Dark Alignment

by David Haskell

  Commander Mansfield raised a hand, which was hardly necessary given his rank, but to Dean it indicated a mutual respect that he appreciated.

  “Up where, exactly?” asked the commander.

  “Up, up and away?” Saito made a taking-off gesture with his hand and tried a grin. Nobody looked amused.

  Dean ignored the class clown and said, “Up into a parallel reality, believe it or not.” Dean knew the pronouncement would be met with skepticism. And he tried to maintain a serious expression so they’d take him seriously. The sheer joy of understanding was difficult to set aside, but he forced himself to keep it matter of fact. “Or even more precisely, up into a higher dimension of this reality. Our reality. The one we’ve been living in all this time. Only higher.”

  The crew stared back at him, floating like buoys in the current, with thoroughly confused expressions on all their faces.

  He gave up hoping for any worthwhile back and forth, launching instead into lecture-mode. “Ever wonder why the gravitational field of planet Earth didn’t crush us like bugs the minute we were born?”

  Nobody answered.

  “It’s so weak! Don’t you see? Gravity’s exceptionally weak. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  The ship gave a jolt, knocking Dean momentarily off-kilter, which he used to his advantage. “Look at that, now! That turbulence, it’s the work-energy theorem at work. Just think how powerful it is! And just look at all the other forces, too. Electromagnetism? Crazy powerful. The nuclear forces? You can unleash hell on Earth with those suckers. But gravity?” He paused and lowered his voice. “It’s as weak as a kitten.”

  There was a long pause. Finally Shane said, “It sounds to me like you’re going around in circles. What do higher dimensions have to do with weak gravity?”

  Dean pointed at his friend as though he’d just said the magic words. “Everything, Shane! It has everything to do with it. Because that’s exactly where it’s going!”

  There were, finally, some flickers of understanding. Apparently he was explaining things well enough after all. This came as a relief—understanding what they were dealing with was the first step to eventual mission success.

  “And that’s the very same disappearing act the dark gravity’s doing when it lets itself be carried away by a few bricks stacked to a certain height,” Dean took a long, deep breath. “Gravity can flow from one dimension to the next. It’s following an inter-dimensional river! It can traverse the whole spectrum, and the effects are being felt all the while. And now? This anomaly? It’s like a dam bursting. First, it’s a little bit at a time. The gravity gets all stopped up, up there, and tiny cracks are forming, and some of it’s leaking back out. Then, just like a dam, the pressure builds, and builds, until…boom! You see?”

  Nobody was reacting quite the same as Dean himself, but he thought he could see a growing understanding in their eyes. “You’re all familiar with the eleven dimension theory, right? The gravity doesn’t actually go anywhere, really. It’s all around us, exerting itself across the dimensions. And now it’s gotten itself all jammed up there, like an air pocket or something. It has to be sucked back out, so it can slosh back to an even keel. Like the new water level when the dam blows.”

  “So what you’re telling us,” Mansfield said, “is that we’re constructing a cosmic vacuum cleaner?”

  Dean almost disagreed, but it did make some sense from a conceptual point of view. “Sure. I guess. That works. A super-sized Hoover to suck it up, then slingshot the gravity away from the planet, out of harm’s way, back into a higher dimension over there somewhere.” He made sweeping motions with his arms to indicate where ‘over there’ was. “But we’ve got to get it all, though. Or else.”

  “Or else what?” Shane said gravely.

  “Or else the damn doesn’t burst. It overflows…all over the world.”

  51.

  Three million souls perished in the opening throes of the Great Southern Megashock. The continental calving released teratons of raw energy, wreaking havoc over an hour long, planetary seizure. A piece of continental shelf breaking off into the sea—such an event hadn’t even been considered within the scope of disaster scenarios. Not by the U.S. military, nor any one of the gravimetric scientists. No one. Even the term, ‘calving’, was a hasty misnomer. Ice shelves were subject to calving. Though the phenomena seemed similar at first, this was much different, and far more disastrous.

  The mega-tsunami it produced encircled both oceans and the whole of the southern hemisphere, finally crashing its last onto the far coasts. Regions thousands of miles off received their own measure of devastation. Australia became a flood plain. South Africa, too, was underwater, the rest of the continent cut off from vital resources. Florida was submerged, as were large parts of Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.

  From pole to pole, the seas roiled and peaked, secondary glacial calving taking sea levels to heights unseen in modern times. Low lying cities across the globe were at risk; no barrier sufficient to stem the tides, no seawall strong enough to withstand the oceanic fury.

  The inescapable tremors were felt throughout the Americas and beyond, as far afield as Northernmost Canada and the coasts of Asia and Europe. In the epicenter, the richter scale shot straight off the charts. Not since the Chicxulub asteroid impact had such magnitudes been seen. Exponentially more powerful than a nuclear detonation, it dwarfed even the largest volcanic eruptions in history. Powerful enough to shorten the length of a day, it knocked Earth’s figure axis off by some eighteen feet.

  * * *

  AT&T Stadium was overrun. Ocean waters lapped at the gates. Thousands of injured descended upon the celebrated sports facility near Dallas, which until now had been a rear staging area for citizen reinforcements headed off to war. Everything to the south and east was underwater, vast numbers of army personnel assigned to defend the border were lost. Only the citizen militia remained. Enemy soldiers were in the city too, taking refuge from the flood like everyone else, yet amazingly still on the offensive—beleaguered rescuers had to contend with gunfire, on top of the unstable debris, the bodies, and a still-relentless, onrushing flood.

  The roof was holding, for now. But with each quake, the instability increased, and audible creaks of failing steel unnerved the refugees huddled within. Around the city, several buildings had already collapsed under the strain. There was no telling which would be the next to go.

  Atop the stadium, a scout surveyed the damage and called down instructions, the frequent aftershocks ever threatening to knock him off his perch. Communications being sporadic and unsophisticated, orders coming from the rooftop were considered top priority. When the boy hollered for his leaders to prep north, they obeyed without question, gearing up to meet whatever new peril was on its way.

  It was an army on the move. Thousands, tens of thousands, bearing down on the city, as far as the eye could see. A vast onslaught of bodies and cars, along with some heavy vehicles, grinding the dust into clouds, making it impossible to gauge their strength.

  As the scout observed their movements, he watched the South Americans turn their attention to the north as well. Then they began to run. They fled to the west, the last remaining route unblocked by some unstoppable force. The scout peered carefully into his lenses, starting to make out clearer shapes within the dust clouds. He double checked, then gave a joyful shout.

  “Help’s coming!” he yelled to the others. “They’re almost here!”

  * * *

  As dire as the situation was in America, it paled in comparison to the ravaged south. The eastern half of Mexico was completely destroyed. Central America was gone. Islands, so many dots and pockets, were all that was left of civilization-turned-to-sea. A new ocean joined Atlantic to Pacific, a thousand miles across. Adding to the humanitarian disaster, it split the old continent in half, serving as a barrier to repatriation for half a million enemy soldiers. Worst hit of all were the third-world nations—accustomed to suffering thoug
h they were, the threat of total collapse had never been so tangible.

  The scenes of devastation were difficult to comprehend. The nations hardest hit were simply oceaned over. Helicopter shots of debris floating on the seas might as well have been a shipwreck or an airplane crash; that was what little was left. The waters hadn’t receded enough to reveal even the highest ground of the lost cities that littered the new ocean floor.

  Along the coastlines, new and old alike, the wreckage and the human toll was more clear. Devastated communities were completely flattened. Displaced citizens sat or lay in the streets, unable to find the energy to move. Emergency services were nowhere to be found. There was simply too much devastation to handle. The best any government could manage was the occasional supply drop. And that, too, was a long way from making any difference.

  One photograph, locked into the minds of millions, became the embodiment of cataclysm—a child, expressionless save for the haunted eyes, held out a photo of his classmates. The photo had been taken the day of the calving, just before the ocean came, copies printed by the teacher and distributed to each pupil to bring home. The entire school was in the photo, teachers and students. All perished, save for that one lone grade-schooler.

  The boy, having been sent to the roof to tend a chicken coop, saw the wall bearing down. He climbed to the highest point, then subsequently atop a ship’s hull as it came aground on top of the school. The boy lived on that perch for forty-eight hours before being rescued, that in itself another miracle. The chopper was on its way inland to drop supplies when an eagle-eyed co-pilot spotted the lone survivor.

  All that time, the boy had clutched at the image of his former life, until at the rescue shelter he showed what he’d saved and began naming his classmates. It was there the photo of boy-with-photo was snapped, the story verified, and the world informed.

  * * *

  “My fellow Americans. Fellow citizens of the world. I come to you tonight with a heavy heart, in light of even greater hardship than we’ve yet seen, with untold thousands lost this very day. If you’re fortunate to be in an unafflicted area, please remain calm and shelter in place. Our scientists believe there’s little reason to fear comparable disasters in the immediate future. For those who’ve already experienced irreparable harm today, I know this comes as no consolation. My thoughts and prayers are with you, as are those of the world.

  “In light of this unprecedented calamity, I have directed all emergency services under my command to undertake the immediate, monumental task of relief efforts, and to render all possible aid and assistance, regardless of political affiliation or past transgressions. In hand with this promise, I also give warning—we will help even our enemies now, but we will tolerate no hostilities. None. Zero tolerance. Make no mistake, if you attack us, or attempt to hinder or harm our relief efforts, we will kill you. You have been warned.

  “We intend to render aid and comfort as best we can to all those afflicted. For this moment, this singular moment in human history, we set enmity aside. As of now, the United States has no enemies. Only fellow men and women in grave danger, and in dire need of our help. Until these humanitarian crises can be dealt with, the world must work together as one. We Americans intend to do our part. As do our allies. It is my sincerest desire that we all come together at this time of need, and do what we can to help our brothers and sisters who, even now, suffer still. God bless you all.”

  52.

  The situation at home was never far from the crew’s minds. The flight deck had begun hourly sweeps of radio bands, trying to grab hold of whatever bits of data they could. It was hardly a comfort. Everything sounded chaotic and hellish. The updates were so unsettling, in fact, that the commander condensed it down to a twice-daily report, filtering out a lot of the first-hand stuff himself. Sifting through so much misery took its toll, and he had to fight not to let it show. Being so far from home, with no way of helping—or even to let them know help was being attempted—added a painful layer of angst in Joseph Mansfield’s heart. Being unable to share his emotions made it even worse.

  Aside from data streams from home, the flight deck spent their remaining time running simulations. They practiced every possible contingency, from approach to mission target-point, to final maneuvers and deployment, and then what to do about the aftermath. They factored in how intensive the effect would be at target-point, what sort of damage the ship might endure, and what trajectories offered the safest, quickest ride home.

  There was no way to plot the target-point itself, though. Not with any precision. That hinged on Dean Eckert’s en route determinations of where the so-called ‘x-point’ lay at any given moment—always halfway between Earth and the farpoint of gravimetric influence, always in fluctuation at both ends. While they should be able to estimate with greater accuracy the closer they got, his readings of field density wouldn’t be perfect until they were on top of it. Most estimates called for the journey to last no more than two months in total, subject to the vagaries of gravimetrics. If they were lucky, there would be breadcrumbs to follow all the way out. But if the effect happened to slip upwards into the untraceable dimensions, they might have to wait it out.

  The retrofit was largely automated, leaving them with a lot of downtime. The routine was fast becoming tedious, with none of the excited stargazing and sense of wonder that normally accompanied space missions. And the tense boredom would only increase. Several weeks with nothing to look forward to but long hours and confining spaces, and little to do but think about what came next. The commander had taken to assigning the deployment crew tasks on the flight deck, just to keep them occupied with something other than the danger that lay ahead.

  Dean Eckert, of all people, took to his new duties like a duck to water. Not only did he have no space experience, he didn’t even have a handle on basic aviation protocols—and yet he responded well to commands, and memorized the labyrinth of controls in such a way that Mansfield wondered if he might have a future in it.

  Minor responsibilities aside, there was very little to occupy their time. As the mission had been rushed, and priority given to mission-critical supplies, there’d been no consideration given to creature comforts. What little upload space they were afforded came straight out of the Cheyanne mainframe—comprising little more than high school lit classics, plus a small library of public domain audio materials.

  The getting to know you phase had been taken care of during training, and now there was little to learn that wouldn’t amount to prying. In order to keep the peace, they were careful to keep any such inquiries light, and so with nothing to talk about, and minds full of worry on top of it, they soon began to grate on each other. As people tended to do in claustrophobic situations, there was a gradual splitting off, each in his own claimed space, biding time as well as they could manage, while staying out of each other’s way.

  * * *

  Power consumption was systematically reduced shipwide. Communications devices, temporarily useless anyway, were silenced except for the emergency beacon. Backup systems were rotated out, unneeded systems disengaged. The ship was quiet as a tomb, save for the deep, comforting thrum of the engines. These power-saving measures were designed to keep enough juice in the tank for the switch-over, when they’d need it most. And they’d need every scrap they could muster. The quick-acceleration plan called for every bit of fuel to be shunted through an OTDF prototype in one controlled burst, in the red for most of it, the pilot incapable of making adjustments on the fly. It was all they could do to prepare now, scaling back everything they could think of for that one moment of pure focus. For now, however, they were simply in a holding pattern, a lazy orbital track designed to bide time at minimum cost, waiting for the world to go partway around the sun.

  Their vantage point, normally a thing of beauty and inspiration, was instead shocking, even from so far away. In the course of just a few hours, huge swaths of city lights were extinguished. As they watched in horror, more lights went out, entire nat
ions vanished, extending fast in all directions until the whole of Central America appeared as a black hole. That famous image of darkened North Korea in stark contrast to her neighbors, the commander pointed out, now appeared on a global scale. The far ends of North and South America were still relatively well lit, but the equator was fast becoming a dead zone.

  “What could have caused that?” Dean Eckert said, voicing the same thought as the others. There was no answer to be had. Something terrible, that’s all they knew. Magnitudes beyond all the chaos yet seen.