Morton disappeared from the camera screen. The abrupt rise in temperature caused her to faint and collapse into a mound of snow. Assistants from the studio ran to her aid and she revived within half a minute.
“Lilly’s awake and doing just fine, folks,” said Bob Housman, her stand-in. The producer told Housman to sign off and pass the show to the main studio in New York.
“I’m signing off for now and handing the report to the main NBC studio in New York. Over to you, Al,” Housman said.
“Al Roker here for NBC in New York City. I’m told that Lilly Morton, our reporter in Fort Lauderdale, is doing fine after her fainting spell. I almost fainted myself. I think I’m here, but I’m not sure. Eight days ago, we began the strangest series of weather reports imaginable, with a gigantic blizzard of historic proportions in mid-July. Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, the snow stopped, and the sun came out. For those of you who were watching, you just saw Lilly Morton, our reporter in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She was freezing her butt off a couple of minutes ago, standing in the middle of swirling snow. Now the sun is shining brightly, and I’ve just been informed that the temperature there is 94 degrees, normal for this time of year in Fort Lauderdale, but at the same time not normal because it happened in the middle of a snow storm. Here in mid-town Manhattan we’re also having ourselves yet another weather freak-out. As you can see, I’m standing here on the building plaza in my shirtsleeves and wearing a ball cap because of the bright sun. I’m still surrounded by mountains of snow, but the temperature is 86 degrees, and those mountains are starting to melt. We’re monitoring the weather across the country and here’s where I say let’s have a look at ‘your neck of the woods.’ I’ve been saying that for so long it’s become part of my personality. You folks have known me for a long time, and you know that I don’t play games with you. But let me say this: Something is going on, and I’m beginning to think it’s not an accident.”
Chapter 25
July 24
Frank Morgan, entered Rosetta’s communications room, slamming the door against a wall.
“Precisely, what the fuck is going on?” Morgan shouted, his face a bright red.
Phil Duncan, the operations VP, walked up to him. Morgan valued Phil Duncan, not just for his executive skills, which were considerable, but for his willingness to get into Morgan’s face when he was about to make an asshole of himself, which he did quite often in the past few days.
“I suppose this is just another coincidence,” Morgan said to Duncan.
“Frank,” Duncan said, “remember that it was your idea to run through another series of solar panel tests on all of our satellites, even though we had some doubts after the first incident. We were worried about the fail-safe system malfunctioning. Well, it happened again. I just spoke to Nancy Mullin on the Stargazer. She went through the override protocol and that seemed to undo the problem, but the solar panels were all faced in the same direction for quite a few minutes. We have no idea what that situation could result in, but we have yet another strange weather event. A half hour ago the temperature here in Billings was 19 degrees. Now it’s 85 degrees.”
“How the hell could that be?”
“Frank, the answer is that we don’t know,” Duncan said. He sat down on the office couch. “What we do know is that within minutes of our last two satellite tests, the world’s weather went crazy. I’ve grilled every scientist and engineer who works for us, and not one of them has an answer.”
“So, let’s get this straight, Phil,” Morgan said. “We perform a simple test of the satellites’ solar panels, and the system goes apeshit, facing all of the panels in one direction, which apparently resulted in a radical weather change, although we have no idea how. Our fail-safe mechanism failed both times. Shit, fail-safe systems aren’t supposed to fail. If it weren’t for Nancy Mullin’s quick thinking with the override switches, God knows what would have happened.”
“The legal department thinks we should alert the government with our concerns,” Morgan said.
“Here’s an idea, Frank. Why don’t I open a conversation with Rick Bellamy, Secretary of Homeland Security? We know each other from college, and we still correspond occasionally around the holidays. He’s a good friend. Also, he’s got the ear of President Blake.”
“There’s a man named Phil Duncan on line three for you, Rick,” my assistant said. “He says you know him.”
“He’s an old college buddy,” I said. “Good guy, but I don’t have time to shoot the shit now.”
“He says it’s urgent, sir.”
“Hi Phil, it’s Rick. My assistant says something’s urgent.”
“I would normally ask to meet you in person with a matter like this, Rick, but we wanted to contact you right away. Are we on a secure line?”
“Yes, feel free to talk, Phil. What’s up?”
“I’m going to put you on speaker. I’m with Frank Morgan, CEO of Rosetta.”
“Good morning, Mr. Secretary,” Morgan said. “Thank you for taking our call. I have a reputation for speaking in blunt language, sir, and I’m too old to change it. So rather than toss a bunch of legal bullshit at you, please let me get right to the point. As you know, Rosetta has 20 satellites in orbit. Their function is to enhance GPS capabilities, as well as perform some new sophisticated weather tracking. Well, sir, we ran a test of the solar panels on all the satellites eight days ago. One of the systems malfunctioned. Within a few minutes we experienced a historic weather anomaly. This morning we ran another series of tests. We encountered the same system malfunction but were able to override it. It took about 15 minutes to rearrange the solar panels. Within minutes, we experienced this morning’s sudden end to the blizzard and return to normal temperatures. So, in summary, we performed two series of tests and simultaneously the world experienced two shocking weather changes. Our people can’t come up with an explanation for what occurred, but it seems that the two incidents are too close in time to be mere coincidences.”
I looked out the window as the sky darkened, signaling an incoming storm. Then I glanced at a building that displayed a digital date and temperature read-out. The temperature was 32 degrees and falling. A couple of minutes before it was 84 degrees.
“Mr. Morgan, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but can you tell me what the weather is right now in Montana.”
“Well, the sky is darkening like a storm is coming,” Morgan said.
“What’s the temperature?” I asked.
Duncan called up the local weather on his cell phone.
“Holy shit,” Morgan said “Sorry, Mr. Secretary. It’s 27 degrees and dropping. Déjà vu all over again. It’s starting to snow like a bitch.”
“Here too,” I said. “Mr. Morgan, I thank you for being a stand-up American for bringing this problem to us. I’m going to contact NOAA and put some senior people in touch with you. If something is causing this, whether it’s a malfunctioning panel on your satellites or something else, there’s a technical problem that you haven’t figured out yet. And if it’s a technical problem, there must be a technical solution.”
God willing, I thought.
Chapter 26
July 24
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to The Ellen Bellamy Show. I know that you’re all fond of my charming spontaneity, but I have a confession to make, although I’m sure you’re aware of it. Like most TV shows, The Ellen Bellamy Show is taped before the show runs. In the past few days, however, it’s been different. Because of yesterday’s wacky weather event, when the snow stopped and the temperatures soared, if we showed you what we taped it would have been totally inaccurate. As you know, the temperatures once again reversed, and it’s well below freezing across the country. So, I’m speaking to you live, which I find a little intimidating. If I make a mistake, please don’t flame me on Facebook.