First Light

CHAPTER EIGHT

Daniel Chien arrived early for work.

So early that it might as well have been considered working late.

He’d been tempted to just sleep on the couch in the Space Center lobby, since he’d only left the observatory three hours earlier and had barely slept a wink. Summer Hanratty had found him much too obsessed for human company, especially the kind of company she wanted, so she told him to give her a call when he returned to Planet Earth.

Once problems began popping up, the Administration had asked for on-the-hour reports, and Katherine Swain had ridden the console whenever Chien took a brief reprieve. Katherine had become just as hollow-eyed as Chien, because they both knew this level of solar activity had never been recorded.

Or even theorized.

Things were heating up. The magnetic field lines from the solar flares had behaved in unexpected ways, splitting and reconnecting in random patterns while the intensity of the coronal mass ejections increased. The center had lost contact with the SDO, as Chien had predicted, and they were essentially working in the dark, relying on ground-level measurements of the solar activity instead of direct readings from outer space. Despite linking an emergency network of radiotelescopes around the world, the data had become spotty. Not only was communication on the blink, but some countries were already experiencing widespread power outages.

The popular press had begun digging into the story, gaining gleeful interest when the concept of “Zapheads” arose. Chien wasn’t sure if solar radiation and gamma rays could affect the electromagnetic impulses of the human brain, but the storm had long entered uncharted territory. If the wiring melted or the signals got crossed, no scientist on earth could predict the effects. Prophets had just as much legitimacy in such realms.

Katherine had reluctantly raised the threat level to Class X. The Administration was sending some FEMA and Homeland Security officials down later today, and Chien had a feeling science would quickly fall slave to politics, just as it had done throughout the course of human history.

As Chien punched his access code into the security keypad, he glanced around the dark parking lot. Half a dozen vehicles were in the lot at 5 a.m., twice the usual number. And yet the August surroundings looked much the same, the maples a brilliant green under the security lights, frogs and crickets wailing around the decorative pond in the landscaped entryway. But Chien could feel something in the air, a charging of the atmosphere, subtle like the coming of a storm.

Dr. Doom was right, huh, Katherine?

He entered the lobby, which was much dimmer than usual, and Chien realized the emergency lighting was on. Not a good sign.

An even worse sign was slumped over the reception desk. Even in the poor light, Chien recognized Tamberlyn, the night security guard. His cap had fallen to the floor and one hand hung limply over the edge of the desk. Chien called his name, getting no response, and hurried across the tiles, his footfalls sounding much too loud in the glass-enclosed lobby. Tamberlyn’s face was pressed into a magazine, the pages splotched with his drool. Chien touched the man’s wrist to feel for a pulse, but the skin was already cool.

Chien picked up the desk phone, but it was dead. He glanced over Tamberlyn’s body, seeing no sign of a struggle. It was unlikely that someone would rob the SDO lab, because the equipment was of such a specialized nature that it would be difficult to pawn, and astronomy wasn’t exactly a cash business. Even the data had little commercial value, because most of it was publicly available.

Katherine!

Chien hurried down the hallway, bypassing the elevators. He hit the stairwell, which was pitch dark except for the ambient glow of a few emergency lights. He stumbled going up, cursing as his kneecap knocked against concrete. Then he was on the second floor and approaching the SDO lab.

The door was open. The lab was usually brightly lit, with lots of monitors, blinking lights, various digital meters, and personal computers. But only a few specks of light were visible, like fireflies against a midnight forest.

“Katherine?” he whispered.

Something moved to his left, followed by the squeak of chair rollers. He turned, and a sudden blur hit him in the chest, knocking the wind from his lungs and his glasses from his nose. He smelled Katherine’s perfume—a sensible discount brand with a French name he couldn’t recall—and beneath it an electric sweaty odor, like a June bug caught in a zapper.

He shouted her name, then called her “Dr. Swain,” hoping to induce some glimmer of professional memory. He pushed at her, and then began punching, as her talon-like hands raked over his face. Her nails cut a searing line of agony across his forehead.

She’s going for my eyes!

He landed a fist against the side of her body, incongruously aware of the bulge of her breasts against him as she forced him to the floor. Katherine Swain wasn’t a large woman, but somehow she seemed to have embodied all the power of gravity. A suppressed chortle vibrated behind her ribs like some kind of wind-up toy. She reared up, giving him a chance to buck her off, but her face froze him into immobility.

The firefly glints he had seen were not the remnants of the mechanical world he so loved. They were organic, an obscene inflection in her eyes. He could only stare and exhale as she clasped both her hands together into one fat fist and drove the flesh hammer down onto his throat.

He spat out an urk as his larynx was crushed.

Sucking for breath, he glanced wildly about the room, looking for a way out. But this time, science wouldn’t be his salvation.

Dr. Doom was right.