American Weather

Captain Ambrose stopped his work to view the sunshine on the horizon of Earth. It was a magnificent sight. He took a deep breath to savor the moment. All of his hard work brought him here. Captain Ambrose walked over to the window to get a better view. The moment was interrupted by his phone ringing; he walked over to his desk to answer.

“Captain Ambrose.” He spoke.

“Sir, we have a problem.”

Scientists involved in the Global Global Warning Organization (GGWO) invented a concept of a machine that could control the weather. It was a theory, then a concept, that morphed into reality. Billionaire entrepreneur David Stowski funded their project to launch a space station capable of that idea. It worked. It took years for them to build it, but they got it down. When it launched, there was no going back. They started off small with controlling the temperature in St. Louis, Missouri. The city remained at a constant 75 degrees for three weeks straight. After the world saw proof that it worked, David branded the machine. Calling it “American Weather,” countries paid for the machine to control their weather. Let’s just say now that people in New York vote to decide if they want snow for Christmas or not.

Only top engineers could do manual maintenance and repairs on the machine. So specialists Brianna Howards and Jason Bryant were hand-picked to spend three months working on the device in space. Their reports warned David that the machine was being over-worked and needed significant repairs on Earth. A recommended solution was to build several machines to divide the work. David did not listen.

Captain Ambrose was shown that overnight the machine was uncalibrated and off by three months. It could hold for 72 hours but could cause disasters if left uncalibrated immediately. If they didn’t fix it soon, summer 2018 in Chicago would be there until 2020.

Bryant and Howards were tethered to each other and the station when they went out there. It was a 15-minute spacewalk to the machine.

“Screwdriver,” said Howards said sticking her hand behind her.

“Screwdriver,” Bryant said, handing her the screwdriver.

“Drill.” She let go of the screwdriver behind her, he handed her the drill.

“Drill.” He said and grabbed the screwdriver before it floated away.

Bryant’s tether snapped suddenly. He started floating away, but Howards caught him.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

They saw flames behind them. Brianna’s tether broke, and a piece of shrapnel flew and hit her. Both of them went flying in space. The metal shard punctured her suit but didn’t go through her skin. Bryant disconnected their tether. There was no way he was going to float away like her. Both of them were astounded.

“Brianna!” he cried out.

“Jason! Jason! Jason!” She was spinning out of control. “Where are you?!”

He couldn’t reach her. Their fingers barely touched, and she was moving faster than he was.

“Brianna, listen!”

She calmed down slightly to listen.

“See if there is some way to push you back to the station.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, think!”

They were getting farther from each other and the station. Bryant began to turn back time to his memories of him on Earth with his family. Subconsciously he began to socialize with them on the mic. He remembered taking off, and the city lights from above was his favorite view. A city burning without flames. He knew if he didn’t act fast, he’d just float in space. Slowly he became his own enemy driving himself insane. Instead of suffocating, he could just take off his helmet and end it. He began to unfasten his helmet, and then he saw something. He was at death’s door but wanted to live. He was floating toward a satellite.

The satellite had a small compartment for one person to sit in and manually fix or guide the satellite across space.

Howard saw what he was doing. He completely ignored her panics as she frantically searched for a way to survive. Finally, she screamed at him with a bladed tongue. The words were sharp; the volume pierced his ear. She then tried to swim to him, trying to command air to respond to her movements. Bryant turned around to mentally say goodbye to her. She was not coming back.

He made it to the satellite only to discover it was decommissioned. No power, “Fuck.” He said, climbing in. He looked down at Earth to hear the silent screams of the victim of the disaster that was to come. The station was burning; he saw bodies shoot out in space.

The tsunami hit; a tornado hit for the first time in years. Now the whole world will experience American Weather.