Chapter One: When the Sun Returned, I Didn't

“Thirty meters lower, Lu!” the livestream director shouted in his headset. “Thread the towers. Keep the black sun centered!” “That's inside the exclusion zone.” “No one cares about exclusion zones tonight!” Lu ignored him. The viewer count had passed twenty million, comments pouring down like an avalanche. Eclipse chasers from across the world had flooded Spain. Some had chartered ships; others had booked mountain campsites two years in advance. Lu was merely a Chinese freelance aerial cinematographer hired to manufacture fifteen miraculous seconds for their global celebration. Totality lasted one minute and forty-two seconds. At the ninety-third second, a black line crossed his monitor.