THE MANHATTAN PROJECT. (manhattanmods) wrote in mnhttnprjct, @ 2010-03-13 16:19:00 |
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The missile compromises for no one. When it is launched from the cruiser, it even morphs the Pacific Ocean herself against her will. The waves that were once as beautiful – and, invariably, as static – as the mild curves of stained glass are pushed aside by the sheer forcefulness of the air trail, forming that familiar ridged cup shape so often associated by a ship’s wake. Its pushiness hardly relents once it gains altitude; gray ribbons fall from the tail wings as the steel casing displaces everything in its path. The water and the clouds are, invariably, only the first thing to be shoved back; in its first moments on the job, this little bomb is already showing beautiful promise in its chosen field. When it reaches San Francisco, the cloud cover ensures the city’s ignorance. When it is over the Golden Gate, the missile is at its highest point of altitude in its trajectory, but this poor visibility means that the world will never know this. Its hammered steel casing wouldn’t render itself visible to the naked eye until somewhere past Sacramento, when the combination of gravity and clearing skies make for the occasional first-hand account of what they thought was “a crashing plane.” By this point, it is falling fast enough to make sure that the identity of the object is hard enough to pinpoint; the attached rocket booster to the back of the hull is only meant to expedite this process. Technically, Carson City is the first to see the missile for what it is, but by this time, the missile is hurtling towards the city center on a tight deadline and nobody’s being given the time to really compute much of anything. Even the birds are singing in the minutes before the detonation and the dogs blissfully committing to the morning constitutional as happy families take Spot on a walk. This is no Pompeii, with its cultivated denial, followed by panic and subsequent resignation. No, the screams that turn to boiled blood at the epicenter are real and true and genuinely shocked as the missile consumes its targets in the greatest inferno. The missile does not care that they never knew, nor is thankful that its victims didn’t see what was coming. It is only aware that it has expelled a great amount of energy and that now it needs to refuel. The missile is now a ghost, but it is ravenous and those who are left behind are unfortunate enough to be subject to its demanding appetites. When the Secret Service opens the door to the sandstone house in a little suburb called Geist, Koetke already has a cigar in one hand and whisky in the other. The tinny noises of a thousand news networks are heard in the other room and the president-elect already looks like he hasn’t seen hide nor tail of a bed in seventy-two hours. “Son of a bitch, Kenny, don’t you look at me like that. If the press is faulting me for a stiff drink at three on a Sunday for hearing a story like this, then that’s a risk I’m ready to take For fuck’s sake, stop loomin’ on the porch.” He doesn’t inhale the cigar so much as hisses it in, teeth all gritted as he opens the door with his back and waves the suits in. The door is slammed shut but it’s mostly due to the president-elect’s weight as he slumps. He slumps, as fragile and shocked as the average Joe he campaigned as, and discards the cigar on accident in lieu for placing his head in his hand. “Son of a bitch,” he mutters and you can’t help but notice the tears and the resignation that this is the beginning of an end he didn’t ask for in so many ways as he says it, “son of a bitch.” |