Apocalypse Austin

by David VanDyke

  “Hey, you can’t come in here...I’ll...I’ll call the police. The real police.”

  “Relax,” said Herschel, coming in and closing the door. “We were sent here to meet up with you.”

  Janus looked at them with a blank face framed by shaggy hair and a thin unkempt beard.

  “To do something together...”

  Still no understanding.

  Herschel sighed. “From our friends in Texas.”

  Janus’ eyes widened and he smiled. “Oh yeah, right. You’re the dude that’s going to build some cool techno thing in my workspace. Most excellent.”

  Skull pointed at Janus and turned to Herschel. “This is the guy that Texas is placing its bets on?”

  “One of them,” said Herschel, pulling Janus to his feet. “And don’t judge too quickly. I’ve worked with people like him before. They seem off at first, but I would guess he’s brilliant in his own way.”

  “His own very special way,” said Skull.

  “Janus, my name is Herschel, and this here is –”

  “John Wayne,” said Skull, cutting him off. “Can we move this along a little, pilgrim, since we need to get the wagon train back on the trail?”

  “Janus, what is it you do exactly?”

  “Hosting, mostly,” Janus answered, looking around the room at everything but the two men. “I troubleshoot problems, some coding. Maybe a DOS smackdown now and then, or a SWAT.”

  Skull stared at them both uncomprehendingly.

  “He’s a hacker for hire,” said Herschel.

  “Only part-time,” said Janus. “Got to keep the feds off my ass. Now I mostly host server space. Come on.” He led them through a series of untidy hallways, past an untidy sleeping area and a dirty kitchen, and into a large back room. The whine of cooling fans and air conditioners grew steadily louder the deeper they went.

  Janus pulled open a cheap wooden door that had been bolted onto the wall by someone who knew nothing of carpentry. Inside the room were at least a hundred server racks, and an elaborate computer desk with a dozen monitors.

  “You host server space,” said Herschel.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “All things considered,” said Skull looking at a pile of empty potato chip bags on the floor, “a not unwise career choice. I bet you don’t have to leave here very often.”

  “Dude, everyone delivers these days,” Janus answered, only meeting Skull’s eyes by accident.

  Skull shook his head and turned to Herschel. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

  Herschel peered around the room, following electrical conduits. He opened a few of the server racks and found a large open space in the bottom of one. “Yeah, I can work with this.”

  “Okay, let’s get to it!” said Janus.

  “Not so fast.” Herschel walked back out of the room and into the filthy attached kitchen. “I’m going to need some things.” He looked around and finally grabbed an old pizza box, shaking out several petrified crusts into the sink. Flipping it over on the back, he began to write on the back. “You’ll need to get this stuff from electrical and plumbing supply stores. Might even have to go to several different ones if they don’t have exactly what I mark down.”

  “Won’t you be coming with me?” asked Skull.

  Herschel shook his head. “This is going to take me all night to build, and I need to rest.” He looked around the warehouse. “Of course, I could take my time and we could just crash here for a few days or so if you want.”

  “Give me the list,” said Skull, taking the pizza box. He pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket and began copying the items. “Seriously? Your super-secret high-tech gizmo that you’re building requires Cool Ranch Doritos to work? No wonder the greatest minds in science couldn’t figure it out before now.”

  “Snack food. I have a routine when I get in the zone. Don’t mess with it.”

  “Whatever,” said Skull continuing to write.

  “Dude,” said Janus, “we could just order whatever you need online.”

  “Would take too long to get here,” said Herschel.

  “And I don’t think we want to create an electronic signature by buying these items and having them delivered to one place. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t look like you do a lot of electrical or plumbing work here.”

  Janus shook his head.

  Herschel cleared off a space on a couch in the corner, pulled off his cowboy boots, and lay down with his hands behind his head. “Remember to get everything.”

  Skull pointed at Herschel and Janus. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Janus looked at him as if he were crazy.

  Skull returned later that night and had to beat on the door loudly enough to be heard above the sounds of country music coming through the walls.

  “Oh, you’re back,” said Herschel, finally opening the door.

  Skull pushed a bag into Herschel’s arms, and then began tossing more bags and boxes into the room before closing the door behind him. He turned to Herschel. “I could kill you for all this stuff I had to get.”

  “I assure you it was all vitally important for what I have to do.”

  Skull reached down into one box and pulled out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. “You sure?”

  “Yep,” said Herschel taking it out of his hands and looking at the label.

  “And what’s it for?”

  Herschel gazed at Skull as if he were simple. “I don’t know what they do with bourbon where you come from, son, but in Texas, we drink it.”

  “I see you couldn’t find the Pappy Von Winkle,” he said looking at the bottle in his hands. “Doesn’t surprise me. That’s the best bourbon in the world and they only sell nine hundred bottles a year. Woodford Reserve is no wallflower though.” He pulled out the cork and took a deep drink.

  “We gonna get started?” asked Janus, picking up one of the bags of Doritos before opening it and shoving them into his mouth, occasionally wiping his hands on his already multicolored t-shirt.

  The loud country music made Skull’s head hurt. “Could you at least turn that stuff down a little bit?”

  “Sorry,” said Herschel not looking sorry. “Like the bourbon here” – he took a swig out of the bottle – “it’s part of the process.”

  “Fine, do your thing.” Skull searched until he found a small, mostly empty room. All the clutter made him uneasy, so he simply sat, resting.

  A few hours later, he was woken from a light doze by a loud crash. He climbed out of the cheap lawn chair and rushed to find smoke filling the server room.

  “What the hell happened?” asked Skull.

  “No cause for concern,” said Herschel with bright eyes and slightly slurry voice. “Just a little short circuit.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be an electronics expert?”

  “It’s not an exact science, young man.”

  “Yeah, I think it kind of is.” Skull looked at the bottle of bourbon that was at least a third gone. “And maybe you should lay off the booze. Isn’t this supposed to be important?”

  “It is important,” said Herschel. “More important than you know, but like I said –”

  “I know; it’s all part of the process.”

  Janus closed one of several metal panels. “Okay, we’re reset. Try again.”

  Skull looked at the device at their feet, no bigger than a mini-fridge. “I got a question.”

  “Shoot,” said Herschel sticking his head into the box and picking up a pair of wire cutters.

  “Where does the power come from? Something like this obviously needs a great deal of it to send out a pulse like we’re talking about. There’s no nuclear discharge, so what powers it?”

  “Electricity, of course,” said Herschel. “Lots of it.”

  “You can’t power something like this by simply plugging it into the wall.”

  “Look around you,” said Herschel. “How much power do you think it takes to run all these servers? That’s why this warehou
se is perfect. It’s set up to pull plenty of current. When the time comes, Janus will plug the power into my little darling. Contrary to your initial impressions, our young patriot is the perfect choice for this job.”

  Skull looked at Janus, whose mouth was slightly open, with pieces of Doritos in his beard. “I’ll take your word for it.” He looked around the room again. “It still doesn’t add up to me,” said Skull.

  “What doesn’t add up?”

  “Well, I’m not an electronics expert or anything, but how can electricity create an EMP that’s going to knock out all of Miami?”

  “And Fort Lauderdale, and maybe even parts of Orlando,” said Herschel. “And remember, like lightning, an EMP is simply a huge burst of free electrons. Electricity.”

  “But how is all of that coming from the electrical company? Even with all these industrial strength panels, it seems like a reach.”

  Herschel pulled his head out of the device and looked at Skull. “You’re smarter than you know. The grid electricity by itself won’t be enough. We’ll need something else to boost it.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Herschel pointed to a large black case against the wall. It was plugged into one of the electrical outlets and contained about two dozen smaller cubes, with red and green LEDs on them.

  “What is that?” asked Skull walking over to take a closer look.

  “Each one of those modules is a very powerful capacitor battery.”

  “Capacitor battery? How’s that different from a regular battery?”

  “It’s designed to store a huge amount of power, and discharge it slow or fast as you want. For our purposes, really, really fast.”

  “How powerful?”

  “Enough to knock out the city power grid.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “I built them.”

  Skull reached down to pick one up.

  “Please don’t. They’re very sensitive when they’re charging. Might discharge and kill you.”

  Skull looked at him in surprise. “So why haven’t you patented and sold them to energy companies?”

  “I did patent them. Prototyped and tested them myself, but I had the usual problems with any new tech. So I contracted with a lab to work on it, and Exextron Energy got wind of it. They leaked reports about safety and reliability, making it sound like the batteries were too dangerous to use, long before we’d even worked out the bugs. They lobbied some congressmen for a special investigation, and shut me down.”

  “So you kept working on them yourself.”

  “Yes. I sunk all my money into overcoming the problems and finding a backer. Imagine my surprise when Exextron made me an offer.”

  Skull raised his eyebrows. “So they’d been playing hardball, trying to bring the price down.”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but the price they gave me was unbelievably generous. I was so blinded by the thought of all the applications. Electric homes, cars, trains and airplanes, or super-efficient power grids. Even improved satellites and spacecraft. Hell, I thought my batteries were going to Mars.”

  “So what did they use them for?”

  “Nothing. I found out later that companies do it all the time. They’ll pay big bucks to buy a patent and bury it. That way nothing competes with their old, expensive and inefficient technology. It keeps the prices high for everyone, keeps the money flowing into their pockets. Later, if someone does come up with a similar system, they can bring theirs online fast and stay ahead of the competition, touting how wonderful their advances are.”

  Skull shook his head, staring at the array of batteries. “So small, and so powerful. You’re using electricity to knock out electricity.”

  “The irony wasn’t lost on me either,” answered Herschel, sticking his head back inside the EMP device. “Now I better get back to it, otherwise I’ll get out of the flow and –”

  “I know, mess up the process. I’ll be keeping an eye out. Try not to burn the place down. That sort of thing tends to draw attention.”

  “Don’t worry. If something goes wrong, we’ll all be dead before we feel the pain.”

  “Oh, wow, dude,” said Janus.

  Skull rolled his eyes and walked away.

  Chapter 17

  Anson felt normal for the first time in...he couldn’t remember how long, since leaving Arkansas. Part of this came from eating regularly and sleeping soundly in a safe place each night. It also helped that he could work himself to exhaustion each day and not have to think about old, haunting memories.

  “Again,” Master Sergeant Toombs told him and the other recruits. “You have to do it faster.”

  Most of the young people in the newly formed Eden Detachment stifled groans. They’d been negotiating the obstacle course all morning. The bruises and scrapes they got healed fast, but it made them cranky and hungry.

  More than a year ago, U.S. Army Master Sergeant Toombs had been arrested by military police once it was learned he was an Eden. After a harrowing escape from the detention center at Fort Bragg, he’d made his way from North Carolina to Texas without being caught.

  Now he was their boss.

  Toombs told them, “Forget about pain. You injuries will heal. Strive to win. To be victorious.”

  “Victorious over what?” asked Rachel, a beautiful raven-haired girl with the disposition of a wolverine even when she wasn’t enraged.

  “That,” said Toombs, pointing at the challenging course to their front. “And yourself. Strive to do your best in everything you do. If your goal is to do better than the person beside you or to impress me, you’re limiting yourself. Excellent comes from within.”

  “More Zen bullshit,” whispered Donald from somewhere to Anson’s right.

  “Excellent hearing is something that is not Zen bullshit,” roared Toombs, striding toward Donald to get in his face. “One hundred squat-thrusts. Anson, you count them out.”

  “Open ranks, MARCH. Position of exercise, MOVE,” Anson barked. The formation opened ranks to create space for all of them to perform the punitive calisthenics.

  Toombs had appointed Anson as the group’s student leader, and he’d gladly accepted the role, despite its mixed blessing. On the one hand, it granted him authority and some extra freedoms. On the other hand, it stuck him in a kind of no-man’s land, neither fully staff nor fully student, and friend to no one.

  He sometimes wondered what else he could have done. Refuse the position? He was the best qualified. None of the other recruits had any military experience at all, beyond some high-school ROTC.

  “Ready, begin!” Anson ordered, counting off the one-two-three-four of the exercise: squat, thrust out the feet into pushup position, pull them back to a squat, and rise to stand once more.

  “One,” the group yelled out in unison.

  Only ninety-nine more to go.

  Rachel stared daggers right through him, as if it were his fault instead of Donald’s.

  Screw her, he thought and sped up the count. By the time they reached one hundred, they were panting and wheezing.

  “Okay, where was I?” said Toombs, brushing invisible dust off his hands as if nothing had happened. “Oh, yes: do your best. Call it Zen bullshit if you want, but excellence is the foundation of any successful military unit. Now, we’ll keep running this obstacle course until you stop looking like geriatric zombies. Who’ll go first?”

  Anson stepped forward immediately, sensing the others’ angry eyes on him.

  Toombs looked at his watch. “Go!”

  Anson sprinted toward the thick hanging rope and leapt over the deep pit to catch it. His momentum carried him only a few feet, but he knew when to let go. If he waited to swing any farther, he would slow. He landed and fell forward into a shoulder roll, coming back onto his feet before sprinting toward the next obstacle, a giant vertical cargo net.

  “Next,” he heard Toombs say behind him.

  Anson felt free as he flogged his body to give him its best. He climbed and
leapt and crawled and nothing more than the task at hand entered his mind. If he’d thought about it, the word he would have used to describe the experience would have been tranquil.

  His calm was interrupted as he was descending the stacked platform obstacle. This was a series of seven flat wooden floors with a post at each corner. Each level was six feet above the one below it, making it a difficult challenge.

  Coming down, he met Rachel going up.

  “You think you’re better than us,” she growled. “You’re not.” Rachel was only a little over five feet tall and this obstacle could be especially difficult for shorter people.

  “Just focus on climbing,” Anson said. “You can make it.” He held out his hand to help her.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she panted, ignoring his offer. “You’re not Toombs. You’re not in charge.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” he said, as she snaked past him, climbing higher.

  “Nobody cares what you meant,” she grunted as her lean, muscular body leapt up and grabbed the edge to pull herself upward.

  “Good job,” Anson said.

  “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself. You’re not as far ahead of me as you think. The monkey bars are next. I’m going to beat you this time, even with your head start.”

  Anson realized she might be right. Rachel was a gymnast, and normally flew across the metal bars, while that obstacle was one of his weak spots.

  He swung his body to the platform below him and hung before dropping to the next level. He would have to pick up his own pace to prevent her from making good on her promise.

  Something made him look up, just in time to see Rachel struggling at the very top, more than forty feet above the ground. Her hands were obviously slipping in the morning dew. Anson had almost fallen there himself.

  He saw her slide as if in slow motion from the edge of the top platform, her feet reaching for the surface a few feet below her. Her toes touched, but her body overbalanced toward the open air. She tried to recover, jackknifing forward to grab at the platform below with her hands, but the momentum was too much. Rachel bounced outward and fell toward the ground.