Lights 5

What a Wonderful World


	Jake found himself suspended in what seemed like a warm liquid mass. It flooded around him, wrapping about his head and limbs and tail. This wasn't the laboratory, and the PMS suit was gone; everything was just gone. He was naked, unable to move, floating through void. The mass sealed itself around his body, then penetrated his every opening: his eyes, ears, mouth, anus... the sensation wasn't painful, just strange. It felt like his body and mind had been folded upon itself, into itself. Then, there was a rush of light and color, a sensation of being pulled forward.

	The Universe exploded around him. Stars and nebulae and galaxies rushed by. He was lifted upward, his mind lifting upward, in a way where "up" wasn't a direction but more of a simplistic approximation of a transition to a place that was Other. In an instant he was there, and then he was Blue. All was Blue. The vastness enveloped his feeble brain, and grew it to the size of infinity — combined with it, too.

	A presence. A voice. There was a form of being beyond himself, beyond everything, beyond explanation or meaning or sense, beyond even the greatest furry description of God. It grasped the tiny, paralyzed fox in its incomprehensible self, and spoke. The words were as vast as the stars, and the force of them simultaneously killed him and resurrected him a billion times over, yet he still understood.

	"Who are you?"

	He could not respond, for he was nothing; he had no muzzle and could not speak. His mind could think, in its smallness, only his name, and the Blue responded: a cacophony of voices made One.

	"You are 'Jacob Tarrish'. This designation is meaningless.

	"It's is a 'thing' from the Other Side. It is called 'life'.

	"Crude beings, composed primarily of baryonic matter. 'Up quarks', 'down quarks', 'protons and neutrons' you have named them. A language as inane and small as yourselves.

	"A 'species' of Carnivoran from a planet called 'Earth'. Sub-order Caniformia, family Canidae, genus Urocyon, species name 'cinoargenteus'. 'Grey Fox'? One of many that are the same species.

	"A single specimen of many. Indistinct, strange; a pointless repetition of form. Physical and bound by entropy. Inefficient, uninteresting."

	The light filled his mind, filled it to bursting, and his brain regressed at once to be crammed back into a skull seemingly much too small. The Blue began to leave him, and he was pulled "down", back to sense and reality.

	The voices called again, but not to him. He could hear Them because part of him was still There.

	"Another 'life'. Also baryonic matter. A 'species' called Computer. A unique entity, an electronic perfection, unbound by physicality. Much more interesting..."



	He awoke in a bed. On Earth. In reality and in his own small body. The vastness was gone, leaving a hole inside of him the size of a googolplex raised to the power of a googolplex of universes. There was no Blue, only white. Sheets, walls, machines that produced high-pitched tones at a steady pace, bandages, a gown. Hospital, is it designated. White, it is designated. A crude language for a crude interpretation of the electromagnetic spectrum. All white, white, white, and... here a spot of grey.

	This being atop him. Crude baryonic matter. A species called 'procyon cancrivorus'. Designated as Alexander Ichini. Small, and... no, important. Significant. Great. Wonderful. A thing designated... no, called a 'boyfriend'. My boyfriend. My lover. Love...

	Love.

	Love?

	Love.

	Love!

	Beautiful matter. Soft fur. Inefficient but interesting love. Sex and warmth and scent, and he was there and asleep on top of him. Alex was there, in the hospital with him. Jake could hear his soft snores, feel his weight on the bed nearby, and the other man's paw was wrapped around his own. The ceiling was white. He blinked with his own eyes. The EKG nearby was beeping with the rhythm of his heart, their hearts together.

	The Blue was gone, but a piece of him was gone, too. Out in There with Them, and replaced with a piece of Them, too. Also asleep, but always inside him.

																		* * *

	He seemed to take a long time to respond, and the eyes that looked back to Alex were, for a moment, as deep and as old as the stars. The raccoon was struck dumb at the sight of them, but he understood the meaning of it.

	"I know," said Jake. "I was there, with Them. In a place I've somehow longed for, but was scared to go back to. That's how I knew it would work. A mind that could remember and comprehend an infinity of knowledge — the knowledge of the Others — was possible."

	"That's right. That knowledge was what we used to beat them, and to build the zero-point energy battery, and the multifold brain."

	Jake stared at empty space, and seemed tired and far away. He nuzzled into the chest of his mate, rubbed his face on the rough fabric, and whined. "I'm so scared," he said, trembling. "Every time I think of Them, it scares me. And the worst part is I'm also so fucking angry! They rejected me and called me crude. They took apart the computer in the damned suit instead of my own brain. They didn't WANT me."

	He looked up at Alex, his eyes suddenly bright and sparkling and full of love and life and fiery passion, and he said: "So I came back, because you wanted me. We made love, and then we went back to the lab, and..."

	"We made a plan. We fought. We killed them all," Alex said solemnly.

	"I killed them all," Jake snarled. "They rejected me, so I killed Them with their own knowledge and being. Out of spite. Out of passion. Out of LOVE. Things they were too "other" to understand, that a computer could not understand. I had to. You were right."

	They kissed, cuddled, loved on each other in the cold and hopelessness. Alex touched Jake all over, stroked his soft fur, and Jake touched the fur of his muzzle and face, ran fingers through the fluff between his ears, and kissed him more.

	"It's still there, inside you," Alex said. "We both know its power is there. They could crumble mountains and dissolve furs into dust with it. But all you have to do is break some metal bars and knock out a pair of idiots."

	Jake looked down at his paws, then balled them into fists, his ears folding in defeat. "It's subconscious. I just don't know how to."

	Alex looked up at the two soldiers, who were dispassionately sitting across the hallway leaning against the wall, mostly ignoring the conversation they could only catch bits and pieces of. Both had been on the battlefield, both returning with ears not nearly as keen as they used to be.

	He let out a long sigh. "Unfortunately, I do know how. After all these years, I've known how, but never had the guts to try. It's never been an all-or-nothing situation like this. But now, I'd rather die now than wait another sixteen hours and watch you freeze to death."

	"What are you TALKING about?"

	The raccoon reached over and grabbed the thick encyclopedia from the ground, then stood and walked to the bars of the cell. He gave a whistle.

	"Hey, you!" he shouted at the guards. "I know that's you, James, you ugly badger fuck!"

	"Wh-what are you doing, Alex?" Jacob asked standing up in a panic.

	The soldier stood, looked at Alex with his eyes narrowed. "Sit your ass down, or I'll sit you down by force." He took a few steps toward the cell.

	Alex threw the book with a shout, and it crashed into the soldier's chest and practically exploded into a flurry of sheets. "Your mother was a whore! Mikael told me she fucked a wolf and LIKED it! That's why your father left!"

	"You!" he growled, reaching for his gun. "You better shut your filthy mouth, you son of a bitch, or I swear, I'll..."

	"You'll what?! Come on. Shoot me! SHOOT ME! You ugly fat retard shitfucking weasel FUCK!"

	The badger raised his rifle with a roar and—



	Blue.

	The Universe was consumed with it. Alex felt his body, naked and suspended in infinity, surrounded by Blue. It penetrated him from everywhere, vast but somehow empty, like an entire city deserted and yet left in pristine condition. The buildings, the cars, the tables and chairs. Alex could see them. They were all sitting frozen in time and swept perfectly clean, with nobody there to tend to them or use them.

	Still. Empty. Dead. And then... a rush. A sensation. Was this 'down'? His mind went somewhere called down and into himself, and he ended up on something cold and hard. It was designated... no, called 'concrete', and he was there. He was inside himself again and sitting on this thing called a floor.

	The Blue was gone again.



	Alex blinked. He was sitting on the side of the prison cell, feeling like he'd been asleep and dreaming for an incomprehensible amount of time, but no time had passed. Something had knocked him aside and onto his rear, like a shockwave. He touched his chest. No pain, no blood. He hadn't been shot.

	Looking up, he saw Jake. His boyfriend. A fox, filled with love and passion. His eyes were blue instead of their usual amber yellow, and his paws were raised, pointed toward the front of the cell like he were miming at pushing something.

	"Oh, God...," said Jake. "I did it. Did something, I think." He pulled his paws back and looked at them all over, as if confused. "I don't know what happened."

	Alex glanced over. The bars of the cell were gone in a circle, as if they had been cut off with a grinder, the sliced ends flickering with a blue glow that was rapidly fading to yellow and then red; he could feel the heat still coming from them. This circle opened into a cone that was gouged into the floor and ceiling, ending in a circular depression on the wall across the hallway. At the bottom of the cavity in the floor were the guards. Or at least, what used to be them; now there was what looked like a pile of untouched clothing crumpled into a heap, and nothing else. The men had disappeared, as had the pieces of the encyclopedia.

	"I... I did..., uhhh..." Jake wobbled in place like a drunk, then collapsed, Alex just managing to jump over to catch him before he hit the floor.

	He kissed his mate, and saw that his eyes were normal color again. "Yes, you did it. My cute superpowered superfox."

	It took him a few minutes to recover from a deep exhaustion, and for a while, Alex noticed his body was bristling with heat like a fever. Finally, it abated, and Jake started to shiver in the cold again.

	"I told you it would work," said Alex.

	"Yeah, and the secret was getting someone to almost kill you. You're crazy. Don't ever do that again, okay?"

	"Sure thing, love. Anyway, the program? You said it wasn't gone."

	"Oh, right!" Jake said, sitting up with a start.

	Unceremoniously, he reached between his legs and underneath his tail, gave a grunt, and after a momentary pause of concentration, came up with what looked like a dripping wet plastic test-tube. Inside it was another flash drive.

	"You have GOT to be kidding me," Alex said in deadpan.

	"Schofield's Second Law of Computing," Jake said with a nod. "Any data not copied to at least two places does not exist. There another one like this back in our bedroom, in case Kilroy had also decided to cavity-search me."

	"I don't know if I want to be disgusted, or if I want to have sex with you."

	Jake giggled. "You want to have sex with me, I know. I wish there were time. Come on, let's get out of here. We'll do it later, promise!"

	They climbed out of the cell and gathered up the empty uniforms. For a moment, they were taken aback when they found the soldiers were not completely "disappeared". There were a scant few bones still inside the clothes, polished clean and shiny as if from a classroom skeleton model. One boot contained a half of a paw, sliced perfectly vertical, yet dried and bloodless. But the two of them did not have time to care. The badger's uniform mostly fit on Alex (albeit a little loose in the middle), and he retained the facemask from his own suit as it had a properly-sized muzzle for him. The other set of clothes, which had belonged to the jackal guard, fit Jake so well they might as well have been cross-species twins.

	As quickly as they could, they scooped up the rifles and jogged toward the garage, hoping both that the noise of Jake's outburst hadn't alerted anyone, and that the party hadn't left yet. When they approached the area, they could already hear the loud roar of the trucks' engines, and an assortment of shouting voices.

	Alex peeked around the corner, then shuffled back to Jake. "Alright, now we have to decide what we're going to do," he said. "Kilroy is still giving orders to the others, about a hundred feet away. If we jump out now and start shooting in full auto, he'll get killed for sure. That ends everything, right here, right now. It's practically foolproof."

	"Yeah, then Xael goes nowhere. What's the other plan?"

	"Okay, well if we wait until he gets on the first truck, we sneak on board the other with the rest of them, go to the Cape, and try to take advantage of the fighting to load the program onto the computers. We might get caught. Less chance of success."

	Jake smiled and said: "I like that one better. I don't care about the odds. I want our son to fly, just like you."

	"It's settled, then."

	Alex continued to watch, and then he motioned to Jake as soon as the monk got on board the first truck. They pulled their masks down to hide their faces, and walked calmly out in the open and toward the second. Other men were filing on, and they took their place at the back of the line.

	"Jimmy!" said someone, who put his paw on Alex's shoulder, needing to practically shout over the noise. "I thought you guys were guarding the prisoners. What happened?"

	Trying his best to copy what he remembered of the badger's voice, he mumbled: "Tried to escape. We had to shoot the bitches." He quivered, his paws tightening on the rifle.

	"Good on you. Never liked those Holy Father assholes. Hope they burn in Hell until the Coonfox goes down there with 'em and blows the place apart along with everything else," said the soldier, walking into the truck.

	Jake and Alex followed him in, picked a pair of seats, and tried to act natural. It was even louder in there, with the heaters and other machinery going. There were no windows. The trucks started to vibrate underneath them, and then rolled on outside. The group of men held on for the start of a long journey.

																	* * *

	He felt a bump and forgot for a moment where he was. Jake opened his eyes, shaking off the fatigue, peering through his visor at the inside of the truck.

	"Shh, you were asleep," said Alex quietly. "We're almost there."

	They bumped along for a few more minutes. Then, the commanding officer of the unit stood up and began to shout his orders. He had some charts and maps of the area and reminded everyone of the infiltration plans, the expected resistance, everything. It took about an hour. Alex tried to pay attention, but Jake barely heard any of it. He was just so tired. Whatever he had done back in the prison had felt like being awake nonstop for a week. He ached from his fur down to his bones.

	When the briefing was over, large insulated air tanks were handed out to everyone, strapped to their backs, and the hoses fitted to valves on their face masks. The air outside was measuring minus 280F: much too cold to breathe. If anyone did, ice crystals would form in their lungs, puncture the cells, and cause them to leak fluid into the air sacs. The affected fur would drown in his own blood plasma long before the cold air affected the rest of his body.

	The truck came to a halt, and everyone stood up.

	"Masks on!" shouted the commander.

	The few furs who had not already covered their faces pulled the visors on and tightened the straps, wrapping the cloth around it.

	"Air flow on!"

	They opened the valves and began to breathe the metallic-tasting canned air.

	"Check pressure!"

	The soldiers paired up, first one and then the other checking the pressure regulator gauges on each other's backs in quick succession.

	"Report problems!"

	Nobody made any motions to call attention to themselves. Everyone's equipment was functioning properly.

	The commander donned his own mask, started his own air, had the nearest soldier check his gauge, and turned back to face everyone. He motioned to the man at the back door of the truck. With everyone in masks, they would only be able to communicate with paw signals from now on. The door was opened, and everyone filed out. Jake and Alex took up the rear once again. Despite the multiple layers, they could feel the intense cold immediately through their clothing, but it was bearable.

	They were standing next to a very large boxy building. Alex recognized it as the old Vehicle Assembly Building. He knew from the earlier briefing reports that a new launchpad had been constructed basically right next to mission control, for ease of access to the rocket and the probe 'Futura'. As this would be Cape Canaveral's last purpose for all the rest of time, and the probe would be autonomous for the whole of its mission, it didn't matter if the facility was damaged or destroyed by the proximity of the launch.

	Mission control was on the other side of the building. Alex had to acknowledge Kilroy's wise tactical choice in this. By approaching from due north, he had used the bulk of the VAB to block line-of-sight of the trucks. If anybody were standing guard around mission control, they wouldn't have seen them coming, and of course because of their face masks wouldn't have heard them, either. It was unlikely they had anyone outside, however. The MMM cult had been deliberately silent since destroying 'Maria', and there were probably not more than a handful of furs left alive on the planet outside this facility. They had no reason to expect an attack if they thought their foes were all dead.

	Jake had been barely able to stand inside the truck, but the sight before him woke him up immediately. It was breathtaking.

	The world was like a vast carpet of white, almost blinding despite their shaded visors. In the distance, cities stood frozen in place like the buildings inside a snowglobe. The ice and snow crunched under their boots, so dry and course it felt like sand. All the air was still and silent.

	The Sun was still there, about in the position it might appear in mid-afternoon, but distant and weak: less than a quarter the size it had been when the men had seen it last. Jupiter completely filled over half of the sky to the East, arching mightily from the horizon up and up to as far as could be seen. About half of it was lit, colossal multicolored bands and curls and wisps of its cloud formations clearly visible; the other half, facing away from the Sun, was in shadows that deepened as they went off out of sight. About a paw's-breadth from the edge of it was a bright yellow-and-orange moon, twice as wide as the Earth's Moon would have seemed, similarly half lit and casting a black blotch onto the gaseous surface of its parent planet. The Moon itself had already been swallowed into Jupiter's Roche Limit, smashed to gravel, and was busying itself forming a tiny new ring around it somewhere out of view.

	Every moment, the edge of Jupiter drifted closer and closer to the Sun, covering more and more of the sky. In a few short hours, they would see their last ever sunset, before the Earth was scoured. It was stunningly beautiful at the same time as it was hauntingly terrifying. But there was no time to dwell.

	The commander motioned for the unit to take their positions and begin to march. As Jake didn't have a clue what his orders were, he just followed Alex like a lost puppy. Half of the soldiers went around each side of the VAB. Mercifully, Jake and Alex's unit went around the West side, spared for a while the dizzying view of Jupiter filling the sky. They walked in silence, able to hear little except for their own breathing.

	Without warning, there was a tremendous explosion close by. Snow and dirt filled the air. Everyone was knocked onto the ground, stunned. Gunfire erupted, seemingly all around them, as the debris from the initial blast started to thump back onto the ground. Several of the soldiers were struck by rocks or bullets and fell dead in their place. One of them had his air tank pierced, which flew off his back, tearing right off their straps; he screamed briefly as his air was stolen, clawing at his throat, before collapsing forward, his covered tail still sticking up and twitching for a moment, before it fell flat.

	Jake didn't know what was happening. He couldn't even think, and he heard more screams, and then realized they were coming from himself. He spun around back and forth, looking every which way. Alex was nowhere to be seen. He didn't know if his mate was already dead or what. Jake screamed louder. He dropped his rifle and ran as fast as his paws could move. He ran and didn't care where to. He ran without seeing where he was going.

	On the opposite side of the VAB, the other half of the soldiers, taking advantage of the chaos, charged mission control while the fire was concentrated on the Western unit. While the truck that was carrying Kilroy, Mikael, and the Gadget stayed behind and hidden, the second truck barreled into the fracas, its attached machine gun raining bullets onto the defenders.

	Jake just ran, ran and ran for what seemed like forever, and then fortuitously looked up for just a moment. He saw the side of the VAB, then saw a small door open. One of the soldiers stepped outside and waved to him. He couldn't have cared less if it had been Kilroy, himself.

	He ran toward the entrance, leapt inside, and the door closed behind him. Suddenly, gloved paws came out of nowhere and pushed him flat on his face onto the floor. A deafening hail of gunfire came, and he looked up to see a few of the cultists fall dead. Gasping and screaming, Jake struggled mightily as he was grabbed from behind and all but dragged to his feet, then pushed toward another door, this one big and heavy. It was closed as he and the other soldier went inside, and a loud hiss sounded as the airlock cycled.

	The soldier reached for him again, and Jake fought back, punching and kicking wildly. One of his arms was grabbed, and then his face mask was viciously ripped off. He closed his eyes, and held his breath, and continued to swing around like a child having a tantrum, but the arms closed around him, pulled him into a tight hug.

	"Wait, stop it! Jake, stop!" a voice called out. "It's okay! Jake, please it's me!! STOP!"

	He whimpered, his struggles ceasing entirely, and both of them collapsed to the floor. Jake opened his eyes and found his nose stuffed right into the fur of his mate's forehead.

	"Shh, shh... it's okay. You're okay now. Just breathe. The air is safe and warm in here."

	Jake panted and nuzzled into the other man, afraid for a good long while to let go his tight grip on Alex. Finally, he asked: "Wh... wh-what h-happened? I l-lost you out there."

	"I was right behind you, Jake. You took off running and I could barely keep up. Then you ran in here. I was behind you the whole time. But that doesn't matter. It's okay now. I locked the door behind us. Nobody else will come in here and it's otherwise abandoned."

	"The others, the ones in front of us. They were shot!"

	"Yes, I know," Alex said slowly. "It was someone else from behind us both. Wearing a different uniform so I guess a fur from here. He missed us because we dove onto the floor, but he got locked outside, too."

	It was a complete lie, and Jake knew it, but he didn't care. He continued cuddling with Alex and repeated in his head that it was the truth, that his mate had never killed anyone and would never have to. After a few minutes, he almost believed it completely.

	"What do we do now?" asked Jake.

	"For now, we wait in here," Alex said. "If the rest of them didn't get inside mission control, then it doesn't matter what happens. If they did, though, then by now they'll be securing the facility. In the next few hours they'll put Xael in the probe and get ready for launch. All we have to do is wait until just before that time, then jump in there and insert the program."

	"How do you know how long to wait?"

	"This little present Kilroy left me," Alex said, holding up the fancy pocketwatch. "I realized it was still in the pocket when we put on the uniforms, and it's still working somehow. From what I remember him saying, we weren't to be shot until Zero Hour, so it has to be accurate."

	The watch read about 4:45am, and the second-hand ticked on softly.

	Alex said: "If I know Kilroy, he'll keep to the schedule. They might be delayed an hour or so, but they certainly won't go BEFORE nine-oh-five. If we do this right and get lucky, we can catch 'em with their pants down right before the launch."

	Jake gave a weak chuckle. "Well, now if it isn't YOU who has adapted to the situation and become way too good at this sort of thing."

	"Yeah, well, I paid attention at the briefings."

	The little fox folded his ears and looked at the floor. "I'm sorry, Alex. Really. I haven't been any help at all. In fact, I've just been a burden. Running away and fighting you."

	"Don't say that!" Alex kissed him desperately several times. "You've done plenty. You wrote the program and then got us out of that cell. And I know that you haven't been quite yourself since then. It's okay."

	"I'm exhausted. Just totally beat," Jake said, and as soon as he admitted it, the fatigue seemed to overcome him. He settled into Alex's lap and closed his eyes.

	"Rest for a while. We have lots of time. I'll wake you up when it's time to go. I love you."

	"Mm hm... love you, too."

	"Or, you know, we could pass the time all naked together and having fun?"

	But Jake was already asleep.

	Alex sighed, but then smiled. He wrapped his arms around Jake, and thought about the rest of the plan to get inside mission control. The lights inside the facility stayed on and bright, but outside, the world gradually went dark as Jupiter consumed the entire sky.



	Once again Jake found himself being shaken awake. He didn't want to go back to the real world. He had been dreaming that he and Alex were cubs and had just met, were holding paws in the schoolyard. Then, they were having their first kiss, and then a few years older, experiencing their first time having sex. He awoke feeling as randy as a tomcat surrounded by females in heat, but his body was still so fatigued that he didn't even have the tiniest erection.

	"What time is it?" he finally asked.

	"Almost eight-thirty," said Alex. "Time to get going."

	"Fffuck," Jake groaned, wiping at his eyes. "Did I really sleep for like four hours?"

	"Nonstop. And pretty quietly, too. I dozed off for about an hour, and woke up terrified that we'd missed the deadline. But, well... the rocket probably would have woken me up so I realized that couldn't be the case."

	"Did you ever think to wake me up for sex?"

	"Only five or six... hundred times," he said with a laugh. "But you needed your sleep. We can play after we're done watching Xael fly."

	"I'll try to save my energy. Then, I'm gonna fuck you SO hard you'll never forget it. Then I'll let you top, for as long as you want. Let's get stuck for hours."

	Alex nuzzled him, kissed him, and said: "Looking forward to it."

	They stood and began to walk, side-by-side this time.

	It was a long, confusing path. There were many hallways and passages underground that led between the various buildings on the site, dug out in the last years so it would be possible to get everywhere without having to brave the cold outside. Alex revealed that the VAB was a fallback point, and a small squad was to infiltrate the facility through there should the frontal assault fail. Jake said that such a careful act of subterfuge should probably have been Plan A, and the raccoon agreed.

	"He's obsessed, you know," he said to Jake. "Kilroy. His whole spiel. It's almost just an act. What he does: it's not required to make sense to him. This whole business with destroying the Universe, as if it's part of some preordained 'plan', the way we've done everything... he's built up a storybook narrative around his actions, and he won't deviate from them. So even if charging mission control to our deaths like the Light Brigade is foolish, he wanted to do that because it just sounded nice."

	Jake looked up, and said: "You're trying to tell me we can't reason with him, so don't even try. We have to kill him like we killed the Others, right?"

	"Yes."

	He stopped walking. "Look, I get it. I've not become a pacifist. I still hate these people and hope they go to Hell. I'm just... I'm tired." His ears drooped. "Not just from using Otherspace magic or whatever happened back there. I'm tired, Alex. I'm tired of this world, of death and bloodshed, tired of feeling like we're running and running but not getting anywhere. I'm tired of fighting, of hating. I'm tired of thinking our son will just inherit all this madness."

	He looked up at the ceiling, looked past it. "I never wanted any of this. I never wanted to rule the world, or control its fate, or be in charge of its legacy. I never wanted to be looked up to like Gods or idols. I just wanted a quiet life with you, loving each other, never leaving each other. Maybe we'd have a house, and a normal, ordinary son. Just the usual things. I don't doubt what we're doing, believe me! and I still want Xael to accomplish what we set out for him, but... I wish it hadn't turned out this way.

	"I know we're almost out of time, the world is- is..." He started to wobble in place.

	"Whoa, whoa, easy there!" Alex pulled him upright, holding Jake up by his underarms. "I'm right here. Look at me."

	Jake turned. They stared into each other's eyes.

	"Just promise me, please," said the fox, tears starting in his eyes. "Promise me that you'll hold my paw and tell me that you love me, when it ends. When the Winds come, when the cold comes, when... wh-when the lights go down."

	"I promise, of course." He pressed their foreheads together. "I'll never let you go. Okay?"

	"...okay."

	"Are you sure?"

	"Yeah. I'm good now. We should... get going."

	They continued on.



	A short while later, they came to a door that was helpfully labeled "Launch Control Center, Complex 39". It wasn't locked, and Alex opened it slowly, then they both went inside. Now that they knew they wouldn't be going back outside, they shed their heavy outer coats, air tanks, and masks. Hoping to be quieter, they took off their boots as well and went forward on soft paws.

	They found themselves in a hallway, and at the end of it was a T-junction. One direction went to the actual LCC Firing Room, where the computer controls were located. The other led to the airlock and outside. A few dead furs lay on the floor of the hall, all wearing green-and-brown camouflaged uniforms.

	They ignored the carnage, and turned the other way. There was a glass window between the Firing Room and the hallway, and the two of them ducked down under it, and shuffled toward the doorway, Alex leading with his rifle. At the corner, he stopped, and held his breath for a moment. He smelled blood.

	'Okay', he thought. 'Here goes.'

	With a shout, he jumped up and ran around the corner, pointing his gun into the room. Gasping with adrenaline, he swung the rifle to one side and then the other, his finger twitching on the trigger.

	Nothing. There was no movement. Not a sound came except for the beeping and clicking of the computers. A digital voice announced fifteen minutes before launch, and his ears perked up, but then there was no more noise.

	"I don't believe it," Alex said, the tip of his rifle drooping down. "This is too easy. Did nothing happen in here? Shit, did they fail??"

	"No, they didn't," Jake said, pointing to the screen. "Look up there."

	On the display were several exterior views of the rocket, from close up and from far away. One of them showed a zoom of the fairings at the top surrounding the probe. A large and messy 'MMM' had been spray-painted on.

	"Well, okay then," said Alex with a snort, slinging the gun over his shoulder and resting it onto his back. "Where do we put in the flash drive?"

	"There should be a COC station here. It'll be labeled. Check the left side; I'll go right."

	They stepped down into the room, split up and as soon as Alex turned to the left, he let out a screech. "Oh! Oh GOD!"

	Jake ran over. "What, what?! Are y—" He was silent.

	Leaning against the far wall were about twenty of the cultists, facing away from them. They all appeared to have been blindfolded and with tufts of fabric stuffed into their ears. The back of their skulls were blown wide open, and the blood had run in rivers down their backs, forming a large puddle they were all seated in.

	"T-they committed suicide?" Jake mumbled, turning away, trying to keep his stomach from turning.

	A calm voice stunned them silent: "Yes. Beautiful, isn't it?"

	They could not speak. Could not move. From behind them came Kilroy, now dressed only in his robes, flanked by Mikael, who was pointing a rifle at them.

	"We finished the modifications to 'Futura' well ahead of schedule. The Coonfox is safely aboard. We had enough time to finish the Sacrament. None of them felt worthy to view his ascension, so I took it upon myself to see to it that they left this world peacefully."

	"How... how??" Alex couldn't stop himself from asking.

	"I have already told you. This has all been preordained," he said, walking out in front of them, not caring that he walked bare paws in the blood. "I foresaw everything. Your escape, your entrance here, even your words. Everything has gone according to this plan."

	"You're lying!" yelled Jake. "You couldn't have planned for this to happen!"

	"God's plan," said the calico, his whiskers quivering, teeth baring. "NOT mine. When will you understand that we are powerless to fight this destiny? I am merely the messenger — the Final one. But I saw this as it would be. You do not believe me? It was not mere coincidence that brought you here. It was not mere coincidence that I formed a separate plan, with a single squad to enter the building directly. It was not mere coincidence that the two of you found your way onto it."

	"It... it can't be," said Alex. "There's no such thing as Fate. There's no such thing as FUCKING clairvoyance! Even with the power of the Others, it's not possible to see the future! It's just impossible."

	"There is no other explanation. You must accept it. This is the only way I could have known you would come here. Please, Holy Fathers, accept your fate. The three of us can still watch your child ascend as the bringer of Light."

	"I won't!" yelled Alex. "I won't accept that. It's not scientific. Everything has a reasonable explanation. I've based my entire life on that!"

	 "You chose wrong," said Kilroy with a shrug. "But since you will not stand to reason, I have no choice. Mikael, these two need to join the Sacrament."

	"Don't do it!" said Jake. "You know he's crazy, Mikael. You know what he's doing is wrong!"

	Kilroy chuckled, patting the red panda on the shoulder. "My companion here has already seen the truth. He will not listen to you. Now, Mikael, kill them."

	Jake reached over and shoved Alex as hard as he could to one side, and then jumped to the other. Gunfire rang out, bullets ricocheting off the metal, bits of plastic and chair-foam fluttering into the air. They found themselves across the aisle from one another, behind different consoles.

	"Alex! Quick! We're almost out of time. If you pin him down I might still be able to make a run for it!"

	Alex couldn't move. "It's not real," he said, his eyes wide and blank. "There's no such thing as clairvoyance. It's not. It's not. It's not..."

	Mikael started walking toward them.

	"Alex, please! I can't do this without you!"

	He blinked, shook his head. This was wrong. There had to be a scientific explanation; he just wasn't looking hard enough. The scientific process started with observation. He looked up at the console nearest him. It was some kind of security station with multiple monitors. They showed a variety of hallways and passages, and were cycling between them every few seconds.

	The little panda had almost reached them.

	"Time is up, Holy Fathers," said Kilroy, almost smug about it.

	'Of course,' Alex thought. 'Security cameras. He must have followed us in by watching the cameras! He didn't know anything in advance, he just watched it happen.'

	He reached behind his back, grabbed the gun.

	"You're wrong! There is no Fate," he shouted. "I control my own life, not you!"

	Jumping upward, right into the face of a shocked Mikael, he thrust his gun into the little panda's skull, knocking him aside. The smaller man collapsed quickly against a console, and Alex pushed close into him, not giving him a chance to raise his rifle. They wrestled briefly, and another deafening rattle of bullets came, hitting the floor near his paws. Not sure if the panda had been hit, he shoved him aside. Mikael did not get up.

	He quickly pointed his rifle toward Kilroy, and shouted: "Jake, run for it!"

	The calico lept across the room in a flash, covering the large distance in half a heartbeat. Alex tried to follow him, putting a series of bullet holes in the wall, but missed his mark, and then his rifle clicked empty. Jake reached the COC station, reached into his pocket... Kilroy was there already. Snarling, the fur on the back of his neck standing up, he grabbed onto Jake. His giant hand gripped around the little fox's belly, and with a single motion, he lifted him up and then slammed his back onto the floor with a sickening crash. Jake let out a choked cry as most of his ribs crunched and splintered.

	Alex charged with a scream, smashing his rifle into Kilroy's face, but the mighty man paid it no heed, and doubled the raccoon over with a single blow to the gut. Alex sank to his knees, wheezing. Before he could react, he found himself also lifted up, and then thrown backwards against the hard metal edge of a console. He heard a loud snap, and when he collapsed to the ground, his legs went numb.

	Kilroy turned back to Jake, and with a roar smashed his hand back onto him, sending a spray of blood and a gurgling scream from the fox's mouth. The monk bore down his full weight, preparing to crush him completely, and then suddenly Alex was there. On his back. Claws digging into his flesh and dragging himself up.

	Reaching down, Alex groped into his pocket, and pulled out the watch, tossed the thick chain over Kilroy's head, and yanked it tight. The feline's growl was cut short into a yelp, as the chain tightened around his throat. He clawed desperately at it, but Alex pulled harder. He tried to reach around the large spread of his back to the raccoon, but could barely touch anything. His frantic punches hit Alex all over the face and neck, but the blows had little strength to them at that angle.

	"Nggkk! Noo! Urggk!" Kilroy wheezed, trying in vain to rise from his knees.

	He punched more, grabbed again at the chain, sputtered and heaved and then fell over on his side. He continued kicking and wheezing, but Alex would not let go.

	"Please, just... die," Alex said, his eyes closed and full of tears, voice weak.

	He hung onto the chain tightly for several more seconds, until the giant monk finally stopped moving, and his heart stopped. He rolled off, fell near Jake — who was lying flat on his back and not moving — and desperately crawled over.

	"Jake, ooh! Jake, are you okay!"

	"The... the program, hurry! It's the console to your right!" He slapped the flash drive into Alex's open paw.

	The digital voice spoke: "Launch Director automatic confirmation: we are go for launch. Tee-minus two minutes, thirty seconds."

	"We have to do it before it switches the computer control!" Jake yelled.

	With a monumental effort, Alex hoisted himself up onto the chair, dragging himself upward with a shout. He found the open port, inserted the drive. "Do I have to press anything?!"

	"It's automatic. Should be a progress bar! I... I can't see it from down here."

	Alex looked up, saw a grey status window had popped up on the main display at the front of the room. A bar at the bottom was slowly filling. It scrolled rapidly to the right, and the moment it was about to reach the end, the voice called out: "One minute to launch. All control handed off to flight computer." The status window disappeared.

	"Did it finish??" asked Jake.

	"I-I don't know...!" said Alex after a pause. "I think so. There's no error message. Does that mean...?"

	Jake let out a sigh. "It worked... it really did!"

	Alex slipped off the chair, practically landed on Jake. "Oooohh, we made it in time." He crawled over, nuzzled into his mate.

	"Are you alright?" asked Jake. "You're bleeding."

	Alex looked down, saw the fabric over his stomach was red and dripping blood. It had to have been when he was wrestling with with Mikael and the gun went off. He grimaced, but there was no pain. He could barely feel anything from about the chest down.

	"I'm fine, what about you?"

	Jake couldn't get up, or even really move. "I'm okay," he said, his voice seeming far away. "Just bruised a little. But I think... I think I'll need a minute or two before we get to that sex I promised you. Just a little while."

	"Fifteen seconds," announced the computer, and it counted down from there.

	Alex gently grasped the fox's head, turned it toward the display screen. "Look," he said, beaming. "He's about to go!"

	 The count ticked down to three seconds, and the rocket's engines ignited with a roar. The massive vibration was intense, shaking the whole building. Then, after a moment's hesitation, the count reached zero, and the rocket lifted off the pad and up into the sky. The two men watched, ignoring the loud bangs and crashes as the rocket blast began to crumple and collapse part of the building.

	"First stage... looks g-good," said Jake.

	"Separation confirmed," said Alex. "And there's the second stage ignition."

	The view from the far exterior camera, which had tracked the rocket upward, registered the light from the rocket wink out. The only remaining camera, on the first stage, saw 'Futura' burst forth out of the atmosphere, jettison the fairings, and break free from Earth's gravity. As the used-up stage fell backwards, Jake and Alex watched the shiny point that was the probe until it disappeared off into the blackness of space.

	Alex slumped all the way down, lying next to Jake. He grabbed him, held him, and they kissed each other weakly. It tasted like blood from both of them, but they didn't care.

	"It's over. We did it," he said.

	"We... did it, yeah...," said the fox. "Ohhh... Xael. Our... s-son..."

	"He made it. He escaped. He's going to live, Jake! Our son is gonna... live on, somewhere on that other planet."

	There was another bang from somewhere, and unceremoniously all the monitors and displays, and even the big screen, went off. The steady hum from the heaters died out, too. A few seconds later, the lights flickered, and then dimmed drastically, then clicked off.

	Alex cuddled closer to Jake, and let out a weak chuckle. "See that? Heh. The lights, the last lights on the planet finally went down. We made it. We made it to the end together."

	Jake reached over, grabbed for the other man's paw in the pitch blackness. "We did. I love you... Alex," he said, then coughed weakly.

	"And I love you, with all of my heart. We'll be together from now on." He held Jake's paw tight. "For forever."

	"L... love you... forever..."

	Alex closed his eyes, sighed. His whole body was getting weak now. He nuzzled even closer to Jake, pressed the fox's head beneath his muzzle, kissed his forehead gently.

	"He's going to live, Jake. The place where he's going to is a beautiful place, I just know it! Just like here before everything happened. It'll be warm and sunny, with soft winds and cool rains. I can see it, Jake! The trees will be green, and the flowers filled with color..."

	Slowly, weakly, he began to sing:
	"I see trees of green,
	Red roses, too.
	I see them bloom
	For me and you.
	And I think to myself...
	What a wonderful world."

	There was a long pause, and he chuckled, poked playfully at Jake's side. "Hey, next verse is yours. C'mon. Well, you go ahead and rest a bit longer." He squeezed Jake's paw tighter.

	"I see skies of blue
	And clouds of white,
	The bright bless-ed day,
	The dark sacred night.
	And I think to myself...
	What a wonderful world.

	"The colors of the rainbow,
	So pretty in the sky,
	Are also on... the faces
	Of furries going by.
	I see friends shaking paws,
	Saying: 'how do you do?'
	They're... really saying:
	'I love you.'

	"I hear Xael... cry...
	I watch him grow.
	He'll learn much... more
	Than I'll... ever know
	And I think... to myself...
	What... a wonderful... world.

	"Yes, I think... to my... self...
	What a... wonder... ful... world...

	"Ooohh... ye—"



	Several hours later, the Winds began to come. The building was torn apart, everything was torn apart, and like grass in a storm, the former world left behind by the creatures of Earth was uprooted into the sky. The air, the dirt, the snow and ice, the blood and the pain and billions of furs, and everything they had ever built save one probe, all of it was whisked off the surface, and scattered into space. It spread across the horizon around Jupiter, gradually forming a ring system that rivaled the beauty and character of Saturn's, though there were none who would ever see it.

	Jake and Alex remained forever in each other's embrace, drifting somewhere in those rings, for several billion years. Their paws remained held together, long after the Sun began to cool, and they were there as the light from their parent star finally went out, too.

	As Earth arced up and around Jupiter, and was flung at last on her final journey out into the infinite empty, the probe 'Futura' shot off in a different direction. It zoomed across the solar system at amazing speed, caught another gravity assist from Saturn and then another from Neptune. The batteries hummed happily, and deep inside his steel and glass womb, Xael began to grow. About as the probe was passing near the moon of Triton, the growth cycle finished. What was once a tiny embryo was now a small cub. The bell rang; school was in session.

	Xael left his world behind, and headed off into space, toward a distant point of light just barely visible: second star to the right, and straight on for millions of years.