Several hours had passed since their arrival, and John couldn't understand how they ended up in the Fracture Compound. The last thing he remembered was the choice he had made. He recalled running to the Hawk, how Alexa had sacrificed herself to save him and Samantha. Memories of the collapse and how the energy wave had destroyed the Hawk's engines washed over him. In the next moment, night turned to day. A jolt. He stood in the Gardens of Eternity among the shards of the Memory Cube.
John was sitting on a hospital bed. His suit had been removed. Bruises and contusions marked his bare body. Apparently, the energy field had protected him during the fall but hadn't spared him from injuries. Jessica was constantly moving around him. She examined him, conducted tests, drew blood, and placed it in small vials. John raised his hand and clenched it into a fist — the crimson scab of dried blood flaked off. A flash. He found himself again in the control room of the Rift Gates. A flash. A female voice asked him:
"How are you, John?" Jessica asked, shining a small flashlight in his eyes. "All tests are good. No serious injuries," she lowered the flashlight. "Just scrapes and bruises. No more."
"Amanda is dead," the Wanderer said. "Alexa is dead... Why?"
"Oh," the woman straightened up. "No, Amanda is alive. In serious condition, but alive. She lost a lot of blood. She'll need to rest. You were protected by the energy field. A protective disk was found on her chest, but it ran out of charge. It might have saved her from the crash, but metal fragments still reached her."
"I understand," John interrupted.
"Samantha told me briefly what happened..."
"And what did she say?" John looked up at the doctor.
"The Last Ones..." the woman replied briefly, "the Last Ones wanted to destroy the world. And you and Samantha saved it..."
"Oh," John smirked, "not quite."
"I see," Jessica placed a cadet's uniform next to him. "Here's some clothing. Your suit is undergoing diagnostics, so you can wear this for now... Remember the past, so to speak."
"I remember it," John put on the pants and shirt and stood up from the bed.
"Wait," the doctor stopped him, approached closer, and took his hand. "This will hurt a little." Jessica examined the wounds on his arm left by glass shards. She picked at the scab and reached the red flesh underneath. Bringing forth something resembling a small handle, she pressed a button. A blue light streamed onto the wounds. John watched as they healed and were covered by skin. "It can't heal severe injuries, but small ones are a piece of cake."
"That didn't need to be done," John turned his palm.
"It did," Jessica replied. "Martha asked me to tell you she's waiting in her office for a report. Can you go see her?" she asked.
"Okay," the Wanderer agreed. "But first I'll talk to my sister."
After receiving the doctor's response, Jonathan left the infirmary and made his way through the corridors to his room. The elevator slowly took him to the upper floors of the Fracture Tower. He returned home, to a place he hadn't been in what felt like an eternity. Sterile walls surrounded him. But he no longer hated that sterility. He was glad to be here again, in the cleanliness that soothed and protected him from dirt and pain. There was nothing extraneous about it.
The conversation with his sister didn't go well. Her Pulse wasn't responding. Apparently, she was too busy with work, since the launch was scheduled for tomorrow. He had hoped they would have at least an hour to say goodbye, wish each other well, and part ways forever.
John stood at the door to Martha Crockford's office. Slowly, he raised his hand and knocked. The door opened. At the far end of the room, Martha sat in a chair. The light was off, only beams of sunlight illuminated the office. John entered and approached Martha, but she didn't see him. The woman sat in her chair, staring at a point, holding a cigarette between her fingers. More than half of the tobacco had burned away, and the ash was falling onto her robe, leaving stains. John moved to her desk and took a chair opposite her.
"Did you want to see me?" Jonathan said.
"What?" After a minute of silence, Martha returned to reality. Noticing the burnt cigarette, she extinguished it. Several butts were already lying in the ashtray. "Yes," the professor confirmed, "I wanted to talk to you."
"About what?" The Wanderer's voice showed no emotion, as if experiments with artificial intelligence had passed their control tests, and a robot sat before her that hadn't yet had an emotional simulation package loaded.
"I already spoke with Samantha," Martha rose from the desk and approached the cabinet where a whiskey decanter stood. She recounted the events in the Cradle.
"Did she tell everything?" John watched as whiskey poured into the glasses.
"Yes," the professor confirmed, then she took two glasses filled halfway with alcohol and placed one next to John.
"And what's there to talk about?" The Wanderer glanced at the liquid in the glass, which incessantly swayed from side to side, creating small waves.
"About the fact," Martha sat back in her chair and took a sip, "that no one should ever make the choice you made."
"I agree," a barely discernible smile appeared on John's face and vanished in the next second.
"Do you understand, John," the woman said, pulling two cigarettes from the pack. She placed one next to the glass intended for the Wanderer. "What happened in the Third District shouldn't have happened. No one, including me, could have imagined that in the last fifteen years the Last Ones would restore the Cradle and the Rift Gates. No one could have foreseen that we would be on the brink of extinction. John," the woman turned to him, "do you know what would have happened if the data had been transmitted?"
"Samantha explained it to me back there in the control room. She told me that we would have disappeared."
"Ha," the professor exclaimed, "that's too simple to grasp the full scale." The woman lit a cigarette. "I understand there was no time to consider the consequences, but..." she waved her hand. "Drink up!"
"And what's the real story?" John asked, taking a sip of whiskey that burned his throat, leaving a bitter aftertaste.
"Imagine we are moving along a line... That's the simplest explanation," the woman echoed the Wanderer and brought the glass to her lips. "On this line, seven hundred years ago, the Last War began, and at the same time, the countries of the old world renounced traditions, religion, and the ideology of 'what they are and what others are.' They believed it was necessary to kill others because they were different... not like us. They rejected this worldview and realized that we are all one species. Surprising, isn't it?"
"I don't see anything surprising," John said, picking up the cigarette. Martha lit it for him.
"For millennia, we have rejected our animal nature, our lower biological essence. We've been moving toward development. But how do you move toward development when we divide people by skin color, nationality, preferences..."
"Preferences..." John looked up at Martha.
"Yes... Back then, it was believed there were two types of love: for the opposite sex and for one's own. Due to books written by unknown authors at unknown times, people exterminated those who loved someone of the same sex. They considered it something unnatural... something against nature... They treated them with very brutal methods. Although it was merely a natural stop to overpopulation."
"And what's the point of all this?" John took another sip of alcohol.
"They thought that one person could be better than another..." the woman continued her story. "Not just because of love... For centuries, people with dark skin were slaves. They were beaten, they were killed, and people enjoyed the spectacle... And now... Those like Samantha are rarely seen. Most of our population has been mixed. Many nations have become one. Borders have fallen. Love brought us all together. And now, white skin is a recessive gene, a unique occurrence. You and I... We used to be the lower class, now we're no more than the norm."
"What difference does it make?" John said.
"And do you know what the reason is?" Martha adjusted her glasses and took a sip of whiskey. "Supremacy and power."
"That... I don't understand..." John fumbled with the lit cigarette between his fingers.
"And you can't understand because you were raised in a world where everyone is equal and united. You are no more important than me, and I am no more important than you. We are both citizens of the Consolidated Nation," Martha observed as the Wanderer took another sip of whiskey. "But in their time, everyone was divided into classes and types. The poor and the rich. Black and white. Hundreds of nations. And each of them found a reason to hate the other based on differences," Martha placed the empty glass on the table. "And yet... We have returned to our animal nature. We realized we are one biological species. Why do we kill our own kind? Though different, we are the same. And then... the Great Consolidation began. Countries renounced weapons, killing, and prejudices. They said 'no' to the abuse of others, those who differed in any way: eye shape, skin color, place of birth, even to the bedroom... All of it disappeared. No more borders and divisions. There was one nation, one idea of humanity. The Consolidated Nation. Though we were late, and the Last War had begun, so we had to gather everyone we could."
"A history lesson?" The Wanderer extinguished his cigarette. The woman refilled their glasses and opened the pack again.
"No, John. This is a description, a story. And at the moment when the Great Consolidation was completed, when the Consolidated Nation was born, and the old world perished in the war they waged. When the worldview of people changed, and they began to seek the truth, respect others, and value humanity, the world changed. Science, progress, and development replaced death, pain, and degradation."
"And why are you telling me this?" John took another sip.
"Now we will return to the timeline I started with. Seven hundred years later, the Last Ones..." Martha glanced into the emptiness behind the Wanderer for a moment, "unfortunately, Professor Simon Williams created a Mechanism that was supposed to stop time and reverse it. Everyone thought he was doing it for science, but he was doing it to bring back death and destruction. But he was wrong, and nothing came of it."
"And that's when you opened the Primordial Space."
"Yes... And if we wanted to know the truth, if we wanted to find the answers to the questions of the universe itself, then he and the Last Ones devised this idiotic plan to use the laws of Primordial Space for their own ends."
"And now it's our turn to step into the game, I suppose?"
"Not exactly..." Martha leaned back in her chair. "Here, a time loop is created. The starting point is the Collapse. Or rather, the minutes between the disconnection and the Collapse. Due to the dual perspectives, we can't say for sure what caused the Collapse: your choice, Eleonora, or Simon. But it all happened because of their greed. Because of their disdain for us."
"A time loop?" John swirled the whiskey in his glass.
"Yes," Martha confirmed, "everything that happened from the moment of the Collapse onward was meant to bring the world to the end of the time loop, specifically to your journey to the Third District."
"Meant by whom?"
"Hah," Martha chuckled, "you and Darwin are friends, aren't you?" Martha moved closer to John.
"Yes..." he answered, "we are friends."
"A few minutes before your arrival this morning, he told me that this was fate. That the error in the energy disk was the will of fate."
"And?"
"There is no fate," Martha said clearly, "it's just a time loop. A paradox. No beginning, no end. But the moment you pulled the lever, we left the time loop and headed forward along the timeline."
"Great story," John remarked with sarcasm.
"But," Martha raised her glass again, "if you had let Eleonora transmit the data, the loop wouldn't have been created, and our timeline would have disappeared. Moreover, they would've used the data to repeat the experiment. And in that case, they'd have gone back along the timeline and stopped the Great Consolidation. And since we all know that it's because of the Great Consolidation we survived the Last War..."
"Humanity would have perished," John concluded.
"Yes, John," Martha placed her glass on the table, "humankind would have ceased to exist."
"This doesn't absolve me of my guilt," John said.
"Guilt for what?"
"I killed my mother and father!" he shouted. "I killed millions; I killed those people on the train. Everyone's dead because of me."
"They are dead, Jonathan," Martha raised her voice, "because of that bastard Simon and that bitch Eleonora. They're dead because of the Last Ones and their wretched ideology. And you," the professor poured a full glass, "you stopped them. You saved us, saved humanity, saved the Consolidated Nation. And most importantly, you saved the memory of those who perished. Because as long as we remember them, they live on."
"Even Alexa..."
"Alexa made her contribution. She knew that if you and Samantha reached the Convergence, the disk would be destroyed. She gave her life so that you could survive. So that you could bring it here and activate the Fracture Machine."
"Tell her father that she saved them."
"We can't," Martha lowered her gaze. "Due to a brain injury, he was constantly connected to the regeneration machine. We've never tried brain cell regeneration before. He stayed in it too long. Two days ago, they informed me that his heart stopped."
"Ah... another death," John exhaled. "And yet... why are you telling me all this, Professor?"
"I'm telling you because you had no choice. You did what you had to do. If we're looking for someone to blame, it's certainly not you. And the most important thing is that they can't activate the Rift Gates again. Everyone involved with them is dead. Simon Williams and Eleonora Midwich... now I understand why he sent me away from the Gates so I wouldn't know anything..."
"By the way..." John finished his whiskey, "Samantha mentioned that Eleonora had asked her to pass some words to you."
"No," Martha replied, "and what did that creature want to say?"
"She said that you can't sleep at night. That a question haunts you."
"And what would that be?"
"In the games of fate, victory isn't provided. There's nothing eternal or infinite. Everything has an end."
"Hah," Martha laughed heartily, "there is no fate, it's all just a temporal paradox. Cause and effect became one. And the most interesting part is that they became you, John."
"Me?" The Wanderer looked at his empty glass.
"Yes, Jonathan, you are both cause and effect in the face of the Wanderer."
"This doesn't make any sense anymore."
"Maybe," Martha said slowly, "and yet... you must not blame yourself. You saved us all."
"I understand."
"Well, since you've understood, I have a question for you. One last question." Martha stood up from the table and approached the Wanderer.
"What question?" John rose from his chair.
"After everything that happened in the Third District, after all the losses and the discovery of the truth about what happened on the night of the Collapse..." Martha took off her glasses and placed them on the edge of the table, "are you ready to continue the path of the Wanderer? Are you ready to move toward the Center?"
"I," the Wanderer lowered his gaze, his thoughts crashing against the rocks like a storm. But something compelled him to say the words, "the end of the Wanderer's journey occurs when the Wanderer reaches the Center of Primordial Space or dies," the young man replied firmly.
"Very good," Martha smiled, "you've proven that you can reach the Center and uncover the truth."
"Am I dismissed?" John asked.
"Yes," Martha replied, "you can go to your room. Rest. Tomorrow at 10 a.m. Central Time, we begin the launch."
"And yet..." The Wanderer turned back as his hand was already on the door handle. "Why do you keep doing this?"
"Once, an old friend asked me the same thing. I didn't answer him," Martha approached the Wanderer. "But I'll answer you. My husband, Daniel Crockford, worked at the Third District energy station, 'Star.' He gave his life to redirect energy to the Gate Hall because he knew that if the gates didn't close, everyone would die. And I was in the blast zone. I do this for him. In his memory. Despite his death, John, I never stopped loving him. The memories of him sustained me all these years. Clichéd? Maybe... But still... We did it. Machine is almost ready"
John left Professor Crockford's office and made his way up the stairs to his room. The sterile walls soothed him, enveloping him in unfamiliar feelings. He took off his clothes and lay on the bed. Closing his eyes, he smiled. After the horrors of the Third District, the metal walls and panoramic windows enveloped him in warmth and peace. The sun was still high above the horizon, but the Wanderer already stood at the gates of Morpheus' realm, and the gates were open.