Catastrophic

Chapter Eight

        Ryan leads me over to a group of students arguing loudly. They’re looking at a screen, which shows a large spiral whose center is a circle depicting Earth. I don’t see what the commotion is, until I spot a small spiral floating towards Earth. It must not be good, due to the furious typing and urgency in their tones as they converse.

    “Right here, my prime friend, is a hurricane on its way to destroy that planet, which is Earth,” Ryan sighed as he pointed toward the small spiral I had noted moments before. It was closing in fast, and while everyone was plugging machines into the wall with obvious haste, Ryan didn’t look a bit fazed. It was a look I was used to, and had grown fond of. His carefree attitude battled my tight-strung outlook on life. I liked that.

    I stopped fantasizing on our compatibility to ask him, “What are they doing, then?” A lot of them were wearing stern faces, and if anyone else outside of their little posse of stress tried to question something, they shot them a look that could wither any soul. As for their work, all I could work out was that the machine most of them were fussing over was rattling and rocking back and forth, as if it might burst if given the chance.

    “They’re trying to stop the hurricane before it reaches our planet. That machine is what stops it,” he tells me. “They’ll get it done though. Watch, and put these on.” He hands me a bulky suit and a helmet. I slip the suit on and find that it covers my feet, my hands, and my neck as well as the rest of my body. I slip the helmet on over my face until I can only see and breath from the slits in the uniform. In front of my eye-holes is glass, and there are two small holes where my nostrils are. I glance over at Ryan to see he’s suited up as well, along with the entire tent. A teenage boy, also in a suit, heaves a ladder through the flap and sets it down near the machine. He climbs the ladder until he can touch the top, and unstrings the clasps that holds a portion of the tent’s roof closed. The tent portion falls open, and the boy speeds down the ladder and hauls it to a corner.

    “Suit up! Prepare for launch, Sir?” a girl shouts in a military kind of voice. They take this seriously, don’t they?

    As expected, I hear Ryan’s voice pipe up in a carefree tone, “Sure, yeah. Whatever.” I can totally see why they picked him as a leader, and I’m not even being sarcastic. He’s cool under pressure, and yet he gets the job done. He can control his emotions—at least from the outside. I would bet a hundred bucks that Ryan is more insecure on the inside than anyone else in this society, but he’s strong enough to keep it to himself. He puts on the jerk mask to seem more in check than he actually is, and if no one else notices that, that’s good for him. Actually, it’s preferable. Too bad I can see right through him.

    I must be staring too long, because he shifts his attention to me with a sly smirk on his face. My face flushes as I turn back to the machine just when the same girl asking for permission slams her  finger down on a button.

    Instantly, a tremor hit our tent, leaving all of us struggling to regain our balance. Some fell to the floor and gave up on getting back on their feet, and some held on to each other to keep from a fate similar to the ones on the ground. I was of the former group, and Ryan the latter. He wasn’t even trying to stand on his feet, he just did. He surveyed the room with barely constrained laughter, and if I wasn’t one of those he laughed at, I would have joined in with him.

    From my position on the ground, I was able to roll over on my back and prop myself up on my elbows. Just as I got myself in that position, a blinding white stream of light shot out of the machine like a cannon, followed by a wave of warmth. Even through the suit, I could feel the heavy radiation, and I reminded myself to take a cold bath in the future, even if it wasn’t here.