The High Five

Final Approach

Bobby followed the preparations taking place on Earth.

The CME event had a name: The Great Unplug. People were advised to stay indoors, power down, and unplug all electronics from toasters to trucks. Stay off the roads. Keep a single phlex active per family unit. Emergency services only. Schools and government would be closed along with all non-essential businesses. Meanwhile, armies of computer technicians were scrambling to move servers and delicate equipment underground or cover them with lead-lined blankets.

There had never been a CME anywhere near this powerful in the modern age, and the ramifications were impossible to predict. The techno-sphere was an amalgam of trillions of interacting parts cobbled together over many decades. Not only wires, servers, relays, generators, and cell towers, but all the small, seemingly insignificant parts that only went by inventory numbers. From deep sea cables to satellites, each component had its own operating parameters and tolerances. What would fail and in what order? Would it cause a runaway chain reaction that took down national and even global systems?

The simulations were all over the place, but one thing they all agreed on: the best precaution was to turn off everything with a power source. Cutting off electric current and isolating components would reduce the surge potential and limit downstream propagation. Even a small charge when multiplied over thousands of wires could overload a major trunk line. But there was no off-switch for the world. Powering down the global conglomeration of networks was a feat of coordination that had never been attempted before.

Europe would be the first to feel the heat. The CME would scorch its way across the Atlantic, then sweep across the Americas before heading on to Asia and the Middle East. Might a rogue state seize the opportunity to launch a surprise attack? The president made a point of saying that America would be ready to protect itself and its allies with the full force of its strategic armament. It wasn't an empty boast. Ironically, its most hardened systems were its Cold-War era nukes.

But the greatest threat was fear and confusion. With less than a day's warning, most families did not have time to stock up their pantries or fuel up their generators, if they had them. Services and supply chains were quickly overwhelmed. If outages stretched into days or even weeks, desperation might cause people to act irrationally. Governments had learned from past catastrophes that keeping open lines of communication was key to avoiding mass panic—so long as the information was properly moderated. While much of the world was already offline, select media channels were kept open. Misleading or incendiary posts were intercepted by AI before they had a chance to propagate.

Bobby watched from his god's-eye view with a strange sense of detachment. He felt lightheaded and dreamy but not in a pleasant way. The terrible itching had stopped, but he continued to pick at his scabs, littering the air with dark crumbles. He felt the same combination of fatigue and restlessness he used to experience after the stem cell treatments that were supposed to stimulate his bone growth. His coping mechanism for bodily discomfort had always been to throw himself into a d-realm, but with communications limited to essential services, that wasn't an option. Before Project Liftoff, he had never been cut off from the Vorld for more than a day. That day had seemed like the longest of his life. As he neurotically checked for a connection every few seconds, he was reminded of a chicken compulsively pecking at a lever for food pellets. He desperately needed a distraction.

He flipped over to the space bands where the sentiment was, Steady on, this is what we trained for. He tuned into Paranor station. Eighty tourists had been evacuated in reentry pods, but a handful still remained along with thirty full-time crew. And Jake. It would be a tight fit. Located in the central hub, there was only room in the main bunker for forty-five people.

"Latest estimates are in," someone was saying. "Max duration is sixteen hours with five to seven high intensity peaks."

"Jesus. That's twice what they were saying a few hours ago."