Fatespun - Not a Chance

Part 2 - F

“You can’t be serious. You’re the Fatespinner, you do it.” She thrust the paper back in his direction as she said it.

“And my grand Fatespinner powers made it possible for you to be here,” he said, not even looking at the paper being shaken in front of him. “Think about it. Why else would you of all people be here? You’re one of the few people in the Hand’s territory who has any idea how anything electronic works. You’re practically a genius when it comes to it. You’re the best person for this job.”

He could see her trying to come up with an argument against what he had said, and ultimately failing. She knew how his luck worked, better than most. She was the only one he had explained his theories about it to. She had been his confidant.

Finally realizing that she wasn’t going to change his mind about the topic, her arm gradually lowered and she turned her attention to the bomb on the floor between them.

“Do you really think I can do it?” she asked him, her voice quiet. “If I mess up, there’s all of those people above us…”

“You can do it Sibby. I have complete faith in you. Besides, not only are you a genius when it comes to techie stuff, do you really think my luck wants either of us to get blown up? I may not be cutting any wires or anything dramatic like that, but I will be helping you. You can do it.”

She nodded. Her arguments had been exhausted, and she got to work studying the schematic diagram for the very dangerous bomb at their feet.

Nick knew more than he wanted to about the Bosonium bomb, though he had never seen an actual one. Theoretically, he understood how it would work. The different types of radiation would bombard it from all sides, helping the decay reach a point of criticality. While the decay of Bosonium was normally very stable and safe, the irregular rate of radiation exposure would bring the Bosonium sphere to the point of decay, but stop short and restart the process. The repeated procedure of building up and stopping would cause the sphere to become unstable and eventually release all of its energy in a split second.

The creatures likely didn’t even need to move the bomb for it to kill almost everybody in the Hand’s district. The resulting explosion would annihilate a square-mile of city pretty easily. Possibly more, depending on how well the bomb was built and how big the Bosonium sphere was inside the bomb.

Sibby took a look at the diagram, stepped around to another side of the bomb, checked the schematic again, and crouched down. Nick, curious what she was going to do, crouched down beside her. At the same time he did that, something thunked into a chair behind him.

“Huh?” Sibby exclaimed as Nick turned his head to see what had caused the sound. There, about an inch deep in the wooden chair was a six-inch cooking knife, the handle still vibrating slightly from the impact.

Nick’s head snapped in the direction of the kitchen doorway and a slight glint in the darkness was the only warning he had before another knife came sailing out. He realized that he hadn’t reloaded his ‘Penny-Pounder’ and grabbed the closest thing at hand, the chair with the knife already stuck in it, and lobbed it into the air.

The chair’s trajectory intercepted the knife and the two crashed to the floor a second later. Nick knew that wouldn’t be the last of the knives though, and he didn’t have nearly enough chairs to keep repeating that little trick.

Before the next came, Nick was sliding across the floor on his knees and flipping the long dinner-table on to its side. Not a second too soon either, as another knife thumped into it. Realizing that projectiles might start coming from other directions as well, Nick quickly began flipping all of the tables around them, bringing them in close and creating a small fort to protect them.