Your Future

Chapter 1

Now for the hard part, Kid. It's clear you and Castle have something real and you're fighting it. Trust me, putting the job ahead of your heart is a mistake. Risking our hearts is why we're alive. The last thing you want is to look back on your life and wonder if only.

Kate already knew that she'd come dangerously close when she had opened her bedroom door to go back out and do, she wasn't sure what. Actually talk to him and ask him to wait for her to be ready? To really tell him why she wasn't ready? Or had she actually come to a conclusion that she was ready when she wasn't and hoped she wasn't making a mistake. Maybe even end up having sex and praying she didn't regret it the next day.

However, Rick had gone to his room and she was spared. Now she was shifting in her seat to look at him sleeping next to her. Royce was right, though. She was fighting it. He was dangerously close to reaching her heart and just last night she had come equally close to let him actually touch it. She really didn't know what to do. He was asleep so talking to him now was out. Though she could wake him up but that would be rude so letting him sleep was a better idea.

Then the plane dipped radically to the right side. It was sudden and severe. People not with their seat belts in place went flying. A few of the overhead bins opened and there were a lot of things flying around all over the place. Luggage, purses, ice from little plastic cups, said plastic cups, pens, and paper. Then terrifyingly the oxygen masks and their yellow bags fell from the ceiling.

Rick was now jolted awake. "KATE!" Rick grabbed hold of both of his armrests to try and stay seated just like Kate was doing.

"Castle!?" Kate felt her heart rate increase dramatically and her fear was palpable.

Rick had never had a fear of flying before but right now he was being pressed into the back of his seat and the g-force was only increasing. He still managed to get one of his hands to let go of his armrest and grab an oxygen mask. He handed it to Kate who actually managed to take it from him. That allowed Rick to grab another one. He struggled to put it on using just one hand since the other one was effectively glued to the armrest. His death grip of it wouldn't allow him to let go of it.

Rick looked at Kate with great effort; she was obviously scared to death. She at least had her oxygen mask on. Since that same hand was still free he reached for Kate's hand and clutched it, not worrying whether he was crushing it or not. He watched Kate twist her head just a little and look at him. They were still headed straight down and being pressed into the back of their seats further and further.

Then they weren't thinking anything else.

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Kate snapped her eyes open and found herself surrounded by a sea of people all crowded in next to her. However, save that she could see, her gaze fixed straight in front of her, nothing else moved.

Looking as hard as she could to her left she saw Castle standing right next to her. So close that they were shoulder to shoulder, except that she couldn't feel him. Kate tried to speak his name but nothing came out. So she tried again and really concentrated but still nothing came out.

Despite that now she saw his eyes looking at her. They'd always been pretty good at reading the other and she could tell he was struggling to say something but he couldn't speak just like she couldn't.

Though she could tell just by looking into his eyes what he was asking her.

"Are you okay?" Rick asked her.

"I'm fine. What's going on?" Kate answered.

"We're not on a plane any longer so where are we?" Rick had seen someone right in front of him. So close that they were actually touching.

"What do you remember?" Kate quizzed him; they were investigators and they could figure this out.

"I was sleeping then we were crashing. Are we dead?" Rick questioned.

"We're not dead, Castle. We're not ghosts and it's not the CIA." Kate knew him very well and while there were times it grated on her she had learned to love some of it. But now wasn't one of those times. She beat him to it. "And it's not little green men from Mars or the little gray guys with big black eyes, either."

"Trying to spoil all my fun again, Kate?" Rick asked.

"Focus, Castle!" Kate wasn't in the mood for one of his out of this world ideas.

"Fine." Rick began listing everything he knew about their situation. "Not on a plane, not dead, not a ghost, you and the guy in front of me don't look burned."

"I can't move, even moving my eyes is difficult," Kate pointed out.

Then Rick noticed something. "Do you feel anything at all?"

"No, nothing." Kate shoved her fear down into a little box.

"How about your heartbeat? Can you hear anything at all?" Rick asked her.

"No, nothing. That doesn't mean we're dead, Castle." Kate wasn't interested in hearing that again.

"So what do you think happened?" Rick asked. Though she had a point. He was still thinking, he could see her, and in a way could figure out what she was thinking. So his mind was active.

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"We have a problem." A woman entered the room where the leader was just sitting there going over what plane was going to crash that they actually had information on, which was always their first problem.

"Explain." They had lots of problems, far more than they were ever going to solve. It was the reason for this project in the first place.

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The planet was so heavily polluted that it was impossible to clean. They didn't grow food any longer. There was no more natural fresh water. The atmosphere was so toxic that just stepping outside, even for them on the surface of the planet, meant death.

Their own bodies were decaying at an alarming rate. Those that were presently alive were all that was left of the human race; they were going to be the very last. The toxins had made certain of that. Everyone alive was now sterile. The last child that had been born naturally had happened years and years ago. Next came making babies in laboratories.

Then even that had started to slowly come to an end. It became more and more difficult to find viable DNA to match up to make babies with.

Countless years ago there were places that had frozen sperm and eggs for the future. That had come to an end in the last of the Reproduction Wars.

Reproduction War I had been a clandestine war. Small teams were sent in to try and steal what was stored in cryo tanks. Those that were caught had been tortured over and over again. It made what man had done to each other in previous wars look tame in comparison. Anything you thought about would pale in comparison.

Reproduction War II had been obvious to everyone. To succeed meant that the attacker couldn't destroy what the target had that they were after in the first place so once again small teams went into foreign countries to steal what everyone everywhere wanted.

But by then only those countries with the technology to store and use what was stored were the countries another country or even a wealthy individual were infiltrating. That meant they had the capability to protect and fight back.

Like the first war the second didn't actually kill that many people so the general public wasn't all that impacted by each event.

Then came the final Reproduction War III. This war resulted in outright threats to countries that had what the other side wanted. Finally someone introduced a man-made virus that didn't care who it infected. The population diminished by half in just months. Like any virus it didn't affect everyone on the planet and those that weren't affected now became what each nation wanted in addition to DNA that wasn't affected by everything else man had done. Everyone wanted an antidote.

However, one thing interacted with another and soon the sun's rays were scorching the planet into a burnt-out memory of itself. Fresh water lakes dried up, snow ceased to fall. It stopped raining anything and that included the acid rain that had been raining for a great many years.

Everything and everyone everywhere was now polluted or toxic. When the last of them died that would be the end of the human race forever. Communication with any other members of the human race in other areas of the planet no longer was possible or simply ignored.

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"Our power production has dropped to a dangerous level." He had feared this greatly. It took power to make this project work in the first place and they were the last place on the planet that had power. This project was the human race's last chance.

He wheeled his wheelchair out his door to find out what was wrong this time. "Stanley, talk to me." He needed answers but what he really needed was to hear it was fixable.

"We just lost a generator. We can't fix the broken parts and we can't make the parts. It's gone," Stanley said.

"How much power do we have?" Coventry asked him.

"That's not the right question to be asking. The correct question to ask is what happens when we lose another one. And we will lose another one," Stanley told him. They all knew that power was the last modern thing they still had and power was what they needed for the project to succeed.

Coventry already knew what losing another generator meant. All this time and all this effort would be for nothing. They wouldn't have the power to do anything. Everyone they had rescued would die and they would get to die with them. Though that wasn't right, either. The people they had rescued and stood here were so clean that even breathing one breath of what they breathed would mean death.

"We've reached the end of the project," Coventry stated and saw a lot of sad faces.

"We're dead and they're not. If we start we can't stop. We have just enough clean air to get them from holding and through the machine and that's all," Coventry was reminded.

"Wake them now. Power up the machine and send everything through. Make sure it comes from the clean storage and takes nothing from here with it…and them. I'll talk to them." Coventry wheeled his chair to an observation deck.

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Suddenly Rick and Kate were able to move. So could everyone else but they were packed in so tight people were getting stepped on and elbows were going places they shouldn't.

"Castle." She could touch him and she couldn't begin to express how thankful she was for that. She was sure they were all going to die so that they were both alive was wonderful.

Then everyone - and it was a lot of people - all began talking at the same time as well as trying to move.

Suddenly there was a blast from a horn that almost deafened everyone.

"I need your attention. We don't have much time." Rick and Kate and everyone else looked up at someone in a window high up the wall.

He looked terrible. He was deathly pale, his hair was orange and stuck out all over. Though his forehead was bald and the only hair he had was on the back of his head. He was also wearing some kind of suit. It almost looked like armor to Rick and Kate. And he had this thing at his throat.

"My name is Coventry. The year is 3011 and Planet Earth is dead. We are all that is left of the human race. When we are dead the human race will cease to be. We do however have a project. We have developed a time machine. We have been taking people off of airplanes just before they crash and storing you here in the future." Then people all began to talk at the same time.

The answer to that was hearing the horribly loud horn again which got everyone to shut up.

"We don't have time for this. Our power is failing and we need to complete the project or everything we have done will be for nothing.

"The project was to take people who were going to die and give them a chance at life. Everyone you know is long since dead and everyone believed that you were dead. You all died in a plane crash yet here you are.

"We will be sending you through the time machine along with everything we have that is deemed to be clean. You will be sent very far into the future where you can start again. Far enough into the future that the Earth will have had time to recover from all the pollution we have done.

"There is no clean water, no clean air, no clean land, nor wildlife of any kind on Earth in the year 3011. We are buried deep inside a mountain and access to the surface was closed years ago.

"You are the future of the human race. You have a choice, go through the door on the left that will take you to the time machine and start from scratch or go through the door on the right which will allow you entrance to where we live. This will result in your instant death since even our atmosphere is toxic. Or you can stay where you are and die a slow death.

"Make your choice and begin…NOW!" Coventry pressed the button to make the horn sound yet again to silence them and get them moving. "Do not repeat the same mistakes again. The human race has made a great many of them ever since the time man came to life."

Rick wasn't interested in waiting for the people farther forward to make up their minds. He took Kate's hand and started pushing. If his pushing got people to move so much the better.

"Let's go, Kate." Rick pushed the guy in front of him and managed to take a step. It took time but finally Rick was going through the door with Kate right behind him; he was squeezing her hand about as hard as he dared.

A quick look showed that a few people did go right. He wasn't interested in trying to convince them not to. He'd heard the warning and he took it to heart.

Soon they found themselves in a narrow one-person-at-a-time tunnel. It looked to be made of plexiglass. It allowed them both as well as everyone else to see what was in the area.

What they saw looked really old. It was gray where it could otherwise it looked like rust. The air looked like it had stuff floating in it everywhere and even it was gray and difficult to see through clearly.

"Castle?" Kate wasn't sure just what she was seeing.

"Just keep walking, Kate. Just keep walking." Rick took a step when the person in front of him allowed it though he was also pushing him to make sure he kept moving.

They both heard people talking but Rick ignored them and just tried to keep going.

They did see people here and there and each of them was dressed in the same same type of suit the other guy was wearing. Each had a thing at their throat. Then they walked out of view.

They turned a corner and in front of them was a bright light that looked a little like lightning flashing from one wall to another. "Castle?" Kate could see it and she watched as people went though then vanished. To her way of thinking it looked like they were burned up, stepping into that lightning. She had no interest in dying.

"Just keep walking, Kate. Or do you want to go where they are?" Rick pointed past the wall at the gray air. Kate granted he had a point. It looked sickly and dangerous. It was just that all that lightning looked just as dangerous.

They were soon just a few people behind and it was going to be their turn. Both of them saw people on the outside wearing those same suits and looking terribly sick, waving for them to go forward.

"Castle?" It was their turn and if they delayed it would slow everything down. Rick took a deep breath, stepped into the lightning, and pulled Kate behind him.

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They both saw a lot of lightning and yet they didn't really feel anything. Not even ants crawling all over their skin. Then suddenly they fell onto the ground since they were off balance.

Looking up they saw people everywhere and they were lying on green grass with lots of tall trees around them. Rather unexpectedly someone landed on them which had them hustling to get out from under him and whoever came after him.

Scanning the area they saw a number of people, grass, wild flowers, tall large trees, blue skies with white clouds and save for the noise of some people talking and some wildlife, there was no other sound.

Kate was still holding Rick's hand tightly and was right next to him. "Where are we?"

"More like when are we," Rick responded and looked at Kate. "You saw what I did and heard what I did," he reminded her.

"Hollywood," Kate countered and turned to look at where they had come from and saw lightning in this tight circle. As she watched she saw people stumble out of it and fall to the grass. Only to get up when the person behind them landed on them.

"What's it doing?" Kate asked as she watched.

During the time they observed the lighting it became a little more erratic. Then a person came out, only this person came out in pieces. Like he had been cut into French fries. Then the lightning was gone.

Kate heard people who had seen it start screaming.

Rick and Kate had seen their fair share of dead bodies and since the lighting was gone they went up to the body and knelt down to look it over.

"She's been cut to pieces. Unless he had really long hair," Rick noted.

Kate looked her over. "I don't even recognize any internal organs. Clothing, flesh, even the bones have been cut into tiny pieces. I don't know of any machine that can do this."

"It's fresh. None of the blood is burgundy in color. This wasn't a dead body that someone hacked up and dropped here. It's still a little oozy looking," Rick mentioned.

"Yeah, this person only just died." Kate stood up and saw the people that were looking at the dead body and them. "Back to the first question. Where are we?" She ignored the when Rick had offered. For now she was going to let him have his fun.

Rick glanced around. "Poplar, oak, pine, and I think that one's chestnut. Interesting!" He was really astounded by that tree.

"Why is that interesting?" Kate didn't see the importance.

"Chestnut trees were infected by a blight around 1890. They mostly died out around 1910. Even in our day they still existed but none of them could overcome the blight. So either we're in the 1800s or we're so far in the future that the blight's gone," Rick said.

Until Kate could find something to counter his claim she let him have it. "What's in the crates?" She saw a number of them spread out around them. None of them were very big. Mostly about the size of a pony keg save for a few.

Kate saw a few people begin to walk away. "Follow me." Kate headed for a crate that she could stand on and didn't miss hearing Rick tell her, "Anywhere."

The last thing she really remembered was that moment in the hotel and then Royce's letter to her. But she wasn't ready for that yet. Kate got up on the crate, put two fingers in her mouth, and let out the loudest whistle she could come up with. Then she did it again so she was sure she had everyone's attention.

"Listen up, my name is Kate Beckett and I'm a homicide detective in New York City, 12th precinct. This is my partner, Richard Castle. We can discuss this later but for now I'm going to say that I'm in charge.

"I'm not sure just what has happened, however, I'm going to work on the premise that what we were told is the truth until we work out otherwise.

"We need a number of things to start with first. ONE, no one and I mean no one just wanders off and gets themselves lost. TWO, we are going to need food and water soon. THIRD, I want these crates opened so we can figure out what we have to work with.

"I need volunteers. I need teams of no less than three willing to look for fresh water. Another team to search for food sources. Plants, wildlife, anything that might be edible. Then I need people to help myself and Castle get these crates open. He and I will bury the body.

"Once we have that taken care of we can talk about who is capable of doing what. Farming, carpentry, doctors, nurses, EMTs, and everything else. Everything has a purpose so don't worry about what you can provide.

"Then we can try and figure out just where we are. Come see me so we can get started." Kate stayed on her crate for now as people headed in her direction.

From what she could see they were a real mishmash of people. She wasn't even sure if everyone spoke English.

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Suddenly the power went out completely and it plunged everyone into darkness. Even the time machine abruptly just quit just as a person stepped through. It left the people that remained in the dark.

A few battery powered lights started coming on. "It's over." Coventry found that he couldn't be sadder if he tried. He, like everyone else, knew this meant their death. It was just that they were already dead.

"Is it enough?" someone close to him asked.

"We had so little that wasn't toxic to even touch. It was all we had," another added.

"It will be hard for them. We've done all we could. We were desperate to at least try and save the human race. I would say pray for them but none of our prayers saved us from what we did to ourselves." Coventry was glad that the project had at least done something.

"Send a team to the basement and activate the timer." He had no desire of dying a slow death. Being vaporized by the old school nuclear device in the basement would take care of that.

While Coventry might have said it, he couldn't resist.

"Please!" Just before the very last of the human race vanished in the blink of an eye. A flash of light and a mushroom cloud reaching for the sky.