"You can only roll the dice so many times before things go wrong." —Anton Seimon

The mesocyclone was now over two miles wide. From their northern, eastern, western and southern positions, amateur and professional storm chasers  recorded the largest tornado ever on record.

At two miles wide, few of them realized that they were standing inside of the massive tornado itself. The winds at the outer edge were sixty to eighty miles an hour, but wind shear inside the inner rotating sub vortexes reached over two hundred and fifty miles an hour. Strong enough to shred asphalt from the highways, pull blocks of concrete from solid foundations and kill everyone in its path.  The tornado was moving in a straight line, traveling at well over forty miles an hour in a northerly direction.

Straight for the town of Springfield.

"Jeez! Look at that thing." James pointed to the southerly side of the supercell where a sinister outer tornado had touched down. The twister hissed like a lock of Medusa's undulating cobra hair. Fast and deadly, the tightly coiled rotating tentacle swept through a farm and sucked up enough blackened earth to remind him of a satanic snake. As they watched, the outer tornadic winds exploded a gas station and pulled the pumps out of the ground, all in a matter of seconds.

"If we can't get in front of this monster, we should slap a probe down in front of that smaller, outer vortex," Halle said. The winds are well over a hundred and eighty miles per an hour in that sucker."

"More like two hundred. Did you see how it picked up that tow truck like it was a feather?" He swallowed, nervously.

Their radio squawked and came to life. "Weather Warrior1, do you copy?"

Relief flooded through Halle as she grabbed the mic. "Amy, what's your location?"

"Thanks to my own ingenuity, we're right behind you, Goldilocks." 

Halle looked at the rear view mirror. She grinned when she saw the Nova's circular moonlight colored headlights. "You're late, Mama Bear."

"Better late than never," Zane piped in. Nassem's getting  great footage. "What a wild ride."

"Tell Naseem to get his Go Pro online. We're going to deploy the first probe and up the ante.'

Halle grinned, "Ready, James?"

"Let's just get this over with." His mouth was a tense straight line.

She noticed his knuckles had whitened from gripping the steering wheel. She stared at him. "What's wrong?"

James nodded and gave a weak smile. "It's different when you're this close. I think I'm having a heart attack.

"You're not having a heart attack. Speed up. It's turning." The outer twister arced around the monster tornado and moved in a graceful, concentric circle. James accelerated for a few miles until they were a quarter of a mile ahead of the mammoth twister. He slowed and halted several hundred yards away from the smaller tornado as it veered towards the road. Halle jumped out and opened the back of The Terminator while James opened his door. He froze as another deadly sub vortex appeared and headed straight for them.

"James! I need your help to carry the probe into the field." Halle grabbed the probe and waited for him to help her carry it into the tornado's path. The winds buffeted her body and whipped her hair as she struggled with the steel pod. James cringed as the winds pushed against his door. The roar of the advancing tornado was like a freight train as he gazed at the advancing cobra-like twister. 

I'm not ready to die like the mayor.

When she saw the second sub vortex barreling down on them, Halle dropped heavy silver disk onto the road and hopped back into the car. Her abrupt reappearance broke James fearful trance. He started the vehicle, floored the accelerator and raced to put a safe distance between them and the tornado. Halle watched the target tornado and cursed under her breath when the twister missed the probe by fifty yards.

"Weather Warriors1, what happened?" Amy's voice crackled over the radio. "Why did you abort that deployment?"

"Didn't she see the second sub vortex? James muttered. "Tell her she should get her ass up here and do it."

"I made a mistake in timing our location. The failed deployment is my fault," Halle answered into the mic.

James couldn't look at her. His face was drenched in sweat and his hands trembled on the steering wheel. "I'm sorry Halle. Please don't tell my father."

"Don't worry, James. I won't." She touched his shoulder. "We still have one probe left—Halle's face whitened. "Oh my, God. No."

Up ahead, the tornado was headed straight for Springfield's Amazon packaging facility. Workers scurried into the building as the monster swept company vehicles up into the air and slammed them into the ground.