He smiles.
Even through the pain. Radiation seeping into his body like living flames... twisting and writhing, trying to devour him where he stood. His palms grip the console, his eyes scanning the numbers for those ever important three. The numbers he has always heard, but never been told. Not for this.
But he knows, because he knows his father. Mother too.
He hears the girl in power armor shouting. Begging him to hurry. He has all the time in the world, though: her voice in slow motion, the warning alarms like distant drumbeats. He can think. He can remember. It is all he has, now, and that is fine with him.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," he whispers.
Sweat drips down his forehead. He likes that. He wonders if his father felt the same. Pride. Not the pride of the girl in power armor... no, a different kind. Pride of the kind that comes when you know you're doing what you were born to do.
He imagines an old picture.
"The Beginning and the End..."
Down there. Steel walls, suffocation, but love and kindness through it all. His tenth birthday... father. Picture taken by Jonas. Ha! Jonas. Would he meet him too? Would he be so lucky to get that Heaven, a reward for purifying Hell?
"...I shall give unto him that is athirst of the fountains of the waters of life..."
He felt his muscles weakening. Giving way.
"...freely."
Revelations. 21:6.
Two.
One.
Six.
Activate.
He drops to his knees. Not on purpose - they simply no longer function, radiation having eaten away at them too. That was fine. Didn't need them anymore. Not where he was going. He smiles, and the proud stare of the man of the Old World quietly lulls him to sleep.
Peace.
Purity.