Chapter 15: The End of the World!

Jane: Bad news

I woke up Saturday morning ready to rumble. Tom, Cynthia, Kit, Rick, Fred F., and I started swimming laps. Maria and Zeth came out both crying. I asked them what had happened.

Maria said, "It is the end."

I asked, "What is the end?"

Maria asked would all of us to go in and watch the news with her and Zeth?

I got everyone out of the pool and we went into the kitchen and turned on CNN.

An announcer was just starting an important announcement. He switched to UNASA headquarters in Houston, Texas. The announcer there said, "It is official. A large asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. It is large enough that if it hits in Berlin, Germany there will not be many people left alive in Europe. The UNASA does not have an accurate impact area yet. The asteroid has an antireflective surface. That is why it was not discovered until now. UNASA is positive it will impact some where on earth in the next five days. The UNASA has the old NORAD computers in Cheyenne Mountain working on the exact impact location. They expect an answer in the next six hours."

I turned off the TV. I linked to all of our extended families and asked them to meet at Teddy's at 6:00PM for a meeting.

Mary said, "The Internet was going crazy." She still had connection to the WE all over the planet. In fact, Nancy's network was helping the Internet with the load. She had a contact at the NORAD site in direct communication with her. She said, "The UN was calling a special session in New York for midnight New York time. Mary said the WE has had to put a number of people in sleep mode so they would not commit suicide.

Mary went quiet then looked at all of us. She started to cry.

I said, "Oh my gosh! We are the impact area."

Mary said, "NO; that is not it." She thinks we will be safe. Both the WE and NORAD calculated the impact point and found it to be in Northern Burma near Nepal and China. The reason she was crying was that approximately 1.5 billion people in South East Asia and India will die. Based on the mass of the asteroid the area of complete devastation will be about two hundred and fifty miles in diameter around the impact point. Major damage and major earthquakes will occur all over the planet. No one is really totally safe.

I went over to Mary and gave her a hug and a kiss.

Then I realized that there was hope. The WE were in place. We could still communicate.

We had the most brilliant economist, geologists and meteorologist available. They would not have to travel to meet because of the WE. I had James contact the Economics, Geology and Meteorology departments at UC, Stanford, MIT, Cornell and Harvard. They need to make a plan to present at the UN. The Cornell people could make the presentation.

James said that the EU, Japan, China, and India also had representatives. They were working on rescuing resources so that those that were left could still live. They expected a nuclear winter for the next five to ten years at least.