Free Orbs by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

the most important people fail to do their duty,” she continued, her double chin bobbing up and down as she spoke.
    Sophie brushed a strand of sweaty hair out of her eyes. “She’s right. We need to ride out the storm and do our jobs. Leaving isn’t going to do any good, anyways; it’s too dangerous.”
    The young scientist started to reply but hesitated, opting to refrain from further argument. He continued down the narrow stairway, his head lowered in defeat.
    The stairway led to a command center in the bowels of the basement. It was unbearably hot. A state-of-the-art air-conditioning unit was built to cool the room, but the engineer who had designed it failed to take into account the juice the computers would need when working at full capacity. Dr. Tsui was forced to reroute power from the cooling unit to the computers, which were sucking the backup generators dry. By midnight the temperature in the bunker was nearly ninety degrees.
    The heat didn’t seem to bother Tsui. He nursed a cup of coffee in the corner, staring intently at the dozens of monitors attached to the concrete wall. He was sucking the information in like a leech, analyzing it every second.
    Sophie watched from the cot she was sharing with Emanuel, trying to drown out the sound of the crying, the hushed voices, and the prayers from the dozen other scientists throughout the room. She laid her head down on the tiny pillow, turning to face him. His lips parted and revealed his perfectly aligned teeth. A chill crept down Sophie’s spine, making its way to her toes. She returned his smile and gripped his hands underneath the covers. As the lights faded and darkness carpeted the room, she slowly slipped out of her pants. He bent in to kiss her, pulling her chin toward his with his index finger.
    Sophie hesitated, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching. But the darkness shrouded them. With a silent sigh she pulled him closer until she could feel his warm breath on her neck.
    Another chill raced down her legs. This time is didn’t make its way to her toes, but stopped just below her abdominals, lingering. She kissed him deeper, her hands running through his mop of dark, unkempt hair.
    There was something about the world going to shit that made her want him even more, as if it were the last time she would ever feel intimacy. When she was in high school, she had had a conversation with a friend about things they would do if the world was ending. “I’d have sex with the cutest boy I could find,” her friend had said.
    Sophie, on the other hand, had said she would spend the night staring at the stars—and yet, with the real possibility of the world ending, the thought of stargazing no longer appealed to her. Tonight she didn’t want to be a scientist; she wanted nothing more than to feel Emanuel, to wrap her legs around him. If the world was going to end, she wanted to share it with him.
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    The next morning Tsui woke them. “The storms have passed!” he yelled, flailing his arms in the air.
    Emanuel reached for his glasses, while Sophie struggled to find her pants. Seconds later they were crowded around the monitors, watching the data stream in from stations around the world. He was right; the storm was over, but the damage to the Midwestern states was severe. Radiation levels were extraordinary. Those who had perished in the fires were the lucky ones; any survivors would die horribly painful and prolonged deaths from radiation poisoning.
    â€œMy parents,” Emanuel whispered.
    A sudden chill ran down Sophie’s back. Emanuel’s family lived in Chicago, and by the looks of it the Windy City was dead center of the damage.
    â€œMillions will die,” Tsui whispered, taking a long sip of his coffee.
    Emanuel scowled, suddenly ripe with anger. “Bolton’s administration never took this storm seriously!”
    â€œThe damage is done. We need to continue to analyze