The Taking

Nguyen made the unsettling revelation that three hours prior to the observation of the extraordinary waterspouts, all orbital assets of the National Weather Service and other federal agencies had gone blind. Evidently, industry-owned satellites with high-resolution photographic capability were out of commission, as well. No high-altitude photographic, infrared, or radar images of the waterspouts were available to suggest why and how these phenomena had occurred.
        "What about military satellites, the missile trackers?" Molly wondered. "What about spy satellites?"
        "They'll have been blinded, too," Neil predicted.
        On the TV, the anchorman asked Dr. Nguyen if a burst of cosmic radiation or perhaps unusually intense sunspot activity could have fried the circuitry in all those eyes in the sky.
        "No," Nguyen assured him. "That can't be the explanation. Besides, it's too coincidental. Neither cosmic radiation nor magnetic pulses could have precipitated the calamitous weather we're seeing, and I'm sure that whatever blinded our satellites is the cause also of those waterspouts and these storms."
        Puckering his face into his most solemn of all expressions, the network anchorman said, "Dr. Nguyen, are we seeing at last the terrible consequences of global warming?"
        Nguyen's expression suggested contempt but also sudden bewilderment at the unanswerable question he must have been asking himself: What the hell am I doing here?
        Molly said, "Why would only observation satellites be out of commission?" She gestured toward the TV. "Obviously, communications satellites are still functioning."
        "Probably they prefer we don't see them," Neil said, "but they want us to know what's happening with the weather because fear debilitates. Maybe they want us frightened, cowering, and pliable."
        "They?"
        He didn't reply.
        She knew what he meant, and he knew that she understood. Yet both of them were reluctant to express the truth that they suspected, as if to name the enemy would be to unleash in themselves a terror that they could not tame.
        Neil put down the remote control, turned from the TV, and headed out of the family room into the adjoining kitchen. "I'm going to make coffee."
        "Coffee?" she asked with a note of disbelief.
        This domestic task seemed to be evidence of total psychological denial, a reaction unworthy of the unshakeable, eternally competent man whom she had married.
        "We haven't had a full night's sleep," he explained. "We might need to stay awake, keep our wits about us, for a long time. Coffee will help. I better make it while we still have electrical service."
        Molly glanced at the TV, at the lamps. She hadn't thought the power might go off.
        She was chilled by the prospect of having no light except the eerie luminosity of the unclean rain.
        "I'll gather all the flashlights," she said, "and whatever spare batteries we have."
        Flashlights were distributed throughout the house, continually charging in wall outlets. They were to provide guidance in the event that an earthquake imposed darkness in rocked rooms filled with avalanched furniture.
        He turned to her, paler than he'd been a moment ago. "No, Molly. From now on, neither of us goes anywhere alone. We'll collect the flashlights later, together. Right now, let's brew some coffee. And make sandwiches."
        "I'm not hungry."
        "We'll eat anyway."
        "But Neil-"
        "We don't know what's coming. We don't know when we'll have a chance to eat again… in peace."
        He held out a hand to her.
        He was the most beautiful and appealing man whom she had ever known. The first time that she'd seen him, more than seven years ago, Neil had been standing in a complicated geometry of multicolored light, smiling warmly, his face so perfect and his eyes so kind that she briefly mistook him for Saint John the Divine.
        She gripped his hand, shivering with fear and inexpressibly grateful that fate had combed her and him from the tangle of humanity, and that love had braided them together in marriage.
        He drew her into his arms. She held fast to him.
        One ear against his chest, she listened to his heart. The beat was strong, at first quickened by anxiety, but then growing calmer.
        Molly's heart slowed to match the pace of his.
        Steel has a high melting point,