Fallout Equestria: The Long Road Home

Joe hated those mountains. Actually, it was just one mountain in particular. Every day for the last three months he’d woken up far before the sunrise, and returned home long after it had set. Some people liked to tout the view as an upside to this particular assignment, but he wasn’t one of them. Nothing to see in the dark anyways. Just another thing to hate about this place.

The steering wheel spun in his grasp, and Joe swore. He could practically feel the morning turning sour, and it hadn’t even started yet. Unfortunately, the sudden action’s rush of blood to his head brought the memories of last night’s binge right back. That black ice was all over the road, making the drive treacherous and reminding him of just how cold it was. Before he’d joined the US Air Force right out of high school, Joe had lived in Lubbock, Texas. The winters were hot, and the summers were scorching. Right now however, the dashboard read 4:52 AM and 8F outside. Typical Colorado wintertime weather, and it felt more like it was single digits inside the cab too.

Of course there was a line at the gate. There was always a line at the gate. One guard stood outside checking ID cards while the other two played on their phones inside the booth. Joe grimaced and pulled his hands out of their gloves to hold in front of the heater vents. It brought back a little feeling and gave him something to do as he tried not to grind his teeth at the wait. That’s when the hangover came back to the front of his thoughts. The cold helped to intensify the throbbing in his brain, and made his water hurt to drink. He watched impatiently as five AM came and went while he waited, and Joe began to count down the twelve hours until he could leave. It was that same thought that kept him going each day: one hour closer to when he could transfer to Kirtland. These days were of a complicated relationship. While being late was just something you didn’t do in the military, it was the best excuse to spend less time around the jerks at work.

After a full ten minutes in line, there were only two cars left in front. Tick. Tock. Grumbling, Joe dug around in his cargo pocket for his wallet and pulled out his ID. It proclaimed him to be ‘SSgt Joe Harrison,’ but the man in the picture looked a decade younger. He was smiling in the photo too, but that was beside the point.

“Fucking cops.” Either the guard didn’t hear him as the window rolled down, or just didn’t care and wanted to get out of the cold. It was exactly six minutes across the complex to park and wait for the next entry at the main door, and another four more minutes until entry. As soon as the clock turned over to 0530, he turned the key and pushed his way out into the biting air. One more ID check at the massive first door and he was out of the wind. He’d have just long enough to think of a good excuse for being half an hour behind schedule by the time the it closed and the second gate opened.

You’re late,” growled Master Sergeant Lundt. David Lundt. Everyone else just called him ‘Dave,’ but Joe didn’t merit that luxury. At least it worked both ways.

“Guard at the gate had a whole line, cut me some slack.” Joe tried to push past, but the older sergeant stopped him.

“You say that every morning, Harrison. You also know that it never was an excuse.” Ever since they’d met four years ago, with Joe a new Airman First Class, they managed to keep it down to only one good fight a month. Today wasn’t that day, but rather just another work day as Lundt let Joe go without any further accosting. Good thing too. We both know this argument by heart, and the colonel is probably waiting.

As if sensing Joe’s attitude on the subject, Lundt led the way down a maze of halls and elevators to ‘The Door.’ It earned its name from being no more than a solid steel hatch, thirty feet square and about four thick. The official story that the curious folks got fed was that it was to keep the backup communications equipment safe from the never-gonna-happen Thirld World War’s nukes. That would have been a pleasant alternate reality.

The Door had exactly two jobs: keep secrets safe, and keep stuff inside.

In this case that ‘stuff’ was research, but it did a pretty damn good job of keeping those aiding the research there, which was exactly why he drank on weeknights -- because his weekends and evenings were always taken. Swing-shift had already changed out, and day shift had moved in. Fifty men and women in camo fatigues were already sitting at various computer stations with two or three more hovering over a central observation bay. Joe looked back and forth, and noticed two desks were empty. The clang and hiss of The Door sealing up reminded Joe that it was only eleven hours and twenty minutes til the shift was done.

“Where’s the L-T?”

“Everson? He took leave for the next few days.” Although technically the new lieutenant outranked the master sergeant, he still had to go through Lundt to get his leave signed. It was proof the military still had some mechanisms for respect in place.

“Fucker’s been here, what, three months, and he’s already taking vacation?”

“Guess so, said something about seeing friends from out of state or something like that.”

Picking his way around stations, Joe made his way over to the first empty desk. It seemed he’d been wrong about the nightshift already heading out. The new airman was standing beside the chair, his eyes wandering aimlessly over the room as he waited for relief. What was his name? Johnson...Jefferson? Oh well.

“It took a year and a half for you to finally give me leave, and then Everson walks up, sits there twiddling his thumbs for three months and you let him go? On a testing day of all days? This is the one day we could use a desk pilot.”

“Look at it this way, he isn’t here to piss you off, so sit down and enjoy your hangover. Why were you drinking on a Tuesday night, anyways?” Lundt turned to nod at the airman, who was too tired to smile at getting off-shift. “Go home, Jackson, and get some sleep.”

“Thank you, master sergeant! Good morning, staff-sergeant Harrison!”

Joe ignored him and checked the coffee thermos on the desk. It was empty. He had just started to leave and fill it when the PA system came to life.

“Alright, now that you’ve all decided to grace us with your presence, staff meeting starts in the conference room right now.” Several of the folks nearby chuckled at Joe, but he knew it was ridicule that would pass. No one would remember by the end of the meeting, let alone the day.

By the time the meeting was over, Joe found himself back at his station ready for prodding MEADOWLARK. Why anyone would call name a project something so boring almost made sense after a half-hour briefing on how to properly push buttons. Using very proper form, he brought the temperature sensors for the core online, and noted that all the values were in the green.

“Today we’re gonna try something just a little different.” The colonel boomed over the PA, his voice made rusty by the fifty year old wiring. “We’ll be adding a new compound, so keep sharp. Remember, standard procedure applies. If something looks wrong, try calling a supervisor over before you kill the whole process.”

“Ass-hat. Shut the fuck up and let’s just get this over with.” Harrison muttered into his coffee, glad Everson wasn’t there to cheer the old man on. The commander was the worst kind of officer -- the type that loved the military more than his own dick.

“Major Johnson, introduce the sample.”

Joe sipped, then swore and set the mug down as it burned his tongue. Hangover cure would have to wait until after the first test was done. At least all the levels still read as fine.

The room went quiet.

Not just the conversation, because that always went away as soon as everyone focused on their work, but even the clanking of machines in the distance and hum of the lights overhead was gone.

Sweeping his gaze across the console, Joe couldn’t find anything that had changed at all. Core temperature was holding steady at a thousand Kelvin, and the energy output was still shifting slightly in between the twelve and fifteen marks in magnitude of joules. Whatever the problem was, it belonged to someone else. Joe reached for his coffee again.

“Well, sorry folks, but it looks like this was a waste of our time. Major, did you put the right set in?”

Go figure, he said that over the PA. Joe leaned back in his chair, trying to focus on the taste of light roast.

“What in the name…?” Joe sat back up to find Lundt staring down his monitor. The older man sounded like he’d seen a ghost. “Look at your screens. You getting this too?”

The temperature gauge was dropping swiftly, far below the point at which the core should have been able to remain active. Still, the light from the observation bay was shining bright white, and the energy output was increasing -- fast.

“Yep, ten to the twenty-five, and still climbing.” His own words seemed to be coming from far away, and faded abruptly. That didn’t matter though, as the gauge slipped under one hundred, and then fifty Kelvin.

“How can this be?” Lundt stared at his screen, trying to burn a hole into the impossible.

“I don’t know, but it’s still climbing.” I didn’t know the readout went over ten to the fifty.

“Shut it down!” That was the colonel’s voice alright, but it was thin and far away.

“You heard him, shut the fucker off!” Lundt was yelling and tearing at the controls. Joe hit the kill button, and waited for the heartbeat it took to see that the temperature readout had stopped dropping -- not because of the fail-safe, but because it had no further to go.

“Ten to the fifty-five joules at zero kelvin...what the fuck.”

Those were the words he would have heard aloud, but they only sounded inside his head. Joe looked over to David and saw his mouth moving in a frantic yell, but no sound was coming out. Adrenaline seeped into his chest, and Joe turned back to the controls, searching desperately for anything else he could do. The shielding had been built to withstand a temperature spike up to twenty thousand kelvin, but not a temperature drop to 0.

The controls went dark, and Joe shook at them. Nope, it’s dead, and I should be able to hear myself. He stood up and shuffled over to join the crowd at the observation window. Cold seeped through his bones, radiating from the reactor floor. There was no sound as the core buckled inwards. It should have been louder than a plane crashing into the ground, but there was nothing… just…nothing. Another crack spread through the metal, and then another. The containment was getting smaller and smaller.

His jaw hung slack as it collapsed inward on itself. All that remained was a tiny sliver of light the size of a grain of rice, glowing brighter by the second. It hovered there -- the magnetic containment field still holding it in place. The light intensified until it was too bright to look at, then spread out through the window into the silence.