Wherever Seeds May Fall (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  Dr. Williams’ voice quivers. “You don’t understand. This is extremely important. It’s impossible. I’ve got to get this through to senior management. Someone needs to know what just happened.”

  Rather than working herself into a frenzy, she’s coming down from a panic attack.

  “Please hold,” Nolan says. He taps Kath on the shoulder, asking, “What do you know about nukes?”

  “Nukes?” Kath says, alarmed.

  “Power, not bombs,” Nolan clarifies.

  “Ah, the basics.”

  “That’ll do.”

  He switches the phone to speaker and moves it around the other side of his laptop so it’s closer to Kath. Around them, there’s a constant stream of voices, a cacophony of sound. Individual words are seemingly indistinguishable. They could be in a bar on a Friday night.

  “I’ve got Dr. Kath McKenzie with me,” Nolan says over the background noise. “Go ahead.”

  “This is Dr. Jackie Williams from DoE. We’re fielding dozens of calls from nuclear reactors around the country. They’re asking us what we know about the alien spacecraft. They’re saying they saw spikes in their reactor heat exchange. I’ve got at least two with failed core pumps and pressure leaks.”

  Kath says, “They should have been in a safe position to prevent reactions.”

  “That’s the crazy thing,” Dr. Williams says. “They were!”

  “What? That’s not possible.”

  “I know!”

  “And you’ve confirmed their boron control rods were down at the point An̆duru passed overhead?”

  “Yes,” she says over the commotion around them. “They’ve sent me graphs showing neutron counts going through the roof. These spikes lasted for about thirty seconds after the passage of your spacecraft. If we’d been under load, we would have had meltdowns. Multiple meltdowns.”

  “Where?” Kath asks. “Are we talking Southwest?”

  “Nope. We’ve seen this as far afield as Vermont and Washington State. I can’t even raise those in the Southwest.”

  “How is this possible?” Kath asks.

  “I was hoping you’d know.”

  “And now?” Nolan asks. “Is there a current danger of reactors going into meltdown?”

  “No,” Dr. Williams replies. “But you don’t understand. The physics are all wrong. This is not possible. It shouldn’t have happened. Anywhere. Not with the boron rods lowered. We were in safe mode, but it was as though we were running hot.”

  “She’s right,” Kath says. “This is impossible, and yet it happened.”

  “Okay,” Nolan says. “I’ll flag this as a priority call.”

  “And this is Dr. Jackie Eliza Williams from the DoE, right?” Kath asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Alright, I’ve got your contact details here on my screen. I’ll send you my details and loop you into a broader discussion on this.”

  “Good. Good,” Dr. Williams says, sounding relieved.

  “Thank you,” Nolan says for no other reason than he’s not sure quite how else to end the call. After hanging up, he turns to Kath, saying, “Bad?”

  “Real bad,” Kath says. “Like this would worry Albert Einstein level of bad.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can you reach out within the military,” she asks. “Anything with a nuclear reactor. Anything with nuclear weapons. We need to know how widespread this problem is.”

  “But it’s over,” Nolan says. “Right? They’re gone.”

  Kath doesn’t answer straight away. Finally, she says, “Oh, they’re gone, but I get the feeling this might just be the beginning.”

  The Wave

  Jorge limps to his truck. Although he’d parked in front of the orphanage, his truck is now thirty feet further down the road. The cab is half in a ditch, with the rear pushed up against a telephone pole.

  The keys are still in the ignition. It’s a bad habit but one he doesn’t regret tonight. He turns the key, looking for the telltale light of his diesel glow plug. Nothing.

  “Damn it.”

  As he’s on a slope, he turns the ignition on regardless and releases the handbrake. The truck begins rolling down the hill, giving him enough momentum to steer out of the ditch and onto the road.

  Jorge puts the truck in gear and pops the clutch. The diesel splutters but refuses to come to life. He’s started his truck like this before with faulty glow plugs, but not at night when it’s cool. He tries again. A cloud of black smoke bursts from the exhaust. The engine splutters. Rather than starting, the motor simply turns over. If anything, the mechanical action slows rather than drives him on. As he’s descending a steep slope, it’s not a bad option. Jorge approaches the city. He puts his truck in neutral and lets it free-wheel across a concrete bridge. With what little momentum he has, he steers into a side street and toward his home.

  Fires rage across the city, lighting up the night. Flames lick the sky. Smoke billows into the cool air. People stagger through the darkness, oblivious to what’s happening around them. They wander in front of his truck as it quietly rolls to a stop. He’s a hundred yards from home. Being in the lee of the hill, his old shack has escaped the full force of the pressure wave that hit the orphanage.

  Jorge gets out and rushes toward his house, loping rather than running, favoring his good leg.

  “Jorge?” a voice calls from the darkness. Antonio and Juana, two of his neighbors, ride up to him on bicycles. “Jorge, what are you doing here? Maria said you’d gone.”

  “I was at the orphanage,” he replies.

  “We’re leaving,” Juana says.

  “I have another bike,” Antonio says. “It’s a child’s bike, but you could ride it.”

  Juana says, “We’re heading for Cordoba.”

  “I have to help Padre Jesus,” Jorge says.

  “The wave is coming,” Antonio says.

  “We have to get inland,” Juana says. “To the mountains.”

  “Go,” Jorge says. “Tell Maria, I’m with the orphans.”

  Antonia and Juana ride off into the smoke, pedaling hard, turning toward the hill by the orphanage. Antonia races ahead. Juana stands above the saddle of her bicycle as she hits the incline. She rocks, shifting her weight from one pedal to another, determined to keep up with her husband.

  Jorge runs into his house. He flicks the light switch. Nothing. Moonlight drifts in through the windows. He rushes through the kitchen, bumping into chairs in the dark. Inside the hall cupboard, he finds a First Responder kit. Maria uses it for paramedic duty on the weekends. It’s a big, bulky backpack. Jorge throws it over his shoulders. He grabs at the straps, tightening them, adjusting the weight. Damn, it’s heavy.

  Outside, there’s an unusual noise. Flapping. Only it’s not curtains caught in a breeze or a wooden shutter moving with the wind. Jorge steps out onto the porch. Hundreds of fish lie scattered across the exposed seabed, flipping around. They’re desperate, trying to find any remaining pools of water. His trawler is lying on its hull, leaning to one side in the mud along with boats and ships all along Vera Cruz. Peering through the darkness, the waterline is nowhere to be seen. The ocean has drawn back well beyond the low tide mark.

  “This is not good.”

  Jorge runs. Adrenalin masks the pain in his hip and leg, allowing him to jog along the boardwalk. Rather than backtracking to the road and losing time by going inland, he takes the coastal path. Padre Jesus loves this walk because it catches the cool sea breeze.

  Sand flicks from Jorge’s boots. Before long, the path ends, and he runs through the dunes. Beach grass is crushed beneath his boots as he tries to avoid the slower, soft sand.

  The trail winding up the hillside next to the cliff weaves back and forth. His lungs are burning, while his heart feels as though it’s about to burst out through his ribs. At seventy-eight, it’s been half a century since Jorge ran this hard. Pain seizes his chest, shooting down his arms. Sweat runs down his neck.

  “Mother Mary,” he manages between
breaths. “Don’t fail me now.”

  Jorge’s boots catch on the rocks. He stumbles but refuses to relent, forcing his weary thighs to push on. Somehow, his legs drive him higher.

  “I ask this not for me,” he says, leaning forward and gripping at the straps leading over his back. “But for them.”

  Jorge rushes up the rocky path. Within a hundred yards, he’s in agony. His heart is about to explode. His arteries ache, struggling to pump blood to his lungs. His body is screaming for oxygen. He thumps himself on the chest, hitting his pectoral muscles.

  “No, no, no.”

  As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, his body is shutting down, forcing him to slow. Lifting each boot is like dragging in a net when the winch fails on his trawler. Inches pass like miles.

  “I—I can’t,” he says, turning and falling into the grass clinging to the hillside. He lands on the backpack. Willpower alone cannot overcome his aging body. He surrenders, sucking in air. For a moment, he lies there with trembling arms. Jorge leans against the First Responder backpack. His boots slip on the loose gravel. The path is narrow. It’s barely wide enough for one person at a time. Stones fall away, cascading down to the rocks below.

  Out at sea, something catches his eye. It takes a few seconds before he realizes what he’s looking at in the moonlight. A wall of water is rushing toward the coast, rising over the horizon, sweeping down from the north. White tips are visible at the crest, catching what little light there is in the darkness.

  Jorge gets to his feet. There’s no time to follow the path. He cuts straight up the hill. Weary fingers grab at saplings and bushes. Every twenty feet or so, he crosses the trail. For a moment, he lowers his arms, allowing blood to run back to his fingertips before pushing higher.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think the roar behind him was from a jet engine, but it’s the wave thundering in toward the coast. With a firm grip on a sapling growing out of the side of the hill, he turns. A hundred-foot wave decimates Vera Cruz. The wall of water swamps the town, extinguishing flames. Black water drowns the slums, rushing inland, flowing around buildings. The wave follows the network of roads, reaching toward the farmland. Within a matter of seconds, entire city blocks are swamped. Buildings crumble, slipping beneath the dark water.

  Salt spray flies through the air. The wave breaks against the cliff beneath the orphanage, rising up the rocks and roaring in anger. Water splashes over the hillside, swirling as it rises toward him. Waves slap at the trail, washing away trees and shrubs.

  Jorge pushes higher as the water rises, swelling below him. Waves crash, soaking him, catching his legs. Rocks shift beneath his boots, threatening to send him plunging into the dark sea. His fingers grip at a clump of grass. The roots shift, coming loose as he scrambles, kicking with his legs, driving higher. Seawater washes over his boots, eroding the loose dirt beneath him. His fingers slip on the wet bark of a thin sapling.

  Above the roar of the water, a young girl’s voice carries on the wind, yelling, “Hold on!”

  To Jorge’s horror, Veronica slides down the hillside toward him. She slips, skidding on the loose rocks and foliage.

  “No,” he yells, fearing she’ll lose her footing. From somewhere deep within his soul, he finds reserves he never knew he had. With a surge of strength, he launches himself up onto the next section of track. No sooner is he there than Victoria comes barreling toward him. She throws her arms around his neck as he sits there on the trail. Below them, the water subsides, washing inland, submerging the land. Capsized boats bob on the surface, dragged along by the current.

  Part of the hillside collapses, sliding into the murky waters. Veronica takes his hand. She tugs, urging him on.

  “You’re going to be okay,” she says, repeating his line back to him. She pulls on his arm. Jorge would laugh were it not for his legs trembling beneath him.

  He follows along behind her, saying, “Yes. I think we’re going to be okay.”

  Nuclear

  Without going through official channels, getting anything out of the US military is nigh on impossible. The handful of bases Nolan can reach are besieged by suspicion. Oh, yeah, this is the White House calling, huh? Right. Fuck off.

  Finally, he gets hold of one of his old squad buddies at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

  “Steely, this is Nolan.”

  There’s a slight pause before he hears the reply, “Jesus Fucking Christ, Landis. What the hell is happening over there?”

  “It ain’t pretty,” Nolan says, leaning forward and muzzling the phone. Although everyone around him has top-secret clearance, Nolan knows what he’s about to ask is going to be alarming. “Listen. I need you to do me a favor. I’m in Washington. This thing has got a lot of people rattled.”

  “No shit.”

  “Can you check the armory for me? Are you still carrying the B-61 nukes as an option for your B-2s?”

  “You’re kidding, right? It’s the middle of the goddamn night. Everyone’s on a razor. Right now, they’d shoot at shadows. You know we saw it, huh?”

  “You saw An̆duru?”

  “Yeah, damn thing was booking due west. Looked like a shooting star, only brighter and curving through the sky like a goddamn arrow. Level with me, buddy. Are we under attack?”

  “I don’t know,” Nolan says. “I need to know the status of those B-61s. Are they dummies? Or the real thing? Do they have an active core? Are they intact?”

  “Intact? You’re fucking with me, right?”

  “No,” Nolan says.

  “Sweet Jesus. They’d better be intact.”

  “Find out for me, will yah?”

  “Hold on,” he says.

  While he’s waiting, Nolan logs into the IMS app spying on nuclear activity around the globe. The secure site is up, but access is slow. He brings up recent satellite imagery. Nolan cocks his head sideways, propping the phone between his chin and shoulder as he works with his laptop.

  The International Monitoring System is designed to avoid nuclear misunderstandings between countries. IMS tracks the possibility of ballistic launches. It also monitors known nuclear arsenals and fixed launch sites. And it’s not limited to Russia. IMS includes satellite imagery of the Minuteman missile silos scattered across Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Any activity is automatically logged for compliance checks against arms limitation treaties. Even website maintenance is flagged as it can be used to covertly switch out warheads. With most launch locations set underground, thermal imaging and ground-penetrating radar are used to ensure compliance. Logs are kept of any vehicles visiting known sites.

  In the background, Nolan can hear Colonel Steele jumping in a vehicle. He’s talking to someone at a military checkpoint.

  Nolan brings up imagery from Russia. He checks the timestamp—barely an hour old. Derzhavinsk, Kansk, and Svobodny all have multiple emergency vehicles on site. Fire engines. Trucks. Water tankers. Irkutsk and Uzhur have smoke drifting from their silos. The concrete covers on the Teykovo site are open. Dark, pungent smoke billows from a cluster of five silos deep in the Siberian wilderness. The lids on these sites are rarely opened. Each lid weighs over a thousand tons. They’re built from reinforced concrete and designed to withstand a first strike. Nolan’s never seen one open before, let alone all five at once.

  In the background, he can hear chatter over the phone. A car engine idles. There’s a heated discussion unfolding in Guam.

  “You cannot approach any closer, sir. I’m sorry. We’re dealing with a potential broken arrow.”

  “You catching this?” Steely asks Nolan. “DoE manage these things on base. They’re not letting anyone get close.”

  “Yeah,” Nolan says. “Can you get any more detail?”

  “Listen,” Steely says to someone standing nearby. “I’ve got the goddamn White House on the line… No, I am not shitting you. What do you know? Tell me what you know.”

  It’s hard to make out the exact reply over all the chatter in the corrido
r outside the Situation Room, but Nolan catches a few key phrases.

  “Radiation alarm… armory sealed… nuclear material exposed… Cannot access until specialists suit up…”

  “Did you get that?”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Nolan says. “Hey, email me updates, okay?”

  “Will do, buddy.”

  Nolan hangs up. His hand lingers on the phone. His eyes gaze down at the laptop keyboard. For a moment, he’s numb. He brings up IMS imagery for the Dakotas, but the latest images are from twelve hours ago. Nolan has no idea about the frequency of satellite passes. He can’t wait any longer.

  “Dr. McKenzie,” he says, which gets Kath’s attention as he hasn’t called her that in months.

  “Have you got any updates?” she asks.

  “You?” he asks, ignoring her question for a moment.

  “I’m still trying to put all the pieces together,” she says. “Sarah Hendi at JPL heard from the team at IceCube. Their experiment blew a gasket.”

  “Ice cube?”

  “IceCube’s an observatory at the South Pole. A bunch of highly-sensitive detectors buried in the ice. It’s looking for neutrinos from supernovae, black hole mergers, stuff like that.”

  “And?”

  “And it got fried. As An̆duru passed through our atmosphere, it created plasma in its bow wave. We were expecting this. The shockwave triggered a cascade of highly energetic subatomic particles. Neutrino measurements went off the charts. But it makes no sense. Neutrinos are neutral. They can’t cause spikes in a nuclear reactor.”

  “General,” Sergeant Russo says from beside him. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I’ve got NORAD on the line asking for you.”

  “Sure,” he says, turning away from Kath as she begins poring over the data.

  Russo transfers the call to him.

  “Landis here.”

  “Tell me you saw this coming,” General Cooper says.

  “I wish I had, sir.”

  “I don’t know what the view is like from there in Washington, but out here, it’s bad. Even heavily shielded equipment has been fried. Nellis and Castle are out of action—entire bases taken down. McMasters got permission to relocate a dozen squadrons to Eielson up in Alaska. Spoke to him half an hour ago and they’re good, but anything in the southern states is a goddamn paperweight. They hit us hard. Real hard.”