Chapter 15: Humanity's Saving Grace
Blackness, that's all could be seen or felt. At some point in time, the blackness grayed out, revealing the reality of things. Everything was blurred, but there was at least some color. Over the course of about 30 seconds the objects in front got sharper and more defined. There was... a floor, very smooth, and tiled too, some tiles black and some white, like a checkerboard. Some metal above the floor too, there was a bar on the floor with some cylindrical ones pointing upwards. The background also came into focus, it was definitely a big room he was in.
"I see you're finally awake." A familiar voice, from behind out of all things. "You know, you've missed quite a bit, lemme show you all the things that have changed.", the pain of getting up was only just bearable, however Peter's head had hit solid metal just before he could stand fully. Placing his hands onto his head like a mask, he was only now just starting to come to terms of the situation he was in, caged in a room with him.
"Andrew? Oh thank goodness you're here, quick help me get out of here." Peter frantically spoke, trying to get at the lock. "It's no use, the key is nowhere to be found. And even if it is here, I still wouldn't be able to help you out." Andrew replied coldly.
"Well why not?" Peter questioned, "I'll say, but first allow me to show you my machine, finally finished." Andrew said gesturing toward the machine. "Like it? Haven't even started it up yet and it's whirring. It's just that, when it starts up you might not like it, and may want to shut it down, you see it's no ordinary machine. There's a lot of energy needed to start up this thing, a few fusion reactors from around the country."
Confused, Peter asked "So what's there of it for me wanting to stop it?", "I'm glad you asked. The process the machine has to go through to be fully operational, requires some well, unstable material. A lot of energy is needed to make a small amount, though with the amount we're about to get raises some questions. I mean, point two pounds is quite a large amount." There was something about what he said that was familiar, the machine was using energy from fusion to make antimatter, but 0.2 pounds of antimatter had never been achieved before. The energy alone from such an amount would be the equivalent of a 4.3 Megaton bomb, if anything were to set of that potential it could kill hundreds of thousands.
Andrew knew the thought Peter was thinking, and smiled. "Now you see why I had to keep you there, but the antimatter isn't the only reason you're in there. You see, the antimatter is only the catalyst, in setting up the real thin-"
"I know what it's going to do, you're using the energy to create something similar, yet bigger to what the shuttle does." There was a long pause, "The shuttle, funny you should say about that. You are right, in that the machine is used to create a bridge between worlds, but I guess you didn't figure out that the shuttle was my doing- an experiment, if you'd say. Yes I know that you were the unfortunate one to use the shuttle, but I needed your disappearance to gain access to everything of this place. I did however not expect you to go back in time and find dinosaurs however- yes I know about them. But the main reason behind all this... was to save humanity."
The last sentence, it stood out from all the rest, prompting Peter to question Andrew. "Okay, how on Earth is this supposed to save humanity, by the looks of it it could easily kill a lot of people.", "Now now Peter, you haven't heard my reasoning. You know all of those sayings about sustainability- 'We would need two, three, ten Earths to support everyone at a sustainable level'? Well, why not take it literally? I'm serious, with this machine, we could have two Earths, set up more, maybe four Earths, and so on. We could have as many alternate Earths as possible, and there would be nothing to stop us."
"But there is, all the indigenous that are on those planets."
"Well, then we can adjust. Maybe change it to an Earth with no animals, who knows. But for now I'll set it to the universe you were on, okay? Now, any other questions while I really start it up?", "I mean, about my friends. You've seen them right? Well I think it's about time I introduced you to them, they're very friendly."
"Peter, you're so stupid. The last time you saw them, they were unconscious, remember?", "I mean, yeah, bu- wait how the hell do you know that?" "Well, I mean it may take you a bit to catch on, but lets just say that I need you to stay calm when you do." Upon thinking about it, the moment soon dawned on him as to what Andrew had done. "You did that to them?" "I had no choice, they would rescue you and then you would destroy this machine, so I had to... complicate things. Now can you hear that? It's ready, now lets have some fun and enjoy the future of human kind!"
The lever next to Andrew pulled, and with that, the roaring of the machine came to life. Andrew immediately gave Peter some ear muffs as to not make him go deaf while the machine was running. A blue light brightened from where there was glass on the machine, to the point where it could be seen outside the building. The ground had also started shaking, not an earthquake around the city, just the building was vibrating. Outside, more and more people noticed the blue light, and it got more noticeable when the lights around the building stopped. The machine had taken so much energy from the fusion reactors around the country, that there wasn't enough to power everything else.
For Sarah however, things were different, as her home was off the grid, and per say other homes and businesses had also been off the grid at the time, it was actually quite peaceful. Only one thing would let her know that something was going on; the news channel. There was nothing interesting to begin with, some usual world news stuff, however more and more channels started switching over to San Jose, until Sarah was forced to watch whatever it was on the news.
-Breaking news-
"It appears that the NEASA building has been gaining a... a lot of attention within the last couple of minutes, as the place had been giving off some huge amount of light. Theories are up for debate as to what's happening inside but there is currently one thing we do know, whatever it is, it's consuming all the power in the US, with the entire grid down apart from this very building. Wait hang on, there seems to be a rather loud noise coming form within... for now we'll get to the weather."
"Well as you can see here, the category five hurricane has only been getting stronger and closer to San Jose, the eye of the hurricane has started to make landfall, however the path it's taking has been slowing down. Predictions are starting to point to the eye stopping right above the NEASA center, though we are fairly certain this won't be the case. Tomorro-
"We're gonna have to cut you off there. There has just been.. an explosion at the top of the building, we uh, can't really describe what it is. It appears that a, beam of light is pointing straight upwards, into the sky here. And here comes the eye wall that you just mentioned. It la(^$£ wait hang on i^&t appea$%^ that we're lo*(^ing sign&%(*&%"&_("^"^!"
"Uuh, we'll get back to you when we regain signal."
By this time, Sarah had already left the house in search for the homestead, when she finally got there the door had been locked. Eventually she had no choice but to use the car to burst the door open, if she had hit it faster it would have slammed upon the family who were still unconscious. Fortunately that didn't happen and only just missed them. There was this... beeping, coming from their direction.
"So uh, about you friends, there's something I need to tell you."
"Okay, what of them?"
"Listen, dinosaurs are so overrated, you know this, I know this. There's much more extinct animals that are to be treasured, and I think it's about time that should happen."
"Look, you said yourself that you had a thing for-
"Did I ever say that I had a good thing for them?"
Moving right up to them, the beeping was louder, but still muffled. It was as if... it was coming from inside of them, as if there was an object that they were covering. With all her might she moved her way in toward the center, only to find a rectangular object in the middle. A series of 3 numbers and a colon reading 01:38... wait now it was 01:37... wait no now it was- it was counting down, but to what exactly. Moving around to the other side, she did the same thing and saw the back. There was some, things on the back, red and cylindrical.
"My god, it's a bomb."
A/N: Can't say what's going to happen next, but we're very close, about one chapter left for Peter's story, but not for the actual story. I hope you enjoyed this chapter - and more importantly the story so far, there's more to come, though how many exactly I'm not sure. Let me know what you think so far, and as always I'll see you, in the next chapter. Bye for now!
Next Chapter: Flawed Designs
Notable Facts: N/A