I Don’t Control the Sun, Son

The end of life as New Yorkers knew it came on June 30, 2028.

That was the first day of the heat wave that never ended.

***

By 9:30 a.m., the temperature in New York City has crept up to 96 degrees. The sun is so bright that the sky appears snow white, making it difficult to look at without sunglasses.

Within an hour, the thermometer hits 106 degrees.

At 11:30, the President of the United States, the Vice President, members of Congress, and members of the Senate receive the same cryptic email:

Deditionem! Sexaginta dies habes!

The message is passed on to governors, state senators, and mayors. Almost everyone believes it’s a cyber joke.

New York City’s Deputy Mayor, Inez Anderson, takes the message seriously.

***

At noon, with the temperature still climbing, everything mechanical —cars, subways, and buses —comes to a halt.

People are trapped in elevators. Refrigerators, televisions, air conditioners, and computers stop working. Offices and homes are left in the dark.

***

Inez hurries across the hallway to the Mayor’s office.

Mayor Byron “Buddy” Briscoe is smacking the side of his computer, muttering to himself.

The fifty-six-year-old Mayor is affectionately referred to as “Buddy” due to his sunny disposition, bald pate, and roly-poly appearance. Rangy and athletic-looking, with shoulder-length bobbed blonde hair and a Roman nose, forty-six-year-old Inez cuts a no-nonsense look and is used to being the administration’s bad guy.

“Did you receive a curious email, your honor?”

“Yeah, it was gibberish. I was trying to figure it out when my computer died.”

“I sent it to my contacts at the C.I.A. and the N.S.A.,” Inez replies.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Buddy asks, tapping the computer’s keyboard.

Buddy’s attention is sidetracked by the cacophony of noise in the streets.

He goes to the window, looking at the confused and angry people below who are yelling at their stalled cars and each other.

“What’s going on, Inez?”

“Chaos. There’s no power. The entire East Coast power grid is down. Even our backup generators don’t work.”

Inez’s phone pings wildly as he receives a slew of frenzied messages. “Over sixty thousand people went blind when they looked up at the sky in Venice, California, a few minutes ago… The entire population of Taiwan has been liquified… This is a worldwide disaster.”

***

A few hours later, Tyson Sagan, the New York administrator for the National Weather Service, taps lightly on Buddy’s door.

Clean-shaven and slim with prominent freckles and neatly combed hair, the thirty-eight-year-old meteorologist is so youthful looking that he appears to have just graduated high school. Despite his teenage looks, Buddy and Inez have confidence in his abilities.

“It hasn’t been this hot in New York in a century,” Buddy says. “When will it end, Tyson?”

“I can’t say definitively without my instruments. But before the power went out, I observed something disturbing.”

“More disturbing than a blackout condition in a hundred and eight degrees?” Buddy asks.

“Yes. The sun has moved closer to Earth.”

Inez responds with an emphatic, “Bull.”

“I checked my calculations with one of the most noted scientists in the field of astronomy.”

“How’s that possible?" Buddy asks.

“I can’t explain it, at least not yet. If I had to make an educated guess, something moved it. There’s a large object nearby, perhaps a planet or an asteroid that may have hit the sun.”

“Wouldn’t it disintegrate upon impact?” Inez inquires.

“Yes, it should have burned up before it even got close.”

“You never answered my question, Tyson. How long is this sweltering heat going to last?”

“The projections I’ve made so far indicate a heat wave that will last at least ten more days. There’s no rain, no cooling off in sight.”

***

The heat wave continues for a week, followed by another blistering week, and then another. Crowds gather around the kiosk near City Hall to watch the Thermograph, which fluctuates between 110 and 112 degrees in the shade.

The city’s infrastructure breaks down, thrusting Manhattan into the Stone Age.

Tar in the streets bubbles like hot maple syrup. Practically useless, the roads buckle. Police officers are forced from their squad cars onto horses. Within a ten-day period, more than 150 horses succumb to the heat.

***

Mopping the sweat from his brow, Buddy looks at a poised Inez.

“How the hell are you not sweating like a bull?”

“Menopause is much harder to endure than this heat. Besides, I’m wearing so much baby powder you could write your name on my backside.”

“Maybe later. Okay, let’s hear it, Inez. How are the people of New York City faring?”

“Ten thousand people in the morgue haven’t fared well at all. Hospitals are overwhelmed with heat stroke victims, the sick, and the elderly. Central Park Lake is drying up, and it’s been giving up its dead. Some of the bodies are drowning victims, but others have been found bound and gagged or even inside a barrel, which hasn’t helped people’s morale. Despite that grim discovery, roughly a million people have set up tents and shelters in Central Park. Looting, fighting, and Black Market activities are skyrocketing… Nearly 400,000 other people are now living on the beach. People are sleeping on hilltops, rooftops, fire escapes, tall buildings, bridges, and anyplace above ground for a breath of air. Others have gone underground.”

Buddy pulls his tie taut around his throat. Wiping his brow, he puts on his suit jacket.

“Where are you going, your honor?”

“To the people. They need to know we care about them.”

***

Commandeering two horses and a carriage, Buddy and Inez begin their journey at the St. George Houses, one of the most densely populated apartment complexes in the city. Many of the building’s tenants have fled their steamy apartments and are huddled under what little shade they can find.

Buddy holds a wailing infant in his arms. His mother looks sadly at him.

“Does he cry like this all the time?”

“Sorry, Mayor. He’s better at night when it’s a little less humid.”

Buddy notices the bags under the young mother’s eyes.

“Have you been getting much sleep?”

“A little here and there. The cooling stations are overrun, and it’s a hundred and twenty in my apartment. We stay on the fire escape when we can, but I got robbed a few days ago, so I walk around a lot, trying to keep my boy awake.”

“Awake? Why?”

“My neighbor’s son fell asleep in his crib a few days ago. He didn’t wake up.”

***

Buddy and Inez’s carriage stops at the piers on Pike Street, where they’ve heard the most desperate and heat-stricken people have gathered. Buddy is overwhelmed by the number of people swimming in the tepid, tainted water who are ignoring the boiled corpses of dead fish floating past them.

Running off the end of a pier, a young man shouts, “I can’t stand this any longer!”

A police boat searches for him to no avail.

Another man climbs the mast of a nearby docked tourist boat hanging upside down by his legs. Buddy and Inez gasp as they listen to the man cackling wildly, “The end is nigh! It’s the end of days!”

Two police officers scale the mast. Bringing him down, he’s sedated and taken by horse to a nearby overcrowded psychiatric hospital.

Three men dive headfirst off a pier, unaware how shallow the water is. A rowboat staffed by volunteers manages to save two of the battered swimmers after they crack their skulls on the rocky bottom.

A sandy-haired young man wearing cut-offs and nothing else wobbles toward Buddy and Inez.

“Are you Mayor Briscoe?”

“Yes. And you are?”

“Hot, tired, and bothered. And that ain't the name of a vaudeville act. I’m Mookie D’Orio, and I voted for you. When are you gonna do something about this heat?”

“I don’t control the sun, son.”

D’Orio’s eyes swirl in their sockets. He reaches into the pocket of his cutoffs. Pulling out a switchblade knife, he waves it at Buddy.

“You makin’ fun’a me while my brain is bakin’?”

D’Orio lunges at Buddy. Inez grabs his arm, and the two of them struggle. Inez kicks him in the groin, and D’Orio backs off.

She looks down in shock at his shredded suit jacket.

Laughing madly, D’Orio slowly advances on Inez.

“Let me show you how deep your promises and lies have cut us like a knife.”

D’Orio is taken off his feet by Sergeant Angel Acuna of the Harbor Police. In one fell swoop, Angel knocks the knife out of D’Orio’s hand and forces him to the broiling pavement, slapping him in handcuffs.

Standing D’Orio up, Angel slaps him repeatedly. “Get hold of yourself, kid. We’re not animals!”

Angel signals to two of his men, who pull D’Orio away.

“Impressive, Sergeant. I’ll see you get a promotion.”

“I’d settle for a case of water at this point,” the trim Sergeant replies. “There are a million heartbreaking stories associated with this heatwave that have touched the people in this city. My friend, Hampton Pierre, slept on the roof of our apartment building the past few nights. He was a hard-working immigrant from Haiti who barely spoke English and was pulling extra shifts at St. John’s Hospital. Last night I woke up to the sound of a loud thud. There was Hamp, crumpled on the concrete. He died from a broken neck. He’d rolled off the roof in his sleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I think we need your help again, Sergeant,” Inez says, pointing at a nearby pier.

Two men are sunning themselves at the foot of the pier. Seeing the obvious problem, Buddy leads the way, intent on admonishing them.

“This is Mayor Buddy Briscoe,” Angel says. “He has a few words for you before I arrest you.”

“I understand that it’s a hundred and ten in the shade, gentlemen, but that doesn’t mean that wearing a bathing suit is optional.”

***

Buddy and Inez continue their tour of the sweltering city, amazed at what they see. A young boy offers Buddy a pack of dead batteries at four times the regular price, and a man jumps on the railway tracks trying to kill himself, forgetting that the trains aren’t running.

Their return trip to the Mayor’s office is delayed when they see a cloud of black smoke rising into the white sky.

“One of the warehouses near Pike Street has caught fire,” Inez observes.

***

A three-story chemical building is ablaze, but the temperature is 111 degrees, so the spectators can barely feel the fire’s heat.

Several wagons filled with firefighters stand by helplessly as the fire consumes the building.

Buddy and Inez find Sergeant Angel Acuna amongst the crowd.

“It’s the Humco Building,” he says. “They made turpentine there, which is highly flammable. They closed up after the first week of the heatwave. Unfortunately, no one kept an eye on the place, so this is the result.”

“Well, thank God no one’s inside,” Buddy says, relieved.

“There might be. Some homeless people moved in. A lot of them fled the building when the fire started, but…”

A stone gargoyle perched on the end of the third floor of the building falls to the ground. The building lurches, its foundation groaning under the strain.

“There’s no water pressure left in the hydrants to fight the fire,” Angel notes.

“Then all we can do is watch it burn,” Buddy says remorsefully.

Angel suddenly takes off, rushing toward the building.

Despite Buddy’s plea to return, Angel runs into the smoking inferno.

Moments later, a grubby group of disoriented women and children stumbles out of the building.

“…We were lost… We were dead,” one woman gasps. “That policeman led us out.”

“Then where is he?” Buddy asks.

The building groans, collapsing on itself. A cloud of dust covers the frightened spectators.

***

Following two more weeks of searing heat, Mayor Buddy Briscoe announces the entire population of New York City will be moving underground.

Inez bursts into Buddy’s office. The Mayor has his feet up on his desk and is enjoying the last few spins of his portable mini-fan before the batteries die.

“I said it when you came up with this cockamamie idea, and I’ll repeat it - moving eight million people underground is madness.”

“More like seven. We’ve lost half a million to the heat. The other half have left the city. Don’t worry, Inez. I’ve done my homework. The Transit Authority is reconditioning subway cars, storage rooms, and offices, turning them into living quarters. There are over a hundred subway stations. That’s room enough for a hundred communities.”

Frazzled, Inez rants, “The places where homeless people live are dangerous, and you want to try to turn the subway tunnels into Beverly Hills? Rats the size of cats and alligators that people have flushed down their toilets are thriving in those tunnels.”

“They’ll be rebuilt, fortified, fumigated, and guarded by the police.”

“What about the mole people? At least two thousand homeless people are living underground. Many are criminals, junkies, drunks.”

Buddy wipes the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

“They can be integrated or annihilated. It’s up to them.”

“And Razor Thorpe? Is he okay with this?”

Buddy chuckles. “The legendary subterranean sovereign? He’s fake news.”

“He’s real, Buddy. Klondike ‘Razor’ Thorpe was born in those tunnels. He knows every inch of them. His night vision is acute. He lives five levels below the subway system, in a place where the maintenance people won’t even go. But he’s been seen. He exists. He’s had rabies, blood infections, and tick-borne fevers and survived them all. He and his gangs have robbed, stripped, and wrecked abandoned subway cars, attacked workers, and ventured high enough in the tunnels to have fights with the police, which, I’ll add, he’s won.”

“Then we’ll see how he does against a platoon of Army Rangers.”

“You’re condemning eight million people to their death,” Inez stresses.

“Have you spoken to our meteorologists lately? They estimate it’ll be at least another two weeks before the weather changes, maybe never.”

A strong thudding series of knocks on Buddy’s door draws his attention.

A man with a severe crew cut, wearing a dark suit and sunglasses, enters, sweating bullets and looking sullen.

“I’m Butch Beretta from the National Security Agency. I rode a horse all the way from Washington with important news. We finally figured out the language of the message we received.”

“You mean that strange email? I didn’t think it was important.”

“It wasn’t a coincidence that it arrived half an hour before the power went off,” Beretta barks.

“Well, what’s it say?”

“Surrender. You have sixty days.”

Inez runs her fingers through her hair. “We’ve already used up fifty.”

***

A few days later, Buddy speaks to the thousands of hopeful citizens gathered in Grand Central Station’s rotunda.

Raising his megaphone, he says, “I want to thank all of you for your patience and faith in me, and in our new underground city. Today is a new beginning, a step forward for humanity. Our new city will serve as a shining example of Yankee ingenuity and be a symbol of brotherhood and sisterhood.”

Buddy cuts the massive ribbon stretching across the main gate leading to the subway tunnels. “I give you, New Amsterdam!”

The crowd swells, rushing to the gate. Police Officers begin checking people’s passes, guiding them toward their designated subway entrances.

“They’re acting like scared children. Pitiful.”

“It’s understandable, Inez. They’re just anxious to get out of the burning sun and feel safe again.”

“Where will you be staying, your honor?”

“I’ll still be at Gracie Mansion. If I can’t live in it, I’ll live under it.”

“At least we beat the sixty-day deadline with a few days to spare.”

“At first I thought it was a joke,” Buddy says. “But our astronomers traced the message to Alpha Centauri, four and a half light-years away. They also managed to get the Brevo Observatory telescope working. That large mass Tyson Sagan saw the first day of the heat wave is moving toward us.”

They walk toward the station's entrance. Donning sunglasses, they look up at the blinding sky.

“You’re sure there’s only one way for us to survive?” Inez asks.

“We have to make certain our invaders from Alpha Centauri can’t land here and take over the planet.”

Buddy checks his watch. “Take note, Inez. On August 26, 2028, at 1 p.m., humanity started the most important chapter in its history.”

They look toward the end of the block. The ground shakes, and a mushroom cloud rises in the distance.

“The temperature will drop soon. By tonight, it’ll be a hundred below zero on the surface. Nothing, not even a life form from Alpha Centauri, can live in that.”

***

The Mayor’s executive hand cart moves down the subway track at a leisurely pace, powered by the muscles of Buddy’s four security guards.

The cart slows as it makes its last turn toward Gracie Mansion.

“Why are we stopping?” Buddy asks.

Inez looks at the track ahead.

Dozens of disheveled, dirty people block their path. Some are dressed in faded army uniforms, others in greasy jeans and torn T-shirts. Three brawny pit bulls held in check by a man wearing a Native American headdress bark at them angrily. A bald man wearing a breastplate carries a baseball bat with nails in it. A woman with a tri-colored mohawk holds a machine gun in each hand.

All of the people standing in their way bear a unifying Māori face tattoo.

The largest man, a brute with bulging muscles, snow white hair, and dark sunglasses, steps forward. He has a six-foot spear with a man’s rotting head at the end of it and a razor clasped to his belt.

“My brother was in the Humco Chemical building fire,” the man says. “You let it burn down.”

“Who is that?” Buddy asks Inez.

“Razor Thorpe. The city’s new Mayor.”