Before the End, I Sold My $3.8 Billion Stake to My Enemy

I died on day forty-three of the end of the world.

Selena pinned my wrist and pushed the drug from the syringe into my vein. It came from a vial of my father's heart medication, still bearing a dosage label in my own handwriting.

"Stop fighting it, Noah." Her voice was as gentle as ever. "What is in that storeroom is enough for me and Damian. You staying alive only wastes medicine."

My limbs quickly went limp. I collapsed outside the makeshift camp, and through the half-open iron door I saw Damian take my storeroom keys. He was wearing my hazmat suit and holding my last case of antibiotics.

"You had everything handed to you from the day you were born." He crouched down, smiling, and patted my cheek. "The company, the money, Selena, even the time to get ready for the end of the world. Too bad you were never any good at reading people."

The iron door closed in front of me.

Fallout settled on my skin like scalding ash. Farther off, mutant beasts were snarling in the black rain. I heard Selena ask Damian whether the wine in the storeroom was still drinkable.

Neither of them looked at me again.

Suffocation and burning came at once. I jerked upright, my right hand grabbing at my throat before I could think.

No fallout. No iron door. No syringe.

I was lying in a private hospital suite in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sunlight glared through the window, and the monitor beside the bed beeped steadily. My wrist was clean, with no blackened veins under the skin.

On the television, an expert in a sharp suit was analyzing the war in Eastern Europe.

"The Pacific Fleet going to top alert is routine deterrence, nothing more. The existence of nuclear weapons is exactly what guarantees that no side loses its restraint. There is no reason for anyone in the continental United States to stockpile supplies."

The date scrolled along the bottom of the screen.

August 17.

Exactly seven days before the first high-altitude warhead went off.

I stared at those numbers until my heart rate set off the monitor alarm.

A nurse pushed the door open. I sent her out, locked the door and picked up the glass on the nightstand.

The thought had barely formed before the glass vanished from my palm.

Deep in my mind, that gray, sourceless light where everything was still perfectly clear came back. My vault. Just under 1.8 million cubic feet, with time frozen inside. The few cases of canned food and two tools I still had before I died last time were gone. The vault had gone back to being empty.

I reached for the potted plant by the window next.

The pot went in. The plant, still growing, stayed where it was, soil spilling everywhere.

The rules were exactly the same as before. Nothing alive could enter, I had to touch an object myself, and anything oversized drained my mental energy.

I did not smile, and I did not go straight after Selena and Damian.

Last time, I did not awaken the vault until after the war began. By then the company had shut down, the banks were rubble, and money could not buy a single bottle of water. I used the vault to bring back supplies, then told the two people I trusted most every storeroom location, the full inventory, and the exact limits of my ability.

This time I would not repeat that.

I took a notepad out of the drawer and wrote six lines, nothing more.

Cash out. Fortress. Supplies. Weapons. Power. People I can trust.

My phone rang right then. Damian's name came up on the screen.

I answered.

"I heard you passed out at the board meeting last night." His tone was full of concern. "Noah, what did the doctors say?"

"Exhaustion."

"Since your father died, you have been running Cross Group alone. That is too much for anyone." He paused. "Think again about the share purchase I proposed yesterday. Two point four billion in cash, into escrow today. Take the money and rest. Leave the company to me."

The thirty-eight percent in my name was worth close to $3.8 billion.

The old me would never have taken that discount. Now it sounded different. Two point four billion was not an undervaluation. It was someone scrambling to pay cash for paper that would be worthless in seven days.

A very faint rustle of fabric came down the line.

Selena was there too.