This Fic is PG-15, it contains quite a bit of violence, if the mods think the rating should be upped to a higher level, then that's understandable.
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This fic is already up to chapter two, as I've been writing it for a little while now and posting it elsewhere, anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it, and I hope you will pleasure me with the presence of you writing a review, that would make me very grateful.
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Chapter 01: The Coming of Ragnarok
A strong wind whipped around the museum gardens as they closed for the night. The trees were violently shaken as November settled in, winter had come early. As the security was set into place for the night, the museum curator, Dr. Charles Winsley sat at his desk, his candle-lit lantern casting an eerie shadow upon the wall behind him. He was an old man, around sixty at least, his aging face both wise and mysterious, he was often one to give fantastic tours around the museum, the children from the village looked up to him an awful lot, with his vast knowledge of history and science.
Winsley had been working on a theory for a number of years, a theory that would shake mankind forever as it did him when the possibility came into his head. His vast knowledge of Physics and Mathematics had always came in useful, but as he continued to delve deeper into what he may have discovered, he was beginning to wish he had never have stumbled upon the idea. The probabilities rose steadily as he went deeper into possibilities. “The world may end sooner than we think,” he had always thought as he saw those television programmes explaining about natural resources running out, Global Warming taking its toll on the Ice Caps and of course, terrorist activity.
The clock struck eight and the wind outside seemed to become quicken and become fiercer. He looked over to the corner of the room where his true companion and friend sat asleep on a large armchair. A small, grey haired cat was purring softly with its eyes tight shut. As Winsley looked over he smiled and shook his head at the purring, before returning to his paper. They were never apart, always a pair. forever studying the mysteries of the universe and history.
***
“I don’t think you really understand what this will do! You cannot believe that this is the solution!”
“The solution is what it is, this will bring the people back to their place of rest, and we will be at peace once more. We just wasted Ninety Six Billion Pounds if we don’t follow this through.”
“You cannot be serious! Blowing up the sun! Ludicrous, I won’t have it. And that is final. You are fired.”
The man stood and smiled at this comment from his boss, they had always been friends, and he just simply wanted to finish what his family had begun at the turn of the century.
“Why do you stop me continuously? You’re always holding me back. It isn’t fair.”
He walked over to his boss, and friend, his large black boots clapping against the floor with each grand stride. He was extremely tall and wore nothing but black, even now he was wearing a black sweatshirt and black trousers.
“I am sorry, but I cannot allow this to happen, you are fired.”
“No, Joseph, I am not the one who is fired.”
The man in black reached into his pocket and pulled out a large, black pistol, equipped with a silencer, aimed it at Josephs head and pulled the trigger. He walked to the exit of the room and looked at the bloody mess behind him.
“It is you, who is fired, my friend.”
Grabbing his black trench coat as he exited the office block and stepping into the rain, he had only one thing on his mind, the destruction of humanity, and he was to be the one that caused it. All that was left was a museum curator to the south, a small village museum, easy target.
As the rain lashed upon the city of London several flocks of bird had found roost in the gutters of buildings, people walked around everywhere with their umbrellas held above their heads, and the man in black strode towards the company car park. A smug look on his face, he was safe in the knowledge his plan was to go through and now there was nobody to stop him, he had the weapons, and he had the resources, now all he needed were the calculations.
***
“This is very strange. Sir, I think you should take a look at this.”
Out in Nevada desert, a small satellite station had been monitoring the sun for several years. Solar powered and only housing five occupants, the station was barely known to several science institutions within 100 miles of it, never mind the rest of the world.
“What is it Jones? It better not be another Flare like it was last time.”
The commander of the station was a portly man, dressed as ever in one of his favourite Hawaiian style shirts and three-quarter length pants. A pair of sunglasses was tied around his neck, he was the perfect definition of ‘overweight tourist’ but regardless of how he looked, he wasn’t stupid, and he was an interesting man to say the least. Now age sixty, he had travelled around the world in his younger –and more fitter- days in the name of science. His prime interest was Evolution, but after the theory was proven to be the absolute, he turned his intentions to the sun. The sun had been the companion he had in his travels no matter what, “always there to brighten up my day” he had often said… obviously in a literal sense.
“Well sir, it isn’t… that. However, there is a definite change in the radiation levels being given off by the sun at the moment, currently it seems to have cooled down, as it were.”
“Cooled down eh? How much has it cooled down by would you say?”
“Well, on average, the surface temperature is around 5,780,000 Degrees right? Well this drop would ideally have caused that temperature to drop to just below 2,000,000 degrees, which is half of the usual Low point in temperature of the sun. Ideally, a temperature like this is well within capability of causing an abrupt winter, and in end altering the climate of earth very drastically, as Global Warming, except this would be Global Freezing.”
“I see, well, for a temperature drop to go from that high to that low, there would have had to have been a mass loss of Hydrogen. That makes no sense.”
“It’s probably just an anomaly with the equipment then, oh well, at least it isn’t serious.”
***
“I have it, the answer to everything on how the sun could ever be destroyed.”
Winsley had cracked the final mathematical formula of his theory after several hours of hard work and over-doing. A sudden feeling of daunting coursed over his body as he came to terms with what he had found. This information could never be let out.
He stood up and stretched his arms and tensed the muscles in his legs, before walking out of the room and into the nearby kitchen area. The window was still being pelted with rain and the clock read 22:04, a late night for the museum curator. Walking over to the far bench he noticed in the mirror on the wall that the door to his living quarters was ajar.
“Hmm… how did that happen…? I wonder.”
He turned around and walked out of the kitchen into the small hallway. The study was letting light into the hallway and casting a shadow upon the wall opposite. A moving shadow in the shape of a person was the subject of the eerie casting, rustling around the study.
The thought hit Winsley like a bullet into the chest. The man was after his theory and had gotten his hands on it… all because he was after a cup of coffee. Winsley stepped back into the kitchen and walked over to the knife holder, a wooden object with varying slots that would hold several knives, each of different purpose and size. He picked up a large meat cleaving knife and walked back out of the kitchen, standing next to the doorway of the study, his heart beating rapidly and his blood pressure going insane.
The rustling inside the study suddenly stopped, and Winsley looked towards the doorway, still clinging to the knife in his sweat-drenched right hand. Footsteps. Then a pause. Then more footsteps.
“Is he coming to the doorway?”
Winsley stood, rooted to the spot in shock as the man came out of the doorway and looked at him, smiling weakly with the documents in one hand, and a small, black pistol, complete with a silencer, in the other.
“Hello Winsley, thanks so much for these, they’ll help me a lot, oh! What are you doing with that knife my dear friend?”
Winsley stared at the man standing before him, dropping the knife onto the floor and causing a clash as blade hit wood. The stainless steel glinted in the light coming from the kitchen and study, and reflected it onto Winsleys face, blinding him for a brief moment.
“Alex… what… what are you doing here?”
“I am coming to collect what is mine.”
“Those documents are anything but yours!”
Winsley felt the strength returning to him after the shock of seeing his old student standing before him, with a gun pointed directly at his forehead. Alex was exactly as he had always been, Blonde hair, in perfect contrast with the Black clothing he had always worn. He was an excellent child, and had always admired the science of Physics. Alex was never popular in school as Winsley had come to learn as he taught him all he knew. This had seemingly led to Alex resenting a lot of people… perfectly understandable at that age, but this was ten years later, and Alex would’ve forgotten that resentment had he been in correct state of mind… which to Winsleys knowledge, he was.
“What… what do you plan on doing with my theory Alex?”
“Ah! Doctor, I must thank you, I remember you telling me of this long ago… yes… you told me of how it may be possible to wipe out a star… and that you would one day discover whether or not your claim was true…”
“What is your point Alex? Why have you changed your attitude so much since the last time we met, a little over a year ago wasn’t it? Come now, you mustn’t act like this…”
“Indeed… it was a year ago wasn’t it. Remember the present I gave you? That beautiful clock, you have it in your study don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. Your point better be coming.”
“Ah, who has the gun here Winsley? Let me take my time. Anyway… the clock. Well, let us just say that time carries many secrets my friend.”
“What is your point boy? Tell me what you plan to do with my theory!”
“I plan… to take revenge on those that tormented me… I plan, doctor, to put this theory into practice.”
Winsley stood rooted to the spot once more, could Alex truly be serious? He planned to exact his revenge upon a few schoolchildren by wiping out humanity?
“You cannot…. cannot be serious!”
“I am deathly serious. You are an Atheist, aren’t you Doctor? Tell me, are you afraid to die? Enter that black abyss of death?”
“You wouldn’t kill your friend Alex!”
“I already have done so. Goodbye… Charles.”
Winsley felt a ripping pain upon his head as the world around him began to spin around… his eyes were becoming less and less focused, and he could feel himself falling. As he finally felt gravity cause his body to connect with the floor, he uttered his final words as the world around him turned to darkness…
“He has no idea…”
Alex walked out of the living quarters within the museum of Dr. Charles Winsley, who was now but a memory. He replaced the gun into his trousers before entering the lobby of the Museum. The security guards acknowledged him leaving and bid him farewell. He was known to be a great contributor to the museum funds, he had gotten in after hours easily, any museum patron as respected as him would have. Walking over to his jet black Ferrari F60, he turned and looked upon the small museum once more, and gave a salute.
“Farewell Doctor Charles Winsley, my mentor and dear friend.”
He spun around and jumped into the driver’s seat, throwing the documents containing the theory upon the passenger seat and placing his gun inside the glove compartment, taking out a plane ticket to Las Vegas, Nevada as he did so and double checking them. Flight time: 02:00am November 17, 2005. Departure from: Teesside Airport. Destination: Las Vegas International, NV. Six hours away. Smiling slightly and revving the engine, he shot off down the country lane that led to the museum in first gear, leaving a trail of dust behind him, heading for the airport…
***
At the same moment in time, several thousand miles away in an underground facility, located just west of Las Vegas, Nevada, the worlds most powerful Nuclear weapon had been completed, codenames ‘Ragnarok’. The nuke was capable of destruction upon a worldwide scale… and was set for launch in exactly twenty four hours…
***
End of Chapter 1
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Chapter 02: Four Days
Alex had fallen asleep as the plane soared over the Atlantic Ocean, on course for Las Vegas International Airport, Nevada. The slight hum of the engines seemed as a lullaby to his mind as he drifted in-between dreams. The flight time was a little over twenty hours… and he needed to be at the facility two hours prior to the launch, meaning he had needed to get as much sleep as possible prior to his arrival. Thankfully, the day before had contained events that had certainly tired him out, and he fell asleep with ease, not even waking to the Air Stewardess offering him his breakfast as the sun rose over the west-Atlantic.
He finally awoke to the sound of the pilot announcing that they were due to land in a mere ten minutes and that Seatbelts were to be fastened for the remainder of the journey. As he pulled up the blind of the window and allowed the brilliant sunlight to filter through the window pane, he could see the desert below him. Smiling, he turned and fastened his belt, and sat down, stretching his arms and yawning. Looking to his right, Alex saw an old woman was sitting knitting what appeared to be a hat. She turned and smiled at him, looking out at the clear blue through the window.
“You know,” She said, “I do say that this earth is beautiful, isn’t she? God certainly did a good job creating this planet, I do hope nothing happens to her… don’t you my boy?”
Alex looked at her a little uneasily, as he doing the right thing? Of course he wasn’t… but he had to do it…
“Yes. It is a nice planet.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look upon the old woman’s face; her glinting eyes would only strike him and his quest farther down. He turned away from her, forcing a smile, and resumed looking into the clear blue outside, and the desert below slowly turning into the city of Las Vegas…
“Yes… she is beautiful… It is a pity that what lives upon her will be her downfall though…”
Alex’s eyes seemed to glaze as he looked out of the window at the bustling city below… his conscience was weighing upon him… was he to be the one that ended it all? His thoughts were eventually interrupted by the loudspeaker,
“Captain speaking, Two minutes until we land, we thank you for flying with British airways and hope you enjoy fabulous Las Vegas. Please ensure you have all of your belonging from the overhead compartments before you exit the craft, and only unfasten your seatbelts when the light goes off. We hope you have enjoyed your flight.”
“At last… now to chase away these ridiculous thoughts and get on with the greatest fireworks display ever…”
Alex leaned back in his seat and felt a rough rumble as the plane skidded down the main runway of Las Vegas International…
***
Jones sat at his desk, the anomaly hadn’t left the screen since yesterday and he was getting worried. He eventually got up and walked to go outside, pulling a cigarette from his shirt pocket and a lighter. As he opened the door, he expected a large heat rush from the desert sun as always, instead the temperature remained constant outside as the air conditioning had made it inside. He pulled away from lighting his cigarette and walked back indoors, letting his instinct take him to the Air Conditioning panel and checking the temperature… the air conditioning wasn’t online.
“What the hell? SIR! Can you get here please?”
The commander was asleep in his bed, still in yesterday’s clothes. A bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey was on the bedside cabinet, only half full. He awoke with a start at the sound of his name being called. He sat up and looked over the room, acknowledging himself in the mirror opposite as he did whenever he rose from his slumber.
His eyes were bloodshot and dry, and his sunglasses were askew upon his head. He had several of his shirt buttons undone and his three-quarter length pants were falling off his legs. He jumped up and quickly sorted himself out, not bothering to fix his hair, hair care was never a big thing to him. As he walked out of his room and into the research facility, he looked around for the source of the voice,
“What is it?”
“It’s me sir, Jones, I think that anomaly yesterday may not have been an anomaly. The air conditioning isn’t online, the outside temperature is the same as it is in here, and the anomaly is still there.”
“You’re joking? How can that be!? It makes no sense!”
“I’m not joking sir, you can check yourself, and something is up. And I think we had best alert the scientific authority immediately, the world is going to be facing a crisis if the sun remains at this temperature for more than 72 hours! There will be a second Ice age!”
“Get on the phone to NASA immediately and get them to run a scan for us, if they turn out the same results as us, then we know it is true.”
“Yes sir.”
Jones moved like lightning to the phone and pressed the quick dial for NASA, before waiting for the dial to go through and the phone to begin ringing. As he waited he noticed that, for the first time in his career here, he had seen the commander extremely stressed. He had never seen his boss this uptight… and now, he was going crazy…
The phone was answered promptly, and a young voice came on the line.
“Hello, George Winsley speaking, NASA Solar research Department, how may I help you?”
“Hello, I’m phoning because of a result of a scan we at the Nevada installation have come across. The scan states that the Sun currently has a surface temperature of approximately 2 million degrees, is this correct according to your computers?”
There was a pause before the voice on the other end of the phone replied,
“Yes, there has been the same occurrence here; it has remained for the past twenty-six hours. We will alert the Government once Twenty-Eight hours have passed with this as the result. Thank you for double checking with us before taking action.”
“I see, thank you for the time then, and may us all hope that this time it is indeed a mere anomaly.”
“Indeed. Goodbye.”
Jones placed the phone back into the holder and walked over to the commander once more, before pulling over an office chair and sitting down, running his fingers through his hair. He looked over to his boss, thinking of how long they had been working together… in all these years he hadn’t actually come to know his boss’s, and friends, name.
“Sir… what is your real name? All these years have passed… and yet I don’t know it…”
“Jones, you’re a funny lad you know, my name is Harry, indeed I wonder why you haven’t known it throughout the years we have been working together…”
Jones just smirked and walked outside, lit up his cigarette with his Silver lighter, and looked to the skies.
***
Passport control had taken an age, two flights had landed at the same time, and the result was mass congestion all through customs. Alex had finally made it though into the luggage area, thanking himself for not packing anything other than what he had in the bag slung over his shoulder. Just a change of clothes, some money and a pass card into the facility.
Alex finally reached the entrance to the airport terminal after all the hustle and bustle of customs and the baggage collection. Looking around he spotted his ride to the facility directly opposite. A man in a large black overcoat wearing sunglasses, complete with a burning a cigarette in his mouth, standing in front of a large black car with tinted windows, possibly a Mercedes. Alex acknowledged him and walked over, not noticing the strange air temperature of Nevada compared to what it should be.
“Welcome to Vegas” he thought as he entered the large black car, rather hurriedly. Inside was incredibly luxurious, cream leather seats and a small refrigerator accompanied a good-sized television and a small table, complete with drink mixer.
“Driver, You know the way right?”
“Of course sir, we will be there shortly.”
Alex smiled, allowing the drink mixer to stir him up a cocktail, as he faxed through the calculations of the launch to the facility.
***
“Captain, we have just received word of possible terrorist activity in the Nevada desert from British Intelligence. Should we send some men out there just in case?”
“Yes, I know about it, there are already teams on their way. Precisely sixteen miles out of Las Vegas Airport, easy enough to get to, the teams will be there within the next fifteen minutes.”
Sure enough, two drop teams had been initialized for land at the exact location of the facility in which Ragnarok resided. The team was due to land in approximately twenty-two minutes. Their mission was simple, kill Alexander White, and ensure whatever was going on inside the facility wasn’t going to be going on for much longer.
“Twenty minutes until we raise those idiots, right boys?”
A chorus of “right” streamed through the team captains ears as the engines of the plane masked out all other sound with their extreme volume. The captain was a tall, well built man, as indeed most military officers were. His stereotypical cigar burned slightly as he chewed the other end every now and again. His eyes glinted, he hadn’t been involved in a terror prevention operation since the early nineties, where he and a crack team of commandos had infiltrated a terrorist compound and destroyed blue prints for a weapon capable of causing Yellowstone volcano to erupt. He was a man who loved action, he was indeed, about to see the most action he would ever again witness.
***
Alex finally pulled up to the facility entrance after the brief drive from the airport. He patiently waited as his driver opened the left hand side door and allowed him to exit the vehicle. The driver bid him farewell and stepped into the driver seat once more, and drove off down the path he had just came along.
“If only he knew of whom he was saying goodbye to….”
Alex walked to the doorway of the facility; it was an excellent cover up. A small shack in the middle of a desert, nobody would suspect a thing. Stepping inside he pulled out his Key Card and placed it inside a small slot on the farthest wall, punching in his six-digit pin code. As he pressed the enter key upon the pad, behind him the floor opened up, an electronic trap door. He took his cardkey and walked down the newly revealed stairs. A well lit stairwell lay before him; the air was clean down here, and fresh. He eventually reached the bottom of the stairs, before lay a large room, with several computer terminals, and scientists wandering around aimlessly. A large screen was at the opposite end of the room, completely black, except for the large, red display that read 00:11:25.
A scientist wearing a white lab coat and thick rimmed glasses was walking towards him. His hair was almost as wild as his face expression was vacant… “Incredible hair…” Alex pondered to himself, as the scientist came within a few feet of him,
“Ah! Alex, you are just in time to foresee the launch my friend! The calculations you sent are perfect, and are in place! There are soldiers on the way unfortunately, however they won’t arrive until after Ragnarok has launched, which of course, will be too late.”
“Excellent, where is the execution key? The launch is coming early.”
“Oh ho! Eager to continue are we? Well, let me raise the launch alarm, and then show you exactly what you need to do!”
The scientist, with his large white lab coat and thick rimmed glasses, walked away from Alex and pulled a switch on the wall, clearly labelled “Launch Alarm.” As soon as the switch was pulled, the entire facility went into Red Alert and scientists began walking out of several exits, leaving Alex and the scientist that had greeted him standing alone in the laboratory.
“Follow me Alex… where History will be brought to a fitting Climax.”
Below the large screen with the display upon it were several keys. The scientist motioned for Alex to switch them all, he did so in basic fashion. One, two, three, four. The display ahead stopped and began to open up. A final button was located behind it, with the words LAUNCH written across it.
“Now let me check the surface temperature of the sun Alex.”
The scientist rushed over to a secondary panel and booted it up, a number display came up on the screen.
“NASA is still reading it as less than Two Million Degrees, launch the missile now Alex.”
“Here we go…. Goodbye world.”
Alex pressed the button, and the entire facility began to shake, as if an atomic bomb had just been unleashed directly above. He threw himself down onto the floor as a large rumble could be heard from nearby, followed by an intense Sonic Boom. Ragnarok had been launched.
“It will hit the sun in precisely 96 hours… four days! Let’s get the hell out of here before the military arrive!”
Alex didn’t need telling twice, he bolted straight for the door, the facility collapsing around him. Running up the stairs he finally saw the exit. A figure of a human was stood there, pointing its arm towards Alex. It didn’t take too long for Alex to realise the arm was holding a gun. It took him too long to realise that he had just been shot through the head. Alexander White was killed by the American Military commander, Daniel Blackett.
***
“What the hell was just launched from Nevada?”
NASA had immediately picked up Ragnarok on its radar at the instant of launch; unfortunately they had no clue as to what it was. The radar was simply showing a large dot as the sweeper passed over the point of launch.
“It is travelling at an incredible speed, it is going to break the atmosphere in several minutes, what the hell… commander I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“Can you point out where the damn thing is headed Winsley?”
“Hmm… judging from current trajectory… I’d say… No way, that’s impossible. This thing, going from what I can see here, is headed for the Sun.”
Winsley flashed back to his grandfather over in England. He remembered how he had stated it might be possible to destroy the sun at a certain temperature and with certain weaponry…
“No way…”
“Winsley, snap back to reality, this is a crisis! We must alert the President immediately! If that Missile is headed for the sun, supposing it is comprised of the right alloy, it could penetrate the surface and explode!”
The commander jumped over to the phone and called the White House… the world was facing the biggest crisis it had ever come across.
***
Ragnarok flew through the Atmosphere of Earth, on a due course for the sun… it contained the correct alloy and elements to withstand heat of up to 3,000,000 degrees centigrade. Ragnarok was going to strike in less than four days, and wipe out humanity, and possibly the rest of the Solar System as humans ever knew it.
***
End of Chapter 2
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Thanks for reasding so far, and as I said, i hope you review this fic for me, it'd be greatly, greatly appreciated. Next chapter up soon.
-Josh
________
This fic is already up to chapter two, as I've been writing it for a little while now and posting it elsewhere, anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it, and I hope you will pleasure me with the presence of you writing a review, that would make me very grateful.
________
Element X
Chapter 01: The Coming of Ragnarok
A strong wind whipped around the museum gardens as they closed for the night. The trees were violently shaken as November settled in, winter had come early. As the security was set into place for the night, the museum curator, Dr. Charles Winsley sat at his desk, his candle-lit lantern casting an eerie shadow upon the wall behind him. He was an old man, around sixty at least, his aging face both wise and mysterious, he was often one to give fantastic tours around the museum, the children from the village looked up to him an awful lot, with his vast knowledge of history and science.
Winsley had been working on a theory for a number of years, a theory that would shake mankind forever as it did him when the possibility came into his head. His vast knowledge of Physics and Mathematics had always came in useful, but as he continued to delve deeper into what he may have discovered, he was beginning to wish he had never have stumbled upon the idea. The probabilities rose steadily as he went deeper into possibilities. “The world may end sooner than we think,” he had always thought as he saw those television programmes explaining about natural resources running out, Global Warming taking its toll on the Ice Caps and of course, terrorist activity.
The clock struck eight and the wind outside seemed to become quicken and become fiercer. He looked over to the corner of the room where his true companion and friend sat asleep on a large armchair. A small, grey haired cat was purring softly with its eyes tight shut. As Winsley looked over he smiled and shook his head at the purring, before returning to his paper. They were never apart, always a pair. forever studying the mysteries of the universe and history.
***
“I don’t think you really understand what this will do! You cannot believe that this is the solution!”
“The solution is what it is, this will bring the people back to their place of rest, and we will be at peace once more. We just wasted Ninety Six Billion Pounds if we don’t follow this through.”
“You cannot be serious! Blowing up the sun! Ludicrous, I won’t have it. And that is final. You are fired.”
The man stood and smiled at this comment from his boss, they had always been friends, and he just simply wanted to finish what his family had begun at the turn of the century.
“Why do you stop me continuously? You’re always holding me back. It isn’t fair.”
He walked over to his boss, and friend, his large black boots clapping against the floor with each grand stride. He was extremely tall and wore nothing but black, even now he was wearing a black sweatshirt and black trousers.
“I am sorry, but I cannot allow this to happen, you are fired.”
“No, Joseph, I am not the one who is fired.”
The man in black reached into his pocket and pulled out a large, black pistol, equipped with a silencer, aimed it at Josephs head and pulled the trigger. He walked to the exit of the room and looked at the bloody mess behind him.
“It is you, who is fired, my friend.”
Grabbing his black trench coat as he exited the office block and stepping into the rain, he had only one thing on his mind, the destruction of humanity, and he was to be the one that caused it. All that was left was a museum curator to the south, a small village museum, easy target.
As the rain lashed upon the city of London several flocks of bird had found roost in the gutters of buildings, people walked around everywhere with their umbrellas held above their heads, and the man in black strode towards the company car park. A smug look on his face, he was safe in the knowledge his plan was to go through and now there was nobody to stop him, he had the weapons, and he had the resources, now all he needed were the calculations.
***
“This is very strange. Sir, I think you should take a look at this.”
Out in Nevada desert, a small satellite station had been monitoring the sun for several years. Solar powered and only housing five occupants, the station was barely known to several science institutions within 100 miles of it, never mind the rest of the world.
“What is it Jones? It better not be another Flare like it was last time.”
The commander of the station was a portly man, dressed as ever in one of his favourite Hawaiian style shirts and three-quarter length pants. A pair of sunglasses was tied around his neck, he was the perfect definition of ‘overweight tourist’ but regardless of how he looked, he wasn’t stupid, and he was an interesting man to say the least. Now age sixty, he had travelled around the world in his younger –and more fitter- days in the name of science. His prime interest was Evolution, but after the theory was proven to be the absolute, he turned his intentions to the sun. The sun had been the companion he had in his travels no matter what, “always there to brighten up my day” he had often said… obviously in a literal sense.
“Well sir, it isn’t… that. However, there is a definite change in the radiation levels being given off by the sun at the moment, currently it seems to have cooled down, as it were.”
“Cooled down eh? How much has it cooled down by would you say?”
“Well, on average, the surface temperature is around 5,780,000 Degrees right? Well this drop would ideally have caused that temperature to drop to just below 2,000,000 degrees, which is half of the usual Low point in temperature of the sun. Ideally, a temperature like this is well within capability of causing an abrupt winter, and in end altering the climate of earth very drastically, as Global Warming, except this would be Global Freezing.”
“I see, well, for a temperature drop to go from that high to that low, there would have had to have been a mass loss of Hydrogen. That makes no sense.”
“It’s probably just an anomaly with the equipment then, oh well, at least it isn’t serious.”
***
“I have it, the answer to everything on how the sun could ever be destroyed.”
Winsley had cracked the final mathematical formula of his theory after several hours of hard work and over-doing. A sudden feeling of daunting coursed over his body as he came to terms with what he had found. This information could never be let out.
He stood up and stretched his arms and tensed the muscles in his legs, before walking out of the room and into the nearby kitchen area. The window was still being pelted with rain and the clock read 22:04, a late night for the museum curator. Walking over to the far bench he noticed in the mirror on the wall that the door to his living quarters was ajar.
“Hmm… how did that happen…? I wonder.”
He turned around and walked out of the kitchen into the small hallway. The study was letting light into the hallway and casting a shadow upon the wall opposite. A moving shadow in the shape of a person was the subject of the eerie casting, rustling around the study.
The thought hit Winsley like a bullet into the chest. The man was after his theory and had gotten his hands on it… all because he was after a cup of coffee. Winsley stepped back into the kitchen and walked over to the knife holder, a wooden object with varying slots that would hold several knives, each of different purpose and size. He picked up a large meat cleaving knife and walked back out of the kitchen, standing next to the doorway of the study, his heart beating rapidly and his blood pressure going insane.
The rustling inside the study suddenly stopped, and Winsley looked towards the doorway, still clinging to the knife in his sweat-drenched right hand. Footsteps. Then a pause. Then more footsteps.
“Is he coming to the doorway?”
Winsley stood, rooted to the spot in shock as the man came out of the doorway and looked at him, smiling weakly with the documents in one hand, and a small, black pistol, complete with a silencer, in the other.
“Hello Winsley, thanks so much for these, they’ll help me a lot, oh! What are you doing with that knife my dear friend?”
Winsley stared at the man standing before him, dropping the knife onto the floor and causing a clash as blade hit wood. The stainless steel glinted in the light coming from the kitchen and study, and reflected it onto Winsleys face, blinding him for a brief moment.
“Alex… what… what are you doing here?”
“I am coming to collect what is mine.”
“Those documents are anything but yours!”
Winsley felt the strength returning to him after the shock of seeing his old student standing before him, with a gun pointed directly at his forehead. Alex was exactly as he had always been, Blonde hair, in perfect contrast with the Black clothing he had always worn. He was an excellent child, and had always admired the science of Physics. Alex was never popular in school as Winsley had come to learn as he taught him all he knew. This had seemingly led to Alex resenting a lot of people… perfectly understandable at that age, but this was ten years later, and Alex would’ve forgotten that resentment had he been in correct state of mind… which to Winsleys knowledge, he was.
“What… what do you plan on doing with my theory Alex?”
“Ah! Doctor, I must thank you, I remember you telling me of this long ago… yes… you told me of how it may be possible to wipe out a star… and that you would one day discover whether or not your claim was true…”
“What is your point Alex? Why have you changed your attitude so much since the last time we met, a little over a year ago wasn’t it? Come now, you mustn’t act like this…”
“Indeed… it was a year ago wasn’t it. Remember the present I gave you? That beautiful clock, you have it in your study don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. Your point better be coming.”
“Ah, who has the gun here Winsley? Let me take my time. Anyway… the clock. Well, let us just say that time carries many secrets my friend.”
“What is your point boy? Tell me what you plan to do with my theory!”
“I plan… to take revenge on those that tormented me… I plan, doctor, to put this theory into practice.”
Winsley stood rooted to the spot once more, could Alex truly be serious? He planned to exact his revenge upon a few schoolchildren by wiping out humanity?
“You cannot…. cannot be serious!”
“I am deathly serious. You are an Atheist, aren’t you Doctor? Tell me, are you afraid to die? Enter that black abyss of death?”
“You wouldn’t kill your friend Alex!”
“I already have done so. Goodbye… Charles.”
Winsley felt a ripping pain upon his head as the world around him began to spin around… his eyes were becoming less and less focused, and he could feel himself falling. As he finally felt gravity cause his body to connect with the floor, he uttered his final words as the world around him turned to darkness…
“He has no idea…”
Alex walked out of the living quarters within the museum of Dr. Charles Winsley, who was now but a memory. He replaced the gun into his trousers before entering the lobby of the Museum. The security guards acknowledged him leaving and bid him farewell. He was known to be a great contributor to the museum funds, he had gotten in after hours easily, any museum patron as respected as him would have. Walking over to his jet black Ferrari F60, he turned and looked upon the small museum once more, and gave a salute.
“Farewell Doctor Charles Winsley, my mentor and dear friend.”
He spun around and jumped into the driver’s seat, throwing the documents containing the theory upon the passenger seat and placing his gun inside the glove compartment, taking out a plane ticket to Las Vegas, Nevada as he did so and double checking them. Flight time: 02:00am November 17, 2005. Departure from: Teesside Airport. Destination: Las Vegas International, NV. Six hours away. Smiling slightly and revving the engine, he shot off down the country lane that led to the museum in first gear, leaving a trail of dust behind him, heading for the airport…
***
At the same moment in time, several thousand miles away in an underground facility, located just west of Las Vegas, Nevada, the worlds most powerful Nuclear weapon had been completed, codenames ‘Ragnarok’. The nuke was capable of destruction upon a worldwide scale… and was set for launch in exactly twenty four hours…
***
End of Chapter 1
_______
Chapter 02: Four Days
Alex had fallen asleep as the plane soared over the Atlantic Ocean, on course for Las Vegas International Airport, Nevada. The slight hum of the engines seemed as a lullaby to his mind as he drifted in-between dreams. The flight time was a little over twenty hours… and he needed to be at the facility two hours prior to the launch, meaning he had needed to get as much sleep as possible prior to his arrival. Thankfully, the day before had contained events that had certainly tired him out, and he fell asleep with ease, not even waking to the Air Stewardess offering him his breakfast as the sun rose over the west-Atlantic.
He finally awoke to the sound of the pilot announcing that they were due to land in a mere ten minutes and that Seatbelts were to be fastened for the remainder of the journey. As he pulled up the blind of the window and allowed the brilliant sunlight to filter through the window pane, he could see the desert below him. Smiling, he turned and fastened his belt, and sat down, stretching his arms and yawning. Looking to his right, Alex saw an old woman was sitting knitting what appeared to be a hat. She turned and smiled at him, looking out at the clear blue through the window.
“You know,” She said, “I do say that this earth is beautiful, isn’t she? God certainly did a good job creating this planet, I do hope nothing happens to her… don’t you my boy?”
Alex looked at her a little uneasily, as he doing the right thing? Of course he wasn’t… but he had to do it…
“Yes. It is a nice planet.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look upon the old woman’s face; her glinting eyes would only strike him and his quest farther down. He turned away from her, forcing a smile, and resumed looking into the clear blue outside, and the desert below slowly turning into the city of Las Vegas…
“Yes… she is beautiful… It is a pity that what lives upon her will be her downfall though…”
Alex’s eyes seemed to glaze as he looked out of the window at the bustling city below… his conscience was weighing upon him… was he to be the one that ended it all? His thoughts were eventually interrupted by the loudspeaker,
“Captain speaking, Two minutes until we land, we thank you for flying with British airways and hope you enjoy fabulous Las Vegas. Please ensure you have all of your belonging from the overhead compartments before you exit the craft, and only unfasten your seatbelts when the light goes off. We hope you have enjoyed your flight.”
“At last… now to chase away these ridiculous thoughts and get on with the greatest fireworks display ever…”
Alex leaned back in his seat and felt a rough rumble as the plane skidded down the main runway of Las Vegas International…
***
Jones sat at his desk, the anomaly hadn’t left the screen since yesterday and he was getting worried. He eventually got up and walked to go outside, pulling a cigarette from his shirt pocket and a lighter. As he opened the door, he expected a large heat rush from the desert sun as always, instead the temperature remained constant outside as the air conditioning had made it inside. He pulled away from lighting his cigarette and walked back indoors, letting his instinct take him to the Air Conditioning panel and checking the temperature… the air conditioning wasn’t online.
“What the hell? SIR! Can you get here please?”
The commander was asleep in his bed, still in yesterday’s clothes. A bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey was on the bedside cabinet, only half full. He awoke with a start at the sound of his name being called. He sat up and looked over the room, acknowledging himself in the mirror opposite as he did whenever he rose from his slumber.
His eyes were bloodshot and dry, and his sunglasses were askew upon his head. He had several of his shirt buttons undone and his three-quarter length pants were falling off his legs. He jumped up and quickly sorted himself out, not bothering to fix his hair, hair care was never a big thing to him. As he walked out of his room and into the research facility, he looked around for the source of the voice,
“What is it?”
“It’s me sir, Jones, I think that anomaly yesterday may not have been an anomaly. The air conditioning isn’t online, the outside temperature is the same as it is in here, and the anomaly is still there.”
“You’re joking? How can that be!? It makes no sense!”
“I’m not joking sir, you can check yourself, and something is up. And I think we had best alert the scientific authority immediately, the world is going to be facing a crisis if the sun remains at this temperature for more than 72 hours! There will be a second Ice age!”
“Get on the phone to NASA immediately and get them to run a scan for us, if they turn out the same results as us, then we know it is true.”
“Yes sir.”
Jones moved like lightning to the phone and pressed the quick dial for NASA, before waiting for the dial to go through and the phone to begin ringing. As he waited he noticed that, for the first time in his career here, he had seen the commander extremely stressed. He had never seen his boss this uptight… and now, he was going crazy…
The phone was answered promptly, and a young voice came on the line.
“Hello, George Winsley speaking, NASA Solar research Department, how may I help you?”
“Hello, I’m phoning because of a result of a scan we at the Nevada installation have come across. The scan states that the Sun currently has a surface temperature of approximately 2 million degrees, is this correct according to your computers?”
There was a pause before the voice on the other end of the phone replied,
“Yes, there has been the same occurrence here; it has remained for the past twenty-six hours. We will alert the Government once Twenty-Eight hours have passed with this as the result. Thank you for double checking with us before taking action.”
“I see, thank you for the time then, and may us all hope that this time it is indeed a mere anomaly.”
“Indeed. Goodbye.”
Jones placed the phone back into the holder and walked over to the commander once more, before pulling over an office chair and sitting down, running his fingers through his hair. He looked over to his boss, thinking of how long they had been working together… in all these years he hadn’t actually come to know his boss’s, and friends, name.
“Sir… what is your real name? All these years have passed… and yet I don’t know it…”
“Jones, you’re a funny lad you know, my name is Harry, indeed I wonder why you haven’t known it throughout the years we have been working together…”
Jones just smirked and walked outside, lit up his cigarette with his Silver lighter, and looked to the skies.
***
Passport control had taken an age, two flights had landed at the same time, and the result was mass congestion all through customs. Alex had finally made it though into the luggage area, thanking himself for not packing anything other than what he had in the bag slung over his shoulder. Just a change of clothes, some money and a pass card into the facility.
Alex finally reached the entrance to the airport terminal after all the hustle and bustle of customs and the baggage collection. Looking around he spotted his ride to the facility directly opposite. A man in a large black overcoat wearing sunglasses, complete with a burning a cigarette in his mouth, standing in front of a large black car with tinted windows, possibly a Mercedes. Alex acknowledged him and walked over, not noticing the strange air temperature of Nevada compared to what it should be.
“Welcome to Vegas” he thought as he entered the large black car, rather hurriedly. Inside was incredibly luxurious, cream leather seats and a small refrigerator accompanied a good-sized television and a small table, complete with drink mixer.
“Driver, You know the way right?”
“Of course sir, we will be there shortly.”
Alex smiled, allowing the drink mixer to stir him up a cocktail, as he faxed through the calculations of the launch to the facility.
***
“Captain, we have just received word of possible terrorist activity in the Nevada desert from British Intelligence. Should we send some men out there just in case?”
“Yes, I know about it, there are already teams on their way. Precisely sixteen miles out of Las Vegas Airport, easy enough to get to, the teams will be there within the next fifteen minutes.”
Sure enough, two drop teams had been initialized for land at the exact location of the facility in which Ragnarok resided. The team was due to land in approximately twenty-two minutes. Their mission was simple, kill Alexander White, and ensure whatever was going on inside the facility wasn’t going to be going on for much longer.
“Twenty minutes until we raise those idiots, right boys?”
A chorus of “right” streamed through the team captains ears as the engines of the plane masked out all other sound with their extreme volume. The captain was a tall, well built man, as indeed most military officers were. His stereotypical cigar burned slightly as he chewed the other end every now and again. His eyes glinted, he hadn’t been involved in a terror prevention operation since the early nineties, where he and a crack team of commandos had infiltrated a terrorist compound and destroyed blue prints for a weapon capable of causing Yellowstone volcano to erupt. He was a man who loved action, he was indeed, about to see the most action he would ever again witness.
***
Alex finally pulled up to the facility entrance after the brief drive from the airport. He patiently waited as his driver opened the left hand side door and allowed him to exit the vehicle. The driver bid him farewell and stepped into the driver seat once more, and drove off down the path he had just came along.
“If only he knew of whom he was saying goodbye to….”
Alex walked to the doorway of the facility; it was an excellent cover up. A small shack in the middle of a desert, nobody would suspect a thing. Stepping inside he pulled out his Key Card and placed it inside a small slot on the farthest wall, punching in his six-digit pin code. As he pressed the enter key upon the pad, behind him the floor opened up, an electronic trap door. He took his cardkey and walked down the newly revealed stairs. A well lit stairwell lay before him; the air was clean down here, and fresh. He eventually reached the bottom of the stairs, before lay a large room, with several computer terminals, and scientists wandering around aimlessly. A large screen was at the opposite end of the room, completely black, except for the large, red display that read 00:11:25.
A scientist wearing a white lab coat and thick rimmed glasses was walking towards him. His hair was almost as wild as his face expression was vacant… “Incredible hair…” Alex pondered to himself, as the scientist came within a few feet of him,
“Ah! Alex, you are just in time to foresee the launch my friend! The calculations you sent are perfect, and are in place! There are soldiers on the way unfortunately, however they won’t arrive until after Ragnarok has launched, which of course, will be too late.”
“Excellent, where is the execution key? The launch is coming early.”
“Oh ho! Eager to continue are we? Well, let me raise the launch alarm, and then show you exactly what you need to do!”
The scientist, with his large white lab coat and thick rimmed glasses, walked away from Alex and pulled a switch on the wall, clearly labelled “Launch Alarm.” As soon as the switch was pulled, the entire facility went into Red Alert and scientists began walking out of several exits, leaving Alex and the scientist that had greeted him standing alone in the laboratory.
“Follow me Alex… where History will be brought to a fitting Climax.”
Below the large screen with the display upon it were several keys. The scientist motioned for Alex to switch them all, he did so in basic fashion. One, two, three, four. The display ahead stopped and began to open up. A final button was located behind it, with the words LAUNCH written across it.
“Now let me check the surface temperature of the sun Alex.”
The scientist rushed over to a secondary panel and booted it up, a number display came up on the screen.
“NASA is still reading it as less than Two Million Degrees, launch the missile now Alex.”
“Here we go…. Goodbye world.”
Alex pressed the button, and the entire facility began to shake, as if an atomic bomb had just been unleashed directly above. He threw himself down onto the floor as a large rumble could be heard from nearby, followed by an intense Sonic Boom. Ragnarok had been launched.
“It will hit the sun in precisely 96 hours… four days! Let’s get the hell out of here before the military arrive!”
Alex didn’t need telling twice, he bolted straight for the door, the facility collapsing around him. Running up the stairs he finally saw the exit. A figure of a human was stood there, pointing its arm towards Alex. It didn’t take too long for Alex to realise the arm was holding a gun. It took him too long to realise that he had just been shot through the head. Alexander White was killed by the American Military commander, Daniel Blackett.
***
“What the hell was just launched from Nevada?”
NASA had immediately picked up Ragnarok on its radar at the instant of launch; unfortunately they had no clue as to what it was. The radar was simply showing a large dot as the sweeper passed over the point of launch.
“It is travelling at an incredible speed, it is going to break the atmosphere in several minutes, what the hell… commander I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“Can you point out where the damn thing is headed Winsley?”
“Hmm… judging from current trajectory… I’d say… No way, that’s impossible. This thing, going from what I can see here, is headed for the Sun.”
Winsley flashed back to his grandfather over in England. He remembered how he had stated it might be possible to destroy the sun at a certain temperature and with certain weaponry…
“No way…”
“Winsley, snap back to reality, this is a crisis! We must alert the President immediately! If that Missile is headed for the sun, supposing it is comprised of the right alloy, it could penetrate the surface and explode!”
The commander jumped over to the phone and called the White House… the world was facing the biggest crisis it had ever come across.
***
Ragnarok flew through the Atmosphere of Earth, on a due course for the sun… it contained the correct alloy and elements to withstand heat of up to 3,000,000 degrees centigrade. Ragnarok was going to strike in less than four days, and wipe out humanity, and possibly the rest of the Solar System as humans ever knew it.
***
End of Chapter 2
_______
Thanks for reasding so far, and as I said, i hope you review this fic for me, it'd be greatly, greatly appreciated. Next chapter up soon.
-Josh
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