Mark Morrison - Fifty Years Ago
I stared at my computer screen, hands shaking like I'd had too much caffeine. Nobody could blame me for being on edge. I'd been holed up in this forsaken Arctic tomb freezer for the last six months, the last corner of Earth that humans hadn't completely screwed over—yet.
The Dimensional Collider's startup sequence scrolled by in perfect little lines, all neat and orderly. Everything looked great on the surface. Everything was completely fucked underneath.
The electrical connections were off. I'd run the numbers so many times. I'd taken all my calculations to Dr. Brennan and showed him exactly where this would go wrong and how we were about to murder what was remaining of our species. He'd give it flying fucks and I finally understood why they'd chosen me for this moment. I was just the scapegoat.
When everything went to hell, they needed someone to blame. Someone expendable. The lowest guy on the ladder, the kid from the ruins who should be grateful to be here.
They'd set me up perfectly. The final switch. The last person in the chain. When the Dimensional Collider tore reality apart, it would be Mark Morrison who'd pulled the trigger.
"Cold feet, Morrison," he'd said with that condescending smile. "Perfectly normal before we make history."
History. The word tasted like bile. That's what they were calling this disaster waiting to happen. The salvation of humanity. The answer to all our problems after the resource wars had left the world looking like a burnt-out hellscape.
Four major nations had collapsed into one desperate alliance called the Resistance Nations, and they needed this project to work. They had to prove to everyone left alive that their shiny new government could actually deliver on its promises.
Me? I was nobody. A ghost born from the war's dying breath, trained to patch the holes in a world that was already bleeding out. They'd started me on the Dome projects, designing electrical systems for humanity's last safe havens. Then someone decided I belonged here, in this frozen hell, maintaining the machine that would finish what the wars had started.
Too bad it was going to kill us instead.
"Starting final countdown," the AI announced. Its tone was calibrated for comfort. The AI was Dr. Brennan's son's invention. Some ten-year-old kid, if you could believe that. Word around the facility was that the kid had been born with a computer for hands. Except geniuses stopped being born a long time ago, and if there were any left, I was sure as fuck shouldn't be doing this. Everyone laughed when I said it. "All systems nominal. Dimensional Collider ready for activation."
Through the thick glass in front of us, the Dimensional Collider sat like a giant metal donut. The thing was huge, probably three stories tall and just as wide. It looked like someone had taken a CT scanner and pumped it full of steroids. Metal rings stacked inside each other, all humming with power that made my teeth ache even through the protective barrier.
We were safe up here in the control room, but down there in that white chamber, the air itself looked ready to catch fire.
My fingers rested on the keyboard. I could stop this. One command sequence, and the whole thing would shut down. But then what? Court martial? A firing squad? In a world where every scrap of energy meant the difference between life and death, sabotaging humanity's last hope would be treason of the highest order.
"Getting nervous, Mark?" James called from beside me. His grin was as hollow as his eyes. We'd been mistaken for each other so many times over the past six months that some people had given up trying to tell us apart. Same age, same dark hair, same stubborn jawline. The stress had even aged us the same way, carving identical lines around our eyes. But he kept smiling. We all kept pretending.
Six months of bunking next to each other had taught me that James talked in his sleep, always about home, always about the people he was trying to save.
I'd stopped telling him about my nightmares where the Collider ate Chicago whole. James had volunteered for this assignment. Actually requested it. His sister had died in the Philadelphia food riots, and he believed this project would prevent more cities from falling.
We'd started as strangers who happened to look alike. Now we were something harder to define. Not quite friends, because friends would have been honest with each other. Not enemies, because we both knew we were trapped in the same nightmare.
Sweat was dripping down my face despite the fact that we kept this place colder than a morgue. The Collider's core was going to generate so much heat when it fired up that they'd had to build the entire facility in the most frozen, desolate place they could find. Maybe it was the isolation getting to me. Six months of nothing but white landscape and artificial lighting. Maybe the cold was messing with my head.
But the numbers didn't lie. The cascade failure was as clear as day.
"No," I said, meeting James's eyes. "We're about to screw this up royally, and you know it."
His grin died. The pretense cracked, revealing the terror underneath. "The readings look perfect," James said, but his hands were shaking as he adjusted his console settings. "This is going to work, Mark. This is going to save everyone."
I looked around the control room. Hundreds of people packed in here. Scientists, engineers, military brass, and government officials. All watching. All waiting.
"Sixty seconds to dimensional breach," the AI said.
My hand moved to the activation key. The room went quiet except for the hum of machinery and people whispering prayers under their breath. Everyone knew we were about to witness either humanity's greatest triumph or its final fuckup.
I closed my eyes and thought about Sarah, my girlfriend back in New Chicago. About the letter I'd written but never had the guts to send, the one where I'd planned to ask her to marry me when this assignment was over. I thought about the kids we might have had, the life we could have built in whatever world came after this moment.
"Mark," James whispered. "It's time."
I opened my eyes and looked at the screen one last time. The electrical pathways were pulsing in these beautiful, perfect patterns that would hold for exactly 3.7 seconds after activation before everything went to shit.
"Ten seconds," the AI said.
I found the key.
"Five… four… three… two…"
I'm sorry, I thought, and pressed down.
The core erupted with the sound of God's own scream. Electromagnetic fields crackled and hissed as they locked into their final configuration. Energy arced through the superconducting rings in brilliant displays that burned afterimages into my vision. The air itself became electricity, every molecule charged with power that made my skin crawl.
"Core temperature rising, all within normal range," someone shouted. "Electromagnetic containment holding steady."
Success after success rolled across the displays. Dimensional barriers were weakening. Parallel frequencies detected. A perfect match. Another universe, another Earth, rich with geothermal energy waiting to be harvested. Everything humanity needed to survive.
Then the portal opened.
The light was so bright it felt like staring into the sun before the smog took over the sky. I found myself smiling through the tears streaming down my face.
"Holy shit, we'd actually done it," I mumbled.
Against all odds, despite every fear I'd had, we'd actually pulled it off. James slapped my back, shouting something I couldn't hear over the roar of interdimensional energy. Other voices joined in, the whole control room erupting in celebration. Dr. Brennan was probably already planning his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
But through all the blinding light and chaos, I caught sight of my computer screen.
The calculations were updating in real time. Energy output. Dimensional stability. Cascade probability.
My blood went cold.