Replicates

14-May-2023, 07:24:15 Yellowstone Volcano Observatory

He had been warning them for years.

Not in headlines. Not in panic. Just clean and precise data. Impossible to ignore if anyone had been willing to look. Scenario after scenario, simulations stacked neatly in reports that had been acknowledged, archived, and dismissed. Somewhere along the way, he and his team had been branded prophets of doom, a label that made it easier to ignore them than confront what the numbers were already saying.

Now the numbers were screaming. Even if they did heed his counsel now, it would already be far too late.

Dr. Bryan Chandler stared at the bank of monitors lining the operations room, his reflection ghosted in the glass. The caldera’s magma chambers glowed in false color, heat signatures spiking in violent reds and whites. He pulled up another graph, then another. Gas temperature. Chamber pressure. Magma mobility. All three had tripled in the last few hours.

His chest tightened. This wasn’t escalation, it was ignition.

Yellowstone hadn’t crept toward eruption. It had lunged. Sometime during the night, while the world slept, the sleeping giant had crossed a threshold no model had ever allowed for this early. Bryan felt a dull vibration beneath his feet, so faint he might have imagined it, except the seismograph beside him flickered in restless spikes.

There was no room left for doubt.

Yellowstone, one of the largest volcanic systems on Earth, was going to blow.

For decades, the prevailing comfort had been the same: it hadn’t erupted in seventy thousand years. Dormant, they called it. Manageable. Safe enough to ignore. Bryan had spent his entire career arguing that Yellowstone was neither dormant nor ordinary. Two point two million years ago, when it had last truly awakened, it had buried half a continent beneath ash. Civilization hadn’t existed then.

This time, it did.

A low tremor rolled through the room, rattling a stack of printouts on a nearby desk. Bryan’s gaze snapped to the seismic feed as the line jumped again. Small. Still within what they politely called low magnitude. But the caldera’s fissures were ancient, stressed, and widening year by year. They were no longer built to absorb even gentle movement.

Pressure was building. Relentlessly. And magma did not need strength to escape, only weakness. And it would soon find one, Bryan thought.

A hand touched his shoulder, pulling him from his dismal thoughts.

Bryan turned to see Glenn Chang standing behind him, his face pale, eyes fixed somewhere between fear and disbelief. He held a sheaf of papers, knuckles white around the edges.

“Dr. Chandler,” Glenn said quietly, “there’s movement in the valley. We’re expecting another quake within the hour. Magnitude… unknown.”

Bryan took the papers and scanned the data. The projected epicenter made his stomach drop. Another tremor, even a mild one, would be enough. The caldera’s walls were already failing.

“Have you checked the gas emissions?” Bryan asked, though he already knew the answer.

Glenn nodded. “Yes, sir. They’re rising fast.”

Bryan handed the papers back. Across the hall, the digital clocks ticked on: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific. Each one counting down in its own silent way.

“Glenn,” he said after a moment, “do you have family here?”

The bespectacled man shook his head. “My parents and sisters are all in California. I’m the only one here.”

California was about 700 miles away. Glenn could be there in less than two hours if he flew. He probably could still get a flight out if he left now.

“You may leave now, Glenn. There’s nothing much we can do here anyway. Tell the others there’s no need to report for work today. I will be leaving here as well, as soon as I’m done with the mandatory phone calls.”

Glenn appeared bewildered at first. He had never heard his superior give such an instruction before. Dr. Chandler had always been strict about attendance, a veritable workaholic if there ever was one. Then, as comprehension dawned on him, his face fell.

Chandler saw the terror in the young man’s eyes and wondered if his own eyes showed the same. “Get going now, Glenn, so you can catch a flight back home.”

He nodded and stepped back to head out the door. Midway, he stopped and walked back to his boss. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, sir,” he said as he extended his hand towards Chandler. The older man rose to his feet and pulled him into a tight embrace.

“It’s been my pleasure, son,” Chandler said after releasing Glenn. He braved a smile, which felt more like a grimace. “Run along now, boy. Be with your family.”

Glenn smiled back and gave him a mock salute before turning to run out of the room. Bryan watched the door long after it had closed, as if the world itself had just lost the ability to open again.

Bryan sighed and fell back in his seat. He was surrounded by the most sophisticated monitoring equipment in the world, yet he never felt so helpless in his whole life. Protocol dictated that he make two phone calls in situations such as this. Today, though, he would be making a third call, one that he had hoped never to make but had prepared for anyway. He had set-up it up months ago. Sliding his hand inside his jacket pocket, Bryan took out his cell phone and dialed the number she had given him. A familiar voice greeted him after the third ring.

“Valerie, is everything in place? ELE is happening in a few hours.”

An extinction-level event. The phrase still felt unreal, even now. He leaned on his desk as he listened to the reply from the other end of the line.

“Yes, the station is ready.”

He nodded, tears stinging his eyes. “Are you sure she’s safe? Please, promise me that she will survive this.”

“You have nothing to worry about, Bryan. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Thank you so much, Valerie. It’s her birthday tomorrow, you know.” There was a brief reply from the other end. He smiled and nodded even though he knew that she could not see him.

“Goodbye, my friend. Take care. And thank you so much. I really appreciate what you’re doing for us,” he said before he ended the call.

He bent his head on his desk, exhausted, frustrated, destitute. Then, he cried. He cried for humanity, he cried for his dying world, he cried for her and finally, he cried for himself. He wasn’t a particularly emotional man. He was an intellectual who kept his emotions always in the background. In fact, he could still remember the last time that he cried. It was at the funeral of his wife, Anne, ten years ago. But the events of this day were just too overwhelming even for him.

When he was certain his voice would no longer betray him, Bryan lifted his head and wiped his face with the heel of his hand. The room had gone eerily still, the monitors continuing their vigil as if nothing in the world had changed. He reached for the handset and began dialing the numbers he was obligated to call: first the Head of the USGS, then the Department of Homeland Security, each digit pressed with the calm precision that had governed his entire life.

It was a useless ritual, and he knew it. Still, he followed protocol. He always had. His wife used to tease him about that. But he just couldn’t help it; it was part of his nature. Besides, it was too late to change now, wasn’t it?

By the time he set the receiver back into its cradle, the fate of the world had already been sealed. Bryan Chandler straightened in his chair, alone in a room full of warnings, and waited. Because there was nothing left to do now except wait.