Sunburn (Book 1, The Events Trilogy) (2 page)

3.

There was silence at the CSOL observation room
in California a few days later when they saw the actual Ejection Event occurring. Fred Goodman had flown in from the east coast and was sitting with his colleagues watching the green bubble spill out from the luminous fire of the Sun`s corona. Rosen`s face filled the Skype screen, her mouth open slightly.

             
“God in heaven!” someone whispered.

             
“Well, Richard?” Fred asked his Boss, quietly.

             
Richard didn’t want to say what he was thinking.

“
Dr. Rosen?” he passed the ball instead.

They all sat riveted watching the bubble grow and change into something almost alive, malevolent,
coming at them like a green slime monster from a horror movie.

“Dr.
Rosen?” Louder this time, but she still didn`t reply.

They turned from the big screen to see that Dr. Rosen had changed modalities on them.
She had put on a dark blue scarf over her hair and was rocking gently and praying in Hebrew from a small book. It had a pleasant singsong quality to it, like monks chanting, Fred thought. There was no need for Dr. Rosen to say what she thought was in their future.

“Fred?” Richard asked.

“What do you want me to say? Biggest CME ever? Will produce the greatest ever light show when it arrives? Like Rosen said the other day, ‘we`re all fucked! ` Is that what you want me to say?”

“
How about something useful—“

“A
h, well. Ok. Useful? Well, how about this, `in a few days we`re all going back to the eighteenth century. Nothing electric, nothing digital is going to work for years, if ever. But let`s see, back then people knew how to live without electricity, how to build a fire, rig a horse and wagon, weave cloth, forge steel, have a baby-- all without electricity. So in a in few months, maybe, just maybe, we might have the capacity to make bronze, make cloth with a spinning wheel, deliver a baby by candlelight, if we can find anyone who still knows the old ways to do things that people knew 200 years ago!`”

“We don’t know for sure it’s going to be
that bad,” said one of other lab scientists. “It could be only X20 to 40—“

“
Sure, or it could be a little better than X90, or even much worse. Just look at the size of that CME. Did you ever in your worst nightmares see anything like that coming towards our Earth?”

Nobody had an answer for that
. They looked again at the thing on the big screen. It was like looking down the muzzle of a loaded shotgun. It was hard to see any way out of this. They could see Rosen ending a call on her cell phone. She had stopped praying and taken some action.

“I just got off the phone with the Secretary of Defense here in Israel. He is going to recommend to the Prime Minister that Israel
start immediately to power down our electric grid. It will take more than a day here, even for our little one, and you should do the same there in the USA.”

“You mean call Washington and have
them shut down the whole grid?”

“Of course.
This way something may be saved for the future. If it is running when the CME hits it will all be completely ruined. Those generators are difficult to build and cost a fortune.”

“I’m not sure they will believe us—“

“You have to try,” Rosen insisted. “Call NOAA first—they must be tracking this too, and in the meantime I will speak to my friend the Israeli Defense Minister again and have him call his counterpart at the White House. Maybe that will help.”

“Good idea,” said Fred. “The USA is a big country and none of us
here has friends in the Cabinet,” he said a bit sarcastically, regretting it immediately. Rosen had just been trying to help.

“They must act quickly,
” she went on. “Can we get an eta on exactly when it will hit us and how the magnetic lines will line up? That will make a difference too.”

“I’m taking the red-eye back east tonight,” declared Fred, getting up and putting papers
and his notebook computer into his briefcase. “I need to be with my family!”

Everyone seemed lost for a moment in his own thoughts and n
o one said a word as he left.

4.

On the Old Philadelphia Highway just north of route 30, almost halfway between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Samuel Fisher sat in front of his store, Peaceful Way Amish Furniture, LLC. The name of the town was Intercourse, PA and he had grown tired of the jokes from the English (all outsiders were referred to as “English” regardless of their real ethnicity) about “peaceful intercourse.” Samuel Fisher’s Amish people had lived in this part of the country since the eighteenth century without much change except in the varieties of furniture they made and sold. They had started as farmers and their home was still a working farm on several hundred acres, but they had made a good living for themselves and the Amish Community who had staffed their store for over 100 years.

Peaceful W
ay was no longer just selling rough outdoor chairs and tool sheds; now there was a complete line of high quality hardwood mission and shaker dining room and bedroom sets, all finished by hand. They were not cheap but the people who came in to shop were not cheap either. They had come for a relief from the shoddy goods showing in the department stores and they found it here in Lancaster County.

Samuel was the owner and manager. He worked with customers, hired the help, oversaw the books and helped put new stock out on the floor.
He was not above checking the generators that powered the lathes that cut and turned the wood. He was a big, tall man and a bishop in the Amish Church. As such, many years before he had decided that certain technologies like kerosene powered generators were okay if they helped production but kept the Community off the electric grid.

After arriving
on the all night red-eye flight from California that morning, Fred Goodman drove nonstop from his home in Maryland and arrived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania late in the afternoon that same day. He asked for Bishop Fisher at Peaceful Way and was ushered into the back office immediately. Fisher remembered him as the customer who had bought a houseful of their best furniture the year before when he had bought a house in College Park, Maryland. It was a big sale to one customer and Samuel had handled it himself. They had struck and odd bond, the Amish bishop and the nonobservant Jew. In the course of doing business they had talked religion and philosophy and had grown to like and respect each other in spite of the fact that their worlds and beliefs were so different.

Now, t
hey sat in the office drinking coffee. Fisher could tell something was bothering Fred Goodman but was content to wait for him to bring it up. In fact Fred had rehearsed ways to broach the subject of the coming geomagnetic event to a man with almost no scientific background, as well as ask him to do him a huge favor. It was surely unprecedented.

Samuel sipped his coffee from
a plain tin mug and watched the struggle.

Finally Fred plunged in:

“Samuel, do you remember how I make my living?”

“You work
in a laboratory doing scientific research.”

“Yes, that’s right. Specifically, my work is studying the corona, the outer rim, the part we can see, of our Sun.”

Samuel Fisher nodded, wondering what this could possibly have to do with him.

“Well,” Fred continued, “Our research has shown that something terrible is about to happen. The Sun has let go a huge mass of coronal
material and, as it happens, the earth will pass through it tomorrow night.”

“
And what will happen?”

“As the magnetic fields of the Sun stuff interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, a huge amount of
static electricity will be generated and all the electrical equipment all over the planet will be burnt up. The big generators that make electricity for the power grid will fail, and even small things like power tools and the electric parts in automobiles will be no good. The lesser electrical equipment, even if it is not being used, may suffer damage.”

“And how long will it last, this, this
situation
?”

“
Years. Up to ten years. Maybe more. We don’t know. The only comparable event was more than 150 years ago and there was no electric power yet in general use.”

“
It will not affect our Amish communities very much….”

“
No, it will not. At least not at first. Unlike earthquakes, tidal waves and meteor strikes that affect all living creatures, this event will affect only people—and not all people. But its effects will be striking, even short term. Overnight, once again the fastest a person can travel will be the speed of a galloping horse. There will be no telephones, planes, no internet, no electronic banking services-- we will need horses for transport, for communications, as it was when your people first came here from Germany, but there are relatively few horses now and the technologies of that time exist only on paper in libraries, and on your farms.”

It was still not clear to Samuel why his friend had driven all afternoon to tell him this. Some things began to occur to him.

“What happens when all those English in the big cities run out of food and water and there are no vehicles to restock the stores?”

Fred licked his lips.

“Well, that’s why I’m here. Thinking ahead, I realized that when this event happens the whole system of food distribution, refrigeration, transport, all that, will be gone literally overnight and in a matter of weeks there will be millions of people with nothing to eat and drink. And they will get more and more desperate and terrible things may happen--“

Samuel waited for Fred to get to the real point of his visit.
Fred had rehearsed this part carefully.

“When
I was here with my wife last year, I recall you said that due to families recently leaving the Community there were a few vacant homes among the Amish in Lancaster County. I would like to come tomorrow with my family, rent one of these homes and live and work with you all, abiding by all your rules of life and order.”

Samuel sat back and looked at him
in surprise. “We do not accept the English on our land in this way. We have never done so.”

“I know. But
this is an emergency situation which will eventually affect the Amish Community in different ways. On the plus side, every horse you own will increase in value ten times over. Your skills and knowledge of farming without electricity will be prized and sought after, but—“

“But we do not wish to interact more than we do with the outside world. We have customers for our furniture and some for produce
, but—“

“And what will you do to save these people,
your customers-- these “English” when we are starving? Will your community be content to let us die on your doorstep? Will you decline to help starving people for social reasons? I am only the first of many who may ask for shelter from this storm. I am asking for your help.”

“I must
meet with the Elders. I cannot say yes or no on my own to something as big as this.”

“Of course.
Please call them together. I will wait at the coffee shop for your answer. Or I can come with you—“

“No, No. Wait here
, please.”

“You must talk to them also about what you will do when hungry people come later, more and more of them as supplies run out everywhere. When they realize, as I have
, that some communities are not affected-- people in the interior of Africa, of Brazil, perhaps some Indian tribes, and the Amish, people will try to save themselves. And they will come.”

“We would not turn away hungry people. We would
share our food.”

“I’m sure you would.
But for how long? How many people? There might be thousands--”

Fred felt badly about terrorizing
poor Samuel. But he had to make him see what was coming, and he was desperate to create a safe haven for his family. He could see his remarks had struck home. The Amish were, like Quakers, religious pacifists. They would be unable to defend their land, their homes. Everyone knew that.

Will heard about the coming catastrophe on his favorite satellite radio station. He heard it about the time Fred was deplaning in Baltimore after the long overnight flight from Los Angeles. He heard that tomorrow night he would see the Northern Lights for the first time in his piece of sky in West Virginia. From then on he knew the power grid would be down for a while and he would have only his solar voltaic system. Well, that was okay—he had been ready for a long time.

He went down to where his long
, steep, curving driveway met the community access road. He took down his mailbox and hid it in the bushes. He cut some plants and brush and laid them out to camouflage the entrance. Anyone who knew the place was there might still find it, but anyone just passing casually would not see a driveway.

A
mule deer with two-prong antlers was watching him warily from the shade as Will eyed his handiwork.

“Well, what do you think, Buck?” he said softly to the deer. “Did I do a good job? Will you and your family still visit me
when I’m the last man on Earth?”

He carefully moved his
motorcycle into the shelter in the back where the rocky hillside might protect it more from the harmful effects of the coming Event. His Ford 250 light truck would have to take its chances in the garage. He opened the hood and stood looking at the big engine with its complex systems. He couldn’t imagine what to do to protect its delicate electronics.

The radio had talked about the power disruptions that might occur, but the
emphasis of the story seemed more that it would be the greatest light show ever. They deliberately hid the truth about what was coming to avoid panic. There was no mention of the national grid powering down because the government could still not agree to do it.

But Will was not fooled. He knew that if the
Aurora Borealis
was coming to West Virginia tomorrow night it would be because of a very severe geomagnetic storm with lots of electric disruption. An hour on the internet confirmed his thinking. The fact that they were downplaying it made him suspect the worst.

He made a trip to the hardware store but almost nothing was left in the way of batteries for his flashlights. He had plenty
already but he was sure there would be no more available for some time.

“
Everything was gone an hour after the TV story broke,” the owner told him. “It’s the usual craziness like before a big snow storm.”

Same thing at the gun store.
All the plug and 0-0 shotgun ammunition was sold out, so he settled for some bird shot. What else might he need? He had been planning for so long. He was probably better prepared than anyone else in the state. But he was uneasy. Had he forgotten something?

Mary Roche. They had gone out from time to time, but she wasn’t really his girlfriend.
But what would happen to her now? Maybe she was wondering the same thing--

He found her finishing her shift at the truck stop as though nothing was
about to happen.

“Hello, Will,” she said. Her red hair was a mess and her hair flushed from the heat of the kitchen, but she looked good
, as always. What should he say?

“
Uh, hi, Mary. Are you okay?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, there’s that big geomagnetic storm—“

“Oh, I don’t put much stock in that
stuff. You know how it is. They always predict terrible storms and people run around like chickens with their heads cut off and buy up all the bread and milk and it turns out to be a few inches of snow and a little wind.”

“It might be a tad worse than that this time,” he ventured
quietly.

She stopped wiping the counter and looked at him. Will did not have a reputation for
being melodramatic. He was quiet, minded his business and didn’t bother anyone. So what if he was a bit of a recluse? That was his right, people thought. But if he was alarmed, perhaps she ought to be too—?

“Do you really think so?”

“I’ve been on the internet. A really bad geomagnetic storm like this one might knock out the power for years. There’d be no trains or cars for a while too. All the electric stuff would burn up and it would be hard to get new parts. Civilization as we know it might just end--”

She hung the closed sign on the doorknob, poured two cups of coffee and sat in a booth with Will.

“So you came to warn me.”

“Yes. I’ve been preparing
for this for a long time.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“I know, I wasn’t sure what would happen but I somehow knew something big was coming. I thought—I thought, well, maybe you might like to uh, share it with me. You’d be safe. Most people are not going to be very safe after tomorrow night.”

She thought for a moment. She had never like
d to plan ahead much, to confront problems directly. But maybe this time—

“Can I see
what you mean? Can you show me what you’ve done up there?”

“Sure!
Absolutely!”