Chapters:

Prologue




Prologue


It was quite in the control room as Jack Snyder snuck up on his sister. Apart from a few beeps and boops of control read outs, all was still. "I can see you." Said Hope Snyder.

"Wait how?" Replied Jack.

"Reflection, dummy." She said as she pointed out the largest monitor infront of her. "Now what do you want? I’m busy." She said exasperated. Jack had been becoming increasingly difficult, with bouts of boredom, and had taken to bothering her during his scheduled security rounds.

"Um...well." Jack started as he took the chair next to his sister and sat. "Just wanted to see how my baby sister was doing all couped up down here. But mostly..." He leaned over close with a pleading look in his eyes and whispered , "I’m so bored. Security checks on this place are more routine than a drill sergeant."

"Not my problem," she replied, without looking up "But you could try meditation, or read a book, or maybe; just maybe YOU COULD DO YOUR JOB!" She yelled as she pushed him back on to another console. Presently the console beeped an affirmative, and read outs began to change on the monitoring station.

"Wait, no, no no no!" Hope exclaimed, as she furiously mashed on the keyboard. Jack looked stunned, he had never seen his sister look so fearful. Usually her face was cold and emotionless, a sturn pale visage of pure conformity. But now she was panicked and red hot with frustration and fear. "What is it?" Jack asked quickly.

"I don’t even have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain! " Hope yelled. Jack frantically searched his mind for what he had heard about the device in his security briefings. It was a Tokamak, of experimental design, made to use anti-matter plasma instead of regular plasma. But, beyond that he didn’t know he was a soldier he didn’t need to know. Suddenly the alarms started and the automated evacuation order sounded.

The words ’EXOTIC PARTICLES DETECTED’ pulsed on the screen. Hope stood up from her hunched position on the console, took two frightful steps back, and turned on Jack. She grabbed his uniform as hard as she could and looked him dead in the eye, "RUN!"

Jack whirled on the open door, and started immediately in to a full sprint. He was two doors down when he realized his sister wasn’t behind him. He turned looked around a few more people were running for the exit hall but not his sister. He ran back and found her at her console still. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" He yelled, as he grabbed her by her lab coat. "I need to save the database, to an offsite server, so we can figure out what went wrong!" She exclaimed as she wriggled out of her lab coat. "GO!, I’ll be just behind you!"

"Not if you’re dead!" Jack explained as he grabbed her around the waist, and though her on his large shoulders. He pounded his feet as hard as he could trying to make for the exit hall. He was almost there when Hope wriggled lose again and hit the floor. She got up and started running as toward the exit as well, a few steps behind Jack.

Presently a blast door came down and separated the siblings. "Hope!" Jack screamed as he pounded the recall button to open the door. He could hear distant cries for help from several people on the other side of the door. "It’s to late soldier! Move! Go! Go! Go!" Jack’s commander shouted from the exit. Jack hit the button one last time and moved fror the exit.