His mind went blank. Staring down at Athena, Frank didn’t know what to do. She had always been the one who helped him figure everything out. All he could think of were the things still left to be said. Then he shook his head and took a deep breath. He would fix this. He wouldn’t let Athena die. He would fix her, and then they would fix the world.
Picking Athena up, Frank began running. Casey followed, close on his heels. “Is she okay?” Casey asked, her eyes watering as she watched the inky fluid continue to leak out of Athena.
“I need to get her to a repair module,” Frank said over his shoulder. “There used to be one close to—”
“Frank, stop.”
Looking down, he saw that Athena was staring up at him, understanding in her eyes. She knew there was no fixing this. “I’m shutting down,” she said as Frank lowered her to the ground. Her body shuddered as circuits began to turn off. “I’m going to lose sync.”
It was already happening. The words didn’t match the movement of her lips as she spoke, and then her voice began to lose its humanness. Shame flashed in her face as she saw Frank look down at her with pity.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. She no longer had any inflection in her voice, so her words came out flat. “There are things I need to tell you before the final—before the automated program kicks in.”
Frank blinked, tears welling in his eyes. He knew what the automated program would do. It would destroy her.
Seeing the comprehension dawn on him, Athena went on. “I’m a machine,” she said. Her voice was weak. “I never thought that was bad until I saw your face when you found out what I was.”
“I always knew,” Frank said, trying to joke. But the smile faltered on his lips.
Athena smiled back. “No, you didn’t,” she said, her lips barely moving yet her voice still clear. And then another female voice spoke up from a recorder in Athena’s circuitry. It was as if suddenly, Athena had become a ventriloquist’s doll. “Systems failing. Activating last thoughts saved for Frank Walker. Uncommunicated thoughts ranked in order of important and relevance.”
The breath caught in Frank’s throat. In his arms, Athena slumped. She could only listen—listen and watch Frank’s reaction as words she had recorded dozens of years earlier played for him now, hoping that they would be enough. They would be her only good-bye.
“Log fifteen: September 1965,” the prerecorded female voice said. “Frank Walker is looking at me in a manner that is difficult to recognize. It seems imperative to explain to him that I am an Audio-Animatronic, but Governor Nix feels it would invalidate the experiment.”
Suddenly, a ray of light came from Athena’s eyes, and then images began to flash in front of her. Her visual memories had kicked in. They played out like a living photo album.
“Athena…” Frank said, wanting to say so much more.
She gave him a sharp look. She might not have been able to speak, but her eyes made it clear: Frank had to pay attention.
“But Frank is different,” the voice went on. “I’m concerned that he may be adversely affected when he finds out that I am not human. He has potential. I don’t want to damage it. He is my top recruit.” The recording stopped for a moment. Then it began again, this time speaking an entry from October 1965. “I am having unusual thoughts toward Frank Walker. I suspect a flaw in my empathy interface. I am thinking that I should report it, but I haven’t. I can’t explain why.”
Frank flinched. He had always assumed she was emotionless. But she hadn’t been. She had cared. She just hadn’t been able to comprehend the emotion. A fresh wave of sadness washed over Frank as he struggled to come to grips with how wrong he had been.
Now a video flashed in front of him. In it, a twenty-something Frank was yelling. There was no sound, but it was clear Frank was furious. “Twenty-four April, 1984. Frank Walker is leaving. He says I have betrayed him. He says he has lost hope. And he holds me responsible for having given it to him in the first place. I do not understand this. He says I never will because I do not feel anger or disappointment…or love.”
With that, the recording came to an end. The images disappeared. It was now just Frank and Athena. She, incapable of saying more; he, not knowing what to say. Both hurting.
Lying in his arms, Athena stared up at Frank, trying to say everything else she needed to with her eyes. But she couldn’t. With the last of her strength, Athena plunged her hand into the hole in her chest and began pushing damaged wires and malfunctioning machinery together. Frank watched, confused, until he saw her mouth open. She had figured out a way to get one last thought out.
“I am connected to emotions, Frank,” she said, her voice once again human and familiar. “I don’t know what separates feeling from programming, but don’t discount what my programming represents; I was designed to find dreamers. I found you…and lost you.” Her voice hitched as it grew harder for her to speak. “Casey. She’s like you. Yyooouuu seeee that, don’t you?” Frank nodded. “Dreamers need to sss-tick together.” Struggling to sit up in Frank’s arms, she smiled. “It’s not programming,” she said, “it’s personal.”
And with that one sentence, years of anger and hurt faded from Frank. The little boy who had fallen in love with Athena hadn’t been a fool. He had been loved in return—just in a way he hadn’t been able to figure out. A single tear slid down his cheek as he mourned anew for all he had lost.
“You know what to do, Frank,” Athena said. She tilted up her head and Frank followed her gaze until they were both looking at the crackling energy of the Oracle. “Get it right this time.” With that, she began to beep. Her self-destruction mode had kicked in.
Behind him, Casey sniffled as tears poured down her cheeks. She knew what Frank had to do, too. And she knew it would break his heart all over again. But they had to get Athena up to the Oracle before she blew up. She was their last hope. Casey smiled sadly at the irony. Athena had spent so many years searching for others to save the world, and now she was going to be the one who did it.
There wasn’t much time left. Pointing at a rack of jetpacks, Frank had Casey grab one. He strapped it on his back and clicked the harness. Then he bent down and picked up Athena in his arms. “Wanna know a secret?” he said.
“Sure,” Athena said weakly.
“I’m afraid of heights,” he said.
And at that, Athena did something she had never done before. She laughed. A real, genuine laugh.
Frank smiled. It had taken decades but he had made Athena laugh. And her laugh was the most wonderful sound he had ever heard. Smiling back at her, Frank turned the jetpack on and took off into the night sky. It was time to finish what they had started.
Up, up they went, the Oracle’s energy flashing around them until, finally, they were hovering above the huge sphere. In Frank’s arms, Athena’s beeping grew more frantic. Their eyes met as the beeps turned into one long, sustained drone, marking the final warning.
And then, with one last sad smile, Frank let Athena go.
She fell, oddly graceful, until she disappeared inside the sphere. A moment later, a massive pulse of white-hot energy erupted from the center of the Oracle. It radiated out in a giant shock wave, the force knocking Frank out of the sky like a fly being swatted. He plummeted toward the ground and splashed down into a large fountain.
“Frank!” Casey screamed. She leapt into the fountain and waded to where Frank lay facedown in the water. No! She screamed silently. She would not lose Frank. Pulling him out of the water, she tried to wake him. “Hey! Hey!” He didn’t move. She slapped him.
Frank’s eyes opened and he blinked rapidly. “Ow!” he said, very much alive and rather annoyed with Casey.
A sound like thunder boomed out of the Oracle. All the energy going into and out of the sphere had been building to a fever pitch since the moment Athena had detonated. Now it was overwhelming the Oracle the same way it would if too many appliances were plugged into a socket. The air sizzled and crackled all around t
he sphere, louder and faster, until, just like that, it turned off. The Oracle went dead, like a bulb burning out. And then it dropped from the sky.
Still trapped beneath the fallen gateway, Nix had watched in horror as Frank dropped Athena into the Oracle, destroying, in one instant, his lifetime of work. Now, looking up, he watched as the very symbol of that work fell toward him, crushing him in a single instant.
A moment later, things began to stop working. Robots fell over, lifeless. Lights all over the city went dark. Each and every thing that had been connected to the sphere suddenly powered down.
Tomorrowland had just turned off.
Standing in the middle of the city, Frank and Casey were silent as they watched the consequences of their actions unfold. For Frank, it was bittersweet. Tomorrowland had been his home for years and his dream for many more. It was where he had grown up and where he had met Athena. So while he knew it was for the best, it still pained him to see his city ruined. For Casey, it was also bittersweet. Going to Tomorrowland had been all she wanted since the moment she had touched the pin. And while she had made it, she never got to truly understand or see it.
Finally, Frank turned to Casey. “Now what?” he asked.
“You’re asking me?” she said, confused.
“This was your idea, kid,” he replied.
Casey grinned despite her sadness. He was right. It had been her idea—which made her wonder…“How do we know if it worked?”
“We don’t,” Frank said, shrugging. Then he smiled, thinking of all that had been sacrificed to at least try to save the world. “But hey, let’s hope for the best.”
Casey nodded. The best sounded good. In fact, the best sounded perfect. The best, Casey thought with excited determination, would make everything that had just happened worthwhile. Now they would just have to wait and find out if they had changed the course of fate…
Fifty-Nine Days Later
FOR THE past fifty-eight days, Casey Newton had been going out to the launchpad every night. She no longer went to dismantle equipment. Now she went and simply stood by the fence surrounding the launchpad and observed. Some nights, as the sun set and cast the area in orange and purple light, she could forget the images of destruction she had seen in the Oracle. Other nights, it was all she saw.
Sometimes she would take her father with her, hoping that in the right moment, she might be able to tell him what had happened. But she hadn’t yet.
On that night, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky lit up in a riot of color, Casey and her father pulled up to the fence as they had so often. Getting out of the car and following his daughter to the fence, Phil looked at the platform and then back at his daughter. “You’re not going to tell me why we keep coming out here, huh?” he asked, teasing.
“Nope,” Casey said, smiling. It wasn’t the first time they had had this conversation, but she hoped it would be the last.
“You do realize it’s cruel to bring a man back to the site of where he got fired?” Phil pointed out.
Casey nodded. She did know. “But at least it’s still here,” she said, looking toward the platform.
Hearing the sound of crunching gravel, Casey and her father turned and saw an old, dusty car approaching. It pulled up right next to the Newtons’ car and the engine shut off. A moment later the door opened, and out stepped Frank Walker.
But this was not the Frank Walker Casey had first met back at the farmhouse. That Frank had been grouchy and disheveled. He had been hopeless, his heart hardened. This Frank had shaved and cleaned up, and his eyes were bright. He was more alive than Casey had ever seen him, and she couldn’t help smiling.
“Good evening,” Frank said, greeting the Newtons as if he had never met Casey before.
“Evening,” they replied. Casey sensed her father’s confusion. Who else but them would come all the way out there just to look at an empty launchpad?
“That’s the platform, huh?” Frank went on. “Thought I heard they were taking it down.”
“They were,” Casey said, smiling. “Guess something changed their minds.”
Frank nodded, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. He guessed something had. And speaking of something changing…He held up his arm, revealing a digital watch. A display flashed on it, counting down: 13…12…11…“Almost didn’t get here in time.”
Casey raised her own arm. She, too, had a digital watch and it was perfectly synced with Frank’s.
4…3…2…1…Beeeep!
Nothing happened. The birds kept chirping; the sun kept setting; the breeze kept blowing. It was perfectly peaceful.
The Apocalypse hadn’t happened. Fate had been rewritten.
“We made it,” Casey said. She beamed at him and he beamed back at her.
Looking back and forth between the two, Phil raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry,” he said, confused. “Do you two know each other?”
“As a matter of fact, sir, we do. Your daughter saved my life.” Extending his hand, Frank Walker introduced himself.
Phil shook his head, still unsure of what was going on. How had Casey saved that man’s life? When had she saved that man’s life? And why was he there now?
Very aware of the millions of thoughts probably running through Phil Newton’s head at that moment, Frank got to the point. “Word on the street is you’re a NASA engineer.” Phil nodded. “Well, sir, your daughter and I have been kicking around some ideas for a new project. We weren’t exactly sure things were going to work out, but now that they have, we sure could use some help.”
Phil looked at his daughter, who was smiling from ear to ear. He had no idea what the man was talking about, but there was something infectious in Casey’s obvious excitement. So when Frank asked him if he wanted a job, he simply said yes.
Beside him, Casey clapped her hands together. This was it: the beginning of a new adventure. Because Frank and Casey were going to rebuild Tomorrowland into the world it had been, the world it should have been. They were going to find the best and the brightest minds from all over the world, young minds full of hope like Casey’s. And just as Athena had done, they were going to recruit them. They would find musicians and inventors, architects who thought outside the box, farmers, and scientists. Each and every one of them would get a pin.
And then, when they held those pins, they would find themselves standing in a field of wheat, looking out at a world beyond their imaginations—a world that, of course, they would want to create. Together, they would bring Tomorrowland back to life. They would change the destiny of everyone in the world. And Casey couldn’t wait to get started.
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