#theclockworkwitch

In a city where the world was continuously infested with clouds, on the bank of the Leyvaw River, was an immense building, the size of a power station, it's four stacks producing white smoke into the sky, as if adding to the endless clouds that covered the blue. Such a building was surrounded by immense security, typical of a highly secretive place. Officially, the building is known as the Experimental Concepts Facility, or ECF, as run by the United Government's Ministry of Science, but it does carry another name, used by pretty much everyone else, including those working in the facility itself.

This, was Nightwatch.

A facility that generated it's own energy, free from the grid of the local Avlanite electricity network. Such energy could well be boundless, for the mind bending, seemingly impossible experiments and projects undertaken inside it's walls, of various purposes and needs. From experimental weaponry, to universal and multiversal research, as well as continuously throwing out the laws of physics.

On this particular occasion, saw a face that, despite having worked in the facility for some months, was still considered to be relatively new. A blonde male, looking like he just entered adulthood, was placing money into a vending machine, to pick out a particularly attractive carton of iced coffee.

With the cold carton in his hands, he soon made his way, with a book in the other hand to what appeared to be a large mess hall, for the facility's employees to have a break, as well as eat and drink. Soon the male would take a seat, plopping the book on the table, flipping through a few select pages as he took a sip from the carton he just purchased.

The individual's name.. was Bowen Chuuno.

For a while, was he researching some things in the book while drinking his iced coffee, carefully, as to not spill any the book itself. Eventually though, another individual would walk over and sit across from him, another male, in the same uniform, but with black hair, matching eyes and glasses.

"Ahh, Bowen. I thought you'd be on Plant Duty today."

To which the blonde would look up and shake his head with a smile.

"Not today, Spencer. I'm on the Research side for a change this time. Been caught with a perplexing problem though. Richards was doing some energy work on another universe but it's coming up with some error. Scharver's hand-balled it to me to build up my troubleshooting skills." To which he'd have another sip afterwards.

"...That looks like one of the Technical Interface books... Must be serious if it's bringing up a system's error. Still, we all gotta learn these things, I suppose."

"Mmm. I'm gonna finish this and head on over to check it all out.... actually might make a start on it now." The blonde replied before standing up, easily finishing off the rest of his iced coffee in a manner of seconds. "Geez I wish we could get KFC in this joint." He added as he closed the book up and held it under his arm. The bespectacled male of course, answered that comment with a laugh.

"Heh, I hear they're doing delivery now!" Spencer then spoke as Bowen headed out the mess hall, the blonde would laugh one more time, turning to the man as he walked out.

"Yeah, but try getting them to bring it into this hole! I’d have to get it from the front gate!" Was all Bowen said before heading off on his way.

~~~

Down a few hallways he went. Sometimes to get from one room or another would take quite a few minutes, considering how huge this facility was. Eventually he would make it to a particular room, labelled 'ERU-5', with a large black sliding door, currently open. There were three lights above the door, though the only one lit currently was 'OPEN'. Carrying his book with him, did Bowen head on inside, placing said book down on a table and sliding the door shut, as well as pushing a few buttons on a wallside keypad. The lights above the door would then change from 'OPEN' to 'IN USE'.

There were two main pieces of equipment in this room. The first was a few dynamos, hooked up to a vintage style control panel.

Also in the room was a more modern control setup, with levers, buttons and lights. There was also a computer monitor and keyboard connected, to input commands and have a better readout of what was happening.

The first thing Bowen does is engage a few knife switches on the vintage panel, to get the dynamo rolling first and reading out the input from the main system. He tweaked a few of the valves to his liking, getting the dynamo running at a good speed, before using another switch to disengage the vintage panel's use, so that he could control the dynamo from the modern panel. As the dynamo was running, the third light above the door outside would come on, which just had the word ‘DYNAMO’ on it, to indicate that such was running.

"Right.. let's see..." The blonde muttered to himself, as he keyed in a few things to bring up the coordinates to the universe that was being looked at. After confirmation, he started pressing a few buttons, in a routine fashion, while the sound of the whirling dynamo filled the room, as did the familiar electrical hum.

"Aand....." He pressed one final button, which would normally commence an attempt to measure energy from the universe in question, through an inter-dimensional link.

Instead, a red light would flash on the panel, which was marked 'ERROR', also conveyed by an error code on the computer screen. With a light frown, the blonde examined the code as he flipped through the book again, looking back and forth to check what it could be. "....Huh..." What was strange was, the error code listed, wasn't actually a code in the book at all. "Surely they would have given us every conceivable possibility."

In thought, he disengaged a few buttons, pressing a few different ones, as if taking an alternative approach, before hitting the engage button again. Same error. Not only that, the dynamo was beginning to whirl down.. another odd occurrence. Quickly did he head over to the vintage panel to give it a dose of mains power, before setting it back and heading over to the modern panel again.

"Okay... this has got to work.." Another setting, hitting a few buttons, disengaging a few others, a few commands on the keyboard... push to engage and.... not only the same error, but the familiar whirling sounds has stopped, meaning the dynamo was running freely without voltage.. "Oh come on!" He exclaimed, in sheer frustration, back to the vintage panel, starting from square one. He imagined there was the possibility that this dynamo had failed, but nope, he was able to restart it again with the usual procedure as always. Once satisfied that it was running.. again.. he once more changed it's intending input back to the other panel, which he would quickly resume to.

"Right... let's see if it could be done manually." A few different buttons this time, followed by a few knob switches, as well as inserting two keys into two locks to disengage another safety measure,  to force a connection and engage manual control, before taking hold of the blue-looking lever and pushing it all the way forward, which was to put it in the off position. After a few seconds, he would pull it slowly towards him, seeing the numbers climb up, the gauges move and the dynamo begin to whirl higher.

...But in the span of a few seconds, not only did another, unknown error code come up, all in gibberish, but the dashboard begin to light up with red lights and many different noises, as if indicating something had gone horribly wrong. What was worse still, was that the dynamo was still running higher and higher, the gauges easily moving into dangerous territory.

Quickly did Bowen try and shut the system down, starting with taking both keys out and changing it back from manual to automatic, trying the usual process to shut it down.. but to no avail. Then, he rushed to the older panel to try and shut the dynamo down from it's other source.. still no luck.. even when isolated from mains, it was still getting faster, taking more energy. Even the emergency stop lever on the dynamo itself failed to stop it.

There were only two options left, try and remove one of the input cables, which was extremely difficult and dangerous in itself.. or try and fry the dynamo, which wasn't as complicated, but just as dangerous. Back to the modern panel, re-engaging manual control with the right buttons and switches, before taking a hold of the manual voltage lever. For a few seconds did he look over at the dynamo, before looking away, throwing the lever into full intake....

BOOOOOOOOOOM

And just like that... the black sliding door blew open with a nice blue fireball, alarms began to ring throughout the complex. What they would eventually find, once the flames were put out and the area was secure, was that Bowen had completely disappeared.. there was no trace of him, not even a single smidgen of evidence to determine what had truly happened to him.