by Hayden James
“Here, let me throw these away for you ladies.” Ed took the wrappers from both Rachel and Mischa while they met him at the door. The cashier quickly shut the door after them and locked it with a flick of his wrist. “That was abrupt,” Ed added while they walked across the parking lot and headed back across the street and to the meeting.
The three crossed the vacant street back to the building where Apex Advertising Agency has the first floor. Upon entering the lobby before heading back to the Apex offices, employees gathered their items and several headed for the door. Some stood in the lobby, holding their leather tote bags. A few ladies held their heels in their hands and walked barefoot across the lobby floor, “Sasha, where are you going?” Mischa stopped one of the girls who held their high heels in their hands and tote back slung across her shoulders.
“I’m heading home,” Sasha explained.
“Barefoot?” Mischa asked.
“Well, I can’t get a hold of Dave to ask for a ride because our phones are down and my car won’t start. I’m going to try to make it to the bus station a quarter mile from here, but I didn’t bring a spare set of shoes since I thought I would just have to walk from my car to the offices,” said Sasha.
“Oh dear, they’re sending us home?” Rachel asked.
“Check with your supervisor, but I was sent home by mine,” Sasha replied.
“Let’s go check,” Mischa suggested in a frantic tone.
Ed, Mischa, and Rachel returned to their dark board room where the meeting was held earlier. Bradford stood in the dark, empty room. When Bradford saw Rachel, Ed, and Mischa return from lunch he said, “Hey guys, we are adjoining for today. SoftStewel is able to send some of their higher-ups back tomorrow morning. We are going to pick up where we left off.” Bradford paused, looked at Rachel and said, “Oh, Rachel. I know we are supposed to fly out tonight, but we will have to be back here in the morning. As soon as the power is back on, I’m going to give Becky a call to arrange our hotel rooms for the night. We will need to have the rooms come out of the Indianapolis budget, so I’ll have my assistant make the arrangements rather than have someone from the Louisville office do it. You can hang out here until I can get through to Becky. Then we can share a ride to the hotel.”
Rachel’s shoulders slumped as she heard those words. She was hoping to get back to her family tonight because her twins needed help with a school project, not to mention she did not want to spend another moment looking at Bradford. Thankfully Mischa came to the rescue and said, “Mr. Callihan, if it’s all right with you, Rachel can stay with me. Once you have the hotel arrangements made, I can drop her off later on tonight, but if worse comes to worst, I have a spare bedroom she can stay in. And we will be here bright and early in the morning.”
“I have no problem with that,” Bradford responded. “Rachel, I’ll text you when I get in touch with Becky and let you know which hotel we will be at.”
“Great! That works,” responded Rachel, excited that she would not have to see Bradford for the rest of the day.
Ed, taking advantage of the free half-day off quickly said, “All right kids, I will see you all in the morning.” He waved at Bradford as he made a hasty exit for the door.
Rachel and Mischa made their way to Mischa’s car. On the way, Rachel said, “Thanks for getting me out of waiting at the office until Brad was able to get our hotel arrangements made. It was already bad enough that I would not be home tonight, but waiting around in the office without any electricity did not sound like a good time at all.”
“No, it didn’t. I figured we could go back to my place, have a glass of wine… or two and gossip about our respective offices.”
“Sounds good to me!”
“My car is just over here,” Mischa said, pointing to a black sedan. “Strange, the key fob is not working. I just need to replace the battery again. I think it was warning me that it was at that time. Here, let me unlock your side,” Mischa explained while she manually unlocked Rachel’s passenger side door before walking around to unlock hers.
Mischa puts the key in the ignition to turn the engine over when there is not one sound and none of the lights of the car come on. “That’s strange,” Mischa stated. “Nothing is coming on. Usually, the dash lights come on even if the car won’t turn over,” she explained.
“Dead battery?” Rachel suggestively asked.
“Maybe, but even with a dead battery, most of the time I would get something unless it was completely dead. And I replaced the battery six months ago, so it’s unlikely.”
“Oh no!” Rachel shouted. “I just had a thought. This is all making sense. What if your ex-husband is right? What if this is one of those CMEs?”
“We might have to walk. Maybe to the bus station like Sasha did?” Mischa reluctantly suggested.
As Rachel and Mischa got out of the car, Rachel noticed that clusters of people were stopped around the parking lot. The groups of people appeared to be talking about what was going on. Both of the ladies saw a group of six Apex employees standing by a car a few cars down from where they were.
“Let’s see if we can figure out what is going on,” suggested Mischa. “I see Tom from Human Resources, I’m sure he knows what is going on. He always seems to know about all the current events that are happening.”
Mischa and Rachel both make their way to where Tom is talking with other Apex employees. They approach the group of six who were standing in a circle, “Hey guys. What in the world is going on?” Mischa asked.
Sherry, also from Human Resources replied, “Tom just said he thinks the power plant is down and that is why we are out of power..”
Tom added, “I think the plant might have had a meltdown.”
Rachel whispered to Mischa, “A nuclear meltdown wouldn’t cause our cars and phones not to work. What if your ex-husband is right?”
Mischa fell silent and nodded in agreement.
Chapter Two
William Conner
Conner Residence
Indianapolis, IN
2:10 PM
“What? It looks like the afternoon already. That can’t be!” William said to himself as the effects of his slumber wore off and he was realizing his surroundings. William’s eyes fluttered open to the afternoon sunlight piercing through the window blinds. The heat from the sunlight made his forehead perspire, and he jolted out of a deep sleep, sitting up in a panic. He had fallen asleep on the couch after he returned home from work earlier this morning and he must have slept through his alarm. William was a strong and burly man, standing at six-foot-two and with his broad shoulders, he was a fierce protector. A veteran from the invasion of Iraq, William hadn’t found sustainable employment since his departure from the military.
Working for as a security guard for a medical supply company, and being the new hire for the company, they relegated William to the graveyard shift. Lately, he and Rachel have been ships passing in the night, each with their own busy schedule and three kids at home to care for.
Typically, Rachel was responsible for getting Natasha, the couple’s five-year-old, to and from school. However, since Rachel was traveling to Louisville, KY for the day, William agreed to pick Natasha up from school.
The couple was not thrilled with the news that Rachel became pregnant, especially since the twins, Madison and Addison were teenagers at the time. Their twin daughters were seventeen years old, and this was their final year in high school. They would head to college the following fall. Liam, the couple’s eldest son moved to Nashville to pursue his dream of becoming a country music singer, and the two would have been empty-nesters soon, except William and Rachel found themselves expecting. Neither of them wanted to start from square one again with another child, but Natasha had reignited joy in their lives and marriage, despite her being the oops baby.
As William gathered his wits, he noticed that the power in his home was off. Judging by the angle of the sun, William guessed that he had slept through his alarm because fo the power outage and
he needed to get to school to pick up Natasha. If Rachel found out that he had missed her pick up time, he would never hear the end of it.
Rachel had been caring for the load of the family since she worked from home and William was having a difficult time adjusting to the graveyard shift. Grabbing his car keys and cell phone, William headed to the car in the driveway to retrieve Natasha.
“Damn!” shouted William as he tried to turn the engine over his Chevy Silverado truck. “What in the Hell?” he muttered to himself as he turned the key one more time in the ignition noticing the entire dash was black. Not one flicker of the lights came on. “I must have a very dead battery. Goodness! Rachel is gonna kill me,” he softly said as he locked and slammed the door of the truck. William looked at the cell phone that he gathered along with his keys before heading to his car. “What in the world?” he whispered to himself. “I could have sworn I charged this thing when I got home,” he said, trying to reassure himself that he was not going crazy. “Maybe the cord wasn’t plugged into the outlet properly.”
Realizing that Natasha’s school was only around a mile away, he took off running. As he ran and his deep slumber wore off, he pieced together the implications of what was happening. Becoming aware that something was definitely wrong, William ran faster toward the elementary school. The neighborhood was a quiet one, and he was thankful that the elementary school was a few blocks away, however, William found it odd that he saw no cars passing by. Everyone must still be at work.
As he approached the school, relief set in when he saw all of the kindergartners who hadn’t been picked up yet playing on the playground while four teachers supervised them. The sight was heartwarming for William, and his panic subsided for the moment. He saw his little girl with blonde curls bouncing as she ran, chasing a boy as they played tag. Her pink jacket blowing behind her as she tried to tag the boy. She stopped once she noticed her dad who walked along the fence of the playground.
“Daddy!” Natasha yelled as she ran over to her dad who stood at the gate.
One of the teachers followed Natasha over to her dad and asked, “Mr. Conner?”
“Yes, yes, I’m Mr. Conner,” William replied. “What is going on?” William asked still confused about the power outage at his house and his car not working.
“We are having a power outage at our school, nothing to be alarmed about. It happened a few hours ago and we had been watching the students play on the playground ever since. As parents came to get their children, we have been manually checking them out. I’m sure if this will all be over shortly and everything will be back to normal,” explained the teacher.
Two parents with their kids passed by William and the teacher and said, “Sorry to interrupt you two, but my power is out and my car is not working. I heard the power plant might have had an explosion, could that be the cause of all of this?”
“The power outage could be from an emergency at the power plant or maybe a transformer is down. But, that would not cripple our cell phones and cars,” explained William. William’s explanation fell on deaf ears as blank stares from the parents and the teacher was returned to him.
“Well, I will check off that Natasha Conner has been picked up by her parent,” replied the teacher as she documented the roster on her clipboard.
“Hey, munchkin!” William bent down to Natasha, and she gave him a great big hug around his neck. Her blonde hair falling all over William’s face. She had been frightened from the power outage, but since the teachers allowed her to play the entire afternoon on the playground, she was in good spirits.
Not wanting to alarm Natasha any further William said to her, “Natasha, we are going on a little adventure right now. We are going to walk home from school and I want you to count how many dogs you see on our way home.”
“Yipee!” Natasha replied as excitement filled her body with the thought of an adventure. “Can we pet them too?” she asked.
“Only if they look friendly,” William said with a chuckle and relieved to have lightened the mood once again. “I want you to count how many different types of dogs you see,” added William.
“OK, daddy!” Natasha yelled with excitement.
William remembered what his dad had taught him growing up, “But honey, I’m going to need you to do one thing.”
“What’s that daddy?”
“I’m going to need you to hold my hand the entire way back home. Whatever you do, don’t let go,” William said as he realized if this was what he thought it was, they were teetering on the end of the world as they knew it.
“Dad, what kind of dog is that?” Natasha asked as she pointed to a dog keeping watch behind the fence of a front yard. The pair walked hand in hand on the sidewalk in their quiet neighborhood of Indianapolis.
“That is a German Shepard,” replied William.
“Is that what Regis is? That one looks a little like Regis,” asked Natasha.
“Regis is part shepherd, very good Natasha!” exclaimed William.
“What other part is he?”
“Let’s see, when we adopted him, the shelter told us he was a part shepherd and part Rottweiler,” explained William.
“And he’s seven, right? Two years older than me,” asked Natasha.
“That’s right, sweetie,” William confirmed as they continued their walk up the street. “Looks like we are almost home.” The pair walked up to the driveway to the front door.
“But, we only saw one dog,” argued Natasha.
“Well, honey. We can do another dog sighting mission another time. Now go inside and play with your dolls. The power is still out,” explained William.
“Here too?” Natasha asked.
“Yes, honey. The power outage happened here too,” answered William. “Now go to your room and dress your dolls in their prettiest dresses.”
Natasha nodded and ran through the front door that William had unlocked. As William entered into the house, relief set in once again when he saw both Madison and Addison sitting on the couch with their faithful companion, Regis. “Maddy, Addy! You two made it home safely?” William stated. The two girls petted Regis on the couch. They were identical twins, both with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and pretty smiles. Despite their attractive looks, they cared more about their studies than anyone in the family. Liam chose not to go to college, but to try to made it in Nashville, where Maddy and Addy both and academic scholarships to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Both Rachel and William were proud of this accomplishment. They prided themselves in their studies and were generally inquisitive about the world around them.
“Hey dad,” both of the twins said as they saw him come through the door.
“Yeah, we walked home,” Addy replied.
“Dad, what do you think this is?” asked Maddy.
William replied, “Well, I don’t really know.”
“I think this whole thing is a CME,” Addy said.
“CME? Why do you say that? You sound like your grandpa,” replied William.
Maddy chimed in, “After the lights went out in school, our science teacher told us about the CME in 1859. It is called the Carrington Event.”
“Oh?” William asked.
“Yeah, this thing might be a coronal mass ejection, where the Earth is in the line of fire of a geomagnetic storm, compressing our magnetosphere,” explained Addison.
“Magnetosphere?” William asked. “What in the world are you talking about?”
Maddy added, “Yeah, dad. The Earth has a magnetosphere, that’s why we have poles and equator. This type of stuff is what causes the Aura Borealis.”
“I see,” William relented, halfway impressed that his twin daughters knew so much science.
Addison added, “Right, these ejections come from the active parts of the sun like dark sunspots and they send into space solar flares. But, if this is a CME, that means that this ejection happened before the sun shot of a flare since the energy source would be magnetic and the CME would initiate from the s
olar corona where there is the dominant magnetic energy of the star. Like the one that happened in 1859. That solar storm sent charged particles in the air that shorted all of the telegraph wires and caused fires. The Northern Lights could be seen as far south as Cuba. That’s incredibly powerful! Dad, do you remember the 1989 solar storm that took out the power of an entire Canadian providence? The solar storm in 1859 was three times that” explained Addy as she noticed her dad shaking his head. She continued, “Our teacher said that a CME could cause the electronics to all to go wonky and short out. But he said that either a massive solar storm or even a nuclear attack on our country could potentially do this and render all of our electronics useless. ”
Madison turned to Addison, “Remember, our teacher said that scientists could issue a warning if a CME would hit Earth. Usually, scientists know at least five days in advance if Earth is in the wake of a large solar flare, we had no warning of this.”
“That’s right, good point,” Addison lit up at how her classroom science class was playing out in real life.
“Yeah, we nearly missed an event in 2012 by a week,” noted Madison.
William, in shock by the vast knowledge his twins had learned, “Well, glad to hear my hard-earned tax dollars are being put to good use. You two have more in common with your grandpa than I realized.”
“Grandpa knows about CMEs?” Addison asked.
William explained, “Know about them? He’s been preparing for one or an attack from a rogue nation for the last three decades. Ever since I was young, he has been warning me about this. I’m sure you don’t remember, you were young when we visited his home in the Smoky Mountains, he created a cave system. His house backs up to an incline into the mountain range. There he spent his entire retirement years building a labyrinth of enclaves and rooms inside the mountain. He can also live off-grid with his solar and wind power. For water, there’s a stream that flows through his property. I believe he’s stockpiled years worth of wood for burning, he has a garden and had been canning for a while now. Not to mention the rabbits and chickens he keeps for meat and eggs. He really got into this type of stuff after Grandma Ester passed several years ago.”
