PROLOGUE: SUN SALUTATION

 

As I gaze around the endless, mostly barren landscape, I feel at home. Where was I before this? When was I before this? Who—or what—was I before this? All I know is I am.

​

I shift my focus and discover I have no body. My attention goes wherever I point it with my unconstrained consciousness. I observe, without eyes, a spectrum of discrete but integrated visible forms. I perceive, without ears, a harmonious cacophony of sounds. I feel, without skin, a sensation, at once cool and warm, of wind-like movement. I smell and taste, without nose or tongue, the savory sweet nectar of existence.

​

I look directly at the Sun. It doesn’t blind me.

 

#

​

On any given day, a careful earthbound observer of the Sun might notice a dark spot or two on the otherwise bright yellow orb. From that distance—roughly ninety-three million miles, as many schoolchildren can tell you—the Sun’s visible surface, or photosphere, appears smooth and solid. But don’t stare at it for long, or your vision could be damaged.

​

Up close, the photosphere would look quite different to the human eye. But don’t get too close, or your human eyes—and the rest of you—will be vaporized. You wouldn’t feel it, though, since you’d be dead from radiation well before then. There, at any given time, four million or so massive granules of dense plasma bubble up for a lifespan of between eight and twenty minutes. And you thought eighty years was short.

 

Those dark sunspots signify concentrations of electromagnetic activity up to one hundred thousand miles wide. As the massive disturbances move across the neither smooth nor solid solar surface, fiery streams of hydrogen and helium shoot out into the chromosphere and dance like marionettes tugged by the strings of an invisible puppeteer. These prominences then—usually—merge back into the vast entity from which they emerged.

 

The day before our story begins—as much as any story ever really begins—a dance of solar prominences grew so intense the Sun’s corona couldn’t contain the energy. The rapid acceleration of protons, electrons, and ions caused by superheating produced an explosion equivalent to nearly a billion megatons of TNT. With the help of precision instruments, astronomers on Earth witnessed the resulting solar flare and a simultaneous coronal mass ejection (CME) of highly charged particles. Flowing into the current of solar wind, the CME soon became an ICME (“I” for interplanetary) as it traveled at speeds of up to seven million miles per hour toward the Pale Blue Dot in its path.

​

​

PART ONE: AWAKENING

​

CHAPTER ONE: TENUROUS EXISTENCE

​​

​I’m late, Kat realized. Again. Eager as she was to deliver the precious item she carried, it would have to wait. She hurried past the door to the dean’s office and descended the steps to the lecture hall. Moments later, takeout coffee cup in one hand, broken umbrella tucked under that arm, and the all-or-nothing three-ring binder cradled in the other, Kat used her free hand to turn the knob as she pressed her shoulder against the door. It swung open faster than expected. She lurched into the room, nearly dropping all three items before regaining her balance. She smiled at the students waiting (im)patiently in the auditorium. I meant to do that, she thought in a nasally, impish voice. The students—the few not looking at their phones—stared at her in silence, apparently unable to read her mind and appreciate a fairly decent Pee Wee Herman impression. Millennials. Or Gen Zers. Depending where you drew the line, college students in the spring of 2016 could be born on either side of it. As she set the binder on the far corner of the desk, she spotted a few drops of water on the cover and wiped them off with her sleeve. She positioned her coffee cup in the opposite corner, as far from the priceless book as possible. Stained pages would be a disaster. Just to be safe, she moved the binder to a nearby AV cart.

​

Kat tossed the umbrella toward a trash can near the door. It would do her no good now. Approaching the building, she’d tilted it parallel to her body to block the torrents of sideways blowing rain—not uncommon for Seattle—when a sudden reversal in the wind’s direction caused an inversion in the umbrella’s form. Several metal spines along its underbelly snapped and separated from the fabric. The material no longer had potential as a taut shield against the elements. As the object now sailed through the air, she tried to guide it toward the target with her eyes. It thudded off the side of the plastic bin and clattered against the tile floor. She turned to her audience and shrugged, eliciting both mock applause and exaggerated expressions of disappointment. At least they responded. On a Monday morning that was a real accomplishment.

​

She logged into the terminal and sipped coffee while the projector warmed up. “Ahhh,” she said, then sipped again. She set the cup down as though placing it on an altar. “Before we begin, let’s take a moment to offer thanks to whatever god, or gods, we worship for the gracious gift of the coffee bean, without which life on this planet would come to a grinding halt. Get it? No beans ... grinding halt.” A few students chuckled. More groaned. “Sorry. Mainlining caffeine since midnight. Should make for a manic but entertaining lecture.”

 

“Woo hoo!” shouted a voice from the back.

 

Kat ignored the interjection, took a breath, and launched into her spiel. “Today we’re expanding our introductory study of the environment to explore what we’ll call The Big Picture.” She pressed a button on the control panel, projecting the image of Earth visible on the computer monitor onto the large screen behind her. “Notwithstanding how alien a lot of student behavior seems to me these days, I suspect no one in this room has seen our home planet from this view. I’m quite certain no one has ever seen it like this.” She pressed a button on her laser mouse. Neon blue lines appeared along each side of Earth, curving from pole to pole.

 

“Oooohhh,” sounded a chorus of voices.

 

“This is the magnetosphere,” Kat continued. “Or rather what the magnetosphere would look like, more or less, if it were visible to humans without high-tech equipment.” She paused. “What in the universe, wonder the starry-eyed pupils, is the magnetosphere? Allow me to unravel the mystery. Earth is in effect a big magnet, with a positive and a negative pole. As with any bipolar object—excuse me, I seem to have mania on the brain. As with any dipolar object, the attraction between opposite ends creates a magnetic field.” She traced the cursor along the blue lines. “What in the retainable pool of knowledge, wonder the exam-dreading students, does that have to do with sustainable existence? Allow me to alleviate your test anxiety. Earth’s magnetic field protects us from charged particles in various cosmic rays, such as those emitted by the Sun. And, you may be alarmed to learn, that protective shield appears to be weakening.” She lifted the coffee cup and sipped. She had their attention now. “Before you go running into the streets proclaiming The End Of The World, you should know this weakening of our magnetic field is part of a regular cycle. A cycle that may well lead to a reversal in polarity, after which compass needles will point south.” She put down the mostly empty coffee cup and stepped out from behind the desk. “Find that hard to believe? Fossil records suggest it’s happened before. Many times. Every quarter-million years or so. But not in the last three-quarter-million.” She gazed into the auditorium. The overhead lights seemed to dim. “So we’re well overdue.” Her legs wobbled as a wave of dizziness and nausea surged through her. She placed a hand on the desk.

 

“Doctor Porter? Are you okay?” asked a voice from the front row.

​

Kat let the brief spell pass, nodded, and then continued. “The good news is it will take thousands of years. And there’s no evidence previous reversals caused major extinctions. As a species, humanity should survive the process.” Another wave of dizziness hit. A stronger one. Had she not still had a hand on the desk she might have fallen over. The darkness at the rear and sides of the lecture hall crept inward, narrowing her field of vision. Something wasn’t right. She struggled to finish her thought. “What should concern us ... is what happens in the meantime ... before our magnetic field returns to full strength. … Disturbances on the Sun ... create gusts of solar wind ... that can penetrate the magnetosphere ... with radiation ... and disrupt ... electrical transmissions.” She looked at the projection screen. Tiny orange lights flashed all across Earth. That’s odd. She didn’t remember adding that effect. She kinda liked it. Okay. Concentrate. Almost to the point. “With a more permeable protective field ... magnetic storms … could become more frequent ... and cause serious damage ... to equipment ...” She looked at the screen. Orange lines now connected the flashing lights to form a jagged web across Earth. “And people.” Kat felt her knees buckle and warm wetness flood her crotch.