Living between heaven and hell, watching her fall.
Heartbeat.
Only ever really one story: a boy, a girl, and the end of the world.
Heartbeat, exhalation, silver eyes blink back tears of rage and terror.
She fell.
Hayes desperately looked at Zero-Four, who was still recovering from some unknown shock. Their hands were locked.
Hayes looked gravely and directly into Zero-Four’s gray eyes, so empty. Simon released his grip on Zero-Four’s hand. Zero-Four nodded.
Zero-Four let go.
Simon Hayes and Ember Magdalene Flynn fell into the scar in the earth, fell into destiny. The tumultuous surface of the planet closed upon them, and they were no more.
Zero-Four snapped himself from his reverie, stood emotionlessly. West reached over, grabbed his arm as Zero-Four walked by. Zero-Four tore from West’s grip, looked coldly and emptily into his eyes before continuing on. “Simon! Get us out of here!” A motion from Zero-Four’s hand and the bottom hatch closed. The longboat careened into the heavens to rendezvous with its fathership.
“You can’t just—” West’s eyes searched Zero-Four for some kind of encouragement.
“They’re dead. We have to leave.”
“But I saw you—”
Zero-Four slammed into West’s mind with his own. West was knocked to the matte metal floor, his face a canvas painted with terror. Zero-Four’s eyes blazed with metallic fury, and his eyebrows drew to an angry scowl. “What the fuck are you doing in this When? Are you part of Hannah’s little game?”
“I don’t know what—”
“What Program are you from? You aren’t from Seven. I’d recognize your pattern.”
“Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just—”
Zero-Four reached out with his mind and touched West’s. His frown abated and he looked over to Jennings, who was holding on to a creature that was not entirely human.
“He’s a Styx. He’s not a Judas. We made him. He’s one of my soldiers.”
Zero-Four looked confusedly from Jennings to West, and his gaze finally rested on the silver creature looking warily out from Jennings’ protective embrace. “And what is that?”
“That—She is my daughter.”
Zero-Four saw then the web within which he had been entangled, and as the futures now long dead began to merge together before him, he felt overcome with despair, dizzy with the timeshift that for a moment infiltrated his pattern. Jennings was dismayed when for an instant the image of Zero-Four was clouded with static. Zero-Four returned to normal before Jennings could react. The image was as crisp and clear as ever.
The longboat slammed into the docking fields and Simon enveloped the smaller vessel. Zero-Four shook his head, turned silently and went to the control chamber.
The earth tore itself apart.
Shiva rejoined Simon in space.
The Jennings family sat quietly together.
West was troubled, lost in his thoughts.
((my sensors indicated four humans on the surface. where are the other two?))
“They were—I don’t know, Simon. I don’t know.”
((i’d hoped that the shadow signature was maggie’s.))
“Me too, Simon.”
((is everything all right, michael?))
Zero-Four looked up, into the eyes of the nearly transparent, silver image that floated in the spherical expanse before him. A momentary flicker of interference clouded the image, which then returned to its former clarity. Standing like a phantom in the black of the control chamber, a perfect, somehow metallic image of the man he had just let fall into the crevasse in the dying earth was projected before him. Simon Hayes.
“No, Simon. It’s—I don’t know what’s going on.”
It’s falling apart. Our worlds are colliding. The Program is collapsing.
The vessel shook gently.
((the planet, michael. do you want to witness totality?))
“Not this time, old friend. Not this time.”
He retreated into his thoughts.
They watched from the viewscreens as the planet was torn apart in the fury of the black hole. Implosion and cessation, the process was complete. The Enemy had won another When. They turned from the image with tears wetting their faces. Everything they had known, everything they had loved, was gone.
Brave new world.
The planet fell upon itself, died.
Earth, planet of humanity. Planet of mankind.
Planet of the dead.
[course of action?]
((send a beacon to command. call for all available judas to converge upon next harvest when, coordinates to follow. the enemy’s been routed, and in this moment of their weakness, we have to strike. from all whens, from all alternities, from all of eternity, the judas must converge.))
[precise nextwhen coordinates have been calculated from extrapolation of enemy purpose contrail transit data.]
((good. transmit the coordinates to the fleet, and we’ll go join malachi.))
[affirmative.]
((preparing to disembark on nextwhen transit.))
“Understood, Simon. Another When, another war.” Zero-Four locked the hatch on the stasis chamber, felt the shift and the wash of phase space. He hoped in the instant before his pattern was uploaded into the Whenstream that this time he would not dream.
A pause, a silence. A quiet but troubled sleep of aeons.
The warriors of the Judas faded from existence once more upon paths into damnation.
time of the damned
once upon a time
la la la!
within the black
the man who was Judas
screamed
and held on to
the last strands of
sanity
the vessel that was
Judas Simon
struggled to force
the memories of
her
from his soul
the Enemy sought their Purpose
the deception was
complete
and the
end times
