Fusion Power


“Mike? Can you hear me?” Kari’s said into her headset, a finger to the small bud inside her ear. She walked over to the four foot wall overlooking the city below. The roof of the Tele-comm tower was much higher then she once thought.

“Yeah!  I can hear you!” he replied, racing down the roads and streets out of the city, the wind blowing against his now covered face. Mike had, happened by chance, found a sleek black police cycle helmet which now gave him protection against the ravaging air that flew against him as his speed increased up to 75 MPH.

“How close are you to the power plant?” Aia asked, connecting herself to the comm. link Kari and Mike had set up. Aia was back down in the lobby, watching Kari through a rooftop security camera, her best view of the situation at the moment.

Mike swerved and turned out of the way of parked and or abandoned cars before turning onto the skyway, which was several stories above the ground. Getting of the ramp and onto seemingly flat, clear pavement ahead of him, he focused back on the comm. “I just got onto the Skyway now! I’m seeing some pretty large buildings far out, is that the plant?” he asked in a raised voice.

Back in the lobby, Aia nodded and smiled, starting to pace back and forth with her arms folded. “Yes, the Phoenix Metropolitan Fusion Plant is made up of three large structures in a triangular placement. The entrance is facing one of the triangles sides, the building you want is the one beyond the first two. That one houses the main control room where you can manually initiate start-up sequences. Once the sequence has been initiated the plant will start producing sufficient amounts of power to allow you to reinitialize the city’s main energy grip, which will connect me to the rest of the city, including it’s communications towers.” Mike listened to all this while speeding down the Skyway which had lowered down to the ground now. The plant was coming up slowly in front of him, the large structures getting eerily taller as he got closer. “Did you get all that?” Aia asked after the second time, sounding a bit impatient.

Mike snapped his head a little and nodded to himself. “Yeah, sorry I was just lost in thought for a minute!”

Kari pulled the pair of ocular lenses in front of her eyes and then twisted a ring on its organically shaped surface, enhancing the image it was projecting to her to a higher resolution. She was trying hard to follow Mike’s progress from the roof, but the tops of other towers were getting in the way, and she knew soon she would lose sight of him altogether.

Keeping the lenses pressed to her eyes, she adjusted her headset more so beside her lips. “Aia, don’t you know of another kind of vehicle we could use? To get around instead of a bike?” she asked, scanning the cityscape now.

Aia smirked and leaned against the lobby’s reception desk. “Would you like me to point you in the direction of the nearest military base? I’m sure there’s still an Army dropship sitting on the tarmac somewhere. That’ll get you somewhere fast.” Aia grinned, hoping she was making a common joke to her. Fortunately for her, Kari did laugh a little.

“Heheheh, no thanks, I don’t think any of us could pilot one of those. But it sounds pretty cool.” Kari replied, resting her elbows on the concrete wall and continued to look out over the city.

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The building were getting larger and larger until they seemed to tower right over Mike as he pulled onto the next off ramp, which took him onto a four-lane road. He followed the road, looking for a street or any indication of an entrance into the plant, which was separated from him by an eight foot high fence.

Listening to the chatter between Kari and Aia, Mike kept his mouth shut, knowing he didn’t need to butt in as he steered the bike along the road, dodging more abandoned cars and trucks, which he thought gave the land a very eerie and uneasy atmosphere around him. He kept wishing he would hear other people, the silence all around him beginning to get to him.

Nevertheless, he focused on the job at hand. ‘Find a way inside the complex and find the control room.’ Aia explained to him before he left. She said the control room was in the building farthest from the entrance, which he had to find first.

After driving his bike a few more miles down the winding road, he finally found what looked like another road that branched off to the direction of the plant. He turned onto it and glided his bike down it, immediately seeing a gate and two guard houses in front of him.

Mike drove right up and then stopped in front of the gate, staring at it for just a few seconds, and then turned his head to his left and right, scanning the guard houses. Realizing the large gate wasn’t going to move itself, Mike turned the engine off and slipped off the bike, moving over to the right-side guard house. Moving inside, he saw a desk,  chair that was overturned on its side, a coat rack and a computer sitting on the desk. He instantly walked over to it and looked at the monitor, which was pitch black. Obviously off. He scanned the monitor and then the keyboard, looking for what could possibly be seen as an ‘ON’ switch. The computer sitting in front of him looked nothing like the ones on the station, or even in the academy. ‘Piece of primitive crap.’ he murmured to himself as he righted the chair and then sat down in it, rolling on its wheels up to the desk, and then further continued his search for an on switch.

“What was that Mike?” Aia suddenly said over his headset, which he forgot he still wore.

“Oh, nothing. I made it to the entrance, but the gate’s blocking the way inside and I’m trying to find a way to open it.” he explained, still darting his eyes to every corner of the entire computer. He then could hear a sigh in his headset before Aia continued.

“Try behind the monitor.” she said in that all too familiar impatient girl voice. Mike stared at it, thinking ‘It couldn’t be that easy’ and then stood up. Leaning around to the side, he felt his hand along the back-side panel of the monitor and, sure enough found a button that, which a small push, made the light in the corner of the monitor light up to yellow, and then green.

Throwing his hands up in the air with a grunt, Mike turned and took a few steps around the room in slight frustration. “Now see, why? Did they have to put the on switch BEHIND the monitor?” he said a little roughly. Aia giggled in the headset at his frustration before calming herself.

“It should be easy enough to open the gate with the console, and then from there you can head straight to the building with the control room in it..” she said with a happy tone now, the amusement of Mike’s failure to operate a standard PC lightening her mood and also, cooling her processors.

Once the computer loaded to the desktop, Mike instantly found the option to open and close the gate, and with a click of the mouse, chose open. Simultaneously outside, the gates screeched to like and slide across the road, moving out of the way. Mike then ran out to his bike, got on, started the engine and revved it, pulling into the complex and then sped off toward the large structures.

The complex from a ground perspective was huge to say the least. Each building must have easily dwarfed a football stadium Mike had seen from pictures in his Academy days, and there were three of these buildings. He couldn’t blame the developers though, seeing exactly how much land there was available to the plant.

Now he just needed to find his way around the first two, and get himself to the third.

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Kari walked around the rooftop, looking at all the different towers and skyscrapers which littered the downtown area. She could even make out the transit station for the city’s Mag-Lev line. ‘Hmm, even Earth had what the station has now.’ she thought. She then continued to look over the southern part of the city, following the Mag-Lev line, seeing where it went off to. She followed the ‘tracks’ swerve between the towers high above the city streets, and then gently head out into the suburbs and continued on to parts unknown, most likely  to another city. She always enjoyed riding the train around the station, especially with Mike, since he would always become overexcited when they stepped onto one while heading to the recreation deck.

Kari then walked back over to the side of the rooftop that faced where Mike had gone off to. Kari put the lenses up to her eyes in an attempt to see any of him or the plant, but it was useless. She lowed the lenses in a fuss, flustered that he was too far away from her sight.

She was, however reassured that Mike had gotten to the plant safe and sound, hearing over the comm. that he had made it to the entrance, and even silent giggled along with Aia over his misfortune with the computer. Nevertheless, his work wasn’t done yet. He still had to make it to the control room and get the plant up and running again. Aia had reassured them both that the plant was capable of running itself for a long period of time without any human operator, and with a strong connection to it, Aia could run the plant herself from any point in the city. All she had to do was think about the plant increasing energy output, and the grid would instantly recognize an increase in energy and then would disperse the energy equally throughout the city.

Kari turned away from the roofs wall and started to walk around a little, keeping her legs moving. “Aia? What will happen after the plant comes back online?” Kari asked into her headset, focusing her eyes off to the side, looking into empty space.

“Well, first power would be restored to the main lines heading into the city. The plants grid would also try to pump out energy to surrounding suburbs and towns located near it, but I’ll redirect the flow straight to Phoenix and reduce the amount of energy produced, to put less strain on the plant. From there, power will be restored to most, if not all of the city and it’s domestic systems. Water, transportation and even the land dividers in the inner-city roads will light up, which will make it easier for Mike to navigate them by night. Then when all power is reestablished, I can connect my reach to the entire city and it’s systems, and then start broadcasting through the city’s communications towers on all frequencies.” Kari listened intently to every word, following Aia along her explanation. “Now I’m not sure anyone will answer, but there is one thing I should tell you.” Aia said in a much softer tone then how she spoke everything else.

Kari raised her head a little and put one hand on her hip, moving her gaze to another area of empty space. “What do you need to tell me?” she asked the intelligence down in the lobby, who had regretted saying what she did, but knew she had to.

“Well…when the plant comes back online…we’re not going to be the only ones to notice the sudden appearance of energy.” she said in an almost apologetic tone.

Kari on the other hand was deeply confused, and delved deeper. “What do you mean? Aia?” she asked persistently. Aia let out a small sigh and crossed her arms, knowing this was bad.

“I mean that the people up in the stations will also notice the suddenly existing energy levels…” Kari widened her eyes a little, realizing what that meant.

“Which would show them that we’re still down here.”

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Mike suddenly loosened his grip on the throttle which started to slow the bike as he stared into empty space. He thought, ‘Did I hear that right??’ and then noticed he was slowing and gripped the throttle, speeding back up and navigated through the piping, buildings and vehicles. He then blurted into his headset.

“We can’t let them know were down here! Not yet!” he yelled. There was a short pause in his headset before Aia’s voice came on.

“There’s no way I can mask the energy signature when the plant comes back online. There’s just too much energy flowing from the plant to hide it all with what we have. They will see the energy levels.” she said in a monotone. Mike continued down the plant’s access streets, looking ahead of himself, with a grave expression on his face. They couldn’t be discovered. If the authorities up on the stations realized they were still down here, still alive, they would be forced to come get us, and he was more then sure they could outfit a shuttle for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. On the other hand, there was a small, very small chance they would leave them alone, maybe if they were heartless enough, leave them to die to a seemingly nonexistent yet terrible virus that killed billions.

After a few more minutes of coasting through the complex, he could finally see the third building coming up before him, and made his decision.

“We’re turning the power on…whether they notice us or not.” he said loudly and clearly into the headset, which was met with silence. He knew though, that the girls heard him.

He glided his bike into one of the buildings large cargo doors which was left open. He drove onto the smooth concrete inside and screeched to a halt, leaving a black skid mark. Moving his hands to his head, he pulled the helmet off and tossed it to the ground and got off the bike. Instantly he took off running, instantly recognizing what must be the control room at the back of the building. However getting there was turning out to be a hassle just because of the sheer size of the building’s interior. He was already several dozens of feet away from the bike when he cursed at himself for not taking the bike the rest of the way, but knew it would take much more time just to go back and get it, so he continued to run.

It took him close to fifteen minutes just to get to the other side and then started up the staircase and then across the catwalks to the control room. Panting hard from the running, he smashed his shoulder against the door, ramming it open and then stopped inside the room.

The room was darkened and, like the guardhouse, chairs were strewn on the floor in front of their consoles. However unlike the guardhouse, Mike immediately noticed the decomposed body on the floor next to a chair. He shoved his shirt to his nose and squinted his eyes, protecting himself from the full blast of the stench. Muffled by his shirt, Mike walked over to one of the consoles while staring at the body.

“Poor bastard probably tried to keep the plant on as long as possible.” he said to himself, even though Aia and Kari could hear him, which they got interested.

“What do you see??” Kari asked quickly. Mike shook his head and turned toward one of the computers built into a large console, looking for another on switch, this time the task being much more simple then the last, and booted it up.

“I found another body… The guy was probably trying to keep the plant running for as long as he could before he died… I wonder if he had a family.” he said, meaning that to be to himself again, but again, Aia and Kari heard him, and winced together.

“L-lets just, focus on getting the power back up, please.” Kari softly pleaded, not wanting to think about the guy’s family, which would bring her to unnecessary tears.

Mike nodded in agreement before pulling another chair up and sitting down in it. After getting somewhat comfortable, with a body in the same room with him, he put a finger to the bud in his ear, keeping it tucked in and spoke clearly, trying to close off his nose. “Alright Aia, I’m in. Tell me what to do.” he said. Aia stood straight against the reception desk and looked into space, looking over the procedures in her personal database.

“Well the system is pretty much automated, all you have to do is initialize the startup sequence. You can do that from the main terminal which I assume you’re at right now?” she asked, pausing afterward. Mike looked around and saw the lettering above the monitor which confirmed that and nodded again.

“Yeah, this is it Aia. How do I start it up?”

Aia looked over the procedures again and again, reading over it several times just for the hell of it. “There’s an a bar in the center of the screen that you can enter an action into it. Enter ‘Initialize Main Reactor’ in the bar and then wait for a reaction.” she said clearly, as if teaching a lesson in a classroom.

Mike quickly did as she said and typed in the world into the bar, and once he was done, tapped ENTER on the keyboard. The text in the bar then disappeared and the bar was replaced by a larger one, which had three dots in the top left corner, the last in the row flashing in and out. After sitting there for a few seconds, Mike started to hear a humming enter the room, and then realized the hum was coming from beyond the rooms windows inside the building. He slowly stood up and walks around the console to the windows, seeing pitch black. Though that condition didn’t last long. The room suddenly began to light up, overhanging illuminating lights filling the space with much needed visibility. However it wasn’t the lights that got Mikes attention, but the very large, intimidating machine that suddenly showed up before him. As the lights fully came on, the sheer vastness of the machine became visible, and Mike almost dropped his jaw. He couldn’t have believed he had ran past that thing on his way to the control room, and now became afraid to go back the way he came realizing now what he had to pass by.

“That’s…the reactor??” he muttered breathlessly.

Aia nodded and crossed her arms. “Unfortunately yes. When Humanity invented a stable Fusion Reactor, it wasn’t necessarily the smallest thing out there.” There was a hint of annoyance in Aia’s tone as she said this, but Mike barely caught it as he continued to stare at what was now pumping out energy like it was a fountain.

“Is it working? The reactor?” Mike asked, still in slight shock over the behemoth. Aia again nodded and smiled a little, numerous lines of data flowing over her eyes like ending credits in a movie.

“Yes it is. Power is coming back on and it’s being directed straight into the city as I predicted. All of the city’s systems are coming back online now, and I’ll soon be in control of those communications towers. Good work Mike.” she said, feeling better now that she had much more perspective on the world around her small skyscraper.

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The commander paced back and forth on the bridge of the station while the techs continue working at their consoles. It had been over a day since the two teen’s escape onto the surface and he still hadn’t heard back from the team that was sent to search for them. What information they had told them the teen’s shuttle crash landed somewhere along the western states of the U.S. and so dispatched several shuttles to start scanning each and every mile of land in that area for the crash site. To his misfortune, nothing had turned up yet.

He turned to the main viewer that gave him a perfect sight of the planet. Below them, the English Channel passed under them and gave them a view of western Europe. It was a beautiful sight to the commander and helped him relax and calm his nerves.

It was early in the morning for Europe so the land was lightly bathed in sunlight, a very elegant sight considering the darkness it harbored.

“Commander! Sir take a look at this!” one of the tech’s suddenly yelled, his voice struggling to keep his surprise and shock at bay. The commander turned sharp on his feet and went over to the shocked technician, staring at his monitor’s data.

“What, what is it?” he asked quickly, putting a hand on the back of the tech’s chair.

“I was monitoring the surface for any radio signals or transponders like you requested? Well something just…just suddenly showed up! I was looking for low frequencies like radio transmissions, and this new reading is off the charts.” the tech said, clearly trying to get a hold on himself as the both of them stared at the monitor.

The commander’s heart started to beat faster as both he and the tech knew it was impossible. “What is that!?” he shouted, pointing straight at the spot on the map of the surface where  a giant yellow dot engulfed much of the map. The tech looked long and hard at it before swallowing.

“It’s an energy reading sir, very…very large. The only thing I know of that gives off this kind of reading is a Fusion Reactor.” he said, now typing on his keyboard, trying to get a better picture of exactly where the reading was coming from. Suddenly an image of the surface came up and three large flat roofed buildings were seen, set in a triangular formation. “It’s the Fusion Plant just outside of Phoenix Arizona. But this isn’t right. It can’t be active, it shouldn’t!” he yelled.

The commander stared at it long and hard, burning the image into his eyes. The sight of that power plant, and the large energy reading coming from it indicated two things. First, power plants just don’t activate by themselves, which would mean someone must have activated the plant themselves. Second, the Reaper virus kills any living organism it comes into contact with.

So the question that ravaged the Commanders mind was, ‘Who activated that power plant?’