At a military base near the Far East side of the peninsula of Sky Colossus, a man called Dane Trent is doing his 21:07 over time as usual, prolonging his stay at work to evade his marital squabbles at home. His in the EMT nuclear yield and thermo dynamic detection command room. His two a.s.sistants are working down below at the lower recesses of the command centre. His colleague and wave variance calculator, Amara Black, was his stress relief. They were having an affair, but keeping it under wraps. With the recent military production activities, the command centre had become busy, but due to there rarely ever being any exciting stellar stuff, the focus on foreign terrorists bombings had declined. The Tamerian military, despite this, didn"t become complacent; their level of paranoia and alertness had still remained even in peaceful times. Dane didn"t mind pulling off extended hours and of course, sleeping with Amara to pa.s.s the time. It was the same old night with them talking about scientific theories and running down simulations about potential attacks and even farfetched ones. At the command centre, Dane was happy. He was obsessed with his work and had a woman who shared with him the same voraciousness.
The night was slow as usual until his humongous terminal began to point out erratic hydrostatic and violent thermo nuclear magnitude wave signatures. The room went from taciturn boredom to terrifying ringing of alarms. The night had finally come, the one with activity and everything at stake. Dane and his mistress quickly began to use their tablets, which were connected to the command centre main server and began to a.n.a.lyse the readings. Amara with her 38 year old woman features, nerdy gla.s.ses, moe-esque look , grey cotton dress and almost bland body, nudged Dane and asked, "This is bad Danny, should we wait for base commander Takawira to make the call?"
"No need to call that insensitive man, I will alert the higher ups myself. Initiate magnitude 8.0 defence system." said the semi-bald man with a small head, freckles and short stature, embodied in a cla.s.sic suit and tie. Dane initiated protocol Defence against magnitude 8.0. This was a ma.s.sive bulwark that emanated several hundreds of meters from any given point of the harboured resonance below sea level. As soon as Dane initiated the protocol a 20meter metal wall sprouted from the ground, causing a quake in the city out skirts of Sky Colossus, something that Kudzai Mhike would surely hear about tomorrow at school. The wall didn"t encompa.s.s the whole island, but made a crescent shaped curve, covering the section of the peninsula that was estimated to be p.r.o.ne to severe damage due to the blast. All those who were outside at this time of night, may it be parting, night shift work or a general stroll in the night, witnessed the gargantuan walls. Even the vibrations of the ground, a ripple effect of summoning part of the great wall of Tameria had startled many. Dane who had done his job already knew that Intelligence would just redact the truth of what had happened. Dane was not really curious at all about what was going on and what caused such a ma.s.sive explosion, he simply did his job and left the idea of meddling further, into his mental trash can. He knew in the end that tools like him and Amara would never be told everything, but what they needed to hear.
The great flash of light in the water was in full view, sending vertical gusts of hydrostatic water into the air. The water level rose up extremely high, but Tendai who had separated a lot of water from the harbouring resonance, made the water seem like it was in a sphere that resembled a continental aquarium, bound by gravity and devastating hurricane like air pressure. This was the phenomenon created by Tendai. The blast power was strong and Tendai could feel it. Emilia then suddenly blurted out, "Tendai, the epicentre of the blast has spread rapidly to the north side, you better get things done quickly!" Tendai heard her warning, but didn"t reply. He merely focused on the task at hand. Tendai, who had thought about the fissure effect aspect of the blast, cleaved the water close to the sea bed, leaving it as a shallow pool as soon as he had separated it. Tendai had created a meteorite sized ball of water that was glowing inside; each explosion was like a spectacular heartbeat. Tanaka who had initially levitated close to 30 meters had gone past Reverie"s stratosphere, self-containing the huge sphere of water and at the same time compressing it with wind pressure similar to that of an apocalyptic natural disaster. Such power he exerted was G.o.d like. The men at the command centre and all that travelled at night in their hover crafts saw this feat. The energy, which was violent, thumping like a caged animal trying to escape, had been suppressed.
Tendai was in another league of his own. The remaining ocean water, which had not been included into the giant orb like sphere of water, began to ebb inwards, taking up the vacant s.p.a.ce. The water level of Tameria was surely going to have drastic change. The spherical compressed ball of intense pressure was beginning to give off steam, which he instinctively blew away with the surrounding little air. Several minutes had pa.s.sed as he waited for the energy output to dissipate as he watched the water before him coagulate. The raging heartbeat of explosive power soon lost its pulse, succ.u.mbing to the will of Tendai. The spherical meteorite sized water was now just a compressed geyser. It was boiling, but some of its initial water had evaporated upon detonation making the remnant a miniature sh.e.l.l of its former self. Tendai had tamed this malicious vice and had won. All that was left was to get rid of the toxic impurities. Tendai levitated downwards, getting closer to the ocean bay and stopped mid-air. He gazed up at the clouds above and began to cause friction within the clouds. The pressure he applied was intense and soon enough lightning bolted down and struck the ball of water. Tendai cooked and cooked the water until its smog was ripe for extraction, his epic version of electrolysis. He finally separated the smog inside, meticulously going through every molecule of water and only selecting what he considered malignant. It was like sifting out rocks out of a tray of sulphur, but his means of doing it made it seem so easy. Tendai separated the smog from the water and flung it out of Reverie"s atmosphere. It had been ejected like a cannon ball, never ever to be seen by all manner of life on Reverie. Tendai then began to pour the water down into the sea as if it was in a jug, being poured into a gla.s.s bowel. The fact that the whole feat was effortless, defied logic; he was unbelievably awesome. He soon restored the water level back to normal, but as he was doing so, he began to hear sounds of propelling in the distance. Hornet jets were coming for him. The national guard of Reverie had dispatched several of them, hopefully to end him, but his mission was done. Tendai then averted his attention and then created the same silhouette of water he had used on Takura and put himself in it. It retracted likewise, coiled like a spring, and then finally ejected him into the outskirts, which was at the opposite end of the city. He was gone and free from peril. He had won and accomplished his mission.
Kudzai was lying on his bed, stressed out and covering his face with a" Movies Tonight" magazine. He had not felt hungry that night and had said he had no appet.i.te, a reason that baffled his mother who had known her son as one to devour quant.i.ties that would easily turn her obese if she were to emulate the same eating traits. He had just put himself into a sullen state, thinking about the butchering that Matthew had performed and whether his brother had partaken in such disgusting thing. The possibilities were vast, but he would have to confront the horse"s mouth himself. Soon enough, his window opened from outside. What came into view was his brother, who looked as if he was rained on. The time was 23:06 and Tendai had sneaked into the house. Kudzai had noticed this, but had a weak response due to being maimed with insomnia and the post-traumatic stress he was dealing with. He called out faintly at his brother, "Tendai, Tendai..." Tendai who had just closed the window behind him took notice of the hissing and whispered back, "Yah it"s me little bro, it"s me. Don"t tell mom."
"Don"t forget that um not the type to snitch... " he said, with a morose voice that Tendai easily mistook as being tired. Tendai immediately headed for the bathroom, but was halted by Kudzai"s question which went like, "Why do you smell like fish and salt water, I hope you weren"t doing a triathlon in this weather you gym freak."
"Not at all, I was just practicing water taming," he said with a bit of a laugh, "how was day one of school?"
"It was okay." he lied.
"Well that"s good to hear; at least you will have a menu of girls to choose from, I always said that boys schools were a prison, welcome to the club sunny boy."
"Go bath you stink." uttered Kudzai with a faint chuckle. Tendai raised his hand and gave him a thumbs up as he entered the bathroom saying, "Goodnight little bro." Kudzai waved back to show confirmation. The door was slammed shut from behind and his brother began to bath. Kudzai wanted to ask him a lot of questions, questions regarding his affiliation with a psycho like Matthew and other things he didn"t know about his brother. It wasn"t as if he was doubting him, but one thing that scared people who idolized their hero"s is that they didn"t want any other mental image of how they perceived them being altered. They simply wanted what they had gotten in the beginning, a loveable personality that inspired hope. Kudzai could have dropped the question there upon seeing Tendai, but somehow he would rather have what he knew his brother as and not what he would soon unravel. His dilemma finally exhausted him and he soon fell asleep. His brother came out of the shower, and saw the unblanketed Kudzai and covered him with his own blankets. He smiled at the fact that his brother was snoring peacefully and left his room to eat his refrigerated food which was left for him in the kitchen. What Tendai hadn"t realised is that their relationship of brotherly fondness would soon take an unsavoury path into the depths of dissention.