Season 3 chapter 98
The Executive Disgust
The entire shipping container went deathly silent.
Filoska's pen violently snapped in half against her clipboard. Salesh slowly looked up from his ledgers, his jaw physically dropping in pure horror.
Kniya stared at his best friend, his arrogant smirk instantly morphing into a look of sheer, unadulterated disgust.
"Malesh... what the actual fuck is that?!" Kniya shrieked, leaning entirely away from the desk. "Your fantasies are literally so fucking weird! Why would you even say that out loud with that deadpan face?!"
Salesh aggressively rubbed his temples, shaking his head in absolute disbelief.
"Yeah, Malesh, definitely," Salesh condemned loudly. "You are really a guy who should be kept absolutely away from girls. I don't think any woman in this entire Republic would feel even remotely safe near you after hearing that sentence!"
Filoska stood up, brushing the ink off her hands, glaring at Malesh with pure aristocratic hatred.
"Salesh is entirely correct," Filoska snapped ruthlessly. "Yes, Malesh, your fantasies are way, way too much. I really hate you right now. I just completely hate you. You are literally a shit hole. What can we even call this kind of behavior?!"
Malesh smoothly adjusted his glasses, completely unbothered by the sheer hostility radiating from his entire executive board.
"You guys are always judging me like that," Malesh deadpanned mechanically. "But I cannot do anything about it. The biological reality is that I have consumed a massive amount of this specific degenerate content in my past, and that is exactly why my brain operates like this. Sometimes, my true self slips out. I formally apologize for the uncomfortable variable."
"You are a psychopath!" Filoska yelled.
Before Malesh could offer another terrifyingly robotic defense of his reading habits, Kniya loudly clapped his hands together, desperately trying to change the subject.
"Okay, anyway, the thing is that we need to go right now!" Kniya announced rapidly, standing up. "Shuntesh just signaled us. We can discuss this weird crush thing later on. The main, absolute priority for us right now is the reactor. He told us the third prototype is finally complete, and we need to witness the ignition with our own eyes."
Kniya turned toward the side table. "Filoska, Salesh, are you coming?"
Salesh violently shook his head, instantly grabbing his stack of folders. "No. Absolutely not. Kniya, Malesh, this time we are not free. We have actual logistical nightmares to deal with, and we are going somewhere else to work. You guys go check on the reactor yourselves."
Without waiting for an answer, Filoska and Salesh bolted out of the shipping container, entirely desperate to escape Malesh's presence.
The Third Ignition
Kniya and Malesh stepped out of the office and walked across the laboratory floor.
Sitting in the center of the massive isolation chamber was the third prototype. It was sleeker, heavily reinforced, and outfitted with an entirely new array of ultra-thick exhaust pipes explicitly designed to filter the toxic sludge.
Shuntesh stood confidently by the brass control console, looking healthier and more focused than he had in weeks.
"The third reactor is fully complete, and we can test it now," Shuntesh announced proudly as the Managing Directors approached. "This time, I have ensured every single variable is flawless. I have extra-refined the Fisluation sand to its absolute purest kinetic form, and I made the containment alloys exponentially more powerful. I think it will definitely work this time."
"Yeah, definitely!" Kniya cheered enthusiastically, puffing his chest out. "It should absolutely work! We are bringing the new industrial revolution today!"
But as Kniya and Malesh stood behind the console, their expressions simultaneously shifted. They both stopped looking at the reactor and just stared directly at Shuntesh. Their eyes were slightly narrowed, heavily judging him as their minds simultaneously replayed the incredibly weird "sweat sex" conversation they had just had in the office.
The silence stretched on for five highly uncomfortable seconds.
Shuntesh slowly lowered his clipboard, feeling the heavy, bizarre weight of their combined stares.
"Is there anything wrong?" Shuntesh asked, thoroughly creeped out. "Ah, Sir, Why are you staring at me with this kind of expression?"
Kniya blinked, instantly snapping out of it.
"No! No, there is absolutely nothing else!" Kniya deflected loudly, waving his hand. "Just focus on the science! Start the reactor!"
"Yes, I am starting the reactor now," Shuntesh replied, though he cast them one last highly suspicious glance before turning back to the heavy brass ignition switch.
As his hand hovered over the button, a massive, suffocating wave of anxiety consumed Shuntesh's mind. The ghosts of his previous failures screamed in his ears. He remembered the blinding red light, the shattering metal, and the liquid slag. He closed his eyes, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Please, Shuntesh prayed silently, his internal monologue begging the universe. Please, God. Do not let this fail. Please don't let it explode again.
Malesh noticed the hesitation.
"It is just a reactor, Shuntesh," Malesh stated flatly, his cold, pragmatic voice cutting through the panic. "Just click upon the start button."
Shuntesh took a massive, deep breath. He slammed his hand down onto the switch.
VMMMM... VMMMMM...
The deep, rhythmic mechanical thrumming roared to life. The heavy gears locked into place. A brilliant, blinding blue light instantly illuminated the newly forged alloys. Hissing steam vented flawlessly through the upgraded exhaust pipes.
The pressure spiked. The kinetic force maximized.
One second.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds. The blue light held absolutely perfectly. There was no microscopic cracking. There was no toxic black smoke. The refined sand was burning cleanly, and the sludge filtration was working at one hundred percent capacity.
Fifteen seconds.
Twenty seconds.
And then—
The Twenty-Five Second Mark
Fifteen seconds.
Twenty seconds.
Shuntesh held his breath, his eyes wide, practically begging the universe for a miracle. Just hold on, he prayed silently. Just stabilize.
Twenty-one seconds. Twenty-two seconds.
For a fleeting moment, it looked like absolute victory. And then, at exactly twenty-five seconds, the horrific, unmistakable sound of structural failure echoed from the core.
CRACK.
The extra-refined Fisluation sand had burned cleaner, but the sheer, unprecedented kinetic output was simply too massive for the containment shell to regulate. The internal pressure exceeded the physical limits of the new alloys.
CLACK-CLACK-SCREEEEECH!
Thick, blinding black smoke violently erupted from the exhaust pipes. The steady blue light instantly flashed into a terrifying, unstable crimson red.
BOOOOOOM!
A massive, deafening blast shattered the laboratory once again. The reinforced geometric plates of the third reactor violently blew outward, sending a massive shockwave of heat and heavy black smoke across the room. The core of the machine instantly reached critical failure, melting down completely. Glowing, super-heated liquid slag poured out of the shattered chassis, hissing aggressively against the concrete.
The Broken Engineer
Kniya and Malesh stood behind the brass console, watching the multi-billion-credit prototype vaporize into smoke. They both took a slow, deep, synchronized breath, the weight of the failure settling over the room.
But for Shuntesh Hawada, it wasn't just a failure. It was the absolute end of his world.
Shuntesh slowly fell to his knees, hitting the hard concrete. His entire body went completely slack, totally devoid of any energy to move. The adrenaline flatlined, leaving him hollow. Tears instantly welled in his eyes and began streaming down his soot-covered face.
He didn't know what to do in this place anymore. He was completely broken. He was entirely devoid of the energy to continue this project, and in that dark moment, completely devoid of the energy to even continue his life further.
Malesh smoothly reached into his tailored charcoal suit and pulled out a pristine, folded silk handkerchief. He walked over to the weeping researcher, knelt down slightly, and gently wiped the tears from Shuntesh's face.
"You shouldn't cry, Shuntesh," Malesh stated, his voice flat but carrying a surprisingly gentle, grounding weight. "Here, take this handkerchief and wipe your tears. Just as we told you before, it is just a reactor. Do not be too much stressed about it. Do not let this consume you. We can develop it once again. I know you are really working hard, and yes, this is your third failure from the start... but it is just a machine."
Kniya stepped forward, his chaotic energy completely shifting into absolute, unyielding optimism. He grabbed the silk handkerchief right out of Malesh's hand and began aggressively dusting the heavy soot and ash off Shuntesh's lab coat.
"Yeah, you are thinking way too much, Shuntesh!" Kniya encouraged loudly, pulling the engineer back to reality. "You are clearly a very clever guy, but your brain is clouded by the explosion! You literally haven't noticed the exact thing that we just noticed!"
Shuntesh blinked through his tears, looking up weakly. "Wh... what?"
"The bulb!" Kniya cheered, pointing dramatically at the heavy testing grid connected to the reactor. "The main diagnostic bulb literally ignited for two whole seconds when the reactor reached peak compression! Which means that it is producing electricity efficiently now! It actually generated commercial-grade power! There is just some sort of structural fix that is required, but you succeeded in the actual physics! But yeah, you need to fix your face first, you look like a total mess."
"Yeah, that is definitely required," Malesh agreed deadpan, watching Kniya frantically dust off Shuntesh's shoulders.