Chapter 1

The Trigger

Friday, 5:38 PM

January 10, 2020

When I was in the military, all our best war stories started with "No shit, there I was . . ." Well ironically, that's also a good way to start the story of the apocalypse.

At this moment I’m driving back to Oklahoma City from Tulsa in my company’s SUV crossover. The sun is just starting to set on a clear cool day. My mind feels like it is in a fog. The traffic is a nightmare. Even though I know that I should be tired, the adrenaline is flowing through my body and my pulse is elevated. I’ve been driving for nearly an hour, but I am still unable to calm down and process what happened to me while working at the University Hospital.

Did I mention that traffic was terrible? It was. I had driven to Tulsa earlier in the day and it had only taken me an hour and a half to go ninety-five miles. On the way home, after driving for nearly an hour and only gone about fifteen miles I was getting frustrated. Usually, there is extraordinarily little traffic in Oklahoma. One of the greatest things about Oklahoma is fact that there is no traffic. There must have been an accident on I-44. At this rate I am not going to make it home before the Release.

Even though I don’t even know what the Release is, I do know that I have a weird timer counting down at the top of my field of vision. I tried to call my parents. No answer. I left a message for them to call me immediately. Who else I should call? Who else I should tell and what I would tell them? At worse they would think I was making a sick perverted joke and at best they might ask “what does The Release mean?”

I had no idea what it meant. The only thing I knew, was that I needed to get home ASAP. My boss, Scott, had called me twice, but I sent his call straight to voicemail. The Release was going to occur in less than an hour. I still didn’t know what that was but knew that I could delay talking about the broken MRI.

Thinking of the MRI made me flashback to what happened earlier at work.

I had been dispatched to Tulsa to repair the newly installed 7T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) just approved for human use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the University Hospital. Because it was new, the local repairmen from Tulsa weren't trained yet. After driving up from Oklahoma City (OKC), I walked into the hospital radiology department at about 4:30 PM and Jim, my coworker, was already waiting there.

I had worked with Jim before on a few MRI repairs. Jim had also served in the military as an aviation mechanic in the Navy. I wouldn’t say that he had let himself go, but the jelly belly and the rapidly receding hairline would make some people think so. Jim has been working on MRIs for a few years now. Due to the danger of working on the system, our company required two technicians on site when working on the system. He qualified as a 2nd person, but we both knew he could not do much to help. This is not a knock-on Jim or his technical ability, just the fact that this system functions differently than the older less technologically advanced 1.5 and 3T MRI systems.

We walked into the MRI Suite, pass the signs warning of Magnets and the potential for danger. Removed all the metal from our pockets and left them in the control room. Like most suites, there is a big glass window between the control room and the system which allows the technologist to monitor the patient during the scan. Jim helped me as we removed the covers from the system; so that I could begin to troubleshoot the system. Jim wanting to be helpful, brought my nonmetallic tools, and set them on the patient table before going into the control room. I was already behind the back of the gantry, that the patient is slid into during the exams when it happened.

I had rested my right hand on the metal frame, stuck my head in the bore, and then reached through to grab my Allen wrench from my tool bag sitting on the patient table. That was when I heard it, the unmistakable sound of the magnet energizing. For anyone that has had an MRI, they know the sound that I am talking about. It is so loud that typically they give patients headphones or earplugs to block the sound. A 7T is even louder. The sound of the magnet engaging surprised me. I got an instant headache.

Freezing, I turned to look through the window at Jim. Jim had that look in his eyes. You know that look your kids give you when they touched something they should not? The panicked wide-eyed look, arms raised palms towards you, backing away slowly from whatever they just touched. It wasn’t the look in his eye that scared me, it wasn’t the flashing icon in the top right of my vision, it wasn’t even the countdown timer in the lower right corner of my vision, it was the written message across my vision and Flashing Red typed letters that freaked me out.

“You have triggered the Release. The Release will begin in two hours”

Immediately, I pulled my head out of the MRI and sat down on the floor with my back to the wall. My head was throbbing, my heart was racing. Holding my head in my hand. I looked at the floor, but the message remained in my vision everywhere I looked. I closed my eyes, but it stayed in the middle of my vision regardless of where I looked for ten seconds.

I vaguely heard Jim calling my name as he re-entered the room, as I looked up at him, I could tell he was waking very tentatively. He said, “Hey Rick, are you okay?”

I didn’t know what to say to him. I started by asking, “Did you see that?”

He must have thought that I had meant the MRI start scanning because he said “Yeah Rick, I am sorry, I didn’t mean to turn to start the exam. All I did was start up the computer. I didn’t know it would start scanning. I thought it was broken.” I just shook my head; and yelled at him, “Did you see the message?” He got a confused look, “On the monitor”, he asked? I realized then that he had not seen the message and this message was only in my vision. I wish I could get right of it.

Just like that, it was gone. However, I could still see the flashing icon in the top right corner of my vision. As I thought about it, the top icon lit up and expanded to fill most of my vision. I tried to bring my hand up to protect my face like the message was a ball thrown at my head. The message slid right through my hand. I could still see through it, but the words are clear. Almost like a digital book, while everything behind it was a little cloudy.

Quest Complete: You have successfully triggered “The Release” by being the first human able to use magic. By completing the quest, you have been granted the title “The Harbinger”. Additionally, you have received a two-hour head start before “The Release”. Lastly, as a reward, you will have a one-week head start to claim territory(ies) before other races or factions. You have received 1000 Experience points.

You have leveled up. You have been awarded 5 attribute points and 1 Skill point. You have unlocked 1 magical sphere.

Analyzing historical data to establish character profile sheet….

I stared at the message for what seemed like forever. However, due to the countdown timer that I noticed in the lower right corner of my vision, 1:58:02 then 1:58:01, and so on, I realized that it had been less than two minutes. I wondered if I was going to have a panic attack. I tried to calm myself by breathing slowly. Somehow, I turned off the message and refocused on Jim. “What did you do?” I asked him in a confused whisper.

He had a really scared look on his face, he said, “The only message on the monitor said ‘Scanning’. I didn’t mean for it to start scanning. I was just trying to verify what the technologist said the problem was. Honest, all I did was turn on the computer tower. It shouldn’t have started to scan until an exam was selected. It was an accident”.

My eyes locked on his, as I yelled at him, even while I knew that he was not seeing the messages I was seeing. “Not the message on the screen, did you see the message about the Release?”

Jim looked at me with a blank puzzled look as another message appeared in front of my vision. I ignored the new message for a moment. Seeing the look on his face, I had gotten even angrier and more scared. What was The Release? What had the new MRI done to me? Why would being scanned by an MRI make a person see messages in their vision. Did it have something to do with the strength of the magnet? Was I going crazy, seeing messages that were telling me I had completed a quest and leveled up? How are these gaming texts appearing in my vision? Turning my attention back to the message.

Quest Received - Home Territory: Travel to the Territory Capital to claim the territory for the human race and your faction.

Rewards: Territory Bonuses for all Humans of your Faction. Unlock the Gas magical sphere or another magical sphere of your choice if Gas is already unlocked.

Failure: Claimed by another race or Faction.

Since this is a system-generated Quest it was automatically accepted.

The messages seemed vaguely familiar to me, in a moment of sudden inspiration, I realized that it reminded me of video games that I had played recently. Seeing the icons in the corner of my vision was just how they looked when playing a first-person shooter or other game that was in the first person. Somehow, the realization that this was like a videogame I had played made this seem less crazy to me. Was the world trying to explain a significant life-altering change that had happened in a way that I could understand?

I glanced down at the bottom right corner and realized that it had been nearly five minutes since the timer started. I jumped up, “Tell Scott, I am going home,” I said. I grabbed my tools and jogged out of the hospital, heading to my car to start the hour and a half drive back to Oklahoma City. If I hurried, I could make it home before the timer went off.

Refocusing on what was going on around me. I realize I am still sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. With nothing else to do, I decided to call Jake, even if he made fun of me. Any preparation that I could take before I got there could only help. He may give me shit, but I know that when I needed him, he would be there. He answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Shea, what is up?” Jake always called me by my last name.

“Hey Jake, not a lot of time to chat, I am trying to get back to OKC as soon as possible. Some weird shit just happened. I don’t have time to go into all the details. Somehow, I unlocked a video game-like message screen in my vision. I have even unlocked a quest.”

I heard a chuckle on the other end of the phone. “Are you losing it, Shea? Too many late nights of videogames,” Jake asked.

“Don’t laugh. This is serious. You play more videogames than I do. I know this sounds crazy, but I am getting a transparent system message in my vision that something is going to happen in about one hour. Unfortunately, it didn’t give me a lot of details. Get the guys together and head towards my place. If for some reason I don’t make it back to my place tonight, keep an eye out for me down at the Brick Town Ballpark.”

“Ok Shea, I hear you.” He confirmed. Surprisingly, he had stopped laughing and was listening intently and taking me seriously. He paused and said “take a breath Shea and relax. Obviously, we don’t know what this means yet, but I trust you. We are a team, and as soon as you get back to OKC, we will sit down, talk it out, and we will meet this together.”

“Thanks, Jake. I appreciate it. I am stuck in traffic but will be home as soon as I can.” I clicked off the call without waiting for his response. I was relieved that he took me seriously, even if he had joked with me for a second. He must have heard the stress in my voice. I realized that I had been talking fast. I could already picture his retelling of the conversation; he would be talking as fast as a rapper. Picturing him telling a story made me laugh out loud. Jake was great at telling stories. That little laugh was just what I needed. I could feel myself relaxing.

Some of my military training was already kicking in. When talking to Jake, I had picked a rallying point in case something happened and I didn’t make it home tonight. Hopefully, everything would go smoothly and when I got home, maybe I could research the prompts I was seeing and understand the quest I had received.

There was no change in traffic. Still sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I started searching for a faster route. The navigation system was telling me that I should take a detour. Using Route 66 from Bristow to Stroud would be faster. I wasn’t as panicked as I was in the University Hospital. However, the fact that the countdown timer was down to just over forty minutes was starting to get me worried. Knowing I could not make it back to Oklahoma City before the timer went off. I had a sense of approaching doom. What was “The Release”? What would happen when the two-hour timer went off?

I turned on the radio hoping that I would hear some music that would help me to relax. I heard a gruff rock and roll voice singing, AC DC, highway to hell. I couldn’t listen to a song right now about a road leading me to hell. Time to click for the next station, a new voice with a country twang. Joe Diffe was singing a song about women who like pickup man while sitting in traffic. Not exactly what I needed time to click to the next station.

Taylor Swift singing a pop song about going on too many dates, and how she needs to keep cruising. That is not going to do it. I clicked to the next station, a gruff male country twang of Willie Nelson was back on the air, signing, “On the road again.” With that I gave up and clicked the POWER OFF button, silence was a better option than this. Luck is not on my side so far tonight. I just needed to get out of this traffic.

As soon as I could, I got onto the edge of the highway and made my way to the exit. I circled the toll booth and then turned onto Route 48 to Bristow. Driving through town, if one can call it that. So far there was no sign of people doing anything different on a Friday night. I pushed the speed limit as much as I could not wanting to be stopped by a small-town cop.

Once, I had been stopped for going five miles an hour over the speed limit. I didn’t have the time to repeat that. A few miles south and I made the right onto Route 66. I kept glancing at the countdown time. It was still there in the top right of my vision. It never went away, but unless I focused on it, it was easy to forget. Twenty minutes to go. I had not heard anything from my parents.

A burst of lights in the distant sky brought me back to the present. I glance at my Countdown timer. Just over 10 minutes to go. There were hundreds of thousands of bright lights falling slowly in the sky. They were falling so slowly, perhaps falling was the wrong word. Perhaps descending was a better term.