by David Cline
During the last 24 hours, it had rained 71 inches in Long Beach California. Almost 6 feet. Scattered reports were coming in of totals surpassing even that. Monumental flooding was occurring everywhere. Cars floating down empty highways. Small streams, usually nothing more than a trickle, looked like the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon. Mud slides had blocked roads, making rescue attempts impossible until the storm abated. With each rocket adjusting its course for maximum effect, Danville could only guess what devastation this last one would bring on if detonated as intended.
An hour before, when the news arrived that Wood and Wilkins had managed to break into Odessa’s network an exuberant cry had gone up. A nervous hope spread throughout the corridors of the S.A.T.R.A. building. Slowly, Stalbridge and a host of staff, accompanied by their families gathered outside his office door waiting patiently for any news.
Danville focused on the console with renewed resolve. He pulled up the index again and scanned each title. Some areas required further authentication to access the files including the shuttle program. He had computer algorithms that he had coded himself working double time, trying to break in.
While he waited, the security program caught his eye. Camera feeds populated across his array of monitors. His breath caught in his throat when he realized what he was watching. An army sized group of armed combatants were running across an enormous cavern. The micro flashes on the screen had to signify gunfire. He quickly scanned the other camera feeds for any sign of Nick, Adam, and Amara, but he could not locate them. There weren’t many cameras and the place must have been enormous. Danville wondered if Odessa had not beefed up electronic security because they thought no one would find them.
A green light blinked and he began to type again. He had broken into their rocket program. Numbers cascaded down his monitor like a waterfall. His face scrunched as he tried to make sense of them. Was it another code?
He racked his brain trying to make sense of the data. After a full minute with no progress, he snatched up his water bottle and rotated in his chair throwing it across the room. The sound of glass breaking somewhere behind him did not cause him to turn around.
He stood up and paced back and forth. Odessa would need to know as much about their rockets as possible. The most important data sent back, would be current location. He sat back down and stared at the numbers. How do you determine your location in 3-dimensional space? Then it clicked. He was looking at changing coordinates on a Pulsar map.
Danville’s mind raced. Pulsars were the leftover cores of supernova explosions. Their quick spin and powerful magnetic fields caused the release of narrow beams of light. They flashed like a lighthouse every time the beams passed across the field of view. Each pulsar had a unique pulse rate, like a personal signature, which made them easy to identify and were ideal as reference points on a map when traveling through space.
By calculating the angles and pulse length to a set of identified pulsars, someone could use them like GPS or ordinary triangulation to determine their position in space with a high degree of accuracy. The measurements could be made by either optical or radio receivers.
Danville did not know where in space the final rocket currently flew, but he knew he had to divert its current course. Once he gave the command for the alteration of trajectory, how much time would it take for the signal to reach the rocket?
He pulled up the command line and began to type. If he could just change the vector by a few degrees, over millions of miles, that would send the rocket far off course. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead. He sat back and double checked his code. Everything looked good. With a quick keystroke, he executed it.
Now all he could do was wait for the command to be passed to the rocket flying somewhere between Earth and the sun. He let out an anxious sigh and navigated back to Odessa’s security program. The large cavern he had seen earlier was now littered with motionless bodies. His heart sank. It looked like Nick, Adam and Amara had put up quite the fight, but had finally succumbed to an overwhelming force with nowhere to escape. He checked the other camera feeds but saw no sign of them.
Danville rubbed his bloodshot eyes. He rose from his chair and trudged toward the door. He could hear the murmur of the small crowd gathered in the hallway, waiting for an update. He wondered how to break both the good and bad news. He was never good at these kinds of things. With a miserable sigh, he opened the door.
Chapter 37
The incessant water had now completely covered some of the smaller palm trees. Russell and his wife had scurried like mice in a sinking ship in search for higher ground. Almost the entire island chain of Maldives was now under water. Their dream honeymoon had devolved into an abject nightmare.
It was hard to tell in all the tumult, but Russell thought the storm had mercifully abated in the last hour. The air did not feel so thick. For the last 24 hours it had felt as though they had been stuck in a fog machine. But now, visibility was slowly improving.
The more he could see, the lower his spirits sank. They were surrounded by water in every direction. Every inhabitant on the island now shared a space a little larger than the size of a soccer field. The ocean had exceeded its normal boundaries. Occasionally, a wave larger than normal would roll onto the damp ground and over their feet. Ever threatening.
Russell looked around at the people surrounding him. Tourists intermingled with locals. Everyone was damp and exhausted. No one had slept for days. Each pair of eyes had a glassy expression. They were forced to meander the last piece of land aimlessly and face their collective fate together.
There was a rumor that boats were on their way to rescue everyone, but Russell was scared to hope. Paradise sometimes came at a price. Isolation. They were in the middle of the ocean. Everything, including the narrow airstrip they had arrived on, was now under a few feet of water.
“Tsunami?” his wife asked. Despite the dire situation, his wife had somehow remained in high spirits.
Russell shook his head. “I don’t think so. A tsunami would have been different.” He looked out to sea. “It must have rained several feet at least. One for the history books, at the very least.”
She nodded. “I just hope nearby islands weren’t as badly affected as we were.”
“Me too.”
Nearby, a tourist who looked to be in his early twenties waded out into the water toward two floating beach chairs. They were the ones provided by one of the resorts. The water was up to his chest when he reached them and began to drag them back to dry land.
A few locals smoked lazily and talked softly amongst themselves, looking up toward the sky every so often.
Russell looked heavenward too. They had not seen blue skies for days. He hoped the clouds would part. Some sunshine would lift spirits and dry the sodden wretches now ambling around the last spick of sand, it seemed, on the entire planet.
It was not only humans who had retreated to higher ground. Flocks of birds squawked and nestled their feathers as they faced the wind. A green iguana with black vertical stripes walked solemnly between them, searching for food. A snake poked a triangular head out of some thick bushes and observed the scene before concealing itself within the underbrush again.
“Still no cell signal?” he asked.
“None whatsoever.”
“You see anybody with a Ham radio?”
“You could ask around.”
Russell observed the people nearby. He didn’t have anything better to do and they weren’t going anywhere soon. “I’ll be right back.”
He began a lap of what was left of the island, asking if anyone had a radio. When he reached an older couple, the woman gave her husband a quick look and he withdrew a small black radio from his backpack.
“I’m embarrassed to say I never learned how to use it,” he said, in a thick European accent. “One of those last-minute purchases for our vacation. It has been soaked with everything else, but it might still work.”
Russell smiled warmly at them. “Let me se
e what I can do.”
He fiddled with the dials as he walked back towards his wife. There was a short antenna and a wide array of buttons with different letters and symbols on them. He clicked on the power, but nothing changed on the digital display. He pried the back open and looked at the batteries. They looked cheap and were moist with condensation. Was it the rain or the humidity? He pulled them out and discarded them in the sand.
He reached his wife and showed her what he had found. “You brought batteries in your pack, right?”
She pulled her purple backpack around and, after some rummaging, withdrew a Zip Lock bag full of batteries. He withdrew the two he needed and then blew into the compartment. He secured the fresh batteries and fastened the case. He tried the power switch again and digital numbers flashed on the display.
He smiled and held it out in front of him. “You know how to work these things?”
His wife took it from him. “I had some friends in college who were obsessed with Ham radios. They all had their own call sign and communicated in Morse code.” She pressed a button. “If I remember right, if we want our signal to travel long distances, we set our band between 15 and 27 MHz. Unlike FM or TV stations, which use line of site and are limited to 40 or 50 miles depending on geography, the Ham signals bounce off the atmosphere and can go a long way.”
Her hands trembled as she pressed the frequency switch until the LCD display showed the desired set of numbers. “Let’s see if anyone is out there.” She held it up to her mouth. “Calling barefoot from Maldives. Need immediate assistance.”
“Calling barefoot?” Russell asked.
“It means we are running our transmitter without an amplifier.” She shrugged. “At least that’s what I think it means.”
She repeated the call and then heard static followed by jumbled voices. A small crowd of people began to gather around them with eager expressions. They had discovered a way to contact the outside world.
She repeated the call again. Someone on the other end began speaking in a language neither of them understood.
“You get any of that?” she asked.
Russell shook his head.
“There are people on Maldives that need immediate rescue,” she tried again. “Can anyone understand me?”
There was silence and then a single voice came through the receiver. “Standby.” The accent was thick.
“Where are you located?”
“Colombo.”
She looked at Russell.
“Sri Lanka,” he said. “We had a layover there.”
Around the little island, a cry went up. Russell thought it was because they had managed to get through to someone on the outside, but when he looked around, everyone was pointing skyward. He looked up and saw a thin ribbon of blue sky. It looked like the storm had finally passed.
“Hello?” The static increased for a few moments before clearing. “This is Lieutenant Almeda with the SLN. Are you still with me, miss?”
“Yes! The entire island of Maldives is underwater, and we need immediate rescue.”
There was another pause. “We are sending a boat. Standby.”
Chapter 38
Jim Stalbridge gritted his teeth as he heaved another 30-pound bag of sand into place. The 4-lane highway, normally in a traffic deadlock for the afternoon commute, now had mountains of sand on either side, funneling millions of cubic feet of water toward the ocean. He looked across the quick moving water to people stacking bags along the far side. The sheer volume of water was staggering. Millions of bags had been placed for miles along the highway reaching 15 feet high, and still the water threatened to breach the top.
It had been a week since Danville had diverted the trajectory of the third rocket off course. The news about Nick and Adam had really hit Stalbridge hard. He had shut himself in his office immediately after learning their fate and wept. It was like losing two sons. He regretted not having the proper time to process everything. It was all hands-on deck around the entire world. He had been so busy coordinating mitigation efforts around the country, he had not had the time to properly grieve. That would come later.
Scattered reports continued to come in as the world tried to organize itself again. The volume of rain that had fallen around the globe was staggering. Entire islands were under water. The sea level had risen an average of six feet.
Anyone with a basement had water inside their house. Millions of people were doing their best to protect them and theirs.
For the last decade everyone had talked about the drought conditions in the west. Reservoirs were drying up and cities like Las Vegas were running out of water. Those fears could now be put to rest for the foreseeable future. Every dam across the country had the spillways opened, and some still reported water going over the top. Lake Powell had filled overnight, after years of extremely low water levels. The National Park Service reported over 100 thousand CFS flowing through the Grand Canyon, carving the gorge ever deeper.
Reports out of remote towns in northern Alaska confirmed over 30 feet of snow. The entire region was buried. People were forced to bunker down in their homes and wait it out. If they did not have proper food storage, rescue efforts were being made.
It seemed every able-bodied person had turned into a first responder. Neighbors helping neighbors. The young helping the old. Nothing like a nationwide disaster for entire communities to come together.
Thankfully, almost every household still had power. It was not the violence of the storm that had hurt them, like in a hurricane. It was just the sheer volume of water that had fallen from the sky.
Thousands of mudslides and flash floods had cascaded down mountains and hills, burying homes and blocking roadways. It would take months to clear the debris, working around the clock.
The total death count was only going to continue to steadily rise in the coming weeks. Early projections were estimating in the tens of thousands. Communities constructed any lower than 6 feet above sea level were hit hardest. Aerial footage showed thousands of people standing on roofs with cardboard signs, pleading for rescue. There had been at least a few small towns in the Rocky Mountains completely buried from violent avalanches. If anyone had somehow survived, chances of rescue were not good.
A large percentage of crops had been destroyed by the storm. Entire fields of corn, sugar beets, potatoes, soybeans, and wheat all wiped out. Because it was still winter in the northern hemisphere, it was countries in the south that were going to be affected the most. Careful coordination was going to need to take place on a global scale to relieve the hunger and high prices that were sure to come.
In the United States, record level snowpacks were being reported everywhere. At higher elevations, the rain had turned into snow and buried everything it fell on. They would have to drain as much water as possible before the spring runoff only a few months away.
Stalbridge rested his hands on his hips and looked at the torrent of water racing toward the sea. It would probably continue to rise for the next few weeks. He was about to climb down from the pile of sand bags when a red shape caught his eye. A group of kayaks floated past with the current. Everyone had helmets with cameras mounted in the front. A young man caught his eye and gave him a peace sign. Stalbridge smiled. They reminded him of Nick and Adam. The entire world was on the ropes after a beating from mother nature, and these guys had found a way to enjoy it. The human spirit and the ability to adapt was really something special.
He walked down the road and watched as business owners pumped water out of their properties. Small streams of water flowed everywhere as they made their way toward the ocean. A police car with the siren blaring sped past him and rounded a corner. Everyone had been so busy staying alive, he had not heard reports of widespread looting or anarchy. He hoped that the trend would continue throughout the next few weeks.
He turned right and saw a crowd gathered outside the S.A.T.R.A. building. The cameras and boom microphones indicated reporters. Unfortunately, pseudo journalism had no
t drowned with so many other things during the last week.
Stalbridge caught his reflection in a dark window and grimaced. He looked like a wet dog that had been beaten with a stick. His face was smeared with layers of mud and his hair was askew. It had been weeks since he had slept more than two consecutive hours. The bags under his eyes had only deepened from exhaustion and stress.
As he approached the small crowd, no one gave him more than a quick glance. He must have looked like any other vagrant in southern California. When he veered toward the front double doors someone recognized him, and a collective cry went up. Suddenly bright lights and cameras were shoved in his face and a tirade of questions were shouted at him. He ignored them pushing his way through and entered the lobby. He nodded at the staff working and headed for the stairs.
He thought about going to his office and collapsing on the floor but decided to turn left instead. Chris Danville’s door was ajar, so Stalbridge rapped his knuckles against the glass as he entered. The office looked like it had been hit with a tornado. Empty microwavable meals littered the floor. Dented ramen cups with plastic spoons were heaped into a sizable pile. Thousands of single page documents were scattered all around.
Stalbridge kicked his way through the mess and collapsed into a chair a few feet from where Danville typed. “A hell of a week,” he said, resting the back of his head against the wall and releasing a long sigh.
Stalbridge noticed the creases around Danville’s bloodshot eyes had deepened. A greasy stubble had grown unevenly around the chin. His teeth had yellowed from recent neglect. He closed his eyes. “Yet our species survives.”
