Read Online Flood by Stephen Baxter - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Baxter
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, science, End of the world, Earth Sciences, Meteorology & Climatology, Floods, Climatic Changes
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shallow. The surge will be higher by the time it reaches the Barrier.”
“How much higher?”
He had no answer.
Piers snapped, “Come on, let’s get our stuff.”
They hurried after him, grabbed their coats, and ran out through the glass-walled pier to the helipad.
Lily checked her watch. It was just after three in the afternoon.
10
F ifteen minutes later an AxysCorp chopper was rushing west, heading back up the Thames, carrying Gary Boyle to the Barrier. The storm system was already funneling vigorously into the estuary, but it would take an hour to travel from Southend to the Barrier. The chopper easily outran it, though the winds and driving rain were ferocious. And, below, the river raged, turbid and frothing, pushing against the banks that contained it. Already the mud flats opposite Canvey and Tilbury were submerged, and floodwater glistened at South Benfleet, East Tilbury, Northfleet and on Rainham Marshes.
Gary was dropped off at the control tower for the Thames Barrier, on the south bank at a place called Woolwich Reach. The chopper lifted again immediately, reassigned to help out with evacuation operations.
Gary, left alone for a moment, walked to the riverbank. He had to lean into the wind, and the rain lashed his face. It was a July afternoon and the air wasn’t cold, but the low scudding clouds made it as dark as a fall day.
The Barrier piers strode across the river, steel sails each five stories high, glistening in the rain. The gates between the piers had already been raised, hollow slabs of plated steel each twenty meters tall, rotated up on tremendous wheels to turn the Barrier into a solid wall that rose seven meters above the regular water level. Bright red lights shone on the piers to warn any shipping that the river was closed. Gary had never seen the Barrier up close before, and the scale of it struck him. Each of the four central navigable channels was as wide as the central span of Tower Bridge, and each gate weighed four thousand tones. The Barrier was a monument to man’s attempts to control nature.
But the natural was testing the human today. The river on the downstream side, pushing in from the ocean, was already significantly higher than that upstream; spray leapt over the clean lines of the gates.
And through the howl of the wind, Gary could hear sirens wail all along the estuary.
Two figures approached him, both swathed in luminescent orange coats. “Gary! Is that you? You asshole, you’ll get yourself washed away. Have to put you on a lead, like those nutty Christians did in Barcelona.”
“Nice to see you too,Thandie.”
She wrapped him in her thickly sleeved arms. Thandie Jones was an oceanographer. When Gary had been captured she had been employed on weather-system modeling and climate-change studies for NOAA, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A black, strong-featured Chicagoan, she was taller than Gary but wiry, always stronger.
The man beside Thandie had his hood closed up over his mouth, so only his nose and bespectacled eyes showed.
Thandie said,“Gary Boyle, meet Sanjay McDonald. Another climate modeler, poor sap.”
Sanjay exposed a bearded face and grabbed Gary’s hand. “I work at Hadley—that is, the Met Office’s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. I heard all about you. Good to meet you, Gary. And I’m sure you’re glad you’ve come back to find some real weather going on.”
“Yeah,” Thandie said. “Speaking of which, let’s get out of it.”
She led them both into the control tower. She took Gary down to a kind of cloakroom, where she fitted him out with protective gear: a wetsuit, boots, a thermal jacket, a hard hat, even a life jacket. Gary had never been shy before Thandie. He stripped down and began to prize himself into a wetsuit that didn’t quite fit.
“You did me a favor phoning ahead to meet me here,” Thandie said. “You’ve got a teeny tiny grain of celebrity, Boyle.” She held her thumb
“How much higher?”
He had no answer.
Piers snapped, “Come on, let’s get our stuff.”
They hurried after him, grabbed their coats, and ran out through the glass-walled pier to the helipad.
Lily checked her watch. It was just after three in the afternoon.
10
F ifteen minutes later an AxysCorp chopper was rushing west, heading back up the Thames, carrying Gary Boyle to the Barrier. The storm system was already funneling vigorously into the estuary, but it would take an hour to travel from Southend to the Barrier. The chopper easily outran it, though the winds and driving rain were ferocious. And, below, the river raged, turbid and frothing, pushing against the banks that contained it. Already the mud flats opposite Canvey and Tilbury were submerged, and floodwater glistened at South Benfleet, East Tilbury, Northfleet and on Rainham Marshes.
Gary was dropped off at the control tower for the Thames Barrier, on the south bank at a place called Woolwich Reach. The chopper lifted again immediately, reassigned to help out with evacuation operations.
Gary, left alone for a moment, walked to the riverbank. He had to lean into the wind, and the rain lashed his face. It was a July afternoon and the air wasn’t cold, but the low scudding clouds made it as dark as a fall day.
The Barrier piers strode across the river, steel sails each five stories high, glistening in the rain. The gates between the piers had already been raised, hollow slabs of plated steel each twenty meters tall, rotated up on tremendous wheels to turn the Barrier into a solid wall that rose seven meters above the regular water level. Bright red lights shone on the piers to warn any shipping that the river was closed. Gary had never seen the Barrier up close before, and the scale of it struck him. Each of the four central navigable channels was as wide as the central span of Tower Bridge, and each gate weighed four thousand tones. The Barrier was a monument to man’s attempts to control nature.
But the natural was testing the human today. The river on the downstream side, pushing in from the ocean, was already significantly higher than that upstream; spray leapt over the clean lines of the gates.
And through the howl of the wind, Gary could hear sirens wail all along the estuary.
Two figures approached him, both swathed in luminescent orange coats. “Gary! Is that you? You asshole, you’ll get yourself washed away. Have to put you on a lead, like those nutty Christians did in Barcelona.”
“Nice to see you too,Thandie.”
She wrapped him in her thickly sleeved arms. Thandie Jones was an oceanographer. When Gary had been captured she had been employed on weather-system modeling and climate-change studies for NOAA, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A black, strong-featured Chicagoan, she was taller than Gary but wiry, always stronger.
The man beside Thandie had his hood closed up over his mouth, so only his nose and bespectacled eyes showed.
Thandie said,“Gary Boyle, meet Sanjay McDonald. Another climate modeler, poor sap.”
Sanjay exposed a bearded face and grabbed Gary’s hand. “I work at Hadley—that is, the Met Office’s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. I heard all about you. Good to meet you, Gary. And I’m sure you’re glad you’ve come back to find some real weather going on.”
“Yeah,” Thandie said. “Speaking of which, let’s get out of it.”
She led them both into the control tower. She took Gary down to a kind of cloakroom, where she fitted him out with protective gear: a wetsuit, boots, a thermal jacket, a hard hat, even a life jacket. Gary had never been shy before Thandie. He stripped down and began to prize himself into a wetsuit that didn’t quite fit.
“You did me a favor phoning ahead to meet me here,” Thandie said. “You’ve got a teeny tiny grain of celebrity, Boyle.” She held her thumb
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