by Roger Hayden
"Me too, let's do this again sometime in a couple of weeks and see where you're at." She grabbed her files, rose from the stool, and stuffed them in her large, red leather purse. "Sorry to leave so soon; see you in the office. And by all means, stay and enjoy your coffee."
"No problem, thank you."
Evelyn smiled and nodded while attempting to maneuver around the other tables. The lights in the coffee shop then went dim, startling her. Mark perked up and looked around as the lights came back on. Before he knew it, they flashed off again. The entire store went dark. Daylight streamed through the curtains. A brief moment of silence fell over the busy Barnie's crowd; then everyone resumed their conversations. Mark waited and waited, but the power didn't come back. Strange as it was, he thought it even odder that every vehicle outside the coffee store was at a dead stop.
Evelyn turned around to address Mark, with a look of slight annoyance. "Perfect timing. At least we got our coffee," she said. Mark got down from his stool and followed her. They passed the busy counter. Three lines had formed, and a group of people who had paid for their orders were waiting off to the side. They made their way past several customers who just wanted their coffee. The two female cashiers were offering apologies left and right.
"I'm sorry everyone, our system is down. Until we get the power back on, we can't fill no orders," Tanisha, the cashier on the right, announced.
"But what about those of us who already paid?" a skinny, bald man called out, waving his receipt in the air. "You gonna give us refunds, or what?"
"Yeah!" a woman added.
"I want my money back," a man said.
Other disgruntled murmurs followed. The store manager came from out back and asked for calm, but nobody wanted to hear it.
Mark and Evelyn made it outside and were met with the sight of complete gridlock on the main road. The Nissan dealership was only a few miles up the street.
"What in the hell is going on here?" Evelyn asked as she took off her reading glasses and replaced them with a pair of Armani sunglasses from her designer purse.
Mark looked around. Not a single car was moving. It was eerily quiet for a busy Monday morning. A few hawks circled overhead, cawing as if issuing a warning the people below. Evelyn hurried to her car, and Mark followed. Her high heels clicked on the pavement with each step as she rushed ahead and dug into the purse to retrieve her keys. Two cars sat in the middle of Barnie's parking lot exit motionless. The drivers stubbornly remained at the wheel, turning their ignition keys over and over. Flustered, Evelyn entered her Nissan and closed the door. Mark remained in the middle of the parking lot absorbing the stillness of everything. Customers shuffled out of Barnie's in a daze, squinting at the sun. The two stubborn drivers got out of their vehicles and walked around them in utter confusion.
From the driver's seat, Evelyn opened her car door. "Just wonderful, my car won't start," she called.
Mark turned to her. It was no routine power outage around him. There was something more. Something had disabled every vehicle in the parking lot and, from the looks of it, every vehicle on the road.
"What happened when you turned the key?" Mark asked.
Evelyn didn't answer; she was too busy digging around in her purse. She pulled a slim iPhone out and swiped its screen with her manicured red fingernails. Nothing happened. The screen was blank, there was no power.
She noticed him looking at her. "I'm calling a cab; I don't have time for this nonsense. I'm already late for the meeting." She stared at her phone’s powerless screen as if offended. She held down the power switch and got nothing. "Can't this thing hold a charge for more than five minutes!" she said with growing desperation. "Argh!" she added. "What a morning."
Mark approached her car, trying to stay clear-headed. The Barnie's crowd assembled back to their vehicles and was met with the same fate. None of their engines would start.
"Why don't you pop the hood?" Mark suggested. She nodded back, leaned down and pulled the hood release. "It's probably the battery," she replied. "Maybe I left my headlights on."
Mark walked over to the front of car, and stood over the engine, not knowing where to start. He tried to put the pieces together. The entire scenario he was witnessing seemed familiar. He'd read books about it, science fiction dystopia books detailing a massive strike against every electrical circuit—from a network server down to a clock radio. Such destruction was initiated by a magnetic pulse with voltage so enormous it caused a blowout in all things electronic. If something ran on an electronic chip of any kind, which most things—then it was toast. Too many signals alerted him to something much more significant.
"What do you see?" Evelyn called from the driver's seat. She gripped the wheel shaking it. Her chances of making it to the meeting in time seemed unlikely with each passing minute." To Mark, nothing in the engine looked out of the ordinary. The car battery was connected at both ends. Everything was intact. Nothing was burnt, fried, or exploded. Mark held his hand over the engine and felt slight warmth but again, nothing unusual.
"Everything looks normal," Mark answered. "Try it again."
Evelyn turned the key again. There was no click or spark. "Nothing," she said. "Dammit!"
Mark left her hood open and squeezed back through the cars. "I don't know what to tell you, Evelyn. I'll try my car."
"Please do," she said looking up in desperation. "I'm already late for my meeting."
His blue Cavalier was waiting for him, but provided no answers. He turned the key as Evelyn stood nearby tapping her heel on the ground nervously. The Cavalier was dead. Instead of the dashboard lights coming on or the A/C kicking in, his car was no better than any of the other useless hunks of metal now littering on the highway. He didn't want to admit it, but he could only make one reasonable assumption: an EMP had been launched against the city.
"Nothing?" Evelyn asked in surprise as Mark climbed out of his car. "What's going on? Did someone mess with our engines? Gangs maybe? What kind of sick joke is this?" She was frantic and rambling to herself, and Mark tried to approach her with calm.
"Evelyn, this was no accident. And I don't think it's simple vandalism either. This could be a coordinated attack. It would explain the power going out at Barnie's. Your phone not working. Our cars not starting."
"What are you talking about?" she asked in disbelief while fishing for her phone again.
"I'm talking about an Electronic Magnetic Pulse. An EMP. If someone launched one as a nuclear strike, it would disable everything that uses circuits or computer chips. Our power grids, communications, and mobility would be no more. This is some serious shit."
Evelyn stared at him through her sunglasses with serious doubt. "How could such a thing happen? It's not possible." She pulled out her cell phone and swiped the screen. "I'm calling a tow truck. I don't want to leave my car here with hoodlums running all over the place."
Mark looked around and saw mass confusion in the parking lot. Agitated people stood beside their cars, trying to get their phones to work.
"Calling a tow truck might be a problem. If the cell towers are out, you're not going to get anything out of that phone." Mark pulled his phone from his pocket to verify. Normally the screen displayed the date, time, and weather. It was as if his phone had shut off. There was nothing but a blank screen.
"This is ridiculous," Evelyn said. She held the power button on the phone with her thumb, and became lost in a cycle of frustration and helplessness.
"You might have better luck walking to work at this point," Mark said, gaining her attention.
"I don't know," she said. "In these heels?"
Mark wasn't sure what to tell her. She was his boss, after all. In the event of an EMP, he knew that he had to get home to Janice. That was first. A long-term scenario of an EMP was predicted as "catastrophic" by the very commission who authored the study he had read a few years back. It would take weeks, perhaps months, but sooner or later things would reach a breaking point. People would grow desperate as
necessities dwindled. Mark didn't want to think of how bad things would get after that. Survival for him and Janice was about taking action while things were still normal. Before they fell apart. He approached Evelyn and put his hands on her shoulders, startling her.
"Evelyn, I can promise you this. If you need help, stick with me, and I can get you home to your family. The power is not coming back on. You have to believe me."
She gave him a look of understanding then backed away, out of his reach. "So you're saying you're not coming into work today?"
"There's not going to be any power there either. All the cars on the lot, every last one of them, will be in the same shape as yours or mine.
"I appreciate your concern, Mark, I really do. I'll be fine though. Nothing right now is more important than getting to that meeting. Maybe I'll just walk, like you suggested."
There was no time left to convince her of anything. Mark gave her a genuine smile of hope. "Best of luck to you, Evelyn. Thanks again for the coffee."
As he walked away, she went back to her car, and studied it in a state of denial. Mark went through the parking lot and onto the sidewalk that ran along the main road. His house was about five miles away, and he figured he could make it on foot. He would get the bug-out car and pick up Janice from work, but there was no guarantee that the bug-out car would even work. They had stored it over the years in the backyard shed for the express purpose of an EMP scenario, but he couldn't remember the last time he had started it.
Time was of the essence. A turn of good fortune arrived when he saw a bicycle store in the line of shops ahead. He walked quickly down the sidewalk, maneuvering around dazed people who blocked his path. Every person's face was buried in their non-functioning phones. They desperately pleaded with them to work. It was sad to see so many people so reliant on indifferent pieces of plastic that offered them no answers. Mark attempted to stay focused and not get diverted from his task, even though he wanted to explain to everyone what he believed to be happening.
The bike store, like every other store, was dark inside and completely without power. The sales clerk, a tall skinny man with short wavy hair and a polo shirt, stood against the counter messing with his cell phone. The entrance door was propped open, and the man took little notice of Mark when he walked in. The small store was full of bikes lined up against the wall and hanging from the ceiling. Mark checked his wallet and, much to his relief, counted one hundred and twenty dollars in twenties.
"How ya’ doing?" Mark politely asked the man.
The sales clerk looked up surprised. "Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn't see you come in. This shit with the power is crazy."
Mark scanned the store for a possible purchase. "It sure is. My car broke down, and I'd like to purchase a bike." He didn't have time to burden the man with his EMP theories.
"Yeah, I noticed a lot of cars like that. Could be the busiest day of the year for me if this keeps up."
Mark laughed. He was surprised the store hadn't been cleaned out yet.
"So what kind of bike you lookin' for?" the clerk asked. "Wait, a minute," he added. "Do you have cash?"
It was a strangely direct question, but Mark understood the clerk's predicament.
"Yes, I have cash," he answered.
The clerk breathed in relief. "Good then. Our credit machines are down, and I can't very well take IOUs."
"I understand completely," Mark said.
"What can I help you with then?" the clerk asked.
Moments later, Mark emerged from the store with a 10-speed Huffy Mountain Bike. It cost him $110 plus tax, and while he could have gotten something cheaper, his instincts suggested reliability. Mark rode the bike down the sidewalk weaving around pedestrians who, themselves, seemed lost and confused. Any police officers with the misfortune of being stranded found themselves hounded and mobbed with questions of what was happening. "I wonder," Mark thought, "if I'll ever see my car again."
Chapter Seven
Professor Cook
Monday September 21, 2025 8:30 A.M. Milledgeville, GA
James pulled into the faculty parking lot of Georgia College thirty minutes before his morning class started. He liked to arrive early and go over his lesson plan briefly before class began. His office was a short walk from the parking lot to the humanities building. Inside, he took a seat at his desk, cluttered with notes and history books, and placed his briefcase on the oak surface. A tall bookcase stood nearby, stocked with many fiction, nonfiction, war history, and literature.
The new semester brought a slew of fresh-faced undergrads that James had gotten to know over the weeks. They were a good group of kids and, James enjoyed their energy, spirit, and eagerness to learn. For his first class he’d prepared a lecture on the Civil War. The war fascinated him, not just because of its high costs—the largest number of war deaths in American history—but because of the complex and traceable events that led to the war and ultimately into a divided country. There were major lessons to be learned from the Civil War, lessons he would focus on during his lecture.
James gathered his notes and took one last sip of coffee from his oversized mug. In the corner of his desk sat a dusty ten-year-old framed picture of James, his ex-wife, Anne, and his son, Cliff. He didn't have a more recent picture, and until he did, the dated family photo would remain.
He walked into his classroom, carrying a satchel over his shoulder and a coffee mug in his hand. His wore gray tweed coat, pants, white dress shirt, and blue tie. Five minutes to nine, and ten of his fifteen students had already taken their seats.
"Good morning, class," James said as he walked to his desk at the front class.
The students, most of them fresh out of high school, said hello and nodded back politely.
"Good morning, Professor Cook," a girl seated in the front row said.
James placed his satchel on the table next to his podium, and proceeded to go through his lecture notes. A massive dry erase board hung behind him, covering nearly the entire length of the wall. He grabbed a nearby marker and wrote the day's date on the board: Monday, September 22, 2015, then wrote, The American Civil War (1861-1865).
It was almost time to start class. James put his glasses on and turned to face the class at the last of the stragglers slipped into the room and sat in the back.
"Good morning again, everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. I know most of you labored hard on school work and abstained from anything remotely relaxing and fun."
The class laughed politely.
"Last week we had discussed at length the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Hopefully, you learned a lot about those events in high school. And I hope that you were able to gain a more advanced perspective from our discussions. With that in mind, I want to stress the notion of the significance of war itself; the reasons we go to war, the high costs involved with these decisions, and the end result of years of battles and bloodshed. War is an exercise of force, whose purpose is to achieve a desired goal. Sometimes that goal is just, like ending slavery in the Civil War. Other times the goals are ambiguous; World War One, for example. It is my view that no meaningful change in history or society occurs except as a result of war. This is not to say that I'm pro-war. Terms like pro-war and anti-war don't really mean a thing.”
He paused for a moment before continuing. “Though they do mean something in an ideological sense, what I want us to discuss are the events that lead to wars, the execution of those wars, and how society rebuilds and reconstructs itself after such catastrophic bloodshed."
The students remained quiet, attentively listening.
"Behind me I've written the dates of the Civil War, an event that we're all familiar with. It is the costliest and most significant war in America's history. It showed the true results of a fractured republic. It showed what it means to be a divided nation, and the results of that division when compromises can't be met. We can theorize that had Lincoln accepted the southern states’ call for secession—eleven states in all—the
war could have been avoided and slavery would have existed for another century or longer. That, among other dilemmas, was what our sixteenth President faced when calling on Union troops to defeat the Confederate army. The Civil War began April 12, 1861 and officially ended June 22, 1865. A long and difficult reconstruction process followed throughout the South in attempts to repair the war-torn and decimated landscape so that it could rejoin the Union. The fundamentals of the war were fairly simple. One side wanted to split from the main body while the main body itself wanted to remain intact. So let's think about this. Could a Civil War of such magnitude possibly ever happen today? Could we imagine such a thing? Do we believe that such a thing is beyond the realm of possibility?"
The class was silent at first. One student in the middle row raised his hand.
"Yes, Eric?" James said, pointing.
Eric lowered his hand and spoke. "Of course it is," he answered.
"And why is that?" James asked, pacing in front of the dry erase board with his hands locked behind his back.
"Because there will always be divisions," Eric said.
"That's true. Some divisions are greater than others. Many philosophers throughout history have suggested that to exist is to exist in perpetual conflict. But what about our nation's motto, 'United we stand, divided we fall?' Are we dishonoring those values when division is created?"
Eric thought for a moment then answered. "I guess it depends on what kind of divisions those are."
"Very good, Eric, very well said," James replied, satisfied. He turned to his class after picking up a textbook from the table.
"Let's open our books to chapter three and dive right into the years leading up to the Civil War." As James continued, the lights in the auditorium flickered rapidly then went out. The momentary distraction threw James off a little. He tried to look at the book but could barely see anything. Faint light streamed through the small windows near the high ceiling, preventing the room from falling into complete darkness. Small chatter began to grow louder when the overhead lights showed no signs of coming back on. Several students were even more perplexed to find that their laptops were dead. At the very moment the lights flashed, their laptop screens went blue and shut off. The synchronized outage of all things electronic was eerie to say the least, but no one could pinpoint the cause.
