Quantum Rip: Welcome to Ethos

During (Part 1)

"Everyone, get ready to start." Ven's voice traveled through the speakers, reaching every single place in the facility.

Slowly she started the countdown, during which most nervously swallowed. Everyone had the same thought going through their minds as the words slowly counted down: 'Moment of truth.'

Everything started well, things going as they predicted they would. But slowly, as the reactor reached higher and higher temperatures, it became clear that things would not continue as predicted.

"This is too fast, stop everything now!" Ven shouted once she saw that they were already at 1% of the total predicted energy levels.

This might not sound like much, however, it was supposed to take ten minutes; only one had passed.

Everyone scrambled as Ven's shout reached them over the speaker. But... They failed.

By the time the team responsible for manually deactivating it arrived, after the automatic system had failed them, the reactor was already at 4%.

This might not sound like much, but it meant the temperature inside the rooms had reached a whopping 600 degrees celsius. And it was still climbing, quicker and quicker.

"Fucking hell, stop it!" Ven shouted, feeling absolutely helpless as no command she entered did anything.

As she watched it start to climb by a percent in just half a minute, she realized what must be wrong. However, the thought was so absurd that she wished to simply immediately forget about it.

After fifteen minutes of frantically trying everything, with nothing working, Ven looked at the readings in complete disbelief.

It was now going up an entire percent every five seconds, and it was continuing to grow faster. Unable to accept what she was seeing, Ven stopped trying and just stared at reading.

Soon it broke past the 100% rating. This was supposed to be impossible due to physical limitations. The highest it should have possibly gone with their known understanding of physics was 95%. The limitations of their technological prowess should make it impossible to go past this.

Even more surprising, the number was still increasing. As it reached 105%, the readings finally stopped. Not because the reaction had stopped, but rather because the measurement system had failed.

…

"Get out of here!" Maxwell shouted at Ghakarhi as he did his best to keep a certain pipe in place. The smell of burnt flesh permeating the air.

Yet the force building up was far too much for him to cope with. Finally, the pipe burst, sending shards flying. A rather large one taking Maxwell's arm with it.

Ghakarhi turned around after hearing the devastating noise, terror in his eyes as he looked at Maxwell whose arm was dangling by a thin piece of skin.

Swallowing back the vomit he could feel coming up, he rushed over.

Ducking to avoid the blasting heat coming from the now broken pipeline. The air visibly vibrating from the heat, Ghakarhi could feel his body being burnt as he reached for Maxwell. The room quickly reaching boiling temperatures.

In his rush, he was not careful, causing Maxwell to groan in pain. The two struggled backward as more and more pipes burst. Causing the heat to increase even more.

Maxwell lost consciousness due to the mix of unimaginable pain and heat. Ghakarhi would not leave him, using all his strength he hoisted the now one-armed Maxwell over his shoulder.

However, the heat quickly sapped him of his strength. Leaning against the walls that were starting to glow, he could feel his lungs burning up with each breath. Fighting all this pain, his eyes burned with determination.

He swore that he would not leave his sister as his parent had left them. Nor would he leave Maxwell behind. Pushing on, not willing to give, Ghakarhi finally made it out of the core reactor.

The pain from the burns had disappeared in the last few stretches. Yet the burn of hot air entering his lungs informed him that it was still inhumanly hot.

"Gods! What happened?" Edvard shouted as he rounded a corner and saw the two, both near death.

From just a glance it was clear that they had at least a fourth-degree burn all over their bodies. Ghakarhi's condition looked worse, even though Maxwell had lost an arm. The stump having been cauterized in passing through contact against the walls.

Not expecting an answer, Edvard rushed forward and took Maxwell from Ghakarhi's shoulder, "This way,"

…

Aneko and Yawen were both a mess, the ones they loved most in the entire world were inside the reactor core. Not in the rest of the facility, but inside the core itself. They had rushed there as soon as the emergency sounds had started blasting and nothing they tried worked.

"Yawen…" Aneko approached Yawen, tears flowing over her cheeks. Yawen quickly pulled her into a hug as she looked at all the readings everywhere going crazy. Nothing gave them any reason for hope.

"Let's go find them," Yawen said, determined to at least see her love one last time.

Aneko nodded into Yawen's chest, both staggering towards the reactor's core. Hoping that somehow their loved ones had made it out before the total meltdown had happened just seconds ago.

…

"Complete meltdown…" A female dressed in military clothing said softly, yet no one in the room failed to hear her.

"H-How?" The president of the United Nations asked, choking on this simple word.

They had run so many tests and experiments. So many simulations and calculations. How could it have gone wrong? And more importantly, how did it happen so quickly? Not having any time to see it coming.

"May God help us." The president mumbled, turning towards the rest of the people in the room, those not centered around the command table. Those receiving the information. "How far were we off. Will the force fields hold?"

"W-we don't k-know. These readings don't make sense!"

"Speak clearly, dammit!" The president shouted, causing the young scientist to jump in his seat. The president wanted them to tell him if he needed to use the stellar defenses to stop the coming explosion or not.

"The readings say that the energy inside there is over 400% the predicted max... A-a-and… It's still growing."

No one spoke after this, even those who were not scientists knew that this was simply impossible. How could something designed to work at the limits of physics, surpass said physical limits?

It was supposed to be completely impossible for it to even reach a 100%. The extra safeguards they had installed were only due to having learned that mistakes happen. But not mistakes of this scale.

The facility was made in the middle of a desert, the nearest human settlement being over 200 kilometers from it. It had a total of 6 forcefields installed at different intervals up to 50 kilometers from it.

Those past the second were really just for peace of mind, something which would only be needed if the machine somehow had double or triple the energy. Now it had over four times the energy, leaving even the best of the best without certainty, leaving them relying on hope and not math.

No one had thought this would actually become the thing that determined whether humans would be wiped from Earth. While this did not mean humans will be brought to extinction, losing their home planet would severely set the human race back.

One by one these force fields lit up, first at a kilometer radius around the facility. Then 2, 5, 10, 25 and finally 50.