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Chapter Fourteen

EM Tear

~

Deep Earth Control...

Rat's eyes gazed at the spotted map over the U.S. with trepidation. What was now occurring right before his eyes was the very last thing that he needed.

"Oh..." he sighed.

"Status!" Stick yelled from her position on the boards. "What is that?"

"It's the EM monitoring station," Rat replied with a shaky voice. "It's the one that tracks EM pulses," his eyes fell back to the screen. "God, no."

"Just talk, Mr. Rat." stated Purcell who was watching from overhead.

"No..."

"That's a good boy."

Rat brought his eyes up to meet the General's.

"Remember those invisible microwaves that Josh was talking about? Well, they just found a hole." All eyes were now upon the screen where a large, black discoloration was forming over San Francisco.

San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge...

"No, it's a parking lot out-AHH!" screamed Jim as he spoke in his cell phone. His arm had been resting on the base of his door, the window rolled down so that he might comfortably enjoy the ocean breeze leaking in. It was rush hour, although there was very little rushing being done. Traffic was at a stand still, with little motion either way. He looked down at it now, red and blistered, slightly smoking. Something was wrong. This wasn't a sunburn, not like he'd usually received in his younger years. This was different. He didn't know what. Believing it a good idea, he rolled up his window, then cradled his injured arm.

The metal cables, wires, and bands around him started to sparkle and melt in the sunlight around him. Cables snapped, causing him to duck down in his seat.

"Oh, my God." he whispered as he observed this event unfold. The glass window at his side cracked as the heat around them grew. His car shuddered, and began to move forward as the tires exploded beneath him. He looked down to see the asphalt that covered the bridge. It was melting!

Then the large metal bars above his head began to fall. Jim watched as they hurtled toward him. In an instant, he was crushed within his car. His death was perhaps the least painful of those who were still residing on Golden Gate.

Sections of the Bridge, with their connectors now melted, began to fall away from the main line of the bridge. All the cars that were left on them were hurtled into the ocean, where there was no escape from the boiling water beneath. Cars burst into flames as they fell. Men yelled out as women shrieked and children cried. It was pure and utter devastation, and those on the coasts watched helplessly as strangers and friends perished in the havoc.

Deep Earth Control Center...

"And now with this horrific, breaking news. We go live to San Francisco, where Leo Jacks has the story."

"Yes, Claire, it's hard to believe that half of San Francisco is in ruins today, following the most devastating and the most baffling event in our nation's history. "I, it's-it's a horrific situation here. Thousands are dead. Many are missing. It's-it's hotels, hospitals."

"Bring up the power grid." Commanded Purcell. Rat did so on the main screen. A picture came up with the title "United States Power Grid." Washington, Wyoming, California, and Nevada all blinked in red.
"The whole West Coast is out." he stated with a defeated sigh. "That means we're going to have to suck up just about every drop of juice east of the Rockies to fire Destiny. Another EM spike, we're not going to have enough power."

Purcell started to move away, but Stickley caught up with him.

"General, you have got to give them more time."

"There is no more time." he spat. "Colonel, call Destiny."

"I am launching a formal complaint against you with the Department of Defense."

She followed Purcell outside.

"Rat to Josh." he spoke, knowing that no one else cared what he was doing.

Virgil

"Go, Rat" Announced Doctor Joshua Keyes from his seat. Serge looked over, smiled, shook his head, and went back to work.

"Hey, um..."

~

"Here's the EM Field data that you're primed for."

~

Serge's brow furrowed in confusion. Josh, however, merely nodded his head. He unbuckled his seat harness as he spoke.

"Digging that, Rat."

Josh left his seat and moved out of the cockpit. Serge's eyes followed him.

Josh made his way into the navigation compartment.

"Primed for. Primed for." He skipped through the station and sat himself at another computer. "Prime numbers--" he sat down and began typing into the text boxes.

Adjust image size:

"One."

Re-calculated Gamma:

"Two."

Adjusted Contrast:

"Three."

Adjusted Hue:

"Five"

Adjusted YIQ:

"Seven"

In Phase Chrominace:

"Eleven"

Quadrature Chrominace:

"Thirteen."

Adjusted Luminace:

"Seventeen".

Immediately he had a small map of the world as he knew it. But as he watched the colors started to shift, and finally the last image brought a decoded message from Rat.

Destiny sounds bad. Can I help?

~

Rat sat behind his numerous screens, scratching his nose as his computer decoded a response.

We need time. Find Destiny. Slow it down!

Immediately Rat got to work. He brought up all his other screens and started a worldwide net search for Project Destiny. It took a fraction of a second.

"Here we go." he smiled and nodded his head.

Project Destiny Base--Alaska

A telephone rang in the impeccable office overlooking one of the United State's most ingenious inventions.

"James." announced an accented voice.

An elderly man turned form the window and ran over to answer it.

"Yes, sir." he answered with some stiffness in his voice. "Yes, sir." he hung up the phone. "Here we go folks."