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“The first?” The news anchor reached for his handkerchief and wiped the sweat beads off his balding head.
“Yes,” Dr. Mitchell continued. “The first blast followed a trajectory that should have missed us, but the second ejection increased the solar wind speed in a southern direction and more than doubled the size of the magnetic storm. The third that followed right behind was too large for our systems to measure. NASA was able to monitor the new direction of all three CMEs before the highly ionized particles shorted out the circuits in the satellite an hour ago and that’s the last bit of warning we have. Any minute now we should be seeing the effects of the first event followed shortly by the next two.”
“I’m sorry. Can you explain that? How are satellites meant to withstand solar radiation in space damaged by the sun?”
“That’s why this is so urgent. We’ve never seen anything like it. The satellite went off line to protect itself as the storms passed and now we can’t get it back on. CMEs aren’t supposed to be this strong.” Dr. Mitchell’s feed froze and the news anchor requested technical support.
“Tessa, are you even listening to me?”
“I’m trying to understand what is going on in the news right now, Dad.”
“That’s what I’ve been explaining to you.” There was a shuffle as his fist hit the desk, sending papers flying. She could just imagine sitting in the worn green leather chair across from him in his office.
“If you’re going to be a jerk, I’m going to hang up.”
“Listen to me and please don’t hang up. We aren’t going to have much time.” The sudden softness in his voice disarmed her. It had been years since he’d spoken that way. Not since she was a little girl and her mom left the two of them alone, forcing them to figure out life together which they never could quite do.
“I’m listening.” The words were almost painful to speak. But Emily dove into the toybox to search for the remote without complaint and the people on the news who took away Peppa Pig looked like they were about to cry and a sickening form of fear was curling in the pit of her stomach. For once, she was too stunned to argue.
“Have you been watching the news for the past few hours?” His voice changed back to the small-town sheriff roughness, covering up any hint of surprise at the ease of the win.
“I never watch the news when Landon is gone, but I’m watching it right now. They have a shelter in place in effect for this solar storm thing.”
“Okay, I need to tell you something and you have to hear what I’m saying. The governor radioed me about thirty minutes ago and said to hold the town on lockdown for the immediate future. Projected estimates are saying to prepare emergency services for weeks to a few months, if not a year. The government is not ready to handle this. No one is. You need to get away from those cities and come back home. Now. Before it gets worse.”
“You do remember that you freaked out like this about the pandemic and we handled that just fine. I don’t think a solar storm is this big of a deal.” Tessa pulled the phone away from her ear and put it on speaker as she opened up the blue app to check social media but the pages wouldn’t load.
“This isn’t just a solar storm. It’s a CME. A Carrington type event. It happened in the 1800’s and wiped out the power grid. And it isn’t one. It’s three of them. I don’t think you understand how serious this is. Without power, the world as we know it will not continue to work.”
“Was there even power in the 1800’s?” Tessa’s hand shook as she hit refresh on the feed.
“No jokes,” Sheriff Neil growled. “Get the kids out of there and get up here now. You’re running out of time.”
“Landon will be back in three days. I’ll ask him when he gets home if he wants to spend his leave up there, but I don’t know what the military is going to do if this is as bad as you say it will be.” She swiped again. An image cleared of Amy’s son chasing bubbles on the lawn. Oklahoma springs are gorgeous!! Glad we got stationed here.
“Are you going to waste the rest of your life waiting on him?”
Her jaw clenched and she almost threw the phone. “Thank you for your concern, but we will be alright.”
“Damn your pride.” He took a deep breath, and backtracked, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it that way. I don’t want anything to happen to you or the kids. Can you come back home where you’ll be safe?”
She took the phone off speaker. If he was apologizing to her than the world was really going to end. “I can’t just leave without Landon. If I need somewhere to go, we should be safe on base and I’ll take the kids there.”
“I don’t think the base will be safe either soon.” Static cut through the line making his voice seem like it was under water. Ribbons of interference broke the news anchor’s face into a rainbow of pixels.
“Dad?” Tessa’s heart beat faster. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” The response was too far away.
Emily tugged at Tessa’s hand, holding the remote triumphantly in the air. Electricity crackled across the television freezing a pixelated image of the doctor with mascara running from her tear-filled eyes.
“I need to go get Mason from school,” she whispered, afraid that speaking out loud would make any of this true.
“Hurry.” The word was a warning broken into fragments of sound as the call dropped and the television screen went black.
“Now it’s really broken.” Emily stood pressing the red power button on the remote over and over again.
Tessa blinked. This isn’t happening. She swiped at the screen of her phone again trying to pull up the news site on the search engine despite the three dots of no service death in the upper right corner. Nothing loaded. She clicked on her email icon and typed out a quick message to the long chain of responses between her and Landon. Something is going on with the power. Sorry about earlier. I love you. The message failed to send. She hit retry and shoved the phone in her back pocket. Anxiety rocked its way through her core. She swallowed hard, trying to think.
