Pulse ; No Power

by Skylar Finn

  Ailani and Trip ducked as the bullet embedded itself in the car’s bumper. Ailani floored the gas pedal, and the Cadillac went flying over the speed bumps until they cleared the parking lot. In the rear view mirror, the warehouse people had gathered by the guard woman, jeering and flicking off the Cadillac. Trip let out an unbridled laugh.

  “God, that was amazing!” he said. “I’ve only ever done that in movies. Did you get what we needed?”

  “Yup. Nice work, Trip.”

  “I’m Tom freakin’ Cruise.”

  7

  “To our tremendous trio,” Trip toasted, raising a glass of water. “May we forever find food and water together as easily as we did today.”

  Ailani and Walt clinked their glasses against him, and everyone took a drink. They had made a celebratory meal from the new stash of food. Though it wasn’t the feast anyone was craving, it was better than the protein drinks they’d been living off for the past week or so. Ailani was glad to have something other than saltines to eat. However, her tentative stomach rumbled every once in a while to remind her to eat light.

  As soon as Ailani and Trip arrived home, Walt had helped them unload the goods and refill the food storage area. They took inventory of everything they had, making notes of how long each product would last them. Trip and Walt commended Ailani for her quick thinking and her pick of resources. She had stocked up on a lot of canned goods—tuna, vegetables, and fruits—that would provide them with vitamins they’d been lacking since the food situation at Trip’s house had turned dire. With their current plan in place, they surmised they could live another month and a half off the new resources before they would have to venture out into the world again.

  “A month is going to fly by,” Walt said as he split a can of tuna into three servings. “We should start gathering intel now. Hell, if we could figure out a way to steal that delivery truck—”

  “I doubt the warehouse people are going to let us take it,” Trip interjected, “especially now that they know we’re out here.”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t have the warehouse guarded well in the first place,” Ailani said. “I have a feeling none of those people knew how to use the guns except for the woman out front. And if we went back tomorrow, they wouldn’t be expecting us so soon. We could use the element of surprise.”

  Trip opened a jar of capers—Ailani had grabbed those by accident—and spooned a few on to the top of his tuna. “Is it wrong to be scheming how to steal from other people when we have enough to last us for a month? It feels wrong.”

  “I’m not opposed,” Walt said. “Besides, the warehouse people clearly have an excess if they didn’t bother unloading that truck. If they don’t need it, there are plenty of other people who do, including us.”

  “It doesn’t seem right,” Trip said.

  “That’s because it’s not.” Ailani spread her portion of tuna on a piece of wheat bread, added a few capers, and ate it as an open-faced sandwich. She was sick of plain white rice. “Unfortunately, we’re not in a position to make decisions based on right and wrong. We make decisions based on survival from here on out. I’m with Walt. I say we go back out, grab as many supplies as we can while we know they’re available.”

  “But we have enough for now,” Trip insisted. “We can last a little while longer. Who knows? Maybe the government will figure out a plan in a few weeks, and we won’t have to worry about stealing food from other people who need it too.”

  “Dude, look around,” Walt said. “The government isn’t coming to help. They’re probably too busy securing the president and other important officials to worry about the rest of us.”

  “How do you know?” Trip demanded.

  “Because that’s how the world works.” Walt popped open a can of soda, one of the luxury items Ailani had decided might boost morale. “All that matters are politics and money. If you aren’t important politically and you don’t have money, the government isn’t going to worry about saving your ass. Why? Because you’re not one of the people who’s going to help rebuild America the way they want to rebuild it. Face it, Trip. Just because you’re an actor doesn’t make you important.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Trip shot back.

  “Everyone cool down,” Ailani suggested. “We can’t start arguing with each other. If we don’t stick together and start disagreeing, we’re screwed. Besides, there are three of us. Any decision we have to make, we can put to a vote. For instance, all in favor of venturing out in search of more supplies as soon as possible?”

  Walt raised his hand. Trip and Ailani remained still.

  “I thought you were on my side,” Walt accused Ailani.

  “I’m on everybody’s side,” she said, “but Trip makes a good point. We should try to get more information about what’s going on before we make a stupid decision we might regret. You’re the one who told us to be careful, Walt. Just because we had one successful trip doesn’t mean they’re all going to be like that. It was dumb luck. It won’t happen again.”

  Instead of replying, Walt stuffed his mouth with another spoonful of tuna. Ailani took that as an agreement. Her stomach rumbled again, so she handed the rest of her toast off to Trip, who finished it in two bites.

  “I grabbed a radio too,” she announced, wiping crumbs from her hands as she stood up. “I thought we could scan the stations for news.”

  “We have a radio,” Trip said.

  “You have a boombox from the nineties,” she corrected. “The antenna’s broken. I figured we could use a better piece of equipment.”

  She fished around in the boxes of supplies they’d dumped in the communal dining area for easy access and pulled the radio out of the mess. Walt offered her a pocket knife to get through the tape on the box. She jiggled the radio out of its Styrofoam home, loaded it with the batteries from Trip’s old boombox, and turned it on. Static blasted through the room at full volume.

  “Ow!” Trip covered his ears. “Turn it down! I have sensitive hearing.”

  Ailani spun the volume dial until the static subsided.

  “Great,” Walt said. “So it’s just a louder version of what we already have.”

  “You two aren’t helping.”

  Ailani moved to the padded seat in one of the circular porthole windows off Trip’s kitchen. As she got comfortable, she started tuning the radio, listening to each station for any hint of conversation. Trip and Walt, who had already decided the radio was useless, argued over who would get the last bite of tuna left over in the can.

  “I’m bigger than you,” Trip said.

  “Is that a threat?” Walt shot back.

  “No, it’s a fact,” Trip replied. “I have more muscle mass to maintain.”

  “Are you calling me weak?”

  “No! Actually, man, you’re pretty fit. Can I get the number of your personal trainer?”

  “Do you think I can afford a personal trainer?”

  Ailani struggled to hear the radio over their bickering, so she turned up the volume until it felt like the static lived in her ears. She listened so closely, she felt like her head was going to exploding. She turned the dial one click at a time, pausing on each station to make sure it wasn’t being used. Then, out of nowhere, she picked up a broadcast that was clear as day.

  “Guys,” she said.

  “Ca-lis-the-nics,” Walt was saying, enunciating every syllable. “I’m too broke to afford a gym membership. I use my own weight.”

  “Respect,” Trip replied.

  “Guys!” Ailani said again. “Shut up, I found something.”

  Walt and Trip abandoned their argument to join Ailani in the window seat. She hushed them, and they all leaned in to listen to the broadcast.

  “For all of you who are just turning in, this is Mae Weathers,” said a tired but sharp voice. “I’m a secretarial assistant for the state government, which means I’m privy to conversations that most of you don’t get to hear. Here’s what I know so far: the California government, as we
ll as the federal government, is first and foremost prioritizing the members of their political parties.”

  “What did I say?” Walt said. “Was I right or was I right?”

  “Shh!” Ailani and Trip chorused.

  “Safe houses have been set up for high-end government officials and their families,” Mae Weathers continued. “Obviously, the president is included in this. These safe houses are equipped with food and water to keep our political leaders alive. Naturally, no one knows the location of these safe houses. Since we have reason to believe this EMP blast was set off by terrorists, those locations will not be revealed anytime soon.”

  “Terrorists,” Trip repeated. “When is the United States going to stop being a target?”

  “Probably when we stop invading other countries for no reason,” Ailani replied. “Hush, they’re talking about how far the effects went.”

  “The consequences of the EMP have spread across the entire continental United States,” Weathers reported. “The electricity outages and lack of clean water supply has extended into southern Canada and Northern Mexico. According to the news coming in so far, everywhere outside the immediate area of North America continues as usual. Travel has been suspended to and from the United States for obvious reasons.”

  Walt nudged Ailani. “Did you hear that? That means Hawaii is safe. Your dad and your sister are doing just fine.”

  Relief flooded Ailani’s system. Ever since the EMP hit, the creeping sensation that she would never see the rest of her family again kept infiltrating her mind. The only way to keep those terrible thoughts at bay was to act as nonchalant as possible.

  “Yeah, I figured,” she said calmly.

  “Really?” Walt said. “Because you’ve been having nightmares about Keiko and your mom ever since we got here.”

  A rush of heat filled Ailani’s cheeks. “Walt, can you shut it? I’m trying to hear the rest of the broadcast.”

  Walt let it go, but Ailani knew he would revisit the subject at some point. He wasn’t the type of best friend to let her sit and stew. He forced her to get everything out in the open.

  “For those of you who don’t know or haven’t heard by word of mouth,” Mae Weathers went on, “the California government is, in fact, attempting to help its citizens. Workers have been hired to repair or rebuild the damaged transformers across the state and the rest of the continent, but it will likely take months to get the electricity back on. Furthermore, the state has opened safety camps in each county. These camps are equipped with food, water, and first aid supplies to help those in the area—”

  “Damn,” Trip said. “Why haven’t we heard about this?”

  “But if you haven’t already moved into a camp,” Weathers continued, “you might want to stay put. The camps are already overcrowded, and the state is struggling to keep up with the demand for supplies.”

  “That’s why,” answered Walt.

  “Currently, camps around the state are only accepting healthy children under the age of seventeen,” Weathers said. “Any child exhibiting signs of contagious diseases will not be admitted to these camps. Though it may seem harsh, this is to preserve supplies and a level of cleanliness that is necessary to maintain the camps. If you have a healthy child that is in desperate need of food or water, please locate the camp in your county. I’ll update this broadcast whenever I get new information. Tune in for more.”

  Ailani switched off the radio. “Well, that does us absolutely no good.”

  “Sure it does,” Trip said. “At least we know that the government is doing something. And you know your family is safe in Hawaii.”

  “Golden Boy’s right,” Walt added, squeezing Ailani’s neck to relieve some of the tension she was keeping there. “This is good news.”

  The next morning began with a resounding crack! It came from the roof of the house and jolted Ailani awake. She rubbed her eyes and looked upward, half-expecting there to be a giant hole in the ceiling, but everything appeared to be fine. Then she heard the air-conditioning unit for the bedroom abruptly shut off. The room was oddly silent without the constant whir of the unit. Since the blackout curtains kept the morning light out, she switched on the bedside table lamp. It wouldn’t come on. She got out of bed and tried the ceiling light, but that wouldn’t come on either. She put on her robe and went downstairs.

  “Hey, Trip!” she called across the wide expanse of the main floor. The first rays of sun illuminated the house through its glass walls. There was no need to check the electricity down here.

  Trip was out on the balcony. His yoga mat was spread on the ground, but he appeared to have been disrupted halfway through his practice. Sweat streamed down his chiseled movie star chest as he shaded his eyes against the sun and peered upward. Ailani sidled through the sliding glass door.

  “Morning,” she said. “Did you hear that loud bang?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The lights aren’t working in my room,” she went on. “Neither is the air-conditioning. Any ideas to what’s going on?”

  “Yup.” Trip pointed to the roof. “You see that solar panel up there? Someone just threw a huge rock at it.”

  Ailani joined Trip in staring upward, her eyes streaming as she struggled to see against the sunshine. Sure enough, one of the large solar panels that adorned Trip’s house was cracked and busted.

  “Who threw it?” She switched her gaze to the beach, but there was no one in the vicinity close enough to toss a rock at Trip’s house. “Did you see them?”

  “No, I was in shavasana when I heard it break,” he replied. “By the time I got around here to look, they’d already gone.”

  Ailani frowned at the mass of campers on the beach, idling around with presumed innocence. “Who would do something like that?”

  “Any one of them,” Trip answered. He began rolling up his yoga mat. “They’re jealous of us. Jealous that we have electricity and a roof over our heads. That solar panel powers an entire section of the house. If I can’t fix it, we’re going to have to make some changes.”

  “You’re going to try to fix it?”

  “I have to,” he answered. “I at least need to see what kind of damage they did. If they realize this hurts us, they’ll keep doing it until we have no power at all.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  He handed her the yoga mat. “Can you put this inside for me? I’m going to go get a ladder.”

  By the time Ailani put Trip’s mat away, got dressed, and grabbed a couple of water bottles for the two of them, Trip had already made his way onto the roof. He was surprisingly nimble, stepping across the slanted tiles as if he were as comfortable as he would be on a sidewalk. Then again, Trip did most of his own stunts on his movies. It made sense that he was nimble.

  “How’s it looking up there?” Ailani asked, setting the waters on the patio table.

  “Not good,” Trip called down. “Watch your head. Ballistic heading your way.”

  He dropped the rock from the roof, and Ailani stepped out of the way. The rock was actually a piece of cement block that had fallen off one of the piers along the beach. It dropped so heavily that it left a dent on the deck.

  “Someone threw that?” she said. “It’s huge!”

  “My guess is it took more than one to heave that thing up here,” Trip said. Ailani couldn’t see him, but his voice drifted off the breeze and floated down to her. “One asshole can always find another.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  Trip appeared at the edge of the roof, sat down, and dangled his feet. “I don’t think so. There’s a huge crack in it. It goes all the way across the panel.”

  Ailani ducked out from beneath him, evading the dirt and gravel that fell off his shoes. “Can you remove the panel completely?”

  “Probably,” Trip replied. “What’s the point though?”

  “You could prop it up sideways to protect a few of the others,” Ailani pointed out. The corners of her eyes stung from the salt in her sunshine tears.
Where had she left her sunglasses? “That way, if someone tries to throw another concrete brick up here, they’ll hit the one that’s already broken.”

  Trip got his feet under himself again. “That’s a genius. Can you throw up that ratcheting screwdriver?”

  Next to Trip’s ladder was a large toolbox. It was the type of thing you’d seen on the set of a show like Home Improvement or in a construction worker’s garage. Ailani would have never expected Trip to own something like it, nor would she have known that he could use the tools inside it. She found the racheting screwdriver.

  “Got it!”

  Trip’s hand extended itself over the edge. “Toss it.”

  Ailani underhanded the screwdriver up to the roof, and Trip caught it with ease. He disappeared again. Soon, all Ailani could hear was Trip grunting as he unscrewed the solar panel from the room.

  “Just gotta loosen these brackets,” he said. “There!”

  The panel came free. As Trip lifted the huge piece away from the roof, Ailani grimaced. “Be careful! Don’t lose your footing.”

  “I’m good.” He rotated the panel and planted the long side of it against the other brackets so it shielded some of the unbroken panels from the danger on the beach. He checked the angle of the sun. “It might block the sun, which means the house won’t be as energy efficient, but it’s better than nothing, right?”

  “I don’t have a whole lot of solar knowledge,” Ailani admitted. “Come down, will you? You’re making me nervous.”

  Trip chuckled and gave the solar panel a wiggle to make sure it would stay in place. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve been up here a few times—”

  His sneaker slipped off a roof tile, and he windmilled his arms to catch his balance. Below, Ailani gasped and moved left and right, trying to center herself beneath Trip as he headed toward the roof’s edge. He slipped off and grabbed the edge of the roof for a brief second, but his fingers couldn’t hold on. He plummeted to the ground.