"We can be Heroes, just for one day…"
There's something out of place. Fingers move to adjust the tunes for the guitar. Take a deep breath. Exhale.
"We can be us, just for one day…"
It's been a few days since that fateful meeting, and Amelia knows the clock is ticking. A knocking at her door interrupts her musing. Sighing, Amelia carefully sets her guitar down.
"Come in."
The door creaks open, a familiar blonde haired face pops in through the opening.
"Ya busy?" David asks.
"Nah, I'm just chilling here with my guitar." Amelia replies.
"Oh cool, what kinda songs do you play?" He asks as he navigated his way around the table. Finding a chair he plops down onto it. Amelia picks up the guitar again and strums on it a few times.
"Lots of different kinds, mostly David Bowie. I find his music to be something I can play to."
"Oh, I uh, think I can try that out?" David motions toward the guitar.
"Go ahead, but if you drop it, nobody's gonna find your body."
"Pshhh, as if." He chuckles lightly. As he (badly) strums the instrument, he turns to face Amelia.
"Now it's time for me to serenade you with love songs." He dramatically exclaims. Amelia punches his arm lightly and grabs her guitar back. "Alright, lover boy, give that back to somebody who can actually play something." David laughs.
"Hey, if the world wasn't ending right now, I would totally spend more of my time wearing out my fingers on a guitar to impress you."
"Yeah right, the only things you'll be wearing your fingers out on will be the flight stick."
David puts on a hurt look. Amelia's heart does an involuntary flip at the expression, even though she knows he was totally faking it.
"That's mean 'Am, you know I love to fly."
"We all love to fly, that's why we signed up ya dingus."
"Yeah, too bad we won't get to fly for much longer…"
Silence reigned for the next several seconds.
"I can't believe we've been driven to this point."
David looks at Amelia.
"You talking about the Initiative?"
Amelia nods her head. "This stuff is messed up beyond belief. We don't do anything, and we're doomed to nuclear annihilation. When we do drop the bomb, we still doom ourselves to the same fate. The only difference is that instead of the world being ruled by the Russians and Chinese, the world won't be run by anybody for a long, long time.
"But we've got the Ark Initiative down in the Rockies." David says.
Amelia sighs, a heavy guilt ridden breath out. "I know, but we're basically ditching the people of America. I know, I know, not enough space, but… but still, I just wish we didn't have to do this." Silence once again. David leans over to Amelia, which she then promptly buries herself into.
"Humanity fucked up." She whispers.
"Yeah, but at least we get another chance, another way to get this right." David responds. He holds Amelia's head in his hands, savoring the quiet moment. Amelia wonders if she should be bothered by this. She ignores that thought, and relaxes, wishing that the moment moment could last for much longer. But the way it ended was something she did not expect at all.
The emergency lights go off, and an alarm sounds off, startling the pair. When they open the door, a cacophony of noise assaults their ears. There were soldiers and pilots running down the hallways, some of them hastily shoving on uniforms and equipment. The P.A system goes off.
"Attention all personnel, this is a mandatory evacuation order. Attention all personnel, this is a mandatory evacuation order. Please follow procedure and vacate to the nearest evac point. Pilots, report to your squadron leaders immediately. You will be briefed en route."
"What is going on?!" Amelia yells as they run down the hallway.
"I have no clue! I'll see you the skies though!" David yells out as he runs off and disappears into the crowd to find his squadron. Amelia only managed to mouth out half a goodbye before she too was swallowed up by the crowd as well. She runs to her designated hangar and spots her F-15 waiting for her, the cockpit open and the flight mechanics scurrying off to quickly prep more fighters for takeoff. She hops in and seals both the canopy and her helmet. Engines on, she taxis herself onto the runway.
As she coasts along, something catches her eye. A large contingent of soldiers to her right could be seen surrounding a B-1B Lancer bomber. And she only caught a glimpse of it but before a C-130 blocked off her sight she was absolutely sure that the large object they had been loading into the bomb bay was The Mushroom Bomb. Suddenly her headset squawks loudly, interrupting her thoughts. The comms are filled with commotion, the pilots of fighters and cargo planes, attack and transport helicopters jockeying for airspace, so she mentally tunes them out, quietly humming to David Bowie's "Heroes." Eyes roamed the HUD as a readout began filling up her screen. Hoping for something to make sense she quickly reads the test scrolling down her view. But the only thing it read out to her was death.
Multiple Russian ICBM launches have been detected. They have attacked earlier than anticipated. 15 minutes until impact and detonation. Proceed to rendezvous point 44 point 2643° north by 109 point 7870° west of this position.
"Smash 11, you are cleared for takeoff." Amelia gunned her engines as soon as she got the confirmation, determined to put as much space between her and the doomed airbase. To her right, a helicopter collides with another plane and they both go down, the explosions sending more panic throughout the cluttered airspace. She ducks her jet under a passing cargo plane, before setting her jet for the south, and poured on the afterburners. As she does so however, her flight commander pulls their attention away to point out that only about a dozen fighters, helicopters and a military transport cargo plane were headed in the same direction.
"Those poor devils, they don't realize the suicide mission they've just embarked on…" She hears over her radio. As their little posse heads south, the rest of the hundreds of bombers and fighter craft were seen clumping up in a massive formation and flying west, over the Pacific, to Russia.
"Their going to deliver the Mushroom Bomb…" Amelia whispers.
"What was that Amelia?" David asks over the comms. Amelia takes a moment to answer.
"Nothing."
Brian is probably on that mission right now, unknowingly sacrificing himself, along with thousands of others, to drop what will be the most powerful and yet sickening ordinance in human history. What is he thinking right now? What have they told him?
The HUD flashes more text.
Five Minutes Until Impact
And as Amelia watched them disappear over the horizon, she swore on that day to make sure that their sacrifice was not in vain. She and the others will restart humanity, and perhaps, just maybe, lead the future into something that would be worth such a sacrifice.
30 Seconds Until Impact
"I don't think we're gonna make it!" Panics a nearby pilot.
"Hold it together!" yells out her leader. "We just cleared the immediate blast zone, just gotta outrun the shock wave! Pour it on people!"
Amelia grits teeth, and pointedly ignores the overheat gauge as she mentally wills her fighter to fly faster.
10 Seconds Until Impact
"Brace yourselves!" Amelia doesn't know who yelled it, too busy pushing her aircraft to it's limits and beyond. Suddenly, a white hot streak pierces the cloud cover behind them, carving a bright line through the sky as it careened towards the city. But even as death incarnate hurtled towards her, her mind was focused on a single thought.
3 Seconds Until Impact
She will survive this.
1 Second Until Impact
She will make their sacrifices worth it.
0 Seconds Until Impact
Her visors instantly darkened as the nuclear warhead detonated behind them, and the land below was bathed a harsh, bright light. Amelia held back tears of frustration as they flew south into the horizon.
"Here's comes the shockwave, brace for impact!" She heard David yell over the comm. Seconds later a massive wall of compressed air hits her fighter, shaking Amelia inside her cockpit as if she were in a washing machine. But just when they had thought they had made it, all her electronics go dead.
EMP! Amelia panics as hers and everybody else's aircrafts plummet from the sky. With the comms down she had no way of communicating with the others, so she couldn't tell if they were having any success in trying to restart their engines as well.
God freakin damnit, my engines won't start, and that ground is starting to look way too close. Amelia mentally calculated how far out they were from the survival bunker, and guesstimated about maybe twenty miles or so. She then sets her plane into a steep dive before pulling up again slightly into a shallow glide.
Alright, this should cut down the distance fairly decently. After locking the controls, she goes back to trying to cold start the engines again, even though she knew that it was probably in vain. As she went through the manual restart procedure, Amelia took a look around to try and locate the others. She only spotted a few following her in glide mode, the rest have disappeared. Behind them, a massive mushroom cloud silhouetted the few aircraft that she saw. Her eyes desperately searched for David's fighter, her anxiety put to rest as she spots him a hundred yards to her right.
As she looks ahead, she can make out a tall communications tower jutting out from the mountains several miles ahead of her.
That must be it. Amelia thinks to herself. But her jet was too low to make it at this point, she was only a few hundred feet off of the tree tops. She waited until she was sure she got the most out of her jet, before yanking on the ejection lever.
Instantly her canopy blew open and several dozen pounds of liquid fuel rocketed her out of the plane and into the open sky. Another second later her chute deploys. As she looks around, she counts only four other parachutes floating down towards the forest below.
The others must have failed or jammed. She thinks to herself. What a way to go. Surviving a nuclear attack only to die to faulty equipment. She looks around again to get her bearings. The nuclear winter had buried everything in snow, but the tower could be clearly seen in the distance, about a few miles out.
Her fellow pilots could be seen disappearing into the trees a few miles behind her as well, before her sight was blocked by the tree tops as well. The parachute of course had to get snagged thirty feet off the ground, so Amelia flips open a knife and cuts away at her lines, before slowly climbing the tree. In the distance she could see more mushroom clouds dotting the horizon, as hundreds of ICBMs fell all over the former U.S.
It really is the end of the world. Man its freezing out here. Thank god for insulated flight suits. She thinks to herself. Alright, the comms tower is about a few miles out, and it can be clearly seen, so no need to search for the others, they'll head for it as well. Then we can salvage this royal screw up of a situation.
The deep snow made any attempt at running or even jogging impossible, so Amelia slowly hit a slow marching rhythm, all the while humming her favorite songs to herself to keep her mind busy. If the EMP hadn't knocked out her smartphone she would have totally plugged in those earbuds by now. She was fairly certain that it could be repaired fairly easily once they got to the military bunker. She would be pissed if she couldn't, all her favorite albums were saved on it.
A funny thought entered her head as she trudged forward. She imagined herself around a campfire surrounded by other survivors, all dressed in ridiculous Mad Max style clothing, and she was playing the Star Wars theme on her guitar to them. Somebody asked why she was so insistent on playing songs all the time.
Keeping the culture alive, it would be an absolute shame if David Bowie music went extinct forever. Amelia thought to herself. That and playing the guitar was one of the few things left to do in a world like this. A small, sad smile was on her face as her thoughts wandered to happier times.
An hour or so later, she hears voices to her left, who turn out to be the other four pilots, including David. But he had broken a leg after losing his grip and fell a few stories onto hard ice. After a quick session of exclaiming their happiness at her survival, and Amelia fussing over David, they trudge ever onward to the looming tower in the distance. But it was slow going , with two of them having to carry David, and their flight suits, although insulated, weren't meant for such long term exposure to the freezing elements, and the feeling quickly goes from discomfort to severe worry. A couple more hours out here, and they'll be frozen human popsicles.
Fortunately a nearby patrolling squad finds them, their bodies covered in a layer of snow, and one of the pilots was starting to suffer the onset of hyperthermia. The patrol leader was about to comment on their condition, but decided against it when it seemed pretty stupid to state the obvious. One of the patrol men leaned into his mike and spoke. Soon a snowmobile truck of sorts rumbled into view, and the quickly piled inside of it. Amelia passed out on the passenger seat, the warmth of the cabin interior too alluring to resist.
An eternity later, she awoke to find herself in a hospital bed of sorts.
"Hey, you feeling alright?"
Amelia turns her head to see David's weary face smiling at her. She returns the smile.
"Got this slight headache but I'm mostly fine." she said. "What's going to happen now?" David leans in.
"Only a few others turned up, apart for a couple of scientists it's just us four. Their planning on freezing us all right after the detonation of the bomb." he explains. David then gets up, and limps for the door. Before leaving, he turns his head. "You coming?" he asks, motioning towards the exit with his crutches. Amelia promptly crawls out of bed and follows David.
"So where we headed?" she asks.
"The control room, their watching the air battle live right now."
As they walk down the hallways, Amelia soaks in all the details. Concrete walls, fluorescent lights in the ceiling, and the dozens of metallic slide doors buried in the sides of the hallways. The occasional tremor indicating another nuclear bomb going off outside somewhere in the distance.
Definitely feels like a bunker. She thinks to herself. I wonder where this control room is.
As they round a corner, they find themselves looking at a massive open door, with the sign "Control Room" emblazoned on a sign above the opening.
Entering the room, they find themselves staring at hundreds of screens and the center of the far wall was dominated by a single massive flat screen tv. Amelia was awed by the size of this place, thing looked like it was straight out of some spy movie. In a few seats in the viewing booth sat the other survivors, and a few scientists milling about the computer terminals.
"This is it? Nobody else made it?" Amelia asked in shock. A short male scientist walks up to her.
"This is it. Unfortunately the majority had perished when trying to escape the blast. But most of the strike group got away when mountain ranges they had passed over protected them from the immediate after effects of the detonation." Nearby a technician waves to get the lead scientists attention.
"Sir, the bomb is in position." he reads out.
On the screen, a view of the bomb bay opening up was shown, the Mushroom Bomb silhouetted against the light coming from below it. Other screens show a ferocious air battle taking place all around the bomber, as it dodged and weaved through the chaos. Clamps released, and the bomb fell away, intent on delivering its payload of doom.
As it fell, the cameras show the surviving fighters turn and fly as fast as they could away from the impending apocalypse. But it was in vain.
Several minutes later, an absolutely blinding greenish white detonation fills the screens before they all went dark, the connection lost. Even when they were on the other side of the world, massive tremors shook the complex, and what structures that remained on the surface toppled to the ground. Another screen switched to an outside view after the shaking subsided, and what greeted their eyes what nothing but nightmarish. A satellite view showed a portion of the Earth the size of Australia being slowly blown out into space by a massive green mushroom cloud that looked like it was constantly spewing out death. The head scientist turned to his colleagues, who had been starting at the screens in disbelief. Murmurs rippled through the small crowd.
"Jesus Christ, I knew it was powerful, but not like this…"
"Looks like half the Earth is getting completely scorched…"
A stern look from the lead scientist silences the mutterings.
"Shut em off. It's time we head down to the cryo chambers." he orders. A heavy set man with glasses didn't move though, his mouth muttering quiet obscenities at what they had just witnessed. It took a hand on his shoulder to get him to snap out of it.
"Come on, let's go." She says. The man complies, walking out the door to follow the others. Amelia would have gladly joined the guy in his mental stupor at the situation, but she had been through too much, and the perceived destruction was just another burden she will have to carry for the rest of her life, even if she wasn't personally responsible for it. David limps up to her, a strained look on his face as he adjust his crutches to keep pace with her.
"This is it." He says slowly. Amelia sighs.
"Yeah, I guess I'll see you in a few thousand years." She half-heartedly jokes. David just shakes his head
We'll make things better, we have to. She thinks to herself. From the moment Seattle was vaporized, to the destruction of half the planet, right up until she was laying inside a cryopod, it was this thought that persisted, and was last thing her mind was saying when the glass froze over in her pod's window.
Hey guys, this is my first attempt at writing a fanfic for adventure time, and I wanted to try something more original. Not many stories that I have seen go into detail about the Mushroom War, or just involve a bunch of sappy romance with vampires, etc, so instead of a vampire OC, we've got an F-15 pilot from the past. Anyways, I hope you guys liked this second chapter, and please do drop those reviews, and please, please critique anything I may have missed.