Though it was only about thirty miles out of town, it took them a long time to find their way out of Lon Halos, and they didn't arrive at the pharmaceutical plant until early the next morning. Stu was surprised by how intact it was; the entire facility seemed to be in more or less perfect condition, and there were functioning dynamo engines arranged outside. Several of Dr. Snowe's people, along with some refugees from Georgetown, had already arrived and started to set up camp. When they saw Dr. Snowe step out of the truck, safe and sound, they cheered.
After eating a quick breakfast, Stu, Luna, Lucky, and Millie went on to spend the day helping to unload the equipment and set up a new electric shell. Dr. Snowe was pleased with the facility's resources: "Rico was right," he said. "This will make an excellent new base. The dynamo engines should supply us with plenty of power, and I should be able to get the filtration system and lyophilizers up and running in a few days. With all this, and assuming we can get our hands on the raw materials, we should be able to start producing the serum in quantity within a few weeks."
"Raw materials?"
"Sterile water, phosphate-buffered saline, a gelatin stabilizer. Our ultimate goal, of course, should be to produce an aerosol, but we'll start with an injectable, and then..."
This was good enough for Stu. Dr. Snowe seemed optimistic, and everyone around him seemed optimistic, too; with the Dread apparently dead, and with the cure in their hands, the poor, beleaguered people of this world finally had reason to hope.
"What about the machine that can send me home?" he asked. "When you will have that up and running?"
He frowned. "That, unfortunately, may take a few days. I believe we have sufficient power here, but there's more to opening a portal that simply turning on the machine. Some very complex calculations are required."
"I see," Stu sighed. He had been in this world for months now, he supposed; he could get through a few more days.
"I'm sorry," Dr. Snowe said, picking up on his disappointment. "I'm sorry for having you brought you here against your will, and without explanation. I hope you can understand my reasoning, at least."
"You were trying to save your world," he said, shrugging.
"It can't have been easy for you. The world you came from...there were no zombies there, I take it? No aliens?"
"No."
"I imagine it must have been quite a shock, suddenly finding yourself confronted with these things."
"You could say that." He sighed again. "I killed hundreds of zombies, probably, and was almost killed myself half a hundred times. I know what it's like to be shot and stabbed now, to feel a bullet or a blade rip through my body. I know what it's like to have my hands and fingers cut off." He looked at his hand, which the Dread had almost severed; it was fully healed now, and the fingers on his other hand had grown back. "I know what it feels like to have my head crushed by a gorilla-mutate, and to be choked out by an alien spider-monster. I know what it feels like to saw someone's head off, to stick a knife in someone's eye. That's some hardcore shit. It's going to take me a while to get over all that, if I ever do."
Dr. Snowe gave him a sad, sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry," he said again. "It wasn't all for nothing, though. You killed the Dread. You saved our world." He took off his glasses and let out a long breath. "It wasn't such a bad place, you know, before the outbreak. Was it anything like your world, I wonder?"
"It was...similar," he said, "but different, too. It's strange. You call this planet Earth, but the geography is totally different from my Earth, and the countries and governments and cities are all different, too. And everyone speaks English here, but you don't even have an England. I still don't understand that."
"Some kind of coincidence, perhaps?" Dr. Snowe suggested. "There are an infinite number of worlds, after all, and not all of them were created by divergence." He paused. "Our language is called Ashweni, incidentally."
Stu never did find the answers to these questions -- despite having repurposed the alien space-engine to open up these interdimensional portals, the origins of these universes and how they related to one another were as much a mystery to Dr. Snowe as they were to anyone.
He returned to his friends and told them what Dr. Snowe had told him. "So I'm stuck here a few more days, I guess," he finished. He glanced at Luna. He was almost afraid to ask this, but... "Have you...have you decided yet? About coming with me, to my world?"
She said nothing. Lucky, however, spoke up. "Sorry, Stu. I'm staying here."
"But...but why?"
"You didn't want to leave your world. I don't want to leave this one."
Stolen novel; please report.
"But this world is a mess."
"I know," he admitted.
"I'm staying, too," Millie said. "I liked hearing about your world, and if you had invited me to come with you a few days ago, I might have agreed to go. I figured this world was a lost cause, and that I'd be better off in a new one. But now that I've met Dr. Snowe..." She nodded to herself. "He's what the Researcher should have been. I want to help him. We're in rough shape here, but now that we have the cure...well, this world isn't a lost cause anymore."
"It's still dangerous," Stu pointed out. "There's still zombies, and violence, and gangs."
"It's dangerous," Lucky agreed. "But it's like I told you before, back in Meku City. You have to live your life. If all you do is worry about getting killed you'll never get anywhere." He stopped to give Stu a somewhat bleak look. "You don't have to go, you know. You could stay here with us."
Stu shook his head. "I've thought about that. My friends and family probably think I'm dead by now, though, and I can't let them go on thinking that. It wouldn't be right." He gave each of them a smile. "I have a million reasons to return to my world, but only three reasons to stay here."
Luna was the only one who hadn't spoken; in fact she was refusing to meet his gaze. "Luna?" he inquired tentatively. But he could already guess her answer. She had decided to stay behind, too.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I thought about it for a long time, but in the end..."
He couldn't think of anything to say that might convince her to change her mind, and so he finally said, "I understand."
"You're disappointed."
"Of course I'm disappointed. I would have loved to have shown my world to you. And..." He trailed off, uncertain, and decided to change the subject, to lighten the mood. "We've still got a few days together. Let's go find something to eat, huh? I'm starving." * * *
The next few days passed very quickly. Stu and Lucky were recruited to do a variety of odd jobs around the facility, and occasionally went out on zombie-hunting expeditions outside the electric shell, while Luna tuned up the vehicles and Millie assisted Dr. Snowe in his new laboratory. The two of them seemed to enjoy each other's company; Stu was hopeful that Millie might find a place here, with these people.
To the surprise of everyone, and to the great relief of Ula and Dr. Snowe, Rico appeared one morning, strolling up to the edge of the electric shell and looking none the worse for wear. He had barely survived the battle of Sunset Drive, after running out of ammo and narrowly escaping a pair of ragers, and had spent the last few days and nights avoiding zombies as he made his way south. Stu was glad to see him; the man had saved their lives, after all, and he was a friendly guy besides.
Three and a half days later, Dr. Snowe finished his calculations, and Ula finished wiring up the portal-generating machine. "We're ready to go," she told Stu that afternoon. "Are you?"
"I'm ready." He collected Luna, Lucky, and Millie, and there, in Dr. Snowe's lab, they said their final goodbyes.
Stu approached Millie first. "Are you going to be okay here?" he asked her.
"I think so."
"Good. Good." He knelt down to give her a hug, and although she started to back away from him, she changed her mind and allowed him to embrace her. "Thanks for everything," he told her.
"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled. He felt her little cybernetic fingers touch his arm, tentatively.
Lucky was next. "I have something for you," he told the kid. "I want you to use it to protect Millie, and your sister, and anyone else who needs help."
"Are you...giving me your gun?" he asked, puzzled. "Your Midnighter?"
"No." He closed his eyes, concentrating, and then opened up them again, allowing the ICON system screens to appear. He was not surprised to see that a new quest had popped up:
Quest Available: Passing the TorchAccept quest? Yes/No
He touched the "Yes" button, and then, before the kid could object, he touched two fingers to Lucky's forehead, just as Virge had done to him in the darkened depths of the Meku City subway. There was a flash of bright light as his fingers made contact, and as he watched, Lucky's dark eyes slowly began to lighten, becoming a pale blue.
"What...what did you do?" Lucky asked, startled.
"It's yours now," he said. "The ICON system."
"You gave me your powers?"
"Not exactly. You'll have to start from scratch, just like I did. But this world needs someone like you, someone with the power to protect it." Stu was going to miss the ICON system -- he liked being stronger and faster than everyone else, and being able to see in the dark and all that -- but the alien entity belonged in this world, not in his, and he had no intention of taking it with him.
Lucky was a little nonplussed. "I'm not sure I like the idea of having an alien living in my head," he confessed.
"Then pass it on to someone else. Rico, maybe. Or you could give it back to Dr. Snowe. He was its original owner."
He scrunched up his face, thinking it over. "I'll keep it for now." He looked up at Stu with his new eyes. "Thanks."
"Thank you. I wouldn't have survived a day in this world if you hadn't been there to help me out."
"It was nothing, really," he said sheepishly, scratching at the back of his head. "So long, Stu. It's been fun."
"I've found the quantum resonance," Ula interjected, tapping away at a keyboard. "We've got about a minute until the portal opens."
Luna was the last in line. She was staring at the floor. Stu gently lifted her chin and brushed the hair away from her face, to find her eyes. "This is it," he said.
"I guess it is," she said.
"What do you plan to do? Will you stay here, or will you go back to Meku City?"
"I don't know yet. This seems like a good place to start over, but I'd like to see my friends in Harbor again." She bit her lower lip. "I hate goodbyes."
"I don't like them much either." He paused. "I'm going to miss you."
"I'm going to miss you more." There were tears in her eyes.
"The coordinates are locked," Dr. Snowe informed them. "The portal's starting to open."
The portal had, indeed, begun to form, in the center of the room: a weird folding-in of reality itself. Lucky and the others stared at it, open-mouthed, but Luna didn't even look at it; she was looking into Stu's eyes instead. "Your natural color," she softly. "I like it."
"I've got to go," he said, pulling away from her. "Goodbye, Luna. I won't forget you." He smiled at the others. "I won't forget any of you."
And that was the last thing he said to them. He turned around, took a deep breath, and stepped through the portal.