The End of the Beginning

Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Thursday, April 15, 2027

“Ok,” Constable Steve Sutton started, turning to his partner, Sergeant Walter Perry. “What would you do if Godzilla just appeared out of the lake?” “What kind of question is that?” Walter muttered, looking up at the glass façade of the Rogers Centre. Inside was a roaring Toronto Blue Jays game filled with 50,000 screaming drunken fans. The two men were standing on a pedestrian bridge that spanned the ten track Union Station Rail Corridor next to the stadium.

“Yeah,” Steve said enthusiastically. “Godzilla. What would you do if he just appeared out of the lake and started walking through the city? It’s a valid question.” “So, you mean to tell me you think Godzilla is real?” Walter asked. He wasn’t surprised by the question whatsoever. After three years of being partners, he had become quite accustomed to Steve’s many eccentricities.

Steve shrugged. “Why not?”

“You are so weird,” Walter said, shaking his head.

“Oh, come on,” grinned Steve. “We both know you live for my random musings. They sure make otherwise boring nights like this more interesting, don’t they?” The few people on the bridge were either talking, city watching, or smoking. Below them, a small construction crew was working on one of the corridor’s central tracks. Set amongst a steep glass canyon within the city’s waterfront skyline, the east to west river of rails that flowed through this canyon under the bridge transported GO Transits rail services, Amtrak, Via Rail, and the airport rail link Union Pearson Express all into Union Station, Canada’s busiest transit hub. The station was only a few thousand feet west of the bridge.

To the immediate south of the corridor stood the buzzing stadium and its massive retractable roof, the 1,815-foot-tall CN Tower, and Ripley’s Aquarium. To the north were tall glass condominiums, stores, the Isabella Valancy Crawford Park, from which the bridge emerged, and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. All of these beautiful buildings were well lit for the night as the sun began to hide behind Lake Ontario.

The two men looked up towards the stadium as a sudden swell of noise from the crowd rose up through the open roof.

“Sounds like a good game,” Walter observed.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Steve said, crossing his arms.

“You still haven’t answered mine,” Walter laughed.

“Could be real…” Steve said, raising an eyebrow. “Lots of stuff is still out there.”

Walter shook his head and smiled. He looked up at the CN Tower on the southeast side of the bridge, then at another crowd roar in the stadium to the southwest. In the distance, he noticed a slow-moving train heading eastbound on the rail line closest to the stadium. Behind its two large diesel locomotives, a line of tanker cars stretched far to the west.

“Hey, Steve,” Walter spoke out slowly.

Steve was checking something on his phone. “What’s up, Sarge?”

“There aren’t supposed to be any freight trains in the corridor, right?”

“Right,” said Steve, still looking at his phone. He was trying to listen to a voicemail his wife had just left him.

“So, why is there a freight train heading towards the station?”

“What?!” Steve said, turning to his partner.

“Look,” Walter said, pointing to the train.

Both men walked to the handrail of bridge. Steve leaned his head into his radio.

“Dispatch, can you get in contact with the nearest CN operations facility and - ”

Steve was interrupted by Walter grabbing his shoulder.

“What is it?”

“The engineer,” said Walter, his voice shaky. “Look at him, in the left seat. Look at the glass.”

Steve squinted past the locomotive’s shining headlamps. The engineer was slumped over the controls. The back wall behind him was covered in red.

“Dispatch,” Steve intoned, “please be advised. We may have a runaway train passing through the Union Station Rail Corridor. The engineer looks to be incapacitated. Possible gunshot wound. Request…” From below the bridge, Steve noticed the crew of construction walking towards the incoming train. He watched as three men removed their hardhats and reflective work jackets to reveal vests lined with wiring and explosives. A hi-rail pickup truck drove out from under the bridge at the controls of a fourth man. The truck slowed and then stopped about 150 feet west of the bridge.

“Oh, shit,” Walter cried out.

Steve reached for his radio and began shouting into it as he ran south off the bridge to an elevated walking area adjoined to the base of the stadium. With his other hand he drew his handgun.

“Dispatch, we have an emergency at the Rogers Centre! Three men wearing bomb vest are on the - ”

One of the bombers started shooting at Steve. He took cover behind a huge concrete support column. Steve looked back at the bridge and saw Walter clearing civilians off of it. Below his feet Steve began to feel the vibrations from the monstrous freight trains weight thundering over the rails. As he glimpsed over his shoulder he saw the first locomotive cross under the bridge. He lost sight of the bombers behind the black tanker cars.

“Walter! Ruunnnn!” screamed Steve over the sounds of the train.

But Walter didn’t turn around. A sudden burst of sound blew out Steve’s eardrums as he was knocked to the ground. The thick concrete column he was behind shielded him from the heat and violence of the explosion.

Thick oil began spilling out from each ruptured tanker as the cars careened off the river of rails. The glass façade of the Rogers Centre shattered all at once. The high glass canyon walls kept the explosion confined, intensifying the force of the blast. The tanker cars closest to the epicenter were thrown skyward, through the pedestrian bridge, tumbling end over end in twirls of yellow flames. Car after car piled up into each other until they became a mountain of burning oil and steel, wheels and rails.

People atop the CN Towers observation deck felt an unsettling lurch as shockwaves generated crack after crack at its base. Fans inside the stadium screamed in terror as flames licked over the rim. In a few minutes, the pileup was over. The canyon had been engulfed by fire, leaving the buildings lining it naked, bare, and scorched.

When Steve awoke amidst the charred debris, sirens, and shrieks of anguish, he could still feel the cauldron burning in the corridor beside him. Dust clouded his view, the air heavy with the smell of red-hot petroleum. Steve turned his head towards the bridge, hoping to see Walter, but the bridge had been completely destroyed, replaced by a mound of smoking tanker cars. He spotted a small child wandering around, covered in soot, the clothing falling off his half-burnt body.

Steve crawled out from behind the cracked column, bleeding profusely from the head. His radio was dead.

“Walter,” he whispered in pain. “Walter, where are you…?”

Steve’s hands suddenly ran into a pair of perfectly clean brown dress shoes. He looked up and saw a man wearing a dark suit standing over him, hands in his pockets. The man looked uninjured, even untouched by the chaos surrounding him, so immaculate he could have been heading to a business meeting. The man knelt down.

“Who are you?” Steve asked, barely able to move anymore.

The man smiled. One half of his face was in shadow, the other drenched in flicking orange light.

“Just one of many…” he said, a sinister smile spreading across his face as he revealed a handgun.