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Back Extinction Game Save as PDF
Chapters (33)
  1. Title page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. Acknowledgements
  32. By Gary Gibson
  33. Copyright page

When I pushed, the poor bastard actually started crying. Finally, he told me Casey had a new goal: he wanted to find a way to destroy the Authority. Literally to obliterate them, wipe them out of existence. Why, I didn’t know, but it seemed to have something to do with whatever Wallace found after he wormed his way inside all those encrypted files.

The idea that Casey wanted to do any such thing sent a chill through me, precisely because it was plausible, whatever the motivation. We’ve all seen any number of alternates where human life was extinguished by a staggering variety of extinction events. With your own private transfer stage, and access to enough of those worlds, you’d have no trouble tracking down something you could use to wipe out some other alternate. Including that of the Authority, should you happen to have access to their transfer coordinates.

By this point I was angry and frightened enough myself that I went over and slapped Wallace hard across the face, demanding he tell me the truth. He kept repeating again and again that Casey wanted revenge, but the stupid bastard kept refusing to tell me why.

If I’d just had more time, I know I could have got the truth out of him. But that’s when I heard someone hammering on Wallace’s front door, and Casey yelling my name. I near as damn jumped out of my skin.

My guess is that Casey had returned through the transfer stage hidden in the abandoned house and came looking for Wallace. He must have heard me shouting at Wallace when I lost my temper, or maybe he’d been listening in by the window for longer than that. Either way, the front door slammed open a second later, and Casey came charging in on us, gun drawn.

He told me to get out. I stood my ground and asked him why the hell I should. Casey was all keyed up, eyes filled with rage, and I wondered if he’d really shoot me as he was threatening to do. But if he did, someone would hear it, and there would be too many questions were I suddenly to disappear right there on the island. I could see from Casey’s face that he knew it as well as I did.