17
Camila
I haven’t slept. Not a single second.
Dawn streams through the cabin window like a punch of pale light, seeping through the threadbare curtains and exposing the absolute chaos I’ve created on the table: coffee cups with black rings, hard drives, data cables, and my laptop screen blazing with graphs.
The air still reeks of what happened last night.
Of my desperate need to use Maddie’s body as an escape to silence the ghosts in my head. Ghosts I had no idea were even there.
Or maybe I did.
Maddie took off before the sun came up. I don’t feel guilty, to be honest. She knew what she was getting into. But as for peace of mind, forget it. Because it wasn’t Maddie I pictured between the sheets when I closed my eyes, and that really gets under my skin.
I run my hands over my face—my muscles aching—but go back to staring at the screen and, in an instant, zoom in on the satellite map.
“Come on, don’t mess with me…” I mutter under my breath.
The screen flickers. And suddenly, the static buzz in the graphs blends with the wild hum roaring inside my head. Just seeing that blurry spot on the map and feeling how sleep deprivation and the lingering memory of last night’s kiss are teaming up to blow my brain apart.
I take my hands off the keyboard and jump to my feet. Screw the map for a second. My eyes fix on the mess covering the cabin table, and I feel a real twitch in my left eyelid. This can’t go on like this. Not if I want to think clearly.
I rush over to the coffee mugs. I stack them in exact order of size in the corner of the countertop. Yes, don’t judge me. I grab the data cable, which is a total mess on the tablecloth, and start winding it neatly around itself. Then I place it parallel to the base of the laptop.
“Okay… that’s perfect…”
I wipe the table with a damp cloth from left to right, erasing the caffeine stains as if doing so could also erase the sensation of Darana Calloway’s lips seared into my mouth.
I let out a long sigh and exhale deeply as I adjust the rickety curtains.
The mess around me is now under control.
The chaos in my head… well, that’s another story, but at least my workspace is a sanctuary again.
I crack my knuckles, sit back down in the chair, and fix my gaze on the screen once more, much more focused.
“There it is again,” I say aloud. “It’s not a calibration error in the thermal sensors…”
The data on the soil’s electrical resistivity and the air’s ionization after the storm aren’t random.
They’re multiplying in a perfect geometric progression.
I lean forward, holding my breath as I overlay the layers from the weather stations.
Frequency. Charge density. Atmospheric potential gradient…
Everything converges at the same point on the map.
“No, no, no… NO!”
The curve spikes identically at the same sampling points.
The Earth’s crust beneath Birdsong Hills, rich in iron ore veins, is acting as a colossal conductor, accumulating the electrical potential difference between the ground and the air.
If my calculations are correct, the ground is becoming saturated with positive charge at a dizzying rate.
This isn’t new. It’s happened before. And if I’m right…
Disaster is looming.
I grab the walkie-talkie from the nightstand without a second thought.
“Ethan, drop whatever you’re doing and come to my cabin. Now.”
I don’t even let him reply.
Not even ten minutes pass before the door to my cabin bursts open. Ethan walks in with his hair a mess, blinking like an owl. Kira, as always, is his polar opposite. She wouldn’t bat an eye even if a meteorite fell on her head.
“Something better be burning…” Ethan protests.
“Look at the screen, and you’ll snap right out of it,” I cut him off, making room for them.
Ethan leans over the keyboard, squinting, while Kira crosses her arms and analyzes the peaks in the graphs.
“Oh my God…” Ethan stammers.
“Yeah, my God,” I repeat. “This place is trapped in a feedback loop. The subsoil layer, combined with the iron deposits, is trapping energy from the northern storms.”
Kira looks up.
“Are you telling me the subsoil is a giant natural lightning rod about to reach its limit?”
“Exactly. The air is about to become conductive. And when the atmosphere becomes saturated… any spark will trigger a surge of devastating lightning. We need to talk to Darana immediately.”
· · ·
We’re ushered into the office in the main house a few minutes later.
Darana is standing next to the large mahogany desk.
She doesn’t say good morning. She doesn’t offer a smile.
She just stares at us with those honey-colored eyes that look like two gleaming daggers.
When her gaze locks with mine, I feel a jolt of static in my stomach that takes my breath away.
The memory of what happened last night on the bar’s porch—her body pressed against mine, the brutality of her mouth, the taste of courage and beer—hangs in the air like a grenade with its pin pulled.
I tear my eyes away with great difficulty, forcing myself to remember that I have a damn Ph.D. in climatology and need to act professionally.
“We’ve got a big problem, Calloway,” I say, setting the tablet down on her desk.
Ethan and Kira move quickly, unfolding the geological maps and the electrical-gradient graphs. Darana approaches slowly with that feline gait of hers and crosses her arms on the other side of the table.
“You’d better not have come here to waste my time with your alarmist claims, Bennet,” she growls. “Because we’ve got enough on our plates with the mess we still have to clean up.”
“Look at the data and shut up,” I retort, holding her gaze.
Darana frowns and fixes her gaze on the screen, where the red curve traces a flawless upward parabola.
“Speak plainly, Camila. You know full well that those little colors on your computers mean nothing to me.”
“The geology of the estate is trapping the static charge from the atmosphere,” I explain, pointing out the anomalies in the terrain. “The ground isn’t releasing the energy—it’s accumulating it.”
Our eyes meet again. Darana visibly tenses, clenching her fists.
“And how does that affect my cattle and my land?” she insists, her hostility masking her concern.
“It means we’re entering a critical cycle of electromagnetic discharges. Look at this.”
I tap the screen and overlay the weather records from that fateful night. The two curves match perfectly, mirroring each other point by point, right up to the peak. I can practically hear her heart stop.
Darana turns pale. Her jaw drops as she stares at the screen.
“No…” she whispers, taking a step back.
“Yes,” I say, feeling my throat tighten.
“That fire wasn’t just bad luck. The northern slopes of Birdsong Hills act as an electromagnetic magnet because of the composition of the subsoil.
And we’re repeating the exact same pattern as that night,” I explain.
“The ranch hasn’t had any problems over the years because what happened drained the subsoil’s electrical charge, and it’s taken all this time to build back up.
“Besides, combined with the extreme droughts… let’s just say the connection between the ground and the atmosphere has been severed. But now, the solar maximum has unleashed brutal thunderstorms all across Australia.”
Darana shakes her head, running a hand through her hair, visibly shaken by the ghost of the past.
“I won’t let you turn my ranch into a laboratory, Bennet. I’m not going to scare the ranch hands, move the cattle, or shut down the tourist routes because of some damn theory.”
There’s the stubborn Calloway for you. I step forward, bringing myself level with her.
“First of all, these aren’t theories, and you should know that by now,” I say, glancing at both Kira and Ethan. “And we’re not going to disrupt daily life. I promise you that. Unless it becomes necessary.”
“And how do you plan to measure that electric field? By magic?” she sneers, glaring at me angrily.
Kira steps in before we kill each other.
“We can do it with drones,” she explains calmly. “Equipped with high-resolution electromagnetic sensors and full-spectrum thermal cameras. We’ll map the entire terrain from the air. The equipment has come a long way, and we’ve already seen what can happen if another storm hits.”
Ethan backs her up with his best smile:
“Not even a fly will notice.”
“It’s the first step toward figuring out what we can do,” I clarify.
Darana hesitates. She presses her lips into a thin, tempting line as she drums her fingers against the wood. She’s torn between her protective instinct and the scientific evidence I’ve just thrown in her face. Finally, she lets out a long sigh and gives me one last warning glance.
“You have one chance.”
Then she holds my gaze for one more second, with a tension that nearly blows the fuses in the office, before turning on her heel and walking out the door.
“Breakfast is ready!” Joyce’s voice comes from the end of the hallway like a lifeboat. “You’re not leaving here without filling your stomachs!”
Ethan dashes toward the dining room as if there were no tomorrow. Kira shakes her head and gives me a pat on the shoulder.
“I’m going after that hungry guy.”
As we eat breakfast, I can’t take my eyes off the sky. Or the rest of the house, for that matter. As I look out the kitchen window toward the northern hills, reality hits me again. The sky is too blue, too clear. A spectacular calm. And here, that’s always the most dangerous thing.