E.N.D.A.Y.S. (14 page)

'Hayes...'
Kali stuttered.
'Do you see that...?'

Hayes looked up at the sky. The clouds were dissipating, sky shifting hues, colour draining, desaturating with every passing second. He turned to the mountain peaks, the snow shifting, avalanches roaring downwards. Hayes tagged the Endays agents and jumped them out to safety, his direct connection to their consoles faster than a human operator. “See that, Carmichael?” Hayes scoffed on the comms. “I can be a boyscout too...”

But the avalanches weren't coming towards him any longer. Gravity's hold on the cascade of loose snow and ice was weak, it was lifting itself skyward, pulled towards the increasingly dark heavens.

'Anyone else... think the air is a little thin..?'
Carmichael said over the comms, between intermittent giggles.

'This is your fault, Hayes!'
Kali screamed. '
Get the job fucking done!'

He activated his next jump, as the Himalayas became shrouded by shadows darker than night.

Hayes appeared at Mount Shasta in the midst of a firefight. Both sides giggling to themselves, guns heavy in their hands, accuracy way off, firing wildly in the vague direction of their enemy.

“What the fuck is going on?” Hayes asked, starting to feel light headed as he targeted the device and spun up the dark jump.

'Oxygen depletion.'
Kali said, exasperated as she monitored the EDC network.
'Worldwide mass oxygen depletion... the reality is teetering on the edge of the meta, being pushed deeper and deeper with every passing second, it's being ripped apart at the seams. Gravity is fluctuating, the forces of nature are fucking themselves in the arse, get this fucking done!'

Hayes brought up the locations of the final three devices, and cycled up the dark jumps to suck them into oblivion one by one, hoping they hadn't been moved. He jumped himself to Glastonbury, seeing his comrades outnumbered on the sat feeds, and tore the insurgents to shreds with the last rounds of the guns he had to hand, dropping them into the holsters and pulling new ones. He confirmed the device was gone, and set off the jump to the final location, all too aware that the sky was now pitch black, devoid of stars, life, the endless onyx void of the meta that every Division agent knew lay beyond the thin walls between dimensions.

Arriving at Isla Del Sol, Hayes discovered there was no fight in the Nth Degree rebels. They were on the ground, slow, shallow breaths, hands reaching ineffectively for the triggers of their weapons as he stood over them.

He checked his oxygen levels, told his nanos to make best use of what little air he had at his disposal. With heavy, laboured footsteps he walked through the bodies, finding the former position of the device, confirming it too had been sucked into the meta.

“One more...” he gasped, “Must've missed it...”

The light of the jump consumed him.

Hayes emerged from the jump at the top of Ayer's rock, falling to his knees, nanos doing their best to keep him moving with what little air he had left. He looked around at the bodies, there was no sign of the device.

“It's... gone...” he stammered. “Why... isn't... the world... saved?”

Kali ploughed through the readings, confirming that all seven devices were indeed gone, as he said they were.

'We're too late...'
she said.
'You're too far gone...'

“It's never... too late!” Hayes shouted, lungs clawing for breath inside his chest. “I don't... lose!”

He fell to the ground, knees impacting hard with the rock beneath him.

“I don't...
fucking
... lose...”

He gasped for air, but it was so thin, so ephemeral, his body barely bothered attempting to interact with it. 

Kali watched, frozen in horror as his lens crashed towards the ground.

“I've got a terrible fucking idea...” she said, clamouring around in the drawers beneath her console, pulling out a black jumpsuit, glimmering in light of the screens hovering in the darkness of her lair. She struggled to get the suit on over her clothes and reached for the console, altering the frequency of the pocket dimension she was inhabiting, as the jumpsuit started to tingle to life.

“Just hold on a little longer...” she said over the comm. “All of you... just hold on.”

The surface of the remote op suit woke up, nanos travelling across the surface, rippling and undulating as they interacted with the console, sending their data to Hayes's nanos.

She lay on the floor of the room and the nanos took control, contorting her body to match Hayes's position. In seconds, they were synced, and control was left with her. Kali took to her feet, and observed the view from Hayes's lens, as he too got to his feet, movements synced to hers. She leaned over to the console and dialled up a jump in his lens. Hayes tapped away at a console that didn't exist, barely conscious of his own movements, playing an invisible piano at the top of the sandstone monolith. The jump opened, and light consumed him.

Kali used the lens to guide herself, and Hayes's body, through the corridor from the jump bay to the operations room. There was a woman passed out at the console. Hayes swiped her out the way, knocking her to the floor.

“Sorry about that...”
Kali said, sitting Hayes down at the console, whilst she sat at her own console.

She stared through his lens at the controls in front of him. They were rudimentary, but essentially had the same functions. The words of the techs swum in her head as she began a jump sequence between her console and the one in-world.

“Gonna need a push from the other side” She cycled up the Endays jump bays, all ten of them, and took operational control of every available  jump bay from Division. Each of the in-world jump bays was small, fit for five or ten people at the most. But together, she theorised, they were able to pull enough energy from the meta to push the entire reality back into place. From her side, the jumps cycled up as she overrode the safety protocols and forced the bays to aim for the empty grid position of 9415:5643:7543. The energy of their continuous jump was to be the beacon, a magnet for the in-world bays to aim for.

The jump bays screamed as they cycled to full power, light bursting out from each of them. She watched the feeds from the Endays teams around the world as the ground around them shimmered, black void above them starting to twinkle. Light coalescing in the darkness, spanning the world, appearing throughout the infinite expanses of space, mingling with every atom, grabbing hold of every molecule of that reality in a tight grasp. The glow permeated every cell in the dimension, a radiant phosphorescence that wrenched them from the abyss, the oblivion of the meta.

Kali could no longer see anything in-world, every camera, every feed was blinded by light. She watched her screens, eyes peeled to the grid, alarms blaring all around her as the jump bays continued to cycle, connected to the empty grid space.

“This is going to work...” she said to herself. “This
has
to fucking work....”

Hayes woke to find his pounding head laying flat on a metal surface. He picked himself up and looked around, seeing in-world Kali groggily waking up on the floor.

“Why the fuck was I unconscious again?” he asked, cycling through lens menus with his finger and thumb, checking comms with Kali.

'Good morning...'
she said.

“This is bullshit.” he shouted. “I've spent the last fucking day getting knocked out more times than Harry fucking Potter.”

'What is with you and these fucking pop culture references? When did you get time to catch up on an entire reality's worth of movies.'

“Shut up.” he said, wrenching himself from the console.

“You ok?” he asked in-world Kali.

“Yeah...” she said, picking herself up.

'Is that a me?'
Kali asked, staring at her doppelgänger through his lens.

“A much hotter you, yeah.” he said, leaving the operations room. “So what the fuck happened?”

'Saved you arse.'
she scoffed.
'You're welcome, by the way. Isn't every day an op saves their agent and puts an entire fucking reality back on the grid.'

“We're back on the grid?!” he exclaimed. “Shit wouldn't have needed saving if you and Campbell had let me do my plan in the first place...”

'Pretty sure it was your plan that fucked everything up...'
she said.

“Potato, pa-go-fuck-yourself-to.” he said, gritting his teeth and wincing in preparation of a feedback loop through his skull that never came. He pulled up the EDC positioning data in his lens.

'Don't be a lazy fuck...'
Kali said, as he cycled up a jump.
'It's literally an elevator ride away!'

The light consumed him, dissipating as he appeared in the EDC.

“What the fuck?!” Campbell exclaimed as Hayes appeared in front of him.

“Did ya' miss me?” Hayes asked, grin peeling up his face.

“I most certainly did not, Mister Hayes.” Campbell said, turning on his heels and strutting away to his office.

“Not even a little bit?” Hayes asked, making to follow, discovering he was being held in place, a shunt of metal behind him. He turned to find his coat fused to an analyst's desk. “What the fuck?”

'I fucking told you.'
Kali barked in his head.
'There's a reason jumps are controlled by operators... if you miss-time your point of arrival, even by a fraction of an inch, you can find yourself fused to the matter around you.'

“
Now
you fucking tell me?!” Hayes shrieked, trying in vain to pull his coat from the table, the matter fused at the molecular level. “What the fuck use is a coat-table?” he pulled the coat off and strutted towards Campbell's cube, pulling the door to discover it was locked. “Campbell, you owe me a new coat!”

Campbell, motioned to his ears, shrugged, feigned being unable to hear him.

“A new coat, Campbell, for saving your damn world. Techs are going to bitchslap me if I go back without their damn coat.”

'What are you talking about?'
Kali asked.
'You know you're still grounded, right?'

“I just saved a whole reality!”

'Think you'll find
I
saved it, but you're still grounded.'

“I helped...” he grunted.

'You fucked it up. Still. Grounded.'

“This isn't fair!” he whined.

'I'm sure it seems that way.'

“But I'm a fucking hero!”

'What about '
grounded
' are you not getting?'
she asked.

“I'm going to write a letter.” he said.

'You do that.'

“It's going to have a lot of expletives, all about you.”

'I'm sure they'll love that.'
she scoffed.

“And exclamation points.”

'Because that worked so well the last time.'

“Congratulations Hayes!” Carmichael exclaimed, running over from the door and giving Hayes a hug. “A pleasure serving with you and Kali!”

“Yeah...” Hayes said, confused about the hug. “Do we hug? Is that what people do here?”

“It's a gesture of camaraderie, a celebratory farewell gesture, you're going home, are you not?”

“Save it...” Hayes grunted. “Looks like I'm here for the foreseeable...”

Campbell poked his head of his office “What?!”  he shrieked.

“You're back on the grid, but I'm not going anywhere.” Hayes explained. “Seems we're stuck with each other... unless the world ends again... Frankly, I might just let it happen next time.” he made his way to the door.

“We'll be sure to let you know the next time we could...” Campbell took a moment, grit his teeth. “...use your assistance.” he grumbled.

“Eat a thousand dicks.” Hayes spat.

“I most certainly will not!” Campbell barked back.

“You don't know if you like it 'til you try it...” Hayes said, grabbing hold of Carmichael by the tie as he walked out of the EDC.

Hayes turned to him as the elevator arrived, grabbing Carmichal's hand and swiping his thumb against the hidden button to the surface.“Where are you going now?” Carmichael asked, as Hayes pushed him back out of the elevator.

“To see if this shitty world of yours has a bar...”

Kali watched through Hayes's lens as Carmichael's face disappeared behind the closing elevator doors, and turned the comms off. A call was coming through. A call she very much didn't want to answer.

Judge Phillips appeared on her screen, smiling wickedly from the inner sanctum of his darkly lit office. “I gather by the massive power surges that your continued assistance of Mister Hayes has proven fruitful?” he asked.

“A reality didn't disappear into the meta, so I'd call it a win...” she said, forcing a weak smile to her face.

“Spectacular work,” the Judge said, eyes twinkling in the darkness. “And he's settling in... nicely?”

“As well as an arsehole can fit in anywhere...” Kali said, swiftly following up her statement with an addendum. “Pardon my language, sir.”

“Quite alright, Kali. He is most
definitely
an arsehole.” he scoffed, and observed her polite smile as his fled from his face, a steely gaze remaining in its place. “And in regards to... the Establishment?”

Kali took a moment to reply, feeling a queasiness bubbling in her gut. She peered into his cold, intense stare and knew she only had one answer to give.

“He's in.” she said. “They have no idea of his true objective.”

“And neither does he...” the Judge said. “That's what makes this whole mission quite so
scintillating
, don't you think?” the smile returned to his face, and Kali mirrored it as best she could. She was beginning to feel that she might be in way over her head.