Geostorm The Shift: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The Geostorm Series Book 1) by Bobby Akart

Author:Bobby Akart [Akart, Bobby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown Publishers Inc.
Published: 2019-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

Paris, France

It had been years since Chapman had traveled to Paris. Charles de Gaulle Airport was as manic as ever, and the taxi drivers were surly toward Americans just as always. He was glad to see that nothing had changed. At least he knew what to expect, unlike his previous stops in Seattle and Greenland.

It was well after midnight, and when Chapman stepped out of the airport to hail a cab, he was shocked by a chill in the air. He’d been sent to Paris to report on the unusual heat wave, with a secondary story on the climate conference. The chilled air was certainly unexpected, but perhaps there might be a story in the abrupt drop in temperatures.

In the taxi, he asked the driver about the sudden chill. He looked into the rearview mirror and shrugged.

“C’est la vie, c’est le temps?” He made no attempt to respond in English.

Chapman understood the first phrase, which commonly meant whatcha gonna do back on the farm. He assumed temps referred to the weather.

TWC’s in-house travel agent had booked him a room at a hotel that was walking distance from the Paris Le Bourget conference center. It was pedestrian, but clean and quiet. Just what the doctor would’ve ordered, had he seen one.

The day of the conference, Chapman woke up refreshed, but sore from head to toe. Wrestling a polar bear on a sheet of ice will do that to you. After showering, he redressed the wound on his leg and then ironed his pinpoint oxford dress shirt. In order to comply with the conference’s dress code, he couldn’t wear his customary khaki pants and Land’s End ensemble. He put on a light gray suit, but no tie, and made his way outside.

Like the night before, he was greeted with a slight chill in the air. It was totally opposite of what he expected, and what he was tasked with reporting on. But the events of the last week had resulted in a dramatic shift in his journalist mindset. There was a bigger story to report besides heavy rain in Seattle, ice melting in Greenland, or excessive heat in Paris.

The story was not what was happening. It was why.

The crisp air invigorated him, but he still took a moment to duck into a pharmacy across from the hotel to purchase some Advil and antibiotics. France had followed the Swiss Net Care system that gave pharmacists some latitude in providing certain prescription medications after a brief interview of the patient. Antibiotics for simple infections was one of the medications that French doctors and pharmacists agreed upon for nonprescription dispersal.

Armed with the pain-numbing Advil and his amoxicillin, Chapman joined dozens of other well-dressed attendees of the conference walking down the sidewalk to the Paris Le Bourget conference center.

This venue had hosted another important conference in 2015. The United Nations hosted its annual climate-change conference here that was attended by representatives of every country in the world. According to the organizing committee of COP 21,

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