M. Banner - Stone Age

Stacy looked to her left and saw through two of the window seats that the wing on their side was on fire.

Then, everyone could feel it. Their inertia had given way to the greater force pulling on them, gravity. They started to descend, first, a little, then a lot. Within a few seconds, they were spiraling out of control, the planes electronic controls unyielding to the pilot and co-pilot’s physical exertion to keep the plane airborne.

Stacy squeezed her friend’s hand so hard it was turning it blue. She closed her eyes and starting praying the only prayer that came to mind,

Most sunrises on their beach, were similarly stunning, with almost imperceptible differences in the new day’s light, breezes, or the ocean waves. This dawn was different, a foretelling already seen by many, but soon by everyone else. The sky sported an extra deep hue of magenta, more common during cloudy mornings, and an unnatural shade of lime. There were no clouds, but for the slight wispy red and green ropes; leftovers from the evening auroras. These heavenly ethereal cords slowly dissipated as the sun stood its ground, as if to command them away, at least for now.

With that, a new day started. It was to be a day no one on Earth would forget.

Max had been up for hours. Troubled first by his dreams, vivid visions of death and destruction, then last night’s light show, both events seemingly predicting what was coming. From what he understood, the CMEs that hit last night were pretty big, but not big enough to cause the destruction he had been most worried about, including their technology. Unfortunately, that was the mission of their much bigger brothers, traveling on their heels. They were due to hit the Earth at any moment. Unlike solar flares, which carry excessive radiation, coronal mass ejections were large clouds of plasma that weren’t directly injurious to humans, but were deadly to just about everything electronic. This one was supposed to be a doozy, potentially many times worse than the Carrington Event of 1859 was.

Because he prepared for this for years, and last night giving Bill and Lisa their instructions, there was little he could do but wait.

His lack of patience for the end of the world to hurry up and get here tickled his desire to find out how much damage the already arrived CMEs caused elsewhere. While the world still had power, he wanted to watch some news. He turned his TV on, which like his computer equipment, was connected to a set of twenty-five back up batteries, charged by the multiple solar roof panels, and shielded along with his office behind the bookshelf. However, because both television and Internet were receiving their signals from satellite, Max doubted the reception would be good due to the electromagnetic waves from CMEs. It showed nothing but static.

Okay, what next? He rolled over to another table further back in the warehouse, and blew the dust off an SSB receiver and fired it up. Rotating the Kenwood’s dials clockwise, his forefinger and thumb eloquently seeking out any human voice, he could find almost no commercial or ham radio stations. He expected this, since geomagnetic storms also adversely disrupted radio signals. The only somewhat discernible station was a French news broadcast. He was somewhat sure the alluring female voice said that Paris was burning, but his French was rusty and the signal was worse.

He searched his shelves for something, anything that was connected to the world. “Cell phone,” he yelped, remembering that he could connect via a Telecell data plan on his phone, which he never used because the cost seemed too expensive. It wasn’t a sense of frugality, but a sense of fairness that prevented him from using his data plan. He did not want to support a company that milked the poor people of Mexico. The end of the world was a worthy exception. He stood up from his desk and reached for his iPhone, noticing then that the phone’s light was on as if a call, email or text had recently come through. It was on the shelf above his desk so he hadn’t noticed it until now and he forgot he still had the mute switch on since El Gordo’s call a few hours ago. More importantly, it occurred to him, he hadn’t checked it since he left the WIFI signal from his ranch. He examined the screen and saw five messages:

> Email (25h ago): Cicada Protocol — Open immediately

> Email (24.5h ago): CMERI Bulletin — A Carrington Event is Coming!

> Breaking News (8h ago): Power out in New York — Fires reported

> Worldwide Alert — Killer solar storm coming (16m ago)

> Text (10m ago): Max my friend we are coming to kill you and your f…

He already read the first message on his computer, which heroically gave its own life to the Cicada cause. He wanted to read the second, third and fourth items, but then saw the last message’s urgency and clicked on it. The text read:

Max my friend we coming to kill you and your friends. We leaving in few minutes. They know you selling guns to Ochoa. Run! God be with you. Pappa.

Ten minutes ago? He grabbed a .45 Glock, one of the many weapons resting atop his workbench. Slipping the clip of the scabbard gloved to the pistol, over back of his pants, under his shirt, where the coolness of the weapon against his back provided comfort. He grabbed an extra clip, shoving it into his back pocket while he ran down the hallway, sliding in his stocking feet. Shit. No time to grab my boots . Punching the door release with his palm, he shoved it open, pivoted and then just as quickly closed it. Stopping for just a moment, thinking of one last thing he might have to do. He grabbed an empty journal book from his bookshelf and walked over carefully to his little Mexican work desk, across from the bookcase, situated so he could do work and see the ocean. Quickly, he scribbled something on the first page, closed it and placed it on top of a shelf just below the desk surface, making sure it was obvious to anyone who looked for it. Finally, he dashed over the threshold of his patio, to reconnoiter hurriedly with Bill, Lisa, and Sally before Rodrigo’s men arrived. He hit a wall of realization, momentarily stopping to assess and let his mind catch up with his eyes. There were two major problems besides their being on a drug kingpin’s hit list.

First, his backyard, patio, and pool area were a mess. Scattered among the debris of what was his tidy patio were the mostly dead carcasses of many various ocean birds. A pelican’s giant body, laid face down, with one colossal bloody wing sticking straight up and through what used to be the glass top of a metal patio table. Blood, glass, and other organic matter pooled below its frame, a memorial to an event that puzzled him. At least a dozen other dead birds lay scattered all over the patio, and another dozen or so in the pool, which had a rosy hue to it. The body of a seagull, floated, its dying twitches causing slight undulations in the pool’s water.

Second problem was that his house and patio lights were out. All should have been on right now even though it was daytime. He flipped a switch confirming there was no power, except of course in his office, which was on a different circuit.

These puzzles were for later.

He leapt into a run, mentally taking an s-shaped route around the debris. His footfalls muffled by their wet sock coverings, made plat-ploof, plat-ploof sounds as he negotiated around the obstacles, slipping slightly around each turn. Passing two stacked chairs overturned in a muddle of reddish water dripping into the pool, he heard buzzing, followed by something sharp biting his wet mop-like feet and right arm, like several pinpricks at once. He bounded past the assault, rubbing his arm, uninterrupted. Leaving wet footprints on the few dry areas of his pool decking.