A Distant Eden (2 page)

December 21

When the power went off, shutting down Roman’s computer and the office lights, he didn’t expect he would be advising a fellow worker to murder his wife and commit suicide within a few hours. For now, however brief this “now” was, his world remained sane. Normal.

Dead silence rung for a second. Then there was a chorus of moaning and cursing from the cubicles as work was lost in the blink of an eye.

“Damn,” Roman groaned to himself. He looked out the window of his 20th floor cubicle, out across downtown Fort Worth. “Hey, Jim,” he said to the occupant of the adjacent cubicle, “look at that; all the cars have stopped on the interstate. Must be a big wreck somewhere.”

The words had barely left his mouth when he noticed a helicopter heading for the ground in a controlled crash, auto-rotating. The chopper disappeared behind a building, but he saw no smoke or signs of explosion. Roman sincerely hoped the pilot was uninjured. He looked again at the traffic. He could see the intersection of Interstate 20 and Interstate 35; all cars were stopped not just in one direction, but in all directions on all highways. The surface streets were just the same.

A glint in the sky, the sun reflecting off an airliner, caught his eye. Roman watched in growing horror as the jet liner plummeted straight into the ground, erupting into a fireball, two or three miles away. As he watched, another identical fireball erupted further away, just on the horizon. Then another.

Finally, the light bulb went on in his mind. “Jim,” he almost shouted, his voice choked with tension. “We’re in either a major solar storm or a nuclear EMP event. I’m out of here; I’m heading home right now.”

Thinking only of getting to Sarah, Roman quickly took the stairs down the twenty stories, and then with aching legs walked as fast as he could to the parking garage a block away. There was no longer any need to get his supervisor’s permission to leave; he was no longer employed—no one was. The city was silent, the quietest he had ever heard it. All the background noise, the traffic, sirens, jackhammers, train horns; everything had stopped.

His truck starting now was unlikely—but he’d thought on this for a long time and made the necessary preparations. In his glove compartment, wrapped in two heavy sheets of aluminum foil, were six sets of replacement fuses. If the truck’s computer brain hadn’t been fried, he had a chance.

Roman inserted the key and turned it; nothing, absolutely nothing. A shudder went through him, the feeling usually explained away as “someone stepped on my grave.” It took him twenty minutes to replace all the fuses, and then...it started! It wasn’t running completely normal; the engine would not exceed fifteen-hundred rpm. Apparently, the brain was partially damaged because it was in “limp mode,” a secondary setting that allowed the driver to cripple along until he got home. Slow, but a lot better than walking.

Roman’s home was eighty miles away; a drive that took an hour and a half. Best case scenario, it’d take three hours to get home. Worst case, it might take days. But Roman had chosen to live that far away for a reason. Today, that reason had reared its head.

As Roman backed out of his parking spot and slowly headed for the down ramp a figure suddenly appeared at his window, beating on it with his fist. It was Fred from the ninth floor, another employee that Roman had occasionally been on work teams with. Fred was in a panic, his face drained of blood. Roman stopped the truck and rolled his window down. Fred was almost yelling, “My car won’t start! I have to get home. Something terrible is happening. I have to get home. Would you take me home?”

There had once been a time where Fred wanted to car pool with Roman, because he lived just thirty miles south of Fort Worth, in Alvarado. Roman had declined.

Frustration apparent in his voice, Roman said, “The best I can do is drop you off at the nearest exit off the interstate. I don’t have the time to drive you all the way home.”

Fred looked at Roman as if he was unsure whether to believe he meant it or not. “Are you kidding? You couldn’t drive me the extra ten miles to my house from the highway?”

“No,” said Roman. “I have to get home and I don’t have time for detours. Sorry, but those ten miles for you are twenty for me, and you saw how congested the roads are. That could cost me hours. Of course, you can wait for another ride, but I don’t think there will be one. Ten miles from home is a lot better than forty. Your choice though.”

Fred got into the passenger seat and Roman drove out of the garage. The office was two blocks off the interstate, and usually he went straight south on I-35. Having seen from his office window that I-35 was packed with stalled cars –cars that went dead when their electronics fried and fuses blew—he decided to try the side roads. He was hoping for more maneuverability until getting out of town. Speed was not the issue.

For a while there was silence. Eventually Fred asked Roman, “What do you think is happening?”

Roman had enjoyed studying and discussing the various ways that a near extinction event could happen, and there were a number of them. There was the Yellowstone caldera exploding, Earth being hit by an asteroid, a new ice age, global warming, the steady comeback of diseases as they became drug resistant, nuclear war, a gamma ray storm from space, new diseases escaping, bio-weapons, bio-terrorism, swapping of the magnetic poles, plagues and more. At an early age, he found talking about them to be something to confine to family and close friends. Most people didn’t want to hear about the real possibilities that were outside their control. Some people looked at him kind of funny if he even brought the subject up.

But now that he was actually involved in one, he found himself reluctant to talk about it. He didn’t want to try to explain to Fred what he thought was happening. Besides, he doubted Fred would grasp it. The conversation would only be futile.

Roman was silent for a long moment—and then at last decided that it was best to prepare Fred as best he could. “I think it’s a massive solar storm. The evidence is pretty clear. Our cell phones aren’t working. My truck’s radio is not picking up any stations at all. A solar storm of sufficient magnitude to kill all power would block all radio signals, at least for a day or two until the worst of the storm passes. An EMP event could do it too, but the sky is clear of mushroom clouds and there were no blinding flashes.”

A pole mounted electrical transformer blew up as they drove by it. That was a bad sign; the storm was intensifying. Soon electrical wires would overload with induced electricity from the sun’s storm, blowing out transformers and setting fires. Roman explained that to Fred and said, “Buried pipelines will also carry large induced currents and heat up. The induced current will speed up corrosion at an astronomical pace, causing gas and oil leaks that—combined with the high voltage current in the pipe—will cause explosions and fires to erupt from the ground.” Fred just looked at Roman with numbness. Roman didn’t think he was getting through to him.

As Roman drove, he saw and heard other transformers blow and houses burning. Plugged in appliances, such as fans and coffee pots, were melting all over the city. Roman told Fred, “By tomorrow the city could be full of raging fires. There are no working fire departments now, or water pressure to fight with.”

Fred sputtered, “Are you crazy? This can’t last! It can’t! It’ll all blow over in a day or two.”

Roman, feeling pity for him thought to himself, “As of yet there probably aren’t a thousand people out of the six and a half million in the metroplex that’s aware of what’s happening, and what’s going to happen. Fred can see it, and he won’t believe it.”

Roman drove the side streets as he worked his way parallel to the interstate. Cars were stalled along the streets they were travelling. He had to weave in and out between many of them, once or twice moving onto the sidewalk or the edge of someone’s yard to get past clusters of cars. No one tried to stop him, although he received curious looks; his was one of the very few vehicles still moving. The people he saw on the streets appeared to be bewildered more than anything.

He knew that this bewilderment would in time turn to concern, and then to panic as people realized they had no water and very little food. Within a day or two, the solar storm would pass, and radios would work again. Those with battery-powered radios would avidly listen to whatever stations they could get. Then, as news of the worldwide situation spread, panic and rioting would begin in earnest.

Roman drove past a small local grocery store. It was too early for the looting—yet. That would pass.

Turning back to the store, Roman removed a model 1911 .45 caliber pistol from his glove compartment and tucked it inside his waist band. Fred stared at him with outright fear.

Stepping out of the vehicle, Roman took his keys and went into the store. He bought as many canned goods as he could with the cash he had on him, nearly two hundred dollars. He already had plenty of food stockpiled, but as currency was now worthless, he wouldn’t walk away from an opportunity like this. The register didn’t work but the owner manually added up the total and Roman told him to keep the change. Roman tried to tell the storeowner to bolt the store down and haul off as much food as he could for his own use, but the owner’s interest was instead in jacking his prices.

Fred asked Roman why he had stopped to buy food. Roman remained silent for a moment. How could he make Fred face reality? Then he said patiently, “Fred, there is no more food coming to the grocery stores. Where will you get food to eat?”

Fred said, “FEMA or the National Guard will bring food and water. Just like New Orleans, right? We just have to hold out for three days, maybe four, and then relief will come. They’ll get everything straightened out.”

Roman thought to himself, “He has no clue that the government cannot rescue three hundred million people. That kind of denial kills.” Trying one last time, Roman explained, “The government can’t drive anywhere anymore, and even if they could they don’t have the resources. There will be no more food at the stores and everyone will be starving very soon. Your best bet is to get out of town, way out into the country. Look for pecan trees, oak trees and mesquite trees. Pecans are your densest calories, acorns next and mesquite beans last. Pecans you can eat raw; acorns need to be boiled three or four times until they are no longer bitter; and mesquite beans need to be cooked if they are dry. Those are the only native plants that have enough calories for a person to survive on. The nuts and beans will be gone by spring, so if you find any, stockpile as much as you possibly can.”

Fred was actively ignoring him, as though he thought Roman was crazed.

They finally arrived at the end of the residential area. It was time to get on the interstate. The highway wasn’t as blocked here on the outskirts; a truck or car every five hundred yards or so. Most of them had managed to pull over to the side. But as he headed for the ramp Roman’s truck started sputtering badly and nearly died. As the storm went on, he was losing more fuses, and would until nightfall. After dark, the fuses would be shielded by the earth’s mass. The question was, how many would he lose and how far could he get?

He decided to change fuses one more time and get as far from town as he could, then pull over and wait for dark before changing fuses a third time. He had six sets, more than he thought he would have ever needed—but at this rate they wouldn’t get him home, not in the daytime. Roman restarted the truck and pulled up onto the interstate, southbound, pistol at his side and the determination to get home to Sarah.

Roman continued trying to explain to Fred. “A solar storm hit in 1859, known as “The Carrington Event.” It was the most powerful storm that had been observed to that date. It was mostly notable because the telegraph had been invented fifteen years previously, and wires had been strung. Electricity usage was in its infancy. Even so, magnetic fields from the coronal mass ejection induced direct current voltage into the wires, overloading and heating them up. Fires started at telegraph stations, caused by the current overload. The earth’s magnetic shield fluctuates in strength over thousands of years. At the moment the shield is fifteen percent weaker than it was in 1859, making a storm of the same power of the Carrington storm fifteen percent more powerful.

“The grid has grown exponentially. The nation is completely and tragically dependent on an interconnected power grid that is millions and millions of times larger than in 1859. Back then, the food distribution system was significantly different. Food was grown locally and wasn’t dependent on fuel driven vehicles. This storm appears to be bigger than the Carrington Storm, maybe a lot bigger. Transformers all over the country are blowing up, transformers that can take three years to replace under normal circumstances. Under these conditions they cannot be replaced. The transformer manufacturers rely on electric power to build their transformers and there is no electric power. A chicken and egg kind of thing.

“A cascade of failures has already started. Like rows of dominos falling, civilization’s key touch stones are falling rapidly right now. No electricity means no fuel will be pumped. After the storm passes some of the vehicles that are paralyzed will be operational again. Those that do run will only run as long as there is fuel in their tanks. The gas stations will not be pumping gas because that takes electricity.

“No electricity means no refineries will be making fuel. No electricity means no water will be pumped by the giant electric pumps required to keep city water pressure up. You get what I’m saying, Fred?”

But Fred would not look at him, instead staring out the window in silence.

As the miles passed, Roman thought of Sarah, worrying about what she was thinking and doing right now. He thought, “Sarah is a strong woman, intelligent and tough. She’ll be all right. She’ll stay home and wait for me. We have a decent chance to survive as long as we keep our heads. Fred won’t make it; he doesn’t want to face facts.”