Catalyst

by JK Franks

  He had grabbed his messenger bag from the truck, leaving everything else that was in it. He filled the bag with bottled water. Behind the abandoned guest services desk was a small pantry with snacks and pastries. He took all of the granola and energy bars they had. He left a note for Tom to add it to his room charge. He marched back out of the lobby past the still sleeping Blake. He looked one last time at the truck and then back at the hotel. Might as well go see what I’m up against.

  He looked again south toward downtown Charlotte. The dark, angry-looking skyline seemed to hold more threats than hope. Fires were now clearly visible from some of the buildings. They were in the general direction he would need to go. First, he decided to go see for himself how the speedway had faired. Smoke was everywhere, but no fires remained visible on the track. He didn’t so much have a plan as just a morbid curiosity to see first-hand if the Aussie was being truthful. Also, some of the other dealers might still be around—maybe with working vehicles.

  The sky was more overcast now, thankfully blocking out the weird lights above. As he walked down the gentle slope, a light rain began to fall. A rain jacket would be nice, he thought. His wants list was growing fast. As a man used to having everything he wanted . . . this was going to be challenging. He had to keep reminding himself to simply focus on what was actually needed. How were Trey and Barbara doing? She would be frightened, he knew that much. Trey would be angry, looking for a solution. Like his grandfather, Trey preferred absolutes. His was a world of black and white; this would not be an easy situation for the boy.

  The smell of burnt fuel triggered a twinge in his head . . . just an echo of the migraine. Shit, my medicine is up in that locked room. Steve wandered on, toward the track and an increasingly foul odor. Not an odor of death or decay, but worse. He flashed back to a school field trip during his fourth grade year. They had visited an enormous hog farm, one of many in the area around his hometown. The smell of the muddy pigs that day was unforgettable. Like most of the kids on that trip, he didn’t want to grow up doing that for a living. That was the smell . . . the same as now. Only…it wasn’t pigs.

  The surviving fans of the Charlotte Motor Speedway had numbered nearly 118,000, and they had exited the arena of horrors only to discover they were stuck. No way to leave the area other than the handful of classic cars that were still running. Those cars had left loaded to the brink with extra passengers. The fans that were left had rampaged through the concessions, luxury booths, and nearby restaurants to fill their stomachs with food and drink before collapsing in the grass parking area. The piss and shit combined with the mud, sweat, and other bodily odors now filled the night air.

  “Oh my God!” Steve said as he topped a hill and saw the mass of people. Small, makeshift campfires dotted the open field ahead. He tore a piece off his sleeve and tied it around his nose and mouth as a makeshift filter. The sounds of people fighting, women screaming, even some babies crying added to the mix. He watched in morbid fascination as a group of men attacked another man who apparently had just managed to get the lights to come on in his car. The scene of chaos continued as far as he could see on all sides of the racetrack. This was not what he was looking for. The tableau of misery was too much for him to focus on.

  The darkness covered other routes—he tried to remember what lay in other directions. He turned away and headed due south or as close to that as he could guess. The walking got easier after a few miles, and he crossed onto a loose gravel road heading in the same direction. How far could a man walk in a day? He wasn’t sure but did some rough calculations and guessed somewhere between fifteen to twenty miles. Could a person do that day after day? What if it wasn’t on a road but maybe a field or forest? Were there mountains between here and Georgia?

  It was crazy, he couldn’t just leave for home—nothing could be that bad. Just wait for the sun to come up. In the light of day, he would find help. He was beginning to feel foolish. The Aussie had planted a whopper of a tale, and his paranoia was letting it consume him. The drizzle of rain was coming in fits and starts now. He moved underneath a large tree and thought through what little he knew once more. The power is out, not just electricity but everything electrical. How widespread would it be? Couldn’t be out everywhere, could it? Nah . . . he felt like it had to be just the city or maybe a few neighboring counties.

  What else did he know? Hmmm . . . well, everyone in charge seemed to be gone. Hell, the only place he saw people was at the racetrack. So, emergency services were likely overwhelmed or unable to respond. Did he know anything else? A glimmer of pink light in the sky showed through in the distance . . . yeah, there’s also that. He was still clueless as to what that meant. An EMP is what Blake had said. An electromagnetic pulse. Those only happened when a nuke went off though . . . right?

  Those three items added up to . . . nothing. How was he supposed to make a plan when he was totally clueless about the problems? Damn, I wish I had a radio, or even better, a working phone. Maybe he could find someone with one. That sounded smart . . . he needed info. That was now his primary focus. A better explanation than aliens.

  He had been walking for nearly an hour when the surroundings opened up into a small meadow. There was a reflection coming from something in the middle of the field, and as he listened, whispered voices. The sound of a radio was also heard. The hiss and tinny sounds were unmistakable. It was too dark to make out much detail, but he guessed from the lighter shades that it was a barn with curved tin siding, maybe one of the familiar Quonset huts of years past. He was ready for a short break anyway, and the drizzle had restarted again. The thought of finding a jacket or a tarp had moved from a want to a need. The closer he got, he could identify lettering on the side of the . . . barn? It no longer seemed the right shape, too long and too skinny, and the side of the “barn” was a good fifty feet above the ground. “OODYEA” was all he could make out. Lighter letters on dark background with a lighter gray section above and below. He had seen this yesterday. The blimp sponsored by the tire manufacturer had been circling all day. “Hello . . . anyone there?”

  He heard someone say, “Shhh.” He walked a few feet farther holding his hands halfway up hoping he didn’t look threatening. “It’s ok, I’m alone. Just trying to find out what happened. Would either of you have a working phone or . . . radio?”

  A voice in the dark said, “Yeah, but be quiet. Are you really alone?”

  The question seemed odd, but he decided to be honest. “Yes, it’s just me.”

  A small but powerful flashlight flicked on, and he saw two men. One was untying a rope; the other had the light. The voice came again, “Its ok, we were about to leave. That crowd over there is getting a bit rowdy. We put her down after the fireworks, but our ground crew never showed, and no one is answering our radio calls and, uh . . .well, sorry, both our phones are dead.”

  Steve placed the man’s voice as Upper Midwest. “But the blimp itself is ok? No problems with electronics?” Steve asked.

  “Oh yeah, she’s fine. Just a big balloon. The motors are simple and operated by old-school mechanicals and hydraulics. The radar, radios, and such are all out, but we fly by terrain and landmarks all the time.”

  This night kept offering more questions than anything else. Steve knew he couldn’t walk 400 miles; he was mainly counting on getting far enough to be in a less affected or unaffected area. Any rescue coming this way would have to deal with the carnage at the race track first anyway. No matter what had gone wrong here in Charlotte, it couldn’t extend more than . . . what, forty miles, maybe a hundred or so. Right? He knew he was trying to convince himself more than anything. Dragovich’s words haunted him though. He didn’t want to stay put and wait for the end. He had to get home.

  Steve quickly reached a decision. “Where are you heading, and could you use an extra pair of hands getting there?”

  An hour later they were ready to launch. The two pilots, McKay and Lambert, had shown him what needed to be done and made room for him in the t
iny cabin. They had also ditched some extra ballast to account for his weight. As soon as the small engines started, they began to hear shouts and saw flashlights in the woods. People were coming to investigate—lots of people. “Hang on to something—this is going to be a tail dragging launch.”

  The tiny gondola was firmly attached to the blimp. As lines were tossed loose, Steve and Lambert rushed to join the pilot as the blimp pitched sharply up at the nose. The rear did indeed come close to hitting the ground, but McKay expertly leveled out just as the group below rushed into the area they had been in. A few of the more daring found tie-down ropes still dragging low and grabbed on thinking they could pull the craft back down. After being dragged roughly for a few dozen yards all let go.

  The Goodyear blimp was airborne and heading somewhat toward its home base of Fort Worth, Texas. Steve had asked, and the men had agreed to drop him in Georgia as they passed over. The wind took them toward the city of Charlotte which all could see was now almost fully engulfed in flames. “What would have caused the fires?” Steve was unsure as to the person speaking as the cockpit was completely dark.

  McKay, he thought, offered an opinion, “If it was an EMP, then powerlines and even large transformers could have exploded, but best guess on the fires is natural gas. As the control valves and switches are all electronic, a power surge could have wiped them out causing a pressure surge in the lines. Once it began to rupture, it probably happened all over the city. Then a single spark would have set it off. I spent my college years doing co-op jobs in oil and gas down in Houston. The stuff is wonderful . . . until it isn’t.”

  The other man said, “Trim is equalized; you can take us up if you want to get above this mess. Cloud ceiling is about 1,800 feet.”

  “Roger that,” and in a sudden but fluid move the craft angled sharply upward through the clouds like a whale breaching the surface of a silvery sea.

  In unison, all three men gave various expletives calling on God in various forms as well as a well-chosen term of incestuous lovemaking. It was not aliens.

  The sky was alive. The Northern Lights danced through the heavens. The more familiar greens and blues, but also pinks, lavenders and reds. Steve was dumbfounded by what he saw. The aurora flickered, ebbed and flowed. Meanwhile, its shadowy reflection was mirrored along the sea of clouds now slowly moving below them. The dance of colors stretched to the far horizon. As a man who had never seen the Northern Lights, it was mesmerizingly beautiful. The co-pilots had another reaction entirely. Lambert refused to look; his face was buried in his hands. McKay was staring in horror out the small window. “Guys?” Steve said tentatively. “What does this mean?”

  “It’s not good . . . ” McKay said.

  “But it means it wasn’t a nuclear bomb, right? This is just something natural. That has to be better than a bomb or war.” He recalled that the Northern Lights were a normal occurrence up in the Arctic, although he couldn’t remember what caused them . . . something to do with the Earth’s magnetic field, he thought.

  McKay picked up on his question. “I wish that were true, man. This . . . ” he waved his hand all around. The reflected light in the small cabin was bright enough to read the labels on the knobs and switches now. “This means it was the sun—a solar flare. To be precise, they call it a CME, a Coronal Mass Ejection. Not technically a solar flare, more like a bit of the sun got pinched off and flung at the Earth. It means things are much, much worse.”

  Steve felt suddenly cold. “What do you mean . . . worse?”

  “This could mean the rest of the planet is just a dark as Charlotte.”

  Solar flares happened all the time. Steve remembered reading about some of the problems in the past. Nothing overly significant, some blackouts, but more commonly just cell phone outages and planes needing to re-route. “I’ve never heard of a solar flare or coronal thing doing anything like this.”

  “That’s because there hasn’t been one like this. Well…not in a few hundred years or so.” Lambert was speaking now. His head still hung low, but he was now also watching the mesmerizing light show. “In one of our flight training courses . . . maybe it was recertification, we got some briefing on it. The odds were not high, but it could happen. Last time was back in the horse and buggy days, and only a few people were injured. Not much of anything electrical to speak of back then. Today . . . well, you saw what happened today. Imagine that going on everywhere at the same time.” Steve decided not to mention he hadn’t actually seen it happen. He had seen the aftermath.

  The scene was mesmerizingly beautiful and otherworldly frightening. He thought about his son and wondered what home would be like. “How long do you think it will take to repair the power?”

  Neither of the pilots spoke for a while. Then McKay said, “I don’t know, Scott.”

  “Steve.”

  “Oh, sorry. Umm…I don’t know, Steve. I never did much with electrical, although one of the companies I worked for was a supplier to the Texas power grid. I know they often talked about how expensive the LPTs were and how long it took for one to be built. Those are what are so vulnerable to a CME or EMP. Those huge transformers go out, and…well, they said back then, it could be years to get a replacement.”

  “That’s insane. Why would we leave one of the most vital parts of our power grid that vulnerable, and why would they not keep tons of redundancy?”

  “I fly a balloon for a living, man . . . I have no idea.”

  5

  He had faded back to sleep sometime later. The hypnotic ribbons of light lulling him into another world. A world of fantasy and “what ifs.” A world where he had the life he really wanted instead of this one. A life of daring and intrigue and not a car salesman. As he awoke from the dreams he did realize that . . . this one had definitely gotten more interesting.

  The light show was fading as the morning sky began to lighten. Lambert was at the control yoke now; McKay appeared to be dozing on a small cot on the opposite wall. He pushed his way into McKay’s seat with a “Good morning” to the other pilot. This was really the first time any of them had actually seen each other. Lambert was older than he had thought, probably early sixties. The face was pale and deeply etched with age lines. “Thanks for letting me tag along. I have to admit, never thought I would be on a blimp trying to get home. I’ll be glad to help out any way I can.”

  Lambert nodded, eyes returned to the dead instruments, then to the horizon. “Airship.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We refer to her as an airship, not a blimp. You are welcome, Steve. Just help us keep an eye out for problems. We rely on our ground crew and spotters and instruments. None of that no more . . . ”

  “Where are we now?”

  Lambert pointed out the side window. “I’m guessing over northeast Georgia. That’s I-85 down there. We will follow it in toward Atlanta. That is probably a few hours away, but I can see a smudge on the horizon; that is probably the city.”

  Steve briefly looked up at the sky in the distance then back to the highway below. The blimp—airship—was lower now. The details of the usually busy road were very clear. It was now an unbelievably long parking lot, interspersed regularly with horrific-looking accidents and people. My God, the people. Hundreds, more like thousands, all walking in a joyless march toward what? He was damn glad he hadn’t tried to get a car and drive—it would have been a disaster.

  “All those poor people stranded. I can only imagine what Atlanta is like.”

  “Aye, it’s scary. Nearly every city we have passed has been in ruins. The roads have been packed like that as long as I have been able to see. Hundreds of miles of stranded motorists. Everyone wanting to get home, and those that do will just find more of the same. The cities will be the worst. I am going to wake Mike up in a bit. I think we need to steer well north or south of Atlanta. Do you have a preference where we drop you? Or. . . have you decided you want to keep flying west with us? Just stay up here above it all?”

  He thought about
it for a few seconds. “No, thanks, but I need to get home.” The obvious direction was south of the city as that was closer to Steve’s home, but he was now thinking about the route, and maybe it was smarter to avoid certain areas than simply choosing the quicker routes. “West of the city I think would be best; the south side has some unsavory parts, and it has the airport. I think possibly closer to the state line might be quieter.”

  The pilot just nodded and kept staring ahead.

  The senior pilot, McKay, had other ideas. When he woke up, the airship was within thirty miles of Atlanta. Looking over all the gauges he shook his head. “We need to fly straight through. That wind last night took too much fuel, and it is still blowing us south. I don’t see any traffic lined up to land at Hartsfield, so let’s assume everything there is grounded. He pointed at a laminated map in his hand. Take a line south of the city and just north of the airport. We can try for this little airport here on the west side to let Mr. Porter out.”

  “Roger that,” Lambert replied.

  Steve knew he was talking about Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, normally one of the busiest airports in the world. He was still watching the crowd marching and camping along the interstate below. It was a human migration. It reminded him of all the families fleeing the war in the Middle East. Leaving everything behind as they marched into uncertainty.

  “Sure you wanna get in the middle of all that?” Lambert asked sarcastically. “You could stick with us to Texas.”

  McKay gave Lambert a look. He wasn’t in the mood to be as accommodating.

  Steve ignored whatever was not being said between them. “No, this is as close as you will get to my home. I will say I’m not looking forward to what comes next, but I have to try.”

  The men nodded. “You got any supplies in that bag of yours?”—it was McKay this time.