“Copy that, Lieutenant,” they both replied.
They pivoted and left the building, going to their assigned vehicle, an Oshkosh M-ATV. An ugly beast with a 7.2 liter inline-6 Caterpillar C7 turbodiesel. If a dune buggy had mated with an MRAP, its offspring would be the M-ATV. Able to carry four soldiers in a mine resistant armored car, the vehicle wouldn’t win any beauty awards. But to John, who had used one during his deployment in the war on terror, it was a treasure he couldn’t have hoped for just a day ago. Bullet-proof and able to go over or through anything they may come across, it was a safe haven in a world of chaos. John was glad to have it.
They had been trained on the vehicle’s startup procedure and soon they had the heavy beast moving down Hughey Avenue, heading for the lay-down yard less than a mile away.
“Well, Drosky. This thing won’t win any awards for speed,” Bruner said as John negotiated the oversized buggy around the multitude of stalled cars.
“Zero to 60 in thirty seconds!” Drosky replied with a smirk.
“It won’t win any awards but it’ll save your ass in a firefight!” He continued. “It’ll take a lot more than any of the criminals around here have to make a dent in this baby.”
“I suppose.” The young man replied. “And call me Bru,” he said. “You know, sounds like a beer?”
“You got it!” Drosky replied. “Call me John.
“And speaking of beer,” Drosky continued. “I’ll buy tonight.”
“Thanks partner,” Bru replied. “Such a big spender. Sure you can afford it on your DHS salary?”
Both men smiled, John staring out at the hovels they were passing by. So far, he was liking his new partner. Dixon Bruner didn’t seem to have any airs about him. Young and eager, John could see a little of himself a decade and a half ago.
Soon they pulled into the OUC yard and found a group of men gathered near the back. The two agents hopped down from their vehicle and walked over to the assembled group.
“Who called it in?” John asked.
“I did,” came a tentative reply.
A middle-aged man, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt stepped forward. Wearing his safety yellow helmet and sunglasses, he removed his leather gloves and stuck out his hand.
“Michael Parkway,” he said shaking John and Bru’s hand. The agents replied in kind and John turned to his junior partner.
“Get out your notebook,” John said. “Take notes while we go through the crime scene.”
John turned to Parkway and the three of them approached Weed’s body.
“So, what happened?” John asked. “How did this man get electrocuted in a city with no electricity?”
“Well, that’s a good question. If you come over here,” Parkway pointed to the cylinders where the explosion had taken place, “you can see where the source of electricity came from.”
John and Bru approached the area where Weed had met his fate. A grass fire had burned itself out, leaving a burnt ebony scar around the metal containers. A black scorch mark on the gleaming boxes showed them where the surge originated.
Bruner began to reach into the metal frame when Parkway violently grabbed his hand.
“WOAH THERE, PARTNER!” He shouted. “You don’t want to do that!”
Bru backed away from the apparatus, and looked questioningly at the utility worker.
“But there aren’t any lines going into the mechanism that I can see.”
“There aren’t any,” Parkway stated. “And there never was.”
“Well just how did they get charged? How did that contraption electrocute that man?”
“That contraption is a G.E. Utility Capacitor.”
“Looks like a transformer,” Bru chimed in.
“They do,” Parkway replied. “But they do completely different jobs.”
The utility lineman walked to the stack of capacitors and pointed to the leads coming off the top.
“There are two basic mechanisms we put on the utility poles. Transformers and capacitors. A transformer does just what it sounds like it should. It transforms the high voltages running through the electric wires into the 120-volt current that is piped to the end users.”
“How much voltage do the electric wires carry?”
“The average line runs about 7200 volts. So the transformer has to step that down to a steady 120 volts that you get at your outlets. But the overhead lines don’t run a constant voltage. During parts of the day, there is excess voltage in the system and that’s where the capacitor comes in. A capacitor is an energy sink or reservoir. It absorbs excess voltage when the demand is down and gives it back to the system when the demand exceeds the supply in the line. Essentially, a capacitor serves the same purpose as a storage tank in a water system. It allows for a constant voltage like a water reservoir helps maintain constant water pressure.”
“Like a battery backup system?” Bru asked.
“Well, yes and no. You see, a battery backup will give power when it is down, but it doesn’t absorb the excess when the power exceeds the need.”
“Bottom line, Parkway. How did this happen?” John asked.
“Well, capacitors collect power. They have a switch that allows them to interface with the grid. Open the switch and the capacitor is off grid, but close the switch and the capacitor interacts with the lines and helps regulate the voltage. Here, let me show you.”
Parkway pointed to a switch on the bracketed capacitors. “These capacitors have an open switch, which would take them off the grid, but in the yard, it opens the mechanism to an environmental power surge.”
“So, let me get this right,” John said. “The open switch allowed the capacitor to get charged by an outside source like a lightning strike?”
“Yeah, that’s possible. But more than likely, the EMP that hit us fully charged the capacitor. An EMP is a very powerful electric charge. It probably juiced up the capacitor, and that poor fellow touched the electrode on top of the structure and it discharged into him.”
“How much electricity?” Bru asked.
“Well, come over here and look.” Parkway said.
They walked over to the corpse and examined the results of the capacitor’s work.
“See his right hand? How it’s blown open? That’s where he grounded himself along with his feet. The electricity entered his left hand which melted and burned him, but left with a vengeance out his other limbs.”
Parkway bent over the scrawny corpse and pulled back his burnt shirt.
“See the outline of the medal on his chest?” Parkway observed.
Weed had a metal swastika hung around his neck. The outline of the medallion was burned into his skin.
“We call that metallization. Basically, the electricity ran through his chain and through volatilization or ionization of the metal, drove the molecules into the man’s skin. This much volatilization means the current was massive.”
“Basically, the electricity tore metal particles off the medallion and tattooed them into his skin,” John replied.
“Exactly. I couldn’t have described it better myself! You’re pretty sharp, Agent Drosky. What’s your background?”
John briefly described his time in the Marines and OPD. Parkway stood and listened intently in silence.
“So what does this mean for the recovery?” John finally asked.
“Well,” Parkway said. “Let’s me show you something. Come with me, please. And could you have your partner stay with the body and finish his report so we can get back out there? We have a lot to do.”
Parkway turned to the other five men loitering about.
“Hey you guys, don’t touch the capacitors. You can load up the transformers in row “C” on the flatbed. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Parkwa
y led John to a stack of cables next to the back fence.
“You seem like a good enough guy,” Parkway started. “I didn’t get any type of vibe from your buddy, though.”
“Just started working with him today. Why the secrecy?”
“Well, let’s just call it a feeling.” Parkway said. The utility worker moved closer to John; brushing up against John’s shoulder, he leaned in slightly.
“It just seems like more than a coincidence that we’re here.”
“How so?” John asked. “What’s bothering you?”
“Well, about three months ago, we were pulled off a big project down at Lake Nona, building the new medical campus. I mean, being pulled off one project to do another isn’t the strangest thing in the world. But this, well…” His voice trailed off as the man struggled for the right words.
John could tell he was holding back. They advanced further away from the other men and stopped at the back fence.
“Agent Drosky…”
“Please, call me John.”
Parkway smiled and nodded his head ever so slightly. They both turned and stared back at the others, watching as Bru took notes and the others gathered at their flatbed and began to load spools of electric wire and several transformers with their attached fork lift onto the back of the truck.
“Lake Nona is a big project. I mean huge. The governor was personally overseeing it. He used a lot of political capital getting the funding for the place.”
“I remember,” John injected. “He wants to diversify the economy of the area. Get away from the city’s reliance on theme parks and create high tech jobs.”
“Exactly! And we were told to go full bore. Overtime? No problem. Outside contractors? Whatever you need. We were on a strict schedule with no budget.”
“Hmmm,” John said. “If you want it fast and good, it won’t be cheap.”
“It wasn’t cheap, believe me,” Parkway continued. “We were balls to the walls. Then, in August, we were pulled off the job and sent to a bunch of lay down yards to ground a bunch of new equipment.”
“What do you mean, ground?”
“We made them lightning proof. At least, that was the excuse we were given. I thought it was some middle management ass-wipe that got a bug where the sun don’t shine. But, that wasn’t the case.”
Parkway moved even closer to John, leaning into his ear.
“It was the feds,” he whispered. “The federal government mandated it, at least that’s what my supervisor told me.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” John replied. “Why would they care about Orlando’s lightning problems?”
“Exactly what I thought at the time. But who am I to argue with the powers that be? So we did it. Took us almost four weeks to finish. It didn’t make any sense ‘cause the summer storm season was coming to a close. But when is the government ever prone to logic?”
John chuckled. “Agreed!”
“It didn’t make any sense, that is, until now.” Parkway concluded.
“Why now?” John asked.
“Because,” Parkway finished. “If we hadn’t grounded and protected all this stuff, the city would still be without any hope of power.”
“You mean to tell me…” John started.
“Yeah. When we grounded and protected the capacitors, transformers and other equipment from a lightning strike, we also protected them from the EMP.”
With that, Parkway raised his right eyebrow as if to say “Quite a coincidence”, and walked back to his men, leaving John standing there with a lot more questions than answers.
Chapter 7
“In a time of War, where every man is enemy to every man… the life of man (is), solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”
-Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Jorge peered under the stalled Explorer, looking down the trash-filled street ahead. A young woman, hardly a teenager if not younger, sat on the right curb in front of a modest concrete block home. She seemed lost, her hair pulled back in a futile attempt to appear presentable. The grime on her face was camouflaged by thick makeup that, even fifty yards away, looked too heavy. It gave her a desperate, trashy look that set off some alarm in the back of Jorge’s mind.
Ever since last Thursday, when the power died and the Delta jetliner crash-landed in the lake in his backyard, the world as he knew it ceased to exist. Things turned upside down in a matter of seconds. His new home, career and plans for the future had gone up in smoke.
Watching the Airbus jet land on top of the water behind his house was just the beginning. When Jorge reached the “crash site,” he was greeted by over a hundred passengers who were just as bewildered as him. The pilot, Kevin Stillwagon, had masterfully set the metal bird down; and in a stoke of good fortune, their left wing settled next to a dock. All the jet’s occupants, having exited down the wing onto the dock, were amassed in the back yard of a 1950’s concrete block mansion. The elders in the group had taken seats on the patio furniture that was now a makeshift airline gate. With no one at home, the group sat bewildered, waiting for the plane’s crew to tell them what to do next.
Jorge offered little information to the pilot and his staff, other than to confirm their location. The captain did explain his theory about an electromagnetic pulse causing the power outage. Linking the loss of power in the jet to the loss of power on the ground, Captain Stillwagon surmised that no one was coming to help them. With dusk settling, and after some discussion, the entire group decided to walk to the airport. Like some modern day Trail of Tears, the collection of tourists, business people and uniformed airline employees all snaked their way east toward Orlando International Airport. Fortunately, it was only a few miles away, but several of the oldest in the crowd were assisted by a couple of wheel chairs that the captain bravely salvaged from storage compartments in the front of the still-floating plane.
The sound of the group’s departure still haunted Jorge’s memories of their early evening exodus. Everyone was eerily quiet as they made their way down the road, as if walking to their own funeral. The only thing heard from the large group was the sniffles of the children and the tiny rumble of their carry-on items as the plastic wheels of the luggage rolled over the asphalt, occasionally jumping over small rocks and pebbles. The hollow echoes of the clicking of high heels, the tick-tack of the luggage rollers bumping over the ground and swishing of pants and skirts marked their passage. Then, like ghosts in the night, they faded into the deepening darkness, disappearing from his life forever.
Over the next week, Jorge lived with his mother and father, helping them adapt to the situation. After a couple of days, it became evident that no help was on the way. A couple of days after that, the entire family managed to come together at his parent’s modest home. Three of his siblings were married and there was one grandson. Last night, after a lengthy family discussion, it was decided that they were all going to travel south and make their way to his brother Francisco’s place of employment, a large cattle ranch in Osceola county.
Francisco, the second oldest child, had gone to the College of Central Florida in Ocala and graduated with a degree in agricultural business with a certificate in animal sciences and husbandry. He was hired by a large cattle ranch in Osceola county that owned a herd of thousands of heads. The “Ranch,” as it was called, is comprised of about 295,000 acres, or 450 square miles, stretching across Orange, Osceola, and Brevard counties. It was one of the few places the large family could think of that could allow them to survive. Its isolation, access to water and food and the farm’s need for bodies to protect their herd made the decision to make the forty-mile walk an easy one.
That morning, the entire family had left their southeast Orlando home, using three bicycles, two of which were towing wagons filled with canned goods and water. His brothers, Francisco and Edwardo provided the group with weapons, b
oth young men having embraced firearms as many young men often do. Two AR-15s, several handguns and several .22 rifles were spread among the large group. All were grimly determined to make the trip as quickly as possible, having witnessed the beginnings of societal breakdown in their neighborhood. Several nights of looting combined with a few local house fires along with the anticipated safety of the ranch, all made the decision to leave a little easier. They left heading south, all except for one. That is how Jorge found himself staring down the road at the young, blonde girl who was sitting on the curb. He continued to watch her as she slowly looked down each side of the street as if waiting for a date to pick her up for the movies.
Jorge had made the decision to travel downtown to find his girlfriend Maria. Having confirmed that she never made it out to her parent’s house, Jorge had begun his downtown trek at dawn that morning to find her apartment and hopefully bringing her back with him. Eventually, Jorge wanted to make their way to Francisco’s farm (as they liked to call it, even though it wasn’t really his farm).
“That poor girl,” Tammy whispered as she looked over the top of the same Explorer Jorge had been looking under.
Tammy and Wayne Hargrave were his new temporary companions. They met on route 436, the Hargraves having joined up with Jorge behind a looted and burned-down McDonalds. Both of his new companions sported a nice external-frame Kelty® backpack, while Jorge was using a simple, cheap book bag his youngest sister had used in high school. The couple also used fiberglass walking sticks and had camelback water bladders. High end hiking boots peeked out from under their jeans.
The couple had landed at OIA just before the lights went out. They had flown in from Indiana to hike several of the state’s beautiful hiking paths, the first one being the Citrus Hiking Loop, a 40-mile trail through the heart of the Withlacoochee State Forest. Having stayed at the airport for the following week, they soon learned from a growing DHS presence that the country’s power was down and that it wouldn’t be up again anytime soon. Worse was that the government was going to put them in a local camp for the duration of the emergency. They young couple decided to sneak out of the airport in the dead of night and walk back to Indiana. They were prepared for an extended camping trip and with water filtration, dried food and a willing spirit, they figured they would rather spend their time walking instead of sitting in some camp waiting for the government to fix the problem.
Charlie's Requiem: Democide Page 6
