E-Day

 Hydro-fusion platform Emma was a riot. As Hayden came up one of the main central stairways that emerged out into fresh sunlight and sea, the chaos was everywhere around him. Crews had abandoned their orderly schedules to congregate in huge masses, a riot of voices and laughter and swearing, the distinctive smell of laced cigarettes mixing with hydrogen gel. Corks popped from expensive champagne (must’ve been a helluva expense to ship back…) and glasses clinked. The engineers usual grim expression (a signature among his kind) had faded just a bit, replaced by a thin smile. Like a buncha kids. 

It was E-Day. Today marked the end of the world— for the dinosaurs. 

Hydro-fusion platform E, or more colloquially, Platform Emma, was a fusion collection plant. Nearly a third of a kilometer high and twice as wide, Emma made up a fleet of massive industrial resource collection stations spread out across the warm shallow sea which split North America into two distinct landmasses. For nearly twenty years now, the E and her brethren had been the saving grace of humanity across the timeline, shipping a resource hungry future everything it needed: hydrogen fusion fuel cells, fresh water, rare earth minerals. 

Hayden looked out over the platform, a huge gunmetal colored plain that stretched on and on, surrounded by pristine ocean blue. The Cretaceous sun gleamed, unmarked by clouds. And there, to the north, lay an unflinching star. An asteroid. The engineer had spent countless nights out here, watching that star get bigger and bigger, until it shown like a miniature sun even during the daytime. It was a little unnerving, he thought to himself, knowing that not-so far away there was a world-killer on its way. The Mesozoic would go out with a hell of a bang. 

With a swipe of a calloused hand, Hayden brought up the latest orbital dispatch. Within an hour or two, nearly all of Emma’s twenty-five hundred personnel had come up and out of their mechanical warrens to bear witness. The voices had died down and so silence loomed punctured only by the lapping of the sea below, or the occasional long whistle of passing pterosaurs as they flew inland. The star was the brightest it had ever been. Despite the heat, Hayden found himself chilly. 

When the alarm flashed over the holographic display Hayden nearly had a heart attack, surprising himself with a gasp. He started hard at a dizzying array of orbital information painted over real-time imagery. 

Something was wrong.

He looked out over the crowd and watched with growing fear that the crimson alert had swept to everyone with their displays open. Shocked faces followed. 

Blinding light flashed overhead in appalling brightness, agonizing to look at even through the multilayered atomic shielding. It was like seeing the face of god. Then, in a heartbeat, it was over. Hayden felt cool terror uncoiling somewhere inside him. 

The asteroid had missed.