There was still time.
Time—a funny thing for a physicist. It didn’t even exist, not in the deep recesses of quantum physics where Ben’s mind often wandered. Time had no strict direction in physics, but in the real world, in the here and now, every second ticking by felt wasted. A moment that could never be regained. Every moment was precious.
Hundreds of thousands dead in Rome, but this was just the first raindrop of the coming storm. The world was already in convulsions, and when the update about Nomad hit the news, Ben was sure chaos would follow. He made his decision to leave the moment they deciphered the LIGO data, and discovered that Nomad would be here in three days.
Not even three days now.
He was obsessed with the digital clock on the car’s dashboard. He looked again and did a mental calculation: seventy hours and thirty minutes till their best guess at Nomad’s closest approach. Armageddon now had a date and time: six a.m. on October 24th.
Plus or minus an hour.
And plus or minus tens of millions of kilometers.
Neither NASA nor ESOC had managed to get a visual fix on the damn thing yet. An invisible ghost. If they hadn’t had deep space probes out there, they might not have even noticed it coming yet. Even surrounded by all our technology, Nomad might have dropped from the sky on an unaware world.
And maybe it would have been better that way. Maybe it was better just to die in an instant, to not to know what’s coming. The whole thing still felt unreal, but there was a sense of finality to it. Like entering a doctor’s office and being told you have days to live, with some terminal disease named. In the back of your mind, your whole life, you always knew it would end, and now—as terrible as it was—at least you knew how.
Realizing there was no running away, no escaping, Ben’s thoughts turned to his loved ones, to Jess and Celeste. Why had he kept them away? Why hadn’t he spent more time with them? Ben had gone through the stages of shock and depression as he sat alone in a bathroom stall the night before, numb and crying. Thinking of Jess, of Celeste, guilt overcame him. Guilt of not being a better husband. Of not being a better father. Of abandoning Jess.
If there was no escaping Nomad, he at least had to escape Darmstadt.
At 3 a.m., with only a skeleton staff on hand in the ESOC building, Ben had snuck into the press lounge and stole an ID from a CNN reporter. He stole the reporter’s car keys as well. Ben had never stolen a thing in his life, not even a pack of gum, and he’d never imagined that he would one day steal a car. What might he be forced into doing tomorrow?
Ben revved the engine of the reporter's rental car and stared at the back of the tractor-trailer in front of them. Both of their cell phones were still turned off. They had the car’s satellite radio tuned to BBC World, but the announcer was only rehashing stories from the previous day.
Roger’s laptop was plugged into ESOC’s satellite data network and downloading regular updates from Gaia and LIGO. His connection was anonymized into the Internet, but even so, Ben had only allowed him to turn it on once they passed into Switzerland.
Inching the car forward, Ben glanced at Roger. “Anything yet?”
Roger shook his head and nodded at the same time, his head circling. “Some amateur astronomers in Australia just posted a report about Neptune and Uranus shifting more than predicted…”
Ben nodded grimly. It wouldn’t be long until the world figured it out, one way or the other. Moving forward another few feet before stopping, he cursed and jammed the ball of his hand into the car’s horn. “Come on, damn it!” Seventy hours till Armageddon, and they were stuck in traffic.
“Did you find out what Ufuk Erdogmus wanted?” Roger asked.
“No, I didn’t talk to him again.”
“Pushy guy.” Roger buried his face in the laptop screen. “Guess that’s how you get to be a billionaire.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “I guess.” He replayed the short conversation with Ufuk Erdogmus in his head. Had the billionaire been offering some kind of safe house? He said something about sanctuary. He should have talked to him.
And was it his imagination, or had Roger seemed to not want him to talk to Erdogmus?
Ben looked at Roger. He was surprised when Roger had scurried out of the ESOC building in the dead of night to join him. Roger still had his booking on a flight back to New York that morning. It was probably the last opportunity for him to get back to the States, but Roger had insisted he come with Ben, mumbling something about it being safer with him. Ben hadn’t argued and was happy to have him along. Stealing a car in the middle of the night scared him enough that his hands shook as he had tried to get the key in the door.
Their escape was uneventful. The half-asleep guard at the entrance hadn’t cared who exited the compound. He only had strict instructions on who could enter, Ben had guessed. Minutes later Roger and Ben were on the Autobahn, speeding south with dawn coloring the horizon. They didn’t need maps or GPS. They just had to follow the Rhine south till the border with Switzerland—not more than three hours—then cross past Zurich, climb through the Alps and drive down into Italy on the other side.
A piece of cake.
The first few hours were peaceful, the rolling pastures of the lower Rhine Valley steadily giving way to electrical towers and tram lines near the Swiss border. They sped along a clear road, under a rising sun and blue sky.
Ben held his face to the sun when he could, marveled at it, amazed at how much he took sunrise for granted. How much he might miss it. He might be witnessing one of the world’s last sunrises. As the sun climbed higher, Ben felt like he could sense Nomad rising up behind it—like a deep vibration in the flawless sky, the growl of the monster that would swallow the world.
“Ben!” Roger said. “I just got an email from Jess. They’re okay!”
Ben gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, his eyes tearing up. His face contorted into something halfway between a smile and grimace. “I knew it.”
“They’ve gone back to that castle, the one in Chianti,” Roger continued.
“They’re not hurt?” Ben gritted his teeth.
Roger scanned the email. “No, they’re fine. Nobody’s injured.”
Not that Jess would say anything, even if she were hurt. “Good. And that’s two hours closer to us.”
“…this just in…” said the news anchor on the car’s radio. “New fighting reported this morning in Kashmir, with India and Pakistan threatening nuclear strikes if the other doesn’t back down…”
The truck ahead of them jolted forward. Ben shifted the car into gear. They moved a hundred feet, out from under the shadow of a fly-over bridge, before grinding to a halt again. “Damn it!” Ben grunted, slamming the steering wheel.
Glancing left, past the bridge, he could see that the highway wound all the way into the hills in the distance. The snow-capped peaks of the Alps shimmered beyond that. Reflections from windows of cars and trucks glittered all the way along the road. This wasn’t just a traffic jam, Ben realized. It was something more than that.
People might not realize how close Nomad really was, but they knew something was happening. People were heading for the hills, for the seclusion and safety of the mountains and countryside. Ben didn’t want to get into the Alps, however, he wanted to get through them, to the other side.
“That castle in Chianti might be the best place to ride this out,” Roger said, echoing Ben’s own thoughts.
“Being in the Alps might not be a good idea when Nomad passes,” Ben agreed. “Those jagged peaks could tumble like dominos.”
“And my best guess still is a closest approach to Earth of about eighty million kilometers.” Roger sucked air in through his teeth. “Plus or minus eighty.”
Ben grimaced. “If it passes under ten million kilometers, it’ll pop the Earth like a water balloon hitting a wall. Under thirty million, tidal effects will be enough to repave the entire surface of the Earth in magma. Nothing would survive.”
“But s
ixty, seventy million?” Roger glanced at Ben. “That might be survivable, at least for a few days until the Earth’s atmosphere freezes after we’re flung away from the sun.”
Ben stared straight ahead. A few extra days. That was the calculus of life now. Would the extra days be worth living? Of course they would. Nobody wanted to die.
“Eighty million kilometers will trigger massive earthquakes and eruptions, but a bigger problem is going to be water.” Ben pressed his face into his hands. “The Earth’s oceans are going to slosh around like a toddler having a fit in a bathtub. But it won’t start until Nomad is almost on us, not until the last few hours.”
Roger nodded and looked up, performing some mental calculation. “Ten hours away, at three hundred million kilometers, the tidal forces are going to start overcoming the moon’s. On the coast it’ll just seem like an unusual tide.”
“Five hours later, at a hundred and fifty million kilometers,” Ben said, thinking out loud, “tidal forces will be fifteen times that. Open ocean tides measure about two feet, but tides at the coasts are governed by geography of the ocean bed—New York has six-foot tides where London’s are eighteen. Some places will be worse hit than others.”
“And the surface of the Earth is rotating on its axis at a speed of a thousand miles per hour.” Roger circled his hand in the air and then pointed upward. “With Nomad coming from behind the Sun, it’s going to pull a wall of water toward it, and that wall is going to race across the surface at thousands of miles an hour, obliterating anything in its path.”
“We’re lucky the Mediterranean has some of the lowest tides in the world.” Ben had looked it up. Near Rome they were less than two feet. “And that wall of water approaching from the Pacific and Indian oceans is going to have to squeeze through the Red Sea and Suez Canal before spilling into the Med. This mountaintop Castello Ruspoli is as good a place to ride it out as anywhere.”
“One thing we haven’t thought of.” Roger tapped on his keyboard, then turned the screen to Ben.
“What?” Ben shifted into gear and advanced another twenty feet.
“I’m getting new data from FLARECAST, that new early warning system for solar flares.”
Ben nodded. A combination of orbiting and ground-based observatories paired with high performance computing installations.
“They’re predicting massive coronal ejections if Nomad gets as close as we’re thinking,” Roger said. “Like orders of magnitude bigger than anything before.”
“Of course…” Ben realized Nomad would drag the sun along behind it like a puppy on a leash, but he hadn’t thought through the implications.
“A few hours before Nomad gets here, it’ll trigger huge solar storms,” continued Roger. “Bathing the Earth in a flood of high energy particles.”
“That’ll raise ground voltage—”
“And fry power stations and electronics.” Roger breathed deep and stared at the laptop screen. “Should be pretty, though. Light up the sky like a Christmas tree.” He rubbed his eyes and closed the laptop. “I can’t read any more of this.”
Ben put the car into neutral and stepped on the brake. He looked carefully at Roger. “Why did you come with me? Isn’t there someone at home you want to be with?”
In the stress of the moment when they escaped Darmstadt, Ben hadn’t given it much thought. Now, when all he could think about were his own loved ones, Ben realized how little he knew about Roger. About his personal life.
Looking down, Roger exhaled through pursed lips. “My mom, she died a long time ago, and my dad…well, we haven’t talked in years. Maybe I’ll give him a call.”
Ben let the moment linger for a few seconds. “But you didn’t want to go back? Isn’t there someone else?”
Roger’s face twitched. He laughed nervously. “I guess this isn’t the time for secrets, huh?”
Ben put the car into gear and pulled forward another few feet before stepping on the brakes again. “What do you mean?” He turned to study Roger’s face, watched him wrestle with something inside.
“Remember two years ago when I started at your lab?” Roger said after a pause. “We had lunch with Jess at the Mexican place around the corner?”
Advancing the car another ten feet, Ben grunted, “Uh huh.”
“Well…” Roger rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Ah, we sort of hit it off.”
Ben frowned. “Who hit it off?”
“Me and Jess.”
Ben jammed on the brakes and turned to look at Roger, creases furrowing his brow. “What? You never told me that.”
“You were my boss, and Jess didn’t want to say anything. She’s kind of private, you know?”
Shaking his head, Ben looked back at the road. “Oh, I know.” The revelation surprised him, but now that it was out, it also didn’t surprise him. It was just like Jess.
“She was practically living at my place, last year,” Roger added. “Things were great, and then suddenly, she took off to Europe.”
The truck in front of them accelerated, and Ben pulled forward, the traffic finally moving. “She can be like that.”
“So, well, if the world’s ending…the only person I really want to see is Jess.”
Ben gritted his teeth, but not in anger. He held back tears. His little girl. Roger loved his little girl. “Well, let’s get us there, then.” He’d had enough of this. Pulling onto the shoulder, Ben passed the truck.
“One thing…”
Ben glanced at Roger. “What?”
“What happened to her? I mean, not her leg, I know that story, but when she was a kid?”
Ben pushed his foot down on the accelerator, and in the rear view saw other cars pulling into the shoulder lane behind him. He wasn’t the only one who’d lost his patience. He glanced at Roger. “You know, I’m not sure I really know…”
25
CHIANTI, ITALY
JESS STARED AT an ancient suit of armor set against the stone wall. She inspected the intricate detail of its hinges and interlocking plates. A hard shell to protect a fragile interior, designed to fight off an unforgiving world. She understood. “So Dad is on his way here?”
She’d just returned from the drive with Giovanni. Bursting through the doors into the entrance hallway of the castello, she announced that she’d spoken to people at Darmstadt. Her father wasn’t there.
To which her mother replied, yes, she knew.
“I saw the email on your account just after you left,” Celeste added. Standing beside Jess, she tried to put a hand on her shoulder. “Ben said he was driving here. He’s already in Switzerland. He’ll be here tonight.”
Giovanni sat on the edge of a copper-studded red leather chair near the entrance, the keys to the Maserati still in his hand. Nico had just told him about a ransom note he found an hour before.
“And you didn’t call me?” Jess turned from inspecting the suit of armor and paced the length of the hallway.
She tested her new leg. It felt looser than her old one, but it wasn’t bad. Better than some she’d had. At the far end, away from the entrance, was a massive stone fireplace, big enough to stand inside. She stopped in front of it, looked up at the collection of stuffed wild boar heads on the mantle, at the pointed arches of windows above that, the midday sun streaming in. The ceiling was a geometric patchwork of interlocking beams in dark wood.
“I tried, but the mobile networks are still jammed,” Nico answered. He stood to one side, leaning against a long mahogany table littered with family photographs in frames. “Sometimes it works, sometimes not.”
“I need to tell you something,” Celeste said. “Maybe you should sit down.”
Jess turned on her new foot. She hated that expression. Why would people want to be sitting down when bad news came? She preferred to be mobile. She needed movement. Sitting still made her feel trapped. Just the same, her heart rate kicked up a notch. “What happened to Dad?” she blurted out.
“Nothing like that.” Celeste’s lip’
s trembled, her hands mashing a cream silk scarf. She wore some of Giovanni’s mother’s clothes as well. “Ben, he knows what Nomad is…”
“And?” Jess took four quick steps to Celeste, who looked on the verge of tears. A rock, that was how Jess imagined her mother—she’d never seen her like this. She put her hands on her mother’s shoulders. “What is it?”
Everyone stared at Celeste.
“Nomad will be inside Earth’s orbit in three days. It’s a black hole, or two of them. A binary pair, he said.”
Nobody said anything. The seconds ticked by.
“Merda Madonna!” Giovanni picked up a porcelain lamp and heaved it against the stone wall next to him. It exploded, scattering fragments that clattered across the floor. “Merda! Merda! Merda!”
His face apoplectic red, he turned away, hanging his head low. Turning back to Nico, he rubbed his face with one hand, his jaw muscles rippling. “And this ransom note, what does it say?”
“Monday, we are to deliver five million Euros in gold bars. Leave them in a truck in front of this address in Saline.” Nico held the hand-written note up. He found it nailed to the front door of the exterior entrance just after Giovanni left. “If we want Hector alive, it says.”
“This is not the time for this.” Giovanni pulled at his hair, snarled with gritted teeth.
Not the time for this? Jess frowned. When was there ever a time for this? Something didn’t make sense. It was like he expected the ransom, as if it was some kind of game.
“And how do we contact, these”—the tendons in Giovanni’s neck flared, both hands balled into white-knuckled fists—“kidnappers?”
Nico read the note again, but shook his head. “No instructions, no way to contact them.”
“Monday will be too late!” Giovanni screamed the last word. He put one fist to his mouth and bit on it. “Today is Friday. We can try calling Florence, see about getting money, but gold? And by Monday it will be too late, if what you’re saying is true.” He turned away, put both hands against the wall and hung his head between them.
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