A 3.0 earthquake had enough power to match half a ton of detonated TNT, and a 6.0 could match that of an atomic bomb's.

Yet here Atlas sat, ten miles away from where the potential focus point would be, waiting for his team to start the mitigation tool using the coordinates he had captured over the course of the first week before his unit gave up the ghost. If everything went well, they'd release a tiny bit of that pent up energy and store it in a battery.

No one ever thought that one day the US would have the technology to capture the energy from earthquakes. It was a dual purpose - it'd incrementally reduce the sticks-slip tension along the fault lines, allowing earthquakes to shrink and therefore cause less damage when they did happen, and it could maybe, one day once it got tested further, be used to send energy into the country's electric grid as an alternative to nuclear power.

"I hope this works," he said for the hundredth time in the last fifteen minutes. His stomach twisted into weird shapes as he couldn't help but imagine them setting off some insane 9.0 earthquake that caused a tsunami and killed everyone on the coast of Japan.

"Atlas, I swear you're making me anxious." Aronne shook his head. "We're not on a large enough fault to do too much more than maybe put a crack in the ground," he continued. "You know this - you measured and mapped it!"

"I know."

Ashe, for the first time since they had arrived almost three hours ago, added in. "It'll be fine."

"Yeah, see? You've taken enough geology in college to know this will go without any harm." Aronne spread his arms out wide. Atlas lifted his head up to watch him. "There isn't a single soul in sight, not for tens and tens of miles. There isn't a single track in the snow besides ours. There are few trees, mostly all rock. There's nothing to be afraid of."

He knew that. He didn't need to be told that. But that didn't stop him from worrying about messing up the last two coordinates. His gut told them they were right, that they were the same as everything else he compared. Perfect. Completely perfect.

They sat in the trunk of the SUV, looking over pure white snow, freezing their butts off, waiting. Atlas and a few others had shoveled a square of snow away so the team could set up a tent and attempt to secure it to the frozen soil, and although that had warmed him up, now that he had stopped moving, he could feel his joints and muscles slowly cramping with the cold.

If Atlas peered through it, he would be able to see the electric generator and the equipment set up inside to monitor the tool.

One of the scientists ran over and told them it would start in five minutes.

Aronne slid off of the trunk and walked with her, disappearing beneath the tent. Atlas glanced at Ashe, and they fell in silence that he knew he'd have no success breaking.

She watched everyone move about with keen eyes, her straightened, dark brown hair framing her cheeks.

He sighed, rubbing his hands together. "Want to turn the car on and get out of the cold?" he asked.

"Not really."

"Oh, okay."

Atlas hunched forward. Why was everyone more okay with the below freezing temperatures than he was? Was their curiosity that much stronger than his? He wasn't even needed anymore at this point in the process, neither was Ashe who had designed the structure they built on the mitigation site.

He heard someone shout over the others, and almost immediately an expecting silence fell over the whole team. Even he held his breath as he waited for something to happen.

It was like his father knew it was the perfect moment to call him. His phone started buzzing in his pocket, the Game of Thrones theme panning out shortly before being whisked away in the light breeze.

Ashe laughed, glancing at him, as he scrambled to pull it out and turn it off. Sorry, dad, he thought. He didn't even think they had the signal for that right then. But he guessed the highway wasn't that far from where they were - he knew Aronne had been exaggerating with his earlier claims about being in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the tool was, but they weren't.

Something must have happened during his distraction, as soon a soft rumble made way through the field. It was faint enough to tell him that they certainly didn't unleash the 9.0 he worried about, but active enough to make him wonder if everything went as planned.

The earthquake they triggered shouldn't have been felt through the ground at the distance they were at, but yet, here he was, watching some snow dislodge from their shoveled pile and fall down like a mini avalanche.

That meant it had to have been over a 3.0. They were aiming for around a 0.5; that was exponentially larger than anticipated.

Atlas pushed himself off of the trunk, his boots crunching through snow as he went up to the tent, popping his head in.

He almost crashed into Aronne. "Sorry," he said, backpedaling.

"Oh no, my bad," the project manager said. "Let's head back and see what just happened."

Atlas followed him back to the SUV as the others got into the van, and they headed toward the main set up set. A little over twenty minutes later, they parked, stepping once more away from the pleasurable seat warmers and out into the cold. Today it was only 19 degrees, which Aronne said was still a normal temperature for this time of year.

They didn't have to walk much to see what that small rumble was.

It definitely wasn't a 3.0. Atlas' eyes were wide as he took in the crevice that sprouted for a hundred meters. It was perhaps only one to three feet wide, but when curiosity got the best of him and he walked up toward it, his skin crawled when he saw the strange depths.

This wasn't normal, not one bit.

"What in Hell," he whispered. The others were crowded around him, close enough that he could feel the heat rise from their near huddle as they looked at the wreckage.

Stones were scattered in various directions and piles of snow had been dislodged. The powder didn't come close to filling in the depths of the crack. Along the sides, Atlas could see long strands of dead grass peeking out and drooping down.

He looked up. Aronne scratched his head in silence, and soft murmurs arose from the others. Ashe stayed completely quiet, her concerned gaze taking in every minute detail before traveling over to the small structure that she had designed. Was she already thinking of what she could have done wrong?

Aronne exhaled loud enough to capture everyone's attention. "This certainly didn't work out as planned, but now we have evidence that something in our best efforts bore fruit. Let's come back with a fresh mindset tomorrow and see what went right, and what needs to change, okay?" His gaze traveled over them all, and he efficiently dealt with any concerns that arose.

Atlas listened partially. His manager always managed to make even the worst of problems look like good progress. It was an endearing trait, but it made him wonder how someone could say such things when they literally just tore a gaping, ten foot deep hole into Alaska.

He wasn't a geologist, but even he could identify the layers in the rock when he neared. The colors and textures changed subtly down the length of the short cliff side, or whatever a ten foot drop off could be called. When he got close enough to kneel and touch a hand down the side of the rockface, he noticed a weird warmth. Water dripped down in a steady flow like a leaky kitchen tap, feeling oily and chilled against his fingers.

Did earthquakes release heat? Or was that their doing?

He felt Ashe slide up beside him more than heard her, and when he looked up he noticed she had already plopped onto the ground and slung her legs over the side of it.

"What are you doing?"

She peeked up at him and smiled. "Rock climbing," she said before she dropped down into it with a strange childness that took him off guard. He watched her do a little bunny hop onto a slightly sloped floor.

Atlas couldn't help but tilt his head.

She just did what he was almost contemplating without a second thought, not even a single worry about being able to get back up despite the drop being nearly twice her height. Wasn't she shy and awkward? Why could she jump down a cliff with less hesitation than she could put herself into a simple, small talk conversation?

He glanced behind him to see Aronne give him a weird look as he talked with one of the geologists. He kind of got the clue he was telling him to follow her down or to pull her out so she didn't get hurt.

Atlas groaned. He was never good at climbing.