The Core

(The Core)

For unknown reasons, the internal nucleus of the Earth has ceased to turn on itself. The magnetic field of the planet collapses, provoking thus under most various latitudes a dramatic and spectacular series of accidents.

At Boston, a thirty of people equipped with pacemakers die brutally in an area of 500 meters. At San Fransisco the cables of the Goden Gate Bridge, submitted to intense radiations, break in a few minutes, precipitating in the void many car drivers. At London, pigeons of Tarfalgar Square, disorientated kick in mass on the crowd, vehicles and flats. At Rome, thousands of tourists assist with horror to the disintegration of the Coliseum...

Confronted to this unprecedent catastrophe, the American government summons the geophisicist Josh Keyes, a fistfull of famous international scientists and a couple of astronauts, the Major Rebecca Childs and the Commander Iverson. Objective : to launch in depths of the terrestrial coat a manned capsule and to provoke chained nuclear explosions to restart the nucleus to save the world from imminent destruction.

Despite the evident technical impossibility for Keyes to reach the nucleus of the earth, the Professor Conrad Zimsky, an eminent specialist proposes his solution. The team discovers a secret laboratory in the State of Utah where Edward Brazzleton has developed the " impossiblium ", an incredible material that will be able to resist to extreme temperatures of the nucleus in fusion and a revolutionary laser and ultrasonic drilling system. In three month, a vessel capable to reach the center of the earth is built and the team of earthnauts readies to take the departure from a platform in the South Pacific.

Virgil, the extraordinary vessel of Brazzleton, is launched without problem and its drilling systems function to the perfection. After some hours, the engine stops in extremis to the edge of a giant gulf with gigantic crystal. Iverson finds death while he leaves to repair the engine. Virgil can run again and finally enter the nucleus. Unfortunately, it proves that embarked nuclear loads will be insufficient to make it restart because less dense than anticipated. A replacement solution exists; it is called " DESTINY "…

 Spoiler ! the end of the story is revealed below…

It is a weapon secretly developed capable to trigger seismic events targeted that could provoke earthquakes. The team in surface decides to launch this arm and orders the crew to come back. Keyes understands that the stop of the earth's nucleus has been provoked by the madness of man.

Ahead the danger that represents the use of the weapon and the skepticism for the success of the project, the crew, under the commandment of Rebecca Childs, decides nevertheless to continue its way staking on the success of their new plan. So as to optimize the power delivered by atomic bombs, they will be launched unit by unit and at regular intervals in Virgil's detachable sections. The shockwave thus obtained would theoretically allow to restart the nucleus. Brazzleton sacrifices his life to give this chance of success to the mission. Josh and Rebecca, the two last survivors of the expedition get release the nuclear bombs and restart the nucleus. For them, the mission ends when they return to the surface by borrowing the natural passage of a volcano in fusion.