It doesn't take long for Micah to return, he's carrying a silver scalpel in his hands. “What are you planning to do with that?” I ask.

“Oh, there's a panel here on the cubicle you were in I needed to open to show you proof,” Micah said, walking past me.

“Okay?” I said, turning around. “Is it so bad that you needed a-”

My eyes go wide as he turns and brings the scalpel down the length of my arm. I feel it burn as he steps back for my counter attack. I grab my arm in pain and look up at him.

“Surprise! There wasn't any panel on the cubicle, but man you should have seen the look on our face!”

“You're fucking dead,” I said, stepping closer towards him.

“Hold on, look at your arm,” Micah said, unmoving.

“Wh-” I said, looking down at my arm. A white liquid trails down my forearm. “White blood?”

“That's my proof,” he said, his arms open again.

“Megan had white blood,” I said, remembering.

“Correct, she was not the actual Megan Adata, she is similar to you. The only difference was I didn't have any of her actual consciousness to implant, so I had to work with memories,” Micah said.

“What do you mean work with?”

“Follow me, I have something to show you which can help explain some things,” He said, walking back down the path he'd gone before. It's a cylindrical hallway that curves around in a half circle.

“W-wait! Why couldn't you just lead me down this way when you were getting your scalpel?” I ask, jogging to catch up, trying to stop the blood flow from my arm, following the path around its bend.

“Because you needed to ask that question! It wouldn't have made sense to you unless you asked that question, everything has a sequence for which it plays out, this has been a long time coming,” Micah said.

“How long of a time?”

“Since I was your age.”

“How long ago was that? And how...is that?” I ask.

“What'd I said about one thing at a time, Gavin?”

He opens a large circular door with a touch of his hand to a scanner beside it and steps inside.

I resist the urge to ask where we are, that question will come in time.

Inside is a golden room. I mean it isn't coated with gold, but it just has this sort of aura to it. It's probably as wide as a classroom, but as for how tall it is, well I couldn't even begin to answer that. It extends up as far as I can see and then some.

The elephant in the room is a machine that sits in the center of the room. It's tower-like with screens at the base surrounding it. Huge power cords lead from the base outward to five different rooms on each of the walls of the hexagonal shaped room.

“This room is what allowed all of this to happen,” Micah begins. “This machine here is a product of the collaborations between my old partner and I in this time.”

“Your partner?”

“He isn't with us in the present moment,” Micah said.

“Oh.”

“This machine is known as ICARUS, which is an acronym for the Infinity Core Amplifier of Research Under the Sun. It's a database for the collective consciousness throughout our history.”

“Explain in smaller words,” I said.

“Think of it like Wikipedia, you know what that is at least, right Gavin?”

“Of course.”

“Good. This is a physical manifestation of that concept. Being able to search up anybody's memories on the fly, it's all through this machine. Learn its secrets and it opens the world and its infinite complexities up to you.”

“Okay, how does that work?”

“You couldn't even understand the concept of it, do you think you would understand the specific mechanics behind it?”

“Dumb it down for me, then,” I said, not caring how much attitude slips out.

“We started manually with each database, fact checking and double checking. When my partner was still here and working on it we both decided manual was way too slow.”

“So you decided to automate it?”

“Yeah, in my time we have advanced energy sources which in short allowed us to automate that process. It took eighteen years for it to be created.”

“Okay, and this machine sent Megan back into my time? You said she was different?”

“Yes, since the Megan that you knew, that we knew died in 2007 I couldn't work with her consciousness since it long passed. So, what I did was install an artificial intelligence protocol with the directive of finding you. This included all of the memories that I could find relating to her,” Micah said. “Think of it as almost-Megan. She wasn't complete, I didn't give her the voice she had since I didn't feel it would be needed, and recreating a voice is much harder than you would believe.”

“Okay, and she was sent back to get me,” I said, running my hand through my hair to understand it.

“Yes, I had to use Radical-9 to send her back, that's the advanced energy source, by the way. While explosive, it also has near limitless power capabilities.”

“I remember Mason saying something like that, how Jack was growing stronger every day.”

“Yeah, it's what allowed me to use ICARUS to send her back. I used that explosive power this stuff has and transformed it into a source I could use. I basically blew a hole in the time-space continuum.”

“Isn't that dangerous?” The question I had asked seemed...foolish. Of course it sounded dangerous, but I still had to see how he would respond.

“Not as dangerous as the threat we face.”

“And what danger is that?”

“One thing at a time, Gavin. Do I have to go find a chalkboard to make you write it down? If I had known how stubborn you would be to not understand I would have brought a spare notepad.” Micah asked.

I take a deep breath. I notice I've calmed a bit since I've arrived. It's strange that it's now I find a sense of comfort. As wild as this all was, it was helpful taking each piece one step at a time. I wasn’t sure how I felt about all this yet, but I was still standing, and he was the reason for that. I had to take this one step by one step.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask. “What did you need for Megan to break open time itself to bring me here?”

“Telos,” he said.

“Tell who what?”

“You ask for the Telos. It's Greek, Gavin.”

“You sure love your Greek shit, don't you?”

“I find it very thematic, yes,” Micah smiles. “What can I said? They were natural storytellers. Made everything all wrapped up in a nice bow. Telos here in this context means ultimate object, or more easily recognizable, end goal. My end goal is to save this timeline.”

“Timeline?”

“You remember me telling you earlier that this was 2060, but not your 2060, correct?” Micah asked.

I nod my head. “Yeah, I think I’ve wrapped my head around that concept. It’s...hard, if I’m being honest.”

“If it were easy I wouldn’t be having the need of bringing you here,” Micah said.

I nod in response to this.

“The reason, Gavin, that you and I are both here right now is no trick or lie. There’s no twist here but for the fact that this is not your 2060. We’re parallel to your time. I do not know how your future looks, but if I had not acted as I did…” he trailed off and looked down to the floor. “Things would not be in your favor. That’s as easy I can explain without talking more about a lot of different things. As easy as I can explain it is you are in an alternate timeline. Your consciousness went through the hole in time that I created when your body blew up.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Why'd it do that?”

“Normally your consciousness would evaporate to the afterlife or whatever anyone else believes in. My partner and I found out that there is a short window for when the consciousness—you can consider that your soul—is separated from the body. I sent Megan back because I needed her to give you those memories.”

“The memories of the Radical-9 incident?” I ask.

He nods his head, “Yes, exactly.”

“They started when she pressed her finger on my forehead at first, and then she gouged out her own eye to do it again, but with her blood.”

“Blood substitute,” Micah corrects.

“Right.”

“She used the Radical-9 within her bloodstream so to speak to convey those memories to you.”

“I still don't understand how that kept me from dying.”

“Technically, it didn't. For all intents and purposes you are dead. I just rerouted your path after such. You see, memories have a desire to go back from where they originated after death. That's why your soul leaves your body and would go to who knows where. You ended up here because you had enough of those memories in your system to override the original desire of your own memories. The new ones you had received became a higher priority to send home, and so they took the only path that they could, right back through the hole ICARUS had created.”

“Okay, that makes sense, and my old memories are here for the ride?”

“They're an anomaly, memories that should have gone, but still exist on our plane. Quite interesting, don't you think?”

“You're a lot more serious than a few moments ago,” I said.

“Because we're going to a topic that requires as much,” Micah said, turning around. “Gavin, I'm going to show you something, I want you to be prepared for it,” he said, stern.

“O-Okay,” I said, not really knowing what to make of that.

Micah walks over to the main tower of ICARUS and finds the keypad connected to the machine. He begins typing away at it, it doesn't even look like he's looking at the keyboard. I guess we have that in common, it really came in handy when I was writing papers for school. Wow, that feels like such a long time ago.

“I'm going to open the view to outside, this room is surrounded by a bunch of now shielded windows. I want you to look out and see if you can find anything of interest,” he said, still typing.

I look up to see the golden-like metal sheets covering the walls recede away one by one, revealing a metal frame with some sort of glass windows. They recede even up near the top and through there I can also see outside. I see the nighttime sky, the stars shine brilliantly on their near-black canvas. There's a chunk of space rocks among the stars. "You mean those giant bits of rock? Is that a meteor?"

“Not exactly."

"What is it then?"

"That little space shithole is Earth."

"Woah, hold on a second now...that’s Earth?! Where the hell are we?"

“We're on a settlement on the moon,” he said, as straight faced as ever.

“I don't...”

“You know of the events of The Exploding Man. That much you saw, and even what happened directly afterwards, correct?”

“Yeah, I lived in a shithole,” I said.

“Things kept that way until about 2021, my time. People started to get a grip on reality and society began to slowly rebuild itself. People calmed down and looting slowed dramatically. It was a miracle. Peace had seemed to return to normal lifestyle for quite a time until around 2027 when a dictator of sorts had taken control of the country. He was another envoy of the Queen of England. He brought structure back to us, but he took away freedom.”

“What was his name?”

“Oliver Avery. He moved the capital to San Francisco, actually. I don't know the details on why, but he did. Then we fast forward to two years later. On March 18th, 2029 Radical-9 is released to the public.”

“What? How does that happen?”

“It's in that year that Jack Adata dies, his body is at it's absolute peak for Radical-9 concentration. The explosion destroys all of New York and a bit of Jersey. Gone, completely wiped off of the map. The radiation spreads far and wide, and soon other people who are irradiated by the original blast begin to have similar adverse affects as Jack had. Fast forward once more about fourteen years to 2042 and nuclear war is waged almost tenfold. People lose control of their bodies, Jack was a single man and he took out the entire state of New York. What do you think happens when thousands of people go nuclear?”

The pieces start falling into place. “And you said we were on the moon.”

“Yeah, specifically, a base prepped for the remaining percent of the population who didn't become irradiated to the Radical-9 and make it off the planet before it's destruction. You are now standing in one of the ten bases on the moon created for that sole purpose," His tone deepens.

“So…this is all real?” I ask.

“Very, but don’t get so down! We’re on the fuckin’ moon! How many people back home can said that? Huh?” His demeanor changes on a dime.

"A moon base?" I said again, trying to process all of the in-formation.

"Its name is Sustineo-10 as in it is the tenth built, although this one coincidentally was abandoned for its contamination of Radical-9. Ironic, huh? Or…would that be coincidence? I don’t know, but it’s funny all the same," he chuckles.

"It's contaminated in here?!" I ask.

"Nah, I'm messing with you," Micah laughs.

“Okay, so where are the others, the other survivors, I mean?”

“They're currently in cryogenic sleep, Gavin. Each of these five doors holds a cryogenic pod which rests a survivor. The pods are being kept online by ICARUS.”

“And what about you?”

“Me, well, it's my job to make sure that they don't die and humanity doesn't go extinct. Those five people are the last humans besides us two.”

“What?”

“Yeah, there was little room in the rocket that made it up here. I'm supposed to wait out the Radical-9 contamination and then wake them when it is safe enough for them to propagate.”

“Must be a lonely job,” I said.

“Yeah. Ever since my partner...it became lonely after that. Been at it for forty-two years, and eighteen without him. But it's going to be okay, because now you're here.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask, looking again at the broken piece of rock in the sky that used to be Earth.”

“Like you, I was infected with Radical-9. The reason I'm not in one of those pods is because I had it in my system, but for whatever reason I didn't explode like the others, ergo I didn't die. I lost that threat when I shifted my consciousness into this automaton. That power of which I spent ten years researching in my downtime here. Studying, endless studying and I find the solution, my partner and I do. We create our first automaton, it was a prototype model, it failed in the end, but it led to this model, the one we both inhabit.”

“What's different?”

“There's something different about you, your soul,” he said.

“You mean our soul?”

“No, as strange as that sounds. I think it's because you're supposed to be dead, but you've got some Radical-9 bound to your soul.”

“So what? I'm forever poisoned by this shit?”

“I do not know what would happen to your body now, probably similar to your last one if you died, but that's how you were able to see the visions while you were inside the locked cubicle. You wouldn't have been able to if you didn't have any in your system. ICARUS is limited, as much as it can do, it can only show me what is officially recorded through history. What we need is a way to prevent Radical-9 from ever existing, or at the very least, from Jack coming into contact with it.”

“Okay, I'm listening.”

“A fortunate side effect to showing you all of those memories from ICARUS is that you've gotten used to how they are, how they interact with your mind, right?”

“That's debatable, they just kind of force their way in. Well, actually except for that last time where I guess I could control it,” I correct.

“Well, what I need you to do is to work on the ability to fully control it, so that instead of them coming to you, you go to them. That way you can actually interact with them, fill in the holes we have.”

“What holes would that be?”

“I don't know, if we did our job would be easy, huh?”

“So, anything relating to Radical-9, then?”

“Exactamundo Gavamundo. These aren't exactly going to act as memories, because you'll effectively be going back in time to when these events happened.”

“So I'll be time traveling?”

“Yes, that's how it's basically been for you receiving these memories, or at least it would have been if you had a stronger pull. Now with ICARUS here you'll have that and be able to make that travel.”

“But I'll still be in your timeline, right?”

“Yes, you won't swap back over to yours when you go back.”

“Will I ever go back to my own?”

“Yes, once we find out how to stop Jack.”

“Okay, I think I want to try this,” I said.

“It really doesn't matter that you want to. I mean, there's not much else you can do here,” Micah said.

I guess he's right, and for the time being I'm going to believe him, it all sounds right. If I can stop this stuff, the Radical-9, maybe I can save those it took from this place? Mason, my father, my mother, Sal and his kids, Megan. All of them. I'm going to do it.

I have to.