The nightmare started the following day after the world had suddenly plummeted into the dark ages. The ATMs stopped working and the banks shut down without internet. Telephones no longer worked, no GPS, no running water. All communications broke down. Riots broke out in every country as looting and ransacking mobs ran amok.
The US had managed to save some of its power grids by turning them off and a few modern satellites were saved by turning them into safe mode but the chaos outside could not eventually be prevented and anarchy soon swallowed up the entire planet. Within one year, the order of mankind was undone and the hierarchy of man was overrun by anarchy.
“No talk, I warn last time.” The baritone of broken English from a stout Ugandan rebel reverberated through the dark hollow of the basement.
Upstairs, the beams of five flashlights turned from side to side as half a score of bloody hands rummaged through the vaults and cabinets for whatever food they could find. Scattered across the room were the fresh corpses of three men, two women and a dog, all shot dead for trying to prevent the plunderers from looting their rations.
It had been four years since society had fractured. There was only a 2-hour warning that the emergency broadcast services offered before it had happened and most people were too busy to even bother about the pop-ups on their cell phones. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Space Weather Prediction Centre in Boulder, had sent its early warning three days prior to the White House and the news took a day more to cut through all the bureaucratic red tapes and finally reach the President’s desk.
It was 6 o’clock in the evening and Guy de Baptiste was walking towards the exit gate to thumb in his biometrics while casually flirting with Catarina Perez, hoping to take her out on a date that evening. Miss Perez was the newest addition to their team, a Spanish doctor specialised in Trauma surgery. Guy was an analyst, responsible for intercepting Ugandan intel at the sensitive Gatuna border and providing real-time advice to the commander at the UN headquarters in Kigali, Rwanda.
“Oi mate, what d’ya make o’ this?” an anxious and heavily cockney-accented voice resounded from behind them. It was Albert Swan, the staff sergeant, responsible for the safety of the 8 civilians posted at the Gatuna office; a frontier post for the United Nations to monitor rebel insurgency in Rwanda from Uganda. Albert handed over the printout to Guy with a clear look of bewilderment on his face. Pulling up the document for closer inspection, Guy’s face slowly darkened as he read on.
“This is a warning issued in the interest of all US personnel deployed out of US soil. The Solar Dynamics Observatory Satellite has observed a Coronal Mass Ejection travelling at 810 miles a second projected to reach Earth in 2 hours. You are strongly advised to report immediately to your nearest embassy for further briefing.”
Everything after that moment seemed like a dream to Guy. The CME with its magnetic field pointing South hit the earth at 7.45 pm wreaking havoc on the Earth’s magnetosphere. The geomagnetic storm that ensued, devastated power grids across the planet, setting electronic devices on fire and making airplanes nose-dive to the ground. Satellites orbiting the earth got zapped and all communication channels broke down. The night sky dazzled with brilliant green and purple auroras for the next three days as the world looked up at the heavens in shock and wonder.
