Chapter 23.

One of a kind.

Morgan Ringer.

Time/Area: NYC, 2013. July 13th. Synth Plant.

“Just lock up once you're done man...It’s one in the morning.” Josh ordered, rubbing his eyes as he walked out the metal doors, “You can’t fix everything on this project in one night..”

I didn’t respond; I didn’t care to.

Right now I, Morgan Ringer, was in the reactor room of the Synth plant located in the Bronx. The deck was full of computers running diagnostics I had set up. I needed to make sure that this thing was running without flaw before I left. So what if I stayed up all of Saturday? What would I achieve by attending my son’s party at school? The future would happen here, not as a chaperone. I looked through the glass of the viewing deck again, taking note of everything going on within the reactor chamber. The reactor itself was a giant silver sphere in the middle of a huge space littered with meter long cables. It didn’t look like much, but it was going to be able to power all of New York city with its new, Redlight energy. The Redlight project, as Mr.Synth himself had called it, was supposed to be our main presentation in the ISAC competition. It would’ve been...if it wasn’t for the radiation leak caused by the unnecessary field testing of the ERL liquid. Well, that, and whatever was going on at the ISAC testing facility in Paris. Energis was screwing things up again.

But I couldn’t concern myself with that, as this was the only thing that mattered to me. Mr.Synth had chosen me to oversee the reconstruction and redevelopment of the Redlight project after our meltdown, and I wasn’t about to fail. The 20 foot tall and 23 foot wide silver ball mounted on the 5ft tall and 24 foot wide Chromium pedestal was going to be the fastest electric generator on the face of this planet. Once I turned it on, at its current stage, it’d be able to generate 57500 MWh per hour, meaning that it could generate 1380000 MWh daily. I obviously couldn’t leave it on that long, b-but I could quickly test it out. Redlight worked through the use of our signature laser technology. That sphere was coated and layered with tiny threads of glass interwoven between the silver metal. Those glass threads were only 10 Micrometers in diameter, which was significantly smaller than an average human hair. The reactor chamber fired incredibly short laser shots at those threads, turning it into a metal like substance as the laser generates an incalculably fast current of electrons.

I let the palms of my hands graze the glass shielding separating me from the sphere. From my life.

Before I could turn this on however, I needed to do....even more diagnostic checks.

Yes.

I continued to work for hours without end. I worked until it was dark again. That wasn’t wrong or anything, I just had to work. My wife had called several times, but I just couldn’t answer her right now. I was too busy. I was the only one staying through whatever off days we had to work on this.

Ha.

I had no idea what Josh was talking about. The synth plant just got back up and running, and these workers decided to only work their normal shifts?!

Everything had to be perfect for Mr.Synth. This plant needed to be operating at 100 percent efficiency before September.

Just then, my phone buzzed again from my lab coat pocket.

I pulled out the device, expecting to find another missed call but instead receiving a notification from my subscription to New York Daily.

“More things on monsters?” I thought, swiping through New York Daily’s website while reading headlines.

‘Interference Cloud’ Apparently reached past Paris.

Families have no way of contacting each other.

Airports reaching a global height in occupancy.

Surge in plane crashes over water in spontaneous areas.

Airport boycott? What should I do?

Scientists predict more interference clouds are the source of plane crashes.

Government satellites can’t ‘see’ France, says president Henry Jackson yesterday.

Believe in monsters? School is STILL on. Keeping your kids in school OR virtual is a trend throughout some states in the U.S.

Strange ‘red water’ in some parts of New York is just adding to the list of worries we all have.

What has the world come to?

I ignored the notification, realizing that I had too much work to do.

I ran a couple more diagnostic tests before something weird occurred.

I smelled something strange in the air, and the more I started to breathe it in, the more my body didn’t feel right.

“Ignore it.” I told myself, eagerly jogging across the room for the initiation console in front of the viewing glass.

The smell was still there though. In a word, I’d call it sulfur, but it had a...sting to it that just...nevermind.

I got to the console, keying in the four digit pass code as the entire room began to fill with satisfying buzzes and relieving whirs.

Project Redlight was heating up.

But the feelings kept coming. I lost my smile as the red lasers produced from the reactor chamber washed across the sphere like a sheet of rain, my mind trying to justify the sudden churning in the pit of my stomach.

I could feel whatever I was inhaling stay inside me now, as if something solid was scratching at my throat. I backed away from the deck, no longer concerned for the test. I probably wasn’t supposed to leave it on too long, but this was more important. Was there another leak? Had I been infected with something?

It was starting to scare me.

My head began to feel like an endless tsunami was ripping through it, my body began to sting and itch all over.

I choked on whatever was in the air, “H-help!” I managed to yell.

But no one was around.

They had all gone home.

I coughed and stumbled towards a nearby eye wash station, spinning the faucet switch and immediately letting the water wash across my face.

It was doing nothing.

I kept coughing and choking on whatever gas was here as if it was some kind of poison.

“AH!” I yelped as the water suddenly began to burn, stepping back as I stared at the station in horror.

The water that the eye wash station was blasting was not a clear color at all.

It was red.

I remembered what I had read from the notifications,

“Red water?” I mentally recalled, “W-what’s happening to me?”

Suddenly, the pain increased even more, my chest feeling like it would tear apart any minute as I sank to my knees.

It felt as if several snakes were crawling through my body, squeezing themselves into every vein as I felt an agonizing tension unfold from within me.

“I don’t want to die!” I thought, “I have to make sure Redlight works!”

The headache had returned too, rivaling the pain of the rest of my body 100 to one.

I screamed as I felt drops of my blood spill from my face. I felt my eyes, realizing with a burst of fear that they were the source of the blood. My eyes were bleeding.

Bam! Another bullet of solidified pain arced up my head, my vision going blurry as I felt more of my bodily fluids leak from my ears,

“AHHHH!” I cried out, but it was useless. The thoughts racing through my mind were indescribable, but my original thoughts of self preservation slowly seemed to dwindle. I didn’t know why, but I felt a part of me accepting what was happening. I was still screaming; screaming to the point where my voice cracked and began sounding different,

“AAAAHRAA!”

I was sure of nothing. Everything seemed to be torture and bliss at the same time. I could hear something like warning alarms from the reactor room. It had been on too long and was malfunctioning, but this pain...it was going to kill me.

I didn’t want to die!I couldn’t!

I had to die! Food...riiiight THERE!

I felt my body convulsing, huge globs of blood now pouring from my mouth and onto the metal floor.

It felt like my insides were being torn apart and shoved out of my body, and with every regurgitation came more buckets of suffering to add to the sea of affliction rising inside me.

I could barely think.

All I felt was pain.

Until suddenly, the world went black, and I slipped into death’s void.

I was fiiinalllyyy DEAD! But I was still scared?

Fear

Fear

Fear

I was hungry.

I am hungry?

Tall..I am Tall.

Sharp..I am Sharp. My arm..is sharp..glowing...red?

Scared..I am scared.

Hungry..I am hu-ngry. Look...window...glass. Sphere. I see the sphere.

Sphere food.

I need food.

I need it NOW!

SMASH!

Glass….Glass broken. I jumped down on the floor. It’s hot. The floor is hot.

So close. So close to sphere. So close to food.

Sounds….sounds everywhere.

Touch. I need to touch food.

Close.

Finger almost th-

ZZT ZZT! BANG!

Pain. I feel pain. Sphere shot me. Sphere fed me. Arm now sharper? Arm glowing brighter...redder now? Redder and sparky. Like...lightning? What isssss lIghtNinG?

Body..changing again. Too much power. Reactor...Sphere...now turned OFF.

Body...growing taller. Even more power. More. More. More. I’m nottttt scared.

I jump. Jump back to deck. Back away from Sphere.

Another window.

Person?

Persons.

People..It is people. People I see out the window. I see every person. Red stuff is in the s-ky. The AIR! People are breathing in red stuff.

There are people for feet...for miles. All made of red strands...all extra. Alllll scared. Everyone’s

S c a r e d. Everyone is breathing.

Miles.

Miles away.. Children’s place!

School.

Scien-ce?

School of Science. Children’s place. Children are tasty...lots of power. Soooo many emotions. Scarrredy cats?

I see children walking.

Two.

One boy is making noise in his back. Ring Ring Ring! That’s what it sounds like. Is it water in his spine? Going up and down and up and down. The boy isn’t breathing in the red air? WHYYYY. Red air makes more...lightning.

Ringing Boy isn’t good? No sparks in him. No extra.

I cannot eat Ringer boy. Ringer boy has liquid. Who did this to Ringer boy?

Kids….p-arents?

Parents. Boy has parents.

SMASH!

Window..Broken. I broke Window.

Ringer boy goes..to his parents house? Other boy follows.

I run.

I run to….Manhattan?

NO!

Ringer boy saw me?

No..no he doesn’t know.

Ringer boy’s parents soooooo scared. So sparky.

Deeelicious?

I’ll eat Ringer Boy’s….parents? Yes yes yes! While they go to Children’s place? Yes! Hungryyy. Scared. Everyone is s c a r e d.