by Tate, Harley
“Thank you, Phil. As our viewers are probably aware, approximately three hours ago, the eastern half of the United States plunged into darkness.”
The broadcast flipped to a graphic showing the area believed to be impacted, but Keith kept his camera trained on Marjorie. “According to our sources, the blackout begins somewhere west of Chicago, extends into portions of upstate New York, and down to the Orlando-Tampa area of Florida. Miami appears to be mostly online, although much of its electricity comes from farther north in the state, so portions are without power.”
Keith eased the camera back to Phil. “That’s right, Marjorie, and based on our investigations, it appears the outage is not limited to homes and businesses, but is also affecting cars, trains, airplanes, and other large vehicles. We turn to Becky Newton, our reporter on the ground. Becky, what can you tell us?”
As the video cut to a woman standing outside a large concrete building, Keith leaned back to stretch. Becky was one of the main beat reporters for the weekday news cycle, a firecracker of a woman with flaming red hair and a personality to match. She didn’t rise to Lainey’s level of investigative journalism, but she made up for it with a dedication to the job. Every time there was a weather event or a traffic jam or some filthy accident to report on, Becky would be there with waders, a poncho, and a smile.
“Thanks, Phil. I’m standing outside the headquarters of the Los Angeles branch of the FBI, where agents are hard at work piecing together the details of the power outage.” The live feed cut to a shaky cell phone video of the sky. A kite flew in the foreground and Becky spoke over the footage. “A man out for a relaxing evening with his daughter took this video from a park in Northern Virginia, just a few miles from Washington, DC.”
As the kite swooped above the trees, a light burst across the video. A girl began to scream and the kite fell to the ground. “By all accounts, this bright light filled the sky above Virginia and could be seen as far away as Maryland and possibly parts of West Virginia and North Carolina.”
Phil cut in. “What is this we’re seeing?”
The video cut back to Becky standing on the sidewalk. “Although not confirmed by any official sources, we believe what that video shows is a high-altitude nuclear explosion.”
“A nuclear bomb? Was it lethal? Are there threats of radiation exposure?”
“No. According to our sources, it was detonated high enough in the atmosphere to have no radiation effects on the ground.”
“But it caused the power grid failure?”
“That’s what my sources are telling me, yes.”
“Are your sources in the FBI? Are these official reports?”
“Not official, no, but I can tell you the people I’ve spoken to know what they’re talking about.” Becky went on answering vague questions from Phil about how the residents of Los Angeles should remain calm and wait for more information to come out over the next few hours. Keith snorted. Right.
As Keith zoomed out to bring both Phil and Marjorie into the shot, people all over Los Angeles were doing exactly the opposite. Stay calm? How were they exactly supposed to stay calm when everyone knew someone affected by the power outage? With cars stalled on every major road and planes falling from the sky, this wasn’t close to the same level as a massive earthquake or tornado. This was freak-out central.
“As we’ve been repeating all afternoon with our special reports, the best advice we can give in this time of uncertainty is to remain in your homes if at all possible, not to evacuate, and above all, not to panic. The governor of California has declared a state of emergency as a precaution, and the National Guard is being called up as we speak. As we reported in our prior hour, the mayor of Los Angeles is calling on everyone to use their best judgment and to stay off the streets tonight.”
Marjorie smiled at Phil and turned to the camera. “We’ll be back after this commercial break with continued coverage of the blackout.”
Keith had been manning the camera nonstop since Trenton made the decision to broadcast continuously starting at three that afternoon. Keith needed a break to stretch and close his eyes, but more than that, he needed a plan. It was beyond naïve to think the city wouldn’t erupt in confusion, chaos, and riots. People rioted for celebrity trial verdicts and political rallies. What would a massive collapse of American infrastructure bring?
There were so many unanswered questions. So far, the station avoided the biggest: how long would the blackout last? From what he could gather, a damn long time, but no one wanted to be the first to say it. What if they were wrong? What if their reporting caused mass hysteria and then the lights came back on?
Until the government came out with a statement, KSBF and all the other operational stations across the country were in a quandary. How to report on the news without making the situation worse? As the station came back from the commercial break, Keith resumed his position behind the camera. The rest of the broadcast proceeded much like the first, breaking for spots on the weather and the gridlock in Los Angeles. Thanks to the blackout, every employee tried to leave their offices at the same time, causing massive delays throughout the city.
Even if Keith could leave the studio, he’d never make it home now. He would have to wait until the traffic died down and hope Bear could hold on. Even if he couldn’t wait to relieve himself until Keith made it home, the damage would be temporary. Bear had a bowl full of water and if he grew desperate, he would probably nudge the cabinet open and drag his dog food into the middle of the kitchen. A spot of dog pee and a bunch of spilled food wasn’t the end of the world. At least they weren’t in the middle of a blackout.
The news segment wound down and Phil and Marjorie signed off for the national news. Keith pulled his headphones off. At last, he could take a break. As he walked toward the hallway and the bathroom beyond, a muffled argument carried from the executive offices. Keith strained to listen. He couldn’t understand, but he knew the speakers: Matt, the head of nightly news, and Lainey.
She must have found something. With the anchors breaking for hair and makeup and the other cameraman downing a stale cup of coffee at the rear of the studio, Keith managed to slip into the executive office hall unnoticed. He eased down the stretch of carpet, the voices growing louder as he approached.
“You can’t sit on this!” Lainey shouted toward the open door.
“What if you’re wrong? We’ll be the laughingstock of news networks the world over.” Matt cursed and his voice warbled. “We can’t go half-cocked into this because you think it’s real.”
“It is real, and this is proof! Why can’t you understand that?”
Keith sneaked close enough to catch every word.
Matt stood by the open door, hand gesticulating as he refuted Lainey’s argument. “You don’t have proof. You have vague spreadsheets and some theory about more bombs. For all we know, the bomb’s already gone off up in the sky. We need to be covering that story, not some disaster porn a hacker kid cooked up to scare everyone.”
“What if it’s real?” Lainey’s voice rose higher than Keith had ever heard it. “What if Los Angeles is about to be blown to pieces? Shouldn’t we at least give people a chance to evacuate?”
Something slammed into the wall and shook the hallway. Keith winced.
“Have you seen outside?” Matt shouted toward Lainey and the open door. “It’s already total and complete gridlock. We’ve got reports of marches on city hall and riots breaking out at grocery stores and malls across the entire metro area. People are panicking. Spouting off crazy conspiracy theories will only make it worse.”
Lainey’s voice dropped and she forced the words through what sounded like clenched teeth. “If I’m right and we don’t tell anyone, millions of people will die and it will be our fault. Can you live with that?”
“Assuming I survive, you mean?” Matt barked out a grim laugh. “Get me something concrete and I’ll put it on the air. Until then, stop wasting my time.” He stomped from the office, face beet red an
d slicked in sweat. As he neared Keith, he practically snarled, “Don’t you have a job to do?”
Keith didn’t respond, opting instead to ease back against the wall and let the man pass.
After Matt disappeared from view, Keith slipped into the room. Lainey stood near the conference table, hand pressed to her forehead, eyes closed.
“Are you okay?”
She jerked her head up. Tears threatened to spill over her lashes. “No.”
“What’s going on?”
She hesitated.
“Lainey, I know there’s more than just the power outage. I heard most of what you said to Matt.” He stepped closer. It didn’t matter that they’d broken up or that she chose her career over him. Right then, what mattered was the truth. “If something else is going on, I need to know.”
With an exaggerated exhale, Lainey eased down to perch on the table. “This morning my sister called in a panic, telling me to leave Los Angeles.”
“Midge?” Keith wrinkled his nose. “I didn’t think you two were on the best terms.”
“We aren’t.” Lainey worked her hands back and forth in front of her. “When she called, she wasn’t making any sense. She just kept saying, ‘get out of LA,’ and ‘go somewhere safe.’ So I demanded that she tell me more.”
“And?”
“There’s a terrorist attack coming.”
Keith blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Nuclear bombs in the top twenty-five largest metropolitan areas of the United States.”
“That’s not possible.” Keith shook his head. “No way could someone even make twenty-five bombs, let alone disperse them throughout the country without anyone finding out.”
“That’s what I said, but then she showed me the data.” Lainey pulled out her phone and motioned Keith over. He looked over her shoulder as she scrolled through a series of spreadsheets. “Shipping containers came through the Port of New York and New Jersey weighing way more than they should for their size, but no one stopped them.” She kept scrolling. “Midge found dates, times, shipping routes, and final destinations. It all adds up.”
“But it could all be about the explosion that already happened. It was probably nuclear, too.”
Lainey shook her head. “Everything she found was about bombs on the ground. She even showed me a manifest of all the nuclear weapons missing from storage facilities in Russia.” She tapped another file and turned her screen so Keith could see. “Did you know they didn’t even keep track of most of their weapons from the Cold War? They’ve been stored in remote warehouses with no security.”
“They probably figured the winters were a sufficient deterrent.”
“Apparently not.”
Keith pinched his lips between his fingers. “So if the reports we’re getting are true and the grid is down because of a high-altitude missile, did whoever planned this change their mind? All the info your sister found could have been a distraction, something to keep the government off the trail.”
“These aren’t government reports.”
“Then how did she get the information?”
Lainey frowned. “Her usual methods.”
“Hacking?”
She nodded.
Keith held up his hands. “Then it must be a scam. Some plant by the government to trap a bunch of hackers and haul them in for breaking the law.”
“I had my doubts, too. But that doesn’t explain Rick.”
Keith bristled at the name of Lainey’s ex. He’d met the guy a few times when they dated, and Rick always rubbed him the wrong way. Keith wasn’t sad when the guy moved to New York. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
Lainey ignored the edge to his voice. “Midge asked me to call him and see what he could find out. She figured he might have some contacts with the Port or the government.”
“What did he say?”
“That’s the thing.” Lainey eased closer and lowered her voice. “He’s missing. I called him this morning and asked him to look into it, but he hasn’t gotten back to me at all.”
“Maybe he’s still researching.”
Lainey sharpened her stare. “His phone number says it’s no longer in service.”
Keith stilled. That didn’t sound right, even for a jerk like Rick. “You think something happened to him?”
“I know it.” Lainey reached for Keith’s hand. “What are we going to do?”
He stared at her fingers pressing into his skin. Ordinarily, he’d rattle off a series of options, each one more practical than the last. This time? He didn’t have a clue.
Chapter Six
LAINEY
KSBF Studios
Los Angeles, California
Friday, 5:45 p.m. PST
Relief flooded through Lainey. At least someone else knew. The burden of holding onto Midge’s information had wrecked her concentration and garbled her brain. With every passing hour, her panic rose to new heights. Millions of people at risk, but no concrete facts. No proof.
She squeezed Keith’s hand. With him on her side, maybe they could break the story wide open. As soon as the thought filled her mind, she tugged her hand away. What am I thinking? I can’t drag him into this. She didn’t even know what this was, not exactly.
Did she want to broadcast her sister’s theories to anyone who would listen? Dig up the truth somehow, someway? Lead an impromptu rally from the steps of the mayor’s residence? She pressed her fingers to her temples for the millionth time that afternoon.
“What are you thinking?”
Keith’s somber question pulled her hands away from her face and Lainey blinked him into focus. “That I’m in over my head and I don’t know what to do or where to go, but I can’t do nothing. I can’t sit on this.”
“I take it Matt won’t give you a chance?”
“Not until I have proof. But how am I supposed to get that? Midge and Rick are MIA; I don’t have another source. I don’t know the first thing about the dark web or any of Midge’s contacts.” Her voice rose with each word, turning almost shrill as she gasped for air. “I can’t do this on my own.”
“You can’t do anything if you panic.” Keith held out his hands like Lainey was a startled deer. “Keeping calm is the first priority.”
Lainey shook her head. “I can’t stay calm. There could be a bomb somewhere in Los Angeles about to blow us all to bits. The big cities need to evacuate. Now.” Lainey pressed her fingers to her lips as another horror surfaced. “What about all the places without power? How will any of those people know to leave?” Her hand fell to her lap. “Is that the point? Is the blackout a distraction?”
Keith stared at the conference table as he thought it over. “Makes sense. Turn the cities into chaos, strike at max gridlock and panic. The military and the police would be deployed on a rescue mission, not an evacuation. Every government agency from the FBI to state legislators would be working around the clock.”
He swallowed and his eyes flicked up to meet her gaze. “If the bombs detonated in the heart of the government districts across the country, how many elected officials would die? Would there be anyone left to run the country?”
Lainey didn’t know enough about nuclear explosions to answer Keith’s question. For all she knew, the bombs could turn the entire city to glass and spread radiation across the continent. Would there even be any Americans left to govern?
“If the bombs are real, we could be looking at the end of America.”
Keith’s thoughts echoed Lainey’s. No matter how their relationship ended or how much she hated to drag him into the story, she needed Keith on her side. She leaned closer. “Will you help me uncover the truth?”
He blinked before looking toward the wall of windows.
She pressed him. “I can’t leave millions of people to die. I have to try and find out what’s really going on.”
He rubbed the five o’clock shadow spreading across his jaw. “What if Matt’s right and that was the bomb?”
“Do you really bel
ieve that?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
Lainey reached out and placed her hand on Keith’s knee. “Twenty-four hours. Come with me for twenty-four hours. After that, if I haven’t found anything out, you can tell me I’m crazy and go back to whatever it is you want to do.”
His brow knit as he stared at her hand. Lainey held her breath. Say yes. Please say yes.
“Okay.”
She exhaled in relief and leaned back in her chair.
“But if we’re leaving the station to go on some crazy mission, we have to stop by my place on the way.”
Lainey raised an eyebrow. Did he have a girlfriend? Someone he needed to protect? She shouldn’t ask, but the word slipped out. “Why?”
Keith shrugged. “Bear.”
Of course. Lainey chastised herself. Keith put Bear above any girlfriend, job, even his own comfort. He would never leave that happy ball of fur alone. “Right. I’m sorry I forgot.”
“It’s okay, but he’s not negotiable.”
“Understood.” Lainey stood up. “What should we do first?”
Keith checked his watch. “Traffic isn’t going to get any better.”
“You think we should leave now?”
“Can you make any more headway online or on the phone?”
Lainey shook her head. “Not when I can barely get a single page to load and half my calls won’t go through.”
“Then we should grab what we can and go before anyone notices.”
She frowned. “Should I pack up my desk? Won’t that be a bit obvious?”
“Not your whole desk. Just fill your work bag with anything useful to get us through the next twenty-four hours.”
“So food and tennis shoes and a backup phone charger?”
“Exactly.” Keith flashed a quick smile. “Meet you by the stairs in ten?”
“Deal.” Lainey watched Keith stride out of the conference room. No matter the situation, the man exuded confidence and calm and all the rationality Lainey lacked in a crisis. But where Keith shied away from the spotlight and the tough questions, Lainey charged ahead. Together they made a powerful team, but their compatibility did nothing to ease the guilt building up in her chest.
