start its rotor while he felt his own gain forward momentum and bank. As it did, his side angled enough to afford a view of the clearing below.
Whatever had come for them…whatever it was… surged across the entire field, covering it in a black, oily mist. An explosion erupted from the confines of that sea of darkness. Trevor saw fragments of another of the air ships as it died in a ball of fire on the ground. The explosion appeared muffled by that immense, inky entity, suggesting far more mass than any cloud.
Trevor's eyes remained fixated on below; he felt a chill along his spine and despite all he had seen, fought, and vanquished over the years, this thing made him feel insignificant; a flea in the shadow of an elephant.
– After nearly an hour of sitting in obedient silence, Trevor desired answers. He unbuckled and walked to the front of the craft. Glass surrounded nearly three-quarters of the cockpit providing a tremendous view of rolling plains dotted with forests, dead farms, and frozen ponds.
He sat in the empty co-pilot's seat and said to Nina, 'I want answers, no games.'
She shook her head in a manner suggesting a combination of amusement and annoyance.
'Where do you want me to start?'
'Let’s start with the big question. Who or what are you?'
'I am Nina Forest.'
'Okay, then, where are we? That building was some sort of transport.'
'That’s right, yeah,' she told him. 'You’re on Earth. And no, it wasn’t a time machine.'
Trevor stared forward through the glass. He spoke with an edge in his voice. 'So, I’m on Earth and you’re Nina Forest. Okay then, where are my troops? From what I can tell, we've been flying east for a while now. Army Group North should be around here, somewhere. If this is Earth and we’re still over Ohio some-.' He caught himself. 'Wait a second, that place…it wasn’t a gateway. I know that. I’ve seen them in action.'
'No, it wasn’t a gateway,' she confirmed.
'But it was a transport. You say we’re still on Earth?'
'I said, we’re on Earth.'
Trevor understood. He eased into the chair and nodded to himself.
Why not?
So far in his life, aliens invaded his home world, he could communicate with dogs, learned he had a half- brother, and one of his best friends channeled Stonewall Jackson.
So why not?
'A parallel-what? — Universe?'
She smiled. 'Wow. I mean, you’re taking that a lot better than I thought you would.'
'I guess I’ve just learned that there’s a surprise waiting right around every bend in my life. Like everything else, I'll just accept it without thinking too hard and maybe I'll stay sane.'
She laughed. He allowed himself a small chuckle.
There he sat, riding along in a strange flying machine over a world that was like his own but not quite the same. His eyes drifted to her.
Nina.
Different…but the same.
He said, 'I've seen enough movies and TV shows about this type of thing. Everything is pretty close to my world but a little different. Well, at least you don't have a beard.'
'Huh?'
'Never mind. So okay, you went to a lot of trouble to bring me here. Why?'
She said, 'We monitored your broadcasts when we arrived on your Earth. I could tell you’re doing pretty well. You’ve managed to start taking back your planet. Pretty damn impressive, Trevor.'
'And here?'
Her good humor faded. 'For a while, great, but not anymore. These days the orders are always the same: retreat.'
'Retreat? Who the Hell has been in charge around here?' She told him the answer he feared, 'You.'
He felt a wave of apprehension build inside. Seeing a duplicate Nina, that had been hard. But seeing a duplicate of himself, could he handle that? 'I assume I’m going to go meet…well, me?' 'Yes.'
'Why all the secrecy? We’re all human, right? I mean, you are human?'
Nina looked at him again. 'Yes, I'm human. Just like you in every way. You're flying in what we nicknamed a 'Skipper'. I know you have things like it on your world.'
Just as he had studied her, examining him up and down, taking in the sight. In her eyes he spied something between surprise and awe, between desperation and relief.
She told him, 'You need to see everything for yourself. I'm being honest when I say I don’t want to hurt you. You know that, don’t you? You can feel it, can’t you?'
In the last few hours Trevor walked in to a trap, faced and even kissed a second Nina Forest, traveled to some kind of parallel universe, and ran for his life from a wall of evil blackness. He now rode in a helicopter-like contraption-a 'Skipper'-above an Earth where humanity fought the same war of survival as he did. Yet, he nearly felt relaxed.
Why? Because he sat next to and spoke with Nina Forest. She even smiled, a little.
'Yes,' he answered her question. 'I can feel it.'
'Good, we need you.'
'Why’s that?'
'Because if you can’t help us, we’ll be wiped out.'
He sat in the co-pilot's chair and contemplated that thought. Trevor did not know how he felt about that and he did not know how much he cared. He did, after all, have his own world to worry about. But these people were human, too. Certainly the event's of her universe connected somehow or someway with Armageddon on his world.
Below, the landscape changed from forests and frozen fields to a wasteland of bomb craters, vehicle wrecks, and scattered piles of remains. Occasional mounds of rubble, scorched patches of woods, and a dried riverbed broke the otherwise flat plain of destruction. Gusts of frigid air blew bands of dust and snow flakes over a seemingly dead land.
'Almost home,' Nina whispered.
Another sight grabbed his attention; a break in the horizon. As they approached, that break took form. A city. A very large city growing taller and wider as they neared. But first came bands of defenses including trenches, barbed wire, sandbags, and pill boxes. He saw more remains below; fresher carcasses visited by scavengers and apparently stripped nearly naked of any equipment or gear that might serve the living.
You don't leave your own to rot in the sun, he thought in disgust.
The city filled the cockpit window. At the heart of the place stood a cluster of skyscrapers reaching dozens of stories tall yet lacking any style; any concession to aesthetics. He found them bland and boring; metal and brass structures dressed in a dull, almost sickly green.
That same utilitarian design carried over the entire metropolis. As they descended, he saw an industrial sector where chimneys billowed clouds of white and gray smoke, and squat rectangular buildings arranged like building blocks end to end stood in neat rows as if painstakingly measured to maximize every meter of available space.
It seemed to Trevor this city existed for function, not life. Then again, if mankind stood on its last legs here, then would he not also abandon style in favor of efficiency and purpose?
Still, if this Earth's topography matched his own, this place might just be 'Pittsburgh?'
He apparently thought aloud. 'Pittsburgh?' She responded. 'Never heard of it. I think there are some differences between our worlds. Things like names. But that wouldn’t matter much in this case. This is the city of Thebes. It’s a new city, sort of. Only a few years old.'
'Oh. What about the other cities? Have you re-taken any of them?'
Nina put a fine point on it. 'Trevor, this is our last city. It was built for military purposes. Now it’s all that remains.'
He sat in stunned silence, unable to accept such a thought. If true, would failure here affect the fight on his planet? Had destiny brought him here, too? Was his fight against Armageddon not merely planet wide but…but
