She remembered the power going out in Bellingham due to windstorms knocking trees over the power lines, but there were hardly any trees big enough here to knock out the power. She finished cleaning up Saj, who was now wide awake and hungry. She picked up her cold coffee mug and drained it to the bottom. Maybe she was a little hungry, too. Once she had Saj dressed, she could call her father and see what the power forecast was. If her phone worked.
Mannie stared at the laptop screen on his desk. How long had he been zoning? He should be maximizing the power, but his brain was going in directions more far reaching than this immediate crisis. Here’s where they would see if staying in Provo had been a good idea. When the shit hit the fan. You never knew which way people would go. The strongest, pro-equality attorney and the flakiest homeless bum might easily switch places when it came time to pitch in and help during a disaster.
He opened the drawer to his desk. The flask sat there; its contents clear, pure cheap vodka. He shook himself off and shoved the drawer back in place.
The weather information numbers on the computer screen had not changed. Except as he watched the temperature flipped up a degree to 42. Shit. How far above freezing would it take to lose all the food in the freezers? He needed to plan for the worst case scenario and that meant no power in the near future, except what they could run on generators. He wished he could go to NOAA.gov and get a weather report.
The only thing left of the Internet after the outage was the local net the Provincial Utah Government had set up and it would be down in a matter of hours just like the cell towers. Then people would be limited to communicating cell to cell with BlueTruth until their batteries died. That would be cluster-fun if anything really bad went down. How come they hadn’t pursued getting the solar power switched over from the Delta plant? Mannie knew the answer. One of the great laws of human nature: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
So unopened freezers would keep food safe for a couple days. Get the message out. Don’t open the freezers. Eat what’s in the refrigerators. Start getting people out to ice-mine the lakes without salt in them. Get as much solid ice as we can and then disperse it.
The building rumbled as his lights flickered and then came on full. At the same time the heater fan restarted and cool air blew at him. He flipped the switch on the fan to low and the heat up a few degrees. Most people weren’t lucky enough to have back-up power like the Government offices.
The intercom blasted. “All personnel report to the courtroom immediately for Emergency session.”
“Shit. I don’t have time for a fucking meeting.” Well, he’d be late. They’d have to come drag him out. He checked to see if the internet was back up. Nope. But the local network was. So he could get to Communications. He opened his chat and typed in Benny.
Benny. Get this out on all channels ASAP. Do not open your freezers. Eat food from the cupboards. Save the food in the fridge for last. Power will be restored. Please conserve power when it comes back. Please. [And thanks. Mannie.]
The phone rang.
“Grand Central Station,” Mannie muttered as he reached for it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE END OF THE WORLD HAD been going so well. Pounding on the door woke Zach as the sun broke over the hills, reflecting off the other nearby buildings.
“Get up. Message from Provo for you. Everyone’s called back. Power’s out.”
“No shit,” Zach muttered. In a louder voice, he answered, “All right. I’m awake. Thanks for the heads up.”
Twenty minutes later he and Nev were in the car headed back with two additional passengers, young men, but not any that he had seen training back in Provo. Oh well. Might as well get to know them. “So, Mark and Brian, right.”
The bigger one, Brian spoke. “Yeah. And you’re Zach and Nell?”
“Nev,” Zach replied.
“It’s short for Nevaeh,” Nev said tiredly.
“What’d you guys do in Salt Lake?” Zach asked.
“Maintenance. Bell hop. Room Service,”
“I was a housekeeper,” Mark said softly.
“Didn’t really want to join up and it sounded pretty cush when that lady gave us the choice.”
Nev snorted. “Miss Not-La Fever? She could make shoveling manure sound cush.”
“Why do you think we all have to go back to Provo?” Brian asked.
Zach figured he knew. Without power Provo was days away from chaos. They needed two things. To get the power back on line and to keep the people in line if it took very long. “I don’t know. Figure we all gotta pitch in.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Brian said, not sounding very convinced.
Zach knew the type. Hell, he was the type a couple years ago, before Mom left and he and Dad moved in with Grandpa. He didn’t want to work hard and he had a little bit of an attitude, entitlement and testosterone. Partying was a major focus and school was just enough that he’d be able to graduate on time. But it hadn’t worked out that way. The world he knew had ended at the beginning of his senior year. “Could be worse. We could all be dead.”
“Hey,” Brian placated, “didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Sorry,” Zach said. Brian and Mark didn’t deserve his annoyance. “Just kind of bummed about missing my pre-honeymoon.” He grinned at Nev and she smiled back.
“Totally, Dude.” Brian’s face cracked into a big grin. “Hope the power comes back soon and you can finish it.”
“Thanks,” Zach said.
Nev squeezed Zach’s leg and winked at him.
“You sure you don’t know what’s gonna happen?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know enough, except to worry.” Zach shrugged.
“Mannie might know,” Nev offered. “Do the cell phones work?”
“Didn’t even notice.” It would be nice to know what was up. “Try him.”
Nev held her phone to her mouth. “Call Mannie.”
Zach could hear it ‘ringing’ as he drove the 15 back to Provo. The weirdest thing was the traffic. He had gotten used to no cars on the road and now there were cars in front of him, behind him. Hell, some were even passing him and he was trucking along at 80.
“Mannie?” Nev said.
Zach heard Mannie’s calm, loud rumble. “Yeah.”
Nev held the phone away from her ear. “Wasn’t sure the cell phones would work.”
“Most towers have back-up power for a few hours. We’ll probably have some service all day. Are you still in Salt Lake?”
“I’m in the car with Zach and a couple hitchhikers. They can probably hear you.” Nev glanced over at Zach.
“Hey, Mannie,” Zach said. “Wondered if there’s a plan yet.”
There was silence for a long moment. Nev raised her eyebrow at Zach before Mannie continued.
“Well. Nobody’s told me anything official except to figure out what my needs are. Was sort of hoping for a longer time before we had to deal with this.”
Zach could hear his sigh through the phone. He was glad he wasn’t in charge of anything. Taking orders sounded pretty good compared to giving them.
“I’m guessing they have a plan to get power back on. But until that happens, we’ve got food that might go bad depending on how warm it gets. Luckily, it’s winter and a cold one at that, though if you’d asked me a couple weeks ago I wouldn’t have had anything good to say about the weather. Course that means we got to figure out how to keep the people warm. Sort of stuff the National Guard would have done in the old days.”
“Thanks, Mannie,” Zach pitched his voice a little louder than normal. “Kind of what I figured. We’ll be back in Provo in about ten minutes.”
“All right, take it easy, Zach,” Mannie said. “Nev, you coming to work?”
“You got breakfast, Mannie?”
Zach’s phone buzzed against his thigh; he pulled it out of the side pocket in his fatigues.
Mannie chuckled. “Bet I could get something delivered.”
“Then sure.” Nev laug
hed. “I’ll be there.”
Zach thumbed the answer and pushed the volume down. It was Sgt. Jefferson, Foote’s assistant.
“Riley?” Jefferson drawled. “What’s your ETA?”
“Fifteen minutes. Sergeant.” If the Sergeant was sounding southern, the stress was getting to him.
“Hotel said you got two volunteers?”
“Yes. They’re with me.” Zach glanced in the rear view mirror. Both his passengers had pained and worried looks.
“Bring ‘em with you.”
“Will do, Sergeant.”
“Jefferson out.”
Zach hit end call and slid the phone back in his pocket. “Well, gentlemen. I guess that’s the plan. You’re coming with me.”
“I guess we don’t have much choice?” Mark asked, as if he hoped Zach could save them.
“Well, I could drop you here, outside the city and you can take your chances. For my take, Provo’s the best thing going.”
“Yeah,” Brian said.
“Let me know. I’ll report that you didn’t want to help.”
“No. No.” Mark’s voice shook a little.
“We’ll go,” Brian agreed. “Don’t have to be happy about it.”
“I recommend not whining about it either.”
Nev glanced over at Zach, her eyes playful. “You’ll help these boys out, won’t you, Zach?”
“Sure,” Zach agreed with a smile. “I’ll do what I can.”
After making sandwiches for herself and Saj, Lizzie realized the lights were back on. How long had they been on? She finished getting Saj ready as they shared a dessert snack of pears and grated cheese. Then she took him to Rachael’s before heading for the next address on her list.
People to meet, collect data from… It was really nice being her own boss. It was weird she didn’t even feel like flaking out and not doing it. She was only expected to do 30 hours a week and had already hit 34 hours and it was only Thursday.
Two hours later she decided she was done. Everyone had been polite, but they weren’t happy to see her today. Was it the power outage? Made people fearful again that all they had was a propped up facade of what used to be real. Home was in between her and Rachael’s, so she stopped in to change out of her winter clothes. Halfway undressed and there was a knock on the door. She pulled the cold damp clothes back on. Who the hell was knocking on her door?
She pulled the tape back off the peephole. Duke. She opened the door. “Come on in.”
“You wanna walk?”
“No. I wanna rock.” She banged her head like she was in some heavy metal band.
Duke grimaced at the joke.
“Yeah. I’ll go for a walk. I need to go get Saj from Rachael’s.”
She shoved her arms back into the warm coat and pulled him by the hand as she shut the door behind her. “Uno, dos, tres—”
Duke stepped in front of her, wrapped her in his arms and lifted her off her feet. “Catorce!”
When he set her down Lizzie squatted slightly, wrapped her arms and grabbed her own hands right under his tail-bone. She grunted and heaved, managing to get his feet off the ground.
“Arriba! Careful pregnant lady,” Duke said as she dropped him back down.
“And abajo.” Lizzie realized he was right. “I was careful.”
“Careful for you, maybe.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and they continued on.
When they got to Rachael’s she looked seriously agitated. “Have you heard?”
Lizzie glanced at Duke, who shrugged his shoulders. “No. I guess not. What's up?”
“The new council is trying to pass a selective service for the girls.”
“You mean they're going to send us to war, too?” Lizzie put her hands together to form a gun and pointed it at Duke. “I don't get it. It's about time.”
“No. Selective service for girls. To do our part for our country.”
Lizzie's brain flashed. “No. You're kidding.”
“Nope. Young women of child-bearing age who have not conceived a child or are not currently pregnant will be tested for fertility and must become pregnant within the next 12 months.”
“That's bullshit,” Duke growled. “What the hell is this place? Communist China?”
“It's not going to happen,” Lizzie said. “They've lowered the voting age and given us the right to vote.”
Rachael deflated a bit. “Yeah. I suppose not. Mr. Ray said he would veto it.”
“See,” Duke agreed. “Nothing to worry about.”
Lizzie wasn't used to having to prop Rachael up.
“Juke?” asked a little voice. Saj burst into the room. “Juke and Sissie!” He ran to them. “Unodos?”
“Okay. We'll do Uno, dos, tres while we walk.”
On the way home, between swinging Saj in the air, she and Duke continued the conversation. By the time they'd gotten home, she'd decided that there was no way it would happen. People wouldn't stand for it.
Mannie's head jerked at the sound of the door knob being turned. He held himself back from standing to see who it was. Instead he continued to search for the data he needed.
Nev walked past the cubicle wall. “What can I do to help?” she asked, a pinched smile on her face.
Mannie could see the stress outlined on her jaw. “I need a priority list for power. I’m betting we can keep generators running here. We need to get people to shut down all non-essentials in the building so the power we’ve got lasts. They’ve called me to a meet-”
“I heard the announcement.” Her fake smile had faded to a tight frown. “Figured you needed me quick. What else?”
“I don’t know. Watch your phone. Hopefully I can text you during the meeting.”
Another knock on the door and it opened even faster. “Mr. Guerrero?” A hefty young man in fatigues who’d obviously run the whole way came in and bent over immediately. “They want you now,” he gasped.
“Tell them I’m on my way. Setting up systems to get started.” Mannie gestured to Nev.
“All right. I’ll tell them you’re on your way.” The runner sighed as he opened the door. His footfalls faded as he ran back.
Nev chuckled dryly as the door bounced back into place. “I do believe that boy needs to get in shape.”
Mannie smiled. “Yeah. This time next year maybe he’ll be in shape.”
“What are you going to tell them? The good news or the bad news?”
“Is there any good news?”
“We’re not dead yet?”
He liked her sense of humor. “Well, the good news is we’re not dead. And we’ve got plants coming along in the green houses. We won’t go too hungry. I have no bleeding clue how long it’ll take to restore power.”
“You better get going.”
“Said I wasn’t going to do this shit again.”
Nev shrugged. “Yeah. Lot of that going around.”
Mannie shoved himself vertical. His knee told him he’d been sitting in one place too long. He stretched it for a moment. “Sorry you and Zach didn’t get your vacation.”
“Oh,” Nev’s pale face reddened, “we got a little.”
Mannie laughed. “Good. See you in a bit.” At least some things never changed despite the world around them. Kids would still find time to fall in love.
He swung open the door and stepped into the hall, limping as fast as he could toward the courtroom. When he arrived he shoved both doors open. Everyone turned to look at him. There was one space left, right next to Foote, near DiSilvio and Ray. Shit. Well, he sure as hell wasn’t going to take on fourth in the line of succession. “You waiting for me?” he asked to the room as the pain in his knee slowed him down to a shuffle.
“Frankly, we decided you probably have a better handle on this than any of us.”
Mannie slid into the seat. “When do we get power back?”
DiSilvio cocked his head to the side. “How long can we last without it?”
Mannie harrumphed. “At what level of comfort
?” he retorted.
“We figured we had months of natural gas.” DiSilvio placed his fingertips together and looked into the space he’d created. “We need more.”
“This building’s generators run on gasoline. We’ve been collecting it. But how many other buildings have generators? How soon can we switch over the solar plant in Delta?”
Foote was shaking his head. “We don’t have an engineer to tell us how it works.”
“Well, we better find one.” Mannie immediately regretted the tone of his voice. Foote stared reproachfully at Mannie over his glasses.
Mannie continued in a more respectful voice. “Unless somebody has an extra supply of natural gas, solar is our best bet. What happened to the natural gas supply?”
DiSilvio glanced at Foote and then to Mr. Ray. Then he shrugged. “Somebody measured wrong.”
“It happens,” Mr. Ray said.
“Well, I want to know why,” Mannie said. “What do you need from me?”
Mr. Ray and DiSilvio exchanged a glance. DiSilvio spoke. “We need to know how bad things are in terms of supplies.”
“Then why did you pull me in here?” Mannie realize the edge on his voice was not going to win friends and influence people. “Let me get back to my office. I’ll send updates as soon as I have solid info.” He shoved himself to his feet.
“Mannie?” Foote asked. “Is it outside influence? Did someone shut down the natural gas?”
Mannie shrugged. “No fucking clue, Sir.” His glare and comment were met with hard, pissed off faces. “Sorry. I’ll tell you if I figure it out.” He stamped out the door and back down the hall to his office. He could hear voices in the room he’d left, angry voices, but no one came after him.
He was talking to Nev before he made it all the way into the room. “Okay. I want all the collectors out getting ice. Put it on the emergency Bluetooth network to all phones.”
Deserted Lands (Book 2): Straight Into Darkness Page 20
