PART III. DEVELOPMENT: CONSTRUCTION
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(SYSTEM): LOADING PART III…
(LOCATION): FACILITY «VALTON-0» (IMATRA). DEPTH: -120 METERS.
(TIME): DECEMBER. TWO WEEKS BEFORE «THE CELEBRATION».
…
Elias Korhonen hated that sound. That sound caused a vibration that made his teeth itch, his old fillings ache, and the water in the plastic cup on the control panel tremble finely.
The vibration transitioned into a hum. A low, guttural infrasound coming from the center of the main hall. It penetrated through concrete, through bones, straight into the cerebellum.
Elias rubbed his sleep-deprived, inflamed eyes. He had been the chief engineer of this project for almost a month. He was paid ten times more than at Nokia. He was given «Alpha» level clearance. He was allowed to bring his wife Hanna and daughter Mia here.
(«For security reasons, Elias. A storm is brewing on the surface,» — that’s what Prime Minister Raimo had said).
But the longer he looked at what they, and now he, were building, the more he wanted to grab his family and run.
Run without looking back.
Run through the forests to the Norwegian border, away from this damned concrete.
He stood up from the console and walked to the armored glass; from here, a magnificent view of the «Cave» opened up. That’s what they called the main hall among themselves.
A giant natural cavern in the granite shield, expanded by drilling rigs. The size of three football fields.
In the center of the Cave hung It.
Officially: «Atmospheric Defense Generator SAMPO-1».
In reality: A Black Sphere thirty meters in diameter. Not secured by cables or special mounts. Hovering in the air, in a magnetic field created by six giant coils along the perimeter of the hall. The surface of the Sphere was matte. Absolutely black (Vantablack). It absorbed the light of the spotlights, giving off no glare. It seemed as if there was simply a hole in reality in the center of the hall, cut out with scissors. If Elias looked at it for a long time, nausea set in — his brain could not process such a visual absence of depth.
— «Readings are normal,» — a voice sounded behind his back. Elias flinched. He hadn’t heard footsteps. It was Monsieur Blanc.
The Curator. The man who never slept, never ate in the communal cafeteria, and never took off his thin, flesh-colored gloves.
— «Normal?» — Elias turned sharply. — «You call this normal?» — He poked a trembling finger at the monitor. — «The active zone is consuming zero point zero megawatts. We haven’t even connected the reactor! But the Sphere is vibrating. The oscillation frequency is growing exponentially. Where is it getting energy from, Blanc? Out of thin air?»
Blanc stood in the shadows, at the entrance to the control room. In the gloom, his face seemed like a wax mask forgotten in a museum.
— «It takes energy from intention, Elias. It is a psycho-resonant circuit. Quantum physics of a higher order.» — Blanc paused briefly. — «Your wife, Elias, Hanna, how is she? Does she like the apartment in the residential sector?»
This was not concern. This was a veiled threat. Elias felt it on his skin. Monsieur Blanc was capable of caring exclusively for himself and only for his own interests.
— «She… likes it,» — he forced out. — «But she asks why we can’t go to the surface. Why the ventilation works only on recirculation?» — Elias made up his mind. He had to ask. Now or never. — «Speaking of ventilation. I checked the blueprints for shafts V-1 and V-4. They are designed in violation of all Civil Defense norms.»
— «Really?» — Blanc’s voice was bored, as if he were talking to a pesky child.
— «Yes!» — Elias raised his voice. — «Usually, a bunker filters air from the outside so people inside can breathe. But your shafts… they are gigantic. And the powerful pressure turbines are set to exhaust. We are creating overpressure inside and pushing the air from the Cave outward. Like exhaust gas from a car pipe.»
Elias stepped right up to Blanc. The Curator smelled of nothing. Sterile emptiness. A vacuum…
— «And what will we be exhausting, Blanc? If an accident happens? If the reactor leaks? We will poison all of Karelia! We will kill every living thing for hundreds of kilometers!»
Blanc did not flinch, did not step back. He looked at Elias with his unblinking, moist eyes.
— «We will not be exhausting poison, Elias. We will be sharing… the Cure.»
— «What cure?!» — Elias yelled, breaking into a shriek. — «This is a Doomsday machine! I’m an engineer, I see the schematic! This is a global disperser!»
— «Calm down.» — A third person entered the control room. Raimo Valtonen.
The Prime Minister had changed over this month. He had lost weight, looked gaunt, but his eyes burned with a fanatical, feverish gleam. He no longer wore a suit — he was now dressed in a white tunic without insignia, resembling the garb of a priest or a surgeon.
— «Raimo!» — Elias rushed to him, grabbing his sleeve. — «Tell him! Stop this! We can’t start the Sphere! It’s unstable! This is madness!»
Raimo placed a hand on the engineer’s shoulder. The hand was unnaturally hot, as if the Prime Minister had a fever.
— «Elias, my old friend. You think in terms of nuts and bolts. You think in the category of ‘safety’. But you must think… in Epochs.»
He gently but persistently led the engineer to the glass. Below, in the Cave, workers in hazmat suits were setting up tables. Long rows of tables receding into perspective. They were covering them with snow-white tablecloths. Bringing in crates of wine and delicacies.
— «You see a bunker,» — Raimo said quietly. — «But I see a Cradle.»
— «For whom?» — Elias whispered, feeling his legs go cold.
— «For the best. We have selected ten thousand people, Elias. Scientists, doctors, writers, engineers. The flower of the nation. They will arrive the day after tomorrow. For the ‘Exercises’.»
Raimo smiled, and this smile looked more terrifying than Blanc’s threat. It was the smile of a martyr.
— «We won’t hide here forever, Elias. The machine… the Sphere… it will change our structure. It will make us light. Free from flesh. We will exit through these shafts you are so worried about. We will exit like the Wind. Like a Spirit. We will become the Fog that covers this world from pain.»
Elias recoiled, his back slamming into the control panel.
— «You’re crazy,» — he exhaled. — «You’ve joined a cult. Raimo, this is a madman’s ravings!»
— «This is Science,» — Blanc cut in from the corner, harshly, with a metallic clang in his voice. — «High science, inaccessible to primates.»
Raimo looked at Elias with pity.
— «You will understand, my friend, when everything begins. Your daughter, Mia… she will be there too. In the front row. I want her to become an Angel.»
— «Don’t you dare touch my daughter!» — Elias lunged toward the exit. — «I’m taking them! We’re leaving!»
The control room door locked with a hiss. The red light of the lock blinked and went out, replaced by a dead gray color.
— «You’re not going anywhere, Elias,» — Raimo said softly, almost with love. — «We need you here. You are the Chief Operator. You will launch the Sampo. Your hands must turn the keys.»
— «I won’t do it. I’d rather die.»
— «You will.» — Blanc stepped into the light. In his hand, he held a tablet. He swiped a finger across the screen, and the image was projected right onto the glass in front of Elias. The residential sector. Room 402. Hanna reading a book, sitting in a chair. Mia playing with a doll on the carpet. — «The life support system in their sector,» — Blanc pronounced impassively, like a weather forecaster, — «is controlled directly by me. If you don’t show up for your shift on December 24… I will simply shut off the O2 supply valve. Quietly. Without pain. They will just yawn and fall asleep. Forever.
Elias froze. The world narrowed to the screen on the glass. He looked down at the Black Sphere. It hummed, hungry and greedy. It was waiting.
He looked at Raimo — the friend with whom he had drunk beer in the sauna, the friend who had become a monster.
— «Damn you,» — he whispered with just his lips.
— «Already are,» — Raimo smiled radiantly. — «We are all already damned by the old world, Elias. And we will all be saved by the New one.»
He turned to Blanc, losing interest in the broken engineer.
— «Prepare the Celebration. The guests are beginning to arrive.»
…
(GEN 2500): EMOTIONAL BACKGROUND OF SUBJECT «ELIAS»: DESPAIR & HATRED.
(GEN 2500): NOTE: IT WAS EXACTLY THIS HATRED THAT SERVED AS THE CATALYST.
(SYSTEM): LOADING FRAGMENT: (ENCRYPTED)
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> ⚠️ ENTITY STATUS: PROJECT «AEROSOL» APPROVED. EXHAUST VENTILATION.
>
> 🌬️ Appreciate the irony, protein-based readers. For millennia, humans built bunkers to hide from the end of the world. But the +Angi forced humanity to build a bunker that would spray this end of the world outward.
>
> ⚙️ Elias Korhonen is a classic tragic cog in the System. He understood the schematic. He understood that the giant turbines would not pump out stale air, but rather people processed into Fog — those very ten thousand guests who would come to «The Celebration» in suits and evening gowns.
>
> 💀 But what can a human engineer do against an alien Puppeteer and a mad politician? Nothing but press the button to save his family for a couple of extra hours. Blackmail is not magic; it is pure, fail-safe mathematics. Keep reading. «Z» Day is approaching. Who will ultimately turn the key?
