by Bobby Akart
“Hey, Mom, it was a little warm out there,” said Alex as she threw her book bag in the back seat. Alex immediately adjusted the air-conditioning vents, stealing all the cold air for her face.
Madison pulled out of line and made her way to the exit of the parking lot. “Sorry, honey. I was off in zuzu land for a minute. Where are we headed?”
“We’re playin’ at Hillwood today,” replied Alex; then she added, “I’m pretty excited about it. Their home course was where the U.S. Senior Women’s Open was held this summer.”
“Cool. You can compare your scores to theirs and see how they stack up.”
“Different tees, Mom,” replied Alex.
Madison wasn’t sure what that meant, so she shrugged it off. “I’ll make a few stops while I wait. There may be some things I missed for the party Friday night.”
Alex studied her phone for a moment as she received a Snapchat notification. Her thumbs rapidly tapped a response. Madison was still mastering Bragbook and her latest passion, Instagram. She liked Instagram better because the users were friendlier. On Facebook, everybody seemed mad about something. She hated the negativity and the bullies.
“Are you nervous about the party?” asked Alex, continuing to multitask, as young people called only paying half-attention to the person they were talking to. “You seemed like you were in a trance.”
“No, I was just listening to the news. They were talking about solar flares and auroras.”
Alex abandoned her socializing and immediately turned to her mother. “Really? That’s what we discussed in Mr. Stark’s class today.”
“Apparently, there’s a potential for a solar flare that will create an aurora as far south as Maine. They didn’t act like it was a big deal, but I found it odd that it was being discussed on the news at all. I mean, don’t we have more important things going on in the world besides auroras?”
“It could be important, Mom,” said Alex.
Madison pressed her thumb on the steering wheel volume control and turned up the volume on the radio. Fox had two people yelling at each other about politics. Angry.
“Try CNN,” she said to Alex, who pushed the preset on the dashboard. Madison turned up the volume further.
“… an electromagnetic surge from a solar storm is a realistic threat. Scientists expect a major solar storm to reach the earth about once a century.”
“Didn’t we have a near-miss in 2012?” the CNN host asked.
“Yes. In fact, my colleagues submitted an analysis of this solar event to Scientific American magazine. It took nearly two years for the government to release the full details of what could have been the worst solar storm in our history.”
“Was it a close call?”
“The coronal mass ejection that occurred in July 2012 sent eighty billion pounds of energized particles toward our planet at the speed of several million miles per hour. Luckily it barely missed Earth. Had it occurred just one week earlier, our planet would have taken a direct hit.”
“What would that mean in real terms?” the host asked.
“Given our current state of readiness, we’d still be picking up the pieces,” the guest replied.
“How bad?”
“A major solar storm containing X-class flares sends these blobs of particles toward the earth, which carry their own magnetic field. These missile-like groups of matter are capable of opening a gate in the earth’s magnetic field, allowing the energetic particles to enter the atmosphere and send currents all the way down to the planet’s surface. They can induce currents in the electrical grid, overheat transformers, and cause them to fail. These enormous transformers that are part of our power grid can take months or years to replace. You can’t exactly buy another one at Home Depot.”
“That explains it,” said Alex as she adjusted the volume.
“Explains what?” asked Madison as she entered the iron gates at Hillwood Country Club.
“Today, Mr. Stark completely abandoned our lesson plan. The homework assignment from last night had nothing to do with the sun and solar flares. He joked about the change of subject, but Mr. Stark really focused on the sun and its potential for danger.”
“Do you think he knows something?”
“Maybe,” replied Alex. “He made all of us download an app on our phones today. It’s called FlareAware.”
“What’s it for?” Madison put the truck into park near the clubhouse entrance. Golfers were milling about, but she didn’t see any of the Davidson Academy team.
“The app provides you up-to-the-minute reports on the sun’s activity. Most of the time, it doesn’t send you any alerts. But when a major eruption occurs, they send out phone voice mails and text alerts. FlareAware gives you real-time warnings where the news does not.”
Madison popped the rear hatch to help Alex get her gear together. The Fox report had downplayed the potential of the solar storm. Why? Are they hiding something, or are they protecting us from ourselves?
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Table of Contents
Dedications
Acknowledgements
About the Author, Bobby Akart
Foreword by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
About Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
Epigraph
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
PART TWO
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
PART THREE
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
PART FOUR
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Excerpt from 36 Hours
Copyright Information
