(no subject)

[eureka_npcs]

-- WEAPON WILL DEPLOY IN 3 HOURS --

Henry, Nathan and Allison have all gathered for the umpteenth time in Nathan's office overlooking the first floor lobby of Global Dynamics. The picture would probably look almost amusing to the average GD employee - Dr. Stark leaning against his chair with one hand on his hip, Henry in his garage jumpsuit and driver's cap looking almost ready to restrain one Allison Blake who might jump over the desk at Nathan any second.

"Well, there's gotta be something. Use...explosives to blast through the rest of the bedrock," Allison suggests helplessly.

Henry's already shaking his head. Again. "This machine was programmed as a second strike dead-man's weapon. Any kind of explosion and -- " A snap of Henry's fingers. Boom.

"I cannot believe we built this thing to protect ourselves," Stark offers more to himself than to the others in his office.

Allison keeps going. "I'm going to have to put a call in to the DoD."

"You can't!"

"I have to."

"You can't!" Henry repeats himself.

"I think they'll notice if we start World War Three!"

"Allison," Nathan offers as calmly as ordering a cup of coffee, "Think about it. What are you going to say? We may accidentally blow up Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and...Stockholm?"

That is it! "I know how fond you are of Stockholm, Nathan," Allison retorts, "but this is bigger than you."

"If you tell them that we can't stop it, then they're going to try and stop it, they'll nuke us, and -- "

Shouting, "I know! Any kind of explosion can trigger the device, I get it! But we're running out of options."

Jack Carter storms into Nathan Stark's office behind Nathan's back just then, smiling that smile of finally having a plan. "Beg to differ," he addresses Allison while drawing his sidearm. To Nathan: "Gonna have to borrow your Nobel."

With a clattering smash, Jack whips the butt of his pistol against the glass case containing Nathan's Nobel Prize, leaving everyone in the room in a moment of silence.

Nathan sighs. "It was open."

"Oh. Sorry." Jack opens the case while completely ignoring the gaping hole now in the glass, taking the award down off its perch.

"What in the hell are you doing?" Nathan finally snaps at him.

"Oh, we're gonna party like it's 1962." Award in hand, Jack disappears again out of the office. Nathan turns back to Allison and Henry before they have a chance to follow.

"I miss Sheriff Cobb."

Comments

[felon-spice.livejournal.com]

Zoe is pretty sure that her dad has gone off the deep end, but she's going to support him anyway. Because if the world is really going to end, she'd rather be with him than anywhere else. Not that she's planning to tell him that, of course.

Allison looks pretty and Zoe wishes she could hear the conversation between her and Dr. Stark when they come out on the stage. When her father joins them a few moments later, she knows that Dr. Stark is giving him a hard time and scowls.

She giggles when Jo flashes her gun at Fargo and then settles in to listen to Dr. Stark speak.

"Ladies and Gentleman and distinguished colleagues, welcome to Stockholm. Robert Oppenheimer famously said: 'The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable.' One man never forgot those words. A man we welcome among us today. A man whom the Nobel committee and the Norwegian parliament has selected for this year's award of Nobel prize, Dr. Irwin Horatio Thatcher."

Zoe applauds with the rest of the audience until she realizes that the hologram program is shorting out. Luckily, Dr. Stark realizes it too and gets Fargo to fix it before Dr. Thatcher comes out on the stage.

"He's been carrying that speech for forty years," Eugenia leans over and whispers to her, making her smile.

Suddenly she's very proud of her father for having this idea.

[eureka_npcs]

The paper in Irvin's hands crinkle and rustle when he flattens them against the podium, squinting against the lights on the stage and completely oblivious of the men and woman on the stage behind him. The nice one had offered to hold his award.

His award. His Nobel. His.
My prize in Stockholm I worked so hard
He doesn't need the paper in front of him, but it's there as a comfort.

Irvin Thatcher doesn't speak before taking in the audience; a sea of faces he doesn't recognize, and his eyes glaze over.




"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round -- "

The audience. They have to understand.

"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round..."

Irvin finds Eugenia's face in the crowd, raising her hand in the most timid and shy of waves. Irvin's song cuts off.

And he waves back.

"A simple little children's song. But it was this song that inspired my concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. We build an A-bomb, they build an A-bomb. We build an H-bomb, they build an H-bomb. Round and round, round and round. Wheels on the bus, leading us towards an unending escalation of new, more powerful, more deadly weapons. Which is what led me to my greatest achievement - the ionosphere particle beam.

"In order to ensure peace on Earth, I built the deadliest weapon in the universe.

"But that's the end of the story. Let me take you back to the beginning -- "

From somewhere behind him: We don't have time to go back to Neverland.

The nice one rushes forward to Irvin's side, starting: "Uh, Doctor Thatcher? There's an urgent situation that needs your attention. Sorry."

Oh. Okay. Back to work. But first, Irvin turns to the podium again. "I would just like to end by thanking the committee -- " he gestures towards the woman and the other man on stage.

" -- And Eugenia, my love. without whom, this achievement would not have been possible." Irvin blows a kiss to his love, beaming. "We have a lot of catching up to do."

The audience roars into applause, and Irvin grabs his Prize from the nice man, expression turning suddenly sour.

"My crew!" Irvin cries, nearly running offstage. "I've got to get my crew to fix the device!"

[eureka_npcs]

Henry stands with Allison, Nathan, Jack and Fargo, watching Irvin and his crew work to repair the device. He's glad that Jack's plan worked, but he knows that time is running out.

He glances at the countdown clock. "Thirty seconds and counting guys."

Even in the lab, they can hear the device opening up and Henry imagines that there is quite a bit of panic on the streets.

Irvin looks at his crew members. "Ready... set... go!"

Henry's eyes dart back and forth. He has no idea what they are about to do but he hopes to God that it's going to work.

"Key one, Key two and off." His assistants follow his orders and there is a moment of silence when it sounds as if the machine is shutting down.

The countdown clock starts again and Henry's eyes dart around the room again. The fear is palpable. Irvin looks confused. He watches a few seconds count down and then kicks the machine.

The digital displays changes from ten to nine and then the mechanical voice fills the room. "Launch code override initiated."

"Yes!" Henry yells as everyone in the room breathes a collective sigh of relief and celebrates their near miss. There are hugs and high fives all of the tension drains out of his body.

The celebration is cut off by the mechanical voice. "Dead man's protocol activated. Launch sequence initiated. Second strike weapon will deploy in five minutes."

Henry sees the countdown clock re-set it self to display 5:00 and it immediately starts counting down.

Everyone in the room gives each other confused glances. "Did somebody cut the blue wire?" Irvin asks.

Oh shit, Henry thinks, looking up at the older man from his position on the floor.

[felon-spice.livejournal.com]

Jack brakes quickly at the weapon site and hurries out of his car, followed closely by Irvin, Stark, Fargo, Allison and Henry.

"Not good," he says, looking up at the new problem. "Very not good."

"This is the one that assures mutually assured destruction," Irvin says, pointing at the weapon.

"How do we stop it?" Jack asks, hands on his hips. It's clear he's not going to take 'there is no way to stop it' for an answer.

"It can't," Irvin says. "It can't be shut down."

"Henry, how much time do we have left?" Nathan asks after hearing that.

"Thirty seconds," Henry says.

The top of the weapon encasement opens and Jack asks, "Is there any way we can, uh... re-aim it?"

"Once it's locked on to its target, it can't be re-aligned," Irvin says, as the missile extends from the top. He looks around hopelessly for a moment, his eyes falling on Jack's SUV.

Jack follows his gaze and asks, "Will it work?"

"I think desperate times call for desperate measures," Irvin says.

"Henry," Jack says, getting behind the wheel. "When you outfitted my jeep, did you put in any airbags?"

"A full set," Henry replies.

Jack puts the jeep in gear, ignoring Stark's "Carter." He's going to do whatever he has to do to save his town. His foot hits the gas and he drives toward the metal enclosure, bracing himself for the impact.

He hits just as the mechanical voice counts down to 'one' and the metal silo shifts just before a blue beam shoots from the top.

"Henry, you got it?" Stark asks.

Henry pulls out his telescope and watches the weapon take flight. "It missed! We missed the moon!" He runs over to Jack's vehicle. "Carter, Carter! Great job, man. We missed the moon. We missed it, we missed it!" He bangs his hands on the roof and then runs back to the others.

Jack breathes a sigh of relief and pushes the airbags away from his face. "A little help?"

[smart-house.livejournal.com]

Across town, SARAH has been keeping an eye on things. As much as she can, of course, but it is easy enough to do so with Jack driving his Jeep and Zoe's constant contact with her mobile phone.

The ionosphere particle beam misses the moon. It takes a second for SARAH to readjust her focus to follow the beam's trajectory out into space.




"The Central Rover is making its final approach to Jupiter -- " SARAH can hear the transmission from the satellite back to Command.

Before the IPB blows it to smithereens.

"Pasadena, we have a problem."

Pasadena might, but not Eureka. At least for today.