Fallout

As panic and confusion raged on, Clement explained the rest of the incident to Jean and even handed her a small folder with all the calculations and pictures he had taken over the months. There was no real need to do this, but he was giving out all the details, hoping and praying she would discover some detail that neither, nor Andrew, nor the rest of the world’s astronomers could find, that would save them all. No such luck, she only smiled in shock, like she had when they first got the news.

After just a few seconds, she grew tired of hearing about it altogether. Maybe she didn’t even hear anything anymore, as the voices grew loud enough to completely overpower the radio, but it was evident that she had enough. She pointed at the telescope, as if to command him: “I didn’t go through all this just to miss the best part. Clear the way to it for me.” Though he was seeing the world through a very long, narrow tube out of sheer shock and disbelief, he obliged.

She leaned over the eyepiece to get a good look, and he fidgeted with the camera control panel to get a picture while he still could. Not that he particularly wanted or needed to anymore, but such was the habit he had instilled in himself throughout the camera rig’s two year existence, and patterns and habits were the only thing keeping him on his legs and more or less stable. No sooner had he hit the right keys to induce a familiar red bar on the desktop that she tapped his shoulder again. All hopes of audible communication were lost, but it was evident that she now wanted him to take a look too.

The comet was stunning, just as beautiful as he expected, with the tail burning in a parade of reds, yellows, and oranges, and the seemingly dark core reflecting the last rays of light. His nerves were now much calmer and nothing felt like it was swimming or fading away anymore. He raised his head from the telescope to look around properly, but she immediately dragged him towards the stairwell.

Nobody had bothered opening it yet to let people out, and this was becoming increasingly dangerous for the crowd, now molded into one thrashing, confused entity. Jean understood very well that this would result in casualties sooner rather than later, especially with the absence of lights, so she got Andrew’s attention while walking over to the stairs, and gestured at him to turn the lights on. He was a lot better adjusted than the others thanks to his head start of a few hours in dealing with the implication of the world ending, but it took even him a few attempts to understand her. He nodded when he did, though, and began clearing a path to the single light bulb on that floor as Clement and Jean left via the stairs.

“Well, that was horrible,” said Jean in a small voice once they could actually hear each other.

Clement agreed: “There’s better ways to find out the world’s ending, that’s for sure.”

“Sit down. There’s much to talk about.”

Thinking far ahead to when people would be trying to get out of the building, she selected the seat that was furthest from any known passages in and out of the building, in the same lonely corner where Clement sat not even half an hour ago. He obliged, and sat next to her, but did not say anything, choosing just to look in anticipation while trying to process what he had just experienced.

“The government is outright admitting that it doesn’t have the means to stop this, right? That means we are done for.”

He pursed his lips: “Oh, yeah. From the moment I saw how desperate the feds were to keep the info from leaking, I suspected that it was over.”

“You really should’ve told me earlier, that way we could’ve at least started preparing. You do know what is going to follow, right?”

“Yeah. Mass unrest. Resource shortages. Inequality the likes of which haven’t been seen before. I bet anti-satellite missile makers are gonna make a killing while everyone else feeds them.” She only sighed in reply.

“On the bright side, they’re probably gonna cancel school, so poor little Clementine here won’t be alone for a whole year.” Andrew had soundlessly descended from downstairs, an expression of complete resignation on his face.

“That means we’re gonna have an entire year’s worth of military age men idle in this small town. A recipe for disaster.” Her tone was becoming more frantic.

“You two raise good points, but what exactly are you all proposing?” Andrew crashed down onto the chair opposite the two of them.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s just all so sudden. How do we even-”

Clement sensed the notes of hysteria in her voice, and the last thing he wanted was more panic. “Please, leave this one to us. We’ve had a few more hours to adjust to it than you. We’ll handle clearing the building for now.”

“That’s right. The first thing we have to do is to get them all home safe. I’ll go find the designated drivers. Or just about anyone sober enough to drive mostly straight.”

Putting aside their quarrel, now entirely trivial, Clement joined him in planning:

“I’ll stay here to round any stragglers up and calm them down as much as possible. You send them over in small groups so I can shove them into cars and get them all home.”

“Got it. Prepare to receive them.” Andrew sprinted off towards the stairs and Clement got up to wait at the door.

However, Jean’s commanding voice froze them both in place: “Wait. We had a list of designated drivers and who would go with them. Y’know, based on location. I’ll send it to you both.”

“Thanks.” Clement could not help but admire how much thought she had put into planning this event. He could notice several missed calls when she first opened her phone, but decided not to press her - it just wasn't the right time.

Their phones’ buzzing prompted them to unfreeze and head for their respective areas, as Jean slowly sank onto the table, as if to sleep. For a while, Clement heard nothing out of the ordinary, but then a group of three - Yao and two more lower year recruits - came down the stairs. Given that they were not panicking anymore, Clement deemed them to be very worthy successors of the club, provided school actually started in September, and still existed as a concept next August.