Atomic CritterS
Volume I | Part I
Chapter 8: “The Atomic Heart Engine”
The Atomic Heart Engine waited.
It had been asleep for decades.
It did not want to be awake.
Renji and Kagen stood at the bottom of the ladder longer than either of them meant to.
The chamber opened around them in a wide, circular cavern, dormant machinery lining the walls like ribs. Every surface angled inward, subtly, insistently, as if the room had been built to funnel attention toward its center. The air hummed faintly—irregular, uneven—like it remembered how to breathe and wasn’t sure it should.
Floating at the heart of it all was a sphere of light.
Fractured plates rotated in slow, patient orbit around a pulsing core, each movement deliberate, measured. Not spinning. Waiting.
Renji let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“…Wow,” he said.
Kagen stayed near the ladder, one hand still resting on the metal rung as if the ground might decide to stop being trustworthy. “Don’t.”
Renji smiled without looking back. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t start,” Kagen said. “You’re doing the thing.”
Renji took a cautious step forward, boots echoing softly against the stone. “I’m just looking.”
“You’re never ‘just looking.’”
Renji laughed, nervous energy buzzing through him. “Wefound a secret glowing machine under a pond and you want me to stand still?”
Kagen’s eyes stayed on the Engine. “I want you to not touch anything.”
Renji glanced over his shoulder. “It’s not like touching something is going to cause it to kill you.”
Kagen’s jaw tightened. “You don’t know that.”
Renji spread his hands. “I mean—statistically—”
“Renji.”
He stopped, turning back.
“This place doesn’t feel like a ‘statistics’ place,” Kagen said quietly. “It feels like a ‘mistakes are permanent’ place.”
The plates shifted slightly, their orbit tightening by a fraction.
Renji swallowed, then forced a grin. “You’re saying that because you don’t like enclosed spaces.”
“I’m saying that because I don’t like things that hum when no one asked them to.”
Renji stepped closer to the center.
Kagen did not follow.
“Hey,” Renji said lightly. “You see how it’s built around itself? That’s incredible. It’s like—like it’s protecting its core.”
“Or containing it,” Kagen replied.
Renji crouched near one of the lower conduits, careful now, curiosity tempered by awe. “You ever see craftsmanship like this? Someone meant for this to last.”
“That’s not comforting,” Kagen said. “That’s worse.”
Renji reached out, fingers hovering inches above a nearby plate.
Kagen straightened. “Don’t.”
Renji hesitated. His voice softened. “I just want to understand it.”
Kagen shook his head. “You’re acting like a kid in a museum. Stop touching things just because they exist!”
Renji huffed a quiet laugh. “You sound like my dad.”
The hum deepened. Just slightly.
Renji stood, eyes locked on the pulsing core now. “I don’t think it’s dangerous.”
Kagen’s grip tightened on the ladder rung. “I have a bad feeling.”
Renji turned back, earnest now. “You always do.”
“Yes,” Kagen said. “And I’m usually right.”
Renji took one last step forward.The Engine brightened.
He froze. “Did I—”
The plates shifted again, faster this time, light intensifying as the core pulsed on its own, responding to something unseen.
Renji hadn’t touched it. Not yet.
Kagen felt the hum change—felt it in his bones, in the pressure behind his teeth.
“Renji,” he said, voice low. “Back away.”
Renji lifted his hand anyway, drawn forward despite himself.
The Engine surged.
It activated.
The Engine drank it in.
And cracked.
And then the world tore open.
A blast of light erupted upward, ripping through the sanctuary, bending reality around it.
Animals scattered.
Hay flew.
The koi leapt from the pond in synchronized panic.
And then—
It looked at him.
The scan passed over Renji first.
His heart flared bright and uncomplicated, warm as lantern light, curiosity ringing clean and clear.
Renji gasped softly. “Kagen…”
Then the light shifted.
Turned.
And found something else entirely as it scanned Kagen: the bone‑deep exhaustion of being unseen, the ache of a life spent supporting someone else’s brilliance, the embers of resentment that pulsed too quietly for even Kagen to admit.
