username: Badminton
entering for: Joulie
name: Sam
pronouns: he/they
hypocrite!: [part one][part two]
"...and what is this exactly?" Lou asked as she was examining the strange object in front of her.
"That's not for you to know." Sam answered roughly.
"I was just curious. Calm down. Is this why you wanted to come here in person? To check on this thing?"
"Yup." The kalon said without even looking away from the small computer in the corner of the room.
He seemed concerned. The mouse in his paw almost wouldn't stop, he kept nervously sliding it on the table, like he was looking for something in the files.
"Okay, now I'm worried." Lou said, as she was looking over his shoulder. "You're nervous. Something's wrong. Whatever it is, you need to hurry. I remind you a nuclear power plant exploded near here not so long ago. I don't know what about you, but I don't want to end up as a radioactive mutated toast."
"I'm doing what I can...!"
"Wait... Don't tell me you don't even know what to do. Is this thing even dangerous? Do you have to do this right now?"
"Yes, I do... I don't know how the radiation will affect it..." He mumbled, his movements kept getting more and more rapid and nervous.
"Wait... You build this thing... so close to a nuclear power plant without even knowing how the radiation will affect it?"
"I had to power it somehow! The radiation was low, I didn't think that power plant would explode!"
"Good god, have you got any idea what you've done? You keep calling everyone incompetent and stupid, you act like a genius, like a god... And you keep doing stuff like that! It's not the first time! You're not only the most incompetent person I've met, you're also such a hypocrite!"
"QUIET!" Sam finally snapped.
"...you better fix this mess. For your own good. Before we get killed by... this... or someone notices. I won't cover you this time. You've gone too far."
And just then, a sudden realization struck him.
His invention was supposed to be a time machine. The war has completely destroyed this world. This has always been his dream... to escape it. Maybe he could even prevent the war. This was his biggest project ever and the reason why he became a scientist. He managed to build the time machine, but he couldn't find enough power to get it to work... but maybe if he managed to use all the radiation in the air as a power source... it could work. It was very risky and could kill everyone in radius of hundreds of kilometres... but it could work. He sacrificed too much to miss this opportunity. Not only time, money, his social life... but also himself. He changed since he started this project years ago, now he was seen as selfish and a hypocrite, but that wasn't so far from the truth. Lou was right. He kept commenting on how immature and foolish others were, how dangerous and risky their actions were, while he himself would often put not only his own life in danger to achieve a goal, but lives of many others too. But as he would always say... the ends justify the means.
He began typing on the coumputer's keyboard rapidly, then pulled a rather big lever next to him.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lou asked, confused.
Sam had no idea what he was doing or what would happen. Suddenly, the big door on the machine opened, revealing what looked like a wall entirely made out of electricity, dancing between metal bolts. Sam ran right into it before Lou could even understand what was happening. Was he about to succeed? Was all the sacrifice worth it?