Quintessence
Chapter 5: Second Pass

44 Percent.

The effects of the Second Pass were evident much sooner than those of the First. Speculation is that whatever caused the changes in gravitation and pockets of electromagnetism were cumulative, and the residuals of the First Pass had multiplied the effects of the Second.

Grandfather said he had curiosities about the Safeholds, curiosities which turned in suspicions, suspicions that were then compounded in the first few days after the Second Pass. Why did the Safeholds need such heavy doors? It wasn’t a bank. Sure, the goods were human and therefore infinitely more important than any mere monetary wealth, but the heaviest airlock ever built could never compare to the reinforced steel which made up the Safehold main openings. Later, he also learned that there was no way to open the doors from just the outside, permission was always required from within before the locks could be moved.

The first confirmed Icarus Climb, as termed by academics in the west, occurred twenty miles off the east coast of Newcastle, Australia on October 27, 2036, at 7.34 PM local time. On this day, hundreds of members of a doomsday cult, an offshoot of the Raelism (if I recall) UFO-based religion, gathered on the shore of Newcastle to await their saviors, those alien creatures who would collect and award them for their wisdom and foresight. Instead, what they found was a devastating omen of things to come. Without any objective evidence recording devices such as video cameras in operation, we had to rely on the notoriously inaccurate personal reports of those involved. While there was considerable disagreement, specifically about the moments leading up to the start of the event, there were enough points on which everybody agreed from which we built a timeline of what really transpired.

Just after 7.30 PM, a haze appeared over the ocean, east of New Castle. By triangulating the reports this was placed at around 20km east of the coast. What appeared to originally be a rolling fog grew in intensity until it obtained the appearance of a hurricane. It was said that as a description this was insufficient, but as this was not something which Earth had ever seen, and those observing had no better frame of reference. What should have been the flowing, circling winds of the rain band appeared solid and fixed, save for their gradual skyward rise. By 7.50 PM the water had consolidated into a pillar standing several kilometers tall and hundreds of meters wide, blooming and undulating at its peak, resembling the rolling fireball left by an atomic blast.

By this time many of the religious had pieced together what was happening, though through the pontification of their leaders they stood resolute, convinced this was a sign of their impending rescue. Just before 8 PM, as the coast grew dark, the pillar collapsed. Millions of tons of water, suddenly released from the effects of the Dark Star, went into free-fall. The sudden weight caused an earthquake that damaged much of the surrounding and rebuilt infrastructure, more of which was annihilated by the wave created by the massive displacement of the ocean. Of those hundreds of Raelians who had gathered for ascension on that day only 45 survived, many of whom had climbed trees or desperately clung to solid objects as the water washed over them.

These Icarus Climbs would become increasingly prevalent over the next decade, many of which were much larger than the one observed off of Newcastle. On rare occasions, the ocean would rise so high as to escape the atmosphere of the earth. Calculations based on the lowering of sea levels have placed the total loss of the earth’s oceans at 0.3%.

While the nature of these Icarus Climbs horrified many coast-bound communities on a level they had not felt since the Moonfall, the destruction was not without beauty. As the water rose into the upper atmosphere rainbows appeared from horizon to horizon, creating a sort of oil-slicked painting on the land below. Prismatic refractions of light leaving those underneath in awed terror.

Some of the water which had reached high earth orbit, but not managed to completely escape the pull of the earth had frozen and fell back to earth in areas devoid of snow since the last ice age. There were reports that Libya, Chad, and Sudan had a brilliant coating of snow, which many of the Residents had never seen, with some not even knowing it existed. Water that had been taken from the Mediterranean had granted them a terrible gift. Two hours after the snowfall began it was followed by hailstones the size of watermelons.

We don’t know the exact death count, but it was in the hundreds, with thousands more having their houses, their property, and their livelihoods ruined beyond repair. While the laws of averages placed most of these over the ocean, they were in no way limited to just the deep blue.

The first known land event occurred in the capital city of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. A popular report submitted by a local woman had said that she was taking her time off work at the time of the Icarus Climb. She and her two children were playing by a river, throwing around a ball, and taking hits with a cricket bat. At first, all she noticed was the river fogging up, which she thought odd, but not alarming. She wrote that she knew they were in trouble when she had an odd gut feeling, she said it felt like something she had experienced in her youth, when a vehicle went over an unexpected bump, and her stomach dropped as it briefly went into free-fall.

Her children, unconcerned, decided to take one more swing before retreating back inside. Her youngest child had thrown the ball to her older brother, where the ball had arced upwards and disappeared over his head and into the sky. Rushing inside she found various small objects in her home floating gently upwards, where they rested on the ceiling. This effect came in shudders, which broke irregularly before again catching the objects and sending them skyward. Outside she heard the screams of both people and animals, joined in fear. As she led her children into their spare room to avoid the danger of falling objects, she noticed her cat walking around on the ceiling, indifferent to the surrounding panic.

After ten minutes the gravity juddered back to normal, her house suddenly shaking with the banging of all her loose goods falling back to the floor. For the next minute, she and her family huddled together as the objects small enough to be caught in the pull of the effects of the Icarus Climb smashed down all around and on top of her house. Animal’s small enough to be caught in the gravity’s pull shrieked as they thudded to their deaths. On discussing this with my Grandfather, so many years ago, he told me it was the first time that it literally rained cats and dogs.

The mathematics of these events has never been well understood. In some areas they would only affect items under a certain density and threshold of cohesion, in others, it would only affect those items which were ferromagnetic in nature. What we do know is that it never managed to carry any individual item which had a total weight of over 530 kilograms, and while there was enormous variation in the pull in any given event, these were not discovered to ever be predictable, other than the area affected was always a rough circle, and always between 40 meters and 2 kilometers in diameter.

The largest loss of life from an Icarus Climb occurred in the Philippine city of Iloilo on December 24, 2031. Two days earlier there had been an event off the coast that was large enough to cause a wave that swept through most of the city. Having seen the pillar of water, and knowing its significance, the citizens rushed to safety as best they could. The wave hit soon after, killing hundreds and destroying thousands of homes and properties. United after this tragedy, the Philippine people were hard at work to recover and treat those who had been hurt in the sudden destruction.

Without warning, the next Icarus Climb hit the center of the city, at an unusual strength and a diameter of over a kilometer. Its sudden ferocity caught everyone off guard, thousands were lifted slowly into the air, carried with debris and water which had been left behind by the wave. Those who were fortunate to have survived, by virtue of being inside at the time, or through sheer luck, later recounted the screams of those who had been caught up in the vortex, shrieking and crying, as with each second their deaths had become more certain. A few were fortunate enough to grab hold of something grounded during their climb, fewer still were snatched by those in tall buildings who managed to push their way to the windows and smash them open to stick out anything long enough for the victims to grasp at.

Twenty minutes later the column collapsed, bringing with it millions of tons of water, debris, and human beings. Of the thirty thousand who had lived in the city prior to the events, only some three thousand survived.

While these events continued all over the globe, the people of the world fought to stay alive. The Safeholds had been successful so far, though at the time they kept their doors open and relied on regular packages from outside to continue propping up their long-term supplies. There had been minor rotations of those stationed inside the Safeholds, with a long-term leadership structure finally being put in place by votes of the social engineers who had overseen the makeup of the Safehold’s constituents. The earth had moved beyond the Dark Star, which had again changed its path and now headed on a course leading it into the sun.

With this direct threat over, many started to wonder when the effects would finally linger and fail, when we could be free of crisis and again move on to a way of life devoid of this constant fear. Despite the best efforts of man, there were no predicted dates given, though now I wonder if the community of scientific elites had an idea of what was to come, and simply chose to hide it from the world, so they could put their final plans into motion.

The first sign that things might never return to normal occurred on March the 4th of 2032.

Via the worldwide transmission network it had been communicated by the public, and independently verified by the scientific community, that the rotation of the earth had slowed to such a degree that the day was now five minutes longer. Investigations into this led to a theory that this would have placed an intense amount of stress on the internal structures of the earth. While there was fear this would trigger global catastrophe in the form of the eruption of various long-dormant super-volcanoes, this threat was never fully realized. While for the next year there was a far greater rate of eruptions than in recorded history, these were not world-ending and, given the other problems we had to deal with at the time, they were not our primary concern.

My Grandfather was not party to the meetings which would take place between the scientific elite, but there were rumors which he had heard from those he had grown to trust, and while the rumors were usually of little consistency there was one that stood out. The rumor stated that soon these Safeholds would close their doors, and anyone outside would be left to fend for themselves.

When the weather started to turn, this rumor grew, and many of those outside sought to ensure their place within the Safeholds, even though those not on the roster would not, under any circumstances, be allowed entry. Soon afterward communications were limited, which was said to be due to damages caused by earthquakes and Icarus Climbs. Independent communications said that this was due to rising concerns over significant drops in global temperatures, and the riots which followed after those affected tried desperately to gain shelter within their Safeholds and local bunkers.

In June of 2036, in what used to be the hottest month in the yearly cycle, the temperature in El Paso never rose above six degrees Celsius. While some were lucky enough to have their own supplies to rely on, many were not so fortunate. With each day more crops were lost, food rations were cut, and discontent among those outside grew. On July 2nd there was an announcement that all doors, airlocks, and vents would be closed in a scheduled test of the El Paso Safehold integrity. The next week consisted of a constant shuffling of personnel in and out until some previously agreed-upon balance was reached. On July the 9th the doors closed and the Safehold was sealed with 1200 people inside, including my Grandparents and great-grandparents. They didn’t open again for three years.