Link City

Final protocol

Chapter 34: Final protocol

I couldn't breath. In my heart, I'd known it was coming, but hearing it said was a completely different thing. From the looks on my companion's faces, I could tell they felt much the same.

“Well we have to stop it!” Jason's voice cracked. “There must be a way!”

Optimistic. Jason had always been so optimistic. Miya was slowly shaking her head, and Drew was biting his lip hard enough that blood was beginning to drip from the spot.

“How long do we have?” Skye's question was more practical, but much more depressing.

The frustration in the air was tangible. “No more than six hours,” Miya said, “but it could happen much quicker.”

There was silence. No one knew what to say. I felt Dustin's hand on my shoulder, squeezing. Romeo turned and began to walk away. To where he was going, I had no idea. I had to do something! There was one thing I was sure of, I couldn't just sit still, waiting to die. Even if I knew in my heart we were finished, I had to try. There was always a chance. From being marked, I'd learned many lessons, but that was the top one. Even in the face of unbelievable odds, you still had to try.

“I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to just stand here and wait to die.” I'd gotten the attention of the room. Even Romeo had stopped. “You don't have to tell me how impossible this is going to be. Believe me, I know. But I agree with Jason. There has to be a way.”

I turned to Drew and Miya. Between the two of them, they had to know something that could help us. They seemed to be taking my words more seriously than Jason's, and they were both lost in their own minds. They were trying. That was a start.

“There's only one thing I can think of, aside from evacuating the city, and even it won't save us forever. It will buy us some time. I don't completely understand how final protocol works, but I fairly sure that once it's put into play it can't be stopped. There's a countless number of people that have to hit a button, and they can all veto each other, but once it's decided on I have no idea how to stop it. However, there is a fail safe.” Miya spoke first

I held my breath, this was promising.

“I actually didn't learn about it until this year, when I started working in the area of the nuclear generator.”

Shuttering, I remembered the two guards Skye and I had killed when we'd been trying to escape from the underground.

“In case the entire EUP suddenly had a change of heart, and decided not to detonate, there is a way to go back.”

“Then why didn't you just say so?” Dustin protested, looking annoyed.

“Because there's no way we could do it. All of the people, all over the EUP, who originally pushed their buttons, have to turn it off. Now, the people who designed the system realized that this would take to much time, so they built in a way to delay the detonation. This will not turn it off, but it will delay it for thirty-six hours. I have no idea what we could do with that time, but it's better than what we have now.”