The Perseid Collapse (The Perseid Collapse Series 1)

by Konkoly, Steven

  “Is Kevin looking forward to starting middle school?” Kate asked.

  “He seems pretty excited,” said Ethan.

  Alex met her glance, but didn’t hold it. Their relationship with Kevin had been strained since he arrived with his brother in Maine, playing a major role in the decision to abandon the original plan to adopt their orphaned nephews. Kevin had been openly hostile toward them from the start, which had been an understandable reaction to the loss of his parents. Alex didn’t need to read the latest “post-pandemic” psychology articles to understand what Kevin might be experiencing. He was well versed in the broad spectrum of emotions and symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder.

  A brilliant streak flashed across the dark blue sky, just above the tree line to the northeast.

  “There’s the first one!” said Alex.

  “Where?” Kate snapped. “You’re full of shit. I was watching the whole time.”

  “You see, kids, that’s why you shouldn’t drink underage. You lose your ability to see meteors,” said Alex.

  Emily looked at Alex. “Mom isn’t underage.”

  “Really? She doesn’t look a day over twenty to me,” said Alex.

  Kate slapped his shoulder. “Your dad—Uncle Alex, is truly full of—”

  “Don’t say it, Mom!” yelled Emily and Ethan at the same time.

  “I meant twenty years old in the dark. In broad daylight you’re clearly thirty.”

  “Nice recovery. You were about to get a stale beer hat,” she said, lifting one of the empty beer bottles over his head. “There’s one!” she said, pointing. “Move your chairs, kids. They come out of Perseus Constellation. You can barely see it above the trees. The quicker we each spot one, the sooner we can get away from these mosquitos.”

  “We’re catching the tail end of the shower, so it might take a while,” said Alex.

  Just as he finished his sentence, two near simultaneous flashes traversed the sky, appearing to head west over the coast of Maine. He was surprised that they had seen this many in such a short period of time. The Perseids typically peaked one week earlier, as the earth passed through the densest part of a debris field left by the comet Swift-Tuttle, on its 133-year orbital journey around the sun.

  “That’s it for me. You can watch the rest of the show from the boat if you don’t mind being eaten alive,” said Kate, putting an end to the land portion of their evening.

  “It just started,” said Alex.

  Kate shook her head. “It’s past midnight, and I’m done. We’ll have to get out a week earlier next year.”

  Ten minutes later, they plied the calm, moonlit waters on an eight-foot, inflatable rubber dinghy, pushed through the silky black cove by a four-horsepower, outboard motor kept at low throttle. Alex loved navigating the dinghy at night, relying on little more than instinct to bring them back to their sailboat, a dark mass anchored in the middle of the tight cove.

  They never bothered to display their anchor light in this snug harbor. Aside from the occasional late arrival in the anchorage, the cove in the northwest corner of the island was protected from marine traffic on all sides, except for its entrance. Any boats entering the cove at night would proceed cautiously enough to spot a boat anchored in these waters. Nine boats now lay at anchor within it, and only the two larger sailboats near the entrance displayed mast lights.

  Alex pulled the motor’s tiller into his body, taking the dinghy to the right of an illuminated luxury powerboat. They slid past the boat at a distance of fifty feet, giving the occupants as much privacy as possible. Inside the topside cabin, Alex could see four adults watching television. As they pulled astern of the monstrous cabin cruiser, he heard raucous laughter ripple across the water.

  They came all this way to watch a stupid sitcom. What a waste.

  Watching television or movies was not on the Fletchers’ list of permitted activities once they left the mooring field back in South Portland. The boat’s digital navigation plotter was the only screen onboard, and it didn’t stream a damn thing other than their current GPS coordinates. Kate and Alex insisted that everyone unplug on these trips, with the exception of e-readers. Reading, in any offline format, was highly encouraged. Card games were unavoidable. And conversation was compulsory. Sailing had little to do with the destination for the Fletchers, and everything to do with reconnecting as a family in a natural environment. Sparsely inhabited islands, pristine beaches, quiet coves and mesmerizing sunsets took them all down a notch, closer to their true nature, which was quickly obscured by the multitude of electronic devices and distractions that ruled their lives back on land.

  He eased the dinghy alongside the Katelyn Ann and placed the throttle in neutral, grabbing the nearest rail to keep them from drifting away. Ethan stood up and gripped the toe rail with both hands, walking the dinghy back to the fixed swim platform a few feet away along the boat’s stern. He helped Alex keep the dinghy in place as Kate and Emily stepped on the swim deck and entered the cockpit area.

  “Thanks, Ethan. I appreciate the help,” said Alex warmly. “I’m glad you decided to come along on the trip.”

  “I’m glad I came too. This is really cool. Kevin would really like this,” said Ethan, stepping onto the platform.

  “We’ll get everyone out next year, before college starts,” said Alex.

  He tied the dinghy’s bow line to one of the cleats attached to the stern of the boat and climbed onboard, surprisingly tired from a day of leisure. Being out on the water always drained a good portion of his energy, especially during the first few days of any trip. Even in calm weather, the constant movement of the boat took its toll, readying him for bed at sunset. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was at least an hour past his nautical bedtime. He turned and stared into the northeast sky, hoping to catch another meteor. Nothing.

  “Who’s planning to sleep under the stars and watch the Perseids?” Alex asked.

  “Not me,” said Kate. “The mosquitos got enough of my blood tonight. Wake me if the meteors really pick up, and I might watch from inside the cabin.”

  “Emily?”

  “No way. Your mosquito net contraption doesn’t work,” said Emily.

  “Ethan?”

  “Don’t let him talk you into it, Ethan,” Emily said. “You’ll be eaten alive unless you bury yourself in the bag. Then you’ll overheat. It’s a lose-lose situation. Seriously.”

  “It’s really not that bad. The net covers your face, and as long as you stay tucked in the sleeping ba—”

  “I think I’ll trust the women on this one,” said Ethan, stepping into the cabin.

  “Smart man. The earlier you start listening to them, the better,” said Alex, swatting at the swarm that had already found them.

  “I heard that,” said Kate. “Close the hatch, Ethan. If he wants to sleep outside, he can keep the mosquitos to himself.”

  Alex stared into the sky. “The love is gone.”

  A few moments later, the screen door opened, and his sleeping bag was dumped into the cockpit, along with a water bottle and a can of bug spray.

  “The netting is inside the bag. How can you say the love is gone?” she said, quickly closing the screen door.

  “Don’t I get a kiss?”

  Kate pressed her lips against the screen, and he gave her a quick kiss through the thin plastic mesh. He turned his head and pushed his cheek against the barrier, feeling the warmth of her face.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you more,” she replied.

  They held their faces together for a few moments before Kate pulled away from the cabin door.

  “I can see the mosquitos swarming your head. Good luck out there.”

  “You’re gonna miss the show,” he protested, swatting at his arms.

  “Not worth the price of admission. Holler if you need anything else, like a blood transfusion,” she said, eliciting laughter from the cabin.

  “I’ll be fine. I have a plan.”

/>   “Just don’t fall overboard, okay? I do not feel like taking a midnight swim.”

  He smiled and went to work. A few minutes later, he nestled into a sleeping bag suspended over the cockpit by a hammock. He lay still for a moment, trying to gauge whether the contraption would work. Previous attempts to hang the hammock had resulted in a series of spectacularly embarrassing failures he didn’t care to repeat. Suddenly striking the fiberglass deck at two in the morning was guaranteed to provoke laughter and a well-deserved string of “I told you so’s.” He’d tested the new hammock arrangement at their club mooring with a few mid-afternoon naps and felt that tonight would mark a new era in sleeping comfort aboard the Katelyn Ann.

  He adjusted his arms inside the sleeping bag and contemplated the empty cockpit. This would be the first time he had slept out here alone. Ryan never turned down an opportunity to sleep outdoors, especially on the boat. Before the hammock idea took hold, they slept opposite each other on the cockpit benches, watching the stars and talking for hours, mosquitos be damned. He was going to miss having Ryan around.

  The faint red strobe light of a high-altitude aircraft distracted him from the thought. Travelling in a northeasterly direction, he assumed it was a red-eye flight bound for Europe. Alex could barely separate the aircraft’s lights from the growing field of stars superimposed against the velvety black sky.

  Through his peripheral vision, he could tell that the western horizon held stubbornly to a thin cerulean blue aura. He resisted the temptation to look, instead keeping his eyes focused on the Perseid radiant rising above the shadowy rock cliffs that formed the eastern side of the cove. Later in the night, the Perseid radiant would drift over the mouth of the cove and continue west, remaining in full view from their anchorage. As long as the evening’s prevailing winds continued to blow from the southeast, the boat’s position in the water would afford him with a continuous, unobstructed view of the meteor shower.

  The sound of a distant motorboat competed with the lapping water, growing stronger until the ugly racket dominated the cove. Sound travelled deceptively far across the water, with surprisingly little deterioration. The deep rumble reached its peak and faded south, as the fast-moving vessel navigated the narrow pass between Jewell and Cliff Islands and sped toward Portland.

  An arc of light raced across the sky, burning brilliantly for the briefest moment. He counted two more streaks of light before the distant hum of the motorboat evaporated, enveloping Alex in the absolute silence he would enjoy for the rest of the night. His hammock rocked gently in the light breeze as he waited patiently for the next piece of cosmic dust to strike Earth’s atmosphere, unaware that his breathing had slowed and his eyes had drifted shut.

  Chapter 3

  EVENT -02:53 Hours

  Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

  People’s Republic of China

  Deputy Station Director Tin Jianyu raced his fingers over the plasma keyboard, pausing only to swipe at images on the 65-inch, paper-thin, curved OLED-T screen wrapped halfway around his station. He added a few more strings of code and raised his hand a few inches away from the screen, hesitant to drag the folder to its cyber destination in his centralized directory. He’d run out of ideas, and if this didn’t work, nothing would. He “hooked” the folder and moved it. Gone. A few more keystrokes and—nothing.

  “Damn it. They must have physically separated the controls,” said Tin.

  “How could they have done that? The whole station is connected,” said Fan Huning, his direct subordinate within the cyber warfare section.

  “They must have designed the station like this. I haven’t found a single connection to Zhen’s office,” said Tin.

  “How did we miss this?”

  “We never looked for it. Zhen played us like a sheet of music to the very end.”

  “And there’s no way to override the elevator controls?” said Fan.

  “Same problem. I can’t find a single outgoing connection that gives me access to the elevator system root directory,” said Tin.

  “The security station? They have direct feeds to the cameras in the elevator. I’ve seen them panning the cameras. There has to be a connection that can be exploited.”

  Tin shook his head. He had already thought of this. The security camera feeds were wirelessly linked to the security station servers, and presumably Zhen’s private office, but attempts to piggyback the wireless signal only led back to the security servers. Either Zhen wasn’t watching the camera feeds, or he had his own camera feeds from a separate hardwire connection to the elevator. Either way, Tin had exhausted all options to access the elevators at this point.

  They were trapped four hundred and fifty feet below the surface, with no way to escape. All they could do at this point was hope for mercy from the lunatics that had dreamed up Red Dragon. He wasn’t optimistic. The information he discovered, while sifting through ultrasecret, highest-level government communiqués, painted a very bleak picture of their survival.

  A brief “eyes only” message to the Centralized Military Commission from a Second Artillery Corp liaison embedded in the National Space Agency had piqued his attention. The message itself was purely administrative, containing nothing suspicious; however, reference to Red Dragon in a Second Artillery Corps communiqué seemed out of place.

  The Second Artillery Corps controlled China’s nuclear arsenal, and had never been connected to Red Dragon in any of the ultrasecret meetings he had attended with Director Zhen. With his curiosity raised, he dug deeper within the Second Artillery Corps servers, discovering that a ten-kiloton nuclear device had been delivered to the National Space Agency several months ago. More untraceable snooping yielded a nasty secret that had effectively doomed them from the beginning. Cyber Station Three’s two-year mission wasn’t the most insidious aspect of Red Dragon.

  “We could package up what we’ve found and bury copies on multiple outside servers, with time-release instructions. We force them to let us out of here, or their secret will be exposed,” said Fan.

  “They’ve already shut us down. We’re cut off from the surface,” said Tin.

  “What are you talking about? They’re still doing their jobs,” said Fan, motioning his hand toward the concentric circle of frantic workstations.

  “I think we’ve been interacting with mimic servers for the past twenty-four hours. Cases continue to stream in at the same rate, but we haven’t interacted with a new network or server since yesterday around this same time,” said Tin.

  “When were you planning to let me in on this discovery? We could have forced Zhen to take us out of here,” hissed Fan.

  “I discovered it accidentally about ten minutes ago, when I tried to access a private server used by some hackers I know. These guys can design code that makes my stuff look amateur. I thought I might turn to them for ideas. I couldn’t reach the server—or any new server.”

  “What about taking control of the mimic servers? Look for something there? They have to be talking to the outside world,” said Fan.

  “I doubt it. For all we know, the mimic server farm could be located right above us, hardwired to the station—or connected by satellite to another cyber warfare station thousands of miles away. Either way, it will be isolated from the real Internet.”

  “So that’s it? We just wait for them to pull the plug on this place?” said Fan.

  “Unless we can force open the elevator doors and try to climb out of here. I don’t think the security section will react very well to that plan.”

  “Maybe it’s time we told everyone the truth about this place, including security. Let them make up their own minds. The security people have families too. Nobody wants to wait around here to die.”

  Tin touched the screen and tapped a code into the window to unlock its contents.

  “According to security protocols, any individual, unauthorized attempt to leave the station will be stopped using a combination of lethal and nonlethal measures. Any attempts to leave the s
tation involving more than one person will be immediately met with lethal force. If any single attempt, or combination of attempts, creates an unresolvable evacuation caucus among station personnel, release of a nonpersistent, lethal nerve agent is authorized at the discretion of the security chief,” recited Tin from the screen. “They’ve planned for this.”

  “We killed ourselves by sharing this with Zhen.”

  “We were dead as soon as we stepped off the elevator two years ago,” said Tin.

  Before Fan could respond, a screen activated in the bottom left corner of his wraparound screen. Tin quickly dragged it into the middle.

  “Security feed for the elevator?” asked Fan.

  “Yes. Looks like Zhen is returning to the station.”

  “Maybe we let our imaginations get the best of us.”

  “We’ll know shortly,” Tin said resolutely.

  They watched the screen for several seconds, observing Director Zhen’s impassive, unchanging face as the elevator descended. From his workstation, Tin could hear the elevator machinery humming from the doors located in a small vestibule next to the security room.

  “Maybe this is a fake feed too,” said Fan.

  “He always looks like that,” responded Tin.

  Tin’s hopes faded when he heard the elevator doors open in the vestibule. Zhen had never directly accessed the cyber-operations level using the elevator. It was against security protocol. Expecting a tight formation of black-clad commandos to fan out from the hallway, he was surprised to see Zhen emerge alone. The director lumbered toward them, carrying something dark and heavy on his back. Olive-drab shoulder straps tugged mercilessly against Zhen’s dust-coated, black suit jacket. Second Artillery Corps had contributed heavily to Operation Red Dragon. Tin relaxed his shoulders and took a deep breath before asking his last question.

  “Did you know from the beginning?”