“Burn to death or die from tainted water?” she wheezed.
With survival at stake, it was an easy choice.
She dove in.
I-5 South of Sacramento, CA
“Mac! No!” Buck called after his Golden Retriever puppy, instantly knowing he wouldn’t come back. In those first few seconds of guilt, he beat himself up good and hard. On a normal day, Big Mac would never run away; he didn’t even have a leash. But today was the king of all jacked-up days. Thunder made the pup go insane.
He released the tension he’d been holding in his gut because he knew what he had to do. It was his fault Mac got out, so he had to rescue him.
Buck landed on the gravel next to the truck but glanced to his right to judge how much time he had left. All that anxiety came right back.
The storm bore down on his tractor-trailer and the cop car parked behind it. The monster system sucked in the air just as it did at the cloverleaf, and the wind speed rose with each second.
“Mac!”
The dog was a flash of golden fur out on the flat ground next to the interstate, but he’d turned around again and now headed to the left. He went for the edge of a farm growing endless rows of grapevines.
Buck vaguely heard the police officer yell at him, but he ignored everything that wasn’t his frightened friend. He got up to his best sprint, but his war-injured leg made him feel like he was skipping across the dusty field. He made better time running in a combat crouch.
“Stop!”
Each footfall of his work boots made the dirt leap into the air so it could be sucked toward the all-consuming storm. The increasing wind speed echoed loudly in his ears and he resisted the urge to look back.
There he is.
Mac had gone fifty yards through the empty field to reach leafy cover. He cowered behind the first row of vines but turned and barked at the giant monster chasing them both.
Buck ran a bunch of scenarios through his mind on how he was going to get the dog to go back to the truck. If Mac was scared and ran deeper into the vineyard, he might never come back. He couldn’t yell at him because the wind noise was now well beyond his ability to shout.
Thunder rumbled every few seconds, though he tried not to think about the constant lightning filling the air. He felt like the flash-bulb paparazzi was in hot pursuit. The crackle of static surrounded him.
He’d almost arrived at the vines when lightning struck somewhere close. Mac hopped sideways in what seemed like a reaction to it.
I’ll never get him.
But his futility turned to surprise when the dog darted around one of the bushy vines and ran past Buck. He tried to grab his collar, but Mac deftly avoided his reach.
“Whoa, boy!”
Mac’s bark was almost completely lost in the freight-train howl, but the dog took up a fighting stance a few feet behind Buck. His mouth opened and closed with cries, but all sound was immediately swallowed by the intense wind. The golden puppy barked at the storm like a junkyard dog protecting his favorite chewy.
Now Buck got a good look at what his delay had cost him.
“Oh. Fuck.” Only he heard his words.
The storm was thousands of feet tall and miles long, and it seemed to chew at the ground where it met the interstate. It looked like someone painted a black streak where the storm met the surface. It was an open mouth searching for things to eat.
He leaned toward the storm because of the wind.
No time, he thought.
Buck was proud of Mac for defending him against the creeping horror, but he wasn’t ready to let him die that way. There were no buildings or structures within sight to give them cover, and there were no overpasses where he could park his rig and hide. The only hope was getting back in the truck and outrunning the storm.
He didn’t think further than that.
“Sorry, little buddy!” he yelled into the wind as he bent down and scooped Mac into his arms.
Mac flailed for a few seconds at the surprise grab, but Buck held him tight as he ran for the truck.
“It’s me,” he said in the most soothing yell he could manage.
His bad leg strained under the heavier load as he ran with Mac in his arms. For an instant, his brain registered a memory of him carrying Garth during a bathroom emergency at his first professional baseball game. He held his tearful four-year-old in his arms as he raced him through the stands to get him to the men’s room. The heroic mission ended in a messy disaster, but it was a life event he and Marnie had laughed about for years.
Buck briefly imagined stepping outside his body and looking down on the running figure of himself. It made no logical sense to rescue the dog and risk his own life doing it. The wind was so strong, he felt it push him forward a bit each time both feet left the ground.
Leave no man behind.
It was a mantra he’d not thought about for years, but one he recognized in the running figure straining to reach the Peterbilt.
He came back into the moment as he pulled open the passenger door. It took a lot of effort, because the wind wanted it shut. He felt a twinge of panic at the notion of the wind conspiring with the mouth of the storm to kill him. Buck pulled it open again and used his body to block it.
“Get in there. Stay!” He used his command voice. There was no need to worry, however, because Mac went between the two front seats and jumped into his crate without looking back.
The door slammed shut as soon as he cleared the entrance and the instant silence was jarring. Buck didn’t hesitate. He hopped over the passenger seat and slid into the command chair, then fired up the diesel engine. He sat there for a micro-second appreciating the fact he and Mac were still alive.
“We’re getting out of here,” he said a little too loud.
The air brakes released, he crushed the clutch under his boot, and he threw the shifter into first gear. The storm filled his mirror.
So did the flashing lights of the trooper’s car.
“Move! Go!” Buck yelled at the officer, wondering if his paperwork and regulations were really the reason he was still there. Surely the man knew he was in danger.
Buck cycled his running lights, hoping the officer would see them and get the message.
He didn’t hesitate for a second. His responsibility was to Mac and himself.
The trooper’s lights faded as the darkness arrived. For a few seconds, he saw the glint of the cruiser’s front grille as lightning touched down all along the stormfront, but then it was swallowed by the dirt and arriving rain.
Buck flew through the gears like he was going for the quarter-mile sprint record, but 34,000 pounds of canned goods still took a lot of effort to pull. The Peterbilt complied like it knew the stakes, but the laws of physics would not bend.
The storm was in top gear, too. Buck shouted at the windshield and willed his truck to win the race.
Search for Nuclear, Astrophysics, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado
Faith pored over the printouts Mindy brought into her office. Some of them were private missives from the Feds, which she was forced to at least scan. There were so many regulatory agencies involved with her facility, it was almost impossible to keep up with all the advisories and factsheets. Reports also came from Azurasia Heavy and other corporate teams, plus the numerous university partners.
“From MIT. Dear Mrs. Sinclair,” she read aloud before adding, “it’s Ms., thank you. We appreciate your diligence in managing the shutdown of AH’s experiment but would respectfully request you resume operations with MIT’s block in the next twenty-four hours. Our experiment is critical…”
MIT banked some time in the research park, and they were scheduled to go right after the Azurasia team. Delay affected everyone.
Faith pretended to type. “I respectfully request you shove it up your arse.”
She turned to a stack of papers that was more relevant to her immediate problem. Public notices from news reports and state and federal agencies such as NASA a
nd NOAA. She had to cut through them and solve the riddle before Bob came in and explained it to her.
She grabbed the top one of the stack and scanned for the meat of the report. “The Weather Channel notes warnings have been issued for Summer Storm Audrey and Summer Storm Bella in the west. Audrey has formed along the coast of the Carolinas and is moving steadily toward the I-95 corridor of New England…”
She skimmed ahead because an East Coast storm was of no concern to her Colorado home. The other was slightly more relevant.
“Summer Storm Bella started over Northern California, but unusually strong jet stream currents have already sent it into the Central Valley region. Sacramento. Stockton. Modesto. Merced. Fresno. Be prepared. The weather service…”
Faith tossed that sheet. Weird weather couldn’t have stopped her experiment.
She leafed through a few more. An incredible amount of news had transpired in the past few hours.
“Russian fleet limps out of Murmansk.”
Pass.
“Subway collapse in New York City. Aging infrastructure blamed. Mayor concerned after plane fell from sky at La Guardia.”
Pass.
“Power grid collapse in Denver.” She read a few lines before picking it up. “Authorities working with Xcel Energy to restore power to customers in Littleton, Ken Caryl, and Columbine. Additional outages reported in Castle Rock, Larkspur, and Monument.”
“Bingo!”
The pattern of power loss was in the southwest corner of metro Denver, which was very close to SNAKE’s infrastructure. The university chose the location because it was close to the talent pool of research schools in the Denver and Boulder area, but it was also close to the Denver Tech Center, which was the Silicon Valley of the Rockies.
She read deeper into the brief article. “At approximately 12:08 pm today, residential and business customers lost power.”
That gave her pause.
The time should line up perfectly with the moment the experiment went offline, which was a few seconds before noon. It was impossible to forget the exact time because she’d been waiting all week for the experiment to wrap up.
Damn, it would have explained it nicely.
She made a mental note to check with the facilities staff on that one because they maintained the power and plumbing infrastructure. Belatedly, Faith admitted if the answer was that simple, Bob would have figured it out.
She leaned back in her chair and absently brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “At approximately noon today, something happened and took our experiment offline...” She recalled the fax she’d given to Mr. Shinano. At the time, it was self-evident from government reporting that a meteor sent electromagnetic interference all over the planet and ruined his multi-million-dollar experiment, but upon reflection, it seemed odd Denver didn’t go out until almost eight minutes later than SNAKE. Was there a design flaw she’d missed that made Denver survive the blue light a little longer? It would give Bob one more arrow for his career-takedown quiver.
She continued thinking out loud. “That same event caused storms on the coasts, a subway and plane crash in New York, and ships put out to sea in Russia. What the holy hell am I missing?”
She prided herself in thinking outside the box. As a scientist, that was a requirement for breaking new ground in her field, but as a woman, it served her well on the climb up the ladder of advancement. If there was no correlation among the reports after the noon event, maybe there was something recorded in the morning before the power was lost.
Faith thumbed the faxes and printouts but was unable to find one piece of relevant news from before the power failure.
She picked up the phone and spoke at warp speed. “Mindy? I want you to give me the hourlies for this morning and the overnight hours. I breezed through them already, but I would feel more comfortable looking at them on my desk. Also, get me any important news events that took place this morning, before noon. There is a news article about ships leaving Russia in a hurry. Could we be going to war? Perhaps the Feds drained our power for military use.”
Mindy took a second to reply, as if she’d been writing it down. “I’ll have it for you in fifteen minutes. Would you like something to eat, as well?”
It was unusual for her friend to offer food, but she’d been going at it since before lunchtime. The day was supposed to include a celebratory pizza party after the conclusion of their first experiment, but of course, it was canceled. She was famished.
“Thank you, yes. I’ll eat while I work. I’ll call facilities while I wait.”
She was confident the answer was close.
Sixteen
I-5 between Sacramento and Stockton, CA
Buck cheered for his heavy metal steed. “Come on, baby, you can do it!”
He thought of his trusty Peterbilt as a member of his family, but he was afraid to think up a nickname. He tended to drive his cars and trucks until they fell apart, so getting overly attached would make the final separation much harder. Whatever it was called, the wind had arrived, and he needed the semi to escape the same forces that swallowed the police cruiser like it was a toy.
The tornadic updraft pushed against his front grille.
“You got this, girl,” he said as he simultaneously downshifted and gave it more gas. The storm’s wind was powerful enough now that if they’d been driving sideways along its front, the trailer would have been flipped, taking the truck with it. Since they were driving directly into the wind, all he had to do was keep the truck moving in a straight line. It helped she was fully laden with cargo.
The highway had a slight bend to the left ahead, and he was worried that it would be enough for the wind to side-swipe him.
The only solution was to get there ahead of the storm, so he struggled to get more speed out of the engine. For a few tense seconds, he imagined a powerful gust grabbing the truck and sending it into the sky, like in the movie Twister, but all at once, the wind lost its grip and the truck lurched forward as it escaped the menacing embrace.
“Yes!”
When the needle hit seventy-five, he exhaled in relief.
“Thank you. You’re the best.” He rubbed the dashboard, then looked to Mac. “This time, we’re really in the clear. Never a doubt in my mind we’d get away.”
Fortunately, his dog couldn’t call him out on his fib.
To his surprise, there were still cars and trucks arriving on the northbound lanes. However, he didn’t need to use his radio to get them to turn around. The storm kept growing behind him, and there was an endless stream of vehicles making U-turns across the median and hightailing it back south.
He slowly shook his head thinking of the trooper. “You should have gotten the hell out of there. Didn’t anyone teach you common sense?”
Buck held up his right hand, disappointed to see a slight tremor. He was coming down off the adrenaline rush from rescuing Mac. Buck’s leg was also hurting; the pin in his shin felt like he’d bent it during his run.
“We’re okay,” he said in a calming voice.
Channel 19 came back from the static, but he didn’t want to take either of his hands off the wheel, lest that shaking become serious.
He drove for many minutes, lost in thought. Should he have tried harder to save the trooper? He shouted something when Buck got out of his cab, but he didn’t see him when he brought Mac back home. The mental replay made him realize he didn’t think about the officer again until he returned to his truck. What if he needed help?
Some people were beyond help. The trooper refused to listen. His own decisions had been his undoing. The trooper had to live with the consequences.
Buck checked his mirror. He prayed he’d see the lights coming up behind him again. Not that he was going to pull over. He’d drive until he ran out of gas before he stopped in front of the storm again. Jail be damned.
“I hope he made it,” he murmured.
He needed to change the subject. “Big Mac, you little demon baby, I’ve got to make s
ure you never go walkabout again. You hear me?” He chuckled at how close he’d come to being swept away to Oz. He wasn’t mad at Mac, but he felt he’d let them both down with his lack of preparation.
“We’re going anyplace in that direction.” Buck pointed south toward clear skies, but the simple act came with a pang of professional guilt.
As a commercial freight hauler, one of his greatest enemies was going backward during a delivery. The quickest way to New York state was Interstate 80, and he was hardwired to get there, no matter what. The fact Garth was at the destination added to his tunnel vision about the short route. It took a near-death experience to make him consider other ways to get there. Going backward would cut into his schedule, but there was no other choice. It was as if an earthquake had put the Grand Canyon where the interstate used to be. He could no more drive through that storm than he could drive across the canyon.
He jumped in his seat when Freddy the GPS unit on his dashboard suddenly came to life. “You are off route. You are off route.”
“No shit!” he said with a laugh before clicking the unit’s mute button. It should have complained about the route change a long time ago, but he imagined the cloud bank went far up into the atmosphere and probably blocked the GPS signal.
He needed to get far away from the bad weather before it grew any larger. Step one on that journey was going due south on I-5. He’d go all the way back to Modesto if necessary.
“Yeah,” he thought out loud, “Modesto is ass backward on our route, but we can use it to our advantage. We know the place well.”
All of Buck’s adult life had been spent preparing for the worst. First, on the battlefield. Later, he became one of “those guys” who stocked up on survival gear and freeze-dried food. Now, far from home, and after almost accidentally killing himself, the trip across the country suddenly seemed very dangerous. There could be other storms along the way.
Maybe that blue light was the planet finally getting tired of global warming?
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 13