Heart racing, she ran over to him. He looked her age, thirteen, with the same mousy brown hair and green eyes. But, as she studied him she realized he was panting, sweating, showing all signs of a fever. Mom and Dad would know what to do, she thought. Before they died, her parents were expert healers. They knew all of the healing herbs and fungi. Having given up on pills and vaccines after realizing they carried remnants of the toxins, nature was all she had to rely on. She sprinted over to her shelter, rummaging through her medicinal storage bins, frantically trying to find the yarrow. How could she have used it all? Giving up, she walked over and knelt beside the boy, stroking his forehead, wishing her parents were alive. Wishing this never happened.












***
Doctor G. D. Antonov spun in his chair, jumping for joy. Both plans had worked. The meteor strike five years ago, and the boy suddenly getting a very high, crippling fever. Glory, fame, power...he wanted it all. As a young Russian schoolboy, seeing his parents murdered by U.S. forces, Grigory David Antonov wanted to avenge his parents’ deaths. And, so far, many people had been driven out or blasted to pieces, what with all the nuclear and atmospheric testing he had done. It was brilliant!

Alane slowly opened his eyes, expecting a wave of nausea as usual, but it never came. He was lying on a soft, comfortable bed in a small bedroom. A girl faced away from him, while a lady rummaged through a large chest.
“Do you think he’ll be alright? I found him in the alley behind Dersanger’s shop.” “Ooh...I don’t know, honey. Here, give him this.” She handed the girl a small bottle whose contents smelled of lavender and peppermint, with a hint of cinnamon. A basic concoction to reduce fever, eliminate nausea, and get the patient up and running in a very short amount of time. “He’s awake!” Then she poured the contents of the bottle down his throat, which looked red and raw, and hoped for the best. She obviously wanted every one of her aunt’s patients to live, but this was different. The boy was rather handsome, and she felt like the two of them were destined to do something special.












***
Dr. Antonov glanced down the hall, then, seeing it was clear, scuttled down to the magnificent office of one of his colleagues, and locked the door behind him. There had been a rumor flying around that Ivan Kovai had a book on ancient history that depicted an ancient monk from who-knows-where was hiding a scroll, a very powerful scroll, on a high cave somewhere along the East Coast. He flipped to the wrong page but found two drawings that look something like fancy forks. The caption underneath read, “The Keys. Used to power a machine which can teleport the user anywhere he or she wishes.” Hm...Interesting.

Alane still had a small headache, but, all the same, felt strangely invigorated. He turned on the TV. It flashed a news report, in which the reporter stumbled over the name. "Wanted: Grigory David Fizzi...Alexi...no...Antonov. Forty thousand square miles were damaged by his meteor strike five years ago. And then, he just disappeared…” Then, just as Alane went to shut it off, his own face flashed on the screen. Why in the world?! It basically said that he was on criminal charges. “For what?” he wondered aloud. As if on cue,
“For breaking and entering, but I don’t think that’s fair,” Alane spun around, “seeing as we helped you, and all.”














***
Byra, upon seeing the boy, immediately sat cross-legged on the shag carpet next to him. “Who are you? Why are you here? Wh-” She cut him off. “My name is Byra. I’m the one who helped you. That was my aunt’s house that we dragged you to.” “But how...how did you...” “I’ve been watching you through your window all day. Not to be stalkerish, but I had to make sure you were okay.” Then she did something neither of them had been anticipating. She broke down and started crying. “What’s wrong?” “I...oh...nothing.” “No...really, what’s wrong?” Letting out a few weak laughs through her sobs, she shakily stood up and walked down the hall to his bedroom — a mess of sheets and clothes.
She opened a drawer in his dresser at random and found immediately what she was looking for. An old newspaper, dating from 3168. “Look.” It was a picture of her dad and his, laughing at something outside of the camera. She sniffed. “It’s...it’s...him. My dad. This was before the...the...accident.” Sniffling, she sat up straighter. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Alane said consolingly. “No, no...it’s fine.” Suddenly, she had a memory, a small one. Of her father holding her in his arms, singing softly. She even heard the tune, straining to hear it. Feeling like a little girl again, Byra curled up on the floor, fast asleep. Pulling a blanket over her, Alane kissed her softly on the forehead. He picked up the photo, tears pricking his eyes.

The Doc paced in his study. He wanted to kill the boy. Kill! Pulling open a drawer, he found his mother’s engagement ring. He had kept it all these years, all these years after his parents had been tortured to death by US forces in the war. His reflection, white spiky hair and gray-green eyes, stared back at him. Disgusted, he threw it to the ground, crushing it under his boot. Stomping down the stairs, he threw open the door. Grigory Antonov is ready to face the world.














***
Byra woke to find Alane hovering over a newspaper. She saw the corner of the Wanted page, posted by the police department every month. "What're you looking at?" "Oh...just...that Antonov freak. He's a raving madman. I have a feeling that my weird fever and that meteor strike have something in common, I just don't know what." At the bottom of the page, it gave an address, somewhere in Russia. “Will offer $100,000 reward.” Wow, all that money. Alane thought, reveling in dreams of a rebuilt Maine society and when families will be able to let their kids out to play again. Spinning out of his chair, he bounced off toward the door, a rare spring in his step. Ever since their parents had died, they’d miraculously survived on the rough-and-tumble streets of post-Splashdown Maine, thought of as never able to smile again. And yet here was Alane, bounding around the house with a smile big enough to make school picture photographers cringe. “Hey, wanna make some big bucks?” He quipped. She looked skeptical, then that morphed into giddiness. “Why wouldn’t I?” And off they went, off to some unknown place where unknown dangers lurked around every unknown corner. She shivered.

“Yo, Doc, wassup?” “Hey, everybody, make way, it’s the Doc!” “Doctor, Doctor, oh Doctor!” Gritting his teeth, Antonov ignored all of these greetings, as he did every day. He had never quite gotten used to the hippies of the 33rd century. He occasionally blasted small holes in the elegant streets, leaving people and their homes literally dangling by a thread over churning pits of plasma and asphalt. He hobbled over to a rusty, broken-down warehouse and wrenched open the door. Ah, home sweet home, he thought.














***
Taking in the rancid atmosphere, Alane and Byra dashed down alleys and narrow passageways, hoping to burst into the exact spot of the madman’s lair. No such luck, Byra thought miserably. Only a couple of houses and the old Stogemann’s warehouse. Wait a minute, what’s that? Alane followed Byra’s gaze toward the warehouse, he too noticing that the door was open a crack.
He peered inside, then motioned for her to follow. The whole place smelled like it hadn’t been used in about twenty years. Which it probably hasn’t, the two thought grimly, leaping aside to avoid a family of mice skittering across the floor. “Hello?” Alane whispered. Louder, “Hello?” A voice demanded, “Who is it? Is that you, Ivan? Becau-” The lilting cadence stopped abruptly. They could see a dim shape slowly advancing on them. As the hunched figure stepped into the light, Byra could plainly see this was the madman, a chill running down her spine. Again, the heavily accented voice inquired, “Who are you, and what do you want with me?” The world spun and she blacked out, not seeing, quite frankly didn’t want to see what came next.
She came to with a soft whirring and tittering hitting her ears. Catching the distinct odor of sulfur, she wrinkled her nose. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. In one corner of what seemed to be a laboratory, sterile white and all, was what she took to be a giant hourglass. At first glance, anyway. Upon investigation, however, she found it had a chair situated in the middle of it. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
Startled, Byra spun to find the man looking furious. “Don’t touch, little girl. What possessed you to even think about getting your filthy hands on my devices, my pristine equipment?” What in the world did he just say?! “I will destroy all mankind with my superior power. Destroy. Blast to smithereens. Pulverize. Lightly blend. However you would like to put it.” With that, he sat in the chair and muttered a few incomprehensible words. After laying two clock hand-looking things into a tray, which slid shut immediately, the chair whirled around to face her again, empty. At last it dawned on her. The thing was a transporter, and the man had set out to terrorize not only all of Maine, but the whole world.












***
Antonov darted down the blown-apart streets, submerging the few stragglers in a blast of hot plasma. Their bodies instantly melted, faces frozen in a mixture of shock, horror, and an eerie calm, pleasure even. This is the life, the Doc thought, Claim new territory, live in a mansion in an exotic country. Maybe France, or London even, with plenty of room for experiments. He put on a sudden burst of speed and found exactly what he’d been looking for. The state capital.

Alane was nowhere to be found. She looked around, her eye catching on a large pit in the middle of a vast open area. With a pang of sorrow, she realized that was where the capital once stood. A strange sliver of what used to be a balcony hung over it, clinging to the adjacent marketplace. Or what’s left of it, she sighed. Suddenly, with a noise like cymbals, the madman jumped out of a nearby trash can. The lid rolled off into the distance, kicking up dust, families of vermin, and a foul stench that could only be described as decaying flesh. Startled, she careened backwards, nerves jangling and her senses in overdrive. She could see the destruction; smell the sweat pouring off both of their bodies; taste the bile in the back of her throat.
“It all ends here, you little brat!” Antonov lunged for her, grazing her leg on his sharp carving knife he had most likely stolen from one of his victims. She crouched, wincing in pain, when a sudden idea came to her. Starting to sprint in dizzying circles around the crater, she missed the boiling goo by inches. Around and around she went, the Doc chasing after. She then, hoping, praying for the best, kicked one foot out and vaulted off the side of the crater with true gymnast flair. The pit was deep but the walls were thin. As a result, the brittle piles of sediment surrounding the enormous crater collapsed. Grigory David Antonov careened into the plasma, body crumpling and writhing. She swore she could have heard his acid-eaten corpse whisper, so she bent down but kept a safe distance. His twisted, cracked lips formed the words, “You have disturbed the Antonov family line. You have made quick work of the last living descendant of my great-great-great-great-grandfather, the great ruler Dmitri Nero Francesco Antonov. You shall pay, in ways unimaginable to the most tortured, and the most torturous.

(19 years later)
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“Good night, Alira. You too, Beck.” Alane said softly. “Night-night, Daddy.” they chorused. He sighed. Antonov had long since been put behind bars, and the world was back to normal. He kissed them each goodnight, and then walked out to the living room, where his wife lay on the couch, watching an intense game of pro football. He reclined in his chair, Byra smiling and sleepily muttering, “Hey. Where’s the coffee when you need it?” Alane laughed. Everything was normal, and he hoped it would stay that way, at least for a few years. None knew of what was to come, but they would be ready. Or so they thought.