A black night and the shadow of a mighty oak greeted George when he arrived in the clearing at the center of the Yellowstone Biodome. This was the place where he'd grown up. Once when he was a very small boy a simulated rain storm had caught him out in this field. Thunder had echoed from speakers in the ceiling far over head and fake lightning had shattered the sudden darkness brought on by the storm. Water dripping from his limp hair, George had raced through the field, wet grass whipping against his bare legs. At last he'd reached the oak tree and huddled beneath its massive branches.

Many times that tree had rescued him, when he was afraid and alone. There were few friends to be found in the isolation of the biodome, but the tree had never laughed at him, had never forced him, had never betrayed him. It was constant and eternal. In the end it had been him who abandoned the tree and left it to its lonely fate.

But now, with no where else to turn, George found himself picking through the darkness towards that shadow. The night air of the biodome was cool and clear, not like the smudged yellow brown that permeated the outside world. The leaves of the tree rustled in a gentle breeze and George knelt down in the dirt before it, his hands clasped as though in prayer. He put his hands up against the bark and felt the remaining warmth of a day now lost in darkness.

Footsteps startled him from his thoughts and he spun to find himself facing the form of a woman lit by a circle of light. Before she spoke he recognized her and stopped breathing.

"Oh!" She stopped on seeing him. One arm held the lantern forward and the other clutched an urn close to her chest. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect to see anyone out here at this time of night."

Monica, because it was Monica, shuffled nervously from foot to foot and bit her lip as though trying to decide what to do. George studied her face. It was as though all the hard edges had been smoothed away. Her hair was less shockingly blond, streaks of brown were visible. She seemed a little shorter also, although it was hard to tell. And her eyes radiated warmth, even in the limited light provided by the electric lantern. But it was still Monica.

"I--" She swallowed. "Do you mind?"

George shook his head no and turned away. He didn't want to see her alive before him. He didn't want to remember the way she'd felt when her body dissolved in his arms.

She stepped up to the tree and put one arm up against it.

"Well Daddy, here we are. It's...it's night just like you wanted. I can see the stars overhead...they make the world seem so much bigger."

She hugged the urn close and then pulled open the top. George couldn't help but watch out of the corner of his eye. Tears glistened on her face. Slowly, awkwardly, she turned the urn upside down and emptied the ashes at the base of the tree. The dust danced in the slight breeze and then blew out across the field and dissipated into the darkness.

All was silent.

Monica wiped the tears from her face and turned to George, her head cocked at an angle.

"Do you mind...my asking why you're here?"

"A little."

"Sorry. I...I should go."

She turned to leave and the wind picked up into a howl that rattled the branches of the tree

"Wait." He reached out towards her. "Please...don't go. I don't want to be alone. Not tonight."

She came back and sat down at the base of the tree next to the remains of her father.

"He used to take me to this tree all the time. He'd read me stories about heroes and about monsters." She hugged the lantern close. "The good guys always won in those stories. People didn't die. Not the wrong ones. Not people like him."

George nodded.

"I miss knowing that the world was like that. This is my favorite tree in the world. The tree that holds that knowledge...that knowledge that I can never have again."

For a while they were both silent in their separate thoughts. The image of the moon rose wispy in the screens overhead and sailed out across the sky.

"What do you do when you've lost everything?" George whispered this, as much to himself as to Monica.

"I don't know..." She closed her eyes. "That's the sort of thing he always knew. But he's gone now and I can never see him again."

And so they sat, two strangers under the shadow of their favorite tree.

The end of the world was silent and still. George floated in the center of the nanobots and all he wanted was to stay there. Stay where there were no people. No world to save. Nobody to let down.

But he felt a tugging in his stomach, that feeling of movement as a car accelerates down the highway. His body shot upward and broke through the surface of the white cloud that had been the earth. The edge of the cloud swirled with his passing and then closed like a wound closing.

George found himself floating beside the moon. He felt buried by stars and space. Looking around he realized that there were so many more stars than he'd ever imagined. And they were all unique, different colors, shapes, and sizes. The word star didn't do justice to the variety that surrounded him. Floating there he felt so small. He was just an atom in a mote of dust.

And like a seed on the wind he drifted away from the cloud of white that had been the earth. It danced and swirled. Flickered and glowed. He passed the moon, massive and gray like a mountain of stone hanging in the black of space. Planets flitted by like memories he couldn't grasp. Over the shock wave at the bow of the solar system he continued into the wasteland beyond. But it wasn't a wasteland at all.

Dark worlds lumbered in the black, shadows hidden from view but felt all the same. And there were always those stars in the distance.

Faster and faster George felt himself pulled further and further from everything he'd ever known. The stars turned to streaks of light drawn out against the black like chalk lines on a board. And then George began to move not outward, but up and away from space itself. He looked down and he could see the universe curving away. It was like looking down at the circle of the earth and finding stars instead of the sea.

Soon he'd left the universe completely and could see it laid out before him like a marble. He pulled back further and the edge of another universe came into view, and then another, and another until universes stretched out forever on every side. And every universe glowed with the light of the stars that lay within. Off into the distance George couldn't even see the individual globes, just a sea of light so bright that it hurt to look.

And he realized that every person who had ever lived, every choice that had ever been made, every possibility he'd passed without thought, and all the acts of love, hatred and sadness that came with them, were laid out before him.

And then just as quickly as he'd come George felt his stomach lurch and he began to fall down, down, down towards one of those globes. His body broke the surface and streaked along space until he found himself floating again over the earth. No longer was it just a mass of ravenous machines. It lay whole before him, brown and gray. Cities were visible sprawling out across the landscape, but not trees. Even the oceans were the color of granite.

He plunged into the atmosphere and felt the chill of water droplets on his skin. He broke through a thin layer of clouds and down towards the massive city of Chicago. The metal spires broke up out of the earth, bones through the skin. And then George blinked and found himself seated on the Airbus.

Rain pounded against the windows, thick and heavy. It thrummed in the air around him. People were packed into the seats. A thin wisp of fog remained on the air around George and dissipated. George watched rain roll down the windows and realized that it was over. There would be no more beasts chasing him down the streets, no more mad generals, no threat of looming destruction. This world would not die in a flash, it would wither forever on the vine.

George watched the rain and thought of Monica an infinite distance away from him. He remembered his arms around her and the way she'd dissolved like a dream in the morning. And all he wanted right now in the world was to have dissolved with her. Not to linger here, knowing that he'd failed to save her. Knowing that those forests were in the past now. That they, like Monica, lived in his mind alone and no where else.

Putting his head in his hands, George wept.

Next Week: Finale.

George and Monica stood together on the roof of the base and watched the world pass away around them. The sun glowed in the sky, so bright and yet so far away. A dull growl permeated the air, not a beast, but the earth itself shivering in the cold of space. George looked at Monica for a moment, and then...so gently...clasped her hand in his. He closed his eyes and waited.

*

Minutes earlier George led Monica on a rampage through the bowels of the compound. He spared no one. Amanda lay dead, her body cold and broken, behind. Monica, for once the follower, chased and provided covering fire.

At last they stood together on the threshold of a large command center. Guards rushed forward, but George dispatched them. Killing came easily with that rage burning in his heart. It came all too easy. Monica's face hardened. She knew that George had lost some part of himself. Some part that he'd never find again for so long as he lived.

George, his hand quivering, pointed the gun at General Lancaster.

"You...I should kill you for what you did to Amanda..."

"Ah yes, Amanda, it was a shame...a true shame. But she was a--"

"A security risk?" George laughed till his throat hurt. "Is that we he told you? Don't you see...he lied to you. He just wanted to make her love him."

"I...I can't believe that." Lancaster shook his head. "Lars was many things...but he would never betray my trust."

"You're a fool!" George stepped forward and then back. "He betrayed everything. And he killed Dr. Madison so that there wouldn't be any way to put things right again. He killed him and he killed her. And you let him. You let him."

Lancaster shivered and goosebumps rose up along his skin.

"You...you have to believe me...I would never have...I cared about Amanda...I truly...I thought I was doing the right thing."

George closed his eyes and felt the trigger against his finger. It would be so easy. He knew that now. A gentle touch on his arm, unexpected and soft, caused him to open his eyes. Monica stood there holding his arm. Her cold eyes stared into him, but...no...that wasn't right at all. Her eyes weren't cold. They were sad. George realized that now. They'd never been cold at all.

Just lost. Like him. Lost and alone.

"It's okay George. Let it go." She eased the gun from his hand and nodded to a large screen, which displayed a wind worn middle eastern city and a count down. "We don't have much time left."

George nodded, his mouth dry and his heart numb.

"General...I know you don't have much reason to believe me, but you..you have to. There's a fatal flaw in the weapon."

Lancaster's eyes widened and then he started to laugh low in his throat.

"You think I don't know that?"

George took a half step back.

"What do you mean? I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"I know about the flaw, but we're not the ones about to use the weapon. Madison's death delayed the project by months." He shook his head. "General Hammond..." He spat the name out. "It's all him. It's always been him."

George sagged against Monica.

"He...he promised me."

General Lancaster simply shrugged and turned to face the screen. The numbers rolled ever lower and then at last read zero. A blinding white flash caused the screen to flicker. When the image had cleared a bubbling mass of white was expanding out. The city sunk under it, like Atlantis slipping into the ocean. When the bubble had covered the city completely it paused.

George gasped. Maybe Hammond had fixed the code...

The edge of the bubble quivered, a gelatinous blob of nanobots, and then it began to expand again. At first it came slowly...but it picked up speed like a snowball becoming an avalanch.

"This...this can't be happening...this can't be happening..."

Monica put her hand on his shoulder.

"George...let's...let's get out of here. I don't want to die in the earth. I don't want to die buried down here."

"But...but we're the good guys!" George grabbed her by the shoulders. "We can't loose! We...we just can't."

"Everyone loses eventually George."

*

And so they took the elevator to the top and now stood there watching the trees swaying in a gentle midday breeze. In the distance some beast roared and a flock of birds exploded out of the trees into the sky.

*

Hammond sat in his black office and stared at the paintings on the walls. He'd watched the wave of nanobots swallow most of Europe. Even now it devoured the sea. Reports were coming in that the oceans themselves had began to pull away from the shore exposing land that hadn't seen the sun since the Earth had been born so long ago. He'd watched until his eyes were numb of it. He'd watched until his stomach had tied itself up in a thousand knots.

He tried to understand how he'd become this person. How he'd become the destroyer of the world. The ultimate villain. The very thing he'd spent his entire life fighting. He tried to understand, but there are some things we never understand...some things that even were we given a million years we wouldn't understand. Hammond didn't have a million years. Hammond didn't have half an hour.

*

The Rex stood over the forest and surveyed the world. He could see to the horizon. He could see the wall of white coming now over the world. His world. The world that he'd owned since he was created. Nothing stood in the path of the Rex. But all things must end.

*

The Barlack kicked the car over and peeled it open with its tentacle. The scar on its stomach was still sore, but it didn't worry about that pain. The only thing that mattered was that it do what it had been programed to do. Kill. So it peeled the car open and plucked out a screaming man. The two of them died together when the wall of white came over them. An embrace. Not everyone must die alone.

*

Alternate George sat in his office above the city and stared out the window at his fate. He remembered his other self and wondered if he could have chosen different. Been someone else. He closed his eyes and dreamed.

*

Monica, the wind tangled in her hair, remembered what she'd done to Lars. She remembered his cold black eyes and how he'd pleaded for his life. She pulled her hand from George.

"We deserve it." She whispered at first, but her voice grew firm as she spoke. "This..this is what we deserve. What we've earned."

"Don't say that." George took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. He remembered now so long ago when he'd seen those eyes and thought that they'd be the last things he ever saw. "Don't you dare say that."

"Oh George, you...not you...you don't deserve this." She shook her head and felt the sun on her skin. The earth was really rumbling now. It shook, as though with fear that the end had finally come. A sliver of moon watched from the horizon, faint in the daylight. "But...but I deserve this. I...this is how it should end. The things I've done..."

George clasped Monica's head in his hands. He kissed her tightly, his eyes squeezed shut. Still kissing her he said, "You don't deserve this. You are so much more than a killing machine. So much more..." And so they kissed—George tasting Monica's tears--there at the end of the world. The wall of destruction crawled over the horizon, lumbering and rolling along, but they didn't see it.

It embraced them and George felt Monica dissolve in his arms. She faded away, like a distant childhood memory...there and then gone again. George floated alone in the white and for a while he felt warm and protected.

Monica, her hair floating around her head like a halo, stood in the doorway. She gripped her gun tightly before her, even though Ken lay collapsed on the floor clutching the stump where his hand had once been. Amanda lay on the floor, clutching a bruise on her face, tears rolling down her swollen cheek. And there was George who watched Ken's gun spinning on the floor.

George crawled over to Amanda, whose eyes were empty.

"Amanda...are you okay?"

"He hit me." There was no infliction to her voice. "Why...why did he hit me?"

George closed his eyes and stood, but not before picking up Ken's gun. He grabbed the moaning security chief and shoved him onto the desk. George licked his cracked lips and looked at the man in front of him. Then, slowly, as though finding his way, he pointed the gun at Ken.

"How...how could you do this to her?" George swallowed. "Amanda...she was good...and you...you ruined her. How could you do this to her?"

"I loved her." Ken whispered. "I love her."

"You hit her!" George's hand shook as he spoke. "Look at her. Look at the bruise on her face. You hit her and you...you broke her mind. You toyed with her like she was a...a...robot. Just a device to be set to your whims."

"Better to have part of her. Better to have some part of her than nothing. She hated me." He closed his eyes. "Do you know how much it hurts to know that the person you love more than any other? To know that they hate you? Do you...do you understand what that means?"

George felt the trigger with his finger. All he had to do was pull it in.

"This is it...for me...isn't it?" Ken's eyes steadied and the grimace of pain faded leaving only a blank expression. "You know, I always considered loyalty to be my greatest trait. But in the end I betrayed Lancaster. I betrayed Amanda. I betrayed...I betrayed myself. I did it all for love, but that...well...just do it. It's okay."

George squeezed the trigger. Ken shuddered and fell from the desk to the floor. His body hit with a smack and his glassy eyes turned to stare towards Amanda whose scream echoed out across the room.

George looked down at the still smoking gun in his hand and then back at the man lying dead on the floor. Dizziness spread over him and his fingers went numb. The gun dropped to the floor.

He stepped over to Amanda and fell beside her. Together the two of them sat there, each mourning what they had lost. Monica stood in the doorway unable to comprehend what had happened.

Amanda leaned her head against George's shoulder. Her eyes were swollen and red, but when her gaze fell on the gun they worked just fine. Shoving George to the side, she made her move.

"Amanda!"

George reached out, but she had the gun pointed to her temple. Her hand shook slightly, like a butterfly quivering in the slightest breeze.

"No...no...don't you do this." George knelt on the ground, hands grasped as if in prayer. "This isn't you. This isn't you."

"You think I don't know that?" She closed her eyes. "I remember everything. I remember who I was. I know what they did to me. I know, George. But it doesn't change anything. In my heart, the man I love is dead and you are the cause."

"I don't believe that." George stood. "I don't believe that. They can mess with your mind all they want...but your heart, you soul...surely they can't touch those things?"

Amanda shook her head, but didn't lower the gun.

"Please." George whispered. "I'm begging you Amanda. I'm begging you. Don't do this to me. You're...you've always been the thing I fought for. All this time, it's been you I thought of saving. I'd have let this world burn...but for you. So...so...please...please...please..."

"Go George...keep fighting for me...remember me...remember me as I was." She opened her eyes and smiled. "It'll be okay."

"Noooo!" George made to tackle her, but found himself tackled instead by Monica. She dragged him screaming from the room.

"I'm sorry George. I'm sorry."

"I could have stopped her." He grabbed Monica by the collar, his face contorted in sorrow and rage. "I could have saved her."

"No...she would have pulled the trigger before you got anywhere near her. I couldn't...I couldn't let you see that. Some things...some things are better left unseen.

Maybe so. But when George closed his eyes he saw it all the same. He imagined Amanda kneeling down next to Ken. When she hugged his cold body to hers and rested her bruised face on his chest...George saw it. And when she pulled the trigger...well...I think you get the idea.

Wind swept down out of the sky, invisible but biting cold all the same. Smoke rose from a distant battle on the outskirts of the city and gunfire roamed in echoing bursts between the buildings. Amanda stood, shivering and alone, on the top of a building in the center of the city. A helicopter parked behind roared to life. Amanda didn't turn when the door to the roof banged open and a group of men crowded out. She faced out over the city, watching the clouds drifting in the sky. She didn't turn when a firm hand rested on her shoulder, gentle and insistent. She wondered how the clouds could stand having no control over where they went. The wind blew, and they followed, hopeless to fight the currents of air that swept them along.

"Amanda..."

"Don't say a word." Her voice came in a hiss.

"It's for the best that you don't come. Your job is here. Looking at the readings, refining this weapon, preparing for the next step if we can't stop Connors."

"For the best that you leave me?"

"I'll be back. I'll be back surely as the wind is strong."

"You'll come back, but I'll never forgive you. Never. This was my mission."

"The risk..."

"The risk was mine to take."

The man drew breath, but instead of speaking he simply let it out all at once, turned and stepped onto the helicopter. At the last moment he turned and faced her.

"Yours to take...maybe...but you hold my heart...it may have been wrong to have you taken off the mission...but I...I couldn't take the risk...the risk that you might...I love you Amanda."

Amanda said nothing. Her eyes watered, but she told herself that it was only the wind. As the helicopter took off for Seattle she told herself that it was only the wind that made her shiver. Only the wind that made her cry. The wind was so harsh, and she realized that she too was drifting. Hopeless to fight the current.

*

George lay on his knees. The ground felt so hard. He lay on his knees and watched Amanda kiss Ken on the forehead. A wave of revulsion swept through him, like heat off a fire.

"Amanda?"

"It's okay George. I've never been happier. I've never been more sure of my life."

"You...you hated this man. You told me yourself."

"Oh George. I was so confused. I was just adrift in a wind of confusion and chaos. Ken has healed me. He's shown me the way."

George found his legs and pulled himself to a standing position. He had to lean against the wall.

"Ken." He turned to face the man. "You put her back. You...you put her back...back the way she was."

"I couldn't put her back even if I wanted to."

"Dr. Madison..."

"...is dead." Ken laughed. "Lancaster thinks that he shot himself. But the truth is...I couldn't risk that he might someday undo his handiwork."

A calm came over George. It reminded him of childhood days he spent staring out over a still pond. Everything around him seemed quiet and oddly still as he crossed the room, his arms outstretched for Ken's throat. There was no thought attached to the action. If he had, maybe George would have stopped. He'd never hurt anyone in his life, but now he moved with a quiet confidence. It was as though he'd always been a killer, cold and silent. As if he'd always been a person accustomed to crossing a room with the thoughtless intent to kill.

Ken smiled calmly and said two words.

"Kill him."

Amanda lept in front of Ken, blocking George's attack. Her leg swung around sending George's body toppling like an unsteady tower of blocks. He landed on the heels of his palms and began to stand. Amanda kicked him in the side, so hard that his ribs cracked and his body slammed into the wall. He slid to the floor, gasping for breath, and tasted the metallic bite of blood in his mouth where he'd bitten his own tongue. Amanda grabbed him by the throat and heaved him up against the wall. Her soft fingers dug into his skin and his vision blurred through tears and lack of oxygen.

"Please..." He gasped. "You must be...in there...somewhere...you must be in there..."

"It's okay George. Ken has assured me that you'll be happier this way." She smiled serenely. "Ken makes everything better. This world was just cold and hurting and pain before Ken saved me. You'll be happier dead."

Tears poured down George's face, and dripped, so that they rolled onto Amanda's wrists. They tickled and brought goosebumps to her skin.

"You...you said...you promised...you promised you'd keep me alive..."

*

"Amanda..." His voice crackled over the radio. They had Connors cornered in a coffee shop. In fifteen minutes his squad would storm the building and years of Amanda's life would come to fruition. "We're ready to make our move."

Scientists fidgeted in the room around her and murmured in ghostly voices. She would remember that many years later. The way they sounded like ghosts, ephemeral and lost. So very lost.

"Roger that, remember to make sure the settings are right. One single mistake..."

"Amanda...I promise I'll come back alive."

Fifteen minutes later the entire city of Seattle was just a hole in the ground and the man was just a memory, ghostly and lost, a phantom made of smoke and dirt and darkness.

*

Amanda remembered that promise. A promise made to her. A promise that could never have been kept because of a weapon she'd built. She remembered the aftermath. She remembered standing on the roof, staring into a coming storm and crying till her eyes were swollen and red. She remembered the way her tears had tickled her skin as George's tears now tickled her skin. She remembered her promise.

She let George slump to his knees and wiped her eyes. She turned to Ken.

"Love...I know...I know you're right...but...don't ask me to do this thing. I can't. I've...I've killed enough people."

Ken roared and back handed her. She sprawled to the floor with her hand to the new bruise on her face.

"Fine." He pulled his gun and pointed it at George. "This is it Georgy boy."

George looked up at him. The darkness at the point of the gun mirrored the darkness of Ken's eyes. George stared into the gun, his hand to his soar throat. The gun boomed in the confined space of the room, like the thunder roaring with the wind of a coming storm. The room lit the red of blood as the blast cut into the air, like lightning--completely unconcerned with the wind.

The door shut with a thunderous roar, like the teeth of a great beast clamping shut. With dawn closed outside, the room seemed dim. George stood close to Monica and waited for Amanda or Ken to speak, but they were silent. Ken just stood there smiling. His bright white teeth gleamed like daggers.

"Amanda..." George took a step forward, but his voice faltered. "I...I missed you."

For the first time since the door had rolled open, Amanda looked George in the eye.

"It's okay George. Everything is okay."

George took another step forward, but Ken slid in front of Amanda and wagged his finger.

"Hands off the merchandise." He was no longer smiling, but his eyes still radiated a warm malice. "I could hardly believe it when they told me you were standing outside."

"Ken, you have to--"

Ken flashed forwards and punched George in the chest. It happened so fast he hardly realized what had happened until his body landed with a thud on the wall behind. He fell onto his hands and knees coughing. Monica moved towards Ken, but found a gun in her face.

"You don't tell me what to do." He laughed. "That's not how this works."

"How does this work?" George, face red, pulled himself to his feet and rubbed his aching chest.

"How this works, is you do what I say."

Ken waved his gun and led them to an elevator. When the doors opened men came out and grabbed Monica by either elbow. George opened his mouth to protest, but Ken replied with a sharp jab in the back.

"Go George. Warn them. Stop them." Monica closed her eyes. "I'll find you. If I can, I'll find you..."

George stared into her cool blue eyes as the door to the elevator slid shut with a hiss. He wondered if he'd ever see them again, shivered, and tried to rub the goosebumps from his arms. Who would have ever guessed that he'd find himself sorry to see those killer's eyes leave?

The elevator lurched and began to slide into the ground, deeper and deeper. Into the belly of the beast. George turned and faced Amanda, who stood beside Ken with a serene look on her face.

"Amanda...you wouldn't believe everything that's happened to me." George laughed. "Hell, I don't even believe everything that's happened to me."

Amanda smiled.

"You look well George, you look...you look good."

"What, less paunchy and more like the monster fighting machine we all know I was born to be?"

"Something like that." Amanda smirked. "Wonderful things have happened to me George. Wonderful things."

Ken watched George and Amanda talk. With every word that passed the desire grew in him to strangle the life from George's wriggling body. It grew like a weed with water and a little sunlight. It grew till it crowded out every other thought, save one. Save the thought that he couldn't kill George yet. He couldn't kill George till he'd shown him the truth. He smiled widely as the elevator opened. Oh yes. He would enjoy this.

They led George down a maze of corridors to Ken's office.

George stood up against the wall, while Ken leaned against his desk. Amanda stood just off to the side.

"Ken...what are we doing here? I have information that Lancaster will want to hear." George shook his head. "Screw it. Amanda...listen to me. They've been using you all along. They've built their own nanoweapon. And they'll use it. They'll use it Amanda."

"I know George."

George swayed. His knees felt like rubber and his stomach lurched worse than when he'd jumped from the helicopter.

"What? But...but..." The words stumbled through his dry mouth. "Never mind. Amanda. There's a flaw in the code. If they use that weapon, there's no telling what might happen."

"Oh George, you always were so silly." Amanda smiled and stepped towards Ken. "There's no flaw in the code. Ken promised me that they got it right." She leaned against Ken who wrapped his arm around her in an embrace.

George's legs wobbled once more, but this time he couldn't keep himself standing. His knees cracked solidly against the floor, but he didn't feel the pain.

"This..." He swallowed. "This can't be." He looked Ken in the eye. "What...what have you done?"

"I've shown her the way George. I've shown her the truth."

Smoke rose against the dawn from the crash site of the helicopter. George and Monica sat together, with their backs to a large tree. They sat together and watched the smoke mingle with the light of the rising sun. Birds called to one another in the trees in a language George couldn't understand. He remembered when he was a child and he'd spent weeks documenting bird calls, trying to figure out what they were saying to one another. But the answer had always eluded him.

"Monica." George whispered into the dawn. "What do you think you'll do when all this is over?"

She smirked at him.

"You mean if we somehow manage to survive this suicide mission?"

George nodded.

"I...I don't know..." She closed her eyes. "I'd like to say...say that I could find some kind of peace. Find a quiet place."

"I just want this chase to be over..." George leaned around to look at the compound on the other side of the tree. "Seems like since I got here, it's just been one thing chasing me after another."

Monica shrugged and leaned her head on George's shoulder. It felt solid under her and she felt for a moment as though she could simply lay there, forever rooted to that place. Free. The wind picked up and pulled her hair over her face. Goosebumps rose along her arms. The cold morning breeze made her shiver. She sat up and brushed the hair from her eyes. The light of the sun blinded her. The momentary darkness as her eyes adjusted reminded her that they couldn't sit there forever. Behind them lay a compound. And within the compound death...

"Who are we kidding? I'm sorry George, but life is a chase. It never ends. There's no peace for us. There's no happily ever after..."

"Cynical as always." George smiled. "But I expect no less from you. Someone has to keep my boundless optimism in check."

"So...you do have a plan for getting us into the heavily armed compound don't you?"

George winked.

"A plan?" He stood and brushed his pants off. "I'm not sure you'd consider it a plan so much as...well...suicide."

With that he stepped around the tree and stood before the circular airlock hatch of Lancaster's compound.

"Yo! Lancaster! I believe you promised me that you'd do terrible things if I didn't surrender." George smirked. "What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment."

Monica swore and peered around the corner at George. Wincing, she stepped forward and wrapped her hand around George's. He squeezed it just slightly.

"Oh...and that's right. I brought Agent Woods back with me. Just cause, well, I'm crazy." George shrugged when a turret sited on them from the roof of the compound. "But before you gun us down, I guess I should mention the part where I come bearing information. Information that my corpse isn't very likely to share."

A silent moment filled the forest, and then a whir as the turret turned away from them. The ground shook as the door rolled open revealing Ken and Amanda side by side.

"Well, well, well...if it isn't Georgey boy! And Monica with you..." He grinned and opened his arms wide. "Why didn't someone tell me it was Christmas?"

Next Week: Ken seems far too happy to see George doesn't he? This doesn't bode well for our heroes as they're lead into the compound...

"Don't you have faith in anything?" George's father shook him by the shoulders.

George glared at him and shrugged out of his grasp. His mom sat silently on the couch. Simulated sunshine poured in through the large picture window of their home. It blinded George as he turned to the door. Rage filled him as the light filled his pupils. He spun and faced his parents.

"Do I have faith in anything?" He shook his head. "Maybe not. But at least I haven't placed my faith in a lie! You think any of this is real? You're both deluded. The world isn't...isn't..." He grasped at the sunshine. "...isn't this fake sunshine. It isn't this little dome! It's something more. I can't live this lie anymore. I have to find the world...the real world..."

When he closed the door it boomed. The echo thundered out around him and the fake sunshine fell around him. He could almost feel the photons, like rain against his skin.

*

George didn't know how the monster above managed it, but somehow the creature stayed in the air. Their helicopter swung from the tail, sputtering back and forth as the tail rooter whirred in a pointless attempt to correct for spinning blades that were no longer spinning. Thick diesel smoke filled the cabin. George covered his mouth with his arm and crawled across the glass to Monica. She shook her head and smiled at him.

"Well, George, looks like you're going to have to jump after all."

*

George lay and stared at the ceiling fan as it spun lazily. The curtains twisted in the air with the draft. A thin gray light fell from the window. He looked at the window, but he couldn't feel the warmth from the morning light so he stood and walked to the window. Even standing in the light, looking up into the sky he couldn't feel the light. An emptiness filled him and he found himself lying there on the floor, silent sobs slipping through his lips as tears chilled the skin of his face.

*

George looked out the door Monica had kicked open and felt dizzy. He tried to remember his mom's song, but with the beast above them crying out in pain he couldn't remember the words. There would be no singing away his troubles. Not this time. He looked at Monica desperately hoping she'd have another option. Her face was rigid though, her eyes cold, the eyes of a killer. What was he doing here?

*

"Miller! Come here and shake my hand." The gray haired old-man had the hand-shake that could have crushed stoneinto dust. "Walk with me Miller."

George walked just behind the man, only half listening. This was his first day at his first real job. He'd woken up at four in the morning and been unable to get back to sleep. School had been tough for him. He'd always felt distant from everyone else. Now though he was a graduate with honors from M.I.T. and he was going to be working for one of the most powerful computer companies in the world. Now, at long last, he knew that he would find that real world he'd promised his parents they were missing. The real world that he always felt right out of grasp, beyond the haze that filled the sky.

"...And this will be your workstation." The old man waved at a small cubical. George saw it, gasped, and looked around.

"There aren't any windows."

"That's right. I'm paying you to write code not sight see." He slapped George on the shoulder. "Keep your nose to the grind stone though and maybe you'll get an office with a view"

He left George alone in his workspace. People bustled back and forth around the office, but for minutes George could do nothing but stare at his desk and wonder where he'd gone wrong in his life.

*

"George..." Monica took his hands. "George...I know you're afraid. I know you're afraid, but you have to trust me. I'll keep you safe. I'll be with you all the way down. The chute will hold."

George felt the wind in his hair, and wished he was just a bird who could fly away. Fly beyond the smoke and beyond the monsters. Beyond doomsday weapons.

"Do I look like a bird to you? Do I have wings? No. I'm a person. I'm just...I'm just a normal person. I don't jump out of planes."

*

George sat across a candlelit table from a beautiful woman. She had a narrow face, which her smile covered amply. Right now though her lips were pursed on her face, thin and almost invisible.

"George...I care about you...I care about you a lot, but I can't wait forever."

George fidgeted in his chair, which until just a few minutes ago had been incredibly comfortable. Now he wanted to be anywhere but there. Not meeting her gaze he spoke.

"Mel...I...I'm just not ready." He shook his head. "Maybe...maybe someday..."

"Maybe someday...what? The world will be better? The world will be what your parents wanted it to be...what you want it to be, no matter how hard you run from that fact? I know it's true...I know it George. I see it on your face every time you lay in bed beside me and stare out the window. I hear it on your voice when you tell me stories about your childhood. It's the same look that I saw on your parents face when they visited you. The same thing in their voice."

"Don't..." George stood, his silverware rattling. "Don't talk about my parents! You don't know what it was like, living in that bubble..."

Disgusted, she crossed her arms.

"All you do is moan about how terrible your life was, but you don't seem so happy now." She shook her head. "You'll never be happy. I should have realized that earlier. You have faith in nothing. You wall your dreams up, because you can't stand the thought that you've messed up. No wonder you won't move in with me...won't even let me spend the night. How can you commit to me, when you can't even commit to yourself?"

*

"George." Monica took George's face in her callused hands. "Do you remember the night that I wanted to die...the night you forced me to climb that ladder?"

Numbly George nodded. The helicopter was sinking now as the beast's wings slowed their flapping.

"You told me, that sometimes there was something more important than just saving yourself. I believed you. I believed in you, in spite of everything I've done. In spite of everything I've seen." Tears rolled down her face. "In that moment I had faith in you. Not...not...not because it made sense. Not because..." She wiped her face with her sleeve. "I had faith in you. I had faith and when I climbed that ladder and saw the stars above...I saw the stars George."

The helicopter lurched.

"Come on George! You've come so far. Through monsters, and mayhem, and people..people like me. You've come so far, you can't die here. You can't die here a coward!"

"You think I don't know that..." George grabbed the door and looked over at the world swaying below. "I know what I've been through. I am ME, after all. But Monica...this isn't...this isn't impossible monsters or...this is, it's real." The monster above shrieked in pain once more, a long drawn out wail that pierced the air. "What am I doing here? What have I been doing? I'm not a hero...I'm just George...I don't jump out of planes. I don't fight monsters. I don't run from people with guns. I work in a cubilce for god's sake. What...what's wrong with me? How could I ever think this was something I could do?"

"Damn it George!" Monica took him by the shoulders. "Don't you do this to me. Don't you give up. I've seen you fight when all others would run. I've seen you put all others before you're own life! I've seen you...I've seen you. I don't know who you were. But I know who you are. You're...you're the person I should have been. And I believe in you. Now, believe in me George. I'll save you. I will. I promise you with everything I have. Put your faith in me."

Silently, slowly, George uncurled his fingers from the helicopter, hugged Monica, and buried his face in her shoulder. With a deep breath she launched them out into the empty sky.

Next Week: At the door of death...

The display of the helicopter filled the cockpit with a crimson red. George felt a familiar fear grip him as an alarm blared in his left ear. Monica swore and began to type something rapidly into a computer mounted in the dashboard.

"What is it now?" George leaned forward, his heart racing in his throat.

"Looks like we have company..."

"Hammond?"

"No...actually, it's been bothering me that he hasn't given chase yet." Monica frowned and shook her head.

"That's a good question, but right now I'm more concerned with the infernal racket of that alarm."

Monica licked her lips and looked George in the eye.

"I'm not sure, but whatever it is...it's alive."

"Oh lovely." George slouched down. "Just don't let it be giant bats. I hate bats. Especially the giant ones."

Monica threw George a backpack, which on inspection he realized was a parachute. His mouth went dry.

"No."

"Excuse me?" Monica arched an eyebrow at him.

"No. No, no, no. I am NOT jumping out of this thing."

"Let's hope not. There's only one parachute. I'd rather not have to use your scrawny body for paddi--brace for impact! Eight boogies closing quick."

In the dark the beasts were nothing but shapes drifting across the sky. George plastered his face to the window and watched them come. At first they were just specks of darkness. But they grew. Like black holes they grew, gobbling the stars with every foot that they closed on the helicopter. The first thundered past giving George just an idea of it's shape. In that second he glimpsed a beast with a snaking neck and four massive wings beating thunder with every flap. A tail covered in bone spikes trailed behind. The helicopter shook and the windows rattled as it passed them.

The second beast passed on the other side, further off so that the wake of its passing rocked them just gently.

The light of the moon dimmed and three more black shapes gobbled up the stars in front of them, passing quickly away into the night. George found himself gripping both armrests till his hands ached and became slippery with sweat. They didn't see the next beast pass as it went underneath them, but the rush of wind caused the helicopter to lurch alarmingly and tilt towards the ground. George screamed and just managed to keep from vomiting. The bitter taste of bile bit his tongue as Monica straightened them out.

Now there were just two, flying closely together. They swept over the top. When George saw their shapes through the front window he let out a whoop and smacked Monica on the shoulder. She frowned at him, but just the hint of a smile showed on her face.

But George's celebration was short lived. The tail of one of the final two monsters swung around and caught in the rooters of the helicopter. A horrific screech clawed across the air forcing George's hands to his ears. Before his hands had even touched his head he was thrown forward into the windshield. The helicopter lurched and swung down out of the sky, hanging only by the tail of the beast. The sound of the motor whining as it tried to move the now jammed rooter vibrated the entire chassis of the vehicle. At last it gave out and a lurch of smoke exploded out and blotted out the sky completely.

Coughing and hanging by the tail of a monster, George waited to die.

Next Week: Jump!

The night air whipped over the helicopter and disappeared behind them in the darkness. George sat with his head against the glass and felt the vibration of the flight in his skull. Once, when he was a boy, his father had flown him and his mother up to an environment dome in Canada. He'd sat in his mother's lap, clutching her skirt tightly in his little fists. His father, the pilot of the small plane, had ruffled his hair, but George wouldn't look up. He didn't like the lurching feeling in his stomach when he looked up and saw the ground so far away. He wanted to be safe, but some instinctual part of him had known that he could never be safe in the sky.

He'd long since grown over his fear of flying. He no longer feared the ground hidden in the shade of night below. Now he feared the future and what he and Monica would find when they reached the compound he'd rescued her from. He turned his head to look at Monica whose eyes were glued to the windshield in front of her. Her pupils were wide in the darkness and a feint sheen of sweat glistened on her skin.

"Monica?" George lifted his head at the window and leaned towards her. "Are you okay?"

"I--no--what would I have to be afraid of?"

"Well, it is pretty dark out there...either that or I've gone blind. Which given my luck these past few days..."

"I'm not fond of the dark...no...but Hammond didn't leave much room for fear in me."

"What then?"

"Well, it's nothing really..." She licked her lips. "I've been trained to operate machinery of all kinds, but I may not have...exactly...gotten hands-on time with all of it..."

"Wait, wait, wait..." George found himself involuntarily gripping his armrests. "Are you saying you've never flown a helicopter before?"

"No." She shook her head. "No, I've flown them dozens of times. Just...those were simulations and this is..."

"Real life!" George grabbed her arm. "As in, if you run us into the ground we'll be really dead."

"Well, if you're not fond of being a spot on the ground I'd recommend you let go of my arm."

"Right...right...definitely not a good idea to shake the arm of the person WHO HAS NEVER FLOWN A REAL HELICOPTER."

Outside the moon followed them as they cut a dark shape through the night. George leaned his head back on the glass and found himself again remembering that trip. He remembered well the feeling of his mom stroking his hair, but he'd continued to shake in her lap. He kept thinking of playing with action figures on the cliff top during a camping trip. He'd tossed one of them over and watched it bounce on the rocks and finally shatter apart far below. He hadn't even been able to hear the sound of the plastic breaking apart. The seams coming undone. What held him together he wondered? What would happen if he was thrown from this plane?

"You know..." Monica's voice cut into his remembrance quietly. "It's still there, deep inside me."

"What?"

"Fear." She whispered. "I used to stay awake at night with the lights on, because when I closed my eyes it was so dark. Sometimes...sometimes I think I've never left that crawl space under the floor. Sometimes I pray that I haven't. I pray that my father will open the trap door and take my hand...

"They did lots of things to me, to my body, to my mind, to my soul...but no matter what they did, it seems they can't wash that moment from my life. There are some things not even science can change...some things that can never be made better.

"Yes...I'm afraid...I wish the sun would rise."

"The sun will rise,

and light will come even

from the darkest nights,

even in the darkest places."

George's uneven voice cut into the darkness. But in his mind he heard his mother as she sang to him. He felt her hand around his and he saw her eyes. Monica started and stared at him, her attention for the first time turned from piloting the helicopter.

"Be not afraid of the shadows,

or of the monsters you fear

for night can not hold off day

forever, nor the shadows sway

the turning of the earth."

Monica's voice joined Georges, but she heard her father singing her to sleep. She felt his beard on her face as his kissed her good night. Together the two of them sang, each living in the past.

And in the night behind storm clouds gathered. Rain drummed from the sky onto the trees, washing the dirt away. Clearing the air around. And disturbing the slumber of eight great beasts. Taking wing, they lifted as shadow cut-outs into the sky and fled the storm and the rain. Their wings thumped against the air and sped them towards the small helicopter that held George and Monica and a song they both knew from childhood.