I look at him, and everything we worked out in the future makes sense. We were right about this being the starting point. I hadn’t understood how it could be until now, but it is. It’s one unbroken chain, disasters setting up disasters, and Hammond knows about all of it. What he’s doing now, it isn’t just an accident that it causes all that suffering in my time. He’s doing it
because
it will cause that suffering.
Perhaps I should have let Jack shoot him after all, regardless of the consequences. I try for him now, lunging up from the floor in an effort to burn him. Hammond just laughs as we touch, my power doing no more to him than his did to Jack. The energy just slides over him, blending with the power that burns around him like some fiery halo. I keep going with it, pushing power into him, but he just shoves me back, and the guard with him slams one swift elbow into my solar plexus, knocking the breath from me. He’s obviously wearing the same heat proof stuff as all Hammond’s guards, if he can do that without burning.
“You sure you don’t want her dead?” The guard asks as I stare up at Hammond with hatred. “It would be a lot easier, that way.”
“I don’t pay you for what’s easy for you. I pay you to do what I want, and what I want is her in the shelter.” Hammond smiles down at me, and it’s clear that my attack hasn’t made any difference to him at all. “How is it going to feel, Celestra? How is it going to feel, knowing that you failed? Knowing that you’re safe, while so many other people are at risk?” He nods to the guard. “Get them to the shelter now.”
The guard shakes his unconscious colleague awake, and together they lift Jack and me out to a waiting van, which is coated on the inside with the same stuff as the cells in Hammond’s shelter. They lift us like we’re nothing, tossing me inside to land hard on the wound in my side. It’s already closing, thanks to the power I’ve used, but that doesn’t make it hurt less when I hit it on the floor.
There’s a small window in the rear of the van, and through it, I can see the sky. More flames come down from the clouds, from skies that are the color of blood. I see a house behind us burning, people running from it. One is trying to beat out flames as they lick up his clothing, another, a woman, is looking back into the house and screaming like someone didn’t get out.
That’s only the first fire. More follow. Too many more, as flaming rocks fall, summoned down by Hammond. It’s starting. Everything that I saw in the footage taken from my memories. Everything that we came back to avoid. It’s starting, and all because I was too worried about what might happen to me and Jack to let him end things. I feel tears touch my eyes. What has my selfishness cost the people here?
It isn’t a long drive over to the town where Hammond’s shelter is. The guards drive up to a secure entrance and then carry us inside, without even asking if I’ll walk. They take us back up through the building, depositing us yet again in that secure apartment. They throw Jack’s still unconscious form on the sofa, leaving me in the middle of the room.
“You know I could break out of here easily, right?” I say, as they turn to leave. “I’ve done it before!”
They ignore me, walking out and shutting the door behind them. I guess they don’t care if I try to escape. Or maybe they just think that no one would be stupid enough to try it when there is fire raining down from the sky.
I turn the TV on, and find footage from around the world there. Everywhere, the destruction is the same. The fire is raining down. People are panicking. There’s worse than that too, because other natural disasters are rising up. There’s a sudden flood in Bangladesh, with more than a million people feared dead. There’s an earthquake in New Zeeland, a hurricane in Brazil. Jack wakes while this is happening, and he doesn’t say anything. He just takes one look around at where we are before watching with me.
“We’re too late,” he says.
I nod. “I should have let you kill him.”
“Yes.”
Then Hammond comes onto the TV, and we both stop to watch. “My fellow Americans,” he says. “People around the world. Earlier today, I was elected president of this country, and now, it seems that has happened just in time for us all to face the greatest disaster that has ever befallen our planet.”
He sighs. “I knew when I campaigned for this role that the world was a harsh one. That people at home and abroad found themselves faced with war and famine, poverty, starvation and disease. Now, it seems that we face a worse threat.”
The cameras cut to images of space, where a long plume of fire seemed to be extending from the Sun towards the Earth. The camera in the interview with Hammond looks up towards the sky, and the plume is large enough that the camera can pick it out easily.
“Our scientists have established that this plume will reach Earth in just a short time, meaning that I must now do something I was hoping not to have to do. I must reveal to you the blessings that God has given me.”
Hammond raises his hands towards the plume, and it seems to stretch and twist for a moment before vanishing. He glows then. He glows with power live on national television. I can’t believe my eyes. “You can see the power that God has granted me,” he says. “It means that I can protect us from the start of this disaster, but there will be worse to come. I will speak to you all later.”
Jack and I stare at the screen while increasingly shocked news commentators try to make sense of what has just happened. Hammond’s move is a clever one. He has created a crisis, and now he has presented himself as a savior. It’s the kind of thing most people won’t be able to believe, though it isn’t long before we have an even bigger shock.
The current president comes on TV, reading a statement. Hammond’s men are in the background, which could only mean one thing.
“These times are without precedent,” he says, “and so I have chosen to take unprecedented action. I have to admit that I can do nothing to protect us from the dangers that have risen up in the world so suddenly, but I believe that Wilson Hammond may be able to. Not only have the people spoken to choose him, but it is clear that God has chosen him as well. As such, I have decided to step down early from the presidency, and allow him to take over the role immediately. I and my team will of course offer him any aid he requires.”
I want to shout out at the screen that it’s all false. That it’s a trick. Yet I know it won’t do any good. I’ve never felt so helpless. Hammond is on the screen now, and it’s obvious that he’s been waiting for this moment.
“There is no need to panic,” he says. “We are prepared for situations such as this. There are shelters in place to protect people from the dangers ahead.”
“Enough shelters for everybody?” a journalist asks.
Hammond shakes his head. “Sadly not, which is why I plan to make access to them open and fair. If you wish to be included, please proceed to the local voting areas where you cast your vote today. There, my team will be waiting to allot places. Those who are successful will be tattooed on their hand with a symbol allowing access to the shelters for them and their family. Please note that this is a time of national emergency, so anyone attempting to cheat the system will be dealt with using the full force of the law.”
“What about those people who don’t get in?” the journalist asks.
“You’re worried about yourself…”
“Amanda.”
“Amanda, I’m sure you have as good a chance as anybody of getting in. If not, you have seen what I can do. Be assured that I will do everything in my power to make the shelters unnecessary. Simply go back to your home and pray that I am successful.”
The screen changes, showing locations for some of the shelters. Jack shakes his head.
“He’s set this up to look like God. The people who wear his mark will be saved, while the others…”
“He’s going to wipe them out,” I say. “He’s going to cause the disaster I saw.”
The room shakes briefly.
“Probably one of the fireballs,” Jack says. He pulls me tightly to him. “We’re safe here though. After all, this is Hammond’s own shelter.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m worried about everyone else though. And about why Hammond wants us alive so much. No, not even Hammond. The Serpent in him wants us for something.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it,” Jack promises. “I just hope that Grayson and the others are deep in their shelter by now.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d have wanted him there,” I say.
Jack shakes his head. “He’s my friend, Celes. Whatever else there is, he’s my friend. We need him, too.”
“He went to Location Ten,” I say. “He went after Johnny.” I put my hand to my mouth. “What if he doesn’t make it?”
“He will,” Jack says. “And he’ll stop them fading John. Though maybe it would be better if they did. Hammond might only be his father in this time, but he’s right, hearing that he’s the Serpent will change John. It will haunt him.”
He slips an arm around me. I don’t know what to say to it. I just know that I feel safe there with him holding me.
And suddenly I know more. I can feel the memories coming back to me. Us living together, the way we did in the apartment in New York, only it’s the future versions of us. Us arguing over what it could mean if we married, given that I’m the President and Jack’s in charge of Homeland Security. People already don’t like our relationship, but we’re going to go ahead with it anyway. Just as soon as we solve the droughts, and the famines, and… I remember Jack volunteering to go back. I remember trying to talk him out of it. Yet there are still too many things I don’t remember.
“What kind of president am I in the future, Jack?” I ask. “What kind of person?”
“You’re you,” Jack says, smiling as he remembers. “You’re always yourself, Celes. You’re smart, strong, beautiful… people always feel that you have their best interests at heart, even when they don’t agree with you. And to me… you’re everything.”
He kisses me then, and I know it’s true. Past, present or future, regardless of what President Hammond does, regardless of whether the world ends, Jack Simple will always be there for me. Even through the Apocalypse. Twice.
EPILOGUE
H
ow have we come to this? That’s the question I keep asking myself. We’re meant to be so highly evolved, so much closer to perfection than people were millennia ago. We can do things with our bodies that they could only dream of. We can move faster, live longer, survive things that would have killed any one of them in the past. I can do things that are impressive even by the standards of the people around me. Yet none of it is enough.
I look around my office. The oval office, that ancient symbol of the presidency I hold. How many times has it been rebuilt since the disaster? Yet always to almost the same plan, at least as far as the archaeologists could tell. The materials are different now, because no one these days would ever build in bricks and stone, but even so every time I step in here I can feel the connection to history. This room is closer to the romans now than to the present day, a symbol of something ancient and almost lost.
Yet it’s not that my eyes are drawn to. It’s the screen in the middle of the room showing the latest figures for the sickness. They’re high. Too high. We still haven’t found a cure. We still haven’t found a way even to make sure that people survive it. We’ve advanced so far beyond anything the people who first built this room could have imagined, and yet we’re still at the mercy of a simple disease.
I sit down in the chair behind the desk. The president’s chair. My chair. It feels so lonely and empty without Jack here. I shake my head, knowing that I shouldn’t put my personal feeling above the good of the nation. Of the whole world. Yet I think I might have stopped him if I could have done it. I need him here, with me.