At The Precipice Of Something New

Something Breaking

Goodneighbour
September the 14th, 2289
15:20

She had closed her eyes just before the screen was lowered over her head and the nodules ensured to be attached to her temples. When she opened them again, it was suddenly; startled by the rumblings of machinery, the hum of uneven electrical power, and no longer feeling her hand being held.

Disorientation and unsteadiness on her feet ruled her body for a minute. When the feeling she could have sworn was much like falling ceased, Dr. Annette Christine Davis barely moved, instead wrapping her arms around herself, taken aback by the cold wind from outside drafting through the facility, the Memorial, the nexus of Project Purity. She took a few steps back at the sound of footsteps and unintelligible, from a distance, discussion drawing nearer. Trying to discern from where the noise was coming, she paused completely, arms tightening around herself, when, emerging from the depths of the facility and into the partially open air rotunda, she saw, first, the petite figure and authoritative gait of Dr. Madison Li and, seconds later, her father and herself. Walking side by side, reviewing notes, and talking, Dr. Li interjecting every so often and slowing her steps to not lose them. The sight of Brotherhood soldiers standing guard and doing their rounds drew up a nauseated feeling in her and, something in her body, it seemed, compelling her to, she started to run. Weaving in and out of those working on construction, the others on Dr. Li's scientific team, and, reason far from her mind, she ran towards her father, tears beginning to well in her eyes.

It's been a long eleven years, her mind whispered. And you're not really –

She reached out to embrace him but, instead, he kept walking; walked right through her.

You're not really here again, she tried to remind herself when she realised she was crying. You can't turn back time.

"I still don't like the results we're getting in. Even the GECK device you, or the Brotherhood, or whomever it was actually found and retrieved the damn thing, hasn't been able to stabilise the water filtration systems on the full scale," Madison said, grabbing James by the arm to pause him. "Even if we wanted to throw the switch tomorrow, it would almost certainly overload the system, and that's the fault of the power distribution systems. It's functionally useless until we can solve that."

"Which is a major concern, don't misunderstand me, Madi, but we've finally developed a system capable of treating and de-radiating the water," James said calmly. "With all we need, now, being the issue of how to power it at a level where it can do so in immense quantities, that is a massive success. This has always been a project that will bear fruit for those who wait. It's only a matter of time."

Madison frowned. "And that is precisely the problem. We don't have infinite time and certainly not infinite resources to solve it."

"How long do you reckon it will be, then, before the power dilemma is solved?" The younger Annette said, unseeing of herself stepping warily towards her. "It's not...well, the engineering of it is something I can't make heads or tails of. The filtration and purification systems were one thing, but..."

"In the best case, six to eight months," Madison said with a short, frustrated sigh. "At worst, anywhere from another year, maybe more. Part of the issue is absolutely with the reactor, which itself is another concern. The reactor itself is aged, and its efficacy is already below seventy percent. If it were to start leaking radioactive material, that will drop only farther, and –"

An explosion rang out first, gunfire and particulate matter rushing up into the air and slamming back down into the ground coming seconds after. The chaos abounding, screams began with it. The whirring of the blades of a vertibird coming close to the ground drew nearer, buzzing almost like a chainsaw. The rush of the Brotherhood Knights coming out from within the Memorial to join their Brothers and Sisters running to their stations to ready and fire their turrets and machine guns at the income vertibirds gave away the aircraft not being their own. Sirens began to blare and, seeing her younger self clutch onto her dad the same way she had when she was a small child, trembling and blinking rapidly to try and stop herself from crying, Annette looked away and up towards the incoming vertibirds. In only a matter of seconds, she wished she hadn't. The nearest one circling around the Memorial had, standing up and holding onto one of its railings with an arrogant smirk, the grey haired and cruel countenance of Enclave Colonel Augustus Autumn grew closer, clad in an all too distinctive military coat over his uniform. Beginning to feel severely nauseated, Annette turned when, out of the corners of her eyes, she saw her father carefully pushing her younger self away before sighing and setting his hands reassuringly to her shoulders.