You would think being stranded in a place would be very depressing and boring but that was not the case here. David’s workplace was quite entertaining. He had a decoder, playing his favorite pop songs all the time, a fridge full of his favorite stuff, various toys he could mess up with and all other basic necessaries. Not to mention the fact that the whole place was self-sustainable when it came to energy, thanks to his earlier experiments to create a pollution free source of energy, though it was still in its early stages but it was enough to keep his small hub running for a while.

He was refreshed as he woke up, had a breakfast of his favorite cup noodles and hummed along with the decoder as he began his work. His mind was clear, and he had only one goal, to get out.

***

-July 18,2011:

“So, I need to get out of this place and its quite simple.” Though, his messed-up hair and black spots on his face proved otherwise. “...Yea, I know I am not convincing enough.” He grumbled. “Look, the options are vast, vast but few at the same time, many limitations stopping me. Since, I am not interested in testing the durability of this place again…not intentionally at least. This place may be built tough, but I would rather not take chances right now. Not to mention the fact that I lack many resources, because, no matter how awesome my place is, I don’t have everything to work with.”

“Till I find a way, then. Ba bye”

***

He turned off the recording and went towards the table to sit on his chair, where, apparently, some blueprints were spread open. He tapped on one of the blueprints and a hologram spread out in front of him.

“Something big enough to blow that door along with the concrete blocking it into space, that’s what I am trying to build.” He did some actions on the hologram as it zoomed to show a large hexagonal object.  “Using electrical energy as a catalyst and collecting the electrons in the air, condensing them and then, releasing them at once. In theory, it could create a beam of electrons, obliterating anything in their path while moving at the speed of sound and possibly, even hot enough to melt steel.” He tapped one end of the table with his fingers as he stared at the hologram in front of him, in deep concentration. “Radiations could also work but, I will need to find a way to contain them…and plasma rays could…”

“Haa, Let’s take it slowly.” Heaving a sigh, he shook his head. “First, on a smaller scale.” Pinching movement of his hands causing the hexagonal object to grow smaller and smaller, till it was only a few inches.

“Perfect! Let’s try this again.” He rubbed his hands as he got up, more ready than ever to continue his experiments.

***

-July 20,2011:

“Hello guys, been two days since I recorded anything. Too busy with work and trying to find a way to save my ass.” The last part wasn’t directed to the audience as he said it under his breath.

“So, here is it, my first official prototype.” He pointed towards his hand. There was a fingerless glove, black in color, with an X mark at the backside that seemed to glow an orange light. In the middle of his palm, there was a hexagonal structure, around the size of two inches.

“This is called Cyber-Glove.” He positioned himself as he placed his right hand forward, aiming for the makeshift target in front of him, his legs bracing for the impact. “And this is the first run. 50% power…3…2…1!”

Swish!

A beam of orange light originated from his palm. The recoil blasting him back and disrupting his aim as the beam didn’t hit its intended target but formed a red line in the front wall, reaching all the way up the ceiling and even destroying the metal pipeline on the ceiling.

“Urgh.” He got up with a groan. “Well, that went exactly as planned” He said with a smile just as the loud sound of metal crashing came, eliciting a twitch of his raised eyebrow.

***

It had been three days since the day he tried Cyber-Glove. Normally, it wouldn’t have taken that much time but.

“The place was too messed up after that.” Yes, in his first test run of the Cyber-Glove, he couldn’t gauge the expected power and miscalculated, causing a lot of damage in the process.

“It took a full day to clear things up.” Repairing the stuff, he had accidently broken took him a whole day. And the next two days, he had finally completed the.

“CNE Cannon.” The CNE Cannon worked on the same principle as the Cyber-Glove. Both charged the condensed negative particles (also called CNE or Condensed Negative Energy) in the air and released them in a ray of light, disintegrating things on an atomic level. Cyber-Glove was not up to par with the Cannon, but it couldn’t be helped since it was the first prototype. The CNE Cannon looked like a solar panel, just much thicker and heavier and it had hexagonal form. A hexagonal panel to shoot CNE rays, while it was attached to a container, filled with a liquid reactor, one particularly synthesized by him to store large joules of energy in them.

‘The CNE system is not very efficient.’ He thought as he tapped on the container. It was too energy consuming for it to be practical. That is why he created the special liquid reactor for the battery.

‘My greatest creation is not the Cyber-Glove or the CNE cannon, it’s rather this liquid reactor’ Truly, it would not be a stretch to call it the greatest invention of all time. While the Cyber-Glove and CNE Cannon were fraudulent, the liquid reactor was a cheat compared to them. It could store large amounts of energy inside at once but that was not all it could do. The key feature that made it a cheat was that it could create pollution free energy on its own, with little to no catalyst required. It was almost self-sufficient. The biggest drawback as of now was that it took too much time to produce energy and its cost was also beyond comprehension. Not to mention about it being extremely radioactive. Nevertheless, it sufficed for the task at hand. It was the next step of his one of older projects, but not the last. There was always room for improvements. After all,

‘Records are set to be broken.’

Pushing the thoughts at the back of his mind, he focused in front of him.

“Let’s get this over with.” Rubbing his hand together, he said. “As much as I like cup noodles, there is a limit to it.”

He went to his table and tapped on it, prompting a hologram to appear in front of him. “Systems check, Power check. No problems so far.” He had learnt from his earlier attempt, so It was designed specially to reduce the recoil. “Ah, and not to forget the sunglasses, that thing is bright as fuck.”

“Initiating fire…10% power…25%...50%...80%...90%...95%...” Slipping on his glasses now. “and Boom.”

*BOOM!*

On cue, a loud earth-shattering sound exploded. The earth shook slightly, and a cloud of dust rose, blocking all sight and then everything stilled, for a moment and complete silence followed.

As the dust subsided, David walked forward, his ears continuously ringing despite the earplugs, if he hadn’t used them, he might have gone deaf. 

“Fuck.” He cursed as he saw the CNE cannon in pieces, laying near the back wall. Apparently, it was blasted away by the recoil, his design and restraints were not enough to stop it in place.

His disappointment eventually faded as he saw light shining from the large man-size hole that was now in the door. There was a strange feeling welling up from inside of him. He didn’t know what it was. A mix of relief, joy, excitement, anticipation but…there was also fear, anxiety and confusion. He could not quite grasp what it was.

Pushing his own complicated feelings deep within him, he stepped outside.

“Holy…” A gasp left his mouth and his expression crumpled as he saw what had happened. There was nothing holy about it. Hell, that was the perfect word to describe what he was looking at currently.

The land split open, buildings torn apart, ground soaking of dried blood and the sky dyed red, as if by the blood of the victims. It was the perfect depiction of hell.

“Heh, at least I can say that I’ve seen hell if someone asked.” He chuckled, apparently trying to diffuse the tension but, it failed to reach his eyes.

Eyes hard and hands trembling ever so slightly, he stood there still, without averting his gaze, trying to engrave in his mind.