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Aftermath Copyright © 2021 by Jason D. Morrow
Book design and layout copyright © 2021 by Jason D. Morrow
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Variant Publications.
1st Edition
Aftermath
Book 2 of the Fallen Earth Series
Jason D. Morrow
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
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Chapter One
Sam sucked down his fourth energy drink of the night and crushed the can, then he tossed in on the floor with the others. He rubbed his eyes, then squinted as he stared at the computer screen.
His fingers clacked furiously on the keyboard. He didn’t want to be the next one to turn up dead, so he needed answers.
The Hunters were a small but dedicated group. There were five of them, and they didn’t know each other’s real names. They went by their handles, making them ageless and bodiless. They weren’t people so much as personalities who communicated digitally through encrypted channels in corners of the internet unknown to much of the world.
Sam couldn’t remember who had come up with the group name Hunters, but the title suited them. The group had been working together for several years now. What had started out as a group of acquaintances through an online game had morphed into something more. Hours and hours of grinding through quests as mages or warriors were slowly replaced by hacking into governmental organizations and scanning classified documents.
The government was aware of the Hunters, Sam knew. But they were good at covering their tracks and couldn’t be found easily.
As interesting as learning the inner workings of government agencies was, learning about shadow groups with no official affiliation intrigued Sam even more. Paramilitary groups invading foreign countries. Mercenary assassins taking out important political leaders in various countries throughout the world. Discovering these things was fascinating, but many groups were even better at covering their tracks than the Hunters, which meant there wasn’t a lot they could do with the information.
Then everything shifted. It started about two months ago when Sam came across a reference to Operation Ice Age. This sent him into a spiral of research and server-hacking because he had learned that the operation wasn’t something in the past; rather, it was something that was being planned by a group that referred to itself as the Horsemen.
Soon. How soon? He couldn’t tell. Weeks. Months. Years.
Something big was about to happen, and the closer they got to finding out what the event might be, the more dangerous things became.
They got to Weasel first. Then there was Astrid. Then Hubbs. Sam had assumed his friends had been caught, but now he was afraid they were dead. Weasel had gone dark a week ago. Astrid and Hubbs went dark two days later at the same time. That left Blackleaf, and Sam who went by Knuckles. It was an old handle he had picked up years ago because he typed so fast and didn’t check his work. Someone said it was like he was typing with his knuckles. He was more careful with his typing now, but the name stuck.
Knuckles: How long since you’ve heard from Astrid?
Blackleaf: Three days. Weasel’s been out for over a week.
Knuckles: What do you want to do? We can’t keep going like this.
Blackleaf: We need to compare notes.
Knuckles: We have…
Blackleaf: I mean in person. Obviously, they are watching us.
Sam pushed himself away from the desk, the wheels knocking into the cans. He raked his fingers through his hair and looked around the room. Dirty clothes hung in random places. Day-old microwaved food sat out on the counter, mostly untouched and cold. Three screens crowded his desk space, casting a blue and white glow on the wall and ceiling, the only light in the room. A small part of him wished his mom was around to berate him for his lack of cleanliness.
He tapped his fingers on the armrests of his chair, watching the middle screen. He didn’t know how to respond to Blackleaf. None of the Hunters had ever proposed meeting, and he was half-tempted to log out. It was understood that the five of them would intentionally not know anything about one another—that their anonymity in the real world would be maintained. Sam’s online persona was different from his real-world self. Online he could be who he needed to be to get the information he needed to get. He knew the government liked to track his footprints, but they were few and far between. Even now, when they typed to one another, it could be months before someone found this conversation between the two handles Blackleaf and Knuckles. By then it would be meaningless.
Sam rolled forward and reached for the mouse. He was ready to close the window when the next message came through.
Blackleaf: Sorry. I’m just nervous. Forget I said anything.
Sam held back, his heart pounding.
Blackleaf: You’ve got everything about PIA, right? Date?
Sam hadn’t compared this part of his notes with anyone. It was too sensitive. He didn’t want to divulge what he knew about Project Ice Age and the Horsemen. He had everything but a date, but he knew what the attack would look like. The rest of them—Weasel, Astrid, Hubbs, and Blackleaf—had no idea. That is, unless they had come across the same information without telling him, which was possible.
The attack in the United States would happen in three major areas. The West Coast, the East Coast, and the Midwest. Three nuclear bombs would detonate in the atmosphere to create an electromagnetic pulse to wipe out the entire power grid of the United States. There were some references to other attacks outside of the U.S., but Sam hadn’t seen a
nything concrete.
The phenomenon of an EMP attack had been talked about for years in online forums and even with some key Washington politicians, but the threat had never been taken seriously. Naysayers said it couldn’t possibly be as bad as some believed, and others said it would only affect small portions of the country—at worst, a large city.
The plans outlined for Project Ice Age, however, were clear: the three bombs were going to disable almost everything that used electricity. Sam knew enough that the only way to combat this was to put his valuables into a Faraday cage, which would block out the effects of an EMP, but then what? He could save his computer, but he would have no way to plug it in. A laptop without the ability to charge was useless.
Ever since Sam had learned about Project Ice Age he had started encrypting everything he found and storing it on a hard drive and another air-gapped laptop that he kept in a safe place. Safe from thieves. Safe from hackers. Safe from an EMP.
Whatever happened, Sam would have all this information at his disposal. There was so much data that it would take him weeks or months to sift through everything, but if an EMP attack happened, Sam might be able to find out why. He might even be able to work out who the Horsemen were.
Sam sighed and shook his head.
Knuckles: No date. Not yet.
Blackleaf: I’ve got a date.
Sam stared at the screen, frozen. A tremor started in his chest and worked its way down to his fingers.
He didn’t want to ask, but he knew Blackleaf was waiting for him too. Blackleaf was like that sometimes—holding the envelope with the answer inside, watching it, smiling at it, dangling it on the end of a rope just out of their grasp.
Knuckles: When?
Typing…
Typing…
Typing…
Blackleaf: We should compare notes. I’m afraid to talk about this here. Anywhere. I don’t trust myself with this information. I need to know if I’m crazy.
Was Blackleaf about to suggest meeting again? Would Sam consider it? For the possibility of the largest scale attack on the United States in history, he probably would. Comparing notes was one thing. Comparing notes with someone who may know when a major attack was about to happen was another.
Blackleaf: I’m a bit in over my head. I need help. I would have asked Weasel above anybody, but he’s gone. I think he got too close.
Sam wondered how much closer to the information one could be than Blackleaf.
Knuckles: This is dangerous.
Blackleaf: Of course this is dangerous. I’ve never been this scared in all my life.
Knuckles: What do you want to do about it?
Blackleaf: MEET!
Knuckles: *sigh* That violates the code. you know that.
Blackleaf: Screw the code. If we knew 9/11 was about to happen next week, would you want to meet to compare notes?
Sam thought about it. It had all seemed like a game up to this point. It had been fun. Scary, but fun. But when they came across the Horsemen months ago, things had gotten real. Then, people started disappearing.
Knuckles: How much time do I have to think about it?
Blackleaf: Not much.
Knuckles: What’s the date?
Blackleaf: Pick a place.
Sam swore under his breath. Did he dare tell Blackleaf that he was in Chicago? Did he dare meet in person? How would Sam even get anywhere? He didn’t have a car, and he wasn’t exactly made of money. It wasn’t like he could just get an airplane ticket on a whim. At twenty, he was just a couple of years out of high school and his two jobs barely got him an apartment in a part of Chicago that wasn’t completely seedy.
He could put it in such a way that it would seem he had to travel to get there, yet only travel a couple of blocks away.
Knuckles: How about Chicago? Might take me a day or two to arrange travel.
It was perfect. Middle of the country, big city, a couple of days to get there. Blackleaf might suspect that he lived in the Windy City, but he wouldn’t know for sure. They could both wear hats, sunglasses. They didn’t have to give up anything about their identity.
Sam waited for the reply. Blackleaf was either thinking about the proposition or looking up the cost of a ticket to O’Hare or Midway. The question was, did they have a couple of days? How close was that putting them to the attack? What would they do once they met? What would comparing notes do for either of them? Would they decide to go to the authorities about it? Sam wasn’t sure the Horsemen weren’t in bed with the authorities or if they were the same people. There was so much mystery left to uncover. They needed more information. But a date was forcing them to act—maybe forcing them to do something stupid. The last thing Sam wanted to do was play his hand too quickly or to give up everything they had worked so hard to find.
He stared at the screen waiting for a reply.
Blackleaf: You have a burner phone?
Sam bit the inside of his lip and looked from side-to-side instinctively.
Knuckles: I can get one.
Blackleaf: Let me give you a number. Call it when you get to Chicago.
The number appeared on the screen, and Sam jotted it down on a piece of paper. He didn’t have to call the number in two days. He didn’t have to meet with Blackleaf. He could walk away from all this and would be okay until…
Until the EMP.
Was it really going to happen? The files they had indicated as much, but it wasn’t proof. He knew it was highly possible that what information they had found could be red herrings or just plans for something that would never actually happen. But that didn’t account for the other Hunters—the three that had gone dark.
Sam swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t wanted things to be this way. This was just supposed to be a little bit of dangerous fun. It was stupid. It was something that could land him in jail right next to his brother.
But Sam had considered their work virtuous. That wasn’t enough, though. There was nothing virtuous in finding out the truth unless they tried to do something about it. The failure to act was as bad as being complicit with the Horsemen.
Sam opened his eyes, then his fingers hit the keyboard.
Knuckles: See you soon.
Chapter Two
The cheap plastic phone felt like it would break in Sam’s fingers if he pushed the buttons too hard. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone with one hand, and he held a handle dangling from the ceiling of the El train to steady himself with the other hand as the sun blinked between passing buildings onto his face. The number Blackleaf had given him was already punched in, and his thumb hovered over the green call button.
It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he felt compelled as though the world depended on him making it. He still wasn’t sure what meeting with Blackleaf would accomplish, but they had to do something. The more he thought about it, the less logical this all seemed. Agreeing to meet with anyone was dangerous.
Sam had considered that Blackleaf was the reason the other three Hunters had gone dark—that either Blackleaf had been compromised by someone else or was secretly part of the Horsemen or someone just as sinister. But Sam couldn’t bring himself to believe that fully. For one, Blackleaf’s style of communication hadn’t changed. The sentence structure and use of words seemed the same. That would rule out the possibility that Blackleaf had been replaced.
Sam couldn’t think about it. Thinking about it spooked him, which would lead to him ditching the phone and running away. He would then wait in his apartment, doing his best to construct a Faraday cage that would ultimately prove useless when the EMP fried the circuits of every unprotected electronic device in the country.
He tried to wrap his head around that. What would the world look like if every electronic device simply shut down, never to be turned back on again? It would mean mass deaths all over the world. Economic collapse. Airplanes would fall from the sky. Food would spoil. Grocery stores would be looted. He thought about what that might look lik
e in Chicago. He could imagine pockets of the city breaking out in chaos—his own neighborhood likely being one of them.
How long any of this would take was anyone’s guess. Would neighbors look out for each other? Would those with guns dominate the streets? Sam was already mourning the life he would lose after an EMP. His whole world was online. Each of his aliases and online personas was as much a part of him as his real name. In fact, more of his true self was online than in the real world.
He let go of the handle and wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow. The constant opening and closing of train doors brought in a rush of cold air every few minutes, chilling his skin, but his sweat persisted.
An older man with white hair and a large puffy coat leaned toward Sam. “Hey,” the man said.
Fallen Earth | Book 2 | Aftermath Page 1
