However, he quickly realized that this was something different and more substantial. He saw coworkers and customers alike looking around with gaping mouths and unblinking eyes as the news unfolded. It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
The female anchor spoke in a low tone that added weight to the moment: “What you are about to hear will shock you and this is not, I repeat, this is not a drill. Observation points around the world have confirmed that an asteroid’s course indicates that it is headed directly toward Earth. We cannot yet say exactly how long it will be before impact, but early reports indicate that this is a large enough asteroid to cause substantial damage to the planet. We will turn now for more insight to Dr. Ridensa, an astrophysicist at UC Berkley, and Dr. Burstein, an astronomer at Boston University; welcome gentleman. Thank you for joining us. Dr. Ridensa, we’ll start with you. Could you just give people some insight as to what exactly this object is heading toward Earth?”
He sat in front of a camera with a generic off-white background and pushed his earpiece in deeper, adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Absolutely, what we are seeing here is an object of massive proportions headed toward the planet. It’s an asteroid so, likely, it’s mostly made of rock. Objects of this size pass us by occasionally, but only strike once in every tens of millions of years. It’s very rare. When an object like this hits, it’s like multiple nuclear explosions going off at once. These sorts of impacts have caused global extinctions before and could do it again.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Dr. Burstein, what can we expect when this object strikes the planet?”
Also in front of a camera with an off-white background, Dr. Burstein leaned forward. “First of all, I would like to clarify something Dr. Ridensa said, that this object could cause global extinction just like objects before it. He obviously means the dinosaurs. The fact is, there is no proof of what wiped them out, only theories, and therefore we don’t know if an asteroid can cause a mass extinction.” He paused as Dr. Ridensa shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “But having said that, there can be no doubt that this object, with its massive size, is fully capable of causing destruction on an enormous scale. There was a somewhat similar incident in Siberia about a century ago, and the explosion was so big that if the Cold War had been going on, the Soviets would have assumed they were under nuclear attack and probably would have responded accordingly. So this sort of object is nothing to turn a blind eye to. It’s very serious. Whether or not we’re talking about extinction, I doubt it. However, you don’t want to live anywhere remotely close to the point of impact. I would say that if this asteroid hits a population center, it can completely wipe it out and will probably cause considerable collateral damage over a vast area. However, it’s important to remember that a considerable portion of the planet is covered in water, sparsely populated, or uninhabited altogether. It makes a very big difference where it lands.”
“What sort of collateral damage can we expect?”
“Earthquakes, tsunamis, ejecta in the atmosphere, a considerable air blast, things of this nature, in a relatively localized area around the impact.”
“Dr. Ridensa, your thoughts?”
The doctor leaned forward with wide eyes. “Yes, Dr. Burstein has certain parts of this right, but what he fails to see, or admit, is that it is those very earthquakes and debris clouds that pose such a great threat to the whole planet. When we say, ‘maybe this is what happened to the dinosaurs;’ we are referring to the collateral damage.”
“That’s just speculation, and you know it.” Dr. Burstein’s face tightened.
“Excuse me, I let you finish, Doctor. As I was saying, the asteroid strike will devastate the immediate area where it impacts, but it’s the aftereffects that everyone should pay attention to.”
“Look for coastal damage and nothing more.” Dr. Burstein shifted in his seat.
“I’d look for a little more than that.” Dr. Ridensa raised his hands and let them fall.
“I don’t know what you’re basing your facts on…”
The anchor shuffled papers and cleared her throat. “Okay gentlemen, I’m sorry but we’ll have to leave it there, thank you.” She turned from the screen with a fire in her eyes that threatened to leave anyone who wavered out in the cold, helpless and alone. “We have to take a break right now. But stay tuned, when we come back: hot spots—do you live in one?” The TV cut to a commercial of a man walking out of the shower wearing a towel low around his waist, accentuating a flawless stomach, and smiling as he rubbed a blue gel on his face.
Ron looked around and saw that everyone appeared frozen in time, as though in a living photograph he could walk into and touch. Still staring at the TV, only a swallow, blink, or slight gasp gave them away as living. The news had also engrossed Billy who stared at the screen with cloudy eyes. The daze broke when a woman jogged out with her phone to her ear. That started a chain reaction where cell phones materialized in hands, and the room’s atmosphere transformed from silence to the New York Stock Exchange. People barked into their phones and gesticulated wildly as papers drifted to the floor, pens rolled across desks, and chairs tipped over as people grabbed belongings and ran to their cars. Billy watched for a few seconds with a sagging face. His eyes swung over the room, and then he dropped a handful of papers and bolted.
Ron remained seated watching everyone rush past as if it were a four-alarm fire. This can’t be happening!
✹✹✹
One could perceive rumblings of panic for a couple days but nothing concrete or sustained until it happened. All of science’s computing power calculated it. The asteroid, which had come out of nowhere, was undocumented and named XM-305, but it was quickly dubbed Chesapeake’s Child due to its resemblance to the bolide that created Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay millions of years before. Just like that one, it measured nearly a mile and a half in diameter and consisted of dense rock. The only difference, it was hitting land close to water instead of the other way around. Based on its projected path, size, and the Earth’s rotation, impact would occur in Asia initially damaging South and North Korea, the west coast of Japan, part of China, and easternmost Russia. Away from ground zero Southeast Asia would be spared from serious effects, and on the other side of the planet, in the Americas, the asteroid would spare the greatest number of people. However, these warnings about safety from effects such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and the air blast did not provide comfort once people learned about the long-term effects and the global implications: namely a long, dark winter caused by ejecta thrown into the atmosphere and debris blocking the sun.
They said the internet connected people more than phones. But in those days leading up to the collision, nothing in history had ever connected the hearts and minds of the human race more than a sentiment of looming death. Naturally people took it in different ways, but for once in known human history everyone knew how the other felt. Everybody felt the same facing their demise, the potential collapse of the human race, save one caveat. It appeared the destruction would spare some, if pandemonium did not kill them first.
Chapter Two
Every exhale Kathleen Monroe let out ended with a squeak as she waddled up the steps. When she reached the top she looked at the large curve of her belly with wide eyes. We made it! She had recently gotten in the habit of congratulating herself for achieving every task that used to be simple. She lifted her keys out of her purse, and they plopped on the patio as she grimaced and caressed her belly. “Oh, good kick!” She looked down and sighed. Everything has to be difficult. She braced herself on the wall and crouched. Once in hand, she scrolled through the keys with a flushed face. “Let me get into the house, and we can rest.” As she located the right one and inserted it into the lock, she ritualistically patted one of the bricks beside the door as she entered.
Stepping inside she let out a long breath and smiled. Kathleen took a second to scan around the room and let her eyes wash over every little detail. “I think we’re alone.”
She rubbed her belly and smiled.
Four months prior she had walked in following her normal routine, and as she stepped into the living room she saw a couple books lying on the floor, carelessly spread open at the base of the shelf. After that a young man, teen aged, had walked into the living room holding a ceramic vase, as one would the lip of an empty bucket.
She swore that as long as she lived, she would never forget the deep, black circles that ringed his eyes, with a conquering gleam, predatory, ready to take on the world. He had stood in one place but never stopped moving. While his eyes shot daggers at her, she could hear his fingernails grating the inside of the vase, transporting her back nails on chalkboard in school days long since passed.
He had looked down into the vase and back up at her with a long face. “This is where I would’ve hidden my stash, but you don’t have any.”
At that moment Kathleen had started backing up until the closed door stopped her abruptly in her tracks and held her there to face the prowler. Her eyes had scanned him up and down, noting every little detail: the black ringed eyes, the constant twitches, the look of near dementia, ragged, and gaunt from not eating. Oh my God! He’s a meth addict! My baby!
She could remember the feeling of adrenaline pumping through her veins like it was yesterday.
She had eased her arm over toward the door knob and slowly gripped it while keeping her eyes locked on the young man. “There’s nothing valuable here. We’re not rich.”
In hindsight she would have picked different words, because her chosen ones only brought him in closer.
“Give me your money then, bitch!”
Kathleen had shuttered and spoke through chattering teeth. “You’re Bobby, aren’t you? Bobby Venton, I know your mother. I know where you live.”
“I don’t care! Give it to me! Gimme your fuckin’ money or I’ll…I’ll.” His eyes darted back and forth like two cats playing with their food. His lips pursed up, and he slammed the vase on the floor. His eyes combed the jagged pile, and he picked up the largest shard, squeezing it so hard that a rivulet of blood ran down his forearm. Unfazed, he pointed it at her face. “I said give it to me, now!”
With her eyes locked on him, Kathleen had let a trembling hand drift down to her purse where she retrieved her wallet. She could never concretely remember doing so; she just knew it had happened. She had pulled out the meager $4.57 left over from lunch and held it out as tears started streaming down her face, her head turned away in shame. “That’s all I have, now leave.” Those last two words seemed to squeeze out of her mouth before she could seal her lips. Why did I say that?
Bobby had walked up and looked at the money as if examining a precious stone for worth. “That’s it?” His face had tightened up as he slapped the money out of her hand.
She winced as the coins bounced and spun on the floor. Every impact tensed her back muscles the same way thunderclaps always did. It seemed like minutes passed as each coin whirled and came to rest. The four dollar bills had lain strewn at her feet, and a part of her had wanted to pick them up and stuff the money into his mouth and scream, “Take this you little shit!” Instead she had stood still with rigid, tree trunks for arms and quivering lips. She squeaked “it’s all I have.”
A deafening silence had descended on the room, and Kathleen could have sworn she felt a chill wind rush between them. Bobby Venton had stared at the money for a few seconds, and then his eyes had widened as he grabbed her purse and nearly ripped it apart stabbing his hand inside and shoveling out its contents. Kathleen had watched in horror at the fire and anguish in his eyes as he dumped everything on the floor and saw the candy, lipstick, cell phone, and tissues land. His face had turned red as he started to back away, and his eyes had phased through looks of wildness and fury and finally sagged into desperation. By the time he had reached the middle of the room he had pressed his hands to his temples and screamed and began pulling his hair furiously as if he could unzip the skin on his head. A stream of saliva oozed off of his quivering lip as he pushed past Kathleen and raced out of the house.
Kathleen had later pieced together from talking to the police and Mrs. Venton that he had not run home or to a friend’s house but to his dealer. She could only imagine how he had likely begged for any little bit just to get down the road and screamed idle promises about money. She even felt a little bit sorry for him knowing that the dealer had probably put him out on the street empty handed. By the time the police found him walking on a small road leading out of town, it had made the evening news. He was caught on camera with bulging eyes and screaming as the officers pushed him down into the cruiser and hauled him away.
The judge had made it abundantly clear that he could have gotten off easier if he had divulged his dealer’s identity to the authorities. Kathleen felt, regrettably, that he had not for fear of revenge, so he had received the harshest sentence possible.
Bobby had found himself on the wrong end of a three strikes penalty, and the prison term he received was set to rob him of his youth and guaranteed to replace it with misery, hardship, and sheer boredom.
Hardly a day went by when Kathleen did not feel thankful that it had ended without incident.
Leaving those thoughts in the past, she walked through the den scanning the furniture and saw her organizational hand at work in all the right places: The books pulled out until the spines met the edge evenly in descending order from tallest to shortest and the lamp on the side table next to the couch with the cord draped over the side neatly tucked out of view. The cushions on the couch were arranged evenly, pushed back and level with each other. It all looked just as she had left it.
She set her purse and keys on the stand by the door and carefully lined them up next to each other. Then she retrieved some mail and organized it in order of importance, real bills first, followed by junk. Next, she walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, “dammit, Jackson!” She pulled out an uncovered block of cheese that had dried considerably. This led to cutting off the dry cheese, which dirtied the counter, so she ended up cleaning most of the kitchen. It never ended.
While roaming around the house doing different chores, she stopped as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. A frown weighed her mouth down as she tried to fluff up her blonde hair, which fell back down lazily. She looked closer at her sky-blue eyes, and her lips pursed into a smile; but then she sighed upon noticing the tinge of red around her irises. Damn back pain, God I need sleep! Light bluish-black crescents accented the lower rims of her eyes and stood out against her pale skin. Her mouth gaped open into a broad yawn as she cupped her hand over her lips and blinked through watery eyes. Upon seeing that, she turned away, and, with a flick of the wrist, dismissed her reflection.
Her eyes drifted over to the TV remote on the coffee table and regained their sparkle. She let out a deep grunt as she eased herself down onto the couch, scooped up the remote, and flicked on the TV. She raced through the channels too fast to see what any program was. When she watched TV with her husband, Jackson, he would try to sit through it while biting his lip and tapping his foot before snatching the remote away from her. Her feverish channel surfing landed her on the news, and, for once in her life except the 9/11 terror attacks in New York, she did not even think about touching the channel button again. Eyes glued to the screen, she set the remote down and watched.
Over the years since twenty-four-hour news had come into existence she had come to despise their reporting style. Re-facting, she called it. Since they had to keep a continuous stream of news coming in, it forced them to throw a fair bit in without much, if any, research. And, of course, sometimes they just faked it and crafted the desired narrative. They would also amend stories all day, and she felt like it was intentionally addictive. She skipped cable news in favor of local broadcasts every chance she got. However, this time she forgave them for it carried a real sense of urgency, palpitating with an ominous rush.
She saw a computer-generated diagram showing what looked li
ke a large rock on a path toward Earth. A man started talking and Kathleen saw his credentials splashed on the screen, but only noticed that he was an astrobiologist. Her eyes widened and she wrung her hands together in her lap while he spoke.
“If this mass contains life, still animated in its core, it could impact Earth in far more fascinating and, potentially, devastating ways than the asteroid itself. Alien microscopic life could alter the planet.” The man leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard.
The news anchor nodded her head and turned away from him to another guest. Kathleen’s eyes gleaned, “Geologist,” off the screen as his credentials flashed. “I want to talk a little bit more about this impact crater you mentioned and its aftereffects. What can people actually expect?”
The man readjusted his glasses with one hand and cleared his throat. “Well, as you may very well know there’s an extraordinarily large crater in Mexico named Chicxulub encompassing part of the Yucatan peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico. The impacting bolide that formed this crater was huge,” he held his hands apart at arm’s length, “approximately ten miles in diameter. It caused mega-tsunamis that reached thousands of feet in the air. Earthquakes occurred worldwide, and volcanoes erupted. The dust from it probably covered the planet for at least a decade, and the temperature plummeted. It was just simply devastation on a massive scale, and it’s probably the event that wiped out the dinosaurs.”
“Not everyone agrees with that theory.” The astrobiologist interrupted.
The two scientists poised for a battle, and Kathleen’s attention veered off as the sound of beating drums filled the air, combined with a hum like an angry bumblebee trapped in between two panes of glass. She walked over to her purse and answered her cell phone.
The Inroad Chronicles (Book 1): Legion Seed Page 2