City of Pickering

City of Pickering Part 5: After the Storm

 The sun was beginning to make its way down the western half of the sky, drenching the sandy Beachfront Park in watery golden afternoon light that shimmered and glittered in a dazzlingly bright pattern off the gently rippling, pale blue surface of Lake Ontario. Distant chunks of land that were just visible from the north shore of the vast Great Lake were like faint, fuzzy smudges of darker color against a hazy, yellow-blue horizon. Seagulls wheeled at dizzying heights over the large body of water, their loud, ragged shrieks ringing out against the landscape and providing as a sort of background noise. In the time that Eddie the Saviour had taken off in a mad dash to check out the burning house on Sandy Beach Road, the thick cloud cover that cleared, revealing a pleasant deep blue early afternoon sky. Here and there, the wide blue stretch was dotted with a few puffy white clouds, but for the most part the weather had turned quite pleasant, and a cool, refreshing breeze blew out from over the lake, making the thick, humid air that had hung over the city of Pickering, Ontario like a heavy blanket before the thunderstorm seem like a distant memory.

The Great One Of Pickering, the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, was vaguely aware of itself beginning to relax as it thoughtfully regarded the three female ATI Sound Blaster HPSS32 air raid sirens that had stayed behind to give the Great One company after the brutal and merciless attack launched by Sunshine, the leader of the anti-nuclear activists, that had cost Five, also an ATI, his life. Flint and Radon had carried his body away by order of Frederick, which the Great One was grateful for. If it had stared at the ATI's scorched, lightning-blasted metal body just for a few more moments, it would have gone insane. The scene had been almost too cruel and sorrowful to watch for very long.

"Hey, there, Great One." The voice of Flare, one of the three female ATIs, broke into the Great One's thoughts. "How are you feeling?"

The three ATIs- Flame, Flare, and Comet- stood side by side on the opposite side of the chain link fence that separated the Great One's property from the rest of Beachfront Park. Flare gazed up at the Great One, who thought it could see, in its mind's eye, a flicker of concern in her piercing blue robotic gaze. Slightly better. But Sunshine is going to have to pay for this. Poor, poor Five... Eddie told me not to blame myself, but I can't help but! Do you blame me, Flare? the Great One asked her anxiously.

"Of course not!" Flare retorted gently. "You're everything to us, Great One. We wouldn't blame you for anything. You are extremely powerful, and courageous as well."

"And friendly!" Comet piped up cheerfully from where she stood beside Flare. "Very friendly!"

Flame, the third ATI, moved forward and began to gaze admiringly at the Great One. With a note of sly cheerfulness in her voice, she murmured, "And quite the sweetheart."

Me? A sweetheart? the Great One queried in fake astonishment. Flame's words had brought up its spirits just a little, and, somewhere deep inside of it, an atom split, generating a warm, fuzzy sensation within it that could have come from the regular action of generating electricity or Flame's compliment or both. Ah, that can't possibly be correct. I believe it is you who is the sweetheart around here, my dear Flame, it responded warmly.

Flame's robotic eye stretched wide with surprise at the Great One's unexpected reply, while Flare and Comet looked on with unmasked amusement. Clearly, the female ATIs were not used to the Great One speaking to them in that way.

"I wonder if Eddie's going to be alright?" Comet inquired, changing the subject. "It's not very often that someone goes rushing to a burning house. Typically, you'd do just the opposite."

"He should be fine," Flare reassured her. "Frederick just told him to go check it out, not go inside or anything drastic like that."

Flame let out a long, crackling sigh of exasperation. "We know that. But I think we all know Eddie by now. Always so determined to help us. Who's to say he didn't?"