At that moment, there was another violent shaking episode. “Things are a little unstable, admittedly,” Crow said, “but it’s nothing to be alarmed about. Humankind isn’t capable of permanently harming the universe.”
“That’s what they said about the environment, and now look at the polar bears,” Emily said.
“You’ve always had a great sense of humor,” Crow said, nodding to the security guards who took a couple of steps closer. “I don’t expect you to understand all the intricacies of the work I’ve been doing here, Emily.”
“Your wife and daughter are gone, Crow. They’re not coming back.”
Crow’s face twisted up at the mention of his family.
“Please,” Emily said. “They wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“You don’t get to have an opinion,” he spat.
“The Radiants are unstable; they’re decaying rapidly. You have to stop.”
“Hawk Worricker created his game under the auspices of stabilizing the Radiants, and by doing so, he effectively neutered the mechanism that exists beneath the world—the mysterious elemental force that Meechum’s Radiants manipulate. Who is Hawk Worricker or Kellan Meechum to decide what’s best for us? Who are they to play God?”
“You criticizing people with god complexes is fucking hilarious, Crow,” Emily said.
“You’ll see things differently when the game has been reset.”
“Nothing’s going to be reset, you idiot,” Emily said. “We’re all going to be wiped out of existence!”
As if on cue, the tremors started again and we were thrown against the wall.
“You’re a fucking psychopath,” Emily said as she pulled out her gun and pointed it at Crow.
Shaking again. It was getting stronger.
Emily steadied herself and aimed her weapon.
“I’m going to end what—”
But before Emily could finish her sentence, she was shot in the shoulder. The gun flew from her hand and clattered across the floor.
The sound of that gunshot reverberating through the room, combined with the violent shaking, felt like the end of all things.
“Fuck, Carl. You shot me!” Emily yelled, her hand bloody from touching the wound on her shoulder.
“You’ll be fine,” the shorter security guard said as he picked up Emily’s gun. “I barely skimmed you. Just apply pressure.”
The earthquake-style shaking had started to turn into something else—a deep vibration, a blurring of the world. The floor beneath my feet felt alive suddenly, sending a body-numbing shiver through my limbs into my stomach and chest.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“This stream is working to reset itself,” Crow said. “It won’t be long now.”
“Bullshit,” Emily said. “The stream is dying.”
“I’m going to miss you both—and I promise you, I take absolutely no pleasure in this,” Crow said, then nodded to his guards.
They slowly lifted their weapons.
“What happened to ‘apply pressure,’ Carl?”
Carl shrugged an apology as he and his partner took aim.
I closed my eyes and then…
Two loud shots rang out.
I covered my ears instinctively at the sound, and opened my eyes just in time to see the two guards crumble to the ground in a mess of blood and crooked limbs. They fell to reveal two women, each of them holding a huge handgun.
The twins.
“It’s been a long time,” Swan said as she stepped into the room from somewhere behind us.
All the color drained from Crow’s face.
“No,” he said as he took a step backward. “You can’t be here.”
“And yet here I am,” Swan said, and nodded to the twins.
They stepped over the two dead guards and positioned themselves on either side of Crow.
Swan walked slowly across the room to join them. She didn’t look at Emily or me as she passed between us. She was completely focused on Crow.
When she’d made it over to where he was standing, she looked him up and down as if he were an insect she’d just pulled out of a drain. Then she grabbed his face and looked into his eyes.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” she said.
Crow just stared, wide-eyed.
“You fucked up the Radiants, and now your world dies, you stupid little thing.”
Clearly I was wrong about Swan. She hadn’t been working for Crow.
“Once the mechanism is reset,” Crow said, “this dimensional stream will revert to its previous healthy state and we’ll be able to start over. I’ve tracked everything down to the minute. It’s—”