by JK Franks
Catalyst Downward Cycle
JK Franks
Catalyst Book One
by JK Franks
Book One of the Catalyst Series
Published by Red Leaf Press
Made in USA
Catalyst: Downward Cycle is a work of fiction. The characters, events, names, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any references to historical events, real people or actual locales are also used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 J.K. Franks
Cover art: Grady Frederick
Back cover design: JK Franks
Editor: Kate Juniper
ISBN-978-0-9977289-1-0
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To my wife, Christy,
thank you for believing.
Introduction
For many years, I have become interested in how prepared we are as a nation for a large-scale crisis. We have handed over responsibility to our government to provide for us in emergencies, yet we have seen how poorly it functions in that role. Often politicians and bureaucracy seem better suited to creating problems than solving them. In many dystopian novels, individuals take the lead and look after themselves. These Preppers or Survivalists seem to always have the right tools and skills to survive. What would an average person do if faced with a similar scenario? This was my initial question as this novel took shape on a long bike ride along the Gulf Coast of Florida.
The research that went into this manuscript was extensive and, on the issues of EMP/CME and Power Grid Damage, is based largely in fact. The projected casualties and secondary issues caused are also based on numerous studies. While this is a work of fiction wherever possible, I have used factual data to help develop the story.
I am not a prepper, but I appreciate those that are; I respect the dedication and their focus on personal responsibility. I am also not a conspiracy theorist but confess to having a healthy skepticism for much of what I hear, particularly from politicians and the media. In the modern connected world, relying on the “facts” from a single source or the Internet is rarely sufficient.
I have attempted in the Catalyst series to present a more realistic “End of the World” scenario. While it does present numerous conspiracy ideas and various social and economic commentaries, I have tried to be realistic in the portrayal of reactions to such a widespread catastrophe. I do believe many people would simply try to ignore the seriousness of such an event, while a very few would take steps to ensure their survivability. The ultimate debate the Catalyst stories raise is: which is more important, Our Survival or Our Humanity? I offer no commentary on that as it is a personal question for each reader to determine for themselves.
Prologue
This late summer evening of 1859 was not much different from countless others for Mr. Curtis Smythe. He had intended to leave his office near the railway station earlier than this, but it was not a problem. His father had been a very strict man, and punctuality his primary tool to gauge a person’s character. Curtis reached his delicate hand into his waistcoat and removed the fine American Waltham pocket watch to check the time. Being as he was a bachelor, his housekeeper, Martha, would hold dinner for him.
He stopped in the adjacent office to speak with his neighbor, Frederick. His friend ran the local telegraph office. He always had the latest news and was good for a laugh. As usual, he found Frederick leaning back in his chair with his head resting near the sounder, waiting for the next message to come in. The embroidered sampler hanging on the wall said: What hath God Wrought. Curtis knew from earlier conversations that this was the first telegraph message sent between Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail less than fifteen years earlier.
Fredrick looked up with a smile, “Fine day, Mr. Smythe.”
“Excellent one at that, Mr. Royce. Tell me, any more news about that damn fool Blondin? Is he going to have the knackers to walk over the falls again this year?”
Fredrick looked conspiratorially over and said, “Not if our boys here in DC have anything to say about it. Those chaps are furious about the last stunt. Damn little Frenchie.”
The two gentlemen chatted for several more minutes until a cable came in and Fredrick had to copy down the message. Curtis heard a faint buzzing. The humming sound grew in intensity until eventually, it seemed to emanate from everywhere.
Curtis was about to ask his friend about the noise, but Fredrick raised his hand. “One moment, this is urgent, have to get it sent over to Richmond.” Looking out the window, Curtis noticed something peculiar. The telegraph wires seemed to be glowing, and the buzzing noise intensified. He was becoming quite alarmed now. Curtis could see what looked to be sparks of fire arcing off many of the wires coming into the little office. The sound grew increasingly louder.
Curtis looked over with concern at his friend who was preparing to initiate the next call. Fredrick’s hand was resting on a metal plate, ready to begin tapping out the Morse Code for the next station. His finger was just about to touch the sender key when a bright flash jumped from the key to his finger. Recoiling from the shock, his head neared a cable, and another giant blue spark of fire struck Fredrick’s head and ran down his shoulder. He slumped into the wooden chair with a groan.
The normally implacable Curtis was mortified; he had understood that the telegraph lines were not powered at all until the signal was sent, and even then, it was not considered a dangerous current. Admittedly, he was not well-versed in electricity, but if it was this dangerous, he hoped they never tried to do anything more than send messages. He went over to check on his friend who was clearly in pain. He thought briefly of fetching the doctor, but after several minutes, Frederick roused and came to and for none the worse it would seem. “The good Lord was merciful to you, my friend,” Curtis said looking down with concern.
“Merciful? Huh, not to seem too disrespectful, brother, but that didn’t feel like mercy,” Frederick said as he took in his smoking and ruined sending station.
Neither of the baffled men could guess that what had caused the electrical discharge had nothing to do with the telegraph, wires or attached batteries. In fact, the cause was not even something limited to Washington, D.C where they were. Many other people had noticed similar events and would for several more days. Across North America, telegraph lines failed as though they were candles snuffed out by a strong breeze. For days after, accounts poured in of the night sky erupting with brilliant colors. These auroras were so bright they seemed to turn the night into day. Many on the southern Eastern Seaboard of the country described the color of the eastern sky as blood red. The ocean, reflecting the sky, became blood. The brilliant colors were so intense that adjacent towns seemed to be on fire. The Aurora, or so-called “Northern Lights,” appeared as far south as Cuba.
Nineteen hours earlier, just outside London, a young man named Richard Carrington climbed the steps up to his estate’s private observatory. As a much-respected amateur astronomer, he felt a thrill each time he got to examine the sky. While many of his associates spent their nights watching the moon, comets, stars and planets, Richard had a fascination with the sun. He had designed new ways of observing the sun, and in doing so, discovered that Earth’s local star was very active. Today he was enjoying an almost perfect blue sky and had been sketching what he saw reflected on the paper beneath the brass telescope. This day, he found he was drawing a series of enormous dark spots scattered across the face of the sun. This in itself was not strange as he had seen the mysterious spots many times, j
ust not in this number. Suddenly, he noticed what he later called “two patches of intensely bright, white light” seemingly coming up directly from the sunspots. After several minutes, the white lights vanished. This plume of star matter, he saw, had burst away from the sun with unimaginable force and was heading directly toward Earth at almost 1,000 miles per second.
The impact was felt across the planet within just a few hours, the incredible Auroras the most benign aspect of the event.
Another telegraph station would also feel the continuing wrath of the solar super-storm. On the morning of September 2, 1859, in Boston, the American Telegraph Company was to bear more witness to the phenomena. One of the young operators, David Selfor, had been unable to send or receive any messages since coming on shift. With telegraphs being a common modern convenience, people and businesses depended on their reliability. Here in the Boston office, David worked at one of the most updated of all facilities. Like most operators, he knew that unusually strong occurrences of the Northern Lights and other disturbances in the ether could cause occasional problems on the lines. The aurora lights the last few nights had been so bright that he had gone outside and been able to read a pamphlet with no other illumination. Mr. Selfor had feared the phenomenon would likely give him headaches at work today, and indeed, that was proving to be prophetic.
He had a queue full of outgoing messages, but he was having trouble connecting to any other stations reliably. Occasionally it seemed to help to disconnect the batteries, so he managed to get a garbled message through to the Portland Maine station to do the same. David was surprised to hear a message coming back in from the other station: “Will do so, it is now disconnected.” While the transmission lines between Boston and Portland were still connected, they were just dead wires; no power should be flowing through them now. David keyed back that he was disconnected as well, and they must be using only the auroral current. Indeed, the air itself was electric and powering the telegraph system better than even the batteries had! For the next several hours, this was the process they used to send and receive messages. Eventually, the electrical discharge dissipated to a point where they could resume somewhat normal operations.
Over the course of the bizarre week, many were convinced that the end of the world was at hand, but what Carrington had spotted was the true cause for the strange happenings: the two white plumes on the sun were massive solar flares. They contained the estimated energy of ten billion atomic bombs. The solar flares flung electrified gas and various subatomic particles toward Earth, resulting in a geomagnetic storm that was later called the “Carrington Event.” While other massive solar flares happen on a regular basis, thankfully, most go harmlessly out into space: The Earth is a rather small target to hit. The 1859 super solar storm is the largest on record to have actually struck the planet. The fact that this solar super-storm struck repeatedly over multiple days is even more unusual.
On the 10th of September that same year, not far away from the nation’s capital, in a particularly desirous neighborhood on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a small group of gentlemen was gathered at an exclusive country estate. Several stood around one of the three snooker tables located in the luxurious billiards parlor. Spread out over the table was a large map of the Eastern portion of the United States. Some of the lower states were colored green, while most of the northern ones were shaded red. A number of territories and states in the middle and off to the west were a muted gray.
Since no actual names were ever used at these gatherings, the participants had taken to referring to each other by pseudonyms of their own choosing. The man calling himself Mr. Levi stuck a pushpin in the large map rather near Charleston, SC.
Looking up at his longtime friend, he asked, “Mr. Church, have our friends in the RAS given us an estimate yet?”
The other man, a rather nondescript fellow, looked up as the valet refilled his glass with more of the marvelous Bordeaux. “Yes, the observer’s assistant in Surrey was very helpful.” The valet handed Mr. Church the leather-bound ledger. Selecting the correct page, he removed the ornate bookmark with the symbol of a Scorpion wrapping around an ancient sword. On the page was recorded the exact time, date and relative magnitude of the past few weeks’ solar disturbances.
“Was it as large as we thought?”
Mr. Church nodded, “Even more. It was twice as large as any others we have in our records.” Inscribed on the page were dates going back hundreds of years.
Mr. Levi nodded appreciatively, “Still on the same eleven-year cycle, I see. I assume a donation has been made?”
“Of course,” another man nearby said, “It was discreet, but rest assured our enlightened English friend will never get an official scientific post. Mr. Joshua will see to that.”
“Very Good,” replied Levi. He was not sure how this would help the group, but he felt sure in time that it would. Motioning to the well-dressed black man stationed by the door, he called, “Harland, show our new friend in, I believe it’s time we had a word with the esteemed Senator Davis of Mississippi.” He turned to Mr. Church. “You know him and that Lincoln fellow that ran for Senate are from the same part of Illinois?”
Mr. Church looked over at his friend with a wry grin. “Even though this chap was not part of the guard unit, you still think it will work?”
“I do… I do, my friend. He will do what we ask.”
Harland re-entered the wood paneled room followed by a tall, gaunt man.
“Jeff, so very good to finally meet you. Please do come in.”
Chapter One
Day 1 - August: Mississippi Gulf Coast
The barely perceptible click of the shifters and the whispering of the wind sweeping past were the only sounds Scott Montgomery could hear. His head was lowered, his eyes constantly scanning the road ahead. Time on his Trek racing bike had been hard to come by lately, and he was committed to doing another metric century by November. People were often amazed at the distance and the speed that even amateurs like him could attain on a bike. A short ride for him was usually thirty-five miles, and rides of seventy, or even a hundred miles were routine to him now. His American-made bike was not something most kids had in their garage. While not truly classified as an exotic machine, the pricey, ultra-lightweight, carbon fiber frame, with its high-end SRAM components, was a beast. It was his one real indulgence, a thoroughbred horse made by craftsmen and designed to be ridden fast. Today it was fulfilling that mission.
His bike-mounted Garmin GPS showed the miles, speed and pedal cadence, which were all near the top in what he considered one of his best efforts. Here, so close to the Gulf of Mexico, the roads were flat and the hills were mostly low rollers, so his riding was steady and most days not overly taxing. Frequently, the wind off the ocean would make it this far inland, but today, for now at least, it was calm. Like most riders, he detested the wind; it could make an ordinary ride into a grueling fight for survival—something akin to jogging in mud. Cold and rain he could deal with, but the wind was torment.
The temperature was already climbing into the low nineties. The sky was a beautiful azure blue, and there had been only a little traffic since he left his cottage mid-morning. In short, a perfect day for riding.
Rounding the sharp corner at a severe lean onto Highway 50, he knew it was about fourteen miles before the next turn. Scott’s eyes swept the road ahead, constantly watching for potential problems: deer jumping in the road, loose gravel, potholes, dogs, cars pulling out from a hidden drive. Situational awareness is what the military called it; to always be on guard. For a cyclist, every danger was real and potentially catastrophic. Getting hit by a car could be deadly, but just as dangerous were the little miniature terriers with attitude. Hitting one at high speed could launch a cyclist over the handlebars with potentially fatal results, for the rider and the dog.
Comfortable that the road was clear, he fell into his familiar rhythm. Scott’s body and pedal strokes entered into autopilot, and he let his mind drift a little. What
ever occasional illusions he may have harbored, Scott knew he was no serious cyclist—he wasn’t even overly athletic—but he did love to ride. It had started about eleven years earlier on a doctor’s recommendation. His high-pressure job and a strained marriage had led him into the ER convinced he was having a heart attack. Indeed, his cholesterol and blood pressure were elevated, especially for a person in his early thirties, but not alarmingly so. Thankfully for Scott, it had been diagnosed as stress.
Later that week his general physician had suggested he may want to consider taking a break from climbing the corporate ladder, maybe even take an occasional vacation and step up the aerobic exercise.
“Try working out at a gym or start jogging,” the doctor suggested.
Scott couldn’t believe he had let himself go. While never a jock, he had been firmly committed to never looking like a computer nerd, although that was an accurate description of what he was. Soon after, he’d joined a gym. It was too cold in Chicago to start jogging that time of year. And, like a lot of computer guys, he was not very comfortable around strangers, especially people who looked better, obviously didn’t need to be in a gym and seemed to look down on him in his baggy sweats. The often-unpleasant sounds he made as he worked his way around the weights and resistance machines probably didn’t endear him to any of the other members either. After three months, he found himself going only occasionally and decided to abandon this avenue. After that, he did try jogging, albeit briefly. He enjoyed the solitude but could never really get motivated to do it on a regular basis.
While scanning Craigslist for a suitable alternative, his eye had fallen on a sleek looking road bike for sale nearby. He could ride a bike, he thought. You never forget, right? He had biked all through college, as most of the students did. He and a friend had biked nearly everywhere back then.
