CHAPTER 36

175 Thousand Years Ago

The Pillars of Jericho

Middle Paleolithic Era Earth

Moving like lightning, Riley took off, barreling straight toward the red mark at the center of the map. Bethany and Isaac looked at each other, still confused about what had just happened. Isaac sighed, then they took off after Riley.

“Riley, what are you doing?” Bethany asked through the internal comms, but Riley offered no response.

Isaac was furious. He had been putting up with Riley holding back information for too long. Now, when they stood at the precipice of ending the nightmare that had followed them across space-time, Isaac could no longer stand it. He accelerated and overtook Riley, turned around and faced him in midair, then stopped in front of him.

Riley made a sudden stop inches from Isaac’s face. He retracted his face armor so Isaac could see the rage in his eyes. “Are you crazy?” he barked.

“I’m sick of you holding out on us, Riley,” Isaac said. “We’re a team. If you know something, then we deserve to know it too.”

Riley glared at him, then lowered his head with a sigh. “Going in, I expected a reset, so I deployed a backup system outside the border and uploaded everything I saw. When we were reset, the data beyond the border survived.”

With a mental command, the video appeared on both Bethany’s and Isaac’s heads-up displays. In silence, they watched the footage from Riley’s perspective. Bethany was anxious by the end of the clip.

Isaac retracted his face armor and glared at Riley. “And you weren’t going to share that?” he shouted.

Riley shook his head. “We came here to avoid the Children of the Corn. Instead, we found them.”

Bethany retracted her face armor. “What do you mean?”

“These people,” Riley said. “The way they dress, their language, their technology, there’s no doubt about it. This is their past, their origin. If their ancestors know we’re here, the future knows it too. We’re out of time, and standing here talking about it won’t help.”

Riley blasted off. Bethany and Isaac armored their faces and followed him. Moments later, they arrived at the temple and saw the villagers near the entrance. Riley landed with a thud, the impact of his landing knocking some villagers down. They gasped when they saw Riley again and ran at him with madness in their eyes. Riley released gas from his suit and it spread quickly, putting the villagers to sleep in seconds. Riley made four golf ball-sized drones from his armor. The drones flew several feet into the air and scattered, each flying in a different direction.

Isaac and Bethany landed near Riley and looked around. Bethany wanted to ask what Riley did to the villagers, but she knew he wouldn’t answer. She scanned the villagers and saw that they were sleeping. Bethany looked up and spotted Riley walking into the dome, with Isaac following him. She took another glance at the sleeping villagers and moved toward the entrance of the dome.

The moment the priest, Jalareel, heard the thud, he knew the armored people had returned. He was standing by the reset device, which was already spinning, and was about to insert the staff into the hole at the top. Bethany leaped into the air and landed a blow to the reset device, shattering it into pieces and denting the floor. Jalareel fell back, panting for breath. The three giants ran to his aid, trying to help him back to his feet.

Jalareel struggled up, clutching his chest. “What do you want from us?” he asked.

Bethany saw fear in his eyes. Her instincts told her to run to him, calm him, and tell him everything would be all right. Instead, she could only grit her teeth, knowing it wasn’t the time for kindness.

“Your mighty Janus knows things, doesn’t he?” she asked. “Hasn’t he told you? You call him God, you worship him, but he’s no god. He’s a creation of man, an accident, a mistake we’re here to put right.”

The priest picked up his staff and used it for support. “Janus is a benevolent god. Why would you wish him harm?”

“Is he?” Bethany asked. “Did you know that the doomed future he told you about, the one where the world ends and everyone dies, that he’s responsible for it?” Bethany retracted her armor so the priest and his followers could see her face.

“You think we’re some sort of higher beings?” she continued. “We’re just humans, like you. We’re trying to save the world, your world, for your children, and their children, for thousands of generations to come.” Bethany turned and walked toward Isaac and Riley. She stopped and looked back at Jalareel and his men. “You should leave now. Things are about to get ugly.”

The priest moved toward the exit but the three giants grumbled and didn’t follow him. They glared at Bethany and the others with rage in their eyes. The old man noticed that they weren’t following him. He stopped and spoke to them, placing a hand on the nearest giant’s shoulder. The giant looked down at Jalareel, who shook his head. The giant sighed, then called the others with a screech and all four walked out of the dome.

Riley waited until they were gone, then held his hand toward the entrance, releasing nanites from his armor in a spiral. The nanites covered the entrance and created a perfectly-formed barrier to seal the wall. Riley turned and joined Isaac and Bethany near the sphere.

Isaac turned to Riley. “Is this it? Is this how we save the world?”

“It’s too early to say,” Riley answered.

All three retracted their face armors. Bethany and Isaac opened a holographic display and studied the sphere, while Riley guarded their rear. He watched them work and monitored the exterior of the dome via the small holographic display in front of him.

One by one, the villagers woke up, dizzy and confused. They gradually remembered what had happened. They screamed, turning to face the dome. Soon, they were all standing, screeching and marching toward the entrance. Jalareel raised his staff. Some of the villagers were silent but others continued to roar. A giant with a patchy beard stepped forward and roared, and everyone fell completely quiet. Riley grimaced at the sound. He never forgot a face, especially one like Goliath’s, and the three identical giants who followed the priest looked very much like him.

“Show me Goliath,” Riley told Sky, wanting to confirm his suspicions

Sky displayed a picture of Goliath with his thick beard and massive hammer and resized the images of the three giants beside it. Riley grunted. They looked identical; it couldn’t have been a descendant. Riley could only assume that, somehow, Goliath and the three giants were all the same person. The only explanation he could come up with was that, at some point in the future, one of the three giants would travel to the future and become Goliath.

A thunderous bang suddenly sounded outside the dome. Riley’s drones relocated until they spotted a temporal breach opening about three hundred feet in the air. Soon after the first, more breaches opened at the same altitude, then more until hundreds of them were spread across the sky. From the breaches emerged the Children of the Corn, hundreds of them dropping from the sky and landing in formations around the dome. There were various groups of them. Some wore skintight battle suits, while others had exoskeletons. The final batch to arrive were in large mechanized battle armors. Riley shifted his focus to the mechs. Each of them stood fifteen feet tall and they were armed to teeth.

Once they had all landed, the breaches closed. Riley’s breathing intensified as he watched them prepare to attack. He had expected them to come but hoped they wouldn’t. The thought of losing when they were so close to finally preventing the end of everything frightened him more than anything else.

“What going on out there?” Bethany asked.

Riley took a deep breath and turned to her. “They’re here.”

Bethany and Isaac stared at him, wide-eyed.

“What now?” Isaac asked.

“Keep going,” Riley grunted. He faced the entrance and braced himself, ready for whatever might come through the door.

Something struck the outside of the dome, echoing around the interior and making the ground shake. Even so, the dome was undamaged. Riley looked at the external feed. Sky counted a thousand soldiers surrounding the dome, standing in straight lines, with each group welding various weapons. An oval-shaped aircraft hovered above the dome, firing energy pulses at it. Despite the mighty force in each shot, the dome remained unscathed. Riley silently thanked whatever technology had made the dome so resilient. At the same time, he questioned how long it could hold them out. Riley was confident that their armor was far superior to anything the Children of the Corn had, but there were too many. The trio didn’t stand a chance. He looked at Bethany and Isaac as they struggled to figure out the sphere. Riley had watched them die before, Isaac more than once. He didn’t want to see it again. Multiple energy projectiles hit the dome simultaneously and it shook more violently than before. Still, it stood firm.

A man stepped out from a gap between the lines of soldiers. His clothing resembled a leather strip wrapped around him from head to toe, covering every part of him but his face. His long hair looked as though it was floating on the wind. His unusually slim body moved effortlessly. He stood twelve feet tall, and his staff was five feet higher than him. The staff strongly resembled Jalareel’s, but the light along the frame was different. The aircraft stopped firing. The man paused for a moment, looked at his subordinates, then spoke in blips and high-pitched tones. He paused again, then spoke in English.

“I speak in this tongue so you will hear me, Riley Karlsson, the time-cursed warrior. I am Orion Corn, the father of a thousand children, follower of the mighty one, Janus. Your crimes against humanity, and the generations yet unborn, have not gone unnoticed by the great one. Your day of reckoning has come.”

Orion Corn lifted his staff and every soldier in Jericho raised their weapons and screamed in one voice.

“Hallow is the mighty one, who knows all, sees all. He who heralds the past and the future, who holds the tribe of Jericho, birthed the Corn of eternity through which we, the children emerged. Hallow be Janus.”

Corn stopped when he reached the front of the army. He turned and spoke to the soldiers. “Look, children! Bear witness to the greatness of our ancestors. The Dome of Jericho has proven itself formidable today but now, let us behold our fathers in the glory of their great wisdom.”

Corn turned to the villagers, who had retreated and watched in awe as the Children of the Corn arrived. He reached out to them and spoke in beeps and blips. The priest, Jalareel, looked to his people, then walked toward Corn. The others briefly spoke among themselves, then followed. When Jalareel stood before Orion Corn, Corn took his hands and knelt before him.

“Great, mighty ancestor, Jalareel, eighty generations before me. I see you. We have traveled from the time to come, to free you from the treachery of these men.”

Jalareel’s mouth fell open as he listened to Orion Corn. He touched the stranger’s face, then moved his hand to the back of his head and pulled him into an embrace, tears welling in his eyes. Even on his knees, Corn still towered over Jalareel and everyone else.

“Y… you’re my lineage,” the priest stammered. “My blood. You are great, just as the mighty Janus promised. You are Corn.” Jalareel smiled proudly, trying to hold back his tears. He reached up and kissed Corn’s forehead.

“Great one,” Corn said, “the Dome of Janus is formidable, for some of the old ways have been lost to us. The future has not been kind and we have needed to rely on force and brutality to survive. Show us your ways, great one. Teach us how it is done. Show us the will of Janus.”

Jalareel sighed, his face beaming like the sun. He turned to the villagers and tapped his staff on the ground. The villagers immediately fell into formation. He lifted the staff and everyone raised both hands, spreading their feet. They looked up at the sky and sang in unison. With each movement of their hands, they produced a different tone. With each move of their body, they shifted the pitch.

Riley watched everything happening outside. He hoped the ceremony might at least afford them the time they need to figure the sphere out. Each time he glanced back at Bethany and Isaac, they appeared no nearer to a solution. Riley knew it was only a matter of time until the Children of the Corn found a way in. All he could do was be ready.

Once the villagers had been singing for about ten minutes, a deep hum echoed across the wall of the dome, and the entire structure turned at the base. The walls split into layers, each one spinning in a different direction.

“Shit!” Riley exclaimed.

When the villagers saw the dome moving, they amplified their voices. It continued to spin but then suddenly stopped. Vibrations spread across the surrounding ground, raising a thick cloud of dust. Each layer of the dome hovered into the air, forming eight spinning rings. Everyone stopped for a moment to behold the wonder. The villagers gazed in awe at the rings as they spun on both axes in the sky, never touching another.

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With the dome in the air, Riley sprinted to Isaac and Bethany, who were looking up at the rings. He grabbed Isaac’s arm.

“Isaac, look at them!” Riley said, pointing at the surrounding army. “There are too many of them. We can’t win but Bethany and I can buy you time, as long as we can. Remember, we’re not here to survive this. We’re here to save the world. It’s all up to you now.”

Isaac stood frozen as he stared into Riley’s eyes. He wondered why, of all the brilliant people in the world, Riley considered him and Bethany to be the best candidates for saving the planet. He looked down, lost for words. They had been preparing for this moment for a long time. Now that it was here, it seemed like nothing they did would ever matter. Isaac closed his eyes and tried to ignore those negative thoughts.

“Promise me, Isaac!” Riley barked.

“I… I’ll do everything I can. I promise.”

Riley nodded. He moved a few feet from Isaac, then held both hands out. Nanites flowed from Riley’s armor to Isaac and covered him with a dome structure. Riley turned to Bethany, who looked back at him with affection. They stared into each other’s eyes, both knowing that this could be their last chance to say goodbye. In a flash, visions returned to Riley. He had seen this moment before, shrouded in utter darkness with nothing beyond. He knew this was it for them. Riley exhaled slowly. For just one moment, he imagined living a different life. He saw a house by the beach, surfing, two beautiful children, and Bethany. A wave of regret swept over him. For as long as they had known each other, Riley and Bethany had both harbored feelings that neither of them spoke about. Now, looking back, Riley knew he could have done better. In any case, none of that mattered now.

Bethany approached Riley, taking one heavy stride after another. Riley expected her to stop but she didn’t. Instead, Bethany held the back of Riley’s head and pulled him closer to her until their lips finally touched. She kissed him deeply. For a moment, Riley abandoned all his senses, thoughts, and focus. All he could feel was the taste of her lips. His first instinct was to pull away but he didn’t. He didn’t want to. Riley couldn’t remember ever kissing anyone before. If he had, he didn’t recall how it felt. Now, with Bethany’s lips pressed against his, it felt as though everything mattered again. If his entire world was this one moment, it was a world worth fighting for. Riley reached his hand to Bethany’s cheek, held her, and returned her kiss. Inside the dome, Isaac watched with a grin.

“It’s about damn time,” he muttered.

They slowly parted, both smiling. It was the first time Bethany could remember seeing Riley smile and his expression brought her joy.

Riley armored his face and turned to face the army approaching them. Bethany did the same. She created a huge sword and held it over her shoulder.

“Ready when you are,” Bethany growled.

Orion Corn slowly walked toward Riley and Bethany. He stopped a short distance away and studied them.

“You are fierce, I have seen that. Even you know you cannot win against so many. Perhaps I should offer you a chance to surrender, a chance for peaceful, painless retribution.”

Riley took a step closer to Corn and frowned. “Perhaps I should tear your head from your shoulders and paint this ground with your blood.”

Corn stared at Riley. Riley wondered if the silence meant he was afraid. The Children of the Corn must have known how dangerous Riley was or they wouldn’t have brought so many soldiers. Riley snorted. He wished he could have seen their faces, seen how afraid they were beneath their masks. He waited for Corn to respond, but nothing came. To the bottom left of his heads-up display was a three hundred and sixty-degree view of Isaac’s dome. At that moment, Isaac was the most important of them. If he died, it had all been for nothing.

“I guess the slender man is tongue-tied,” Bethany joked over the internal comms.

“The longer he takes to react, the better,” Riley said. “Keep an eye on Isaac.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Bethany teased.

Corn finally moved and raised his staff. “So be it,” he said and hit the staff against the ground. The men screeched and opened fire.

Bethany snarled and raised her sword to block the energy projectiles. Riley took off from the ground, ascending through the spinning rings, then charged at the soldiers with raised fists. With a loud thud, he landed fist-first among them, creating a concussive blast that knocked down everybody within ten meters. Riley quickly stood up and looked for Corn. He found him and charged with almost impossible speed, punching through every soldier in his path. Since receiving the upgraded Vindex in Machina armor, it was the first time Riley had thrown a punch without restraint. With every blow, he shattered bones and crushed internal organs, killing them before they hit the ground. Within seconds, Riley had cleared a direct path to Corn. He looked down at his hands. They were covered with blood. Riley’s heart was pounding in his chest. He looked around at the soldiers. He expected resistance but it was all too easy. They might have been kids and he wouldn’t even know it. Riley couldn’t stop; all that mattered was the mission. He looked at Corn, who was looking straight back at him.

Riley grunted and charged at Corn with his right fist raised, ready to send him to hell. As he approached, he noticed a slight smile on Corn’s face and wondered what was so amusing. He reached him and threw his punch but it went straight through his target. It was a holographic decoy. Wasting no time, Riley flew up and looked down. There were more than fifty images of Corn spread around the area.

“Some help here?” Riley asked.

“Oh really?” Sky responded. “I thought you were fine doing everything without assistance now.”

“This isn’t the time, Sky!” Riley yelled. “Find Corn!”

“Okay okay, I’m already on it.”

The majority of the soldiers continued firing at Riley, while a small group focused on Bethany and Isaac. Bethany swung her huge sword while moving at super speed, cutting through multiple soldiers with each swipe. With every soldier she put down, Bethany felt her arms tremble and her stomach churn, but she ignored them. She reminded herself that it wasn’t about her; it was about the future. It was about billions of lives. A whip wrapped around her neck from behind and yanked her back. As she fell, Bethany turned in the air, transformed her sword into an energy cannon, and opened fire, blowing several holes through the soldier and his allies. As she landed, she spotted a small group of soldiers attacking Isaac’s dome. Bethany flew toward the dome when something struck her side. She landed on her feet and skidded to a stop. Bethany roared. She looked up and noticed a mechanized battle armor standing nearby. It reminded her of the medical mecha she once shared with Isaac. She quickly scanned the armor. It was fifteen feet of compressed titanium alloy with a miniature fusion reactor on the back and numerous cannons. Compared to Bethany’s current armor, the mecha was antiquated. She could have flown through it in a second, but Bethany had learned never to underestimate any opponent, even if they appeared weaker. She forged her sword, spun it a few times, then threw it at the mecha. It swiftly stepped aside and evaded the weapon. Bethany created another sword and charged at the soldier. It opened fire on her but she activated an energy shield that deflected the projectiles. Bethany was about to connect a charged blow to the mecha when something hit her from behind. She fell on her chest, bouncing several meters before sliding to a stop. She groaned as the pain spread across her back but it was nothing new. She resisted the temptation to turn and face her enemy. Instead, she flew forward and spun in mid-air. She saw the two mechas taking aim and Bethany grinned as adrenaline took over. Finally, she could put her skills to the test.

From her position, Bethany could easily flatten the mechas with energy pulses powerful enough to shift a tectonic plate, but what was the challenge in that? She landed and dashed at the mechas. They assumed battle stances and charged at her. The leading mecha lashed a metal whip at her face. She dodged it, pushed his hand aside, then rammed her other fist against the armored chin. The mecha staggered back. The second mecha was charging at her with its hands up, ready to catch Bethany. She hit a spinning back kick with so much force that it shattered the glass hull, exposing the pilot as the mecha stumbled. Bethany pursued it, lifted it into the air, then slammed it onto the other mecha.

Bethany landed near the crushed mechas and watched to see if they would get back up. She felt a sudden cold on her back. Bethany turned quickly to see a mecha holding her with a beam of light from his chest. She tried to move but her limbs felt too heavy. A foot soldier ran to her and placed a round device on her chest. The device attached itself to her armor and drilled into it. Bethany desperately tried to pull it off but she couldn’t move her hands. As she struggled to free herself from the tractor beam, another mecha fired a large ball of energy at her, knocking her down. Bethany pushed herself up and tried to fly. The mecha grabbed her leg and threw her at another mecha, which smashed a large hammer against her face. The hammer shattered on impact but so did part of the armor covering Bethany’s face. Bethany hurtled through the air like a cannonball. She struck the ground hard and bounced. She tried to get up but a sharp pain shot through her ribs. Bethany groaned and fell back down. Five human-sized robots with pointed metal legs surrounded her, each firing a disruptive jolt of electricity at her. She tried to fly away but her suit’s systems were unresponsive. Groaning, she looked up and saw Riley, drenched in blood, punching through one soldier after another.

Riley flew up above the soldiers. He released drones from his suit, which went after every image of Corn. The drones flew through all the holographic decoys, except one. Corn grabbed the drone and crushed it in his hand. Riley smirked. He charged at Corn, knocking down every soldier in his way. Riley reached out to grab Corn but he suddenly lost his momentum. He felt a hand holding his ankle. Before Riley could react, the hand yanked him back forcefully. He landed and bounced several times, but eventually landed on his feet. Riley looked up and saw none other than Goliath, of all the sons of Corn. Goliath appeared modified since the last time they met. He had more metal parts, with both hands, most of his face, and back covered in metal.

“Riley Karlsson,” Goliath growled, “I told you this wasn’t over.” He grinned. His teeth and the entire inside of his mouth were covered in metal. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

“Shit,” Riley muttered. He remembered their battle vividly. Riley had improved since then but he still preferred not to face Goliath in a fight. Goliath was formidable then, he would be formidable now, especially with the backing of a thousand soldiers. Riley couldn’t afford a drawn-out fight with him. He needed to put Goliath down as quickly as possible and capture Corn to force his army to surrender.

Riley flew straight at Goliath and clenched his fist, ready to knock him out, or to kill him, when he noticed Goliath flickering. It was another decoy. Before Riley could recalibrate, Goliath’s hammer collided with the side of his face, sending him crashing down. Riley quickly tried to get back up but his suit’s system was going haywire and his display was distorted. Riley couldn’t see a thing and he knew Goliath wouldn’t waste his opportunity. He needed to see his surroundings as soon as possible. Riley retracted his face armor to get a visual of his surrounding. Just as the armor dissolved from around his face, Goliath attached a device to the back of Riley’s head. The device quickly spread into a collar around his neck and shocked him with a powerful dose of electricity. Riley was paralyzed from the neck down. He stared up at Goliath, wide-eyed, but he could do nothing.

With a wide grin, Goliath lifted his hammer over his head. He swung it down toward Riley’s head with a manic scream. The hammer’s head was less than a second from Riley’s face when Isaac rammed his shoulder into Goliath’s side, knocking him away. Goliath rolled over and immediately tried to get back up, only to receive a full-powered blow to the side of his face. He fell again, the metal part of his face shattered, and the light in his eyes flickering. He tried to get up but his robotic parts were unresponsive. His arms and legs twitched rapidly. Isaac stood over him and morphed his hand into a cannon. He pointed it at Goliath’s face, preparing to fire. Isaac hesitated. Projectiles were flying at him from every direction but they didn’t affect him. His armor had two-thirds of Riley’s nanites.

Bethany was on her knees, struggling to free herself from the disruptive energy coursing through her armor. She saw what Isaac was about to do and gasped. Of the trio, only Isaac had never killed before, not a vilis or a human. Now he was a moment away from taking a person's life because he had to. Bethany snarled, trying to push herself beyond her limits. She couldn’t let him do it, couldn’t allow him to sacrifice his innocence, not even for the world. She had to stop him before it was too late. With all the strength she could muster, Bethany pushed herself out of the trap and flew straight at Isaac, screaming. An energy pulse was about to shoot from Isaac’s cannon when Bethany flew into him and knocked him away from Goliath. Isaac tumbled several times before he stopped. He looked up at Bethany, confused.

Bethany was sitting, panting for breath. She looked at Goliath, who was already getting back up. When she saw the look in Goliath’s eyes, Bethany knew she had done the right thing by saving him.

Goliath spoke in a deep, croaking voice. “Why?”

Bethany retracted her face armor, smiling. She had heard exactly what she needed from him. It was the one thing that had never occurred between the Children of the Corn and Riley: a conversation. They had never given Riley a chance to explain himself, not that Riley was willing to do so. If only the two sides had realized how similar they were.

“Because, despite all this,” Bethany said, trying to catch her breath, “we’re fighting for the same thing.”

Goliath seemed surprised. “How?”

“Have you ever asked yourself why we do this? Wondered why we risk our lives, time after time, knowing you’re trying to kill us?”

Goliath turned to look at Orion Corn. Corn raised a hand to Goliath, and Goliath nodded slightly and took a step back.

“In the future,” Bethany explained, “the world will end suddenly. Billions will die and the sphere you worship, Janus, is the reason that doomsday will occur. We’re only trying to stop it, to prevent the end of the world.”

“Liar!” a voice shouted from among the soldiers. Moments later, every soldier was roaring the word.

Corn raised his staff and everyone fell silent. He approached Bethany then stopped, keeping his distance. “You dare to blaspheme against the mighty Janus?” he accused.

Bethany sighed. “Your god is the product of an accident. It was a creation of man, a man like you and me. It isn’t divine; it’s going to destroy the world. We’re only trying to stop it, that’s all we’ve ever wanted. We risk our lives trying to save our world. It’s your world too. What about you? What are you trying to accomplish here?”

There was murmuring among the Children of the Corn again.

Corn raised his staff and everyone was silent. “Janus warned us of this man, Riley Karlsson. He told us he would come with two allies.” He pointed at Isaac. “Together, you three herald the end of the world. Janus is the only one standing in your way and you seek to destroy him for it.”

“Did he tell you why?” Isaac asked as he approached Bethany. “Did he tell you why we want to destroy the world?”

Corn shook his head slowly. “The reason doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” Isaac said. “He didn’t give you a reason because there isn’t one. We aren’t trying to destroy the world. We’re trying to save it.”

Corn slowly raised a hand and slid his goggles down. He pulled down the black strip of cloth wrapped around his face, revealing a pale face with dark eyes.

“Your god is not a god,” Isaac continued. “All it is, all it has ever been, is an anomaly. We know we can save the world if we destroy it.”

An energy pulse emerged from among the soldiers and struck Isaac, but it merely shook him. Another came, then another, but Isaac didn’t fight back.

“Look around you! Look at this bloodshed, at the lives wasted here today. Was it worth it? I know you think Janus is giving you so much but have you ever questioned if he’s only doing it to take things away?”

Corn stared at the ground for a moment, then slowly raised his slim face. “You said he was man’s creation. Was this the man called Endurance?”

“Yes,” Riley answered as he stood up, holding the broken halves of the collar in his hand. “His name is Garth Andrews. He wore armor like ours but it was large, old, and rusted. He called it Endurance. He created the sphere. He also sent us here to undo his mistakes, to save the world.” Riley started walking toward Corn. “I can see it in your eyes, that you’ve known the truth for a while. You just refused to acknowledge it.”

“If you destroy him…” Corn said, “then he never was, he never sent us to the future.”

“And none of these events took place. None of these people have to die.” Riley held his side. “But it isn’t always that simple. Time is a mystery. Nothing is set in stone.”

Corn lowered his staff, frowning. He looked at his people for a moment, then turned to Jalareel and the villagers. He spoke to them in beeps and screeches. Jalareel bowed his head, then turned to the villagers and spoke. They all nodded. Corn tapped his staff on the ground and a large temporal breach swirled open nearby. He led the villagers and priests through the breach, then it closed behind them. Goliath raised a fist in the air, opening a breach. One by one, the remaining soldiers opened breaches and walked into them.

Soon, Riley, Bethany, and Isaac were left standing alone in Jericho, surrounded by the bodies of fallen soldiers.

“I didn’t see that coming,” Riley grunted and started limping toward the sphere.