End of Days (24 page)

Billy shook his head in frustration. He wasn’t in the mood to get a lesson or a lecture. He wanted answers.

“It’s also known as ‘the butterfly effect.’ In its simplest form, it says that the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the planet can influence the weather half a continent away.”

“That’s just stupid!” Billy snapped.

“Not stupid, just simplistic. The idea is that a small difference or error can result in a chain of events leading to ends that are completely unknown and vastly different from those that could be predicted.”

“Okay, so what are you saying?”

“We know the fragments will land. We know with a high degree of certainty when and where and how big they will be. Beyond that, the effects on Earth are just a guess.”

“So life could go on?”

“Of course not. Extinction is certain. That is an immediate result of the fragments landing. What’s not certain are the effects flowing out from there. All the scientific predictions are based on thousands of variables that we have never witnessed and cannot verify, and that are completely beyond our ability to know. What we predict will happen isn’t so much scientific fact as it is a romantic, optimistic guess … a hope for the best.”

“And the best is that all life forms become extinct?” Billy sneered.

“The best is that the planet will somehow rebound in a decade or two to allow life to return to the surface. But you have to understand that the entire world will not react or
recover equally. It is possible that while the surface will remain uninhabitable in North America for two hundred years, it may recover in Australia in twenty years, or vice-versa. We just don’t know, and buried deep in the ground here we won’t be able to know what is happening on the rest of the planet.”

“But we would know if we were orbiting in space,” Billy said.

Fitchett nodded. “I knew you’d understand.”

“And from up there we could tell the people in the underground facility what was happening.”

“You could, but it wouldn’t necessarily mean anything for those people at this complex. They—and I say ‘they’ because I will be long dead at that point—will not have the capacity to travel very far in an environment that is hostile to human life. You, however, already in space, will be able not just to identify where the new Eden will appear, but to board the re-entry vehicles and simply
land
at that location and recommence life.”

What he was saying made sense—it was strange, dangerous, hard to believe, fantastic, almost unbelievable, but it did make sense.

“But potentially,” Fitchett said, “the fragments might trigger a chain of events that will result in the entire surface of the Earth being completely inhospitable to human life for two
hundred
years, or two
thousand
years, or more. Human life, even with all that we’ve created below ground in our facility, cannot be sustained underground forever.”

“It can’t be sustained in space either, can it?” Billy asked. “We can’t just keep circling up there forever.”

“You’re right, you can’t. You will be equipped with the ability to sustain life for up to forty years.”

“And if the planet still can’t support life after forty years, what does it matter whether human life dies out below ground or in space, or in both places? It’s still gone.”

“Gone from this planet, but not gone,” Fitchett said. “Those of us in the caverns will only have the choice of returning to the surface or facing extinction underground. Those of you in the ships above will have another option. You will have the capacity to take your ships and leave … to travel through space in search of a new home. There are planets on which human life can possibly survive. And you will carry with you the genetic material from tens of thousands of plant and animal species. Earth perhaps will perish, but the
seeds
of Earth will be sown in a new part of the galaxy. It will not be Genesis, but re-genesis.” He paused and smiled. “In the beginning, man will use the heavens to find a new Earth. And he will make the new land to be filled with vegetation and living creatures of all kinds. And man will see that it is good.”

There was a gentle knock on the door and Sheppard looked up from his notes. The door opened and Parker peeked in.

“Thought I’d check on you,” he said. “You haven’t left your office all day.”

“Sorry … I just lost track of time.”

Parker entered the room. He was carrying a tray that held just one thing—a large bowl of chocolate ice cream, Sheppard’s favourite thing in the world.

“You missed dinner,” Parker said. “Actually, you missed breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so I thought I’d bring you dessert.” He shifted some papers and put the bowl down directly in front of Sheppard.

“I’ve just been going over the numbers,” Sheppard said as he removed his glasses, picked up the spoon, and began to eat his ice cream.

“What’s done is done, Daniel. You and everybody else did the best you could. There’s no point in recalculating what you can’t redo.”

“No, that’s not what I’m working on. I’m trying to plot the impact swath, the most likely points for asteroid fragments to hit.”

Suddenly Parker was very interested. He pulled up a chair and sat down. “And?”

“It’s a fairly complex computation that has to factor in the time of anticipated impact, the speed of the fragments, the rotation of the Earth, the gravitational influence of the moon, the interactive influence of the various pieces, while anticipating the potential—”

“Daniel, you know that none of this makes any sense to me. Just cut to the chase. Where will they land?”

“My figures have an error factor of up to five degrees latitude and perhaps up to ten degrees longitude, depending on the latitudinal errors.”

“I get it. I promise not to sue you if you’re wrong by a degree or two. Where are they going to hit?”

Sheppard put his glasses back on and picked up a sheet of paper filled with numbers.

“As you are aware, our efforts to distort or change the path of the asteroid resulted in it fragmenting into close to five thousand pieces, some small and others still very large. The nuclear explosions that caused the asteroid to fragment have resulted in those pieces being flung across a much larger area than originally occupied by the one mass.”

“I know. It’s about five thousand kilometres across the newly created asteroid field,” Parker said.

“What you might not know concerns the ongoing transformation of these fragments. While those at the outside continue to move farther apart, still accelerated slightly by the lingering force of the explosion, those at the core are actually reconstituting as their combined gravity brings them back together again.”

“So they’re reforming into one asteroid?” Parker asked.

“Not reforming so much as
clustering
. And in doing so they are becoming potentially more dangerous.”

“Are you saying that what we did, that explosion, accomplished nothing?” Parker asked.

“I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that I have many unanswered questions. I’ve been working on the simulation. Let me show you. Screen on, program simulation, Impact One,” he said.

The wall behind Sheppard suddenly became a gigantic screen showing the Earth, all blue and white and innocent, slowly turning in the blackness of space.

“Please add political boundaries and place names,” the professor said. The innocent blue sphere became tainted, the political boundaries marked, cities named, and different countries defined by different colours.

“The asteroid fragments will most certainly all hit in the northern hemisphere.”

“Lucky us,” Parker replied.

“Projected impact sites are between twenty-two degrees and fifty-seven degrees north latitude. Please show
those latitude lines,” he said, and the computer responded.

Two lines showed up on the simulation of Earth. The bottom one cut across the top of Africa while the top was slightly below the northernmost tip of England. In between was most of Europe.

“Keeping in mind that these lines—”

“I know, could be wrong by five degrees,” Parker said. “Where will the first asteroids hit?”

“I believe the leading edge of the asteroid belt will enter Earth’s atmosphere directly above Italy and Libya.”

“So they’ll be hit first.”

“Probably not.”

“But you just said that—”

“That the leading edge of the belt will enter the atmosphere above those countries. The leading edge is composed of the smallest fragments, those that were tossed the farthest from the centre of the original asteroid. I believe that most of these will be burned up by the atmosphere upon entry, with the exception of a few smaller impacts—perhaps the size of cars or a truck.”

“So not so big.”

“Each of those will hit with the explosive power of a small atomic explosion, perhaps similar in power to the bomb that levelled Hiroshima.”

The simulation showed the first bursts of colour in the atmosphere over Italy, and then, as the Earth rotated, the first impacts hitting Spain and Algeria and Morocco.

“The pieces will continue to fall as the Earth rotates.”

Now the simulation showed impacts into the ocean.
Parker noticed that the results of these impacts, waves being thrown into the air and starting to radiate outward, were becoming consistently larger, a reflection of the continued increase in the size of the fragments.

“The largest fragments will hit in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, clustered around forty-five degrees west.”

“So North America will be spared?” Parker asked.

Sheppard laughed. “ ‘Spared’ is hardly how I would describe it. The initial waves—the tsunamis created by those larger impacts—will travel at a speed faster than Earth’s rotation, hitting the East Coast prior to any actual asteroid impact.”

“Not a good day to be at the beach.”

“Or within hundreds of kilometres of the beach. Those waves could be in excess of three hundred metres high and obliterate every life form, every hint of a life form, within three hundred kilometres of the coast. Which means there will be virtually no life on the East Coast to witness the initial impacts of the asteroid fragments.”

The simulated globe continued to spin, and impacts—similar to those that hit Spain—started to explode on the Eastern Seaboard of first Canada and then the United States. The planet continued to rotate, revealing the Midwest, and the impacts became smaller and smaller, finally resembling the burning of fragments in the atmosphere over Italy as the Rocky Mountains appeared on the simulation.

Parker got up from his seat and walked over to the screen. “So this area will not have any impacts,” he said, as he touched an area just east of the mountains.

“Perhaps there will be a few smaller fragments but nothing of significance.”

“That’s good news.”

Sheppard looked at him questioningly.

“I own a little property out that way. You know, just wanting to protect property values,” Parker said with a shrug.

“You do realize, don’t you, that the impacts will throw up a debris cloud that will obliterate the sun for decades, resulting in all life dying? At the same time, so much energy and heat will be released that the polar ice caps will melt, thus raising the water level to cover over one-third of the existing land mass.”

“So you’re saying that my land might even become beachfront property?” Parker asked. “Do you know how much beachfront property goes for?”

Sheppard finally realized that Parker was simply “joking around.” Of all the theoretical things he understood, humour was one that seemed beyond his grasp.

“You’re kidding … pulling my leg,” he said.

“I don’t see much alternative.” Parker paused. “You’re a mathematician. Let me ask you a question: What do you think the odds are that somebody in my line of work would live as long as I have?”

“I really would need much more data about your past to formulate an answer. I thought that perhaps, someday, you might share your past with me.”

“It’s not the sort of thing that I’ve ever wanted to share. There are things I’ve done that I am neither proud
of nor pleased with, but at the time, it seemed there was no choice.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Parker asked.

Sheppard shrugged. “Probably not.”

There was an uneasy silence. After so many years, the silence between the two men had become comfortable. And maybe it was all those years together that allowed Sheppard to ask the next question.

“What is it like to take a life?”

There was no answer. Maybe he was wrong and he didn’t have that right.

“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,” Sheppard said.

“No,” Parker said. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked me that before. I was just trying to think of what to say. You know, each time can be very different, but in the end it’s all the same.”

“How many times has it been?”

“Please, don’t make me try to count.”

“There have been
that
—? I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. It’s unbelievable, even to me, that I don’t know the exact answer. Don’t get me wrong, I know exactly how many people I’ve killed face to face.” He paused, his eyes closed. “I can still see their faces … each and every one of them.” He opened his eyes again. “It’s the peripheral casualties—people in the background, people killed by others because of what I set in motion—that are unknown to me. And that number far exceeds those lives taken with my own hands.”

“Do you ever regret what you did?”

“To not regret would mean not being human. I have regrets, but I believe what I did was necessary. Without that belief I don’t think I could live with myself. I was simply completing my assignments.”

“Doing your job.”

“That’s my excuse, just following orders.” A sad smile came to his face. “I hope they know that I took no pleasure in what I did. I was simply performing my role … a role that made me a legalized serial killer, an assassin, a mass murderer.”

Sheppard burst into laughter. Parker stopped talking and looked at him questioningly.