CyberStorm final Mar 13 2013

by Matthew Mather

  Straightening up, I began walking back down the street into the darkness, back toward the hospital.

  2:25 a.m.

  “I WISH WE could offer more,” said Sergeant Williams.

  I shook my head. “This is great, thank you so much.”

  Cupping a bowl of soup in my hands, I luxuriated in its heat. My fingers tingled painfully with pins and needles as the blood returned, and my feet were still totally numb. On the way inside, I’d checked my face in the bathroom. It was sore and red, but there was no frostbite, or at least nothing like what I thought frostbite would look like.

  Moving down the cafeteria line, I picked up a hard bun and a pat of butter. There wasn’t much left except for some crackers and a few bags of chips.

  The second floor of the office tower adjoining Penn Station and Madison Square Garden had been converted into an NYPD barracks, and it was packed. After I’d struggled for a few more trips back and forth, Sergeant Williams had stopped me, seeing I was about to collapse, and offered to bring me up to their mess.

  Nobody had batted an eye when I entered wearing my frilly pink coat. They were too exhausted.

  Scanning the crowd, I couldn’t see anyone I knew. Chuck had stayed with the girls. He wasn’t much use with his broken hand. Tony, Vince, and I had walked over to the hospital, but I’d lost track of them in the confusion. Richard had conveniently disappeared from the hallway when we’d announced our intention to come and help.

  Everyone had been wearing masks during the hospital evacuation, but in the cafeteria nobody was. Either they knew something the general population didn’t, or they’d given up.

  Sergeant Williams motioned to an open spot at the tables, and we wound our way through the crowd to sit down. Wedging myself between some NYPD officers, I put down my steaming bowl of soup to shake hands all around. Sergeant Williams sat across from me, pulling off his hat and scarf and tossing them atop the heap of other outdoor clothing littering the table. I added mine to the pile.

  It smelled like a locker room.

  “It’s a goddamn mess out there,” complained one of the officers, leaning down into his soup.

  “What happened?” asked another.

  “The Chinese is what happened,” he growled back. “I hope they’ve friggin’ leveled Beijing. I had to carry a few old slanty-eyed bastards up from Presbyterian, and I swear to God I almost dropped them into the snowbank to freeze to death.”

  “Enough of that,” said Sergeant Williams softly. “There’s enough bad already going on out there without us adding to it. We don’t know what happened yet, and I don’t want to hear any more talk like that.”

  “Don’t know what happened?” said the officer incredulously. “It’s like we’re fighting a goddamn war in our own city.”

  Sergeant Williams stared at the officer.

  “For every person causing mischief, there’s five more like Michael here”—he motioned toward me with a nod of his head—“that are risking their lives to help out.”

  The officer shook his head.

  “Mischief? I’ll give you goddamn mischief. You can all go to hell. I’ve friggin’ had it.”

  He got up angrily, grabbing his bowl of soup, and stormed off to another corner of the mess hall. The officers around him looked away, but one by one they all got up and left as well.

  “You’ll have to forgive Officer Romales,” said Sergeant Williams. “We lost some people today in a shoot-out on Fifth. Some idiots decided to start looting the fancy shops there, a whole mob.”

  Leaning down, I undid the laces on my boots and loosened them, curling my toes. An intense ache had begun to burn in them.

  “Take the boots off,” suggested Sergeant Williams. “Warm in here, but the boots are insulated. If you keep your feet in ‘em, you’ll be keeping ‘em cold.”

  He sighed and looked around.

  “Bodies and blood everywhere after that firefight on Fifth, and nowhere to put ‘em, no way to get there with paddy wagons or ambulances, so we had to leave them to freeze right on the street. A hell of a thing.”

  Kicking my boots off, I brought one foot up onto the opposite knee and began kneading my toes.

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  I wasn’t sure what was appropriate to say, and perhaps nothing was. I left a respectful pause for silence while I switched feet and began working on the other toes.

  “City morgues are full up anyway, and the hospitals are fast becoming meat lockers.”

  A searing pain shot through the foot I was massaging. I winced.

  “What happened at Presbyterian?”

  Sergeant Williams shook his head. “A gasket blew on the generator fuel pump when switching from one tank to another. Eighty big hospitals in the city, plus hundreds of clinics, are all gonna come crashing down soon. We’re near three days in—even without equipment failure, none of them have reserves to last past five days on generator, and there’s little refueling in sight.”

  He dunked his bread into the soup.

  “Worst is the water. DEP shut down tunnels two and three out at Hillview Reservoir when a system malfunction said sewage had spilled over, but when they found it was just a glitch, they couldn’t open the tunnels again. Pure genius. Control systems are screwed, or some such nonsense.”

  “Can’t they do something?”

  “Ninety percent of city water flows in from there. They’re going to have to blow the tunnel controls, but even then, with no flowing water for a few days at these temperatures, the smaller pipes are probably frozen up already. Not long till people start hacking into the ice on the East River to drink that polluted slop. Eight million people on this island are going to die of thirst before they freeze to death.”

  I stopped eating my soup and put both feet back on the ground, despite the pain it sent shooting up my legs.

  “So where’s the cavalry?”

  “FEMA?” he laughed, but then stopped himself. “They’re doing their damnedest, but there’s no contingency for rescuing sixty million people. Networks are all down, and they can’t even find their people or equipment. Boston is as bad as us, add a frozen storm surge when that nor’easter hit, and more of the same story in Hartford, Philly, Baltimore.”

  “Didn’t the president order the military in?”

  He laughed again. “Even Washington is up this creek, son. We haven’t heard anything from there the last day or two, like they’ve dropped into a black hole. Starting with the bird flu scare, the entire country’s been thrown into chaos. At least from what we hear, and that’s damned little.”

  “Have you even seen the military?”

  He nodded. “They appeared, but they have their knickers in a twist over the unidentified targets, thinking we’re in some kind of new drone war and now cranked up on DEFCON 2 to protect a country that’s disintegrating behind the fences. Idiots are getting set to launch a war on the other side of the world while we starve and freeze over here. Nobody still has any idea what the hell happened.”

  “But somebody’s done something.”

  “Yeah, somebody has done something.”

  I looked around the crowded room. “I’ve got my family here. Should we get out, get to an evacuation center?”

  “Evacuate to where? It’s a frozen wasteland out there, and even if you had somewhere to go, how would you get there?”

  He took a deep breath and reached out to hold one of my hands. It was an intimate gesture I wasn’t expecting.

  “Do you have somewhere safe? Somewhere warm?”

  I nodded.

  “Stay there then, get clean water, and keep your head down. We’ll sort this out. Con Edison says they’ll have power in a few days, and after that the rest will sort itself out.”

  He let go of my hand, leaning back to rub his eyes.

  “One more thing.”

  I put my spoon down and waited.

  “There’s another storm coming, nearly as bad as the first.”

  “When?”

 
“Tomorrow.”

  I stared at him.

  In barely a whisper he added, “God help us all.”

  Day 6 – December 28

  8:20 a.m.

  THE BABY SCREAMED and screamed in my arms. I tried to hold it, but it was slippery, still in its placental sack. I was alone in the woods, my hands filthy, covered in leaves, with dirt jammed under my fingernails. I scrubbed and scrubbed my hands, trying to clean them, trying to hold onto the baby, but it slid and slipped.

  My God, don’t let it fall. Someone, please help me.

  With a gasp, I sat bolt upright in bed. Outside was a flat, gray light. Overcast. No sound except the soft purring of the electric heater beside the bed. Lauren was sleeping with me, Luke cradled between us. He was awake, staring up at me and smiling.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said to him softly.

  I was sweating, my heart still racing, with the vision of the baby slipping sideways in my consciousness. Leaning down, I kissed Luke on his chubby cheek, and he burbled and squeaked.

  He was hungry.

  Lauren shifted, and her eyes opened.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, blinking and leaning up on one elbow.

  She was wearing a gray cotton hoodie and bundled deep under layers of blankets. I leaned over, reaching under the covers, and she flinched ever so slightly as my cold fingers found her warm flesh. Gently, I slid my hand down to caress her belly. Maybe eleven weeks, but her tummy was still flat.

  She smiled awkwardly and looked away.

  “Last night,” I sighed, “was horrible. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  “Because I’m horrible?”

  The electric heater whirred. I slipped my hand around to the small of her back and pulled her toward me, kissing her cheek. She trembled.

  “No, because you’re amazing.”

  “I am horrible, Mike, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s me that needs to apologize. I wasn’t listening to you, and I wrongly accused you.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Tears filled her eyes.

  “That kid, Vince” I said quietly, “he lost his fiancée in the Amtrak crash.”

  “My God.”

  “And it made me think, if I ever lost you—”

  Luke squealed between us. I smiled and looked at him, fighting back my own tears.

  “One second, buddy, I just need to talk to your mommy, okay?”

  I looked back at Lauren.

  “You are everything to me. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. When this is done, if you want to go back to Boston, I’m there with you. I’ll be a stay-at-home dad, you get that job, whatever you want. I just want us to be together, to be a family.”

  “I want that too. I’m so sorry.”

  The gulf between us disappeared, and she reached up and kissed me. Luke squealed again.

  “Okay, let’s get you some breakfast,” Lauren laughed, still kissing me.

  I pulled away, pausing.

  “It’s falling apart out there, Lauren. People are dying.”

  She leaned in and whispered in my ear, “I know you’ll keep us safe.”

  §

  The main hallway had become a communal space, with couches serving as beds toward each end and chairs arranged around two coffee tables in the middle. On one side, someone had pulled out a bookcase that served as a stand for some lamps, the radio, and a coffeemaker. The kerosene heater stood in the middle of one of the coffee tables, filling the space with warmth.

  The homeless man was gone, but the young woman and her kids were still there, curled up in a nest of blankets on the couch in front of the Borodins’. Rebecca, the woman from downstairs in 315, had spent the night up in our hallway. The Chinese family was staying in Richard’s place, and Tony was spending his nights sleeping in the main room of Chuck’s place, on the couch in front of the door to our bedroom.

  By the time I got up, the kid, Vince, had already jury-rigged a rope and pulley system in the stairwell, and had banded together a work team. The elevator hallway, at right angles to the main hallway about halfway down, was stacked with containers of snow they were hauling up to melt for drinking water.

  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I waved to Tony as he appeared from the stairwell door with two buckets of snow, and I made for the steaming pot of coffee on the bookshelf. Pam was filling up a cup, and she handed it to me.

  “Could I speak to you a second?” she whispered.

  I mumbled, “Sure,” as I took the cup, and she pulled me to one side. I drank a mouthful of coffee and savored it hitting my tongue.

  “You’re going to need to be very careful with Lauren. Even moderate dehydration and malnutrition can induce miscarriage.”

  “Of course I’ll make sure.” I took another sip of my coffee.

  “That unborn baby is counting on you.”

  “I know that, Pam.” Now I felt annoyed. “And I appreciate your concern.”

  She looked me in the eyes. “You come to me if anything—”

  “I will.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then she looked down and turned to go back to helping with hauling up snow. Rory and Chuck were sitting on the couch near our door, playing with their phones.

  “Cell phones working?” I asked hopefully as I refilled my cup, glad to switch topics.

  “Not exactly,” replied Chuck without looking up.

  “More hospital shutdowns are scheduled for today,” said the radio announcer, “and the NYPD is asking for volunteers—”

  “Not exactly? What does that mean?”

  “The kid showed me how to use a point-to-point messaging app. I’m installing it on Rory’s phone.”

  “A point-to-point messaging app?”

  “It’s called a mesh network.”

  “—heavy snowfall and high winds are predicted, hampering efforts of the military—”

  Taking a sip from my coffee, I sat down next to them, leaning in to see what they were doing. Chuck pulled a small memory chip from the back of Rory’s phone, clipped the battery back in, and turned it on.

  “We’ve collected a bunch of useful stuff on this,” he said, holding the memory card between his fingers. “The kid’s messaging app is amazing. We can text message each other, directly phone-to-phone, as well as across a network of phones, as long as they’re within a few hundred feet. Doesn’t need the cell network. There’s even a Wi-Fi version of it.”

  “This radio station will be shutting down at four p.m. today in advance of the heavy weather and lack of refueling for our antennae transmission station. For continuing emergency broadcast tune into—”

  “Can you stick it on my phone?”

  He motioned toward a Tupperware filled with cell phones on the shelf under the coffeemaker. Each one was marked with masking tape.

  “Already did yours and charged it up, and going to put it on as many phones as we can. They need to be unlocked, and doesn’t work on all models, but works on enough of them.”

  “Guess you heard about the new storm?”

  He nodded. “Another foot or two of snow coming. We’re going to head out soon to help evacuate Beth Israel over to the Bellevue and Veterans. Can you come?”

  These were large hospitals over on the east side, next to Stuyvesant Town and Alphabet City.

  “As long as Lauren’s okay with me leaving.”

  Chuck looked up at me and smiled, and the cell phone in his hand beeped to life. He began typing something.

  “You sure you’re up for going out?” I asked him.

  “Yep. The kid is going to stay here and get all these phones done, talk to the neighbors.”

  He was gamely trying to use his broken hand to hold the cell phone while typing with the other. The bad hand was purple and swollen.

  I shook my head and then thought of something.

  “Have you checked on Irena and Aleksandr?”

  “Check on them yourself,” replied Chuck, nodding toward their door. “Oh, and one m
ore thing. Can you cross-country ski?”

  “Sure, if you can lend me another jacket.”

  3:30 p.m.

  THE SNOW BEGAN again as the day slipped toward darkness.

  Evacuating Beth Israel Hospital and the Veterans over to Bellevue was a much more orderly affair than the scene at Presbyterian the previous evening. It was an organized closure, or as organized as it could be under the conditions. They knew when the generator was going to lose power and were making the transfer ahead of time. Only the critical were transferred to Bellevue, with the rest going to evacuation centers.

  Emergency resources and fuel were being concentrated in just a few of the largest medical centers.

  Chuck and I skied over, using the gear the thieves had left in the lockers. We weren’t the first ones to get the idea. A network of cross-country ski tracks had already appeared on the streets. New Yorkers were fast adapting, and we saw all kinds of improvised snow gear on our cross-town trek, even people on bicycles going down Sixth Avenue.

  Cars everywhere were completely buried, but a few adventurous souls had dug them out and ventured onto the street, mostly only to get stuck again.

  After the requests on the radio, hundreds of people turned up to help the NYPD and emergency services, turning First Avenue into a buzzing beehive of activity. Where New York felt almost deserted before, today’s mission had inspired a sense of camaraderie and togetherness.

  The city wasn’t beaten yet, not by a long shot.

  I’d checked in on the Borodins before leaving. It was as if nothing had happened. Irena and Aleksandr were sitting in their usual spots—Aleksandr asleep on the couch with Gorby curled up next to him, Irena knitting another set of socks.

  Irena had even offered me some sausages she’d cooked for breakfast, which of course I’d accepted along with a piping-hot cup of tea. They didn’t want to come and hang out with the rest of us. Irena explained that they would just keep to themselves, that they’d done this before.

  At the hospital evacuation, I ran into Sergeant Williams again. He waved to me from a police cruiser as I was going one way up First and he was going the other way down.