Prolog
Hell
Walking through hell smiling.
Listening to the screams.
Watching the ashes fall to the ground.
Covering the heated walkways.
Looking upon many bloody doors.
Peaking inside.
To see the torture that is being done.
Laughing and smiling.
My children make my proud.
They do what they are told.
Any they do it well.
The more ashes that fall.
The more fear there is in here.
Ashes are everywhere, covering everything.
My observation is done here.
-Summer Faith Hooper
March 30th, 2037
Josh stood there watching the monitor. On it where pictures of soldiers running through a city he didn’t recognize.
The announcer continued. “In 2030, the first working portable laser rifle was introduced in the battlefield,” said the disembodied voice. “In 2035 we began to see the first particle sand plasma weapons used,” the voice continued.
The monitor showed various weapons being tested and shot at targets. It continued to show battlefield scenes and troops at various countries running around shooting at unseen things.
Thankfully it didn’t show people dying, thought Josh’s father who was standing behind the ten-year-old boy. “Why are you interested in the guns?” he asked.
“Dad, that’s the future,” the boy answered.
“Hopefully son, you are wrong,” his dad said. “Let’s go look at something else,” he said as he tried to steer his son to another section of the Science and Industry Museum.
“Let’s check what they say is in store for us in the future, other than killing.”
They walked over to a section that was titled Genesis Project. It was a large display with several monitors as well as several scale models and cutaway view diagrams.
“See dad, they are even building these underground cities to protect humanity if there is another war,” Josh said over his shoulder to his dad.
“It appears they are looking towards the inevitable outcome of the future,” his dad agreed. “With the weapons they can build today, any third world country who gets their hands on a few of them could mean the end of the world. At least if it comes to that, there is hope that mankind will continue to exist.”
They continued to walk around the exhibits, looking at all the projects involved in one Vault. It was like a self-contained city, equipped with everything it would need to last a hundred years or more. A nuclear reactor, food storage, hydroponics, living space, labs, schools, machine shops for the robotics, offices, even a jail should the need arise.
One of the side projects – the display they were standing in front of – showed the catalog and collection of as much scientific information as possible: DNA, live specimens, if possible, samples of tissue and plant life, the works.
It was going to be an underground Noah’s ark, thought Josh’s dad.
He wasn’t far from the truth.
“It’s getting late. I’m hungry, how about you?” Josh’s dad asked. “We can come back after we get some lunch.”
“Okay. Can I have a hot dog from the cart out front?” Josh asked.
“Sure, I think they even had ice cream. I think you deserve it.”
“Yay!”
They walked through the various exhibits of the last 25 years on the way out the door. The conversion from fossil fuels to electric, electric to fusion. Wheeled vehicles to floating, anti-gravity vehicles.
Man’s reach for the stars with manned missions to Mars, Venus and finally the moons of Saturn.
It was apparent that soon we would reach Uranus and Neptune.
Josh and his dad left the building and headed towards the hot dog vendor out front.
They had just ordered when a bright light erupted from their left. Everyone turned to look at the light that was brighter than the sun.
“What the –” was all Josh’s dad got out before the blast turned everything to ash.
All over the world, giant spurts of fire erupted from the ground, rising thousands of feet into the sky. From orbit, it would look like giant matches were struck all over the globe and the quick yellow flares mellowed out into the deep red of hot fire.
The only difference was the explosions that were seen were about fifty thousand feet taller.
The whole Earth shook that day. Seismic events registered unlike nothing ever seen before. Numbers that the Richter scale couldn’t even anticipate.
All over the world darkness enveloped everything. After the initial blast, a vast vacuum sucked up debris and propelled it high into the sky. Dust, dirt, ash, rocks, bricks, houses, cars, busses, you name it.
It all became airborne, blocking out the sun.
Then came the secondary shockwaves.
Anything not sucked up was thrown out, away from the blast epicenter at a tremendous force and speed.
If anything was standing after the initial blast, it was more than likely obliterated by the shockwave of the following debris.
After the shockwave dissipated, great clouds filled the skies. Blue balls of electricity shot from them to metallic items left on the ground.
The twisted iron and steel girders of destroyed skyscrapers crackled as the ball lightening touched and enveloped them.
If anyone had lived in those areas, they would have smelled acrid smell of burnt ozone, mixed with the smell of burnt wood, burnt hair, and charred flesh. It would be a fetid smelling barbeque smokehouse scent, but no one alive was close enough to smell it. And if they were, they had much more on their minds than the smells.
Most of the missiles launched consisted of single and multiple warheads that were more than enough to destroy the targets intended.
The majority of the US’s missiles were Mark 12 or Mark 12As. The Mark 12’s carried three 170 kiloton warheads, and the Mark 12A’s carried three 335 kiloton warheads. One Mark 12A was enough to level Hiroshima seventy-five times over, and the US launched hundreds of them, and the lesser missiles around the world.
Several other countries did the same. The power unleashed that day was equivalent to a weeks’ worth of the sun’s power.
How the Earth stayed in one piece was a miracle, or a nightmare, if you were a survivor.
The world was again at war.
