THE LAST
Shaun broke through the surface.
He coughed and spluttered, saltwater filling his lungs. His clothes weighed him down, threatening to pull him under again. Rough waves smashed into him and he spun around, desperately searching for something solid to hold onto. He spied an object, massive and gray – an upturned ship – and swam toward it.
His legs turned to lead and the frigid water sapped his energy. He sank beneath the waves, darkness pressing in on him. He swallowed water, his throat burning with the salty poison. He thrashed again, his head just reaching above the surface, the ship coming closer.
He reached out, fumbling for purchase. He seized a thick link of an iron chain, gripping onto it as though it could tether him to life itself. He hung there for several minutes, his white hair plastered over his forehead. Slowly, he pulled himself up the side of the massive ship, the steel behemoth groaning and rocking in the waves.
Spitting water and pink frothy blood, he hauled his limp body up the massive chain. The boat narrowed toward the keel, until finally he could get his feet beneath him. He crouched on the barnacle-covered bottom of the ship, its colossal propellers sticking up into the air, the blades dulled and rusted with age. His mouth hung open as he took in the devastation before him.
The Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco lay in ruins, collapsed into the ocean.
Beached ships and cargo containers lined the bay. Hundreds of cars floated in the icy water, banked upon the remains of the bridge, long since abandoned by their owners. His eyes lifted toward the cityscape, where the skyscrapers were only skeletons.
The upturned frigate was beached on Angel Island; a fighter jet had crashed into the island, its wreckage scattered amidst the wild scrub. Hayden Miller sat cross-legged on the sand, as though nothing was wrong with the world.
“Hey!” Shaun called, his voice hoarse. “Hayden!”
Miller stood uneasily and made his way to the edge of the frigate. Shaun scrambled down the side of the ship, hitting the sand with a dull thud. His knees buckled and he stumbled, his head suddenly spinning. He took a few steps and vomited, emptying his lungs of ocean water.
“You look like shit,” Miller commented, clapping Shaun on the back and triggering another vicious wave of coughing.
“Never mind me,” Shaun gasped, wiping his mouth. He spat another mouthful of water and straightened, his muscles aching. His eyes lingered on Miller’s gunshot wound. “How are you even alive?”
Miller shrugged. “I’m a Timewalker, after all. I can’t use my powers anymore, but it’ll take more than a bullet to kill me. I think Carl knew that.”
Can’t use his powers? I never even thought about it – all this time, I had forgotten he was a Timewalker like me. What happened to block his abilities?
Shaun braced himself against the cold wind whipping across the bay. “This is the Prime universe, isn’t it? How’d we get here?”
“A Temporal Rift,” Miller explained, then at Shaun’s blank look, he added, “When you killed Zero, it triggered a resonance effect in the universe that opened a wormhole between worlds. I never knew he was so powerful – truth be told, I don’t think anybody knew how powerful he was…the Resistance included.”
They stood there for several minutes, snow falling from the gray sky. Their breath clouded in the air. Both had lost their NeuroHexes to the storm or the ocean. Then Miller laughed, the raucous sound booming across the silent island.
“You killed Zero,” he said, a broad grin spreading across his face.
“I know,” Shaun said, with a low chuckle that was part mirth, part delirium. “It’s over.”
Miller kicked a rock down the small beach, his expression souring instantly. “No. No, it’s not over. It’s only just begun.”
He turned away and marched down the beach, leaving heavy footprints behind.
“What are you talking about?” Shaun glared at the back of his head.
“Zero was a figurehead,” Miller called out. “He had a special hatred for Timewalkers because they were the catalyst for the Final War. He saw himself as a savior, a self-appointed god of his own making. But the Resistance is the real threat. They are at war with White Tower, and by extension, your world. They see the Shift as a threat, a potential resource for White Tower to use against them.”
“Then what do we do?” he asked, falling into step with the older man. “How do we get back to the Shift?”
Miller stopped abruptly and turned around. “We don’t.”
“What do you mean? Hey – hey, don’t walk away!” He grabbed Miller’s arm and spun him around. “Listen, I’ve done everything you wanted! I joined your army, I left the Bureau behind; I killed Zero!”
“You think that’s it?” Miller snarled, his lips parting to reveal his molars. “This is war! You can forget any naïve notion you have of going back to your own world. You have a duty here!”
“A duty? I don’t have a duty to anyone or anything!”
“Then sit here,” Miller growled, jabbing a finger into Shaun’s chest. “Sit here on this goddamned beach, and pray that the first person who detects that Temporal Spike isn’t wearing red, because if the Resistance finds you, they will kill you.”
Shaun clenched his jaw, a tendon pulsing in the side of his cheek. Waves lapped against his boots. His wet clothes stuck like a second skin, chilling his body. Miller paced back and forth on the spot, fuming silently.
“Listen,” Miller said, his voice quieter this time. “This is a crappy situation to put you in. I understand that. But whether you like it or not, you’re now integral to this war. White Tower needs you. Both of our worlds need you.”
Shaun let out a long, frustrated sigh. He turned to look at San Francisco again. From the skeletal remains of the skyscrapers, smoke curled up into the sky, meeting the falling snow.
“There’s only one thing I want to do,” he said, still facing the ruined Golden Gate Bridge. “And that’s make sure no Timewalker ever has to live in fear again.”
He turned around, his jaw set firm. “You say that Zero was only one part of the problem.”
“He was. The Resistance are a rebel force, masquerading as heroes. They are prolonging a war that should’ve ended years ago. They’re agitators and a threat to our people’s safety.”
“Okay then,” Shaun said, his teeth chattering. “We’ll regroup with White Tower and I’ll help you stop the Resistance. But then we’re done. Then I go home.”
Miller stared at Shaun for a long time, neither moving. There was only the sound of the waves crashing against the island and the laborious metallic groan of the beached frigate. Miller cleared his throat, then stepped forward and placed one hand on Shaun’s shoulder, squeezing tightly.
“You are a great man, Shaun Briars,” he said, his tone solemn. “Capable of great strength and courage, more than you know. Whatever you do for this world will be more than we have any right to ask of you.”
He broke off, brushing snow from his jacket. “Come on, I’m freezing my ass off out here. I want to make land before sundown.”
Shaun looked up at the sky, an unyielding mass of dark clouds that let through only a thin, watery light. “How can you even tell what time it is?”
“Leftover Timewalker ability,” Miller grunted, leading Shaun back toward the frigate. “About the only thing the Resistance didn’t carve out of my brain.”
So that’s why, Shaun thought, his gut squirming. Even in this world, he still died. A part of him was lost…taken away by the Resistance.
He pushed down the anger rising in his chest. “Are we teleporting off the island?”
“Afraid not. There’s a good chance that the Resistance have taken the city. Until I can contact Langley, we have to assume that the enemy is everywhere – and that rules out any obvious uses of our Temporal abilities.”
“Then how are we getting to shore?”
Miller gave a cocky smile and rounded the side of the frigate, pointing at a black dinghy hanging off the edge of the ship. “Hope you don’t mind the water.”
Shaun groaned. “No,” he muttered, “I love boats.”
* * *
The dinghy approached Pier 39.
Once, it had been a bustling tourist destination, but the Final War had turned it into a graveyard of overturned and sunken boats. Luxury liners and yachts had been tossed against each other, the berths broken apart, allowing the boats to float away into the bay. Restaurants and cafés were now empty shells. Red flags hung from broken windows, the tattered rags bearing crudely painted emblems of a yellow sickle-and-hammer.
“Soviet Reunification Army,” Miller explained, one hand on the dinghy’s tiller. “Or the remnants of it, anyway. They own everything from Pier 39 back to Russian Hill.”
“Soviet Reunification?”
“They were the ones who started the Final War,” Miller explained. “A rogue army of nationalists and rebels from the ex-USSR nations. The Russian government started backing them, and most of our Timewalkers were deployed to the Ukrainian front. But the Kremlin had an elaborate sleeper-cell network throughout the United States, and they took advantage of the ’17 social collapse to launch a home-grown attack. The SRA still have a strong presence all along the West Coast, coming down from what we used to call Alaska.”
The dinghy rocked as it navigated the choppy waters, splashing frigid water in Shaun’s lap. “Seems like everyone is fighting everyone here.”
“Truth is, while White Tower and the Resistance have been fighting, we haven’t been paying attention to the smaller factions. The SRA, the Anti-Temporal Revolutionary Party, whatever crude alliance the scavengers have; they might be small, but they’re growing quickly. The more disillusioned people become with the rebels or with the government, the more these smaller factions will grow.”
“Are we going through there?” Shaun asked, eying the Soviet territory.
Miller shook his head, turning the boat to the left. “White Tower’s not on particularly good terms with the SRA, even with the peace treaty. We need to get into the heart of the city, Civic Center. Last I knew, there was a Safe House there, and an encrypted line to Langley.”
They passed piers and wharfs in various states of decay, garbage littering the cracked concrete. Birds circled high overhead, small dark shapes that Shaun could barely make out, their bodies blending into one swarm. Feral dogs howled in the depths of the city, then fell silent. The dinghy roared across the bay, slowing as they approached a wharf that might, long ago, have been a ferry terminal.
A squat clock tower stood above a low building, metal letters spelling out: PORT OF – CISCO. The letters in between were missing completely, and the clock itself was frozen at 11:40, though whether it had stopped working during the day or night, Shaun couldn’t tell. Miller guided the dinghy toward the wharf, using a rope to drag the boat against a concrete pylon.
The ferry terminal was in ruins. Stale water pooled in the open, and several cars and vans were clustered around the terminal, abandoned. Miller led Shaun past the deserted buildings, their footsteps echoing loudly in the dead city. They passed an ornate marble building with intricate fretwork, the façade crumbling.
“How do you know the Safe House is still safe?” Shaun asked, nervously feeling for his waist. The six-shooter hadn’t made the passage with him to the Prime universe. Miller was unarmed too, but he radiated combat prowess that Shaun simply didn’t have – the Bureau had only given him so much training, and none of it had related to post-apocalyptic parallel universes.
Miller didn’t answer his question.
They entered a wide street with tall buildings on either side. Some had survived the war, still standing proud. Others had been brought low by missile strikes, local combat or the ravages of nature and time. Shaun and Miller walked either side of the rail lines, passing a decaying cable car. The smell of rotting flesh hit Shaun’s nostrils and he gagged, turning away from the streetcar and vomiting into a gutter.
He recovered, his body trembling, and tried not to think about what would cause that smell.
“Where is everyone?” Shaun asked, wiping his mouth. His whisper boomed down the street.
“Keeping a low profile,” Miller replied, the wind tugging at his clothes. “Most stick to their communes, where it’s safest. Out here, in the streets, you’re fair game for scavengers.”
The conversation fell silent again, and they kept walking. More crumbling buildings, more abandoned cars, more evidence of a once-great civilization on its knees. As they moved away from the Bay the snow drifts deepened, piling up on the sidewalk, forcing them to walk in the middle of the road.
They managed a half-mile before they slowed to a crawl, the ground becoming uneven with rubble and crowded with cars. Shaun was silently grateful for the reprieve. His chest was heaving rapidly, forcing him to suck in oxygen as quickly as he could. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, and he knew he couldn’t keep this going for much longer. How long had it been since he’d slept? Or eaten? He was running on empty, forced to draw on his Regenerative powers just to stay moving.
“Stay down,” Miller said suddenly, grabbing Shaun and forcing him into a low crouch. They were sandwiched between a rusted pickup and a nondescript white van.
“What is it?” Shaun asked, but Miller instantly shushed him and pointed.
He leaned around the hood of the pickup. A makeshift barrier stretched across the street, constructed from assorted pieces of corrugated iron, car doors and concrete blocks. Long pieces of rebar and sharpened garden tools had been stuck at the top, and spray-painted onto the side of the barrier was a slogan, each letter six feet high.
FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.
“The Resistance,” Miller breathed, swearing under his breath. “We’re too late. They’ve already taken the city hall.”
“What do we do?” Shaun asked, swallowing past a thick lump in his throat.
It was a third voice that answered.
“Get up, nice and slow,” a woman said, her voice firm. Shaun felt something cold and metallic press against the back of his neck. “I said slowly.”
Shaun and Miller obeyed. Out of the corner of his vision, Shaun saw two burly men with shotguns, but the unidentified woman was hidden behind his back. Miller stared ahead, his hands interlaced behind his neck.
“We’ve been watching you,” the woman said, her voice oddly familiar. “Where have you come from?”
Miller remained resolutely silent, and Shaun followed suit. They won’t get a word out of us.
The woman chuckled, shoving the gun into Shaun’s back. “I love it when they play tough. Makes the interrogation more fun. Move.”
They marched through the piled-up cars, the barricade looming ever closer. The two soldiers flanked Shaun and Miller, with the mysterious woman directly behind them both. Shaun reached out with his Affinity, detecting a strong Temporal signature emanating from her, a signature that was familiar and foreign at the same time. Like a faded photograph – vaguely recognizable but not clear enough to trigger a memory.
As they approached the reinforced wall, he saw that a crude door had been fashioned from the remains of a taxi cab. Two more men stood guard outside, dressed in plain civilian clothes, assault rifles slung across their chests. Scarlet sashes encircled their biceps.
“We’ve got two more!” the brute on Shaun’s left said. “The rats washed up down at the old Ferry Terminal.”
“We should toss ’em back in the bay,” one of the barricade guards laughed, a scruffy late-teen with a thick beard, wearing a coat to ward off the cold. “Or let the scavs pick ’em clean.”
“We won’t do anything of the sort,” the woman snapped. “Open the gates!”
“Yes ma’am,” the guard said, mollified. There was a horrendous creaking of metal and rattling chains; the gates shuddered and shrieked as they parted, revealing a narrow passage hemmed in by more barriers, these ones made from streetcars and taxis.
“Move,” the woman said, jabbing the gun into Shaun’s back. He took an apprehensive breath – this was it. Once they passed through those gates, they wouldn’t get out easily. Why aren’t we fighting? He desperately wanted to lash out at the towering hulk of a man beside him, but he needed Miller’s support. If we go in there, it’s a death sentence.
“I said, move,” the woman growled, cocking her gun for effect.
Shaun closed his eyes. His heart hammered in his chest and cold sweat beaded along his brow. He forced his legs to move, placing one foot in front of the other.
They entered the Resistance’s base, and the gates slammed shut with an echoing bang like the slamming of a judge’s gavel.
The passageway opened into a wide plaza, snow blanketing the wide expanse. Groups of rebels stood around burning campfires, armed with old guns or makeshift spears. Many were bustling around a large convoy that had been backed up into the plaza.
Shaun saw black metal – the convoy was loaded with weapons. Soldiers were inspecting the guns, and turned to watch the prisoners warily as they approached. His eyes lingered on the weapons. If I could just find a way to get a gun—but then what? We’re surrounded.
The City Hall rose high above the plaza, an ornate building that had somehow survived the war. Its architecture was French-inspired with columns and carved images. A dome reached up toward the gray sky, and a scarlet flag fluttered from atop the spire, bearing the symbol of the sun rising above the horizon.
“Why are you here?” the woman asked, as they drew level with the weapons shipment. “You’re from White Tower – isn’t that right?”
Shaun clenched his jaw, refusing to answer. A sharp blow to the back of his head and he stumbled forward, red dots dancing before his eyes.
“I asked you a question,” the woman snarled. “Are you from White Tower?”
Conversation fell silent in the plaza, all eyes turning toward the group. Shaun bristled angrily. I’m not from White Tower. I’m not from the Bureau of Time either. I serve myself and my own sense of what’s right.
Miller twitched beside him, his dark eyes darting over the enemies. They were vastly outnumbered. Shaun caught the scope-flash of the snipers hiding up in the City Hall, their rifles undoubtedly trained on his head.
“Shaun,” Miller whispered. “Now.”
It was so quick, so quiet, that he barely heard the words.
That was the moment when everything fell apart, when the world slipped over the edge of madness and into the abyss of insanity. The woman’s voice had been familiar all along, her Temporal signature a friendly reminder that hadn’t quite made sense.
When she grabbed his arm and spun him around, it all clicked into place.
A blur of red hair, electric-blue eyes staring in shock as she took in his face. A bandanna covered most of her head, with a single braid hanging over her chest; there were deep lines in her face, hard and unyielding against the cold and the horrors of the future world.
But it was a face he could never forget.
“Shaun?” Cassandra Wright asked, an older woman who, in a moment of shock, looked precisely like the girl twenty years her junior.
Then Miller teleported into nothingness, and the plaza erupted into chaos. He reappeared a moment later and seized an assault rifle from the truck, opening fire into the mass of tightly-packed bodies, gunshots roaring across the open area. Blood splashed onto the snow, but as the Resistance fighters turned to react, Miller was already gone, reappearing in a bright flash of light, right beside Shaun.
“COME ON!” Miller roared. “MOVE!”
But Shaun couldn’t move. He was paralyzed, unable to process the impossible. He knew about the alternate versions of people, he had accepted it as fact; now he was standing in front of Cassie, the girl he had loved and the girl he had pushed away – only, it wasn’t her, and at the same time, it was.
“Shaun?” she whispered, her forehead crinkling, her hand reaching out to touch him—
Then the bullet tore through Shaun’s shoulder and he spun backward.
He collided with the compacted snow, pain exploding through his collarbone. He instinctively Timewalked the injury, staggering upright in a daze. Miller was fighting off the Resistance, taking cover behind an abandoned car that was doing little to stop the hail of bullets coming toward him.
Shaun couldn’t hear anything over the deafening explosions, couldn’t see anything except the bright flashes of light, couldn’t feel anything but the frigid wind.
More gunshots cracked through the air, heavy-caliber sniper rifle bullets blasting across the open plaza, narrowly missing him.
He saw it all happen in slow motion, unable to change anything. He was simply letting fate run its course, the unstoppable river of time eroding everything around him.
The Resistance fighters rounded the van, and as Miller ejected the spent magazine, he turned to shout at Shaun. He knew, in that moment, that he would never forget Miller’s wild eyes, those dark pits open wide with fear, pleading, begging for Shaun to act, to help him, to save him.
Miller’s body bucked as the bullets ripped into his chest.
Shaun wasn’t sure if he screamed, if he moved toward Miller, or if he did anything at all. His memory past that point was blurry and indistinct, a rapid-flash series of still images. One thing was clear though, above all else. He saw Cassandra Wright hesitate, just briefly, a shadow of indecision crossing her face.
Shaun knew he should have run. But he didn’t. He put his trust in Cassie, hoped that her moment of indecision would blossom into action, that she might try to stop the advancing soldiers thirsty for blood. In some naïve corner of his brain, he believed that the person who looked so much like the girl he had known would come through for him, would forgive him, would save him.
The words came to him, though in whose voice, he didn’t know – perhaps it was his own subconscious, manifesting in the voice of a hundred different people, or perhaps the words were whispered into his ear by a power far greater than anything he had ever known before.
They wear their faces, but they are imposters.
They are not the people you knew.
Shaun raised his hands – a desperate, misguided attempt to forestall the inevitable.
Without so much as a flicker of remorse, Cassandra Wright pulled the trigger and put a bullet through his chest.