August 19th, 2001 AD 11:04 GMT.
The Orion Observatory, California.

Michael Reise muttered to himself as he jabbed at the keypad on the vending
machine. The accursed contraption had stolen his money again. Was it too much
to ask for a simple cup of coffee (with milk and no sugar) at 3AM? In anger
Michael kicked at the machine in a way that all humans have been driven to do
at least once in their lives. He sighed as he glared at the coin return slot,
as if trying to will his fifty cents into existence. After failing Mike walked
away, grumbling. Halfway along the corridor he stopped and considered the
possibility of going back and kicking the machine until it surrendered his
half-dollar. He thought about it for twenty seconds and then decided against
it. If he did vandalise the machine then he would be fired, and would be in
serious financial trouble within two months.

11:06 GMT
Mike leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh. This job was so BORING.
All he seemed to do was peer through a telescope, note down reams of data on
the position of stellar matter and analyse it so better scientists than him
could write award winning articles on the latest theory about space. This
wasn't the reason he'd spent so many hours studying astrophysics back at
university. He'd wanted to work for NASA, or SETI at least. If you worked at
those sort of places then people really looked up to you. Plus the pay was
better.
With another sigh Reise leaned forward again and looked through the telescope,
out into the inky blackness of space.
He adjusted the magnification.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked again.
An object he had seen yesterday appeared to be moving. By the standard of what
his work normally involved this was quite exciting. Mike stood up and walked
over to the observatory's computer; as soon as he arrived he sat down and
started typing in data on the object.

12:01 GMT
The calculations were checked for a third time, Mike frowned. He had always
wondered when this day would come, rather than if it would. After all in a
universe as large as the one he occupied it was a statistical inevitability,
but he hadn't expected to see it in his lifetime.
According to the analysis of the light reflected off the object, it was an
asteroid.
By inputting the apparent size of the object, its distance from Earth and the
magnification of the telescope, it could be determined that it was the size of
Canada.
The current trajectory of the object showed that it would hit earth.
Judging by the velocity of the asteroid it would arrive in about one month.
Mike leaned back and blinked, then he looked at his results again.
Yep.
Asteroid.
Canada.
Earth.
One month.
Mike stood up and left the room.

12:06 GMT
Mike stood by the remains of the coffee machine, which had been smashed to
pieces by one of his co-workers' swivel chairs. Mike smiled at his triumph
over the evil contraption. True he would be fired, and broke in a little over
eight weeks but that didn't matter, because he and everybody else on earth
would be dead within five.
Mike kicked the defeated coffee machine again, life was good.

***
Equinox Impact.
Original concept by Alex "Eslington" Powell.
Part 1: The beginning of the end.
***

12:17 GMT
The White House, Washington.

The phone rang; President Thomas Cadbury groaned and rolled over, his eyes
opened, allowing him to see his alarm clock. It was only 7:17AM, he shouldn't
have been woken up for another hour and a quarter. He mumbled something to
himself and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
The president rubbed his eyes as he listened to the man on the other end of
the line. One of the boys from NASA, something about a-
"Sorry what did you say you were calling about?"
He reached over and picked up his spectacles as he listened to the caller.
"An asteroid?"
The president dropped his glasses in shock; an asteroid would be very bad for
his political career.
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
The resident hung up the phone, retrieved his glasses, dressed, left the room
and was there in fourteen minutes.

*

12:35 GMT

"The asteroid is what call a global killer, when it strikes all life on earth
will be destroyed and evolution will be set back to the stage of amoebas."
Cadbury frowned at the scientist across the video link. Norman Townsend was
one of NASA's top scientists and so (presumably) knew what he was talking
about.

"Can you give me any specific information?" Asked Cadbury

"Well, the meteor is about the size of Canada, and is heading straight for
earth." A small map of the world opened up in the corner of the screen, the
view centred on Africa with some data and a large green cross-superimposed on
the southern half of the continent.
"The asteroid will hit Africa at 12:36PM EST on September the 23rd, the
resultant shockwave will cause major earthquakes, tidal waves and a large
cloud of dust to be thrown up into the atmosphere, blocking out almost all the
sunlight and causing a drop in global temperatures across the world, killing
anything more complex than an insect."

The president frowned, this situation was very worrying, and he had no control
over it.

"What can we do?" He asked.

"Nothing."

"What do you mean nothing? Can't you send up a nuke to destroy it or
something?"

"No sir, if you can imagine the amount of fire power needed to completely
destroy all of Canada and multiply that by several thousand times, then that's
how much power it would take to blow it up."

The president frowned again. This was not good. Then he remembered something
he had seen in a film once.

"What if we drilled into the asteroid and put a nuke in the centre? Would that
blow it up."

"I doubt it sir, even if it did work all it would do is cut down the size of
it."

"Isn't there anything we can do about it? At all?"

"No sir."

"Could people survive if they were in underground bunkers?"

"Possibly, but to be able to rebuild society afterwards we would need a very
large system of bunkers which could support the lives of thousands of people
for several years. We simply cannot build something that large in a month."

"What about cryogenics?"

"I'm afraid we just don't have the technology."

Cadbury sat back in his chair and spent a few seconds thinking over the
discussion, he was fairly sure that he understood the situation.

"So what you're basically saying is, we're screwed." Said the president
flatly.

"Yes, aside from either divine or extra-terrestrial intervention our only hope
is that another country has an answer."

"And what are the chances of that?"

"According to intelligence reports, very doubtful."

Cadbury leaned back in his chair again. It was such a big concept to take in.
Every human being on earth would be killed in about a month, thousands of
years of civilisation wiped out in less than fifty days. Even he, effectively
the most powerful man alive, was powerless against it.

"Well, what now?" Cadbury asked.

"Prepare for death. We all have a little over month to tie up the loose ends
in our lives, settle old arguments, apologise for past crimes, and rectify
past mistakes. If there's anything you've wanted to do all your life, do it
now."

"And what do I tell the public? Should I tell them?"

"That, sir. Is for you to decide."

Cadbury leaned forward in his seat and spoke to Norman in a more sociable
tone.

"You seem very calm about this, Townsend. I thought you'd be crushed by
something like this, pardon the pun." Norman shrugged and answered.

"I have a month to finish things in. I know I'm going to die so I don't have
to worry about the long-term future anymore. I have so much I want to do
before I go, finish my paintings, spend time with my parents, apologise to my
brother for all I've done, tell Janice that I love her..." He paused for a
moment, seemingly deep in thought, then began to speak again. "So much to do,
but a month may be enough time to fit it all in."

Cadbury nodded, understanding and turned off the videophone.

[Damn.] He thought to himself. [My birthday's on the twenty seventh of
September.]

Putting aside his 48th birthday for the moment, he thought about what he
should tell the public.

Three minutes later he sat up and said:

"Aw, screw it." The president pressed a button on his intercom, asked his
secretry to get the public relations department to write him a speech about
the upcoming apocalypse and then went off to play some golf.

**************

Authours note:
Right Improers, here's the concept for this fic, basically each author must
finish this story with their own part, so this story will have several
endings.

I suggest that the authors of these ending try focusing their stories on
individuals and what they'd do in their last month.

Or just write a short comedy ending, whatever you want. ^_^

Eslington.
Eslington@bigfoot.com


The Sunburst Project
http://www.chaoseed.com/btr/sbp/
3/7/00