After The Storm:The Storm Hits
Hat Creek Radio Observatory, California
Dr. Alexandra Bell forced herself to remain calm, mentally counted to ten and took a sip of her tea, as all around her the room was a scene of frantic activity. People were padding away at their workstations, others were running from display to display checking data. Questions were shouted but few answers given. Dr. Bell put down her cup, stood up and raised her voice: "Would everyone stop for a moment!"
The activity stopped.
"Let's look at what we know," Dr. Bell said. "Clarence?"
"I have nothing," a woman at one workstation said, spreading her arms. "I have lost contact with all the satellites."
"Same thing with all the antennas on the surface," a man at another workstation said. "I have tried to reach maintenance but they aren't-"
"Responding!" A voice interrupted and a bearded man in overalls stormed in. "The antennas are fried. Their electronics, that is. All the electronics on the surface are fried." Waving a cell phone in his hand, the man continued: "Even my phone."
"My phone is still working," one man in the room said. "I just cannot reach anywhere. Everything here seems to be working. I wonder why that is."
Dr. Bell pointed at the roof. "Concrete. Thick enough that the effect did not reach down here."
"What effect, Dr. Bell? Do you know what happened."
Sitting down and taking another sip of her tea, Dr. Bell said: "I believe that Earth just got directly hit by a gamma ray burst. A strong one, if even the surface electronics were affected. I just wonder why we had no advance warning. Gamma rays do not travel at the speed of light so we should have noticed something before they hit. Perhaps the source was somewhere very close."
There was a moment of silence, then a voice asked: "Are we going to die?"
"No," Dr. Bell answered. "Earth's atmosphere is very good at absorbing gamma rays. But this is definitely a disaster, and will have a death toll. The satellites and orbital stations had no chance. If we lost even surface electronics, I think it is safe to say that all the planes that were in flight have gone down. And the long term effects will be worse. I think that we will see a significant increase in the number of cancer cases in the years to come. According to the models, a gamma ray burst would cause up to 16 times the normal levels of DNA damage. And absorbing the burst will cause chemical reactions in the atmosphere. This will have an effect on us, and on our ecosystem."
"What kind of effect, Dr. Bell?"
"That is the problem," Dr. Bell said, sipping her tea. "No one knows for sure. There is not enough data about an event such as this."
