Tues Feb 28 2072 Las Vegas, LVCE… a glittering palace of corporate affluence and an oasis in the desert. Greedy eyes watch it, hungry eyes. Iron Eyes. The patrons on the strips walk along in their consumerist haze of personal fulfillment, chasing their dreams of riches. The Paiute tribe grows wealthy, strong and powerful on their control of the city's infrastructure. East of the city, in the crags and hills leading to Lake Havasu, a team of Ute Nation rangers hunkers down. A moment later, a blast lights up the night sky. Well placed, without warning, the explosives detonate. Power relay tower one collapses onto tower two, which collapses to tower three, a cascade of relay towers ripping each other apart. The lights in Las Vegas go out. In the LVCE, President Jonas Conners of Gaiatronics rubs his temples. It was not a cooincidence that the LVCE Corporate Board was meeting when the power went down. "Really?" Asks Jonas, looking around the room as backup power comes online. "Really." Says William Huhuseca, Governor of the Denver Ute Nation. "This is about the level of his subtlety. Been dealing with this in Denver for two years now." "Well." Says Jonas. "At least we knew this was coming. Michaels!" "Yessir!" Says the younger man, sitting forward. "Reroute the grid. Start Mother One's feed." "Yes SIR!" Mother One. Deep under the sands of the former Nellis Air Force Base, hidden under layers of bedrock, steel and concrete, Mother One sits. Humming and thrumming, she's been ready for a month, but sitting dormant. With the press of a switch, with the entering of a few lines of computer code, she moves from dormancy to full power, the power of stars and the power of the atom. But the only way any one in Las Vegas would notice… would be the return of light. The outage is brief, the sort of thing most people wouldn't worry about. Less than 3 minutes of total blackness before Mother One's output of energy exceeds the cities needs. Hoover Dam, now severed from the city, has an output that does not quite meet the power requirements of Las Vegas. Mother One's output exceeds Las Vegas' requirement and in the same moment, starts exporting power to Los Angeles and Santa Fe. Mother one… is one huge fusion reactor. |
Tues Feb 28 2012
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