There was a TV in the corner with CNN on. The talking heads were arguing the asteroid’s projected trajectory, and whether the worst-case scenarios were actually too grim. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was probably 10 km across. This one was 4.36 km. Big enough to cause devastating damage, but the scientist on the left thought it might just wipe out coastal cities but allow the inland areas to rebuild. The other scientist thought that encouraging people to migrate inland before the strike was a terrible idea because people were dying in their desperate attempts to escape the coasts, and this was completely unnecessary if the asteroid missed us. And if it didn’t, anyone who survived the strike would die in the fifty-year famine caused by the dust cloud blocking out all sunlight. “Seriously, folks, just hunker down wherever and wait to see what happens,” he said. “And hey, if we survive this, maybe consider re-opening the Arecibo Observatory, if it hadn’t lost funding we’d be able to map the trajectory—” His voice was rising, furious.
“Coffee, hon?”
I looked up at the waitress. “Yeah, thanks. And thanks for coming to work.”
She poured me a mug of coffee. “I’m actually Patty, the owner. I figured I might as well come in and feed people as stay home feeling sorry for myself. Do you know what you want? I should warn you we’re out of a few things.”
“I think I feel like breakfast,” I said.
“I can bring you a big plate of pancakes and syrup. We’re out of bacon and sausage. If you want eggs, we’re down to those cartons of just egg whites but we could make those into an omelet for you.”
“Pancakes and syrup sounds good,” I said.
“You come far?”
“From Spokane. I’m trying to get to Pierre but I ran out of gas.”
I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes. Maybe someone else was heading east, and I could beg a ride from them. Maybe someone in town would sell me the gas out of the car in their garage. Maybe maybe maybe. I wasn’t really in any shape to drive any farther. Pierre was just a couple hours away, and there was a Super 8 across the street; maybe I could get a room and nap for a few hours before I tried driving any farther. It was probably just as well if I got home right before the impact, if I wanted Mom to talk to me.
The coffee was exactly like I remembered South Dakota coffee. Dip a bean three times in the hot water and call it good.
“Hon, can I put two more people at your table? Your food’s going to be a while but I’ll keep the coffee coming.”
I opened my eyes and looked up at Patty, and the two people standing behind her. “Sure.” They slid into the booth across from me.
They were an older couple. Well, middle-aged, I guess. The man had white hair; the woman had reddish hair.
“You look like you’ve been driving for a while,” the woman said, sympathetically. “You can go back to your nap, if you want.”
It felt a little too uncivilized to ignore people sitting across from me, and besides, Patty had refilled my coffee. “My name’s Lorien,” I said. “Or Kathleen. I mean, Kathleen’s the name my parents gave me.”
The couple exchanged a look I couldn’t quite untangle, and I tried to sit up a little straighter. “I’m Robin,” the woman said. “And this is Michael. And if Lorien’s your name, it doesn’t really matter to me what your parents called you.”
“It’s kind of out of Lord of the—”
“You’re among nerds,” Robin said. “We got it.”
Michael was looking at the menu. “I wonder if they’ll have the caramel rolls,” he said. “There was a picture of the caramel roll in one of the reviews, but I bet everyone’s wanted caramel rolls…”
“That seems likely,” Robin said. “Have you eaten anything here, Lorien?”
I shook my head. “I ordered pancakes but they haven’t come yet.”
Patty came by. They were indeed out of caramel rolls but they had a caramel bread pudding. They were also out of hamburger buns, although they could offer you a hamburger on sliced bread. Michael ordered a hot turkey sandwich, Robin ordered meatloaf.
“I bet they made the bread pudding out of those hamburger buns,” Robin said when Patty had left.
“That seems like a questionable business decision,” Michael said.
“I bet they made the bread pudding out of those hamburger buns because someone in the kitchen thought, ‘screw good business decisions, I want to eat something sweet and comforting and we’re out of caramel rolls.’”
“Are you heading east?” I blurted out. They seemed like really nice people. Like people who might give me a ride.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” Robin said. “We’re coming from Minnesota and heading to Yellowstone, actually.”
“If you’re coming from the west, maybe you know where we could find gas?” Michael asked me.
“I haven’t found gas since Billings, that was five hours ago, and they’re rationing,” I said.
“Well, that’s promising,” Robin said, and pulled out her phone to look up the map. “… Totally not on our way, though. Hmm.”
“I was really hoping we’d find some here,” Michael said.
“Why are you going to Yellowstone?” I asked.
“We’ve never been there,” Michael said. “Figured we might as well go check it out.”
“You didn’t want to be with family?”
“We said goodbye to my family before we left,” Michael said.
“And Michael’s family is my family,” Robin said. “Family 2.0.”
I must have looked a bit shocked, because Robin glanced at Michael and shrugged a little. “This isn’t my first Armageddon,” she said. “You could say it’s my third.”
Patty arrived with my pancakes, plus sodas for Robin and Michael. Once the pancakes were in front of me, I realized that I was ravenous. Someone had turned up the TV in the corner: a new scientist was on, a guy named Scott Edward Shjefte, who was reminding everyone that in cosmological terms, an asteroid passing between the earth and the moon was a “direct hit” and yet there were 363,104 kilometers for a 4.36 kilometer object to pass through. “Imagine throwing a penny at a football field and trying to miss the 30-yard line. You’d feel pretty good about those odds.”
“Not so much if the world was going to end if the penny hit the 30-yard line,” the host said. “Besides, this asteroid has already beaten the odds, being spotted so late.”
“So it would have to beat the odds twice!” Shjefte said. He sounded committed to this idea, not like he was grasping at straws, but the host didn’t look at all convinced.
They agreed again that everything would be better if the Arecibo Observatory was still running, since the radio telescope there could have determined the asteroid’s trajectory with actual precision, and also, that the President’s order to launch nukes at the asteroid wouldn’t have done anything even if they hadn’t missed.
“Do you think I’m panicking over nothing?” I said.
Robin looked me over. “How old are you? You look about twenty-five.”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“My first Armageddon was when I was a little kid, back in the 1970s. Have you ever heard of the Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re the people who knock on your door.”
“I was raised in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and when I was little, everyone at my church believed that the world was going to end in October of 1977. A lot of the adults sold their houses. My parents didn’t, but my father used up all his vacation time to take days off and knock on people’s doors.” She took a sip of soda and leaned back against her seat. “He used to take me around with him, because people are a little less likely to slam the door on a cute little kid. Only a little, though. It was hard. My Dad used to tell me ‘just keep walking, just keep knocking,’ that eventually people would listen. That actually stood me in good stead years later when I was trying to get jobs in theater.” She looked at me. “Did you grow up in a church?”