Chapter 19: 018 - The End
[July 21, 1969 – Sea of Tranquillity – Luna]
"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
[Back on earth. The next day.]
Mike was walking along the busy streets of New York. A boy had just offered him a paper and on the front cover said Man on the Moon. He came to a road crossing of where he was going. Standing next to him was a man reading the newspaper while walking.
Mike always thought that the type of people who do that are the same type who are on their phones while walking in the 2000s. The man then says, "Like he said, this truly is a giant leap for all mankind isn't it."
Mike just shrugged and said, "From my experience in the world, nothing much is going to change."
His statement was true. While the apollo program was a brilliant endeavour, in a few years it would fizzle out and end being cut in favour of the shuttle which ended with the US back in a position of not being able to launch astronauts and relying on Russia for several years.
After going around a civil rights protest, he continued his walk towards a restaurant a few blocks from here where Claire was waiting. While he could have just driven, he liked to interact with the city due to his few years left.
'Just three more years.' He thought to himself.
[March 1972 – Tokyo – Japan]
We walked through the cherry blossom grove a lovely park. It was just me, Claire, and Sky. I was now stuck in a wheelchair. Even with my future knowledge I knew that no cure would be found for this disease.
I marvelled at the beauty of it. Sky was walking a few meters in front of us, her hair having been dyed blond waved in the wind as the cherry blossom fell around her. She was now twenty years old and had grown into a fine young woman.
I had tried to raise her how Nicole had wanted to be raised, while still trying to keep her grounded in society.
She turned her head to the side for just a second and I snapped a picture. We continued to marvel at the supernatural spectacle. We had been on a bit of a world tour looking at things. We had just come from Toyama Bay. Before the was a sleepy little town in Australia called Wyong Place. That was a bloodbath, literally. As well as the great barrier reef. Then to Norway to watch the polar ice cap and the Aurora. Egypt for the pyramids and the Nile. Paricutin was spectacular though I was slightly uncomfortable being so close to the Suedo-Atlanteans. Then a tour through Europe. And finally, back to the states for the Grand Canyon and Victoria falls, as well as me pigging out on as much food as I want.
Let's just say that during this trip I put on thirty pounds even with my increased metabolism. There was however a slight side effect of the Wolf Serum. If the serum starts changing a foetus like it did for Sky, it ends up slowing her aging not because of the spliced wolf DNA but because the applicant made by Erskine essential glitches and has caused Sky's cells to keep dividing but somehow not cause any abnormalities.
I keep coming back to the fact that Erskine was a genius out of his time and if born in twenty years' time could have made humanity immortal. Anyway, with the rate that this phenomenon is slowing I hypotheses that sky will only start to age in about thirty years.
That's for her to worry about since she is now the owner of my share of the company as soon as she was emancipated at sixteen. Jim had also ended up giving her his share since he never had any kids with his wife Akiko. They had met when he was on a mission in Hokkaido.
This technically made Sky the richest person in the world with a net worth of 170 billion. Of course, that is unofficially because we need to stay hidden, so we currently use over 20,000 shell companies internationally.
Yeah, that's kind of scary to think about. She ended up majoring in economics at Oxford and passed with six months. I'm so proud of her.
I have also left an instruction manual of what to do.
As for my death, the only person who knows about my plan is Jim who can understand my reason for keeping it a secret.
I have personally worked on a hard drive big enough to store my mind and we stole the uplift tech from hydra a few months ago now it was just time to write a bit of software.
I would be sleeping for a few years since there are no processors big enough to run my brain with seventies tech.
I have said my goodbye to everyone knowing what will happen. The ancient one was as neutral as ever. Charles on the other hand had gone through quite a transformation. He had been to see moira and had asked for forgiveness.
There second kid is turning three in a few months…
Not only that but thanks to my help he has made up with magneto after the whole him trying to kill Nixon thing which was suppressed heavily on the news. They have come to an understanding shall we say.
[A few months later…]
It felt weird.
Jim had helped me onto the bed and had put on the apparatus like I had asked.
He had started the machine and all I felt was nothing but there was something happening.
It took about nine hours for all the information in my brain to be put on to the tapes and the translated onto the solid-state drives. To be safe I had made three copies. All to be kept in separate places.
Jim had then put me back in my wheelchair and wheeled me out towards the garden. I lamented whether I would ever be able to see my orchard and grove fully grown they are all bare ready to embrace the cold of winter.
Jim had opened a bottle of 1929 Bordeaux I held the glass in my hand taking small sips as I sat there knowing my life would soon end.
He then turned to Jim who was holding a camcorder. He decided to be cheesy in his final moments and recite the lyrics of one of his favourite songs.
It came out in a raspy voice as the last off his strength left him.
And now the end is here.
And so, I face.
That final curtain.
My friend I'll make it clear…
…
…Let the record show.
I took the blows.
And did it my way.
I turned back to look at the setting sun as I felt my mind begin to shut down. I heard Jim wipe a tear from his eye as he tried his best to not cry. In my final moments, I thought to myself. "Thank you to whichever being gave me this opportunity. I had fun."
He knew that he would live on, but that wouldn't truly be him. He could try and scramble to freeze myself or some other way but that would only prolong the inevitable, that we all die.
There was a smash as the glass hit the ground and the wine spilled everywhere on the sandstone tiles. Unlike my last life this death felt peaceful. I didn't need that man to watch over me.
The life of Michael Bartholomew Cane ended at the age of fifty-one.
End of Fiction.
(A/N: I have really enjoyed writing this and it is a shame that it had to end before the actual MCU started.
I had you there for a second, didn't I. Na, I can see myself writing this for another two hundred chapters. I am kind of just doing this to relax and write it between the other stories I'm working on which are a bit more serious. See you Soon.)
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