Countdown - January - Part One

Are you scared yet?




















PROLOGUE
8:55am -GMT
January 1, 1999
Super Seekrit Russian Base @ Poulostrov Kanin, Northern Arctic Circle

Colonel Yuri Petrovich is sad. He's stuck stuck guarding some hunk of metal. It's cold and he hardly sees the sun. Plus, there's the annoyingly perky 20 year-old Nikolai Militov, inviting him to the launch center for a drink. Yuri pretends to be horrified that Nik would suggest abandoning his post and then agrees to the drink.

Nik and Yuri head to the launch center and Yuri comments that it's 11 am and aren't they supposed to raise their glasses at midnight? Nik replies that it's midnight SOMEWHERE. Yuri opens the super seekrit door with the super seekrit fifteen-digit code and doesn't bother closing it behind him because...it would take too much effort? WORST SECURITY GUARD EVAR!

They get to the launch center and the party's already started. Someone calls Yuri "comrade" and he gets all sad faced and emo over the loss of communism and the Soviet Union and then the lights go off. DUN! (Unfortunately, nobody makes an "in Soviet Russia, lights turn YOU off!" joke)

Nik is nervous about the blackout and Sasha (the guy who called Yuri "comrade) assures him that it happens all the time. Yuri flips on his walkie to see what's up. Nothing. Nik asks him if it could be the batteries. He starts flipping out because apparently the only thing that could cause the walkies and the power to go simultaneously is an electromagnetic pulse, which would mean an explosion.

Nik and Yuri hear a sound. Nik says it sounds like a choir. Yuri tells him to shut the hell up and keeps on listening until they hear machine gun fire. Yuri drops his bottle of vodka and Nik starts gibbering about how it can't be happening. Pffft, people drop bottles of cheap vodka all the time! It's not THAT big a-
What? Oh, he means the choir, power outage, and machine gun fire? Carry on, then.

Sasha takes his turn to tell Nik to shut the hell up and then...just sits there. Yuri goes outside to see what's going on and sees complete chaos and hears screams. Hooded figures in black robes and machine guns ...and singing? He runs into one of the attackers and is so shocked by her beauty that he just stands there while she informs him that all his bases are belong to her by disarming him and stealing his launch keys.

He decides that he must be dreaming and lays back in the snow. He figures that since the powers off, the super seekrit weapon they've been guarding can't possibly do any harm. He just chills in the snow...until he starts feeling hot. He starts sweating, He takes off all his clothes and the pain starts. He is melting from the inside and his last thought is that it all must be a dream.