NEWMAN

Juliana was still operating in emergency mode, although she was slowly becoming more clear-headed. The tiredness was slowly evaporating. She’d expected an adrenaline crash, but that did not seem to happen.

Juggling bad news and not-bad news, as the Russians said it, was not what she’d ever expected. It was astonishing that it had been less than two hours. Eighty minutes ago, she’d been in the Cupola, bantering with Frank and wondering how the internet could have become so fucked over the West Coast.

Eighty minutes ago, she’d been human.

She was too much of a biologist not to freak out about that. Once she had time, she would explore all about the changes that had befallen them, but not right now. Right now, she had to organize their survival in a situation that defied all rules of physics.

Like the biological ones.

The tablet now had a timer, uploaded by Houston. Eight minutes to shutdown. Eight minutes before they headed back into the Zone that suppressed modern technology. And changed people.

Any last-minute updates? she typed.

No. We may have more after shutdown. Pentagon wants to talk to you direct.

They’re welcome.

‟Yaytsev?”

‟Going to stop heaters now. Fans are okay. Thankfully, this shit does not touch solid state, just dynamic stuff. Backing up all computer states and shutting down properly.”

‟All in Cupola for the shutdown then. It’s still going to be the last place lighted.”

Acknowledgments came from all directions. She looked at Shuko, floating next to her in the Central.

‟At least JAXA has taken note that they do have a few satellites that shut down in orbit,” he said.

She laughed, wondering how the expression translated into whatever communication mode they were operating on now.

Colonel Denvers, Pentagon crisis room, came on the tablet.

Hello, she replied. Not much time, we enter shutdown in five minutes.

Right now, you’re the only eyes we have that can actually cross the zone and come back.

Really? she thought.

We’re a bit far. And we don’t have the same resolution as a spy satellite.

We take what we can. What we want is anything you can report on visible conditions inside the zone. Those hexagons you reported? More? Less? Anomalous weather? Impact on land? Everything.

We’ll all be there and try to note everything. Pencils do work if necessary.

Good to know that old ways do.

Two minutes to zone. I need to go. Shutdown is 9 minutes, plus station restart.

Godspeed, Commander Newman.

She turned and twisted herself, heading out, followed by Shuko.

‟Got updates on solid storage for the reboot schedule, hopefully, the systems won’t waste too much on starting non-essentials,” Yaytsev said from further away.

‟You’re in the Cupola?”

‟Almost. See you.”

She arrived at the Cupola with thirty seconds to spare. She slid into the observation bay along the rest and looked ahead. The Cupola was packed, but they could still move a bit.

The shimmer of hexagons was already visible and rushing toward them, at the inexorable speed of LEO. She spotted already some of the towering plumes of the weird blue aurora-like lights, stretching way above the station’s position.

Are the blue lights the same thing as the shutdown effect, or separate? No, we got light coming inside well after shutdown happened last time.

‟Crossing the border… now,” Frank announced.

Right on cue, all the lights, the tablet with the last few messages, the fans, everything went dark.

‟First light,” Frank called out.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Juliana could see it coming. In seconds, blue light swirled again, filling the volumes of the station, as if the walls didn’t exist. No, not exactly. The ribbons of light seemed to cluster at the angles, before detaching and moving.

She realized that at the speed the station had, any line that was coming from the ground would whip across the station faster than she could see. The lines inside were not the lines outside, they were induced lines.

And she realized that she did not feel the same heat.

‟Don’t think we’re changing again,” Ivan noted before she could.

‟Thank god,” she said.

‟Thank no one for the first time it did,” Frank answered.

‟Is that how it went the first time?” Yaytsev asked.

‟You were asleep the first time, so yes. Save for non-changing this time,” she confirmed.

‟I want to sigh. Is it too much to ask?” he just replied.

‟We don’t have lungs, I think.”

‟But we breathe,” Yaytsev answered.

‟How so?”

‟You were right. CO2 didn’t increase much, but according to the sensors, it varies. So, there is something going on. Probably the skin.”

Juliana found herself mentally nodding since the actual thing seemed impossible.

‟Which means splitting across the station is important during the eclipse. Unless you can spin the fans?”

‟Your pick. Fans in the dark, or minimal light. There will not be enough battery charge for more than that.”

‟Lights. Thankfully, this is the last time.”

‟For a while,” the Russian replied.

‟For a while.”

‟Look down,” Frank called.

She turned her attention to the outside of the Cupola. She felt slightly guilty at not helping with the Pentagon’s request, letting Frank do most of it.

There was a massive hole in the hexagon sea. She could clearly see the coast through it. It was impossible to truly see cities, notably at this slight angle, but the smear of grey was a large metropolis in the early evening light.

From up there, it looked undisturbed. Which, she supposed, was a good sign.

‟The hexagons seem to pop wholesale, instead of shrinking,” he noted.

Juliana tried to focus on one, hoping to catch what Frank was talking about. When focusing on one, the strangeness of the hexagons felt more pronounced. They reminded her of the lines that swirled in the ISS when they crossed an aurora plume.

Then the two lines that marked the hexagon’s border into the empty popped abruptly, leaving a hole in the mesh. A second later, before she stopped looking, the hexagon next to the previous vanished too.

‟I see what you mean.”

‟Does this mean the inner zone is back to normal?”

‟We are going to skirt it,” Frank pointed.

Juliana waited along with the rest.

‟Anything?” she asked as the ISS moved over a border hole in the mesh.

‟Tablet is plugged. If it wasn’t disabled, it should at least start the firmware.”

‟So much for it being only the edges,” she muttered – or tried to.

They were leaving the central hole, edging further. A brief swirl of blue lines entered the ISS, playing out their spectacle, but Juliana ignored them and they were gone a good ten seconds later. It was surprising how quickly they’d learned to ignore those phenomena.

‟Four minutes to end of the shutdown,” Yaytsev noted.

‟You’ve got everything pre-loaded?”

‟The computers will make sure nothing unnecessary starts,” he answered.

‟So… what was the metropolis?”

‟From the angle, has to be Seattle rather than Portland,” Shuko said.

‟Isn’t that ground zero for the Zone?” Ivan asked.

‟According to the Pentagon, it is,” she answered.

‟Makes sense if this is like an eye in a hurricane. It has to be in its center.”

‟Frank?” she asked.

The former pilot guessed the request.

‟I’ll report all the observations. The few we can from this altitude. Too bad we can’t use instruments.”

‟If we could, there would be no point.”

‟Fair enough. End of the zone coming up in a few seconds,” he warned.

DENVERS

NASA’s notification of “carrier lost” was frustrating, even if it had been right on schedule. Wesley Denvers looked sideways at the room where the first of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had arrived, and rather than set up a crisis room in a proper place, had decided to squat one of the open-plan sides of the situation room.

Right now, the old, almost peaceful, situation room was promoted to a full-blown crisis room. All stations were manned, people talking to distant parts in a constant mutter that emphasized the extent of this unprecedented crisis.

The picture that dominated the largest display was the constantly updated map of the Shutdown Zone.

“You’d think they would have contacted us first. With all the satellites the DOD have them put up,” a voice said behind him, almost causing him to jump.

He turned and saluted.

“Trust the Marines to be first,” he joked back.

General Abraham Sarton, Commandant of the Marine Corps (JCS), smiled.

“Luck favors the lucky. I was meeting someone less than 15 minutes away.”

He looked up and Denvers turned back to look at the main map.

“You almost can see it growing.”

“It’s mostly pixel errors. But it is fast,” Denvers replied.

“And it’s been what, four hours? Almost?”

“We had the first hints four hours ago, yes,” the colonel confirmed.

“And the only information we have comes from space.”

“Of course, it does,” another voice came from an entrance.

Colonel Denvers saluted again, only to be told to stop doing that every time someone came in.

General Jordan Dominguez, Chief of Space Operations (JCS), was looking like he had swallowed a load of bad news.

“I leave assured that the dysfunction in satellites was spurious and would be solved soon, and of course, it’s not,” he grumbled.

“If that was just satellites breaking up, I would still be talking with a senator,” General Sarton replied.

“Count your blessings then,” Dominguez said.

Colonel Denvers stayed focused on the main console, trying to ignore the top brass bantering behind him.

“Admiral Van Hess is at Coronado. He’s hopping into a jet as soon as possible and hopes to make it out before the zone swallows California. General Fleetwood was on a flight to Edwards, he’s turning back already,” General Marcus informed the two Chief of Staff.

“Looks like we’re going to be it. Army should be up north, he’ll have a two-hour drive to get here. The Chairman is with him, and the Vice Chairman still needs a nomination for a replacement after the stroke. National Guard?”

“Coming, but not within the hour,” Marcus said.

“The real question is what we say to the President. What do you think?”

Silence followed, and Denvers turned to see the three generals behind him looking in his direction.

“I don’t have enough information to hazard even a recommendation,” he said.

“That’s certainly not how I envisioned the next war,” the Marine general said.

“War?” Denvers asked.

“You are not going to convince me this is natural. This is straight out an attack on the USA.”

“But by whom?”

“Aliens?” he said, pointing to the picture at the side.

“That’s supposedly Station Commander Newman.”

“I find that hard to believe…”

“We’re still cautious, but so far, it does look like it is still the five astronauts up there,” Denvers replied.

He looked down at the master console.

“And the ISS is moving out of the zone in less than a minute. They’re the only reconnaissance we have for the zone. At the speed it grows, anyone who gets in is not going to escape.”