George and Monica stood together on the roof of the base and watched the world pass away around them. The sun glowed in the sky, so bright and yet so far away. A dull growl permeated the air, not a beast, but the earth itself shivering in the cold of space. George looked at Monica for a moment, and then...so gently...clasped her hand in his. He closed his eyes and waited.

*

Minutes earlier George led Monica on a rampage through the bowels of the compound. He spared no one. Amanda lay dead, her body cold and broken, behind. Monica, for once the follower, chased and provided covering fire.

At last they stood together on the threshold of a large command center. Guards rushed forward, but George dispatched them. Killing came easily with that rage burning in his heart. It came all too easy. Monica's face hardened. She knew that George had lost some part of himself. Some part that he'd never find again for so long as he lived.

George, his hand quivering, pointed the gun at General Lancaster.

"You...I should kill you for what you did to Amanda..."

"Ah yes, Amanda, it was a shame...a true shame. But she was a--"

"A security risk?" George laughed till his throat hurt. "Is that we he told you? Don't you see...he lied to you. He just wanted to make her love him."

"I...I can't believe that." Lancaster shook his head. "Lars was many things...but he would never betray my trust."

"You're a fool!" George stepped forward and then back. "He betrayed everything. And he killed Dr. Madison so that there wouldn't be any way to put things right again. He killed him and he killed her. And you let him. You let him."

Lancaster shivered and goosebumps rose up along his skin.

"You...you have to believe me...I would never have...I cared about Amanda...I truly...I thought I was doing the right thing."

George closed his eyes and felt the trigger against his finger. It would be so easy. He knew that now. A gentle touch on his arm, unexpected and soft, caused him to open his eyes. Monica stood there holding his arm. Her cold eyes stared into him, but...no...that wasn't right at all. Her eyes weren't cold. They were sad. George realized that now. They'd never been cold at all.

Just lost. Like him. Lost and alone.

"It's okay George. Let it go." She eased the gun from his hand and nodded to a large screen, which displayed a wind worn middle eastern city and a count down. "We don't have much time left."

George nodded, his mouth dry and his heart numb.

"General...I know you don't have much reason to believe me, but you..you have to. There's a fatal flaw in the weapon."

Lancaster's eyes widened and then he started to laugh low in his throat.

"You think I don't know that?"

George took a half step back.

"What do you mean? I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"I know about the flaw, but we're not the ones about to use the weapon. Madison's death delayed the project by months." He shook his head. "General Hammond..." He spat the name out. "It's all him. It's always been him."

George sagged against Monica.

"He...he promised me."

General Lancaster simply shrugged and turned to face the screen. The numbers rolled ever lower and then at last read zero. A blinding white flash caused the screen to flicker. When the image had cleared a bubbling mass of white was expanding out. The city sunk under it, like Atlantis slipping into the ocean. When the bubble had covered the city completely it paused.

George gasped. Maybe Hammond had fixed the code...

The edge of the bubble quivered, a gelatinous blob of nanobots, and then it began to expand again. At first it came slowly...but it picked up speed like a snowball becoming an avalanch.

"This...this can't be happening...this can't be happening..."

Monica put her hand on his shoulder.

"George...let's...let's get out of here. I don't want to die in the earth. I don't want to die buried down here."

"But...but we're the good guys!" George grabbed her by the shoulders. "We can't loose! We...we just can't."

"Everyone loses eventually George."

*

And so they took the elevator to the top and now stood there watching the trees swaying in a gentle midday breeze. In the distance some beast roared and a flock of birds exploded out of the trees into the sky.

*

Hammond sat in his black office and stared at the paintings on the walls. He'd watched the wave of nanobots swallow most of Europe. Even now it devoured the sea. Reports were coming in that the oceans themselves had began to pull away from the shore exposing land that hadn't seen the sun since the Earth had been born so long ago. He'd watched until his eyes were numb of it. He'd watched until his stomach had tied itself up in a thousand knots.

He tried to understand how he'd become this person. How he'd become the destroyer of the world. The ultimate villain. The very thing he'd spent his entire life fighting. He tried to understand, but there are some things we never understand...some things that even were we given a million years we wouldn't understand. Hammond didn't have a million years. Hammond didn't have half an hour.

*

The Rex stood over the forest and surveyed the world. He could see to the horizon. He could see the wall of white coming now over the world. His world. The world that he'd owned since he was created. Nothing stood in the path of the Rex. But all things must end.

*

The Barlack kicked the car over and peeled it open with its tentacle. The scar on its stomach was still sore, but it didn't worry about that pain. The only thing that mattered was that it do what it had been programed to do. Kill. So it peeled the car open and plucked out a screaming man. The two of them died together when the wall of white came over them. An embrace. Not everyone must die alone.

*

Alternate George sat in his office above the city and stared out the window at his fate. He remembered his other self and wondered if he could have chosen different. Been someone else. He closed his eyes and dreamed.

*

Monica, the wind tangled in her hair, remembered what she'd done to Lars. She remembered his cold black eyes and how he'd pleaded for his life. She pulled her hand from George.

"We deserve it." She whispered at first, but her voice grew firm as she spoke. "This..this is what we deserve. What we've earned."

"Don't say that." George took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. He remembered now so long ago when he'd seen those eyes and thought that they'd be the last things he ever saw. "Don't you dare say that."

"Oh George, you...not you...you don't deserve this." She shook her head and felt the sun on her skin. The earth was really rumbling now. It shook, as though with fear that the end had finally come. A sliver of moon watched from the horizon, faint in the daylight. "But...but I deserve this. I...this is how it should end. The things I've done..."

George clasped Monica's head in his hands. He kissed her tightly, his eyes squeezed shut. Still kissing her he said, "You don't deserve this. You are so much more than a killing machine. So much more..." And so they kissed—George tasting Monica's tears--there at the end of the world. The wall of destruction crawled over the horizon, lumbering and rolling along, but they didn't see it.

It embraced them and George felt Monica dissolve in his arms. She faded away, like a distant childhood memory...there and then gone again. George floated alone in the white and for a while he felt warm and protected.