Ethan Knox - March 2121
"Go faster, will you?" Monica snaps, hitting Gerald hard against the arm.
"I'm going as fast as I can," he complains, but there's none of his usual calmness behind the words. For once, Gerald sounds genuinely nervous, and that alone makes the knot in my stomach tighten.
The car tears through the streets, the engine screaming every time he pushes it harder. Red lights blur past the windows as he ignores them, tyres screeching whenever he has to swerve around another vehicle. My fingers are curled so tightly around the edge of my seat that my knuckles ache, but I barely notice. All I can think about is Kai and the distance between us.
"We're almost there," Thomas says from behind me. He's crammed into the narrow space at the back of the car, barely able to move.
Gerald suddenly swerves to avoid a cyclist, sending the entire car lurching sideways. Edmund grabs hold of the handle above the door to steady himself.
"I would like to at least get there alive," he says, trying desperately to sound calm.
"You wanted to get there quickly, so let me drive," Gerald shoots back, his hands tightening around the steering wheel until his knuckles pale.
Neither of them says what we're all thinking. We have no idea what we're going to find when we get there, and somehow that uncertainty is worse than anything my visions have shown me.
"There." Sophie points through the windscreen, her fingers tightening around her seat belt. "I can... see it."
My stomach twists the moment I see the building.
GeneX.
It rises ahead of us, bright against the night sky, smoke spilling from several floors and drifting across the streets. For a moment, I forget how to breathe as I stare at the place that has taken so much from all of us.
How the hell did it end up like this?
How did we go from spending years planning this moment to racing towards it, terrified of what the end might look like?
I close my eyes for half a second, but instead of darkness, I see Kai on the floor. There is blood across his face, his chest rising and falling as he looks at me with an expression I still can't understand. I have seen that moment before, but I don't know whether it belongs to the future or whether my mind is simply torturing me with everything I am afraid of losing.
I force the image away and open my eyes.
Not now.
I can't afford to think about the futures I've seen when I don't even know which one we're walking into.
The moment Monica took the cuffs off me, I bolted down the stairs towards one of the cars. I was only a few steps away when someone grabbed the back of my coat and yanked me backwards.
"Where are you going?" Gerald says
I twist around, trying to pull myself free. "I'm going to Kai. Now let go."
"Ethan, you need to think about this."
"I have been thinking about it!"
My voice cracks, but I don't care. I don't care if they think I'm being reckless or if they believe I'm making the wrong decision because I've already seen enough possible futures to know what happens if I stay behind.
Kai dies.
Maybe not in every future, but in enough of them that the thought has become a constant weight inside my chest.
Gerald opens his mouth to argue again, but Monica's voice cuts through the chaos.
"Just let him go, Gerald."
She drops a bag onto the floor and looks between us before giving him a look that makes it clear she has already made up her mind.
"He's going and so am I."
Gerald stares at me for several seconds before finally releasing my coat. I stumble forward, barely bothering to steady myself before continuing towards the car.
Edmund and Thomas arrive moments later, both trying their best to convince me to stay. They talk about the risks and about how we have no idea what's waiting inside, but none of it matters.
"I need to stop Finn from making a mistake," I tell them, forcing myself to keep my voice steady. "And if I have to die trying to save Kai, then so be it."
I swallow hard before forcing the words out.
"I'd rather die trying to save him than live without him"
That is what finally changes their minds. They don't agree with me, and I know they don't, but they understand that nothing they say is going to stop me from going after him.
What I hadn't expected was for them to come with me.
Even Sophie heard what was happening and came running, insisting that they might need her healing abilities. Now we're all crammed into a car, heading straight towards the place I've spent years wishing I could destroy, and somehow I am still terrified of what waits inside.
"I did tell you guys to stay at the cabin," I say.
Monica turns around from the front seat and gives me a small smile. "Well, we're here now."
Edmund looks out through the window, his expression becoming distant as the building gets closer.
"Kai and Finn are ending what we've worked years for," he says quietly. "We should at least be there when GeneX finally falls."
I stare at him as the passing streetlights flicker across his face.
Right.
I'd forgotten.
Out of all of us, Edmund has wanted this the longest. He was the one who formed the revolutionary group inside Trinity, the one who spent years gathering people willing to stand against GeneX and the one who kept fighting when everyone else thought destroying them was impossible.
And now it's happening.
After all these years, GeneX is finally falling. I should feel relieved, but instead, I feel sick.
"Look," Thomas says.
He leans forward, pointing through the windscreen, and the GeneX building suddenly fills our view. Smoke pours from the entrance while glass covers the pavement, glittering beneath the streetlights. Bodies are scattered across the ground as people flee from the building, desperate to get as far away as possible.
Then the lights begin to go out.
One floor disappears into darkness, followed by another and another, each one vanishing so quickly that my heart begins hammering against my ribs.
"Noah seed must have worked" Thomas whisper.
The darkness climbs higher through the building until the windows several floors above us suddenly explode outward. A wave of black shadows tears through them, sending glass raining towards the ground like thousands of tiny shards of ice.
"Kai," I whisper, my eyes fixed on the destruction. "He must have made it up there already."
My chest tightens as I realise what that means. He's moving faster than I expected, which means we have even less time than I thought.
"Gerald, we need to hurry."
"I know."
He doesn't slow down. The entrance rushes towards us as Gerald grips the steering wheel.
"Everyone duck!"
He slams through the debris, and the impact throws me forward as smoke and dust flood the car. Something cracks against the roof while glass shatters around us before Gerald finally slams on the brakes.
For a second, nobody moves.
"Woo," Monica says breathlessly before kicking open her door. "That was fun."
She jumps out, but Sophie remains frozen in her seat. I climb over her and pull myself from the car, immediately stepping into the destruction that used to be the reception area.
Bullet holes scar the walls, desks have been overturned and bodies lie across the floor while blood spreads beneath them. The smell hits me first, a mixture of smoke, metal and something unmistakably human, and for a moment I have to force myself not to gag.
I take another step forward when something changes.
My vision flickers.
Blue flashes across my eyes, and for half a second the room disappears.
I see the back entrance, men carrying weapons as they move towards the building. Three minutes.
Then I'm back.
"We have security coming through the back entrance in three minutes," I warn them.
Thomas stiffens, but Gerald and Monica immediately move into action.
"Six incoming," Gerald says. "No awakened, but heavily armed."
"Got it."
Monica steps forward just as the back doors burst open. The guards barely have time to enter before she throws her hands forward, unleashing a blast that sends them stumbling backwards. The doorway collapses beneath the force, concrete and metal crashing down and sealing the exit.
I stare at the destruction for a moment before forcing myself to look away. I reach into the future again, searching for anything that might tell me what comes next, but all I find is silence.
For now, we're clear.
Still, every time I use my ability, I feel something inside me getting thinner, as though I'm burning through myself one vision at a time.
Edmund undos his cuffs before rolling up his sleeves.
"You know the plan."
We all nod.
Monica and Thomas will take the basement, where they're supposed to recover Noah's seed and find Finn. Gerald and Sophie will stay by the car, monitoring anyone who approaches while Sophie prepares herself to heal whoever needs her.
And Edmund and I are going after Kai.
"Good luck, everyone," Thomas says quietly.
Gerald passed me a gun "Keep yourself safe or Kai will kill us.
And with that we split up.
We're only a few floors up, but already my body is beginning to feel the strain. Every breath burns in my chest, and every step feels heavier than the last as Edmund and I climb through the building. We've had to work our way around bodies lying across the stairs, I try not to look at their faces because I know I won't be able to keep going if I start wondering who they were.
When we finally reach the floor where Kai shattered the windows, Edmund and I step through the opening.
The destruction is almost impossible to comprehend.
Lights hang from the ceiling, flickering weakly above us while the room stretches out beneath them, covered in blood and bodies. Some people lie across desks wearing lab coats, while others are crumpled against the walls, and a few are still sitting in their chairs with their eyes open as error messages flash across the screens in front of them.
The smell is overwhelming.
I take another step, trying to breathe through my mouth, and that's when I see him.
His body has been crushed beneath twisted and for a moment my brain refuses to recognise him. I know that face... 002.
My legs give out beneath me.
I drop to my knees, one hand flying over my mouth as nausea rises into my throat. I force myself to look away, but my eyes immediately find another body.
Dr Williams.
He's slumped against the wall, his neck cut open, his blood dried across his clothes.
I stare at him, then back at 002, and suddenly I'm seeing more than just bodies. I'm seeing everything Kai has been forced to endure, everything GeneX did to him, everything that pushed him towards this moment.
"Kai did this," I whisper. "He did all of this."
Edmund's hand settles gently against my shoulder.
My voice shakes as tears blur my vision. I wipe at them, but more come anyway.
"He must have been terrified."
I look at Edmund, struggling to breathe around the lump forming in my throat.
"He must have been so scared and alone."
There is no disgust in Edmund's expression. There is only sadness as he moves his hand to the back of my head, holding me there for a moment.
"Yes," he says quietly. "He must have been scared."
I close my eyes because I need to believe that. I need to believe that somewhere underneath everything Kai has done, there is still the boy I know. The boy who looks at me like I'm the only thing keeping him anchored to the world, the boy I have spent every second since being taken from him trying to find.
Because if Kai wasn't scared, if he wasn't desperate, if there isn't still some part of him fighting to survive beneath all of this, then I don't know what we're going to find at the top.
Edmund reaches his hand towards me, and after a moment I take it. His fingers close around mine as he pulls me back onto my feet.
"Which is why we need to bring him home."
I nod, even though my throat is so tight that speaking hurts.
"Yeah," I whisper. "Let's bring him home."
I look towards the corridor and the darkness waiting above us.
I've seen Kai dying more times than I can remember. I've seen blood covering his clothes, his body growing still in my arms and those eyes that always seem so full of life slowly losing their light. I've seen myself screaming his name, begging him to stay, promising him anything if he would just open his eyes again.
I've seen a hundred different versions of the same ending, and every single time I've failed to save him.
So I don't know whether this is another future I've already seen or whether, for once, I'm still standing at the beginning of something I can change.
All I know is that Kai is somewhere above us, and I am not leaving this building without him.
Even if I have to walk through every nightmare I've ever seen to reach him, I will find him. I will drag him home if I have to, because the thought of returning without him is something I cannot even allow myself to imagine.
I squeeze Edmund's hand before letting go and forcing myself towards the stairs.
I tell myself we're going to bring Kai home.
I tell myself he's still alive.
I tell myself that when I finally reach him, he'll look at me and I'll know that he's still there.
But with every step I take towards the darkness above us, somewhere deep inside me, a terrible part of me already knows that I might be walking towards the moment I've spent to long trying to prevent.
The moment when I finally find Kai...
and realise I was too late.