Blackout: Prolouge

From the journal of Jason Forrester

2 December 2013

Looking back, it should have been obvious what was coming.  People liked to talk about how dependent we were upon gasoline, but it was electricity which had really entrapped us.  Everything was run off electricity, and we had moved away from physical to digital copies of everything.  If we could have gotten rid of travel and replaced it with teleportation or telepresence entirely, we probably would have.

I am not saying technology is evil, in fact it was great for us.  Our civilization had moved from "I need to eat more calories in order to survive the winter" to "I am too fat, I need to cut back on the calories."  It was only possible with electricity.  Though humanity had allowed technology to move us more distant from one another, it also allowed for greater communication.  It was a singularity, with all the problems and benefits it brings with it.

When the grid went down, it wasn't the loss of electricity which really killed us.  It was that we allowed our selves to become dependent upon it.  We forgot so much because we no longer needed to know it.  It was the loss of hope that really killed us.

London

1 September 1859

Richard Carrington could not believe what he was seeing.  Ever since he had built his home solar observatory, he had observed amazing things.  Ever since he had read Gallileo's solar observation logs, he had wanted to track them himself, and now he had that opportunity.

These last four days had been absolutely incredible.  He had checked and rechecked the solar spot logs and still, he had found nothing like it.  His telegrams to other observatories around England showed others were seeing the same thing.  The sheer number of sunspots, and the size of them, was just amazing.

Today was another great show.  Reflected on his sketch pad was a sunspot the size of which he had never seen before.  Most of the time, he needed magnifying glasses to be able to sketch the detail of the sunspots.  But this one was so large, he needed to draw it to a smaller scale.  The average sunspot was the size of Jupiter.  This one was at least ten times that size.  To make matters even weirder, it looked like a spiral of some kind.  Like a sunrash or something.

He had just finished the sketch when the light from the sun picked up immensely.  Richard yanked the piece of sturdy paper out of the sun's reflection as it began to darken, fearing it would turn to fire or be ruined by the sheer number of magnification lenses between the sun and the board.  The light was so bright, he could see it reflect off the tile floor of his observatory.

Five minutes later, the lights vanished abruptly, as if it had never been there in the first place.  He squinted at the sun, hand shielding his eyes in awe, as he wondered what this meant for the times to come.

Boston

2 September 1859

Arthur Williams was at work when things began to get weird.  As a telegraph operator for the American Telegraph Company's Boston to Portland line, he had the swing shift, working from 12:00 am to 8:00 am when the day shift workers would start to show up to relieve him.  At roughly 1:00 am, the lines stopped working properly.  The keys started reporting gibberish.

"Joseph, are you getting anything here?"

"No, its all just noise.  You?"

"Just a lot of noise."

"Wow, would you look at that?"

Arthur turned and looked out the window.  A strange, blue fire was gathering along the lines leading out of the building.  There was no smoke, no sign of burning.  Just a dancing blue fire around the copper wires.

"I heard sailors talking about this, but I didn't think it was real."  David's mouth was almost slack.

Arthur turned to him, "Really, what do they call it?"

"St. Elmo's fire.  They say it appears before storms or when they encounter a heavy dust cloud near the deserts."

"Really?"

Arthur was about to ask another question when the sound of Joseph crying out in pain caught his attention.  Turning, he was surprised to see his friend on his back, rigid, with a scared look in his eyes.  The batteries powering his line, the one which connected Boston to DC, were smoking as well, as if a fire had started.

His boss, Mr. Jameson cried out, "Get the sand, put that fire out now!  Disconnect the batteries!"

The crew rushed around the station doing just that, desperate to prevent a fire from starting and taking the entire city down with it.

After the batteries were unhooked, Arthur sat down at his station and slumped back, relieved.  "Arthur, I need you to contact Portland and warn them about what is happening, tell them to disconnect their batteries.  We might still be able to send traffic if David is correct."

"Will do."

Arthur gingerly touched his finger to the key, nervous about the possibility that it was still charged in some way.  After touching it a few times and yanking back his finger with no ill effect, he started sending his message.

Boston: Please cut off your battery entirely from the line for fifteen minutes

Portland: Will do so

A few moments later, the reply came back

Portland: It is now disconnected

Boston: Mine is disconnected, and we are working with auroral current.  How do you receive my writing?

Arthur turned to Mr. Jameson, "Auroral current?"

"Yeah, we missed it earlier but there is a massive aurora filling the sky right now."

Portland: Better than with our batteries on.  Current comes and goes gradually

Boston: My current is very strong at times, and we can work better without the batteries, as the aurora seems to neutralize and augment our batteries alternately, making currents too strong at times for our relay magnets.  Suppose we work without batteries while we are affected by this trouble.

Portland: Very well.  Shall I go ahead with business?

Arthur repeated the question to his boss.  "Tell him yes."

Boston: Yes.  Go Ahead.

Sullivan Island, North Carolina

2 September 1859

Bridget O'Mulrain stepped out of her house.  It seemed like the dawn had come very early today.  She had only just gotten back to sleep - or so it seemed - when the light filled her window and roused her from her bed.  Her husband had groaned and rolled over, but she could hear him stirring as she put on her robe and stepped downstairs.

Something stopped her as she stepped out the window though.  The dawn didn't look right, and the light was shifting in very odd ways.  Looking to the sky, she gasped in shock and fell to her knees.  The sky was as red as blood and looked to be rippling like the ocean waves.  The sea was red as well, and the shells looked like burning coals on the beach.  It was like a scene from Revelation, and it shook her to her core.

Fingering her rosary, she fell to her knees and began to pray, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.  Amen…"

Colorado

2 September 1859

Jeddah Hemingsway was just about to get back to sleep when the sky broke red.  He had only just woken up, and was about to fall back to sleep for another four hours.  Maybe, he thought to himself, I was so tired I just slept for eight hours.  It was a weird thought, but he heard it was common in some European countries where they lit the cities at night, so it was possible.

Rolling out of bed, he started to brew a cup of coffee before walking outside.  It was odd, there was no newspaper.  He lived close enough to town that he got the morning paper before dawn.  Sighing, he went back inside.  It was then he noticed something seemed to be wrong with his clock.  It showed it was 11:00.

"That can't be right," he muttered to himself.  It was obviously nowhere close to noon, so it must still be night.

Clipper Ship Southern Cross

Off the coast of Chile

2 September 1859

Midshipman Rourke looked to the sky in shock.  Red lights were dancing in the sky all around, as if some great naval battle was being wages just over the horizon.  A battle so great, even the sky was reflecting its hellish light back to earth.  Calling out, he roused the ship to the lines, fearful they were sailing into a battle.  One of the junior officers agreed with him, but van der Whal, an aged sailor with dozens of trips through the Straits of Magellan under his belt disagreed.

"Nay, sir, that is no battle.  It is the aurora.  Same as the one four days ago, but much farther north.  We must be within two or three days sail of the equator, and I have never heard of them coming this far north or south before."

"Aye, it is an aurora alright."  The First Officer was standing at the helm, looking visibly displeased.   "The compass is swinging wildly, just like the aurora we saw on the horizon the other day."

"My God, what could cause such brilliant light?" Rourke asked.

"Aye, you named it there.  Only God can cause a light show such as this, this be his handy work my boy, have no doubt about it."

"But what does it mean?" Rourke asked.

The Lieutenant scoffed, "Mean?  It doesn't mean anything.  It's just an atmospheric phenomena, nothing more.  It signifies nothing."

Van der Whal and the First Officer shared a skeptical look.  They had been sailors all their lives.  They knew that sometimes, you had to pay tribute to pagan gods in order to survive a voyage, and anything which made it more likely you would make it home was worth doing.

To call the crew of the Southern Cross superstitious was like calling water wet.  It came as naturally to them as breathing.  This new Lieutenant would learn soon enough, van der Whal was certain of that.  You did not last long on the seas if you did not appease the pagan gods of sea and fortune.

Chapter 1