She lifted the watch and a timer on the sleeve of the suit she wore, comparing the two.
"Great," Stephanie said. "Both timers are synced. If that wormhole is exactly between the moon and the Earth, that's about one hundred and fifteen thousand miles. Our fastest missiles of ours can reach that in just under an hour. We have about fifteen minutes give or take."
Axel nodded as if he understood.
"That should be all we need." Stephanie tossed the watch to Axel. "Press the button when the timer hits zero." She put down the glass visor and turned on her oxygen.
"Where are you going?" Axel said.
Stephanie tapped the plate next to her. "Point Earth." Then patted the plate that leaned against the wall, the one they had taken from her living room. "Point Moon." She pointed to her wrist display. "When it hits zero. Remember, don't move that silver switch from the plate, either. Just press the button on the watch."
"Aren't you going to get Connor first?"
"I'm not sure how much energy this will take the switch. Earth ending calamities first. Plus if those nukes go off before our execution, it may ruin our plan." She then blipped out along with her designated plate.
"Alright," Axel said as he paced around the room without taking his eye off the watch. As the seconds ticked, he thought about what he saw as he blipped back from Mars. The trauma and horror, and his little brother screaming his torment.
Sorry, bro, but I hope this makes up for it.
***
Stephanie landed on the side of the Moon closest to the wormhole. She instantly set the plate down. Unlike the silver switch, she can still wear hers when she makes the command to make dark matter by looking at the plate.
She checked her timer.
Thirty seconds.
She stood in awe at the sight of Mars slowly passing through the wormhole. Primarily red, surrounded by an array of lights swarming around, like hundreds of torches spinning on a rope. It was much closer to the Earth than she expected. Dangerously close to Earth.
Damn.
And the contrails could be seen as they approached, much sooner than expected but still plenty of time—a cluster of gray trails and bright lights inching towards the planet.
Ten seconds.
She kept her eye on her wrist as the timer went down, and the interface had the option ready. Each second she counted down with it.
Three... Axel, you better push that button. Two, one.
She activated the option in her vision, and from a singularity, on the plate, a white speck turned into a line, then into a thin wall that appeared miles away and grew towards the wormhole. It grew wider with each passing millisecond. A flat wall grew and widened at the speed of light. And from Earth, a second wall as flat as a molecule approached opposite it.
Axel followed directions.
Two sides of an eye started growing for a head-on collision towards its red pupil. No longer two thin walls growing with smooth edges, but a kaleidoscope of dark matter filled in the sharp corners of each wall like putting a glass back together. Stephanie's wall reached one end of the wormhole, Axel's caught the other, and the two walls sliced through the portion of Mars that had breached. The glow of the stars spinning and warping around the edges disappeared, and gravity returned to where it should be. An eye-shaped white glass rested in place, engulfing a massive portion of Earth's visible sky. A neutrino wall.
Now for Connor.
She readied her GUI to land in the Mars station.
And then the neutrino wall splintered, then shattered. Trillions of little pieces of dark matter broke apart, and what was a wall turned to dust. The small chunk of Mars drifted, like a liferaft in a pond, and the flat side cut off from the neutrino wall turned towards Stephanie. To her, it looked like the tip of a ball got sliced off. It drifted towards Earth.
And the warheads.
She hurried through the UI, tapping on the blue jewel through her suit to find the option, Neutrino Meteor. The same she made seven months earlier. Electronics don't play nice with dark matter.
The missiles still looked far. But with Mars now drifting, it won't take long—A bright light flashed, and a fireball went off, then another and another.
The explosions grew closer. Closer to Connor.
Change of plans. She pinged off the Mars station heading towards destruction and activated the option.
Red turned to white, and a vast neutrino meteor appeared in its place. She hoped the aluminum of the Mars station would detract any neutrinos from forming on Connor. But it was her only option. The meteor was giant, much larger than what portion of Mars came through, and a shadow large enough to be seen from the Moon cast over the Earth.
More explosions went off.
They may have learned. Last year none of the nukes went off before impact. They're having them detonate earlier.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
And then a chunk of the neutrino meteor broke off from a nearby explosion.
Oh my God.
She quickly made a new meteor that covered the current one offering more protection. Then she made a third near the warheads. But there were too many, coming from too many angles. A portion of the sky stopped illuminating orange, but the surrounding area continued, and the latest meteor turned to dust.
She checked how much power she had left. Not much, at least not enough with Connor's extra mass. But she can return to get the silver switch and use that one to grab Connor and return.
She landed on the plate back at Optimal.
"Did we do it?" Axel said. "We saved Connor? Where is he?"
Before answering, she checked the power on her gold Aeon Switch. 1% power.
"We have to get him."
"He's still there?"
Teresa came limping in, using Thomas as a crutch. He patched her up, but it looked spotty.
"Well?" Teresa said.
"Wormhole closed, Connor inside a Neutrino Meteor."
The others gasped.
"And the nukes are going off."
There was a collective sigh.
"I need the silver switch."
"There's no way my switch can reach him from this far," Teresa said.
Stephanie eyed the switch in Axel's hand. "How far can it go?"
"Eight miles, I think."
"Perfect," Stephanie said. "Let's get to the surface."
"What do you mean, perfect?" Thomas said.
"No time to explain, but we have to go now."
Axel toyed with the watch. "I think I can get us to the surface."
Teresa rolled her eyes. Surprising her, Axel found the right option and let her have it back. "Alright, here we go."
They blipped out of a mishmash of memories. They tended to themselves during the Lucid Passage.
"Holy shit," Teresa saw the Neutrino Meteor. "How big is that?"
"Hopefully, big enough."
Explosions continued in a cacophony of destruction as the meteor came hurtling to Earth.
A chunk of the meteor broke off after an explosion.
"Oh God," Thomas looked in a rare moment of disbelief. "We have to get him right now."
The edge of the neutrino meteor sparked orange.
"That's about eight miles now," Stephanie said. "That's moving fast. Axel, give me the switch."
This was Axel's chance, and he wanted to make it right. "I'm getting him."
"Like Hell you are," Stephanie said.
"I was a dick. I owe it to him."
Another chunk of the Meteor broke off.
"Alright, whatever." She took her gloves off and pried the blue jewel off her switch, exposing the inner workings. The small particle accelerator continued its dazzling show through the small hole. She waved for Axel to lift the silver switch and placed the jewel inside it. The inner workings began spinning and lit up brilliantly, like when the watch gets used.
"Hold it up to your head. Pick the top left option. Get close to Connor, and pick the top right option. Do you see them?"
"Mars station, and return on the top right."
"Now go."
Axel blipped out.
[]~*
He paced around the shore of a small pond, turning back each time after a few steps. His younger self was fishing with their dad.
*~[]
It was nearly pitch dark in the station, and given the low oxygen levels, he had to be quick. He stumbled as the room rotated or as the neutrino meteor rotated. He lifted the hand holding the switch to ensure it didn't ding against the floor.
"Connor!"
No answer.
Everything rattled, and Axel felt a deep vibration rise through his feet. The meteor toppled over again, but he kept his footing as he stepped onto the ceiling-turned floor.
And then he heard a crack. The room brightened as a ray of light shone through a new opening in the ceiling. The wind came in at a deafening pace.
Shit.
"Connor!"
No answer.
He thought about blipping back. He thought maybe his little brother was dead.
No.
He hustled across and made his way to the pressure room. Both doors were bent out of shape, opened, and stuck in place. He made it outside to find a solid round wall that encircled the entire station with red sand peppered across it all. And there was Connor, lying lifeless on the surface.
The Meteor rattled and rotated, and Connor rolled with it like a skater down a halfpipe.
"Connor!"
He ran for him, and another crack opened. He had to get close to him, then blip back. But Connor started sliding into the new crevasse. An arm slid in, a head, a torso, and then everything. The crack widened, and Axel jumped in after him.
A dark orange glimmered at the end as a vast portion of the neutrino meteor broke off, and the two fell through the chasm. The last pieces of the meteor rotated. Axel readied his collision and jumped off the incoming wall of neutrinos, giving him the boost to launch toward Connor.
It grew hot and bright, and Connor's suit reflected a bright orange. The meteor broke apart more, and the chasm turned to open air—bright stars on one side, bright city lights on the other.
And Axel caught his little brother with his free hand.
[]~*
Darkness. Empty. Off. Quiet. Like a drained electronic.
*~[]
They landed sideways on the ground with a surrounding commotion, and Stephanie was on Connor faster than a heartbeat. Thomas helped Axel off the ground, and Teresa took Connor's cracked helmet off. The girls, in a flurry, checked everything and hustled through all his vitals.
"Low oxygen," Stephanie looked at Teresa. Teresa grabbed the silver switch and blipped out, and then blipped back in with a new oxygen tank and mask, and she put it on Connor.
Thomas came over, "Is he going to be alright?"
"We'll see," Stephanie said.
Thomas turned around and looked towards the red and pink dusted sky. The sight of explosions and the meteor breaking apart would have been a marvel if Connor hadn't been in it.
Connor came to, screaming, as he saw the sky lit up in red. His arms flailed, and as he saw Axel, he started crawling backward.
Axel looked relieved when his brother moved and showed signs of life. He took a huge sigh of satisfaction and smiled that Connor had made it.
"Connor, we're here," Stephanie said over his screaming. "You're in shock."
Connor felt something, something solid. Even through the gloves of his suit, he found what he needed.
Axel collapsed to the ground, and blood poured from behind his head.