Coronal Blast

Chapter 01:04

Back inside the bar, sitting next to the girl I met a few days after my wife left. Another beer, and the news droned on. Kiera kept steering our conversation to the topic of the night: the end of the world.

"It's crazy. I'm ready, though," she said. "Loaded the stang with rice, a few water bottles, a jug of bleach, and some other stuff. That's why I'm not raiding the shelves with these other idiots."

"Everyone's making too much fuss about this," I said.

"You think?" Her eyebrows twisted. "This is like, 100 times heavier than the last CME. These people are all going to be eating each other by the end of the week."

"What's exactly do you think is going to happen?"

"Oh my God. You must live under a rock or something. I thought you were one of them smart guys."

"I am smart." I paused. Usually, I didn't brag on myself, but staring in the face of someone questioning my intelligence forced my defense mechanism.

"So, okay," she said, "it works like this. Those little charged particles hit the Earth's magnetic field, and in the process they toss out a ton of energy. That energy is picked up by power lines, or anything made of metal, and overload it. Those power wires run for miles, dude. They're like giant super-antennae. They can't handle the electric load and pop like a fuse. Transformers explode. No power, for anyone, and the government's gone into hiding. No power, no aide, and desperate people. It's the perfect recipe for disaster."

"That's quite a story." I winked at the bartender, and he nodded back.

"I'm not fucking kidding," she said. "Shit's about to hit the fan."