by David Cline
He sighed and made his way back to his workstation. Another nameless day in the books.
The array of bright monitors exhibited the progress he had made in his attempt to determine if a biblical flood event was even possible and how it would scientifically come to pass. The problem he had encountered was the shocking discrepancies between atmospheric organizations. The data ranged so sporadically, it was difficult to determine what numbers to input as realistic conditions.
Danville didn’t understand why so many organizations around the world, all measuring the same thing could come up with such a wide range of contradicting data points.
He had voiced his complaint to a fellow S.A.T.R.A. employee in passing. They had thought it might be due to the political nature of science in the current landscape. Most scientific organizations relied heavily on continual funding from government or interested sponsors. If their research suggested anything contrary to the party’s political narrative, there was a good chance that as the next year’s budget proposals were solidified, the researchers would lose their funding.
The very idea of bastardizing scientific truth to appease the political slant of donors made Danville nauseous. There was no greater sin in his book and he tried to stay as far away from politics as possible. Now, he was forced to sift through tainted data by speculating on which organization would be the most likely to publish accurate numbers. Over the last two days Danville had been disgusted by how much government funded organizations exaggerated certain data, while at the same time completely ignoring others.
In the end, he decided to use the average of three separate organizations who were self-funded. Their research seemed the most consistent and honest.
Once Danville was satisfied with the conditional inputs, he worked on various computer simulations he hoped would give them an accurate portrayal of what to realistically expect during a magnetic pole reversal.
He piggybacked off a similar program he found in NASA’s arsenal and tweaked it to fit his needs. Even for some of the fastest hardware that money could buy, the sheer volume of entries caused the simulation to require a few minutes to compile.
Danville picked up a deflated miniature basketball and tossed it across the room where a small hoop hung against the wall. The ball ricocheted off the ceiling almost hitting one of the fire sprinklers protruding from the ceiling tile. Not even close. He looked up at the base of the sprinkler and hypothesized how much force would be needed to cause the emergency system to erupt. Better to not practice sports in the office.
The simulation was near completion when his office door burst open. Levi, a talented electrical engineer, supported himself against the wall while he tried to catch his breath. No one at S.A.T.R.A. besides Wood, Wilkins and Stalbridge were exactly in top notch physical condition.
“Have you looked outside?” Levi panted.
“Not more than a glance,” Danville said, somewhat annoyed. “Why?” He was anxious to run the simulations and wanted to be left alone.
“Follow me,” Levi said, gesturing back the way he had come.
Danville stared at him for a few moments, and then reluctantly locked his computer with a quick keystroke. He followed Levi out the door and down the hall toward the stairwell. They ascended two flights and then entered a door with a sign that had the words “Roof Access” above it.
Danville had never been on the building’s roof before. Nothing interested him out there and sunlight had the same effect on him as it would on a vampire. He was about to protest but Levi pushed the last metal door open and they found themselves on the flat roof, still warm from the afternoon sun. The darkness of night had fully ensued but the vast southern California lights lit up the area well enough to see. He was surprised how expansive the roof was. There must have been at least an acre of flat space up there. He thought about how many solar panels could fit, and if they would generate enough electricity to power everything inside the building. A question to bring up at the next company meeting.
Lost in his own thoughts, Danville had not realized Levi had continued forward without him. Danville walked around an enormous aluminum duct. A mechanical groan emitted through the steel grate like a whale bellowing from the deep. On the far side he spotted a group of silhouettes highlighted against the twilight. He approached them and was surprised to see Stalbridge smoking one of his famous cigars, a calm stoic expression on his face.
“I must have not gotten the memo for the company sunset kumbaya,” Danville said, walking up to them.
Stalbridge puffed on the cigar. The red ember illuminated his face. A brief smile caused his white teeth to punctuate the darkness. With a single gesture, Stalbridge pointed out over the roof toward the open ocean.
Danville turned and looked out across the vast firmament. A pale green circular haze danced on the horizon. His mouth opened as his brain tried to make sense of it. A flash above the green exploded and a curtain of red hues several miles high rushed heavenward. Deep rose reds and maroons clashed together in a dazzling display of nocturnal grandeur. A hush fell over the small group as they basked in the celestial performance.
“Are we looking at Aurora borealis?” Danville whispered.
Stalbridge nodded absently. “The northern lights have come to visit us in sunny southern California.”
“My God,” Danville said, in a reverent tone. His mind raced to determine what significance this beautiful display had. He tried to recall everything he had read about the infamous northern lights.
“If I remember correctly,” Danville began, “those dancing lights are caused by collisions between electrically charged particles from our sun as they enter the earth’s atmosphere. They are only seen above the magnetic poles of both the northern and southern hemispheres.” He paused and thought it through. “Which must mean, the magnetic poles are moving.” He paused and let the next few words exit his mouth slowly. “Or reversing.”
Stalbridge looked at him sharply. “I was afraid such majestic beauty came with a price.”
“Have there been any reports of widespread communication network outages?” Danville asked.
“None that I have become aware of,” Stalbridge said.
Danville bit a fingernail and began to talk to himself. “If we are seeing aurora borealis here in California, and there have been no widespread disruptions, that means our ionosphere has essentially disappeared and this spectacle is from the normal radiation the sun sends us at any given time.” He looked up again and saw a regal array of violet colors erupt in unison like a coordinated fireworks display. “If, however, there is any significant solar activity…” His voice trailed off and he spun around and quickly made his way back toward the stairs.
Stalbridge fell into step close behind him as they reached the door. “How much time would we have?” he asked.
“It takes sunlight 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel the distance to earth,” Danville said over his shoulder.
Stalbridge sighed. “Not much time to do much other than purchase some drinks and set some lawn chairs up.”
They entered Danville’s cluttered office together. Danville sat down and logged into his system. “The simulations I have been working on the last few days are finally ready,” he said. His hands flew across the keyboard like a concert pianist as he started the first simulation.
One of the monitors on the right opened an empty spread sheet and began filling columns with a barrage of numbers.
Danville watched the data without blinking. After a few tense minutes of absolute silence, the numbers stopped, and he flipped around and began typing again. “I haven’t had time to program anything fancy,” he said. “All we have is raw data projections.” He clicked a folder. “I might be able to use an old program I created for a different project a while back. There. We have to wait for all of that data to be loaded.”
He typed a few quick commands and then said, “Okay, we’re in.”
Stalbridge looked at him sideways but did not say anything.
He turned back to his old program and pointed to a collection of graphs. “Here we have normal atmospheric conditions. Over here, we can input various conditions to try and gage just how bad things could get if the sun decides to throw us a curve ball.”
“What do you mean?” Stalbridge asked.
“The classification system for solar flares uses the letters A, B, C, M and X. It is kind of complicated. They base it according to the peak flux in watts per square meter. Like the Richter scale, there are varying degrees of severity within each letter. X is the most powerful.”
“How big are we talking?”
Danville opened a browser and did a quick search. “It looks like just a few months ago, there was a X9.3 flare that knocked out high frequency communication and some navigation.” He paused while he read. “One of the largest recent recorded solar flares happened in 2003 measuring in at a whopping X28. Luckily, the earth at the time was positioned at an oblique angle, so we managed to avoid the full brunt of it. Even so, it managed to overload all NASA's solar sensors.”
“What would happen if that same flare hit us now?” Stalbridge asked. “While our ionosphere resets.”
Danville typed a large integer into an input field and pressed enter. A cascade of data ran down the screen. He watched it closely and grimaced. “Not good. A dangerous amount of solar radiation would reach the planet’s surface.” In frustration, he hit the mouse against the table. “There are just so many variables I don’t know. Where is earth currently in our orbit? Coronal mass ejections on the sun’s surface are on an 11-year cycle. Where are we currently in that timeframe? What if a X28 hit us directly while our magnetosphere is down? Is there anything we can do to stop it, or in the very least prepare ourselves?” He looked up toward Stalbridge with an exasperated expression. For the first time in a long time, Danville had no idea how to prioritize the tasks at hand.
“What can we do?” Stalbridge asked. His voice was calm but deliberate. His eyebrows furrowed with intensity.
“All hands-on deck,” Danville said. “Get everyone in here. S.A.T.R.A. employs some of the brightest scientists on the planet. Let’s put them to work. We need everyone’s help if we hope to answer all the little questions in time to organize all the information and answer some of the bigger ones.”
Stalbridge strode over to the phone system Danville had long since unplugged. There was nothing worse than having cognitive momentum only to be interrupted by a phone call, or worse yet, a notification they were celebrating someone’s birthday in the conference room. Stalbridge plugged it in and paged the front desk.
“Natalie,” he said. “I know it’s Saturday night, but get everyone in here right now. Code ABERDEEN.”
ABERDEEN was an internal codename used to quickly convey the seriousness of a situation. Since the company’s inception, they had only used it twice. There was a long pause and then Stalbridge hung up the phone.
Stalbridge walked back over to Danville while checking his pockets. “Damnit, I think I’m running low on cigars. The next few days are going to be hell.” He rubbed his temples. “You haven’t left your office for a week.” He paused and looked absently across the jumbled office. “You think the timing is coincidental?”
Danville shot him a doubtful look. “It's hard to believe in coincidence, but it's even harder to believe in anything else.” He opened another energy drink. “If Odessa is to blame for a global pole reversal,” he paused and took a sip, “then they are at least, from a technological standpoint, years ahead of anything I have read about. The sheer scale of such an undertaking is staggering. What did you find out in Washington?”
Stalbridge scowled. “Just your typical political buy offs and run around. If Odessa needed a certain permit, or for an investigation to disappear, it only took the right amount to the right person.”
“No specifics?” Danville asked.
“I know the names of officials being bought off, but pursuing legal action would get us nowhere and take excessive time and resources. I tipped off a few people I trust out there and hurried back.”
Danville pointed to his monitor. “I found a unique theory for the flood on an abstract online forum. At first I dismissed it as highly improbable, but have continued its exploration in more depth the last few days.”
“What does it entail?”
“All of these unique phenomena are making the theory only grow more probable in my opinion,” Danville said. “Essentially, they propose that during the days leading up to Noah’s flood, a magnetic pole reversal was in full effect. While the earth was vulnerable, an enormous solar flare erupted on the sun’s surface and blasted trillions of particles toward earth. All that energy sucked vast amounts of oxygen into space and collided with the approaching Hydrogen particles from the sun, creating hydroxyls. OH consists of one atom of hydrogen and one of oxygen. While in the upper atmosphere, another Hydrogen atom latched on forming frozen water particles. The earth’s gravity eventually caused them to fall back to earth forming super storms unlike anything we can imagine. A global thunderstorm. The theory is called Star Water. Some believe such a theory answers how water appears throughout our solar system.”
“Fascinating,” Stalbridge said. “Have you been able to simulate such an occurrence? How much rain are we talking?”
Danville shook his head. “I’m still working on the compilation of all the data. I will need to run a simulation if I hope to have any degree of accuracy.”
“Then I will leave you alone to get it done.” Stalbridge headed to the door and then paused. “Let’s just assume for a moment Odessa has found a way to recreate the biblical flood and a pole reversal has already begun. What would be their next move?”
“They would need to hope a solar flare occurs. The bigger the better.”
Stalbridge absorbed the words. “Would there be any way to preemptively cause a solar flare?”
Danville laughed. “I would say highly improbable. Even for an organization like Odessa. Solar flares are caused by magnetic storms on an incomprehensible level. Remember, you can fit about 1.3 million earths inside of the sun. Assuming you can get close enough, the temperature on the surface is approximately 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It would involve shuttle launches and technology that only exists within the science fiction communities.”
Stalbridge hesitated. “While I was in Washington I heard rumors of an island somewhere in the Pacific sending rockets into space on a weekly basis.”
Danville froze. “Who owns the island?”
“Odessa.”
Chapter 23
Wilkins swerved hard to avoid careening off the narrow dirt road. The compact sedan bottomed out and Wood heard metal scrape against rock.
“Will you take it easy?” Wood said.
Wilkins scowled. “I can’t believe the only car left to rent on the lot was this bathtub toy embarrassment. This hunk of aluminum would lose a fight against a stray dog. It’s a disgrace.”
“I think it compliments your personality rather distinctively,” Wood said.
The 4-cylinder engine roared in protest as the incline steepened. The afternoon sunlight struggled to penetrate the enclosing trees, leaving the road ahead dim. Shadows made it difficult to spot treacherous potholes or drop-offs.
“I hope you signed up for the insurance plan,” Wilkins said.
Just then the front tires dropped, and a wrenching noise filled the otherwise peaceful afternoon. To their right, a group of birds erupted from the trees and retreated into the bright orange sky above.
They both lurched forward, the seatbelts digging into their chests. “Good grief,” Wilkins said. “We would bottom out pulling into a driveway in this thing.”
“Maybe if you remembered that driving is not a contact sport…”
> Wilkins rolled his eyes. “How much further? The road gets worse with each passing mile.” He squinted his eyes. “It almost looks like this isn’t a road at all, but just a rocky dirt path barely wide enough to admit a vehicle.” He glanced over the center console. “You sure we are where you think we are?”
Wood looked down at the unfolded map in his lap. He traced a narrow black line with his forefinger. “The road we’re on now isn’t even on the map. But thanks to Danville’s directions, and our last GPS reading, I would wager we are right on track.”
Wilkins chuckled to himself. “You think Amara is going to be surprised?”
Wood grinned. “Like she saw a ghost.”
“We’re too tan to be ghosts. That middle eastern sun takes no prisoners.”
Wood pulled the mirror down and tried to examine his face amongst the ceaseless jarring of the car. Besides a few spots where some skin continued to peel, his face had healed and now was a few shades darker. He rubbed the light stubble over his chin.
“She has no idea we’re coming?”
“None,” Wood said. “Danville still communicates with her every couple of days. She has bunkered down in the house overlooking the bay where Hitler allegedly landed. Both Amara and Danville thought it would be the safest place for the time being. Way off the grid. And when the family begged her to stay, she eagerly agreed.”
Wilkins braked hard and navigated around a thick branch across the road. “Way off the grid is right.”
“The city has too many eyes,” Wood said. “Danville told me it was a police officer who attacked her that night on the beach. She would have to constantly look over her shoulder and question anyone’s motives when they started a conversation. It’s better this way.”
They rounded a sharp bend and came to an abrupt halt in a cloud of dust. They had reached the end of the road. Ahead of them was a little stream babbling over rocks smoothed over time. A narrow footbridge crossed the water and lead to a charming little house surrounded by manicured trees. Orange roof tiles reflected sharply in the afternoon sun.
