A Day in the Sun

23 Hours to Thunderbolt – 11 a.m. Mountain

After David checked in with his flight on his cell, and learned nothing would be taking off yet, he left Manny Volynsky at the curb in front of the terminal. He watched the rearview mirror a moment longer than he should have, half-expecting Manny to be waving him back. Instead, the older man disappeared into the terminal crowd, probably already preaching planetary doom to anyone within earshot.

He guided his truck back onto I-70. The morning sky looked wrong, tinged at the edges like the decay of an old Polaroid. At least the red dust wasn’t coming down as quickly anymore.

David exhaled sharply. Part of him wanted to write off Manny as an engaging old crackpot. But another part, the part that never quite stopped calculating trajectories and spectral readings, couldn’t forget what he’d seen only a few weeks ago—what none of them had been able to explain.

He gripped the wheel and drove home to do more studying. There was no need to go into the office. He was already headed to Washington. They didn’t need to know he didn’t have a flight.

His apartment internet could handle the telescope feeds. What he needed was answers. Everyone needed answers and they looked to him to provide them.

As always, the fantasy came unbidden. As he took his place at his kitchen table facing his laptop, his usual dream drifted in like a shadow.

It was always perfect. He stood on the podium, taking the director’s hand in a firm grip and smiled. He graciously accepted the Nobel Prize for Physics, turned to the audience, and held up the medal. Applause thundered. Finally, they recognized his years of work at the observatory.

Mom and Dad, both astrophysicists, stood in the audience and applauded him. Their recognition meant everything to him. More than anyone else. He’d arrived.

A cell phone rang among the award crowd. Loud. Rude. Why didn’t the caller have the decency to set it to vibrate?

It rang again. No one silenced it. Everyone turned to their neighbor to locate the offender.

Then David recognized the ringtone: the Star Wars theme was coming from his own pocket.

He jolted out of his dream. Fumbled for the phone. “David Mitchell.” His voice was gravel. He was still fully dressed.

“Wake up, Einstein. Look outside.”

“Who is this?” He stumbled to the window. He’d allowed his mind to veg-out in front of his compiling data model. He drew back the curtains and snapped fully awake, nearly dropping the phone.

“You said this would never happen, genius.” Tom Keys from Goddard Space Flight Center—his solar storm contact—swore.

David couldn’t believe what he saw. The late morning sky was dark—but not dark. An eerie ultraviolet shimmer lit the sky, like a flashlight behind smoke. Clusters of people stood in the street, pointing upward.

No eclipse had been forecasted.

“What time is it? How long has this been going on?”

“It started about three hours ago for us. Right after the last comet hit the sun. So, what now, Einstein?”

“Not now, Keys.” David blinked hard. “I’m getting dressed.” He looked down. “Wait—I already am.”

“Comets hit the sun all the time.” Sunspots shouldn’t react. But the sun had dimmed. And not subtly.

“Not like this, Einstein.”

David could open the SDO space telescope link from home but changed his mind. Maui’s ATST solar scope had better resolution. He hung up, grabbed his keys, and headed for the door.

He hated this part of the job—being the face who explained the impossible. The sun, that stable thermonuclear furnace, was acting like a dying lightbulb.

He jumped into his truck and drove to campus. In ten minutes, the sunlight had almost doubled. Pulling into the lot, he sprinted into the lab.

“Looks like you slept in those clothes,” Joe, his lab associate, muttered. He was already watching the SDO feed.

“I napped, okay? What’s the situation?”

Joe pointed at the screen. “Those sunspot groups? Merged.”

“That’s impossible. Their polarities repel.”

Joe queued up the video. “Tell that to the sun.”

David watched in disbelief. A comet plunged into the solar surface. A coronal mass ejection exploded on the far side. Waves rippled across the surface like a solar earthquake. Sunspots collided, grew—then sudden blackness.

“Get STEREO satellite feeds on the big screen. I want CME radius.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “They’re still behind the sun. No data for weeks.”

“Damn it. Maui feed?”

“Already up.”

David raced to the larger screen. Rows of monitors beeped wildly behind him. The high-res feed from Haleakalā showed arcs and filaments twisting into the corona. Solar lightning. Vortices. It was mesmerizing. He leaned forward and pointed at the screen. “There. Those filaments. They’re lifting. Like something above is pulling them.”

Faculty trickled in, drawn silently toward the glowing monitors. Joe switched feeds again. SOHO. SDO. The monitors glowed.

“Too bad we couldn’t get Hubble,” David muttered.

“They tried. Dr. de Jong wouldn’t release it. Plus, the sensors would fry.”

David checked his phone. “Solar output’s back to normal. Less than four hours total.” He stepped out of the lab, dialing Keys.

“Well, Einstein?”

David was starting to hate this guy. “Well, what?”

“What are you going to say at the press conference?”

David hesitated. “The truth. We don’t know what happened.”

“You can’t say that. Say you need time to analyze the data.”

“Fine. I’ll release SDO video, close-ups from Maui.”

“Good. But don’t promise STEREO data yet.”

David scratched his head. “What are we looking for?”

“You’ll know when you see it. Make sure CBAT gets it first. I want your name on that comet.”

“You believe it was the comet?” He didn’t. He knew better now. But who would believe him?

“Just do it,” Keys growled. “You’re on contract. And you might just make history.”

“I was already on the news and had my twenty minutes of fame.”

Keys sputtered a dark laugh. “Yeah, that. Enjoy your day in the sun.”

David felt the warmth of irony burn hotter than the sun he was supposed to understand. He hung up and stared at the wall. Something fundamental had shifted.

He pressed the accelerator, not just with his foot, but with his soul. The highway stretched ahead of him now. Manny was long gone. The sun sat higher in the sky, but the light still felt wrong.

Maybe it wasn’t just Manny who’d seen this coming.