Deuce knew that most of these scenarios were mathematical or logical improbabilities, but they were still possible, except maybe the zombies. He also knew that the sum of these possibilities, including suffering one or more impacts with foreign bodies from space, posed a real and present danger toward life as he knew it.
In 2013, astronomers discovered a rogue planet drifting through space eighty light-years from Earth. This wandering super-planet, officially referred to as a ‘planetary mass object,’ was six times larger than Jupiter and had an entourage of dwarf planets and moons along for the ride. What if that group had invaded our Solar System? What havoc might it wreak on Deuce’s happy, comfortable life? Like his dad, he wanted to be prepared not only for a disaster but for the resulting collapse of society in its aftermath.
Deuce believed that the world was on the brink of societal collapse, anyway. All the signs pointed to it. Worldwide food, water and energy shortages, eight billion people to feed, water and house, plus massive crop failures, wasteful over-consumption of natural resources by America and China, rapid climate change and the deepening economic stratification of society into the wealthy elite and the poverty-stricken masses were all conspiring against us. From what Deuce could see, most people were oblivious to the signs all around them. The wealthy elite were restricting the flow of needed resources to the masses and accumulating those surpluses for themselves. As a result, a class war had been brewing for years.
Like Alex, Deuce believed that governments should just leave people alone to trade freely among themselves. He also believed that Earth was in the middle of its sixth mass extinction. Other species were disappearing at a rate up to a thousand times faster than normal species die-offs. It bothered Deuce that so few people knew it. Most people went about the business of daily life, as usual, blindly believing that mother Earth would continue to provide everything they needed. Deuce had read enough and seen enough to know they were dead wrong.
Previous mass extinctions had played out over thousands of years. This one was on track to occur within less than two hundred years. Up to half of all species were expected to vanish by 2050 thanks to habitat loss, hunting and climate change. Deuce wished more adults would pay attention, especially those with the power to effect change. He wondered why they could not see what was so clear to him.
After nearly two hours of steady work, Alex finishes stocking his bomb shelter. He and Deuce return to the living room and sit together on the couch facing the seventy two-inch TV screen. The image on the big screen suddenly scrambles and there are a few seconds of loud static before the Emergency Broadcast System logo appears. When the image stabilizes, John Scott Walker and President Harrison are together at the podium as Walker speaks.
“Just moments ago, NASA received digital video from an amateur astronomer in Pretoria, South Africa.”
The image on the screen behind him suddenly turns surreal. It is still daytime in South Africa, but there are clearly two large objects in the sky now. Our moon and the new, somewhat smaller dwarf planetoid are both visible in the same image frame. Alex and Deuce are awestruck as they watch.
“That’s definitely not an asteroid,” says Deuce.
“No, it’s not,” says Alex. “Asteroids are irregular, not spherical.”
“Where did it come from? How did it get here so fast?”
“Good questions,” says Alex. “Maybe they have answers.”
They turn their attention back to the broadcast as the President continues.
“I spoke earlier with Professor Sam Hayden, the astrophysicist at Caltech who first identified this object. He described it to me as the largest body to approach us in four billion years.”
“It looks like it’s hardly moving,” says Deuce.
“It’s all about perspective,” says Alex. “When you’re sitting in a commercial jet going six hundred miles an hour, you feel like you’re hardly moving – until you look out the window and see another jet flying as fast as you. It’s hard to get a sense of the actual speed from this far away.”
“If the moon is going two thousand miles an hour, and this thing is going fifty-thousand miles an hour, what happens if they collide?”
“I hope we never find out, Deuce.”
On the screen, a new satellite image shows the object as dark and ominous-looking even in the South African daylight. Alex stares at it for a long moment then abruptly turns off the TV.
“Dad! Why are you turning it off?”
“We need to get more supplies before people go into a feeding frenzy over this. Besides, I doubt the government will tell us everything they know. They’re afraid of starting a panic.”
The all-night market is a bit more crowded than usual at that hour, but no one seems to be in much of a hurry. They are stocking up on burgers and beer for their sky-watching parties.
Alex, Deuce and Jessa methodically fill two shopping carts, one with water and the other with canned goods and other non-perishables. Alex smiles at the cashier as she totals their order.
“Where is everyone? I thought you guys would be jammed,” says Alex.
“Oh? Why’s that?” asks the middle-aged cashier as she scans the last of their items. Alex is shocked by her utter lack of awareness.
“We have a new moon. Haven’t you seen it? It’s all over the news,” says Alex.
“Oh, that,” says the cashier. “A few customers mentioned it. The President said we had nothing to worry about. I mean just look at the moon. It’s been hit a million times already. It just keeps on going like the Energizer bunny. Nothing phases it, if you know what I mean.” She chuckles at her pun.
“Good one,” says Alex grinning politely. “Have a pleasant evening, Ma’am.”
He and Jessa push the shopping carts out the door into the parking lot. Deuce looks up.
“Wow. Check it out!”
The second object is dark against our moon, but the distance separating them makes it look smaller than it really is, and much less ominous. Which might explain why the people of Southern California are so nonchalant about it.
“Welcome to the United States of Stupidity.” Alex scans the nearly empty parking lot. “The President says there’s nothing to worry about, and everyone just blindly accepts it because they already have enough to worry about.”
“They gave it a twenty percent chance, Dad, so there’s an eighty percent chance it’ll whiz right by,” says Deuce. “Right?”
“That’s what they said,” adds Jessa.
“I don’t trust what they’re telling us, and I’m not ready to risk my family for a government estimate that could turn out very wrong.”
Deuce and Jessa stare up at the moon again, this time with something closer to fear in their eyes.
Hannibal and Satin, stripped down to their underwear, recline side-by-side on the gently sloping sand beach and stare at the two moons in the sky. On a beach towel next to them is an empty bottle of tequila and two empty plastic cups. They have a generous stretch of beach all to themselves.
“This is freaking beyond amazing,” says Hannibal. “Two moons.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” says Satin. “You haven’t peeked or even sideways glanced at my moons in twenty minutes.”
“Tell them I’m sorry. They’re the nicest moons I’ve ever seen. But those,” he points upward, “are otherworldly.”
“So you said,” says Satin wryly, “what a lovely sentiment.”
Hannibal reaches over and cups one of her breasts.
“Now that’s a fine healthy young moon,” says Hannibal, grinning through his drunken stupor. Then he passes out.
From the rooftop over their garage, Alex and Deuce watch the night-sky drama unfold through a telescope and binoculars. Jessa is stretched out on one of the beach chairs after dozing off. With one full moon and a second nearly full moon in plain sight, everything around them is bathed in an eerie, ethereal light.
“How long until we know?”
Alex checks his cell and does
a quick calculation.
“Thirty-eight hours.”
“That’s like a day and a half. Come on, Dad. We can’t stand here that long. Let’s wake Mom and go to bed. It’s Saturday. We can sleep in.”
Alex knows his son is right. He has already been awake for twenty-two hours and he is bone-tired. He needs to take a break and rest so he will have all of his strength to deal with whatever comes next.
Of course, there is an eighty-percent chance that nothing will come of it. It might just be another incredible, unprecedented aerial show for the people of planet Earth, a near miss more spectacular than anything that Homo sapiens has ever witnessed.
Alex takes one last lingering look through the six-inch lens then turns away and puts his arm around his son.
“You’re right, dude. We still need our beauty sleep.”
Thick clouds linger through mid morning on Saturday. Like most of Dana Point and half of Orange County, the Jacks family is still sound asleep. Alex, Jessa and Deuce snuggle together like three spoons on the king-size bed.
Huntington Beach has the same thick cloud cover. Hannibal and Satin snuggle under their jackets just behind a small sand dune. Hannibal opens one eye and notices the cloud cover and the grey day that lays over them like a cool blanket.
“This is a bad time for thick clouds. What if something happens and we can’t see it?”
Satin keeps her eyes closed. “Then too bad. Honestly, I don’t really give a rat’s ass about things happening two hundred thirty-thousand fucking miles away.” She pushes her backside against him and wiggles suggestively.
“It’s gonna suck if we can’t see it.”
“So what’re you gonna do about it, Hannibal, launch your rocket at it? Hell it’s already fueled up and ready to blast off.”
Hannibal grinds against her then shoves the jackets aside. They begin wrestling around in the sand, giggling.
Washington, DC
Even though it is Saturday, the atmosphere in the White House situation room ripples with tension. President Harrison and her top advisors argue the advisability of revealing to the American public everything they know about the monstrous NEO headed toward the moon.
“It would take an object the size of the moon to destroy the moon,” insists NASA chief, John Scott Walker. “Something half its size would be like a five-year-old running into me. Not much to worry about.”
Professor Hayden is live up on the main central screen via Skype. He stands in his lab at Caltech, shaking his head.
“In most cases, you’d be right, John. But, what if that five-year-old weighs two thousand pounds and you weigh two hundred? What then? That’s what we’re looking at here. I’ve analyzed it every which way to Sunday. This rogue is all iron and heavy metals from surface to core. Six times the density of our moon. Even a glancing blow would be incredibly destructive,” says Hayden.
“What about Asteroid Redirect?” President Harrison asks. The Asteroid Redirect Mission had been established to find ways of redirecting asteroids headed for Earth, but the ARM never planned to deal with something almost twice the size of Texas.
“The long-range laser project is still in development, Madame President,” says Hayden. “Besides, not even a fully functioning LRL could redirect something of this size and density. This is much, much larger than anything we ever anticipated. It would take a Romulan death-ray to destroy it.”
“Clever Star Trek references aside, you think we should issue the warning, Sam?”
“I do. The odds of a moon collision are now one in three. The longer we stand around debating whether we should do everything possible to save as many of our citizens as possible, the worse it could be.”
“You’ll set off a panic we won’t be able to control, Madame President,” argues Walker. Jack Charron, head of the NSA, and Cyrus Levine, from FEMA, both nod in agreement. “Come on, the odds are still in our favor that this monster passes by without so much as a nick,” adds Walker.
“I’d call out the National Guard, in either case,” says Levine.
“The Army and the Marines, too,” adds Charron. “This could get real ugly real fast.”
President Harrison scrutinizes their faces then turns back toward the big screen. “How much time do we have left, Sam?”
“Less than twenty-four hours, still time for people to grab supplies and find cover.”
The President looks to her Chief of Staff, Theo Robinson, the young Harvard graduate who has quickly become a favorite of the White House Staff.
“Theo, you’ve been awfully quiet. What do you think we should do?”
“I think we should issue the warning, Madame President. I also think we should do it in such a way that we don’t start an all-out panic. What you say and how you say it matters. We need to appear calm and in control, just like in your earlier announcement.”
President Harrison considers her options deliberately and begins making notes on her computer tablet.
“Shall I call another press conference, Madame President?” asks Robinson.
The whole room awaits her answer. Cyrus Levine is particularly anxious. As head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he knows that a public warning of this magnitude will kick-start FEMA straight into national crisis mode, a first since the agency’s birth in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter merged several disaster related government activities into what is now FEMA. In 2003, President George W. Bush consolidated FEMA into his newly created Office of Homeland Security and quickly staffed it up to over 230,000 employees. A crisis like this would force FEMA’s 8,000 employees to work overtime until the crisis ended at enormous taxpayer expense.
“Madame President?” Robinson urges her to make a decision.
Dana Point
By late morning, Alex and Deuce are awake and focused on the televised news reports coming in from around the world. CNN reports show people in major cities throughout Europe and Scandinavia clearing the shelves in grocery stores and stockpiling as much food and water as they can, while government officials refuse to speculate and remain noncommittal. People are boarding up windows in their homes and moving into basements, bomb shelters, subways and underground storage facilities. There is little panic in their preparations. They simply go about their business with a strong sense of purpose.
“Those people are smart,” says Alex. “Not like your average American. Like I’ve said before, we live in the United States of Ignorance.”
“C’mon, Dad, we’re the greatest country on the planet.”
Alex turns to him. “You really believe that? They teach you that in school?”
“Yeah, and I hear people say it, like all the time.”
“Okay, let’s look at the facts. What does America really lead the world in? We lead the world in military spending, healthcare costs, the number of people in prisons and the number of people who believe in angels. Does that sound like the greatest country on the planet? The facts also show that we’re way behind in education, innovation, quality of life, life expectancy, infant mortality, happiness and overall health. We lost our stature as a true world leader a long time ago, Deuce. Unless things change drastically, we may never get it back.”
Deuce knows his dad is highly intelligent and researches everything. He might not always agree with him, but he knows that his dad’s opinions are based on well-researched facts rather than just opinions. He knows his dad has the heart and mind of a scientist.
The CNN news coverage abruptly switches to China. People are demonstrating in the streets, protesting the government’s cover-up of the NEO. They interview an amateur Chinese astronomer who claims that the Chinese government is withholding information about the object’s speed, density and trajectory. He is angry because the Chinese people are being kept completely in the dark.
The American government, on the other hand, is only hiding key details about the NEO, gambling that the odds will remain favorable. President Harrison is completely composed as she tells America to plan for a possib
le lunar event and reminds everyone, again, just how far away the moon is.
It is early Sunday morning, September 3. Sam Hayden is at home in Palo Alto, sipping hot coffee and running some numbers on his home office computer. Julia, still in her pajamas, pops in on him.
“Bacon and eggs good for you, Dad?” asks Julia.
“Sounds perfect, Jules. You know how much I love Costco bacon.”
Julia goes to prepare breakfast while Hayden crunches his numbers.
She is back ten minutes later with two plates of Costco bacon and scrambled eggs plus a pepper shaker. She sets them down, pulls up a chair and eats breakfast with her dad. It has been their Sunday morning ritual for thirty years, ever since Julia was a small child.
“Thanks, Jules.” Hayden’s eyes widen suddenly and he drops his fork in mid bite. It clangs loudly against his plate like a tiny alarm bell.
“Dad? You okay?”
“No, Jules, this is not good. According to these new calculations, there’s better than a fifty percent chance this thing will hit the moon.” He gobbles the remainder of his breakfast.
“So what’s the plan?” Julia knows her dad well enough to know that he already has a plan. He always has a plan.
“Let’s get all the bottled water and nonperishable food we can haul into the pickup truck and your car, and head up to the cabin. We need to leave the city before people get out of church or bed or IHOP or whatever the hell they get themselves into on Sunday mornings these days. Pack up your valuables, too, Jules. Take anything we can trade for food and water. I’ll grab the blankets, flashlights, batteries, candles and matches.”
With little time to waste, they work feverishly, gathering what they need and loading everything into the two vehicles. Two hours later, Sam’s pickup truck and Julia’s car are packed full and headed out of Palo Alto toward Lake Tahoe. The drive will take a little less than four hours. They will still have time to unpack when they arrive, then prepare and wait for a possible collision.
RUNAWAY MOON Page 3
