Rise of Atlantis

This time, it was different. There had been plenty of close scares before, about meteors and other extraterrestrial things on a collision course with Earth, then, always at the so-called 'last minute', which was never really the last minute at all, disaster had been averted. Almost as if these stories needed to be invented to keep the scientists in unnecessary jobs when the government threatened to pull the plug on the funding or something like that.

It was different, this time, because this thing was huge and headed for China. Not some rural area in the middle of nowhere. An actual United Nations veto power delegate, the heart of the industrial world. This would impact the world economy. This was nine-eleven, just at a different time, in a grander scale.

Once the impact’s location was known, the rest of the population of the world that still cared watched with bated breath, in horror and four-D, as a large, dull, grey, multi-sided, oddly-shaped meteor tumbled through space, like a freaky acrobat, without balance and out of control. Its surface displayed holes and cracks, frown-lines and wrinkles, like some old familiar uncle you hadn't seen for a while, probably because it was too familiar, a site in the heavens, so many meteors, so many close calls, as the ant-like humans continued their stressful and hectic lives oblivious to the dangers just above their heads. This rude and unwelcomed uncle had first done a drive by past some old friends, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, who through ancient history have taken the front seat of many collisions, saving our race.

This was exactly why the scientists were baffled: there was no rhyme or reason to its target, or to how it escaped the massive gravity of our planetary neighbors. The angle was wrong. The trajectory kept changing. Each pass was a near miss and a new angle, a new trajectory, honing in on a target like a serial killer, following the laws of gravity like a pinball, one near miss after another.

NASA, the National Aeronautics Space Association, was no longer funded by just North America. Due to Government funding cuts, and ongoing international projects, it should have been renamed the IASA, the International Aeronautics Space Administration, like the ISS, the International Space Station, but it wasn't. No one had gotten around to changing the name, probably out of national pride and international dependence, so everyone put their eggs in one basket and NASA was it.

It was also the only place left on Earth where you could smoke in a public building. They figured if they were going to be involved in end of the world shit, why worry about your health; if it was your time, it was your time, as was evidenced by the massive mess of coffee cups strewn all over the floor.

The NASA Chief looked like he hadn't slept for weeks. His eyes screamed of sleep deprivation, his head was wrapped in a cloud of blue cigar smoke. He stood in front of his red-faced Indians without a clue. He had racked his brain for a solution, not that anyone cared, not even the Chinese, whose country was staying exactly where it was. The Chinese people had discovered Christianity, blue jeans, cigarettes, fast food and silicone chips, and that their country possessed, some precious metals and an untapped abundance of cheap labor.

The Trackers, keeping an eye on all near Earth objects via satellite, had naturally carried on tracking, with the aid of the latest equipment that had got its hooks into them, or more specifically into their brains. They were strapped in, nay held in place, in front of their holographic screens, forced to watch with the whites of their eyes as the meteor headed for a place they'd never visited, seen, or heard of, except on their screens.

"What's the latest?" The Chief interrupted their concentration just to break the silence. You could have cut the tension with the latest laser guided cutting tool.

There was a brief pause while the trackers gathered their thoughts, their belongings and their employment cards, weary to partake in the orthodox “passing-the-blame-down” to keep your job technique, hardened to believe the data confronting them.

With a delayed reaction start, the Head Tracker finished plotting his lines in a hurry, looked up and saw the light that burned into his eyes: the rising sun, "Still the Chinese mainland, barring an act of God."

This stirred some dim, distant thought in the burnt-out memory of the old battle-scarred Chief, of a younger self in junior high class reading about the ancient gods of Greece and how they protected the planet, The great Zeus... Poseidon... the other gods...remember... no... it'll come back to me, when I'm least expecting it. This time, he thought out loud, "Does anyone else see anything different? Please chime in. There has to be a dissenting voice, there always is."

Nope, dodging the question, not the planet, "Confirmed. We're talking Chinese chow mien." The restaurant reference from a Junior Tracker confirmed the esteem in which the uneasy alliance was held.

"How many are gonna fry?" The Chief continued the jingoist theme without effort.

"Thousands, maybe millions," the Head Tracker confirmed.

At a different time, the boss would have disciplined him for a lack of precision. But, without any research data, and only a sixty-five million year old strike to rely on, the Chief let it slide.

Meanwhile, the Native Americans of their time continued to watch the big screen at the front of the room that was showing the corrections in the trajectory projection. The meteor was growing larger, like some experiment gone hideously wrong in a Petri-dish, the effect of its approaching proximity.

"Still no evac?" The Chief asked but didn't really care.

"No, sir," the Head Tracker confirmed, "they must believe it will burn up in the atmosphere, or deflect away, like all the other five hundred meteor strikes daily." But then, who cared for his opinion, or just cared in general. The Chinese obviously didn't even after being warned.

"Not this one. It’s too big," the Junior Tracker who'd shown the most promise piped up before any of his colleagues, who he'd intellectually stepped on and who usually hoped he'd pipe down, had a chance to respond.

Then with a wave of his hand, a parting shot and no tears, the NASA Chief said goodbye, "If you're right, then it’s bye-bye, Beijing." Or, wherever it would land.