Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
I've always had a knack for blowing stuff up.
My friends' phones. My temper. My love life.
But where I really excel is explosive pyrotechnics of a physical nature. On an epic scale. When things start looking dim, that's when I like to light up the darkness with things that go boom.
I double-checked my calculations, then triple-checked them just because I didn't feel like losing any fingers today. When I was completely sure I'd mixed the right quantities of sulfur, potassium nitrate, and the other combustible chemicals into the shells I'd been putting together in secret for the past month, I put on my protective gear.
Of course, I'd started planning this all at the paper stage. Then the computer. Now it was finally time to see whether all my planning amounted to anything. Whether it'd be the stuff dreams were made of...or whether it'd quite literally blow up in my face.
By the time I'd finished putting on my conductive shoes to limit sparks, I couldn't remember why I'd thought any of this was a good idea.
I could lose my job because of this.
My shirt chafed at my neck, and I wasn't sure whether my knees could support my weight. Sure, I liked the idea of being a rebel. Until the time came to light the fuse.
If I were in a heist movie, I'd be the crew member who planned the whole thing but stayed behind the curtain, eager for the bad guys to get what was coming to them, but ultimately unable to physically stand up to them in any way. Actually, never mind. I'd obviously be the detonation expert, called in to blow stuff up. They never had to confront the bad guys either.
The point was, I didn't like it when it was my reputation on the line. I didn't want to get in trouble. I just wanted to watch the night sky light up.
Eventually I couldn't put it off any longer. I killed the lights so darkness enveloped the room. Silence wrapped around me—the suffocating kind that made all my internal thoughts too loud. Before I could think about it, I hit the button that signaled the machine to light the cake fuse. I was safely behind a clear fireproof window, along with my audience of coworkers, who would get to watch my attempt live to see whether it was a success or failure.
As a pyrotechnic engineer, aka fireworks designer, I'd had my fair share of them. The phrase "crash and burn" got pretty literal around here. But I rarely took on a project in secret and never against the express order of my boss.
Today was full of firsts for me.
The cake fuse—a single fuse that lit several fireworks in a sequence—was out of my control now. Everyone behind the glass could see the entirety of the design I'd been working on, albeit on a much smaller scale. Our testing facility in Virginia was large, but it wasn't like we produced full-scale fireworks for everyone in the vicinity to get a free fireworks show every night. Sure, they might like it at first, but then the noise complaints would roll in. No, we worked in an enclosed protective bunker that let us record things like the smoke whiteout levels, the decibel noise level, and more. But because we could calculate the apex and hang without needing to physically produce it, we could make smaller fireworks here in the bunker that still gave us an accurate idea of how they'd react in the wild.
I held my breath as the spark lit up the fuse, its neon-orange flare winding along the cord like the bead of sweat going down my spine.
Please work, please work.
The spark hit the base of the first shell, and my gaze shot up, away from the wrappings, into the empty air above it. I'd started with a brocade waterfall, but what made my firework special was adding the newer ghost color-changing effect.
I stood so close that my nose was pressed against the glass. When the firework went off, the lights and sound hit me almost simultaneously, my whole body taking in everything at once.
It. Was. Glorious.
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