Fallout

By: SilvorMoon

Jack stood in the silent room and waited for an answer. Whatever it was, he knew he was not going to like it. The only answer he was going to like was the one that told him that Rex Goodwin was incapacitated somewhere close by, ready for justice to be administered in some particularly painful fashion.

"Haven't seen him," said Kiryu. "He must have slipped out the side while we were dealing with this chump."

"Do we go looking for him?" asked Crow.

Jack shook his head. "No time now. He could be anywhere. We need to find the others."

Kiryu frowned. "I don't like letting him get away."

"Jack's right," said Crow. "Either he's gone into hiding, in which case the monsters will get him eventually, or he's gone to try to stop the others, which means we need to get there first."

"Great," said Crow. "Any idea where everyone else went?"

Kiryu shrugged. "I say we look for stairs and go down them."

No one had a better idea, so they took his suggestion and took to the hallways again. Eventually they found a staircase that looked like it wasn't used very often and decided to try it. They made it down a few floors before they found evidence that they were going the right way: it looked as though some of the landings they passed had been shut with computerized locks, which had been forced open by someone as they passed. Jack looked at the remains of the locks and was glad that Yusei and Bruno had felt the press of time, and had elected not to stand around and tinker with what was no doubt fascinating technology.

At the very bottom of the stairs was a dimly lit passage, which seemed to be made mainly of concrete, with no ornamentation or even a carpet to soften the floor. Every step they took echoed. Jack took an instant dislike to the place, not only because it was dark and cramped, but because it reminded him too much of being in prison. He was never going to be able to stomach underground places again. He could feel the thrum of a large machine somewhere nearby, sending vibrations through the floor. The thought that these vibrations were probably caused in part by someone trying to open a door to another world was not particularly comforting, even if the people doing it were on his side.

Eventually, Jack was able to hear Carly's voice over the thrumming of the machines, and homed in on it. He found her sitting at a surprisingly ordinary desk, speaking into a microphone. Her expression said that she would rather be doing anything else, but her voice remained measured and steady, conditioned by a lifetime of practice. When he came in, he saw relief flash across her features. She quickly finished up her spiel and turned the microphone off before running over and throwing herself at him.

"I was worried about you!" she said.

"Nice that you had so much faith in the rest of us," quipped Crow from the hallway.

She loosened her grip on Jack just enough that she could aim a glare past him.

"You know what I mean!" she said.

Jack gently nudged her away from him. "I heard you speaking on the radio. You did a good job."

She flushed a little, looking pleased. "I don't know which stations get their news from here, but news like this is going to spread like wildfire no matter who hears it. Even if it's just one courier, that will be enough."

"Let's hope so," said Jack, "because we're running out of time. One of the Goodwins knows we're here, and I don't think he's going to just give up just because we blabbed his secrets."

Carly looked puzzled. "What good will it do him now? If everybody knows, he can't keep making trouble anymore, can he?"

"No," said Crow, "but it'll be a while before everyone gets the message, and he can make life pretty miserable for us between now and then if we let him catch us."

She nodded. "Let's see if the others are done yet."

They continued to the end of the hallway. The final set of doors opened up into a large room that contained more machinery than Jack had ever seen in one place before. He would have stopped walking to stare at him if so many other people hadn't been walking behind him. No matter how curious he might have been, he wasn't about to let anyone catch him standing around gawping like a bumpkin. He moved aside to let the others trickle into the room, and then strolled along behind them so he could stare at his leisure.

It was hard to get an idea of the exact size of the room because so much else was in it. Jack was no expert on machinery, so he could only guess what the great rumbling blocks of metal were doing, but he could see pistons thumping and turbines turning. Cables and pipes, some as thick as his leg, snaked across the floors and up the walls into sockets in the ceiling. Lights blinked on and off, most of them glowing red, giving the inside of the room a hellish light. At the far end of the room, something ovoid sat on a pedestal, crackling and popping with electric sparks. Yusei and Bruno crouched over a console, murmuring to each other as they both typed rapidly on a console. Aki and the twins stood nearby, watching their progress nervously.

"How is it going?" Jack asked, as soon as he was close enough to be heard over the machines.

"Slowly," said Yusei. "These things were locked down with all sorts of security. We had to hack our way in before we could get them to do anything at all."

"We'll have it done soon, though," said Bruno. "How did your distraction go?"

"Not as well as we hoped," said Kiryu. "Big surprise there."

"We took one of the Goodwins out," Crow elaborated. "The other one got away."

Aki gave him an anxious look. "Is it time for the next part of the plan, then?"

"Guess we'd better go for it," said Crow. "Not much else we can do."

Aki nodded. She closed her eyes, focusing her thoughts. Ruka did likewise. The air seemed to take on a new quality, a vibration that had nothing to do with the machinery. For a few minutes, there was nothing but the hum of motors and the clatter of Yusei and Bruno typing. Jack realized he was holding his breath and forced himself to let it out slowly and steadily. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to get the mistaken impression that he was nervous.

His one consolation was that when the alarm went off, he wasn't the only one who twitched.

"Attention," said a droning voice over the intercom. "There has been a structural failure. All personnel should exit the building immediately, and retreat to a secure location. This is not a drill. I repeat, there has been a structural failure..."

Rua looked nervous. "Is that good or bad?"

"Probably good for us," said Crow. "Not so good for everyone else."

"I ought to be able to patch into the security system," said Bruno. "Want me to give it a shot? It'll only take a minute."

"I don't know about the rest of you people," said Kiryu, "but I'd like to know what's going on out there."

"Go on, give it a try," said Yusei. "I think I can finish this on my own."

Bruno nodded and began typing rapidly. A screen on one side of the console that had been dark up until then suddenly lit. What it showed was the view of the inside of a perfectly ordinary office, its occupant already vanished to a safer climate. Bruno sucked his teeth in irritation and pushed more buttons, cycling rapidly through several screens. At last, he stopped on one that showed the outside of the building, giving them a slightly grainy view of the radio tower and the highest point of the dome. At least, it showed the place where all of that used to be. What was there now was a dozen or more monsters, who were methodically peeling away the roof of the dome, as though it were a present they didn't want to seem too eager to open. The hole was already big enough that several of them had already gotten inside, and were busy clambering down the side of the building, or even forcing their way inside it. Bruno clicked more buttons, and the scene changed, this time to ground level. Monsters who hadn't been able to fly or climb up to the roof were instead swarming the ground level. The people were understandably running in panic, but the monsters continued marching steadily towards the central building, ignoring everything else in their path. The front door wasn't wide enough to let some of them in, but they didn't seem to mind - the larger ones simply ripped the doors off the hinges and tore chunks out of the wall until there was room for everyone.

Crow whistled. "Looks like we're about to have some company. Better get that door open in a hurry, man."

"I'm trying," said Yusei. "All the commands are set. We just have to wait for it to run."

"How long will that take?" Kiryu asked.

"Not long," Yusei assured him. "Only a few..."

But whatever he was going to say was interrupted as the lights went out. They went out all at the same moment, and they went out completely, leaving the subterranean room in perfect blackness. Jack blinked a few times, resisting the urge to rub his eyes and try to clear away the darkness by force.

"What happened?" he demanded. He sounded peevish, even to himself.

"I don't know," said Yusei, sounding mystified. "We could have overloaded the power grid, but I didn't think we were pushing it that hard..."

"So, what do we do?" asked Carly.

"I don't know," Yusei admitted. "If I knew my way around the electrical system better, I could reset it."

"Maybe we could find a lamp or something?" Rua suggested.

There was a noise of stumbling in the dark, and then a curse.

"I can't even find the door," Crow muttered.

"Allow me to assist you with that," said a new voice.

Jack had just enough sense to close his eyes then, so that when the lights snapped on a second later, he wasn't instantly dazzled by them. Instead, he navigated by sound, turning towards the direction he had heard the voice coming from. A single screen on one of the consoles showed a flickering image of Goodwin's face, looking pleased with his little bit of theatricality. Jack clenched his fist, taking a few steps towards the machine without thinking. His upper brain might know he was only seeing a screen, but that didn't do much to quell the desire to punch that smug smile off his face.

"If you break that computer, you'll regret it," said Goodwin calmly. "I expect you will, anyway. My prognostications have failed me before."

"What are you talking about?" Jack demanded.

"You really should have done more research," said Goodwin. "You see, a system like this requires very complex electrical wiring systems. I have turned the lights back on, but the generator and all its components are, for the moment, nothing more than scrap metal. As you admitted yourselves, you don't know how to start the generator going again. I know where the controls are. Certainly, you could find them, if you had the time and leisure, but I know you don't. You have a crowd of monsters on their way here, don't you? I don't know what you intend to do with them, but I'd imagine that they will be rather upset with you when you fail to deliver. They might tear you to pieces. They might tear the building to pieces, destroying any chance you might have had at completing your little errand, even if the excitable Mr. Atlas doesn't break that console in a fit of temper. What were you trying to do, by the way?"

"None of your business," said Crow.

Goodwin was unfazed. "I should think anything happening in my basement would be my business. Now that you've torn a hole in the roof with your monster friends, we'll have to declare this colony a loss. That's the second this month. I am not very pleased about this."

"You blew the other one up yourself!" Kiryu said. "That was your fault!"

"And this is yours," Goodwin answered placidly. "Now, let's be reasonable here. This plan of yours is not going to go any further today. Whatever you were trying to do, it's over. You may as well cooperate."

"Why should we cooperate with you?" asked Crow. "How do we even know you aren't lying through your teeth? You're too chicken to even come down here and talk to us face to face, and you think we're scared of you? At least your brother put up a fight."

"Our styles are different," he said. "I have often chided my brother for preferring brute force when a bit of subtlety would do just as well. I do not like to make waves if I can help it."

"I hate to break it to ya," said Crow, "but I'm pretty sure we just made a doozy of a wave already."

"Yes, I am aware of your little radio transfer," said Goodwin. "Such things can be smoothed over."

Aki narrowed her eyes at him, her expression one of distaste. It was possible that she found his smooth manner to be entirely too much like Divine's pleasant way of manipulating everyone he came in contact with, all the while making it clear what a kind and thoughtful gentleman he was.

"Why are you trying to make deals with us?" she asked.

"To be blunt," he replied, "because in a very short time, your army is going to get here, and I have no expectations of being treated kindly by them."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "What are you suggesting, and why should we care?"

"Because there is no reason why this needs to end in violence," said Goodwin calmly. "Here is what I am proposing. You may open your gate and let these monsters leave. I certainly don't want them here. Then you will publicly retract the statements made over the radio. We will make it clear that you were misled. The former mayor Divine will make a suitable scapegoat, and perhaps Professor LeBlanc as well. They fed you false information, hoping to stir up trouble for their own purposes, and you innocently believed them. You will be sincerely apologetic, and eager to show in public how sorry you are to have maligned my brother and me. You will, in fact, become our ardent public supporters. In return, we will graciously forgive you of your misdeeds, and perhaps even offer you work. I'm sure we could find places for you."

"You want me to do your dirty deeds for you after all," said Jack.

"Suffice to say that your particular skills could be employed in a variety of ways," said Goodwin. "The same goes for your friends here. All of you are uniquely talented, to have learned so much and made it this far. I'm sure we could find places for all of you. Doing what you did for Divine, perhaps, but with better accommodations."

Crow rolled his eyes. "You'd keep us in a better prison, is that it?"

"Of course not," said Goodwin. "You would be free to come and go as you pleased, as long as you showed up when you were needed. It would be a much better situation than anything you've had before." There was a rumble above them, and then a crash. "It sounds as though you had better make your decision in a hurry, though. I think our friends will be here shortly, and things will become much more complicated very quickly."

"No deal," said Yusei. "You people killed my father. I wouldn't work for you no matter what you offered."

"Well, then," said Goodwin, "you'll just have to explain to a few hundred agitated monsters why you are refusing to do what it takes to get them home."

"Our friends won't turn on us," said Ruka, and the Kuribon in her arms gave a chirp of agreement.

Goodwin's smile was unpleasant. "Are they your friends? How much are you willing to bet that I can't persuade at least a few of them that you've betrayed them?"

"They won't believe it," said Aki.

Jack nodded and folded his arms. "I trust them a lot more than I trust you."

"Yeah, don't do us any favors, pal," said Crow. "Take a hike. Maybe if you move fast, we won't convince the monsters to eat you instead."

Goodwin's features tensed for a moment before smoothing over again. It was clear that he had expected them to take his deal, but his reaction was more of annoyance than desperation.

"I see," he said. "It appears that we are at an impasse. Very well, you will go your way, and I will go mine."

His image vanished, replaced by a blank blue screen.

"And good riddance!" Crow shouted after him.

"Glad he's gone," said Rua. "That guy was creepy."

"That was too easy," Jack muttered.

"Well, whatever he's going to do, we still have to get this computer running as fast as possible," said Yusei.

Bruno nodded. "Now that we have light again, I'll try to find the control panel. If this place is anything like the others I worked in, there should be one around here somewhere."

The others started mulling around, trying to get their various tasks moving again, or else trying to burn off nervousness. Jack kept walking in circles and shooting irritated glances towards the door. Carly watched him with concern.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"He gave up too easily," said Jack. "He didn't talk to us as a last-ditch effort, he did it because he wanted to take one more stab at getting us to come quietly before he does make his last ditch effort. He's up to something, and whatever it is, we're not going to like it."

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked.

"What can I do? Go back and try to knock him over the head again?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Then try something different this time. Something he won't expect."

"How am I supposed to know what he..." Jack began, and stopped.

"You're getting an idea?" Carly asked.

"Maybe," said Jack. He glanced around the room. "But I'm going to need help."

"Whatever it is, count me in," said Crow.

Jack shook his head. "No. You and Kiryu stay behind and keep an eye on things here."

Crow frowned. "You aren't going alone."

"No," Jack replied calmly, "I'm taking Rua and Ruka."

"What?" Rua yelped.

"Why us?" Ruka asked.

"Because," said Jack, "Goodwin knows less about you two and what you're capable of than he knows about most of us. Whatever he's expecting, it won't be you."

"You can count on us!" said Rua, puffing out his chest. His sister looked less confident, but she nodded grimly, and Kuribon gave an encouraging little chirp. Jack gave them an approving nod in return before turning his attention to Bruno and Yusei.

"Can either of you two tech wizards figure out where that transmission came from?" Jack asked.

"No problem," Yusei assured him. His fingers tapped rapid patterns over the console. "Got it. Eighth floor, room D-12."

"Fine," Jack said. He turned to the twins. "Now, when we get there, this is what I need you to do..."

They went up stairs. The higher they went, the more nervous Jack became. The upstairs rooms weren't safe right now, with monsters trying to batter their way in. From time to time, Jack would pass a window and see a monster clambering down the side of the building. Any wise person would have been trying to get out of the building, not going upstairs where things were more unstable. If Goodwin was upstairs, he was there a specific reason.

The hallway they finally reached was not one of the more impressive ones. It was a no-nonsense place of gray tile floors and plain white walls with no pictures or ornaments. The doors were simple rectangles with numbers painted on them - not even a nameplate to indicate that anyone worked there. The lights were dim, as though the management begrudged wasting illumination on the likes of those peons who worked here. If there hadn't been a state of emergency, the hall would have been full of the muted sounds of people typing and rustling papers. From time to time, one would emerge from a room and shuffle without enthusiasm into another one. The people who worked here would all wear the same sorts of clothes, even the women, and have their hair all cut in the same no-nonsense style. They all wore the same expression. They didn't even speak to each other; their jobs were so repetitive that they no longer needed to communicate what they needed anymore. Jack had seen it before when he'd been called upon to deliver messages to places like this, and it never failed to give him a chill. He would have preferred to die out in the desert than to exist in that sort of barely alive state. He supposed it was possible that these people had a vibrant home life, but it seemed more likely that they went home to a spouse who told their children that they had to play quietly because Mommy or Daddy was tired from a long day at work. Well, today they had something to shake them out of their routine. None of them were around.

But someone must have been there, because Kuribon's eyes suddenly brightened, and she led them without hesitating towards one of the nondescript doors, one where the numbers had gotten smudged. Jack pressed his ear to the door, and heard someone inside typing rapidly. He nodded and stepped back again.

He eyed the door. As camouflage, it was probably a very good door. No one who walked past it would give it a second look. They certainly wouldn't imagine that there was anything on the other side of it that wasn't in any of the other rooms. As far as security went, though, it wasn't much more than a flimsy bit of wood-substitute. As difficult as real wood was to come by, no one would spare it on a plain office door. These days, anything made of "wood" was probably made of various plant fibers held together with adhesive and stained to look like the real thing. It was good enough for a privacy screen, but that was about all. Jack moved back a bit to give himself some room, and then he gave the door a good solid kick. A large chunk of it simply shattered into dust; it was only a thin veneer of wood-like substance over a core of rags and husks. He kicked it again, and the whole thing snapped in half.

Jack stepped casually over the pile of wood chips and dust. Goodwin was already on his feet, backing away though there was nowhere to escape to. The room was little more than a closet with a desk in it. A computer rested on the desk, with wires snaking off to disappear through gaps in the wall. Goodwin glared, looking more irritated than Jack had yet seen him.

"You could have just knocked," he said.

"I'm self-sufficient," said Jack.

Goodwin gave him a look that was almost pitying. "You are a stubborn man. I could almost respect you for it. You should have stayed in the other place, Jack Atlas. You might have done some good there."

"I won't stop fighting you," said Jack. "Not while I'm still alive."

Goodwin shook his head. "Your courage is admirable but misplaced. By now, your friends will have realized that their machines have started running again. They will assume that you have somehow forced me to relent, and they will continue what they were planning on doing."

"And why is this a bad thing?" asked Jack.

"Because," said Goodwin, sounding tired, "I have activated a self-destruct protocol."

Jack frowned. "When you say 'self-destruct', do you mean...?"

"Whatever your friends are doing down there, they aren't going to be doing it for very long," said Goodwin. "And neither are we. I estimate we have less than ten minutes before the building collapses."

He started for the remains of the door, but Jack braced his hands against the frame to block his path.

"You aren't going anywhere until you stop that countdown," he said.

"There isn't a shutoff function," said Goodwin. "Once it's started, it won't stop. Keeping me here will only guarantee that we all die."

"Maybe I want you to die and don't care what it takes."

Goodwin glared at him. "Don't be a fool. You'll never reach your friends in time to save them now, but you can still save yourselves and these children if you get out now. Do you intend to let them die to salve your pride?"

Jack winced. That was a low blow, and probably also true. Any sane man would take the opportunity to get out as fast as possible.

If they can get the door open before the explosion goes off, they'll be safe, he told himself. Even if they were separated, he would be able to find his way back to the other world somehow. He'd find them again. He had to hold on to that.

What if they hadn't had enough time to start over?

"Jack, maybe we should go," said Ruka, tugging at his coat.

He shook his head slightly. "We do what we came here to do first. Then we go."

She looked nervous, but nodded, and Rua repeated the gesture with more vigor. Goodwin shook his head sadly.

"You'd really do it," he said. "You'd doom yourself and your companions just to get revenge on me."

"No," said Jack. "But I will do a lot to stop you from doing any more damage."

There was a rumbling noise under the floor. Emotions flashed across Goodwin's face - disappointment, resignation.

"That's it, then," he said. "I hope you're proud of yourself."

"I am," said Jack. "But right now, I'm more proud of these two."

"Why would you be..."

That was as far as Goodwin got. In the next moment, the Power Tool Dragon burst up from the floor beneath him. Fragments of the floor sprayed in all directions, ricocheting off the walls. Jack pulled the twins aside so that they wouldn't be hurt by the flying debris. As he turned away, he had the impression of Goodwin's screams getting fainter as he dropped down several floors. Jack hoped whatever he landed on, it was sharp.

"Now, let's get out of here," he said.

Ruka looked up at him with wide eyes. "Shouldn't we go find the others?"

Jack reluctantly shook his head. "Goodwin's right. They're trying to get out as fast as they can. Either they'll make it out on their own, or they're already beyond help."

"But..." Rua began. Jack glared at him, and he stopped, visibly swallowing down whatever he was going to say, or perhaps just a lump in his throat.

"Come on," said Jack, gripping their arms and forcing them to follow. "We need to get out of here before that thing goes off."

He dragged them back down the hall as fast as he could go, wishing he wasn't constrained by their lack of speed. Even so, the building remained quiet. No alarms blared, no sirens went off as they hurried down the stairs. Jack felt himself relax a tiny bit. Goodwin might have been bluffing. Maybe his computer hadn't worked. For all anyone knew, Bruno might have known about the self-destruct feature and disengaged it right off the bat. After all, he'd practically designed some of this machinery, hadn't he?

They were on the stairs when he felt it happen. A tremor ran through the building, sending vibrations through his shoes. The walls creaked. Hairline cracks shivered their way through the plaster and released tiny spurts of dust. A distant groan of tortured metal and stone filled the air.

"All right, now we run," said Jack.

He scooped Rua up into his arms, and crouched a bit so that Ruka, a few steps above him, could scramble onto his back. Kuribon scuttled up and perched on his shoulder like some sort of flightless furry parrot, wrapping her tail around his arm for balance. It was a lot to carry at once, but he ran anyway, letting gravity work in his favor to carry him down the stairs. More blasts shook the building as he ran. Behind him, a piece of the ceiling fell in, throwing bits of debris into his path. He stumbled, and Rua gave a squeak and clung tighter to him as he threw out one arm for balance. He regained his footing, shifted his grip on the boy and kept running.

More explosions crashed above them.

He has the whole building rigged, Jack thought. This whole place is a death trap. Then he thought, Of course he did. He wanted to be able to make sure there were no survivors if he had to.

As soon as he came to a landing, he knelt so that the children could climb down.

"Everyone off," he ordered. "I need my hands free."

As soon as they were down, he stood and tried the door. It was locked, of course - why should anything be easy? He prepared to give it the same treatment he had given the other door, but just then, there was another blast, and then the whole building tipped a few degrees to one side with an enormous creaking groan. Rua and Ruka shrieked and clung to him until the movement stopped.

"This isn't fun anymore," he muttered.

"I'm scared," said Ruka quietly.

"Don't worry, we're getting out of here," he said.

He backed up and got a running start, and threw his shoulder against the door. It was a little more solid than the one upstairs, but the shifting of the building was already putting a strain on it, and it cracked under his blow. He backed up again and kicked it a few times, and it collapsed into fragments. A small distracted part of his mind wondered, if breaking a mirror brought seven years bad luck, what breaking down all these doors would get him.

A way out, I hope.

There was a hallway beyond the door. This one was better than the one upstairs; it had a thin green carpet on the floor, and a spindly little table. There had been a glass coffee percolator on the spindly table, but it had fallen when the building shifted, and the percolator had shattered, leaving a brown stain on the rug. He looked quickly away from it before it could remind him of anything.

At the far end of the room was a window, and that was something he did want to see. A window meant a way out. Never mind that they were still several floors up. The building was still shifting, a bit at a time. If it tipped over just a little more, they would have enough of an angle that they ought to be able to scramble down the outside without too much difficulty. It wouldn't be perfectly safe, but it was better than using the stairs and risking the whole thing collapsing on their heads. He dashed over to the window and looked outside. They were five stories up - not so high that a fall would be certain death, but certainly high enough that they'd be risking broken bones.

No time to be picky, he decided. There were plenty of windows on the way down, and ornamental ledges that would provide footholds. They could make it if they were careful.

He prepared to smash the glass out, but before he could do so, the whole building made a grinding noise. It began tipping, slowly at first, but then picking up momentum. Jack realized there had been an error in his calculations.

"Hold on to me!" he shouted.

The twins latched onto his waist. He seized on the spindly table and threw it as hard as he could at the window. It struck perfectly, sailing through the air in a spray of shattering glass. Jack half-ran, half scrambled up the suddenly steep slope of the hall, using the rug for purchase.

"When I said, hold on, I really meant it," he said, and grabbed both children, tucking one under each arm. Kuribon flung itself into Ruka's grasp. As soon as they were all collected, Jack forced himself to pick up what speed he could, straining every muscle, and then threw himself out the window.

As he went down, he wondered if he should have thought this through a little more.

The twins screamed. He didn't scream only because he was using all the energy he could spare on concentrating, because if concentrating didn't work, then none of them were going to like what happened when they hit the ground.

Then something large and dark came barreling towards him. With the noise from the collapsing building and the terror of falling, he thought for an instant that it was a chunk of the wall, about to fall on him and turn him into the filling in a pavement sandwich. Reality caught up to him at the same time the dark shape did, and he landed heavily on the dragon's shoulders. It roared, though in pain or relief, he couldn't tell, and flapped its wings in a powerful rush. The Red Daemon's Dragon carried them swiftly away to safety, and Jack couldn't help but sigh with relief. He hadn't been sure it would hear him calling it. He held tightly to the twins, letting the dragon worry about keeping them balanced.

At last, the dragon found a clear patch of ground and landed with a great fanning of wings. Jack slid to the ground and helped the other passengers down after him, trying to hide his shaky knees. Now that they were safe, the narrowness of his escape was catching up to him. If no one had been around, he would have been tempted to throw up, but he had an image to maintain.

Rua was looking around at the empty streets.

"Where are all the others?" he asked. "Aren't they here?"

"I don't know," said Jack. He was tired. He didn't want to think anymore. He wished the others were around, so that he could get one of them to make decisions for a while. His adrenaline rush was fading, and he felt cold and dull-witted. It would have been nice to turn his mind off and sleep for a while.

Ruka grabbed his hand and began tugging him towards the central building.

"Come on!" she said. "We've got to look for the others! They might still be in there!"

Jack stood his ground. "We can't. That building is going to fall in at any second. We'd be crushed."

"But..." she began.

Even as she spoke, the building lurched to the side again, passed its center of balance, and began its final fall. For an instant, it seemed organic, curving through the air like a wave or a leaping fish. Then it dropped messily all over the street and the surrounding structures. Smoke and dust billowed. There was a low rumble as the pieces settled. For a moment, all anyone could do was stand and stare at the destruction. Even buildings several blocks away had been crushed.

Finally, Jack forced himself to take a step forwards, and then another, lurching shakily towards the heap of rubble. He didn't really want to go in there and see if there was anyone in there, or what was left of them, but he didn't see any other options. He had to know for sure.

He had only gone a few paces before there was a tremor, and his first thought was, Not again! How many explosives did they plant? But the tremor wasn't coming from the remains of the building. It seemed to be everywhere, under the earth and in the air, making his ears ring and his skin prickle as it did when a storm was on its way. The dragon roared and fanned its wings in agitation, and the twins and Kuribon shrieked and pressed themselves to him. He knelt and put his arms around them as the world around them shook.

Then a burst of light, nearly as wide across as the original building had been, shot up from the rubble, glowing a dazzling yellow-green and throwing shadows as crisp as knives. It stretched up to the ceiling of the dome and beyond, and Jack tipped his head back to stare as it rose up beyond his line of sight. He had never imagined how high something could go, or that the sky extended so far. For a moment, his mind reeled with incomprehensible distances.

Then the light collapsed in on itself and became a sphere of light, hovering gently just above the heap of rubble that had once been a building. It sat there, an inch or so shy of touching anything, glowing with a shimmering light. While Jack was still staring at it, his dragon sniffed the air a few times, made a low purring sound, and began lumbering towards it. Kuribon gave a happy little squeak and scampered after the dragon.

"Is that it?" asked Rua. "The door?" His face lit up. "That means they're okay! They finished it! It wouldn't be here if they weren't okay, right?"

Jack didn't answer. He looked at the crumpled building, with its shards of masonry and twisted girders, and its electrical wires still wanly shooting sparks. There was the occasional grinding rumble as another piece of the mess settled into place. The door was on top of all that. It hadn't appeared until after everything had collapsed. No one had gone through it yet.

Suddenly his energy was depleted. Weariness fell over him as though the building had dropped onto his shoulders, and he leaned against a nearby wall and put his hand to his face.

So this was it. They had done what they'd set out to do - they had won. The villains were dead, balance was restored, the world would begin a glorious new era. At least a few of the heroes had come out alive. That was the best you could hope for, in a case like this.

It didn't make sense. He was the one who had put himself in danger so the others could escape. That was how it was supposed to work. How had it all gone wrong?

He wished futilely for his cycle. But where was there to go, when what he wanted to find wouldn't be there?

There was another rumble, and he turned to glare at the building, wishing there was some rational way to tell it to shut up. Hadn't it already made its point? But the rumbling continued, and pieces began to fall off the heap - not into it, as they would have if they were settling into the remains of the basement, but upward and outward, as if something very large was pushing them. Jack stared, trying to work out what he was seeing. Unless gravity had reversed itself, something very strange was going on.

The rumbling got louder, as more and more pieces of the debris were pushed aside. At last, something clear and shiny, like a glass dome, began to emerge from the earth, with brick and metal sliding off its smooth surface. Even the dust didn't seem to want to stick to it. Once it broke through the rubble, it picked up its pace. Soon Jack could see that the shining thing was a globe-shaped bubble, and there were people inside of it. He recognized Merina, along with several other entities, most of them more or less humanoid, most of them wearing long robes. They stood in a circle, facing away from each other, arms extended. Light glittered from their fingertips. Huddled in the center of the bubble, apparently supported by nothing at all, were Yusei, Bruno, Aki, Crow, Kiryu, and Carly. They looked dusty and singed, but very much alive.

"See, see!" said Rua, jumping up and down in his excitement. "I knew they were okay!"

The bubble floated free of the building's remains with a final clatter of shifting rubble, and landed a few yards away. The bottom bent and flattened as it touched down on the pavement, so that the occupants could find their footing. Once they were all situated, the bubble gently burst.

Carly rushed over to Jack and hugged him.

"You're okay!" she exclaimed. "I thought you got blown up!"

"You thought I got blown up? You were the one down in the basement with no way out!"

"We were okay," said Carly. "Merina got some spellcasters together and made us that bubble thing to hide in. Everyone is fine."

Jack wasn't sure whether to laugh with relief or shout at her for being perfectly all right when he'd been worrying. He settled for, "Don't ever let me talk you into doing anything this stupid again."

She laughed and rested her head against his shoulder. "I don't think I need to worry about it."

"So what happened up there?" asked Bruno. "Is it over? Did we win?"

"It's over," said Jack. "The Goodwin brothers are dead. Unless they survived being buried in all of that, which I doubt," he added, gesturing towards the demolished building.

"Jack threw us out a window!" said Rua, as though this were the best news he'd ever heard, and couldn't wait to share it.

Yusei shook his head. "I don't think I want to know."

"So, what happens now?" asked Kiryu.

"Well, it looks like our gates worked," said Yusei. He gazed up at the glowing portal with an expression of pride. "It will be a while before people figure out what to do with them, though. I'll probably hang around a bit to see if I can help get things organized. I want to track down Professor LeBlanc again, and let him know how things turned out. He'll probably be a big help with getting all this organized."

Bruno nodded. "I'll help. Those two might have been in charge, but there are still some agents of the Yliasters out there who might try something."

"I'm going back to work," said Kiryu. "They're still going to need Death's Angels for a while, gates or no gates. As a matter of fact, I'll probably have twice as much work now - two worlds for people to get themselves killed in."

"I'm going back to my kids," said Crow. "But then I'm taking them back to the other world. I've had enough of living under a rock."

"We're coming too," said Ruka, and Rua nodded. "Mama and Papa are waiting for us."

"And I still have a lot to learn at the temple," said Aki softly.

"It sounds like we're all going to be doing a lot of coming and going between worlds, then," said Yusei.

Carly looked at Jack. "What about you? What are you going to do?"

He looked thoughtfully at the portal a moment. Seeing it was a tangible sign that everything had changed. Even with his enemies destroyed, he still couldn't go back to the way things used to be, and that was all right, because he didn't really want to. He wasn't sure what this new life was going to be, but he had a feeling it was going to be better than it had been before. If nothing else, he knew no matter what he did, he wasn't going to be doing it alone.

"What do you think?" he said. "I'm going to do my job."

It was a misty morning outside the teyva village. The sky was just turning pink, and the mountains were soft purple shapes like clouds against the horizon. It was the time of day when there were no shadows, only paler or darker shapes, blurred by a light fog that glided lazily over the world. The breeze smelled of moisture and wet earth and green growing things. Jack stepped out of his house, taking deep breaths of the cool morning air. He shifted the strap on his pack and smiled.

"Ready to go?" he called towards the inside of the house.

"Just a minute!" Carly called back. There was a sound of rustling paper; Jack could just imagine her shoving things frantically into her bag. Later she would complain, wondering how on earth her notes had gotten so crumpled. At last, she emerged with a pouch slung over her shoulder.

"You're sure you've got everything?" he asked her.

"Of course!" she said. "All the important stuff is packed already, and everything else I need is up here." She tapped her temple with one finger.

"Are you saying there's nothing important in your head?" he asked slyly.

She slapped his arm. "Hush, you."

He laughed and began walking across the soft grass, feeling his shoes growing wet with dew, enjoying the reassuring thump of his messenger bag against his side. It was crammed with paper, messages for people in far off cities, places he had never been. Carly scampered after him.

A short walk outside the village, they came to a clearing. The Red Daemon's Dragon was curled up there, its wings tucked over its head as it dozed. Jack patted it on the neck, and it awoke with a snort.

"Time to get up," he told it. "We have work to do."

The dragon snorted a little puff of smoke, indistinguishable from the fog except by the smell of sulfur. It stood up, slowly stretching its legs and wings. Carly watched the performance impatiently, shifting from foot to foot.

"Nervous?" Jack asked her.

"A little," she admitted. "I mean, this is the big test, isn't it? To see if I can really make it as a bard."

"You'll do fine," Jack assured her, "as long as I don't get us both lost."

She smiled. "You won't get us lost. The dragon is driving."

"See? There you go," said Jack, raising his chin. "Nothing to worry about."

The dragon finished its stretches and settled down again, waiting for its passengers to climb aboard. Jack scrambled up on its shoulders and leaned down to give Carly a hand up. Once they were situated, the dragon ran a few paces, flaring its wings, and launched itself into the sky. Jack gave a whoop as they left the earth behind. Together, they rose up into the gradually lightening sky. For this moment, at least, everything was as it should be. He was with the people who mattered most to him.

And there were letters that needed delivering.

The End