487. Music of Earth, 8

(Myls)

Our flight brought us over high altitude, making Snake flight more difficult.

But we’re already quite close to our first objective.

I know the Himalayan mountains are the highest on Earth, but from where I stand, they don’t look that much different from other high peaks.

Maybe bigger in size. And the nights are very tough.

But with the friends I have around me, there’s not much that truly could worry me.

Between our map and what Blume learnt in the ruins of the city of sun, we navigate quite easily.

Sooner than expected, our objective is in sight.

Beyond a city on a high plateau, there’s a small peak that is quite far away from everything. All the mountains are quite distant from that small lonely peak. It’s almost like a pyramid.

On top of which lies an observatory still cleanly drawn and standing. It’s surrounded by wide antennas in the plateau surrounding it, though they have collapsed.

Blume goes first. She jumps out of Snake.

I will land with Snake a little further away, where there is some woods, and meet up with Blume later using the motorcycle.

~

Snake lands. I held on better.

I climb down, riding slowly over a wing. Snake brings out her tongue toward me. I touch it to say goodbye.

See you soon big bird.

I ride my way to the observatory over mostly rocky landscape and mountain paths. Night begins to fall and the temperature drops fast as soon as sunlight disappears.

Blume is there, looking alright as far as I can tell.

I shut the engine and walk to her.

M - Have you found something interesting then?

B - Yes. It’s a real observatory. It’s mostly working even. And the factory is underground.

This place wasn’t a missile silo. It was a factory. An assembly line and facility for nuclear weapons. A long time ago.

Parts were buried. Like a treasure to recover at a later time I presume. But no one came back.

Time reopened a maintenance access shaft. Blume opened the rest of the doors along our way using force.

We passed warehouses filled with construction supplies, as if they had plans to build something big around here someday.

And deep in the dark artificial cave, we reached the factory.

The nuclear weaponry were assembled in that place filled with robotic arms everywhere. It’s a monstrous sight in the dark. Mechanical though.

We hear a hum, though no machine still works nor is powered. We progress with our torchlights.

We find boxes with empty shells. Boxes of radioactive materials. Some full, others empty.

Finally, my lamp finds a shelf inside a safe with assembled warheads.

The pinnacle of human warfare technology.

Now between my hands.

I hold one of these mostly cylindrical devices.

I don’t know what power it holds, but it surely is enough to hit some gods very hard.

I hand it to Blume. She holds it carefully. She looks at the device and its electronic components carefully.

B - I think the detonator is missing. And it’s probably not something they would keep around these devices.

M - It’s elsewhere, with the missiles supposed to carry them probably. Any way around that?

B - Well... Yes. We can detonate a nuclear device with magic. Easily.

M - What kind of magic?

B - The light of the calamities.

The light that melts nearly any material. If we threw one of these warheads into that kind of dissolving light, it would properly explode? Blume confirms it. It melts most materials, but the light itself is generated by the destruction of atoms she explains to me. In a surge of T.I, these processes normally sheltered and controlled into reactors of the past can be done outdoor with lower critical level and very low yield.

I understand it’s a weaker form of converting mass into energy these roses use through T.I.

All I care is that it can ignite the bomb as well. A drop of their light reaching the fissile materials will send them critical almost instantly and the explosion will occur.

It means a good thing. It will be easier to blow up Magenta if the trigger can be done by itself.

But it also means we will be the ones disintegrated if we’re not careful when under attack.

M - You saw Magenta before, right? How many bombs do we need?

B - One should be more than enough.

M - Let’s take a few more...

~

Given the nature of Magenta’s body, basically a cloud of plasma now, Blume believes a single strike would completely vaporise it. I’d rather make sure nothing of that shit remains, really sure.

The humming noise in the background continues.

Blume packs in her foliage four bombs. Her feet walk more heavily now.

We feel a small quake a little further. The ground is slightly unstable.

It’s probably not Magenta’s doing. Maybe there’s something else below.

~

While Blume begins to make her way out with the packages, I follow my hunch in the dark corridors. I can slightly hear it, but mostly I can now smell it.

I reach fissured walls. Crevices. A chasm without bottom behind a wall.

Glowing shards and crystals are growing along the mineral veins there.

Like roots spreading apart rocks and pavements as they grow, some minerals are doing so in here. The air inside is burning warm.

The rocks are slowly being ripped by these coloured crystals. It sounds as a deep hum from afar.

I leave them be. My light flickers as I turn around.

I didn’t smell anything else different. So I find my way out then.

~

Outside, I find the bombs on the ground. Blume is up on the path to the observatory, waving at me to follow her.

I leave the bombs lying there in the dirt and follow her.

~

The giant flower she is spreads herself around as if she was suddenly invading the place.

She moves some mechanical elements in a loud ruckus. Sparks burst here and there. There’s still a little power somewhere. It glints in the falling night.

The ceiling partially collapses as she tried to force it to open.

After maybe half an hour of this loud and chaotic show, things calm down and begin to make sense.

Vines open a path to me toward an old optical device. A telescope.

B - Look...

I look. She adjusts the large elements forcibly.

I see distant stars. I see some colours in the night sky.

I see the glow appear as the telescope optic is lowered toward the horizon.

And my eye meets the face of god. The cluster of shapeless things that collapsed into a tiny magenta star. The satellite of hatred.

B - Now, let’s estimate its size and distance, shall we?

We have little time... But it’s to help us aim.

~