Outland (World-Lines Book 1) (17 page)

Yellowstone plateau bursts at the seams with explosions of magma more powerful than the largest nuclear weapon ever built. Thousands of cubic kilometers of rock, magma, ash and dust are blown into the air. The entire Yellowstone plateau (the part of it that hasn’t just been vaporized) falls into the empty magma chamber. The billowing clouds of smoke, ash, water vapor and poisonous gases rise more than 30 kilometers into the air, lit by lightning storms, burning rock, and the reflection of the bright red hell below. Pyroclastic flows at temperatures of 1000 degrees Centigrade and more race outward at 700 kilometers per hour, reaching as much as 150 kilometers away. Jackson, Cody, Powell, Rexburg, Idaho Falls, Livingston are wiped out
.

Radio and phone communications are disrupted as electrically
charged ash creates a maelstrom of interference. Ash clogs air filters and abrades metal parts. Turbines, cooling equipment, and engines—unless specially
protected—fail within hours of exposure to the toxic, abrasive brew.

Aug 1                            Suzie

Someone was banging on Suzie’s door and calling her name. She got up and opened her door to find Maddie and Joy standing there with fearful expressions. “What?” she asked, more abruptly than she had intended.

“It’s erupted. Yellowstone!” Maddie said, breathless. The two pushed their way into her room without waiting for an invitation. Suzie closed the door and turned to them.

“We were watching CNN in the common room. They had a chopper covering it, and suddenly
it all disappeared. I mean, there was a flash, and the signal was cut off.”

Suzie thought for a second. “Have they said anything else? Do they know how big? Will we feel anything here?”

“Don’t know,” Joy answered. “The CNN anchors don’t seem to know anything more than us. Come on, Suzie. Let’s get back to the TV!”

Suzie pulled on some jeans and runners, and the three girls took off for the common area.

A crowd had already gathered by the time they got there. Normally Suzie wouldn’t expect to see this many people in the residence during summer, but everyone on the floor was there at the moment. People called out questions and made comments, and the noise level climbed as people tried to talk over each other.

Without warning, the floor
heaved
, and the building started to sway. There were screams, and several people hit the ground hard. The rest followed as the shaking and swaying got more pronounced. It sounded like several people were sobbing in fear. At some point during the shaking, the power went out, and the lights and TV blinked off.

After about a minute, the earthquake died down. They could hear alarms and sirens in the distance, and at least one explosion. People picked themselves up off the floor and looked around. No one appeared to be badly injured, although people were rubbing various parts of their bodies and looking unhappy.

“We should go outside,” Suzie said.

“Why?” someone asked.

“In case there’s another one,” Someone else answered.

“I’m fine here,” said the first person.

Suzie turned to her friends. “I’m going to get cleaned up then get my backpack and go up to the Union. Unless the power comes on soon, the light’s better there. Maybe someone will even have some answers.”

Joy nodded tightly. “Meet back here in a bit.”

***

They met back in the common area, each with a backpack over her shoulder. Joy said, “I guess we should take the stairs.” There were wan smiles at this glib understatement, and they all made for the staircase.

They got to the ground floor of Harper Hall without incident, thanks to emergency lighting, and made their way out of the building. They had to take a moment to orient themselves, as they weren’t used to leaving by this door, then they headed toward the Union Building.

They’d been walking for a while when an unimaginably loud roar came out of nowhere, as if every thunderstorm in history had replayed itself at once. All three girls crouched down in defense and held their ears. The sound went on for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a minute.

Finally, the roar died down. The girls looked at each other in shock. “So,” said Maddie, “I think we’ve confirmed an eruption.” She gave a lopsided smile.

As they continued on their way, they noticed a crowd gathering near the University Health Center. Changing direction, they went over to investigate.

When they got there, they were perplexed to see a moving van with some equipment set out on the grass in front of it. Near the equipment, two men were standing, holding shotguns!

Probably within two, three weeks of the time that the ash first fell, everything on the landscape was dead

Mike Voorhies, paleontologist

From Super Volcano: The Ticking Time Bomb Beneath Yellowstone National Park

Aug 1                            Richard

“Well, there is another option,” Kevin said. “We have the portals. We have a whole world with clean air. And we have a couple of hours to get people across.”

Richard turned in surprise, since Kevin didn’t often volunteer an opinion on anything not math-related.

“So they can get eaten by sabertooth cats?” Matt asked.

“It’s still better than the alternative,” Erin replied.

Richard thought for a few seconds. “How about this? The Uni is close by, and even in summer there’s a significant population. We’ll keep one of the portal generators here, with the truck gate. Some of us will start humping supplies across. We’ll have to stand guard because the goons might still be out there and alive. Although in that case, we hope they’re hanging out at the old location.”

He gestured toward the van. “The rest will take the van and two sets of portal equipment to the university, set up a gate in as public a place as possible, and start getting people through. It’s about a forty-five minute walk here to there in civilization, so maybe a couple of hours on the other side, assuming there aren’t any deep streams or rivers that we don’t know about. You’ll have to set up the second gate on the other side, then come through that, shut down the first one, and bring it through. Then hike over here with however many people you’ve been able to round up.”

“If we get a bunch of people, that’s just a big travelling buffet lunch to anything on the other side,” Matt pointed out. “The Uni group is going to have to take a major inventory of weapons and hand them out to whoever says they can use one.”

“Also,” Monica added, “and not to put too fine a point on it, but do we actually know that we can open the gate from the other side? And if we do, will we get this side or something else?”

There was dead silence as the question sank in. No one wanted to open a gate to Greenhouse Earth. Or worse. They all turned to Kevin.

“First,” Kevin said, “it should work from any Earth. There’s nothing special about this Earth. We aren’t Earth Prime or anything like that.

“Second, there’s only one dimension involved. Right/Left. From Outland, use the same setting as we used here to get Greenhouse Earth and you’ll get us. Left is left and right is right.”

The group hurried to get organized. They loaded about half of their weapons and ammo back into the truck. Bill thought for a few seconds, grabbed several boxes labeled Night Vision Goggles and put them in the van, followed by several packages of batteries. He smiled enigmatically at the raised eyebrows.

They agreed to a plan. Richard, Erin, and Kevin would take the van to the university, while Matt, Monica, and Bill would stay at the warehouse and move supplies through. Monica had volunteered to stay and stand guard, having expressed a desire for an opportunity to give the goons another piece of her mind.

Walkie-talkies were taken out, tested, and set up. Last, Matt handed Erin a relief map of the city and a compass. He started to describe to her how to find her way to the warehouse on the other side, but Erin stopped him. “Hello. Geology student. Field trips. Camping.”

“Right,” Matt said, smiling at her and trying not to look concerned. “Just be careful and make it back, okay?” Erin squeezed his hand and kissed him.

“And listen,” he added, “if you can’t make it to the Uni by road, come back and we’ll try to get over there from the other side. That’ll be slower, but you work with what you’ve got.”

In a statement from the White House, officials have assured the public that FEMA, with the full support of the National Guard and other military as required, is prepared to handle the emergency. A spokesperson noted that the primary danger for the public from this point would be breathing the ash and that citizens should stay at home, keep doors and windows closed, turn off forced-air heating and air-conditioning systems to avoid having ash particles sucked into the residence, and above all not to go in or out any more than absolutely
necessary.

---

There has been no contact with individuals or organizations closer to the eruption than about 100 miles. One eyewitness that contacted us from Billings, Montana has said, “The column of ash is rising higher than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s smearing to the south-west partway up, then bending to the East at the top.”

A USGS representative, when asked about this, explained, “The prevailing winds and the jet stream aren’t necessarily
going in the same direction at any time. This means there will at least two major downwind ash falls”.

---

The governors of Wyoming and all surrounding states have declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard. All law enforcement and emergency personnel have been called in to active duty.

---

The Governor of Wyoming and several officials from surrounding states have gone on the air to plead for calm. “We’ll get through this. We are the greatest nation on Earth. We have the resources to weather the storm, if people can just be a little patient.”

You’d be dead

Michael Rampino, Associate Prof of Earth and Environmental Sciences

From Super Volcano: The Ticking Time Bomb Beneath Yellowstone National Park

Aug 1                            Erin

Richard drove the van towards the university, watching for unexpected obstacles like fallen structures or cracks in the pavement. Dust and smoke hung in the air—Erin assured them that it had all been kicked up by the earthquake. While the earthquake hadn’t been severe enough to open a fissure capable of swallowing the van, something big enough to total the suspension would be sufficient to end their expedition.

“Sure is dead,” Erin commented. “Er, I mean deserted.”

Richard chuckled. “I’m guessing everyone headed for home as soon as the shaking stopped. That’s probably some kind of instinct.”

“And it’s Sunday,” Kevin added.

“Look, over there.” Erin pointed to a couple of people walking slowly along the sidewalk, with one supporting the other. They drove up and rolled down the window.

The pair stopped. They were two youngish men, casually dressed. Their clothes looked like they’d been rolling around on the ground.

I’m sure that’s exactly what we look like,
Erin thought.

“Don’t suppose your cell is working?” one of them asked Erin.

“No,” she replied. “That’s a general problem right now. I wouldn’t get your hopes up either.”

“Hmm. Looks like you’re going in the wrong direction, or I’d ask for a ride. Gerry here twisted his ankle in the quake. I’m Rick, by the way.”

“There’s a place close-by you can go to get some help,” Erin replied. She gave them the warehouse address. “They’ve got supplies and stuff there, and it’ll be the safest place to be once the ash starts to fall. Unless you’ve got a ride out of town waiting wherever you’re heading to.”

Rick frowned and replied, “And why in particular would you be making this offer?”

“Because if I don’t, you’ll probably die,” Erin replied. His face registered shock at the brutal frankness of her comment. “Your choice,” she continued. “If you see anyone else, give them the address as well. We’re going to try to save as many people as we can.”

“Uh, yeah… Okay,” Rick said, still looking shocked. Erin rolled up the window, and they drove off.

“Why did you do that?” Richard asked. “Not that I disagree, but…”

Erin replied, “Richard, publishing the portal information when we were first talking about this could have saved a lot of people now. I don’t blame any of us; this is all twenty-twenty hindsight. No one thought Yellowstone was actually going to cut loose. But now we have a situation, and we have a way to help, so I guess I feel a moral obligation.”

Richard offered a bleak smile. “Well, you ain’t wrong.” He paused.

“How serious are you about that 100% prediction?”

“For animals out in the open,” she responded, “it’s certain. For people who have masks, they’ll be okay. Even drywalling masks are good enough. If people stay indoors for a couple of weeks, they’ll be okay, as long as they turn off forced-air furnaces. Of course then they’ll have the problem of no water and probably no food left. Water treatment plants will choke and die pretty fast. At that point, people will go out and try to look for supplies or help. If they get too much gunk into their lungs, their lungs can’t clear it out. And that’s fatal.”

As they continued towards the university, they would sometimes see other people walking along or just standing looking dazed. Wherever they could, they gave them the address of the warehouse and told them to go there if they didn’t have an alternative plan. Most people looked skeptical. Erin hoped that at least some of them would make the right choice.

It took some inventive driving by Richard, and more than one parking meter had to be sacrificed, but eventually they did make it to the university. They pulled up into the grassy area near the University Health Center. It was central to the campus and a likely place for students to gather after the quake. In any case, it was as good a place as any to start. They opened the van, pulled out the portal equipment, and set it up. They started up the generator but didn’t open the gate yet. While the university’s population in summer was low compared to the rest of the year, there were still a significant number of people around. By the time they had the portal ready to go, they had attracted a crowd of perhaps forty.

Erin stepped to the fore and took a breath to talk with as much volume as she could manage. “Can I have your attention please? As you’ve probably heard by now, Yellowstone has erupted.”

If Erin had been arranging it for showmanship, she could not have done better. At that moment the sound from the eruption arrived in Lincoln. The Krakatoa explosion had been audible up to 2000 miles away. This was orders of magnitude more powerful. People fell to their knees holding their ears. Windows cracked or shattered in several buildings. a few minutes lapsed after it died down before everyone’s ears recovered enough for Erin to continue.

“Yellowstone has erupted. I guess you know that.”

There were derisive laughs from the audience and shouts of “Thank you, Captain Obvious!” and “What gave it away?”

Erin ignored them and continued. “In a couple of hours the ash will start to fall. Within two or three weeks, you’ll all be dead unless you have some way to get at least five hundred miles from here in the next twenty-four hours.” That produced a loud silence. “Breathing the ash causes pulmonary disease. It also destroys equipment. Chances are there will be no food deliveries into town for quite a while. Chances are the power will not be coming back on, at least not for long. Chances are the water system will fail within a week.

“In the longer term, we may be able to get back on our feet. In the short term, it’s not going to be pleasant. We have a way out, through here.” She gestured to the gate. “It’s not civilized, so we’re going to bring out some shotguns before opening it. Please don’t be alarmed.”

Students looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Some started laughing until Richard and Kevin came around carrying shotguns. Kevin was visibly uncomfortable.

Richard pumped the shotgun with a loud
clickety click
and looked over to Erin. She held up her tablet and pressed OK.

The gate came to life, and showed trees, meadow, and a very large and very startled moose. The moose gave a bellow of alarm and left in a hurry. Several students showed signs of having the same idea.

“If you don’t want to come, we understand. It’s a free country. You can go ahead and try whatever you think will save your life. But you’ll know by now that there’s no easy way out. If you’re here right now, you probably don’t have a ride out of town, and getting out of town is your only alternative. We have a location on the other side with supplies. We have weapons in the van. We offer no guarantees, just a chance at getting out of this alive. If you’re interested, please hang around. Everyone else, better start on whatever it is you are planning to do.”

There was a lot of shuffling of feet and uncertain looks. A few students went running off, but most stayed.

“Now,” Erin continued, “we want to save as many people as we can. I need as many of you as possible to make an attempt to find other people on campus and send them here. Don’t get long-winded. Just tell them someone’s organizing something here.

“Also, if you have anything or know of any equipment or supplies that’s easily accessible and would be useful, now would be the time to go get it,” she added.

Many students broke into groups, discussed tactics, then took off in ones and twos.

The students who continued to hang around the portal asked some questions, and several people peeked through the gate to convince themselves it was real. A couple of students were allowed to walk through the gate with Richard. They stepped through, looked around for a minute or two, and stepped back through the portal looking boggled. One remarked, “Frigging cool!”

There were many questions, and Richard tried to give a capsule summary of the gates. Erin kept repeating that right now they should be searching for other people to bring along or supplies and equipment to take.

A couple of students came forward and stated that they had weapons experience. Richard questioned them briefly, then started handing out shotguns and assault rifles.

“Holy crap,” one student said. “You’re not playing games!”

Richard smiled and replied, “Wait until you meet your first smilodon. You’ll be happy to be carrying that, believe me!”

Richard stepped forward to face the crowd. “All right people,” he announced in a loud voice. “We need to move some of the items in the van through the gate to the other side. These guys,” pointing to the two recruits, “will guard. Could I get a couple of people to help haul things across?”

People were happy to have something to do, even manual labor. There was no shortage of volunteers, and in short order they had moved the weapons and other supplies that had been grabbed in a hurry at the warehouse.

Soon more people were trickling into the area. Many of them were injured and were being supported by others. It was obvious that the searchers were finding a lot of people still on campus. One of the very few pluses of the earthquake was that it had kicked the attitude out of most people. Now they were willing to stand still and listen where there was an offer of aid, food, and shelter.

By now the explanation for the gate had been repeated enough times that Erin and Richard no longer had to be involved. As new bodies came to the group, they received explanations, albeit not always completely correct, for the gate and the guns. Students would discuss the situation, then one or two would take off at a run. And people were coming back with supplies.

“Medical supplies,” Richard nodded with approval. “I think we might have skimped on those.”

“That’s because Captain Reference can’t stand the sight of blood,” Erin commented.

Kevin meanwhile set up the second portal on the other side. At this point Kevin stopped, looked stricken, and said, “Oh, fuck. Fuckitty fuck fuck.”

Richard looked at Kevin in surprise, this being very un-Kevinish behavior. “What?” he asked.

“We have two portals, and one generator.”

Richard looked at the gate, at the generator, and at Kevin. “Oh fuck”.

“Wait. Inverter!” Kevin said. “I think the van has one!” He rushed off to the van. “Yesssssss!” he called from the cab.

It took some talking to convince several students that they weren’t about to be abandoned on the other side, but soon they had managed to turn off the first gate, plug it into the inverter, move the generator through the reactivated gate, and start up the second portal on the other side. Everyone was relieved when a second gate opened beside the first one on Earthside.

One of the students who had just returned to the group came up to Richard. “Hey, listen. There’s a bunch of livestock in the Animal Sciences Complex. Can we do anything about them?”

Richard looked at Erin, who looked stricken. “These gates aren’t big enough to push a cow through, even if the cow was cooperative, which I very much doubt would be the case. Horses ditto. Chickens, yes. Pigs as long as they’re greased.” She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it.

“Look, Erin. We need that livestock, so we’re not going to abandon them. People come first, but once we have everyone safe, we’ll come back for them. Is two days in a livestock building going to harm them?”

“If the building collapses, yes,” Erin replied.

“Aw crap. Okay.” Richard turned to the man they’d been talking to, whose name was also Richard.

“Call me Dick,” he said.

“Well, better you than me,” Richard replied. “Okay, Dick, how many people would it take to herd all the animals through a couple of miles of wilderness?”

Dick thought for a moment. “We’d lose the chickens and pigs right away. But the cattle, sheep and horses would be okay, as long as the horses were being ridden. There are eight horses in residence right now, I think. So eight people minimum.”

“Right.” Richard turned to Erin. “Erin, we’ll get everyone through, then come back with the truck gate and do what we can. Good enough?”

Erin sighed. “We don’t have a choice. None of this is ideal.”

Richard assigned Dick the task of organizing the rescue party. Dick walked away, already calling to people and discussing details.

“You know,” Richard said to Erin, “there’s a good chance that there are a lot of other things we should be looking for right now at the university. Seeds from Plant Sciences, tools and equipment from Engineering, God knows what-all else. You have to know we’re going to think of them too late.” He looked around at all the activity. “Not that there will be time to act on any of it anyway.”

Erin nodded in silent agreement. She looked around, looked at her watch, and thought for a second. She called to some people who were standing nearby. “Hey, guys, this is taking a lot longer than I expected. We won’t be able to get to our warehouse camp before dark. So we’re going to have to camp tonight. We’ll need fuel for fires. Can you organize a scavenger party? Furniture, bookshelves, whatever. Enough to keep a dozen small fires going all night.”