An off-shore wind kicked up and blew sand in her direction. The airborne grains looked like pale blue glitter. She tried blinking the luminous grit out of her eyes, but it only worsened the pain. She splashed water on them instead, all the while watching Dirk repeatedly fail in his efforts to stand up.
“Dirk, hold on! I’m coming!”
She was shouting as loudly as possible but the wind kidnapped her voice and spirited it away to the east.
As she went to hoist herself out of the tank, the tin roof, the steel posts—the entire infrastructure—began to glow blue. And to sizzle, like meat on a grill. A moment later the very water she was in began to glow.
“Oooowww!”
The electric sting Sara felt impelled her to leap out of the tank. She landed hard on the cold, wet floor, her ears filled with Lulu’s frantic clicking and squeaking.
She’s being electrocuted!
The surrounding aurorae blinked faster and faster. The pitch of their unearthly screeches rose higher and higher, resonating with Lulu’s cries.
Sara heard a scream coming from the beach. Propping herself up on an elbow, peering hard into the malevolent, pulsing light swirling above the beach like a giant whirlpool, she saw Dirk desperately crawling across the sand toward the thrashing sea. It, too, was glowing blue.
Her chest—like an enslaved performer—heaved in synch with the convulsing light. Futilely, she strained to reclaim her feet.
She heard a giant splash, turned, and saw Lulu crashing to the floor next to her, missing Sara by inches. A deathly shriek drew her eyes toward the beach again.
“Dirk! Look out!”
But it was too late. Having finally managed to stand up on wobbly legs, he was instantly immersed in a churning, multicolored cloud descending like a fog from overhead. He glowed blue for a few moments and then disappeared in an explosion of sparks.
She screamed and kept screaming.
Finally spent—with her face buried in both hands, Lulu belly-flopping and squealing hysterically beside her—she collapsed.
“Oh, Daddy, Daddy! Help me! Please help me!”
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (11:23 A.M. CENTRAL EUROPEAN SUMMER TIME)
POOR CLARES’ SACRED HEART CONVENT; SEVILLE, SPAIN
IMPACT
Mother Yolanda beamed at what the sisters had created on short notice: a rousing fiesta inside the church. They even festooned its hard, cold interior walls with colorful paper decorations made by the children.
The hymn the orphans were now singing—“Jesus Loves the Little Children”—was intended to distract them from the magnetic storm raging outside, to help drown out the terrifying sounds it was making.
Praise God!
She cast an anxious glance at the church’s large, stained-glass window, which was lit up exceedingly brightly. She would have described the effect as heavenly were it not for the horrifying reason behind it.
When the hymn was over, she put on a happy face. “Wonderful, children, just wonderful! I can easily imagine the Holy Host applauding your beautiful voices this very minute.”
Her attention was stolen by a commotion erupting by the main entrance. She heard Sister Theresa crying out, “No, Marte. Wait!” Saw the tail end of a small boy—the dark-haired rascal who had resisted coming inside that morning—racing out the heavy wooden doors.
Theresa began to give chase.
“Wait, Sister!” Yolanda called out. “I’ll go. He’ll listen to me. You stay. Make sure none of the others gets out.”
Once outside, she shielded her eyes from the blinding, colorful, noisy sky. Moments later, near the playground, her legs buckled, sending her tumbling to the ground. She flashed to the previous night, when the same thing happened.
Lifting her head and looking around, she spotted Marte sitting on a swing. He was staring up with innocent, open-mouthed wonderment at the restless swirls of red, yellow, green, and purple light dipping and dodging immediately above his head.
“Marte!”
He looked over at her and instantly his enthralled little face dissolved into a riot of confusion and fear. With the unmistakable look of boyish bravado, he jumped off the swing. But on landing his legs gave way and he crashed to the ground.
“Ay, Dios, no!” she cried out. “Marte!”
He lay crying on the ground. “¡Mamá! ¡Mamá!”
Feeling herself buoyed by the Holy Spirit, she struggled to her feet and stumbling and staggering made straight for the boy.
“¡Mijito! ¡Aqui vengo!”
Her progress was slow and precarious.
“¡Aqui vengo, mijito, no llores!”
Wishing not to risk falling again, she lowered herself to the ground and began crawling, clawing at the dry soil with all her might.
“¡Aqui vengo, mijito! ¡Aqui vengo!”
Her body began juddering violently, but still she crawled. Fighting to maintain a peaceful equilibrium, she instinctively recited the familiar words of San Juan: “Nadie tiene amor más grande que el dar la vida por sus amigos.” (Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.)
The demonic attack came closer, falling from the sky like flaming sheets of colored paper. The sizzling and humming sounds were deafening, the furnace-like heat, suffocating.
She tried picking up the pace of her hands and feet, but hesitated when she saw the boy’s hair stand on end and glow blue.
“¡Mamá! ¡Mamá!” His little hands frantically batted the air above and around him.
A second later the playground equipment began glowing blue.
She felt her own hair shifting around on her head, heard snapping sounds she associated with hot, dry days, when she would reach for a doorknob and be bitten by electrical sparks.
The devil’s work!
Doubting she could reach the boy before they were both destroyed by the dense fog of lavender fire engulfing them, she turned to the One she trusted completely.
“Our Father, which art in heaven,” she whispered desperately, “hallowed be Thy name . . .”
Marte’s screams grew louder. “¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Mamá! ¡Ayúdame! ¡Ayúndame!”
“ . . .Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”
She felt herself lifting off the dirt. She surrendered to the Savior, to the moment. The sky’s voice was now an ear-splitting whine, its waving, spiking, folding sheets of multicolored light a flickering, nightmarish miasma.
Higher and higher she felt herself being lifted. Soon she was suspended in a raucous, stuttering, plum-colored incubus. Louder and louder the satanic sky shrieked. Faster and faster it flickered. Brighter and brighter it blazed.
“Reverend Mother!”
The voice came from directly beneath her feet.
“Where are you?!”
She looked down and recognized herself crumpled on the ground, no more than a few arm lengths from little Marte’s quivering, shapeless form.
“Reverend Mother!”
She fought to recognize the familiar voice. Then it came to her and she smiled, with a peace that defied understanding.
“Over here, my child!” she heard herself shouting.
The wildly flickering lights stretched out their flaming fingers and seized her. But with a mighty effort made in the name of Jesus she managed to escape their grasp.
“Over here, my child,” she cried out again, though not as loudly as she wanted. “Over here!”
“¡Ay! ¡Gracias, San Cristóbal!”
At last she felt her mind shutting down, taking with it the last impression her eyes beheld. It was the vision of a nimble-footed Sister Theresa—her habit wet and fuming like a pot of boiling water, veiled head crowned with a vivid sapphire halo—bending down to her with outstretched arms.
CHAPTER 51
SECOND COMING
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (12:24 P.M. ISRAEL DAYLIGHT TIME)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
TIME SINCE IMPACT: 0 HOURS 01 MINUTE
When the acceleration
ceased, Calder was able to move his arms and mouth freely again. But Hero was still hurtling uncontrollably across the Mediterranean Sea at supersonic speed.
Yet again, he tried to bring her under control; but nothing worked. He was close to tearing through the console and ripping out wires to get her to stop, but that would only spell suicide.
He glanced at the chronometer and then at the nav screen, but their information was outdated, freeze-framed. He had no idea how far away they were from the centroid or how much time they had before running out of sea. But it couldn’t possibly be much longer, not at this speed.
“ALLIE. I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY!”
With the intercom down again, they were back to shouting.
“CALDER, IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!”
He smirked, while tightening his helmet’s chin strap.
Yeah, right.
“GET READY TO EJECT!” he yelled.
Wrapping his fingers around the lever that controlled the ejection seat, he thanked his lucky stars he’d designed it to function manually.
At least I did one thing right.
He’d miss Hero. Besides being his greatest creation—conceived, developed, and made in the image of a boyhood dream—she had become his closest friend. Someone, something, he understood completely. Or so he’d thought. Despite everything, he would always believe she was the future of transportation technology.
“READY . . . NOW!” he shouted.
With a single, decisive movement he yanked on the lever and immediately the canopy blew off and his seat rocketed up and out of Hero’s cockpit. The sudden rush of warm air slapped his exposed face like a giant fly swatter.
This is how a bullet must feel!
Anxiously, he looked around for Allie, hoping she’d obeyed his command, hoping her ejection seat hadn’t malfunctioned. But it wasn’t easy to see anything with so much bright light and air hitting his eyes.
He had the impression of flying through a pool filled with living, squirming watercolors. And the cacophonous sounds riding on the rushing wind, bombarding his ears, were unlike anything he’d ever heard—snapping, crackling, screaming.
Abruptly, he felt himself braking—as if he’d hit a wall of water. He glanced behind him. It wasn’t his parachute—it hadn’t deployed yet.
Then it struck him.
My inertia.
Hero.
The sudden change in his inertial mass—its instantaneous return to normalcy—could mean only one thing: Hero was no more.
But she’s indestructible . . .
He was violently yanked backward yet again. This time, he saw, it was his parachute opening. The restraining harness squeezed his chest over hard. He fought not to black out.
Barely conscious, he was aware of noisy streaks of bright red, green, and magenta light hissing past him, of an all-pervasive, sizzling, violetblue glow. He wondered vaguely if it was all just a hallucination. But he didn’t think so.
Maybe I’m dead.
Calder’s faltering senses apprehended in the far distance, silhouetted in the aurora’s light of many colors, something that looked like a massive stone fortress atop a mountain.
God?
God lives in a castle?
The idea sounded ludicrous. But before he could argue the point with himself he hearkened to a vast whooshing sound. It was accompanied by a brilliant flash of white light and the feeling of being sucked upward. A split second later the sky turned dark and became still.
It was the last thing he saw and heard before losing consciousness.
TUESDAY, MAY 2 (12:24 P.M. ISRAEL DAYLIGHT TIME)
CHAPEL OF THE ASCENSION; JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
TIME SINCE IMPACT: 0 HOURS 01 MINUTE
Lorena—gazing expectantly skyward within the courtyard of the ancient, fortress-like Chapel of the Ascension—continued to stand her ground against the pushing, elbowing masses. The chaotically colored sky was mesmerizing, more beautiful, more awful than she ever imagined from reading the Bible’s description of the Second Coming: “For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.”
“Wheee!” a nearby child exclaimed.
She hugged herself, knowing that at any moment they actually would be welcoming the Savior back to Earth.
Then she saw it: a spot of white light coming at them out of the painted skies over Jerusalem, surrounded by ragged fingers of lightning. She fixed her eyes on the fast-moving object, ignoring the raucous, flamboyant, turbulent sky threatening to smother them. She tuned out the excited commotion rising from the mass of spectators atop the Mount of Olives.
“This is it, people!” she said. “This is it!”
The nearby child began to cry.
“Shhh, baby, shhh!” She pointed at the fast-approaching white object. “Look! It’s Jesus! Jesus Christ!”
But the child cried even more loudly. She continued shushing him reassuringly but did not, dared not, take her eyes off the white light.
Fix your eyes on Jesus!
Closer and closer the white light came.
Directly toward her!
“Yes, Jesus, yes!” she cried out.
All at once there was a blinding white flash, and the surrounding air was filled with a loud whooshing sound. She felt her body being sucked upward as if by some cosmic vacuum cleaner.
This is it—the Rapture!
She raised her arms heavenward and wailed loudly, “Yes, sweet Savior, yes!”
People screamed and started fleeing in all directions. The child bawled uncontrollably. But Lorena stood her ground, keening ecstatically.
Abruptly, the whooshing and sucking ceased.
The gaudy colors in the sky, the madness on the ground, and the white light as well—it all went away, just like that. In the twinkling of an eye, a sublime and uncanny peacefulness settled on the mountaintop, on the surrounding region, on the entire world, it seemed to her. Eerily, the daytime sky grew black; stars appeared.
She jumped up and down, shouting in the direction from which the prominent white spot had been coming just a moment earlier.
“Come, Lord Jesus, come!”
Then she saw him!—materializing out of the preternaturally darkened sky.
Yes! At last!
“Oh, Lord, welcome, welcome! How long we have waited for you!”
Hands stretched before her, tears coursing down her flushed cheeks, she stared adoringly at the slowly descending figure.
It was Jesus—she was sure of it—floating gracefully to Earth.
And just as she had pictured him!—shimmering sapphire glory and all.
CHAPTER 52
SECOND CHANCES
FRIDAY, MAY 5 (10:47 A.M. ISRAEL DAYLIGHT TIME)
HADASSAH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER; JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
For the past three days Calder, bedridden, refused to see any visitors or be interviewed by any reporters. Instead, he stayed fixated on the nonstop TV coverage of the devastation around the world.
Rescue workers were still digging through the rubble, but it was clear the CME’s radiation blast killed—mostly incinerated—thousands of people and injured tens of thousands more; still more thousands were missing. Total damage was being estimated at hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars. All of it the result not just of the CME nuking property and equipment for barely more than a minute, but also the rampaging computer virus, which mercifully the FBI was steadily bringing under control.
Allie hobbled in on crutches. “Hey, lazy bones, time to rise and shine.”
He stayed glued to the TV and said nothing. But out of the corner of his eye he saw her look to Sara, who was sitting bedside.
“How’s the patient behaving this morning?”
Sara smiled and gave a curt flutter of the hand signifying, so-so.
Because his injuries, like Allie’s, were not life threatening—mainly some broken ribs and a heavily bruised ego—he knew he’d need to
snap out of his funk sooner rather than later. He would have to leave the hospital and face the debate publicly raging about him.
Some people were lauding him for fixing the magnetic field and thereby sparing the earth even worse damage from the CME. Privately, he hypothesized the fix was actually a lucky accident. Pieces of Hero had been found in a vast debris field between Beirut and Haifa, suggesting to him she’d blown up from the inside. The explosion, he theorized, had set off a chain reaction in the quantum vacuum that had culminated in a ‘big swallow,’ which straightway sucked up the CME’s charged particles and even the sunlight in Earth’s vicinity. He pictured it being the exact opposite of the ‘big bang,’ which once upon a time reportedly spewed out an entire universe.
Nevertheless, he’d be quite happy if people kept crediting him for slaying the CME.
Others were condemning him and Hero for creating the magnetic holes in the first place. Bradstreet was among those to raise and prosecute the issue in the media. Allie was forced to concede publicly that Bradstreet might very well be right—and that, in fact, she and Calder had entertained the same hypothesis while brainstorming Project Joshua.
On Wednesday, a U.S. consular came to the hospital and served Calder with subpoenas from Senate and House committees investigating the magnetic-hole-CME cataclysm; they demanded he appear before them immediately upon his return to the States. And if that weren’t bad enough, early this morning the National Academy of Sciences announced it was partnering with the United Nations to scrutinize the science and ethics of his research.
The vilest of all were Greenies claiming his method of extracting energy from the quantum vacuum constituted the worst environmental catastrophe in human history. Some of them were even speculating his early work with the vacuum might have exacerbated the CME that killed Nell!
Evil SOBs.
Allie switched off the TV and turned to face him. “Calder—Calder.”
He knew what was coming and wanted to hide under the sheets.
“Allie—Allie,” he replied sardonically.
Allie turned to Sara. “Do you mind?”
Without hesitating, his daughter—his own flesh and blood—left him alone to face another pep talk from his beloved.
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