Never Fade Away: The Rebel Path (ch. 67) (Patreon)

The future was a strange thing. Immaterial, formless, yet that was only because the reaction to one's actions hadn't manifested. Waking up with the future, all possible futures, in my head was something of an unpleasant experience. Not the worst thing I've experienced, but definitely up there. A solid seven out of ten in terms of suckage.

I ran a hand through my hair, my gaze falling on a guitar. It wasn't mine. Johnny stole that one. So, I was stealing his. Johnny's skill bled through with my ascension, which was pretty annoying if I was being honest with myself. But it was for the best. In the futures where I didn't get that bleed through… well, what came next would be a lot more embarrassing.

Grabbing the guitar, I slung it over my shoulder before I took the Malorian Arms out of the holster under my arm. Letting it rest upon the table next to the guitar stand, I turned to leave the Vault that Rogue had set up for mementoes. It’d only take a couple of hours for the theft to be discovered. Or three days if I didn't follow through.

But I would follow through.

Leaving the Vault, and the building that it was in, I was greeted with a large holographic display. President Myers. She sat behind a table in the Oval Office, her image carefully crafted and edited as she spoke, “The divisions of the past are no longer relevant to the present or the future. Human history has been fraught with countless battles because of how we are different and today, it is my honor to say that humanity has taken its first step to embracing how we are the same. The Sol Alliance is Humanity's first step in true unification and it is my promise that it shall not be the last.”

Fifteen years. Myers, provided that I didn't do anything, would last fifteen years as the President of the Sol Alliance, or Alliance for short, in most futures. She would be assassinated by the Europe block for sabotaging their attempts to recreate my tech and for funneling too many back channel resources into America to aid in its reconstruction as a global power. She would be the longest lived President of the Alliance.

Ten years after her death, the Alliance would dissolve and Humanity would go right back to squabbling factions. If a bit bigger. Five years after that, the Citadel, sensing weakness, would attack in force to use humanity as a scapegoat and an easy PR win. A hundred and fifty years of subjugation would pass before humanity would have a shot at becoming anything more than another client race in the futures that I saw.

The hologram continued, welcoming the Alliance to the world. People had hope. People had doubts. It wouldn't be for another five years that the world felt the change in global policy. For most, the world continued spinning. For some, their boss simply had another boss. And for a few, the rewards for risks had never been greater.

A sigh escaped me, and turning down the street, I went ignored. Too many people looked like me to stand out anymore. People went as far as to copy my surgical scars, showing them off in tank tops or forgoing a shirt entirely. In a hundred years from now, my poser gang would rival nations. No matter what, no matter what path I decided to walk, my poser gang would always exist in some capacity. It was a strange thing to take comfort in.

So, I savored it as I walked down the streets of Night City, breathing in the air that no longer carried the scent of festering garbage. The trash that had piled up in every back alley or shadowy corner was all broken down and turned into matter for reconstruction. It would be a year before Night City's reconstruction was complete. In ten, it would need to expand.

It would never become what Richard Night envisioned it could be. But it would become a far greater city than it had ever been since his death.

My feet carried me down familiar roads that didn't seem so familiar anymore. Everyone had a cautious hope for the future. Trepidation for what was to come. Fear of what the coming changes would mean for them.

All the while, Myers tried to sell them on a future I knew would never come to pass. “The restoration of the Net will bring-” Death. Chaos. People knew how to thrive in a fractured net where everyone could be king of their own little slice of it. A restored Net meant only the Alliance could wear the crown.

All the same, I helped the process along with a bit of script given to Myers to string the pieces back together. Because it served my desires.

Adjusting the guitar on my shoulder, taking a seat at the metro that would take me to my destination, I glanced out the window. Watching as Night City went by at high speeds, the train stopping and starting between destinations. At any point, I could get off the ride. I could see what the immediate effect would be. In two stops from now, if I headed down the street, I could come across Zaeed and T, who were sneaking out to play at an arcade, yet still under the unseen eye of Lucy. In three stops from that, I could head down to the Afterlife to find Johnny and Rogue.

The future was the result of choices. My own and so many others. The greater the presence, the greater the action, the bigger the splash one made.

Free will did exist. And I chose the future that I wanted to see manifest.

So, I stayed on the monorail until it brought me just shy of Arasaka Tower. Or my tower, I suppose, even if my name wasn't on the lease. I strode by the statue that was still under construction, and saw that it would endure for a hundred years. Possible more depending on how things went. The tower welcomed me as I lazily made my way up to the roof, already knowing who I would be greeted with.

Kaiden and David both barred my way to my ship. The Swordfish.

I knew they were going to be here. They were here in most of the futures that had me taking this path. And while I may have chosen the future, I had no control over people. So, I greeted them with a lazy smile, “Yo.”

“John,” Kaiden returned while David nodded his head to me. John Shepard. It wouldn't be what Humanity remembered me as. L. The Rebellion. Who I was, and not who I became.

“Leaving something behind?” David asked, holding up his jacket. His mother's jacket. The painted on ER faced me and…

I had left it behind on purpose. A tip that something was going to happen. If I didn't, then they would have only realized what was going on when it was happening. A risk, but when they puzzled it out, only the two of them would show up to stop me. In the end, we all shared the same problem.

We wanted to protect the people that we loved.

“Figured that you would want it back,” I admitted to him. Emotion flickered across Kaiden's face, he took a step forward towards me. I looked at him, and my smile wasn't reassuring. It tried to be, but there wasn't a future where he was reassured by it.

“I don't know what you're planning, but we're putting a stop to it. At least until you tell me what you actually plan to do,” Kaiden growled, his hands curling into fists. “No note. No messages. You're just trying to vanish,” he accused, and that was exactly what I was… no. Not trying. I couldn't be trying to go unnoticed when I picked the path that led to this confrontation. “For what, John?”

I held his gaze and I let out a tired sigh, “You already know.” I replied, confirming his suspicions and his gaze flashed.

“Cut the shit! John!” He shouted while David tensed, ready to go.

“It had to be you two,” I continued, taking in a deep breath and turning my gaze skyward. Not a cloud to be seen. “It couldn't be Becca. She'd talk me out of it.” She did so in so many futures at this juncture. If she was here, I'd falter. “But I can still say goodbye to you two and continue on,” I said, opening my eyes and looking down at them.

“... I don't think you're going anywhere,” David said and I could sense that his body was primed for a blitz. He and Kaiden. They didn't know what I had planned, but they knew enough to suspect. And, in the end, the reason why they could never stop me was because they trusted me too much.

I stepped forward and I locked up David's implants. His legs seized, his arms froze while his Sandy was simply turned off. He stumbled, falling to the ground while Kaiden collapsed to his knees.

“You-” David grunted and cut himself off as I turned my tired grin to him.

“I'm a worrywart,” I admitted. “I always kept a back door in my tech just in case someone managed to get the better of you.” That wasn't ever the case, as far as I could see. Though, that relied on my paranoia and ever evolving defense measures.

Biotic energy began to swirl around Kaiden’s hands, and he was ready to fight me. None of his chrome would take him out of a fight by hitting the off switch. I wondered if this was the reason why? However, the fight bled out of him as I calmly approached, reaching out to him and placing my forehead against his. I could feel his confusion. His fear. His uncertainty.

“I lied, you know? Back before we got out. About what my dream was,” I confessed. “My dream was that you all got out. It didn't come true, but it was close enough. Making it to eighteen never meant a thing to me. Death… death has always scared me, but it wasn't my death that frightened me. It was yours. It was T's. It was everyone else's.”

Kaiden was shaking his head, uncertainty and fear rolling off of him in waves. David's terrible revelation and his desperation to get his body to move. Lucy was already working on restoring control. She'd manage it in about fifteen minutes. “I don't know what you're going to do, but don't do it. L. Please.”

“You're my brother, Kaiden. I trust you to take care of everyone,” I said, pulling away from him. He lunged, and it was only then he realized I jabbed him with a numbing agent. I caught him as he fell, propping him up against an air conditioning unit. “Give everyone my love.” Patting him on the shoulder, I adjusted my guitar and headed to the Swordfish.

“Don't,” David all but begged.

And I almost gave in. I could feel his desperation. His guilt. Not just for me, but for his mom. For Maine. David defined himself by those he couldn't save.

“I have two paths before me, David,” I told him, getting into the Swordfish. “In one, I become everything that Saburo Arasaka ever wanted to be. I'll hold the whole damn galaxy in my hands and I'll chart the course for the future because no one could hope to stop me.”

An eternal tyrant. That's what I would become. The only way that my people would be safe was if I seized the reins to humanity. If I became king of the world with an iron fist so tight that humanity couldn't even breathe. But it would expand. The Council races… they would want their own versions of me. They never managed it. Not in any of the futures I saw, but they would try endlessly because I proved to them just how easily I could bring them to their knees.

That path laid certainty. The galaxy would be whatever I made it. People would be what I made them.

The other…?

I smiled. It was a softer, more genuine one that I aimed at David as the cockpit began to seal itself.

“This one leaves me with fewer regrets.”

…

Johnny Silverhand kicked his feet up on a coffee table, only to catch a sharp look from Rogue. Swallowing a sigh, he put his feet back on the ground. But, when she smirked at him, he decided to compromise by putting a single foot on the coffee table. Rogue rolled her eyes, taking a sip from her drink while Johnny rolled a glass of water between his fingers, listening to the music that thumped through the Afterlife.

It felt a bit disrespectful to treat this body like he had his original -- plugging in livers and kidneys as he wore out the replacements of replacements with nothing but booze and drugs. So, it was water for him. Johnny Silverhand the Teetotaller. Never saw that in his future. Actually, he never saw a lot of things in his future.

The Afterlife was still in full swing. Word got out about the Queen's new squeeze, but most didn't buy into the rumors that he was back from the dead.

“Johnny,” Rogue spoke up, sitting next to him as they looked out at the main bar. “I just got a call from David. He's asking for a spaceship to follow after L?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

Johnny looked down at his water, and there was still the ache for alcohol. Vodka. Tequila, preferably. “You should give it to him,” Johnny said, swirling the water once more before drinking it to the last drop. “He know where he's going?”

But, as if to answer him, the TV screen became filled with static. The sound of it cut through the music, bringing people's attention to it. It only cut off when the static cleared, revealing L on the screen. There was an excited murmuring through the crowd of Afterlife, confused, but excited.

Johnny cracked a smile when he saw his old guitar in L's hands. He was on a stage alone, red curtains behind him and the spotlight focused, giving him a long shadow. He stood before a microphone, gazing into the camera.

If Johnny had to describe his expression, then L was peaceful. But that expression faded away as he spoke, “I'm coming from The Crystal Palace, broadcasting to the world at large. Don't bother changing the channel, because it's all going to be me,” L informed and Johnny saw people checking their agents. There was a brewing muttering when they saw that L was right.

“He's co-opted every signal on Earth,” Rogue realized. “TV, holograms, fucking radio waves. It's all him.” She sounded impressed and alarmed, glancing at him for an explanation. Johnny had one. He just couldn't find the words to give it. His gaze was fixed on the TV, waiting for L to continue.

“This is my swan song,” L told the world and the world held its breath. Fear. Uncertainty. Johnny closed his eyes and let the news wash over him before a small smile tugged at his lips. “I was always racing against the clock, and it's about to strike midnight. It's been a fun year for me. I got to see the world. I made some friends… and a lot more enemies.” He chuckled into the mic before his smile grew, “I survived for sixteen years and I got to live for one. And that's enough for me.”

Rogue reached out, grabbing his forearm and her nails dug into his flesh. Johnny barely noticed her.

“I entered the world ignorant of what it was. A towering fucking monument to human greed and depravity. Cutthroat politics and the only religion was the profit margins,” L continued. “I turned my eye away from it. I accepted the world for what it was even as I had the power to change it. Because I didn't care. My heart only had so much room in it, and the seats had already been filled.”

L paused, his prosthetic hand adjusting the mic. “I'm no hero. I'm no savior. I'm just an Edgerunner with a talent for killing his enemies. And, in my final hour, I'm putting a bullet between the eyes of my final one -- so, listen closely ladies and gentlemen. This is my swan song, and I'm taking the world down with me.”

It was then that the curtains were lifted up to show pallets of money. Millions of dollars that were set alight with fire before a powerful fan started blowing them in the direction of the camera. Johnny found himself laughing when L played the first riff -- the very same riff that he first tried when he got his hands on a guitar.

“So that's the future you chose, huh?” Johnny asked as the mercs of the Afterlife celebrated the end of the world.

A fork in the road. One path led to absolute control. The other…

The other led to no control at all.

So, he raised his glass to the screen in a toast. “To the savior who can't be saved,” He muttered, closing his eyes and letting the music wash over him.

It was time to say goodbye.

…

So Mi was on the run through Cyberspace. Her rig had taken a serious downgrade without all of the tech that made up her body, until the point she was essentially a walking server. Yet, all the same, she was still a force to be reckoned with, even without a direct connection to the Blackwall. She pulled out a script, time, distance, and space faded away as she took a single massive leap across Cyberspace. Her pursuers weren't so bad, So MI had to admit.

Myers was well prepared for her to go rogue, so she had a kill team of netrunners ready to kill her. If So Mi was a master of the Net, then the squad following her were assassins that specialized in killing in cyberspace.

Data sprawled all around her, the Net itself under construction. Tentative connections were being established to restore the Net to what it once was. Only, that was on paper. Half the reason she was in cyberspace now was to map out the isolated data castles -- where corporations, nations, and even rich individuals were establishing their lone islands. They liked having control over their own network, and they were loath to part with that control.

So, like everything else Myers said -- pretty words, but no follow through.

A daemon was running hot on her heels, shaped like a hellhound with three heads. So Mi decided to pivot, securing her location, before getting ready to pick some of her assassins off. Only as she did so, something happened.

The dozen runners that chased her, all wearing uniform appearances that marked them as property of Militech, all threw back their heads with their hands covering their ears. Digitized screaming echoed out, but it was short lived before the squad vanished. So Mi looked to where they were, then at her own hands to confirm that she hadn't flung a spell.

“What the fuck?” So Mi questioned, not entirely sure what just happened. No- what was still happening she soon saw as data began to flow into cyberspace. It fell from the sky, almost like rain, and everything it touched began to glow a bright blue.

So Mi stumbled back a half step, taking a broader view of cyberspace to see the network that she was on expanding. The raindrops of code connected to everything they touched, subverting them like a virus, and as she looked down at her hands, So Mi saw that she wasn't spared. Code slipped through her firewalls like they weren't even there, chewing up and spitting out her encryption. There was only one person in the world who could have done something like this.

Her thoughts were confirmed when she traced the rain to countless points of origin. Holograms that showed the world's news all showed L, encrypting the broadcast so you couldn't even turn it off. He was on a stage, playing a guitar, but that wasn't all he was doing.

A small disbelieving laugh escaped So Mi as everyone in the Net across the world began to gather up to watch the show. “He's hacking through soundwaves,” So Mi realized. Each strum or chord fed data into the Net, where the raindrops acted upon the instructions that he was giving. The raindrops actions became more complex, building upon something and So Mi watched in awe of it, so amazed that she barely cared that her systems were being compromised.

The landscape of cyberspace began to shift, almost as if a world shattering earthquake was happening, yet instead of mountains being raised… it was data castles. The rain pulled them up from their isolated positions, building bridges until they were tied into the fabric of cyberspace before ruthlessly plundering their depths. Some fortresses tried to resist, unleashing hordes of daemons, yet the rain simply washed it all away.

Data spilled forth from the castles, flowing into the open Net that was more unified than it had ever been. It was like watching a tidal wave sweep over cyberspace, crashing into the pre-existing structures, where some of them were knocked down before being built back up.

It was the single most beautiful thing that she had ever seen.

At least until the Blackwall was struck by the flow of data and rain. For a terrible second, nothing happened at all…

Then the Blackwall glowed blue and began to move. It surged forth into the Old Net and So Mi could only stare.

L…

He had just moved Heaven and Earth to raise Hell.

…

Things had been going well enough for V that she had started to become a little suspicious. She wanted to get in on the ground floor of the Alliance and Saburo Arasaka, dead or alive, was still one hell of a reference considering she had made the short list when he pulled up stakes on Earth. Add that she had some ‘Innovator’ tech data, and V found that doors were opening for her left and right.

And, if she placed any bets, she would have won money that L would be the one to flip the board in her face.

“I don't care! Shut down the damn broadcast! Shoot the Crystal Palace out of the fucking sky if you have to!” Myers roared into her agent while V sat across from her, her eyes glued to the screen. L had finished his first song and he moved on to a familiar one.

Never Fade Away, huh?

“What! The FUCK! Do you mean, we've lost control over the WMDs?!” Myers shouted, the oval office in a flurry of activity around her and it paused at the proclamation. V went pretty much ignored, letting her get a good view of the tablet that one of Myer's aids presented her. It was missile silos -- dozens of them. Hundreds. Each one firing off into the air before something slapped into them and they started spewing familiar green particles. The missiles continued up into the sky and Myers asked the question that V wanted answered, “Where are they going? Track their trajectory! Is it just ours?!”

As the trajectory was tracked, the news kept piling in. “All nuclear warheads are being fired, Madam President! Everyone's! And we've had multiple breaches in classified data! Per orders, we're destroying the servers, but… all the data seems to have been copied beforehand. We've…” The man trailed off when Myers leveled nothing less than a murderous glare at him. So, V finished the sentence for him.

“Every dirty secret that any Corporation or nation had, thinking it was tucked away safely in a data castle, is out on the open Net,” V said, and despite herself, she was smiling.

Oh, this was bad. Beyond bad. As far as the counter-intel spook in her was concerned, this was the worst possible scenario that she never even thought to imagine in her worst nightmares. Every secret. Every patent. Every prototype. Every dirty deal. All of it. All on the open Net where anyone could read it.

Yet, it was so utterly over the top that she couldn't help appreciate the batshit madness of it all.

“The WMDs are setting a trajectory for the sun!” Another aid scrambled to give news while Myers turned her furious glare at V.

And it was for that reason, V saw what happened next.

A blood vessel exploded in Myer's eye. At first, V thought it was just stress -- the woman’s empire was collapsing around her ears, so it was understandable. Only it was accompanied by the sharp smell of burnt hair and flesh. Blood trickled out of Myer's nose, her muscles locking up, before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed where she stood.

An aid went to check on her, only to fall on top of her as the same thing happened to him. And the other side. And before V knew it, everyone around her was spasming out on the ground. V looked around, her heart starting to hammer as she slowly stood up, almost cautious that she would be infected by whatever just happened. Looking over the desk, she saw President Myers. The first President of the Alliance.

Dead.

“Suppose I'm not getting hired,” V noted, deciding that this was the last place that she wanted to be. There was no way she was going to take the fall for this just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only when she turned to leave, the door was jammed. It took a couple of pushes to open it up enough to see that the secret service members had collapsed at the door.

It wasn't just them, V saw, stepping in the hall. The hallway was littered with corpses, people's implants burnt right out. Or control of their limbs stolen for a brief moment so they could kill someone that didn't have chrome to kill them with. With wide eyes, V continued down the hall, seeing only corpses, dozens of them, and curiosity got the better of her. V pressed on to a meeting room that would have served as a hub for the Alliance.

Not everyone's hologram was there, but enough were. Hundreds of people slumped at their desks half a world away. All dead.

Every world leader. Every corpo. Everyone who had a part to play in how the world was. All of them were dead.

L had just wiped the slate clean.

Directly before her, a message was displayed on a monitor. A message for her.

‘We're even.’

A small shuddering breath escaped V, realizing how close she had been to being included in the great purge. Dragging a hand over her face, she looked around her, and it really started to sink in that no one was behind the wheel of the world anymore.

“I need to find a different career.”

…

Panam had half an ear out for the radio, but her gaze was fixed to the sky above. millions of twinkling stars above now that they were away from the light pollution of Night City. Her clan was making a run as the tenuous truce between the Nomad Clans was starting to break down with their newfound peace.

It was for that reason she noticed that one of the stars wasn't a star at all. A meteor? No. It was…

“Saul,” Panam called out, interrupting a brewing argument about what came next for the Aldecaldos. Their leader looked over at her, and she pointed up to the sky, “Something's falling-” she started, only for the streak of light to explode. No- not explode. It broke apart. A timed delivery, scattering whatever the hell it was across the countryside. When the sound reached them, everyone looked up to see a glowing red mass racing towards them. And whatever it was, it was big. And fast.

There wasn't any time to even think to run away. By the time Panam had rounded her truck, the ground bucked as whatever it was struck the ground with a near deafening explosion less than a mile away. Things calmed down a moment later with Panam looking to Saul, only for him to jump into the passenger seat. “Drive,” he ordered and Panam cracked a smile, getting behind the wheel to do exactly that.

It was a short drive since they weren't exactly that far. The crater was smaller than Panam thought it would be, as if whatever had fallen had pulled it’s punch at the last second. Yet, inside of it, was a large… rectangle? Her lips parted, starting to ask a question, when the rectangle began to shift. Metal plating that still steamed from ambient heat folded into itself, the rectangle grew out and up, nearly doubling in length and size.

And out of everything that could have come out of it, the very last thing that Panam would have ever expected was a robot deer. Its hide was a metal sheen, cables filling the spaces between joints, while large canisters of something jutted out of its back.

The garage doors opened, letting it prance down in little jumps. In a stunned silence, both she and Saul watched the robot deer prance away into the night. “You saw that, right?” Panam asked, leaning forward to watch it a moment longer. Saul answered her by getting out of the truck and Panam followed him.

He crouched down near a set of tracks, gazing down at it. Panam looked over his shoulder to see a long blade of green grass start to emerge from the dirt. Her jaw dropped as more blades of grass started to emerge. Saul ran his finger over one, and a small shuddering laugh escaped him. “You seeing this?” He asked her, and she wasn't.

Because more of the stars began to fall, exploding in orbit, and thousands upon thousands of streaks of light were on a collision course with Earth.

…

“What's going on? What does L mean? Why is he saying goodbye?!” Lucy heard the frightened voice of T and, reflexively, she reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. She wished she had an answer to give. She was caught blindsided as much as everyone else in the world was.

Lucy glanced at Jack, who gazed up at a hologram with an expression she had never seen on the girl's features. Her lip quivered and she tilted her head to hide her face from the kids, but tears marked her cheeks and she was struggling to silence her sobs.

“L-L is going to be fine,” Lucy tried to reassure him. Him, and all the other children who sensed something was going wrong. “David, Kaiden, and Becca are already on their way to pick L up.” That was true, at least. Rogue got them on a ship as fast as she could, but it was still a thirty minute journey up to the Crystal Palace.

T looked up at her and there was betrayal written across his face, “You're lying. L always looked like that when he said everything was going to be okay! You're lying!” He accused her and Lucy didn't have the words.

Jack did, though. “Shut it, brat. L made his choices. Taking it out on Lucy won't change a thing, so just-” she cut herself off, swallowing a sob when L abruptly stopped playing the guitar and brought his prosthetic hand to his mouth. He turned away from the microphone, but it still heard him wetly cough into his hand.

When he pulled back, there was blood on his palm.

It was then that Lucy caught a flash of moment out of the corner of her eye. A large white figure was approaching them -- a machine. One that looked like an overstuffed marshmallow. Her grip tightened on T's shoulder as the machine approached them directly before speaking, “I am Baymax, a creation of L! I am sensing emotional distress. Would you like a hug?”

T didn't even have to think about it, slamming into Baymax at top speed and started crying his heart out. Lucy's lips trembled and her eyes burned, but she grabbed Jack's hand and gave it a small squeeze.

It took her a moment to squeeze it back.

…

I looked down at the blood on my hand for a moment before I smiled -- I had missed my solo. I hadn't meant to. I ignored the tickle in the back of my throat for as long as I could, but it bothered me too much. I could feel the future rippling, all the possible futures I could have narrowing and closing off. The Lost Solo it would be called, and for decades, people would try to complete the song. They wouldn't ever manage it.

Clearing my throat and spitting on the floor, I turned back to the microphone and let it all out. Just as I saw Johnny did once before. Yet, unlike him, I felt myself becoming unburdened. All the possibilities, everything that could yet be, were fading away. My head was pounding, my blood felt too hot in my veins, and I could feel something dripping out of my ear.

My power had been unlocked when I became an Innovator. I gained full control over my abilities, but the toll still remained the same. I was burning it all away, creating even as I destroyed myself. The designs would be swept into the tides of data that flooded the restored Net. Designs that would be credited to me, even if I didn't put my name on them. Even when I tried, I couldn't manage average.

My fingers flew over my guitar, playing the last course of my final song. I wanted to at least finish strong. I wanted to give all I had left to give before the final curtain fell. So, I played. Time stopped meaning anything, and I could barely hear the music as my heart thundered in my ears, but I knew the notes and the lyrics like the back of my hand.

I played and played and played, and like everything in this world, the song finally came to an end. My body felt heavy, yet my head felt strangely light. I grabbed hold of the mic, half to keep myself standing and half to deliver the final words that the world would ever hear from me.

“The world… Humanity has gotten a second chance. Do what you want with it,” I said, taking out my pistol and shooting the camera. It fell in a heap of sparks and I just about toppled over.

And then I laughed as a universe full of possibilities became a single path.

Despite my lack of strength, I pushed myself to my feet, using Johnny’s guitar as a crutch to leave the stage. There were a few steps left, and there wasn't a future where I didn't take them. I made my way backstage, heading to one of the main corridors. To my right, the wall was glass, letting everyone gaze out into the stars while the disk to the casino spun lazily for an equally beautiful view of Earth.

It was a selfish thing I was doing, I knew. But I wanted to say goodbye to them. To David, Kaiden, and Becca. They wouldn't be able to save me, but they would arrive just-

“L!” I heard Becca shout, and it was only then that I noticed darkness was encroaching on my vision. I looked up to see Becca sprinting down the hall, David and Kaiden behind her. Her expression was filled with so much concern and fear, but I couldn't help but to feel relief to see her. I tried to take a step forward, but my leg gave out. She managed to catch me before I hit the floor. I hung heavily on her before David and Kaiden reached us.

“We’re going to get you some help, so just hold on!” Becca swore, so determined, but I just shook my head.

“No… point,” I argued, stumbling to the side. David and Kaiden let me, my back hitting the wall where I slid down it. I chose a future where they would be too late. It was cruel of me, but I couldn't bring myself to regret it when Becca went to my side.

She worked her jaw, her hand going to mine. She warred against her feelings before she spoke, “Why?”

Because the Great Man theory was bullshit. A great man might be able to reach over and yank the wheel to change lanes, but humanity as a whole was always behind the wheel itself. Because I was a man of extremes. Because…

“The future isn't my choice to make,” I rasped, squeezing her hand. “I wiped the slate clean. Humanity gets a do over. But the future is decided by everyone in it. Not just me.” Becca was shaking her head, a wet laugh escaping her.

“That's a lot of trust to have in people, J-John,” she said and I smiled at her.

“I don't trust people. I trust you,” I said, breathing deeply and savoring it.

It was my final breath, after all.

The revolving ring continued to spin and the stars shifted away to give us a view of the moon. Becca clutched my hand, failing to not cry while David and Kaiden weren't having much luck either. I blinked slowly, a small grin finding its way on my lips.

“A was right,” I muttered, “the moon sure is pretty.”

The three of them looked over their shoulders to see, and by the time they looked back…

I was already gone.

…

We have one chapter left and it’s the epilogue!