Apocalypse Machine (13 page)

“What is this?” I ask.

“Thermal imaging of Europe.” She points to several hot spots on the coast of the Mediterranean. “These are cities.” Her finger travels north, into the ash cloud obscuring the nations located there. “These are not. Most of Northern Europe is without power. Communications are down. Governments have gone silent, and our own overseas assets are either clueless, dead, unable to make contact or in the dark. Literally. So what we need to know is, what are these hotspots?”

I take the tablet and stop in the middle of the hallway, oblivious to the people moving and talking around me.
Please God, let me be wrong
. Finding recognizable bits of coast here and there, I fill in the map’s black spaces, mentally tracing out the UK, Spain, France and Germany. “Shit.”

“What?” Clark asks. “Abraham, what?”

Her use of my first name pulls my eyes away from the screen. “Nuclear power plants. Most are built on the coast. They would have been flooded by the tsunami. The flood waters might have helped keep things cool for a while, but as the ocean recedes, the remaining water is going to boil off quickly. If they haven’t melted down already, they’re about to. And when that happens, the winter we’re facing is going to be nuclear.”

13

I’m a bit relieved, upon re-entering the Situation Room, to find that the U.S. Military has figured out what the hotspots are across the northern European coastlines, without my help. I’m less relieved by the fact that they have no idea what to do about it. Mostly because I don’t either, and by the way they’re looking at me as I take a seat against the wall, I can tell they’re hoping I’ll give them a place to start.

“Mr. Wright,” a general whose name escapes me says, but he’s old and gray, and serious in the way you’d expect generals sitting around this table to be. “You’re aware of the situation?”

I nod.

“Can you—”

“A problem like this isn’t solved in a room like this,” I tell them. “It’s solved in laboratories. You don’t need a scientist, you need
all
of them. When Chernobyl melted down in 1986, radioactive contaminates spread northwest to Sweden and Finland, and west, into Europe. Radiation increased to one hundred times the normal background as fallout fell to the ground, the water supplies and the crops. While much of it dissipated within a week, there were serious health effects for people living within eighteen miles of the meltdown, and for those tasked with cleaning it up. Mutations. Cancer. Cataracts. Mental illness. The list of effects is long, and the number of affected in the hundreds of thousands. That was from a single meltdown in a less populated area.

I motion to the large wall-mounted display showing the hotspots hidden beneath a shroud of volcanic ash. “What we have here is, what...” I quickly count the hotspots. “...seventeen nuclear power plants on the verge of melting down, if they haven’t already, with no one left alive to stop it. When Chernobyl melted down, they lost reactor number four. That is to say,
one
of four reactors. That disaster could have been four times worse. And while seventeen power plants is bad enough, there are far more reactors—”

“Thirty-two,” Robert Scarlato says, looking up from his laptop. He looks happy to have contributed to the conversation, but then sheepish when that number is all he has to offer.

“The northern coast of Europe will be uninhabitable for thousands of years, and the North and Baltic Seas will be contaminated for who knows how long.”

“What about the UK?” someone asks, as the room continues to fill.

“Between the poison gas, the tsunami, quakes, the ash cloud and seven nuclear power plants melting down? With the exception of Ireland, which is currently protected from the radiation by wind and ocean currents, the UK is probably a total loss. Even if there are survivors inland, the ash prevents air travel, and you’d have to get past the radioactive coast to reach them. If evacuation is on the table, focus on Ireland.”

McKnight shakes his head. “We’re going to conserve our resources. I’ve never liked the every man for himself mentality, but our commitment is to the American people first. If this comes our way, we need to be ready.”

“Will it?” Sonja Clark asks. “Come our way?”

“The ash,” I say. “Yes. And if the radioactive isotopes bind with the ash in the atmosphere, it’s possible we’ll have radioactive fallout. In Alaska. Maybe on the West Coast. But there’s a good chance it will encounter weather systems and dissipate by then. But given the current trajectory of the ash cloud, it seems likely that Northern Europe and a portion of Russia will be significantly contaminated. Those closest to the meltdowns will die quickly, and painfully. Those further away will fall ill in the next few years, but will probably die from the endless winter they’re about to face. Ocean currents will keep contaminated water from reaching the East Coast, but fishing in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans probably won’t be a good idea for a long time. But like I said, it will take teams of scientists
years
to truly understand the ramifications of this many nuclear meltdowns.

“The one course of action I can recommend without further delay is the shutting down of all active nuclear reactors worldwide.”

A man I don’t know, wearing a suit and tie, objects. “Twenty percent of our energy comes from nuclear power. Millions of people would be in the dark. Other countries depend on nuclear power for a vast amount of their energy consumption. They’ll never agree to it.”

“Better to be in the dark, than melted,” Clark says.

“Robert,” McKnight says to the senior science advisor. “Look into that. I want to know how fast it can be done, how many people would be affected, and projections on how we would be affected by a similar disaster along either or both of our coastlines.”

When Scarlato scribbles a note and says, “Yes, sir,” McKnight sighs and with a deep, growly voice, says, “Now.”

“Y-yes, sir.” Scarlato fumbles with his belongings, gathers them up and heads for the door.

McKnight leans back in his chair, rubbing his face. When he removes the wrinkled digits, he looks even more tired. “General Alonso...”

“Sir,” the gray haired general says.

“Any update from our forces in Europe?”

“Those in the clear are as in the dark as we are. Borders are closing. Countries are preparing for the worst. We’ve called back everyone we could, but we suspect our people in Northern Europe and the UK are facing the same odds of survival as the locals.”

“God damnit,” McKnight whispers. He looks ready to beat his fist against something. Those seated near him lean away. He might be old, but he still looks strong enough to pack a punch. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, his focus looks deadly. He looks at those seated around him, meeting their eyes, daring them to not speak. “How do we get ahead of this thing?”

The answers come in a torrent, ample in numbers, but none well thought out.

“We need evacuation plans for all major cities.”

“Refugee camps in the south.”

“Radiation units in Alaska and the West Coast.”

Radiation units?
These people are just spinning on my words from predictions to actions.

“Close the Mexican border,” someone says, and I laugh.

The room falls silent, like I’ve just used the ‘N-Word’ at a Black Panthers meeting. All eyes turn toward my rapidly wilting smile.

The President raises his eyebrows at me, silently demanding I speak.

“First of all,” I say, “you want to keep the Mexican border open. Wide open. If possible, start tearing down walls and fences. If a significant portion of the U.S. population needs to head south, a few border crossings aren’t going to get the job done, and there is a very real chance Mexico, and the rest of Central America, isn’t going to be happy about a massive population increase. In fact, they’ll probably treat it the way we would.”

“An invasion,” General Alonso says.

“You’ll probably want to start moving ground forces south to the border, if you can do it without being seen.” I feel uncomfortable giving advice that includes military action, but if Mexico doesn’t play ball, hundreds of millions could die. If the U.S. has to put the smack down on the Mexican military, the end justifies the means. Maybe. Either way, people are going to die. Millions of them already have, or are in the process of dying. At this point, war is inevitable. “Second, all of the other suggestions are Band-Aids.”

“I don’t follow,” McKnight says.

“They’re treating the symptoms,” I say. “Not the cause.”

“We can’t fight a volcano,” Alonso says. “Or radioactive fallout.”

“Again, those are symptoms. They’re not the cause.”

“You’re talking about the aberration,” McKnight says.

I wonder how much everyone in this room knows about the aberration, and decide to guard my answer. “I am.”

The confused looks on most of the faces in the room confirm that this subject is still a closely guarded secret. Only Alonso and Clark seem unconfused by the subject matter. And I understand why. Natural and manmade disasters are horrifying in scope and because of their potential to kill people by the millions, but they still make sense. They’re part of reality. A giant...something...miles tall, wide and long, strolling across the Earth’s crust, setting off volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes and nuclear meltdowns... That’s supernatural, and it very well could kick off a panic inside the White House—and outside as the news leaks, first to family, then to friends and finally to the networks.

“Give us the room,” McKnight says, and bodies shuffle from the room in silence. They’re not talking now, but I have no doubt these people will be asking each other about the ‘aberration’ as soon as the doors shut behind them. When the doors close, I’m left with McKnight, Alonso, Clark and a few more people I vaguely recognize, but haven’t spoken to directly. But it’s clear that they’re in the know. One of the remaining men, dressed in a military uniform, looks like he was chiseled from stone. A real, old-school, shoot-’em-up, get-the-job-done type.

McKnight turns to me. “What are you suggesting?”

“That a concerted effort be put into studying and understanding the...aberration. How it works. Where it came from. Where it’s going. What it wants. We need to answer all the same questions we might when studying a disease, or cancer, with the end goal being a cure.”

“A nuclear warhead might be all that’s required,” Alonso offers.

I shake my head. “This...thing…has been living under tremendous pressure for who knows how long. At least since the glaciers formed on Iceland, but probably a lot longer. It survived inside a volcano. And with all the nuclear material currently being pumped into the atmosphere, I’m not sure launching nuclear missiles is a good idea. Also, it doesn’t seem concerned about nuclear fallout, does it?”

“You say that like you think it’s intelligent,” Clark notes.

“It’s following a path directly below the ash cloud,” I say. “It’s impossible to see from above, but in that eternal darkness, it would also be hard to see coming, despite its size. Every action it’s taken so far suggests some kind of intelligence. At the very least, strategic instincts. But whether it’s intelligent or not doesn’t really matter. It still wants, or needs, something. It exists for a purpose. We need to figure out what that is and then use that knowledge to stop it. It may very well be a nuclear missile, but I wouldn’t recommend using one—or five—until we know it will work. At the very least, we’ll avoid making it angry.”

That seems to resonate. Right now, the aberration seems to be out for a very destructive stroll. I hate to think what would happen if it went on a rampage.

“General Stone,” McKnight says, and the rugged-looking military man straightens up.

“Sir.”

“Assemble a team. The best you have. I want eyes on the aberration by this time tomorrow. As Mr. Wright says, we need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he’s going with.”

Stone looks momentarily unhappy, but the emotion is squelched by the hard man’s years of training and unflappable discipline.

I, on the other hand, nearly pass out when I realize the ‘he,’ in question, who will be joining this military expedition to locate, identify and study a creature responsible for the deaths of millions, and likely millions more to come, is me.