Go For Stories

Bec threw her hands in the air and tuned away from Nigel.

“Oh, yes, we’ll kill them all. Why didn’t I think of that? If only we’d thought of it sooner, we could have stopped all of this needless violence and death.” She turned back to Nigel with one eyebrow raised. “Really, Nigel?”

“If only we’d thought of not experimenting on zombie animals,” Nigel said with a marked level of impatience, “we could have avoided all of this.”

“Please, tell me how you plan on killing them, Nigel.” She folded her arms in front of her chest. “Go on. How?”

Nigel opened his mouth to speak. Then closed it. He took a breath, then opened it again. Scratching his head, he lowered his eyes to the floor.

“I … hadn’t really gotten that far. I figure there must be something around here we can use. Look, all I know is, we have to clear the complex. If we don’t, the planet is doomed.”

Jacob put his hand in the air.

“You don’t have to put your hand up, Jacob. What have you got?”

“We do have a very powerful bomb at our disposal, if that helps.” His smile was one of immense pride.

“What?” Milly whirled around to face him. “Why on earth would we have a bomb down here?”

“Well, it’s not exactly a bomb yet.” His face lit up. “But we can make it one pretty quickly.”

“What are you talking about, Jacob?” asked Nigel. “Spit it out.”

“The sun.” He pointed in a vague upwards direction. “Our sun, I mean. If we cut off the singularity stabilisers, it will lose containment.”

“And what happens when it loses containment?” Curiosity and disbelief battled on Milly’s face.

“There are three schools of thought on that one. The reactor could collapse on itself, becoming denser and denser until it folds itself into a miniature black hole. If that happens, it would consume everything in this building and potentially, though not incredibly likely, everything else on the planet.”

“Oh, good,” said Bec.

“There’s only a slim chance of that one. Say, one in a trillion. The next, and most likely, is that the reactor will go into overload and eventually explode. Like a tiny supernova. If that happened, I think it would destroy everything in this building. We’re far enough out of the way that it shouldn’t affect anyone on the outside.” He frowned. “Maybe a couple of cows. Okay, almost certainly a couple of cows. Sorry cows.”

“Hold on.” Nigel turned to face Jacob completely. “Are you proposing we blow the place up? The entire complex?”

“Yes.”

“And where are we when the reactor goes supernova?”

Jacob held out his arms, indicating their current surroundings. “It’s not too bad in here. Little noisy, thanks to the tortured animals, but there’s food. And a bathroom.”

Milly stepped in, pushing Nigel out of the way. “So we set the place to blow and sit down here, waiting for death? Is that what you’re saying?”

Jacob shrugged. “I dunno. I guess. If it really is as bad as the boss here says then, yeah. I don’t want to become one of those. Do you?”

“Of course not, I just … are we really considering this?” Her voice had gone quiet and she wrapped her arms across her chest. “Are we really thinking about killing ourselves?”

“Why not?” Bec’s voice broke through to their little triangle. “We’re fucked anyway. These things are too dangerous, too perfect. I don’t want to be one of those fuckers either.”

“I don’t think anyone would.” Nigel’s voice was low, serious. His brow furrowed and he rubbed the spot on his forehead just above his stitches. “Jacob.”

“Yeah?”

“You said there were three ways this could play out. What’s the third? What else could happen if we flip the switch?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yep. There’s a chance that the reactor has reached equilibrium with itself and will merely burn in place for a million years. We stay here and starve to death, or try and get out and become lunch ourselves.”

“So,” said Milly, “the world is doomed if we do nothing; it could perhaps be doomed if we turn off the stabilisers and create a black hole; we all explode; or we try and do something about it, nothing happens, the world is doomed and we all die here anyway. Is that about right?”

“Looks to be,” Nigel said.

“Do we vote?” asked Bec.

Jacob shook his head. “Why? We need to do this, don’t we? We need to stop those things.”

“Why do we have to vote?” asked Milly, the incredulity evident on her strained features. “You ask why? Anything we decide here doesn’t just affect us. Did you even stop to think about anyone else who might still be alive down here? There’s two thousand people here. I didn’t see two thousand monsters, did you? If there are even a handful more people still alive, we have to think about their lives before we decide to just kill them. We need to think about what decision they would make if they were given the choice.

“What if we’re the only ones trapped? What if there are hundreds of people gathered together coming up with an escape plan as we speak? What if … “ She paused and rubbed her forehead. “… What if we decide to do this and end up slaughtering thousands. Thousands of people with families expecting them home within the year. Thousands of people with their own hopes and dreams. Thousands of-”

“Thousands of future man-eaters waiting to devour every living thing on this planet,” Bec said. “Every living thing. There aren’t any groups clustered anywhere. There are no hopes and dreams and there are certainly no happy reunions on the cards for anyone. Especially not us.”

Milly sat on the edge of the bench. Her face fell into her hands and a long groan escaped her lips, muffled by her fingers. Nigel crossed to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away.

“I know,” she mumbled from behind her hands, “I know.”

“What’s that?” Nigel leaned in to hear better.

“I know what is right.” She looked up at him, then across at Bec and Jacob. “I know what we need to do. It doesn’t make it easy, though. Tell me this isn’t insane. Tell me you don’t feel just a little bit scared.”

Jacob scoffed. “I’m fucking terrified. I never thought I’d die at my own hands. In fact, I never really thought I would die, if I’m honest. I heard those things crawling around the vents for days before you came in there. I could tell when they were close, because my heart would go cold. I don’t like people.” He looked at all of them, stopping to examine each of their faces. What he discovered there, Nigel would never know. But he did know that whatever it was, it was the most affected and normal Jacob had looked since this ordeal had started. “I don’t like people but, in those times, all I wanted was someone else to talk to, someone to feel close to. Something that can do that to me is not something we want getting out of here.”

“Fine.” Milly got to her feet. “Fine. We’ll blow ourselves up. We’ll blow the whole place out of existence and we’ll blow those bloody creatures to hell with us.” Nigel gave her a questioning look and Milly glared back. “Yes, I vote yes. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Reynolds?” Nigel turned away from Milly. “Bec? What do you think?”

Bec gave a dismissive shake of the head. “There’s no question. We have to stop them.”

“I vote yes,” Jacob said.

“As do I.” Nigel glanced at all of his cohorts. They all had the same look on their faces, the look he imagined was on his own; determined fear. If they were going to die down here, it was best to do it right. “Okay, let’s do it,” he said, “let’s kickstart a supernova.”