So, Dr. Nakamori decides to crank the power way up past the red line on the Oracle Box and open a portal. The silver gateway back to Oracle Command shimmers into existence ten feet away, but can she make it, in the precious seconds before the machine vaporizes her? No time to hesitate—and even if she dies, she knows that she’s saved all of humanity, and that’s really all she can ask for. She’s beyond exhausted, but still, she sprints with her whole heart and dives through the portal to safety, just as the asteroid explodes to dust behind her.

*   *   *

A gray drizzle pelts us on the sidewalk outside the theater, with the ring lights from the marquee glowing through the fog. The theater is way bigger than the little indie house in town where I just showed a rough cut of Project Genesis to a handful of people—some of them my students there for extra credit—ahead of its official premiere at Genesis’s old vaudeville theater in Boston next week. That’s okay. I’m not really a blockbuster guy, anyway. I plan on checking out a few story leads while I’m back there, dragging Yusuf along to show him around. I might be tempted to ask Genesis’s cards if those leads will turn into any real stories, but I buried them in the desert as we were leaving the Compound. My goodbye to her to stop worrying about the future, now that I remember how she helped me become a better person. To dedicate myself again to the positive changes I could make, in my own ways, and try to let go of the rest.

“It was fun,” I offer Yusuf, nudging him. My breath comes out in a cloud that already floats away.

“It was.” He links an arm with mine, hitting me with his eyes that seem quick to laugh, lately. “Different enough from reality to be entertaining.”