What if when you die the hands in your brain keep working on their house of cards? Keep constructing it even as the electricity fails and the lights go out.

What if they've been working in the dark, all along?

There are philosophers who theorize that the afterlife will be whatever we expect it to be. That is: each of us will experience that which we as individuals believe will happen; custom-generated post-life content.

Some of us will find ourselves up in the tunnel of pure white light, reunited with family members who proceeded us in death.

Ellie's eyes roll up in her skull and she groans. The van's engine revs past the red-line.

Others who exit this mortal existence will rejoin the collective unconscious to study the outcomes of their prior life before choosing to reincarnate as something new.

Ava can't force her vision to focus. Everything's doubled-up. Something in her skull is terribly broken.

In the final moment before brain-death, could a single electro-chemical spark persist for eternity, imagining itself in an endless reincarnative loop?

“Look.” Bach points with his stump, indicating something out through the windshield, crossing right in front of Ostby's face. “Over there.”

He's spotted a barn among the ruins of a farmstead. Every other outbuilding in the vicinity has been dismantled – not simply burned to the ground but smashed and stripped for what could be stolen. There's an old trailer home with no glass in the windows and no roof overhead. But somehow this lone structure has avoided demolition.

Ostby heeds Bach's direction and angles the van off the highway.

“Hope there's nobody home,” he says as they come to a halt outside the barn.

Bach hops out and slides open one-half of the barn doors. He sticks his head inside.

“Looks good.” He slides the other side of the barn door open.

Ostby drives the van inside and kills the engine. Then for a single second it's entirely quiet except for everyone's excited breathing.

“Help me.” Uri doesn't hesitate to break the brief moment of silence. “I can't work in here with all these bombs and rockets. Let's get them out onto the ground. They're critical – we have to hurry.”

And in the back of the van Ava and Ellie lay with their skulls fractured, each hovering closer and closer to death.

“Can you heal them both?” Bach asks, fidgeting; absent-mindedly fondling his stump. “Is that even possible? All on your own without another Psion?”

“I will enter a [Meditative Trance] which will allow me to perform one healing technique without the need for a second, tandem mind.” Uri inhales and exhales, intensifying his focus even as he explains, “this way I can make Ellie well again first and then together we can heal Ava. But we may need more time for me to teach Ellie a sufficient technique.”

“Sounds like a plan,” says Ostby, “can I help in any way?”

Uri quickly scans the barn. He points and says, “bring one of those horse blankets and wrap it around Ava. Try to keep her warm. And try to keep her awake.”

“Will do.” Ostby hurries to retrieve a blanket while Bach stands by anxiously.

Uri bows his head and Ava senses he has activated his super power—his [Meditative Trance]—but she doesn't have any envy left. She's simply grateful he's not gimped the same way as her.

She watches as he moves his hand slowly over Ellie's skull and executes the [Mend Severe Injury] psionic power all on his own. Ellie rubs the side of her head and winces. It's the second time in the recent past that she had to have the bones in her head mended.

“That's better.” She sits up on the dirt floor of the barn. “Thought I was about to be reunited with my people there for a minute – greeted in Heaven and what-fuckin'-not.”

In her struggle to stay conscious Ava chats up Ostby. He's gone ahead and rolled her up inside the itchy horse blanket like she's some kind of cigar and not a child with a broken skull.

“How did you learn to dominate animals?” she asks, teeth chattering, hoping still to glean some path toward a class of her own. Her words come out slurred but he understands the question.

“My father was a hunter,” he explains, “and my mother a psionicist. Dominating animals is simply a matter of joining my mind to theirs; a combination of both disciplines.”

“So you just sort of learned it over time? You didn't have a trainer or anything?”

“No, what do you mean? Like an old man in the forest teaching me tricks?” He chuckles at the thought. “Nope, afraid that's just not how learning works. It's all a matter of acquired life experience. Took me years to arrive at a place where I could finally command animals with any consistency. And I had a lot of embarrassing missteps along the way, too.”

“I see.”

It's nothing but frustrating. Her eyes are heavy and Ostby doesn't have any new info for her. In fact he's only muddied things further. If there are no trainers, then how can she know if she'll ever have a class? Or will it take years to achieve?

And as she fixates on the issue her thoughts seem to be trickling out of her head. She can't hold onto them—can't focus—and then she seizes and can't think at all.

It's the screens again, cycling through at impossible speeds. She's inside some kind of machine, peering out through beveled glass like a fish in a bowl. And again she sees the faces of clean, ordinary people scrolling by.

There is no apocalypse here. These people are happy and smiling. They're playing games – games they know for certain are games. And she's watching them scrolling past—in the billions, she can count them—in numbers greater than should still exist on Earth.

Wait.

Are they scrolling? Or is she simply everywhere – at once? Like a particle in super-position, revealing the illusory nature of time and space, existing simultaneously in every atom across the entire universe.

Is this death? The afterlife? Is she returning to a pre-incarnative state where she is one with everything?

Am I.... the entire Universe?

“Ava!” Bach pleads. He cradles her head in his lap. “Come on, darlin'! Stay with me! Stay awake just a little while longer.”

Him being this scared—on the verge of a breakdown—is scarier than being dead for a minute. Or whatever that was.

“Bach, am I gonna make it?”

“Of course you are.” He strokes her hair but it hurts because beneath it her skull is cracked. “Uri and Ellie will fix you right up.”

“The herbs Irina gave us.” Ava has an idea. “The ephedra. Maybe it can help me stay awake?”

“Good call.” He jumps up to rifle through the back of the van, shoving aside the grenades and rockets she barfed upon. And he returns to her side with the bundle of herbs.

“I guess I just eat them?”

“Does it hurt to chew?”

She nods, but after only a few bites she finds that she does in fact feel more alert.

“Tastes awful.”

“I saw a hand pump outside,” Bach says, “maybe it still works. You gonna be alright if I run out for a second to get you a drink?”

“Yeah, I'll be alright.”

“You're like her father,” she overhears Ostby saying.

Bach replies with, “poor kid. Talk about some shitty parents.”

“No man, seriously. You're good to her. Own it.”

“You don't know me. I'm not up to the task. I'm not Dad Material. Shit man, I wasn't exactly a good person even when I was a whole person.”

“There's nothing wrong with you. Well, you're stubborn and bitter but there's nothing evil or bad about you. Don't let the past dictate your future. You can make up for all you've done just by making it up to her.”

For a moment Bach is quiet. Then he simply says, “you're alright, Ostby,” and he claps him on the shoulder before heading out to see if the pump will produce water.

And Ava just finds herself jealous. Is it because he and Ostby seem to be bonding? Does she want Bach all for herself? Why is he so special to her?

Remember what Javors said?

He was here to track Bach. Ava somehow brought him here to help her find him. So she could rescue him.

What the hell did any of that mean, anyway?

“Okay,” Uri says, “I think we're ready.”

He and Ellie kneel beside Ava, wrapped in her dirty barn blanket. Ellie's forehead is creased.

“Are you okay?” Ava asks.

“Yeah, yeah. I'm good.” But she bites her lip.

She's worried, Ava figures, doesn't want to to screw this up and blind herself again.

She can relate to that. Just look what happened in Cripple Creek, after all.

The path to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Uri begins to chant over her. Ellie closes her eyes and takes his hand.

The path to Hell....

“Wait,” says Uri, suddenly breaking the ritual. The others stare at him, confused. And he has tears in his eyes. He looks up at Bach and cries:

“I'm sorry—I tried, I guess we just took too long—Bach I'm so sorry. We're too late.”

“Oh my God,” says Ellie, suddenly finding religion.

And Uri bows his head and confirms, “she's gone.”