Powerless (EMP Survival Book 1)

by Emily Garnet

  “What was that? You were like a freaking Amazon.”

  She grinned a little bit at the thought but shook her head. “I don’t know. I just acted on instinct.” Much as she hated to admit it, those instincts must’ve been honed from the years of her father’s training, though she still couldn’t bring herself to be grateful that he’d taken over her childhood to do so.

  A short time later, after only a couple of brushes with people trying to shove pass them, the security guard led them into a security room. He locked the door behind them with his badge, and he placed Tristan on the table, laying him out carefully.

  She frowned. “We don’t time to the dawdle.”

  The guard nodded, but he moved to the control center, pulling up cameras. He seemed to be focusing on one door. “That’s just a couple of hallways from here, and only with employee traffic, so we’ll be able to make it out, but look at the streets.” He pointed to the mass exodus happening outside. “I figured we’d better see what’s going on out there first.”

  He looked hesitant when he said, “I don’t think I can hold onto this guy and fight my way through there. I suggest you three go on ahead, and I’ll wait here with him until the fire department arrives. If need be, I’ll get him out of here when it’s a little less congested out there, but if we go out there with an unconscious guy, and I lose him, he’ll get trampled by the masses.”

  Her anger toward the guard softened, and Ivy nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  “We can’t just leave him here,” protested Susie.

  “I swear to you, ma’am, that I’ll get him to safety, and I’ll look after him until he’s either able to do it himself, or hand him over to someone more capable.” The guy held out his hand toward Susie. “I’m Adam Greenberg, retired Marine. You have my word.”

  Susie didn’t shake his hand, so Ivy put out hers to shake it instead. “I accept your word, Adam. Just make sure you look after him.”

  “I sure will. Go out this door that I’m about to open for you and down the hallway, take a right at the first bend, and the exit is another two hundred feet past that. After that, you’ll be out in that madness, so watch your backs.”

  Ivy and Matt moved toward the door. Susie hesitated a longer second, standing by Tristan uncertainly. Finally, with a deep breath, she joined Ivy and Matt. “I still think I should stay with them.”

  “You can if you want,” said Ivy. It wasn’t her business to force anyone else to do what she was doing. She certainly didn’t want to take on the burden of saving Susie.

  It was almost a disappointment when Susie apparently gathered her courage to join them. The door opened when Matt turned the knob, and Ivy glanced back once more to nod at Adam before the three of them exited the room. She heard the door click closed behind them, and she wondered if it was an automatic system, and if it was powered on the generator. Whatever size generators Caesar’s Palace were using, they couldn’t last for more than a day or two. Surely, the fire would be out, and everything would be back to normal, well before the generators gave out.

  They followed his instructions, reaching the exit less than five minutes later. Ivy stood for a moment with her hand on the bar handle. “Are we ready for this?”

  “No,” said Susie, but she appeared to be ready to go anyway.

  “I guess.” Matt’s voice broke slightly, but he was right there beside her, and they pushed on the bar together. It was a good thing they were working together, because there was resistance against the door. She imagined it was all the people passing by, and she wondered when the flow would start to diminish. Surely everyone was aware now that the casino was on fire, but how long would the evacuation take?

  With a grunt, and an extra shove from both her and Matt, the door yielded as people moved out of the way. Susie slipped out first, which surprised Ivy, but she and Matt followed her as quickly as they could, just barely missing the door slamming on Matt as the crowd surged to close it.

  For a moment, she was too busy getting used to the flow of the foot traffic around her to notice anything else. It was only when Susie froze in front of her, gasping, that Ivy took a moment to look around. A gasp similar to Susie’s escaped her.

  The person who had said everything was on fire hadn’t been talking about Caesar’s Palace. Or at least not just Caesar’s Palace. She could see a tower in the background of Caesar’s burning away, but it was just like many other buildings around her. Other casinos and their hotels had caught fire, all seemingly at the same time. But how?

  Possibilities occurred to her. Grim possibilities she didn’t even want to consider. How could something like this happen all at once? Obviously, there’d been a massive power surge through the electrical grid, but what could cause such a powerful power surge that the safeguards in place didn’t work?

  She knew, deep down, but she refused to acknowledge it. It was lunacy. This had to be some kind of random accident, or perhaps even a terrorist attack. She almost hoped for that option compared to what it might be.

  “Where are the sirens?” asked Matt.

  She stumbled when someone pushed against her as he tried to get around her and knocked her into Matt. “What?”

  “Where are the sirens? The firefighters? None of the cars are moving.” Matt sounded uneasy.

  “What’s happening?” Susie was clearly on the verge of panic. “The lights aren’t working either.”

  Ivy looked around, seeing most of the neon had winked out. The Strip without neon glow was the strangest and most foreboding sight she’d ever seen. In an effort to outrun her thoughts, she started walking briskly again, not looking back to see if Matt and Susie followed.

  Chapter Two

  “Wait up,” called Matt.

  Ivy couldn’t make her feet slow down. In fact, they sped up a little as she tried to outrun her thoughts. If she hadn’t been about to careen into someone in front of her, she would’ve given in to the urge to run. Instead, she paused when Matt reached her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She had to resist the urge to shake him off. It wasn’t his fault this was happening, and her mind was racing a million miles a minute.

  “Ivy, what’s wrong?”

  The caring concern in Matt’s tone got through to her, and she paused to look at him as Susie caught up. “I think I know what this is.”

  “It’s a fire that spread,” said Susie.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. All the buildings are burning at approximately the same rate, and this can’t have been going on for long. The first fire would’ve been contained if it was just a regular fire.”

  “What is it, if it isn’t a regular fire?” asked Matt. His eyes revealed his fear of her answer.

  “I think it’s a HEMP.”

  “Isn’t that like marijuana?” asked Susie.

  “Hemp’s a different plant from cannabis, but that’s not what I meant. H–E–M–P or high-altitude electromagnetic pulse. It can also be a CME, which is a coronal mass ejection from the sun.”

  Susie scoffed. “That’s crazy. I don’t even know you’re talking about, but none of that sounds real.”

  Ivy’s teeth gritted, and she struggled to maintain patience. If she hadn’t known about such things, she would’ve likely thought someone telling her about them was crazy too. “It’s not crazy. A massive CME could cause the electrical grid to break down for months or even years. It overwhelms the system, and it fries larger electronics. Are your cell phones still working?” As she asked that, she groaned. She’d given Tristan hers right before she stepped on stage, as was her usual routine. She hadn’t thought to retrieve it from his pocket before they left him at Caesar’s Palace.

  “Mine is,” said Matt after second, pulling it from his pocket.

  Susie didn’t even bother to look. “Whatever.”

  “What’s the HEMP thing?” asked Matt.

  “It’s caused by a nuclear weapon detonated a couple hundred miles up in the atmosphere. The fallout doesn’t affect anyone, but the
subsequent electromagnetic pulse has a detrimental effect on the grid, frying it to the point of uselessness. Sometimes, cars might work, but no one really knows for sure. It’s not like anybody’s eager to line up to test a HEMP on their people, you know?”

  Matt still looked lost, and Susie was clearly in denial. Before Ivy could say anything to strengthen her suppositions, she saw the sky changing colors. It was orange and green, and she let out a long, weary sigh. “It has to be a HEMP. Northern lights wouldn’t appear this soon after a CME, but the aurora around the bomb will show up.”

  “This is insane,” said Susie. She seemed to be on the verge of shutting down.

  Ivy shrugged. “It could be, but we certainly have more than enough enemies, and they’re all aware of our vulnerability. America has one of the worst electrical infrastructures in the world. We don’t put enough money into maintaining it, and we use old and antiquated equipment. An EMP is a problem for any electrical grid, but particularly for ours. It’s not hardened in any fashion. Half the military equipment isn’t even hardened against this.”

  “But why aren’t the cars moving?” asked Matt.

  “There are three waves that occur in an EMP: E-one, E-two, and E-three. E-three also happens during a coronal mass ejection. It’s a long and sustained pulse, and it’s capable of shorting out anything attached to the grid. If your phones had been plugged in to charge, they would’ve been fried too.”

  “Is that why the cars aren’t moving?” Matt looked at the long line of traffic stalled on The Boulevard as he asked.

  Ivy shrugged. “Research suggests cars will keep running, but the problem with that is, the last time the government did a test was in two thousand-two. They also used a lot of older vehicles, and they weren’t testing at full capacity of what an EMP would actually be. So, it’s likely that a lot of the older vehicles might keep running, but nobody knows about the newer ones.”

  “Looks like we’re surrounded by newer vehicles, and they aren’t running.” He seemed to be accepting the situation a lot easier than Susie.

  “That’s hardly surprising, is it?”

  Ivy looked at Susie, surprised by the input. “What do you mean?”

  “Remember in, I think it was two thousand-nine, when the government was trying to stimulate the economy again, and they encouraged everyone to get rid of their old junker cars and buy a new one? There were incentives for that, and then they crushed all the old cars that were turned in.”

  Ivy nodded, the memory stirring something in her, though it had been back before she even owned a car. She vaguely remembered Henry railing at the idea of getting rid of all the older cars. “How did you know that?” Susie had to be a couple of years younger than her own twenty-eight.

  “My dad owns a dealership in Raglan, Montana. Business was really good that year. That’s how I remember it.”

  She was impressed, both by Susie’s memory and her ability to connect the dots. “I’m sure that has a big influence on why there aren’t any older cars, but there have to be some running in Vegas. We just have to find one and get out of here.”

  “I’m all for getting out of here.” Susie seemed to have found at least a tentative sense of calm, and she looked like she was ready to move forward.

  “Our first plan should be to get out of Vegas. We need to hole up somewhere not so crowded and crazy. When people start to realize this isn’t a temporary phenomenon, they’re going to lose their minds. Even more so than now.” Ivy swept her hand around to encompass the area.

  Susie had taken a step forward, but she stopped now. “What are you talking about?”

  “Like I said, this’ll take the grid down for months, or maybe even years.”

  Susie rolled her eyes. “It’s a power outage. I think they can handle it.”

  “It’s a power outage that fried all the transformers. You know what a transformer is in the power system, right?”

  Susie shrugged a shoulder. “It’s like the main power source or something, isn’t it?”

  “Close enough. Each transformer takes about eighteen months to manufacture. It’s all done in China, and most power companies keep one, maybe two, on hand. A lot of them don’t even have any in stock, because they’re expensive, and they usually try to maintain what they have rather than replace it.”

  “I still don’t see the problem. They must have a ton in stock in China. They’ll send some over, and everything will be back to normal in a week or two.”

  Ivy pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off a headache. “Maybe, or maybe they only build them as orders come in. Either way, how are they going to ship all of them here in the next week or two? Even if they have a bunch in stock, it’s not going to be enough for every municipality in the United States. You know they’ll prioritize places like D.C. first, and the rest of the country will rot. That’s assuming China’s infrastructure remains sound. If this is a HEMP, only our country will be affected, but a CME will cause damage around the world.”

  “I think you’re looking for a reason to panic.” Susie sniffed.

  “And I think you’re being optimistic on the assumption that they have a ton in stock anyway. Since they’re expensive and difficult to build, I suspect they’re only built to order. They’re maybe like most of the power companies. The Chinese manufacturers probably only keep a few in stock at a time. We’re talking thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of transformers required to bring back power to everyone. That’s not going to happen in a week or two.”

  Susie tossed her hands in the air. “I don’t know what kind of conspiracy nut you are, but I’ve had enough of this. I’m going back to Tristan to wait with him.”

  “Do what you want,” said Ivy. She didn’t look back at Susie as she started walking again. She heard Matt’s footsteps behind her, so she knew at least he was still with her.

  Matt caught up with her a half a minute later, putting a hand on her arm. She paused. “We don’t have time to stand around talking all day.”

  “How can you be so unaffected, Ivy? Susie’s in danger. If she’s really going back to the casino, we should accompany her to make sure she gets there safely.”

  She turned to face Matt. “You can if you want. If that’s what you’re drawn to do, then you have to follow your conscience. Susie’s not going to listen, and she’s not going to be prepared for what’s coming. There’s nothing you can do to save her until she’s ready to realize what’s we’re facing.”

  “What’s coming? She might not even make it back to Caesar’s Palace by herself. I’m sure that door we came out of is locked.”

  Ivy nodded. “It probably is.” Aware of how dispassionate she sounded, she made a concentrated effort to relax and allow some of her emotions to show. She’d entered soldier-mode unthinkingly. “I understand. She’s making a mistake, but getting back to Caesar’s Palace isn’t the worst thing she’s going to face in the coming weeks. There’s nothing we can do for her. If we want to survive, we need to get out of Las Vegas right now. Do you have any idea how bad it’s going to get?”

  Matt nibbled on his lower lip as he shook his head.

  “Right now, people are still panicking, but they think it’s just a power outage. Some people will be taking advantage of the situation to loot and rob, and others will be trying to flee the city, or set up some kind of survival plan. That’s going to change the longer the power stays out.”

  “Maybe everyone will come together.”

  Ivy snorted. “The average person has three days of food in their house, so what happens when those three days come and go, and they find the grocery stores overrun, or perhaps the food even starting to rot if the grocery store has no generator? Desperate people do desperate things, and I want to be far away from a large city before that happens. I want you to come with me, because you’re my best friend, and I want to know you’re safe, but if you feel like you have to stay with Susie and Tristan, I’ll understand.”

  Matt looked uncertai
n for a moment, and then his shoulders firmed. “If it’s really going to be that bad, I don’t want you out there alone either.”

  “That’s sweet. If we’re going, we should go.” She waited for a moment before taking a step forward. When Matt also walked with her, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She could probably make the trip out of Las Vegas by herself, but she’d rather have Matt at her side.

  She could tell he didn’t really believe her, and perhaps he was tagging along because he thought she’d lost her grip on reality. Ivy almost hoped that was the case, because it would be better for her to be going insane than for the country to actually be experiencing the effects of a HEMP.

  It wouldn’t be long before people started to give up on government intercession, and then society would truly collapse. If she was correct, it had already begun the dying throes, but that was something that would reveal itself over the coming days. She couldn’t force Matt to believe her, but she was glad he was coming with her.

  They walked a little in silence, finally able to move more freely once they reached The Strip. It was still packed with people, but there wasn’t quite the same edge of urgency there’d been to escape the burning buildings, though plenty still burned around them.

  “How do you know all this?”

  Ivy didn’t pause. “My father.” She kept walking, soldiering on.

  “You haven’t even talked to Henry in like six years, have you? How could he know about this?” Matt’s doubts were showing again.

  She managed a small smile. “I didn’t mean Henry told me about this, at least not this particular moment. Do you know what a prepper is, Matt?”

  His eyes lit up a little. “Like that show, ‘Doomsday Prepper?’ I love that thing. Those people are looney, but I love seeing what they do.”