Part 4!! Farewell and Thanks for the Laser Bathysphere (Patreon)

All right, now we're rocking. Here's part 4 of the Classic Game Room adventure (this is non-fiction of course.) I am planning to get some cover artwork for this book (and Omega Ronin - the novel) up on the website soon. I am planning to release both books as hardcovers in November. 

The following segment is rough, of course. Only one quick QA and editing pass, I'm sure much will change. But this is the part where CGR persona Mark witnesses the end of REDACTED and starts his REDACTED adventure with REDACTED.

As always, I hope this finds you all healthy and well. Hang in there, because the universe, all universes, including the laser universes, are in good hands (maybe.)

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Part 4

The sky grew dark as Mark sat outside on his back patio, munching a lunchtime peanut butter sandwich and checking iPhone emails. He didn’t think much of it at first, merely that the sun drifted behind some clouds, but it grew substantially darker than normal. He looked up and realized that something was amiss.

The sun, usually a giant bright thing in the sky, was not obscured by clouds, for it was a clear day. Instead, it appeared to be dimming while also shooting off blinding sparks at the same time that grew with intensity as the mid-afternoon nightfall set in.

Mark reached for his phone to check for news of an eclipse, but wireless and Internet were out cold. Sirens started to go off in the distance, and his cell phone screen flickered and dimmed while the wind picked up, and a few loud pops echoed around the usually quiet neighborhood.

A terrible feeling of panic set in as Mark put down the uneaten portion of his sandwich and gawked at the dimming star in the sky surrounded by flickering pinpoints of light that seemed to launch off into space. He dialed his wife as quickly as possible, but without a signal, the phone didn’t work. The wailing sirens intensified.

It was just then that he noticed the sounds of people screaming nearby, mixed with a cacophony of crashing cars, barking dogs, and the growing hurricane-force wind, which knocked over garbage cans and tore the leaves off the trees in his back yard.

The sky grew pitch black, and the air filled with debris when he thought about running to get his kids from school until a growing, gut-wrenching roar bellowed in the distance, followed by a whining sound and the eventual sight that made Mark’s heart nearly stop. He stood in disbelief as a commercial airliner plummeted out of the sky directly over the horizon. It ripped the top branches off the nearest trees and shook the air as it passed overhead, lurching at an unusual angle. He fell to the ground.

It seemed to all happen in slow motion. Mark watched the lights in the cabin as it sailed over the trees across the street and then crashed a few blocks away, sending a huge plume of red fire into the windy, darkened sky. The sound was deafening.

Mark felt the heat from the explosion as he leaped through his back door into the kitchen. Debris rained down from above, and windows exploded around him as the ground trembled in a way that he’d never felt before; A deep, heavy rumble, the kind that one did not expect to feel in Pittsburgh.

The sky was now pitch black, and the power off. The din of chaos continued to intensify as the house started to fall apart around him.

On his kitchen floor, it was there in near darkness, surrounded by crashing dishware and ceiling fragments, that he remembered what Edit-Station 1 told him. He quickly got to his feet and raced down the nearby basement steps, practically toppling end over end as the house and ground shook without mercy.

Clutching the wall and nearby banister, Mark flung open his office door and leaped for the desk drawer which contained the broken break key. As he turned to plug it into the broken computer keyboard, something hit him in the head, and he crashed to the floor. Blood rained down his face, and his head throbbed in excruciating pain, which took his mind off the shaking Earth, if for just a moment.

He dropped the key and fumbled for the light on his phone to search for it in the darkness. At the same time, the sounds of Armageddon tore the house apart above. The smell of smoke filled the air, and he thought about his family while trying in vain to locate the small grey key as blood and smoke stung his eyes and debris rained from the ceiling.

Another massive quake shook the ground, which must have cracked the foundation and tilted the floor. The Edit-Station 1 prop computer fell over, and its screen shattered, sending glass fragments and keys sliding across the faux-wood planked floor. Then a bizarre thing happened. The broken keys from the keyboard, mixed with smoke and office supplies, floated into the air as gravity gave way. Mark watched in disbelief as the world ended.

But before it did, the broken, broken computer screen lit up and filled the pitch black room with an otherworldly green glow. Mark reached for it, unaware that the entire planet was about to explode within moments.

He blinked and found himself back in the relative quiet of a familiar diner, with Stella curled up by his side and Edit-Station 1 sitting across from him with a great, big smile on his face.

“Now, wasn’t that some shit?” He said in his sarcastic, monotone robotic voice.

Mark screamed as loud as he could, for as long as he could. Stella opened her eyes and looked at him, confused, and then went back to sleep.

Copyright 2021 Inecom, LLC. Mark Bussler