Extinction

by Ray Hammond

  Despite having had almost a century and a half since 1906 to get ready for another large earthquake, the Bay Area authorities had turned out to be woefully under-prepared for the scale of the seismic calamity when it finally came.

  The city authorities had no temporary morgues and no processing procedures capable of dealing with 500,916 fatalities in a single day, nor the 136,879 deaths that followed in the ensuing forty-eight hours. Power was out across the entire area, and there were no crematoria or cemeteries able to cope with such vast numbers of deceased. The military took charge.

  Lucy Fairfax and her two sons were buried at sea, from the deck of a large US Navy cargo ship. Almost 14,000 others were committed during the same ceremony, the dead far outnumbering those few mourners who, like Michael, stood on the deck as pallet after pallet of white, weighted bundles were brought up from refrigerated holds and slid down into the ocean.

  None of the other Fairfax relatives or in-laws were able to attend this hastily arranged committal. Lucy’s own parents were in Los Angeles and Michael’s parents lived in Lake Tahoe, but no commercial flights were yet landing in the Bay Area. In any case, there was still no civilian access to the city. It was estimated that it would be at least a year before any new airport facilities could be built. Replacement bridges to link downtown San Francisco to the mainland were expected to take even longer, and many were already questioning the wisdom of rebuilding in such a high-risk zone.

  The day after his sons and ex-wife were committed to the Pacific, Michael gathered up the paperwork and data dumps he kept at his damaged home, packed two large suitcases, and drove the 250 miles to Reno, Nevada. There he boarded a flight to Chicago and travelled on overnight to Brussels.

  Within thirty-six hours of his arrival in Europe, he was making a presentation to the managing partners of Beauchamp, Seifert and Co, the world’s leading environmental and human-rights law practice. Being a prudent man, Michael had kept back-ups of every piece of paper and every scrap of data intended for his hulk-people case at his own home.

  The partners agreed unanimously to fund Michael’s case, to appoint him an associate partner of the European firm, and to retain in escrow a proportion of any compensation won for the benefit of Gravitz, Lee and Kraus of San Francisco – if and when that stricken firm was able to resume its own practice or appoint liquidators.

  ‘I will now take any questions,’ Michael told his audience. A forest of arms shot up and he pointed his latex-gloved hand towards a man in the front row. One of the presentation assistants handed a microphone to the first questioner.

  ‘Chris Van Assche, NTL,’ announced a tall balding man. ‘Despite the very large sums that you are claiming from the energy companies, you have not told us exactly how you will proceed with this case. What will be your first step?’

  Michael nodded, pleased by the question. He had deliberately kept his formal statement to a minimum, with the intention of supplying the more important detail during Q & A. That made journalists feel they had wheedled the information out for themselves.

  ‘We have this morning applied to the Court of International Civil Justice in The Hague for two injunctions – the first naming Mr Nicholas Negromonte, the second his ERGIA Corporation – to order them to shut down all extraterrestrial solar reflectors, refractors, lenses and focusing devices and to cease providing climate-management services throughout the world.’

  There was an immediate hubbub, exactly as Michael had hoped for. Flashlights flared and a loud hum of conversation filled the large room, while twenty questions were shouted at once, all without the benefit of a microphone and all wholly unintelligible.

  ‘Tomorrow we will seek similar injunctions against all the other companies who offer climate-modification services,’ added Michael, over the din. ‘Climate management must henceforth be completely shut down.’

  *

  ‘Tune in to CNN now,’ said Narinda Damle as he burst into Perdy’s office. ‘Your pal Negromonte’s being sued.’

  She pressed a button on a remote, and the wall-screen came to life.

  They saw a tall, dark-haired man addressing a press conference. Beneath the picture, a screen caption read:

  World’s Largest-Ever Lawsuit Launched Against Major Energy Companies

  ‘Record,’ Perdy told her system. Then she punched the buttons necessary to patch the TV feed through to the workstations used by the rest of her production team.

  They saw a balding journalist rise to his feet. ‘What are your grounds for seeking these injunctions, Mr Fairfax? What will you be telling the court in The Hague?’

  ‘I now have evidence that weather-management technologies are seriously disrupting this planet’s magnetic fields,’ the lawyer said. The TV director in Brussels cut away to show the audience reaction. There was now absolute silence. Many of the attendant journalists were recording, some taking notes. ‘And this is now affecting materials way beneath our feet – at the planet’s very core. In fact, I have scientific evidence about climate management which proves that by reflecting so much additional solar radiation towards the Earth the massive increase in electrically charged particles is warping the magnetosphere, the Earth’s magnetic shield. In turn, these new forces are pulling at the magnetic fields deep in the planet’s mantle and this is the direct cause of the devastating volcanic eruptions and earthquakes we have been suffering lately.’

  ‘You’ve got to get him for our film,’ said Damle. ‘Find out how long he’s going to be in Europe.’

  Perdy reached for her phone. ‘I’ve got a friend at CNN,’ she told her boss. ‘She’ll be able to find out his immediate movements.’

  *

  Michael Fairfax pressed a button on his remote control and turned to the large 3-D presentation screen. The house lights dimmed, and the audience watched Professor Fivetrees’s shimmering hologram of the Earth and its force fields. Michael allowed the demonstration to run without comment. When it was finished and the room lights had come back up, he picked up a wireless microphone and walked to the front of the stage.

  ‘What you have just seen is a model of the Earth’s magnetic poles reversing,’ he told them. ‘It was created by one of the world’s leading experts in geoscience but he has been officially gagged by an American government secrecy order. However, in view of the devastating San Francisco earthquake he now considers this issue so important that he is prepared to give evidence personally to the international court in The Hague.’

  As Michael paused, scores of hands shot up. He held up a white-gloved palm. ‘But there is even more direct evidence of serious disturbance inside the earth. In the days following the eruption of Mount Māriota on Samoa, an American seismologist recovered large pieces of radioactive heavy metals from its slopes. According to this expert such a find is unique and suggests that material is now being forced to the earth’s surface from a very deep source indeed.’

  This time when he paused no hands shot up. They were struggling to understand the implications of this startling information.

  ‘These radioactive samples are now in the hands of the US military, and yet again the US government has imposed a National Secrecy Order to prevent the seismologist who made the find from publicizing or talking about this remarkable discovery. However, following the disaster in San Francisco, the scientist concerned is now also prepared to give personal evidence to the Hague court.’

  Los Angeles Times

  Wednesday, 16 August 2055

  PFO RENOUNCES VIOLENCE

  In a statement e-mailed to the LA Times, the Executive Committee of the Planet First Organization claims to have renounced all forms of violent protest following the San Francisco earthquake. The statement was accompanied by recognized code words which have previously been used by the PFO. The statement reads:

  From today, the Planet First Organization will no longer use any form of direct or violent action to draw attention to the perilous state of this planet’s health. The world has already been given the clearest
possible demonstration of the catastrophes awaiting us if we do not abandon climate management and other technologies that are being used to mask the true effects of global heating.

  ‘Hey, Nick, how’s tricks?’

  ‘Good morning, Mr President. Fine, thank you, fine. And yourself?’

  ‘I’m good, Nick, but I’m also a little worried about you guys floating around up there.’

  Nicholas Negromonte, CEO of the ERGIA Corporation, was speaking from his private quarters aboard the company’s main space station. He propelled himself over to his window and craned his neck to locate the eastern seaboard of the United States. Then he ran his eyes down to the Delaware peninsula: Washington DC should be just to the west – there.

  ‘In what way, sir?’ They hadn’t selected visual.

  ‘This lawsuit, Nick – it’s getting a hell of a lot of coverage.’

  ‘Better now than later,’ said Negromonte. ‘It will all have blown over before we welcome you to the moon.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that too, Nick. Don’t you think it might be wise to delay things for a while?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Negromonte firmly, aware that if the date slipped the forthcoming election year would make it almost impossible for the American President to reschedule a visit. ‘No need at all.’

  ‘So there’s nothing to this idea of a link between climate management and earthquakes?’ asked James Underwood. ‘What about San Francisco?’

  ‘Sir, that just proves how hysterical all this is. We’ve known for over a century that a major quake was due in California. The whole state sits on one gigantic fault line. To claim that a little reflected sunshine caused that is ridiculous.’

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘In fact, what we most need is the extra output that the moon facility is going to provide,’ the ERGIA boss pressed on. ‘There are almost twenty nations waiting for climate management, and over the next three years we estimate that will add an extra six per cent to GDP in those regions.’

  ‘That brings me to another point, Nick,’ said the President. ‘I might just need to beg a little of that additional output from you.’

  *

  ‘You can’t believe how these people are forced to live!’ said Michael Fairfax vehemently, jabbing a forefinger at the image of the hulk people now frozen on the wall screen. ‘They have no official status as refugees, so that means they have less than nothing. They’re even denied natural weather!’

  In person, the good-looking American attorney that Perdy Curtis had seen on television looked haggard and drawn. There was a burning intensity in his eyes which seemed at odds with his pallor and his anxiously twitching white-gloved hands. He was pacing as he talked, as if he was constantly on edge.

  Their meeting was taking place in his suite at the Brussels Intercontinental and he had just shown Perdy his own footage of the hulk platform adrift in the southern seas.

  ‘But they’ve now turned pirate,’ objected the TV producer, deliberately playing devil’s advocate. She had already come to the conclusion that this attorney could make a very powerful contribution to her upcoming film and perhaps to the live debate to be broadcast from the moon. ‘What about the Global Haven?’

  ‘That doesn’t affect their historical claim,’ Michael said forcefully, ‘and it’s only a small minority of the refugees who are on the move. Most of their ships are still trapped inside the Antarctic Circle.’

  He walked over to the window and stared down into the busy Avenue Louise far below.

  ‘How bad a blow was it for you when the court refused your request for injunctions?’ asked Perdy, changing tack. ‘You must have been very disappointed.’

  He swung round on his heel to face her. ‘On the contrary, on the contrary, it achieved everything I had hoped for. It made headlines all round the world. For the first time people have begun questioning whether climate management is such a good thing. That was only the first round. The real case will start when I call in my expert witnesses.’

  ‘I was wondering . . .’ she said pensively. ‘Would the scientists you mentioned be prepared to talk on camera? This professor who claims the poles are reversing – and the scientist who found these radioactive rocks? Could we invite them to join the moon debate?’

  Michael stopped his pacing and came to sit opposite her, on one of the ruby-red sofas placed at either side of a low coffee table.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘At first both of them felt very bound by the US secrecy agreements. But after the earthquake . . . they’re both based in the San Francisco area, you see.’

  ‘Can you give me their names?’ she asked.

  ‘Off the record?’

  Perdy nodded and paused her recording.

  ‘Professor Robert Fivetrees lectures at Berkeley. He’s one of the world’s leading planetary geophysicists. Dr Emilia Knight – the seismologist who found the radioactive rock – is at Geohazard Labs in Oakland. They both feel that the truth should come out now, and I’m going to ask the court in The Hague to issue them with a writ of witness protection. It’s a legal device which should go some way to help if the US government prosecutes them.’

  Perdy had a sudden flash of intuition. ‘Are you from San Francisco yourself?’ she enquired.

  The reaction she saw on Michael’s drawn face provided her answer.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I hope you didn’t lose anyone close.’

  He shook his head as if to dismiss the subject. Then she watched as he gathered his courage.

  ‘I lost my two sons,’ he said quietly, almost as if to himself. ‘And my ex-wife. Matthew was thirteen. Ben was five. All of them were crushed to death in their beds.’ He lifted his hands as he spoke, displaying his white surgical gloves. ‘I dug them out of the wreckage myself.’

  Perdy saw that the lawyer was forcing himself to say the words, to get used to saying something that he would have to repeat over and over again for the rest of his life.

  She stared at him in dismay, the awfulness of his tragedy brought directly into this hotel room by the evidence of his damaged hands. Tears suddenly welled in his eyes and rolled down both cheeks. He made no attempt to turn his head away from her, to hide his grief.

  Perdy didn’t know what to do. But she rose, leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder. Now Michael was sobbing uncontrollably, resting his forehead on the heels of his palms. She sat beside him as he shook his head in mute apology for his display. Then she put an arm around his shoulders and, acting purely on instinct, drew him closer towards her.

  *

  The immense expanse of the central Pacific easily swallowed up the Global Haven and the 142 decrepit commercial vessels that now steamed in loose formation around her. Staying well away from all territorial waters, this strange flotilla cruised in slow, wide circles as its crew took stock of what they had gained with their monumental prize – and argued heatedly about what their next step should be.

  Their windfall proved to be on an almost unimaginable scale – and wholly unexpected. The super-cruiser’s former commander, Captain James Monroe, had already been notified by his employers that he would need to appear before a disciplinary hearing and he was already the target of nearly 1,000 private lawsuits from furious ex-residents. More were expected to follow.

  But had the captain and his accusers only realized it, this break-away faction of hulk people had not set out deliberately to snare the Global Haven herself. They had set up their decoy to catch any modern vessel that happened to be passing. Two months after leaving their deprived but self-sufficient home community in the Southern Ocean, the convoy had started running short of drinking water, food and fuel. After being bombed as they approached the Peruvian coastline, they had subsequently been unable to secure supplies from anywhere else. Their hijacking had been an act of desperation.

  But now they had fresh supplies – and in enormous quantities. In her eighty-two main or reserve tanks, housed in each of the double-skinned c
atamaran hulls, the Global Haven carried enough diesel fuel, aviation kerosene and jet fuel to supply her tenders and aircraft for six years of normal operations. Huge tanks of fresh water were topped up by three desalinization plants, while the ship’s four main hydrogen-plasma engines had enough fuel pellets for sixty round-the-world trips.

  The freezer-holds of the luxury ship held over 100,000 sides of beef, lamb and pork, and copious quantities of frozen and freeze-dried vegetables. Spices, oils, pulses and every conceivable ingredient required for creating the world’s cuisines bulged from over 200 dry stores dotted around the vessel and her wine cellars contained over three million bottles of the world’s most valuable vintages. The pirates showered, swam, feasted, sunbathed and lazed, each separate hulk-ship community taking it in turns to enjoy twenty-four sybaritic hours aboard the luxury vessel.

  The shops in the atria malls held huge stocks of leisurewear, jewellery, designer clothes, sports equipment, fur coats and perfumes from every continent. Fourteen banks carried currency in every important denomination, a TV studio lay ready to record or broadcast and one large retail outlet was filled with nothing but electronic keyboards and self-playing grand pianos.

  The ship’s main hospital, fourteen operating theatres and six health clinics boasted every sort of drug and the latest and most expensive scanning, diagnostic aid and technological therapies. These were immediately put to work treating hundreds of chronically ill and malnourished refugees who were carefully transferred from the surrounding vessels.

  Up on the flight deck the pirates found themselves in possession of twenty-six private helicopters, one long-range air-sea rescue chopper and two dozen business jets, all of them carefully hangared and bolted down for the duration of the trans-ocean passage. But though many of the hulk people were seamen and navigators, none were pilots; in the early days it had been redundant sailors who had helped them commandeer the abandoned tankers that had since become their homes – but not one of them knew how to fly.