Roger nodded and looked up, performing some mental calculation. “Ten hours away, at three hundred million kilometers, the tidal forces are going to start overcoming the moon’s. On the coast it’ll just seem like an unusual tide.”
“Five hours later, at a hundred and fifty million kilometers,” Ben said, thinking out loud, “tidal forces will be fifteen times that. Open ocean tides measure about two feet, but tides at the coasts are governed by geography of the ocean bed—New York has six-foot tides where London’s are eighteen. Some places will be worse hit than others.”
“And the surface of the Earth is rotating on its axis at a speed of a thousand miles per hour.” Roger circled his hand in the air and then pointed upward. “With Nomad coming from behind the Sun, it’s going to pull a wall of water toward it, and that wall is going to race across the surface at thousands of miles an hour, obliterating anything in its path.”
“We’re lucky the Mediterranean has some of the lowest tides in the world.” Ben had looked it up. Near Rome they were less than two feet. “And that wall of water approaching from the Pacific and Indian oceans is going to have to squeeze through the Red Sea and Suez Canal before spilling into the Med. This mountaintop Castello Ruspoli is as good a place to ride it out as anywhere.”
“One thing we haven’t thought of.” Roger tapped on his keyboard, then turned the screen to Ben.
“What?” Ben shifted into gear and advanced another twenty feet.
“I’m getting new data from FLARECAST, that new early warning system for solar flares.”
Ben nodded. A combination of orbiting and ground-based observatories paired with high performance computing installations.
“They’re predicting massive coronal ejections if Nomad gets as close as we’re thinking,” Roger said. “Like orders of magnitude bigger than anything before.”
“Of course…” Ben realized Nomad would drag the sun along behind it like a puppy on a leash, but he hadn’t thought through the implications.
“A few hours before Nomad gets here, it’ll trigger huge solar storms,” continued Roger. “Bathing the Earth in a flood of high energy particles.”
“That’ll raise ground voltage—”
“And fry power stations and electronics.” Roger breathed deep and stared at the laptop screen. “Should be pretty, though. Light up the sky like a Christmas tree.” He rubbed his eyes and closed the laptop. “I can’t read any more of this.”
Ben put the car into neutral and stepped on the brake. He looked carefully at Roger. “Why did you come with me? Isn’t there someone at home you want to be with?”
In the stress of the moment when they escaped Darmstadt, Ben hadn’t given it much thought. Now, when all he could think about were his own loved ones, Ben realized how little he knew about Roger. About his personal life.
Looking down, Roger exhaled through pursed lips. “My mom, she died a long time ago, and my dad…well, we haven’t talked in years. Maybe I’ll give him a call.”
Ben let the moment linger for a few seconds. “But you didn’t want to go back? Isn’t there someone else?”
Roger’s face twitched. He laughed nervously. “I guess this isn’t the time for secrets, huh?”
Ben put the car into gear and pulled forward another few feet before stepping on the brakes again. “What do you mean?” He turned to study Roger’s face, watched him wrestle with something inside.
“Remember two years ago when I started at your lab?” Roger said after a pause. “We had lunch with Jess at the Mexican place around the corner?”
Advancing the car another ten feet, Ben grunted, “Uh huh.”
“Well…” Roger rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Ah, we sort of hit it off.”
Ben frowned. “Who hit it off?”
“Me and Jess.”
Ben jammed on the brakes and turned to look at Roger, creases furrowing his brow. “What? You never told me that.”
“You were my boss, and Jess didn’t want to say anything. She’s kind of private, you know?”
Shaking his head, Ben looked back at the road. “Oh, I know.” The revelation surprised him, but now that it was out, it also didn’t surprise him. It was just like Jess.
“She was practically living at my place, last year,” Roger added. “Things were great, and then suddenly, she took off to Europe.”
The truck in front of them accelerated, and Ben pulled forward, the traffic finally moving. “She can be like that.”
“So, well, if the world’s ending…the only person I really want to see is Jess.”
Ben gritted his teeth, but not in anger. He held back tears. His little girl. Roger loved his little girl. “Well, let’s get us there, then.” He’d had enough of this. Pulling onto the shoulder, Ben passed the truck.
“One thing…”
Ben glanced at Roger. “What?”
“What happened to her? I mean, not her leg, I know that story, but when she was a kid?”
Ben pushed his foot down on the accelerator, and in the rear view saw other cars pulling into the shoulder lane behind him. He wasn’t the only one who’d lost his patience. He glanced at Roger. “You know, I’m not sure I really know…”
25
CHIANTI, ITALY