Hello internet!
You may be wondering why this is updating. Well, I had an idea for an epilogue that would link Gone and its sequel, Whispers, together in a more tight manner. So, I decided to make this a demi-epilogue; it takes place before the events of Gone, during the Great Disaster, but it links perfectly to the pendant in Whispers, and the whole plotline surrounding that.

So without further ado, enjoy what I have concocted here! This takes place before the events of Gone, and I hope you like it!

VVVVV

There wasn't much time left.

Quickly, quickly, it had to be done. The eleven men, the eleven brass keys, were required for the operation to finish. And time was running out.

The smoke from the fires had been visible for days; at first it was just a haze on the horizon, overshadowed by the massive ash cloud that was filling the air with a choking gray smog, courtesy of the Connaughtsshire volcano. Slowly that smog had coalesced into a shelf of black ash and soot high in the sky, blocking out the sun and consuming every one of the cottonball white clouds that had once graced the blue heavens. And now the smoke from the fires reared up like a great black wave not ten miles east of Delphos, threatening to cross the small sliver of dried grass that separated the city from the nearby forests and swallow the entire metropolis in flame.

And then there were the rioters.

Of course, there had to be rioters; if the government couldn't keep the wildfires at bay, what was the natural instinct of the common man? To form a mob and destroy as much as they could, of course. Perhaps it was born out of instinctual desperation, an avalanche of fear cascading into a series of desperate and final actions that were feeble attempts to secure their lives and future. Seeing their fate approaching slowly, their instincts told them to group together, to go down fighting when the fires approached. He knew not why they were attacking the government body that had fought so desperately to protect them, but a mob thinks in mysterious ways. They are of one mind, and if that mind is intent on unleashing its anger upon the soldiers now trying to evacuate the last of the research personnel from the laboratories, then so be it.

He had other things to do.

No special equipment would be required for this; the radiation that the process would create was certain to kill each of the eleven men within seconds of exposure, but that was the plan. Their deaths would be relatively pain-free compared to the tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers out in the streets of Delphos, their final hours approaching. The highways to the west were jammed with cars; nobody was going anywhere in a vehicle. Some people had been lucky enough to catch rides in government planes or helicopters, which would take them to the Western coast. Most were still trapped inside the city, doomed to perish by the tongue of fire.

He said farewell to his residential quarters one last time; they had been a place of comfort for him while he was working in the Delphos laboratories, a place where he could unwind and relax and forget about research or projects or errors. Now he was going to leave it for the last time; almost redundantly, he turned off the lights as he left and closed the door behind him.

All quiet. All peaceful. Just the way it should be before the storm hits.

Windows lined the long concrete hallway that led down to the storage chambers. Outside could only be described as chaos on earth; the tall skyscrapers still stood sentinel above the concrete cityscape, but smoke rose from multiple locations within the city, and the massive wall of black smoke rose up to the east, not ten miles out. Small tufts of orange flame could be seen darting in and out of that black wall, signifying a massive and violent fire.

He felt for all of the people trapped outside; the only safe places would be at least twenty feet underground, in a bunker like the one in the laboratory, or one of the skyscrapers, so long as you were higher up and in a sealed and oxygenated room. Anyone who tried to seek shelter in a home or business building would be burned to ash; those who were stuck out on the streets were fated with instant death, facing incineration by the fire tornadoes that would surely tear up the streets as the howling firestorm made its course. He tried not to imagine how their fate would play out, and ignored the large crowd visible outside the lab's entrance, held at bay by massive steel doors that had been locked the previous night, after the last evacuation plane had left the Delphos runway.

He passed the loading dock entry door as he walked, and could hear the banging of dozens of fists on its steel facade. They would not get in; even if they were able to engineer a battering ram or try to ram a bulldozer against the door, they could not gain entry, that horde of desperate civilians seeking safe haven. Nothing short of a thermobaric explosive could breach that door.

The soldiers were not on guard duty; instead, they were sitting around a television set hooked up to an outlet on the floor, watching the final news reports stream in from Langsford Peak before the station went offline. Many spoke of the "Promised Land", a continent to the west wild and free and unoccupied, ripe for colonization. It had always been the backup plan; the cities had been waiting for people to fill them, always there in case a disaster like this had struck. And now Armageddon had descended upon the cities of the Republic, and the Promised Land was every man's dream.

The soldiers were playing roulette, that much was clear. He tried to skirt around them, keeping his eyes straight ahead as one of them spun the revolver's chamber, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger. It clicked audibly, echoing throughout the dim concrete chamber of the loading dock, disappearing quickly. He rushed towards the lab entrance door, hoping to get away before the first shot went off.
He had just opened the door when he heard the revolver roar, followed by the sickening crunch of something fleshy hitting concrete. Before he closed the door, he heard another click, almost like clockwork.

Clockwork suicide. What have we come to?

It was better than dying from smoke inhalation, at least.

The labs were nearly empty. He passed through the computer science department, the laser systems rooms, even through the Nether study chambers. Only one magma cube was left alive; the others had either been returned to their natural habitat, or had died during a series of grueling tests which were unable to determine their molecular makeup. The last magma cube squished happily up against the glass of the cylinder that contained it, its brilliant orange eyes watching him as he strode through the containment chambers. He heard a wet slapping sound as it jumped around its cylinder excitedly, as if it sensed the fire drawing nearer from the east, as if that fire were a savior from its captivity. He almost wanted to bid the gelatinous, hearty little fellow farewell, but he did not have the time.

He finally reached the under-storage area, where the most advanced and rare technology was stored. Here was where the star pearls were kept; each in their own vacuum, sealed within a titanium container with magnets that kept the pearl aligned exactly in the center of the cylinder. There were only eleven of them; not enough to open the superportal, but at least they existed. There was rumored to be another one out there, somewhere; the same size as its companions, just as powerful, yet lost, somewhere beyond the reach of the laboratory scientists. He was disappointed to know that his life's work was to be left unfinished; but perhaps future generations could take up the yoke of his work, long after the fires had cleansed the city.

"Are you ready, Doctor?"

One of the eleven laboratory doctors, dressed in plain clothes, no protective gear, approached him. The other nine were behind him, all waiting with their brass keys, waiting for the operation to begin, and then just as quickly end.

"Ah...yes, I have my key," the new arrival muttered, fumbling for the small object in his jeans pocket.

"We have little time. Please, we cannot spare any moment."

"I have it," he announced, pulling it out. All eleven of them moved to one of eleven cargo crates, each of which held a single cylinder. The superportal had been built into the concrete floor of the bunker, each block designed to hold one of the cylinders. Once the cylinders were inserted, they could not be taken out short of destroying the containment block; the sealing process would ensure that they could not be dragged out, but it also released deadly radiation when it sealed the pearl cylinder inside, which would kill each man within seconds. This was to be their final minute together; each one opened a crate, and retrieved a storage cylinder.

The star pearls were something unusual; they were ender pearls, taken from Endermen, and artificially recombined with Nether star dust, the remains of a Nether star ground into a fine sprinkling of light gray dust. The dust was attracted to the gravitational pull that the core of the pearl exerted, and it acted just like a fabled "Eye of Ender", only far more powerful and more unstable. It had to be kept within the cylinders; what it might do when taken out of storage, nobody knew. But nobody had dared to try.

He hefted his cylinder over to the superportal, struggling to drag it with him. Each man assumed a position at a block, prepared to drive the cylinder into its storage case and seal it away.

"It's been an honor serving with you, gentlemen," their leader spoke, his voice ragged and hushed.

"May the future generations find what we did down here," another said.

"And continue it," the leader finished. "Thank you for all of your hard work. Your sacrifice will not be in vain."

He began to count down from five; the doctor could feel adrenaline coursing through his veins, could feel his heart begin to pound faster than ever, and as the count reached two he heaved the cylinder up into the air; it began to fall on one...

And on zero, it slid into the chamber.

There was a hiss, the suction sound of the sealing protocol beginning, and then another loud hiss followed by a roar as the storage system powered up; each cylinder had been inserted at near perfect timing, each sealed almost at the same time.

The effects of the radiation were almost instantaneous; he lost consciousness so quickly, he wasn't aware that he was falling, or that everyone else was falling. He felt nothing after the first second, and was aware only long enough to give one last thought to the large steel door that would contain this superportal forever.

That is, until someone found the password.

As unlikely as it was, someone in the distant future was going to find the codes to open that door; whether or not they'd find the superportal, that was beyond his guess. But he knew the numeric code to open the door, and those numbers were the last thought to ever go through his head as the lethal amounts of radiation overtook him.

8131996.