by Tom Abrahams
“I read about this in a journal a few years back,” said Chandra. “Our earliest space weather researchers, military scientists, alerted command about the possibility of communications disruptions from a solar storm.”
Treadgold raised his cup in a toast to his colleague. “I’m impressed. Yes, that single event convinced our government of the importance of monitoring space weather, how critical it is to national security. It also proved the need for a place to escape the ravages of both war and space weather.”
“How so?”
“Even in the 1950s, we knew our reliance on electronics was accelerating exponentially. In the event of a nuclear attack, the resulting electromagnetic pulse, or a catastrophic solar event and its capacity to kill communications and power, society would collapse.”
“Collapse?” Chandra echoed. “That’s extreme.”
“Is it though?” asked Treadgold. “We’ve seen estimates that every day without power costs the United States economy forty billion dollars. Every day. What civilization can survive a shock to the system like that?”
Chandra adjusted his chair. He sat forward and rested his elbows on the table.
“Remember, Vihaan, we were also in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and the early years of the Vietnam conflict and—”
“War.”
“Excuse me?”
“Vietnam was a war, it wasn’t a conflict.”
Treadgold smirked. “Whatever. The point is that we were engaged in fighting communism, among other things. Those in power during that tumultuous time decided we needed safe spaces for both continuity of government and for rebuilding society. They identified viable spots all over the country, and this was one of them. Although the work began, it was a cost-prohibitive effort. So during the Reagan administration, a public and private partnership was formed. That’s where my employers came into the fold. We seamlessly integrated our efforts into all of the critical institutions—the military, the Departments of State and Energy, Homeland Security, and of course NOAA.”
“Homeland Security didn’t exist under Reagan.”
“You’re right, it didn’t,” said Treadgold. “Bush created the agency when it was apparent the Descent Protocol was too unwieldy. We needed a singular agency that—”
“Homeland Security was created because of 9/11.”
Treadgold smiled. “Sure it was.”
“So this is some vast conspiracy?”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” said Treadgold. “I would call it a coordinated effort to preserve our way of life in the face of a catastrophic event.”
“What way of life is that?”
Treadgold’s brow furrowed. “The American way.”
Chandra leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. His fingers gripped his hair, tugging at the roots. His head was swimming. He squeezed his eyes closed.
“So instead of trying to maintain some sort of structure and help everyone survive,” he said, “you callously calculated society would collapse? You left everything to chance and assumed the worst?”
“We didn’t assume anything. We know it will collapse. We know that for a fact. It’s already happening. We’ve merely separated the wheat from the chaff.”
“How do you know?”
“We just do. Seriously, Vihaan, I’m beginning to question my decision to bring you here.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
Treadgold’s face relaxed and he finished his coffee, tapping the coffee cup as he tilted it back to drain the final drops. “My bosses gave the option of picking some last minute additions. People I thought would be of some benefit. Things were already in motion. I’d seen you hard at work since the first CME hit. I trust you. You’ve always been discreet. You don’t have family. So I thought…” He shrugged.
Chandra slid his elbows from the table and folded his arms across his chest. He studied Treadgold’s face, tracing the creases and folds with his eyes.
“Last minute?” asked Chandra. “I thought the decision to activate the protocol was made after I told you about the second CME? That’s what you told me. You were surprised when I told you there was a new threat. You said—”
“I know what I said,” Treadgold cut in forcefully. “I couldn’t tell you that we were already headed underground, that we already knew a second CME was on its way. Did you think you were the only one who’d figured that out? You’re good, Vihaan, but really.”
Chandra sat back in his chair and dropped his arms to his sides. The ache in his stomach deepened and the nausea floated back to the surface. He swallowed the urge to vomit.
Treadgold reached out and grabbed his hand. “Don’t you understand how lucky you are? How lucky all of us are to be here, to have a chance at making society better than it was?”
“All of us?”
“Yes, all of us.”
“What about the prisoner? The man found wandering around outside?”
Treadgold let go of Chandra’s hand and withdrew into his chair. The color drained from his face. He picked up the empty cup of coffee and then set it back on the table before squeezing it with his fist.
“I heard people talking about it,” said Chandra. “Who is he?”
Treadgold took a deep breath and held it. He exhaled through his nostrils. He shifted his weight in the chair, scooting it while he cleared his throat. “He’s an astronaut.”
Chandra chuckled at the absurdity of the answer until he noticed Treadgold wasn’t laughing. “Astronaut?”
“Yes,” said Treadgold. “He was on the International Space Station. Somehow, and we don’t understand how he did it, he managed to escape the ISS. He landed in Canada, found a working plane, and flew it until it crashed not far from here.”
“Was he looking for us? Is NASA part of the…the…new world order?”
Treadgold shook his head. “Don’t call it that.”
“Is NASA involved in preserving the American way?”
“No. They ask too many questions and they’re too transparent. They know the bunkers exist, that’s about it. They weren’t advised of any Descent Protocol procedures.”
“So the astronaut just landed here by chance?”
“Seems so.”
“Which one? I think we had three men aboard the ISS. Two astronauts and one cosmonaut. They—”
“I’m aware of who was aboard the ISS. It’s unimportant.”
“What are you doing with him?”
Treadgold shrugged. “Nothing. He’s staying here. He’s in building four for now. Once he acclimates, he’ll have a job like everyone else.”
Chandra scratched his head. He rubbed his heavy, burning eyes and looked at his DiaWatch. It was late.
“I’m telling you all of these things in confidence,” said Treadgold, pushing away from the table. “These are not things the general population knows about, okay?”
General population. Like a prison. “I understand,” said Chandra.
Treadgold plucked the crinkled cup from the table and stood. “If you have questions, you come to me. Don’t use the Telenet. It’ll only cause problems.”
The American way of life. “Okay,” Chandra said. “I’ll be sure to ask you first.”
Treadgold motioned for Chandra to follow him from the cafeteria. The two rode the elevator silently and went their separate ways. Chandra accessed his room with his keycard. The overhead lights flickered on as he walked to the desk. He set down the DiaTab and took off his DiaWatch. He sat down on his bed, the mattress sinking under his weight, and took off his shoes. He spun his feet from the floor and lay atop the covers, resting his head on the cool pillow. He stared at the LED lights recessed into the ceiling of his cell. As he drifted off, he had no doubt he was in a cell. Chandra knew without a doubt that he, the astronaut, the strawberry blonde named Sally, the little scientist Henry Rector, and even Treadgold, whoever he truly was, were all prisoners here.
CHAPTER 7
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020, 5:08 AM CST
Jackie’s eyes popped open and she sat up in her sleeping bag, bracing herself on the floor with her elbows. She was drenched in sweat, her heart pounding. Her chest heaved as she breathed in and out.
It was dark in the room, but her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see the outlines of the people sleeping nearby. Jackie felt for Marie. She was there. So was Chris. Both were snuggled next to one another in their nylon cocoons. Jackie exhaled.
They’re okay.
Her dream had been too real, its tentacles still tickling the back of her neck as she sat there, reminding herself it had been a nightmare. As her heart rate slowed, she lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes.
Jackie didn’t frequently remember her dreams. And when she did, they were farcical. They were reality laced with the fantasy she’d subconsciously stolen from the books she’d read. This one, though, stung with the reality of the nasty world in which she now found herself. Her children had disappeared while scouring makeshift tenements for scraps of food. She’d searched endlessly for them and couldn’t find them. No matter what she’d tried or where she’d looked, they eluded her. It was a future she feared was all too real.
Awake, lying in the nondescript NASA office, Jackie’s mind slid from the fear of what could be to the terror of what was. Her husband and best friend, Clayton, was the one missing. She’d told herself and her children, despite logic telling her differently, that he was coming home to them. Against the astronomical odds, he would find a way. It wasn’t until Irma had told her he was on Earth she realized how unlikely it was she’d ever see him again.
“We are confident he landed. And we believe he is alive. Your husband is alive and trying to get home.”
Irma’s words repeated themselves in her mind as if they were the only verse of a song she could remember.
Alive. Trying to get home.
Jackie had learned that the Soyuz hatch was opened after crash landing. They’d been able to pinpoint the signal and knew that the Russian capsule had landed in Jasper, Canada, on or near the Columbia Icefield.
Using a surviving satellite, they’d found the capsule. They could even see footprints and a wide path leading away from it. There appeared to be a rudimentary camp. There was, however, no sign of life at the crash site. They’d made the educated guess the survivor had dragged supplies from the crash site toward a nearby visitors’ center. There was no way to confirm any of it. And even if they had proof of life, getting help to the site would have been a gargantuan task that would have taken days or weeks. But Irma had told Jackie, regardless, they’d had a lucky break.
“Thanks to an atmospheric condition called ‘tropospheric ducting’, we are receiving radio signals from much farther than we would normally be able to hear,” Irma had said.
“What does that have to do with Clayton?” Jackie had asked.
“One of our radio operators was monitoring a common frequency,” Irma had explained. “We heard parts of a call that was reaching out to anyone listening. While we weren’t able to connect, that operator made a note of the frequency and began recording all transmissions. By chance, he picked up on a brief, garbled conversation between two men.”
Irma had shown Jackie the hand-scribbled transcription of the snippets of conversation they’d been able to hear clearly enough to understand the communication:
This is VA6CXX. I hear you, KD5XMX. Were you in an accident? I don’t know my location yet. Name is Steve. Maybe I can help.
“The man’s name is Steve,” Jackie had said. “Why would you think he’s talking to Clayton?”
“KD5XMX is Clayton’s ham radio call sign,” Irma had said. “We were listening to Clayton talk to someone named Steve Kremer. We found his identity by searching a manual log of North American amateur radio licenses. According to the license, he lives a few hours from where Clayton crash-landed.”
Jackie looked at the words on the paper. I don’t know my location. Maybe I can help. She wanted more than that. She wanted to know if the man named Steve had been able to help. She wanted to get on the radio herself.
Irma had insisted they had people working on it. They’d been trying unsuccessfully to hail Clayton or Steve. Nothing had worked. Then the temperature changed, the tropospheric ducting diminished, and their ability to hear anything beyond line of sight was gone. That snippet was all they had or would have. They were still monitoring the frequency, but the chance of hearing anything north of Dallas was miniscule.
Irma had told Jackie she thought the information would be comforting; they knew he was alive when he’d landed, he was mobile, and he’d made contact with others. It should have been comforting. It wasn’t. It tore at Jackie’s gut. It made her legs tingle with weakness. To Jackie, the idea that her husband was in Canada made him seem farther away than he was when he was orbiting the planet. At least when he was in space she could look up and feel close to him.
The thought that he could safely find his way however many thousand miles from the Canadian Rockies to southeast Texas was suddenly ridiculous. There were few cars, little available gasoline, and no airplanes.
Jackie shivered in her sleeping bag and pulled it up her neck. Her sweat had dried and cooled her skin, but she couldn’t be sure it was the chill that sent the shudder through her body.
For the first time in a long time, she prayed for her husband. She had trouble forming the words at first, as if the guilt of seeking help was preventing her from speaking. She licked her lips and tried again, her words a whisper soft enough for only God to hear.
“I’m not devout,” she said. “I don’t go to church or help the poor. I’m not religious at all. In fact, you know I roll my eyes at those people who close their eyes and wave their hands while they’re singing hymns.”
Jackie’s mouth curled into a self-conscious smile at the vision of the faithful parishioners she’d see on Sunday morning television as she flipped through the channels, looking for the ubiquitous reruns of House Hunters.
“I’m not asking for you to help me,” she whispered, her eyes affixed to the ceiling. “I’m asking you to help Clayton, wherever he is.”
A lump caught in her throat and she blinked back tears. She didn’t believe her prayer would make any difference, but she felt helpless to do anything else. She jumped when she felt a cold hand on her cheek.
“Mom?”
Jackie pulled her hand from underneath the warmth of the sleeping bag and touched the soft hand on her face. “Marie? How long have you been awake?”
“Long enough to hear you pray,” she whispered. “That’s a first.”
Jackie gently squeezed her daughter’s hand. “It never hurts, right?”
Marie inched closer to her mother. “What did they tell you about Dad? We fell asleep before you got back. I tried to stay awake.”
Jackie hesitated. She could be a realist and tell her daughter the unsanitized truth, or she could spin it, shine it up, and present an optimistic version. She smiled and stroked Marie’s hair, pulling the strands behind her ear.
“Your dad is alive,” she said. “He’s back on Earth. He’s—”
“But,” interrupted Marie, her voice still a whisper. “I know there’s a but coming.”
Jackie’s smile disappeared. “But he’s in western Canada somewhere.”
“Canada?”
“That’s where he landed. He’s made radio contact with someone who might be able to help him.”
“How is he going to get home, Mom? Is NASA sending someone to get him?”
“I don’t…”
“You don’t what?”
Jackie ran her fingers along her daughter’s cheek. It was damp. She thumbed away tears from beneath Marie’s eye. Her own eyes welled. She squeezed them closed and opened them again to see her daughter had drawn closer, her face inches away.
“Mom!” she whispered forcefully. “You don’t what?”
“I don’t have an answer for that, ho
ney. NASA isn’t going to get him. By the time they go to where they located him, he’d likely be long gone. There’s nothing we can do but wait.”
A third muted voice joined the conversation. “We could go to Canada,” said Chris. He poked his head over his sister’s sleeping bag and draped his arm across her. “We could leave here and head north.”
“When did you wake up?” asked Jackie.
He pulled on his sister’s sleeping bag and pulled himself perpendicular to her, leaning his weight on her hip. “A couple of minutes ago. I heard you talking about Dad.”
Marie shrugged off her brother, but he held onto her side. “Get off me, Chris.”
“Chris,” said Jackie, “please get off your sister. You can come over here.”
The boy unzipped his bag and crawled across his sister. She groaned and gave him a healthy shove. He tumbled over his mom and landed on the floor.
“Mom!” he cried. “She pushed—”
“Shhhh!” Jackie said. “C’mon, kids, I’m not in the mood. Please don’t aggravate one another.”
“Sorry,” said Chris, leaning on his mother.
“Sorry,” Marie mumbled.
“Look,” Jackie said, “the truth is we can’t leave here. Not yet. We don’t have transportation and we’re certainly not walking to Canada.”
“How is Dad getting here if he doesn’t have transportation?” asked Chris.
Jackie buried her fear. She ignored the voice telling her Clayton wouldn’t make it back to Texas, humoring her children. It was what they needed, and their needs outstripped hers. She faked what she knew was a convincing smile.
“Your dad always finds a way, right? He figured out how to get back to Earth. That was probably a lot tougher than getting from Canada to Houston. He’ll find a way, kids. He always does.”
CHAPTER 8
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020, 6:42 AM CST
COUPLAND, TEXAS
Rick Walsh woke up to the sound of men’s voices. They were sharply barking military commands issued above a whisper that aimed to maneuver teams into right positions. They were coming from the other side of Brushy Creek on the southern side of Gus Gruber’s property.