27 Hours to Thunderbolt – 9:00 a.m. Pacific
Cathedral bells seemed to echo across the blood-pink dawn.
Manny blinked.
It was only a dream. But it felt real.
He sat up on the sofa bed in Arman Kessler’s bungalow, the old wood frame creaking with the chill off San Francisco Bay. The antique regulator clock ticked in the kitchen. For a moment he thought the sound came from the dream itself. No bells. Only the hush of the house, alive in the pre-dawn stillness.
He rose carefully, padded to the back window, and pulled the curtains wider.
The comet.
Not a sunrise illusion—this was luminous, definite. A glowing nucleus trailing a ruddy banner of dust that claimed half the eastern sky. It looked closer now, almost near enough to feel.
Manny pressed his hand to the glass. Shahar. The old Hebrew name he had long ago assigned to the wandering world: the Morning Star before the Morning Star.
A low vibration hummed through the floorboards. His phone buzzed an alert: M 4.5 earthquake — Fremont, CA — depth 7 km. The bungalow swayed faintly, like a cough through its bones.
“Another one?” Arman’s gravelly voice drifted from the bedroom. He shuffled in wearing plaid pajamas, hair a white corona around his bald pate. “That’s the fourth since midnight. I’d hoped the earth would wait until coffee.”
They moved into the cramped kitchen, each taking up their familiar role—Manny grinding beans, Arman filling the kettle—like a choreography rehearsed across decades. When the tremor eased, Arman flicked on the small cabinet television.
A holo-banner screamed: NNN BREAKING — CELEBRITIES REACT AS MITCHELL COMET GOES NAKED-EYE.
The feed split between an anchor and the growing crowds outside Hollywood’s Scientology building. Floodlights bathed protest signs—THE KING IS COMING, ANGELS SOUND THE FIRST TRUMPET—while reporters chased actors and singers for comment.
“That tightening in your chest?” Arman muttered. “That’s the frustration of cosmic crisis handled like a red-carpet premiere.”
The anchor cut to David Mitchell, remote from his office at CU. Polished, calm, but pale around the eyes. “The object’s trajectory remains stable,” he intoned. “Its orbital eccentricity confirms a long-period comet. No deviation from predicted mass. Tidal forces are minimal. Earthquakes? Coincidence.”
His smile flickered.
Manny shook his head. “Still lying.”
“He looks pale,” Arman observed. “Like someone who doesn’t believe himself anymore.”
“He knows,” Manny whispered.
A subsonic hum deepened, sliding up Manny’s bones. Glassware rattled; a spoon skittered on the counter.
“Psycho-acoustic,” Arman chuckled. “That’s the word they’re using. Mass suggestion.”
The newsfeed cut to a rooftop interview. Lydia Star, crowned in copper beads, strummed her guitar: “The planet is the horn, the comet the mouthpiece, and we’re inside the song.” The chyron pulsed #SoundOfHope.
Manny looked away. Cynthia would have loved that line—from anyone but him.
He thumbed a message: Are you safe? With Arman. Call me. The signal dropped to zero bars. He exhaled and set the phone aside.
Arman poured their coffee, hands steady despite the tremor. “So, my friend. What trumpet are we on?”
“The first,” Manny answered softly. “Just the first.”
They sipped in silence while the world outside trembled.
By late morning the hum persisted, droning like a cracked bell. Arman brought out an old seismograph drum, its chart etched with jagged black slashes. The spikes bled into a wavering plateau.
“She’s been singing for hours,” Arman whispered. “But I can’t model the driver. No harmonic series in plate tectonics looks like that.”
“Voltage gradient,” Manny murmured. “The dust tail is sputtering electrically.”
Arman’s eyes gleamed. “Just like your papers. Devil take me for not seeing it sooner.”
They stepped onto the back deck. Shahar’s fiery plume blazed across the Berkeley hills. A smell like struck matches stung the air. Power lines buzzed with static. Dogs howled, tremulous, as if answering the comet.
Arman placed a hand on Manny’s shoulder. “She’s charging. And we’re the ground path.”
Manny stared at the highway south, wishing Cynthia were home. She would dismiss him as always—magnetar mysticism—but he had to try.
“I’ll forward the data to anyone left at USGS willing to read,” Arman said. His smile was thin but fierce. “Bring the girl home.”
Manny nodded, energized. He packed his satchel—journal, orbital charts, a change of clothes. At the door, Lydia’s song still drifted from the TV, the hum of the earth resonating beneath her melody.
Manny whispered, “Baruch atah Adonai Elohei ha-olam,” then switched off the set.
Sirens braided with the sky-hum as he locked the bungalow behind him. Across the bay, the comet blazed like a second sun.
He slid into Arman’s aging Prius. The steering column quivered in sympathy with the unseen vibration.
“The first trumpet,” Manny said aloud.
And drove south toward Berkeley.
