Massive Disaster 4-21

Bip-Bip-Bip!!!

One red-rimmed eye creeped itself open, blinking past the crust keeping him asleep, as the alarm on his bedside chirped at 5:15.

Same as it always did.

Same as it always would, till the day he retired.

Thirty-seven years of that sound, first on Luna, then Titan, now here on Arkadia IV. A wrinkled hand found the control before conscious thought caught up, muscle memory older than most of the kids working under him these days. Synth-wood floorboards creaked their morning greeting as his feet hit the deck, old bones creaking back with their own hello.

The old man’s bathroom mirror reflected a good fifty-three years of fixing things that kept people breathing in the void. His dark skin had lined with age, each and every one a memory. The scars were there too, memories of their own and just as appreciated, like the patch of white on his neck. 

The reactor leak on Titan.

Elias let out a low chuckle, the fine lines around his eyes from squinting at readouts in bad light staring back at him. That was almost a colony killer. He simply tilted his chin upwards as his shaving cream went on smooth, and the old razor buzzed its familiar path.

“They want me to get one of those new auto-cuts,” he told Eleanor’s photograph, the same spot next to the sink for fifteen years now. Her smile never changed, never got older, and still caught him off guard sometimes. “Says it’ll take ten years off me.”

The blade rinsed clean in the sink, water pressure strong today. Good. It meant the auxiliary pumps were cycling properly. Someone’s doing their job.

Elias shook his head and kept talking, one eye still on the picture. “You probably wouldn’t like it anyway. Always said I looked best with a little gray at the temples.”

The old man finished his morning routine in silence, wiped his face dry, and leaned close to press fingertips to the glass over her cheek. “Gonna be a hot one, baby. Core’s running harder than usual.”

Forty minutes later, he was walking the six blocks to the transit hub. The old man never drove, not that he ever saw the point. You missed too much inside a vehicle; the way people moved through their mornings, the small signs that told you how the colony was really doing.

A group of younger engineers walked just ahead, all the young ones recognizable by their gait and the way they gestured when they talked shop; each one of them trying their hardest to make sure they sounded like they knew things. Martinez, Chen, even that new kid Okafor who was still getting used to the gravity differential; every one of them slowed when they spotted him, respectful nods all around.

“Morning, Chief.”

“Chief Moore.”

“How’s the core running, sir?” Martinez grinned as he said it, the little dumbass already working up to some kind of joke. All insults aside, the kid was a sharp one; he just needed to shut up more and he’d be a model tech. 

“Not before I’ve had coffee, fool.” The side-eye shut him down gentle but firm, and the others chuckled. Good kids, all of them. It reminded him why he’d stayed out here instead of retiring back to Earth.

Security at the Hub waved him through without even looking up from their screens. Fifteen years earned you that kind of trust, especially when you were the one in charge of keeping the lights on. With a chirp, the badge reader flashed green, and the main facility’s blast doors cycled open for the morning with the soft hiss of pressure equalization.

The power distribution center hummed its familiar morning song, banks of readouts painting everything in soft blue light. Energy load demands were up again. Of course, the old man clicked his tongue. Why wouldn’t they be? 

Population growth was still tracking up, and half of it was that boy Zedd’s fault.

The smile on his face came without permission as his fingers found the primary control interface. That damn boy, with the big idea of leaving a steady job to go head-first into a home repair shop he switched up into a startup.

But it wasn’t a startup anymore, was it?

Calling Victory Innovations anything but a full-scale corporation now would be an insult to the company and he’d be damned if anyone said anything less. One damn city drawing enough power for something three times its size. All the data centers, manufacturing hubs, cooling systems for equipment in Providence; all of it pushed the boundaries of what industrial reactors were built to handle.

Not without major rebuilds, at least.

Strangest thing was, the whole grid was more stable now than it had been five years ago. Even more efficient too, pulling less baseline power despite the increased load. The kid’s auxiliary fusion lines weren’t just band-aids; they were architectural improvements that made the whole system stronger.

Should’ve expected that from him.

Age-lined fingers moved across the interface, checking overnight reports, balancing loads, making the small adjustments that kept everything smooth. Muscle memory older than most of the colony, refined over decades of making things work when failure meant people died.

He wasn’t too proud to say he missed the boy, though.

More than anything, he missed having someone around who understood that elegance and efficiency weren’t just nice ideas, they were survival requirements when you were floating in the void hundreds of light years from home. 

God knows Connor’s a fucking pain to talk to on his best day. His floor manager had been an ass even with Zedd gone, and it was obvious to anyone with a brain why, especially since Nina had left with him.

Damn… He missed her too, even.

Not as much as Zedd, though. Not with the way the kid would show up at all hours, covered in grease and electrical burns, explaining some new modification he’d done the day before like his life depended on making it clear.

Last time we talked… The Chief Engineer wracked his brain, trying to piece together the when and the where. I… I know it was over comms… The last few times had been over comms, honestly. In-person had been much longer, maybe a solid year now, and all of it had been work, business-related. 

The kid never even stopped by his office to explain it in person, hadn’t sat in the old chair by Elias’s desk in years.

Growing up, maybe. Or growing away.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Heat from the sub-reactor conduits made his shirt stick to his back, his body still not fully used to the way Arkadia’s core ran hotter than Titan ever did. Or maybe I’m just getting old. Either way, sweat beaded on his forehead as he checked junction points, fingers automatically feeling for the vibration patterns that meant everything was cycling smooth.

“Chief Moore?” Young voice spoke up from behind him; Rodriguez, one of the new techs.

“Yeah, kid?”

“How d’you keep track of all this wiring without AR overlays? I mean, there’s gotta be thousands of connections down here.” The question was one he’d heard a thousand different times phrased a hundred different ways. He knew what it meant though: Aren’t you a little old for this job?

Elias tapped his temple, sweat slick under his fingertips. “Because I remember.” You lived with a system long enough, you felt its moods. Knew when something was off before the diagnostics caught up.

Simple as that.

Speaking of which…

The Chief Engineer slowed as he walked past the main diagnostic array, frown creeping across his face. Something pinged a little odd in the readout cascade. It was a tiny fluctuation, barely a blip, but it didn’t match the rest of the system’s rhythm. Power draw cycling wrong. It was half a beat behind where it should be but half a beat was still half a beat.

Mark that for later. It was no emergency but his gut was talking, and decades of bullshit like this had taught him to listen.

The rest of the day dragged by with the usual hiccups and by evening, the Hub settled into its quieter rhythm. Night shift filtering in, day crew heading home to families and sleep. Elias didn’t clock out. 

Never did. 

Not until he’d done his rounds.

Final inspection was a sacred ritual by now, not that anyone ever knew he did it but whoever was on security detail scoping the cameras.

“…ngggh.” 

Maybe I shouldn’t have done this tonight. His knee was acting up again, even as he did his best to push the pain down. With another grunt bitten back in his throat, Moore leaned against a support rail, letting the pain settle before moving on.

That’s when he heard it.

Footsteps. Down where no one should be walking, not at this time. Past the maintenance hallway, heading toward the restricted access corridor that led to the primary reactor controls.

His chest tightened. No one logged work orders for tonight. No scheduled maintenance. No reason for anyone to be in that section.

Damn.

The reactor’s power-saving mode had kicked in at nine, with everyone but the skeleton crew clocking out; blue-white lighting casting long shadows through the pipe scaffolding. Moore moved careful, quiet, knee protesting every step but his mind racing.

The figure was still up ahead, moving with purpose, not wandering or lost. No, whoever this was knew exactly where they were going.

And with widening eyes, Elias realized he knew too. The emergency shutoff console. 

The one that could kill power to the entire Hub in thirty seconds. City-wide blackout, in New Abraham and major damage to the other cities with the primary core offline so suddenly. That meant life support failure, people dying in the dark.

Not on my watch.

“Hey!” His voice carried the authority of fifteen years keeping this place running. “The hell d’you think you’re doing?”

The figure froze.

“You hear me?” He moved closer now, hands automatically clenching into fists that remembered bar fights from his younger days. “What the hell you doing with that panel?”

Silence. The figure didn’t say anything, face and body still hidden in the gloom, not even bothering to try to run away as they continued whatever they were doing at the panel.

“Turn around, dammit!”

Five meters. Three. Close enough to see the figure’s outline against the console glow, close enough to—

A hand landed on his shoulder. Heavy. Solid.

Not the figure at the panel. Someone else.

Cold washed through his chest as he turned, already knowing this was bad, already calculating how long it would take security to respond to an alarm he hadn’t triggered yet.

Eyes widened as recognition hit.

Barely had time to breathe the word. “…oh.”

A flash, a sound like thunder splitting the air.

And Elias Moore fell.