Cataclysm

by Tim Washburn

  Wednesday, September 29, 6:42 A.M.

  The hushed darkness of the observation room is a breeding ground for sleep—especially for Daniel, this semester’s intern. Tasked as the lone overnight worker, he is waging war against the heaviness of his eyelids during the final hour of his shift at the Space Weather Prediction Center. As his head droops to his chest a shrill noise pierces the silence so harshly he claps his hands over his ears.

  Daniel rockets out of the chair as if being ejected from a flaming-out fighter jet and stumbles from one computer monitor to another in a frantic search for the alarm’s source. With a shaky finger he thumbs his thick glasses farther up his nose as he races around the small room. This is the first time any type of warning has sounded during his two-month stay. His panic escalates. An alarm signaling . . . what? An asteroid on a collision course with Earth? The explosion of the sun? Or simply a minor malfunction?

  His predecessor had briefly mentioned something about alarms but no further explanation had been offered. “Not a concern,” he had been told. But now Daniel’s concerned. His heart is pumping faster than a freight train going uphill. He comes to an abrupt halt in front of the computer attached to a direct feed from the Tucson observatory perched atop Kitt Peak.

  The data scrolling across the screen looks more like ancient Greek to Daniel than some decipherable problem: a stream of numbers and words, most of them flashing red.

  “This can’t be good,” he mutters as he fumbles with the keyboard in an attempt to silence the ear-piercing noise. His fingers gouge at the keys, trying every possible combination including the old standby: Control-Alt-Delete. No luck. Daniel is breathing fast and what began as a quiver is now a full-on shake as he glances up to see Dr. Kaylee Connor, one of the paid scientists, racing toward him.

  “What the hell did you do, Daniel?” Kaylee shouts, hipping him away from the monitor.

  “I didn’t do a damn thing. It just went off.” He leans in closer for another look at the screen. “What the hell is going on?”

  Kaylee doesn’t answer. Her gaze is focused on the data scrolling upward like a machine possessed. Her fingers punch a precise combination of computer keys, and the alarm stops. Daniel releases a long sigh. But then he notices the worry on Kaylee’s face.

  Without turning her gaze from the screen, Kaylee says, “Daniel, get Sam on the phone and tell him to get his ass over here, pronto.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, damn it. Just get Sam on the phone.” She glances up at Daniel. “Now!”

  Daniel races to the nearest desk and grabs the handset only to slam it down a moment later. “I don’t know his number.”

  Kaylee shimmies her cell from the back pocket of her too-tight black jeans and tosses it across the room. “Sam’s in my contact list.”

  While he places the call, Kaylee turns back to the monitor. “Not fucking possible,” she whispers.

  She glances up to see Daniel racing across the room, the cell phone extended like a relay-race baton. “Sam,” he says, thrusting the cell into her hand.

  She slaps the phone to her ear. “We have a serious situation.”

  “What’s happened?” Dr. Samuel Blake, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center, says.

  “A massive CME triggered an alarm.” Her voice is laced with fear.

  “How massive and when?”

  “Off the scale. Our instruments recorded the ejection”—she glances at the clock on the wall—“about fifteen minutes ago. What do you want me to do?”

  “I’ll be there in five. Print out all the data and start calling everyone back into the office. No excuses. I want everybody on site and ready to go in thirty minutes.”

  Kaylee punches the off button on her phone and begins printing out all the material from the computer. Glancing up between tasks, she spots Daniel standing off to the side, a befuddled expression on his face. “Do something, Daniel. Start calling everyone and tell them to get their asses in here as fast as they can.”

  Daniel spins away.

  “Wait! First, print out everything from ACE, concentrating on the last four hours.”

  “Is the coronal mass ejection headed this way?”

  “We won’t know anything until you print out the data. Now move your ass.”

  Daniel rushes to the workstation where the information from the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite is viewed. His hands are shaking so severely he can hardly type. He logs on and begins to print out the data just as the computer screen winks out, as if the plug had been yanked from the wall. “Kaylee,” he shouts across the room, “ACE is down.”

  She turns away from her workstation and moves to his side. “What do you mean ‘down’?”

  “The screen just went black.”

  “What’s happening?” a deep voice booms across the room. They both glance up to see Samuel Blake, dressed in his usual khaki slacks and light blue shirt, striding in their direction. At six-two, he towers over both of them.

  “ACE suddenly went off-line,” Daniel says.

  “I’ve told them a thousand times that satellite could die at any minute.” Sam nudges Daniel away from the computer. “All those budget cuts are killing us.”

  “Why is this particular satellite so important?” Daniel says.

  “Without that bird, we’re blind.” Sam’s fingers race across the keyboard, holding down certain keys while punching others. When the screen doesn’t respond, he slams his hand on the desk. He whirls the chair around and stands. “Kaylee, get on the horn to NASA. Find out what the hell is going on with the satellite.” He makes a beeline toward his office down the hallway.

  Daniel follows, tugging his jeans up with every step. “What about the telescopes? Will we be able to see the plasma clouds?”

  “No. There won’t be any visible indicators. It’s just a seething mass of highly charged particles.” Sam pauses at the doorway to his office. “If ACE is out of action we’re blind. Without that data we won’t know a damn thing.”43

  Daniel turns away, but stops when Sam says, “Did you call everyone?”

  “I’m in the process.”

  “Make sure they understand the urgency.”

  “Yes, sir.” Daniel hesitates. “Dr. Blake, how long do you think before it hits here?”

  Sam rakes his hand through his thinning hair. “Maybe twenty hours, if we’re lucky. But it’ll be a crapshoot without that satellite.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Rural Oklahoma

  Zeke jackknifes up in bed, gasping for breath as the horrifying images slowly fade from his mind. He leans up on his elbow to check the time. The glowing red numerals indicate it’s either very late or very early. The air from the ceiling fan produces a rash of goose bumps across his sweat-drenched skin.

  Zeke collapses back on the mattress and stares at the ever-circling ceiling fan, the blurring blades just visible in the faint moonlight leaking through the curtainless window. Next to the bed, Lexi whines. He reaches a hand down to comfort her. Her body is also trembling as he spiders his fingers through her curly black-and-white coat. It’s as if she experienced the same dream. But do border collies have nightmares?

  The dreams/nightmares aren’t unusual, and though the frequency has diminished over time, their intensity hasn’t. He wipes his other hand across his damp face while struggling to vanquish the remaining remnants of the dream. Tonight’s episode is one of two recurring nightmares that crowd his unconscious thoughts. In this one the night is bitterly cold as he leans against the frigid metal interior of the rumbling Humvee as it travels along another of the treeless ridgelines that dot Afghanistan’s northern border. He’s not alone—four members of his squad are with him. With every nervous exhale their breath creates a thin fog within the confines of the lightly armored truck.

  This movie in his mind almost always ends at the same moment: when the IED explodes beneath their vehicle and the screams of agony overwhelm the concussio
n of the explosion.

  The second recurring nightmare is more recent, but no less terrifying.

  The night sounds drift through the window. Coyotes howl in the distance, and the buzzing of what sounds like thousands of insects floats in on the faint breeze. Another night in rural Oklahoma. No honking horns or the laughter of people departing a bar or traffic noise, just the sounds of nature’s nightlife. They wash over him until he fades into a restless sleep. A faint warmness on his cheek. He opens his eyes to see the sun hovering on the horizon, casting a slash of light on the far wall, turning a right angle where it meets the floor before spreading across the bed.

  Zeke pushes the covers off and pads barefoot into the kitchen, cracking the back door so Lexi can escape to do her business. He throws on a pot of coffee.

  He rubs his face with both hands, feeling as if he hadn’t slept at all.

  While the coffee brews, he shuffles across the hand-hewn wood floor and switches on the old thirteen-inch television. The ancient tubes warm and the grainy image of a newsreader on the set of the Today show fades onto the screen. Zeke turns back for a cup of coffee, half listening to the story playing behind him: “Residents in Alaska, Canada, and the northern portion of the U.S. were in for a treat during the night, with an unprecedented display of the aurora borealis. Scientists say the unusually high level of activity on the sun’s surface will produce numerous solar flares, which will continue to light up the night skies. They emphasize, however, that there are no concerns about the sun’s current volatility. That’s good to hear. Matt, any unusual lights out on the plaza?”

  He tunes out the rest of the chatter, and instead of letting Lexi in when she scratches at the door, Zeke joins her outside. He takes a seat in one of the four handmade chairs occupying the recently completed wooden deck. The attached house is a rustic one-bedroom, one-bathroom log cabin built from wood harvested from the eighty acres his parents inherited from Zeke’s grandfather. Five of which acres his parents carved out for him when his life shattered for the second time.

  The ringing of the old phone he salvaged from the barn interrupts his solitude. He pushes out of the Adirondack chair and hurries into the house. He already knows the identity of the caller. The only person who ever calls. He picks up on the fourth ring.

  “Good morning, Mom.”

  “Zeke, would you like to join your father and me for breakfast?”

  He sighs, struggling with their attempts to heal him. “Sure, Mom. Be right up.”

  He slips into the bedroom, pulls on a pair of well-worn jeans, and slides a flannel shirt carefully over his scarred shoulder. He walks through the kitchen and whistles for Lexi at the back door. It’s only about a quarter mile of gravel road to his parents’ home—far enough away for privacy yet still close enough if there’s trouble. There hasn’t been any since moving down, but today will prove different.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TIM WASHBURN graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a B.A. in Journalism and currently lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.