Violets in Vegas: Sunday Morning Coming Down4
Even knowing what was coming couldn't prevent it. We were running out of time. Wasting precious time locked in discussion, in argument, in exposition. I even realized it then, but was unable to halt the inexorable march as we went through every scenario. Trying desperately to figure out Todd's plan. Time was ticking by on the clock but it was already too late. It was already done.
7:00am
The burst of raised voices and shouting was once more quelled by John's raised hand.
"That's impossible!" Richard managed to stutter. He rose to his feet. Indignant. "The rift couldn't sustain itself that long! It is highly unstable. McKay?"
"This is true," Rodney agreed, "under normal conditions it wouldn't last long enough to get a Hive ship through it."
"It would only take one or two Hive ships to decimate this planet," Evan stated gloomily. "Those things are huge and hold hundreds of Wraith. Hundreds."
"Wait, back up a sec. These aren't normal conditions?"
"No, John. Those fluctuations I've been monitoring. They've gotten worse. Much worse." He stepped to the front of the room, taking the laser pointer from John who stepped aside. The map of Vegas was replaced by a map of the Earth as seen from space. Wavy colored lines surrounded it in an elliptical shape. "This is Earth's magnetic field, the geomagnetic field which extends tens of thousands of kilometers into space from our magnetic sphere. It is at least 3.5 billion years old. It protects the Earth from the solar winds and space storms."
"Solar winds?" John asked, making a pained expression.
"Yes. The solar wind is a stream of energetic charged particles emanating from the sun. Some of these particles are trapped in the Van Allen radiation belt. This radiation belt is a torus of energetic particles around the Earth, held in place by Earth's magnetic field. These fields are not uniformly distributed around our planet. So you see what is happening."
There was silence. So absolute the dripping of water could be heard. John grimaced. "Pray, do tell us, please," he invited reluctantly, circling the room and coming to stand next to Moira. He knew when to lead the room and when to give the floor over to the experts. He leaned on the table, arms crossed over his chest.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Isn't it obvious? Those fluctuations I've been tracking! Look, the Van Allen belt isn't uniform!" He used the laser pointer on the map of the Earth. "On the sunward side it is compressed because of the solar wind, but on the other side it is elongated towards 3 Earth radii. These processes create a cavity, the Chapman-Ferrono Cavity where the Van Allen belt resides. The belt is actually split into two belts, two distinct belts with energetic electrons forming the outer belt and a combination of protons and electrons forming the inner one. Both belts are closely rotating to the polar aurora where particles strike the upper atmosphere and fluoresce." He finished, smiled a moment.
"I know I will regret asking this," John muttered. "And? Significance?"
"Significance? Isn't it obvious?" Rodney repeated, shaking his head.
"The fluctuations," Evan said suddenly. "There not normal. Not just anomalous."
"Bingo! I didn't see it before because it was so slight, but it's been increasing with a startling momentum."
"And that's what caused all those birds to die," Moira realized. "They use the magnetic field to navigate and any disruption can cause irreparable harm."
"Yes!" Rodney nodded. "It's all down to betatron acceleration."
Another long silence. John licked his lips. Glanced at Moira but she appeared mystified as well. "And?" he was forced to prompt.
"And that explains everything…to a point. I believe that whatever this—"
"Whoa, how? And shorten it, okay?"
"Okay. The betatron acceleration is the acceleration of particles by a changing magnetic field. These changes give particles such as electrons an energy boost and send them corkscrewing through space at high speeds. It forms on Earth's night side, a space storm, if you will, and the energy builds up by strong, shifting magnetic fields close to Earth, to us, and if I'm right and I know I am the tear in the rift is forming a sort of nebula which is violently accelerating the charged particles and the magnetic fields. Do you see now? All of that energy is forming a strong electric field, and that field, if manipulated can produce a high-energy beam that could open the rift permanently!"
"That was shorter?" Evan quipped quietly.
"And Todd is going to be the manipulator, using the tech he stole and the power from the city," John realized at last, grasping the gist of it.
"Yes! I mean, yes," Rodney lowered his voice. The science had taken him away, taken him away from the sorrow and guilt. The sudden threat facing the planet sobered him. The death of his wife was a shadow on him, however.
"Okay." John stepped to the front of the room again. Mind furiously working as the map dissolved from the Earth to Vegas again. "What's our timetable on this? I mean on all this science stuff?"
Rodney thought. Snapped his fingers. "Tonight. The lunar eclipse is tonight. He will have to wait for us to be on the dark side instead of the sun side, so to speak. The—"
"McKay! You have to see this!" A man ran into the room. "There's an aurora!"
"Yes, I know, they have been more frequent in the polar regions now because of the—"
"No! It's right here! There's an aurora in Nevada!"
The sky was yellow. The heat of the morning washing down, unhindered. But in the distance, in the upper regions of the atmosphere colored waves of light were dancing. Undulating waves of red and green which were normally only seen near the poles were on display in the middle of the desert, in the middle of America.
"Good God…is that natural?" Richard asked, as the group stood staring at the sky.
"Yes. It's caused by the collision of charged particles directed by the Earth's magnetic field, in the ionosphere resulting from emissions of photons in the upper atmosphere above 50 kilometers from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron and oxygen and nitrogen atoms being charged to an excited state from a ground state." He saw John's pained expression. Added quietly, "we just don't see them this far south of the pole, is all."
"Could these disruptions also be causing the earthquakes and tornadoes and floods?"
"No. There has been an increase in the severity of storms, year by year, and in earthquakes. The tectonic plates are shifting. It could be a result of global warming and the shift in our axis and rotation. This has nothing to do with that."
"But will it?" Moira was staring at the display as she spoke. "If the rift is opened for that long, forming a nebula, as you said…what would be the effects on an already stressed Earth? Tidal shifts? Tectonic shifts? Increasing severity of storms? An increase of temperature even by a few degrees could be disastrous for the planet. A rise in sea levels would be catastrophic."
"I don't know what the effects would be," Rodney had to admit.
"Then we better stop this thing before it starts." John eyed the group. "Let's go! We have work to do, and pretty damn fast too! We only have twelve hours, people! Moira, please keep reviewing those tapes. Lorne, I need a full schematic of the city and all of its main power stations and grids. Caldwell, Weir, get your people ready to move out on my mark. McKay, we need a target. Where will Todd go to build this energy beam thing? I need that location now! I will alert LVPD and get them on the job! Let's go, people!"
The group dispersed, heading back into the building.
Richard stopped, turned to John. "You know, these doomsday predictions are only a worse-case scenario. There's no way any of that could happen. The rift is too unstable."
"And what if it isn't? If we don't find Todd and stop him from doing whatever he is planning to do it will be the end of the world as we know it."