Chapter 40

The Scientist

He sat in a room full of screens, most of them dark. His desk was cluttered with coffee cups, half-empty bottles of alcohol, food wrappings. The air in this small room smelled stale, the darkness warm but not comfortable. There was one door. It was closed and locked.

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. He ran a thin hand through long greasy hair. He took off his glasses and attempted to polish them on his shirt. This only smudged the lenses further. When he put them back on the vision in his left eye was blurry. But he didn’t care.

He swiveled to face the door. He took a rubber ball out of his pocket and began bouncing it: floor-door-hand, floor-door-hand. He appeared relaxed. But his eyes tightened, and his teeth clenched.

On the table to his left sat multiple computers, several keyboards and screens, and three cell phones. On the table to his right lay two weapons, one of them conventional. On the table behind him: several species of McFinnium. On his shirt: the October Industries logo: a grey circle with an orange “I” inside, looking something like the slit eye of a malevolent beast.

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He bounced the ball, deep in thought, for a long time. After all, ending the world was not something to be taken lightly, nor rushed into. But at last, he caught the ball and did not bounce it again. He placed the ball into the pocket of his lab coat and stood. He carefully selected one of the three cell phones and placed a call.

“Ready?” said the voice on the other end as soon as it picked up. The voice of Riley McFinn.

“Ready,” said Nikola Raschez.

Time to end the world.