Chapter 2

It was past 7 PM before I finally made it back to the apartment.

As I walked through the door, I was momentarily taken aback by the amount of people lounging around the living room, reading various papers. There were several half filled pizza boxes on the coffee table with quite a few soda cans and beer bottles strewn about, but even more empty ones were piled in an out of the way corner.

There was a subdued chorus of greetings as I entered. That was unusual - generally when our group of friends got together and someone entered the apartment, everyone cheered out their name loud and warmly, imitating that 80s sitcom set in a bar (for the life of me, I couldn't remember the name).

"I see you've all heard the not so happy news." I said gravely, making my way towards them. "Just let me sit down, grab a bite to eat and something to drink and we'll all have a little Q and A."

I sat at the only vacant seat, my armchair thankfully, and dropped the gym bag I had been carrying beside me, while everybody restarted their own quiet and innocuous conversations. Missy appeared unexpectedly and silently by my side with a slice of pizza on a paper plate and a can of coke.

"You love me don't you?" I gushed.

She blew me an exaggerated kiss as a response and made her way back to Dave, sitting on his lap. He threw his arms possessively around her and set his face into an exaggeratedly threatening stare.

"Mine," he grunted, causing everyone to smile and Missy to giggle.

I took a few bites of pizza, followed by several sips of coke, using the delay to look over our guests.

There was Maggie, Missy's best friend and one of her roommates. She really didn't get along with the other one, so her absence wasn't unusual. She was sitting beside Missy on the loveseat to my right, who was herself, sitting on Dave's lap. Maggie could have been Missy's twin sister, they were so alike physically, mentally and spiritually; the big difference was that while Missy was a Caucasian from the rural Midwest, Maggie was an African-American from New York.

I always found that amusing – how unique people from wildly different places could end up as best friends. Me and Dave, Dave and Missy, Missy and Maggie...

Next there was Alex and Lee, yet another case of mismatched friends, who had both commandeered the two beanbags on either side of the loveseat. They were roommates from down the hall, and probably mine and Dave's closest friends. We usually spent a few evenings a week, getting together for a gaming or movie night.

Alex looked like your typical punk with his hair in a dyed green mohawk, a smattering of tattoos and piercings and a mixture of vintage and punk clothing. Despite a tough exterior, he was an artist on the inside - sketches, oil paintings, graffiti, poetry, music, song lyrics, short stories and novels, he dabbled in it all and pretty damn well too. But what he really excelled at and what he made a living with was computers and electronics. He ran a small computer repair and web design business out of his apartment and he was our go-to guy for all sorts of computer problems.

Lee on the other hand ... well, when I first met Lee, he was the first white Rastafarian I've ever met. Now that I think of it, he was also the only one since then. He later corrected my misconceptions - though he wore his red hair in long dreadlocks and had a great appreciation for the practice of smoking ganja, he simply didn't share the Rastafarian faith or beliefs, though he did respect them and tried to put them into practice in his day to day life. Notwithstanding his extremely laid back demeanor and frequent consumption of weed, he was also a dedicated and brilliant scientist, currently studying chemistry, aspiring to become a pharmacist.

Then there was Sandra sitting on our other armchair, across from me and on the other side of the coffee table. She was a pretty but very shy girl that I met in class, freshman year at University. We quickly discovered that we shared a love of history so we became study buddies, then good friends. She introduced me to the SCA, and eventually Dave, after I managed to drag him to a meeting.

The Society for Creative Anachronism, an international "living history" group with the aim of studying and recreating the Middle Ages ... with some creative, poetic and artistic license, of course.

Yes, I'm a history nerd, so sue me.

Apparently, I had paused in my chewing long enough for the talk to start.

"OK ... I'll start off asking what I think is on everybody's mind." Alex started off. "We're all willing to believe that these reports from your uncle are real and a massive asteroid shower is coming. But how bad do you really think its going to be?"

"That's a really hard question to answer. I can give you some good guesses and possibilities, but there is no way to know exactly how things are going to turn out." I said slowly and carefully.

"Like everything in life..." Maggie interjected, smiling slightly and nodding her head. "We understand. Just give us an idea of what you think might happen."

I leaned back and closed my eyes, running things through my mind. "Let's consider the best case scenario. Whatever actions the governments of the world decide to take works and a large part of the incoming meteorites are destroyed. They could also be successfully diverted or rendered harmless, breaking up upon encountering the Earth's atmosphere. Unfortunately, a lot more meteorites would still make it through causing damage on an unprecedented scale."

"Governments and specially created organizations have been handling major natural disaster for decades now, couldn't they deal with it?" Alex asked, worried, but curious.

"When a disaster happens, all the neighboring cities, states or even countries step up to help by chipping in manpower, equipment or supplies." Dave stepped in to answer. "This time everybody's gonna get hit at once."

I picked up where he left off. "And everybody's resources are going to be stretched, most likely beyond their limits. Not to mention, they're not prepared or equipped for an event like this. The meteor impacts will not only destroy infrastructures and property, fires and floods will happen, means of transportation and communication will be severed and utilities will be cut for a prolonged period of time. In the aftermath, people will hoard resources and riot, and health and emergency services will be strained, if not broken outright."

"These are possibilities of course. Just one potential scenario." Dave threw in, comforting a visibly disturbed Missy. I nodded my agreement.

"Good planning and preparation will, at best, temporarily delay or mitigate those possible consequences." They waited anxiously as I paused to finish my coke and pizza.

"In the worst case, we can expect some longer term repercussions to be felt for years or even decades to come." I continued. "The world ecologies and economies are going to be seriously damaged. Crime, poverty and disease will hit an all time high. Some countries or individual political groups just might take advantage of the situation, and we'll see several small wars and conflicts emerge throughout the world. Add the occasional crime sprees and terrorist attacks..."

A few minutes of tense silence followed as they digested the information. You could hear a pin drop. Their expressions didn't look too good either – they looked sick and just a bit lost.

"Civilizations are incredibly fragile things. You don't need a nuclear war to destroy them. Just look at what happened to the Romans." Sandra broke the silence. Her eyes were slightly unfocussed. I guessed that she was going through possible outcomes and consequences in her mind, using history as a guidebook, just like I had.

"Our society is so fragile, so dependent on the interworking of things to provide us with goods and services," Lee spoke out distractedly for the first time. Seeing all of us staring at him, he shrugged and said, "Gene Roddenberry. Saw it on the Discovery Channel, late one night."

"They're right. Cities tend to be far away from their main sources of food and water ... without a constant replenishment of supplies, people will start dehydrating and starving within a week or two." I said, pleased that everybody seemed to be following the conversation. I had been afraid that one or two might freak out or panic. People react differently and unpredictably to stressful and terrifying situations. "Our modern societies are even more dependant; fuel, electricity and medicine are all vital for a city to survive."

"Medicine?" Sandra asked.

She was better with historical contexts; I wasn't really surprised she hadn't yet thought about it. By their expressions, neither did anyone else. And why should they? We were all young and healthy.

"Does anybody have any idea how many people need a daily dose of some sort of drug to survive?" I saw Lee's expression as he 'Got It'. The normally unperturbed man looked like death warmed over. I nodded to him, indicating that he should explain.

"There are thousands of conditions that need to be controlled by some sort of medication. Diabetes, heart and respiratory conditions, severe allergic reactions, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia ... Not all of them are necessarily fatal without treatment, but definitely dangerous just the same." He paused now for his own drink. I think he was trying not to throw up. "Pharmacies keep a limited stock on hand, just in case of a robbery. When they run out, and without some resupply, a lot of people are going to have to go cold turkey, with very serious consequences."

Silence once again while everyone contemplated what could happen.

"Alright, things are going to go to hell. What do we do about it?" Alex's voice broke the uncomfortable silence. His tone bared his frustrations and anxiety.

"We need to get out of the city - that's were most of the damage and chaos is expected to be felt." I said, trying to radiate as much confidence as possible. "I plan on finding a retreat out in the country ... a place where a group of people can lay low while the shit hits the fan and society gets back on track."

"It won't really help us if a rock comes crashing down straight on our heads." Dave threw in, smiling slightly.

"The chances of a meteor striking one specific point on Earth is pretty low, even during a meteor shower of this magnitude. To be safe, I'm hoping to find a place with some sort of bomb or storm shelter," I shrugged my shoulders. "It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing."

"That's going to cost some money." Maggie said, looking around at the group. "I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I just have a few thousand in the bank that I can spare."

"I have the answer to that." I said before anyone else could agree that they simply didn't have the funds available.

I picked up and opened the sports bag that I had dropped beside my chair and dumped its contents on the coffee table, over a closed pizza box.

Everyone just stared, first at the small pile of bundles of cash, then at me. For some reason, the money seemed more amazing to them, than the idea of the world and human civilization being ravaged by an asteroid shower.

This morning I had gone to my bank and then spent most of the day there – a not so pleasant chore for me. It's not that the service was bad, quite the contrary, all the employees were extremely polite and solicitous, even the manager. Of course, it could have simply been thanks to the obscene amount of cash I had in several accounts.

No matter, they treated me well, so they got to handle my money.