The America that she had dedicated her life to would be rebuilt. In this empty room, with no other witness, her dream would finally be realized. But there would be no jubilant applause nor shouts of happiness. Sam doubted whether anyone even wanted it to be rebuilt.
Sam removed the Q-pid from under his suit. The shards were floating slightly. It would be the last time Sam performed this rite, and he wanted to get it over and done with quickly. Sam held the Q-pid up to the panel. He was overcome by a severe allergic reaction to the chiralium as per usual.
Now, it’s over. I kept my promise to you, Bridget. But as Sam thought those words, he froze. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Maybe it was because there were so few people on the expedition, or because no sooner had they arrived here than Amelie had been taken. Perhaps the team that had been ordered to install the equipment at this facility had prioritized getting this place up and running first. They probably hadn’t had time to make it look nice or think about security. The interior of the equipment that was usually covered in shielding lay exposed. And inside was the same piece of equipment that Sam had attached to his chest.
There was no mistaking it. It was a BB pod. The same kind of BB pod that had been attached to Sam’s chest for almost a year now.
Why was it in there? What was inside the pod? Sam moved toward the delivery terminal to check, but it was already sinking back into the floor. As it was swallowed back into the earth, the east and west of the continent were finally reunited.
What have I done? The trembling in Sam’s fingers wouldn’t stop. It crept up through his arms to his shoulders, until his jaw quivered and his brain shook, and then back down his spine to his waist and his knees until his entire body was convulsing.
What was that? The feeling when he was confronted with something he couldn’t comprehend, something his mind was unable to keep up with and a situation that he never could have imagined, was similar to fear. This thing that he didn’t understand terrified him.
He sank down onto the floor. He felt helpless and his body wouldn’t stop trembling. It felt like this building and the rest of the world were shaking, too.
But he couldn’t just cower here. He had to lift this curse here and now. That pod he saw was just another curse to add to his collection. He had to sever every single strand of this chaotic bundle of cursed threads.
Despite his continued shaking, Sam got up. Then he opened the door and went outside.
The timefall was still falling. In the time since he had first arrived in the area, it had gotten worse and worse. The ground in front had been transformed into a sea—a black tar-like sea that seemed to drain the color from the world.
The Odradek activated and transformed into a cross shape. It was pointing forward and was firm in its target. Lou wasn’t crying, but when Sam looked into the pod, Lou was curled up into a ball, fists clenched. This wasn’t fear. It was hostility. Hostility toward the menace that was approaching. Lou wanted to fight.
Sam followed suit and glared out in front of him.
The timefall was acting as a heavy veil and obscured the looming threat that neared, but Sam could hear something steadily growing louder. The surface of the tar swelled and the remnants of the past were brought forth from the Beach. An antique Buick and the bones of dinosaurs that had been on display in the museum bobbed up between the waves. The carcasses of the small whales and dolphins were mixed in with the waves of exhibits and became stranded on the shore.
Then Higgs appeared, tearing through the veil of the timefall.
“All preparations for extinction are complete,” he proclaimed. His golden mask was slick with rain and was shining strangely like it was made out of the slippery skin of a reptile.
“Well done, Sam. Let me be the first to congratulate you on rebuilding America. You won’t hear any gratitude or thanks from Bridget or Amelie. Not even from that director of yours. But you did struggle so. And it must have been so lonely to found a country like that. I’ll give you that much.”
Thunder roared. Every time Higgs gave the signal with his finger, the sky deafened Sam with claps of thunder like a salute of guns for completing his quest.
“You gave me everything I needed, Sam. A complete Chiral Network. Spread all across America, connecting all them precious little knots,” Higgs declared, spreading his arms dramatically wide and looking up at the sky. A flash of lightning lit up the clouds. “I’ve got the whole world in the palm of my hand.”
Higgs pointed up at the sky. Beyond his finger the clouds swirled, and in the center it looked like a red flower blooming. It was the shape of a person with their arms held straight out horizontally like a cross. He couldn’t see her face very well because of the long blond hair that hung across it, but the crimson dress told him all he needed to know.
“Amelie?” Sam muttered.
Higgs put his finger to Sam’s lips. He had teleported there in an instant.
His golden mask and gas mask were removed, showing his bare face beneath. Black tears were leaking out of both eyes.
“Don’t panic. She isn’t going anywhere,” Higgs taunted, before he thrust one arm into the air and Amelie slowly descended. “Five. We’ve had five mass extinctions, each caused by an Extinction Entity. And now it’s time for number six. I’m not talking ’bout the death of a few dozen species, no. This. This is the granddaddy of them all. BT antimatter voiding out all life as we know it.”
Sam shook Higgs’s finger off his lips. Sneering at Sam’s rage, Higgs held up the golden mask in his hand. It was as if he was threatening to attach it to Sam’s face again if he didn’t do as he was told.
“And it wouldn’t’ve been possible without a boy scout like you willing to ‘make us whole again.’ What do you say? Come on! Time to meet your ender,” Higgs goaded.
“Amelie!” Sam shouted.
Amelie landed next to Higgs and slowly opened her eyes. She sensed Sam with unfocused eyes that had just woken up. Their gazes met. Some color returned to her face and the light switched on in her eyes. Those were the eyes that Sam knew so well. She was really here. Sam held his arms out for her, but Higgs quickly knocked them away.
With a sidewards glance at Sam, whose face was contorted in pain, Higgs embraced Amelie and placed the golden mask on her. Her face was completely covered.
“Listen, Sam. I’m knotted together with extinction. The great work is nearly complete. Every knot is joined. Soon I will merge them and all mankind’s Beaches into a single shore. And then will come an extinction like no other.”
The voice Sam could hear behind the mask sounded exactly like Amelie, but he couldn’t tell if the words she was saying were her own.
“It will be a stranding more massive than any before it. It will wipe out mankind, along with the Earth itself. The Last Stranding. My reason for being. The first was nothing more than a prelude.”
Did she and Bridget force me to bring the entire Chiral Network online knowing that?