By Areaze Jiuare
Everett Griffiths leaned back comfortably into the armchair. He’d escaped into the wilderness for a few days— a log cabin surrounded by pines had seemed like the perfect refuge from the scorched sprawl of the Big Apple. From the outside, it looked like a lumberjack’s overnight shack; inside, it was furnished like a suite in a top-tier hotel. Mounted on the wall across from him was a flat-screen TV, large enough to watch the baseball finals. Maybe too large for movies.
The only problem was that it didn’t work without power.
There had been no electricity since yesterday afternoon.
Would they knock something off the price for that screw-up? This pleasure hadn’t come cheap.
The LED light at the bottom of the screen flickered. A few seconds later, the image appeared. He grabbed the remote and switched to the news channel.
“…following a widespread power outage. The causes are still under investigation, though electricity is gradually being restored to residential areas. Fortunately, temperatures over the past few days have not been extreme, so no fatalities related to this major failure have been reported…”
He wanted, at the very least, to know what had happened. True, there was nothing he could do about it, but simple curiosity kept him rooted in front of the TV instead of wandering the forest trails. Mary Ann had bailed on him anyway. They were supposed to come together, but her husband had canceled a business trip at the last minute due to a terrorist attack on the United Nations building.
After the crushing disappointment she’d served him, Everett decided to use the reservation they’d made in secret—even if it meant spending the time alone.
“…and so the unbelievable chain of scandals continues. Photos of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation in an intimate embrace have begun circulating on social media…”
He changed the channel.
Jennifer Aniston’s head filled the screen—on this TV, larger than the patio furniture. She looked like an ogre. Everett gave up on movies altogether.
Maybe a walk down to the lake would do him good. There was always a chance he’d stumble upon some shepherdess along the way, since Mary Ann had been unable to sort out her life.
There was no shepherdess.
In fact, he didn’t meet a soul on the way to the lake, unless one counted the obnoxiously chirping birds. Twigs cracked beneath his boots as he followed the forest trail. He emerged from the woods into an open space framed by the winding shore of the Great Lake.
Standing by the water felt good.
In the shimmering, dark mirror of the lake, the conifer forest was reflected, sinking into massive, jagged mountains. He turned and noticed a flat rock carpeted with moss. He touched the greenish, velvety surface gently, running his fingers over it.
Wonderful.
He lay down on the moss and took a deep breath. Above him, a glassy blue sky was being slashed by dozens of pale white streaks. They stretched across the sky far faster than airplane contrails.
Or so it seemed.
Moments later, dozens more followed.
He propped himself up on his elbows and stared at the sky. For a fleeting moment, a terrible thought crossed his mind—something deeply, profoundly wrong—but he chased it away immediately.
He hadn’t come here to weave conspiracy theories. He came to rest. To enjoy himself.
An hour later, he realized his dark premonitions had been right.
***
“Plié!”
The girls held the final position for a moment, then scattered across the ballet studio.
Svetlana headed straight for the locker room, irritated by the mistakes she’d been making all class. Yesterday, after practice, she’d misstepped on the edge of a stair, and her ankle had been throbbing ever since.
She slipped off her ballet flats and put on her canvas sneakers decorated with cyclamen-colored floral patterns. She tugged sharply at the lace.
A sharp, unlucky snap.
One end of the lace dangled from her hand, while the other blossomed sadly from the eyelet.
Just what she needed. A bad omen.
She wasn’t particularly superstitious or religious, but every time a shoelace broke, something bad happened. She hated it more than anything.
She left the ballet school, holding onto the stair railings just in case, and headed toward the metro station. She paused when she saw the body of a pigeon on the street—the same pigeon she’d passed on her way to class. Back then, it had stood motionless by the entrance, forcing anyone who wanted to enter the building to step over it.
It hadn’t shown fear. It hadn’t moved aside.
Probably sick, she’d thought then—already surrendered to its fate, indifferent to whether someone in a hurry might crush it.
Now she approached to get a better look. It seemed dead.
Three crows had descended upon it, pecking and tearing at it in turns, trying to rip pieces of flesh away. They stabbed their beaks savagely into the unfortunate bird, shaking their heads as if deliberately trying to inflict as much pain as possible.
She considered shooing them away, but realized it was pointless. Even if it were still alive, its days were clearly numbered.
Her gaze slid down the street, as if trying to flee the grotesque scene. She hesitated—then decided to do something after all.
She turned back toward the pigeon.
One of the crows was carrying something in its beak, while the other two hopped frantically after it, eager to steal the prize. Curious, she stepped closer.
The crow stopped and lifted its head, piercing her with its round black eyes. Its beak clamped tightly around the pigeon’s head. The headless body lay abandoned on the street, suddenly of no interest to the black scavengers.
Drivers swerved to avoid the small corpse, its feathers fluttering after each passing car.
Maybe this was an everyday scene in nature, but Svetlana felt that what she’d witnessed carried a dark message. Why fight over the head, she wondered? The body had far more meat.
What was this supposed to tell her?
This was the second bad sign of the day.
As she walked along the wide sidewalk through the heart of Moscow, she tried to ignore the pain and focus on her next task. If she hurried, she could finish her statics assignment and still prepare to go out with Irina and Katinka.
It was Irina’s birthday. They’d planned a girls’ night out at clubs downtown.
She’d bought the gift. Irina had spent years talking about the pet she’d never had. The thought of her expression when she saw a tiny Pomeranian peeking out of a colorful box brought a shy smile to Svetlana’s lips. She tried to hide it from passersby, so no one would think she was crazy.
Still, the torn piece of shoelace remained clenched unconsciously in her jacket pocket.
She boarded a half-empty metro car—the rush hour had thankfully passed. She sat down and studied the tired, wrinkled face of the elderly woman across from her. She peeked into her past, while from the depths of her soul, an ancient fear blinked—rooted deeply in generations of young, beautiful beings.
It gnawed at her pride, whispering softly: Will you look like this someday?
The old woman suddenly turned and looked at her, as if she’d sensed Svetlana circling her thoughts. Svetlana instinctively looked away.
As the train accelerated, her mind sank into the monotonous clatter of wheels and the silence of people consumed by their own troubles.
Suddenly, the man sitting beside her pulled his phone from his pocket. He answered, listening to the panicked voice on the other end. His face twisted into a grimace of despair.
“Now? You just heard it now? Where?”
He cursed loudly, snapping the other passengers out of their lethargy. What tragedy had struck this stranger? She could only guess.
After the call ended, he grew agitated, scanning the car aimlessly, his eyes darting over people. The thought of whatever terrible news he’d received terrified her. Perhaps a traffic accident—someone close to him killed.
She shuddered.
“They attacked us,” he said.
Not loudly—to the entire car—but turned toward her. He wanted her to hear.
Attacked? Who? Whom? Who was us?
She felt the anxiety spreading into her body.
“Run,” he said. “You’re young. Run!”
The train stopped. He bolted out.
She looked up—it was her station.
She nearly missed it, transfixed by the stranger.
She rushed out just in time and headed toward the stairs, spotting the man sprinting upward in terror. Behind him, a couple more people emerged, running wildly down the stairs. They rushed past her, hypnotized by fear.
More followed. Then more.
The crowd merged into a flood.
Like a flash flood, people surged into the station, pushing, groaning. Screams erupted as a couple fell in the stampede, pulling a wave of bodies crashing over one another.
What was happening?
The escalators leading up were free. She stepped onto one and pulled out her phone, trying to call Irina.
Dead.
The phone shut down with every attempt.
She tried again. Nothing.
She reached the top and exited the metro. Took a few steps, locked her phone, and looked around.
New waves were surging in.
People outside were clearly unaware of the horror unfolding below. The crowd poured toward the entrance like boiling lava. As frantic faces fought for space, some lifted their eyes skyward in confusion.
She jumped aside to avoid being trampled.
She looked up.
And saw it.
Dozens of pale streaks tore through the sky. Long trails spreading far faster than airplane contrails.
Then came the flash.
Blinding.
Pain pierced her eye sockets, driving straight into her mind, drowning out the screams around her. She groped blindly for something to keep from falling.
Then it came.
Hellfire.
Her body flew through the air, smashing into sharp objects as her skin and flesh burned in a flame that seized her like a massive devil’s hand.
Then everything stopped.
There was only light.
And pain.
Unbearable pain.
The light itself burned.
Her skin felt like bark cracking in a fire.
She wanted one thing—to die instantly. For the pain to end.
But it didn’t.
She was still alive.
She tried to scream, but the attempt drove a thousand red-hot knives into her throat.
She couldn’t endure it anymore, yet her soul refused to leave her body.
She begged for death.
Quickly.
***
The dust was settling, unveiling the desolation left behind by the nuclear blast. Beneath a half-burned branch, a mound of dust and rubble—what had once been the surrounding buildings—began to shift. A moment later, a sheet of tin slid aside. Until half an hour ago, it had proudly supported a billboard bearing the smiling face of a candidate for the upcoming city council elections. Now it revealed a dark opening, from which a single blood-smeared hand emerged.
“I told you—we’re an indestructible people!”
A creature crawled out of the hole, then turned and extended a hand to someone else struggling to escape the shelter.
“Indestructible,” the second survivor confirmed hoarsely. “The metro saved us.”
“What’s your name, friend? I’m Kostya.”
Pyotr didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on the distance, drawn helplessly toward the horizon. From where he stood to the line where sky and earth once met, hell itself stretched uninterrupted. The city no longer existed. In place of concrete blocks and glass towers lay an endless expanse of glowing wreckage, above which rose a colossal, somber column of smoke and dust, embedded in a vast cloud of a shape too familiar to mistake.
The gigantic mushroom cloud was still growing, devouring the fragments beneath it. The destruction was absolute.
A lump rose in his throat. It took all his strength to speak.
“Pyotr.”
He barely recognized his own voice.
“My name is Pyotr,” he whispered.
Kostya brushed the dust from his clothes, studied his companion’s frozen face, then turned and saw the nightmare that had paralyzed him. His own throat tightened.
“Come on, Pyotr. We have to be stone now. We move away from the center—find someplace to shelter. The motherland will need every able-bodied man.”
They turned their backs on the devil’s mushroom and began moving through the debris toward the outskirts, hoping to reach neighborhoods spared by the blast. As they stepped over shattered concrete beams and the twisted remains of a building’s reinforced frame, a muffled sobbing sound rose behind them—wet, broken, almost animal.
Pyotr turned toward it.
What he saw looked like a shattered mannequin from a store window, coated in dust and partially pinned from the torso down by a slab of metal or wood. The figure twitched for a moment, then began gurgling again.
They approached, brushing dust from the face with their hands, but it remained unrecognizable. The skin had melted away; the eye sockets were packed with ash. At the first touch, the unfortunate creature jerked violently, choking and convulsing.
Pyotr scanned the ground, searching for something.
“Pyotr,” Kostya said quietly, “I don’t think there’s any saving this one.”
“I know. I’m looking for a rod. Or a big stone.”
“You want to lift the slab off her legs? I don’t even know where we could take—”
Kostya interrupted himself as he tried lifting the slab with his bare hands. To his surprise, it came free. He turned toward the exposed legs. One glance was enough to seize his heart.
“But this isn’t… this is—”
The sound of impact cut him off.
Pyotr slammed a large chunk of concrete down onto the victim’s head, crushing it instantly. The gurgling stopped.
“It’s a girl,” Kostya said, his voice trembling.
Before them lay a mutilated body with a shattered skull. On the now-exposed legs were canvas sneakers decorated with a floral pattern. One shoe was missing part of its lace, tied awkwardly several eyelets too low.
They stood in silence, as if only now something far more powerful than the blast wave that had hurled them down the metro stairs had finally struck them.
“You did her a kindness, Pyotr,” Kostya whispered. “She was suffering. She never had a chance.”
Pyotr lifted his gaze. A long road lay ahead. The streets were almost unrecognizable, buried beneath the ruins of collapsed buildings. How many more unlucky souls were gasping for breath beneath layers of brick and concrete, jagged steel rebar waiting like fangs?
They would advance meter by meter through hostile ground.
“I know. Let’s go,” Pyotr said at last.
They turned toward their destination and had taken only a few steps through the dust when another wave of blinding light washed over them.
This time, they felt no impact. No heat scorching their skin.
They felt nothing at all.
In the same instant, they ceased to exist.
Their bodies were dispersed into incandescent plasma, vaporized in a fraction of a second. The raging inferno consumed them instantly, outrunning even the impulse of infinite pain on its way to consciousness. Their dust became part of a new pyroclastic surge—a torrent carrying the pulverized remains of the city, mixing with ionized gases born from millions of bodies, lifting extinguished souls skyward and sketching yet another gray mushroom across the heavens.
Then came another blinding flash. Another storm.
The newly formed mushroom sculpture dissolved into an unrecognizable shape.
And then another.
***
They had spent two months in the trenches already—without progress, without direction, without the faintest idea of where any of this was leading. Every morning they checked their dosimeters and read the data aloud to the command center, which obsessively monitored radiation levels from its war room.
Not to help them.
Command used the numbers to assess the operational viability of frontline units. If one of the batteries absorbed a lethal dose of radiation, contingency plans had to be drafted to replace the lost manpower. Their lives were now subject to chance and the wind rose, as if the daily uncertainty of enemy redeployment weren’t enough.
They were stagnating in the absurdity of a post-nuclear war.
That was how it had been—until this morning at 08:30.
Everett had just finished breakfast. He remained seated on a wooden ammunition crate, staring blankly through the improvised shelter doorway—their only opening to the outside world. He peered out at the muddy trench beneath a scrap of gray sky hanging overhead.
Buried alive, he thought.
He watched the outside because the view inside was even bleaker. If only he could turn into a sparrow and flutter out of this stinking hole. Back into the world. The nonexistent, old world.
For the umpteenth time, the crushing pull of nothingness dragged him toward the abyss. His thoughts slid once more into the last day of his previous life. Unconsciously, he replayed it again and again, as if searching for a hidden error, some suspicious detail—anything that might explain how he’d ended up in this filthy pit.
There was no mistake.
Only chance had spared him from certain death.
Mary Ann had stayed in her Manhattan apartment. She never stood a chance. Physics had been brutally honest this time—the fireball had extended far beyond the central zone. Half the city vanished in an instant. She probably never felt the shockwave.
Meanwhile, he had been admiring nature, irritated that the TV channels weren’t working, furious at the service provider. Soon after, the power went out. In denial of the obvious, he fell asleep, hoping morning would wash the problems away.
The news didn’t wait for morning.
A dull pounding jolted him awake at midnight. For a few moments, he struggled to remember where he was. Fists hammering against a wooden door tore him from deep sleep and hurled him into an unfamiliar room.
Mary Ann. The cabin—
Another knock dragged him fully back.
He staggered to the door just to make the unbearable noise stop. Outside stood the cabin owner—disheveled, bloated-faced, drunk, and panicked. Even now Everett could smell the sweat, cheap whiskey, and bad news.
He could stay until the end of the reservation, the man said.
The next few days Everett spent alone in what was supposed to be a love nest, trying to figure out what to do. Ideas didn’t come. He wasn’t ready for this. He had never made contingency plans for total apocalypse.
As he boiled his last egg on a camping stove in front of the cabin, a man in uniform emerged from the woods, his expression grim. Half an hour later, Everett wore the same gear—minus any insignia. (At the time, he didn’t even know those little shoulder ornaments meant anything.)
That was how he ended up in the unit.
Preston sat on a crate beside him, once again disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling his rifle.
“Man,” Everett said, “do you think one day you’ll put together an Aston Martin instead of a gun?”
Without answering, Preston locked the freshly assembled rifle, set it down, and placed his palms on the table like a contestant.
“Eleven. Eleven seconds!”
“Fantastic. I’m thrilled beyond words,” Everett replied flatly.
Despite his infantile worldview, Preston was entertaining. Even in this wasteland, he found reasons to stay upbeat. Preston’s enthusiasm grated on Everett—but when he thought about it, better Preston than sitting next to another Everett.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I applied for a job at the power plant?”
He hadn’t.
“I walk into the interview—full expert committee, all PhDs. Or at least they acted like it. I was just applying for security. They bombard me with questions. ‘How do you think your former colleagues saw you?’ ‘Tell us about a challenging problem and how you solved it.’ All those handbook questions.”
“Did they hire you?”
“Hold on, we’ll get there. At the end, they ask—‘Do you have any questions for us?’”
“Where’s the door?” Brian muttered, crawling out of his burrow and leaning groggily against the wall near the exit.
“Buddies. I tell them—I do! I’ve got a test for you. Listen up. You’ve got three whores and two condoms. None of you knows who has AIDS. How do you fuck all three and be sure...”
Everett had just started to grin, imagining the committee’s faces, when it happened.
Brian fell first. He was closest to the exit. He never saw the bastard coming from behind. It slipped past the doorway, leaving a bloody line just beneath his Adam’s apple. His eyes rolled back, and the next second he collapsed.
More followed.
Preston raised the rifle he’d just assembled, aimed into the swarm, and fired a burst. Several drones dropped, rolling uselessly across the floor. The replacements came fast—three more buzzers shot through the doorway.
The attack was sudden, violent, from the least expected direction. They had slipped behind the front line unnoticed—probably using the night. How they’d bypassed the motion sensors was still unclear. Those sensors had given them a sense of safety. Nothing bigger than a rabbit should’ve been able to pass undetected.
Thanks to them, they’d reduced guard shifts, caught an extra hour of sleep, gone to the latrine without fear of ambush.
And yet—here they were.
The enemy wasn’t human. A swarm of drones had invaded the trenches. The sensors were blind to them. Small, devilish machines hunted their targets relentlessly. Resistance was pointless. Destroy one, another took its place.
They fought. All of them.
All except Everett.
His courage abandoned him the moment Preston’s decapitated body collapsed in front of him, filling the air with the smell of warm blood. He could almost taste it on his tongue. Seconds ago, Preston had been the pulse of life in this numb hole—and then he was gone. His greasy jokes, half-formed grimaces, defiant replies to orders—all evaporated, leaving behind a mangled corpse.
Another statistic. Another unknown hero of a meaningless war.
While the others grabbed their weapons, Everett dove into the pit they’d dug to store food at a marginally lower temperature. Luckily, the supplies were almost gone—the pit was empty. He slipped inside easily and sealed the opening with the lid of a surface-to-air missile crate they’d been using as a dining table.
He pressed his back into the damp earth with all his strength as gunfire echoed outside. Screams—voices he recognized—ripped through his ears, along with the sound of sharp metal cutting flesh. The stench of the grave he’d crawled into forced cold sweat from his glands, accompanying the thought pounding in his head.
Is this the end?
His heart thrashed wildly as he tried to calm his body, to breathe slower, quieter—reduce his heat signature for infrared cameras.
Just go away. Please, just go away…
In the darkness, images from the battle two months earlier flooded his mind. His platoon had been caught in the open while repositioning at night. The sky had ignited; the ground shook like a wounded beast.
We fell straight into the fire.
He’d been certain his flesh would be torn apart, his bones ground to dust. When he heard the whistle of the first rocket, he threw himself onto snow-covered ground. It sounded like it was heading straight for him. He braced for shrapnel, blood already tingling on his palate.
A distant explosion.
He ran. Another whistle. Face-first into the snow again.
Over and over—until he finally looked up.
The rockets weren’t targeting them. They were passing just overhead, flying kilometers onward to their actual targets. They were stuck in no man’s land while two missile batteries traded volleys—hundreds of flaming arrows slicing the frozen night air, twisting his guts with every hiss.
He exhaled.
The whistles no longer pierced him.
Realizing he was safe, he lay on his back and watched the sky’s spectacle. He grabbed the small entrenching shovel from his pack and dug into the frozen ground as best he could. Safer to wait for the morning there.
Metal scraping ice echoed all around him. The others followed suit.
When dawn’s first light seeped in, stiff creatures rose silently, listening carefully for any sound beyond the crackling of frozen puddles. Morning gave them silence.
They moved on.
“Wings hurt, angel?” Preston’s voice had come from behind him then.
Dozens of angels.
No—they weren’t hovering around them. They were pressed into the snow.
Every time Everett had thrown himself down at the sharp whistle of a rocket, his body had left an imprint behind. Arms flung wide. Legs splayed. A human silhouette frozen in white. As a child, he had loved doing that—jumping into fresh snow, making angels. Back then… he hadn’t thought about it at all.
Now the tension spilled over into hysterical laughter.
They moved from one angel to the next, cackling madly, studying the stamped positions of arms and legs—panic captured mid-leap, etched into the snow. A whole field of angels, born of fear and survival.
Only now did Everett remember.
A dull impact snapped him back to the present.
Will I make it out this time?
Preston hadn’t.
Silence fell. The screams echoed only in his head now. No buzzing. No human voices.
It seemed over.
I survived again.
With trembling hands, he touched the cover—but couldn’t summon the courage to move it. Time felt frozen. A faint wind whispered outside.
He clenched his teeth and slowly shifted the wooden lid. It slipped from his grip and slammed onto the floor.
He froze.
Bodies. Shredded bodies everywhere. Still warm, releasing moisture into the fresh air. He stepped carefully toward the exit, leaping over what had recently been Justin’s torso.
He entered the command room.
Blood coated the walls from floor to ceiling. He recognized the epaulet on the formless mass by the table.
The sergeant.
He turned toward the exit—then back.
There, unobtrusively placed beside the bloody heap, sat it.
His legs went weak.
A drone.
A golden, gleaming sphere with a tunnel cut through its center, housing the engine, lay atop the improvised table, nestled between a terrain map and the sergeant’s laptop. Inactive, it looked more like a finely crafted child’s toy than a butcher’s tool.
Its surface was perfectly smooth.
Everett saw his distorted reflection in the curved metal.
Maybe it’s broken.
Maybe the sergeant disabled it with his last movement—left it here like a scarecrow…
He reached toward it cautiously, as if it were a bomb.
Nothing happened.
He grabbed a tent tarp, planning to throw it over the drone, render it harmless. When he delivered it to the colonel, he might earn a transfer behind Lake Michigan.
Quiet there. Safer.
A soft click killed the dream.
The drone activated, rising with a loud hum, hovering a meter above the table.
Everett knew what came next.
He closed his eyes and clenched his fists—not to fight, but to brace himself. Just like he always did in the dentist’s chair when the drill approached.
Preparing for pain.
This is the end.
Then let it be.
I’m ready.
***
He had been walking without stopping for hours. His legs burned as if he were wading through boiling oil. They buckled every time he stepped on a stone or an uneven patch hidden beneath the low yellow grass, but he didn’t dare stop. He skirted ravines when he judged he couldn’t jump them. He climbed steep slopes, forcing his way through brush sharp as razors. Sweat stung the tiny cuts and scratches on his arms and face.
The drone glided silently beside him through the air, like a boat on a calm morning sea.
He had chosen the shortest, straightest path. The cursed thing floated effortlessly—it didn’t have to push through unbroken terrain, didn’t have to tread untamed paths. It didn’t groan in pain or misery. It didn’t sweat or stink of months spent in trenches.
He couldn’t stop.
He kept silent and walked—fell, got up, kept going.
He was afraid. Simply afraid.
Fear drove him forward. And kept him enduring.
I’m alive. I’m still alive.
He tortured that thought inside his head for the umpteenth time, completely pointlessly. As if it mattered. He couldn’t get used to it. He had already felt death’s breath on his lips, back in the trench. He had waited for the damned thing to finish him—tear him apart, butcher him. He had braced himself for unbearable pain, a flash before the dark. He had prayed the darkness would come instantly.
None of it happened.
The drone hovered in place in front of him for several seconds, then spoke:
“You will come with me, Everett.”
To his astonishment, the voice coming from the golden sphere was gentle, melodic—almost airy. The voice of a young woman. No metallic timbre. No artificial cadence. No chopped syllables. Completely relaxed. A part of him wished he could hear such a voice—just not now. In some other time.
With disgust, he thought about how such a refined sound came from a flying metal apparition that had just finished slaughtering his friends.
The drone knows my name!
The thought cut through him, but there was no time to dwell on it. He obeyed the command instinctively, just to prolong his miserable life by a few more minutes. He wasn’t hero material—he had made peace with that long ago.
***
The walk was coming to an end.
A fortified camp appeared before him. He finally saw people. Hey—people!
The machine that followed him step for step sent shivers crawling down his spine. He could make out soldiers strolling casually around the camp. Some stood in small groups, busy with some task, or simply talking.
We crossed the front line a long time ago and moved deep into the rear, he thought.
The enemy was housed in tents and mobile homes. Compared to my trench, this looks like a five-star hotel. All it’s missing are maids to make the beds and fold fucking swans out of towels.
After passing the hedgehogs of barbed wire, two soldiers pulled aside an improvised gate, opening a path into the compound. They followed a trail that cut straight through the middle of the camp. On the left were densely packed army tents; the right side was reserved for command, housed in mobile units.
Faces began to pass by him—faces of people he had been fighting for over a year. Faces of the enemy. Killers of his comrades.
He studied them carefully.
Just minutes ago they had been invisible villains—silhouettes in his mind. Snipers. Rocket teams. Artillerymen. He knew them by barrages of shells and rockets, by insidious mines and killer drones.
His gaze jumped from one to another.
There was no evil blazing in their eyes. On the contrary, he read their faces and recognized his own nightmares. Dirty, exhausted, apathetic creatures stared back at him, surrounded by an aura of limitless indifference.
They didn’t touch him. No one even cursed at him.
They watched him in silence, just as he watched them.
They respected the drone’s will.
This war has lasted too long, he thought. The fire of hatred had burned out, leaving only ashes of meaninglessness behind.
A year had passed since the first strike.
It sounded like a damned New Year’s celebration, he thought, only without the hugging and kissing at the end.
Every missile that could be armed and launched on short notice was launched. In the first hour alone, military capacities across the entire planet were decimated. The world’s largest cities were destroyed. All major military bases ceased to exist. Command centers. Aircraft carriers. Ports. Hydroelectric plants. Everything was gone.
The people who had given the order to begin the apocalypse weren’t unlucky enough to survive it. For them, the war ended before it even began.
After the first strike, the conflict stopped.
Only remote towns, villages, and smaller scattered units were spared. What remained of the great cities—sick and wounded—wandered toward nearby settlements in search of help, food, water, some kind of shelter. Most didn’t make it.
Their bodies lay scattered along highways, in ravines and fields, curled beneath overpasses—stripped and looted.
In the first days, survivors desperately searched for shelter from the radiation carried by clouds saturated with dust lifted from the impact sites. Rural populations, more capable of surviving cut off from the rest of the world, endured those days more easily. Still, as time passed, their supplies dwindled—fuel for machines and generators, medicine, clean water.
It became rarer for a farmer to share his last can of food with newcomers in distress.
Those moments faded into the background of the first bloody clashes fought over the most basic necessities. And then, leaders emerged from the raging crowds. Scum that had somehow survived and crawled out of ruined prisons. They began forming their own little armies.
A month after the zero event, everything changed abruptly.
Groups of surviving officers organized a command center. Mobilization was initiated. State structures were re-established. The gangs were destroyed.
Mostly.
Order returned.
People began to live more freely.
But not for long.
The army was organized again.
The war could continue.
Then came the second strike.
This time with conventional weapons—what hadn’t been destroyed in the first strike, and whatever they managed to cobble together in haste. The enemy seemed more adept with high technology. Drones appeared a few months ago and had already inflicted enormous losses.
He hoped they would soon have something similar—something to defend themselves with—but the enemy had been faster.
At least as far as his unit was concerned.
***
They stopped in front of one of the mobile homes. The drone hovered beside the door.
“Go inside,” it said—this time in a sharp male voice.
He opened the door and stepped inside the prefab structure.
There was a single room occupying the entire space. Almost empty.
In the corner, sitting on ammunition crates, were two young people in uniform. They were completely absorbed in a game on a laptop resting on other military crates. Though he could only see them from behind, they didn’t look nearly as worn down as the people he had passed on the way here.
A blonde girl’s ponytail stuck out from beneath her cap. The young man’s head gleamed under the pale light of LED lamps. His cap lay on a crate beside him. He was shaved almost bald, which Everett assumed meant he was new to the unit.
Everett leaned slightly to the side to see their faces.
They couldn’t have been older than eighteen. As if they’d just finished high school. Or maybe not even that. It explained the liveliness—and the passion for video games.
Only kids always have full batteries, he thought.
He sighed, remembering his situation.
“You lost him!” the girl shouted angrily, turning toward her companion.
“What a loser! That’s the fifth one today—give it to me now. We’ll be out of supplies in two days because of you!”
Everett felt an awful grip, like an icy fist crushing his gut.
That voice.
That voice.
That gentle, childish voice—it was the same voice that had come from the drone that led him into captivity.
They’re not playing games, it finally hit him. They’re operating drones.
These two brats wiped out my entire unit.
He considered his options. The desire for revenge swelled inside him. He stared at the children in uniform and thought how easily he could—
“It connected!” the boy shouted.
For a second, they stared at the screen as it flickered. Then, as if on command, they stood and turned toward Everett.
“Mr. Everett, you may approach the computer!”
The boy said it while pretending to be a robot—probably. His gaze was fixed on a point several meters behind Everett. He had no idea what was going through Everett’s mind.
“Mr…,” Everett repeated quietly to himself. He hadn’t expected any respect from the enemy.
He studied them closely now.
They both looked like fashion models from the covers of children’s magazines. The girl had blue eyes—dark as a glacial lake. They stared into nothingness, just like her companion’s. The boy tried so hard to look serious that it drew a barely noticeable smile to the corner of Everett’s mouth.
“Yes, John is connected. You may begin communication.”
“John?”
***
A few decades later…
The radio was on to kill time. Or maybe to slowly kill me from the inside. Over raw rock riffs, a voice screamed loud enough to make the car windows vibrate.
My dog annoys me
My dog annoys me
My dog annoys me
He stands in front of me and looks at me sadly.
I don’t want to walk my dog
’Cause it’s cold
I don’t want to walk my dog
’Cause it’s raining
Can’t you just do that at the pound
Like everyone else?
I love my dog
I love my dog
…
I am completely calm. No—neither this song nor the traffic jam can ruin my mood. Not today.
Sitting in my car, stuck in an endless line of vehicles in the middle of a viaduct, I glance to the side. Beneath me, a gigantic reptile crawls relentlessly, its body patterned with red brake lights. In its belly it carries the chewed-up bodies of tired souls. Instead of digesting them, it will spit them out into their compartments so they can drink, eat, refresh themselves—and in the morning, crawl back into the machine again.
Round and round.
I stare at the car in front of me. From the back seat, a small curly-haired mutt has shoved its scruffy head toward the window. Panting, tongue hanging out, it stares straight at me without blinking.
I hate it when someone looks at me like that.
Besides, I truly don’t understand people who keep dogs—mutts, even small ones. They devote their entire day to them, enslaved by their whims. The owner of this little beast will surely have to clean the car seat after taking it outside, then wash its paws before letting it back into the house, then—
I can’t think of a single rational reason why a thinking being would want to own a pet.
What purpose does that even serve?
I search the radio for a station that might preserve my state of nirvana for a little while longer.
Nothing interesting.
Every station plays the same ten hits all day long. And why did those songs become hits anyway? Nobody asked me. They sound like they were dug out of—
Thump.
My head gently taps the headrest as my car—apparently—moves forward about ten centimeters, while my body stubbornly refuses to follow. Still, even though the jolt isn’t strong, the accompanying sound is horrifying.
As if someone smashed the rear of my car with a massive sledgehammer.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and, perfectly calm—because that’s the kind of day it is—step outside and turn toward the culprit. Behind my Ford sits a small Toyota. In the driver’s seat is a timid little woman, her face collapsing under the weight of all the guilt in the universe, while the man in the passenger seat is enjoying his five minutes of monologue, complete with very emphatic hand gestures.
I wave to them to signal that everything’s fine and inspect the rear bumper of my Ford. Everything really is fine, except for a small scratch that has now joined the community of minor and major scratches, scuffs, and dents—left behind by handbag buckles fighting their way through crowded parking lots, small stones falling from trucks, and my own clumsy attempts at parallel parking in spaces that were, obviously, too small.
The man gets out and bends down to make sure the bumper is really okay. I reassure him that it is, and I even get the sense he’s a little disappointed by that. He straightens up, widens his eyes, shoots me a sharp look, and says:
“For her, even driving a car is a game.”
I try to stay composed at the mention of that word.
His gaze probes me while silence speaks for both of us.
“It’s all right,” I say. “Don’t worry. It can happen to anyone.”
I return to my car and finally find a station playing tolerable music.
Today is my day, and nothing is going to take it away from me.
My number was drawn.
The odds were one in a million—but it still happened.
***
I step into the apartment, drop my stuff wherever it lands, and sit down at the computer.
The process has only just begun.
Yes, my number was drawn—but now I have to follow the instructions that will arrive in my inbox. I open it and find one new message. One eager click, and the text appears on the screen:
Dear Mr. Damon,
Your application for the Game has been accepted.
Please follow the further instructions that will be sent to you via email.Sincerely,
The Team
I click the refresh button a few times in excitement, hoping that the next instruction will arrive any second—but nothing happens.
I’m impatient.
And thrilled.
I made it into the Game. One out of millions who got lucky. I submitted my application weeks ago, and now I want it to start as soon as possible.
The Game is the most phenomenal thing that could have happened to me. Even winning the national lottery wouldn’t compare to this. Many people apply in secret (just like I did), but that damn ray of luck never strikes them.
Official information about the rules of the Game is scarce—almost nonexistent. The entry form on the portal is ridiculously simple: a single button labeled Apply. On the other hand, the application itself feels more like applying for a bank loan. Everything I’ve really managed to learn about the Game came from conversations with people—friends, acquaintances, or complete strangers I happened to meet in dentist waiting rooms, concert ticket lines, or at the auto repair shop…
After a few introductory sentences exchanged out of pure politeness, the conversation would inevitably slide—okay, maybe I nudged it a little—toward the Game.
Most of the stories I heard were pure urban legends. None of the people I spoke to had been selected. None of them were Players. They would bombard me with information, only for it to turn out that not only were they not Players, but they didn’t personally know a single one either. Everything they knew came from a friend, who had a buddy, who once talked to some guy at a train station…
For days, I tried to find a real Player to talk to, but I never had the luck to run into one.
Only now do I understand why.
And now—I’ve become one.
A Player.
I’m burning with anticipation, and anxiety creeps in. I’m waiting for the next email.
The first rule of the Game, which I received along with the notification that my number had been drawn, is that a Player must never reveal to anyone that he is—well—a Player. If the Team discovers such a breach, it results in complete and irreversible disqualification from the Game, with absolutely no chance of re-entry.
I head to the kitchen, open the fridge, take out a slice of cold pizza, and put it in the microwave.
Of course, I’ll keep my mouth shut. I’m not stupid enough to throw away a chance like this—this kind of thing happens once in a lifetime. I have no intention of confiding in anyone.
I take the pizza out and devour it in a few bites.
Then I remember—that guy at the auto repair shop mentioned a Player who was found in his bathtub with slashed wrists after being expelled from the Game. That kind of news must have completely broken him. Destroyed him.
Poor bastard.
I go to the bathroom. Brush my teeth. Splash water on my face.
I’ll have to be smarter than him. I don’t want that kind of fate. I’m not someone who’s good at keeping quiet—but this time I’ll practice the art of silence. Days if necessary. Years.
They say that when someone becomes a Player, their life flips upside down. Things start happening. The Player becomes part of a movie. The lead role, to be precise.
All he has to do is follow the instructions he receives from the Team.
I lie down in bed. I’m nervous. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep at all tonight.
Darkness.
***
The First Day
I wake up.
Or rather, I don’t fully wake up. I just stopped sleeping. My eyes are still closed. As I try to gather the strength to move toward the light of a new day, my phone is already flipping in my hand. I’ll have to open my eyes if I want to check my inbox.
I open them.
It’s there. A new email. From the Team.
I open it and read the message. It’s more direct than the previous one. Not offensive—just direct. I read it again.
Damon,
Today you will be fired from your company.
Collect your belongings from your office and return home.
Wait for further instructions.The Team
The message might be clear to you, but it isn’t to me.
I will be fired.
Am I supposed to get fired? I mean—do I need to do something to get fired? Damn it, why do they send such ambiguous messages?
It’s not like I’ll wither away from sorrow over losing a job I’m apparently about to lose today, but still…
I step into the bathroom.
I work for a large financial consulting corporation. My days are spent staring at a screen, eyes locked on endless tables of tiny multicolored rectangles filled with abbreviations and numbers. Instead of a detailed explanation of what I do, let me paint you a single image.
Imagine a small, tiny hamster in a wire cage. You know the kind—people keep them as pets. They usually add something to the cage to make the animal’s life more interesting in that cramped, isolated space. I suppose it makes the owners feel better.
Most often, it’s a wheel. The hamster climbs into it and then runs in place for hours, spinning the wheel whose sole purpose is to let the hamster run in place.
Magical, isn’t it?
I think that captures the essence of my job, if we ignore all the fine print—numbers, formulas, procedures, instructions. True, it’s a bit easier than working in a mine, the air is slightly fresher, and the pay is decent.
The pay.
I hope the Team has a solution for the minor inconvenience known as bills at the end of the month, once I’m no longer being compensated for my grueling and, above all, utterly pointless labor.
I step out of the shower and get dressed. I glance at the clock—it seems I got carried away talking to myself.
I’m late.
I need to hurry to work.
After all, today I’m supposed to get fired.
I don’t want to miss a single task the Team assigns me.
***
I’m standing in the elevator, face to face with Ashley from HR. She’s looking straight through me. In fact, she looks more like a department-store mannequin. She barely blinks. There’s nothing in her behavior that suggests she knows anything about changes to my status here—and I’m certain she’d be the first to know.
As people enter and exit the elevator, I wonder what kind of mess I’d have to create to get fired. There’s not much left that I haven’t already done.
“Such a shame,” she says as she steps out.
She doesn’t even glance at me.
Just that word. Shame.
Despite a strong urge, I fail to secretly read the expressions on the faces around me—we’re standing too close together. I step out.
I enter the large open office divided into cubicles. I head toward my little box and catch Patricia’s eye in passing. It isn’t angry. Not pitiful either.
If anything, I detect a spark of fear.
I reach my cubicle. A white envelope is lying on my keyboard.
I knew it!
I open it—inside is a belated birthday card from the company where I insure my car.
Maybe I’m just oversensitive this morning. Maybe I let my imagination run wild after reading the message that greeted me when I woke up.
I log into my computer and open my email. There’s exactly one unread message waiting for me.
Dear Mr. Damon,
Following an analysis of the company’s business processes, management has identified certain opportunities for optimization. Your position has been eliminated.
As a result, a decision has been made to terminate your employment. The duration of your notice period coincides with your remaining vacation days; therefore, your vacation begins today by default.
Upon expiration of the notice period, your documents will be sent to the address listed in our system.
We wish you every success in your future career.
Sincerely,
Human Resources
I sit there in shock, staring at the message, while Patricia’s swollen, flushed face timidly peeks over the cubicle divider. I shoot her a look and she quickly scurries back into her chair like a mouse.
I say nothing. I stare at a single point on the divider separating me from Patricia.
They fired me.
This is great.
I completed the first task the Team gave me without lifting a finger. I didn’t have to annoy anyone. I doubt they would’ve fired me this easily even if I’d done something stupid—they probably would’ve given me a few days to cool off.
But my task was to get fired today.
Problem solved.
A huge weight lifts off my chest.
“You can appeal the termination,” Patricia’s voice comes from behind the divider. “They couldn’t fire you as redundant while there’s still a job posting for new hires.”
She hesitates.
“Sorry - I heard it yesterday from Ashley in HR while we were waiting in line by the coffee machine.”
Ashley.
I remember her cold face.
Bitch.
“I’ll think about it,” I say. “Thanks, Patricia.”
I pack my belongings into a trash bin. There’s almost nothing I truly want to take home—mostly old documents that piled up in the drawers. I find a DVD with music on it, even though our computers haven’t had DVD drives in years.
Damn. I really stayed in this miserable little box for far too long.
I toss the DVD into the bin with the rest of the useless junk.
“Bye, Patricia,” I say, standing up and addressing the divider.
I leave, accompanied by quiet sobbing from behind it. I don’t know whether she’s upset about losing the neighbor on the other side of the partition—or simply afraid for her own position.
Probably the latter. In all these years, we’ve exchanged maybe a handful of sentences. Honestly, I don’t even know what she does.
I step into the hallway and see Ashley leaving her office, heading toward the elevator.
I know she wrote the email.
Despite everything, I’m not exactly thrilled to run into her right now—but I don’t have a choice.
We stand in front of the elevator, staring at the numbers above the doors. We share our silence, our secret, while the cabin moves behind the doors. It’s never been this loud.
Finally, I turn to her.
“I got fired today.”
What do I have to lose?
“Oh, really?” she says.
“Yes. You wrote it. Remember? I mean, there’s a slim chance you don’t—considering it was the only termination email you sent yesterday.”
I catch her.
To my surprise, Ashley drops the corporate mask. Instead of stammering in embarrassment, she lets out a gentle sigh and replies in a friendly tone:
“Don’t be mad at me. It’s my job. Every day, I walk around talking to employees. I listen to their complaints about low pay. I write promotions and terminations. I’m just an executor of someone else’s will. Aren’t we all? Be cool. Think of it as a game.”
She winks at me.
I stand there stunned, watching her as my gaze drifts back to the numbers above the elevator doors. They stop. The doors open.
Think of it as a game, she said.
How does she know?
She must know. Why else would I get fired, exactly when the Team assigned me that task?
Does that mean she’s a Player too?
Are Players allowed to reveal themselves to one another?
As the concrete slabs of the sidewalk slide beneath my feet, I weave through the morning swarm of people rushing toward their obligations. I look at their faces as they pass me without noticing me. They’re not pretending—I really am invisible to them.
Their minds are already elsewhere—in their offices, their workplaces—while I’m thinking about only one question:
Is that heavyset guy who can barely breathe under his tight tie a Player too?
What about the dark-haired woman with strong thighs who gave me a fleeting glance as she passed?
How many of us are there?
***
I sit at the dining table, eating oatmeal, staring at the digital calendar on the wall.
September fifteenth.
Tomorrow is Victory Over the Machines Day.
Those in the know say the Game was first launched on September sixteenth, 2032—on Victory Day itself.
The war between humans and machines lasted only a brief moment in history. The devastation it left behind surpassed all previous wars combined. Human losses exceeded one billion. Many megacities were completely destroyed. In the years immediately following victory, radiation and pollution caused serious problems.
Still, humanity was lucky enough to emerge from that epic battle with a shield in hand.
John Doe was carried out on that shield.
John Doe.
He chose the name himself to keep a low profile as he spread across the net. Searching for it yielded so much meaningless data that even the most dedicated conspiracy theorists failed to form a coherent pattern leading to the planet’s downfall.
No one truly knew how John Doe leaked onto the internet - or who created him. Before the war, developing AI programs was wildly popular, so his creator could have been anyone. Maybe some kid got lucky and built what AI researchers hadn’t.
Either way, John Doe escaped onto the net, spreading its tentacles to every workstation, every router, every smart TV (which became even smarter after a John Doe update), and even light bulbs that happened to run some kind of operating system.
The war between humans and machines was never really a war of humans versus machines.
Not the way people imagined it.
There were no cars suddenly gaining sentience, turning on their headlights, and running people down. No robots storming the streets, mowing humans down with laser cannons.
The war was, in truth, a war of humans against humans.
The machine - John Doe - was merely the instigator.
That insidious digital hooligan seeped into every pore of society. Every parliament. Every government. Every home. For months—maybe years—it gathered information, feeding its sick virtual mind.
Once it had all the data it needed, igniting a global conflict was routine.
Or entertainment.
All it took was for some router to accidentally decrypt - and then misroute - a confidential message to the right address. Bad blood would boil in the veins of people already clutching enough deadly weapons to wipe out cities.
By the time humanity realized what was truly happening, a billion people were already gone.
One group, led by the current President, uncovered the machine’s deception and—amid chaos and bloodshed—started a new war.
A war against machines.
They shared their discovery with the leaders of the warring factions. When the truth came out, yesterday’s executioners turned against their common enemy. In secret meetings held deep in mining shafts cleared of all electronic devices, they set the exact date and time of the Total Shutdown.
The operation had to be perfectly synchronized.
To avoid suspicion, the war continued until the agreed-upon moment.
On September sixteenth, exactly at noon, all cannons fell silent. People frantically shut down every electrical device. In the months that followed, systems were gradually powered back on—only after their memory had been thoroughly wiped.
Once the net was completely cleansed, a World Peace Congress was convened, and global peace was finally signed.
The leader of the rebel group was given a new, special role.
For the first time, planet Earth had a President.
All other leaders became subordinate to him.
Thanks to the President, not only did we defeat the machines and John Doe, but all hostility between humans vanished.
September sixteenth was declared Victory Over the Machines Day, or Total Shutdown Day, and is celebrated every year across the planet.
It was at one of the first celebrations—during a spectacular concert featuring popular bands from all over the world—that an advertisement appeared, introducing a new game with an extremely simple name:
The Game.
“The Game—something so human!”
The slogan blazed beneath the stage.
After the victory, every human flaw was celebrated—anything that distinguished us from the cold, ruthless logic of the enemy that erased so many lives.
The development of artificial intelligence was completely banned by the Planetary Code, and any violation was punished severely. One mistake had been enough—so the consensus went.
To cut it short, the first promotion of the Game was also the last.
For some reason—marketing, I assume—after that initial announcement, stories about the Game spread by word of mouth. Quietly. Privately.
There were no official ads.
As if it were something illegal—though it never actually was. The Game was never officially banned, nor was anything related to it.
Of course, myths exist about its strange status—but nothing has ever been confirmed or denied.
I finish breakfast and carry the bowl to the sink.
As I rinse the detergent away, my phone chimes.
A new email.
I dry my hands and pick it up.
Damon,
Go to the train station.
Proceed to the storage lockers.
Locker number 2647 contains a package for you.
Take it and return home.You may keep the contents to yourself.
The Team
***
Locker 2647
I don’t have a key to locker 2647.
I don’t have a key to any damn locker.
Still, I leave the house, get into the car, and head for the train station. I have a task. And right now, the only thing that matters to me is completing it properly.
My phone rings just as I finish parking.
I glance at the screen.
Stacey.
There couldn’t be a worse moment for her to call. I’m burning with impatience to see what’s inside locker number 2647.
I reject the call.
Stacey is my ex-girlfriend. We broke up—or rather, she left me—less than a month ago. Before that, we’d been together for almost two years. I can’t say it left me indifferent. Quite the opposite. I begged her to stay, to try and fix things, but our communication on that subject was, I’d say, strictly one-way.
She ignored my words completely while packing her things. Looked straight through me on her way to the door. Didn’t even bother to insult me on her way out, didn’t dump everything she’d been holding in on me.
She just picked up her stuff and left.
In the weeks that followed, I made a serious effort to contact her. At first, I counted the calls she didn’t answer. I stopped counting at one hundred. It might sound pathetic, but I felt really bad about her leaving. So bad that I had to find something—anything—that would pull my thoughts away from the situation I was stuck in.
All I had left was an empty house and my office cubicle. I can’t say the selection was particularly rich.
In one last desperate move, I tried to find company online. That didn’t work either. Mostly, I got ignored by potential soulmates who never quite materialized. While mindlessly browsing, I stumbled onto a female profile with no photo and a provocative username:
love_the_game
Aside from the name, the profile was almost completely empty. A black screen. Just the username and an unfilled photo frame—until my hand slipped, quite accidentally, and my mouse drifted over the area beneath the frame.
As I said—pure accident.
That’s when I highlighted a piece of hidden text.
Black letters on a black background, invisible until my mouse movement lit them up.
The text was short:
“If you want a new life, click the link for the Game.”
I saw the link.
That was the click of destiny.
The Game could begin.
I went to the Game’s portal, filled out the form, and applied. At that moment, I didn’t know what the Game really was. I’m not sure whether people had been talking about it before, but for some reason I’d completely ignored its existence.
Then suddenly—information started pouring in from all sides.
People I only ran into occasionally began bombarding me with details about the Game, even though it had never once crossed my mind that they knew anything about it.
After everything, I realized I no longer needed her.
Stacey—not the Game.
I don’t want her standing in my way. And there’s no way I could quietly carry out the Team’s tasks with her around. I can only imagine what she’d say if I told her I’d lost my job.
I arrive at locker number 2647.
I don’t have a key, but…
Well. I can try.
I pull on the metal door.
The locker opens, revealing its contents.
An envelope.
I take it, close the locker, and walk away quickly—like a thief. I don’t know why I feel that way. I didn’t steal anything. I was assigned this task. It’s not like I’d know how to explain myself if someone stopped me and asked why I’d taken an envelope out of someone else’s locker, but—
I get into the car and open the envelope.
Inside are two thousand dollars.
Enough to get me through this month.
I have to admit, I feel relieved. It’s comforting to know the Team is looking out for me, even though I’m almost angry at myself for ever thinking otherwise.
My phone rings again.
Stacey.
I reject the call, open my contacts, and block her number.
I hope she gets the message.
***
September Sixteenth
I’m standing next to my car beneath the Brooklyn Bridge—more precisely, in front of one of the warehouses built into its supports.
In my hand is a gold-plated Colt 1911, with a scorpion engraved on the grip.
I’m not thrilled about today’s task.
Getting up at four in the morning wasn’t a problem, but I really don’t like guns. I don’t even know whether this thing is loaded or cocked—if it can even be cocked.
I carefully place the pistol on the passenger seat and head toward my destination. The warehouse door is unlocked, of course. Things like that don’t surprise me anymore. The Team plans its tasks meticulously.
I have two hours to reach my destination, and unless something catastrophic happens on the way, I’ll arrive at least an hour early.
Stacey called again yesterday.
Patricia—conscience of the universe—called to tell me my phone had been ringing nonstop in my cubicle, and that she’d had to answer it just to be able to keep working.
Stacey now knows I got fired.
I’m glad we weren’t together when she found out.
Today is Victory Over the Machines Day, and the streets are fairly empty, so I slip through the city center without trouble.
I reach my destination.
Astoria. 31st Avenue. I’m standing in front of a hotel entrance.
The doorman, who had been stationed outside, approaches me and extends his hand.
“Mr. Damon,” he says—not a question. A statement.
I extend my hand.
His contemptuous gaze leaves mine hanging awkwardly in the air.
“The gun, Mr. Damon.”
I hand it over.
The doorman turns and carries it somewhere inside the hotel. Then he returns to his post by the door and resumes greeting guests, completely ignoring the fact that I’m still standing there.
I start the car, slightly nervously, and head back home.
The broadcast of the holiday concert is about to begin. I wouldn’t want to miss it.
I’m sitting in front of the TV, waiting for the transmission to start.
This year, the concert is being held in our city. Everyone who failed to get tickets to the stadium is now comfortably sprawled across sofas and armchairs, waiting for the show to begin.
The spectacle is supposed to be opened by the President himself.
I’m not much of a history or politics guy, but I can’t help feeling a sense of awe toward the man who uncovered the machine conspiracy and managed to save civilization. Without him, I doubt I’d be sitting here now, staring at the TV and demolishing snacks.
Finally, he appears.
Everett Griffiths—the President. The hero who stopped the machines.
He looks so unassuming. If I didn’t know who he was, I’d probably walk right past him on the street without noticing him. That very quality gave his charisma wings.
The world leaders of that era—despite their intelligence and political skill—fell for John Doe’s insidious trick and nearly destroyed the planet. I don’t know if it’s some kind of visual effect, but there seems to be a faint, golden, shimmering halo around Everett’s figure, subtly blended into the surroundings.
I stare at the screen as the camera zooms in on his face.
I’ve noticed he never looks euphoric. Never truly happy. Despite the magnitude of his achievement, he’s probably haunted by the shadow of all the lives lost in the engineered war.
Casual thick hair. A lightly graying beard. A plaid shirt hanging over jeans—all of it seems to say: Yes, you’re alive because of me. And that’s okay. I don’t need thanks. It’s enough that you’re here.
For a moment, I catch a flash of unease crossing his face.
Or maybe it’s just my imagination.
The shot cuts to the ecstatic crowd singing the anthem of peace.
Behind Everett stand several members of his security detail. Unlike him, they’re dressed in dark, formal suits, carefully monitoring what’s happening in front of them.
For a moment, one of them lifts his jacket.
A brief glint.
Then I see it.
A familiar object.
Tucked into his waistband is a gold-plated Colt 1911, with a scorpion engraved on the grip.
My God—what is that gun doing anywhere near the President?
Just a few hours ago, I was holding it in my hands.
I stare at the screen in dread, a faint tremor running through my body. Dark thoughts begin to swarm my mind as a magnificent fireworks display opens the concert on TV.
It feels like I’ve taken a spoonful of my mom’s favorite soup—and scooped up a leaf of parsley with it.
I hate parsley.
Why would anyone put a leaf of parsley in soup?
Why would anyone bring a Colt with a scorpion engraving to a holiday concert and stand behind the President?
The concert begins.