Brandy woke me.
I was sneaking in a nap, sequestered in my study in our home in Solihull, a quaint town in England’s West Midlands. The window was partially frosted, our garden blanketed by last night’s snow. The air inside my office was tinged with the scent of a basting turkey and the dying embers from my fireplace.
Life was good. I had retired seven months earlier, having served the last nine years as the Dean of Solihull College. With pensions coming from Cambridge and S.C., along with royalties generated from three patents, we were well-off financially and able to assist our three children and their families.
The boys had arrived last night: William, his wife, Jackie, and their two girls from London, and Andrew, his wife, Rachel, and the baby from Drumnadrochit. Claire and her fiancé were due in, their plane arriving from Boston later this evening. I heard the boys playing ping-pong in the basement and the grandkids playing with their Christmas presents in the den.
Brandy’s dark hair was pulled back in a tight bun, revealing a few gray roots, her apron tied around her torso. Feeling slightly guilty over having fallen asleep while she cooked, I feigned innocence. That’s when I noticed that my wife’s blue eyes were red-rimmed and frightened.
“Zach, something terrible has happened.”
My chest tightened. “What’s wrong? Is Claire all right?”
“It’s not the kids.” She searched my desk for the remote and turned on the television.
The news was on every station, the story coming from the States. Reporters talked over fluctuating images: lava as wide as a river, swallowing a neighborhood; collapsing bridges and billowing chocolate-brown smoke; highways backed up in traffic as far as the eye could see.
While I slept, hell had opened its gates beneath Midwestern America.
Brandy paused from channel-surfing at a newscast featuring an animated aerial view over a national park.
“ …to recap if you’re just joining us, at approximately 4:47 a.m. Wyoming time, the Yellowstone Caldera, an underground magma chamber fifty-five miles long, erupted beneath Yellowstone National Park. Categorized as a supervolcano, the Yellowstone Caldera has erupted three times in the past 2.1 million years, the last major eruption occurring 640,000 years ago to form the crater beneath the park. Experts say this morning’s blast was two thousand times more powerful than the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.
“Dawn Marie Hurtienne is a volcano expert working with the U.S. Geological Survey. She joins us now from Wyoming. Dr. Hurtienne, this is Melody Matney. Thank you for taking time to speak with us. We understand you are in the process of evacuating your family. Was there any warning this eruption might occur?”
“Scientists began warning Washington about this event as far back as 2004, when the ground above the caldera began rising at a rate of 2.8 inches a year. Yellowstone trails had to be shut down when ground temperatures exceeded 240 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet they never took our warnings seriously.”
“Was there anything that could have been done to prevent it?”
“We proposed several potential solutions to deal with the caldera threat, including the construction of a deep-well venting system. Congress vetoed the deal three years ago, claiming the $23 billion price tag was far too excessive for a tourist attraction. When we protested, news pundits on one politically slanted network accused members of the U.S. Geological Survey of using scare tactics to fund our department.”
“Obviously, a blast of this magnitude striking so early in the morning represents a worst-case scenario. We’re getting death estimates ranging from eight to ten thousand—”
“Ms. Matney, I don’t think you comprehend the magnitude of this event. It’s not the initial blast or the lava flow we have to fear; it’s the ash cloud. As it rises into the stratosphere it will span the entire globe, blanketing the atmosphere and blotting out the sun’s rays. Photosynthesis will cease, which means crops will fail, leading to mass starvation. The Earth’s temperatures will plummet, initiating another ice age. What we’re looking at is the opening act of a planet-wide cataclysm — an extinction event.”
The announcer couldn’t find her voice, forcing her colleague to take over the interview.
“Dr. Hurtienne, this is Tyler Bohlman. How long will this theoretical ice age last?”
“I can assure you, Mr. Bohlman, the ice age is not theoretical. Sixty-five million years ago an asteroid struck the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out the dinosaurs. It wasn’t the impact that caused the mass extinction, but rather the ash cloud that caused a radical change in climate. As for how long the ice age will last, the answer is anywhere from a thousand to a hundred thousand years.”
“Huh!” My eyes snapped open, my heart pounding in my chest. For a distressing moment I felt lost.
Jonas was snoring softly in his command chair, his congested breaths nearly concealing the faint sound of rushing water. Locating my headphones, I listened in on the sonar.
The sound was coming from the riverbed below the Manta, along the base of the ice sheet now walling us in. Deciding not to wake Jonas, I restarted the engines and dove the sub to the bottom.
The subglacial waterway hadn’t ceased; its outflow had been dammed by ice extending from the bottom of the glacier to within seven to ten feet of the riverbed. Reduced to a narrow bottleneck, the current was rushing beneath the ice sheet at a swift twenty-three knots.
It would be a tight squeeze, but the Manta could slip through. The danger lay in the fact that the extended bottom of the glacier was essentially river water that had frozen, rendering it unstable. Traversing the passage could cause the ceiling to collapse on the sub and trap us for all eternity.
The Tethys had most likely forged its own tunnel through the glacier, its superheated bow plates eliminating any risk. I thought about searching for their borehole, but we were already six hours behind.
Gritting my teeth, I guided the sub through the horizontal channel.
It took full throttle just to enter the restricted passage. The ungodly current rocked the sub, slamming the cockpit repeatedly against the ceiling of ice and grinding its undercarriage into the gravel riverbed.
Jonas woke up. Taking command of the pitching submersible, he powered up the Valkyries and ignited the lasers, creating a vacuum effect that accelerated the Manta smoothly through the widening crawl space.
“Guess I should have used the lasers to begin with, huh?”
He shot me a pissed-off look. “Next time wake me.”
“I was afraid you might not risk it.”
“Obviously you have me confused with someone who has something to live for.”
“Be careful what you say. I had another dream.”
“Which planet were you visiting this time? Uranus?”
“The dream took place on Earth, about twenty years from now. Brandy and I were still married, with three kids and a slew of grandkids. Not sure what year it was, but it was Christmas, give or take a day — the day the Yellowstone Caldera erupted.”
Jonas looked at me, incredulous. “Was this real or just one of those multiverse things?”
“There’s no way to tell; it hasn’t happened yet. Obviously. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it parallels the event that must have destroyed Charon.”