Apocalypse Drift

by Joe Nobody

  Brenda forgot she was in reverse and punched the gas. Her car lurched backward and slammed into a BMW behind them. While Reed continued his cadence, Brenda mumbled, “Sorry,” under her breath, threw the shifter into drive, and hit the gas. They barely fit through the opening. As Reed watched, Luke shouldered the shotgun as a wall of bottles, rocks and other projectiles began impacting all around him. Reed’s last vision was of the officer’s hard landing on the pavement, his weapon falling free of his grasp.

  The side street was less traveled, allowing a reasonable speed. A few blocks closer to the bank where Brenda’s sister worked, Reed began smelling smoke. Brenda signaled to turn a corner when an entire street strewn with police cars and fire trucks lay before them. Dozens of flashing lights filled the avenue, the green florescent helmets of the firefighters rushing here and there.

  A building in the middle of the block showed bright yellow and red flames while it boiled coal black smoke. The car was filled with the odor of burning rubber and plastic, so thick and toxic it made Reed’s eyes water. On the edge of his vision, Reed noticed something odd about the bystanders. Normally when a fire was burning so close by, the onlookers would be focused on the flames or the men fighting the blaze. The people outside of Reed’s window weren’t gazing at the event with curiosity or concern. They were angry and restless. The congressman watched, noting heads that rocked back and forth during speech, arms shot out pointing with strong emotion, and men who shifted their nervous weight from one foot to the other. These people were mad, and feeding off of each other’s anger.

  Brenda started to sniffle, managing to voice concern over her sibling. She had no choice but to remain on the side street, inching forward through the clogged intersection. They had no more made it through when Reed noticed a woman standing on the sidewalk wearing a ski cap and bright white mittens. The lady waved at their car, grabbing Brenda’s attention. “There she is! That’s my sister!” Brenda stopped right in the middle of the street, waving for her sibling to join them, a move that annoyed many other drivers.

  With sis safely in the backseat, Brenda squealed the tires, accelerating the little car away from the troubled area. They drove into a residential area of middle-class homes where everything seemed much calmer. Brenda pulled over and stopped. Reed noticed her hands were shaking, and she was having trouble focusing. “I can’t drive anymore,” she stated.

  The sister spoke up from the backseat, finally catching her breath. “There was a run at the bank today. I barely got out of there alive. The president announced something about government checks wouldn’t be honored, and people went stark raving mad. We locked the doors, and that just made it worse. I’ve been standing on the corner watching the police arrest people and haul them off in vans. Someone set fire to the building a little while ago.”

  The two sisters looked at each other, and both mouthed the word “Mom” at the same time.

  The new passenger immediately reached for her cell phone, but Reed stopped her. “Won’t do any good. Cell service is out.”

  Reed listened as both girls expressed concern over their mother, who lived alone outside the beltway. At the same time, there was no way anyone dared head back toward Reed’s hotel and the bedlam occurring in that area. The three decided on an alternative plan. They were close to Brenda’s apartment, so it was agreed that Reed would wait there while the two sisters headed to their mother’s house. Reed didn’t like the idea of the two women travelling alone, but couldn’t argue them out of it. Brenda claimed she would feel better if someone were keeping an eye on her place anyway.

  Five reasonably calm blocks later, Reed hopped out of the car with a door key in his hand. The girls waved and sped off, heading west.

  February 15, 2017

  The White House Situation Room

  The row of computer monitors along the wall displayed broadcasts of all major cable news outlets side-by-side. The pictures being displayed were disturbing to the assortment of staffers, department secretaries, and military officers seated around the room.

  The president had been warned to expect limited incidents of violence. The historical evidence clearly indicated that when the American public believed their money was at risk, violence could occur. Everyone on the National Security Council had predicted the incidents would be isolated, but the news reports told a different story.

  All across the nation, there was a run on the banks. Hundreds of cities and towns reported widespread disturbances. The situation was so bad even the news anchors were begging people to remain calm.

  The White House phone system was overwhelmed, with several state governors unable to access the proper channels to call up the National Guard. Many executed the order on their own. Reserve peace officers often couldn’t be contacted, although many knew well enough to report for duty.

  Secretary Palmer finally proposed a new idea. After making eye contact with a clearly disturbed chief executive, she suggested, “Mr. President, I believe it would be wise to declare tomorrow a national bank holiday.”

  The statement broke the horrified daze of several staff members and one-by-one, many of them nodded in agreement. The head of homeland security muttered, “If there are any banks left to have a holiday.” The remark drew a sour look from the chief executive, but he didn’t say anything.

  After waiting to see if anyone protested the idea, he simply nodded and commanded, “Draw up the order – I’ll sign it.”

  It was the middle of the night in Europe, but the major cities there were preparing for a similar reaction. Singapore, Tokyo, and Sidney were already experiencing limited civil unrest, but nothing on the scale of the happenings in North America.

  Within an hour, the White House press secretary was holding a brief conference, explaining the executive order. Tomorrow would be a federal bank holiday, which would provide some window of time to resolve the issue with Treasury payments.

  February 15, 2017

  Beijing, China - MOSS Headquarters

  The translated news reports coming out of the United States indicated Golden Mountain had far, far exceeded anyone’s expectations. While the original plan had been conservative, even the most optimistic analysis predicted the operation wouldn’t result in any more than a significant thorn in the side of the US government. It would also serve the dual purpose of broadcasting a message that the capitalist system of free enterprise was weak, decaying, and vulnerable.

  The riots, with their resulting loss of property and life, were bonuses in the eyes of senior Chinese officials. Minister Hong didn’t want to lose momentum. In less than 12 hours, their efforts had left the single greatest threat to the Middle Kingdom teetering on the edge of collapse.

  The global reaction to unfolding events in Washington was welcome, even if unexpected. The OPEC countries were clamoring for the US dollar to be replaced as the world’s reserve currency. Not a new idea, but now the effort had the serious backing it had always needed be taken seriously.

  India, Japan, Germany, and Russia released statements condemning Washington’s decision to stop payment on all funds. As far as Minister Hong was concerned, those countries were getting what they deserved. If you sleep with a dog, you wake up with fleas, he thought.

  Without firing a single weapon, his department had brought the world’s greatest military power to its knees. Now it was time to finish the job. Now it was time for China to take its rightful place as the dominant force economically and militarily. Now was the time to slay the great dragon while it was wounded, gasping for breath.

  There was a third, optional phase to Golden Mountain. It had not been discussed or documented to the council, but could be implemented in short order.

  Minister Hong’s fingers moved across the keyboard in front of him. He leaned back, waiting on the monitor to display the information requested. A map of the United States appeared with hundreds of multi-colored lines crisscrossing the country. The different hues indicated transmission capacities of the North American electric
al power distribution system.

  The American power grid was essentially a patchwork of loosely integrated systems. Starting in the early 1920s, the huge network of high capacity electrical lines linked power plants to individual customers. There were over 500 separate electrical companies managing the system. Almost 100 years of different technologies existed in the network.

  Americans liked cheap energy, and the utilities that managed this network constantly walked a fine line between the amount of a customer’s monthly charges and the cost of upgrading infrastructure. Even without outside influences, the grid often failed.

  Minister Hong’s engineers had studied historical data regarding these failures and the impact to American productivity and civil stability. MOSS’ headman had been fascinated by the varied responses and social impact these past blackouts had produced.

  One of the first modern examples was the New York City power failure in 1965. While sections of the city still maintained some electrical power, millions of citizens were left in the dark. Human error at an upstate Niagara generating plant was blamed for the failure. The economy at that time was reasonably strong, and the only civil disturbances had been the block parties and public drunkenness throughout several of the major boroughs. The US government had taken some elementary steps to avoid the occurrence of a similar event. Twelve years later, it was clear those attempts hadn’t been successful.

  In 1977, almost all of New York City was without electrical power for over three days. The Chinese analysts had used this outage as a centerpiece of their study, given the economic conditions in the US at that time paralleled the current environment. Unrest, violence, and arson devastated the city during that blackout. Over 4,500 people had been arrested, and 550 police officers were injured. The damage to the local economy was severe. That failure had been caused by multiple lightning strikes and human error. Again, the government reacted, applying a Band-Aid over the problem, hoping the situation wouldn’t repeat.

  America isn’t the only country to experience widespread power failures. Supposedly, an errant lightning strike paralyzed all of southern Brazil in 1999. Almost every year there were one or more large-scale power failures throughout the world. Some caused civil unrest, while others resulted in mere inconvenience.

  The analysts at MOSS believed they could predict public response, having discovered a direct correlation between the general level of morale, economic conditions, government reaction, and length of the outage. Considering the events earlier in the day, the United States was primed for a negative reaction should there be widespread electrical grid failure. Minister Hong intended to deliver such an event.

  The hack was really very simple. The voltage regulation systems at key points in the distribution system had been built in China, by Chinese firms. Using what the engineers referred to as a “back door,” a small bit of computer program code had been inserted years before. This normally benign code lay slumbering, waiting for the signal to awaken.

  Minister Hong picked up his telephone and hit a three-digit extension. His call was answered before the first ring had exhausted itself. “Begin Phase III of Golden Mountain,” he ordered flatly.

  Since utility company personnel needed to control the critical switches, relays, and voltage regulators from remote operational centers, internet access was mandated. A single electronic command issued to 16 critical monitoring stations in the United States set the initiative in motion.

  When the signal came from China, the Trojan software at these stations activated itself and began generating fictitious readings. Normally, North American electricity ran at 60 MHz. All across the continent, generators at coal-fired, natural gas fueled, and nuclear power plants displayed false 55 MHz readings - misinformation provided by the Chinese hardware.

  Turbines at hundreds of power plants increased speed to recertify the low reading. In less than a minute, a true overvoltage surge pulsed through thousands of miles of high voltage power lines. The faster the generators spun, the lower the reading sent by the now corrupted monitoring stations.

  At 70 MHz, high-tension transmission lines started sagging beyond safety limits. At 72MHz, relays at operating stations began to spark and blow. When the frequency hit 75 MHz, fires began to burn throughout the entire grid.

  Generators, spinning faster than their designed safety limits, experienced fatal mechanical failures. Bearings were destroyed, overheated parts warped and melted, and hundreds of fires and explosions occurred from Maine to California.

  It wasn’t just the power generation capabilities that were damaged. All across the US, computers were fried, wires melted, and circuit boards became puddles of shiny green glass. One by one, the dense population centers became dark, their evening glow extinguished like candles exposed to a strong breeze.

  Stoplights couldn’t signal traffic, packed subway cars halted, and commuter trains blocked intersections. In New York City, elevators full of people in over 800 skyscrapers shuddered to a stop, hanging cold and dark in their shafts. The major transportation tunnels servicing Manhattan immediately closed when the critical ventilation systems went off-line.

  Equipped with the latest technology, the nuclear power plants were the first to begin emergency shutdown procedures. A few minutes later, their low-tech brethren, the coal and natural gas plants, interrupted operations as well. The hydro-electrical generators were soon to follow.

  Gas pumps being ravaged by lines of desperate drivers couldn’t pump. Hundreds of thousands of people, already spooked by the banking events of the day were replenishing staples at local supermarkets. Bare shelves and few selections put tempers on edge, and when the lights went out, it pushed many folks to the brink of their sanity. Heated conversations led to physical confrontations, many ending in violence.

  Fisticuffs, shootings, looting, robberies, and arson broke out in every major city. Not all aspects of the catastrophe were criminal or violent. Candles used to light homes and offices started fires. Fire departments struggled to respond because there wasn’t any water pressure to feed their equipment. First responders all across the continent, already taxed by budget cuts, staff reductions, and low morale tried to react, but absolute traffic gridlock slowed any response.

  Police departments, still reeling from the banking crisis earlier in the day, were completely unprepared for the wave of unrest that swept their cities. Fueled by rumors, years of a downtrodden economic environment, and divisive political campaigns, the American population centers were dry piles of tender, just waiting for a spark.

  The average American was already fed up and resentful. Many wanted to point a finger at someone - anyone - or everyone for a quality of life less than what he or she remembered having as a child. Closing the banks ignited the tender box; loss of electrical power fanned the flames. Many average, law-abiding citizens transformed into armed, angry, and resentful people. Rumors spread like wildfire. Ranging from foreign invasion to an EMP nuclear strike, every street corner and small town crossroad postulated a different conspiracy theory, none of the accounts forecasting a positive future. One radio station in Atlanta, running on backup generators, broadcasted that a military coup was being reported on the AP wires. Millions of commuters, stuck in traffic on greater Atlanta’s streets heard the story on their car radios.

  Cities like New York, Cleveland, and San Diego were recent veterans of widespread power outages. The citizens of these locales actually remained relatively calm for several hours. When reports of fried circuit boards, inoperable backup generators, and nationwide failures began airing on local radio stations, general panic set in. The common thinking of the few media that were able to broadcast proselytized the notion that the grid failed as the casualty of an EMP attack. Some churches declared that the end times were upon the sinful nation.

  Section II – Bottom Lands

  Chapter 5

  February 15th, 2017

  Kemah Bay, Texas

  Wyatt stopped, fishing in his pocket for the car keys. Somethin
g odd about the sunlight prompted him to pivot and stare toward the northwest. The Houston skyline was that direction, and the amount of smoke on the horizon astonished him. The low sun provided backlighting for the ash and heat climbing in the atmosphere. A pinkish-gray cloud manifested into a dome-like shape that dominated the sky. By Wyatt’s estimation, most of the city was covered by its angry haze. He shook his head, remembering that the Houston Fire Department had suffered numerous budget cuts during the last few years. “Wow! What a blaze. Those guys are probably shorthanded, struggling to extinguish whatever is burning,” he speculated.

  Driving to the market, Wyatt supposed a little classic rock might help dissolve his funk. He selected from the radio’s preset stations, sitting back to enjoy some oldies, but goodies. The Aerosmith hit was just reaching the guitar solo when the DJ interrupted the jam with a newsflash. Wyatt became agitated, never having heard this station broadcast any sort of bulletin. As he reached to change channels, the words “hundreds dead,” immobilized his finger before it could hit the button. He listened to the poorly worded, impromptu report for a few moments, eventually switching to a fulltime news source.

  The words spewing from the dashboard were so shocking; he was prompted to pull to the side of the street and park. The president had conducted a press conference…government checks wouldn’t be honored…riots erupted…power failed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people were dead.

  He listened until the reporters began recycling the same information. The situation described by the media was unfathomable to Wyatt. He’d just driven through Houston a few hours ago. Everything had looked just fine. How had this happened so quickly? At that moment, two police cars with flashing lights and wailing sirens zipped past, their urgency snapping him out of the fog. Some instinct made him realize the trip to the market had just taken on a new level of urgency. The smart thing to do is stock up with as much food as I can fit in the back, he thought. Wyatt checked his rearview mirror and reentered traffic.