Catalyst (Book 1): Downward Cycle

by JK Franks

  Grabbing the keys to his Jeep Wrangler, he headed back out to the garage. He began to open the tailgate, then decided to see if the Jeep would even start. It was a top of the line model, only two years old, but it had a lot of electronics which could be damaged. Scott prayed that it had been spared from the full blast of the CME. He knew it would take a powerful burst to fry the electronics on a car, but he thought about the jet he had seen and the cars on the side of the road earlier.

  Opening the door, the dome light came on. Good so far. Sliding the key in, the door chime began as normal. He turned the key, and the engine started immediately. Scott gave a deep sigh of relief. Several of the dash light alerts blinked on and then back off. Hmmm… he thought, maybe not completely fine. Eventually, the lights settled down. The engine sounded fine, but his temperature and rpm gauge were not working.

  He turned his radio on and scanned the dials for FM channels, but heard only noise and static. The AM was about the same, only some weird oscillation sounds at the far end of the dial. Switching over to satellite radio, he had to move the car out of the garage so the antenna could pick up a signal. All of his preset channels were silent. The preview channel was still playing, but just the standard promo ads. Jumping up to the block of channels reserved for news, he began scrolling through each one slowly.

  Finally, on the BBC news channel, he heard what amounted to an Emergency Broadcast recording. A very proper British accent pronounced that a significant weather event was taking place that could cause temporary power disruptions, but, in essence, it said to, “Stay calm and carry on.” Ok, not those exact words… but close enough to remind him of the ubiquitous war slogan that had been everywhere a few years back. Leave it to the Brits, he thought.

  He tried to remember where the satellite company broadcast from. Scott's mind was trying to imagine the size of the area that had been affected. He was not sure, but he believed they broadcast from New York, or possibly Washington, DC. He punched the scan button, and it quickly went through the several hundred stations, stopping only on one other channel that sounded like a Japanese broadcast, possibly of the same information. Whatever the repeating message, it was more frantic in pace than the British one, but also only about fifteen seconds long. Scott sighed and backed the car back into the garage before shutting it off. Grabbing the EDC bag out of the trunk, he headed back inside, beginning to feel like the man in the old “Omega Man” movie, wondering if he would be one of the last men left alive, wandering the planet in search of other survivors. Glancing up at the two bicycles on the wall, he thought that if he had to wander, it would probably be on two wheels.

  Chapter Six

  Be prepared. It worked for the scouts. He knew he had no way of knowing the real severity of what had happened today. Let me work this as a thought experiment then. Assuming this was a long-term situation, Scott wanted to have a plan. The survival protocols, he knew, were to first get shelter, clean water and food. Shelter was no problem at the moment, as the cottage was solid, off the main road and somewhat secure. It was on a municipal water line, which was good for the moment, but would run out after the county storage tanks ran dry. There was a backup well on the property that had been the primary source of water back in his dad’s day. He would need to find some way to provide power to the old pump or come up with another way to get clean water if need be, but at least the well was an option.

  Scott checked the small food pantry and cabinets for all the provisions he had on hand, listing perishables in one column and non-perishables on the other. Then he moved to the refrigerator. Opening it up, he snapped a few pictures with his phone and then shut the door quickly. He repeated the process with the freezer before moving on to the refrigerator and the chest freezer out in the garage as well. He already pretty much knew what he had, but felt it was still a good idea to know for sure. Once he was done reviewing the photos and listing all the cold food in the house, he felt he had enough basic supplies to last about two weeks, which he could probably stretch to last three. He had enough meat in the freezer to last several months if need be, but he knew that wouldn't be any good for long if the power remained off.

  He pulled out the EDC bag and emptied its contents. His brother had brought the bag for him along with most of the items already in it. Several times while working on the cottage, Bobby had made him learn how to use all of it. Having the supplies without the knowledge to use them was worthless, Bobby had said. For countless hours, he had made fires without matches or lighter, purified water and foraged for food as Bobby guided him. Over time, he had added a few things to it based on suggestions his brother had made. Emptying the various pockets of the Devil Dog pack, it contained: a keychain on which were carabiners, a multi-use can opener and scissors; a waterproof notepad and pen; a ThorFire tactical flashlight; a mess kit; road maps; a small first-aid guide; a foraging guide; a Leatherman Wave Multitool; a Swedish FireSteel; a small pair of Steiner Binoculars; a Nalgene Water Bottle; a Benchmade folding knife; water purification tablets; a LifeStraw; a Silva Ranger Compass; and a solar phone charger. There was also some freeze-dried food, coffee, and several MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat as the military called them.

  Scott had a big issue with EDC bags; they needed to be constantly updated. You needed gear appropriate to the season you were in and the area in which you expected to be operating. It was always hard finding the balance of gear to food and clothes. Often, he had wondered if it was even worth the effort. Now he was pretty sure it was. He also had what his brother had called a Pocket Survival Kit (PSK). It was a small pocket-sized tin that contained the very bare essentials: an emergency water bag; more purification tablets; fishing hooks and line; another, smaller fire steel; safety pins; a paracord; tinder fire starters; a card of snap out arrowheads; a small knife; a piece of hacksaw blade; and several ranger bands. He hoped he was overreacting with all of this, but felt it was a good exercise just the same. Besides, his big brother would be proud of him.

  He gathered all the flashlights, batteries, candles and fuel he had on hand in the cottage, which amounted to not very much. He realized he had no idea how long natural gas would keep flowing to his stove. He probably needed a portable cook stove. That got him thinking about a wish list. What items did he need, or more accurately, what should he have gotten already? The wrong time to prep is after the shit hits the fan.

  He started a new page with this list. It started slowly but grew quickly. Emergency and long-term food; bulk bags of rice, beans, and flour; bleach; vinegar; honey; coffee; sugar; and salt—to preserve meat, among other things. He added batteries, bottled water, and ammo for the one pistol he had; some freeze-dried foods and emergency MREs and some camping supplies in case he did need to bug out. He continued to brainstorm, and in about an hour he felt the list was pretty complete. Now if I had only done this last week! he thought. He had no idea how to get any of this now, but he could focus on that tomorrow. He turned the twist knob on the lantern, which died down and slowly faded out.

  Sitting in the darkness, his mind conjured up terrible what-if scenarios. While this was just a precautionary thought experiment, he was not going to be naive. He could be looking at needing to hold out for several weeks until they got the power up again. Could be even longer. Frustrated, he crawled into bed.

  Chapter Seven

  Day 2

  At some point during the night, the power came back on. Scott awoke when one of his MP3 playlists started blaring from the stereo. As the fog of sleep began to lift, he noticed the AC was on, as were some random lights throughout the house—no doubt as a result of flipping switches as he’d entered darkened rooms in search of provisions and supplies.

  He lay there for several minutes enjoying the breeze from his ceiling fan and the cool air coming from the AC vents. “Thank God…it wasn’t that bad after all.” Just in case, he got up and put his cell phone on the charger and did the same with every other rechargeable battery he had found. He closed the windows that he’d opened, punche
d the power button on his laptop and switched on the TV in his bedroom. The flat screen lit up with the manufacturer’s logo, then showed the message “No Signal.” Remembering that his set-top box had also been out, he punched the button on the remote to turn that on as well.

  His laptop was not coming on, and power lights were dead. He slid it from the desk and reached for the metalized travel case containing his backup computer. Opening it up, he was relieved to see it booting up as normal. He verified that his primary satellite modem was working as he had already realized the secondary hard line modem was showing no connection. Due to his government work, he had to maintain multiple systems and redundancy’s in all his hardware. His email opened automatically and immediately began searching for mail. Scott opened up a browser window which came up blank white. He set the small computer to the side to focus on later and to allow the countless emails that were probably waiting to download.

  Looking back to the TV, he flipped through the channels. Most were black or showed only a logo screen. Flipping over to one of the 24-hour news channels, he finally saw what appeared to be an actual broadcast. Smiling, he thought, I am not the last man on Earth. The news report seemed less polished than usual and did not appear against the usual set. Likely broadcasting from another location. The anchors described what had been a very catastrophic day. While communication was still out in most areas, and reports coming in were mostly unverified, a massive solar event had indeed knocked out power grids and communications networks all over the country and possibly worldwide. While the solar event had been over twelve hours earlier, solid information was just trickling in; reports of numerous fatalities from accidents... thousands of people stranded in elevators in every major city… traffic gridlocked and a large percentage of cars on the road immediately shutting down. What few emergency services vehicles still ran were having little success navigating through most urban areas, and with nearly all communications down, 911 services were no help.

  Apparently, sporadic radio broadcasts and amateur HAM radio operators had been the most reliable in providing what information there was. There were reports of looting in the inner-cities. Emergency services like fire protection, public safety and 911 were all unavailable. Without phones and power, all they could react to was what they saw personally. Reports seemed to suggest that the Northeast and Europe were probably the worst affected; most of these areas remained blacked-out as the number of substations and transformers with problems fell within what officials were calling an “extremely significant” level of damage, whatever that meant.

  Questions were already being raised about the new “Smart Grid” system the government had been touting for quite some time: The primary news anchor asked, “Billions spent on this already, and wasn’t it designed to protect the US from such an event?” Scott listened as one of the talking heads, a so-called energy expert, described the smart grid system as “…essentially a more effective monitoring and distribution tool. In the case of an emergency like this, it took a more strategic role, taking the power from less demanding regions and channeling it to areas that had failed. The updated grid could also redirect electricity as needed to places with a higher priority need, like major urban areas, military bases, or critical infrastructure centers.” He went on to say, “None of our improvements to the grid did anything to defend the system against EMP or CME blasts.”

  “As these more outlying plants that were knocked offline restart, they will begin filling in the gaps of the nationwide grid instead of just to the customers in their immediate vicinity.”

  “So we should expect more blackouts even if we have power right now?” one of the panelists asked.

  The expert frowned and said, “Possibly, there could be some rolling blackouts if the demand exceeds the immediate supply, which is not an unlikely possibility. I would strongly suggest that we all be very conservative with power usage at the moment. As bad as today was, we may have dodged a bullet.”

  They continued to talk, but it quickly became obvious to Scott that they had no real facts. Fully awake now, he turned his attention back to the laptop. His home page was offline, and his Cryptocat messenger was also unable to connect. Outlook also showed zero new mail messages in his work email account. That’s not good. He checked the connectivity by pulling up a command prompt window. Due to his work, Scott's networking setup was unique. He used a secure Satellite-based Internet provider, or “ISP,” with a hardwired backup from a local cable TV provider. Pulling up a command line window, he pinged several popular servers, beginning with his service provider’s mail server, which came back with a slow but adequate connection. Trying to reach any Google servers returned nothing, nor did Yahoo, Reddit or Twitter. He then tried many of the same sites using the IP addresses that he had memorized many times. Several of these did return connection pings back, so he knew those, at least, were still online. He was still curious as to the scale of the disaster. Knowing what servers or sites were up would let him figure out who still had power—although some could be running off of emergency generators for the moment.

  He went back to the browser window, and instead of the URL, he entered 173.194.112.178, which he knew to be a Google server. Sure enough, the Google page popped up. He clicked the advanced tools and selected “News” to restrict his search only to news feeds. He added a filter to only show news from the past twelve hours. This action should have returned hundreds or even thousands of stories. Instead, only a handful of search results popped up at all, all with very disturbing headlines:

  Passenger Jet Crash

  Denver, CO – All Passengers feared dead

  Massive Blackout Effects

  NYC, LA, and Chicago – Widespread Looting

  Solar Storm – CME Event

  NOAA offers 8 min warning of impending event

  European Research Lab on Lockdown

  Infectious Disease Storage Containment Breach reported

  Israel Poised for Attack

  Palestinian and Arabic world celebrate

  Kardashian Reality Channel Announced

  The popular celebs will now have their own network

  NASA Loses contact with ISS Space Station

  Systems offline. No word on condition of crew

  Chapter Eight

  Unfortunately, when he clicked on any of the headlines the browser would go to a blank page. Shit, Scott cursed. The news story links were entered as standard URLs, so without knowing the IP number of the server, he couldn’t view the rest of the story. Obviously, many of the Internet’s backbone nameservers that normally matched common URL names to IP addresses were offline. Most IT guys knew this was a real vulnerability of the World Wide Web, but the WWW was just one aspect of the actual Internet. Scott decided to go in a different direction.

  Closing all of the open windows, he clicked an icon on his desktop and opened up a VPN window. This Virtual Private Network was part of his normal workday. Here he could directly access any other computer that he was authorized to. The VPN essentially acted as a tunnel—through the Internet clutter directly to his company server or, in this case, a server at a division of the DHS where he was currently contracted to provide upgrades and security audits. Thankfully, the connection was quickly made, and his log-on window appeared. Entering his credentials, he was then required to provide a biometric scan of his fingerprint on a small reader built into the laptop. The server window opened up slowly but with the familiar files and folders Scott expected.

  Scott knew the locations of these computer servers was special; it had its own internal redundant power supplies and was housed adjacent to one of the actual backbone nodes of the original Internet. It even had its own nameservers to speed things up. Once login was complete, he checked messages in his taskbox and found it had not been updated since yesterday morning, so no one had an urgent need for him. He then checked to see what other users were logged in and active at this hour. He had thought he would message whomever he found online, but the results showed zero othe
r actual users. Several higher-level bots (the automated users ever-vigilant to cyber-attack) were active, however, which indicated an increased threat level.

  Scott then opened a window that emulated a normal Windows desktop and from there loaded up a modified Web Browser. The homepage for DHS filled the browser window. Initiating a tool to convert website names to a numerical address, he began searching for sites that were still active. Scott knew that most larger sites were “mirrored.” In other words, the site would be duplicated in multiple servers, often in different parts of the world. Disaster planning was an active part of modern day web server deployment. Sometimes these were just for what was considered normal load balancing. At other times, power outages, earthquakes and even flooding had knocked complete server farms offline. In those cases, the redundancy protocols would simply route the domain traffic to one of the many other mirrored locations. The chances of all of these being unavailable at the same time would be very unlikely on a normal day. This…. was not a normal day.

  As Scott began entering websites, he first concentrated on major news sites: CNN, Reuters, Bloomsburg, the Washington Post. About half of these did come up, but none were updated. Chances are none of the people that did the updating had electricity, much less a web connection.