Battle Born Vagabond Prequel

Chapter 33: Force won't work: Bōkun: November 19, 4997

I begin my morning announcements, "Alright everyone who remains after the six months of the terrorists Drent being at large. All the sabotage, all the murders, just thank you, for sticking around. Tomorrow marks the last day of animosity being allowed a fast transfer to another base or to voluntarily transplant yourself to another nation. You had three months to passively transfer and forgiven instead of being considered a desserter. As many of you found out in the last month they are only allowed to take 800 at a time. And this has not been a good year for our missions, many deaths. Okay today there's 20,492 men remaining to run this base as of the reports coming to me as of 0400. And as of 0800 from the coroner's office the new death toll from Drent now reaches 1004 and he has been on the loose for six months exactly. How have we not caught him yet? Shit. The new bounty amount is 100,400 plus 18,200 total being, 118,600 if you bring him to me dead that will bring you up to 7 ranks of points or if you are above rank 7 that's two ranks. You bring him to me alive that's 1,186,000 and I allow you to retire with a wife that you choose instead of us assigning you one. And as we have learned, the box does not work on him he just slithers out. Remember the battle buddy system I should never see a single soldier by himself again yesterday I reamed someone a new asshole for that, PFC Woods 3. Times are dangerous right now. Standard uniform is even when you are taking a shit a minimum of heat vision helmet if you so not yet have one that is waterproof please come to the armory for a new one it took about 3 months for that upgrade but they have it now because I was thinking of your safety. Keep it next to you when you sleep. If something seems suspicious investigate in a group six or more is preferred. That's all I have for everyone." I walk away, "Oh shit! This is a fucking nightmare. How could this possibly get worse? Oops forgot to turn this thing off. Forget what I just said everything is just fine." 

Right afterwards I hear from outside, "Sergeant Malone 2 requesting audience with Bōkun."
I walk outside in only boxers, "come inside we'll talk there." He walks inside and I put on pants, "first of all what is your job? In the last few years I've been trying to learn faces that way. "
"I run the furnaces for the water heater and to keep the stream power and water purifier going and on a bad day I have to find out why the nuclear reactor is too hot and fix it. And my friend here Master Sergeant Vowel maintains the cooling and heating elements of the kitchen."
"Alright cool, so why are you here instead of going to your higher ups?"
"We have been dealing with a problem in the last two days so unique that we think you should be aware of it. We went to our higher ups and helped us fix the problem but today told us to tell you."
"How do you two know each other I can't think of two jobs that are more different that still use some of the same words. And 5000 points says I've heard of the problem before is there a technical way of explaining it? " 

"We have been calling it Skokie. We are roommates."

"you peaked my interest, what is Skokie? "

"When fire breaks"

"what the fuck do you mean fire is broken? "

"Fire is now ice cold. "

"Things have gotten very interesting. We aren't the only department with this problem either. In the kitchen the freezers are producing unworldly heat. If you do go to the kitchen they are using fire to keep everything frozen and keep stuff they want cooled. About a meter away."
Hold up then how are you heating things up that need to be heated up for your job. We put chunks of metal in the freezer for about 20-180 minutes then we take it out with large tongs because it's too hot to touch and we have to run with it because it doesn't stay in the tongs well, they start to melt. "

"What are the tongs rated to?"

"ummm roughly 1500 Celsius. "

"how long does the heat stay in one of these blocks? "