Armageddon.
'And where would we have lived?' Trevor asked.
'Hmmm,' she smiled. 'Well, Philly of course.'
'Because that’s where you worked?'
'Well, I mean, I was a cop you were-'
'A car salesman. I know, I know.'
'Philly is a great place. Lots of things to do. We could go to the zoo. Catch a Phillies game. Stroll through the museum.'
'Now that’s a funny image,' he laughed. 'You and I, strolling through the zoo. After all we’ve seen I think a couple of giraffes would be kind of anti-climatic.'
'This is a different world,' Nina whispered. 'A world where I’m not a soldier, and you’re not a leader. It’s a dream world. We’re we could just be together. No responsibilities.'
He put his hand on her cheek.
'That’s a lovely world. A wonderful dream.'
She wrung her hands.
'And after tomorrow, you get to dream it. I won’t remember enough to want to dream.'
'Memories make us who we are. Take them away, and you change the person. But I’ll still…I’ll still…'
'Don’t say it. You won’t like me at all. Promise me; promise me you’ll try. Promise me that you’ll try to make me remember the dream.'
'I promise.'
They both knew he lied. A lovely lie, nonetheless.
Trevor pulled the necklace holding his secret key from around his neck.
'When did you get that?'
'I always wear it. It’s always with me.'
'What? How come I've never seen it before?'
'Because it's my key. No one else's. Come with me. I want to show you something.'
He led her to the basement.
'I think you need to know something about me. About me and, and ‘all this’.'
They followed the stairs into the basement. The armory door stood locked. The plasma screen TV off, the bar dusty and on the pool table sat quiet, a full rack waiting to be broke.
He maneuvered her toward the small door under the stairs.
'Trevor,' she hesitated. 'You don’t have to do this.'
'I don’t want to have secrets from you. I want you to know it all.'
Nina took a deep breath and kissed his cheek.
'Okay then. Show me.'
He opened the door and clicked on a solitary bulb that shined on a dingy little chamber surrounding a utility cabinet and a hot water heater. Trevor slid that cabinet to the side, revealing a small gray door.
Stone slipped the key from the necklace into the lock. It clicked. He grabbed the iron knob and turned it, eliciting a squeak. The wooden door opened to a dark entrance.
He took her by the hand and they carefully followed a tight stairway down.
Nina heard a low hum in the air that grew louder as they descended into a dimly lit space.
No stone, no concrete, only walls of earth. Old tree roots poked in from the ceiling.
'Where are we, Trevor?'
'Now that’s a good question. I suppose we’re under the mansion.'
'You suppose? Where else could we be?'
Trevor walked to a plain wooden table. An oil lamp and a pack of matches waited there.
'I suppose we could be…somewhere else. I honestly don’t know. I do know there’s nothing to be afraid of. Do you trust me?'
She nodded.
He lit the oil lamp. The soft glow of the flame bounced off the dirt walls.
'Look at this.'
At the far end of the room sat an old wood and iron chest. Trevor walked to that chest. Nina stood a pace behind.
He reached over and, with two hands, pulled open the heavy lid. As it opened, a blue/gray light streamed out from inside, first in streaks then as a glow.
Trevor stepped back. Nina stepped forward.
She raised her hand to shield her eyes as the glow rose out from the box like a balloon lazily drifting into the air.
Nina blinked rapidly as her pupils adjusted to the sudden influx of light. After a few seconds, she dropped her hand and stared at the object.
A sphere of a kind. She guessed it slightly larger than a basketball. The surface appeared made of a clear membrane that fluttered as if containing liquid. The light came not from that surface, but from an object inside.
Nina narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to the ball hovering above the open trunk.
'Not too close. It can be overpowering.'
'What is this? What is inside of it?'
Here eyes separated light from substance until the object inside the sphere took shape in her mind. She recognized the twisting parallel lines and ladder-like rungs between. She recognized them from science class, the Discovery Channel, and posters at the FBI crime lab.
A double helix. DNA.
Trevor confessed, 'How can I fly an Apache helicopter? How can I shoot so well? How come I know tactical hand signals? I mean, c’mon, I sold cars, remember?'
Nina concluded, 'So this is where you get it all from? This is how you ‘pick it up’?'
'That’s right. I have to come down once and a while and recharge. It’s sort of like a library. I can only read so much at any one time. It’s not complete. There’s a lot of shit not in there. I can’t do much more than basic first aid; could never be a surgeon or anything like that. It was a gift to me. But a gift with limits.'
'It’s human DNA.'
'The genetic memories of humanity. Like I said, not all the memories. Just a shit load of em’. I could fly that Apache because there are memories in here from a pilot from the Gulf War. Memories are also in there from engineers and scientists and generals who won great victories.'
She stared at the beautiful ball.
'Amazing.'
'One thing that I don’t get, though,' he scratched his chin. 'This is how I know how to fly Eagles. I shouldn’t know that. There shouldn’t be non-human memories, right? But the flight controls and all of it came to me from here.'
'This is…this is beautiful.'
His voice grew deeper, softer. She thought she heard regret in his tone but soon realized that she really heard embarrassment.
'And that’s how I know that memories are what make us who we are. I know because Richard Stone would not have survived in this world without this gift. The memories of great victories or how to rig generators or hunt game; all of that gave me confidence and strength.'
She turned and faced him, her face slightly askew, puzzled by his words.
He made a finer point: 'I’m a cheat. Without this, I’m nothing but a car salesman, and not a very good one, either. All the memories this thing has given me…and the skills; that’s why I’m a leader. Not because I’m brave or smart, because other people were brave and smart and now I’m standing on their shoulders. I’m a fraud, Nina.'
Nina grabbed his face with both hands and pushed her lips against his. When she finished, she pulled away and spoke her mind.
'Information, Trevor. That’s all. How to do things, what worked in the past…that’s all this is. What you do
