Chapter 8

Time: Saturday, December 22, 2018 5:02 PM

Hannah returned to the lounge room carrying a large white towel which she handed to Mark. “Here. Smell this.”

He took a tentative sniff and then inhaled deeply. “Smells pristine. Another towel from the cabinets?”

“No. This was one of the wet towels from our morning showers. I threw a bunch into the washer and closed the door. A couple of minutes later the door opened with a soft ding. All done! Clean dry towels ... how in the world did it do that? It’s just like the dishwasher in the kitchen.”

Fatima meanwhile was just about to give up dialing 911 and hand Ashley’s Leophone back to its owner. Wondering if Hannah had done anything about dinner, she punched the phone for one last try and then gasped as she heard the ringing query of her call waiting to be completed. “Hey everybody, I’ve got something! Listen to this!”

Fatima switched to speakerphone just as a weary voice came from her phone. “Burlington Police Department. What is your emergency?”

There were amazed sighs and giggles of relief all around the room. “This is Jada Horowitz,” Jada began. “I’m with a group of six other people. We’re trapped in the Castle Commonwealth mall. We can’t find our way out. The buildings here are bizarre.”

The next two minutes were filled with the weirdest conversation Jada had ever experienced. Her group and the police officer were constantly talking through each other, neither seeming to understand what the other was alluding to. Finally the exasperated policeman started yelling at them for calling 911 when they were not in imminent danger.

“But we can’t find our way back to the parking lot!” shouted Jada. “You don’t realize how crazy it is here!”

“So what, lady? It’s crazy everywhere! How can you be so selfish? We’re in the mother of all national emergencies, over half my force is staying home to be with their families, and you idiots are complaining that you can’t find your way out of a building that you shouldn’t be in anyway?! Who the hell do you think you are?”

“What?! What are you talking about?!”” cried Hannah. “My parents are probably worried sick about me! They’re probably searching the mall right now.”

“I doubt it,” replied the officer. “Not with the roads closed...” The light finally dawned. “What the ... My God, you kids don’t know, do you? The news broke yesterday evening. Where’ve you all been, Mars?!”

“Good guess,” said Mark, “but no.”

“Just turn on the damn TV and call back tomorrow ... if there is a tomorrow.” And with that, the police dispatcher hung up on them.

“What?! The bastard!” shouted Hannah in very uncharacteristic language. “He hung up on us! Shit! He didn’t even get my name.” She finished with a wail. “My parents!”

Mark felt totally bewildered. “If there is a tomorrow? What the hell did he mean by that?”

“ ... just turn on the damn TV...” Ashley’s eyes went wide and she turned to her friends. “Heck, why not?! There’s a P.C. Richards about halfway between here and the bike store, remember?”

But it turned out it wasn’t necessary to enter the mall again. Acting on a hunch, Mark decided to check out the first floor below them. Directly south and adjacent to the non-electronic game room was a multi-media room, the same massive size as the lounge upstairs and complete with a TV screen so large it felt like being in a theater watching it. Madison turned the set on. They were in luck. It seemed that some sort of news interview was just starting.

“ ... and joining us now is Dr. Kissoff, visiting professor of physics at Yale University. He will interpret the latest data for us. Thank you for joining us Dr...” The newswoman giggled nervously. “Professor, am I saying your name correctly?”

The man ignored her question and went right to his presentation. “As you can see from the diagram here, The Intruder is just over one billion kilometers from the sun right now. To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent to about halfway between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter. And as you can see from the diagram, it’s coming in almost perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. Earth is actually closer to The Intruder right now than any of the outer planets.” There was a large diagram of the solar system behind him, with a straight line shooting through the sun from the bottom up.

“Mark,” Madison whispered. “What the heck is this?”

“Quiet, Maddy...”

The professor continued. “The new data from NASA is giving us a much cleaner estimate of Intruder velocity compared to what we had this morning. The original estimates are confirmed. The Intruder is moving 7.7% to 7.8% of the speed of light relative to the sun. The best estimate for impact is still between 6 AM and 7 AM Eastern Standard Time, but the new data has dropped that by about twenty minutes. Solar impact is now estimated at 6:10 AM, give or take a minute or two. That’s the time impact will be observed on Earth. Actual impact will have occurred eight minutes previously.”

“Solar impact?” whispered Fatima.

“Is there any hope, Professor?” the newswoman asked.

The man gave a beaming smile. “Yes! The new data is strongly suggesting The Intruder will miss the core areas of the sun. If this new orbit holds up, The Intruder will penetrate only the outer solar layers and not to the radiative layer and definitely not the core. It might not even touch the convective layer. We’ll know more in a few hours. Best estimate now has it exiting the chromosphere twenty to thirty seconds after penetration. I think the Earth can survive that, and survive it very well.”

“What?!” exclaimed Ashley in a hoarse shout.

“Tell me Professor, how was it possible for The Intruder to get this close to our solar system without being observed years ago? How?”

“Well, a neutron star is...”