Project Fallout

Chapter 1: Fading dusk.

 Fading Dusk.

New York, 2016, 1800hrs;

The setting sun cast a dream-like state over the city; glistening spires of city blocks caught the amber rays and sent it coalesced into a stunning beam of light that reflected into the mahogany sky. 

It would have been a magnificent sight if not for the dilapidated ruins of skyscrapers that detracted ones attention. Ironically, the skyscrapers were lying on the ground, their lustre long gone and replaced by a sad emptiness.

The city streets were littered with cars and a majority of them had their doors wide open; obvious signs of hasty departure. Traffic lights, or those that were still standing, were faulty, with those in the same junction blinking antagonistically. Nothing wrong with that of course, but the fact that the rate of change was every few seconds surely could not have gone unnoticed. This is, if there was anyone around to notice it, largely due to the blaring fact that the entire city was deserted. 

A gentle breeze blew along the stretches of road, stirring up various odds and ends; pages of a newspaper spiralled up into the air, riding the air currents. Apart from its rustling, there was only deafening silence to be heard. 

Thirty kilometers away at the heart of the city, lay a massive crater. This semi sphere was two kilometers wide and at the epicentre of the void, it ran four deep.

The setting sun cast a dream-like state over the city.

There were no birds;

There was no life. 

Military ammo dump site, Nevada, 2 years ago:

The sound of booted feet echoed loudly down the underground gang walks.

The subterranean facility was kept under strict surveillance by the US National Guard.

There was only one way in and one had to have multiple clearance codes in order to enter the inner sanctum of the facility, also the primary area of operations.

"Sir, a message has just arrived from Washington. Our operators down at the comm. Lab are unable to decode it. Apparently it's FYEO." Puffed a lean soldier of mid-30's and by the stripes on his uniform, it identified him as a lance corporal.

"Alright, dismissed soldier. Okay everybody listen up. I want everyone to clear the OPS room ASAP." 

Without even pausing to wait, the Commander of the base produced a key card and slotted it into the primary console in front of him. A prompt instantly lit up the OPS room video screen.

Voice recognition eh? He mused. 

Statistics ran across the screen before congregating in a mesh of files, only to be covered by a message pop-up.

'Commander', it read, 'there is a top level priority situation that is to be in immediate effect upon reading this message. Two days ago, our intelligence unit at Washington had chanced upon an encrypted message from within homeland servers, outgoing to the USSR. Upon further probing, investigations have revealed a breach in security. There have already been several instances of system crashes in which have been related to USSR server attacks. The biggest discovery has been that of five USSR intelligence officers amongst our top-brass. It is thereby imperative that you immediately begin a thorough background check on all officers of at least Level Six clearance

This message is to all Commanders. We wish you the best of luck and if it holds, hopefully nothing too harmful will come of this situation. God bless us.'