She didn’t smile in the picture. While Esther explained boomerang videos to the mayor, Sloane sat back down next to Albie. Meanwhile, Matt was talking to the mayor’s wife, who wondered if he might come to the opening of a new library in Uptown, and Ines was jiggling her leg, frantic as ever. Albie put his hand on Sloane’s and squeezed.
“Happy anniversary, I guess,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Happy anniversary.”
TOP SECRET
AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL
NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 70
TO: AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL (ARIS)
SUBJECT: UNEXPLAINED DISASTROUS EVENTS OF 2004
In approving the record of events of the February 2, 2005, meeting of the National Security Council, the president directed that the disastrous incidents of 2004 be studied in case a pattern exists among them. As the incidents are thus far unexplained by conventional means, this task falls under the purview of the Agency for the Research and Investigation of the Supranormal (ARIS).
Accordingly, it is requested that ARIS undertake this study as soon as possible, presenting their preliminary views at the next National Security Council meeting. Attached are the articles thus far amassed by the National Security Council regarding said events.
Shonda Jordan
TOP SECRET
Chillicothe Gazette
OFFICIAL REPORTS OF DISASTER IN TOPEKA REMAIN VAGUE
by Jay Kaufman
TOPEKA, MARCH 6: At last count, the death toll in Topeka, Kansas, for the disaster on March 5, 2004, is 19,327—but officials don’t seem to know what caused the significant loss of life. Or, if they do, they aren’t telling.
Weather reports on the morning of March 5 predicted overcast skies and a high of 40 degrees, with a mere 10 percent chance of rain. Witnesses from nearby towns describe pockets of sunshine and low winds. At exactly 1:04 p.m., everything went haywire. An account from an employee of the National Weather Service described the environment in the office as “utter chaos,” citing “screeching monitors and shouting.
“For a couple minutes, it was like there had been a tornado, an earthquake, and a hurricane all at once. The air pressure changes were insane, and tremors were felt as far as Kentucky. I’ve never experienced anything like it,” the source reported. The employee requested to remain anonymous out of fear of losing their job. The National Weather Service has since released a statement that they can’t provide any further details to the public, as there is an investigation ongoing.
The federal government has maintained a similar position. The Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been silent. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said their investigation does not currently suggest either foreign or domestic terrorism behind the incident, but they aren’t presently able to rule it out. Even at the local level, the mayor of Topeka, Hal Foster—who was vacationing in Orlando, Florida, at the time—has expressed condolences and sorrow but has not voiced so much as a theory about what occurred.
The most we can gather about the event so far comes from private citizens. Andy Ellis of Lawrence, Kansas, drove to the area surrounding Topeka with a drone he usually used to monitor the ongoing construction of his new house. His images of Topeka, which Ellis provided to every national news network simultaneously, are harrowing. They show the skeletons of buildings, bodies in the streets, and, most peculiar of all, not a shred of living plant matter. All the trees in Topeka, according to these images, are now just shriveled branches and dead leaves.
Left without any concrete explanations, the public has turned to conspiracy theories such as an alien invasion, a government experiment gone awry, a new weapon of mass destruction, and a new kind of weather event resulting from climate change. Hysteria has spread as well, moving some people to begin construction of bomb shelters in their homes or develop new evacuation plans that advocate for spreading out from a city’s center instead of seeking shelter within it.
“We need answers,” said Fran Halloway, a resident of Willard, one of the surviving towns just outside of Topeka. “We deserve to know why our loved ones are dead. And we’re not gonna rest until we get them.”
Portland Bugle
DISASTER STRIKES PORTLAND; DEATH TOLLS IN THE TENS OF THOUSANDS
by Arjun Patel
PORTLAND, AUGUST 20: A weather event tentatively classified as a hurricane struck Portland, Oregon, on August 19, causing widespread flooding and destruction of homes and buildings. If the classification stands, this would be the first tropical hurricane in recorded history to hit the West Coast.
With death tolls estimated to be as high as 50,000, this would be the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the United States, second to the Topeka Calamity earlier this year, which at final count claimed almost 20,000 lives. No definitive explanations for the Topeka Calamity have yet been offered.
The weather event has so far baffled scientists, who cite the low temperatures of the Pacific Ocean as the reason for the lack of hurricane activity on the West Coast. “Hurricanes feed on warm water temperatures,” says Dr. Joan Gregory, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “One thing that might account for this is climate change, but we haven’t heard of anyone recording significantly higher temperatures in the Pacific Ocean recently. This seems like a freak occurrence.”
More information will likely become available as the recovery effort continues. A candlelight vigil for those lost will be held in Pioneer Courthouse Square at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday.
Rochester Observer
FIGURE SPOTTED IN THE MIDST OF DISASTER; CONSPIRACY THEORIES SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE AS REPORTS OF DARK FIGURE EMERGE
by Carl Adams
ROCHESTER, DECEMBER 7: “Everything was bedlam,” says Brendan Peterson of Sutton, Minnesota, one of the survivors of the attack on Minneapolis that claimed almost 85,000 lives earlier this year. He was right in the center of the destruction and describes a hellscape of wind and flying debris. “I saw a woman come apart right in front of me,” he recounts, his hands trembling. “I’ve never seen anything like that before, never, not even in movies.”
Brendan credits his survival to “sheer luck,” and he is not alone. Several of the more outspoken survivors of the attack have offered similar tales of horrific death, each more gory than the last. But they all have one thing in common: each survivor saw the figure of a man moving confidently through the destruction.
“I guess it could have been a woman,” says George Williams, another Sutton resident and neighbor of Brendan Peterson. “But anyway, it looked like a person. Eeriest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The disasters are being classified as “attacks” by the U.S. government, but the perpetrators have not yet been identified. Theories have surfaced on the internet, ranging from the plausible (terrorists, agents of hostile foreign governments) to the downright absurd (aliens, a wrathful divine being).