“You found the common thread—the strand that links them together. And you did that the only way possible. By living life one day at a time.”
Amelie lifted her face from where it had been buried in Sam’s chest, and the outline of the pair that had fused into one returned to normal.
Amelie thanked Sam and looked at the gun at his feet.
“A gun won’t help you here. But it still has a role to play. It was the bonds between people that brought the world together. And if that is what matters most to you, then I will stay here on this Beach. Once the Last Stranding starts, it can’t be stopped. I can’t go with you. All I can do is try to spare you the worst.”
“Why do you have to stay on the Beach?” Sam asked.
“I am the Beach. And I must stay here and ensure that the extinction happens. Even if it takes tens or hundreds of thousands of years. That’s what an EE does. If I stay here to pay the price—to be the sacrifice—then you should be able to have some more time. It’s just that…”
As Amelie looked at Sam, she smiled a human smile.
“I couldn’t take it anymore. I got so tired of waiting. And I figured that no one would blame me if I just got it all over with, so that’s what I did. I don’t remember when or where, but that’s how I felt.”
Maybe that was the little girl talking who was yet to arrive at the truth. Maybe it was the old lady whose entire body was afflicted with cancer cells. Maybe it was even the woman who had the epiphany about rebuilding America. She had a dream and she couldn’t talk to anyone else about it.
“But you and the others came together—connected. And you may be living on borrowed time… but you still have hope. Before each of the Big Five, life rebelled. They fought back. Evolved in order to survive. The extinction isn’t just an ending. It’s an opportunity. And if I have to pay the price for that, then so be it. Even if we aren’t together, we will always be connected.”
Amelie pulled Sam into another tight hug.
“Thank you, Sam.”
Those were her last words. The strength in her arms suddenly slackened and the sandy beach had been swallowed up by a sea of blood. They were held afloat in a bottomless ocean. But only Sam was dragged back down. Amelie’s voice echoed in his ears and her warmth remained in his chest as he sunk to the bottom.
“For too long have we lived as strangers to one another, divided by walls built to keep us safe. But now we have a new world.”
Sam had his back to the wall by the window and was listening to that voice. There was nothing outside of the window frame, but the backdrop of Capital Knot City was plugged into it. In the president’s Oval Office, where Bridget had breathed her last breath and where everything had begun, Sam was listening to the inaugural speech of a new president.
He hadn’t spoken about what had happened on the Beach to anyone. He couldn’t quite explain everything himself, so he didn’t feel like filling in any of the others. Humans lived by interpreting the world based on their own experiences. That was part of the reason why the Beach belonged to each individual person.
There was no need for every person to see exactly the same thing from the same perspective and place.
People had been calling for the ceremony. “A new country needs a new leader,” they said. That’s why this room had been decorated by hologram.
“And with the completion of the Chiral Network, we may at last move forward as a people united. Today, we come together to celebrate the birth of a new nation. A new nation for a new world—the United Cities of America.”
That network now broadcast the president’s message across the entire country. To the citizens of this new nation it was like their new president was speaking in front of their very faces.
“I once took an oath to support… and defend the Constitution of the United States. And so, as your president, I hereby swear once again to support and defend you, the people of the UCA. To share your destiny as a new me.”
There was a slight commotion. Sam looked up.
“Let there be a new America. An America where we can face one another—where we can speak our minds and open our hearts. The old ways die hard. But I believe, my fellow Americans, that we have the strength and the courage to rise above our past and embrace our future.”
Die-Hardman stood there, maskless. But even though the new leader had removed his mask, that didn’t mean that every veil and embellishment had disappeared. It was like there was an entirely new layer. Sam looked down at the worn-out photo and sighed. It had returned with him from the Beach. The picture showed Lucy, Sam, and her. It was different from what was in Sam’s memory.
“The Death Stranding is a part of that past. An enduring shadow. A constant reminder of what could have been. That we stand here today is testament not to the greatness of any one individual, but to our capacity to come together. To the bonds between us. To our collective greatness. All things must come to an end, ourselves included. But as long as we savor each moment, find joy in the promise of tomorrow, embrace hope and reject despair, we will endure. President Bridget Strand and her daughter, Samantha America Strand, sacrificed everything in their pursuit of hope—that we, the people, might be whole again. That they are not here today to see the fruits of their labor fills us all with a profound sadness…”
Bridget’s and Amelie’s portraits were projected behind Die-Hardman. Nothing was said about their true self, but they were instead allowed to be remembered how they depicted themselves.
“But we find comfort in the knowledge that their memories will live on in the Chiral Network… and in our hearts. We will always remain connected. There are other heroes in this story.”
Sam put the photo away and began to walk.
“You whose achievements seem destined to go unrecognized. America still needs that hero. Those without whom we would not be here. The name is unimportant. You know who I mean. And for those unsung heroes, I have a message… It was you who brought us together, you who made us whole again. And while you and I will eventually pass on… we will be survived by our legacies—our lives and our memories preserved for future generations. Maybe a day will come in due course when we can stop the Death Stranding with our own strength. For that we must work as one. We must never stand alone again.”
Sam pushed open the Oval Office door and stepped out into the empty hallway. He could still faintly hear Die-Hardman’s speech. Sam wasn’t upset or disappointed that Die-Hardman didn’t mention him in his speech. Now that he had thrown his old mask away, Die-Hardman had to don the new one that came with being president. Sam also had to live with his secrets.
* * *
She had embraced him. Then they separated and Sam fell to his own Beach. Sam was a repatriate. It was the first time he had visited his own Beach. He couldn’t tell it apart from the one that Amelie had taken him to. There was no red sky. No red sea. No BTs. Just a quiet and calm Beach. The only thing that remained the same was the shoreline that stretched on and on for eternity.
The baby doll that Amelie had spoken of was cleansed by the waves. Its head was dark and there were marks all over its arms, legs, and chest. It looked sad and worn out, like a kid had finally gotten tired of playing with it. Sam scooped it up, when a slip of paper fell from inside it. Sam tensed up. It was the photo he thought he had lost. The photo of him, Lucy, and the smiling Bridget stood between them. It was the photo she had gone out of her way to print out and write a message on. Bridget had said that it would make it a one-of-a-kind that could never be replaced. After the word “Strand” came the word “Again.”
When Sam placed the photo in his chest pocket, the doll caught his eye. Now it was clean, with no marks. Now it looked just like a newborn baby. An accessory sparkled gold around its neck. It was Amelie’s quipu. The quipu that Sam had given her all those years ago was now in the baby’s hands.
I add a knot when I make a friend, child Sam had told her the day he gave it to her.
Even though he shouldn’t have been able to
increase the number of knots on an empty Beach, he did. He wandered around and around, looking for an exit, eventually tiring and falling asleep. Every time he woke up, he added another knot. The quipu was keeping track of the amount of time Sam had spent there. Once the quipu was full of knots, they disappeared and it all started over again. Had Amelie counted her time here in the same way? When Sam thought about how damaging that must have been, his naivety as a child frustrated him.
Once he had cycled through the quipu knots yet again, he began to think that he was trapped in an infinitely looping hell. Just like Cliff’s battlefield and the Beach Amelie spent her life as an Extinction Entity on. If Bridget’s cancer had been divine punishment from the universe, then this was his. With each passing day his belief in that grew stronger, until eventually, it became certainty. There was only one way to get off the Beach.
—A gun won’t help you here. But it still has a role to play.
The revolver was buried in the sand. Humanity would go on, but a load called loneliness weighed down on Sam. The weight of it brought Sam to his knees. Steadying his trembling hands, Sam put the gun to his temple. He could feel the cold of the metal and realized that he was drenched in sweat. He held his breath and squeezed. The sound of the waves seemed distant and all he could hear was the sound of his own beating heart over the top of them. Then… clink. Clink, clink, clink.
Instead of his beating heart, now all he heard was the vain sound of the gun hammer striking an empty chamber.
What an idiot. Sam could hear Amelie smile sadly in his head.
If he had been stuck there forever, what would he have done?
* * *
Sam continued walking down the empty hallway. He could no longer hear Die-Hardman’s speech.
“Going somewhere, Sam?” Deadman asked, chasing after him. “Tired of being the unsung hero?”
“No… I’m done is all. She’s gone,” he replied.
“C’mon, wait. There’s something I need to tell you,” Deadman exclaimed, grabbing Sam’s arm. At first, Deadman seemed to have realized his mistake, but his look of horror soon turned to surprise. “Huh. This doesn’t bother you anymore?”
Deadman gradually pressed tighter and Sam grimaced. But they both seemed to know that it wasn’t because he was having an adverse reaction anymore. Ever since Fragile had jumped him back, Sam had a feeling that he might have gotten a little better. But in the midst of Deadman’s grip, he began to feel like he might have completely recovered.
“Now, wouldn’t you like to know how we brought you back from the Beach?” Deadman asked.
Sam didn’t know what to say. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious, but it wasn’t going to help him anymore even if he did know.
After he threw that useless gun back to the ground and began to wander the beach once more, he heard a voice. Familiar voices were calling out his name. He could hear Deadman, Heartman, Mama/Lockne, and even Lou’s cries. They led him to the sea.
—See, you are connected, Amelie whispered. Then someone grabbed him by the legs and dragged him to the ocean floor.
“We were going to use the doll, but we didn’t have one handy. Which was when I remembered something else.”
Deadman fiddled with his cuff link and projected a hologram.
“That what I think it is?” Sam asked.
“Yes. What could be more connected to Amelie’s Beach than President Strand’s umbilical cord? Heartman thought that was why she left it with me in the first place. Unfortunately…”
“It didn’t work,” Sam guessed.
“Yeah, she’d already cut her Beach loose.” Deadman looked at his feet. “It was just… gone. We didn’t know if that meant she’d dragged you into the great beyond with her, or sent you to some other Beach… We were really racking our brains. Heartman and Mama split up and started searching every Beach you might feasibly have washed up on. We looked for a month with absolutely nothing to show for it.”
Sam thought about the disparity between the passage of time in this world and the passage of time on the Beach. How long had he been there? It had felt like a lifetime to him.
“In the end, this is what led us to you.” Deadman reached inside his jacket and pulled out the revolver. “Just when we were about to give up, Die-Hardman reminded us about the revolver. So, we tried to follow it, and it led us to a far corner of your own Beach…”
Sam once again found himself face to face with the gun that killed him and Cliff. The gun that started everything. Amelie had admitted that it was she who had killed them, so who was the gun connected to in this world? It must have been John Blake McClane, the president’s aide. He had been the one to build a Bridge to the Beach by thinking of it.
“Bingo—there you were. Mama made visual contact first. She was able to see you from her vantage point on the other side. She informed Lockne via their connection, and Heartman confirmed your location during his subsequent near-death experience. The plan was for Fragile to, in essence, ‘slingshot’ Lou and me to your position so we could rescue you.”
So, it was Deadman who had grabbed Sam’s legs and brought him back? No, it was all of them who saved him. All of them had continued the search. Sam felt like his voice would waver if he tried to say anything, so he just nodded instead.
“But it’s not so easy to send multiple individuals to another person’s Beach for an extended period of time. And that’s where the umbilical cord came in. We wove these from President Strand’s DNA. They serve as a single knot that binds us all.”
Deadman puffed out his chest with pride and showed Sam the new symbol of Bridges—a quipu. It was intertwined with the proof that Bridget had lived.
“The president must have known all of this would happen. Ironic, isn’t it? The gun that set this whole mess in motion ends up being the key to saving you.”
“Amelie—she said it had another purpose,” Sam told Deadman.
“Not a weapon, but a lifeline. A stick that became a rope? I suppose that’s one way of putting it…” he mused.
Sam was suddenly engulfed by something that felt like a soft, warm bed.
“Oh, Sam, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to give you a hug!” Deadman’s arms reached around Sam’s back. He felt warm. It was like being wrapped up in a blanket when he was a kid.
“Got something else to tell you. Top secret,” Deadman whispered into Sam’s ear. “It’s about Cliff. His BB’s mother’s name was Lisa Bridges. Cliff’s common-law wife. And…”
Deadman lowered his voice and looked down.
“Cliff was killed by a man identified in the records only as ‘John.’ Former US Special Forces. Quite good at it, by all accounts. Later appointed as an aide to the president, who used him for most of her wetwork. The records go on to state that he vanished after Cliff’s death. A warrant was put out, but he was later found dead. Turns out some people ‘die’ harder than others, though. Dear ‘John’ donned a mask and reappeared with a new identity.”
Sam nodded silently to indicate to Deadman that he already knew. Amelie had told him so. John had also had to sacrifice his past as another sacrifice on the altar of America.
“I don’t trust him,” Deadman blurted out. “But I’ll work with him if that’s what it takes. We’ll talk later.”
Deadman shook himself free and took off at a trot down the hallway. In his stead appeared the new maskless president. He was too close for Sam to pretend that he hadn’t noticed him, and it would have been awkward to walk away. Hopefully, Die-Hardman would just pass by, pretending not to see him.
It was the president who spoke first. But he wasn’t talking to Sam. It was like he was talking at himself.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me…” Die-Hardman’s voice was already trembling. “But would you hear me out? I killed Captain Clifford Unger.”
He didn’t mention killing Sam. That’s how Sam knew he was telling the truth.
“I would tell you I did it for America. For love of cou
ntry. But I didn’t. I did it for her—because I loved her with all my heart. She was everything to me. Everything. Now, I’m not trying to make excuses. I just want you to know, that not a day’s gone by when I haven’t thought about it. Time didn’t help. Or the mask.”
Die-Hardman couldn’t have forgotten about the past. It lived on in that mask. Weighed down on him. All he’d done was bury it. Sam could sympathize with that. He had done the same. That’s why he couldn’t stay there anymore. But as Sam tried to leave, Die-Hardman stopped him.
“Please—let me finish. The captain saved my life.”
Sam didn’t believe that confessions were ever for purification’s sake. They were to offload a burden for someone else to deal with later. The one who took care of that burden was the savior or human to be sacrificed. If only that role was divided more equally among everyone, then there would be no need for a savior or a hero. A society that cries out for a savior is a society that’s fundamentally broken.
“You know why they call me Die-Hardman? Because he wouldn’t let me die. He brought my sorry ass back home every time. And I loved him as much as I loved her.”
Die-Hardman always needed someone to believe in, something to give up everything for. Sam was the same. Just as Die-Hardman sought Cliff, Bridget, and America, Sam sought Lucy, Lou, and Amelie.
“And when he stared me down, that ghost, I knew. He was here to kill me. To make it right. And why shouldn’t he? Why didn’t he? He couldn’t save his kid. His BB. And that’s what brought him back. I guess, when he saw I was trying to do my part for America, he remembered who he was… and he forgave me.”
Die-Hardman cried loudly, falling to his knees. It was like he could no longer bear the weight of Cliff’s forgiveness. “God! But I don’t deserve it, goddammit! There is no atoning for what I’ve done!” he cried. The man who had let his guard down and was openly weeping was no longer the president, but John again.
“Dammit!” he yelled, pounding the floor with his fist. He kept hitting it and hitting it, not even aware that the pounding had broken his skin and that blood was splattering on the floor. There wasn’t a shred of beauty or dignity in the man before him, but neither did he seem pitiable or small. Sam grabbed John’s arm and helped him back to his feet.
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