150. Meltdown
“What harm could a kid's toy be?” Amy asks herself as she commences to rip open the package. Inside, exactly as claimed on the box, is a bomb with a happy cartoon face drawn on the nose. The very tip of the nose is bright red. Amy looks in the box, but can't find any instructions.
“Huh,” thinks Amy to herself, “I wonder how you play with this thing?” She turns it around and around, but can't find an ON switch anywhere. Finally she decides to see what happens when she pushes the big red nose.
“Countdown commencing!” A loud voice booms from the bomb, sounding like it's coming out of an antiquated set of loudspeakers. “10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5!”
Amy gets a very bad feeling about this. Remembering Duck and Cover drills from school, she darts under a table and covers her head with her hands.
“4! 3! 2! 1! Ignition!”
Within a tenth of a second, every atom of Amy's body has been vaporized. The tiny nuclear bomb has exploded, instantly destroying everything within a five mile radius, including Boswell, Amy, Shannon, the mansion, and a good chunk of wildlife. The area is made uninhabitable for a hundred years, and thousands die of cancer from the irradiated ground water that results from the fallout of the explosion. The government is unable to explain how a nuclear explosion occurred in the middle of the woods in upstate New York, and the incident provides ample fodder for conspiracy theorists for years to come.
Amy is in no condition to continue this adventure or her life. Indeed, Amy could not have failed her mission more spectacularly, and the world would be far better off if she had never embarked on her quest in the first place.