Solar Storms (3 page)

-4-

A red haze lingered in the sky, creeping slowly
across the horizon. It was beautiful in an almost divine way. Sophie had never
seen anything quite like it. Ten years had passed since she’d seen the green
flicker of the aurora borealis dancing across the sky. Never in her wildest
dreams did she think she would see the lights so pronounced, so
different
.

And now Sophie had a front row seat to the
destruction. With Emanuel by her side, they watched in horror as the red flares
licked the earth. The rest of the team slowly filtered out of the stairway
leading to the rooftop, their faces, awestruck, tilted up at the sky.

She watched the scientists, most of whom she hardly
knew, as their eyes locked onto the swirling colors above the skyline of South
Houston.

“It’s beautiful,” Emanuel whispered, grasping
Sophie’s hand.

She pulled away, choosing instead to take a step
closer to the edge of the rooftop, away from the growing crowd.

“Stay close!” Tsui yelled. “We don’t want to get
caught up here if things take a turn for the worse.”

The distant scream of an air raid siren silenced
the old man. To Sophie’s ears it was the most terrifying sound in the world.
She’d grown up living in the Midwest, dead in the middle of tornado alley where
the violent wind events were a part of everyday life. Whining air raid sirens
meant one thing—hide.

The sound prompted her to take a few steps back,
and she found herself once again standing shoulder to shoulder with Emanuel.
When the first transformer exploded in the distance, she grabbed his hand and
gripped it tightly. Another pop followed a few seconds later, and before long
the entire city sounded like it was having a massive Fourth of July
celebration. Transformers were lighting up like bottle rockets throughout the
city, sending gouts of flame into the sky.

As the whine of the distant air raid sirens got
louder, Sophie clenched his hand even tighter. It was an odd sound—an archaic
sound, one that seemed as if it should be reserved for a 21st century action
movie with nukes raining down from the sky. As her eyes surveyed the horizon,
she realized something much worse was raining down than nuclear-tipped missiles—something
that would change the civilized world.

It was then Dr. Tsui started herding the team back
into the building. “Stay calm, don’t rush, we have plenty of time,” he said,
his tiny arms flailing about.

Sophie didn’t want to leave. She was captivated by
the view. The trail of smoke rising into the sky and red haze dancing across
the horizon was one of the most beautifully frightening things she had ever
seen. It took Emanuel’s strong grip to pull her way from the sight.

“My wife, my kids—they’re out there! I have to
leave!” shouted one of the research assistants. Sophie knew him only as Henry;
she couldn’t remember his last name. He was young, not more than 30 years old.
Just a kid in his field dominated by fossils like Dr. Tsui.

“It’s not safe. Chances are they’re hunkered down
and waiting out the storms like everyone else,” Emanuel said, trying to
reassure the man.

“No. I told them to go to my in-laws if things hit
the fan. They’re probably trying to evacuate the city. I have to find them!” he
yelled, his voice getting more frantic.

Dr. Tsui stopped in the middle of the stairway
leading to the basement. “No one goes anywhere. You stay here and work until
the storm passes.”

“That’s my family out there, Dr. Tsui! What if I
can’t find them after the storm passes?”

“We all have families. But we also have work. What
if all the police officers and firefighters abandon their posts?” said a
heavyset woman who worked in programming. She was one of the other scientists
whom Sophie hadn’t yet met. “Society will collapse if the most important people
fail to do their duty,” she continued, her double chin bobbing up and down as
she spoke.

Sophie brushed a strand of sweaty hair out of her
eyes. “She’s right. We need to ride out the storm and do our jobs. Leaving
isn’t going to do any good, anyways; you’ll just get lost.”

The young scientist started to reply but hesitated,
opting to refrain from further argument. He continued down the narrow stairway,
his head lowered in defeat.

The stairway led to a command center in the bowels
of the basement. It was unbearably hot. A state-of-the-art air conditioning
unit was built to cool the room, but the engineer who had designed it failed to
take into account the juice the computers would need when working at full
capacity. Dr. Tsui was forced to re-route power from the cooling unit to the
computers, which were sucking the backup generators dry. By midnight the
temperature in the bunker was nearly 90 degrees.

The heat didn’t seem to bother Tsui. He nursed a
cup of coffee in the corner, staring intently at the dozens of monitors
attached to the concrete wall. His brilliant mind was sucking the information
in like a leech, analyzing more every second.

Sophie watched from the bed she was sharing with
Emanuel, trying to drown out the sound of the crying, the hushed voices, and
the prayers from the other dozen scientists throughout the room. She laid her
head down on the tiny pillow, turning to face him. His lips parted and revealed
his perfectly aligned canines. A chill crept down Sophie’s spine, making its
way to her toes. She returned his smile and gripped his hands underneath the
covers. As the lights faded and darkness carpeted the room, she slowly slipped
out of her pants and pulled herself closer to him. The sweat from their bodies
mixed. He bent in to kiss her, pulling her chin toward his with his index
finger.

Sophie hesitated, looking over his shoulder to see
if anyone was watching. But the darkness shrouded them. With a silent sigh she
pulled him closer until she could feel his warm breath on her neck.

Another chill raced down her legs. This time it
didn’t make its way to her toes, it stopped just below her abdominals,
lingering until she felt the tingling sensation of lust. She kissed him deeper,
her hands running through his mop of dark, unkempt hair.

There was something about the world going to shit
that made her want him even more, like it was the last time she would ever feel
intimacy. When she was in high school, she had had a conversation with a friend
about things they would do if the world was ending. “I’d have sex with the
cutest boy I could find,” her friend had said.

Sophie, on the other hand, had said she would spend
the night staring at the stars—and yet, with the real possibility of the world
ending, the thought of stargazing no longer appealed to her. Tonight she didn’t
want to be a scientist; tonight she wanted what her friend had wanted. Tonight
she wanted nothing more than to feel Emanuel, to wrap her legs around him one
last time. If the world was going to end, she wanted to share it with him.

THE NEXT MORNING Tsui woke
them. “Wake up! Wake up!” he yelled, flailing his arms in the air. “The storms
have passed!”

Emanuel reached for his glasses while Sophie
struggled to find her pants. Seconds later they were crowded around the
monitors, watching the data stream in from stations around the world. He was
right; the storm was over, but the damage to the Midwestern states was severe.
Radiation levels were extraordinary. Those that had perished in the fires were
the lucky ones, for any survivors would die horribly painful and prolonged
deaths from radiation poisoning.

“My parents,” Emanuel whispered.

A sudden chill ran down Sophie’s back. She had
forgotten they lived in Chicago. By the looks of it, the windy city was dead in
the center of the damage.

“Millions will die,” Tsui whispered, taking a long
sip from his cold coffee.

Emanuel scowled, suddenly ripe with anger.
“Bolton’s administration never took this storm seriously. If they had taken
NASA’s recommendations and hardened critical facilities, then the communication
lines would still be open and warnings could have been issued.”

“The damage is done. We need to continue to analyze
the storms data and send it to the Department of Defense,” Tsui replied.

Sophie took a seat at her terminal, logging in with
the swipe of her index finger. The stream of data was constant. New statistics
were feeding into their system by the second from locations around the world.
The Midwest had indeed taken the worst of the storm. The dead zone appeared to
be running from the edge of the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi. Houston was
on the border of the destruction, and while the city was busy being burnt to
the ground, the radiation levels appeared to be minimal.

“Looks like we just missed the worst of the
radiation,” she said to the rest of the staff.

A muffled voice rang out from the screen hanging in
the corner of the room. Sophie turned to see a middle aged man with a mop of
gray hair on the screen. She recognized him instantly as General John McKern, a
Department of Defense Official and advisor on NTC’s payroll.

 “Good morning, Dr. Tsui and staff, glad to see you
all weathered the storm safely. It appears you just missed the worst of it.”

“Good morning, sir. How did Washington fair?”

McKern shrugged. “We were better prepared than
most. The military has been hardening facilities, communications, and vehicles
for decades.” He lit a cigar and blew a puff of smoke toward the monitor. “As
you know, it’s the Midwest that took the brunt of it. Which is why I am
contacting you. My superiors want a module showing radioactive patterns. Which
cities are dead zones, which ones may be salvageable. You know the drill,” he
said, taking another drag of his cigar.

“That will be no problem, sir. We will upload the
data within the hour,” Tsui said, motioning Emanuel and another scientist to a
pair of computers against the far wall.

“Very good. I’ll check back later,” McKern said,
his image quickly fading.

Henry, the young scientist who had panicked earlier,
hesitantly motioned Dr. Tsui over to his monitors. “Sir, I think there is
something you should see.”

“What is it?”

“Do you remember how the storms seemed to be
lasting longer than initial modules predicted?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“So you recall it seemed as if something was
feeding the storms?”

Tsui nodded. “What’s your point, Henry?”

“I think I found out what was feeding them. Take a
look at this—it’s imaging of the sun from the past few days.”

The group gathered around Henry’s terminal. With a swipe
from his index finger a hologram of the sun shot out and hovered over the
console.

Sophie studied the translucent image carefully.
Bright red flames swirled around the perimeter of the round ball of energy. She
knew better than anyone in the room what they meant. At least theoretically.
What they were witnessing was an event scientists had never seen. Multiple
solar flares followed by a massive coronal mass ejection. There was only one
explanation.

 “That’s impossible,” Henry said under her breath before
telling the team what Sophie already knew. “The magnetic disruption is coming
from…Mars.”

-5-

A POWERFUL solar wind
carried the ejection straight to the earth’s magnetic field, where it
penetrated the upper atmosphere and cut through it like a scalpel through loose
skin. It made landfall before evacuations could even be ordered. Most
scientists had argued this could never happen, that the earth’s atmosphere was
too powerful to penetrate.

But as Sophie stared at images of catastrophic
damage streaming in from around the world, she realized how wrong those
scientists had been—how wrong she had been.

“Millions of residents in the Midwest have been cut
off from emergency first responders due to high levels of radiation,” a news
announcer said.

“My God,” Ed whispered from beside her.

Another monitor flicked on, and President Bolton
stepped up to a podium marked with the Presidential Seal insignia. As she
shuffled through some pages of notes, Sophie could see the strain in her face,
the fatigue and worry.

Anger raced through Sophie. Why hadn’t the
President acted sooner? Millions had died on her watch, all because she had
chosen to deny science.

“The storms are now over. Rest assured, we will be
getting infrastructure back online as quickly as possible,” Bolton said.

A reporter in the audience interrupted her. “How do
you feel about your stance on solar weather now?”

The camera panned to Bolton’s face. She scowled and
ignored him, continuing with her speech as the man was quietly escorted away.

“All first responders in the nation are being
activated. We are doing everything we can.”

“Do we know the extent of the damage?” another
reporter asked.

Bolton paused before responding. “We are doing
everything we can to get that information.”

Emanuel clicked off the monitor. “She’s a lunatic,”
he said.

“Dr. Winston, can I see you for a moment?” Tsui’s
fatigued voice asked from behind her.

Sophie followed him out into the hallway and
crossed her arms, glad to have a break from the depressing news.

“What is it Dr. Tsui?” She took a small step
backwards, trying to ignore the stale scent of coffee on his breath.

“It’s about the magnetic disruption discoveries we
picked up earlier. I didn’t exactly forget to leave them out of the equation.
In fact, I was told to. That folder you saw should never have existed. NTC
specifically told us this information was classified, but it had been
overlooked in the chaos of events.”

“What are you saying?” A chill went down her back.

“We flew you and Emanuel out here early for a
reason. I knew all along the CME would make landfall. I just needed you to tell
me how bad the damage would be. And I needed Emanuel to tell us how it would
affect life on the planet. We just ran out of time. After the satellites picked
up the data, our focus shifted from prediction and mitigation to recovery.”

“You knew all along and didn’t tell me!” Sophie
looked at the tiny man. He no longer appeared as stoic as he had earlier, and the
fatigue on his face made him look weak. And his lies? They made her sick.

“General McKern made it very clear. All data
concerning the magnetic disruptions were to be classified. He said they were an
anomaly. That the satellites had malfunctioned.”

“But when I entered the data into the calculations,
they projected the time of the CME perfectly.”

“I know. But you need to forget about it. You must
forget about it. This comes from the top, Sophie. All the way from President
Bolton’s office.”

Sophie paused. She knew exactly what it meant—she
was being censored. “You know I can’t forget about this.”

“I know, but you can keep it quiet.”

She held his gaze until she finally grew too
frustrated and pulled away.

“Very well,” she said.

“Good.” Tsui turned and headed back into the room,
leaving Sophie in the hallway by herself. She wasn’t the type of scientist to
keep something like this quiet—she wasn’t the type of
person
to keep it
quiet. But things like this had a way to ruin even the most promising careers.

She unfolded her arms and paced down the hallway.
Whatever had caused the magnetic disturbance on Mars was a mystery, one she
wasn’t allowed to investigate. All she could do now was hope whatever had
caused it wasn’t malevolent.

SEVERAL DAYS passed before
it was safe to go outside. Sophie stood on the rooftop watching plumes of smoke
escape into the sky. The perpetual sound of sirens drowned out the coughing of
the nearby generator.

“Sophie,” a distant voice said.

She turned to see Emanuel standing in the entry to
the stairs. Even in the shadows of the door, she could see something was wrong.
His normally cheerful expression had twisted into a frown.

“I just got word.”

Sophie froze, waiting for him to finish.

“It’s Chicago. It got hit hard. Took the brunt of
the radiation.”

She rushed over to him, knowing exactly what the
information meant. His parents were gone. “I’m so sorry,” she said, hugging him
tightly.

He pulled from her grasp and grabbed both of her
wrists. “How did this happen, Sophie? How could something like this be
ignored?”

She tried to speak. She wanted to comfort him, but
the words wouldn’t form. Tsui’s threat echoed in her mind. She knew she had a
decision to make; her career depended on it.

“I don’t know,” she lied. Reaching for his hand,
she said, “I’m sorry, Emanuel.”

He quickly wiped away the tears forming in his eyes
and walked past her toward the edge of the rooftop. “So am I.”

In the distance a pair of helicopters exploded out
of the smoke-filled sky. They were headed away from the city and quickly faded
into tiny black dots before disappearing over the horizon.

“This changes everything, Sophie. Our economy is
going to be shot. Not to mention all of the lives lost. Somehow or another,
this storm affects everyone. Worldwide.”

Something exploded in the distance. Sophie looked
over the skyline of South Houston one more time, watching a new blaze licking
the sky where an office building had gone up in flames.

“Let’s get back inside,” Emanuel said.

Sophie nodded but continued to watch the flames.
Another helicopter raced toward the fire. Emanuel’s words echoed in her mind,
mixing with the sound of the distant helicopter blades. He was right; the
storms did affect everyone. Everything had changed, and somewhere deep down,
she feared this was only the beginning.