Chapter 4: Last Authority

  ———

  The questions came faster than Zavian could answer them.

  "What's the margin of error on these calculations?" Dr. Adler demanded, his German accent sharpening with scepticism. "Your previous projections have been optimistic at best."

  "The margin of error is plus or minus 7%," Zavian replied, pulling up the relevant data on the holographic display. "Even at the pessimistic end, we're looking at fifty-eight seconds of stable bridge duration. Still more than enough for transit."

  "And the energy requirements?" Councilwoman Torres leaned forward, her dark eyes intent. "The last projection suggested we'd need to drain three bunkers' worth of power reserves for a single activation."

  "That was before Dr. Martinez's calibration improvements." The name caught in his throat, but he pushed through. "Her work on the crystalline matrix junction reduces energy bleed by approximately 3%. Combined with the weak point's natural thinness, we're looking at a 40% reduction in total power requirements."

  {Dr. Martinez's calibration data is now displayed} NOVA murmured in his mind. {I have also included her efficiency projections. She would want them to be part of the presentation.}

  Zavian felt a flush of gratitude towards his AI companion. Even in the midst of chaos, NOVA remembered the people who mattered.

  The holographic display shifted, showing Martinez's work, the crystal junction analysis, the resonance frequency adjustments, the careful calculations she'd been so excited about just hours ago. Her name appeared in the corner of the display: Dr. Yuki Martinez, Power Systems Division. A small tribute. The only one he could offer right now.

  "These efficiency improvements are significant," General Morrison acknowledged, studying the data with a soldier's eye for practical details. "But I'm more concerned about the destination. You're proposing to open a door to... where, exactly?"

  "We don't know," Zavian admitted. "The dimensional barrier separates our reality from others, potentially infinite others. We can't see through it, can't scan what's on the other side. All we can do is open the door and look."

  "So we're betting everything on a blind leap into the unknown." Reeves was on his feet. "Brilliant strategy, Dr. Kingsley. Truly—" Morrison’s voice cut across the room. "Sit down, Councilman."

  "I will not sit down. This is exactly the—"

  "We're betting everything because we have nothing left to lose." Zavian spoke over both of them, louder than he meant to, and the room went still. He hadn't raised his voice in the Council chamber before. The shock of it bought him three seconds. He used them. "Fading is accelerating. At current rates, Earth's population will drop below sustainable levels within four years. Below survival levels within six. We can sit here and argue about process, or we can take a chance on something else."

  Torres leaned forward. "A chance that might kill whoever goes through" .

  "Yes." The single word sat between them, heavy with implication.

  Director Okonkwo raised a hand, silencing the murmurs that had begun to spread through the chamber.

  "Dr. Kingsley," she said, her voice measured and careful, "you've shown us that a stable bridge is possible. That's remarkable progress, and the Council acknowledges your achievement. But you've been dancing around something for the past twenty minutes, and I think it's time you addressed it directly." Zavian's stomach knotted. He understood what was coming.

  "The risks," Okonkwo continued. "You've shown us the bridge is stable. You've shown us the destination appears habitable, but you haven't addressed the fundamental question: what happens to people who cross?"

  The chamber went silent. Twelve pairs of eyes fixed on Zavian, waiting. He took a breath. This was the part that kept him awake at night.

  "We don't know," he admitted. "Not completely. The dimensional barrier is unlike anything we've studied before. Our instruments can measure the destination, confirm atmospheric composition, gravity, temperature. But we can't send a probe through and retrieve it. We can't run tests on the other side. The only way to know what happens when a human being crosses that barrier is for a human being to cross it."

  "So you're asking us to send people through blind," Torres said. "Into the complete unknown."

  "I'm asking you to consider it as an option. The only option we have left." Zavian pulled up the population counter, the number that haunted his every waking moment. "In four years, maybe less, everyone in this room will be dead. Everyone in every bunker will be dead. Fading doesn't negotiate. It doesn't slow down. It just takes, and takes, and takes, until there's nothing left to take."

  "And your portal might kill everyone who steps through it," Reeves cut in, his voice dripping with contempt. "We could be trading one death for another."

  "We could," Zavian nodded. "But death here is certain. Death through the portal is possible, but so is survival. So is a world where the sun still shines and plants still grow and children can play outside without breathing poison."

  Reeves crossed his arms. "Pretty words." "But you're still asking us to gamble with human lives on technology we don't fully understand."

  "I'm not asking you to gamble with anyone's life but mine." That stopped the murmuring cold.

  "I'm volunteering to go first," Zavian continued into the silence. "Alone. If the crossing kills me, you'll know. If I survive, I'll find a way to send word back. Either way, you'll have data. Real data, not speculation."

  "And why should you be the one to take this risk?" Ambassador Liu asked.

  Zavian hesitated. Then he pulled up his medical file, the one he'd been hiding from everyone except Sarah and NOVA.

  "Because I'm already dying. The neural degeneration that took my legs is spreading. Eight months, maybe less, before it reaches my autonomic functions." He met the Director's eyes steadily. "I'm not sacrificing anything I wouldn't lose anyway. But if I can use whatever time I have left to find out if escape is possible, to give the rest of humanity a chance..."

  "Then at least your death means something," Okonkwo finished softly.

  "Exactly."

  Reeves leaned forward, his expression shifting from contempt to something more complex. "You're volunteering to be a guinea pig. To throw yourself into the unknown because you've got nothing left to lose."

  "I'm volunteering to be a scout. To find out if there's something worth escaping to." Zavian's voice hardened. "And yes, because I've got nothing left to lose. Is that so hard to understand?" The question lingered.

  "I am going through that portal." The room went still.

  ———

  The chamber erupted. Questions, objections, demands for clarification, all of it crashing over Zavian like a wave. He let it wash past him, waiting for the initial shock to subside.

  {Reeves appears genuinely surprised} NOVA said. {I believe he expected you to propose sending someone else. Perhaps a team of volunteers.}

  "He doesn't know me very well."

  {Few people do. You are not easy to know.}

  Eventually, Director Okonkwo restored order. Her voice cut through the chaos with the authority of someone who'd spent years managing impossible situations.

  "Dr. Kingsley. You're proposing to cross the dimensional bridge yourself. Alone."

  "Someone has to go first." Zavian gripped the arms of his wheelchair. "Someone has to scout the destination, confirm it's survivable, find out what we're actually dealing with. I'm the logical choice."

  "Logical how?" General Morrison's tone was sceptical but not hostile, the voice of a man who'd sent soldiers into danger and understood such decisions. "You're the project lead. You know more about the portal technology than anyone alive. If something goes wrong, we lose that expertise permanently."

  "You'll have my research. Every calculation, every simulation, every note I've ever made. NOVA will ensure it's all documented and accessible. And Dr. Martinez's calibration work--" The name still hurt, but he pushed through. "Her improvements are already integrated into the system. The project can continue without me."

  "But you're--" Torres stopped, struggling with how to phrase her objection. "Dr. Kingsley, you're in a wheelchair. No offence intended, but how do you expect to survive in an unknown environment when you can't even walk?"

  "I can't walk here." Zavian gestured at his legs. "But the portal doesn't just transport bodies, it reconstructs them at the destination. There's theoretical evidence that physical damage might not translate across dimensional boundaries. My paralysis might not follow me through."

  "Might," Reeves pounced on the word. "Might not. More speculation. More guesswork. You're asking us to approve a suicide mission based on might."

  "I'm asking you to approve the only mission that has any chance of saving more than ten thousand people." Zavian met Reeves's glare without wavering. "And it's not suicide. It's reconnaissance."

  "Reconnaissance requires extraction. How do you plan to return? You've said nothing about two-way transit."

  "The bridge works both ways, theoretically. I'll have equipment to signal for retrieval once I've gathered sufficient data. If I find the world is habitable, if there's anything useful on the other side, resources, technology, anything we can use, I'll bring it back or send instructions for replication."

  "And if you don't find anything? If you cross over and discover there's nothing there worth saving?"

  "Then you'll know. You'll have data about what's on the other side, information about whether the destination is viable. Even failure provides valuable intelligence."

  Reeves shook his head, but before he could speak again, Sarah Chen's voice cut through the chamber.

  "There's something else the Council needs to know." Zavian's heart sank. He understood what was coming.

  Sarah rose from her seat at the edge of the chamber, present as project supervisor with speaking rights. Her face was composed, but Zavian could see the tension in her shoulders, the careful control she was maintaining.

  "Dr. Kingsley has been concealing information about his medical condition," she said. "Information that's directly relevant to this decision."

  "Sarah--"

  "No." Her voice was firm. "They need to know. All of it."

  She pulled up a medical file on the holographic display. Zavian's file, with all its damning details exposed for the Council to see.

  "Eight months ago, Dr. Kingsley's condition entered its terminal phase. The degenerative neural condition that paralysed him at twelve has been accelerating. Progressive, untreatable, terminal. Current projections give him six to eight months to live, possibly less, given the acceleration we've observed in recent weeks." For two seconds, nobody breathed. Then the chamber fractured.

  "He's dying?" Torres was half out of her seat. "We've been debating mission parameters for a dying man and nobody thought to mention—"

  "I didn't—" Zavian started.

  "Six months?" Dr. Adler's voice cut through, sharp with something between outrage and disbelief. "You let us argue about return transit for someone who may not live to use it?"

  "He's dying," Sarah continued over all of them, her voice cracking but carrying. "Has been this entire time, and he didn't tell anyone because he didn't want resources diverted from the project. He's not volunteering because he's brave or logical. He's volunteering because he has nothing left to lose."

  "Sarah." Zavian's voice was quiet, nearly lost in the aftermath. "That's not entirely—"

  "It's exactly accurate, and you know it." She turned to face him, and he saw tears glistening in her eyes. "You're not sacrificing yourself for humanity. You're spending the time you have left on the one thing that might make your death mean something. There's a difference."

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Is there?" He met her gaze. "Because from where I'm sitting, the outcome is the same. Someone needs to cross. Someone has to be first. And unlike almost anyone else who might volunteer, I'm already dying. If the crossing kills me, humanity loses a man with six months to live. If someone else goes and dies, humanity loses someone with sixty years ahead of them."

  "The math." Sarah's voice was bitter. "It always comes back to math with you."

  "The math is all I have. It's all any of us have." He looked around the chamber, at the faces of the twelve people who would decide his fate. "This isn't about sympathy. Don't feel—" He stopped. The word expendable was right there, the clean mathematical argument, but Martinez's face kept intruding, her smile, her hand going slack. He swallowed. "I am the best candidate for this mission. Because I'm expendable that others aren't."

  Director Okonkwo’s voice was quiet. "No one is expendable."

  "Everyone is expendable when the alternative is extinction." Zavian pulled up the population counter on the display. The number had dropped again since the meeting began, it was always dropping, the digits ticking downward with the cruelty of mathematics that didn't care about the lives it was subtracting. "We're losing people every day to the Fading. Every hour. Every minute. By the time this meeting ends, more will be gone. Every day I spend in this bunker is another day I'm not looking for solutions, not searching for ways to save the people who are still here."

  He paused, letting the numbers sink in.

  "I have six months. Maybe less. I can spend those months watching the counter fall, or I can spend them doing something that might, might, give humanity a future. I know which option I prefer." Reeves opened his mouth, but General Morrison spoke first.

  "The boy's right."

  Everyone turned to look at the old soldier. His face was grim, but respect flickered in his eyes.

  "I've sent men into battles they weren't likely to survive," Morrison continued. "Good men, men with families and futures and everything to live for. I sent them because the mission mattered more than any individual life, even their own, even mine. This is the same calculus. Dr. Kingsley is volunteering for a mission that needs to be done, and he's the best qualified to do it. His medical condition doesn't change that. If anything, it strengthens the argument."

  "My wife Faded last month." Reeves's voice was different now — quieter, stripped of the performance. "She was a botanist. Spent her last three years trying to grow a garden in a concrete box, because she said people needed to see something green. And when she went, she was smiling, just like they all do, like wherever she was going was better than anything I could give her." He looked at Zavian, and now, the contempt was gone. What replaced it was worse — it was fear. "I'm not fighting you because I think you're wrong, Kingsley. I'm fighting you because I've watched hope destroy people. False hope is crueller than no hope at all."

  A beat of silence. Then Morrison leaned forward.

  "Do you have a better idea, Councilman?" His voice was quiet. Dangerous. "Another solution you've been keeping to yourself? Because I'd love to hear it. We all would."

  Reeves's face reddened, but he had no answer. None of them did. Director Okonkwo let the silence stretch for a breath. Then she spoke.

  "I think we've heard enough. The Council will now vote on Dr. Kingsley's proposal: authorisation for a solo reconnaissance mission through the dimensional bridge, with a preparation timeline of three weeks. All in favour?"

  Hands rose. General Morrison. Ambassador Liu. Councilwoman Torres. Dr. Adler, reluctantly. Others, one by one, until eight hands were raised.

  "All opposed?"

  Four hands. Reeves, predictably. Three others who'd been silent throughout the debate, their faces troubled but unconvinced.

  "The motion carries, eight to four."

  The words landed somewhere distant. Zavian heard them the way you hear thunder after lightning, delayed, arriving after the flash has already burned its image into your eyes. His hands were cold. The room smelled like recycled air and old sweat and finality.

  Okonkwo turned to Zavian, her expression unreadable. "Dr. Kingsley, you have your authorisation. Three weeks to prepare, then you cross. May whatever gods still listen go with you."

  "Thank you, Director."

  "Don't thank me yet. You're about to do something that might kill you, might strand you in another dimension forever, or might, if you're extraordinarily lucky, give us a chance to survive. I'm not sure any of those outcomes warrant gratitude." She rose, signalling the end of the session.

  "This Council is adjourned. Dr. Kingsley, Dr. Chen, remain behind. We have details to discuss."

  ———

  The chamber emptied slowly. Council members filed out, some pausing to offer Zavian words of encouragement, others avoiding his gaze entirely. Reeves left without speaking, his anger radiating from him like heat.

  When the room was finally empty except for Zavian, Sarah, and Director Okonkwo, the older woman let out a long breath. Okonkwo exhaled. "Well. That was certainly dramatic."

  "I didn't intend--" Zavian began.

  "I know you didn't." Okonkwo moved closer, studying Zavian with eyes that had seen too much and forgotten nothing. "You intended to present your data, make your case, and slip through the portal before anyone had time to object. Dr. Chen's revelation complicated that plan."

  "I was protecting him." Sarah’s jaw flexed. "Or trying to."

  "You were exposing him," Okonkwo replied. "There's a difference, though I understand why you might confuse the two." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter now. The decision is made. What matters is what happens next." She pulled up a new display, logistics data, resource allocations, timeline projections.

  "Three weeks is an aggressive schedule. The portal systems will need final calibration. We'll need to assemble supplies for the crossing, food, water, medical equipment, communication devices. And we'll need to address the possibility that things go wrong."

  "What kind of wrong?" Zavian asked.

  "Every kind. Bridge collapse during transit. Hostile destination. Arrival without return capability. Nothing useful at the other end. Something useful that can't be brought back." Okonkwo's voice was clinical, listing disasters like items on a shopping list. "We need contingency plans for all of it."

  "I've prepared documentation of all my research." Zavian pulled up the file index. "NOVA can provide access to everything, calculations, simulations, theoretical frameworks. If I don't return, the project can continue with someone else."

  "Someone else." Okonkwo's expression flickered. "You say that very easily."

  "I've had time to come to terms with my mortality, Director," Zavian replied. "Longer than most people get."

  "That's not what I meant." Okonkwo paused, then continued: "My daughter Faded six months ago. She was twenty-three. A doctor, like her mother wanted to be. She'd just started her residency when the symptoms appeared, not the Fading itself, but the precursors. The exhaustion. The detachment. The sense that the world was becoming less real."

  Sarah made a soft sound of sympathy, but Okonkwo continued without acknowledgement.

  "I watched her slip away over three weeks. She understood what was happening, she was a doctor, she could read the signs, but she couldn't stop it. None of us could. And in the end, she just... let go. Like it was easier than fighting. Like whatever waited on the other side was better than what we had here."

  She met Zavian's eyes.

  "You're not slipping away, Dr. Kingsley. You're running towards something. That's different. That's what gives me hope that you might succeed where everyone else has failed."

  "I'll do my best." Zavian nodded.

  "Your best may not be enough. But it's more than we had yesterday." Okonkwo turned to Sarah. "Dr. Chen, I'm assigning you as mission coordinator. Everything Dr. Kingsley needs, you make sure he gets it. Budget is unlimited, what's the point of saving resources if there's no one left to use them?" Sarah nodded, her expression complicated. "Understood, Director."

  "Good." Okonkwo moved towards the door, then paused. "Dr. Kingsley. One more thing."

  "Yes?" Zavian asked.

  "My daughter's name was Amara. When you cross over, if you find something beautiful, something worth hoping for, think of her. Think of all the Amaras we've lost. And find a way to save the ones we haven't lost yet." She left without waiting for a response.

  Zavian sat in the silence she'd left behind. His jaw ached. He'd been clenching it through the entire session without realising, and now that the tension had nowhere to go it sat in his bones like a low hum. He wanted to put his head in his hands. Couldn't. Wanted to close his eyes and not think about Amara or Martinez or the number on the counter. Couldn't do that either.

  "She's not wrong," Sarah said. "About any of it."

  "I know," Zavian said.

  "Three weeks, Zavian. Three weeks to prepare for something no human has ever done. Are you ready?"

  He thought about the question. The portal waiting in the laboratory below. The unknown dimension on the other side, with all its dangers and possibilities. A hundred million people dying, and the desperate hope that he might find a way to save them.

  He thought about Alice, asking for sunshine. About Martinez, smiling as she talked about crystal harmonics, and then gone, like that, with that distant, peaceful expression that still haunted him.

  "No." Zavian stared at the ceiling. "I'm not ready. I don't think anyone could be ready for this."

  "Then why are you doing it?" Sarah asked.

  He looked at the population counter, still displayed on the holographic screen. The number had dropped again while they talked.

  "Because ready or not, someone has to try." Zavian met her eyes. "And I'd rather die reaching for something than live--" He caught himself, almost laughed. "Well, I suppose 'live' isn't really an option for me anymore, but you know what I mean."

  Sarah moved to his side, her hand hovering over his shoulder in that familiar gesture of connection that couldn't quite connect.

  She moved closer, lowering her voice. "I meant what I said to the Council. About you spending your time on something that makes your death mean something. I wasn't criticising. I was... I was trying to make them understand."

  "I know," Zavian said.

  "Do you?" Her voice cracked. "Because sometimes I don't think you do. Sometimes I think you've spent so long treating yourself like a problem to be solved that you've forgotten you're a person. A person who matters. A person who--" She stopped, unable to continue.

  "Sarah." Zavian wished, not now, that he could reach out and take her hand. "I know I matter. That's why I'm doing this. Because the only way my life means anything is if I use it for something bigger than myself. I've known that since the day I woke up in the hospital and realised I'd never walk again. The only question was what that something would be."

  "And now you've found it," Sarah said.

  "And now I've found it." Zavian looked at the empty Council chamber, at the seats where twelve people had just voted to send him into the unknown. "Three weeks. Let's make them count."

  ———

  Next twenty-one days blurred together in a frenzy of preparation. Calibration tests on the portal systems, run over and over until the results were consistent to the fifth decimal place. Equipment selection, balancing necessity against weight, trying to anticipate needs for a destination they couldn't imagine. Medical preparations, including a cocktail of stabilising drugs that might slow the progression of Zavian's condition long enough for him to complete his mission.

  Training, too, what little was possible for a man who couldn't move most of his body. NOVA ran scenarios in his mind, simulating situations he might encounter, helping him develop contingency plans for everything from hostile environments to equipment failure.

  On the ninth night, alone in the lab at 0200, he caught himself staring at the inactive portal ring and couldn't look away. His chest had gone tight. His breathing wouldn't deepen past a certain point. The ring sat there, dark metal in dim light, and for thirty seconds it wasn't a scientific achievement — it was a mouth. He shut his eyes until the feeling passed. Opened them. Got back to work.

  He didn't mention it to NOVA. Some fears were too honest to share. On the twelfth day, the suit fitting nearly broke him.

  The engineers had designed a modified exo-suit, a framework of lightweight alloys and micro-servos that would strap around his chair and, in theory, give him limited mobility on uneven terrain. They'd been building it for a week. It was ugly, cobbled together from salvaged parts, smelling of machine oil and desperation.

  "Try the arm extension," the lead engineer said. "Neural command, same as your chair."

  Zavian sent the thought-pulse. The right arm of the exo-suit jerked upward, overcorrected, and slammed into the calibration rack hard enough to send tools clattering across the floor.

  "Sorry." Zavian steadied the arm.

  "Don't be. We'll adjust the sensitivity." The engineer made a note. "Try again. Slower."

  He tried. The arm shook, twitched, then lifted to roughly chest height and held. His fingers—the suit's fingers—opened and closed with a half-second delay that made every motion feel like remembering rather than doing. It was the first time in eight years he'd reached for something and touched it. He didn't say anything. Neither did the engineer. NOVA, for once, was silent.

  "You're pushing yourself too hard," Sarah told him on the fifteenth day, when she found him still working at 0300.

  "I'll rest when I'm dead," Zavian replied.

  "That's not funny."

  "It wasn't meant to be." Zavian pulled up another simulation, watching the holographic portal flicker to life. "Every hour I spend resting is an hour I'm not preparing. And I have a limited number of hours left."

  "You have a limited number of hours left exactly because you're not resting," Sarah said. "The medical team says your condition is accelerating. The stress isn't helping."

  "The stress is unavoidable. The work isn't." Zavian finally looked at her, really looked, and saw the exhaustion in her face, the worry she couldn't quite hide. "Sarah. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but we both know how this ends. Let me spend my remaining time the way I want to spend it."

  She didn't argue. Just stood beside him in the darkened laboratory, watching simulations run, keeping him company through the long hours before dawn. Alice visited on the eighteenth day.

  She slipped into his workspace as she always did, quiet, hesitant, like a bird ready to take flight at the slightest provocation. But this time she carried something with her, clutched against her chest like a treasure. Alice pressed a folded paper into his hand. "For when you go through the door." She held it out. A piece of paper, wrinkled from handling, covered in crayon drawings.

  Zavian had NOVA project the image onto his display so he could see it clearly. A yellow circle in the corner, the sun, bright and warm, the way it hadn't looked on Earth for five years. Blue sky beneath it, impossibly blue. Green grass, green trees, a riot of colour that made his chest ache.

  And in the centre, a stick figure in what looked like a wheelchair, surrounded by the colours, reaching up towards the sun.

  "That's you," Alice explained. "Finding the sunshine. So you remember what you're looking for."

  "Alice..." Zavian's voice caught. "This is beautiful."

  Alice held it out, shy and brave at the same time. "I know it's not very good. I'm not a real artist, but I wanted you to have something. To take with you." She scuffed her foot against the floor, not meeting his eyes. "So you don't forget."

  "I won't forget." His voice caught. "I promise."

  "You promised to bring back sunshine, too." Alice looked up at him, those too-old eyes searching his face. "Are you still going to do that?"

  "I'm going to try." He folded the drawing carefully. "That's all I can promise, that I'll try."

  "Trying is good." Alice almost smiled. "Most people don't even try anymore, but you do. That's why I made you the picture." She turned to leave, then paused at the door.

  "Mr. Zavian?"

  "Yes?" Zavian asked.

  "Come back. Even if you don't find sunshine. Come back anyway. All right?"

  He thought about the odds. About the mission parameters and the unknown variables and the hundred ways this could go wrong. About the very real possibility that he would step through that portal and never step back.

  "I'll do my best." Zavian nodded.

  It was, the closest thing to a promise he could offer. Alice nodded, accepting it as enough, and slipped out into the corridor.

  NOVA stored the image in her permanent memory banks. Zavian had it printed on actual paper, one of the last sheets in the bunker's supplies, and tucked it into the pocket of the suit he would wear through the portal. Sunshine. He was going to find sunshine, or die trying. At this point, those felt like the same thing.

  ———