Jon, Court, and Dylan remained in the grass. Court looked broken. Dylan was fiddling with his phone. Jon had pulled off his coat, wadded it up, and was using it for a pillow. Even as Sam approached, the guy rolled over to go to sleep.
Enough!
He stomped up, irritated to the point he’d forgotten his aches. If he’d learned anything in The Yucateca, it was that a person didn’t quit until the job was finished.
“Come on, guys. Let’s go ask Frank what he needs us to do.”
“He’s getting paid,” Jon muttered, yawning, not even bothering to open his eyes.
“Yeah, and I’m—”
“This is weird,” Dylan interrupted.
“You’ve got cell service?” Sam fought the urge to reach for his iPhone.
“Yeah. One bar. I got the news. Shock and awe. Internet’s burning. Surreal, man.” And then he said the words that would be burned into Sam’s brain: “Banks aren’t going to reopen.”
Jon opened his eyes, sitting up. “What do you mean?”
“They’re still closed.”
“Like, yeah. It’s Saturday, Dude.”
“Chaos in the streets. The credit cards still aren’t working. People are flipping, dude.”
Sam—still stung by Amber’s assessment—said, “Yeah, well, they’ll figure it out. Now get your asses up. We’re going to go help Frank.”
“Do what?” Jon asked truculently.
“Whatever he says. Now move.”
“Who made you boss?”
“Amber.”
All it took was the mention of Amber’s name, and the three of them struggled, moaning and whimpering, to their feet.
Pampered males?
Not on Sam’s watch.
Chain Reaction
Whoever initiated the cyberattack probably did it to cripple the American economy. The sort of attack meant to weaken us enough that we wouldn’t be able to react to some action they wanted to take in the Middle East, the South China Sea, or Eastern Europe. Maybe it was a way to strengthen their hand in a trade dispute. Maybe it was a bunch of teenage hackers in a basement in Cleveland.
The moment the Fed put a “Freeze” on the system. When credit cards were suddenly declined across the board, it began to cascade.
The “American Standard” sets the tone in global banking. Within twenty-four hours, the South American banks, which depend on American banks, failed. Banco Santander de Brazil would have gone down first, followed by Banco Santander de Chile. Globally, the bond market would have deflated. By no later than Monday, the European banks would have been frozen in an attempt to stop the inevitable collapse.
No matter how heroic the efforts, the big Asian banks would have followed. End game.
And that’s assuming the malware that corrupted the accounts remained contained to North America. If it didn’t? If it rode on the coattails of money transfers? Then entire world banking system would have been frozen within twenty-four hours.
— Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.
Chapter Eight
The pack string came in about an hour later with Brandon and Dr. Holly riding out in front. Sam was working on the wood crew as they “bucked up” lengths of fallen trees that Frank, and his horse Joker, snaked out of the timber with a lasso.
Call it a world of awesome. Like something come alive out of a history book. Frank would have one of the guys put the loop of his rope around the fallen timber—usually a lodgepole pine—then he would “take a dally”, which meant wind his rope around the saddle horn. He’d put spurs to Joker, and sawing back and forth, horse and rider would skid the log out and drag it to be cut up.
None of them were allowed to use the chainsaw—that was Frank’s baby. Said he didn’t want to pack any of them out after they’d cut their legs off. Something about taking too much effort to get the blood out of the saddle blankets.
Western humor took some getting used to.
As soon as Frank bucked lengths, Sam and his crew carried them over to the firewood stack. Sam sort of figured Amber would start the fire with a fire-bow and a chokecherry-stick dowel. Instead she sloshed Coleman fuel on the wood...and tossed a lit match into the middle of it. Whoosh!
Ah, the shattered illusions.
Sam got a whole different perspective on Dr. Holly that day. Not only did the man ride like a cowboy, turned out he loved horse packing. Born in Massachusetts, Holly had come west as a hippie; he’d worked as an outfitter and guide when he was young, which is how he’d come to admire the Sheep Eaters in the first place. He’d stumbled across their camps, marveled at the country that had been their home.
When the last of the packs had been stowed, and the mules had rolled and gone off to drink below the spring, Frank showed them where to set up their tents. Again, it turned out to be a group activity—one barely finished before dinner was ready.
Chili with chunks of meat along with mashed potatoes, gravy, and something called “scratch” biscuits cooked in the fire in a Dutch oven, were served up on paper plates.
Evening was settling over the high country, casting long purple shadows down over the valleys, the temperature dropping.
The breeze began to tease, blowing smoke from the fire this way and that. Kirstin was horrified that she was getting ash in her hair.
Danielle somehow managed to figure out the balancing act required to keep her plate on her knee, eat with one hand, and scroll her thumb over her phone screen with the other.
“Jesus,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“Happened where?” Jon asked, popping a can of beer as he balanced his plate and seated himself on a log.
Danielle squinted at her screen. “The headline is ‘Meltdown.’ It’s all spelled in capital letters with lots of exclamation points.”
“Stop reading the headlines,” Shanteel muttered, digging her own phone from a back pocket. “Shit. Battery’s dead.”
By now everyone was fishing for his or her phones. Depending upon the carrier, some worked better than others on the one bar of power that faded in and out. Half the time the signal just vanished.
Dylan read from his phone: “A shaken Tony Morris, CEO of BankUltra, the nation’s number-two financial institution, is appealing for calm and assuring BU’s account holders that BU is leaving no stone unturned to reestablish service by the time the banks open on Tuesday.
“Meanwhile, Timothy Crabner, a leading authority on the banking industry, insists that such a universal collapse of the system should be impossible. In a statement, Mr. Crabner insisted, ‘This isn’t just a simple malware. While a single institution might have had problems, for credit card use to be declined across the country at precisely twelve fifty-nine EST can only be a calculated attack on the American banking system by outside interests. Ladies, and gentlemen, this is a cyberattack more insidious and damaging than Pearl Harbor.’”
“Bullshit.” Dr. Holly stood outside the ring of seats. “They have to have backup systems. Banks have the best cyber security on the planet.”
Everyone was tapping on their phones, then lifting them to their ears. Trying to call home, Sam guessed. From the expressions, and the way they lowered the devices, he could tell no one was getting through. Towers must have been jammed solid.
Amber muttered, “Whoever did this? They’re playing with fire. People are pissed off as it is. What are they after? Blood in the streets?”
“I’m with Evan. Pretty tough to believe,” Frank added where he stood back from the fire. “Everyone’s credit card? The whole country? That would take a... What?”
“A really super-sophisticated malware could do it,” Court said where he huddled over his plate. “Something so deeply coded it would look benign. Sort of like they did in Hard Flash.”
“What’s Hard Flash?” Shyla asked, waving away the smoke that drifted her way.
“One of the games on MP7,” Court told her. “The Chinese crash the banking system using a malware that triggers its own replication. It implements
a delete program, one that runs in nanoseconds. Before anyone can realize what’s happening, everyone’s financial records are gone. In the game you have to fight your way out of the city before you get killed by gangs.”
“Can they do that? Crash the system?” Amber asked softly. “Seriously, Court?”
He shrugged, still not looking up. “Banks are all tied together, wiring billions of dollars back and forth millions of times a minute. It’d take a huge amount of computation. Something real fast. I mean, you could do it with a quantum qubit computer and the right program. Tricky though, you’d have to have the malware already in the system. Hidden deep. And it would have to be everywhere.” Court paused. “Banks have identifying codes. To be able to hit one bank and not another? Got to be a qubit computer.”
“What’s a qubit computer?” Dr. Holly asked.
Court finally looked up. “To understand you’ve got to be familiar with quantum mechanics, but essentially a regular computer runs on I and O. Current on or off. Binary, right? A quantum computer runs at the atomic level. Charge positive or negative and spin up or down. Quaternary. Four choices, which increases computation by a power of four.”
Frank was staring thoughtfully at the fire. “So, even if someone built one of these things, and the virus, or whatever, was out there, sure, we’re going to be inconvenienced while they chase down the bug. But it’s just a matter of fixing it, right? Writing some new security code?”
Court shrugged. “Depends on how they engineered it, I guess.”
“Wow. I finally got service,” Ashley said as she studied her screen. “The president has issued a state of national emergency. Says it was a cyberattack. Asks that people don’t panic, and that they remain calm. That people should stay home and...”
She shook her phone as if that would fix the problem. “Lost it.”
“I lost mine, too,” Dylan muttered, raising his phone high and swiveling it about in an attempt to get just the right angle for reception.
Sam had fished out his own iPhone, powered it up. After tapping in his security code, he caught himself doing the same, offering it this way and that to the gods of reception. Getting nothing.
Amber had been frowning at the fire, eating slowly, her wedge of a face grim. “Good thing we got here when we did. Imagine being out on I-80, half a continent away from home.”
She looked around. “No credit cards? Pooled together, we’d probably have enough cash to get part way home. But what happens when the cash runs out?”
“You’d have to get to a bank,” Frank said. “Have funds wired to wherever you were stranded.”
“Yeah,” Pam agreed. “You and a million other people who are just as desperate. Think the banks have enough staff on hand to handle that?”
“Uh,” Jon reminded, “FDIC ordered the banks closed, people.”
Amber shook her head. “This is going to cost the economy trillions. And even after all this time, we’ve barely recovered from COVID as it is.”
“Whoever did this is gonna get their asses kicked,” Brandon announced darkly. He’d dropped to a crouch, plate on his knees, the spurs on his booted heels almost touching his rear. “God help ‘em if it’s the Chinese. Beijing will glow in the dark.”
At that point, the coyotes chimed in, their warbling howls sounding lonely as they faded into the distance.
Sam could see Shanteel’s expression harden. She clearly had no use for Brandon, as if the dislike were instinctual.
“Hope Dad’s okay,” Kirstin said after finally giving up on her phone. She’d been trying to send a text. “He’s in Zurich.”
“Their banks are still functioning,” Amber said. “Or they were, last we heard.”
“What if his credit card is no good at the hotel? What if none of the restaurants take his card?”
“Why’s he there?” Dr. Holly asked.
“Business. Something for the Commerce Department.”
“Government?” Frank asked. “They take care of their own.”
“It’s the ordinary people who get screwed,” Brandon agreed, missing the flare of anger that reddened Kirstin’s face.
Sam tried to tamp down the building tension. “And we thought we’d be the ones with stories to tell? People will be talking about this for years. ‘Remember the time the credit cards were suddenly no good? Why, Uncle Albert and me, we had to trade a box of donuts for a package of kosher wieners.’”
“That a joke?” Danielle asked. “Just ‘cause I don’t keep the diet doesn’t mean I don’t take it personally.”
“I was referring to the relative values of foods by invoking cynical irony,” Sam growled back.
“What if I made a joke about Puerto Ricans? How they can’t balance a check book, let alone a budget?” Her dark eyes were fixed on Sam’s.
“Joke away. The Delgados were Mexicans a couple of generations past.”
“That will be enough,” Amber warned. “Just because the rest of the country is turning on itself doesn’t mean we have to.”
“Yeah.” Sam nodded. “Sorry, Danielle.”
“Shalom,” she said with a faint smile. “Means peace, you know?”
He extended a fist, and she gave it a gentle bump with her own.
The Tappans had watched them with expressionless faces, but Sam knew they were taking it all in. The divisions, the way they all dealt with each other.
Everyone was thinking about what was happening back at home. About how their families and friends were doing, about the trouble this whole credit card thing was causing. Just another monkey wrench thrown into a world that was already growing more dysfunctional by the day.
People were realizing that not even their personal finances could be counted on.
“I say we consider it a day, people.” Amber tossed her paper plate into the fire. Easiest way Sam had ever seen to “do the dishes”. If they’d served meals on paper plates in The Yucateca, he could have had a normal childhood.
Amber stood. “Jon, Shyla, Ashley, you have breakfast detail. Wake up call for you will be at five-thirty. The rest of you can sleep until six.”
“Okay, let’s move, people,” Sam said, sending his plate after Amber’s.
He hung around, keeping an eye on things as everyone trickled away toward the tents in twos and threes, talking about the credit card thing and what it meant. In the distance, the coyote pack added to the sense of drama as they broke out in song. From off to the east, another pack answered.
Sam figured he and the crew were becoming old “mountain” hands, now. No one even remarked on the coyotes anymore.
The last to leave the fire were Shanteel and Brandon, who seemed to be in some sort of weird staring match, each with a hard expression, distaste in the sets of their mouths.
“Come on,” Sam told Shanteel. “Morning comes early.”
She gave him a dismissive nod and walked off.
Sam swallowed hard, glancing back at Brandon. A smoldering look lay behind the young man’s eyes.
What’s A Dollar?
Assuming you still have one, pull out a dollar bill. What is it, exactly? A stiff piece of paper that’s probably been crumpled. Green ink on one side. Black on the other. Intricate artwork depicting a dead president, a seal, the all-seeing eye atop the Masonic pyramid. Good for all debts public and private. “In God We Trust.”
In the survey course, Introduction to Economics 101, we learn that money is a store of value, a unit of account, and a medium of exchange. But, hey, it’s all abstract, right?
A unit of account? Why a dollar? Or Yen? Or Pound Sterling? Or Euro?
A medium of exchange? Why give someone paper dollar for a fried chicken leg when a .22 cartridge would be much more equitable?
A store of value? Look at your dollar and tell me what value that paper and ink has.
When it comes right down to it, money is faith. Trust that your fellows will share the value you place in it.
No wonder it was so easy to destroy.
— Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.
Chapter Nine
The following morning dawned with no improvement in the cell service. No calls possible in or out. Nothing. Not even an update to anyone’s news apps. Batteries were running low or flat dead.
First thing, Amber set up one of the solar panels and plugged it into her laptop. With that power source and a USB, the phones could at least be charged. Everyone crowded around.
“I’ll change the phones out,” Pam promised as the last of the breakfast pots and pans had been washed and set out on a drain board to dry.
Sam wasn’t sure that many of the students trusted her with their prized mobile devices. Which didn’t make any sense. What was Pam going to do? Steal them? Run off and hock them to the nearest grizzly bear?
Amber and he had been working since dawn, unpacking the pin flags, the survey station and datum stakes, the notebooks and GPS equipment. Sam made sure the camera was charged, and both of the lenses worked.
Frank and Brandon had left just after sunrise, driving the herd of mules and most of the horses back down the trail. The three horses, including Pam’s mare, that were tied at the picket rope made a terrible racket whinnying and stomping as they swished their tails.
“Frank’s horses aren’t tied together,” Sam noted. “Won’t some of them get lost?”
Dr. Holly lifted an amused eyebrow. “Kid, those critters know exactly where they are going. They’ll be back at the ranch in a couple of hours at most, each and every one of them expecting a bait of grain for a reward. Always trust a horse to get home.”
When the last of the water bottles had been passed out, Dr. Holly led the way, climbing up out of the camp hollow on a game trail that skirted the outside of the grove of raggedy-looking pine trees.
The site wasn’t far, maybe a quarter mile and a couple hundred feet higher than camp. But dang! Suddenly they were wishing for the horses. It was the altitude of course. They just weren’t used to eight thousand feet. Took the crew almost half an hour to climb up to the grassy shoulder of the mountain.
Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One Page 7