'Station Conflagration' was a name given by the droves of American and Portuguese labor contractors, which happened to rhyme in both languages, for the heat and deafening thunder that bore down on them regularly. The scientists and engineers referred to their project shorthand as the 'Whip,' for its appearance and function. At farther distances the irritated and resentful citizens of Ecuador applied more colorful terms such as 'Satan's Lash' and 'Demon's Chain' to accuse the intrusion as having hoodwinked and stolen all hope of tranquility from their home. Even farther, the natives of the Andes, who once called out to the lonely mountain as 'The Ice Throne of God,' now chant 'Usurper, Mouth of the Dragon,' instead. Hundreds of miles away the roar of the Dragon could be heard, louder than any crack of thunder, brighter than any flash of lightning. Randomly it might come and regularly it would provide spectacles in rapid succession, scarring the horizon with a line of blazing and blinding glory. At this range, on inception, some worried of complete cataclysm. Now it was merely considered a 'Disturber of the Peace.'
In truth it was the true eighth wonder of the world. The Colossus of Rhodes and the Pyramids of Giza were, even in the age of skyscrapers, uncontested, as those modern marvels lacked any sort of mystery or weight of labor about them. It, too, had no mystery about it, but it trumped all levels of labor and demanded attention by force. It held international fame, and inspired awe regularly. No pedestrian could ignore it; they either admired it, or despised it.
It was the Chimborazo Accelerator. Starting at the ocean, and climbing the entirety of the twenty thousand feet high ice capped mountain itself, was a hundred and fifty miles of forty foot diameter piping. Not one but two nuclear reactors were established on the beach and the base of the mountain to power it, and infrastructure amounting to over a trillion US dollars supported it. Dead objects were accelerated within the confines of vacuum sealing to over thirty times Earth's gravitational acceleration for the entire length, allowing objects to reach the moon without thrusters. When the objects exited the safe harbor of the piping they would impact the atmosphere and evaporate into dust in a fiery explosion, if not for huge solid slabs of meticulously designed sacrificial material, to evaporate in place of the payload. High minded theory crafters would mock it as firing meteors in reverse.
The accelerator served one purpose, to save money. Yet the ramifications were many and dire. Nations were compelled to bow and pay homage through the complex demands of military and economic fortune tellers. First world countries were redefined as those that had access to it. The threat of space born dominance became too obvious to ignore. The united nations leveraged it unceasingly to grow in power, and a thinly bound world alliance was formed, but only as once before by the mutual fears of destruction from hidden weapons.
O'ryan had been away from Earth for the longest period in his life to date. He scheduled his leave to Earth so that he would pass in sight of Chimborazo at the correct time so that he could witness launches from the vantage point of his return craft. He gazed at the partial view of Earth from a porthole, straining to look past his own reflection cast on the thick, double paned plastics. He saw the whips of fire that were like shooting stars with a planetary background, but he could not be impressed, as he usually was. He was distracted by Earth, and how foreign it seemed. He did not know what was different this time. He was caught in a trance. He lived and breathed the space race from the perspective of nations and nearly all humanity for years. It was connected to every person, every job, every bit of education and half of all topics of friendly discussion. Health was moon health. Food was moon food. Sex was moon sex. There was, around every corner, something to remind him of the context of society, of who he was, and what he was, without end. Now as the Earth grew larger he felt himself being pulled into the context of his past, and forced to compare them. There was a time when space wasn't real to him. When all that he knew was the street and apartment he lived in, his parents and friends, and how he might enjoy the next casual distraction. It was a tiny world, geographically, but it didn't feel any different in size to his new personal universe. It was always his life no matter where it went.
Melancholy filled the air. A kind of sadness, much like the loss of one's loyal companion, who had committed no crime and deserved no pain. O'ryan sensed a disparity. There was something off about the universe out there and the universe in here. Some disconnect that should not be. Some lack of information to put the pieces together. But O'ryan could not win. Thinking about it went nowhere, and he opted for the path of indolence, shutting the window and the source of his trouble off in the same movement. He began to doze off, worrying about the convention he scheduled. Perhaps he'd done all of this for naught, and no one would arrive and he'd be a great fool
O'ryan opened his eyes. He felt like he had slept for a long time, he thought he might've landed already. He yawned, and stretched, and opened the porthole. His droopy eyes took time to adjust. He thought that the earth was the exact same size as before, then he exclaimed, and shut the porthole. He looked forward and around. Nobody seemed to hear him. He found that his vision was still a little blurry, and started to gain clarity as he hunched forward trying to make out if the passenger next to him was asleep or not. He didn't remember sitting next to a mad scientist. A lab coat and rubber glove wearing man with spiky, singed hair and goggles to boot. He was typing furiously on an antique computer system that was hooked up by cord into some outlet of the ship. O'ryan was fairly certain that such bulk wasn't allowed nor practical on board, and was frankly ridiculous. He was also fairly certain that they could not have gone so far off course for Jupiter to be in view at that size.
"Excuse me, sir, I fell asleep and I was wondering if--," the man turned to face him with a gleeful smile, and O'ryan trailed off. He noticed something familiar. It was the man's teeth, they were bullet casings. The harder he looked, the more familiar the man became, literally changing shape, but as soon as O'ryan stopped focusing, he went back to being a mad scientist. O'ryan blinked.
"You did this for your own ease," the man said in a flat tone, much unlike the display of chaos that his cackling face produced to articulate the words. "I'm glad that you have chosen a suitable partner. Now we only have the matter of time and place."
O'ryan did not reply at once. He began to remember very slowly who this was, where he was from.
"You're… Death, right? From my dream? Oh thank god," O'ryan placed a hand on his chest. "I thought I was in danger, or being pranked, or going insane…"
"That is why I am here, to arrange your danger. You have few options…" the scientist said.
"What? My danger? There won't be any danger. Why do I keep seeing Jupiter? You wanted me to kill someone right? I'm not doing that, so forget about it," O'ryan said.
The scientist paused. "You are not required to slay anyone, but your partner will succumb by another hand as per the arrangement. It is a gruesome death. Given the desired locale there aren't many alternatives."
"When did I choose this? I don't remember this. Do I have to watch this? I'm getting sick of all these nightmares. Let's just skip to the good parts," O'ryan said, and the ship began to quake as if under turbulence.
The scientist looked around. "You can't go insane. You are already insane. Under such conditions I'll have to arrange it myself, as you are uncooperative," he said, and looked back to his computer, typing. The scene world began to whiten, and now O'ryan was the one to look around.
"Got out of that one scott free," he remarked with pride, before he opened his eyes a second time to the sound of a digital beep, marking the true turbulent period of reentry.