Wayne Cutler arrived promptly at noon. He was quickly briefed on what was known about the Apocalypse Calendar. Wayne was a heavyset guy, about six feet tall with wavy blonde hair and a prominent Roman nose. Miller guessed that he was probably about fifty years old. Like Herman, he was a chain-smoker. Brushing through a cloud of smoke, Stanley said, “Now it’s time to take a good look at our alien pet. After you take a look at it, we’ll show you the video we made when Frank’s wife, Jane, applied her tremendous ESP power to communicate with the Calendar. Do not touch the green stone emitting light in the center of the device under any circumstances.”
Wayne Cutler leaned forward with considerable interest and evident fear as he watched the video. When the show was over, he said, “It’s easy to see why you wanted President Campbell to see this strange alien device. Our survival is at stake. Frank, I agree with your analysis. Something extraordinary is taking place in the earth’s interior. You are absolutely correct in saying that convection is speeding up within the core and the mantle. It’s no wonder that we’re having all of these disastrous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. There hasn’t been this sort of tectonic activity since the formation of the Andes some six to ten million years ago. I’m afraid that the scenario we’re seeing here is more like what happened with the titanic forces leading to the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea. The ‘parting of the Red Sea’ event that we are seeing now is the latest example of what’s going on. I am even beginning to wonder whether the severe drought and heat that we experienced during much of last summer isn’t related to an upswing in mantle convection.”
Miller said, “Wayne, I believe that our weather is definitely being affected by an increase in mantle upwelling along mid-ocean ridges. Certainly, the melting of the Arctic ice pack over the Gakkel Ridge’s spreading center is the best example of this. The latest eruption broke through the ice and is forming a new island. However, before this, there were explosive eruptions creating volcanic ash and other coarser volcanic debris on the sea floor in 2009, about the time that my grandson turned the knob on the Apocalypse Calendar. Geologists and geochemists were sure this sort of thing couldn’t happen at such great water depths. Mother Earth proved them wrong.”
Cutler responded, “I think we need to get the President involved as soon as possible. Do you guys have any ideas about how to stop all of this tectonic activity?”
Miller said, “We think that the key to this is the Apocalypse Calendar. It’s a fact that tectonic activity increased fivefold when my grandson innocently turned the knob in the Calendar’s center.”
Cutler said, “I’ll try and get the President out here tomorrow. We’ll stage it as a presidential inspection tour of NORAD. We’ll include the press in the tour of the NORAD command center at Peterson Air Force Base near Cheyenne Mountain. After this show is over, we’ll whisk the President away to Cheyenne Mountain by helicopter. Hopefully, the press won’t be too suspicious.”