a tribe of people living in Australia. They survived the end on Uluru, that massive red rock rising out of the desert. It’s an island now, but they recently managed to create an outpost on the coast. Like us, they’re using Old World skills and knowledge to push Scionic life back, while at the same time, preparing to join the New World, not as conquerors, but as part of the new order.
The Amazon is home to one of humanity’s largest outposts. First World people fled to the rainforest when civilization fell apart. Many of them died, but those who didn’t were adopted by tribes. Some were enslaved, or at least indentured, but from what I understand, as Scionic life encroached on their land, the tribal peoples were eager to learn about modern technologies that would help them fend off the savage new threats. Nothing unites people like monsters.
Perhaps the strangest of all New World civilizations is a place called Red Sky Flotilla. It’s a floating island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, formed by what was once the Great Garbage Patch, which I wrote about eighteen years ago. They’re a collection of ships and their crews, who survived the end of the world by fleeing to the sea, along with a Scionic lifeform living symbiotically with people. I suspect it’s something like the Redwood Forest. On the surface, we see separate trees, but beneath the ground, their massive roots are connected to form a single, massive organism. And with the disappearance of the Machine, Red Sky is now the largest living creature on Earth.
We have returned to Yellowstone just once. Volcanic activity is at an all-time low. Even old Faithful lacks the pressure to erupt. The heat, it would seem, is being absorbed by something...something large, beneath the surface. But perhaps the most poignant reminder of what the world faces should it be thrown out of whack again, are the six, twenty-foot obelisks rising from the ground. They look like structures erected by some ancient civilization, but we know better. The Machine is watching. Testing the air. Listening to our broadcasts. Maybe even sensing our thoughts. We know very little about the creature, including where it came from, but we do know why it’s here. We’re going to make damn well sure future generations understand that there are rules governing the planet, and a Machine—a literal machine—that is judge, jury and executioner when the world is at risk.
The sounds of people at work, building and growing, echo through the valley below. I smile and close my eyes, my face warmed by the sun. The scents of pine and flowering Scionic trees fill my nose with the odors of a world remade. My hands are held by the two women I love, the mothers of my sons. There has never been a time in the Old World or New, where I was more content. That urge to run and hide from my life is gone. I’m fully immersed in it, reveling in it, and thankful for it.
Something crashes through the brush behind us.
Mina spins, nocking an arrow.
Bell holds her spear at the ready.
I raise my sound-suppressed AK-47 to my shoulder, taking aim at the sound. At my son.
Weapons lower as Ishah emerges from the forest, looking winded. He’s run the whole way here.
“Why didn’t...you bring...your radio?”
Three figures slide out of the trees behind him. Their approach was completely undetected. Even now, as Ike, Graham and Mayer step into the light of day, Ishah hasn’t heard them behind him.
“You’re too loud,” Ike says, surprising his brother. “You might as well run through the forest ringing a dinner bell.”
I agree with Ike’s assessment, but I also know Ishah wouldn’t have run all the way here without a good reason.
“What is it?” I ask, leaning down to look at Ishah’s face. His hands are planted on his knees as he catches his breath. “Is something wrong?”
He shakes his head, showing a slight smile.
It’s good news.
“We made contact,” he says. “With a new colony. Their leader said he’s been expecting to hear from you.”
“They know about New Washington?” I ask, wondering if word is spreading on its own.
Ishah shakes his head. “About you.”
“Where is this colony?” Graham asks.
“Iceland.”
“Iceland?” I reel back from the word like it’s some kind of reanimated voodoo corpse. Iceland was ground zero for the Machine’s rise. Between the volcanoes, flooding and remote locations, not to mention a small population, I would have never thought to even look there. I work through the problem. The volcanic ash was blown away from the more densely populated western coast. The flooding could have flowed out to sea, following natural gorges and rivers carved by ancient glaciers. There were no nuclear weapons or power stations on the island nation. And it’s located north of where Greenland’s ice sheet plowed into the Atlantic. The wave that scoured countless other nations would have missed Iceland entirely. And the island’s height above sea level
means it would be mostly unaffected by the rising oceans. “I suppose it makes a strange kind of sense. What was the man’s name?”
Ishah’s smile widens. He knows the name. Knows it means something to me. I’m about to shout at him to spit it out when he says, “Árnason. Kiljan Árnason.”
I break into a run, heading for the nearest Raven Rock entrance. The others follow close behind. Only Ishah has trouble keeping up, but he manages, and we reach the entrance as a group. I move through the complex with some urgency, arriving at the communications room with enough speed to panic the people manning the radios. I raise my hands to put them at ease. “Are you still in touch with Iceland?”
One of the men vacates his chair. “He’s waiting for you.”
I fall into the chair, snatch up the microphone and push the call button. “Kiljan, you son of a bitch! You’re alive! Over.”
“You are son of bitch,” Kiljan’s deep voice replies. “I have been waiting many years to hear from you. But you keep me waiting.” He lets out a hearty laugh. “I should not have doubted. Over.”
“Your family,” I say, remembering Kiljan’s desperate quest to save them. “Did they make it? Over.”
“All of them,” he says. “But I knew they would. Over.”
“How? The last time I saw you... The water...the earthquakes.” I pause for a moment, reliving the last time I saw him. All this time, I believed he’d died shortly after we flew away. “Over.”
“I was shown how,” he says. “Like you. Was difficult. But I am Icelander. Naturally resilient. Not as hard for me as for you.” He gets in a good chuckle, and it brings a smile to my face. It’s been a long time since I got a ribbing like this, and I suspect it’s because the man Kiljan is picturing is skinny, out of shape and a bit nerdy. He probably wouldn’t even recognize the man I’ve become. “Over.”
“What do you mean, you were ‘shown?’” I ask. “Over.”
“The vision,” he says. “When you touched it. Over.”
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