Chapter 0: Prologue

Alan's perspective.

"The choice is yours, young one. After all, it's only right to give you another chance"

There's no way I heard them right...Another chance at living? This almost seems like a nightmare. I couldn't be hearing this right at all! Did...I really die?

Earlier Today.

Clocking into work, I give my hello to the staff guard before getting the all-clear through the metal detector. Let me tell you, I will never get over being body checked, it's just as weird as yesterday and the day before that.

"You're all clear Mr.Cooper, Have a good day, and remember to leave the building when everyone else does, okay?" I could hear the worry in his tired tone of voice. "I'll try to keep that in mind, however, come by the electric department to remind me!" I smirked as I walked away.

Now, he knows I'm only kidding. He's gotten used to my jokes and I do give him free drinks on Saturday nights. A little 'thank you' gesture for dealing with my late-night antics.

Reaching to the electric department, I enter through the double doors to see mankind's greatest invention. I created it myself with a little help along the way. Give it another two or three years and everything we know about technology will be a boon for generations to come.

My partners on the project notice my entry and make way with some reports along with the questions they may have.

"Say, if we boosted the output of the generators and improved the coils with new capacitors, would that cut next week's work?" one of the engineers says as he gives me his work-pad.

"If we increase the capacity by three folds, we could increase all outputs. Though, it'll be taxing even if it limits work in the future" I say while scrolling through his data, I look back up at him interested by his theory. "However, I do want more research done on this, it is plausible if we have more data. We don't want to risk any failure on this" I hand him back the pad before taking another from someone else.

"Here is yesterday's data. While the coils did hold on during the test, the generators did malfunction and were forced to be shut down. I wanted to ask if you could potentially see any issue. Nothing visually came upon the scans". I give her an amused look before looking at the generators. "You don't know the issue but I would imagine this comes from the generators making too much energy before it could be taken into the coil's capacity."

Almost as my words caught me, I thought about the capacity of the coils and the generators as a whole. That's when my eyes found the cables between the two.

"Huh, now that I say it, I want the coil's capacity to increase but also develop any way to ease and increase the energy transfer between the generator and the cables in the meantime."

Giving the idea to the group, I can almost see a lightbulb being turned on above their heads. While they started brainstorming, I took my leave from the group to my work desk. Before I can even sit, our boss comes into the room which makes the other engineers stop dead in their tracks from the brainstorming session.

Now, it looks like we're afraid of our boss. That's somewhat true, of course, you wouldn't want to fail at your job. Though, he isn't hard on us to where work is unbearable but enough for a satisfying day.

"Now that's what I like to see! Already getting down to work early, don't let me stop you all." He waves to the engineers before spotting me. He makes his trip around some desks while I sit down pulling some blueprints out.

"Mr.Cooper, I'm sure you heard of the situation of yesterday's testing." He says while looking over at the blueprint.

"Yes, heard it just now actually. I'm looking into the issue as we speak to ensure that-" He raises his hand to stop my words.

"I'm not worried that you'll do whatever it takes to fix it. After all, you're my best engineer." The smile on his face shows the confidence he has for me. "I'm more concerned about how this will affect us moving forward." His voice was on edge, giving a heavy feeling of anxiety.

"It'll depend on when I do the check-up on the generators." I sigh as I get up from my chair, placing a smile on my face. "Your best engineer is on the job so don't worry about it."

The prideful signature look returns to his face before nodding. He looks towards the inactive generators before looking down, almost like a tragic event played out in front of him.

"Truly, my best engineer…" I can hear the words barely escape through his lips. Being confused again, he left before I could ask about the sudden shift in mood.

Taking a sigh of defeat, I leave my desk along with the blueprints in hand. I make my way down the hallways of the building, heading towards the generators. I was planning on staying down here a while so I decided to take the Blueprints with me. Descending the stair well I opened up the doors to the Generator room. I greeted my partners and other workers before I sat down at one of the workstations and laid out the blueprints.

Looking down at the blueprints, I started my work. I ask one of the workers to get the girl from earlier at the research lab with more reviews of the last test. With him doing my request, I walked around my workspace to the generators, opening a panel on the side to see wires that seemed damaged. Letting go of a deep breath, I turn around to see the worker and researcher at my workspace.

"Well, I can say on a surface level, the wires inside the first generator are damaged. Assuming this is from the test you recently had?" I ask her while walking back to my workspace.

She walks over to the panel and looks."It looks like a chunk of wiring got fried." She states the obvious.

"That...is what I said when I mentioned the 'damage' to the wires. I'll have to check the other generators for the most likely cause of them being similar to the first generator here."

"It seems as though all the generators suffered damage because of the test, if the first one is damaged then the others are too." She then nods to herself like she figured it all out.

"I...Wha...I don't even know what to say…" I could only mentally facepalm to her 'self conclusion' that she figured out.

"I think it was because the wires couldn't handle the amount of power going through them and backfired to the generators frying a shit ton of cables." She Nods once again like she was the smartest person in the building.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed before going along with her. "Why, yes. The amount of power was too much for the wires here. As I stated earlier back in the research la-"

"We need better cables to transfer a large amount of power to the coils so that there will not be any more power backlashes that can possibly blow us all to sky-high." She cuts me by stating back to me what I said earlier, at least she is a good listener.

"Before you can continue and cut me off. What's your name, Miss…?" Rolling both my hands forward together, hoping she answers my question.

"Oh, I thought you knew seeing as though you are the project lead. My name is Kate, it is a pleasure to finally have this introduction, sir." She responds happily.

"A pleasure indeed. You likely know mine but it's Alan, it would be rude to not give the same level of an introduction" I smile weakly.

"Let us continue now that the trivial stuff is out of the way, also I'm not calling you sir, that was for the one time." Kate responds back.

"Shame, it was growing on me there. Though, we're here for work, not pleasantries." Was my only remark back to Kate. "Back to business, we'll need to remake the wires to handle the output of the generators."