The car went silent, as each of them looked at me. They all knew already. They’d discussed it. That’s what all that talk about open spaces and bases and knowing what’s coming at them was all about. And none of them seemed in the slightest concerned. Like they’d concluded it was the best thing to do.

  “Are you mad?” I practically shouted at her, which came out as more of a gurgle in the state that I was in. Old men weren’t designed to shout. “You’ve just told me that your world has been involved in this war for forty thousand years. That you lost billions of people trying to kill one man. No, fuck it. Not even a man. A god. A literal god. And you want me to bring that here?”

  I looked at my friends. My girlfriend. The people I trusted most in the world. “And you guys are happy to go along with this? It’s insane. Kian, weren’t you the one who told me to negotiate with the System? Carmen, weren’t you the one who was concerned what we would have to become if we stayed on the run. Now, both of you want me to what – kill everyone on Earth basically?”

  “Hear her out,” Carmen said to me softly.

  “They won’t negotiate,” Kaelyn said, matter-of-factly, staring right into my eyes as if trying to hypnotise me into submission.

  “How do you know that? You weren’t born when your world was integrated into the System.” I thought about it some. Thought back to the Pantheon’s offer. Give myself up and Earth would be freed from having to take part in the USP. “Why can’t I just give them the mana-stone? Maybe they can remove it without taking my head. Maybe they can restore me while they’re at it.”

  “They cannot. Once a mana-stone is bonded, it can only be removed with the death of its owner.”

  My friends looked at me with that concern and pity in their eyes. That look that I so hated from anyone – but most of all, them. I didn’t need concern. Didn’t need pity. Never had. I pushed forwards. Analysed the angles. Made the best decision with the information to hand. Besides, they couldn’t seriously think that keeping me alive was better than subjecting the Earth to a never-ending war.

  I know. I know. I’m no martyr. And believe me, I didn’t want to be. But what choice did I have? Millions had already died when the System initialised, which was indirectly my fault. I’d already killed people. I’d seen Carmen die twice. I’d already killed myself multiple times. I didn’t know how many people’s lives were worth my own. But I knew the price wasn’t everybody’s.

  “Then I just have to give myself up.”

  Kaelyn moved faster than any of us were prepared for, or could have prepared for. Within the blink of an eye, the knife at her waist – why did I make sure to return it? – was at my neck with a short, sharp stab of pain. I’m sure she’d drawn blood. I still recalled how sharp the blade was.

  “I could have your head, kill your friends and be out of here before you’re able to call the System. And then I’d just wait until the war started anyway.” She pressed the blade a little more and I gritted my teeth. Couldn’t she see I was an old man? This is not how the elderly should be treated. She pressed the blade just that little bit more to really drive home the point, before she released the pressure and sat back. Charlotte narrowed her eyes at Kaelyn. Probably professional jealousy.

  I put a hand to my neck, felt the small trail of blood trickle from where she’d nicked the skin. They might not have Japanese cinema where she was from, but they definitely had better than Japanese steel. In the moment, I put my fingers to the gem. It was a little stupid, I know. It’s not like I could reset again anyway, but it was like playing the lottery. You never know. I stared back at Kaelyn as intensely as she had stared at me earlier.

  “Why don’t you then?”

  “There’s no need to,” she said, as she looked out of the window, into the brightly lit park. “The Universal Survival Protocol will begin in less than fourteen days, whether you give the mana-stone back or not.”

  “How do you know it will start?”

  “Because it always does.” She turned back to me. “The fourteen day period is to give all parties time to prepare. The System Administrators are Champions of their worlds, in control of their armies. This period allows them to understand how your planet works and what they need to target to take control. For smarter planets, it gives them time to prepare a defence. If your world’s leaders are competent, they would be preparing for the invasion. It’s what they should do.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Then why would the Pantheon give us the option to return the mana-stone.”

  “Whether you give the mana-stone back or not, the USP cannot be stopped. The only thing you would achieve by giving it up is to cripple your biggest advantage in winning this war.”

  “If it’s so powerful, why don’t you take it from me and use it yourself?”

  It was clear she was thinking what to say. Almost like she hadn’t even considered the possibility of taking the mana-stone, beyond giving it to the Champions she spoke of. “I am a weapon. I go where I’m needed to fulfil my objective. And I have fulfilled that objective. I have no desire for power. I just want to go home.”

  Kaelyn turned back to watching the park. Her last statement sounded very honest but I was wary nonetheless.

  “Even if I were to believe you, why do you think we can start the war now? How does that help you get home?”

  “I know the System Administrators and the Pantheon have this privilege. As a Divine artifact holder, I’m hoping that the System recognises you as having the same position.

  “If it does and you start the USP, once the war begins, there will be gates for the System Administrators and their armies to attack your planet. Those gates travel in both directions. I can use them to eventually get back to my home-world.”

  “If the war is going to start anyway, why would I want to hasten it? Just so you can go home early? You’re asking me to put the lives of everyone on this planet at risk. Surely it would be better to allow our world to prepare?”

  “Because you allow the System Administrators to also prepare. And with the System and their privileges, they will be able to attack and destroy objectives before the invasion. In my experience, the Administrators use that privilege more often than not.” She turned to look at me.

  “But the choice is yours. You can wait to see if I was telling the truth. Or even better, if you really want to doom your planet, you could give back the gem, and then wait to see if I was telling the truth. I’ll find my way home in any case.” She turned to Charlotte. “How do I get out of this thing?”

  Charlotte reached over and pulled the door open, following Kaelyn outside. They stayed close to the car though. Carmen shuffled over to the middle, so we could see her better.

  “River,” she began but I cut her off with a hand up. I needed to process. Needed to think. I was a gambler, used to making quick, imperfect decisions with imperfect information. Or even in false hope. That wasn’t even a gambling thing. That was a human thing. We always made imperfect decisions from the information we had, or from false hope, or in the cases of many – even when presented with facts, they made decisions in a false belief in that thing that they wanted to be true.

  That was life. Imperfect decisions. Imperfect information. Just trying to do the best at that moment for ourselves or for the people we loved. Most people on this planet were like that. But, how was I to make this decision? There was nothing but hope. Give the mana-stone back and hope Kaelyn was wrong. And if she wasn’t…well, this wouldn’t just be a life-changing blunder.

  I wasn’t gambling ￡6000 here. I was gambling the lives of eight billion people and an entire world. The plants. The animals. All the lives that wouldn’t be born. This was no actions first, consequences later decision. Not when the consequences were the destruction of the planet.

  I looked up at the two people I trusted most in the world. “You think she’s telling the truth?”

  They looked at each other, then back to me and nodded.

  “We spoke a lot while we waited for you,” Kian said. His voice sounded solemn. Serious. As much as we liked to laugh to move forwards, sometimes it just wasn’t possible. “And we verified some of it with the System. How long her world had been at war. How they managed to defeat Tiananmut. How the System integrates new worlds. We couldn’t validate that it would start the war. It told us we had insufficient privileges. It did tell us what happened to her world.”

  “Not just her world,” Carmen cut in. “An alliance of worlds. The System allows worlds to ally with each other in what it calls a faction.. The Pantheon retaliated against her faction’s worlds. They’ve destroyed thirty-one of them.”

  I looked out of the window and saw Kaelyn pacing, with Charlotte by her side, talking with each other. Kaelyn didn’t seem to be particularly concerned or upset. With her background, I supposed she wouldn’t. Everything was just a target for her. An objective.

  Thirty-one worlds eradicated for killing a Pantheon member. Again though, the lives lost just wasn’t meaningful. I knew that was maybe one hundred billion lives or more? But what did that mean? What I did understand though was that amongst the eight billion lives on Earth were the two in front of me and Charlotte outside. Yes, I cared on some level about humanity. But what I really cared about were those in my life right now.

  I thought back to the photos of a young Michelle, holding toddler Darren at her hips. The story of a young mum with her child. What hopes and dreams did they have for the future? Yes, I had done what I needed to do to protect Carmen. Protect myself. But empathy didn’t mean pacifism. It meant being able to appreciate that everyone has a story and trying to understand that story. What I could understand was that every person had people in their lives that they cared about. That they had hopes and dreams for. That’s what was worth protecting. Even if sometimes the people in question change along their journey.

  I looked from Kian to Carmen. Maybe I could get the answers they couldn’t.

  “System.”