After the EMP- The Darkness Trilogy Page 2

  “Can you explain—in English instead of your astrophysics major speak—please?”

  “I’ll try.” Tucker pulled up a stool and sat down. “So you know the sun is our light and heat source, right?”

  Madison butted in. “He’s an agricultural major. Give him a little credit.”

  Tucker nodded and continued. “Okay, so the sun, being a star, isn’t responsible for just light and heat. It’s also responsible for space weather. Since it’s this giant ball of gases, it basically erupts all the time, spitting out bursts of energy and particles like giant solar burps.”

  “The sun burps?”

  “Sort of.” Tucker pulled out his phone brought up a video frozen with what looked like a giant red and yellow ball of fire. “This is a close-up of the sun.” He hit play on the video and a bright burst of light erupted from the side of the sun, followed by a giant ball of darker color.

  “What was that?”

  “A solar flare followed by a Coronal Mass Ejection.”

  Peyton gave him a look. “English, remember.”

  Tucker exhaled. “Have you ever seen a cannon fired?”

  Peyton glanced at Madison. “Like at a Civil War reenactment?”

  She patted him on the arm. “I remember that! We saw it at the history center last year. There was this big flash and then the cannon ball shot out a second later.”

  “Exactly.” Tucker motioned with his hands. “Think of the solar flare—that bright light that erupted first—like the muzzle flash of the cannon. It travels at the speed of light because that’s what it is.”

  “So it gets to Earth in… eight minutes?”

  Tucker nodded. “The Coronal Mass Ejection, or CME, is the secondary burst you saw on the video.”

  “The cannonball?”

  “Yes. Basically, it’s this big cloud of magnetized particles. It travels through space more slowly. Depending on the size and speed, it reaches Earth in as little as eighteen hours or as many as three days.”

  When Tucker explained it, everything made sense. But Madison still didn’t understand what any of it had to do with space weather or Tucker’s freak-out. “So what does a solar flare and CME have to do with today?”

  Tucker pulled up another screen on his phone. It was an alert from the Space Weather Prediction Center.

  Madison frowned as she read the message. “What’s a G5 geomagnetic storm?”

  “Only the most extreme space weather event possible.”

  Peyton leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. “Is it caused by a solar flare or a CME?”

  Tucker nodded. “This time, it’s both. My phone’s set up to get alerts from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They’re the governmental entity that manages the Space Weather Prediction Center. This morning, I got this.” He pulled up another screen, showing the notification.

  Madison shook her head. “What’s an X-50 solar flare? You’re losing me, Tucker.” She tried not to sound frustrated, but the more she spoke his astrophysics major jargon, the more confused she became. “Just break it down for us. What’s going on?”

  Tucker shoved his phone in his pocket and looked at them both. “The biggest solar flare we’ve ever recorded erupted from the sun this morning around 10:00 a.m. Pacific time. It’s already caused widespread radio outages, messed-up GPS coordinates, and thrown the cell network into fits since the navigation and time systems aren’t accurate.”

  “A solar flare can do this? But you said they happen all the time.”

  “They do. But never this big and most of the time, they don’t erupt in the direction of Earth.”

  “Okay.” Madison still didn’t understand why it was an emergency. “So we’ve lost radio and have bad phone reception. So what? When will it come back?”

  Tucker paused, his expression turning grim. “If it were just a solar flare, in a few hours. But that’s not the worst of it.”

  Peyton stood up, pacing in front of Tucker. “Come on, man. This isn’t a movie. Just tell us what’s happening.”

  “The solar flare was followed immediately by a massive CME like I showed you on the video. This CME will set off a massive geomagnetic storm the likes of which we haven’t seen in almost two hundred years.”

  Madison swallowed. That didn’t sound good. “What will it do?”

  “What won’t it do is the better question. If it’s as bad as it’s looking like from the current data, it’ll cause a massive disturbance to our magnetosphere. It could even cause a solar EMP.”

  Madison perked up. She’d heard about EMPs from her roommate. “Brianna told me about those. They’re electromagnetic pulses. But she said they’d be caused by a nuclear attack, not the sun.”

  Tucker nodded. “There’s different types of EMPs. E1, E2, and E3. An E1 is what a nuclear weapon would give off. E3 is what the sun emits. Sometimes we call it a Solar EMP.”

  “What will it do?”

  Tucker swallowed. “Combined with the other geomagnetic effects of the storm, a solar EMP could cause incredible damage. Think widespread loss of power, blackouts, damage to our gas and oil pipelines, disruption to radios and GPS, total destruction of some satellites. We’ll even see the northern lights all the way down here.”

  Peyton stopped pacing. “How long will it last? A few days?”

  Tucker didn’t answer right away. He glanced at Madison and then back at Peyton. “Worst case scenario, ten years.”

  “What?!” Ten years without power? That didn’t make any sense. She ran through all the statistics she’d learned in her required civics classes. The United States had a current GDP of over sixteen trillion and over a hundred million workers. The energy sector alone had to employ… how many? Millions, at least.

  Madison jumped off her stool and grabbed Tucker by the shoulders, practically shaking him unconscious. He had to have lost his mind. This couldn’t be real.

  “Madison. Stop it!” Peyton wrapped an arm around her middle and pulled her back. “Breathe.” He held her, his chest pressing into her back until she stopped fighting.

  She sucked in a breath as Peyton let her go. Her head throbbed like it could explode. “You’re making this up. It’s an early April Fools’ joke, right?”

  Tucker shook his head. “No. By all accounts, the CME is massive. If it’s big enough, the EMP it produces will not only throw the power grid offline, but it can blow up massive transformers all over the country.”

  “The power company could just replace them.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Peyton sat down. “I studied this in my urban planning class.” He rubbed the spot beneath his lips as he spoke, the nervous tick making his voice warble. “The big transformers we use in major cities aren’t even manufactured in the United States anymore. We’ve outsourced so much of our manufacturing, most of our infrastructure is foreign-made.”

  “So there are extras, right?” Madison looked to Peyton for the answer. “No power company would just have the one working transformer. They have to store extras.”

  Peyton shrugged. “Some might have one or two. But most don’t. We’re actually critically deficient as a nation in power security. It’s one of the massive flaws of our current system. In my class we looked at ways to fund emergency preparedness and planning, but it was virtually impossible.”

  He pulled out his water bottle and took a sip before continuing. “Power companies can’t justify the cost of storing massive transformers that cost millions of dollars for a what-if scenario when they need to spend that money on responding to hurricanes and other current events.”

  “Here in California it’s even worse than in other areas. Our retail energy market is regulated and we have a ton of environmental regulations like the cap and trade system. The electric companies have finite funds.”

  Madison eased back onto her stool. Nothing Peyton and Tucker were saying made sense. She understood it intellectually, but it didn’t seem real. The sun was the source of so many good things: heat
and light and the ability to make plants grow. It couldn’t also be the source of modern society’s downfall.

  She turned her attention to the tomato plants, running her fingers over the velvety leaves. “Say all of this is true. That some massive solar storm is coming our way and about to knock out the power. How long do we have to prepare?”

  Tucker glanced at his watch. “Seventeen hours and counting.”

  Madison had been a Girl Scout since she could barely read, a part of 4-H for almost as long, and she’d camped, backpacked, and generally loved being one with nature and the outdoors. She was all about being prepared.

  “Is there a chance this is much ado about nothing?”

  Tucker wrinkled his nose. “There’s always a chance. Maybe the power won’t be knocked out all the way. Maybe it’ll only impact Canada or South America and not the US.”

  “But you think this is the real deal?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Madison bent down and picked up her backpack before slipping it on her back. “Then let’s find Brianna and make a plan. We should be ready.”

  Chapter Three

  TRACY

  Sacramento, CA

  10:10 a.m.

  A pile of books fell into the return bin and Tracy reached for them with a smile. Tuesdays always started out slow. A few returns, a handful of regulars, and lots of peace and quiet. She could ease into the day with a cup of coffee and a perusal of the news before the three other library employees arrived.

  After scanning each book in the return bin, Tracy set them on a rolling cart for reshelving. Something she’d get to in the afternoon.

  “Hey Mrs. Sloane, how are you this fine morning?”

  Tracy glanced up. “Hi, Joe. I’m well. How about yourself? Is that leg still giving you trouble?”

  “Oh, not so much today. It’s not raining.” Joe winked, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling his skin like tissue paper. The man was in his eighties and walked with a limp, but that didn’t stop him from trekking on foot to the library every morning.

  “Can I help you find anything?”

  Joe leaned against the counter, the red and black plaid of his shirt standing out against the pale wood. “I sure could use your recommendations on a new book. I’ve read all those Jack Reacher novels. Now I want something a little more… classic.”

  Tracy nodded. “How about Agatha Christie? She’s got more than just the Hercule Poirot series. Ms. Marple definitely counts as a classic.”

  Joe raised a sagging eyebrow. “Is that what they’re calling old these days?”

  Tracy laughed. “I wouldn’t know, Joe. The things my daughter says, you’d think she’d grown up on Mars.” She reached for the computer mouse and clicked open the library catalog. “But if Ms. Marple isn’t your thing, I’m sure we can find something. Give me five minutes, okay?”

  “I’ll be over at the newspapers. Got to stay current, you know.” Joe wobbled a bit as he pushed off the counter, his cane taking the brunt of his weight as he maneuvered around the tables between him and the periodicals.

  Tracy smiled as she watched him go. He reminded her of her own father who had passed a few years before; neither one would admit to a single ailment, even if the pain made it hard to get around.

  She turned toward the computer to search for Joe’s next thriller fix when her phone beeped and lit up.

  A text from her husband.

  Flight is delayed. Possible reroute around the pole due to space weather. Nothing to worry about, just wanted to keep you in the loop. ETA four hours late arriving in Hong Kong. Will let you know when we leave. Love you, Walt.

  Her husband always let her know when his schedule changed. It was one of the reasons she never worried about him, despite the ten-hour-plus international flights he’d been flying lately. After twenty years in the military, commercial airlines were a piece of cake.

  She typed back a quick reply. Thanks, hon. Keep me updated. Love you, too.

  Pulling up a page of available thrillers in the branch, she checked a few boxes in the online catalog when her phone buzzed again. Picking it up, she assumed it would be another update from Walter, but it wasn’t.

  It was from Madison, her daughter.

  Tell Dad to come home, too. Tucker says it’s going to be bad.

  What? It seemed like she’d popped into a conversation in the middle. It didn’t make any sense. Why would Walter need to come home? Tracy typed back a quick reply. What are you talking about? Call me.

  She hit send and waited. The little delivered notice didn’t appear. She typed it again and resent. Still nothing.

  What is going on? Tracy opened up her contacts and touched her daughter’s name. She hated to call during the school day in case she interrupted class, but the text alarmed her.

  Tracy held the phone up to her ear, expecting the sound of a ringing phone. Instead she got a prerecorded message.

  “The cellular customer you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time. Please hang up and try your call again.”

  Pulling the phone away from her ear, Tracy stared at it. If she couldn’t reach Madison to get more information, what could she do? After frowning at the screen for a moment, Tracy reopened the text from her daughter and sent another message.

  Call me as soon as you can. I can’t reach you. Love you.

  She went back to the computer, closing the catalog screen before opening the web browser. She scanned the morning’s headlines on her favorite news sites.

  Suspect arrested in string of robberies.

  Dow hits record high.

  No rain in sight for the weekend.

  Everything seemed normal. She pushed back in her chair, brows dipping low in concentration as she tried to understand her daughter’s text.

  Madison mentioned Tucker. She tried to remember Madison’s friends. Peyton had been to their house a million times, but she hadn’t met a Tucker. Who could he be?

  At last, she connected the dots. Tucker was her roommate’s boyfriend. Tracy didn’t know much about him other than he liked the brownies she’d sent home with her daughter last month and he studied astrophysics.

  She remembered Madison gushing about how he saved her grades in physics last year.

  Tracy exhaled. Astrophysics. She didn’t even know what that meant. Thankfully, the internet knew everything these days. According to Wikipedia, astrophysics wasn’t just astronomy, but the study of the nature of celestial bodies, including the sun, stars, planets, etcetera.

  She frowned. What kind of crisis involved space? Aliens? She snorted and typed in another search: breaking news space sun stars.

  The first hit was a news alert from some official-looking website. The Space Weather Prediction Center.

  A giant red warning flashed across the screen.

  Solar flare in excess of X-50 emitted at 13:05 EST. Radio and GPS disrupted. Intermittent cellular network and satellite outages may be reported.

  Tracy glanced up at the clock. According to the alert, the flare happened about twenty minutes ago. That would explain the lack of cell reception, but she didn’t understand what half of the alert said. Solar flares? X-levels?

  Walter had mentioned space weather to her before when he’d talked about his intercontinental flights over the North Pole, but she’d never had the need to understand more than the most basic of details. Now she wished she’d paid more attention.

  She picked up her phone and brought up her husband’s text. Space weather delays. But he’d said there wasn’t anything to worry about. Madison seemed almost panicked. Which was it? Nothing to worry about or cause to freak out?

  She chewed on her cheek as she thought it over, staring at the computer screen, but not really seeing it.

  “Run out of ideas already? Or are thrillers that popular these days?” Joe had made his way back to the front desk and stood in front of Tracy, waiting. She hadn’t even noticed his approach.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Travers, I haven’t had a chance to find t
hose titles.”

  Joe nodded. “Maybe tomorrow, then.” He started to turn away when Tracy stopped him. She knew it was a long shot, but what other options did she have? “You used to work for a satellite company, right Joe?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He turned back toward the desk. “One of the best electrical engineers ViaComm ever had.”

  Tracy thanked her lucky stars for remembering that tidbit of knowledge. “You wouldn’t know anything about space weather, would you?”

  “Not for my job.”

  Tracy’s hopes plummeted, but Joe smiled. His blue eyes shone as he spoke again. “It is one of my hobbies, though.”

  Thank goodness. Tracy pushed the computer screen his way. “Do you know anything about solar flares? Is this bad?”

  Joe squinted as he stepped closer, his hand coming up to adjust his glasses as he read the screen. He squinted and pointed a shaky finger at the display. “My vision isn’t what it used to be. Can you pull up the details there, please?”

  Tracy complied. A window popped up with photos of what looked like a massive explosion of light erupting from the sun, followed by what looked like a whoosh of something. “What is that?’

  Joe stepped closer, using the desktop instead of his cane for support. “See that right there?” He motioned to the explosion. “That’s a solar flare followed by a CME.”

  “A what?”

  “A Coronal Mass Ejection.”

  “What’s that?”

  Instead of answering, Joe kept his eyes trained on the screen, reading over the details beneath the photos.

  “Joe?”

  At last, he turned to her, the pale wrinkles of his face turning ashen as he spoke. “Your daughter’s at UC Davis, right?”

  Tracy nodded past the lump in her throat.

  “Tell her to come home. You’ll need to stick together.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  Joe wiped at the corners of his mouth with his knobby fingers. “If it’s what I think it is, all hell’s about to break loose.”

  Chapter Four