When the rains may come (Science Fiction)

68. The final ace

Gemma only realized she'd fallen asleep on the flight when she woke up to Brendan calling for her. She blinked, mind still hazy from slumber. "Did we reach Moudrin?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

Brendan shook his head. "Dr. Norton has noticed something."

She frowned. Norton was standing by his own seat and gazing out the window, his face frozen in shock. The geologist turned to her and pointed out the window. She complied with his gesture. She peered out at the sky. She gasped.

They were soaring over a screen of purple clouds, crackling with yellow lightning. "Is this really–"

"The same rain that burned those sectors in C3." Norton had arrived at her seat.

"So now what?" Gemma sprang up from her seat. "What can we even do?"

"Is the city below these clouds also gonna burn?" Brendan said.

Norton shook his head. "There's a way to stop that." He gazed out the window again. "These clouds are formed from a material called 'hybrid-1'. But in order to get the hybrid-1 to form clouds like these we have to process it in an aerial device that controls the temperature and pressure. That device is called a nucleus or the Rain shot. Neville was the one who invented it. The Rain shot is a device that is programmed to get to a location and start forming these clouds. It operates on a set schedule, spreading a specific amount of heat throughout the clouds. Once the clouds condense, hybrid-1 condenses and dissociates in the form of rain. The only way to stop the rain is to stop the clouds from condensing. The only way to stop the condensation, we send a deactivation signal to the Rain shot and halt the hybrid cycle."

"How do we send the signal?" Gemma said.

"There's another device called an 'atronizer'. We mostly drop it into a body of water that keep transmitting radio signals to the Rain shot. If we get into the atronizer and break the sequence it keeps sending to the Rain shot, we can stop the rain," he said as they passed by the purple clouds.

"How tough is it to find that device in the ocean?" Brendan asked.

Before Norton could answer, the seat belt sign blinked on. Eva walked in from the next cabin. "We are gonna land in Eisenburg. We'll be heading to President Albrecht's residence right away."

#

While Gemma and others were putting on their seatbelts, Erik quietly leaned against the wall in an office room inside the House of Justice. The First Leader's secretary, Jennifer, was revealing all the government secrets and schemes that were about to unfold in mere hours.

When she was done talking, Cathy said, "So basically, all that Dahlia woman said was true. Those weren't just mad ramblings?"

Jennifer shook her head. "Unfortunately not."

Luce was standing in the corner opposite to Erik. "What's the plan here then?"

Erik frowned down at the floor, still turning things over in his head.

Command was pacing up and down the length of the room. "An entire army of the special grade trucks is going to unleash the power of the Deux Fragment. What can we even plan against such a thing?!" She threw up her hands, frustrated. "And to make things worse, it's also going to rain."

"How many cities is it going to rain on?" Erik asked Jennifer.

"For now just one," the secretary said. "The First Leader had been on his way to make an official treaty with premier Ozaan of the Republic of Vardin. Once Ardvenia would've acquired more Fragment, we were gonna unleash more rain on more cities."