~~~
The Cycle
The CIA Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis was the ideal work environment for
Declan. He did most of his work alone, which suited him just fine. When you
have to reconcile your work with others, conflicting information mean that one
party has somehow acquired false data, and, of course, it’s always the other
party. For Declan, a man who avoids conflict at all costs, the choice is to
either accuse his partner of preparing bogus data, or letting the bogus data
pass to the other departments. Yes, it’s much better just to keep to yourself,
where you can do what you have to with no distractions.
As far as Declan could see, there
was no higher calling than preserving knowledge. That’s why he joined the CIA;
it allowed him to devote his life to the preservation of mankind’s
achievements. There are seven billion minds out there, all with infinite
potential, working together to develop our humble planet. Well, most people are
working together. Creating is a team effort, but gathering can be done alone. Man
is a collective being, the sum—
A knock on the door. “Hey, DeVault!”
Christ.
“Can I help you, Kazuki?”
A young Japanese man entered
Declan’s utilitarian office, laptop in tow. He seemed unable to contain his
laughter. “You gotta watch this video, man. You’re gonna die!”
Declan sighed. “All right, go for
it.” And please, just leave afterwards.
Kazuki circled the desk and nudged Declan,
half-seating himself on the rolling chair next to his co-worker – an action
that left Declan very uncomfortable. Kazuki opened his laptop and began typing
before he noticed that his computer had logged off. “Come on, come on…” His
laptop finished logging in after a minute of muttering, and he opened Google
Chrome. It was currently on a page called Nyan.cat. Since when can URL’s end in the word “cat”?
“What are you trying—”
“Shh, just watch.” Kazuki grinned
deviously.
The video was beyond Declan’s
comprehension. For one thing, everything was pixelated, like it had been lifted
from an old video game. The music was immeasurably grating, a never-ending loop
of a helium-charged cat relentlessly repeating the word “nyan”. The creature on
the screen was an abomination; a pink Pop-Tart, with the head, legs, and tail
of a gray kitten, flying through space, leaving a trail of rainbows and
sparkles.
Declan watched silently for a
moment. “I… don’t really get it.” For
God’s sake, turn it off.
Kazuki looked hopefully at Declan
for a moment. “You don’t get it?” He chuckled. “That’s the point! Isn’t he
cute? Isn’t he just the…” He lost his train of thought and absent-mindedly
turned back to the screen. Declan shook his head and closed his co-workers
laptop.
“Is that all, Kazuki?” Declan asked.
He really needed to get back to work. Other people can waste time on the
internet if they want, but Declan wasn’t one to waste time.
Kazuki stood sharply.
“The
end has come. Time must be rewritten.”
Declan hesitated. What
the hell is he talking about? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kazuki turned to face Declan, a perplexed
look on his face. “What’s what supposed to mean?”
“What you just said. You said
something about time, or… something, I don’t know. It was weird.”
Kazuki smirked, but it quickly
faded. “Wait, are you serious?” He looked at Declan a little closer. “You’re
tripping balls, dude. I didn’t say anything.”
Stop
messing around and get out of my office. I have work to do. “All right, I
guess it doesn’t really matter. I have to get back to work anyway.”
Kazuki seemed surprised to find
himself standing. He stood dumbly for a moment before grabbing his laptop and
heading for the door. Declan turned back to his work, but he had about a second
of peace before he was startled by a sharp crack. He looked up, frustrated, to see Kazuki’s laptop lying damaged on
the ground. Kazuki followed a moment later, his limp form collapsing into a
heap.
Declan rushed to his co-worker’s
side, but Kazuki was no longer breathing. Shoot,
no, no, dammit, what happened? He hadn’t called for help or shouted in
pain, so it must have happened instantly. Not a heart attack, not a stroke. There
hadn’t been a gunshot. Had he been hit by a fast-acting poison? No, there was
no discoloration anywhere on his skin. He hadn’t died, he had just… stopped
living.
“Help!” Declan shouted. “Someone,
come help! Kazuki’s dead!” No one could help Kazuki now, but when there’s a dead
man on your floor, you yell.
“Someone call 911! Anyone!”
* * *
“He just died. I heard him drop his
laptop, and when I looked up, he was dead on ground.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re sure you didn’t
see anything suspicious?”
“No, officer.” For the tenth time. “Nothing aside from the gibberish he spouted a
minute before he died.”
The mustachioed policeman had been
grilling Declan for the better part of an hour, trying to glean what
information he could about the death. Apparently, the Police Department wasn’t
content until they had questioned everyone available to an inch of their
sanity, and since Declan was the only one to have witnessed the event, he was
the prime source of information. Even then, the information he had to give
could be summed up in about two sentences.
Declan’s phone struck a harsh chord.
Didn’t I set it to vibrate? He took
it out and checked his messages, finding a voicemail from an unknown number.
No, not from an unknown number… from no number. It had no indication of where
it had come from, not even an *IDENTICATION UNAVAILABLE* notice. He went
against his better judgment and tapped *LISTEN*, bringing the phone to his ear.
“You
alone hold the power. It is your responsibility.”
The message ended. Declan was unsettled; the voice had been
perfectly flat, as if someone had perfected synthetic speech but forgotten to
add any emotion. The message listed itself as a minute and four seconds long,
but after the brief words, it was silence. The most confusing part about the
message, however, was the message itself. This
is the most pointless spam I’ve ever seen. What power could I possibly hold?
After a moment of contemplation, Declan decided to delete
the spam, but when he looked at the screen, he saw that his phone was shutting
down. He waited for a moment, but it continued to shut down, going on for 15
seconds, 30, a minute. He tried a hard reset, but he got no result. Dammit, a boot-cycling phone is the last thing
I need right now. He pried off the case and pulled out the wide, flat
battery, but the phone somehow continued to shut down. Whatever virus his phone
had, is was virulent enough to provide it with phantom power.
“Mr. DeVault, please. I need you to pay attention.”
“Wha- huh?” Declan spanned out of his strange situation.
The phone virus must have gotten to him worse than he had thought; he was
sweating all over. “Sorry, officer, things are just a little... weird… right
now.”
“Mmhmm. Is that so?” The officer gestured Declan’s phone,
lying on the table. “And why are you erasing your phone?”
“What? Oh, no, I didn’t do that. I think it was a virus of
some sort.” Declan breathed deeply. “Can I go now, officer? I don’t have
anything else to tell you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you don’t, Mr. DeVault.” The man looked more
closely at Declan’s face, and seemed to take extra notice of his perspiration,
of his downcast eyes, of his lack of focus. “Are you all right, Mr. DeVault?
You seem very anxious.”
Only then did Declan see how incredibly suspicious he had
been acting. Sweating, nervousness, distractedness, trying to get away from the
cops… God, he thinks I’m the murderer! This
was far from ideal. Declan just wanted to forget about this mess, forget about
work, and go home to his family.
The officer spoke up. “Mr. DeVault, I’m going to go speak
some of the detectives.”
“Can I go home, sir? Or do you still need me?” He had
nothing else to offer, but he wanted to be as cooperative as possible.
The man paused. “Do we have your contact information?”
“That was the first thing you asked for.”
“Then you can go. Remember, we may be calling you.”
“Of course.” Declan let out a frustrated sigh as he
gathered his coat and headed to the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he
could see that he held the officer’s full attention until he closed the door
behind him.
Declan walked to his car much faster than he usually did,
yet he didn’t gain any time; his car was not where he thought he had parked it.
When he eventually spotted it from a distance, he was relieved; driving would
be a good distraction. Of course, even that simple pleasure would be denied to
him.
He groaned when approached his Toyota. There were words on
the windshield, not printed with ink, but carved into the glass. They were
impossibly precise. It must have been laser-etched; nothing else could be so
clean. The message was as frustratingly unclear as the others:
Reality is unraveling. End the end
with a new beginning.
Declan read the lines a few times before getting into the
car and turning on the engine. At least, trying to turn on the engine; it was,
of course, dead. A mysterious message, followed by death. What the hell is happening? He decided to walk home. The fresh air
and exercise would clear his mind, and he might gain a better perspective on
what was happening.
He hit the pavement, thoroughly confused and decidedly
disturbed. It was time to start taking things seriously.
* * *
“The end has come. Time must be rewritten.”
The end of the world, probably. It certainly seems dramatic enough. “You alone
hold the power. It is your responsibility.” I have the power to rewrite time,
huh? I really don’t think so. “Reality is unraveling. End the end with a new
beginning.” If I rewrite time, will I…
erase something? Will I avoid the end of the world by wiping out the history of
mankind? That doesn’t sound much better…
Declan was having a devil of a time deciphering the notes. Taking
them at face value, it looked like his “duty” was to end the world before
something else did. The problem, of course, is that he had no idea how to end
the world, and those who did were likely unwilling to share their secrets. And
even if he had an “end the world now” button, would it be better than whatever
else would end the world in an unknown span of time?
He really wanted to just write the
whole thing off as an elaborate prank, but Kazuki’s involvement… Having a
friend die for a silly game was almost harder to swallow than a mystic deity
prophesying the end of existence. Either way, death was a factor, so it wasn’t a
situation to take lightly.
He had been walking for nearly an
hour – the walk was longer than he had anticipated, and he was having trouble
keeping pace. He decided to take a detour through a small park, a lush, happy
little place with just enough trees to block out the nearby buildings. He eased
himself onto a bench and took a moment to appreciate his surroundings: an aging
playground, a woman doing yoga, a boy playing fetch with a dog.
When he studied a little longer,
however, things began to look… off. There were lo leaves on the ground, despite
the late autumn weather. The clouds were crowded and varied, with dark rainclouds
and wispy cirrus clouds mingling indiscriminately.
No, it was worse than that. It was
nearly 5 P.M., yet the sun was still at the peak of its path, casting noonday
shadows. The wind was blowing, but the trees didn’t sway. The woman doing yoga
was reaching unnatural poses, balancing comfortably when she should have surely
toppled to the earth. Even a professional couldn’t defy physics. She stood up
from a too-deep waist stretch.
“You’ll
know when the time is right. You will know what to do.”
Don’t freak out. Declan waited a moment before standing as casually as he
could. He committed her words to memory, knowing they would be important. As he
exited the park, he heard he shouts of a young boy needing help, needing an
ambulance to come save the woman who had collapsed. Declan kept walking, not
bothering to help the woman who was already dead. He almost chuckled when he
saw the ambulance speeding towards the park.
What Declan didn’t see was the
police officer, driving from the scene of a murder at the CIA headquarters to a
small park nearby, where another person had mysteriously dropped dead. The same
park where the prime suspect of one murder had happened to walk through,
leaving another body in his wake.
* * *
Declan
just had to wait. He had known that he was the one to end the world, and he had
been told that he would know what to do, when he had to do it. But he hadn’t known
why. Why was Declan’s apocalypse any
better than a natural one?
Declan now knew. He wasn’t going to
end the world; he was going to rewrite time. He was going to end the end with a
new beginning. He didn’t know if the world as he knew it would still exist. He
didn’t know how much control he would have. But he believed resetting the earth
would be better than letting the apocalypse take it.
But what of mankind’s achievements?
Declan had spent his life gathering information from around the world, preparing
it, archiving it, delivering it. Mankind had millions of years and billions of
minds behind it, creating a vast world of infinite value. Declan had dedicated
his life to making sure no piece of history was forgotten, to ensure that man
lived on, if not in body, then through their works.
And
now I’m supposed to wipe it all away?
He was nearly home, though it had
taken another of walking after the death at the park. His feet ached, but his
mind was understandably preoccupied. He was mostly focused on his surroundings;
it did indeed seem that reality was unwinding. He saw a mile-long line of crows
flying through the skies, wings beating in perfect unison. All colors seemed
richer, and they seemed to blend together more. It seemed that whatever laws
had governed the Earth for centuries had… spoiled. Things were slowly becoming
distorted, and it was getting worse. I
really hope I’m just insane.
Declan wiped the sweat from his forehead as he opened his
front door. Before he could say anything, however, he was embraced by his
sobbing wife.
“Oh, Declan, I saw what h-happened
on the news. Was he your f-friend?” She pulled her head from his chest long
enough to look him in the eye. “Is everything all right?”
If
only you knew. Declan smiled, for his wife’s benefit more than his own. “Of
course everything’s all right, Sonia.” He peered over her shoulder. “Honey, where’s
Sophie?”
“She’s upstairs,” Sonia responded.
She turned towards the stairs. “Sophie, daddy’s home!”
Declan heard the rapid thumps of
little feet hurrying down the stairs before he heard his young daughter’s
squeals. A curly-haired girl in the dress of a princess ran at Declan, laughing
and shouting. “Daddy! Daddy!” Declan could never be unhappy when his daughter
was around. He gathered her in his arms and began growling. “Watch out, Sophie!
The kissy monster’s got ya!” Sophie yelled with delight and mock terror as her
father rained kisses all over her face. Declan laughed as well, grabbing his
wife’s arm and joining the family into a group hug which descended into a
“cuddle puddle”. The DeVault family laughed and laughed, sharing a genuine
moment of perfect love.
There was a loud knock at the door.
“Declan DeVault, please open the door. This is the Virginia State police.”
Not
now! Why now?
Declan tore himself from his family
to take a look out the back window. Where his back yard should have been, there
was nothing but a perfectly square hole, infinitely deep. Things had progressed
further than he had thought; Earth itself was rebelling against the chains of
reality.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” asked Sophie.
“Why don’t you answer the door? They probably just want to ask you some questions.”
“No, sweetie, they…” Declan sighed. What am I supposed to do?
“The time is now. You know what to
do.”
Oh,
God…
Declan turned to his wife, but she
was focused on her daughter. “What did you say, angel?”
Sophie absently-mindedly put her
thumb into her mouth. “I di-nint say anything, mommy.”
The knock came again. “Mr. DeVault,
open this door!”
Sonia turned to her husband. “Declan,
why are they so angry?”
He didn’t hear her. My daughter… Declan refused to let his
daughter experience death. I’ll just have
to end the world right now.
End the
world…
My family…
“Sophie?” Declan said. His daughter peered into his eyes,
her thumb falling from her mouth. He took a long look at his daughter, gazing
at the innocence on her face, the ribbons in her hair, the tiny gown she wore…
The white, angelic wings growing out of her back…
“Mr. DeVault, if you don’t open this
door, we’re going to break it down!”
Declan gathered his family in his
arms. He steeled his mind and whispered his love to his wife and daughter.
He drew a shallow breath.
