“Yes.”
“And you believe it? There was a man on television today that said they didn’t know yet. The one with a graying goatee, black rimmed glasses…did you see him?”
Jess leaned toward the fire, watched the flames dance. She had to mean her father. Jess nodded, clenching her fists. Where was he? “He’s lying,” she grunted. Celeste clutched her under the blanket, frowned at her.
“Lying? Why would you say that?”
Jess pushed her mother away, ever so slightly. “Because they had to know, for a long time.” And that was true. When she spoke to her father two nights before, he said he had evidence of Nomad over thirty years ago. Data he recorded when he was a grad student. Mysterious flashes in the night sky.
One of the old men, the one with the silver eye, asked, “So, they’ve been hiding it?”
It wasn’t true her father had exactly hidden it. He’d theorized about it in a research paper—rejected by his peers as far-fetched speculation. But why had he abandoned Jess and Celeste? Why hadn’t he called? “Yes, that man on television is a liar.”
Her mother’s nails dug into Jess’s arm under the blanket. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
The old men exchanged glances, muttering in a guttural language Jess didn’t understand. Silver-eye looked at Jess again. “And now the world is unprepared to meet God.”
Jess clenched her fists. “Nobody is ever prepared to meet God.”
Silver-eye erupted into a phlegmy laugh. “Not true. You only fear God if you haven’t made your peace, haven’t placed death at the center of life.”
Thawed out, blood pumped through Jess’s veins again. “Now that sounds cheerful.”
“The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won’t let go of life.” Silver-eye worked his mouth around into a rotten-toothed grimace. “Hell is no punishment, but a process of freeing the soul. If you are frightened of dying, you’ll see devils tearing your life away when death comes. But, if you’ve made peace, then you’ll see angels freeing you when death comes.”
Rubbing her hands together, Jess stared at Silver-eye. “I appreciate you letting us sit here, but I don’t want to talk. Is that okay?” It creeped her out. He creeped her out.
“Sorry, my uncles, this is affecting them,” Massarra apologized.
Silver-eye looked at the other two old men and shook his head. He looked back at Jess, held her gaze. “As you wish. But you might want to think, what is it that holds you here? What demons tear at your soul, keeping you from freedom?”
Jess stared at the man’s silver eye, a puddle of light, a boy’s face disappearing into it. Clenching her fists, she turned away and huddled under the blankets with her mother.
NOMAD
Survivor testimony #GR17;
Event +68hrs;
Survivor name: Eveline Goff;
Reported location: Nuuk, Greenland;
Ah, where to start, my God…I was part of a University of Cambridge expedition, studying the aquifers under the Greenland ice sheets. Makes the bedrock slippery. That was the idea, you know? We spent a month trekking across the high glaciers, installing cameras and sensors, and were on our way back when the buzz about Nomad hit. We got into Nuuk, but all flights were canceled. No way of getting to Reykjavik, but maybe that was a good thing…(long pause) Sorry. Right. On the day.
About 4 p.m., the ocean swelled right up over Nuuk’s sea walls, and it just kept coming, flooded half of the city, but slowly, like a foot an hour. Everyone just got out of the way, hoping this was the worst of it. By 9 p.m., the sea started to pull out, but much faster, and the Northern Lights intensified. They aren’t unusual. But these, they flared. By midnight it was almost as bright as daylight, and that’s when we felt the first tremor. I was inside, glued to my monitoring station readouts, not believing my eyes. The ground shook continuously, and the glaciers, they weren’t moving at feet per year, they started moving at feet per second, sliding down off the highlands.
That’s when Piers grabbed me, rushed us into the helicopter, a terrible roar filling the air. Barely got off the ground when Nuuk was razed, ice boulders the size of skyscrapers sweeping the city into the half-empty bay. We kept aloft until we were almost out of fuel, maybe four hours, circling over ice shelves sliding into the oceans. Hundreds of miles of it from what I saw on the sensors before they went dark. We found a patch of high ground to land on, but there are still tremors, and the skies are black with ash clouds that came with the easterly winds. We’ve set up camp, been trying to radio for help. Do you have any idea how much water…
Transmission ended ionization static. Freq. 4135 kHz/NSB.
Subject not reacquired.
OCTOBER 20th
17
ROME, ITALY