“And a limo with bulletproof glass,” Ishah adds.
“Wow,” I say. When I all but demanded McKnight bring my family to me, I didn’t think they would get the red carpet treatment. Most of the people here, aside from the President himself, don’t have family in the White House. But they weren’t yanked away from their lives, either. As far as I know, I’m still not getting a paycheck for being here. Not that it matters. Banks might not be able to hold much more than snow in the near future. “Hey,” I say, looking around the room. “I’ve heard that some of these books have dollar bills hidden in the pages. Why don’t you two see if you can find them.”
The boy’s eyes widen, and they hustle to the shelves filled with old books.
“Just be gentle,” I whisper, eying the door where Agent Huber exited. “The other rule is if you ruin the book, you have to buy it with any money you find.”
While the boys flip through the pages gently, as requested, I head for the far side of the room and sit on a couch that looks antique, but also brand new. Bell sits beside me and Mina pulls and turns one of the chairs around in front of the couch, so it faces me. At home, we’d call this kind of meeting a ‘pow wow.’ Seated across from the Native American chiefs, that feels inappropriate.
“You’re afraid,” Bell says, glancing at the boys. They show no reaction, replacing books carefully and inspecting the next.
I give a subtle nod.
“Is it this volcano business?” she asks. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Another nod. “As bad as volcanoes get. World changing.”
“Are we going to be all right?”
“For now,” I say. “But I’m not sure what the future holds. For us, or anyone else. The good news is that we’re pretty much in the best place we could be to stay ahead of it.”
“What else?” Mina asks, her laser-focus eyes burning through my layers of defense. “You are...shaken.”
“Did I tell you that I have top-secret security clearance now?” I ask.
They stare at me.
“That means there are things I can’t tell you.” We’re alone, and the door is shut, but only a fool would believe that any conversation inside the White House is truly private. “As much as I might like to.”
They get it. I can see it in their eyes.
“But what I said before still applies. This is the best place for our family to be right now. And I intend to keep us here, but to do that, I need to stay useful.”
“You do what you need to do,” Bell says. “We’ll be here, and I’ll be praying for you.”
Mina takes my hand. “You won’t leave us.”
“Not a chance.”
She looks at the boys, who are looking discouraged and have started stacking the books they’ve already checked. “They need you as much as we do.”
“I am with you, and...” My words trigger a flashback. The figure standing over me. The rod in my hand. Was he a father figure?
A knock at the door startles me. I flinch back to the here and now, seeing concern on both women’s faces, and then the door opening behind them. Agent Huber enters first. He quickly spots the boys’ activity, points his finger and growls, “Hey—”
A wrinkled hand adorned in expensive rings reaches up and pushes Huber’s accusatory finger down. “Calm yourself, Bruce.” Susan McKnight, the First Lady, enters the room, smiling at the boys. She’s the grandmother everyone wishes they had, pruned, casual, friendly and all about the kids. “Are you boys interested in history or has someone set you on a wild goose chase?”
“Both,” Ike says, and glowers at me. “I think.”
The First Lady chuckles, and turns to Bell and Mina. “Ladies. I’ve had a room prepared for you all. If you’d like to come with me, I think your...husband’s attention is required elsewhere at the moment.”
Bell would normally correct people when they call her my wife. She’s sensitive to the fact that the title belongs to Mina, but she keeps her mouth closed, probably because she doesn’t want to offend the First Lady in her own home.
When Sonja Clark steps into the room, behind the First Lady, and simply motions with her head for me to follow her, I stand. “Duty calls.” I kiss both Bell and Mina on their foreheads, telling them both I love them, and then doing the same to the boys. “I’ll see you all later.”
I smile at the First Lady as I pass, and she squeezes my arm. “You have a lovely family.”
“Thank you, Mrs.—”
“Call me Susan.”
I smile. “Thank you, Susan.”
I re-enter the beehive hallway, mixing in with the scurrying aids, politicians and agents. Clark is waiting for me, holding a tablet. She holds it up as she leads me toward the West Wing, where the Oval Office and Situation Room are both located. She holds up the screen for me to see. It’s a satellite view of Europe, the ash-free countries of the Mediterranean still recognizable. But it’s cast in hues of blue and green, with several splotches of yellow, orange and red.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Thermal imaging of Europe.” She points to several hot spots on the coast of the Mediterranean. “These are cities.” Her finger travels north, into the ash cloud obscuring the nations located there. “These are not. Most of Northern Europe is without power. Communications are down. Governments have gone silent, and our own overseas assets are either clueless, dead, unable to make contact or in the dark. Literally. So what we need to know is, what are these hotspots?”
I take the tablet and stop in the middle of the hallway, oblivious to the people moving and talking around me. Please God, let me be wrong. Finding recognizable bits of coast here and there, I fill in the map’s black spaces, mentally tracing out the UK, Spain, France and Germany. “Shit.”
“What?” Clark asks. “Abraham, what?”
Her use of my first name pulls my eyes away from the screen. “Nuclear power plants. Most are built on the coast. They would have been flooded by the tsunami. The flood waters might have helped keep things cool for a while, but as the ocean recedes, the remaining water is going to boil off quickly. If they haven’t melted down already, they’re about to. And when that happens, the winter we’re facing is going to be nuclear.”
13
I’m a bit relieved, upon re-entering the Situation Room, to find that the U.S. Military has figured out what the hotspots are across the northern European coastlines, without my help. I’m less relieved by the fact that they have no idea what to do about it. Mostly because I don’t either, and by the way they’re looking at me as I take a seat against the wall, I can tell they’re hoping I’ll give them a place to start.
“Mr. Wright,” a general whose name escapes me says, but he’s old and gray, and serious in the way you’d expect generals sitting around this table to be. “You’re aware of the situation?”
I nod.
“Can you—”
“A problem like this isn’t solved in a room like this,” I tell them. “It’s solved in laboratories. You don’t need a scientist, you need all of them. When Chernobyl melted down in 1986, radioactive contaminates spread northwest to Sweden and Finland, and west, into Europe. Radiation increased to one hundred times the normal background as fallout fell to the ground, the water supplies and the crops. While much of it dissipated within a week, there were serious health effects for people living within eighteen miles of the meltdown, and for those tasked with cleaning it up. Mutations. Cancer. Cataracts. Mental illness. The list of effects is long, and the number of affected in the hundreds of thousands. That was from a single meltdown in a less populated area.
I motion to the large wall-mounted display showing the hotspots hidden beneath a shroud of volcanic ash. “What we have here is, what...” I quickly count the hotspots. “...seventeen nuclear power plants on the verge of melting down, if they haven’t already, with no one left alive to stop it. When Chernobyl melted down, they lost reactor number four. That is to say, one of four reactors. That disaster could have been four tim
es worse. And while seventeen power plants is bad enough, there are far more reactors—”
“Thirty-two,” Robert Scarlato says, looking up from his laptop. He looks happy to have contributed to the conversation, but then sheepish when that number is all he has to offer.
“The northern coast of Europe will be uninhabitable for thousands of years, and the North and Baltic Seas will be contaminated for who knows how long.”
“What about the UK?” someone asks, as the room continues to fill.
“Between the poison gas, the tsunami, quakes, the ash cloud and seven nuclear power plants melting down? With the exception of Ireland, which is currently protected from the radiation by wind and ocean currents, the UK is probably a total loss. Even if there are survivors inland, the ash prevents air travel, and you’d have to get past the radioactive coast to reach them. If evacuation is on the table, focus on Ireland.”
McKnight shakes his head. “We’re going to conserve our resources. I’ve never liked the every man for himself mentality, but our commitment is to the American people first. If this comes our way, we need to be ready.”
“Will it?” Sonja Clark asks. “Come our way?”
“The ash,” I say. “Yes. And if the radioactive isotopes bind with the ash in the atmosphere, it’s possible we’ll have radioactive fallout. In Alaska. Maybe on the West Coast. But there’s a good chance it will encounter weather systems and dissipate by then. But given the current trajectory of the ash cloud, it seems likely that Northern Europe and a portion of Russia will be significantly contaminated. Those closest to the meltdowns will die quickly, and painfully. Those further away will fall ill in the next few years, but will probably die from the endless winter they’re about to face. Ocean currents will keep contaminated water from reaching the East Coast, but fishing in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans probably won’t be a good idea for a long time. But like I said, it will take teams of scientists years to truly understand the ramifications of this many nuclear meltdowns.
“The one course of action I can recommend without further delay is the shutting down of all active nuclear reactors worldwide.”
A man I don’t know, wearing a suit and tie, objects. “Twenty percent of our energy comes from nuclear power. Millions of people would be in the dark. Other countries depend on nuclear power for a vast amount of their energy consumption. They’ll never agree to it.”
“Better to be in the dark, than melted,” Clark says.
“Robert,” McKnight says to the senior science advisor. “Look into that. I want to know how fast it can be done, how many people would be affected, and projections on how we would be affected by a similar disaster along either or both of our coastlines.”
When Scarlato scribbles a note and says, “Yes, sir,” McKnight sighs and with a deep, growly voice, says, “Now.”
“Y-yes, sir.” Scarlato fumbles with his belongings, gathers them up and heads for the door.
McKnight leans back in his chair, rubbing his face. When he removes the wrinkled digits, he looks even more tired. “General Alonso...”
“Sir,” the gray haired general says.
“Any update from our forces in Europe?”
“Those in the clear are as in the dark as we are. Borders are closing. Countries are preparing for the worst. We’ve called back everyone we could, but we suspect our people in Northern Europe and the UK are facing the same odds of survival as the locals.”
“God damnit,” McKnight whispers. He looks ready to beat his fist against something. Those seated near him lean away. He might be old, but he still looks strong enough to pack a punch. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, his focus looks deadly. He looks at those seated around him, meeting their eyes, daring them to not speak. “How do we get ahead of this thing?”
The answers come in a torrent, ample in numbers, but none well thought out.
“We need evacuation plans for all major cities.”
“Refugee camps in the south.”
“Radiation units in Alaska and the West Coast.”
Radiation units? These people are just spinning on my words from predictions to actions.
“Close the Mexican border,” someone says, and I laugh.
The room falls silent, like I’ve just used the ‘N-Word’ at a Black Panthers meeting. All eyes turn toward my rapidly wilting smile.
The President raises his eyebrows at me, silently demanding I speak.
“First of all,” I say, “you want to keep the Mexican border open. Wide open. If possible, start tearing down walls and fences. If a significant portion of the U.S. population needs to head south, a few border crossings aren’t going to get the job done, and there is a very real chance Mexico, and the rest of Central America, isn’t going to be happy about a massive population increase. In fact, they’ll probably treat it the way we would.”
“An invasion,” General Alonso says.
“You’ll probably want to start moving ground forces south to the border, if you can do it without being seen.” I feel uncomfortable giving advice that includes military action, but if Mexico doesn’t play ball, hundreds of millions could die. If the U.S. has to put the smack down on the Mexican military, the end justifies the means. Maybe. Either way, people are going to die. Millions of them already have, or are in the process of dying. At this point, war is inevitable. “Second, all of the other suggestions are Band-Aids.”
“I don’t follow,” McKnight says.
“They’re treating the symptoms,” I say. “Not the cause.”
“We can’t fight a volcano,” Alonso says. “Or radioactive fallout.”
“Again, those are symptoms. They’re not the cause.”
“You’re talking about the aberration,” McKnight says.
I wonder how much everyone in this room knows about the aberration, and decide to guard my answer. “I am.”
The confused looks on most of the faces in the room confirm that this subject is still a closely guarded secret. Only Alonso and Clark seem unconfused by the subject matter. And I understand why. Natural and manmade disasters are horrifying in scope and because of their potential to kill people by the millions, but they still make sense. They’re part of reality. A giant...something...miles tall, wide and long, strolling across the Earth’s crust, setting off volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes and nuclear meltdowns... That’s supernatural, and it very well could kick off a panic inside the White House—and outside as the news leaks, first to family, then to friends and finally to the networks.
“Give us the room,” McKnight says, and bodies shuffle from the room in silence. They’re not talking now, but I have no doubt these people will be asking each other about the ‘aberration’ as soon as the doors shut behind them. When the doors close, I’m left with McKnight, Alonso, Clark and a few more people I vaguely recognize, but haven’t spoken to directly. But it’s clear that they’re in the know. One of the remaining men, dressed in a military uniform, looks like he was chiseled from stone. A real, old-school, shoot-’em-up, get-the-job-done type.
McKnight turns to me. “What are you suggesting?”
“That a concerted effort be put into studying and understanding the...aberration. How it works. Where it came from. Where it’s going. What it wants. We need to answer all the same questions we might when studying a disease, or cancer, with the end goal being a cure.”
“A nuclear warhead might be all that’s required,” Alonso offers.
I shake my head. “This...thing…has been living under tremendous pressure for who knows how long. At least since the glaciers formed on Iceland, but probably a lot longer. It survived inside a volcano. And with all the nuclear material currently being pumped into the atmosphere, I’m not sure launching nuclear missiles is a good idea. Also, it doesn’t seem concerned about nuclear fallout, does it?”
“You say that like you think it’s intelligent,” Clark notes.
“It’s following a path directly below the ash cloud,”
I say. “It’s impossible to see from above, but in that eternal darkness, it would also be hard to see coming, despite its size. Every action it’s taken so far suggests some kind of intelligence. At the very least, strategic instincts. But whether it’s intelligent or not doesn’t really matter. It still wants, or needs, something. It exists for a purpose. We need to figure out what that is and then use that knowledge to stop it. It may very well be a nuclear missile, but I wouldn’t recommend using one—or five—until we know it will work. At the very least, we’ll avoid making it angry.”
That seems to resonate. Right now, the aberration seems to be out for a very destructive stroll. I hate to think what would happen if it went on a rampage.
“General Stone,” McKnight says, and the rugged-looking military man straightens up.
“Sir.”
“Assemble a team. The best you have. I want eyes on the aberration by this time tomorrow. As Mr. Wright says, we need to know what we’re dealing with.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he’s going with.”
Stone looks momentarily unhappy, but the emotion is squelched by the hard man’s years of training and unflappable discipline.
I, on the other hand, nearly pass out when I realize the ‘he,’ in question, who will be joining this military expedition to locate, identify and study a creature responsible for the deaths of millions, and likely millions more to come, is me.
14
Turns out that while I have no trouble writing convincing words, and can recite facts on a myriad of subjects, I’m horrible at verbalizing why I am the wrong man to send into an apocalyptic hot zone. After all, I had spent my time at the White House showing the President that I was, in fact, the right man to send. And since this is really an exploratory mission, my job being to assess the situation and recommend which fields of science should be directly involved, I’m more qualified than any actual scientist. In the President’s words, I am ‘quick thinking, knowledgeable, and experienced.’
Escaping the initial eruption and saving the team has somehow convinced the Commander in Chief that I am not only a science-minded fellow, but a man of action as well. I disagreed, vehemently, but soon found myself speaking to an empty chair and General Stone, a man whose course in life seems defined by his last name. He was hard and unmoving, both physically and emotionally, plotting out the mission that would lead me away from my family once more and toward the embrace of doom.
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