Super Pulse (Book 1): The Grid Goes Black

by Dave Conifer

  The existence of the roadblock was an encouraging sign in many ways to the physics professor. It was unclear who had authorized the barrier, which stretched across the foot of the bridge in both directions. But whoever it had been, they had the power and the means to do it. That likely came from the government. Maybe society hadn’t broken down completely, after all. Maybe there was hope.

  “This looks like more trouble than the others, doesn’t it?” Dee asked, breaking the silence.

  “Yeah,” Carlo said. “It might take two or three shots to blast our way through, not just one. Leave it to me.”

  Frustrated by the beckoning green spires of the bridge that rose behind the roadblock, Roethke momentarily lost patience. “We’re not shooting our way through this one, Carlo. This one’s for real, and we have to be careful here. Use your head. This wasn’t thrown up by a bunch of crazies who look like Robinson Crusoe.”

  “You got a better idea, Professor?” Carlo asked.

  “Yeah,” Roethke answered. As he spoke, he could hear Carlo scrambling to prepare his arsenal. “It’s called having a clue. Stand down. Put your toys away until we can think this through. Do you really think that somebody built this, but then left it unguarded?” He knew Carlo would submit to the chain of command, but even so, he was relieved at the sudden quiet in the back of the van.

  He looked around, trying to decide what they could do. There was nobody around. That made sense. Nobody lived alongside a major highway in a place like this. There were some office buildings and a state police barracks on one side, and a plain, two-story structure connected to the row of tollbooths. There were plenty of cars among the trash that had accumulated; some abandoned on the highway and others parked in lots outside the buildings. The ones in the lots had probably been parked by workers who thought they were going in for a routine day shift on that fateful day when it had all started.

  “Have you seen anybody at all?” Roethke asked the others. “There’s got to be somebody watching this barrier. But where are they?”

  “Inside one of these buildings, I’m guessing,” Dee said. “But there’s something going on here that we don’t understand. We need to think about this, and go slow.”

  “Well, it looks like slow time is over,” Carlo said as he peered out the back door of the van. “Here come a couple of GI Joes.”

  “What? Soldiers?” Dee asked.

  “Hallelujah,” Roethke said softly. “I thought everybody was gone.”

  “They’re a couple of sad sack army reservists, it looks like,” Carlo said. “They’ve each got a sidearm.”

  “Make sure you don’t have one on you, Carlo,” Roethke said as he watched the men approaching in the side mirror. “We don’t need any trouble. This is exactly what we’ve been looking for this whole time. These men either know something, or know somebody who does.” He rolled down his window and waited for the reservists.

  “Sir, you can’t be here,” the chubby one said.

  “Why not?” Roethke asked, playing devil’s advocate as he fished for information. “I’ve driven through here hundreds of times.”

  “It’s, uh, a restricted area,” said the other reservist, the one with the glasses, by way of explanation.

  “Restricted by who?” Roethke asked.

  “Friendly warning, sir,” Chubby said. “You need to leave.”

  “If it’s so important, why weren’t you out here guarding it?” Roethke asked.

  Glasses looked at Chubby, who shrugged helplessly. “That’s not your concern.”

  “Look,” Roethke said. “We get it. You’re a couple of amateurs. We’re not trying to give you a hard time or make you look bad. My name’s Dr. Ted Roethke. I’m a physicist at Penn.”

  "That doesn't matter sir," Chubby said. "We have orders--"

  "Let me ask you something," Roethke said, interrupting. "What's your real area of expertise? What do you do for a living when you're not playing weekend warrior? Do you make donuts? Deliver furniture?"

  "It doesn't matter, sir. As a representative of the United States government I, uh, have the authority to order you to leave."

  "So there's still a government, after all," Roethke remarked. “What happened to the world? What can you tell us? That’s all we really want. We’re not really trying to get onto your bridge. We just want information.”

  “It was an EMP,” Chubby said. “If you know what that is.”

  “I do,” Roethke said. “As I told you, I'm a nuclear physicist. I know exactly what it is. So who did it? How widespread is it? How was it done?”

  "That's classified," Glasses said, chiming in.

  "Don't be ridiculous," Roethke said. "I'm not convinced you even know what that means. Look, with all due respect, I need to talk to somebody above your pay grade. Where's your commanding officer?" He pointed to the buildings from which the two reservists had come. "In there?"

  "Yes, but-"

  "But nothing," Roethke said. "I'm going inside. I'd appreciate it if you could escort us, and make proper introductions."

  The reservists looked at each other. Chubby shrugged. "Both of you?"

  "All three of us," Roethke said.

  "There are three of you?"

  "Professor, I better stay," Carlo said from the back. "We don't want to leave our wheels unattended. And a few other things."

  "She can't go, either," Chubby said. "We'll take you back to see the Major, I guess. But only you."

  "I'll make a deal with you," Roethke said. "Dee comes too, and I don't tell your commanding officer that you were inside chugging coffee and eating Krispy Kremes when we drove right up to foot of the bridge and parked without being challenged."

  Chubby laughed. That's when Roethke knew he had him. "Okay, you got a deal."

  ~~~

  Dee ended up staying back with Carlo anyway, thinking that she would learn more outside than inside. When the reservists introduced Roethke to Major Damion Hall, it was immediately awkward. Hall couldn't have looked more surprised at the interruption. Based on his expression, Roethke was certain that Chubby and Glasses were going to receive a serious chewing out later that day. Major Hall, in a uniform that was more crisp and creased than anything Roethke had seen since this all started, was definitely regular army, and looked like he had been for a long time. Glasses walked around behind the desk, arousing even more shock on the Major's face, and whispered something that Roethke couldn't hear. When the reason for Roethke's presence was explained, the major weighed the situation for a moment before dismissing the reservists and waving Roethke into a chair.

  "So, Doctor, what can I do for you? I understand you had some questions that my boys couldn't answer."

  “I’ll bet that’s a phrase you find yourself using often, Major,” Roethke said. “Neither of those men are particularly bright, are they? I’m surprised they knew how to open a door.”

  Hall cleared his throat. “What can I do for you?” he repeated.

  "Ah, yes. First off, thank you for seeing me, Major," Roethke said. "I have more questions than you can imagine. What happened out there? Were they correct that this was all caused by an electro-magnetic pulse?"

  "They were correct," Hall said. "What else did they tell you?"

  "Not much," Roethke said. "Neither of them seemed to know how to spell EMP, so I gave up on them. Who did this to us? I'm assuming it was done deliberately. How widespread is it?"

  "Let's get some ground rules straight here, Doctor," Hall said. "You didn't hear this from me, whatever I end up telling you. Understood?"

  "Well, sure," Roethke said. "But why does it have to be a secret?"

  "Maybe it doesn't," Hall admitted. "Even so, I don't have the authority to brief a civilian. But I'm going to do it anyway. As far as I’m concerned, nobody owns this information. Everybody has a right to know what happened."

  "So who did it?" Roethke asked. “Was it the Chinese?”

  “The technical folks are still studying what little evidence they have,” Hall sa
id. “But, to make a long story short, most of them are already on record as saying that this happened naturally. They say it was caused by something that happened on the sun.”

  “The sun?” Roethke asked. “You mean solar flares on the surface of the sun? I guess it was only a matter of time. I never gave it much chance of ever happening in my lifetime. Guess I was wrong.”

  Hall picked up a report from his desk and waved it. “That’s what it says in here,” he answered. He squinted at the first page. “They called it a ‘solar storm’ here, but it must be the same type of thing.”

  “Can I have a copy of that, by any chance?” Roethke asked.

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  “Yeah. Well, anyway, that’s very interesting,” Roethke said. “How sure are they?”

  "They’re not. Nobody’s sure about anything. And to answer your other question, it's nearly the entire country that’s down. Mexico and Canada got hit, too. There are a few hot spots in the Midwest, but not many. They’re not expected to stay online much longer. Once the grid started going down, it was a domino effect. Anything that didn’t crash immediately, well, ends up crumbling in the aftermath."

  "Domino effect?" Roethke asked.

  "Turns out our grid wasn't as, let's say, robust as we had hoped," Hall explained. "It was actually rather brittle. Some of the hardware was sixty, seventy, eighty years old. Or more, even. A good percentage of it got blasted by the sun, and the rest of it fell apart. At least that’s what they tell me."

  “Why weren’t we prepared for something like this?” Roethke asked. "Didn't anybody see this coming?"

  "You're a man of science," Hall asked. "Did you?"

  "It's not my job to," Roethke snapped back.

  “Then whose job is it?” Hall spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. "A lot of military minds saw it coming, I'll tell you that. We were a lot better prepared than anybody in the civilian world. Political leaders aren't too keen on spending billions of dollars to protect against something they don't think will happen. Especially something they have a hard time explaining to the voters, because they don't understand it themselves."

  "You mean our military equipment didn't get fried?" Roethke asked.

  "Not all of it. A lot of it is intact," Hall said. "Unless it depends on the grid or the internet. As far as the military goes, we spent the money and hardened up for this over the last decade or two. It's just the civilian world that got blown away. You think those two fellows who brought you in are getting around on horseback?"

  “Understood, Major,” Roethke said. He rubbed his chin as he thought about what he’d just learned. “So where’s the rest of the world if we’re the only ones who got hit? Nobody’s stepping up to help us? Why haven’t I seen a single plane in the sky? Aren’t there any international flights anymore?”

  “Well, for one thing, the airports can’t handle the traffic,” Hall said. “Their systems are fried. We got word out that we don’t want any foreign aircraft in our skies. Not that we could do much about it, but they don’t know that. As far as help from our friends goes, we’re really not sure how far this went around the globe. At least I’m not. Everything’s on a need-to-know basis right now, and apparently I don’t need to know that.”

  “Understood,” Roethke said. “This is exactly why I was sent here. To find out the type of things that you just told me. Because it feels like we’re completely on our own out there. Until today, I’d seen no sign at all that our government even exists anymore. And I’d have expected some help from the outside world.”

  Hall rose and walked to the door, which he gently closed, before returning to his desk. “There’s something else I haven’t told you,” he said. “Something I’ve picked up just by listening. Nothing that I’m supposed to know. Let me remind you that you didn’t hear this from me. Are we straight on that?”

  Roethke’s eyes widened. He was about to hear something big. “Of course, Major.”

  “It appears that there are some boats parked off the East Coast. We don’t know how many, who they are, or why they’re there. We only know they’re there at all by the spike in radio chatter. There’s definitely somebody out there. And that might have something to do with your question about where all the aid from our friends might be.” He paused, as if he wanted to allow the message to sink in. “We may have been blockaded.”

  “But I thought you said this EMP wasn’t man-made?” Roethke asked.

  “I did,” Hall answered. “And we don’t think it was. But who’s to say that somebody doesn’t see an opportunity to take advantage of?”

  “You don’t know who it is out there?” Roethke asked. “Can’t you tell by what they’re saying on the radio? The language, at least?”

  Hall nodded. “I said the same thing. It turns out that they’re not actually intercepting the messages. They just detect them. They know somebody’s talking based the raw signals they pick up, even if they don’t know who they are or what they’re saying.”

  “Hmm,” Roethke said. “Is it safe to assume that your experts know what they’re talking about.”

  “They usually do,” Hall answered.

  “Okay, so I have a general idea what happened,” Roethke said. “How about recovering from this? How long before the power comes back on?”

  Hall shrugged. “From what I understand, it’s going to be a while. The power grid, or at least a lot of it, was incinerated. It isn’t just that it has to be fixed. It has to be rebuilt. Replaced. And even if we had the means and the manpower in place to start the job, we don’t have the equipment or the hardware.”

  Roethke shook his head from side to side. “Not that I’m doubting your word, but this is inconceivable. It sounds like you’re talking about years, not months. How could we be so unprepared?”

  “Like I said,” Hall told him. “The threat was known. It’s a matter of money. Nobody wanted to spend what it would have taken to prepare for something they didn’t think would ever happen. That was all well and good, until now. Because it did happen. And just between you and me, we’re in serious trouble.”

  “This is a new wrinkle for us,” Roethke said. “We’ve been planning for a lot of different circumstances, but not an invasion.”

  “By ‘us’ you mean your own group of citizens?” Hall asked.

  “I guess you could call it that,” Roethke replied.

  “Sounds like you’re well organized,” Hall commented. “So what were you planning for, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Well, on the technology end, we’re working on ways to generate power for ourselves,” Roethke said. “We’re looking into growing our own food and producing clean water. We’re planning on moving away from heavily populated areas, because we think the biggest danger is other people. And yes, you might as well know, we’re forming an armed militia for protection.”

  “Interesting,” Hall said. “And how’s all that going?”

  “Smooth in some cases. Not so smooth in others,” Roethke said. “But if we have to fight against professional soldiers, I don’t think our homegrown militia’s going to cut it.”

  “Professional soldiers? Not ours, I hope,” Hall said.

  ‘I was thinking of whoever’s on those boats,” Roethke answered.

  “Where are you planning to get your weapons?” Hall asked.

  “Oh, you can use the past tense, Major,” Roethke said. “We already have them. Please understand that I don’t want to say where they came from.”

  “Just for the sake of discussion, you do realize that it’s a federal crime, a felony, if you’ve helped yourself to any supplies or equipment owned by the United States government. Right?”

  “United States government?” Roethke asked. “What’s that? All I see is an overworked Major sitting alone at a desk, with tumbleweeds blowing down the hallway. Meanwhile, people are out there starving, but still finding the strength to attack each other. Looters are everywhere because there’s nobody to stop them. S
o remind me again. What’s this government thing you speak of?”

  ~~~

  An hour later, when Roethke and his team were in the van about to depart, one of the guardsmen ran out of the building and over to the driver’s side window. “Wait!” he said, gulping air. “Major Hall wants you to come back in. He has something he wants to talk to you about!”

  Roethke had no objection to going back inside to see Major Hall again. In fact, he was rather pleased with himself. This had been a cold call. He’d walked in with no idea what to expect. Now, here was a Major in the United States Army, or whatever was left of it, asking him to a meeting.

  “You made a good impression, Professor,” Carlo said. “They can’t get enough of you all of a sudden.”

  “What’s it all about?” Roethke asked, ignoring Carlo. He almost told them he was very busy and it better be good, but caught himself. That would sound ridiculous even to these clowns.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Chubby said as Roethke turned off the ignition and climbed out of the van. “He just said to get hold of you before you leave.”

  Thirteen

  Thanks to the August heat, which intensified the horrible stench of the neighborhood, life in Crestview got a little uglier over the next few weeks. Most Crestview residents were used to packing up the minivan and hanging out at the Jersey Shore for relief from the heat and humidity during this part of the year. When they weren’t doing that they were sealed into their houses, relishing their air conditioning.

  Not this summer. With dwindling food and water supplies and no power, not to mention the obvious lack of motorized transportation, just about everybody was grumpy, exhausted, and scared. And Nick was right there with them.

  ~~~

  One afternoon, after catching a glimpse of Matt tinkering with his water purification gear, Nick thought of a solution to Matt’s two toughest problems. One move could eliminate dependence on a foul water source and at the same time minimize the difficulty of transporting water and firewood. It all went back to what he’d seen the night that he’d walked over to Nate Irby’s to retrieve his grill. It might be a way forward, and it was time to act on it.