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Suicide Six: Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Fiction (The Lone Star Series Book 6)

Page 27

by Bobby Akart


  “Hey, Mom, it was a little warm out there,” said Alex as she threw her book bag in the back seat. Alex immediately adjusted the air-conditioning vents, stealing all the cold air for her face.

  Madison pulled out of line and made her way to the exit of the parking lot. “Sorry, honey. I was off in zuzu land for a minute. Where are we headed?”

  “We’re playin’ at Hillwood today,” replied Alex; then she added, “I’m pretty excited about it. Their home course was where the U.S. Senior Women’s Open was held this summer.”

  “Cool. You can compare your scores to theirs and see how they stack up.”

  “Different tees, Mom,” replied Alex.

  Madison wasn’t sure what that meant, so she shrugged it off. “I’ll make a few stops while I wait. There may be some things I missed for the party Friday night.”

  Alex studied her phone for a moment as she received a Snapchat notification. Her thumbs rapidly tapped a response. Madison was still mastering Bragbook and her latest passion, Instagram. She liked Instagram better because the users were friendlier. On Facebook, everybody seemed mad about something. She hated the negativity and the bullies.

  “Are you nervous about the party?” asked Alex, continuing to multitask, as young people called only paying half-attention to the person they were talking to. “You seemed like you were in a trance.”

  “No, I was just listening to the news. They were talking about solar flares and auroras.”

  Alex abandoned her socializing and immediately turned to her mother. “Really? That’s what we discussed in Mr. Stark’s class today.”

  “Apparently, there’s a potential for a solar flare that will create an aurora as far south as Maine. They didn’t act like it was a big deal, but I found it odd that it was being discussed on the news at all. I mean, don’t we have more important things going on in the world besides auroras?”

  “It could be important, Mom,” said Alex.

  Madison pressed her thumb on the steering wheel volume control and turned up the volume on the radio. Fox had two people yelling at each other about politics. Angry.

  “Try CNN,” she said to Alex, who pushed the preset on the dashboard. Madison turned up the volume further.

  “… an electromagnetic surge from a solar storm is a realistic threat. Scientists expect a major solar storm to reach the earth about once a century.”

  “Didn’t we have a near-miss in 2012?” the CNN host asked.

  “Yes. In fact, my colleagues submitted an analysis of this solar event to Scientific American magazine. It took nearly two years for the government to release the full details of what could have been the worst solar storm in our history.”

  “Was it a close call?”

  “The coronal mass ejection that occurred in July 2012 sent eighty billion pounds of energized particles toward our planet at the speed of several million miles per hour. Luckily it barely missed Earth. Had it occurred just one week earlier, our planet would have taken a direct hit.”

  “What would that mean in real terms?” the host asked.

  “Given our current state of readiness, we’d still be picking up the pieces,” the guest replied.

  “How bad?”

  “A major solar storm containing X-class flares sends these blobs of particles toward the earth, which carry their own magnetic field. These missile-like groups of matter are capable of opening a gate in the earth’s magnetic field, allowing the energetic particles to enter the atmosphere and send currents all the way down to the planet’s surface. They can induce currents in the electrical grid, overheat transformers, and cause them to fail. These enormous transformers that are part of our power grid can take months or years to replace. You can’t exactly buy another one at Home Depot.”

  “That explains it,” said Alex as she adjusted the volume.

  “Explains what?” asked Madison as she entered the iron gates at Hillwood Country Club.

  “Today, Mr. Stark completely abandoned our lesson plan. The homework assignment from last night had nothing to do with the sun and solar flares. He joked about the change of subject, but Mr. Stark really focused on the sun and its potential for danger.”

  “Do you think he knows something?”

  “Maybe,” replied Alex. “He made all of us download an app on our phones today. It’s called FlareAware.”

  “What’s it for?” Madison put the truck into park near the clubhouse entrance. Golfers were milling about, but she didn’t see any of the Davidson Academy team.

  “The app provides you up-to-the-minute reports on the sun’s activity. Most of the time, it doesn’t send you any alerts. But when a major eruption occurs, they send out phone voice mails and text alerts. FlareAware gives you real-time warnings where the news does not.”

  Madison popped the rear hatch to help Alex get her gear together. The Fox report had downplayed the potential of the solar storm. Why? Are they hiding something, or are they protecting us from ourselves?

  THANK YOU for reading this excerpt of 36 HOURS, the first book in The Blackout Series!

  IT IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON by searching Bobby Akart Blackout Series or by following this link:

  36 Hours, Book One, The Blackout Series

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  Copyright Information

  © 2018 Bobby Akart Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Bobby Akart Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Dedications

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author, Bobby Akart

  Foreword by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

  About Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  PART TWO

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  PART THREE

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Excerpt from 36 Hours

  Copyright Information

 


 

 


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