A Miracle Starts With a Beat of a Heart

Chapter 21

Daisy's heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. The device that could destroy everything within a couple of hundred miles was right in front of her. One wrong move and they, along with tons of innocent people, could die. Her adrenaline rose as she felt the truck speed towards whatever tower Sarge was talking about. 

Daisy looked to Deke. "You're the one who developed his own startup tech company," she said. "Are you able to defuse it?"

"Just because I'm at the top of my game doesn't mean I can defuse alien explosives!" Deke exclaimed as Daisy took a seat on the couch next to the bomb. "I need more time, okay?"

"Three minutes till collision!" May stated as she came out from the front of the truck. "How's it looking?"

"Like we have three minutes to live," Daisy responded. Daisy tried to breathe slowly so that she didn't fall into a panic; however, all she could think about at that moment was Nadia. They only had three minutes to fix this, and if they didn't, Nadia would grow up without her mother. Daisy wasn't about to break that promise to her.

Snowflake was behind them, pacing and trying to ease her own anxieties. "Everything's fine," she told herself. "My consciousness will melt into the cosmos, I'll merge with the infinite-"

"Hey, Snow," Deke said, approaching Snowflake. "Let's... Let's not talk about the infinite right now. Let's just talk about this bomb. So, what do you know about that?"

Snowflake exhaled deeply, finally getting the strength to not focus on her appending doom. "Nothing," she stated, which gained groans in return from May and Daisy. "Just that the slightest impact causes it to split the tiniest unit of matter in half, which makes a big noise."

Daisy's heart dropped into her stomach. "That's an atom bomb," she stated as she stood up. "You just described an atom bomb!"

Snowflake added, "I hear it's pretty."

"Do you know what that means?"

"It means I'm in over my head," Deke emphasized. 

May, like always, was the one to get everyone's head back on what's important. "Okay, Deke, focus," she began. "You've reversed engineered alien garbage your entire life. I need you to not screw up. Daisy doesn't need you to screw up, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but Snowflake needs you to not screw this up."

"But this could vaporize entire cities!"

"Deke," May interjected. "Most importantly, there's a four-month-old baby girl back at the Lighthouse waiting for her mom to come back home. She needs you to not screw this up."

Deke's face softened. He looked towards Daisy, who had a sad look on her face. In the small amount of time that he's known that Daisy now had a daughter, he could see just how much that little girl meant to her. If there was one thing Deke was thankful for from his childhood, it was that he was glad he got to know his mother before she was taken and killed by the Kree. He didn't want to subject Nadia to losing her mom at four months old, but he just didn't know if he could do it.

Seeing the way he was looking at her, Daisy took a breath. "Okay, this is very hard," she started. "But if there's anyone who can do it, it's you-"

"Deke Shaw. Yeah, you're right," Deke interrupted.

Daisy thought the two of them were having a nice moment. Him worrying about her daughter and her trying to give him confidence, but he just had to go and ruin it, didn't he? Well, that's Deke Shaw for you. Daisy couldn't help but give him a confused look.

"Okay, Deke," he told himself. "Time to dazzle." He bent down so that he was at eye level with the bomb. Was he still over his head? Definitely. However, he was going to try his hardest to save his people and all those innocent lives. He carefully started to twist something on top of the device, praying that the thing wouldn't explode right then and there on them.