“And I never saw Jim again after that,” I say, pausing for dramatic effect. Then, to cap it off: “The end.”

“The end?” says Bert. “That doesn’t feel like an ending.” He looks at Angelica. “That’s a terrible ending.”

“Well, I’ll admit, there’s twenty more years of stories I could tell you as I wandered the ruined contentment,” I say. “But that’s as far as I think I’m going to get.”

“Why?” says Bert.

“Because he’s dying,” says Angelica, nodding towards my side. “Aren’t you?”

“You know, I’ve never died before,” I say, staring into the well lit fire burning tall between us. “But if I were to guess, I’d say there’s a high chance of that happening within a day or so. Yea.” To emphasize the point, my body kicks up a bloody coughing spree.

I move into more of a normal sitting position and stretch my side. I can hear the bones cracking. My body reacts with a flinch and my breath catches in my throat. I let out a loud groan, leaning my head back a little.

Bert and Angelica eye me with vast disappointment. And maybe it's my imagination, but they look a little hungry too.

“Did you ever reach five-thousand?” says Bert.

I let out a soft laugh. “Truly, I lost count years ago. There were so many. But I’m sure it’s well beyond that by now.”

Angelica eyes the last bit of cooked meat on the arm of the couch.

“There’s one thing that’s been bothering me,” she says.

“And what’s that?” I say.

“If they can write messages to you on the meat, did they ever tell you about Belle? Did they tell you if she made it or not?”

I smile weakly at her. “In fact, they did tell me.”

“And?”

“And … I think I’ll let you find that out for yourselves,” I say. “I think it’s about time for the two of you to start a new chapter of your lives, don’t you? In a place you aren’t forced into certain … dietary habits just to survive.”

“No,” says Bert. “Not yet, not until you reveal who this mystery friend of yours is, and why you came all this way to find them.”

“I know who it is,” says Angelica.

“Who?” says Bert.

I open my mouth to respond when I hear a sound. At first I think it’s drops of water somewhere in the distance, but it quickly becomes clear.

It’s footsteps.

Angelic and Bert hear it too. They stand up, instantly on the defensive.

There’s some scuffling from around the corner, then a man in a thick woolen coat appears in the room. He’s got a dark brown beard with a few silver streaks through it, much like my own. He’s carrying a backpack and a small beeping metal device.

“Well, wouldn’t you know?” says the man, twisting something on the device to turn the beeping off. “The coordinates were accurate after all.”

I recognize the man instantly. I’m almost too baffled to speak.

“Jim?” I say. “Is that … you?”

Jim opens his arms and smiles. “The one and only.”

“You’re him?” says Bert. He looks at me and points to the man with his thumb. “He’s Jim?”

“What do you mean ‘the coordinates are accurate’?” says Angelica, looking confused. She looks at me. “What’s that mean?”

And I have to admit, I’m curious about that too.

Jim clears his throat. “Hi there,” he says, extending his hand to Angelica. She hesitates, then takes his hand. As they shake, I see Jim cringe at the pile of human fat and bones in the corner of the room, but wisely doesn’t mention it.

“Where did you …” I begin, as Jim shakes Bert’s hand. “I’ve been looking for you. How did you know where to find me?”

“Xeno told me,” he said, making his way around the fire to join me on the couch. He sits down next to me, drops his bag between his legs, and pulls out a thin slab of shrink wrapped beef jerky. He hands it to me and I just look at it, too weak to open it and unsure of how to respond.

“Your alien friend says you like these,” he says.

“I do. I … Wait, wait, wait, you talked to Xeno?” I say. “I’m so confused.”

Jim snorts a laugh. “Oh, yes. The creature is relentless. First off, how are you, old friend?”

I open my mouth to respond when Angelica speaks for me.

“He’s dying,” she says.

I let out a ragged breath, the taste of blood still on my tongue. “Internal bleeding,” I say. “It’s not that bad. Long story, but enough about me, tell me everything, like, right now.”

“Okay,” says Jim, giving me a concerned look. “Short version: After I declined your offer to go to Paradise, and you went on the run, I dedicated my entire life to studying the gateway you left behind. I was able to convince the head honchos at Dugway I was a victim in the attack at my home, so I was free and clear to utilize all their resources to do so. Well, eventually Dugway was disbanded and the whole world fell apart. Supply chains came to a halt. Power grids went down, the world froze over, and we all slipped back into medieval times, as you well know. But I learned a lot. It took me about nineteen years to get any kind of results, but I finally did.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Wow. Okay, yeah, but … why?” I say. “Why study the gate?”

“Well, to be honest, Jack, I felt like a failure.”

I furrow my brow.

“It was my job to establish communications with the aliens in the sky,” says Jim. “I failed miserably. Then it was my job to establish some kind of communication with the alien inside you. That went even worse.”

I chuckle a bit at that. “Don’t we both know it?”

“I’d dedicated my life to building a bridge to them, and I’d failed every step along the way. That’s the real reason I declined your offer, Jack. It felt like a cop out. As silly as it sounds, I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t a failure. I thought that if anyone could get the aliens to come back and save our species, it would be me.”

I raise an eyebrow at him.

“I know how that sounds,” says Jim. “But I wore that mantle—for years.”

“Looks like you failed at that too,” says Bert.

Angelica reaches over and punches Bert in the shoulder.

“Ouh, what? He did, didn’t he?”

“So … why Vegas?” I say, attempting to peel the jerky open. Angelica notices and scurries over to help me.

“Right,” says Jim, a little deflated now. “So, I had three objectives. One, make contact with the aliens. Two, make contact with the people on Paradise. And three, reconstruct your gate and find you.”

“Those are some tall orders,” I say, thanking Angelica and sinking my teeth into more expired jerky.

“You’re telling me,” says Jim. “So, in order to build my machine, I needed a power source. Not just any power source, something immensely robust. Something that remained intact despite the shift and was comparable to Dugway’s infrastructure. I remembered learning about such a place decades ago during a conference in Vegas and I had to check it out.”

“Isn’t this whole town in ruins?” I say.

“Most of it, yes. But the solar array perched atop the Elysium Spire held up against the flood, however. In its prime, it was a state-of-the-art marvel. It was designed to keep luxury penthouses illuminated and high-stakes games alive throughout all kinds of disasters, like, forever, with redundancies on top of redundancies. Casinos had some of the most formidable power hubs in the world back in the day.”

I nod, shrug. “Okay, but, I just—”

“I built the one way gate, Jack,” says Jim. “Not only was I able to use it to connect with Xeno, and figure out a message transfer system with Paradise, but I got it to work again. It has enough power to send one person, like it did before. At least I hope so. For obvious reasons I’ve not been able to test it. But I’m confident it works.”

“How?” Is all I can think to say.

“Listen,” says Jim. “Before we get too deep into all the technical stuff, I want to read you this. I have a message.” He pulls a folded piece of paper from a coat pocket. “A message from Xeno. He wanted me to make sure I read it to you word for word.”

“I’m so confused,” I say, chuckling.

Jim just smiles then clears his throat. “He says, ‘Hey, Jack, heard you jumped off the platform to save Jim’s life. What, are you Diehard now or something? Anyway, turns out Jim is smart enough to build a relatively decent communications array that allows me to convert my thoughts into human language. It’s nowhere near as fun as actually speaking, but it’s better than nothing. Also, my siblings found out I lived inside you and they think that was super gross. Honestly, I agree. But now they won’t let me construct a new vessel; I’m forbidden to travel interstellar now. I blame you. Thanks a lot for that. Good news though. Jim is actually smarter than he looks. He built something, with my help of course, that can send you to Paradise. Probably. Unless you’re already dead by the time he gets to you. If that’s the case, I hope you meet your God on good terms. Post-script: I was the one who figured out how to send meat back to you through the receiving gate, not that dumb kid that’s taking all the credit, so you owe me. Xeno the Star Eater.”

Jim puts the note down and sighs.

“That definitely sounds like Xeno,” I say.

“I don’t know how you lived with him inside your arm for as long as you did,” says Jim. “He’s been insufferable to work with. I can at least walk out of the room.”

“He wasn’t that bad,” I say, cringing, remembering how Xeno’s entire personality was based off of my own.

Jim lets out an incredulous noise that’s half laugh half sigh.

“So … okay, how did you find me then?” I say.

Jim eyes Angelica and Bert, who are on the edges of their seats watching our exchange like two toddlers watching Bluey.

“Well,” starts Jim, “About a year ago, five years after I came to Vegas, I established a connection with Xeno. That in itself was a story worthy of scholarly study, but I digress. We began building a one way gate together. Despite his idiosyncrasies, he was an immense help. But it wasn’t until about a week ago that we figured out a way to geo-target you every time you sent someone to paradise, by reverse engineering the receiving gate. We had a little help from the Pardisians for that.”

“Pardisians?” I say.

“That’s what we’re calling everyone you sent to Paradise.”

“Huh,” I say.

“So when you sent those two kids, who are fine by the way, I was able to break down the math and track your location. Plus, the fire in the window helped too.”

“They’re okay?” says Angelica. “Those kids.”

“According to the reports, yes,” says Jim.

“Good,” she says, glancing at Bert, then looking away.

“About a week ago I started getting strange meat messages,” I say. “Notes on steaks, like: ‘Jim. Vegas. Will save you.’ Or ‘go to Vegas,’ or “Jim can help. Vegas.’ But it was always cryptic. I mean, those messages are always pretty cryptic, there’s only so much you can burn into meat, I guess. And apparently they can only send something to me like once a week.”

“Yeah, there are some limitations. It’s a clever way to communicate one way, but nowhere as difficult as it is for me,” says Jim. “I get correspondences from Paradise in binary. Not to one-up you, Jack.”

“Okay, so … why seek me out?” I say. “If you built another one way gate, why do you need me? I mean, it’s been twenty years,” I huff. “A week ago I thought you were probably dead.”

Jim smiles softly. “You did save my life, Jack. I thought I could return the favor. But, I’ll admit, I didn’t act completely out of a sense of indebtedness.”

“What do you mean?”

“From what I’m expecting, the gate I built can only send one person, like before.”

“Right?” I say.

“And there’s someone else still in my life.”

I scrunch my face up. I’m about to inquire when Bert blurts out: “You’re not still with that snooty Asian chick, are you?”

Angelica reaches over and punches Bert square in the shoulder again.

Bert makes a sort of grunt-hissing sound at her.

“Really?” I say. “You two are still together?”

“It’s been rough, but after awhile she became just as obsessed with the project as I was.”

“You know,” I say. “All that time together, I never figured out what she specialized in.”

Jim grinned. “Alien psychology,” he mutters.

I let out a laugh, then regret it, holding my side in pain with an “ooh, oh oh.”

“Listen,” says Jim, serious now. “I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t save this world. And the aliens, save for Xeno who is all but shackled to his star thanks to his siblings, are not going to save us. It’s taken me two decades to get here, but I’ve arrived. Gwen and I are finally ready to go to Paradise to live the rest of our lives out, however long that might be. And now you have a way to get home too.”

“Gwen?” I say, nodding. “I never knew her first name.”

“Why isn’t she here with you?” Says Angelica.

Him looks suddenly sullen. He tilts his head, thinks for a moment, looks at me, then says. “Because she’s dying too.”

A long moment passes. Then, finally, Bert says: “Okay, this feels like a better ending now.”