Odessa Strikes Read online

  She made her way into the lobby of the NEIC and was immediately greeted by the receptionist.

  “Good morning, Doc!” The young intern from the Colorado School of Mines worked for minimum wage when she wasn’t attending to her studies. She was one of several students who had been selected out of hundreds of applicants for the opportunity to simply work inside the hallowed halls of the NEIC. It was a résumé builder for them.

  “Hi, Jasmine,” said Dr. Lansing, returning the young woman’s beaming smile.

  Jasmine stood and handed the director a stack of phone messages. “Also, here’s your copy of the FEMA Daily Operations Briefing.”

  “Thank you,” said Dr. Lansing as she began to make her way to the operations center, her normal first stop upon arrival. Jasmine stopped her.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. This is for you.” She handed Dr. Lansing the morning copy of the Golden Transcript, the second oldest newspaper in Colorado.

  Dr. Lansing playfully scowled as she turned the newspaper over and examined it. “What’s this?”

  “A newspaper.”

  “You mean they still make these silly things?” she asked with a grin on her face.

  “Sure, people still read them. Besides, everybody likes to read about themselves in the paper.”

  Dr. Lansing opened it to view the headline on the front page. The Colorado governor had just resigned after allegations of campaign finance fraud. Not everybody, she thought to herself. She flipped it over to check the headlines below the fold.

  “Are you saying I’m in here?”

  “Yes, ma’am. About your speech at the conference.”

  “Why would the local paper care?”

  Jasmine laughed and then replied, “Are you kidding? When you talk about sexy things like Devil’s Staircases, what media outlet could resist?”

  Dr. Lansing wasn’t sure if the Devil’s Staircase reference was quite as sexy as a soon-to-be-indicted governor, but she’d take it. Then a look of concern came over her face.

  “Were they kind to me?”

  “They said you were knowledgeable and informative. You know, generally great.”

  “Generally?” asked the woman who was arguably one of the nation’s leading geophysicists.

  “Well, yes. Except for the part about you being the prophetess of doom.”

  Dr. Lansing scowled and muttered to herself, “Nice.”

  She made her way into the operations center, debating whether to drop the paper in the trash or read about herself somewhere on page six.

  “Hi, Dr. Lansing,” said one of the geologists who assisted her in the field on most research projects. “I watched the closed-circuit broadcast of your presentation. I thought you were fantastic. Newspapers are really stupid for many reasons. You know what they say about—”

  Dr. Lansing waved her hand to cut him off before he finished. She caught his drift. “Would you mind getting me a bottle of water and a banana?”

  He turned to retrieve both items off his cubicle desk. He was one step ahead of her.

  “I figured you’d take a longer run today.”

  “Because of the article?” The whole prophetess of doom reference was eating at her. She’d never incorrectly pulled the trigger on any earthquake warning. In fact, her forecasting capabilities were second to none. However, New Madrid was unique, and she’d take every opportunity to remind the scientific community of that.

  “No,” he replied. “Because every time you travel, you complain of weight gain. It’s never really the case, but you say it every time.”

  These people know me too well. “Okay. Follow me.”

  She walked into the center of the operations center, where cubicles, computer monitors, and maps encircled her. Geophysicists of all levels of expertise were manning their stations.

  She raised her voice to announce her presence. “So how’s our patient today?”

  Most of the personnel swung around in their chairs. They acknowledged the arrival of the woman they all highly respected and enjoyed working for.

  Oliver, one of her longest serving geophysicists, who hailed from England, replied, “Good morning, mum. She’s a little gassy this morning.”

  The group laughed. Dr. Lansing decided to play along.

  “Well, that would make any woman fussy. What exactly did she eat to produce this gassiness?”

  “Mum, we’ve recorded a series of quakes along the AFZ in Northern Chile,” he explained. The AFZ was an acronym for the Atacama Fault Zone. Chile was one of the most active seismic regions in the world.

  “Can you classify it as a swarm?” she asked.

  “Yes, mum. We can. It’s actually triggered some volcanic activity in the region. There are reports of gas and nonexplosive lava emissions around the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic edifices. The ash from the emissions has floated in a southwesterly direction toward Bariloche in Argentina.”

  Dr. Lansing grimaced. Not again. The quaint hamlet in Southern Argentina had been covered in a thin ashy powder mixed with sand and pumice stone just three years prior when the Chilean volcano had a moderate eruption. It was a reminder of how the study of seismic activity can be directly related to volcanic eruptions.

  “Okay, keep me posted on developments,” she said with a nod of thanks. “Anything closer to home?”

  Another geologist assigned to the Mississippi River Valley region and the Upper Midwest responded, “We have reports of tremors in Chicago as well as Cairo, Illinois. They might be false positives.”

  Dr. Lansing smiled. Residents of Illinois and people who studied geography knew to pronounce the city’s name as care-ro, not ki-ro, as in Egypt.

  “Ice quakes?” asked Dr. Lansing. An ice quake, sometimes referred to as a frost quake, occurred when rock saturated with water or ice began to crack or expand. The sudden changes exerted on rock formations often generated a seismic warning. It was common for ice quakes to occur in the Upper Mississippi River Valley during the winter months.

  “We’re monitoring them now, ma’am,” he replied before continuing. “We’re exploring a possible connection to tremors felt in St. Louis yesterday afternoon. The surface temperature readings don’t suggest a correlation, but we’re exploring it nonetheless.”

  Dr. Lansing slowly nodded her head. “Send me everything you’ve got on both seismic events, please.” She wasn’t a believer in coincidences.

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