“Most people aren’t going to be able to build a structure like this. What are they supposed to do?” asked another tech.
“People are going to have to band together to build these bunkers,” Dr. Hans replied. “The good news is that some bunkers of this type already exist. Think of sewers running under your highways, drainage culverts and bridges. All of these are of similar design and construction. People can seek shelter in all of them.”
“What about food and water?” someone asked.
“Each bunker will need to hold not only the people involved, but enough food and water for two months’ time. Sanitary facilities will also need to be incorporated into the bunkers and people will need a supply of dust masks to filter out the smoke from the air they breathe.”
“Dr. Hans,” another asked, “will the meteorite bombardment be constant or will it vary?”
“Fortunately the meteorite strike rate will vary considerably. As the Earth moves into the meteor cloud the majority of the meteorites will fall from midnight through noon. That will be the leading edge of the planet. From noon and into the early evening the planet itself will shield us from most of the meteorites, so if any rebuilding or resupply needs to be done, that will be the time for it.”
“And what about emergency services?” another tech asked.
“I’m afraid that there will be no emergency services,” Dr. Hans replied. “All of our emergency organizations, like hospitals, fire departments and police stations, will suffer the same consequences as every other building in the world; they will be severely damaged structurally and most will burn to the ground within hours of the initial meteor storm.”
“John said you were a research astronomer. Have you been able to confirm the existence of the meteor cloud?” Ed asked.
“Yes, I have,” Dr. Hans replied. “Because of the direction in which the solar system moves, incoming objects are detected from observatories in the Southern Hemisphere first. That is the advantage we have from Quito, Ecuador — we can see both the northern and southern sections of the sky.”
“Can you give us a more accurate date and time for the start of the meteor storm?” Ed asked.
“My calculations confirm the four-day window that John currently has. Space-based radar will be required to get a more accurate fix on the date and time. I do not have access to that kind of equipment, sorry.”
There was a long pause while everyone began to digest the information.
“Okay, people,” John said. “I have handouts for each of you. Dr. Hans will be here for the rest of the day and will be happy to answer any other questions you may have. Thank you for your time and attention.”
Tia came over to me after the presentation. “Does NASA have access to space-based radar?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. “Yes, it does.”
“You used to work there. How do we get access to their database? They probably know exactly when the meteor storm will happen.”
“My user name and password are either gone or monitored, maybe both. But that’s a minor technicality for someone with skills,” I replied. She smiled and we headed for the communications room. I guess she wasn’t ignoring me, after all. That alone raised my spirits, which I desperately needed after listening to Dr. Hans.
We settled in at a computer station and I started to construct a program using my old boss’ user name. I figured Sheldon Woolser wasn’t likely to be monitored.
“So how did you learn how to hack into computer systems?” I asked Tia as I continued typing.
“I had a mentor, a guy,” she said.
“Was he good?”
“He was the best.”
“How did you meet him?” I asked.
“I didn’t, actually,” she replied. “He never knew. There was a small group of us. We studied code together. This guy, he called himself Shadow Hawk, he would make his code available to other hackers, kind of an open source thing.”
I stopped typing and looked at her.
“Anyway,” she said, “his code was brilliant, sophisticated and elegant. It was so far beyond anything we had ever seen. It was kind of magical.”
My heart was pounding so loud I was sure she could hear it. “Wh… What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “He just disappeared. We never heard from him again. I was in my second year of high school. I had all of these fantasies of finding him and falling in love with him. I imagined myself marrying him in a secret ceremony out in the woods someplace. It was all so romantic.”
My hand started shaking and I was breathing rapidly. She looked at me, obviously concerned.
“Carl? Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, “probably too much coffee.”
I got up and walked around for a bit, shaking my arms, trying to settle down. She sat there watching me. I returned to the computer and continued to create the program. I set up a sub-file with possible passwords and the first letter of each word in several phrases I knew Woolser liked. I also created a subroutine that assigned symbols in place of letters, such as a “5” for an “s”, “(“ for a “c”, “3” for an “E” and “!” for an “I”.
Tia looked at the program on the screen. “Where did you learn to write code like that?” she asked.
“I taught myself,” I replied. “It just seemed like the way to do things.”
I also made a sub-file with all of the addresses I had learned for the computer system at NASA.
“So how does this work?” she asked.
“These are the different addresses that I know are used to get access to the NASA database. The program randomly rotates address so the system doesn’t recognize it is being hacked right away. This is my old boss’ user name. The rest of the program creates likely passwords and tries them one at a time.”
Her mouth fell open as she studied the code I had written. “You don’t use script for this?”
“Too slow.” I responded. “Besides, programs that are looking for hackers are all looking for script-like commands. By using a compiled program it bypasses a lot of the script-based security features of firewalls.”
“And you just create code like that off the top of your head?” she asked.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
She sat back in the chair and looked at me.
“Want to see if it works?” I asked.
She looked back at the screen. I compiled and linked the code into an executable file and activated the program.
Twenty-eight seconds later, the program announced we had been granted access to the NASA database. I constructed a query relating to meteors covering the four days we knew the storm would begin.
“There it is,” I said. “Day, hour and location.”
I looked over at Tia. Her mouth was open again. She closed her mouth, stared at me for a moment, got up and walked out of the communications room. I wondered if she suspected the truth about me. She was really smart. Given a little more time, I believed she would figure it out.
I wrote the date and time for the start of the meteor storm on a sticky note and handed it to John. He went over to one of the computer techs who updated the main screen on the website.
METEOR STORM
IN 52 DAYS
17 HOURS
32 MINUTES
Based on Dr. Hans’s recommendations, John’s people put together the Bunker Builder’s Book, complete with diagrams, parts list and potential suppliers of materials. John made the book available as a free download in PDF format. He arranged for a print version from a major printing house. The complete book came in at $2.83 wholesale cost. Priority shipping came to $5.52 for a total cost of $8.35. John priced the book at $8.00 including the priority shipping. A tech asked if that was a smart way to price the book. John explained that his preference was to supply the book for free, but he really needed the money for other projects. He could subsidize thirty-five cents a book, but not the whole thing. Besides, anyone could get the book for free as a download.