In the last episode with Bear’s help Adam successfully made his journey to Ikeda’s camp just before a powerful super-storm erupted.
Today Seth Busby and our favorite antagonist, Johann Pfizer, return to stir things up. Seth delivers more disturbing news to Johann regarding the dangerous after-effects of powering up the Phoenix collider. A point of no return is quickly approaching. Will the right decision be made or will Johann gamble the lives of everyone on the planet for the sake of his own greed and lust for power? We must read on to find out.
I hope you enjoy today’s edition of Alarm Clock Dawn.
“Wait, Evelyn Poltier? You’re the head of R and D at XenTek?”
“Ha, well, yes, I used to be.”
Memories of Evelyn came flooding back to Adam. He thought she was so attractive her appearance at XenTek’s annual meeting was the highlight of his day. Adam could hardly believe Evelyn was the person who he had been chatting online for these many months. In the real world he would’ve been afraid to even say hello to her. Under the the veil of anonymity of the virtual world he shared with her his innermost secrets. They were able to get to know one another from the inside first and now meeting for the first time they felt as though they’ve known one another for an eternity.
“It's so good to finally meet you, Adam. You helped me so much. Do you realize those online chats we had were the only things that allowed me to hold onto my sanity for the last few awful months?”
“I-i-i'm so glad. You helped me, t-t-too. Chatting with you was the highlight of my day.”
“Come in and get those wet clothes off. I know you've had a rough day. What you need is a cozy bed and a good night's sleep. We have lots to talk about tomorrow morning.” Evelyn led Adam by the hand down a separate torch-lit corridor to a small alcove with a cot and a pile of clean clothes neatly folded on top of it.
“Oh, what about my friend Bear?” Adam inquired.
“Don't worry. We have plenty of food and warm beds.” Evelyn touched his face softly with her hand. “You can sleep here. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. Sweet dreams,” she whispered, giving Adam one final smile before walking away.
“Sleep tight, Evelyn,” Adam called after her as he watched until she disappeared into the darkness. Once he was sure she was gone, he jumped up and down and did his happy dance. VerbalTag was far more beautiful than he could've ever imagined. He changed his clothes and lay down on the creaking cot.
Adam immediately searched around the room. His routine had become so entrenched that, for a moment, found himself panic stricken with the realization that he didn't have an alarm clock. Then an ease came over him as he remembered he wouldn't be needing one—not now or likely ever. He experienced a feeling of contentment he hadn't known since he was a very young child.
So this is what it feels like to truly live? he asked himself as he lay there with his arms crossed against his chest, staring up at the rough rock ceiling.
Adam felt the strong urge to meditate. It wasn't until he began to seek alternative treatments for his anxiety that he had realized he had instinctively been practicing meditation since his earliest childhood memory. He closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply and deliberately.
Almost at once he slipped into a state of that familiar altered consciousness. He lingered in this peaceful place for a long while, drifting seamlessly into the arms of restful sleep, the end of the first glimpse of true freedom he had ever known.
CHAPTER 12
“I'm afraid Harkin has sent us on a bit of a wild goose chase, Director,” Seth said as he and the director entered the subway car enroute to the collider. The train immediately sped off toward their destination.
“We tracked Adam to the subway, but we found his Holo tucked under one of the seats and the memory was wiped clean.”
Johann laughed as he sat down next to Seth. “Clever. But you do realize he clearly had help, don’t you, Busby? The boy’s smart, but he just does not possess this kind of common sense. Get his Holo to our programmers at once and have them comb through every bit of data they can. There might be a shred of something left in it we can use.”
“It has already been done, sir,” Seth answered with a smug grin.
“A step ahead of me. That is what I like to see from you.” Johann gave him a wink.
Seth typed his password on the touchscreen of his Holo and a three-dimensional image of the planet appeared before them.
“You might want to take a closer look at this,” Seth said. “It's quite disconcerting.” An infrared enhanced radar image of the atmosphere appeared on the screen in bright color.
“Johann, I’m afraid we have real problems. As you can see up here at the top of the planet, the tear in the ozone layer has not yet stabilized from the activation of the Phoenix collider. Not only that, but it’s growing continually larger and more unstable. As you can see from the data, this hole in the atmosphere’s protective layer is causing a twofold increase of ultraviolet rays to come through. This is working in conjunction with the greenhouse gases to dramatically raise the temperatures all across the planet. We've seen a rise in the average planetary temperature of a full five degrees in the last day alone.”
“Now this is an unanticipated development,” the director said as he bit down on his thumbnail.
Seth waved his finger across the holographic image on the screen and it began to morph. “Our atmospheric models are predicting it will get much worse before it gets better. This means a very dramatic increase in already intense storms.”
Johann took a long, deep breath. “Okay, just how long until the planet can repair itself?”
“If the computer models are correct, it’s estimated that it could take up to a year. This is only if we don’t power up the collider again.”
Johann closed his eyes and raised his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.
“Dammit!” He then shook his head, “No, no, this is just not an option. We can’t wait a year.”
Tune in on Wednesday, September 28th at 11AM CST for the next episode of Alarm Clock Dawn!
Alarm Clock Dawn is the first novel of a trilogy. The sequel entitled, Truth Is Stranger, will be published in the Spring of 2017.
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