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Back Final Days
Chapters (32)
  1. ONE
  2. TWO
  3. THREE
  4. FOUR
  5. FIVE
  6. SIX
  7. SEVEN
  8. EIGHT
  9. NINE
  10. TEN
  11. ELEVEN
  12. TWELVE
  13. THIRTEEN
  14. FOURTEEN
  15. FIFTEEN
  16. SIXTEEN
  17. SEVENTEEN
  18. EIGHTEEN
  19. NINETEEN
  20. TWENTY
  21. TWENTY-ONE
  22. TWENTY-TWO
  23. TWENTY-THREE
  24. TWENTY-FOUR
  25. TWENTY-FIVE
  26. TWENTY-SIX
  27. TWENTY-SEVEN
  28. TWENTY-EIGHT
  29. TWENTY-NINE
  30. THIRTY
  31. THIRTY-ONE
  32. THIRTY-TWO

‘I just thought they’d been through enough,’ Mitchell replied mildly. ‘You didn’t really need to tell them you were planning on triggering a shutdown.’

‘They got us this far, they deserve to know.’

‘I don’t know, Saul. Sounded to me more like you were making a confession.’

There was just enough truth in what Mitchell had said to hit home. ‘Listen,’ Saul was angry now, ‘something happened to you that I can’t even begin to understand. I saw the footage of you falling into that pit, then being pulled out of it. I read reports that said you’d died and come back. How is that even possible?’

‘It depends,’ said Mitchell, ‘on your definition of life and death.’

‘Is all of that why you’re acting so different? You said, just before we launched, that none of this was going to be as bad as I might think. What the hell did that mean?’

Mitchell shook his head and sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have said it.’

‘Give me,’ Saul insisted, ‘an explanation.’

‘Look, when they pulled me out of that pit, I was changed. That’s true. I . . . I knew things. Things about the Founder races, about how the network came into existence, where they went to after they disappeared.’

Saul could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘How?’

‘I don’t know how. I just woke up and it was all there, swirling around inside my head. But when I said what I said back then, I was trying to tell you something for which I seriously doubt there are words – something so far outside of my own experience or that of any other human being that I’m still struggling to comprehend it. Once I do, assuming I ever do, I’ll try and choose my words more carefully. I’m sorry.’

Saul hesitated. After all, his worries stemmed from a single unfinished statement from Donohue, hardly a man he felt he could trust at the best of times. But, then again, something had put Olivia on edge as well.

‘There’s still something you’re not telling me,’ said Saul. ‘I don’t know what, but I’ve been in my job long enough to know when someone’s not being straight with me.’

‘I’m sorry you don’t trust me,’ said Mitchell, ‘but what happened to me isn’t my fault.’

Saul stared at him, feeling even more frightened than he cared to admit to himself.