Chapter 69.
The soldiers don’t let them stay.
A man with exhausted eyes and a rifle held like it’s welded to his hands says, “We move. Now. Not safe here.”
They’re going to lead them back through the tunnels, then escort them across the city to a temporary barracks that has been set up near the National Museum.
“We have to move,” one of them says in crisp English. “This shelter is compromised.”
“We’re not leaving him,” Jack snaps.
The soldier tries to convince the group to go. They promise to come back for the body of Conner Lynch, but the rest of them have to get moving, because it’s clear they’re defenseless down here if more bombs and missiles hit.
Tipton appears at Jack’s shoulder, dusted with ash, eyes hard. “He comes with us,” Tipton says.
Jack doesn’t like agreeing with Tipton.
But Jack likes leaving Conner less.
“I’ll take the legs,” Tipton says, voice hard.
Jack takes Conner’s arms and they lift him together. They carry him through the broken tunnels and up into dawn.
The bombing has temporarily stopped, though there is no way of knowing for how long.
The skies are empty of planes and drones.
In the eerie half-light the war looks like it’s already over and they’ve lost, badly.
Smoke hangs low. Buildings are cracked open, rooms exposed like dollhouses.
Sandbags pile up around doorways that won’t matter if the next hit lands right.
They all pass one bombed-out building after another, walk slowly and in formation past what is left of a church that’s been here for a thousand years.
They pass a stretcher team and stop. They gently transfer Conner Lynch. Someone covers his face with a blanket and then Jack and Tipton continue to carry him through what is left of the ravaged city.
Hannah walks beside the stretcher and holds Conner’s hand, like she can still feel some last warmth through the sheet. Wyatt reaches for her other hand. She lets him take it.
“I’m sorry he died,” Wyatt says to her. “But so grateful that he saved you before he did.”
As they’re finally approaching the National Museum, Jack turns to Ant Tipton.
“Maybe Lynch was supposed to be The One,” Jack says. “Maybe he was supposed to save the world.”
“Hate to admit it, mate,” Tipton says. “But you just might be right.”
The other pod is waiting for them once they’re inside the barracks.
Carlos Lopez, Amos Meyers, Gabrielle Fontaine, and Fumio Hase, player #38, who’d gone from being a multiple winner of the All Japan Karate Championships to being elected governor of Tokyo.
Jack had come to like him in the short amount of time they’ve been together, mostly because the man clearly didn’t take crap from anybody.
The rest of them watch Jack and Tipton walk past the sandbags and into the front hall of the barracks, where they set down the stretcher.
Jack pauses and touches the blanket once, just once, like that contact is a promise.
He says to Fumio Hase, “Conner kept telling me he’d always wondered what a war was like.”
Jack hates the thought. Hates the irony. Hates how the universe can be cruel and still be clever.
“Now he knows,” Jack says.
In the middle of all this, Jack’s brain does a cruel thing.
It remembers Elena Torres’s voice.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
He hears it close by, close enough to touch. Spanish flickers in his memory—Elena snapping at her AI opponent, Elena laughing at his stupid jokes, Elena’s accent wrapping around words like they were a dance.
“May I have your attention please?” they hear now from the speakers in the barracks lobby, the sound shattering what had been a somber silence.
The Host.
“I want you all to know how truly sorry I am for this latest loss of life,” he says. “And also want to acknowledge the bravery that some of you just exhibited in that shelter.”
“Do you now.” Jack laughs once, without humor.
“I do, whether you believe me or not,” The Host says. “Mr. Lynch proved that he was willing to pay the ultimate price to save the life of another. I sincerely honor his courage and selflessness along with the rest of you.”
They hear bombs falling in the distance.
“We always hear about people dying for their country,” he continues. “Mr. Lynch died for someone else’s life. Regardless of creed or background. A noble exchange.”
He pauses. Alek’s stomach twists.
Then another cluster of explosions hits closer. The lobby shivers. People stumble. Someone drops to a knee.
The Host’s voice doesn’t change.
“But even in the aftermath of a tragedy like this, you must understand,” he continues. “This is why we’re all here. This war is the world. Even the ones of you who’ve fought needed to see this.”
Alek steps up. Stares at the speaker like she could stab it with a dagger. “This isn’t just tone-deaf, it’s cruel.”
Jack comes in afterward. “I didn’t need a reminder of how cruel the world can be. It’s in my head every second of every day.”
Hannah next, “This is pointless. This doesn’t prove anything. Your entire experiment is a joke.”
“You can go ahead and hate me more than ever. But let me repeat: This is what it is all about.”
Wyatt sighs. “You’re wasting your time. He won’t listen.
He thinks he’s doing the right thing. He thinks he’s saving the world.
No, he believes it. You guys think he’s evil, but he thinks he’s righteous.
Just like Amos was talking about. The blind faith that doing the right evil will net out the right good.
Everything in his life told him this was true.
He’s trying to convince us, recruit us, get us to see the world the way he does. Just like they did to him.”
They hear more bombs falling outside then, a cluster of them clearly hitting close by, the force enough to knock some of them back into the wall and some to the ground.
“He’s right about one thing. You’ll all see the truth for yourselves. Now all of you do what Conner Lynch just did,” The Host says. “Go save some lives.”