The Blackout

by K J Kalis

  She watched him. He had stopped talking. He walked out to the edge of the deck, looking out at the view. He took a big swallow of his drink. Theresa glanced to her left, to the chair where Bart had been sitting before their fight erupted. His tablet was still on, the screen open to a display screen she hadn’t seen before. She leaned over, trying not to make any noise so she could see what was on it. There was a map displayed of what looked like all of the Palm Coast Electric & Power territories. Some of them were in red, some of them were in green and there were small blue dots that were scattered in a few places. From her quick look, she assumed that the areas in green were powered and red was not. The blue, she wasn’t sure of. She turned back to Bart, who jiggled the melting ice in his drink. “How about if I get you another drink and then you tell me what has been going on at work?”

  “You can get me another drink. I don’t want to talk about work.” He didn’t turn around.

  “That’s fine, honey. Whatever you want.” As she stood up, she pulled out her phone and took a quick picture of the screen when Bart wasn’t looking. She had a feeling she needed to see what was on that screen. She put her phone back into her pocket. “Would you like a fresh glass, or should I just refill the one that you have?”

  “I changed my mind. I’m going to the golf club. Don’t wait up for me.”

  Bart walked off, taking his tablet with him. Theresa sat back down, swallowing hard. She wouldn’t let him win. The tears wanted to flow, but they had fought so many times that it really wasn’t worth crying over. As her emotions subsided, she wondered what was eating at Bart. She wasn’t even sure what happened. They hadn’t fought. She asked him a couple of questions and he stonewalled. There hadn’t been anything they didn’t agree on. She shifted in her seat and stood up, walking over to the spot where Bart had been standing. He’d left his glass there, the remains of the drink melting with the ice that had been left behind. She gazed out over the bluff to the ocean, the waves rolling in steadily, never-ending. She wondered what Bart had been looking at. Had he even been focused on anything?

  She picked up his glass and headed back in the house, closing the glass doors and letting the air conditioning take over. She heard the click of the condensers and felt the slight movement of cool air in the house. She walked to the kitchen. Bart hadn’t been in this bad of a mood for years. Theresa turned on the water in the kitchen sink and rinsed his glass. She set it in the dishwasher and thought back to the image she took with her phone of the screen on his tablet. With a couple of clicks, she sent it to her laptop so that she could see it in more detail.

  She changed out of her baseball mom clothes, made a sandwich for herself out of the chicken that she had bought earlier in the day and one for Mike. She sent him a text letting him know it was on the counter. There was no point in making dinner for him. He’d be happy with a quick bite of something to eat. Bart wouldn’t eat at home. He’d probably end up at the bar with his buddies eating steak.

  Knowing she had a piece of Bart’s work made her stomach tremble. Bart had kept so many things from her over the years she couldn’t keep up with what was going on in his life. The fact that she had to grab a picture from his tablet without him knowing was sad. When they had gotten married, she hoped they could be open with each other no matter what they were going through. She quickly realized he liked spending time with her, but he was really married to his work. Though she could have been of help to him with the company, he preferred to keep his home and work life separate. He said it was so he could come home and relax. Theresa wasn’t so sure.

  What was he hiding? Theresa curled up on the couch with her laptop, wearing a baggy t-shirt and leggings. She wouldn’t be caught dead outside of the house in an outfit like the one she was wearing. It didn’t fit the image of the wife of a CEO, that was for sure. But at the moment, she didn’t care. She wanted a glimpse of what Bart was working on, what seemed to be upsetting him. Although she felt a twinge of guilt over taking a picture of his screen, she also felt a surge of excitement and vindication. If he wouldn’t let her in, she’d have to take what she could get.

  She enlarged the image on the screen. As she thought when she first saw it, it was some sort of tracking software the company was using to determine who had power and who didn’t. That was fairly obvious. There were small red and green triangles with notations on how much power was moving and to whom. What she saw on the screen matched what she had seen in the news. The Highland Hills area was currently out of power. They had another thirty-six hours to go before it would be restored. Theresa enlarged the image, looking at their neighborhood. It was green and was sectioned off on the map. Her stomach sunk. Though she understood why Bart would never approve blackouts for their neighborhood, it made her feel bad. If they lost power for two days, they had the means to refill their refrigerator. Many of the people who had their power shut off did not and could barely afford to feed their families in the first place. Living in California wasn’t cheap and having to purchase all new groceries was a burden a lot of homes just couldn’t handle. Theresa had even heard of families taking their groceries to neighbors who had power and having them store them for a couple of days. Families were doing the best they could to take care of each other.

  That brought her to the reason for the blackouts in the first place. Theresa logged onto her computer and did a little more research into the decision for them. Bart had never told her why the company decided to do them except they were to prevent wildfires. Theresa found an article from the local newspaper. Bart was quoted as saying the blackouts were supposed to help prevent older equipment from sparking and starting a fire, saving lives and property. “We are doing our part to be good neighbors to everyone in the area.” Theresa wondered what Bart really thought. The whole article read like something Bart’s PR department had put together. She frowned.

  She stared again at the image she had swiped from Bart’s tablet. Yes, Highland Hills was powered down. Her house wasn’t, but what were the blue dots? She squinted at the screen. There seemed to be three of them. Were they areas where the lines were being serviced? Maybe where there were equipment issues?

  A flash announcement from the National Weather Service and Cal Fire pinged on her phone. She picked it up and looked at it. “Caution. New wildfires. Red Rock Creek and Morton Canyon.”

  Theresa glanced back at the image in front of her. Something wasn’t right. She looked again at the screen, enlarging it as big as it would go. One of the dots was in Red Rock Creek. The other, Morton Canyon. She quickly pulled up the latest wildfire map and looked at it. The two fires had just been reported and added to the growing list of wildfires, but the blue dots had been on Bart’s screen for a while. Were they related?

  Theresa closed her laptop. The screen that Bart had been staring at seemed easy enough to read, even if she hadn’t had a degree in engineering. There were places the power was on, places it was off. The blue dots weren’t listed on the legend for the map and they should have been. There should have been some notation on the screen to help people understand what they were looking at. Had she missed it? Theresa opened her laptop and the screen loaded immediately. She looked in the corners and found what she was looking for, taking a moment to read it. There were notations for the red areas, green areas and the geography. Nothing on the blue dots.

  Fear grew in Theresa’s stomach. There was something going on. The blue dots directly aligned with the newest fires that had started. They had been there even before the fires had been reported, almost like they had predicted their start. Theresa felt sick. Was that the case? Was there some connection between the blue dots and the two newest fires? How could that be? Was that the reason for Bart’s foul mood? Theresa closed her eyes for a moment, trying to keep the bile in her throat from coming up. Maybe she just needed to sleep. Maybe she had read the screen wrong. She didn’t want to believe that there could be some correlation between Bart’s company and the fires, the same fires that took people’s lives and burne
d their homes to the ground. She swallowed hard. She hoped she was wrong, but something told her Bart was hiding something. What it was, she didn’t know.

  10

  “Slow down, Theresa,” Kat motioned for Van to get her a pad of paper and a pen. “No, I’m not mad at you. Just tell me what is going on. Is it okay if I put you on speaker so Van can hear?”

  “I guess… He won’t tell anyone, will he?” Theresa paused for a second.

  “No, of course not. He’s bound by the same journalism standards I am.” She held her breath for a second, waiting for Theresa to respond. “Okay, yes. If you think he can help.”

  Kat put the phone on the table, tapping the screen for speaker mode. “Kat, I’m sorry I ran off. It’s just, well, things haven’t been going well at home. When I got back from baseball, Bart was here. I tried to talk to him, but he shut me down. He just left. But I did something…”

  Kat furrowed her brow, “Okay...” Kat knew that Theresa would require a soft touch.

  “When he wasn’t looking, I took a picture of the screen on his tablet. Let me text it to you.”

  Kat waited for a moment. It seemed forever until her phone beeped. She opened the attachment. On the screen was an image Kat sent to her computer so both she and Van could get a better look at it.

  Van leaned over, “Theresa, what can you tell us about the image?”

  There was a pause. “Bart doesn’t tell me a lot of what is going on at work. In fact, he tells me nothing.” She stopped again, as if talking about the reality of her life was forcing her to face it. “But I understand. A lot of people think I don’t understand, but I have a degree in engineering. What I’m seeing doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, you are ahead of me,” Kat said, surprised by the sudden confidence in Theresa’s voice. She tried to encourage Theresa to keep talking. “Can you explain this to us in layman’s terms?”

  “I can try…” Theresa cleared her throat. “The picture that I sent you is of the geographical area that Pacific Coast services. Now, I’m not an expert on the ins and outs of this program, but it seems pretty clear that the red areas are the ones that are without power and the ones marked in green do have power.”

  “Anything strange about what you are seeing?” Van asked, leaning over the speaker.

  “That’s the thing. First off, the power in my neighborhood never goes off. Never.”

  Kat looked at Van. Knowing there was a selected area that wasn’t subject to the blackouts smacked of preferential treatment at the least and probably something closer to breaking the law. That, in itself, was the basis for a scathing story.

  “Well, your husband probably needs to always have access to information to run the company. Maybe that’s why…” Kat said.

  “That’s nice of you to say, Kat, but you know as well as I do that if everyone else is without power for a time, it should happen to us, too. That’s not the big problem, though.”

  “What do you mean?” Van sat down at the table.

  “The blue dots.”

  Kat squinted at the screen and could make out just a few blue dots on the image that Theresa had sent over. There was nothing in the corner of the image, save a time and date stamp, that would help them to determine what they were. “Do you know what they are?”

  The phone connection crackled. “I’m not sure. Here’s what’s strange. The blue dots are only in areas where there is no power. If they indicate an issue with the power flow, that’s not possible.”

  Kat chewed the inside of her lip for a moment, “Wait. Say more about that? I’m not sure I understand.”

  “The blue dots mean something. Other than the power being on or off, this screen shows power surges and issues. How could there be a problem with the power flow if there is no power?”

  Kat looked right at Van, their eyes locking. Van responded to Theresa, “What you are saying is that there is a power flow problem in an area that there is no power.”

  “Exactly. It would be like unplugging your television and it still powering on and off.”

  Silence took over the conversation for a moment. Before Kat could ask another question, Theresa interrupted. “There’s something else. Did you get the other picture I sent?”

  Kat clicked on the file to bring it up on her screen. “Yes, we’ve got it here. It looks a lot like the other one you sent.”

  “Yes, except I’ve overlaid the wildfires that just started.”

  Van pointed at the spots on the screen where the wildfires were. “Theresa, am I seeing this right?” he asked. “Are the blue dots in the same place where the wildfires are?”

  “Yes.”

  Kat saw Van stand up and shrug his shoulders. “The blue dots are marking where the new fires are? Would the power company need that information?”

  “I don’t think so…”

  Kat was confused. “If the blue dots aren’t marking the new fires, what do you think they are?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think that the blue dots are causing the fires… and I think Bart has something to do with it.”

  A heavy silence filled the room.

  Kat sat down next to Van at the table, a lump in her throat. “You think that Bart has something to do with the wildfires?”

  “Maybe not directly, but there is something going on. He hasn’t been himself. We haven’t been close in years, but he’s reactive, distracted and hostile. I’ve never seen him like this before. I don’t know what he’s into, but there is something wrong.”

  Kat looked at Van, who sighed. “Theresa, what do you want us to do? Do you feel like you should go to the police?”

  “No!” her voice was suddenly shrill. “No, I don’t want to do that, and I don’t want you to do that, either!”

  “That’s fine, that’s fine,” Van said. “I just wanted to ask.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be this way. I’m usually so calm. This has me rattled. Thinking about all those people who have already lost their homes or their lives in the fires. If Bart has something to do with this, I just don’t know if I could ever forgive him.”

  “That brings us back to the question of what you want us to do…” Kat said, leaning forward toward the phone.

  “Do you think you can look into this? Maybe figure out what is going on? If you do it, then the police aren’t involved. Maybe Bart would have a chance…”

  “A chance to what?”

  “To make things right.”

  11

  With a few goodbyes and a promise to let her know as soon as they found anything, Kat hung up the phone and stood up from the table, pacing the floor, the image of the power grid and the wildfires visible on her screen. “What do you think?” she said, staring at Van, who was still sitting at the computer.

  “What do I think? Other than she is a very unhappy housewife? I’m not sure.”

  Kat walked over to the stove and picked up the teapot. There was something comforting about making tea the old-fashioned way, by boiling the water on the stove. It helped her think. The water made a swooshing sound in the bottom of the kettle as she filled it. She set it on the stove, hearing the familiar click of the ignitor lighting the burner. She adjusted the flame and pulled a mug out of the cabinet. “I’d say the same, except for the part about the engineering degree.”

  “Did you know that before tonight?” Van was still staring at the images on Kat’s computer.

  “I didn’t. It does give her some credibility, though.”

  “I’d say.” Van got up and gave Kat a quick hug. “I’m surprised Bart doesn’t use her skills in some capacity at the company. That does give credence to her story that there is something going on. Maybe he wants to tell her, but he can’t.”

  Silence covered the kitchen, the only noise the rumbling of the boiling water in the teapot. Kat glanced over and saw Van staring at the image. She knew he was mulling what Theresa had said. Kat broke the silence as the teapot started to whistle, “Or maybe he doesn’t want to. Maybe he�
�s trying to keep her out of it.” Kat poured the bubbling water into the mug. “Either way, she’s pretty sure there’s something going on. I’d like to know if she is right.”

  “So would I.”

  * * *

  The next few hours passed quickly. Van brought his laptop into the kitchen and they sat side-by-side doing research on what Theresa had said. Kat was amazed at how much information there had been published about the wildfires as well as the blackouts. “Look at this.” She pointed to her screen and turned it to show Van. “Pacific Coast Electric & Power has been forced to take on these blackouts. The California Public Utilities Association has made them do this because of aging equipment.”

  “How do the blackouts prevent the fires, though? That’s what doesn’t make sense.”

  “Based on these articles, it says the old equipment can cause sparks that cause the fires.”

  Van frowned. “You’ve got to be kidding me! They shut the power off and then half of the city gets out their old generators and starts those up. You think those aren’t going to spark?”

  Kat knew Van was right. She wondered how much shutting off the power was either a band aid or a publicity stunt. Sure, the weather in California was warmer than a lot of the country, but people still wanted power to keep their homes running. A spark from any source could begin the next wildfire. “This doesn’t make sense to me.” She clicked on another article. “Check this one out. There are now lawsuits against the state and power companies for shutting the power off. There are cases of people who died because they needed in-home ventilators or other medical equipment to keep them alive. They weren’t given warning the power was going off or for how long. Two people lost their lives.”