Final Solstice

by David Sakmyster

  “Okay. So—did you figure yours out?”

  She slowly shook her head, frowning. “No, I don’t think it was that kind of thing. More like a bit of poetry and just some help with my totem.”

  “Oh right, the totem. I think I need one.”

  “No rush. It’ll come to you, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah.” Mason turned and commandeered the station, finding the screen it controlled and calling up the historical meteorological database. “Going to check something. I want to see it on the larger screen, and with more resources.” He glanced around again. “Just making sure I have time.”

  “All right then, let’s see what you can do,” said Annabelle, checking the series of clocks on the wall, showing various times around the world.

  He moved fast, entering the data, separating the variables, isolating the conditions and the dates and setting the maps, superimposing, and then expanding the view. He stood up, hands on his hips, observing.

  Annabelle coughed nervously. “So … this was in your folder?”

  Mason nodded, beginning to wonder again if this was some kind of prank. “There … four tornadoes appeared in a single hour at this site in Kansas in 1980.” He thought for a moment. “Most cyclones, in the Midwest especially, travel in unpredictable paths, but afterwards, given the data on wind speed, pressure and other factors, you can at least verify their prior trajectories. But these … they each head steadily from different directions, toward a center location. And then they stop. They swirl and generate massive amounts of torque and energy, and then stand still and finally, after a dramatic pause … they fizzle out.…” He took a stylus and drew on the terminal screen, watching its counterpart appear on the larger screen.

  By now, others were taking note. Stopping what they were doing, looking up at the demonstration.

  “When I put them on the map all at once, using their last locations as markers …”

  “They make a perfect circle,” Annabelle said, leaning back, arms crossed over her chest.

  “And if that’s not enough,” Mason pointed out, “there are other anomalous readings all generated around or in this same city in northeast Kansas in the years before this event. I checked back in my office, just to gather some historical data for perspective.” He licked his lips as he projected these one-time forecast event misses in blue on the screen. “I checked, because the data wasn’t in the folder and not part of this research, but for the same period, for different cities in the state or neighboring states, the misses were either very minor, or were so random as to be meaningless.”

  Annabelle led him with a question. “So what’s so special about that town?”

  “Not the town,” Mason said, looking again at the map. “Montgomery, population thirteen thousand four hundred, isn’t the target. We can go further and narrow it down.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. If the events make up a perfect circle, then geographically, there’s a center point to that circle. Which in this case, logic would suggest, would be of interest to us if for no other reason than curiosity as to how something so random could create a nonrandom formation.”

  Annabelle leaned in. “Let me help you there.” She clicked on her own terminal and called up the satellite Google Earth map of Montgomery, Kansas, then merged Mason’s data over it, enhanced the view and then bisected the circle two ways, finding the center of the crossing lines.

  “What’s that?” Mason said, squinting. “Can you enlarge it?”

  “Yeah. There you go.”

  A forested region, a few power lines and a small lake, but zooming in again … And between the trees … a lone house.

  “Why are we looking at a farm in the middle of nowhere? Why is that the center of all this meteorological mayhem?”

  Annabelle shrugged. “When was all this data?”

  “1980.”

  “So there’s you’re next step,” Annabelle said. “I can’t help you anymore, but …” She pointed to the screen. “If it were me, I’d find out who lived there at that time. Find out if they’re still around, talk to them, and then you might have the beginning of an answer.”

  Mason frowned, wondering for the moment if maybe she was in on the test—this prank or whatever this was that they wanted him to know about. “What would it matter who lived there? And what do you mean, the beginning of an answer?”

  So cryptic, he thought and was sure that next she was going to ask if he wanted to take the red pill or the blue pill. To have his mind blown or to go back to his cube and live in ignorance.

  Annabelle just smiled, and then her smile evaporated and she quickly tapped a key to clear the screen and revert it back to current weather data.

  Mason spun around just in time to find Victor striding for him, a scowl on his face.

  “Hey there,” Mason said, preempting any nastiness. “Been waiting for you.” He picked up the folder. “Almost done with this, so I was taking a break and hoped to get an early start up to the meeting.”

  Victor gave him a hard look, then glanced at Annabelle and back to him. “Well then. Come, they’re ready for you.”

  Chapter 17

  “Everyone, please welcome our newest recruit, Mason Grier. Meteorologist extraordinaire, and someone sure to be a tremendous asset to our team.”

  Mason acknowledged Solomon’s voice but took a second to allow his eyes to accustom to the dark interior of the Conference Room labeled as Sigil 1. He had expected a long table, cushy leather chairs and speakerphones, ports for laptop access, and maybe a screen for teleconferencing.

  Instead, he found himself in a forest. A virtual forest, he thought at first, but then realized there was no hard floor, but soft earth. Mossy stones and twigs. Full trees mixed with holographic projections or just wall visuals again? He had no idea where reality ended and the illusion began. He looked up, and the ceiling—if there was one—was perfectly hidden in the mirage of foliage, darting birds, an owl and great tree trunks arching high overhead into a pock-marked clearing through which soft sunlight filtered peacefully.

  Magnificent, was his only thought, and he was about to say so when he realized he wasn’t alone. Ten other men and women stood in a circle around him. It was then he realized some of the other members must be projections as well, since they were behind him, where the wall should have been blocking them. And in fact, as Victor closed the door, the seams vanished and the forest expanded at his back.

  He was truly in the woods, and abruptly he felt as if he’d been caught in a fairy tale world without breadcrumbs or any other means of backtracking or getting out before he was cooked. Glancing around, he shrugged off the feeling and just spoke, feeling quite out of his element. “Hello everyone. I haven’t gotten tired of saying this yet, but I’m glad to be here.”

  Solomon stepped into the circle, opposite Mason. He wore a gray suit with an open collar silk blue shirt and no tie. “Mason and Gabriel survived a nasty little accident while in New York, and we’re all happy they’ve made a full recovery.”

  The others murmured to themselves as they nodded. A woman to Mason’s left reached over and patted his shoulder. She at least, was real. Some of the others … if he looked hard enough at them … he could see the ferns and bushes through their outlines. Even Solomon.

  “This,” Mason said glancing around, “is incredible.”

  Solomon smiled with the compliment. “Not exactly an OSHA-approved workplace, but it’s one of our own little nature sanctuaries. If we have to be inside, we can at least let the outdoors in through whatever means necessary.”

  Mason checked out the other faces. “So how many of us are really here? I honestly can’t tell.”

  Four hands raised in the air, faces smiling.

  “The rest,” Solomon said, “myself included, are at various offsite locations. As you might have heard, I’m headed to Zurich, which I don’t expect will be a long visit. Not even time to do a ski run, but I will haul ass through the Alps.” He grinned and everyone chuck
led. Apparently, Solomon enjoyed his fast cars when a limo driver wasn’t around. Mason wondered if the Solstice lawyers knew about that for insurance purposes. He wondered suddenly about a lot of incidental things, like its balance sheet, debt ratios and for that matter—clients, revenue history and earnings projections. Probably should have checked into all that before joining for idealistic reasons.

  But Shelby wasn’t some idealistic notion. She was a flesh and blood miracle. If that kind of cure could be made commercially available … To say nothing of the potential that enhanced weather forecasting could entail, the financial prospects were staggering. With his options, and if everything went even half as well as he thought they could, he and Lauren could be looking at a cozy retirement very soon.

  Solomon cleared his throat and produced a curious staff from the forested shade behind him in the virtual glen. He set some of his weight on it, glanced around the chamber at the other members, then settled on Mason. “The meeting is almost complete. Sorry, Mason, you didn’t need to be here for the earlier sections. We reviewed financials and the regional directors gave their weekly updates on status of various projects and long term goals.”

  Would have liked to hear those, Mason thought. Maybe there’s a transcript.

  “Now, on to the more pressing matter. You are going to Oklahoma.”

  Mason blinked at him. “Where? I’m sorry, you’re going to Switzerland and I get shipped to Oklahoma?”

  Solomon nodded. He lifted his staff and pointed at a space over his left shoulder. A rectangular view screen appeared in the virtual canopy, calling up a map of the state, then zeroing in on one small city, where red text appeared with the label: Lawton: Population 96,545.

  “Sorry, why there?”

  “Lawton has been in the middle of a severe drought for weeks. Last precipitation was October fourteenth at one-eighth of an inch. Current forecast …” He tapped something in the air with his staff, and the Doppler map appeared, showing nothing but clear air for everything north and west for the next ten days. “As you can see, no relief in sight.”

  “So why send me there? To comment on the severity of situation? I’m sorry but I don’t think this is one case you can pin on corporate America and man-made global warming. Droughts have existed in this area way before Henry Ford even designed his Model T.”

  “Granted,” Solomon said, sweeping across the air with the staff and wiping the image away. “But it will make as grand a stage for our point as we can hope for. A perfect realization of a desperate town and a desperate people, a snapshot of Americans suffering.”

  Mason thought about it. “And you as the potential saviors?”

  “Us. And yes, but only if they give us a chance.”

  Frowning, Mason fidgeted, distracted by all the forest stimuli: hearing in the lull the scurrying sounds in the brush, the breeze rustling the vines, acorns falling, a cicada singing a lonely song. “I’m sorry, I’ll go of course, but I just don’t see what I’m going to accomplish. You could just release a professionally-done documentary or something like that to support your capabilities, and …”

  “No, having our man at the scene, bringing home the point, will be far more powerful. Trust me. We’ll send you along with some talking points, and you’ll chat with the mayor and some farmers and get impressive pictures for the papers and the blog sites.”

  Mason shrugged again. “All right, but it would be better if you could—I don’t know—do that rain-making trick like up on the roof?” He thought again about that, the suddenness and the certainty that it was impossible, and nothing short of magic. In hindsight, he felt like he should have paid more attention. Like a spectator at an impressive carnival show, he’d been looking in the wrong direction while the magician made the true effect happen somewhere else.

  Along with several others, Solomon gave a chuckle. “Would that were possible, Mason.”

  “It’s not out of the realm,” Mason countered, still thinking about the rainstorm. “Of all the crackpot weather modification theories out there, cloud seeding is one that actually has some merit, yielding positive results. Silver iodine, dry ice and even liquid propane, dispersed into the cloud cover by jets has had some success, although opinions vary greatly still as to the results. Ski resorts have had the best success at producing more snow when needed. And used for hail suppression, seeding especially has seen practical applications, but in situations like this …” he pointed in the area where the map of Lawton had been. “It’s nearly impossible, as with no clouds at all, you have nothing to work with.”

  “Sadly true,” Solomon replied. “Which is why we don’t bother with such attempts or technology. It’s got such a bad rap as it is, what with Geneva conventions and UN treaties and concerns over microwave applications like the HAARP facility, or the fact that the U.S. government engaged in this business during Vietnam, attempting to lengthen the monsoon season to impair the enemy.…” Solomon’s eyes glazed over as if in momentary respect, then blinked and he smiled again. “No, that’s not what we’re about, and such minor parlor tricks—such Connecticut Yankee effects as you said earlier—would not help our purposes here.”

  Mason carefully studied Solomon, or at least his image, stately and modern all at once; he looked more like an eccentric nightclub owner than a CEO, but at the same time, he seemed colder and more calculating. And definitely hiding something.

  A flash of light stabbed behind Mason’s eyes. Sudden and intense like a migraine pain, and for an instant he saw that staff again, except now it wasn’t Solomon’s hand that grasped it. An older hand, wrinkled but firm. And a man seated at a long wooden table in a charming cottage-like room. Shadowy others were seated around him, except … they were encased in blocks of ice. Faces, barely visible, eyes wracked with frozen pain, mouths open in endlessly soundless screams.

  He blinked and it was gone. Focus returned, and he saw that some of the others were fading out, their avatars fizzling away into dust. Just Solomon and the four locals remained. The door at Mason’s back opened and Victor was silhouetted in the painful artificial light.

  “Time now,” Solomon said. “Victor will handle all your travel needs.”

  “Can I stop home first?” Mason asked. “Pick up a change of clothes, maybe? I hadn’t planned on being in front of the public.”

  “Of course. Say hi to your lovely wife for me, and tell her you’ll be home soon.”

  Mason was about to say something when the image swirled and faded. The four others promptly left and he was alone in the woods, alone in the shifting sunlight and the gentle woods.

  He felt a strong pull towards calm and peace, but he was never more sure that Solomon was wrong, and that after Oklahoma everything would change and he wouldn’t be seeing Lauren for some time.

  Chapter 18

  Eight hours later, Mason arrived in Lawton City to an unseasonal seventy-seven degrees, brutal sun and an acrid dryness in the air that at once irritated his throat and had him reaching for a pack of gum. He donned sunglasses on the runway and surveyed flat landscape, the parched earth and the hardened crystalline blue sky that seared the view all the way north to the hazy ascent of the Wichita Mountains.

  Victor, ever the conversationalist, wordlessly led Mason to a waiting car that took them to the main strip, a quaint section past the town hall where he would be setting up to broadcast in a few hours. But first, they stopped at a local diner with a sign: FLAMINGO’S, HOME OF THE TORNADO ALLEY $2.99 SPECIAL.

  “Make yourself at home,” Victor said, pointing to the one open booth, complete with ’60s blue plastic seats and a faux juke box condiment container. “Eat something. We’ve got two hours.”

  “Not joining me?” Mason asked, hoping the answer was in the negative.

  Victor shook his head. “I’m heading right back, needed at Solstice. You’re flying commercial, 9:00 pm return flight from Oklahoma city.”

  “Not much time to enjoy the scenery,” Mason said sarcastically, before the incoming waitress
could hear. He looked out past the departing Victor as the rush of heat came in through the open door, and he almost expected a tumbleweed to lazily roll by and complete the scene.

  He shrugged, placed his order for an egg white omelet, then decided to ruin the health benefits by adding on the meat lovers’ sausage, bacon and ham side, along with rye toast and strawberry jam. And of course, bottomless coffee.

  Apparently the tornado alley special had just expired at 11:00 am. He’d have to come back another day. Meanwhile, he dug into his bag and retrieved his laptop and the folder he had been provided on arriving at Lawton City. He had already reviewed the materials on the plane, and felt like he could sleepwalk through this presentation.

  Instead, he reached back in the bag and pulled out a flatter FedEx package.

  From Shelby. From London. Mailed the day before she had arrived.

  The package she told me not to open.

  He pulled off the strip and reached inside as his first cup of coffee came to the table. Inside the package were two things: a clear plastic folder encasing a document entitled: The True Story of Anglesey and the Massacre of the Welsh Druids, by Shelby Grier.

  Her thesis, what she’d been working on so enthusiastically at school this past year.

  But why didn’t she want me to see it?

  The second item was a small thumb drive. No label and nothing on it. While his laptop was still warming up, Mason decided to start with a glimpse through the document first, although he didn’t expect it would occupy too much time, not with his current priorities. He’d just give it a skim, enough to be able to compliment Shelby on her project and have something else to speak to her about, sure that she’d be okay with him reading it against her wishes after the fact. Besides, it sounded interesting at least.

  He opened to the first page and began to skim it over, but soon found himself more and more engrossed, lost in history.

  Chapter 19

  Three blocks away, at the Eldorado Motel, in room 23, Gabriel came out of the shower wrapped in a towel around his waist. Despite what he had just done, he now felt completely washed clean in more ways than one. Purified, mind and body.