Chrono Voyage

Chapter 10: The Disaster

    The sun had set, it was dark at the fourth reactor, Elizabeth had come up with the perfect plan, she even had Benjamin convinced, in fact, she didn’t have to convince him if everything worked they would save the city. She parked the car in the parking as they both got out and walked inside. Benjamin put on the white laboratory coat something that he actually knew what it was and was used to it. They entered the facility Benjamin read the signs in Russian and guided them through the halls.

     “Punkt upravleniya,” read Benjamin. “This is the control room that you spoke of,” he looked at her.

     “Alright, take this,” she pulled out two wireless earbuds from her pocket, she placed one in her ear and the other in Benjamin’s ear. “Can you hear me!?”

     “Oh my…” Benjamin jumped a few steps back and almost fell to the ground.

     “Be quiet!” she warned him.

     “What was that, your voice was so close to my ear as if inside I dare say,” he looked at her with a complaining expression.

     “Calm down, I was not inside…” Elizabeth took a breath and could not believe she was about to say these words. “I was not inside your ear, It`s like a phone… It’s a device where I can hear you clearly from a large distance.”

     “Well, how large a distance?” he asked.

     She closed her eyes and breathed out, she was really close to slapping him does it really matter how large a distance? “Across the whole world, alright?”

     “That is marvelous, so that means if you were in China…”

     “Yes,” she interrupted him. “Now get in there we have work to do,” they parted ways.

     “Elizabeth…” he called out to her.

     “What?” she was really annoyed now.

     “Yadernoye yadro, the sign you should be following to your core,” he smiled.

     “Thank you,” she smiled, she really did forget to ask, but quickly remembered that time is of the essence and ran down the halls.

     “Good evening comrades,” Benjamin spoke with confidence and walked inside the control room, the engineers looked at him all confused, they’ve never seen him before, how did security let him pass? “I’ve been sent from Moscow by Gorbachev himself, I will be overseeing the test we are about to do for tonight,” he said the exact words Elizabeth told him to, there was no way this is true since like the fellow that they kidn*pped in the car said that it hasn’t been announced that there will be delegation coming and for these kinds of things you need to announce it. Elizabeth had thought about it too, it's why she had fake documents printed out that looked really authentic and she went a step extra by signing the document with Mikhail’s Gorbachev signature. And it worked! Everyone reported to him as if he had any idea what he was doing, he was just receiving replies on the earbud it was Elizabeth who was answering the questions his ‘colleagues’ asked him.

     “Right then, I am in front of the core, teeny tiny problem though,” spoke Elizabeth over the earbud.

     “What?” asked Benjamin in full voice as everybody stared at him.

     “Benjamin do not reply to me aloud, people will think you are crazy, even worse sabotage us,” warned Elizabeth, Benjamin really wanted to say ‘okay’ but just couldn’t, he looked at the others who were busy and just smiled at them.

     “Now then, look for a button that says door to the core,” Elizabeth guided him. He was stunned by the view of the console, panic and heat had washed over his body, he had seen a modern console on cars and on the time machine, but this was something else, this was the console of all consoles. It was big bigger than two wooden tables combined and onto its plastic chassis a ton of buttons each in different color and for a different purpose than opening the door to the core. He stood motionless staring at the console, the voices and the peripheral vision became blurry, sweat was coming down his face. “Anytime now,” spoke Elizabeth startling him, he actually forgot the earbud was there. “Come on Benjamin!” she was impatient.

     “Well I can’t find it,” he said aloud. “Oh no!” he remembered too late and dared not to turn to see the reaction of the others.

     “Are you okay comrade?” one of his new colleagues asked as he approached him.

     “Yes of course,” he smiled. “Just thinking aloud the plan for this experiment that we are about to do.”

     “Right…” smiled the colleague. “And what plan would that be?”

     “You know… the plan for the experiment… that we are about to begin. And it can only begin by opening the door to the core, you there,” he pointed to a guy standing farther away in the room. “Open the door to the core.”

     “But why?” he asked.

     “Do as I say,” commanded Benjamin.

     “Nice save Benjamin,” spoke Elizabeth as the door opened and she entered the core room. “Now get out of there and wait for me by the car.” Elizabeth walked on the metallic floor carefully not to make a sound as she looked around the machines for cooling that were all connected to the white chamber of the core, she kneeled next to it and calibrated the heating device, she hid it behind the chamber and left it there. “I am about to activate the alarm, I don’t know how long it’s going to take for him to come, but we need to get out.”

     “Do it,” Benjamin was already outside waiting by the car just as she told him. And sure enough, the whole city suddenly lit the lights on and the panic started, smoke came out from the first reactor so it was legit, there’s a problem with a reactor now they need to evacuate, the people that worked in the fourth reactor came rushing out of the building running past Benjamin but Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. Just as she predicted that the Prophet would come immediately and make sure everything is fine. There was a problem though. It wasn’t just him there were three of them, there were three Prophets, how come there’s three of them? It’s never been three!

     “There,” pointed one of the Prophets towards the first reactor that had smoke coming out, two of the Prophets looked at the one that was standing behind them it seemed he was the original one, and it wasn’t easily fooled by what he saw.

     “I will evacuate the city,” said the main Prophet not wanting to take a risk of people dying. He ordered the other two Prophets to check the reactors, he could just tell that nothing was wrong with them.

     “Elizabeth where are you?” Benjamin was uneasy.

     “Yeah slight problem… I can’t find the exit,” she was even ashamed to speak that out.

     “What do you mean you can’t find the exit!?” he couldn’t believe it.

     “Yeah, it’s not like it's written where I should go.”

     “It actually is… Just look for the sign that says: ‘Vykhod,’ and it will lead you to the exit.”

     “What!?” she yelled, how am I supposed to know which is which, it’s like hieroglyphics to me. That was it, if she got out of here alive she was learning the Cyrillic alphabet.

     “Hold still, I am coming for you,” Benjamin ran inside the facility.

     The Prophets were flying across the sky, left and right, picking up people and flying them off to a safe distance away from all of the radiation, One of the Prophets landed at the first reactor where the smoke was coming from, it seemed that there was no problem with building itself, nor was there a problem with the reactor itself, so where was the smoke coming from? The third Prophet circled around the building looking for the culprit before he finally saw it, it starred in his face this whole time. One of the ventilation shafts was letting out far more smoke than it should have, he removed the platting on the ventilation and put his hand inside it until he felt something, he grabbed it and pulled it out to look at it with his own eyes. It was nothing more than a smoke machine that Elizabeth had left there to create a distraction away from the fourth reactor. The third Prophet immediately reported to the main one as he then gave him the order to go to the fourth reactor, knowing that it was the most crucial one.

     The power had gone out in the fourth reactor building and it was dark, until the backup generators started working but only provided energy to the alarms, most of the energy was diverted to the core to keep it alive. The corridors were mostly dark only small areas illuminated by red from the alarms, Elizabeth had it hard finding her way out when it was fully lit and now when it's dark it became even more challenging, and then she heard it, behind her the same whooshing sound echoed, the same sound her machine-made and that sound could only be produced by one thing, time travel. The Prophet was inside the building with her.

     She sprang up and looked toward the source of the sound, it was dark, he was hidden in the darkness, she feared the worst, she isn’t ready nor want to fight the Prophet right now. Elizabeth quickly hid behind the corner wall slowing her breath down so he couldn't hear her breathing, she then took off the boots from her feet and started tip-toeing across the hall. The Prophet stood still and scanned the hall for any heat signatures, she hadn’t thought about it, nothing is going to help her now, she can hide anywhere she wants but no barrier is thick enough for the heat scanner. It wasn’t long before the Prophet detected her signature across the hall, she started running away from him as fast as she could fast bursts of breath and big steps, the Prophet seemed unfazed by it, he just activated the rocket boosters on his feet and punctured the roof as he flew high above the building and plunged again towards it puncturing another hole in the roof and landing straight in front of Elizabeth, she screamed and fell on the ground as the Prophet stood tall above her, she was in shock and began crawling away from him but he just walked up to her and grabbed her on the leg and slammed her on the wall. She was concussed she barely got up as the Prophet just stood and watched her struggle.

      “Who are you!?” she looked at him. The figure took a couple of steps forward and it slowly removed the mask. It wasn’t the Prophet but someone just as annoying, It was Robert Woodward.

     “You!” Elizabeth took a step back she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

     “Hello,” he pointed his gun at her, “Quite the adventure you made me go through to catch you,” he said.

     “But how!?” Elizabeth inspected him, he had a similar golden suit as the Prophet.

     “A lady walked in the queen’s palace, she didn’t quite make the first impression on me but it seemed we had the same common enemy, you,” smiled Woodward. “She said there is no way that we are going to catch you in the conventional way and that we have to adopt some different tactics.”

     “The prophet is a girl?” Elizabeth looked at the floor. What did she tell you?” asked Elizabeth.

     “Does it matter? I am going to take you to the queen and she will order your hanging.”

     “Believe me, Robert, this is what she wants, she adopted you in her team to stop me.”

     “Well it’s what I also want…” he was confused.

     “No you don’t get it, all the things I have done are are for our own good!” I am trying to correct our timeline, that they have stolen from us.”

     “What timeline would that be? A time where humanity wanders blindly without the guidance of the Prophet? A time where our souls are dirty and do not seek cleansing from the Prophet?” Elizabeth stood stunned, she actually had no idea things were this bad, this was classical propaganda, she thought the Prophet was smarter than this. “Come on then,” Woodward walked toward her as she looked at Benjamin who sneaked from behind and struck Woodward on the head with a fire extinguisher.

     “I heard everything on this thing,” Benjamin pulled out the earbud. “I knew you were in trouble,” he stood there.

     “Thank you!” she jumped and hugged him whilst she was crying. Elizabeth kneeled down next to Woodward and inspected the suit, she touched it gently with her fingers as all of a sudden an idea popped inside her head, she would recognize that design anywhere. She opened the lid on the suit and revealed a small console, she pressed a bunch of buttons and teleported Robert out of there, she knew that innocent lives can be spared and he was innocent, and hopefully one day he would understand that he is fighting for the evil cause.

          Elizabeth and Benjamin stood next to the machine as they set their eyes towards the city and the reactors.

     “Well, you’ve got what you wanted, the city is evacuated, and I got what I wanted, what can I say we can make a great team after all,” she said.

     “You would have killed everybody,” he looked at her.

     She took a deep breath. “History is not kind…” she wanted to give him a speech and explain to him the real story of the Chernobyl disaster but advised against it. “Water under the bridge,” she tapped him on the shoulder. “That’s why I need you, to advise me better,” she smiled, as she looked down at the device she was holding, she removed the lid from it and revealed a red button, she took a moment sighed out, and pressed. The explosion echoed in the distance, Benjamin took a step back frightened by the fiery mushroom that sprouted from the fourth reactor, it’s the first time he’s witnessed an explosion. Elizabeth knew it was wrong, but stopping the Prophet was a must and now she’s hurt his progress by blowing it up. “Come on!” she pulled Benjamin by the hand.

     “Where are we going?” he asked.

     “I know who made the Prophet’s golden armor,” she looked at Benjamin. “It’s time I paid a visit to a friend of mine.”