Was it all to end the human race and the Earth along with us?
Was the plan to rebuild America just a cover?
Higgs was the one to respond to Sam’s questions.
“Surely you’ve figured it out by now. DOOMS? People like us? She’s the source of it all. The nightmares that haunt us? The visions of an inescapable future? Sound familiar? You can speed this up, or slow it down, but you cannot stop what we’ve started. Happy fucking DOOMS-day, Sam.”
The clouds parted and several umbilical cords descended from the sky. Like the flailing tentacles of some huge beast, the cords ensnared Higgs and attempted to tie around Amelie. Sam removed one of his cuff links, filled the blade of the cutter with his blood, and tried to leap for the cords. But his legs wouldn’t move. The tar had tangled itself around Sam’s feet and wouldn’t let him go. Higgs laughed at Sam as he struggled.
“Amelie!” Sam shouted again.
Higgs was being pulled up into the sky by the cord with Amelie in his arms.
“There’s nothing you can do except grab a front row seat for the spectacle of extinction. If you want to do that, then come to the Beach. I’ll be waiting on Amelie’s Beach for the grand finale.”
Higgs and Amelie disappeared as he fired one last vocal parting shot at Sam.
Sam knew that standing here staring at the clouds wouldn’t achieve anything. He understood it so much that it hurt. He also knew that Higgs and Amelie weren’t physically beyond those clouds anymore.
At Sam’s level of DOOMS there was no way he could see or detect the Beach. Yet still he looked upward at the clouds, almost begging to be let in.
“Remember our promise?” Someone held an umbrella open over Sam’s head. A delicate-looking porter clad in a black uniform was suddenly by his side. It was Fragile.
“You were waiting for me, weren’t you?” she asked. “I could see you looking up at the clouds. That’s why I came. Like a regular Mary Poppins,” Fragile said musically, twirling her umbrella. Sam didn’t know what was happening. Only that right now, Fragile had appeared to him like a savior.
“You did it. You connected all the Knots. That’s probably why the Beach feels so close now. That’s why I could tell where you were,” Fragile said, giving Sam a look that asked him to acknowledge her greatness.
“Take me to Amelie’s Beach,” Sam said with renewed strength.
Fragile’s own expression became more serious.
“Okay. That’s possible. You’ve been to her Beach plenty of times, right?” she asked.
It had already been years since he last went. He hadn’t seen it since he was a boy. Ever since the incident with Lucy and his subsequent distancing from Bridges, Sam hadn’t even seen Amelie, never mind gone to her Beach. If Bridget’s death hadn’t forced him into being a part of this mission, he probably would have never seen her again. In fact, he still wasn’t sure they shared much of a bond even now.
“Make good on your promise and I’ll help you get where you need to go. But bring him back alive. I’m the one who gets to finish him off,” Fragile reminded him. That had always been Fragile’s goal, and if her getting her revenge resulted in Sam being able to rescue Amelie, he saw no reason why he should deny her. Sam nodded and Fragile smiled in return. “Look, I can’t send us both at once… But I’ll be right behind you.”
“Can’t you go to her Beach, too?” Sam asked.
“I can’t. I have no connection to her. But I can go to you by the ties that bind us together.”
Fragile looked at Sam’s wrist. Around it was his worn-out misanga bracelet. It was an ID that had been intertwined with biological information from Fragile’s blood. It represented a part of her.
Sam had worn it since he departed Lake Knot City. It had traveled half a continent with him now, and was ingrained with the memories he had made along the way.
“And this will lead you to her,” Fragile said, pointing out the dreamcatcher in Sam’s hand. It was the one thing that connected him to her. “What are you going to do about the kid?” she added.
She was talking about Lou. Surely, Sam couldn’t take Lou with him. He mustn’t. There was no guarantee that Sam would come back and he wasn’t even sure that he could beat Higgs in the first place. But who’d look after Lou if they both jumped?
Fragile seemed to share the same worry.
“I know a great babysitter,” she suggested. “Goes by the name of Deadman. Now that the Chiral Network’s up, I can take Lou to him.”
It wasn’t like physical distance made that much of a difference, but Fragile would need to jump all the way to Capital Knot City. Sam worried that it would put a lot of strain on her body.
“Want one?” Fragile offered, holding out a cryptobiote as she munched on one herself. Sam gave a wry smile and took it.
“For this to work, I’ll have to touch you,” she explained.
As Fragile placed her hands on his arms with a smile, he thought he felt her hand tremble slightly. Fragile was probably just as scared as Sam was of Higgs’s power. Pretending not to notice, Sam took her hand and placed it over his hand that was clutching the dreamcatcher.
“Close your eyes,” Fragile told him. Sam placed his hands on Fragile’s shoulders and his forehead to hers. “Now picture Amelie and her Beach.”
Sam closed his eyes. For some reason, the image that appeared in his head was one of Amelie’s back as she stood by the water’s edge.
“You love her, right? You love her,” Fragile whispered into his ear.
“Yeah,” Sam said, his mouth almost moving of its own accord.
But before the words could reach Fragile’s ears, Sam was already gone.
AMELIE’S BEACH
Everything was going to end here. Nothing would remain. The power of this Beach and the power of the Extinction Entity would bring mankind to an end. The vain struggle of humanity to keep on surviving and their resistance to their destiny would all be brought to a neat close here. They would have to say goodbye to the folly of their attempts to fix the Earth that had been so neglected by previous generations.
It would also bring an end to the days of the mask known as Higgs Monaghan. All that was left to do was to wait for Sam to get here. Then he would kill Sam and sever his connection with Amelie. Only then would Amelie be able to demonstrate her true strength as an EE.
Higgs wondered how long he had waited for this day to come. When he really thought about it, he felt like he had been waiting for this day since the first delivery he ever made.
When did that old prepper guy die? It was so long ago now that Higgs didn’t know anymore.
The prepper had always been sickly, but this time Higgs hadn’t been able to deliver his medicine on time. He could already see signs of necrosis, but there was no time to get him to the incinerator. That was why he carried the man’s body all the way to BT territory. It was his second and only option and better than creating a new BT territory entirely, he deemed. Besides, the closest dwelling to here was his own shelter, so he would be able to keep harm to a minimum.
When he dumped the body just before it necrotized, he felt something—the presence of a BT reacting to the dead body.
Then the Beach appeared. But it wasn’t the first time he had seen it.
Higgs had the same sensation long ago when he first disposed of a corpse in this way. It was a little stronger this time, though. I’m being given the power to see them. That’s what he came to believe before he first obtained the mask, before he first started going by the name of Higgs. Back then he was still called Peter Englert.