When All The Adults Were Gone

Chapter 25 - New Weapon

I was sat at my computer for ages, Scott and Lara went off to their own computers, Sam and Darcy went across the hallway from me and Scarlett went off to find another computer. Oh, this is Tom by the way. As soon as Sam had opened the door, I knew I was going to find something big. Something that could change everything. I sent everyone off to check the other computers for files that could help us in any way. We needed all the pairs of hands we could, there was going to be so much information from loads of different scientists to sort through.

I think I was sat at the computer for about an hour and a half before I found anything remotely relevant. I kept calling out to the others to see if they had found anything yet. No one had and Scarlett was being unusually quiet. But being so caught up in finding information on that equation or Experiment 103, I thought nothing of her silence.

I was just beginning to give up all hope of finding anything. Every encrypted file I unlocked was just research on nuclear bombs, new weapons and biological warfare, until I found a folder buried in about thirteen empty folders. I suppose the guy who hid the file there thought that they would get to the third or fourth empty folder and give up, but not me. I needed to prove myself to everyone.

The file was named 'Atom Expansion Weaponry 103 - Experiment'. I quite literally could not believe what I had just found, I had just uncovered the original files and all recordings of Experiment 103. I opened the file and was shocked at what I had come across. I didn't understand all of it, but the general gist of it was it was a new form of nuclear weaponry. The scientists here had been 'pulling' atoms apart, stripping them back to something much more dangerous than radiation.

I checked the date of the next scheduled experiment and wasn't at all surprised to see that it was the day the adults were lost, the 13th January.  "Guys! I've found it! I've finally found it!" I shouted to the others, realising that I had just found something major. I heard scraping chairs and running footsteps as everyone came running down the corridor to see what I was shouting about. "What did you find? It better be good." Darcy said grumpily, crossing her arms and frowning at me. I didn't care. All I wanted to do was print of the extra sheets of paper that were missing from our copy of the Experiment 103 file. Thank God for generators or we never would have had the electricity to do any of this. I grabbed the paper from the printer, too eager and excited to explain properly. I barely knew who was talking to me, I was so concentrated on my findings I just tuned everyone out.

"I've found the rest of the Experiment 103 file. I know what they were trying to do. They were trying to strip atoms into a dangerous new weapon. But I need to work out what went wrong. If we can work out what they did and what went wrong, we could reverse it." I was so full of emotion that I spoke too fast. No one understood a word of what I just said, it was all mumbled into one sound but I didn't worry.

The others were talking excitedly amongst each other, Darcy and Sam were holding hands, Scott and Lara were hugging. I just pushed through them, not noticing the most important person to me was missing.

I ran down the stairs, two at a time rushing to get back to the library to look for more physics books so I could look for theories, other experiments, anything that would make me understand what went wrong on the 13th January. I was coming up with all types of scenarios in my head; everyone on site being destroyed except the children, our parents becoming invisible. The theories just kept coming until I realised that I had subconsciously walked to the physics section of the library.

I had left the others at the offices but I'm sure they would understand why I rushed off. I just couldn't wait to start looking for answers. I was pulling physics books on atoms, energy, nuclear weapons off the shelves, desperately flicking through. I didn't even notice that I was alone until about half 3. Usually Scarlett was copying notes down or reading parts of the books and keeping quiet while I researched but I never realised she wasn't there. I couldn't remember her being there when I called everyone at the offices either. That was when I knew something was wrong.