**

“…and that seems to be the complete list of towns and villages, sir.” said Sebastiano Lomagno.

Lucien glanced down at the sheet of paper that Sebastiano no doubt spent half the night compiling. His gaze kept drifting to the final ‘missing’ figure at the bottom.

“God…we lost so many…”

“I know, sir—but it could have been a lot worse. If some of ISOTs were just a few miles in a different direction, we would have lost all of Vancouver or Edmonton or London and that number on that sheet would be easily twice as high now.”

“Sorry—I-SOT?”

Sebastiano blushed. “Sorry—a term I stole from a bad science fiction novel I read once. That novel had various areas being sent back in time as well. Was getting a bit tired of saying ‘replacement areas’ all the time.”

“Ah. In this novel you read—I presume that the people who went back found a way to return?”

“Ummm—actually no, not really sir. A lot of them ended up getting killed in the past, if I recall correctly.”

“Ah. Let’s hope that this ends up better than novel, hmmmm?”

“Indeed.”

Lucien nodded his head and turned towards Weinberg. “General—you said that you had some updates on the communications situation?”

Before Weinberg could speak, a private walked into the room and handed a file to Sebastiano.

“The atmospheric analysis report you requested, sir” said the private, before smartly turning around and walking out the door again.

Sebastiano stared at the departing soldier, a look of complete confusion on his face.

“Something wrong, Seba?” asked Lucien, using the nickname that Sebastiano asked him to use.

“Ummm…that’s, like, the third soldier to address me as ‘sir’ today. I’ve never been addressed as a ‘sir’ before. It’s a bit disconcerting.”

“You’ll get used to it.” said Lucien. “What’s this atmospheric report about?”

“Oh—an idea that I wanted to check out.” said Sebastiano, flipping open the report. He leaved through the report for a few seconds, making the occasional ‘hmmm’ sounds and frowning and tapping his finger in a few spots.

Weinberg and Lucien stared at this spectacle for a few seconds, Lucien with a slight grin on his face and Weinberg with a slight frown on his. Finally Lucien couldn’t resist.

“Care to bring us to speed, Mister Lomagno?” asked Lucien.

Sebastiano glanced up, the use of his surname evidently getting through his ‘absentminded professor’ personality.

“Oh! Uh—sorry about that---got a bit distracted. This report is actually quite fascinating, sir.”

“Why’s that?”

“According to this,” said Sebastiano, tapping the report with his index finger “—the current oxygen level in the Earth’s atmosphere is at 26 percent.”

“And that’s significant because….?”

“It’s suppose to be 21 percent. However—back during the Cretaceous it fluctuated from 35 percent two million years before the dinosaurs died out to about 28 percent just after they died out. “

Lucien and Weinberg stared at one another for a few seconds, obviously a bit confused.

“I’m not quite sure where you are going with this, Seba” said Lucien.

“After that comet hit and set off that nuclear winter, the drop in oxygen levels would have caused the dinosaurs the same degree of stress as people would suffer as if they were suddenly transplanted from here to …say the Himalayas. It would have been the final nail in the coffin—so to speak. At least that’s the theory.”

“So—wait—let me get this straight,” said Weinberg, “—dinosaurs need at least 28 percent oxygen to survive—and even then it will be rough for them? And it’s currently at just 26 percent?”

Sebastiano shrugged his shoulders. “That’s one theory, at any rate.”

“So—they’ll eventually all die out, even if we don’t manage to kill them all?”

“Like I said—just a theory. We’ll probably know for sure over the next few days.”

“But if this is true then it’s good news.” said Lucien.

“IF it’s true, sir.”

Lucien nodded his head “Let’s hope so.” Lucien turned to Weinberg. “General—you had some updates about the communication situation?”

Weinberg glanced down at some papers in front of him for a few seconds and then looked back up. “Oh yes—quite a bit. As of 0600 hours, we have re-established contact with nearly every major city and town in the country. We are also in contact with approximately 500 towns, cities and military bases across the U.S. and about 150 overseas, a rather significant improvement from last night. We also managed to contact the U.S. and British bases in Afghanistan but still having problems raising any bases in Iraq.”

“How are they holding up?”

“Not so great—they weren’t quite as lucky as we were and suffered some losses, mostly through having parts of their bases…uh…what was that term you used Sebastiano?...I-SOT-ed?”

Sebastiano nodded.

“In any case—we’re trying to help them out as best as we can.”

Lucien nodded his head. “Any ideas why we can’t raise anything in Iraq?”

“I have one idea. According to Sebastiano here, we have the existence of a rather large sea right smack in the middle of the North American continent to thank for all that oil and gas that exists in that region now, correct?”

Sebastiano nodded his head.

“Presumably most of the other oil fields that exist in the world were laid down at more or less the same time and under the same circumstances?”

“Not all of them but a rather large percentage of them, yes.”

“Considering how much oil there is in the middle east…” said Weinberg, not bothering to finish off the sentence.

It took a few seconds for Lucien to clue in, his eyes widening in shock at the realization.

“Shit—the whole middle east could be…one…big…sea now…”

Sebastiano was nodding his head, alongside Weinberg. “That would make sense. That’s also going to complicate any rescue missions we may have to perform. I think it’s safe to assume that the troops in Afghanistan were not equipped to perform sea-based operations, right General?”

“That would be a safe assumption.”

“Guess our troops will just have to adapt and overcome, right General?”

“We’ll figure something out, sir—count on it.”

“Anything else?”

“Quite a lot, in fact. We managed to get some pictures off the one weather satellite over North America that still exists.” Weinberg handed over a file folder of photos to Lucien.

Lucien opened the file and started slowly sifting through the pictures.

North America looked…different.

“These pictures were taken only an hour ago. As you can see there appears to be a few new rivers and lakes in the Prairie Provinces and much of the Rocky Mountain States. The resolution on these pictures are really crappy unfortunately, so we are having trouble getting clearer and more detailed pictures.”

“I notice that the southeastern part of the U.S. also seems to be more…uh…waterlogged than I remember.”

Weinberg was nodding his head “Indeed—quite a bit has changed. Look at the Great Lakes, sir.”

Lucien squinted his eyes as he looked at the pictures.

“General—are those…islands…in the Lakes now?”

“Indeed—quite a few of them. The Great Lakes were formed only during the last ice age. Before then they were land.”

Lucien sighed.

“Oh well—at least the dinosaurs on those islands will be confined there and not be that much of a threat to people.”

“Unless they can swim or fly, of course.”

Lucien sighed again.

“You really know how to ruin a good feeling, General.”

“It’s my job.” said Weinberg, shrugging his shoulders. “I have more information, sir.”

Lucien pushed the folder to one side.

“More bad news?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Let me have it.”

Weinberg opened another file folder in front of him and began to speak.

“We managed to piece together some more information about what’s happening to the rest of the outside world. For starters—a ten kilometre wide chunk of London has now been replaced by a swamp. The epicentre of the anomaly was centred on Regent’s Park. Unfortunately, this had the effect of not only tearing out a chunk out of the city but it also took out Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street.”

Lucien and Sebastiano glanced at one another in shock.

“Who’s in power now?”

“We seem to be having a few problems ascertaining that at the moment, sir. Presumably the PM there had some kind of order in council like ours did, so one of the Ministers should be acting PM now but there seems to be rather a lot of chaos and confusion at the moment. The rest of the country seems to be experiencing some rather extensive flooding, with at least one tidal wave confirmed to have hit the southwestern part of the country.”

“As for France—they’re having extensive flooding as well. The northern half of the city of Lyon has now been replaced by a lake now, apparently. Unconfirmed reports have the same thing happening to several other towns and cities there.”

“Germany is also reporting some extensive flooding in many regions—and the cities of Mainz and Bonn have both had large sections of them turned into forests.”

“Italy seems to be suffering the same fates as the rest of Europe—lots of flooding reported everywhere. One third of Milan is now a forest. And a ten kilometre wide chunk of the north western part of Rome—centred in the Torrevecchia district—is now a swamp. Unfortunately, the Vatican was located four kilometres from that area, sir.”

“The Pope?” asked Lucien.

“Missing—along with nearly all the rest of the cardinals.”

“Oh boy…”

“As for the rest of the middle east – an anomaly, centred on the Mount of Olives, has replaced most of the Old City of Jerusalem with a forest.”

“The Temple Mount?”

“Gone.”

“Well—that’s one way to solve the ownership debate of that area.” muttered Sebastiano.

“In addition--”, continued Weinberg, ignoring Sebastiano “—most of Saudi Arabia appears to be underwater.”

Lucien leaned forward, resting his head in his hands.

“Is there any good news to tell me?”

A private walked in and handed a note to Weinberg and quickly left the room. Weinberg glanced down at the note and looked up.

“There might be some good news to tell you, sir. We managed to contact the U.S. President.”

It took a few moments to set up the connection.

Lucien, Sebastiano, Weinberg and several other military officers and aides were sitting around a speaker phone.

A series of shrill squeals and squawks erupted from the speaker and a voice came out.

“This is Special Agent Michael Baldwin here.”

“General Weinberg here.”

“Excellent. The connection is holding. The President –“. The voice paused as a second voice murmured something in the background too low to be heard. “--excuse me—Acting President will be on in just a few seconds.”

Weinberg nodded his head while Lucien glanced at the notes in front of him.

A second voice came on.

“Hello Prime Minster Robichaud. I hope I pronounced that correctly.”

Lucien raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. The pronunciation was actually better than what some of his unilingual English speaking colleagues had done with his name.

“Quite well, President…uh…Howery. I take it you took some French courses?”

“Actually I have some very distant French Canadian ancestry and had a great grandmother when I was a kid who insisted in speaking only in French but don’t spread that around. And I prefer the term Acting President, please.”

“Very well then, uh, Acting President Howery.”

“I take it that the rumours are true that Ottawa has been destroyed by this disaster?”

“Not destroyed but half the city is now a forest. And Washington?”

“Half of it turned into a swamp. Ten minutes later a 100 foot high tidal wave hit the city and destroyed anything that survived. As for the President and Vice-President—the President’s ranch was swept away by a tidal wave and Air Force Two disappeared off radar screens when the event occurred.”

“My condolences on the loss of life in your country, Mister Acting President.”

“And condolences on your losses. How badly did you fare?”

Lucien swallowed a lump in his throat before continuing.

“That question is a bit complicated. The number of dead is estimated to be about ten thousand but the number of people who have…vanished…now stands at just under three million.”

“Ten percent of the population…my God. How are …how are…you holding up?”

“As best as one can be expected under the circumstances. And you, Mister Acting President—how are you holding up?”

There was a deep sigh from the speaker.

“Yesterday, I was giving my first public speech as the new Secretary of Agriculture. I’ve only had the position for a few weeks. As you may know, my predecessor had to resign after that unfortunate scandal and I was looking forward to doing my job. I was giving a speech on the exciting opportunities of soybean subsidies--" Lucien could hear the sarcasm in Howery’s voice. "-to a bunch of farmers when the event occurred.”

“Now—I find myself the acting President of a shattered country that has at least thirty five million dead and missing people. As you said—I’m holding up as best as one can be expected to under the circumstances. I have to admit—on the list of disasters that I thought can occur—having pieces of the Jurassic replace our world was pretty far down the list.”

“Cretaceous period, actually.” piped up Sebastiano.

“Excuse me?”

“Uh—that was my science advisor, Mr. Lomagno. His dinosaur knowledge has been of immense help to us.”

“Dinosaur expert, huh? After our conversation is complete, do you mind if I have my people pick his brain for a bit? With your permission, of course.”

Lucien and Sebastiano glanced at one another, looks of confusion on their faces.

“Of course but…don’t you have some experts of your own?”

“Ha! I’ve got a whole army of experts! All kinds of guys with all kinds of fancy letters after their names! I’ve got an expert here on nearly every topic imaginable. Except dinosaurs! I seem to be the only guy here who knows anything about dinosaurs beyond what you’ve seen on the Jurassic Park trilogy.”

“That movie series sucked.” piped up Sebastiano.

“Liking you already, Mr. Lomagno.” said Howery.

“Mister President…” said Lucien

“Acting President…”

“Mister Acting President—do you have any ideas what’s happening in the rest of the world?”

“Not much more than what you people got. By the way—I understand that your troops in Afghanistan are assisting both our troops and the Brits—appreciate that.”

“Decent thing to do.”

“That may be in short supply these days. In any case—we do have one or two pieces of information you may not know. We managed to contact a few base commanders in Russia. Things there are…confused.”

“How so?”

“Well—for starters—nobody seems to agree on who’s in charge. Moscow, by all reports, seems to be in flames. Apparently an active volcano popped up on the outskirts of the city. Pretty much all the bigwigs in Moscow are either confirmed to be dead or missing. Needless to say—this is making cooperative efforts very complicated. However—we were able to drag some information out of them. Some of the Russian spy satellites are still operative and my people and their people went over the data.”

“Apparently—there is something very, very odd going on at the CERN facility in France….”