E.N.D.A.Y.S. by Lee Isserow Page B

sensing, his fingers were tingling, a pressure building under the surface. He looked down at his hand and could swear ripples were forming across his palm, nanos crawling under the skin at a rapid pace. The pressure continued to grow, as if a bubble of energy was growing in his grasp. He continued to walk around the room, the fields getting stronger and stronger. He stopped, as he felt a pinch in his back, turning to see the doctor standing behind him.
    Following the old man's body down, he glimpsed a frail hand clutching a syringe that was piercing his skin. Hayes tried to speak, but the words weren't forming, his lungs refusing to push the air to his vocal chords. A clumsy left hand tried to find the holster at his hip, thumb ineptly searching for the biometric scanner, meeting it briefly enough to activate the pocket dimension. He delved in with fingers that barely operated and managed to loop one around the trigger of a gun, wrenching it out of the holster as his shoulders slumped, losing complete control of his arms.
    His knees grew heavy, and were forced to the floor by the call of gravity. Hayes tried to grasp the grip of the gun, take hold of it and pull the trigger, but his left hand was useless. As his eyelids grew heavy, he became acutely aware that he was still holding on to the pressure in his right hand, clutching it, the neodymium magnets clasping his fingers around it.
    As he felt his chest give in, the weight pulling him to the gleaming vinyl floor, he used his last ounce of strength to pull the magnets locking his fingers apart. There was a gasp, a rush of movement, a flurry of blurred white coat, and the thud of old bones cracking against a wall.
    Then once again, and much to his dismay, Hayes was unconscious.

5
    9 hours to the end of the world.
     
    Kali had spent a total of two hours arguing with the techs, in fifteen minute bursts, spread out across a further three hours wasted waiting behind the counter. Given that Hayes was off-world for the foreseeable future, they were punishing her for him walking off with the holsters and nanomesh armour.
    As the sixth hour of a day wasted in Tech Ops began ticking away, the tech Hayes had referred to as 'Johnson' came to the counter.
    “It's off the grid.” he said.
    Kali tried very hard not to punch him in his stupid face. “I know it's off the grid...” she said, forcing the words through gritted teeth. “What can we do about that..?”
    “You'd need to reconnect it.” he said, as if entirely unaware he was making her angrier.
    “You're incredibly astute.” she said, clenching her fists, her arms rigid by her sides for fear that they might fire off when she least expect it.
    “Gonna need a push from the other side though. Maybe your guys in-world can spend the next five years or so building a jump room, spend a further year teaching them how to sync it with the room here....”
    “Guy. Singular. One of them was ripped to shreds at the molecular level.” she said, trying, and succeeding poorly, at hiding her resentment.
    “Was it Hayes?” asked not-Johnson, almost appearing eager at the thought of his demise.
    “The other one.” Kali said with a sigh, realising she was as disappointed as the tech. “Is there anything you guys have for communication off the grid?”
    “We don't have a reason to communicate with anything off the grid...” the tech said. “If something's not on the grid it's, well, it's not a reality we can access, is it?”
    “But one of you geniuses has got to be experimenting with... I don't know, meta-communication or something, right?” she asked, pulling a pair of words out of her arse and gluing them together with spit and hope.
    “Oh, yeah!” said the tech, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. “Yeah, we've been trying something, It's a new algorithm for stronger comm signals that goes sub-meta rather than along the grid. We haven't beta tested it, but --”
    “Gimmie!” Kali instructed.
    “But, it might, y'know,