Kevin’s head tilted toward Colt’s holster. “If you refuse to blend in with the local population, I strongly recommend concealing your firearms.”

  Colt looked down at himself. The gun belt sat on his hip, he unbuckled it and pulled it off, he opened his coat, then slid the revolver into a pocket and felt the weight pull the fabric down. The bowie went into his leather satchel.

  Clay stood there holding his shotgun with both hands. “Where the hell am I supposed to hide this?” He looked at Kevin. “I ain’t goin’ without it.” He pulled it into his chest.

  “We might need it,” Clay said. “What if them ninjas show up? I can’t do no time magic shit like him.” He pointed at Colt. “I need somethin’ they can’t dodge.”

  Colt looked at Kevin. “He’s got a point, Kev.”

  Kevin looked at the shotgun. “Place it on the table.”

  Clay glanced at Colt. Colt shrugged.

  Clay set the shotgun down on the metal surface.

  Kevin walked up to it and extended one finger. A thin line of light came out of the tip, bright enough to make Colt squint. The light touched the barrel and moved through it. Metal separated where the light passed, clean as a knife through butter. The cut piece clattered onto the table.

  Kevin stepped back. “This will decrease the range significantly. However, at close distance, the ability to dodge will also decrease significantly.”

  Clay picked up the shortened shotgun and turned it over in his hands. The barrel was half the length it used to be, the cut edge smooth like it had been polished.

  “Kevin.” Clay looked up at him. “You clever bastard.”

  He stared at Kevin’s finger, then back at his face. “Pullin’ gray nasty food balls outta yer chest. Flashin’ and blindin’ people. Now ya got a little finger that can cut through metal.” He tilted his head. “What else can you do?”

  Kevin’s eye dimmed for a second. He didn’t answer.

  Colt grabbed his leather satchel off the table. “Alright, Clay. You got everythin’ you need?”

  Clay broke the shotgun open, checked the shells inside, and snapped it shut. He patted his coat pocket. “I got eight shells of buckshot.”

  Colt looked in the satchel. Two boxes of .45 rounds sat next to the bowie. He closed it up.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Colt’s boots hit dirt and his knees bent to catch himself. The ten-second blur passed and the world snapped into focus.

  Clay was screaming.

  Colt turned and saw his brother standing a few feet away, patting his chest and arms like he was checking for missing pieces. The scream died off into heavy breathing.

  Colt grinned. “You good?”

  “Shut up.” Clay straightened his coat and looked around. “Where are we?”

  Colt looked too. A field stretched out in front of them, rows of corn standing tall in the early light. A red barn sat off to the left with a dirt road running past it. The sun was coming up behind them, painting the sky orange and pink.

  Clay turned in a slow circle. “Don’t look that different from home.”

  “Yeah.” Colt nodded. “It really don’t.”

  “Which way we goin’?”

  “Kev said it’d put us within ten miles. Let me check.”

  He focused on the words in the corner of his vision.

  PROJECT: LAST STAND v1.10

  Shinki: 1

  Power Bank: 126.2

  He opened his interface and focused on maps.

  The display opened up. Most of it was black, but a circle of cleared territory surrounded a flashing dot. That was him. He knew that much by now. On top it said.

  EARTH 447

  “Okay. We’re right here.” He pointed at the ground.

  Clay leaned over. “Yeah. I can see we’re here. I got eyes.”

  Colt ignored him and studied the map. Behind the flashing dot, a patch of green showed where the trees were. He looked over his shoulder and saw the forest line maybe a hundred yards back. The map matched.

  To the northeast, the cleared area showed something different. A pattern of straight lines crossing each other, boxes stacked in rows. It looked like someone had drawn a grid on the land with a ruler.

  “Northeast.” Colt pointed. “There’s somethin’ out there. Looks like a bunch of little squares all lined up. Roads, maybe. Buildings.”

  Clay squinted in that direction. “I don’t see nothin’ but sky.”

  “It’s on the map. That’s gotta be where we need to head to.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  A noise cut through the morning air. Low at first, then louder, building into a roar that made Colt’s chest vibrate.

  They both looked up.

  Something was coming out of the sky. It was made out of metal, with wings that didn’t flap. It moved fast, dropping lower as it passed over them, close enough that Colt could see rows of little windows along its side.

  Clay grabbed Colt’s arm and pulled him down into a crouch. The cornstalks bent around them.

  “Holy shit.” Clay’s voice came out tight. “What the hell is that?”

  Colt watched the thing pass overhead, the roar fading as it moved toward the northeast. Toward that grid on the map.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  The metal bird dropped lower and lower until it disappeared behind a line of trees in the distance.

  Clay’s grip on Colt’s arm loosened. He stood up slow, his eyes still locked on the sky where the thing had been.

  “You think there’s more of ’em?”

  Colt didn’t answer. He was still staring at the spot where it vanished.

  “Let’s move,” he said. “Stay low til we figure out what we’re walkin’ into.”

  They walked northeast.

  The cornfield gave way to thicker brush, then trees. Colt kept his eyes on the sky, waiting for another one of those metal birds to come screaming over. Two more passed while they were in the trees, both heading the same direction as the first.

  They pushed through the tree line and stopped.

  A road stretched out in front of them, wider than any road Colt had ever seen. Four lanes of black stone, maybe five, with a strip of grass running down the middle. And on it, moving fast in both directions, were machines.

  Colt had seen the pictures Kevin showed them. He knew they were called cars. But the pictures didn’t show how many there were, or how fast they moved, or the noise they made. The sound hit him, engines growling, tires hissing on the stone, horns blaring at each other.

  Some of the machines were huge, longer than a wagon and twice as tall, with big metal boxes on their backs. Others were small, painted bright colors, carrying people behind glass windows. A few had only two wheels and riders hunched over them like men on horses.

  Clay took off his hat and held it against his chest.

  “Colt.” His voice came out quiet. “This is…”

  “I know.”

  “This is fuckin’ crazy. That’s what it is.”

  They followed the road from a distance, staying in the grass where the machines couldn’t reach them. More of the metal birds passed overhead, some leaving the city, some coming in. Colt stopped flinching after the fourth one.

  The road curved and the trees thinned out, and then they saw it.

  The city rose up out of the land like nothing Colt had ever seen. Buildings stacked on top of each other, reaching up into the sky, more of them than he could count. Some were flat on top, some pointed, some had smoke coming out of them. The sun reflected off glass and metal, and the whole thing shimmered in the distance like a mirage.

  Clay put his hat back on. “How many people you think live in there?”

  Colt didn’t have a guess. More than he’d seen in his whole life, probably.

  They kept walking. The grass turned to dirt, then to stone. The noise got louder. Horns honking, engines rumbling, voices shouting things Colt couldn’t make out.

  Colt checked his map. The circle of cleared territory had grown as they walked, and now he could see the grid pattern up close. Streets and buildings, all laid out in straight lines. A star sat in the middle of the grid, pulsing slow.

  He focused on it.

  American Museum of Natural History

  “Clay.” He pointed ahead. “That’s where we’re goin’. The museum.”

  “Ok.” Clay looked around at the crowds of people moving past them. “What’s the plan now?”

  Colt stood up straight and brushed off his coat. “I guess we just act natural.”

  He walked out onto the sidewalk and joined the flow of people.

  “Wait— Colt!” Clay whisper-yelled behind him. Then Colt heard him brushing off his own clothes and hurrying to catch up.

  The streets were packed. People everywhere, moving fast, not looking at each other. Men in suits and hats, women in dresses and heels, kids running between legs. Colt had never seen so many people in one place. Back home, a crowded day meant maybe twenty folks at the general store.

  This was hundreds. Maybe thousands. All pushing past each other like they had somewhere important to be.

  A boy stood on a corner holding up a stack of papers and shouting something Colt couldn’t understand. Another boy across the street was doing the same thing. People stopped, handed over coins, took a paper, and kept walking.

  Colt felt eyes on him. He glanced to his left and saw a man in a gray suit staring at his boots. A woman on his right looked at Clay’s hat and whispered something to her friend.

  They didn’t fit. He knew that. But nobody stopped them, most people didn’t even seem to notice them.

  Clay tipped his hat at a woman in a blue dress. She looked away fast and walked quicker.

  Colt elbowed him. “Stay focused.”

  “I am focused. Just bein’ polite.”

  They walked for a long time. The streets all looked the same to Colt, stone paths, tall buildings, people rushing past. He kept checking the map, watching the flashing dot move closer to the star.

  The sun climbed higher. By the time Colt looked up again, it was almost directly overhead. His stomach growled.

  Clay grabbed his arm, sniffed the air and stopped. “Mmm. What’s that guy got over there?”

  A man stood behind a metal cart on the corner, steam rising from it. A line of people waited in front of him. The smell hit Colt’s nose.

  They walked over.

  “Hey there.” Clay nodded at the man. “Whatcha got?”

  The man looked them both over, his eyes moving from Clay’s hat to Colt’s boots and back up again. He had a round face and a stained apron, and he talked fast.

  “Hot dogs. Whaddya want, mustard, ketchup, relish, onions, sauerkraut?”

  Clay looked at Colt, then back at the man. “All of it.”

  The man raised his eyebrows but didn’t argue. He grabbed two rolls, dropped something brown into each one, and started piling stuff on top. Yellow, red, green, white. He wrapped them in paper and held them out.

  “Thirty cents.”

  Clay dug into his coat pocket. His fingers came out holding a gold coin, about the size of a nickel but thicker. He held it out to the man.

  The man stared at it. “What’s that?”

  “Payment.”

  “That ain’t money, pal.” The man squinted at the coin, then at Clay. “Where you two from, anyway?”

  “Out west,” Colt said.

  The man picked up the coin and turned it over in his fingers. He bit it. His eyebrows went up.

  “This real gold?”

  “Yeah,” Clay said. “That a problem?”

  The man looked at the coin, then at the hot dogs, then back at the coin. He shook his head slow and pocketed it.

  “Nah. No problem.” He handed over the hot dogs. “You boys have a nice day.”

  Clay took the hot dogs and handed one to Colt. “Much obliged.”

  They walked away from the cart. Colt bit into the hot dog and his eyes went wide. The meat was salty and soft, the bread warm, and all the stuff on top mixed together into something he’d never tasted before.

  Clay had already finished half of his. “Damn.” He talked with his mouth full. “They got anythin’ else like this around here?”

  Colt checked the map. The star was close now, maybe a few blocks ahead.

  “Later,” he said. “It’s just right up here. C’mon.”

  They turned a corner and there it was.

  The building took up the whole block. Stone walls rose up four stories, with columns out front thicker than tree trunks. Wide steps led up to a row of doors, and people flowed in and out like water through a creek. A banner hung between two of the columns, words painted on it that Colt couldn’t read from here.

  Clay stopped beside him and let out a low whistle.

  “That’s a museum?”

  Colt checked the map. The star sat right on top of them, pulsing.

  “That’s it.”

  Clay looked at the crowds on the steps, the guards standing by the doors, the windows running along the upper floors.

  “We ain’t just walkin’ in there and takin’ it, are we?”

  Colt studied the building. The entrances. The people. The guards in their blue uniforms, watching everyone who passed.

  “No,” he said. “We ain’t.”

  The sun was already past its peak, sliding toward the west. They had a few hours of daylight left, maybe less.

  Colt looked at Clay.

  “We’re comin’ back tonight.”