Fast 84

The Fastest Man Alive

Fast 84

By: BigToFu

 

 

 

 

NASA Technician

Jerry Woods, PhD.

 

 

 

With both palms pressed against his eyes, Jerry had to ask himself again and again, why. Why was he still here dealing with this mess? Why was he still here and not retired somewhere either enjoying the beach or enjoying the nice wilderness around his cabin.  Letting out a sigh, Jerry had to stifle his groan as the morons all around him were making their complaints and pitching radical ideas that might get them all killed. Urgh, of course their egos would be so inflated that they thought that having the President to command Blake to cease and desist his work within the solar system would work. It’s not like their funding in Nasa hasn’t been slashed year over year.

 

Doesn’t help that the fools kept trying to reinvent the damn wheel. It was over thirty years ago that rockets were a dead-end type of technology because of fuel to weight ratio issues. This time when they spoke Jerry found it really had to contain himself as he looked to the sky and silently asked why was he stuck inside a room with these fools.

 

The Director of NASA cleared his throat, “A fool, am I?”

 

Shit, he didn’t say that out loud did he?

 

The director gave him a flat look, “Yes, you did.”

 

Shit!

 

The flat look turned into that of a glare.

 

Blinking rapidly, Jerry faked a cough into his hand to clear his throat and gather himself. He needed a way to fix this and get sent out and not lose his 401k.

 

Clearing his throat one more time, Jerry straightened his polo shirt even as he discretely peeked at the door, “Sorry about that sir, seems I had a lapse of sanity.”

 

“Really,” The Director of NASA asked with a raised brow.

 

“Yes,” Jerry answered, then took a pause to shuffle the papers before him and looked around the room. On the Tv in the far corner was their liaison in the White House and even she was looking at him skeptically. “I believe that we should contact the People of Pandora and try to work with them instead of outright trying to bully our way into a situation we are quite frankly incapable of managing.”

 

The room went quiet as all eyes were on him, so Jerry steeled his resolve and pushed forward. “Sir, we haven’t been to the moon since the Kennedy administration, our funding is piss poor and the international space station isn’t doing so hot. Last report I checked had the tech worried about her just falling right out of the sky.” Picking up his coffee, Jerry took a quick sip while they looked stunned at what he was saying. The Nasa liaison though looked like she was about to bust a gasket.

 

“We have all read the same bio, Blake is a red-blooded American as is everyone inside of this room, there is nothing that states that he won’t work with us on this.”

 

“The President can not be seen by the American people begging.” The Nasa liaison inserted through a sneer.

 

Jerry scoffed at her, “We already have established travel permits way before a lot of our allies and let’s not forget the access we are allowed to their medical technologies.”

 

“Exactly, Blake already has a hold on medical technology, we cannot allow him to have a hold on space.”

 

Okay, that was just dumb and Jerry had to rub his brows at the White House correspondent. “Ma’am it’s not our place to make judgment calls on such things. We are supposed to be scientists that explore and discover things from the far reaches of space. Now, it’s clear that Blake has access to technologies that will upend the way we view a lot of physics and advance our own way of life by miles; these are not things we can just demand and expect a superior force to acquiesce.”

 

“Exactly.” A voice spoke at the side and Jerry along with the rest of the room jumped at the speaker. A hand went to his heart as he took in the long trench coat wearing man with a single eye patch. Behind the man were what was clearly government goon types in tactical gear along with the eagle on their shoulders.

 

The bald man surveyed the room, gave the White House correspondent a glare, then made a mention to the second in command to pull her file and get a report to him asap.

 

“Security!” The NASA director called into his phone.

 

The bald man shook his head, peeked out of the large window to the office. Took a device out of his coat and placed it on the window before taking a seat. “Yeah, they won’t be coming.”

 

“Who are you?” The Chief Engineer to the satellite division asked.

 

“Usually, I would say that I’m no one but since you have asked nicely, I’m Fury, Director of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Division.”

 

Jerry was out of his seat and against the wall in an instant. The government was here for him, and he was about to get whisked away by the Men in Black.

 

The bald man with the eye patch looked and smiled at him, Jerry could feel his soul wanting to leave this place. The entire room looked at him and it took some time before Jerry realized that he was hyperventilating.

 

The Director of NASA though didn’t see the writing on the wall as he bullied his way through, “And why won’t my security be answering the call?”

 

“Simple,” The one named Fury said, “My people are currently in command of the facility.”

 

There was a knock at the door and one of the free-standing agents opened it letting in one of the most generic looking spooks he has ever seen.

 

“Director, the lab and systems have been secured.”

 

“Thanks Coulson, you can take Jerry here with you on your way.” The one known as Fury spoke, and Jerry thought that his heart might escape his chest. He couldn’t take it anymore and fainted.

 

 

[Scene Break]

 

Benjamin Blake

Father, Emperor

 

 

Generally, when the term is used that one has the weight of the world resting on their shoulders. One usually doesn’t mean it in the literal sense. Yet here I am, with the weight of three worlds on my shoulders, my vision blurring at the edges and all I could think about was where did I go wrong. Shifting slightly, I hefted upwards; my arms barely moving inches allowing me better adjustment of my position. The frame of adamantium that I was standing on even creaked as the support structure around the enclosure strained underneath the stress.

 

On the hologram to the side of the platform, I could see the yellow flash into the red as the system reached its limits before settling back down to little over eighty percent of maximum power. Next to the power was the time and the gravity force being applied. I wanted to applaud myself, but at this point, I would just be stroking my own ego; which would be bad because in the long view of things. I was lifting nothing.

 

Galactus, Celestials and all the higher tier beings of my reality could throw around planets before breakfast, lunch and dinner and here I was struggling to hold up the weight of three upon my shoulders.

 

Power flowed around and through me, but I maintained and here I was seventy-five hours later with gravity multiplied by three since we neither had the facilities or the equipment to truly give me a proper workout. The gravity shifted to three point two times the earth’s normal, and everything creaked and I really hoped that Doctor Otto was correct about this Kerenthium steel. The madman had looked at my notes for subspace energy and created a damn ZPM before he even figured out what to use to contain the damn thing.

 

Point being why I liked my mad geniuses to have minders.  Granted that gave birth to red matter and self-contained black holes, but still the value of the precaution stands. Never leave a mad super genius to their own devices without a damn minder. A good thing that came out of that situation was the Kerenthium steel made for holding its shape under the forces of a blackhole. Also rated for literal planetary movement as if we could strap this fucking metal around a planet and move the entire thing as if we were a galactic tow company.

 

We of course made sure to find a dwarf star to test it on which had Otto walking around all smug for days until Rosy reminded him of why his new sleeping location was the couch. The notch clicked from three point two towards three point three, the weight pulling me from my thoughts. I could give props to a human for adding another unbreakable metal to this universe’s already long list of bullshit later.

 

The weight of three worlds pressed down harder upon me even as I pushed with all that I had. Power coursed through and around, eyes blazed and massive coils of lightning swathed around the room as I pushed onwards. Yet, try as I might, I couldn’t seem to budge the machine anymore. Again, it all pushed me downwards as the machine clicked to three point four times the earth’s gravity and I again  held.

 

The machine clicked three point five, three point six, three point seven and I was forced down and down, the machine getting ever closer to the cut off point. I growled, steam evaporating the sweat from my palms, the machine digging into my hand, biceps bulging and the flexing showed a roadmap of veins depicting all my dedications. Thighs flexing and bulging along with the shifting of my weight and position, yet it felt somehow inevitable.

 

The weight of the world upon my shoulders and I could hold it, the worst part was understanding that this was light work for a lot of the beings I would face later in my life. I was pushing with all that I had, and it still wasn’t enough:  the pain of that realization was unbearable for me to quantify.

 

Three point eight…

 

Three point nine …

 

Four times Earth standard gravity.

 

{ Scene Break… }

 

 

Standing outside the room, her heels tapped on the floor in impatience as she waited for the blasted room to open from her authorization. Her personal omni pinged before the double doors leading into the restricted section of the gym hissed open.

 

Walking down the hallway, Selene ignored the multiple viewing rooms of those with brute ten plus rating working on various machines inside gravity rooms. Even in one of the rooms Hela was working underneath five times the standard gravity performing a training module against multiple foes.

 

Ignoring it all, her cape swished along behind her barely skimming the floor as she strolled to the largest room within the restricted section area. There was a double beep and hiss as the door slid open to let her into what could only be described as an observation deck. At the controls appeared to be a set of Spartans and Primarch’s on the controls and from her vantage point, Ben was down below, and ohh my, all that power.

 

So delectable… So palpable… A warm spot within her core flared to life as it washed over her. Yet, she had to push those feelings down. She had more than fed on his essence recently, but of course she wouldn’t be who she was if she didn’t feast often.

 

Pushing past the railing, Selene strolled down the steps even as she heard mutters and such goings on over bets. The large Primarch that went by the name of Bob had won over a thousand on Blake being able to hit his current levels at well past three times the Earth standard gravity. Each of the Spartans had safer bets and various levels of expectations and had more tempered gambling habits.

 

Ignoring their squabbling over the credits and Bob’s bombastic nature, Selene dropped her minor cloaking spell, “What is going on here?”

 

Her gaze went flat as Bob screamed in a  pitch so high that Selene was certain she would lose hearing if it wasn’t for her high-speed regeneration. Leaning to the side with arms folded across her chest, Selene gave Bob a chance to catch his breath even though she gave the others in the room glares that could melt steel. One of the Spartans got his issues under control first and went to answer.