Final Impact: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller, page 7
“I don’t believe that.”
“Look around you. Think about all the devastation that has happened on this planet. In 2014, 700 people died in China after a magnitude-6.2 quake. 2013, 825 died in Pakistan after another quake. 90,000 dead in China after the quake in 2008, 18,000 died in Japan after a 9.0 magnitude in 2011. 700 in 2010 in Chile, and then 316,000 in Haiti all in the same year. Now think about how many times you have thought about those people? How many times have you thought about how you can help the survivors?” he paused. “Right. No one cares.”
“That’s not true. For someone who says no one cares, you seem to remember a lot of the events you think people have forgotten.”
He shook his head and offered a smile before the vehicle creaked again.
She continued to stare at him. “What did you do for a living before this?”
“Does it matter?”
“Humor me.”
He sighed. “I was a thief. You satisfied?”
She screwed up her face.
“I stole what I needed to survive on the streets.”
“You were homeless?”
He took a moment to reply to that. “Yes.”
“You don’t have an apartment?”
“No, at least I haven’t for the last four years.” He looked up at her. “Would you believe me if I said I used to have a lot of money in the bank? A good job?” He collected himself and she could see he had diverted his eyes because they were welling up. “And a family that cared for me.”
“What happened?”
“I blew it. I was a stockbroker. I was raking in the dough and living the high life. But like anything that’s pushed to the extreme, I partied too hard, sucked down one too many Jack Daniel’s and snorted my way through a mountain of coke.” He paused. “Then everything spiraled down. Before I knew it my house and two vehicles were repossessed, and I found myself couch surfing — one night with my family, another with my buddy. Anyway, they soon grew tired of it. After that, I was out on the streets. You soon find out quickly who are your friends. And as for my family, well, that’s why I say… no one cares. They say they care but what they really are saying is… Dexter… you are an embarrassment to this family. Dexter… everyone has problems, what makes you any different? Dexter…”
“But you know you brought most of that on yourself?”
He chuckled. “You’re preaching to the choir, Felicity. I’ve already had family and friends tear a limb off me, so go ahead, there isn’t much left of me that anyone can take.”
“Your family never opened their doors to you even after knowing you were on the street?”
“I never told them.”
“So you are out here because of choice?”
“Felicity, 99% of people who are on the streets are here because of their own choices.”
“But they might have taken you back in.”
“Trust me, Felicity. I know my family. That wouldn’t happen.”
“Why?”
He shook his head.
A hard wind blew across her cheeks and she coughed from the dust. She pulled off her backpack and wiped away the dust from the solar panels and checked to make sure that the unit was still working and charging. It was.
“Hey!” Zeke shouted over. “How’s that thief doing?”
She looked down at Dexter and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Did you not try to get another job?”
“Of course. I’ve done many jobs but it’s hard to hold them down when you are feeding an addiction.”
She chewed over what he was saying. “That’s why, isn’t it? You stole from them?”
He laughed a little and then blew his cheeks out. “Like I said, addiction is hard.”
“And that’s why you couldn’t go back.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I mean, let’s face it. You aren’t much better than me.”
She bristled. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, well, if it’s so easy to return to family, why are you not answering your father’s texts?”
She swallowed and looked away. “I’m going to see if Aamir has got back.”
“Yeah, you do that.”
Felicity slipped down the large slab of concrete and chewed over what he had told her. She wasn’t trying to make him feel bad and yet, she wondered if that’s how everyone reacted when they heard about someone’s life not fitting the norm — the norm being, holding down a regular 9 to 5 job, being married and not using drugs. She was the last person to point the finger. Much like him, her own choices had got her to where she was, and if she was honest, there had been times she had been close to being homeless.
“Guys! I got it.”
Aamir came rushing back holding this thick rope in his hand. It looked like something straight out of the Wild West, the kind of rope that might have been used to lasso cattle. With all that had happened, Aamir was the only one that had a smile on his face. For someone who worked as a cabbie and probably worked harder than any of the others, his attitude was different, it was unusual, refreshing even.
A few minutes later, the rope was lowered down into the vehicle and Dexter took a firm hold of it.
“Remember. The moment I push off, pull me up.”
“We won’t leave you hanging,” Aamir said. Dexter gave Felicity this look as if he was trying to communicate just with his eyes, perhaps wondering what she thought about what he’d told her. It took all three of them, and one part of the rope was tied around some rebar.
“Go!”
Dexter pushed off and metal groaned as he yelled for them to pull him up. Slowly but surely he climbed and each of them put their back into it to hold him until he made it over the lip of concrete.
He let out a deep sigh and took a second to catch his breath. He chuckled from relief but it was cut short at the sound of the car giving way. Felicity hurried over to the edge just in time to see it disappear into the chasm below. It smashed against the side and then was gone. A huge billow of dust rose, and she took a few steps back.
Felicity extended her hand to Dexter. He looked at it and grabbed a hold.
“You know, that’s all great and all, but a little help!” Ben shouted and Aamir laughed. They didn’t imagine getting him out would be harder than rescuing Dexter but it was. It took all four of them, every ounce of strength they had to free him. They wedged snapped-off pieces of metal under the slab of concrete.
“Come on, push.”
One second they thought they had it, the next they had to let go, and it came down hard. Each time it got closer and closer to pressing against Ben’s actual body. Sweat was pouring off their brows, and Zeke had taken off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and was going red in the face.
Dexter groaned, putting everything he had into it. Felicity crouched down and took a hold of Ben’s arms. “Okay on three. One, two, three!” she yelled, and they worked the metal under the slab and pulled down as she tugged at his sleeves.
Suddenly, they did it. His clothing pulled away, and she could slide him out with the help of Aamir. Once he was out, the other two collapsed on top of him out of pure exhaustion.
“Next time…” Aamir started.
“There won't be a next time,” Ben muttered.
That was one thing they could agree on, at least for now. Reality was they didn’t know if the danger was over or just beginning.
Chapter 11
Charlie was guided into a large control center in the heart of the underground base of Cape Canaveral. NASA employees worked feverishly to ensure that the exodus of a hundred thousand people to the International Space Station Deliverance would happen without a glitch. All the power in the base came from generators, they even had their own means of communicating through a system that didn’t rely on the main power grid.
“Deliverance. That’s what they are calling it?” Charlie asked looking up at the large screen which provided updates in real time and video footage of those already on board from nations all over the world.
“It was a joint effort.”
“When did they build this?”
“Long before we got your warning. They built it in space, decades ago in preparation for an event like this and interstellar travel.”
“I guess next you will tell me that’s possible?”
“Yes, and no. They have been rotating teams up in space and extending the period that each team is onboard. What you are looking at here is state-of-the-art technology. Few people on this planet even know about this. All those billions of dollars in black budget money,” he tapped the screen. “That’s where it’s gone.”
He swiped a screen and rotated the airship. It was like something out of a sci-fi movie. It resembled four huge hamster wheels with a sleek ship at the center attached to the outer rings by spokes. “It has everything, Charlie. Artificial gravity, kitchens, cockpit, medical and science labs, living and working quarters, cargo storage, observation rooms, hibernation pods, eating areas, a shopping mall, escape modules and much more. The thing is powered by nuclear fission generators and it has ionized plasma drive.”
“That’s fantastic, William, but without my daughter it means nothing.”
“Look, I know it’s hard.”
“Do you? Let me guess, your wife and kids are on that list?”
William pursed his lips. He didn’t need to reply to that as Charlie knew it was true. There was no way in hell he would have gone up without them.
“How long ago did you get your family on that list?” He paused. “Actually don’t even bother answering that.”
William put his arm around Charlie. “Listen, let me show you some of the airships that will take us up.” He led Charlie out and continued to discuss the advancements that NASA had made. They were in many ways light years ahead, and in others far behind. All the best technology had been reserved for government usage and what William kept stating was for the continuity of government. Through mammoth steel jaws, he was led into a launch bay where technicians and engineers had been working around the clock to ensure that the launch ships would be ready to leave within four days. That was the estimated time of when the asteroid would hit earth.
“By the time that rock hits, we will be far away from the earth. Anything and everything on this planet will be destroyed.”
“I already know that,” Charlie said as he continued to drone on.
The impact of the one that had wiped out 75% of the earth’s population 65 million years ago had released 6 million times the energy of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The destruction of every living thing occurred in stages. First, the super-heated gases and debris incinerated everything around the impact zone. Nothing inside a 1,000-mile radius would have survived. As the asteroid landed in the water, it created a tidal wave and sent up red-hot debris that put into effect a chain of events that not only wiped out the dinosaurs but set the stage for the next evolution of mankind.
As William stood there pointing out various features on the ship and acting like a wild-eyed kid, Charlie’s mind thought back to the lecture he’d given at the University of Florida only two years prior. He had stood before numerous students, some of whom doubted that an asteroid could wipe out the planet.
“At the point of impact, the temperature would have been around 8,000 degrees. It would have melted the surrounding rock and shot out molten bullets at supersonic speed. The earth would have experienced super-heated 2,000 miles an hour winds. Literally, it would have been like hell on earth.” He scribbled on the whiteboard. “The initial shockwave would have created a tsunami across Mexico, crashing into Georgia, Alabama and the western side of America. The wall of the tsunami would have been ten times higher than the one in 2004 which was thirty feet high. This 300-foot wall would have hurtled out at hundreds of miles an hour.”
A student muttered something, and he made a gesture with his head.
“You have a question?”
“I was just wondering how likely it would be that this could happen again?”
“Our job is not to wonder if it will happen but determine when it will happen. And believe me, unless we are ready, which we are not, life as we know it will be over, just as it was back then. After the super-heated fireball heated the earth’s atmosphere, the devastation would have reached around the world and would have been incredible. We know this to be true as we found small parts of soot and charcoal in the layer which shows all the vegetation went up in flames and suggests there was a global inferno.”
Charlie then had one of them shut off the lights so he could turn on the overhead projector and play a clip of Los Alamos scientists in the applied physics division using supercomputers to study the impact. He stood back against the wall as it played out and a 3D simulation showed the students the KT impact. He interjected to explain what they were seeing.
“It would have been so powerful that 5 billion tons of debris would have hurled into the air. This would have gone up into the upper atmosphere, then into space and orbited causing it to land elsewhere on the earth. As this debris rained down, it would have caused the atmosphere to heat to where there would have been forest fires from spontaneous combustion. On the far side of the world, the wildfires would have been lethal.”
He stared around at the crowd of students, many of whom were his daughter’s age.
“So, such an event would cause a sudden and dramatic climate change. Dust, debris, and ash in the atmosphere would have been so thick it would have made it night for at least three months. You wouldn’t have been able to see your hand in front of your face for close to six months.”
A student’s hand shot up.
“I don’t get it. Why?”
“Because the dust and ash would block out the sun.” He stepped forward and changed the image to a new one showing droplets. “The vaporized rock would contain sulfur dioxide and when combined with the water in the atmosphere it would have created sulfuric acid droplets. Now, what do we know about that? Well, it would have caused temperatures to plummet. You see at first dust would have blocked out the sun, then it would fall back to earth and slowly over time get cleaned out. However, these sulfur oxides in the upper atmosphere would have reflected the sunlight and cooled the planet, essentially throwing it into a state of winter for several years. Temperatures would drop to around 5 degrees Celsius. Forests that had been destroyed would struggle to regenerate. Eventually, this sulfur dioxide would fall as acid rain. So, there would be six months of winter when there was no sunlight at all, and then when the planet gets a little sunlight after that, the plants think they can grow again, only to get acid rain killing them off.”
“Sir, are you saying that nothing would have survived? Because if nothing survived, how come we are here today?”
“I’m getting to that. The few animals that would have survived the initial blast, the tsunami, the wildfires and the plummeting temperatures would soon starve. Essentially the asteroid would have a domino effect. Global cooling would make way for global warming because the rocks that the asteroid hit didn’t just contain sulfur, they contained carbon dioxide, which released greenhouse gas of the equivalent of 3,000 years of modern fossil fuel burning. This continued for centuries. Even the toughest plants would have died, and herbivores, which relied on these, would have died along with the carnivores. Still, even though the KT impact wiped out 70% of the species on the planet, a few survived — mammals — small ones that burrowed underground. These omnivores could eat plants or meat. Now you might ask yourself, okay then, why did the dinosaurs not survive but these small mammals did? Well, from what we know, these mammals were shielded from the heat of the blast by using burrows or aquatic environments. Once the heat was gone, they came back out and could use what remaining food resources had survived. Now that might not have been enough for dinosaurs but for small mammals, it seems so. And before you ask… why did some mammals survive and others didn’t? Well, that is still a mystery, and scientists are still trying to gather evidence to answer this question.”
“Charlie. Charlie!” William repeated his name, and he snapped back into the present moment. “I thought I had lost you there.”
“Just preoccupied.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think I need to find my daughter.”
Charlie turned and headed for the door when William caught up. “You can’t possibly be entertaining the thought of going out there?”
“I need to find her, otherwise all of this has been for nothing.”
“It’s not for nothing, Charlie. Thousands of lives will be saved. Humanity will go on.”
“I made a promise.”
He walked away.
“This is about her, isn’t it? Kathy.”
Charlie stopped walking and turned back. “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I knew Felicity was still out there alive. I made a promise to her I would do everything I could to make sure she was looked after.”
“She’s not a child anymore, Charlie.”
“No. No, she’s not. But that doesn’t mean I care for her any less.”
He stood there staring at William. William drew closer. “Look, I can speak to one of the generals and see if there is anything we can do, but it’s not safe to be out there. Besides, we need you here.”
“For what? There’s nothing left to do. Anything that could have been done, should have been done by now, instead, the government has cherry-picked who will live and die, and withheld vital information that could have saved more lives.”
William put a hand on his hip and shook his head. “It wouldn’t have saved lives, Charlie, and you know that. What the hell would you expect them to do?”
“Give them some kind of warning.”
He stepped a little closer. “You’ve watched one too many movies, my friend. That’s not how it works. It would send people into a state of panic. Thousands would riot. There would be mass deaths. Why? Because nobody would have anything to lose. At least this way we get to save some. I’m sorry, Charlie, that it’s not the way you saw it playing out, but it is what it is.”
