Rise

A story by somedude726

RISE

Chapter 15: Project Air

"Sargent, what do we got?"

"Nothing yet, sir. We can't know for sure what really happened unless we send a team down there."

Overlord rubbed his temples in frustration. It has been about three to four hours since the detonation of what was identified as a nuclear bomb, and no information has been gotten. People ran from one end to the other of the U.S.S Command Base, giving papers and investigating the blast site through satellite cameras. It was a frenzy, yet nothing has been gathered.

"Thanks Sargent. It's too risky to send a team in, though." Overlord responded to the man trying to help search the blast. The Sargent, just like everyone else in the room, had been suggesting to the higher-ups to just deploy a team at the warehouse to investigate further. Some officials agreed, but Overlord had decided against it-- no way they could fly any more planes in this weather, it had gotten much worse.

"Right. Sorry, Overlord." the man looked away from Overlord, and back to the computer screen in front of him. Little information had been found, but what surprised most workers was not that the WMD didn't have the blast radius they expected, but the fact that it left a rainbow cloud. All colors of the rainbow were fitted into the cloud, as it went up into the sky. It has since passed, and all that was left was just the burnt and broken pieces of the warehouse.

Overlord had left the room of the dozens of workers, to go into his office. He walked over to the main lobby, and took an elevator up to the top floor. It had only took several minutes, but for some odd reason Overlord couldn't help but think something is severely wrong.

Ding.

Within just a short moment, the elevator came to the top and let Overlord out. After walking down to the end of the hall of other offices and such, he stopped in front of his door to admire the message on the wall just next to it, there hadn't been one time he didn't.

General Simon "Overlord" Kolb

General. He always did think he did well for himself, but as a man with the rank of General? He wasn't even sure how he got himself so far himself, but Overlord was always a humble man. And for it, a respected one too.

Simon twisted the door handle and pushed it in, looking over his office. Even though recent events for the past while have been more than extraordinary, he always kept it in an orderly fashion. As much as he could, anyway. His desk at the end of the room was a clean, simple, wooden one, although quite large. A leather chair lay behind it, even after seeing years and years of usage it still held up. Stacks of paperwork sat neatly on his desk, a small corded phone on the other side. Simon went to go sit at the chair after closing the door behind him, facing forward. After a moment, he slumped down in his chair, and attempted to figure out what the hell is going on. Perhaps if we went back to the beginning...

Simon started to think back to the day the threats of The Cloak-- who set up the bomb-- came to be. It was November 18th, 2043, and televisions worldwide had gotten interrupted with videos of the terrorist group.

"Hello, everyone."

Every time, it would always start with this opening statement. A deep, obviously changed through a computer voice would greet the viewers of the messages. The voice sounded male, but it could've been anyone, maybe no one at all and just put through a Text-To-Speak program. The television would go black, and just the sound of his voice started the show.

After that, the screen would go static and the voice would continue. The ominous voice would remind the world of various attacks, sometimes even showing footage, depending on how they felt that day.

"Hundreds, hundreds of thousands of deaths, because you let your guard down. You let this happen. This was your fault, leaders."

The message was directed worldwide, no television was left without these being played. The TV's in airplanes, the TV's in local electronic shops, it was everywhere. The language was translated at the time if needed, but what they were trying to say still went across.

The person, or people behind it, went on about how the world is falling. Corruption, in the economy, in whatever they wanted to say.

"Where's your freedom? You aren't free from the lies and slander, you aren't free from anything! The media, it tells you false information! You don't have freedom! Why!? Well, we're going to do something about it!"

This is where the threats started. Bombs. The group had them, and they weren't afraid.

"This goes directly to the president of the United States. Mr. President. We have something for you to do, for us. We consider you an enemy, and you should consider us one as well. We want something from you. We want your army's intel. As much as you can give. We want to see what your weapons are, your soldiers, your mission info. If you don't... well, Mr. President, I should tell you that we have weapons. Weapons, of mass destruction, Mr. President. You know them as nuclear bombs. I won't tell you where, but we have one set up right now. Listen to us, or else we shall detonate the bomb. Thousands of lives would be lost, and you could stop it. Meet us here, Mr. President..."

Their reasons for setting up bombs would be just what they have been saying-- the world isn't right, it's wrong and they believed it was the leaders of this world's fault. They wanted revenge, and they thought this was the best way to do it. By doing this, whoever denied to do whatever the messages told them to would be risking the lives of their country. It worked well.

The President of the USA complied, and did whatever they told him to. Intel, go to a place for something, sometimes even do something for the people. Some had even started to gain small trust for the group, as things started to change. Things were being fixed, in fact. But still, most stood their ground and didn't listen.

This went on for about two months, until mid-January. Other world leaders had been ordered to do the same things, no matter how drastic. Laws had been changed in some countries, even. But, that's when the incident occured. Some had believed it was the end. And for some, it was. The weather had been changed, changed for the worse. Rain, hail, lightning, all of the above. For seven months. Storms had been brought into the entire planet, and it stayed that way until the present. Almost as if... it was being controlled.

Simon stood up from his desk, and idly scratched his short, grey beard. Controlled. Was that a possibility? Could some God or something be controlling it, making this happen? No one had a plausible theory to explain it all, at least not with science. Simon didn't know, no one he asked knew. Honestly, it was actually the only thing that made sense, now that he thought about it. But who? Or what?

Knock knock.

"Sir? Are you in there?"

A woman suddenly came to the door of his office, knocking.

"Yeah. Come on in."

She opened the door, and let herself in. She seemed uncertain, as if she learned something she's not sure she wanted to. Simon had noticed she was definitely troubled about something.

"Overlord, you were right. We have came to a conclusion about Alpha's disappearance, the explosion, and a little extra."

Simon nodded, intrigued. He leaned against a wall, raising a brow.

"Okay, go on. What do we know?"

"There's a little missing, regarding The Cloak and how they got the bomb. But hurry, get 'him' on the phone... we have concluded they didn't die, but rather they were taken somewhere by the bomb. Alpha, Echo, and probably whoever of The Cloak was there. They were taken to Code 397142B."

"Oh Jesus Christ... are you sure?"

Simon stepped back and shook his head. This was impossible, but considering the circumstances, it was that much more likely.

"Yes. Project Air is now top priority, and we might be close to a stable release. We're gonna get them back, but it's gonna take a while. They're saying about, maybe three to four weeks, maybe even a bit over a month. But they aren't stopping." she tried to reassure Simon.

Simon looked at the phone with a solemn look. It finally happened. He didn't think it ever would, he always believed Project Air wouldn't bring any working results. They got a few, yes, but nothing useful. They did keep 397142B in mind for, reasons, but it was the last thing on his mind. How could The Cloak have connections with something like that? How could they make it?

He sighed, and realized what he must do. Simon knew a man that could help, or at the very least give some answers. He had always been an odd person, even Simon had to admit, as much as he didn't want to. But after Project Air began development, this person was ecstatic to hear about it, and even worked on it a bit. He brought theories, he brought some work, he helped Project Air a ton. He was one of the higher-ups in the project, and he could be all that's left. He had the connections Simon thought The Cloak could never have, and the guy was right. He was the only choice.

"Right. I'll get Jason on the phone."

The woman nodded, and left Kolb's office. She was the secretary of General Kolb, Jane Chandler. She still had work to do, after reporting to Kolb of the deployed soldiers' whereabouts. Being one that preferred to take the stairs, she walked down the steps to the lower levels, where Project Air was being worked on. Project Air was a classified military operation, to go where no one has gone before-- literally. It started in early 2018, the project was built to view what is out there. Not like a telescope, oh no. And not like a satellite. And not to view our Solar System. With enough development, not even our universe.

To view other existing worlds.

Other planets we have not yet discovered, has finally gotten easier. Project Air was built to see these worlds, and the main goal was to see if it was actually possible for transport... to whatever they could find. Going to other worlds, by simpler means than, say, a rocket for God knows how long. Jane didn't know how it worked, she just made sure things were intact. Jane only hoped it did what it was supposed to-- she, like many others, were fearing the worst for Earth's future.

Two ominous-looking large steel doors lay before her as she came to the underground level of Project Air. A warning sat on both doors:

WARNING: Dangerous experiments are being executed in this room. Do not enter unless authority gives permission. Always wear ID tag when entering, and be cautious if you decide to do so.

Jane simply pushed in the doors, and immediately a worker near the doors greeted her.

"Hey there, Jane. What brings ya here?" he asked, looking up from his clipboard filled with paper. He was a man in his forties, sent to keep Project Air in safe hands. He was one of the leaders of Project Air, and for good reasons.

"Hi, Nate. How goes things?" Jane asked the man, smiling. If there was one thing she did, it was that she tried to always keep an optimistic view on everything she could.

"Well, we definitely can confirm a transport to 397142B has happened. We're still going through the process of translating the data to something we can actually see, but it has happened. Tons of people on the mission are there. There's also some jumbled up nonsense, and... we think there's wounded. Or dead. It's too early to know for sure, ma'am." Nate took a look at the clipboard to make sure what he was saying is correct, and finished with a nod.

"Any other information on it?" Jane leaned against the door, wanting to know what else there is.

"I... yes, there is, but um..."

"Go on."

"Well, you know how we reached 90% earlier this week? Well, our first view into 397142B is almost done translating. It could be finished in a matter of minutes, in fact, before you came in it was about 99.78 percent, I think. Finally, after who knows how long, it should be almost done. But... another look at the data is leading us to believe that, well..."

"Nate, please, continue. I won't hold it against you or something."

Nate took a heavy sigh, before coughing the rest up.

"W-We think--"

"HEY, NATHAN!" A loud, yet definitely content voice shouted across the room. "It's done translating! I'm about to put the place up for view on the big screen, c'mon!"