Free Interrupt by Jeff Carlson Page A

heliospheres. There’s one around our sun, too.” Marcus cupped his hands as if holding Roell’s basketball. “The solar wind creates a sphere of gas that pushes out past Pluto into deep space. We know a lot more about it since NASA put up the Interstellar Boundary Explorer. They’ve been mapping the termination shock, where it stops.”
    “Okay,” Drayer said. “So what?”
    “It’s collapsing.”
    Once activated in high Earth orbit in 2008, IBEX had required a mere six months to map the heliosphere, which stretched twentybillion miles across. IBEX completed its initial run so swiftly because the storms within the termination shock produced energetic neutral atoms, many of which sped back to the sun.
    The IBEX team had expected to see variations in the particle flux. The heliosphere was no more a creaseless ball than was the sun itself, but they’d predicted these variations would be minor. Instead, they’d discovered an enormous rift where the heliosphere was buckling under interstellar pressures.
    In 2008, this dent had been 50 percent deeper than anyone could explain. Years later, it had continued to sink inward as soft spots appeared in other places.
    Some of the collapse could be attributed to the long solar minimum. With any decrease in the solar wind, the heliosphere would weaken—but after closely analyzing the rift’s rate of decay, IBEX was able to put a rough date on its origin.
    The heliosphere had been shrinking for thirty thousand years.
    “Look at the candidates they sent us,” Marcus said. “The heliospheres of these stars are rapidly bleeding away or expanding. There’s an undeniable pattern.”
    “Why hasn’t anyone seen it before?” Drayer said.
    “They have. We didn’t think it applied to us.”
    “Aren’t those stars identical to the sun?”
    “More or less. But thousands of others aren’t exhibiting microflares.”
    “We don’t know what’s happening yet,” Steve said.
    “I think we do,” Marcus said. “I think there were times when our sun burned more powerfully than anyone’s realized, and it’s about to start again. Now.”
    Drayer touched the cell phone on her belt as if to call for help, perhaps subconsciously.
    “Don’t let him scare you,” Steve said. “In stellar terms,
now
doesn’t mean right now. It means during the next ten thousand years. Even if he’s right, the sun won’t change for centuries or millennia.”
    “What if it does?” Marcus said. “If the solar max increases drastically, it could last for years. You can’t argue with their data.”
    Steve laughed. “It’s revolutionary, and the whole phenomenon will have your name on it—our name,” he said, sweeping his hand through the air as if to include everyone who’d ever worked for ES2.
    Kym was typing at her keyboard, but she looked at Steve, then turned to Marcus. From her expression, she was clearly conflicted. She wanted to share Steve’s excitement. But there was also fear in her eyes.
    Marcus felt the same cold dread.
    In a few minutes, if he could sneak a phone call, he’d warn Janet to meet Roell and stock up on food and bottled water. Batteries. She should pull as much cash as possible, too, and fill the tank in her car. What else?
    Sunblock. Hats. People would strip the shelves of both as soon as the first TV interview said this morning’s flares might become a way of life.
    Marcus wished he’d kept Roell with him, but Roell would be safer at Janet’s, wouldn’t he? There were no doctors within thirty miles of the array, much less police or grocery stores. He felt a cold glint of dismay as he considered how many people might require medical help.
    “Who are you reporting to?” he asked Drayer.
    “Director Schories.”
    Marcus didn’t know who that was. “Does he report to the president?”
    “Yes.”
    “Call him. Call everyone. If we’re lucky, we still have time to brace for this thing.”

SOUTH CHINA SEA
    D rew’s headset crackled with Bugle’s loud voice: