Grid Attack (Cyber War #1) (4 page)

It made sense. We hadn’t had rain for a while, but if we did get rain we could collect it from the roof.

“I know it’s asphalt shingles, so this won’t be for drinking. But we can filter it and use it for clothes or bathing.” She suggested. “Let’s put one over next to the chicken coop as well. We can collect from that roof, too.”

What a smart cookie, my wife. I smiled at her and pulled her into me, wrapping my arms around her.

“I love you. We’ll get through this.” I tried to sound reassuring, not knowing exactly what lay ahead.

She put her head on my chest and sighed.

“I hope so. But I am thinking maybe we should lock up this place, grab the chicks and cats and head down to moms. It would make more sense to be down there than here. Things are really going to get bad here. Then it will be harder to leave.” Her eyes pleaded as she looked up at me.

“We’ll be fine. Your mom will be fine. She’s down there and will be safe. That little town pulls together when things get rough. I don’t want to up and leave here just yet.” I said.

I could feel her body tighten up as she pulled away.

“Okay, hear me out…” she started, “Right now, people are trying to get to the store, get gas and are occupied with just getting through the next few days. Most people probably don’t know that this will be a long-term thing yet, right?”

I nodded, as she began to make her argument.

“And right now, the highways are probably still moving. We can hear the traffic and I suspect people are trying to make their way home. But after people run out of gas and the cars begin to block the highway it will be harder to leave. Plus, there will be people that will want to steal the gas.”

I understood her thought process, but I wasn’t about to just leave the house to looters.

She continued. “If we leave now…today, we can pack up the guns, food, cats, chickens and anything else we would need and get out of the city without anyone looking at us as a target. If we wait, we may not make it out at all. Then we would be stuck here.”

If I let her continue, she would just keep throwing out reasons why we should leave. I didn’t want to leave. If things were really going to go south, I wanted to stay and protect our home.

“Babe, I hear ya. But I think it makes the most sense to stay here and see how things go first. No need to assume things are going to get that bad. Yeah, people will freak out at first, but then everyone will work together and we will make things work. I don’t think we should jump the gun at this point.” I argued.

“No, babe. Don’t you remember Katrina? Remember how many people died and how people didn’t really work together as much as fight each other? And that was after the government was supposed to actually be on the way, helping them. We won’t have that. If this is nationwide, like your boss said, there will be NO outside help.” She said, exasperated.

“We aren’t leaving.” I said. I didn’t want to argue with her anymore. I just wanted things to go back to normal.

“You are being so naive! This isn’t going to get better, it will only get worse!” she yelled, then quieted her voice not wanting all the neighbors to hear us arguing.

I took the last trash can and wheeled it over to the gutter under the chicken coop and began to fill it, deciding not to continue to engage in the argument. Sometimes, it was just better to leave her alone and let her deal with the fact that I was making the decision.

She went into the house, slamming the door behind her. I knew she was pissed, but I really thought it best to try to protect our home here. We had good neighbors, and I knew we would all pull together to help each other. I felt we could make it here just fine once people realized we had no other choice than to make things work.

It wasn’t long before she came storming back out, and up to me. I could tell she had been crying, but I needed to hold my ground.

“If anything happens to mom, it’s on YOUR head!” she yelled before turning on her heel and walking back towards the house.

Great. Now she is throwing some guilt my way. I shook my head and bit my tongue. Things were already stressful enough without us getting into a shouting match.

She was about halfway to the back door when both of us were almost knocked on our asses by a loud explosion. She squatted down towards the ground and quickly looked back at me, fear in her eyes.

Chapter 5 - Katherine

I lost my balance as the explosion shook the ground below me.

“What the hell?” I asked Tony as if he would know what it was.

“Look!” he said, pointing towards the large black cloud of smoke to the west. It was close. “I hope that wasn’t the aluminum plant.”

Crap. The aluminum smelter was upwind of us. We could smell the fumes on the days the wind would be just right. I always wondered if living down wind would be something we would regret.

Tony dropped the water hose and went out to the front yard to see if anyone else was there. He saw the Alderman pulling into his driveway and decided to go see if he knew anything. He had a police radio in his truck to keep track of what was going on in town.

“I’ll be right back.” He said as he took off.

I looked towards the smoke and decided I needed to keep preparing things as much as possible. I looked over at the chickens and realized that if they stayed outside, they would probably get stolen. We needed to keep them alive as long as possible. We got enough eggs daily that as long as they were laying, we could stay alive.

I began to think of ways to make this work. We had to make sure they got enough sunlight or else they would stop laying. But the only real place to keep them would be in the basement.

There had to be a way to rig something that would give enough light. Either that or we would have to let them out only for a while each day, and guard them. That would work as well I think, but I was afraid they might make too much noise.

Right now, we were safe with them being outside. I wasn’t sure how long that would last. I tucked that idea away at the moment and continued to look at other things we needed to do.

Heat. It was November and winter was coming. We had a fireplace, thank goodness. However, Tony had yet to order the wood I had been asking for. So all we had were what was leftover from last year. Shit! Shit! Shit! Why couldn’t that man just DO it when I asked?!

My frustration at Tony’s lack of follow through was already grating on my nerves and things haven’t gotten bad yet.

Tony walks in from the back yard. “I just talked to Dudley. He said a plane crashed over next to the aluminum plant. The cyber attack didn’t just take down the grid, but all communications for airplanes. The air traffic controller has been trying to get the planes down but it has been slow going with some of the older radios, and all the planes now have digital communications instead of the old analog radios.”

I put my hand over my heart, feeling for the people who must have been in that plane. Those poor people must have been horrified.

“He said that most of the pilots are seasoned enough that they are figuring out how to come down, but not all. The one that crashed was trying to miss another plane. He said he saw it happen…”

Tony’s voice trailed off. It was beginning to hit him that things were much more serious than he realized. I decided to try to convince him again to leave now.

I went over to hug him. “Let’s say a little prayer that they all died quickly and didn’t feel any pain.” I pulled him close to me. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t being callous, but we really needed to leave. I knew that would be the best option. We needed to leave while we still could.

“Babe, please. We need to leave. We need to get out of the city while we still can.” I begged.

He pulled away. I could see the frustration on his face. Now it felt as if he was just being stubborn.

“No, we are staying. I’m not going to argue with you about this.” He said, firmly.

Anger rose up inside me. I needed to stay calm, but he wasn’t seeing the big picture. I didn’t know what I needed to do to make him see that staying was a bad idea. Now, more than ever.

But now we were having a battle of wills. He was being stubborn just because he wanted his way. On the other hand, I wanted us to be in the safest place possible. It wasn’t in the city. He just didn’t get it.

He went back outside to finish filling up the all the containers with water.

I took a deep breath and decided to focus my attention on what I needed to do right now to make life work in the new world we were getting thrown into.

I went down into the basement to take a look at what I had as far as pantry items. Fortunately, I had stocked up on rice and pasta. I knew I had meat in the freezer and since it was November I wouldn’t have any problem with keeping things cold. There was plenty of meat in the freezer that we could use, and I had lots of canned tomatoes.

I could make soup, chili, and spaghetti for a while. There weren't a lot of fresh vegetables, but there were some canned and frozen. It would be imperative to make sure nothing went to waste.

As I began to look around, it dawned on me that the neighbors and friends may not be as prepared as we were. Hell, we weren’t really that prepared either. I just stocked up on extra things when they went on sale. It wasn’t like I was a doomsday prepper.

I went upstairs to find Tony. He was outside talking to the next door neighbor.

Mr. Chen didn’t speak much English, but he and Mrs. Chen were good people. They bought eggs from us and she was always making food and bringing it over. Sometimes, it was good and sometimes our Americanized palate just didn’t care for what she made. We always were grateful regardless.

Tony was trying to explain to Mr. Chen that he needed to store some water. He wasn’t understanding that the power outage wasn’t just temporary.

I decided to see if Mrs. Chen was home.

“Hi, Mr. Chen. Is Mrs. Chen home?” I asked.

“No. At store.” He said.

I nodded in acknowledgment.

“Tell Mrs. Chen to come see me as soon as she gets home, okay?” I asked. He nodded as he shuffled back into his garage.

“I tried to tell him to store water. I don’t think he understood.” Tony said to me as we walked back to the house.

“Yeah, I will make sure she understands once she gets home. Do you know if Carl or Evan are home yet?” I asked.

“Not yet.” He said.

I thought about it for a minute. I knew Carl had a bunch of rolling trash cans at his house. We should probably try to fill them up with water as well.

“Maybe you should go fill up his trash cans?” I suggested.

Tony rolled his eyes. I decided maybe some sarcasm was in order.

“Okay, or don’t. Just be prepared when they come to us looking for water. They may look at you funny now, but they will be singing your praises later.”

He breathed in a deep breath. He knew I was right. Even if he looked like a fool at the moment, that water could be life-saving.

“Alright, alright. I will go wash the cans and fill them up.” He said.

I smiled and nodded.

“When you get back, we need all the wood available brought onto the porch,” I said. “Even that stuff you don’t like to burn in the fireplace. We will be glad to have it when it gets really cold.”

Right now, the nights were chilly, but not cold enough to have a fire. I wanted to save the wood as long as possible. This winter was going to be brutal…if we made it that long.

Chapter 6 - Anthony

“Hey man, whadda ya doin?” Carl said, as he hopped out of his truck. I had taken most of the trash out of the trash cans and put it in a pile at the back of the yard, washed the cans and was just finishing filling them with water.

“Just getting some water stored for you and anyone else that may need it.” I said, assuming he knew why I was doing what I was doing.

The look on his face led me to believe he had no clue.

“Uh…you know we have no power, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, but it’s just a power outage dude. Not a water outage.” He laughed.