Flare

Chapter 18

The rest of the journey passed in silence, broken by Ralph’s occasional chuckles. I was already thoroughly embarrassed by my attempt to congratulate Emily on how well she’d coped, and the laughter really wasn’t helping my mood but I let it pass unchallenged.

Looking at it from her point of view, I supposed my comments could be seen as rude, although I preferred to think of them as uninformed.

Thinking back, I was surprised that I hadn’t worked it out for myself. Not only was she cool and capable under fire, as it were, but her house had been neat to the point of severity and now I thought about it she had that unmistakable military air about her.

I put it down to the events of the afternoon overwhelming me, and spent the rest of the journey trying to think of something suitable to say that wouldn’t make me sound any more like a moron than I had already.

In the end I settled for keeping my mouth shut, which seemed to be the best option when Emily finally spoke to me as we drew close to the cottage.

“Malc, thank you for today.”

I looked up and blinked for a second, unsure what to say.

“You’re welcome,” I said finally, “it’s nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”

“Well I, we appreciate it. You could have just left us to it, come back and spun some story for mum and disappeared into the blue never to be heard of again.”

I felt a stab of guilt as I remembered considering that very thing.

“Wouldn’t have been right,” I said, glad that the darkness hid my burning cheeks. “I promised your mum I’d help get you home, and I don’t like breaking promises.”

“Well I think you’re a good man,” she said with a smile, showing dimples in the mirror. “Will you be staying with us when we get home? I’m sure dad could find a use for you and your friend both.”

I shook my head. “I’d love to,” I said, suddenly realising that it was true, “but my daughter is up in Manchester and her mother, well, let’s just say she’s not someone I want looking after my little girl the way things are right now.”

“You’re married?” Was there a hint of disappointment there? I banished the thought instantly; this was no time to be thinking about romance, no matter how attractive I found Emily.

“Divorced. We married way too young on the strength of a drunken club night. Not the most stable foundation for a relationship. Turns out we had nothing in common, and things only got worse the older Melody got, we couldn’t agree on anything in the end.”

I closed my mouth with a snap. Here I was, spilling my life story to someone I’d only just met while her father sat next to me with a loaded shotgun. It was almost enough to make me laugh, and I had to repress the urge to giggle like a child.

“How about you?” I asked instead, “got anyone back in the army?”

She shook her head. “No, I actually came out of the army about six months ago, despite what my dad said. I started up a little business repairing the things that people usually throw away once they stop working, then selling them on ebay. Almost ninety percent of electrical goods that go wrong and get thrown out are repairable, if you know what you’re doing. Made a killing. Not that I’ll be doing much of it for a while, I would think.”

We crested the final hill and she turned the car onto the drive that led to the cottage. As we pulled into the yard, however, I saw an old blue Landrover sitting by the Cottage door and immediately reached for the spare shotgun, only to have Ralph’s meaty hand clamp down on mine.

“Easy there, that’s Dave Edwards, he’s the local forester. Don’t think we’ll be needing the shotguns.”

I nodded and let go, but noted that he scanned the yard before he got out of the car, and his own weapon was at the ready as we approached the cottage, a light still on in the kitchen window.

As we walked towards the door it flew open and Harriet almost ran out. She and Emily caught hold of each other and hugged while I stood there awkwardly. Harriet finally disentangled herself from her daughter’s arms and swapped them for Ralph’s, squeezing him tight before gripping my hand, her eyes shining with tears.

“Oh, thank god you’re safe,” she said, pulling me towards the door as the others followed. “Jerry was beside himself, talking about hiking over there until Dave came by, then trying to convince him to go and search for you, but I knew you’d come back. Was it bad?”

I opened my mouth to answer but then caught Ralph’s stare.

“Not too bad,” I lied with a smile, “just a bit of car trouble.”

She nodded and accepted the explanation, leading us into the kitchen as Maggie ran around our feet, yapping excitedly until Ralph yelled at her.

Jerry was sat at the table, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea, while opposite him sat a man in his early thirties who appeared to be carved from granite, his tattered navy jumper straining to cover his hugely muscled arms as he stood to shake our hands.

He seemed to be a pleasant chap, a permanent smile splitting his thick, dark beard as he folded a huge hand around mine, squeezing surprisingly gently and saying my name to himself when we were introduced.

In moments, it seemed, we were all seated around the table with mugs of tea, Ralph batting off questions about the delay in getting back and turning the conversation to how Dave had managed to get his vehicle working.

“I came out this morning and the battery was dead,” he said by way of explanation, “but I’ve got a couple of spares in the shed so I tried one and it worked. I thought I’d head over and make sure you and Harriet were ok. Your man Jerry here was about to explain what happened when you pulled up.”

We all turned to look at Jerry and he cleared his throat nervously.

“Right, well. I’ve already explained to most of you about the solar flare, and to some of you about the Coronal Mass Ejection, which is actually the thing causing all the problems. Do you all know what an EMP is?”

Everyone but Ralph nodded.

“Ok,” Jerry continued, “it’s an electromagnetic pulse, which is normally found when a nuclear device detonates, and it’s capable of destroying electronics and causing all manner of problems, such as overloads and the like. The Ejection, or CME for short, that we had yesterday was particularly bad, and in layman’s terms it’s the sun venting plasma, which acts like an EMP. The sun actually has a very strong electromagnetic field of its own, as well as its own gravity, but sometimes when the gravity weakens it sends out, well, puffs of plasma, I suppose you could say. It’s almost unheard of for one to hit the earth, but it does happen, clearly, or we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

He looked around with a smile, as if he’d covered everything, but there were more than a few confused looks at the table.

“So how does that explain my car battery then?” Dave asked, scratching his beard.

“Oh yes, well. A CME as large as the one that hit us is kind of like a giant taser hitting the earth. The shock would ground, in much the same way as electricity, and anything made of conductive material with a power source connected to it would effectively draw the energy out of its power source unless it was shielded and surge protected.”

“Like a metal car with its battery still attached?” Dave said, catching on.

Jerry took a swig of his tea and nodded. “Exactly. I detached my battery before it hit, so it was ok, and so would any that were being driven at the time, as the alternator would charge it up again, but if your vehicle was switched off when the CME hit, the battery would have drained, whereas the ones in your shed weren’t attached to anything so the charge wouldn’t go anywhere.”

“I think I follow you,” Dave said, “so what about all the other cars?”

“Microchips,” he said, waggling a finger. “We’ve become so reliant on microchips as a society that they’re in almost everything now. Unfortunately they are delicate enough that they are particularly susceptible to Electromagnetic variations, so everything that has a microchip in it is, well, pretty bloody useless now.”

Emily turned her mug with one hand while the other stroked Maggie’s head.

“What about older systems, pre the microchip revolution?”

Jerry shrugged. “They should work if you can find a power source, and maybe a working fuse or two. There’s no reason why, with a bit of make and mend, we couldn’t have ourselves back to the technology level of, say, the seventies, within a few weeks if there are enough people out there working on it.”

“I can think of a reason,” I said, standing and walking to the window to look out at the night sky.

“Oh really, what’s that?” Jerry asked, clearly annoyed at being interrupted.

“That,” I said, pointing out to where the sky was writhing with colour, blues, greens and reds all mixing together from horizon to horizon.

Jerry almost ran to the door, pulling it open and heading into the yard. We all followed, speechless as we looked up at the incredible display above us.

“Oh my god,” Jerry said, his voice barely a whisper, “it’s happening again.”