The date is June 19, 2772. You are in an elite team of Acmetropolis government research scientists. Just minutes ago, a comet was discovered heading straight for the city. Only two hours remain until the comet strikes and your fellow scientists believe that the comet has the power to destroy the planet.
Your boss has told you that this shall not reach the general public and that you are not allowed to leave the building. You now must spend the last two hours of your life with your fellow co-workers.
The news struck Tatiana harder than any comet ever would, even this one. She just stood there, shocked, as her stomach dropped and she felt as if everything in her world had shattered.
Slowly, as if on auto pilot, she went to the nearest phone and called her cousin, Azelynn, she only got the answering machine, "Aze? I-it's me, Tati...I...I won't be coming home tonight, something...something came up.. I just wanted you to know..that I love you, and that you were the best friend I ever had...b-bye..."
She set down the phone and dropped into the chair nearest to her, not caring if it was someone else's. Elbows on knees, head in hands, she sat there, trembling. Waiting for fate to claim her and take her away from this dread.
"The government always does this! They always do!" Akira slammed her hand hard next to the keyboard, almost breaking it.
"Calm down Akira," Another scientist stood near the girl. "I'm sure the government know what they're doing."
"But they don't!" The girl sharply turned to her collegue. "They always try to cover things up whenever bad things happen, just so they can suit themselves to go to their bullet proof man covers or something! That just leaves everyone else to get killed off by that meteor!"
"I'm sure there is a reason why the government didn't want everyone else to know." The same male scientist said.
"Sure they did!" Akira shot back as she started to tap frantically on the keyboard to a computer. "But what they didn't say is that the collision between Earth and the meteor could be prevented!"
"Are you sure?" Another male scientest questioned her. "It looks too big to stop."
"Well just because it's too big, doesn't mean to say that it can't be stopped." Akira exclaimed as she continued. "Think of this as a David and Goliath battle okay?"
Tatiana perked up at Akira's words. This disaster could be prevented?
She rose from her seat and rushed over to Akira, "Miss Cat!" she called, using Akira's last name, "do you really think this comet's course can be altered?" She pulled out her calculator, ready to work through some calculations.
Across the room from Akira, her sister was also taking the news badly. Lycoris held her head in her hands, leaning on her desk as she tried to control her feeling of helplessness. She felt tears prickle at the corners of her eyes as she furiously wiped her hands across ther face.
"Okay, That's enough girl! No use crying! Let's see if this space boulder has an Achilles Heel."
She thought to herself, lifting her head and tapping at the keyboard quickley. As she tapped away, she had an after thought:
"Why Achilles? He was a bad tempered maniac that dragged a corpse from his chariot."
Lycoris shook her head of the thought and continued to check the data that was coming in. However, the results didn't please her one bit.
The meteor was estimated to be about 588 miles across but it could turn out to be alot bigger. It was heading towards Earth at break neck speed, at that pace, it would collide with Earth in about two hours and counting.
Lycoris pushed herself away from the desk on her office chair, putting her hands at the back of her head and looked towards the ceiling, seeing nothing as she went deep into her thoughts.
"I should of known this would be a bad day, here we are, knowing in two hours that all life as we know it, is gonna be blasted out of existence by a whooping great rock.
She let out a sigh.
"Ahh... Karma, Big rock wipes out the dinosaurs and starts the age of the mammals. Then billions of years later, Big rock comes and makes mankind extinct. Bring on the age of roaches!"
Lycoris sighed again and chuckled at the memory from that morning.
She was making her sugar tea when her eight year old son, Adrian had informed her that his class project on the Solar system at school was almost done and that could she go and see the planets he had made, at the Parent's Evening next week. Lycoris had promised him that she would and that if he didn't get his butt upstairs and change into his uniform, she'll drop him off at school in his Superbat pajamas.....
Suddenly, she shot up in her chair, frantically chucking papers off her desk. As the other scientists closest to her desk looked over to her as she searched furiously. Finally, she managed to locate what she was looking for, her mobile.
Lycoris snatched up her mobile and flipped it open. The screensaver of her, her husband, David and Adrian, all in the middle of a tickle fight, beamed up towards her agitated face. However, she didn't acknowledge it as she scrolled down her contacts and found the number she wanted most: David-Mobile.
She punched in the "Yes" option and brought it up to her ear. It rang for a few moments before it told her that there was no signal. After trying several times and failing, she let out a small, furious scream and hurled her mobile a few metres away. Lycoris slumped into her chair and quietly sobbed to herself.
-- Edited by Twilightgirl at 16:06, 2008-09-01
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Stars in your eyes little one, Where you go to dream of a place we all know, The Land of Make-Believe
Akira glanced at the female scientist who readied her calculator. Akira looked back at the computer screen.
"I'm not saying that it could be prevented." She anwsered. "But I'm not gonna spend the last two hours of my life feeling sorry for myself. At least I'm gonna try anything to save this planet from getting destroyed. And anyone else is more than welcome to help me if they want to keeping living on this planet."
Tatiana still stood beside Akira ready to punch in the numbers. The screen showed the meteor close up.
"That's strange." Akira frowned. "The meteor is not even half the size of Earth."
"How big is it?" Tatiana asked.
"I don't know, but I definately know it's not big enough to destroy Earth." Akira answered. "Obviously it might destroy at least a city, or even a country. But definately not the whole planet."
Lycoris then rushed up to Akira's side.
"Did you just say the Earth won't be destroyed?" She inquired.
Akira nodded her head.
"With the size of the meteor, we can redirect the meteor away from here, or we can destroy it easily. Either way, everyone will be safe." The scientist said. "We just need to find a plan to do so."
OOC: Hang on, Sis. I don't think you can control other people's characters in a RPG. Just remember that You're Akira, let us share the work and let me be Lycoris and Jetsir, Tatiana. Okay?
Lycoris didn't know how long she had been sitting there, sobbing to herself. It must of been only acouple of mintines and yet, it felt like forever. When she had finally pulled herself together, she wiped her eyes and got up from her chair.
As if on auto pilot, she crossed an empty space between tables and stopped when she got to her mobile. Picking it up, Lycoris inspected it for damage that she might of caused to it. Seeing none, she flipped it open and sighed with relief that the tickle fight screensaver was fine.
"Thank Gods for that." She said to no one in particular.
She remembered that day when the picture was taken, it was on a cloudy afternoon and "Auntie" Akira had stopped by for a coffee. However it started, Adrian and David had started tickling each other.
"Aww, this is cuter than when you see the monkeys at the zoo tickle each other." She had told Akira. Then Adrian broke free of his father and crashed into his mother, making monkey noises. Lycoris wasn't going to let him get away with it and started tickling him. Then David came up and started his tickle attacks on her, laughing, "Go pick on someone your own size!"
So she turned on him and started tickling him instead, with Adrian joining in. Akira, of course, was laughing her head off, ignoring David's pleas about getting his wife off him. Instead of helping him, she had grabbed Lycoris's mobile and took the picture, saying that this was too good to miss.
Lycoris stood there, gazing at the photograph. Somedays, when work had got tedious, she got her mobile out and would look at that photo. Okay, so family life was never perfect all the time but it was moments like in the photo, that kept her going.
"I don't know, but I definately know it's not big enough to destroy Earth."
"What?!" Lycoris snapped out of her daydream and looked around quickly for the person who had just talked. "Obviously it might destroy at least a city, or even a country. But definately not the whole planet."
She pinpointed where the voice might of been coming from and walked quickly towards it. After crossing several desks and apologising to the owners, she finally managed to stumble upon her sister talking with another scientist, who held a calculater.
Lycoris rushed up to Akira, gasping for breath and without a "Hello, how are you?", she asked:
"Sis, Did you just say the Earth won't be destroyed?"
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Stars in your eyes little one, Where you go to dream of a place we all know, The Land of Make-Believe
"With the size of the meteor, we can redirect the meteor away from here, or we can destroy it easily. Either way, everyone will be safe." The scientist said. "We just need to find a plan to do so."
