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Brutalist Stories #29

The Geneva Triangle

By Brutalist StoriesPublished 7 years ago 3 min read
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Building Inspiration: Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex

“When did the call come in?” he said, pacing down the corridor bringing up the readouts and latest communications on his forearm implant.

“2300 hours, sir,” the private replied, trying to keep up, dodging through the hundreds of personnel all scrambling through the base.

“And they only just chose to wake me now, what the hell have they been doing?” It was a rhetorical question, not thinking the private would know, he just needed to voice his concern to someone.

“Sir?”

“Never mind,” he said as he lowered his sunglasses to allow the wall retina scanner to scan him as the door by their side slid open with a faint hiss and revealed the command centre.

An explosion of sound and movement hit them as they crossed the threshold and went into the gigantic room, hundreds of personnel all scrambling to get to their respective stations.

“General Ironhans,” one of his commanders came up to him. “We’ve streamed the latest readouts to you, you now have all the information we currently have too, is there any immediate steps you require us to take?”

“Three hours we’ve had active movement for and you’ve only just decided to inform me?”

“Sorry, sir. Confirmation from each Gate took longer than anticipated,” the Commander replied as they came to a halt in-front of a huge array of screens, each streaming the opening to its respective gate, three of them flickering red.

“Three out of twelve on red-line, what about the others?” Ironhans asked.

“Another seven are about to hit red-line. As soon as we go past five, lockdown hits on the rest of them, we’re trying to collect as much data as we can right now. Protocol dictates we can’t run more than the five, but the data we’re getting,” he paused and pulled the General into him. “This can change everything, you’ve seen it, we keep the Gates open just a little longer, we might find the key, it’s there for us.”

“You really think it might be possible?” Ironhands said, grabbing his jaw.

“Sir, it’s almost certain. We all know the safety protocols are way over protective. We can push it a little more.”

“Do it, Commander,” he replied watching the screens, the flood of terror pouring through the Gates, the streams of data hitting red-line, more and more of this darkness coming through. They’d managed to find a way to block the holes, but not destroy them, and now, this new attack, they might be able to find something out that might finally tip the balance, give them what they needed.

“Sir!” The Commander turn to him with wide eyes. “We’re up to ten red-line, I just gave the order but the Gates aren’t closing.”

“Initiate full bombardment, C-Beam Class Plasma Wave, back-ups online now, push them back,” he paused as all the screens flashed red and the giant concrete building they were in shook, grey dust falling from the ceiling. “Push them back! Everything we’ve got!”

Each screen’s red glow coated him in a bright hue soaked up by his wide eyes. “What have we done?” He asked as the ceiling began to cave in from above, raining a terror of concrete down on them. “What have we done?”

Building Inspiration: Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex

literaturescience fiction
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About the Creator

Brutalist Stories

Short sci-fi stories in 500 words or less deriving from the stark style of the functionalist architecture, that is characterised by the use of concrete.

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