Final Solstice

by David Sakmyster

  He let that sink in. “And as to your question, sir, about resources. All we require is a sharing of information.” He licked his lips. “Information only. This technology, you see, is only as good as the data feeding it. Data in this case, from each country’s weather centers. Access only is what we require. Access to the WMO’s data centers.”

  “But,” insisted the Chinese delegate, translated on the screens behind Solomon, “why would we do this? Everything you suggest, we already have through the WMO. Unless I am mistaken, we currently share data collection among the member countries. We have …” he checked his figures and Solomon tapped his fingers, waiting for the inevitable flood of data, “… 10,000 land stations, 3,000 aircraft, 1,000 upper air stations and 1,000 ships, all working with 188 National weather centers and 50 regional centers … 50 operational satellites …”

  “Yes,” Solomon said. “Exactly what I’m asking for. You don’t need to rebuild the wheel here. Only make it a better mousetrap. You all are doing a marvelous job. Through the WMO, you have made vast improvements, and we all know the statistics. Improvements so that a five day forecast now is as good as a two-day counterpart twenty years ago. But I’m telling you with absolute certainty that I can improve even further upon that. Solstice can give you a two-week forecast as good as that five-day one. As good as a one-day forecast.”

  “And all we have to do is open up our computers for you?”

  Would be far easier than having me have to try to hack into them, Solomon thought, teeth clenched.

  “Just the data access. Let us know what you know, and have access to the real time data from all those sources.…” Especially the satellites. “And then put our technology to the test. Give us a month and run comparisons. Your current system versus ours.”

  Let that sit with them a moment. And it did. He could hear the palpable buzz around the room, the members discussing. Eventually they would dismiss him and talk some more amongst themselves, then put it to a vote.

  “We can discuss it,” said the Secretariat, “at further length. But this decision, and your demonstration, will have to be directed again to the WMO. Their next meeting is next week Tuesday.”

  Solomon lowered his head. He had feared as much, but he couldn’t overplay his hand. “I thank you for the consideration, and we will happily provide whatever further information is necessary.”

  “And maybe your representative … hopefully he will be recovered and available for further questioning.”

  Solomon smiled. “Thank you for your concern, speaker. And I’m sure he will make a speedy recovery. We’ll await your decision.”

  He was about to leave when several hands went up, and lights flashed, signaling more questions. The Russian delegate leaned forward, after confirming something first with a colleague. “You may bring this to vote,” he said sternly, “but we will veto it. We will argue thoroughly against any such collaboration with a private company based in the United States.”

  “I’m sorry,” Solomon said in response. “But we owe no allegiance in this respect to our home based country. And in fact, we are multinational in scope, with offices in London, Paris, Delhi …”

  “It matters not,” the delegate said. “You could have a shack in Moscow and it would mean nothing. CIA, NSA, we know that if this technology works as you say, they will use it to their advantage, if they are not doing so already.”

  Solomon grumbled. “Really sir, if you just …”

  “No! Already US military has taken so-called peaceful technology and turned against others.”

  Oh no, Solomon thought, here we go. Not—

  “The HAARP project, we know about it, we have spoken at length about it here.”

  The Secretariat spoke up, countering: “And dismissed such claims that the Alaskan radar array is capable of any such things as you claim. These are—”

  “Conspiracies that amount to nothing, yes yes, that is what you say.” The Russian was unfazed. “And yet we do not agree. And many of the members here do not agree, but we have no smoking gun, yet. The technology exists, this we know. Weather modification is possible with these arrays, and their microwave output far in excess of anything needed to study near-earth atmospheric conditions. It exists, and we believe it has been used. Repeatedly. Against us in 2010, causing heat waves and mass crop failures. Against Haiti in the last earthquake. Even your Hurricane Sandy bears its fingerprints.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Solomon, trying to break through this. “This lively debate is certainly well-intentioned, but I must reiterate. It bears not a whit on our firm, or our technology. We operate privately. We are governed entirely by myself and a board of directors, all with stake in the company. We answer to no one and we will never share information—”

  “Unacceptable under any circumstance,” the Russian said, taking off his translation headset, crossing his arms and leaning back. Apparently the discussion was finished.

  The Secretariat approached Solomon and covered the mic. “We will speak more on this, but thank you for your time.”

  Solomon clenched his hands into fists, nodded and forced a smile to the audience. Head up, he stepped down and descended the stairs, walking past the rows and rows of foreign dignitaries, pausing for a moment at the row with the Russian delegate, who was leaning behind him, speaking animatedly with the French minister.

  Turning away, Solomon quickened his pace.

  His pitch was dead in the water, and although he knew this possibility was a strong outcome, it didn’t sting any less.

  Time for Plan B.

  O O O

  When the doors shut behind him and he was back in the cooler air of the hallway, he crossed to the windows and looked out under the swirling gray clouds over the New York skyline. He directed his attention through the flurries to one, then another nearby high-rise, scanning the rooftops.

  After the security agent had resumed his post at the door to the chamber, Solomon retrieved his phone. He dialed, then spoke quickly. “Are they ready? Yes … we are acting. I have several targets that must be eliminated. But first, send Nexus up.”

  Almost on cue as he ended the call, the elevator doors opened and a young man, dressed colorfully in island garb, approached—and handed him Palavar’s staff.

  My staff, Solomon thought. “No problems getting it through security?”

  “Not dressed like this, no sir,” said the man, an eager zealot from Oregon, if Solomon recalled. “All part of the island pageantry exhibit and photo shoot, which isn’t entirely happening.”

  Smiling, Solomon hefted the staff in both hands, then set its tip on the ground and leaned on it. “I’ll have the focus point ready momentarily.”

  “And the sacrifice?” the youth asked, his voice trembling as he glanced around.

  “Inside,” said Solomon with grit teeth.

  “You know what they’ll say, afterwards?”

  He looked back at the young druid. “Oh, yes. The irony of all this, right after a speech on the unpredictability of the weather. Glorious …” And right after that lunatic Russian’s mad ravings about HAARP. Too bad, he was right in the deeper conjecture, but so wrong about the source. As if those Alaskan fools had any clue about what it really takes to wield power of the elements. They were like decrepit old shamans waving sticks at the sky and hoping the rain clouds would come.

  “See you outside,” Solomon said. “And … enjoy the show.”

  With that, he strode back toward the entrance doors, already anticipating the security guard who came back to meet him, an inquisitive look on his face.

  One that morphed into one of complete confusion as something sharp burst into the back of his neck and punctured through. It turned sideways, hooking around his flesh, and then roughly tugged the agent out of the way.

  The enormous potted plants were growing exponentially, green tendrils shooting in several directions, snapping at the air and writhing at Solomon’s approach. He aimed his staff at the far doors, and the closest plant
swung its appendages there, circling the handles and forming an unbreakable lock.

  The tendrils converged on the near doors. With perfect timing, they pulled open for Solomon, allowing him to pass—after he stepped over the agent’s body. The doors slammed shut behind him as he stood in the back and looked around as the congregation went about their incessant arguments and bickering, translating all the nonsense into more meaningless observations on a world they all thought they had a chance to control.

  Solomon laughed to himself, and then louder as he felt the chamber walls shudder.

  He raised his staff, closed his eyes and let his mind drift up.… Up through the domed ceiling, past the buildup of snow and ice the roof had never been meant to sustain, and then out into the cold to become one with the winds, the storm and the elements.

  Chapter 10

  In the Columbia Medical Center, Mason woke groggily, wincing with a brutal headache. When his vision cleared, he could make out that he was in a recovery room, but that was all. Something wasn’t right. It was dark, but a light kept flashing from outside the open door, scattering shadows inside. He looked at his arms: no IVs, that was a good thing. He felt a bandage on his forehead, and as he sat up his ribs cried out more in stiffness than pain.

  All in all, not too bad. Probably just blacked out for a bit, and they were observing him for a concussion.

  Gabriel! How was his son? Had to find out. He swung his legs over the side, and in the next flash of light, looked for the nurse call button and hit it.

  He wasn’t going to wait. Quickly he located his shoes, but as he stood up he had to lean back again as a wave of dizziness almost overcame his senses. Maybe they had given him some sedatives or some painkillers? Shaking his head, he took a deep breath and tried again, but first he looked out the window where a sudden flash illuminated the surroundings. He had to blink and look twice, then shuffled to the window, and cupped his hands.

  Trying to pierce the gloom, through what he finally realized was a near whiteout, he could barely make out twinkling lights of the neighboring buildings. A sudden burst of light and a rumbling shook the window.

  Thundersnow! A winter thunderstorm, rare but not unlikely especially with these kinds of conditions. They were in a synoptic pattern of strong upward motion within the cold section of an extra-tropical cyclone system. Thermodynamically, it wasn’t different from any other type of thunderstorm, but the top of the cumulonimbus was much lower, and it was usually followed by—

  Hail! Major pellets started bombarding the window, sprayed like bullets from a submachine gun. He jolted back, bumped into the bed, then spun around it as another flash lit up the room. The hospital had apparently lost main power and was on generator backup. That would also explain the lack of response to his call, he thought, as the orderlies were likely helping the more desperate patients.

  He slipped on his sneakers and made his way out into the hall.

  Empty. Monitors beeping somewhere, but it was too surreal, like a scene out of a Halloween movie.

  “Hello?”

  More dim lights flickered and windows shook and cracked, and from somewhere an arctic wind rushed past him. He approached the desk, seeing a clipboard and a list of names and rooms. He turned it, and tried to read if Gabriel’s name was on it.

  Another gust of wind, this one intense and full of snow. It tugged the clipboard from his hands and sent it slamming into the far wall. He turned against the blast, squinting as an onslaught of small ice crystals blasted toward him, seeking his eyes and stinging his cheeks.

  The stairwell door was wide open.

  He went to close it and tugged at the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge against the gale. Preparing to try again, Mason saw something that caused him to step on ahead, through the door and onto the stairs.

  —following the large bare footprints made recently in the fresh snow coating the stairs.

  Bare footprints, along with a circular indentation beside them.

  A patient ascending the stairs. A patient who hadn’t bothered to put on his shoes, but had thought to pick up his staff.

  O O O

  The rooftop doorway was open and every level he ascended turned more frigid, the wind stiffer and the flakes stronger and sharper until Mason was sure they were drawing blood.

  Turn back, he thought, but it was spoken with a subdued voice, drowned out by the howling wind, and before he knew it he was stumbling out into the blizzard. In the whipping winds, following the footprints was all but impossible—if they still remained in the rising drifts. He couldn’t make out anything more than a few yards ahead. But then something moved: just a blurred shape, backlit against another sudden flash of lightning. A shape of a man, shirtless, both hands raised to the sky, holding a staff between them.

  Gabriel turned and in the next prolonged flash of light, his snow-shrouded eyes shone clear as day. “Hello father!” he shouted over the wind. “Out for a little rooftop stroll?”

  Mason partially covered his head. He had to get Gabriel back inside. Clearly he was in shock, delirious and a danger to himself, standing out here on the roof’s edge in this storm. “Gabriel—!”

  But then he sensed a change in the air pressure, direction and force of the wind. Something so sudden and swift, it was as if someone had grasped the storm and directed all its fury toward a new adversary.

  The near white-out lifted so suddenly he started to doubt his sanity, or at least wonder if the medication he was on was causing hallucination. Too surreal, now the view was clear like the purest high-definition TV, and he could see for miles: lights and facades of the high rises nearby, the business center and water tanks and small patches of trees on top of buildings.

  Maybe I’m dreaming, he thought, and this was the moment where the dreamer, knowing he’s dreaming, could enter a state of lucidity and start to control the dream itself.

  He’d have to try that some time, but right now, unless he woke up fast, they were all in danger of freezing to death, especially Gabriel, who—

  —who, it seemed, had to be a central character in his dream. His knees bent, staff held out front with both muscular arms tensing as if against a superior resistance. The entire localized storm seemed to funnel directly from the center of his staff outward, expelling the matter like a giant snow gun. Expelling it above and down First Avenue—a twisting, nearly horizontal funnel of snow and ice.

  Mason teetered on the edge of sanity and delirium, barely in control of his own motor functions. He couldn’t speak or move, only watch with hawk-like focus. And in true avian fashion, his vision swept the panoramic view and caught not only this funnel, but ten others: all snakelike undulating cyclones of wind, ice and winter fury, converging from all directions in a radius around one building.

  His vision magnified as if in a sniper’s scope, and he zeroed in on the target: a circular copper dome atop a squat trapezoidal structure beside a very familiar outline.

  The United Nations.

  Chapter 11

  Solomon sensed the weight and strain on the dome above, even as the five-hundred-some delegates and translators felt the walls shake. Water droplets sprinkled like the mist in a spring shower, and to his right he saw the tech team in the control room stand up.

  Just two of them, and it looked like they were about to go for the alarms. It wouldn’t be in time, but Solomon took no chances. A wave of his staff and the outer windows turned to frost, encased in thick ice, and as he dropped his arm, the ice compressed and shattered the glass, blasting it inwards and tearing through the men. Jagged shards embedded into their flesh and they went down without even a chance to cry out.

  Solomon strode farther into the hall, where the commotion grew in volume. Almost two hundred different languages and accents raised in alarm as faces turned skyward, following a horrible metal-on-metal scraping, torturous cry.

  More dust-like debris fell along with water, and then snowflakes—lazy and thick—circled gracefully down in a cone-shaped pattern. And a
hush fell over the crowd. It almost seemed magical, a fairy-world mirage or special effect. A few faces looked back to the control room to see if it in fact might be something designed for their entertainment.

  That was when the screaming began. The sight of the shredded control techs, all that blood and melting ice.

  The screaming started, but didn’t last long. In the next instant, under the weight of ten concentrated cyclones bearing down with heavy ice and snow, all building and piling upon the dome … it vainly struggled against the pressure, then buckled. The seams struggled to hold, then the massive supports bent, cracked, sparked like a series of fireworks, and then shattered.

  Everyone directly below the dome disappeared in an instant and an incomprehensible blur of metal, ice and snow. Solomon stepped onto a chair to survey the damage. He couldn’t see the stage through all the winding, snaking whirlwinds ripping in through the gaping hole in the roof. It looked like a great frost giant had torn open the ceiling and shoved both hands inside, seeking warm, tender flesh.

  Solomon was here only to guide those seeking fingers.

  He moved his arms, twisting and turning the staff, stirring up the air. He started humming an ancient nature song, chanting to the elements, speaking their language and promising sacrifice.

  Promising blood.

  Dimly, through the ice and the wind and concentrated blizzard whirling around the hall, he saw the giant screen sparking, the glass shattering, pieces falling, and then the great emblem—the world and the olive branches hung so prominently and symbolically—ripped free of the wall as two mini-cyclones attacked it from either side. It split jaggedly down the middle, then the two halves were flung in opposite directions, each crunching into and rolling over dozens of chairs and stray delegates.