by Nate Castle
He brought the bucket back to ground level and hopped out. If his plan worked, people from the organization would be leaving the Northrop Grumman building right about now, after realizing there was no electricity and they couldn't work properly without it.
He walked towards the entrance and from a block away took refuge from behind a large bush before pulling out a pair of binoculars. Like clockwork, they started coming out of the building. He counted twenty-two members this time, and from their body language they appeared to be furious. They couldn't run their water scam operation with no electricity. One thing Clyde didn't account for is what if they brought their laptops with them and then simply did the work from another location. The odds were though that they would only do work at this building so that they didn't get confronted or discovered by someone peeping over their shoulder and wondering why they were profiting from shutting off people’s water.
President Taylor was with his fiancee, Sierra, inside one of the lounge rooms in the new White House. He poured himself a John Collins, his drink of choice, which consisted of bourbon, lemon, syrup, and club soda. He walked over to the couch and took a seat next to Sierra. She gave him an extended kiss and massaged his shoulders.
“Now I don't want you to get mad at me, but I’d like to speak my opinion, okay?” Sierra said.
“Of course honey, when do I ever get mad at you?” President Taylor said.
“So I think, like most men would do, when there is an attack you react quickly and aggressively to it. And don’t get me wrong you’ve done a phenomenal job so far. You’re one of the reasons all of us are still alive, but the fact of the matter is the aliens are still here,” she said.
“Continue,” he nodded at her.
“So given that our first two attempts didn’t eliminate the aliens, maybe we should try a more civil method this time. Then if that doesn’t work, we can once again resort to Call of Duty tactics.”
“Okay, and what do you envision for this civil method?”
“I believe the aliens are here for a specific reason. They probably aren’t here to exterminate the whole human race, but instead they are after something that we have here on Earth,” she paused to catch her breath. “This might sound dumb but I think we should write a note to the Zyrgians asking them what they want from us. It is highly likely that they understand and can communicate in English because they are way more advance then us.”
“That is an interesting phenomenon. You’re saying don't beat around the bush, be direct with them, and we might get out of this mess, it’s as simple as that?” President Taylor said.
Sierra could tell that he was intently listening and absorbing what she had to say, which was a quality about him that she loved.
“And just maybe, they will tell us what they want, we can give it to them, and then move on,” she said.
“So your theory is that the Zyrgians are reactionary and have only shown violence towards us when we have thrown the first punch, is that correct?”
“I’d be willing to bet on it. All of the evidence points to that conclusion,” she said.
“Alright, give me a day or so to think about the best way to go about this,” he said.
Clyde decided now was as good a time as ever, so he quickly ran to the entrance of the Northrop Grumman building and tugged at the door. It was locked as expected. This was one of those situations where he had to made a judgment call. Did he care if they knew that he broke into the building (surely they wouldn’t know it was him) or did he just want to get the job done quickly, not caring if they came back to the warehouse and discovered a few things out of place? He chose the latter.
From a backpack he was carrying he pulled out a lubricant can. He pointed the straw at the lock on the door and sprayed some of the substance into it. Next, he used what he would describe as an air gun to ‘punch out’ the lock, the end result being a door handle with no locking mechanism in it. He didn’t understand the physics behind what he just did, but had learned how to do this from a nifty friend who was also into magic. He pulled a flashlight out of his backpack to make up for the lack of electricity.
There was a main hallway that led to different rooms of the building; it took him about ten minutes of trial and error to figure out what he was looking for. In the one of the rooms was a bank of computers. He had no idea if these computers contained the information that he needed, but realized that since they were laptops, they could run as standalone devices even though the electricity was out. Starting on the left, he perused through each systems’ contents quite methodically and transferred content that he tagged as important to an external hard drive. He could tell that some computers were missing from the workstation; some guys must have taken theirs home after the power loss. Because of that, Clyde would have to rewrite some code on the system these guys were using so that they could no longer access it. He chose one computer and put it in his backpack; this would be a task for when he got home. Clyde’s roommate in college was into coding and so Clyde learned the basics of that and also hacking.
On his way out of the building, he suddenly heard voices getting louder. He ducked into a room on his right. Two men with flashlights passed by where he was hiding. Ideas were racing through his head, wondering how much information they knew, or if they knew anything at all about Clyde’s breach?
He scanned the room he was in. It was set up like a Costco, with floor to ceiling racks with pallets full of merchandise. As he examined closer though, he saw that it wasn’t merchandise. It was drugs. Not illegal ones, but over the counter medicines and prescription drugs. Each pallet was marked with a label stating which store the pallet came from. One that said, ‘WLGNS’ he assumed meant Walgreens and one that said, ‘SMCLB’ meant Sam’s Club.
It all began to make sense. This organization had looted all of the drug stores after the first alien attack and was running a business selling drugs to people who needed the medications, at an inflated price, just like they were doing with the water.
Man these assholes have their hand in everything.
He cautiously left the room and found a side door exit from the building, worried that more people would now be entering the building besides the two men. Within five minutes of leaving the building he was back at the Vista Utility truck and into the bucket to reconnect the power lines. He wasn’t sure why he had shut off the power for the whole neighborhood in the first place. He flicked the switch to get that up and running. About to reconnect the Northrop Grumman cable, he changed his mind and lowered the bucket down to truck level.
Why give those guys their power back? Let them stay distracted by that, which will buy him more time to do the necessary hacking and coding.
Besides, after seeing the drug set-up, he despised this organization even more than he did prior.
Clyde made it back home within an hour and didn’t waste any time getting to work. The task was easier than expected. The end result was now that the water could no longer be controlled remotely, it would have to be turned off and back on at the source. This would make it nearly impossible for the organization to take control of the water again. Just to confirm his theory though, Clyde decided to take a nice hot shower, and Bingo! his water was back on.
“Guys come this way I have an idea,” Logan said.
He led them to the Amtrak station. They all perked up when they realized what Logan’s plan had in store.
“Good call Logan, these things basically drive themselves, one of us will just have to stand there to keep the speed down and verify that it’s following the GPS,” Hank said.
“I don’t know about you guys, but it will be nice to be able to get some sleep.
There were three trains parked at the station, they chose the one that appeared to be positioned on a track that ran north. The sliding doors were open and Logan had no trouble entering the conductor’s room.
He came back after seven minutes with an embarrassed look on his face.
“You would think that thi
s isn’t rocket science, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell I’m doing, “ he said.
“I’ll get us up and running,” Noel said.
Logan, Hank, and Shelby looked at one another as if to say, ‘How on Earth is Noel of all people going to get this train moving?’.
She was true to her word though and came out of the conductor’s room a few minutes later; the train was now in motion.
“What? My dad used operate the train on his weeks off from his main job, he said he wanted to be a conductor when he retired. So, I went on a lot of rides with him over the years. I guess through osmosis I absorbed the information on how to operate the train,” Noel said.
5
Rollover
“Kap, I’ve decided we’re going to take a more peaceful approach this time, at least for the time being,” President Taylor said.
Him and and General Kaplan were standing outside, leaning up against a trailer that General Kaplan had just brought back. The trailer contained classic cars from the secret warehouse that he had mentioned before to the President.
“And what does your peaceful approach entail? I’m a military guy, I’m a big believer in actions speak louder than words. Oh and by the way, the government issued cars were also fried by the attack, which is why I had to get these classic ones,” General Kaplan said.
“In a nutshell, we’re going to write a letter asking the Zyrgians what they want from us, and then maybe we can work out a compromise,” President Taylor said, “And that’s good. Can we keep loading the trailer with all of the cars from that warehouse and bring them back here if needed?”
“You don’t sound very presidential right now, you sound unsure of yourself. Who gave you this idea? It was Sierra wasn't it?”
President Taylor didn’t answer that. He walked to the back of the trailer to take a look at the cars that the General had chosen. In there was a Chevy SS Camaro, a VW bug, an old school Chevy C10 pickup, a Corvette, a Mustang, a Toyota Land Cruiser, a Nissan 360Z, and an Audi A7.
“Wow, were these cars picked because they were at the front of the warehouse, so they were easy access, or is there some other reason? They don’t seem very practical, maybe some SUVs would have been nice.” He was sort of taking a shot at Kaplan, but was laughing about it too, so Kaplan didn’t take it personal.
“I don’t mess around. You never know which day could be our last, so when I drive around I want to be driving something with muscle, even though it’s not as practical as getting a minivan or suburban. Are ya picking up what I’m spittin’ out?”
“Makes total sense, but don't tell anyone I said that,” President Taylor replied. “Can you gather everyone up in the Richter Room in 30 minutes?”
“Roger, I was hoping to test drive a few of these beauties, but I’ll save that for later,” General Kaplan said.
In the Richter Room were eight individuals who represented the US people, by making all of the important decisions. There were usually thirteen on this committee but Logan and company hadn’t arrived in DC yet. It was a small group that did all of the decision-making, the country was no longer a democracy, and if the population was anywhere near what it was a year ago, people would be throwing a fit. However, since an estimated 87% of the US population had perished from either the cell phone attack or motor vehicle attack, those who survived had bigger things on their mind and weren’t as concerned with how the country was being run.
President Taylor began the meeting by filling everyone in on his peaceful resolution idea.
Christina was the first one to come up with an idea, “We use drones to deliver the message. That will keep us out of harm’s way, in the event that the Zyrgians want blood.”
“Can we duplicate the message and have different drones deliver it to different locations, so that there is a better chance of the Zyrgians receiving the message?” Sierra said.
“I like the drone idea. But the capability is what concerns me. We don’t currently have drones that can make it across the country without recharging,” Cade said. He was a new addition to the committee after the bad news came in about Garrett’s passing. He was highly skilled in technology and was currently working on the video feed project, trying to piece together evidence that aliens disabled the cars. The only thing questionable about his was his man-bun and skinny jeans.
“You’re saying we have to forget the drones altogether because their range isn’t far enough?” President Taylor said.
“I’m not saying that. The way I see it we have two options. Option one is we send drones to deliver messages at locations on the East Coast and hope that the aliens find the message. Option two is we rig multiple drones together and set up a virtual protocol that releases the chain of drones from the formation, every time the lead drone is about to lose power,” Cade said.
“What the hell is he saying?” General Kaplan said.
Before Cade could try to explain himself, Christina said, “I’ll translate to English. For example, there are five drones. One is flying, and four are being towed underneath, and are attached by some sort of rope or tie down. Once the one that is flying is about to have a dead battery, it releases itself from the pack, and the drone that was being towed just below it takes over the flying duties. So now you have four drones, where three are being towed underneath the fourth. This process is repeated over and over and by the time you reach the destination, there is only one drone left, and that drone is the one carrying the message.”
“Gol-ly, you two have some twisted imaginations,” said President Taylor, “But that could work. I say we deliver a message to every place the Zyrgians have been in the past. The most important place is Yosemite, where their headquarters was based, but also San Quentin, the Oakland Coliseum, Midtown Manhattan, just to name a few…
“Two of your create a list of places we should send drones to. Christina and Cade, you guys come up with the model and work out the physics and mathematics behind it. Sierra can you compose a note on the computer and then print it once on regular paper? We will then decide what sturdier material we should transfer the message to, I was thinking maybe laser cutting it into wood.The rest of you need to help Christina and Cade by bringing them the arsenal of drones and making sure they are all charged up and synced to the same network or whatever the techie term for that is.”
“This map shows a hazard up ahead,” Logan said to Hank. The girls were asleep in one of the train cars. Hank took a minute to carefully examine the map and come up with a conclusion.
“We’re in deep shit my friend. This right here is a bridge. Based on the imagery, the bridge is no longer intact,” he said. “And if I’m reading the legend correctly, it looks like it’s about 1.25 miles ahead.”
“How much distance does a train need before it will stop?” Logan said.
“It depends on a lot of factors, but based on our 55 mph speed, I’d say we need 1.5 miles to stop this thing. Pull the brake, I’ll wake up the girls. This is going to be interesting,” Hank said and quickly left the conductor’s room.
Logan could feel and hear the train beginning to slow down, but it was quite gradual. He knew that Hank was concocting a plan in his mind which is why he said, ‘This is going to be interesting’. Hank was back in what seemed like seconds with Shelby and Noel who were wide awake with not a clue what was happening but must have sensed the urgency in Hank’s voice.
“Follow me to the back car,” Hank said, “We’ll have a bit more time available if we are in the back versus the front car of this train.”
That makes senses I guess, since the back car was roughly 1/8th mile behind the front car.
Hank led them to the back car and opened a storage closet. Inside he pulled out pillows, the kind that they give out to passengers on airplanes or long distance train rides. He threw three pillows at each of them. In the closet, the closest thing he could find to tape was caution tape. One by one he had each person position the pillows, one on the waist, one on the chest, one on the b
ack, and then he tied the caution tape around, so that the pillows would stay in place. It wasn’t an elaborate plan, but it was all he could come up with on short notice. Logan had deduced what the next part of this plan would be, so he walked outside the train car, and stood against the railing, mentally preparing himself.
“We’re really doing this huh?” Noel said, but it was more of a rhetorical question.
“I’m gonna go to the front,” Hank said, “When I sound the horn, that means you have about 30 seconds max to take care of business, got it?”
“Yessir, be safe,” Shelby said.
Hank went back inside, heading for the conductor’s car. Logan used an assist railing to climb onto the roof of the car, he wanted to get a better view of how far away this supposed failed bridge was. He could see the side walls of the bridge in clear detail, which meant it wasn’t far.
“Be ready, it’s coming up quick. If for some reason Hank doesn’t sound the horn in the next 90 seconds, we have to go anyway,” Logan said to the girls down below.
He climbed down from the roof.
“How fast are we going now?” Shelby said.
“20 miles per hour or less is my guess,” Logan said, “We got this. No fear. Of all the crazy things we’ve had to do the past seven months, this falls near the bottom of the list in terms of difficulty.”
He pulled Shelby in for a quick wet one (Sometimes he found himself making up terms or phrases, and by wet one he meant ‘kiss’). He also gave Noel a quick kiss on the cheek.
