Next week being the Passover Public holiday, and also the start of Easter Week in the Christian world, the Area of the Mount was thronged with visitors, The city itself was starting to fill with pilgrims again, the Via Dolorosa through the old city was crowded with visitors from several denominations, the souvenir shops doing a brisk trade for the first time since December twenty-fifth. One of the main attractions was still there, the so called, laser beam, and the bubbling magma around its base, and today was no different. The barriers were, as usual, being guarded by the specially formed Temple Guard, who ensured the safety of visitors, but at this time there was something different about the Mount, or the beam. The guard stood looking from one to another, not quite knowing what was different, but feeling that something was. After several minutes, everyone was in no doubt about what the difference was, the slight hum that had always been there, just outside of the human audio range, had grown into a heavy buzzing, that could also be felt in the stomach. The buzzing continued to grow in volume and lower in frequency until the very ground was shaking.
Then, just as the onlookers started to run for cover, and on the stroke of mid-day, the rumble stopped, just as if someone had switched it off. People stopped running and looked back, the beam that had become a part of the Jerusalem scene, has gone, disappeared. The magma was also receding back into the hole, the uppermost layer already cooling to form pumice. Most of the guards had thrown themselves flat on the ground and they now started to climb back to the vertical position, as confused as any visitor. Then someone shouted “Look!” people looked in all directions until they saw the shouter pointing sky-ward. Within seconds every head was craning backward to look at the sky above them, the clouds that had covered all of the Earth for so long, were parting, and parting directly above where the beam and the circle of blue sky, had been. It started as the small round hole, and rapidly expanded. Ten minutes later there was blue sky all the way to the horizon and the sun was shining again, but the Sun looked pink or pale red in colour. Subsequently the light had a rosy hue, giving the scene an ethereal look, almost like looking like one of those old photographic negatives.
As usual the transposition of the, so called, 'God Tapes' was continuing as it had for the past several years. The media had by this time grown tired of the daily updates and the only interested parties these days were the academics and Bible experts. Just before eleven o'clock the room started shaking, the chief technician, who also acted as safety officer, shouted “Earthquake, everyone out.” The UN staff operating the equipment immediately started to leave toward the emergency exit that had been cut just after the UN had taken possession of the site. At exactly eleven o'clock all power was lost to the control room and the emergency lighting came on. The shaking continued and the rock of the roof cracked. Chunks of rock started to fall, crushing the control panels and desks. Only four of the twenty-two staff managed to get out before the total collapse of the facility.
It was a normal Saturday morning for the Markson family, Peter and Jo were back for the Easter holidays and they had just enjoyed a leisurely family breakfast together. Normal that is; until John Moffat arrived and asked everyone to come outside.
“What's up John,” asked Jim.
“Come and look for yourself,” was all that John would say. The family trooped out of the dining room in time to see the line of cloud racing away to the west, leaving behind a pure azure sky.
Jim looked at John and then Peter, who read his mind as Jim shouted, “Everyone into the underground archive, quickly.” All five ran as fast as they could as
Jim kept shouting to other members of staff to get below ground. They reached the archive complex and closed the protective steel doors.
“What's going on,” asked Doctor Wade, who's domain had long since been the archive together with it laboratory, and who rarely spent time anywhere else.
“It may be,” gasped Jim, trying to get his breath, “an atomic bomb blast.”
“Where, I don't hear anything,” said Wade.
“We just saw the cloud line chase away to the west, like it was a blast front,” Jim informed the Doctor.
“I should think that if a blast front pushed the cloud back like that it would also have pushed you and anything on the surface back at the same time,” explained Doctor Wade.
“You're right, I guess we just panicked,” said John feeling rather silly. Everyone made their way back to the surface and gently opened the steel doors. Outside was blue sky and sunshine, however the light had a slightly pink or orange quality, “There's a site we ain't' seen for a while,” he said, in fact, I don’t ever remember see a Sun that colour.”
“Just in time for the holiday,” added Jim, as he basked in the sunlight. He suddenly realised that the temperature had risen several degrees since they had dashed into the archive. 'How pleasant' he thought, as he removed his jacket.