by Mike Kraus
“And that let this thing run rampant?”
“The code was in a testing state at the time. Under normal circumstances its capabilities would have been severely limited. Whoever broke in did so at the moment in time when the capabilities were all unlocked by default. That’s why it’s infecting every system it can without any discrimination.”
The Vice President sits down in his chair, his shoulders sagging as he rubs the bridge of his nose. He turns back and forth in the chair for a moment, trying to process the information he’s just been given. “You developed the most advanced cyber-weapon imaginable. Left it unlocked, on a system that was connected to the outside world. Someone broke in and stole the weapon and then turned it on.” He looks up at the man who was speaking a moment earlier. “Is that about right?”
“Yes sir.”
“And now we and everybody else in the world who’re not in the stone age is undergoing a total societal collapse.” The Vice President shakes his head and claps his hands together slowly in a mocking fashion. “Well done to you all. Well fucking done.”
An awkward silence fills the room and everyone avoids eye contact with the Vice President until he speaks again. “So what do we do now? Wipe this thing from our systems and reboot? Is that a thing? Can we do that?”
More nervous glances bounce between the people at the table before the man farther down the table speaks again. “That’s… not really possible, sir. Damocles has replicated itself across the globe. It’s infected every system there is. If we clean a system but it touches an infected system it’ll simply become infected again. We’ve tried getting in touch with the Cerberus team but they were in an area that was extremely hard hit.”
“Are they the most likely ones to know how to stop this?”
“Unless we can locate Dr. Evans, yes.”
“The one on Air Force One?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Vice President shakes his head and speaks to a man in a military uniform. “General, I want soldiers scouring the Cerberus facility. Work with these eggheads and do what they tell you. Find the people, computers, documents or whatever else we need.” He turns and looks at the man near the end of the table. “There are millions of people dying across the globe and we’re the ones responsible. You figure out how to stop this thing. I don’t care how. Figure it out, tell the General what you need and his men will get it for you.”
The Vice President stands up and turns to walk out of the room. “The rest of you figure out how we can salvage this country before it’s too far gone to do so. And find the President for God’s sake!”
Chapter 10
The Waters’ Homestead
Outside Ellisville, VA
When morning came and Mark went downstairs, Dianne was already down at the barns feeding the animals and finding the spare lumber, nails and a couple of hammers. The tablet was perched on a shelf near the door to the barn with the motion alarm for the camera in front of the house turned to its highest setting. The tablet was nearly out of range of the wireless signal in the house but enough data came through that Dianne could see the view on the camera change every few seconds.
Once the animals were taken care of and Dianne picked out enough boards to cover all of the windows on the bottom floor she headed back to the house, musing about the one weakness left that she wasn’t sure how to deal with. The sliding back door was all glass and while she initially thought about closing it off completely she realized that would cut off one of the three doors into the house that she and the kids might need in case of an emergency. Plus, she thought, it’d be nice to still have a good view of the property from the living room.
Dianne stood on the back porch for a few minutes before going inside, mulling over various options in her mind before coming to one that she found reasonably acceptable. Nailing boards over the stationary side of the door would cover up half of it and if she created a rudimentary door with more boards she could attach it to the others to create a makeshift door. Locking it would be solved by attaching a thick rope or piece of chain to the wood and threading it to something inside to keep it secure. It wouldn’t be pretty but it would allow them to retain the functionality of the back door.
Dianne headed back inside to find Mark in the kitchen cleaning up the table while Josie and Jacob finished the last few bites of their breakfast. Since the chickens were still producing more than enough eggs the go-to breakfast meal had become eggs, crackers and a can of fruit. Mark pulled a plate from the oven and put it on the table for Dianne and spooned out a couple slices of peaches that were sitting in the bottom of one of the cans. “I saved this for you.”
“Thanks, kiddo!” Dianne smiled and sat down. After quickly devouring her food she helped Mark finish cleaning up before sending Josie and Jacob to clean the upstairs of dirty clothes and toys. Once they were distracted she sat down with Mark and went over her plan with him.
“Clearly we still have some issues with security around the place.”
Mark giggled before trying to turn his expression serious. “Er, yeah. Sorry.”
Dianne smiled and shook her head. “No, you’re right to laugh. Of all the things we prepared for and got ready I never thought to secure the easiest way into the house. There’s no excuse for it.” Dianne’s smile faded. “That could have been a lot worse than it was.”
“I saw you were out at the barn when I got up. Did you find enough boards and stuff to close up the windows?”
“Yep, everything’s down there. We just have to bring it all up.” Dianne shook her head again. “We really need to get the aquaponics rolling down in the basement. Adding some nice leafy greens to our diets would be good. Today’s not that day, though, I guess.”
Over the next few hours Mark, Jacob, Josie and Dianne worked to move the lumber from the barn to the back porch of the house. The sun was bright and the temperature warmer than Dianne had expected which resulted in the snow starting to vanish before their very eyes. Trudging across the wet grass and dirt wasn’t that much more pleasant than going through the snow, though, and before long each of the four had mud streaking across their shoes, pants and—in Josie’s case—face.
Mark worked a small handsaw to cut misshapen boards to size while Jacob carried them back and forth to Dianne. Josie was in charge of handing Dianne the nails, four of which were used on each board. Dianne cringed at the first few boards she pounded into place across the beautiful siding of her house, but she knew that the actions were necessary to help ensure her family’s survival. Besides, she thought, it’ll add extra character for when Rick gets back.
It was mid-afternoon by the time they were done boarding up all of the windows. Dianne sat them all down on the back porch and went inside to heat up an early dinner while Mark sketched out a design for the covering on the rear sliding door. Dianne hadn’t realized how much darker the house was going to be with the windows boarded up, but she tried to keep a positive attitude despite the darkness. With soup in hand she headed out to the back patio and passed around bowls before sitting down to see what Mark had drawn.
“I think if we put the boards up vertically on the left side of the door like this, then add in a couple of horizontal ones for stability, we can just mount the hinges directly onto the horizontal boards.”
Dianne turned around to look at the sliding door and nodded. “I think that’s the best idea, yeah. Then we’ll just have the same setup on the right side, except it won’t get nailed in.”
“Yeah and I think we could mount some sort of hook on the inside doorframe to loop a rope or chain around. The only problem with that is the glass door won’t be able to shut all the way.”
“Hm. Well, with the hinges mounted so far out there’s going to be a gap there between the wood door and the sliding one. What if we just put an actual lock onto the doorframe in between the two doors. Just a slide lock or maybe a hook lock. We could put a couple of those on there, one at the top and one at the bottom.”
“I think we
have some of those in the barn somewhere. At least I think we do.”
“Yep, I think you’re right. That would be from Jacob’s six-month obsession with all types of locks.” Dianne smiled and tussled her younger son’s hair as she stood up. “All right, this sounds like a plan. Jacob, how about you and your sister get things cleaned up while Mark and I get started on this? Turn on an extra light in there, though. It’s pretty dark.”
With a few grumbles Josie and Jacob got to work as requested. While they washed and put away the bowls and pot Dianne started hammering in the vertical boards to the left outer side of the sliding doorframe. Mark ran down to the barn while she worked and dug around in old boxes until he found a plastic baggie filled with locks of various types and levels of rust and brought them back to the porch along with three heavy-duty hinges from a workbench.
“Think these’ll work?”
Dianne glanced at the baggie as she plucked a nail from between her lips and rested it against a board. “Yup. Perfect.”
In the span of two hours the finished section covering the left side of the glass door was completed and the right side was preassembled on the floor of the patio and ready to be put into place. Inside, on the couch, Dianne listened as Josie and Jacob watched a recorded TV show before glancing at the tablet propped up on a chair that showed the view of the security cameras. “Everything’s been really quiet today. No sign of that guy.”
“Maybe he won’t come back?” Mark offered the suggestion half-heartedly, believing in it about as much as Dianne did.
“I doubt that. But maybe. Okay, come on. Let’s lift this up and get it attached.” The solid iron hinges were one of the weak points of the back door, but Dianne knew full well that all of the wooden barricades around the windows and back door would mean nothing to someone who was determined to break in. They were designed to both obscure views inside the house from trespassers as well as offer Dianne and the children a few extra precious seconds to prepare a defense should an invasion become imminent. Someone could just as easily use a crowbar and elbow grease to pry off the boards from one of the windows as they could remove the hinges from the door.
“Up we go!” Dianne lifted the door up and Mark hammered in a couple of temporary nails through the hinges into the door to keep it in place. When he was done Dianne let go of the door slowly and helped him screw it to the hinges.
After another hour of adjusting hinges, adding more reinforcements and a pair of locks that attached to the frame of the sliding glass door, Jacob and Josie stood on the porch holding flashlights up as Mark and Dianne drove in the final nails and screws. When they were done, Dianne and Mark stepped back to admire what they built.
“All right, Jacob. Head inside, pull the door shut and lock it.” Dianne watched as Jacob did as she asked. The makeshift door covered the entirety of the sliding glass door and a small handle mounted on the inside of the wood made pulling it closed easy. A few seconds later, once both locks were engaged, Dianne stepped forward and began prying at the door to test how well it would hold. Even after jamming a screwdriver into the cracks between the boards to gain leverage she still couldn’t do more than pry the door out by a millimeter or two. Satisfied that the door would do she released it and stepped back.
“Okay, looks good from out here. Open it up again.” Jacob opened the locks and pushed the door open and Dianne nudged Mark and smiled at him.
“Well done, kiddo. We did a good job today.”
Mark nodded and smiled back as he looked at the door. “It’s not the best looking thing in the world, is it?”
“Nah, but that’s okay. It works and that’s what matters.” Dianne patted Mark on the back. “Come on, let’s get inside. I’m beat.”
After sending Josie and Jacob upstairs to get themselves ready for bed Dianne and Mark cleaned up the tools from the back porch and stacked the spare lumber along the side. There was enough left between what was on the porch and what she didn’t pull from the barn that she started thinking about shoring up more of the tunnel beneath the house. That, however, would be a project for a different day.
Chapter 11
Somewhere in Utah
Driving north along I-15 was an exercise in boredom. The land was mostly flat and covered with sparse patches of grass, dirt and low hills that jutted out of the ground. The lack of deep ditches or any semblance of uneven terrain made it easy for Rick to go off-road when he was in between cities. Passing through cities had become a thousand times easier thanks to the GPS unit he picked up and he could tell that he was making much better time than before.
Rick had never been in the military, but after driving for a few hours in the Humvee he concluded that people who drove and rode in Humvees all day must stuff their pants with pillows or very small mattresses. Even when driving on the highway Rick could feel every single imperfection in the road. The few minor bumps off-road reminded him time and time again that all of the painkillers he had taken from a first aid kit beneath one of the seats were doing absolutely no good.
As the Humvee started running low on fuel Rick began studying the GPS along long open stretches of road to decide where he would stop to try and get more diesel. Large cities were out of the question as he knew they would have already been ransacked. Smaller towns and isolated stations would likely have been hit as well, but he figured there would be a slightly higher chance of finding something there.
He settled on Paragonah, a tiny town that was located just off of the Interstate a few miles down the road. There weren’t more than two dozen intersections in the entire town and it was just outside a larger city by the name of Parowan. He hoped that if people were evacuating and escaping from the area that they would go to the larger city instead of the smaller, or that there would at least be a few less people around in Paragonah than in Parowan. After driving through Parowan, Rick pulled off the highway and smashed through a low wooden fence on his way to Paragonah. The detour caused him slightly more pain but saved several minutes of weaving around destroyed cars along the highway.
Although Rick had noticed the level of destruction in the towns and cities he passed by, it wasn’t until he was actually driving through one of them that he realized just how bad things had gotten. In the small town with a population of less than five hundred there were dozens of destroyed cars in the streets, swaths of houses and small shops that had burned to the ground and a feeling of unease that accompanies disasters of all types and sizes.
When Rick got about halfway through the small town he spotted one of the two things he was looking for the most: a gas station. Like the other station he stopped at the pumps at the station in town had burned to the ground but there was a dump truck parked nearby that looked untouched. Rick pulled up next to the truck and turned off the Humvee. Grabbing his rifle he climbed into the back and opened the hatch to the top where he stood, holding the rifle in both hands while he surveyed the area around him.
Burned buildings dotted the view on the side of the street opposite the gas station. On Rick’s side, however, most of them looked relatively intact, or at least they didn’t appear burned. Windows were broken, façades had been torn down and trash and debris was scattered everywhere. A chilled wind cut through the street, sending old newspapers and plastic bags tumbling and soaring, but there was no sign of any other movement anywhere he looked.
“Nice and creepy.” Rick shook his head and sighed. “Just what I hate the most. A creepy-ass town that’s completely deserted. Only slightly better than one where everyone’s trying to kill you or steal your stuff.”
Rick slithered back down inside the Humvee and sealed the hatch before jumping out. Keeping the rifle in hand he went over to the dump truck and opened one of the fuel tanks on the side, then shone the light at the end of the rifle down inside. He kicked the tank and saw liquid sloshing around close to the top and nodded with satisfaction. “Excellent. Now to get that stuff into the tank.” After another glance around Rick headed down a side street, looking into
the front yards of each house he passed. The third house on his side of the road contained exactly what he was looking for. He trotted across the yard up to the side of the house, unscrewed the garden hose coiled up next to some bushes and carried it back to the Humvee.
Once there he opened up the Humvee and grabbed the tool bag out of the back. Using a knife inside the bag he cut a length of the garden hose about four feet long and another length about six inches long. Setting the lengths of hose to the side on the ground he unstrapped one of the cans of diesel fuel from the side of the Humvee and began filling the Humvee with the fuel from the can. Once both cans were emptied and he checked the fuel level of the vehicle and saw it was nearly full again he brought the empty cans over to the truck.
Rick pushed the longer length of hose down into the open tank and stuck the other end into one of the open jerry cans. He then opened the cab of the truck and searched around until he found a particularly filthy looking undershirt, wrapped it around the middle of the shorter piece of tubing and then stuck the shorter piece of tubing into the tank. With the old undershirt jammed up against the gap between the two hoses to form a makeshift seal he put his mouth around the short length of hose and gave a sharp, powerful blow.
The change in pressure inside the tank forced the fuel to rise up through the garden hose, and a second later it was siphoning into the empty fuel can. Rick flashed a grin, pleased that a video he had watched on the internet at two in the morning years ago had finally come in handy. Once the first can was half full Rick stuck the hose into the second can and used the first to completely fill the Humvee. As the second can continued filling he went inside the gas station, emboldened by his success, and began searching for any more containers that he could use to turn into makeshift jerry cans.
The only bottles he could find that were suitable were water bottles, and they were full and intact, sitting in the back room of the gas station on a shelf. He briefly considered dumping half of them out and filling them with fuel but decided against it, knowing full well that the water could be desperately needed later down the road.