“As it has and will, forevermore.” Nevin might have sensed where she was going, but she barely gave him a thought.
“However, we know Icarus has been dormant for a long time, with its outer layers hardened through the millennia. Change a few variables, now, allow for its nucleus to heat up, the internal processes to kick in and charge this baby up, as comets do after a dormant period…”
“And we still don’t fully know why…”
She tapped away, and the comet changed hue, brightening and giving off a bluer tail. “The internal gasses have no escape and the energy inside builds up, and now you have the real possibility of an explosive internal reaction. A fragmentary break up. Extremities slipping free and blazing new trails.”
Pieces separated, creating divergent trails as Icarus sling-shot around the Sun. Smaller pieces scattered this way and that, some whizzing by the inner planets at precariously close distances.
“Nothing that round…” Nevin said.
Diana adjusted a speed bar at the bottom of the legend. “Let’s speed up the years.”
Round and around, Icarus made its trek, five, six times. Each return trip it brightened and again shook off excess weight, firing pieces into the ether. Nothing of note happened until the seventh visit.
“Seven years from now,” Diana said, slowing it down just as the Icarus icon divorced into two nearly similar sized objects, each blasting away from each other as if in bitter hostility.
“Uh oh.” Nevin leaned over her shoulder, his eyes wide behind the lenses. “That’s…”
“—Going to be trouble.” Diana slowed down the pace now, watching with horror as the lower portion took a bumpy — non-uniform-path directly into Earth’s trajectory.
As its dotted line ended at Earth’s, Nevin pointed to the stats. “So at impact time, it’s still… point-eight kilometers wide? Jesus.”
“Yeah. The theorized meteor-bollide or whatever impacted Tunguska, Russia in 1907 was only about 500 meters. And that resulted in a fifteen megaton blast, one thousand times stronger that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”
“But this is all conjecture, just playing with the variables.”
Diana sighed. “Not out of the range of possible scenarios, though. If I ran this hypothetical, you can bet others have too.”
“Not on my team.”
Diana turned and met his look. “Not that you know of.”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t believe anyone knows. Can’t…I would have heard rumblings, briefings. Even if we didn’t release this to the world, at least the President or NSA or Joint Chiefs would have to know.”
“I think they do, or someone at least does.” Diana watched the Earth icon continue along its way, imagining what cataclysmic horrors were inflicted on the surface, on the population. “They’ve probably estimated an impact point, down to a full calculation of immediate casualties, followed by disruption in the atmosphere, the seas, the food chain.” She took a deep breath, trying to prevent a panic attack.
“This…maybe it won’t be that bad. Could hit in the ocean, or break up in the atmosphere.”
“Normally I would agree, but given what’s happening now — and given the warning I think that was on Icarus itself, I don’t think our chances are great.”
Nevin pointed at the screen. “Seven years. Still, so many variables, gravitational forces, solar winds, magnetosphere levels to account for.”
“I’m sure, and I know, it’s like crossing a highway with a blindfold on. Most of the time you might make it across by luck with no problem. Other times, splat!” She shook her head. “I’m sure that in a million different quantum universes our little old Earth is fine, but just like the theory that says life began on this planet in this universe because of just such a scenario, when conditions were not right in countless other Earths in other dimensions and universes…”
“I know the theory, but it doesn’t help us here. Not if in this universe, we’re the ones that are target practice.” He sighed. “Let me work the program, see if you missed anything.”
Diana got up, wobbling a little. “It’s got to be this. I can’t think of any other reason Caleb and his team were drawn to this rock …”
“Someone left a damn message on it?”
“Someone else knew of its threat.” Diana held her head. “Or…foresaw it. Or, maybe something like this had happened before. Maybe it’s what caused the Younger Dryas event of twelve thousand years ago, the end of the last Ice Age. There are several well thought-out theories suggesting an impact event in the North American ice sheet caused the rapid melting and instigated a round of global warming that not only gave us the universal flood legends but also reshaped the globe.”
“The reshaping part — and the melting ice wasn’t such a bad thing.”
“No, but this — it’ll be much, much bigger, and with a population seven billion times bigger than back then? It won’t be pretty.”
Nevin began furiously typing. “I…” He stopped, looking at his fingers helplessly. “What do we do?”
Taking a deep breath, tasting the clean air blowing in on a breeze from the Georgetown dawn, Diana looked at the telescope, pointing hopefully up at the wondrous sky.
“We do everything we can to get Caleb and his team free.” Her heart quickened — both for the danger they were about to face, and for the chance to see him again. “And Mason.” Montross…
Nevin frowned at her. “Why?”
“Because if anyone can see a way to save our skins, it’s them.”
12
It didn’t take long, once Caleb had turned his back on his captor, once he had tuned out the environment and questions about whether his mind was being manipulated, whether this was all a simulation. Most importantly he tuned out thoughts about his sister, his family, and his friends.
Just focus and relax. It’s an objective, that’s all. No immediate danger, at any rate, and after all, what Boris was offering was exactly what Caleb had been trying to do before he’d been interrupted.
Where was he, and why? He had the sense that wherever (in Australia, if he could really believe his earlier visions) it was they had taken him, this place was special. Different from where the others were held captive. Orlando, Xavier… the rest of the team? They might not have gone far. Maybe they were in DC still, locked up in the Pentagon or somewhere else.
But not him. He had the certainty he was somewhere very, very far away. Removed for something special, some motive beyond just separating the team from its leader.
Time to find out where, and then, as the man asked…
Why?
It didn’t take long until the familiar tingling sensation coursed up his spine. Serpentine vibrations winding around and around, zeroing in on the base of his brain. The medulla, then to the cortex and spreading, darting about inside his skull, producing visions:
A barren desert landscape, notable only for the great age of its rugged landscape. Ancient weathered cracks, old-age signs in a face long past its due date. Hot sun baking the land, all except for a series of buildings, three white spheres connected to other white windowless rectangular structures; a lone dirt road approaching the surprisingly modern complex.
A sign, weathered and dented, with an emaciated black bird perched on its corner:
TURN BACK, PRIVATE GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. Entering no-fly zone for next five miles.
Not turning back, instead accelerating…