Hard Goodbyes
The three of us, along with Project Emergency Escape, rode the elevator up.
Around us, climbing the iron staircase that circled the central shaft, were dozens of refugees. Led by Alex, they worked their way upward, one floor after another. And, as each new level was evacuated, Alex bolted and welded shut the connecting door.
“We’ve rigged it so that each floor can be securely cut off from the one below it,” Maxi Me explained.
“What about the deaders climbing the outside of the tower?” I asked. “Attacking from above?”
“We’ve set things up so that the only way to and from the deck is the elevator,” Emily told me. “And, months ago, Steve and I mounted small explosives into the walls of the shaft just above Control. Once blown, they’ll tear up things just enough to keep the elevator permanently trapped on the Observation Deck. The Corpses will have no way to use it and no easy way to get around it.”
“Won’t keep them out forever,” I said.
“Nothing will,” William replied. “All of this is only to buy us time.”
Through the latticed elevator door, I watched as the last of the tower levels rolled by. At one point, I glimpsed the ninetieth floor, where the Undertakers kept their cots—or used to. No one would be sleeping there tonight.
“What about Sharyn?” I asked.
They both looked at me. “You know about Sharyn?” This came from Emily.
“Of course he does,” William said. Then to me: “I’m guessing you saw her?”
“Yeah.”
“Talked to her?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “I blew it again. She made me promise not to tell you.”
“I know,” I said. “She told me. But it’s okay, because I’m gonna fix it. I’m gonna fix all of it.”
“I believe you,” Maxi Me told me, and the confidence in his voice scared the crap out of me.
But it was kind of cool, too.
“Alex knows to move her up to the twentieth floor with the rest,” Emily said. “That floor is especially well fortified, and a number of the refugees have offered to fight back against the Corpses, if need be. She’ll be safe enough.” It was a lie—or, at best, wishful thinking. But, since we both knew it, I saw no point in saying so.
As the twentieth floor slid past, I caught a quick glimpse of Alex Bobson. He stood at one of the stairway doors, waving through the last of the refugees. Men, women, and children, all dressed in rags, poured past him, filling the tight space and laying blankets as they had downstairs. A few of them—the children especially—were crying, but most looked too tired to be frightened.
That would change.
“It’s the kids,” William said in a strained voice. “Those are the ones who really break my heart. They were born into this world, or are too young to remember it the way it was before. They all deserved better than they got. But then the first casualty of war is innocence.”
I nodded miserably.
Just before I lost sight of him, Alex’s head suddenly came up. He was probably reacting to the sound of the passing elevator and, for an instant, his eyes met mine.
He actually saluted.
It was a quick, casual gesture, made by a man on mission, a man without time to spare. But he did it. As our elevator car continued up to the next level, he disappeared from view.
I never saw him again—at least not this version of him.
Silently, I made myself a promise. If, by some miracle, Steve’s “last resort” did work and I made it safely back to my time, I’d have a talk with the dude’s younger self. His, as it turned out, was a friendship worth having.
I asked Emily and William, “What do you know about Project Four?”
“Where’d you hear about that?” William asked.
“Sharyn,” I said. “You never briefed me on it.”
He sighed and nodded. “We would have,” he said. “But I told Steve to hold off until we were ready to send you back. I’d promised Sharyn that I wouldn’t tell you about her, and I couldn’t think of a way to explain Project Four without breaking that promise.”
“I figured,” I told him.
“That particular project was Steve’s favorite,” Emily replied. “He was working with the Sharyn from your time, pulling her into our second temporal clean room and teaching her how to use an electric javelin to destroy the Eternity Stone. He couched the whole thing in dreams using the Consciousness Wand. Even built a holographic crystal and a handful of robotic Malum to help improve the training experience.” She spoke wistfully, almost reverently.
“I’m sorry, sis,” I said.
“Me too, bro,” she said.
“But where is this javelin?” I asked. “Don’t I need to take it back with me, if Sharyn’s supposed to use it?”
Maxi Me replied, “As I understand it, the one Sharyn used in training was just a mock-up, like the robots and the fake Eternity Stone.”
“Where’s the real one?”
“It was his favorite secret,” Emily said. “He never told me, other than to drop little hints. He didn’t even blog about it. Whenever I asked him, he always told me not to worry … that Sharyn would know how to find it … or make it … or something, when the time came.”
“Sharyn would?” I exclaimed. “Sharyn’s a great fighter, but constructing super-weapons isn’t her thing!”
“I know,” she said. “And I told him that, more than once. But the most I got out of him was a smile and a wink.”
A smile and a wink.
Great.
“What good is that?” I demanded, suddenly angry. “I mean, what’s the point of all the dream-training if he’s not going to give her the actual weapon?”
Emily wiped away a fresh tear. “Steve could be like that. Too smart for his own good … for all our good. All I can tell you is that he promised me the javelin would be available when the time came.”
That sounded ridiculous, and I almost said so. But the look of grief on my big little sister’s face stopped me cold. So, instead I asked with an exasperated sigh, “Why ‘Four?’”
“I have no idea. Maybe that project also needs a better name.”
“Quick stop,” Maxi Me remarked as the elevator clattered to a halt on the twenty-first floor.
Control.
The moment we stepped out of the elevator, the half-dozen radio operators closed around their chief, all of them talking at once. They were clearly scared and given what they were saying, I couldn’t blame them.
All of the other surviving human outposts had fallen, overrun by the walking dead. Their radio operators had stayed on until the last possible second before going dark, often wrapped in screams. One by one, pins had been removed from the map board.
Now, only one pin was left.
Philadelphia.
Us.
“I understand,” William told them, hugging each of them or shaking their hands. “Why don’t you head downstairs. Your families have been moved up to twenty. Go be with them. There’s nothing more you can do here.”
The room emptied. As the last of them left and Emily, William, and I waited for the elevator to return, the three of us shared the same desolate look. We all knew where those people were going, and what was going to happen to them down there.
None of us spoke.
Once the elevator clattered to a stop in front of us, we boarded it and rode one last floor upward, to the Observation Deck. On the way, I cleared my throat and asked, “If I do manage to get back and destroy the Eternity Stone, that’ll change the future, right?”
“That’s the theory,” the chief said.
“I mean, it’ll change this future,” I pressed.
“Yes,” said Emily.
“So none of this will ever have happened. Steve and Amy and Helene and all the rest will still be alive.”
“Yes,” she repeated.
“Are you … sure?”
I really, really wanted her to be sure.
Emily smiled. My sister always had such a beautiful smile. “Here’s how sure I am.” When the elevator stopped at the top of the building, she pushed the latticed door open and stepped aside. Then to William, she said, “You two go out and do what needs doing. I’m going to go down to twenty to help hold the line. Once I’m there, I’ll send the elevator back up. If … when … it gets too bad up here, radio me and I’ll set off the explosives. That’ll seal the elevator shaft. But be sure guys, because it’ll trap you both up here as well.”
William looked at her for a long moment. Then he said, “Don’t wait for us to radio. Once you’re down there and the elevator’s back up here, blow the shaft.”
My stomach felt like it was full of sand.
A single tear traced Emily’s cheek. “I will. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” William told her.
Then Emily faced me, wearing an expression of almost beatific resignation. “Big brother,” she said gently. “Your being here at all is a miracle. I’m sorry for the lies we told you.”
“Lies?” I asked.
“Well, not lies, exactly. But Amy and I let you believe that she was an angel, and that we had all the answers. We needed you to keep true to the timeline and to do what you had to do to win the first war. That’s why we could never reveal to you how bad things were for us.”
“It’s okay,” I replied, meaning it. “I get it. But Em, I—”
She cut me off. “So now you’re the angel and we’re the ones who need a miracle. I want you to give me my Steve back, and Helene, and Amy, and Burt, and all the rest. You can’t save everyone. Chuck, Ian and the Burgermeister … and all the others who died to win the war, they’re gone. But everything else that’s happened since, that you can undo.”
A line in the sand.
A line on the calendar.
“I’ll try,” I said. “I swear it.”
“I love you, big brother.” No tears this time, just that sad sweet smile.
She hugged me. Then she hugged the older me. And, without another word, William and I stepped off the elevator and watched as Emily Ritter rode it down and away.
Her eyes stayed on mine, on both of ours, until she was gone from view.
I never saw her again, either.