“Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.” Revelation 16:8-9
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
“We’ve had a massive solar eruption Sir, a really big one, and proton-dense.” Chad wasn’t anxious, but his voice was just slightly louder than normal.
Chad Myers, the NEO consultant on call, seemed too calm to be really worried. Tall, slender and very laid back, The Admiral sometimes wondered if Chad smoked pot before he came to work. Nothing ever got him hyped-up. Since he was an independent consultant, there were no pee-tests to be administered, so The Admiral may never know. He didn’t really care. Based on Chad’s work record and the papers he wrote for Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the dangers of Near- Earth Objects (NEO), he could smoke anything he wanted.
“How big?”
The Admiral, stately and gray on top, looked like an admiral, walked like an admiral and projected the confidence of the top line-officer ranking of the United States Navy. He walked toward Chad’s cubicle, gliding silently across the pale-gray conductive flooring in his special charge-neutral booties, an astrophysicist hurrying behind him, out of curiosity as well as necessity.
The Admiral didn’t like the booties, similar to those worn by surgeons; but he knew they were necessary. One static- discharge and the computer network could be toast. Burnt toast. Booties were not the proper image for an admiral, they weren’t even captain-like.
“I’ve never seen one bigger Sir, at least not in the record books. I know, I know, that’s not long in the whole scheme of things. Didn’t Carl Sagan say we were billions and billions of years old? Still, it’s very unusual, a magnitude of this size, and the speed and density.”
Walking into Chad’s cubicle, walls a soft-gray padding to absorb sound, The Admiral, at six-foot-six, bowed out of habit to avoid the doorsill, even though the cubicle had none.
The Admiral was an astronomer, as well as a submariner, schooled at the U.S. Naval Academy and then Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he received his Masters in astronomy. He then spent 3 years at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, fifty-six miles southwest of Tucson. It was at Kitt Peak that the admiral-to-be found his interest in Near-Earth Objects and the extreme dangers they posed.
“If the average Joe had any clue how much stuff’s zooming around up there, headed our way, he’d defecate in his doggone skivvies,” he told his buddy Jeff Ross one night, after a couple of Black Russians and a dozen or so raw oysters.
Though the first weather satellites were launched in the sixties, solar flare activity had only been monitored, at least closely, since the mid-seventies with the advent of the GOES satellite system.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) orbits Earth in a geosynchronous orbit, an orbit that keeps the satellite over one specific spot, 24/7.
Unlike the space station and the space shuttle, which orbit Earth at a lowly three hundred or so miles above the deep-blue sea, the geosynchronous satellite is located seventy-eight times farther away at 23,500 miles above Earth, enabling United States science observers, meteorologists and military strategists to watch a single area, every hour of the day, every day of the year, spotting objects smaller than a young, yellow kumquat.
Goddard Space Flight Center, located just a few miles north of Washington, D.C., was the main monitoring-central for all geosynchronous satellites dealing with the weather, astronomical activity and solar study. The military and CIA monitored the rest. In conjunction with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, Goddard also kept a close eye on Near-Earth Objects.
Between the weather watching and the raising of two teenage daughters, Goddard had helped Admiral McLemore to understand patience. Things usually happen very slowly in the world of astronomy, he knew. Usually. He also knew that anything could happen in the sky, night or day.
“How long before it affects us?” questioned The Admiral. “How fast is it going?”
“It’s going Sir, about a million miles an hour, fast but not unheard of. It’s high-density Admiral and should be here in about ninety-six hours. It will be affecting all the satellites within thirty-six hours. I’m not sure the satellite-deflector shields will work. I suspect some satellite damage. I think it’s unavoidable.”
Chad, always the same demeanor, leaned back in his gray vinyl chair with his left foot on the desk, barely missing the stale hamburger from yesterday, operating the wireless mouse and keyboard like Stradivarius crafting the exquisite lines of a soon- to-be violin in seventeenth century Italy.
Justin McLemore was not one to panic, or he wouldn’t be The Admiral, nor would he have been crowned an Honorary Knight by the Queen after helping England capture their most- wanted terrorist, Khalid Mehsud. Admirals were not easy to come by, especially of this quality.
Trained in the Navy as a UDT member, the younger McLemore had seen duty in Viet Nam and Iraq, twice, and a few places no one knew about. Nor would they ever, at least if it had to come out of then Lieutenant Junior Grade McLemore’s mouth. Members of the Underwater Demolition Team, the predecessor of the Navy SEAL program, never talked.
The United States Navy started the UDT program during World War II, an elite force to combat the enemy through waterborne aggression techniques. UDT members introduced combat-swimming, long-distance swimming on the surface, as well as SCUBA. The Admiral remembered the nine-mile swim that was required in training and was glad it was a long time ago.
“When you say big, what do you mean? Give me a worst- case scenario. Pronto. Educate me. You have three minutes, maybe less.”
The Admiral was not demanding but expected a job to be done, in fifteen seconds or less. Plus, Justin McLemore had known Chad Myers for seven years and could tell that something was on his mind.
“Sir, all I can say is, this is a highly-charged flare, very proton-dense and is traveling directly toward Earth at 630 kilometers a second. That’s more than a million miles an hour.
The Earth is ninety-three million miles away from Ole Sol, so do the math. Ninety-three hours, less than four days.
“When this thing hits, there will be blackouts in a large part of the world; because this is definitely going to Kentucky-fry some power grids.
“If we redirect the satellites and the deflector shields hold better than they did in 1985, we will save many. The military satellites will probably do well. They have some kind of top- secret shielding.” Chad waited for The Admiral’s reaction.
Picking up the secure-phone, Admiral McLemore called his good friend, General Thurman, at the Pentagon.
“Houston, we got a problem.” The Admiral didn’t need to identify himself, as he and Roy Thurman had been golfing buddies for many years. “We need to turn and shut down some satellites. Can you give Sheryl Lasseter a call? We need to all meet, pronto.”
Ninety three million miles to the vertical, the mother of all solar flares was being born in the womb of the sun, agitating deep inside the inner-solar core at a temperature of more than twenty-five million degrees, an event that would be, like a new movie, coming soon and would far out perform the present flare, rocketing toward a direct hit with Earth in less than four days. It would make its appearance next year during solar maximum.
Chad’s cell phone rang, breaking the tension, the melodic chime indicating a friend. He recognized Jeff Ross’ number.
“Hey homeboy! What’s up? I can’t really talk. We have a slight criiiiiisis, if you know what I mean,” drawing out crisis as though it was a four-syllable word. “The sun is burping, big time.”
“Hey Chad, how’s the wind blowing? We need to talk ASAP. Has anyone mentioned a bright flash in the sky last night? Anything unusual?” Jeff was unaware of the flash going on at the sun’s surface.
“Nope. Not that I’ve heard. The only flash I know about is the one that’s happening on the sun. And the wind is light blue and very mellow. I’ll call you back when I can. The Admiral would say hello but he’s redirecting satellites. He said he would be in Atlanta in a couple of weeks and was meeting you at Park Place for a drink. Gotta go.”
The line went dead, and Jeff wondered what it must be like to see the wind.
Raleigh was hot this late spring day. Unbelievably hot, especially for Easter weekend. The capital of North Carolina, Raleigh had been hot before, but man, it was sure hot today, Chuck thought, trying to remember if it had ever been this hot in his whole life.
Chuck Hutz lived in Raleigh but worked in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina’s brain tank.
Chuck was a short and portly little man, had that Danny DeVito look but with reddish hair and pasty skin. He had very little charm, less wit and was at least a universe away from being a part of the Research Triangle Park peer group. Chuck was not brain tank material. He had a mouth like Eddie Murphy’s in the seventies, though thanks to his next-door neighbor Ophelia, he was doing better. If Eddie could clean up his mouth, so could he.
Chuck had very few friends and was known by most as UpChuck or Hutz-the-Putz, at least behind his back. He didn’t understand why people didn’t like him and just figured they were screwed up, like the world.
“He makes me sick!” were the exact thoughts of Helen, who lived across the street from Chuck. “That’s why I call him Upchuck, and if’n he don’t lyke it, he can kiss my fat butt!”
Helen didn’t have a fat butt, but she sure had a way with words and pretty much spoke for the community. At 83, she had lived long enough to say whatever was on her mind; and she always did.
Still a driver of a 1998 Oldsmobile Behemoth, at least it seemed that big to all her neighbors, Helen often told Ophelia she was going to “run his ass down” the next time she saw Chuck driving down the street with that loud rap-crap playing on the radio. Ophelia, a proper sort of elderly Southern lady, prayed for Helen and her misguided vocabulary, hoping that certainly Judgment Day would remember the wonderful things she had done.
Chuck didn’t think much of his nosy neighbor Helen but thought Miss Ophelia seemed pretty nice. Driving his cobalt- blue Buick Riviera, from another era, Chuck would always crank-up-the-volume when he saw Helen in the yard and throw his arm up, a friendly wave as he passed by. One day he was sure she flipped him the bird as he looked in his rear view mirror, and he wondered how someone so old and mean could look so healthy and spry.
Walking to his locked Riviera, Chuck was already running late for work at the new RTP Ford and Mercury dealership on Highway 54. It would be the second late day in the first week of his employment.
His light blue, short-sleeved shirt, the buttons nearly popping under a pressure that the average button is not accustomed, was already damp from the early morning heat. The shirt stuck to his back, irritating the infection. A week before, Chuck’s girlfriend, finally convinced him to have his quite hairy back, waxed.
Within two days, where the follicles once wore the smooth, straight shaft of a single strand of hair, the newly-damaged follicles on Chuck’s pasty and broad back began to itch, and then ooze. The oozing meant he would have to wear his sport coat all day, to hide the stains on the back of his damp, blue shirt.
“My God,” he said out loud, glancing to the right and noting the temperature on the wall-mounted outdoor thermometer that was shaped like a lily pad. Chuck didn’t remember ever seeing the pointer at one hundred sixteen degrees, ever.
Opening the Riviera’s door, the blast of heat slapped Chuck in the face as surely as he had often been slapped in the face by his oldest brother when he was a kid. The black interior of the Riviera felt like Hades itself, sans sulphur, not that Chuck actually knew what Hades was like and probably would never know. He was, after all, saved and went to the Presbyterian Church on Hillsborough Street almost every Sunday.
Grabbing the steering wheel to pull himself in, he planned to start the car and let it cool for ten or fifteen minutes.
“Jeeesuss that’s hot!” In a split second Chuck knew he had made a big mistake. His muscles reflexed in the instant it took for the pain neurotransmissions to traverse his body’s neural- axon network, to the brain and back; but as fast as that transmission was, his palms were scorched, raw from the burns.
“Don’t you use the Lord’s name in vain Mr. Hutz!” the words rushing from Ophelia’s kitchen window like the smells from her homemade yeast rolls.
Jerking away, Chuck lost his balance and fell toward the black, asphalt driveway. His natural reflex was to catch himself with his hands, and he did. The one hundred thirty degree black surface seemed almost soft as his palms made their landing under the falling two hundred and thirty pound UpChuck. The damage to his palms was complete, and now there would be two infections to worry about.
“This is a really crummy day so far!” he shouted toward Helen’s house, not wanting to offend Ophelia; and with his tongue, he licked his raw and burning palms, trying to cool them with the only wetness he had without a clue as to how nasty his tobacco-chewing mouth really was.
Chuck flossed occasionally but not often, so between the chaw, the drinking and the sweets, and lack of proper mouth sanitation, the infection began to set in, bacteria and other microbes, not seen by the unaided eye, partied on the plains of Chuck’s ruined hands and broad back, multiplying in a frenzied, bacterial foxtrot only a microbe’s mom could love.
This day wasn’t nearly as crummy as it was going to get.