12 p.m.
Rooftop
McCrimmon Estate

James loaded the crystal sample onto a hover-cart he'd scavenged from the greenhouse. He ripped out the cart's control panel and hot-bound the hydraulic piston engine of the robotic arm into its circuitry to give it enough power and vertical lift to maneuver himself and the sample onto the roof of the main building.

Though the rain had abated for now, the wind roared up from the loch, carrying with it the first smatterings of snow.

Another issue confronted him as he attempted to scrape his way across the uneven tiles. A thin scrim of ice began form, making the rooftop even more difficult to navigate.

But he managed to make it to the weathervane with minor nicks and bruises, and there he wired in Professor Taylor's wrist-com, the hover-cart's circuit board, and copper wiring from the robotic arm. He sidled the cart over to the weathervane and placed the exposed ends of the wires into the cylinder containing the crystal.

"Not bad work without my screwdriver," he said to himself. "And now…" He pressed the button on the wrist-com, drew a deep breath, and wrapped his hands around the outside of the graduated cylinder.

Pain ripped through him, instantaneous and blinding. Instinct screamed at him to withdraw, but the current that blazed through him tightened his fingers around the glass.

Then he remembered. He didn't want to let go. He wanted to catch it and hold on.

James opened his mind and let the current flow through him, into his skin and his hair and his eyes and his teeth. His nose filled with a stinging scent of acid and smoke. His tongue burned with the taste of his blood.

He channeled the energy back up into the crystal, and with it he focused one single thought, one question: "What do you want?"

The answer resounded back, full of rage and hate and wanting. "I want what's mine," came the screaming reply. "Only what's mine. All of what's mine."

James' legs buckled. His feet slipped on the roofing tiles. He clambered for purchase and dropped to his knees.

"What is yours? What have you lost?" James shouted back in his mind. "I can help you find it. You don't have to hurt anyone."

And the storm… laughed.

Laughed?

James felt his skin crawl. Did he recognize that laughter?

"What do humans know of hurt?" the storm thundered. "Their lives begin and end in pain; all else is futility, no better than the lowly creatures who swing about in trees. Empty, empty lives. Useless, wasted, all of them."

"No, you're wrong," James yelled back. "You're wrong! I know humans. I know them to be good, all the way to their bones — Good! — All seven billion of them."

The storm quieted, and then, in a dull, taunting voice, it said, "You don't really believe that."

James was pulling away now, unwinding his fingers from the cylinder, and slowly, deliberately severing the mental connection.

"Give me what's mine!" the storm wailed.

"I don't know what it is! Tell me!" James cried.

"It was taken while my body burned, though I fought to hold on, all that I am, all that I was, became scattered to atoms and dust. Only now I am victorious, and I will have what is mine–"

With a final agonizing wrench, James tore himself free. He slid several feet down the roof, only to catch himself with a jolt on the eave with his legs dangling over into empty space.

Sleet pelted the roof as he inched back up. His head pounded and his heart skittered about in his chest, but James forced himself to focus. He tugged the wrist-com from the weathervane and keyed in the code. After a moment's hesitation, he pressed the send button.

From his spot on the roof, James could only hope that it worked. He needed to get down, and fast. He craned his neck to see a crust of storm crystals forming along the gutter. The crystal in the graduated cylinder had quadrupled in size and sprouted dozens of hooked talons that all seemed to be reaching for him.

"Rules out the hover-cart," he muttered. "I'll have to jump. Could break my neck. Probably will. Damned way to go after all this time. Still, cannot change the laws of physics. Although…"

There it was, right over the peak of the ballroom's roof — the balloon.

James drew upright and made a dash for it, leaping as he reached the lip of the gutter. He fell through the air, the wind screeching around him, but his fingertips snagged the balloon's banner. With a sickening lurch, he pulled the balloon down with him, both collapsing in a tangle in the stone courtyard.

Lightning scorched the stone as he hit the ground. He rolled sideways and scrabbled, dodging bolt after bolt, until he crashed through the doors and curled into a tight ball of pain on the ballroom floor. Behind him, the sleet turned in to a white wall of raging snow.

As he lay there, dazed and aching on the flagstone, he heard her voice. Rose, echoing up to him, soothing and indistinct.

"It's all right, love," she told him. "You need to sleep. Everyone needs to rest now and again."

James curled into the dream of her arms and quietly drifted away.

12:02 p.m.
Main Hall
McCrimmon Estate

Even as Amy and Prescott crawled back toward Alicia, they could see her form losing substance and begin to fade away.

"No, Dr. McCrimmon," Prescott said through gritted teeth. "I don't think so."

Amy glanced at him and found that he, too, had begun to flatten into an image and disappear. He sat back on his heels and quickly typed in a series of numbers on his wrist-com.

"What's happening?" Amy shouted.

Prescott crawled forward and reached for Alicia's vanishing image. "You'll be safe now," he told her. "I'll see you soon. Oh, please let her be safe."

Then she was gone.

Amy grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around to face her. "I don't understand. What's going on? Where did she go?"

"The Locastalan Contingency," Prescott said. "One of the McCrimmons must have sent the signal."

At that moment, something crashed with a sickening thud into the courtyard outside. Amy and Prescott spun to see lightning burst brilliant and blue-white through the windows. Through the dazzling light and deafening thunder, they saw James McCrimmon crash through the doors and collapse on the dais before them.

Prescott ran to Dr. McCrimmon's side and pulled him into his arms. "He's unconscious," he told Amy.

"Is he like Alicia?" she asked. "Is he dreaming?"

Prescott peered down into Dr. McCrimmon's face. Badly bruised, bloody-nosed, but behind his eyelids, his eyes were still. "No, not dreaming. But he used the Contingency, which can only mean…" Tears shone in his eyes. "It's over. The world is ending."