Chapter 19 - The Override
Sparks showered over my tactical suit as the heavy blade tore through the thick rubber casing of the cables. The mechanical hum of the seismic core was growing agonizingly loud, vibrating so hard it felt like my teeth were going to shatter. The countdown timer on the main display screen flashed a terrifying thirty seconds. “Evelyn, whatever you are going to do, do it now!” Nathan yelled, keeping his rifle trained on the wounded Thorne. I grabbed the exposed, highly charged thermal conduit cables with both of my heavily insulated tactical gloves. “The core is a runaway thermal reaction,” I shouted over the noise, muscles straining as I physically hauled the thick cables out of the wall. “If we can't turn it off, we overload it before it reaches the critical threshold required to crack the fault line!” I dragged the live power cables across the grated floor, ignoring the burning heat radiating through my gloves. The core was protected by a thick layer of reinforced, liquid-cooled glass. I looked at Nathan. “Shoot the coolant glass!” I ordered. Nathan didn't hesitate. He swung his rifle toward the core and emptied the rest of his magazine into the reinforced glass casing. The armor-piercing rounds shattered the glass, sending a massive spray of freezing, pressurized liquid coolant exploding across the room. I slammed the live thermal power cables directly into the exposed, freezing coolant system. The laws of thermodynamics took over instantly. The massive surge of uncontrolled electricity met the highly pressurized freezing liquid, creating an instant, catastrophic short circuit. The entire facility violently shuddered as every single breaker in the underground fortress tripped simultaneously. The blinding blue light of the seismic core flickered, sparked violently, and then completely died out. The deafening roar of the machine spun down into a pathetic, whining halt. Total darkness plunged the room, broken only by the faint, eerie glow of emergency battery lights. I dropped the fried cables and collapsed onto my knees, my breath coming in heavy, ragged gasps. The countdown timer on the shattered display monitor was frozen at exactly four seconds. Nathan rushed over to me, pulling me to my feet, his hands gripping my shoulders tightly. “You did it,” Nathan breathed, his voice thick with awe and relief. “You actually did it.” Across the room, Captain Elias Thorne lay bleeding on the floor, staring in absolute, shattered disbelief at the dark, silent core. “You ruined everything,” Thorne whispered, his voice cracking with agony. “No, Elias,” I said, walking over and standing above him, my shadow falling completely over his face. “I just fixed the glitch.”
