“Mike Watson, Sarah’s husband,” I said.
“What a great guy,” Ellen said. “After his latest book, I think he’s my favorite novelist. How did he get clearance from Emergency Management to come here?”
“Sarah called Emergency Management and asked to speak to the director himself. She ended the conversation with the words, ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass what you have to do, just make it happen.’ Sarah knows how to work around bureaucracies.”
Mike and Sarah Watson came into the dining room at 6:15. I had met Mike a few times before, and I agree with Ellen that he’s a great guy. He’s 5’10,” about 55 years old, slim, with sandy brown hair, and he’s seems to be enthusiastic about everything. A few months ago, his latest novel, The Deep River, hit The New York Times Best Seller List at number three.
He grabbed my hand and pumped his usual handshake. Ellen and I congratulated him on making the best seller list, and he graciously thanked us. After dinner, we steered the conversation toward novel writing. We were both tired of talking about the weather, and so was Sarah.
“Mike,” Ellen said, “tell us where you get your ideas for writing fiction. I’ve written a couple of non-fiction books on architecture that have done well, but I’d love to write a novel someday. Do your ideas just show up out of nowhere?”
“It’s like Stephen King says, stories exist in the world like fossils, and it’s the novelist’s job to unearth them,” Mike said. “I get my ideas from just looking, listening, and paying attention to the world around me. Suddenly, a story reveals itself. I come up with some characters and follow them as they create the scenes that make up the story. Last year I was fishing with a friend on his boat on a wide river near his house in Connecticut. When I asked him how deep the water was, he said fifty feet in spots. Ever since I almost drowned as a kid, I’ve been nervous around water. I was also aware that a story had showed up. The Deep River is about a guy who’s afraid of water and finds himself alone on a small boat with no means of propulsion. I won’t spoil it for you in case you read it.”
“I read it and loved it,” Ellen said. “I wish I had it with me for you to autograph.”
“Don’t worry, Ellen, I’ll send you a signed copy as soon as delivery service starts up again.”
“I wonder how you look at this weird weather we’re having,” I said. “I bet a story idea has come to you. I feel like I’m living as a character in a novel with this crap. It isn’t the reality I’m used to, or the reality that anybody’s used to.”
“Yes, Rick, a story is definitely in the making. I’ll share the plot with you, even though my agent would shoot me if he knew I told you about it.”
“Please go on, hon,” Sarah said. “We’d love to hear how you can explain this insanity using fiction.”
“I often tell people that reality is overrated, and that’s why I write novels,” Mike said. “Well, the reality we’re confronted with is stranger than any science fiction than I’ve ever written. I watched Ellen’s show when she interviewed that climate-change fanatic and I thought she was great. That guy is better than me at fiction. So, how’s this for a story line? One day during a heat wave with high temperature and humidity, the air suddenly starts to chill. Within a half hour, the temperature drops 50 degrees. The climate-change crowd closed ranks and started to chant that mankind has brought on the change in the weather by pumping carbon dioxide into the air, even though that’s been happening for hundreds of years. Fiction, yes, but boring fiction, spouted by people who have an agenda to push. So, how’s this for excitement? Maybe just as crazy as blaming the immediate weather on long-range trends, but I think it’s a lot more interesting. In my story, the sudden drop in temperature is caused by a group of people who manipulate the weather on purpose, people who want to conquer the earth. They do this by refocusing the sun’s rays so that the earth is deprived of normal solar warming. After they kill off all the inhabitants, the evil characters take over and return the atmosphere to normal. So how do you like it? My agent thought it was great.”
There was silence around the table for an uncomfortable minute or so. I looked at Sarah, whose face indicated that she just heard something startling. I then looked at Ellen, who registered the same emotion.
“Hey, Mike,” Ellen said. “You and I are married to a couple of high-placed government sceptics, but I get a feeling that they’re still thinking about your story line. I know I am.”
“Well, that’s great news for my novel, but I’m afraid that I’m going to risk a bunch of readers tossing the book across the room. Science fiction is great, but it must be based on some known facts to be a believable story. I’m afraid that’s as far as I’ve gotten with my story, because my research showed me that the idea just doesn’t work. We keep trying to manipulate weather, but it works only in small increments. A lot of well-meaning scientists are studying the idea of changing the weather, but they keep coming up empty. So that’s the excitement of creating fiction. I just make up new facts. In the case of science fiction, it’s easy. I just create a new thing, or process, or method, or species. It lets the reader know that it’s a ‘made-up’ fact, and it’s time to keep reading.”
“Mike has a PhD in physics from Cal Tech, and all of his fans know that. So, if he makes up some science, who’s to argue?” Sarah said.
“Unfortunately, we don’t get to make up stories here in reality,” I said. “We have to take what’s there and live with it.”
“But there’s a big exception in reality,” Mike said. “Occasionally something new comes along that we never knew about. What if this unique weather event was caused by something we never knew existed?”
“So where does that leave us?” Ellen asked.
“Where I always leave you,” Mike said. “Buy my next book to find out.”
Chapter 22
July 21
“Do you realize that whenever people hear the name Rosetta Corporation they’ll laugh,” said Frank Morgan, CEO of Rosetta to his operations VP, Phil Duncan. Today is July 21 and it’s been snowing for five fucking days. We’re used to seeing weather like this—in January. Not only has it been snowing for five days, but I’ve been waiting for an answer for that long. What the hell happened?”
Phil Duncan had been with Rosetta since he finished graduate school at MIT with a Master’s Degree in aeronautical engineering at the age of 23. He’s now 45 and is senior in command after Frank Morgan. Duncan is 5’10” and about 20 pounds overweight. He has a receding hairline which he tries to mask with a comb-over. He blows his nose constantly out of habit whether he needs to or not. Frank Morgan was formerly an Air Force general and a NASA astronaut. Rosetta’s mission is to use satellites for communications as well as weather monitoring. Rosetta has more satellites in orbit than any other private firm.
“Frank, you know I’m not a bullshitter, so I won’t start now. I haven’t the foggiest idea what happened. Not only that, I have no idea what will happen. I’m as much in the dark as anybody. I met with all five department heads this morning, and nobody knows what’s going on. We’ve run engineering tests on all our major systems and everything checks out okay. I spoke to our two astronauts on Stargazer and they’re going through their usual system and satellite tests. They report no problems. We’re dealing with something that none of us understands and we’ve got to admit something—we may have nothing to do with this. It could be pure coincidence.”