The grand iron-hard metal blast doors sealing the entrance to the Inner Genesis Cathedral stood twenty meters tall, forged from five-foot-thick slabs of pre-Cataclysm blast-resistant armor alloy.
Embossed across the central seam was the huge insignia of the Sovereign Chimera Order. A stylized serpent coiled around an open ribs. It was flanked by twelve chimera beasts bowing before an artificial heart. But the metal was no longer cold and inert. The doors were streaming an intense, feverish heat, glowing dull orange around the rivets as the huge earth-heat energy from the cathedral’s runaway reactor surged against the inner walls.
“Thirty-four minutes leftover,” Valerie announced, her voice strained as she inspected the end-post screen beside the door frame. “Ground-shaking sensors indicate the Atlantic crust-sink fault is already fracturing. Micro-quakes measuring size four are rippling along the trench every ninety seconds. If we don’t shut down that reactor in thirty minutes, the main fault will slip. The eastern seaboard of North America will take the first tsunami wave in less than forty minutes.”
Arthur stepped up to the control console, his type-list magnifying glass spinning through its infrared and magnetic spectrums. Through the thick iron-hard metal doors, the heat profile of the inner chamber was staggering:
