Simple LED lights lined the sides of the bare concrete corridor, two feet apart. It was a temporary construction, one that was intended to be destroyed fairly soon. A tall, well-dressed man in his early thirties was carrying a bulging folder with pieces of paper sticking out at awkward angles. His dirty blonde hair was neatly combed back, and his face was unforgettable; it had four parallel scars that ran across the right side of his face, two of which crossed over his right eye which was emerald green; his left eye was a brilliant electric blue. His polished shoes tapped against the reinforced concrete floor like a percussion instrument, and he had deep bags under his eyes as if he hadn't slept properly in over two days, and this was true; he straightened his posture and fixed his tie with his right hand before quickening his pace to reach the shining steel door at the end of the corridor. The door had no window and no keyhole; instead, it had an electronic card reader and a retina scan to the right of it. The man sighed quietly before fishing his key card out of his pocket to insert it into the slot before him and lowering his eyes to stare deep into the retina scan.
"Cardholder: Harvey Wilson. What is your security code?"
Harvey hated this machine; he had been one of the lead engineers to build it and for some reason expected it to cut him some slack and give him some recognition. Instead, it treated him just like everybody else, demanding to know their security code before blinding them with a green light.
"J277ASD897FA9SD7G235H9OL." Recited Harvey, this string of arbitrary numbers and letters had no meaning to anything apart from the machine. Having been summoned to the room behind the steel door so many times now, his random security code had been etched into his mind. He opens his eyes wide and forces them to stay that way as a green laser sweeps across his eyes twice to ensure that he wasn't an impostor. Once the computer was satisfied, the door locks opened one by one with a mechanical hiss. Harvey grabbed the door handle and used his whole body to heave the three-foot-thick door forward. Once a suitably sized gap had made itself evident, he squeezed himself through and once again heaved against the door to shut it.
The room he had entered had a single solid mahogany, round table with four occupants, all of whom had either their heads in their hands or were lying back on their chairs with a damp cloth over their eyes. Harvey cleared his throat, and the four men at the table slowly looked up at him and, without a word, motioned for him to set down the folder he was carrying onto the table.
In the presence of these four men who sat at the table, Harvey couldn't help but feel nervous despite getting to know them in the week and a half since he had met them. They were, in essence, the most powerful men on the planet. Leaders of armies capable of destroying the world in a war. It was unheard of for any more than two of them to be in the same building, let alone the same room. Going around the table clockwise, the order of these men was Duncan Smith, head of the British Army; Nikolai Medvedev, head of the Russian Army; Arthur McKinley, head of the American Army; and finally, Zhen Wu, head of the Chinese Army.
There was nothing notable about Duncan Smith. He had messy, mousy brown hair that refused to be combed, and his eyes were of the same colour. There was nothing special about his stature, build, or general appearance, easily being able to simply disappear into a crowd of people and never be seen again. Nikolai Medvedev on the other hand was a very memorable character. His face was defined with sharp features that added to the feeling that he was half-dead. His frame was slender and being almost unnaturally tall at 6'7'', further sold the impression that he was half-dead. Arthur McKinley was the complete opposite of Nikolai Medvedev; he was shorter but stockier, and carried himself with an air of absolute superiority. Everything he did, he did it like it was going to be the last thing he ever did. His hair was a bright blonde that bordered on being gold, and his eyes were a brilliant violet. Finally, Zhen Wu was much like Duncan Smith, being someone you could find randomly on the streets, but seemed to have a cold aura that pushed people away; yet despite this, he shared a somewhat lukewarm, friendly relationship with Harvey Wilson.
Harvey fished out an audio recorder from his left pocket, turned it on, and placed it exactly in the middle of the dark and well-polished mahogany table.
"The date is the 13th of August, 2040, Anno Domini. We start this meeting at exactly 9 o'clock. We hold this meeting to offer solutions and ways to move forward in the face of what is now known as "The Rift Incident" that occurred in the South China Sea exactly seven days ago from today."
Each and every one of these meetings opened in this fashion, with Harvey introducing the same topic every time only for it to be postponed due to "no viable solution being made available."
"I... think I may have something." Said Nikolai Medvedev hoarsely, it seemed like he as well as the other men in the room were ill due to overexertion and an unimaginable amount of stress that they carried on their shoulders.
"During the initial blast, one of our nuclear bunkers in Siberia was put on standby. During a check of the nuclear codes, before receiving orders to be taken off of standby, one of the operators found a mismatch between the number of missiles that we had on site and the number of nuclear codes that were assigned to them. We had an extra nuclear weapon."
"Wait a minute, how... how is that possible? To have a nuclear weapon without a launch code." Interjected Arthur McKinley, fingers interlocked together on the table and eyes boring into Nikolai's mind.
"Arthur, calm yourself. Just listen to what he has to say and shut up unless you have something constructive to add. Carry on, Nikolai. As you were."
Arthur turned around to glare at Duncan Smith but instantly fell back into his seat and crossed his arms like a scolded child.
"As I was saying," continued Nikolai, "we found the location of this rogue weapon and sent a team to check on it to see if it was stable. What we found instead... was something we never expected, and I doubt any of you would believe it."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The canteen was the only room in the entirety of the nuclear weapons base that held some life within its walls. Low-ranking soldiers and technicians ate there with their superiors eating in a separate room next door. Four men ate in silence around a single table in the far corner of the canteen, away from the hubbub of cheery groups of friends sharing a few jokes over lunch before having to return to their duties elsewhere in the base.
Suddenly, there was a scraping of chairs against the floor and absolute silence as the room stood to attention. The four men in the corner stood up as well and silently groaned as they realised that the footsteps of their superior officer were closing in on them.
"Oleg Gromov, Viktor Denisov, Roman Kozlov, and Artyom Gusev are with me now. High Command has new orders for you. Follow me."
Known as "Phantom Four" on the base, this group was the most difficult soldiers to deal with, despite their catchy moniker. They had a habit of ignoring orders and simply disappeared to avoid all responsibility relating to that fact. Their direct superiors hated them, but High Command defended them from expulsion due to their perfect track record of executed missions. Namely, the assassinations of hackers trying to steal Russian military data.
One by one, the men followed their superior officer to the office of High Command, each grabbing a bottle of vodka before leaving the room. Upon arriving at the great double doors of the office, the superior officer motioned for them to go in and turned sharply on his heel to presumably attend to his other duties.
The men looked at each other dead in the eyes and tried desperately not to break into hysterical laughter. Oleg Gromov was a world-class sniper, holding multiple unofficial records of his trade. He was a tall man, well-built with snow-white hair and kind blue eyes that held an icy hell behind them. Viktor Denisov and Roman Kozlov were specialists in close quarter combat and demolitions. Easily mistaken for twins upon first inspection, the pair had the same dark brown hair and eyes and had similar facial features to further add to this image. To tell them apart was a difficult task even for their mothers, but the main giveaway was that Victor was right-handed and Roman was left-handed. Artyom Gusev was the odd one out in the group. He didn't have a speciality but instead was more of a generalist, making up for areas where the others lacked.
After taking around ten minutes to compose themselves, they opened the doors and entered the office of High Command.
"You guys took your sweet time standing outside the door. Care to elaborate on why?" Demanded the computerised voice of one of the members of the board.
At this, the four men lost all control over their laughter and began rolling around on the floor like lunatics high on meth. It took another ten minutes to compose themselves again, and at this point, the board had had enough nonsense from them.
"As you can probably tell, you have new orders."
Oleg began to chuckle quietly.
"ENOUGH!" Roared the board, a deafening screeching noise ringing from the speakers in the room. All four men snapped to attention and apologised in unison. Although they usually didn't follow orders, they knew better than anyone to never cross the line, especially with High Command.
"As I was saying, you have new orders. You are to go to the coordinates that are in the notebook we're about to give you. Conduct a search of the site and make a complete and thorough report on what you find."
"Should we expect hostiles?"
"No. But be prepared as always."
"Understood."
A small red notebook was pushed towards the men by a black gloved hand. Roman stepped forward and picked up the notebook, glancing at its contents before handing it around the group. Once they were all satisfied, Viktor pulled out a torch lighter and incinerated the notebook, letting the ashes fall to the floor before the group marched out to prepare themselves for their mission.
A few hours had passed, and Phantom Four were walking the rest of the way to their final destination. They were kitted out with thick snow camouflage, and each of them carried their favourite custom weapons. They each carried a standard issue supply bag with enough rations for a week and other survival utilities. A small snowstorm had started, which had forced the helicopter pilot to land until kinder conditions were restored. Oleg checked their coordinates and looked around at the surroundings. Nothing. Just pure white snow for as far as the eye could see.
"You sure this is the right place, Oleg?"
"I'm pretty sure these are the right coordinates, Viktor. And if some idiot hadn't incinerated the notebook that High Command gave us, we would be sure now, wouldn't we?"
"You know that was protocol, right?"
"Since when have we been a group to follow protocol?"
Disappointed at having found nothing, Oleg turned to go back to the helicopter before being stopped by Artyom.
"We should probably dig down to make sure before we go back. We have a reputation to keep."
Oleg paused for a moment and looked at Artyom, then at Viktor and Roman. The pair had already pulled out the stainless steel shovels from their bags and were digging straight down.
"Fine."
"Good."
Artyom and Oleg joined Viktor and Roman in the hole they had dug, and with all four digging, it took only five minutes until they struck concrete. At this obstacle, Viktor and Roman began grinning like small children that had been given sweets for good behaviour. Demolitions was their passion; what this really meant was that the pair were obsessed with explosions. Artyom and Oleg climbed out of the hole they had dug as the pair below began to rig the structure to explode. After another five minutes of waiting, Viktor, closely followed by Roman, clambered out of the hole to join Artyom and Oleg at the top.
A thunderous series of explosions was set off, and concrete dust rose up out of the hole. All four of them peered over the edge and were surprised to see that the explosion hadn't done much damage to the concrete. Viktor and Roman jumped down again to rig the explosives to try to break in; this cycle was repeated until the last set of explosives was set off and the concrete finally gave in.
"What kind of stuff needs this much protection?" Asked Viktor, annoyed that he didn't have any more explosives to play around with anymore.
"That's why we got sent here, genius." Reply, Roman, equally annoyed as Viktor for the same reason.
The snowstorm had cleared up, and Oleg had radioed the helicopter to come to the group's location. With that, Phantom Four was through the concrete hole and on high alert. They hit the rubble in a tight formation, expecting hostile movement in the dark corridor that they found themselves in. It was pitch black either way, with the natural light from the hole above barely illuminating three feet from where they were. A flaking sign that read "Exit" pointed south, and old Soviet-era lights lined the walls with giant cobwebs strung between them across the width of the corridor like abandoned hammocks.
"All right, night vision on. We're going in deeper."
Phantom Four pulled down their night vision goggles that were attached to their helmets and proceeded to move in the opposite direction to the sign in absolute silence.
After around half an hour, and shooting everything that moved, the corridor widened into a laboratory that was lined with ancient computers and frozen tanks of the same size. A throbbing green light emanated from the bottom of the lone tank in the middle. Its glass front was covered in frosty grime and frozen rust; a shadowy figure floated inside as still as a statue, head bowed down as if in a deep hibernation. The group slowly lowered their weapons after confirming that there was no living entity within the room and began to inspect the ancient equipment.
The fans of the computers were silent despite there still being power in the building. A whole side of the laboratory was dedicated to a library of steel cabinets that were corroded beyond belief; dark red scars covered every inch of metal with discoloured folders peeking out of them, desperate to be set free from their overcrowded prisons.
"Helicopter S388. Come in; this is Oleg. Code MI832NBD56. Do you copy? Over"
"Helicopter S388. Copy loud and clear. What happens to be the problem? Over."
"We're going to need a bigger helicopter. Over."
"Understood. We'll head back and return with the Quadcopter Phantom V3.5. Will that be big enough? Over."
"Come back with three. And pack one of them with liquid nitrogen and an oxygen supply. Use the last coordinates I sent you. Over."
"Understood. We'll be there in one hour. Over and out."
The radio falls silent as Oleg turns to his companions.
"Sort everything in this room. We're taking all of this back to base. We have one hour. Move."
Artyom, Viktor, and Roman nod in silence and proceed to organise everything they could carry. Within half an hour, the laboratory was torn down, cabinets lined to the floor ready to be moved back to the hole that Phantom Four had entered from. The ancient computers were booted, and the room was filled with an incessant whining from the fans as Artyom attempted to copy the data to a modern computer that he always carried in his bag. After another quarter of an hour, everything had been successfully copied, and the ancient relic was destroyed beyond salvation.
Artyom returned back to the hole to give the pilots of the quadcopters a live location to lock on to; the others did a final check of the laboratory to confirm that they had everything. Another quarter of an hour later, and the mechanical humming of the quadcopters could be heard from the laboratory, echoing off of the corridor walls in an eerie fashion that made the building sound haunted. Artyom, with a crew of 32 men trailing behind him, began to carry the cabinets back down the corridor to load onto one of the quadcopters. The efficiency was astonishing: 556 cabinets loaded onto two quadcopters in one hour and forty-seven minutes.
In order for the last item, the tank in the centre of the room, to be retrieved, the 16 men now remaining carried back two tanks of liquid nitrogen and one tank of liquid oxygen to substitute for the sources they were taking it from. The work was done quickly, and Phantom Four and the 16 remaining men carried the last item back to the final quadcopter.
The Quadcopter Phantom V3.5 was a masterpiece of Russian engineering, with the USA, UK, China, and Australia known to have similar models based off of the original Quadcopter Phantom V1. It had a sleek, rectangular hull with four adjustable arms at each corner, a blacked-out bulletproof and bombproof glass window at the front, and two versions at the bottom of the hull on either side that could slide apart for the deployment of parachute troops. The very centre of the hull was designed to carry just about anything, from extra supplies to tanks to bombs. The tanks were strapped down to the floor of the hull and securely fastened. At Artyom's order, the quadcopter took off into the sky and followed the other quadcopters back to base.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikolai Medvedev was twitching in his seat as Arthur McKinley, Duncan Smith, and Zhen Wu finally finished reading the report that he had handed them.
"This... experiment... what are the results?" Asked Zhen Wu, flicking through the report again, double-checking that he hadn't missed any answers.
"We are trying to bring the subject out of cryostasis, yet the process is proving itself difficult due to how old this technology is. We do not have any scientific data on the subject due to the fact that the papers we retrieved are encrypted in a method that is not known to any database. We are willing to share this information once we have decoded it. I have reason to believe that it should be cracked by tomorrow afternoon." Replied Nikolai, a shimmer of hope flickering in his eyes.
"If you have anything else to add, please speak now." Harvey then waited thirty seconds before picking up the audio recorder and placing it back in his pocket.
"Thank you, gentlemen. Now, the next meeting will be the day after tomorrow, on the 15th of August. I hope to see all of you very soon."
And with that, the meeting concluded, and the four most powerful men on the planet left the meeting room and returned to their day-to-day business for the last time.