quell
\ kwel \ , verb;
1. to suppress; put an end to; extinguish: The troops quelled the rebellion quickly.
2. to vanquish; subdue.
3. to quiet or allay (emotions, anxieties, etc.): The child's mother quelled his fears of the thunder.
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“This isn’t going to work!”
Shouted one of the two men over to din of the machine.
“It’ll
work. I promise.” Said the other. “I’ve worked this out in dozens of
simulations, it’ll work.” A gleeful look
came to his face as he hit some keys on the computer in front of him. The noise from the machine grew as a deep blue
light issued forth from inside of it.
“Simulations
aren’t the same as the real thing, Damion, you know that. There’s hundreds of variables here that can’t
be simulated on a computer.”
“Please,
Ira. Don’t you think I know that? My simulations take into account as many of
those hundreds of variables as I can think of.”
Damion said, confident that his creation would work. He looks at the monitor of the computer and
hit a few more keys. The light coming
from the devise turned from blue to green.
“What
about those you couldn’t think of?”
“It
would have to be something extraordinary.
I’ve planned for anything that could happen in this location. You need to have more faith, my friend. You know what this devise could do for the
world if it works.”
“And
you know what it could do to the world if it doesn’t.”
Damion
glanced at his coworker, forming his next argument. Then, something on the monitor caught his eye
and made him forget about words. His
face lit up with excitement as he furiously worked. The noise from the machine quieted and the
light it gave off dimmed and began pulsing intermittently.
“There,
you see?” Damion said triumphantly. “I
told you it would work!” Ira stared at
the glowing mass of metal, plastic and glass in front of him. He didn’t believe it, but Damion was
right. It seemed to be working exactly as
intended. He sighed, not sure whether to
be relieved that it worked, or frustrated that the other man was the one who
made it function.
“Fine,
fine.” He said finally. “You were right. It works.”
“Indeed
I was. Now then, we’ve got lots of
things to talk about. We have to tell
the world! Oh, think about it, Ira. We’ll be famous! The two men who changed the world!”
“I
suppose it would be nice to have some recognition.”
“Yes,
now then, let’s go and…” A sudden sound
like two small beads of glass or metal hitting each other interrupted him. He turned to look at the machine. The light started to change colors again,
this time to yellow. “No, no, this isn’t
what was supposed to happen.” Damion
said, looking at the computer screen.
“What’s
wrong?” Ira asked.
“I don’t
know, but it’s not supposed to be doing this.”
“Well,
turn it off. If something’s wrong, then
we can fix it later.”
“No,
no. No need for that. I can deal with it.”
“Are
you sure?” Ira asked, getting a bit
worried. A low pitched buzzing came from
the machine, and steadily picked up volume.
“Yes, I’m
sure.” Damion said, furiously hitting
keys. The light began to change colors,
but this time it didn’t settle on one.
It shifted colors at an increasing speed as the buzzing grew louder.
“This
isn’t right.” Ira said. “This is getting
dangerous. I’m turning this off.” He said as he went to another computer
screen.
“No!” Damion called out. He abandoned his own work and grabbed Ira’s
hand before anything could be done. “I
can fix it! I can stop it and get it working
again!” He shouted over the increasing
volume.
“With
enough time, maybe, but right now, we have to stop this before it becomes catastrophic!” Ira shouted.
“It won’t! I’ll make sure it doesn’t!”
“I’m
sorry, but I can’t take that risk!” Ira
shouted. The noise was becoming almost deafening. He wondered if Damion had even heard his
words, even while standing only a few inches apart. He twisted his hand out of Damion’s grasp and
began working to shut down the machine.
Damion looked on as Ira worked and a moment of
panic came over him. If it was shut down
now, he might never be able to get it working right again. For him, this was the last and only
chance. It a fit of sheer desperation,
he balled up his fist and hit Ira square in the face. The other man staggered back and away from
the computer, his head spinning from the sudden blow. Damion looked panicked, his arm still raised
in the position it had been when it had connected.
“What are you doing?” Ira shouted.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you
shut it down.” Called out over the ever
increasing noise.
“You know that isn’t possible
now. We have to shut to down!”
Damion didn’t answer. Ira didn’t know if it was because he didn’t
hear or didn’t care about his words.
Damion turned and went back to his computer and resumed his attempts to
make the machine work. Ira took a deep
breath and ran at his friend, tackling him to the ground. He tried to get up and run to the computer to
turn it off, but was stopped by Damion taking hold of his leg.
Damion used all his strength to
pull Ira’s leg out from under him, making the other man fall. Ira rolled over and groaned as he sat
up. He looked around for Damion, who was
already making his way back to the computer.
He stood up as quickly as he could and grabbed Damion from behind,
holding him as tightly as he could.
Damion stomped down hard on Ira’s
foot, bringing out a cry of pain from the other man. But he was still held firm. Ira risked taking one hand off and brought it
to Damion’s neck. He hoped he could
remember the right place as he pinched the neck, hoping to knock Damion
out. It didn’t work.
Damion took the opportunity to
break free and turned on Ira, and knocked him to the ground with a savage
punch. Instead of letting up though,
Damion fell on top of Ira, and brought his fist up to land another blow on the
downed man. Before he could though, a
sudden, shrill scream from the machine caught the attention of both men.
Before either could react, a wave
of force burst forth from the thing. The
wave knocked both men back against the wall, knocking the wind out of both of
them. Somehow, they managed to cling to consciousness
though, albeit painfully so. Almost as
soon as the force wave hit them, the light coming from the machine dimmed, and
then suddenly grew out in a brief, blinding flash of light. And then, all was quiet.
“What happened?” Ira asked as he staggered to his feet.
“I-I don’t know.” Damion responded
as he followed suit.
“Well, whatever it is, it seems to
be over.”
“Yes, I…the machine! What happened to it?” He said, looking at the device.
It was clearly broken. Masses of twisted metal and broken glass lay
scattered of the ground around it. Small
twinkling lights still made themselves known in the wreckage, but those too
soon dies out. Even the computers had
been smashed to pieces by the blast, and the various parts lay scattered around
the room.
“It looks like it simply self destructed.”
Ira said. He tried to sound sympathetic,
but he was glad it was broken. Damion
fell to his knees as he looked at the wreckage.
“Well, at least the damage was minimal.”
Ira placed a consolatory hand on his friend’s shoulder. Damion simply looked blankly at the remains
of the machine. Suddenly, a tiny bit of
movement in the middle of the wreckage caught his eye.
“Wait,
something’s moving there.” He said.
“What? But that can’t be right.” Ira said.
He looked intently at the wreckage.
Another small movement came from under a pile of metal fragments. “What the…?” Ira said numbly. He reflexively helped Damion to his feet and
the two men went to see what their actions had wrought.
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I think some dramatic music should be playing at the end there, don't you? And what could it be? What could it be? I have some ideas, but whether or not I tell you all is entirely up to me. Muahahaha and all that.
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