The Null Prophecy

by Michael Guillen

  TB: “I want to be careful how I express myself. I’ve known about Dr. Sinclair’s work for some time, although only anecdotally, through secondhand claims and reports. And that’s my main concern here. I have enormous respect for Dr. Sinclair personally—he has one of the finest minds I know—but everything we’ve heard him tell us this morning is highly speculative. Most serious scientists don’t agree with his ideas and claims, and it doesn’t help that he’s never published a single paper on the subject.”

  DR: “I’m not a scientist. But isn’t history full of mavericks who turned out to be right? Like Christopher Columbus or the Wright brothers? And didn’t Dr. Sinclair just prove himself with Hero’s mission around the world?”

  TB: “Hero’s performance does seem like proof, on the surface. But he’s not allowed any of us to inspect her. We have no way of knowing, really, what powers her. Publishing your results in a peer-reviewed journal is the only legitimate way science can judge the veracity of any new claim, especially one that flies in the face of conventional wisdom, as this does. Dr. Sinclair’s claims about Hero’s power source challenges the laws of physics, the laws of thermodynamics. It smacks too much of a perpetual motion machine, which we all know is impossible. If published properly, his claim could be independently tested by others elsewhere. The problem here is there’s no paper trail, just allegations.”

  Bradstreet took a breath and then continued, clearly warming to his critique.

  TB: “I don’t mean any disrespect—”

  Calder hit his limit. He stepped back into the frame.

  CS: “No, Terry, that’s exactly what you mean. You complain about my not publishing, but what you don’t say is that all the papers I’ve submitted to the journals over the years have been rejected. The truth is, peer review sounds great in theory, but in practice it’s little more than a pretentious euphemism for an old boys’ network.”

  Bradstreet held up a hand.

  TB: “Dr. Sinclair, please, this is neither the time nor place—”

  CS: “Oh, but it is. I realize you prefer doing things behind the scenes—like axing submitted papers that challenge the status quo. But what makes you and your so-called peers think you have a corner on the truth? Who made peer-reviewed journals the judge and jury of all science? I bet you’d be the first one to criticize the early church for excommunicating people whose opinions it considered heresy. But science today does it all the time, using the peer-review process as an excuse.”

  Calder noticed the protestors had stopped their chanting. Like everyone else on the beach, they appeared to be mesmerized by this clash of titans. Bradstreet hiked himself up and sniffed.

  TB: “I think you’re being a bit melodramatic, Dr. Sinclair. No one’s excommunicating you. I’m merely pointing out that if you wish to be taken seriously you’ve chosen the wrong platform for announcing your claims. It suggests grandstanding. Worse, it smacks of opportunism. Of riding the coattails of a truly urgent and frightening worldwide crisis.”

  DR: “Dr. Bradstreet, I’m not sure you’re being entirely fair to—”

  Calder felt himself swaying on his feet. Automatically, one of his hands flew to his forehead, the other to his chest. He heard Robins asking, “Dr. Sinclair, are you okay?”

  The voice of his PR agent, standing behind him, asked, “Calder, what’s wrong?”

  “What’s going on with him?” the bald man exclaimed. “Oh, my god—catch him!”

  CHAPTER 27

  HERE COMES THE SUN

  SATURDAY, APRIL 29 (4:55 A.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME)

  SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER; BOULDER, COLORADO

  When her plane arrived in Boulder Allie was whisked directly to the SWPC, where Dallan—bandaged but fired up—quickly briefed her. Afterward, she retreated to a vacant office, where she did stand-up yoga exercises while going over the questions in her head.

  “Five minutes, everyone!” she heard Eva shout. “Five minutes!”

  Allie made her way out to the SWPC’s cavernous command and control room. Two SWPC employees were standing in for Dallan and her so Pitsy could adjust the position of a klieg light. A short distance away Eva was hunched over a bank of monitors.

  “That’s it!” she cried out. “The shadow’s gone. Leave it!”

  This was to be a three-camera shoot, a sign of the story’s importance. The main camera would frame Dallan and her, with the giant, wall-mounted LED screen appearing behind them. The second camera would be used for the wide shot. The third camera—a steady cam controlled by a roving operator—would handle close-ups.

  “Pitsy,” Eva sang out, “swing camera one a little to the left.”

  Allie half-watched while she pumped herself up mentally.

  “No, the other left,” Eva said. “Whoa, that’s it! Lock it down.”

  Dallan appeared alongside her. “Allie, something was just handed to me I want you to see.” He held out a sheet of paper. “It’s from one of our theorists.”

  She looked at the document: a world map with six red markings on it—centered over the north pole, south pole, San Diego, Nagasaki, Humpty Doo (between Darwin and Kakadu), and Cádiz. “Yeah, so? It’s like the map Brody showed me up at Alert.”

  “Yes, but do you see? They form a pattern. Like on a Chladni plate, except three-dimensional.”

  She was familiar with Chladni plates. She used them at Harvard to teach students about resonance. They consisted of a metal plate dusted with sand. When the plate was made to vibrate—for example, by stroking one of its edges with a violin bow—the sand particles danced around and settled into fabulous patterns. Like sand art.

  She scrunched her brows. “A resonance pattern?” She paused. “But that would mean—”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, everybody. Places!” Eva shouted. “Time to make the donuts!”

  Moments later she and Dallan were standing on their marks, listening to Eva’s countdown. At zero Allie heard through her IFB the New York anchor—Ashley Folsom—introducing her.

  “For our top story this morning, a Fast News exclusive: we go live to the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, and our very own Allie Armendariz. Allie?”

  Stretching to her full height, Allie looked into the main camera lens and assumed her best broadcaster’s voice.

  AA: “Thanks, Ashley, good morning. With me is Dr. Dallan O’Malley, director of the SWPC. He’s just returned from the Arctic where, as you can see, he sustained some injuries.”

  She turned to Dallan.

  AA: “Good morning, sir. I know we’re not here to talk about your health but I thought to mention it because viewers are sure to be wondering about your bandages.”

  DO: “Good morning, Allie. Yes, well, I’m fine, really. It looks worse than it is. But thank you.”

  AA: “Good to hear. Now, you have something very important to report about the sun, right? Something that could affect us all. Tell us about it.”

  DO: “Yes, that’s right. Yesterday at eleven a.m. Rocky mountain time our technicians noticed a blister growing on the face of the sun. Take a look.”

  On the screen behind them was a video of the sun’s brightly lit, red-orange-yellow chromosphere. Its sinuous texture reminded her of bloody muscle fibers. Dallan used a handheld laser pointer to highlight the trouble spot, which was located in the northwest quadrant. It looked like an open sore.

  DO: “Here you see it in the early stages of an eruption we call a CME, or coronal mass ejection. Think of a CME as a solar flare on steroids; it’s the most powerful explosion known in the solar system.”

  Abruptly, the small blister swelled into a gargantuan bubble.

  DO: “Here now is where it started bubbling up into a huge blob of very hot, glowing gases.”

  A moment later the blob exploded into a flash of blinding, white light.

  DO: “The eruption occurred early this morning, less than two hours ago, and blasted a hundred billion tons of electrically charged particles into s
pace. It’s like a huge, radioactive sneeze.”

  She was eager for Dallan to get to the point.

  AA: “And why should we be concerned?”

  DO: “Well, most CMEs explode away from Earth, so they never matter to us. But this one is coming right toward us, at about 360 miles per second.”

  AA: “Per second?”

  DO: “Right. That’s more than a million miles per hour. At that rate it’ll hit us head-on in about three days—on Tuesday.”

  AA: “What exactly—?”

  DO: “By the way, when I say hit, I do mean hit. The CME has an energy equivalent of 360 million one-megaton H-bombs.”

  She flinched at the statistic.

  AA: “Can you explain what all this means. What should people be worried about—or should they be worried?”

  DO: “The short answer is that it depends on how well our magnetic field holds up.”

  AA: “Please explain.”

  DO: “As you know the earth is cocooned inside a giant magnetic field—like a protective bubble or force field. Its outer boundary is about 40,000 miles away on the side facing the sun; farther on the side facing away. So if the field holds up when the CME slams into it, the damage will happen far away from us.”

  AA: “Forty thousand miles away or more.”

  DO: “Ideally, yes.”

  AA: “But what if the field doesn’t hold up? I mean, you just said the CME is equal to 360 million megatons of TNT. What if it breaks through? What happens then?”

  She knew the answer, of course: people and property would be incinerated. Like the nuclear bombing victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Like Nell. Like Dallan’s biologist friend and all those animals on the ice at Alert.

  DO: “Honestly? We don’t know, because there’s never been a recorded CME this big.”

  She didn’t challenge his prevarication; she understood Dallan didn’t dare speak too bluntly about the worst case scenario for fear of triggering a panic.

  DO: “Let me put it in perspective. Right now the sun is going through a very active period—we call it solar max, okay? On average it’s spitting out three to four CMEs a day. Most of them go off in directions away from the earth. But of those aimed at our planet, the typical CME contains about one billion tons of electrically charged particles. The one heading at us right now is a hundred times bigger. We have no way of knowing how well the magnetic field will hold up to something of that size and power.”

  AA: “Which raises the question of the holes developing in the magnetic field at six locations around the world. I reported about that yesterday. Aren’t people beneath those holes in special danger?”

  Dallan, pressing his lips hard, hesitated. On the TV screen appeared an enhanced, updated version of Brody’s map, showing six red sores.

  DO: “I don’t want to overly scare anyone—and remember we’re still three days away from anything happening. But, yes, the magnetic holes are like wide-open doors that will let the CME pour in. So in those six regions where the magnetic field is weakening, residents living beneath them should definitely think about protecting themselves.”

  She knew she needed to press him on this, but tactfully.

  AA: “Against what? What sort of danger are those people in, potentially?

  She turned to camera.

  AA: “And I want to stress the word potentially. As Dr. O’Malley is saying, this is still very early in a rapidly developing situation; the last thing anyone should do at this point is freak out.”

  She faced him once again.

  AA: “Right?”

  DO: “Yes, absolutely. During the next seventy-two hours we’ll be working closely with the White House, Congress, the National Academy of Sciences, FEMA—we’ll all be huddling to come up with the most intelligent way of protecting lives and property.”

  AA: “In the meantime can you give our viewers an idea of what dangers are possible, realistically speaking?”

  DO: “Right. So when the CME first collides with the magnetic field it’ll be like a Mack truck slamming into a Volkswagen Beetle. On the day side, facing the sun, the CME will squash the field. On the night side, it’ll blow it away. These sudden distortions will induce spikes of electricity that’ll wreak havoc on any kind of electrical equipment—both on the earth and in space.”

  AA: “You mean like satellites?”

  DO: “Exactly. So people can expect their cell phones, radios, and satellite TV reception to be disrupted, even cut off completely. Again, we can’t know for sure. But anything electrical will surely be affected to some degree.”

  AA: “What about aurorae? In the Arctic yesterday, when the magnetic field was weak, I saw some in the daytime. Can we expect the same to happen here?”

  DO: “Yes, take a look.”

  On the TV screen were stills of colorful, oval-shaped aurorae centered over the north and south poles—images produced, Dallan said, using data from the Polar Operational Environmental Satellite system.

  DO: “As you know aurorae happen when charged particles hit the upper atmosphere—about sixty miles up and higher. The impact makes the different air molecules glow different colors. We usually see aurorae only in the polar regions because the magnetic fields there are naturally weaker than elsewhere on Earth. But when this CME hits I expect we here in the United States might see aurorae as far south as Texas or Cuba. Nothing to worry about because they’re so high up; but it will be something very unusual and people who don’t know better might be alarmed at the sight.”

  She was impressed with Dallan’s ability to explain complicated things without sounding too condescending or too esoteric.

  AA: “Any other dangers we need to wor—be prepared for?”

  DO: “Yes, there’s one other important danger. All those charged particles I told you about? A hundred billion tons? They’re like the biggest sandstorm you can imagine, multiplied a billion times. And, worse, the particles are so tiny they can go right through your skin and damage your DNA. That’s a big danger if the magnetic field doesn’t hold up.”

  AA: “A sandstorm of radiation.”

  DO: “Yes. If the field gives way, we need to brace ourselves for physical damage—not just electrical interference. Physical damage to property; but also possible genetic injury to our bodies, to animals, plants—anything that has DNA.”

  AA: “But how in the world do we protect ourselves from that?”

  DO: “Mainly by staying indoors. But Allie, we have many more details about how people can protective themselves, their pets, and their property on our website.”

  AA: “And viewers can see the address on the lower part of the screen there.”

  A lower-third graphic appeared on the TV monitor showing the address: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/index.html.

  DO: “Yes, and I suggest people keep checking in on it because we’ll be updating it constantly from now until the moment of impact—and then afterward as well.”

  AA: “Assuming our computers are still working at that time, right? Dr. O’Malley, thank you so much. We’ll be staying in close contact with you during the next three days. Please stay safe.”

  CHAPTER 28

  GOING IT ALONE

  SATURDAY, APRIL 29 (8:30 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)

  NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  ESTIMATED TIME TO IMPACT: 66 HOURS 18 MINUTES

  After fleeing the hangar, Jared made it to a small, deserted storage building not far away. There, tucked in a corner behind some crates, he slept soundly all night.

  He awoke with a start, froze, and listened.

  Nothing.

  Chill, man, chill.

  He dug out his smartphone and, heart racing, fired it up. He mostly kept it turned off now to conserve battery power, but also because he knew police could track his location whenever it was switched on.

  Not that they could do it easily; the phone was registered under a phony name. Only one person had the number—the man handling the little G-20 surprise not even the pr
otestors knew anything about—and even he didn’t know Jared’s true identity.

  He stared at the awakening phone and after a few moments saw it.

  GOOD TO GO

  The text message he’d been hoping to receive from his confederate.

  He pumped a fist.

  Yes!

  The fun would begin this evening, in a matter of hours.

  He rose to his feet, stretched, and cautiously exited the shed, pausing just outside to scrutinize his surroundings. His eyes were drawn to the brightening morning sun—there was something odd about it. Using his hand for shade, he saw what appeared to be a pale, tangerine-colored halo around it.

  Weird.

  His stomach growled; he desperately needed to eat. His phone, his only lifeline, needed charging as well.

  His plan, hatched overnight, was to attend the morning’s Woof Walk at the Admiral Baker picnic area. According to the ad he’d read in the base’s online newsletter, Navy Life: This Week, the event was a one-mile walk for military families and their dogs benefiting some kind of Navy charity. He didn’t have a dog but if challenged had an idea that was sure to work.

  All the way to the park he was careful to stay in the shadows. When finally he got within view of the event he was relieved to see most people were dressed casually, not in uniform. He’d easily blend in. A band was performing and there were all kinds of booths, including—thank goodness—vendors selling food. A show arena at the edge of the park was alive with handlers and gaily costumed dogs practicing acrobatic tricks. The largest part of the crowd was gathered around the starting line.