Internet Kill Switch (16 page)

4
2

Mitchell Bass roamed the streets of Memphis, enjoying the sights and sounds of disorder around him. Storefronts were smashed, and people were hauling out anything they could carry. Armed bands of young men roamed here and there. Law enforcement, in the form of National Guardsmen and police, patrolled the city. They were severely outnumbered, though, and knew it.

Adding to the problem were the c
ars that had run out of gas, clogging streets. Bass got around them easily enough in his Range Rover. He had the perfect car for this scenario, almost like he knew it was coming.

As he drove
east on Southern Avenue toward the Oak Court Mall, Bass slowed to a crawl to clear a path for his SUV, since several cars blocked his way. He’d outfitted the Rover with a large yellow snow plow for this type of situation. As he slowed, he saw a group of young punks coming toward him, wielding bats, boards, chains; whatever they could find. They were screaming like Indians, Bass thought. Ready for a scalping.

Bass
, completely unfazed, stopped the car and sent four of his men out to deal with the pack. The gang approached as Bass’s men lined up side-by-side. This stopped the aggressors cold; they weren’t used to encountering resistance. Intimidation was their primary weapon, and this small group of camouflage-outfitted men had grabbed that weapon and smashed it on the street. Tensions rose as several gang-bangers looked at each other, worried for the first time in days.

Then
Bass’s guys lifted their AK-47s.

The gang, which had
stopped, suddenly edged backwards. For this collection of thugs, things had gone from “easy score!” to “uh, oh…” to “we are
so
screwed” in the blink of an eye. One of Bass’s soldiers squeezed his trigger and fired a few rounds into the ground at the feet of those nearest. Not too many bullets; ammunition was more precious than money these days. That’s all it took, though; the pack broke, scattered and ran like it was being chased by killer bees. Bass’s men laughed and got back in the Rover. Bass pushed aside the cars blocking his path with the plow, and they continued to the mall as if they’d only stopped at a red light.

Bass thought he’d have the phone back by now, but he’d failed. The failure galled him, gnawed away at his mind. After just missing Tony and his friends at the hospital in Searcy, Bass drove for awhile trying to spot them, but almost immediately knew it was hopeless. He returned to the compound to tend the wounded and plan his next moves.

Fortunately, he’d been planning for Armageddon for years, and his survivalist
mentality was paying big dividends. For instance, he had a 5,000-gallon steel gas tank buried just outside the compound walls, along with three 20-kilowatt generators; he was completely off the power grid, which was suffering numerous blackouts nationwide.

He also had large food stores, most of which survived the drone attack.
He also had tons of bottled water, along with old-fashioned rain barrels and water purification systems. In short, Mitchell Bass was as prepared as anyone in America for the unfolding chaos.

And he gloried in it, knowing it was his doing.
He predicted in his Journal that the societal breakdown would begin almost immediately, and he was right. After all, people rioted when O.J. Simpson was acquitted; they rioted when their team won a sports championship; people even rioted because it was Halloween. If people rioted over trifles, then rioting over something actually
serious
wasn’t hard to predict. He expected the results to be more devastating in this case, too, since there was something worth rioting over.

His prediction proved accurate;
people were turning feral as they became disconnected from their technology. And because of it, there would be bloodshed in the streets and in the fields. Just what he wanted.

Even
tually, he knew, order would be restored, but the crutch of technology will have been snapped. People would finally be free of their pathetic Internet addiction. They would find that the world didn’t end when their computers didn’t turn on, or they couldn’t blog on their iPads or check their email. More than that: they’d realize their lives improved, with more time to think, more time to interact with people. More time to just
look up
, instead of being face-down, hunched over a phone 24/7.

This made Bass more than a prophet; he was
a doctor, too, showing people just how sick they were. Cancer often couldn’t be detected until it was too late, because tumors grew under the surface. They had to be cut out, and that was painful. He didn’t imagine anyone would thank him for this benevolent service, but he also knew it was a lifesaving procedure. He couldn’t help it if people were too stupid to understand that.

The Range Rover arrived at the Oak Court Mall and drove slowly through the parking lot. He and his crew were looking for the black Hummer. Bass didn’t think he’d find it; it was really a shot in the dark, but if they were in this area, the mall might be the kind of place they’d visit. They were teenagers, after all.

He didn’t spot the car.
But he went into the mall anyway, to see how bad things were getting.

More than half of the stores were closed, as
businesses tried to figure out how to do commerce without the ability to swipe credit cards, keep track of inventory, or get various machines that relied on Internet connectivity to work. Several stores had homemade signs out front with “CASH ONLY” scrawled on them, as if there were any other options at this point.

One clothing store had a couple of harried employees trying to he
lp customers near the back; at the front of the store, three teenage girls were watching them, casually looking over outfits. Suddenly, they grabbed handfuls of clothing and took off down the mall, laughing. No alarms sounded, since those systems relied on the Internet. One of the employees in back saw the girls grab the clothes and run. Rather than shout or make an attempt to stop them, she simply went back to helping her customer.

Bass continued to walk on. Wherever there was a place to sit -- in the food court, scattered benches, or simply on the floor --
people parked themselves, looking lost and frightened.

The young ones were the worst. Many had hollow eyes and vacant expressions. More than a few had their iPhones and Androids out, trying to make calls or playing the
few games that didn’t need a connection. Some continued to check social media, as if expecting the Web to be restored any second.

They look like drug addicts, Bass thought
. He knew the look; he’d seen enough of the real thing in prison. Suddenly without the central focus of their lives -- YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Twitter, ESPN, pornography, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Vimeo, Craigslist, Reddit, Instagram -- life suddenly lost meaning.

How sad, Bass thought as he made his way back out of the mall. Lives with no purpose other than watching videos and looking at pictures of cats.

Not me, he sneered as he walked through the glass doors into the sunlight, leaving behind the wretched mass of humanity. Not me. My life has purpose, and that purpose is playing out right now. Society’s finally becoming aware of its miserable state, its meaningless existence.

I’ve
started my revolution in the nick of time.

4
3

Suddenly car-less, Tony, Scarlett and Rick hitched a ride to Nashville with Trooper Wayne Maples of the Tennessee Highway Patrol. Maples pulled into the gas station shortly after the Hummer was stolen, responding to a call about the attack.

“Phones are only working intermittently,” he told them. “Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, all of them are trying to reroute service around the Internet
. The 9-1-1 service is out for the most part, too, but some calls are getting through. I guess a Good Samaritan saw what happened to you and called it in.”

Whatever the reason, they were grateful for the help.
“Don’t be too grateful,” Maples said. “It’s doubtful you’ll ever see the vehicle again. There’s more crime going on than we can possibly keep up with, even with all the help from the Guard and military. Stolen cars are low on the list.”

“No problem,” Rick said. “You guys have to be insanely busy right now.”

“Tell me about it,” said Maples, clearly looking exhausted.

“I’m afraid we’re in a hurry,” Rick said. “
I’m trying to get to Maryland, where my parents are. They’re old, and I’m worried about them during this meltdown. We can’t get hold of them.”

“Understandable,” Maples said.

“You know, if you could give us a lift in that direction, even a little way, I could make it worth your while,” Rick said.

The trooper looked at Rick curiously. “Well, I’ve got some time off coming. I could maybe get you as far as Nashville. That’s about 200 miles closer to home.”

“That would be awesome, sir,” Rick said, smiling. “I could pay you a thousand bucks.”

“A thousand?” said Maples. “When there’s no gas and no cars available? I’ll do it for t
hree.”

“Done,” said Rick instantly. “Three thousand dollars.”

“Get in,” said Maples. They piled into the trooper’s Chevy Tahoe, and Maples turned off his radio before turning into the road. Tony noticed that he didn’t tell anyone on the radio that he was going off-duty.

Rick pulled out his roll and peeled off the bills. The trooper looked at the fat wad of cash. “That’s a lot of money, kid.”

“I know,” Rick said. “I don’t know how long we’ll be in Maryland, and nobody’s taking anything but cash these days. My folks aren’t in great health.”

Tony marveled at Rick’s ability to think up lies on the spot, and make them sound so convincing. He would’ve blown the whole thing if it was up to him. It sometimes bothered him, the way Rick would lie about anything, a
t any time. Now, however, that particular vice was coming in very handy.

The trip to Nashville took five hours, due to all t
he traffic. The congestion, though, was unlike any they’d ever seen. Interstate 40, the main route between Memphis and Nashville, was littered with abandoned cars, similar to most other roads. Added to that was an increasing number of people on foot and riding bicycles, and even a kid on a skateboard. America was in the midst of regressing to pre-internal-combustion-engine days.

“Amazing,” Maples marveled. “Soon they’ll be riding in Conestoga Wagons.”

Without thinking, Scarlett immediately whipped out her phone to look up what a Conestoga Wagon was. Her iPhone, she noticed, had finally died. But even if it worked, she couldn’t have Googled it anyway. She sighed; life got suckier by the minute. She put her phone back in her purse and stared out the window at the strange new countryside, where people walked and rode bikes on highways, and cars became sculptures.

Tony asked Maples how the police were able to get gas.

“Sorry, can’t tell you that. It’s classified. Security reasons.” Tony let it drop.

Maples felt guilty about the sharpness of his answer, and elaborated a bit.

“Of course, not all pumps are connected to the Internet. That’s why you see some cars that still have gas. But most of the pumps available to the general public are connected, which is causing the problem. Exxon, BP, Shell, all those companies are figuring out how to get gas out of those pumps without being connected, the way it used to be. But it’s been a long time since it was done that way, and will take awhile to figure out.”

During the trip, Tony
made sure Max was off and hidden. No need to make the trooper curious.

They approached
Nashville, and Maples took them into the city on Charlotte Avenue, finally dropping them off near 28th Avenue. “Good luck to you,” he said as he turned around and headed back to Memphis.

One step closer, Tony thought. But still a long way
to go. And things around them seemed to be crumbling. Also, a madman might still be chasing them. Mostly, what he wanted now was to go home, slip under the covers of his bed and stay there until somebody else fixed this thing.

4
4

They walked for a few miles, into the heart of Nashville. Eventually they ended up in the Arts District, but could go no further. Tony’s wounded leg still throbbed, and walking made it worse. After a couple of hours, he was limping badly and had to stop.

They
struck gold when they found their favorite restaurant, and it was actually open: a Panera at 5th Avenue and Commerce Street downtown.

“It’s where we met,” said Scarlett, giving Tony a wink. If Tony hadn’t been in so much pain, he would have smile
d and winked back. But all he could manage was a nod and facial contortion he hoped approximated a smile.

They walked into the Panera; Tony stumbled in, wondering how he made it th
at far. He took a booth seat for himself and stretched out his leg on it. A large red stain marred his jeans. “Please, could you get me a few glasses of water?” he asked Scarlett. She frowned, walked quickly to the counter and soon came back with two large cups of ice water and a pair of scissors. The look on Tony’s face scared her almost as much as the stain on his pants.

“What are the scissors for?” Tony asked.

“I need to cut those pants and take care of your leg,” she said as Rick got the food. “There’s a lot of blood on your jeans.”

“I noticed,” Tony said.

Rick returned with the food -- a lot of it. “It cracks me up to see them adding up the totals, then adding tax, on calculators, and writing receipts out on those little strips of register paper.” He held up a small receipt with a bunch of scribbling on it, and a total of $41.15. “We’re in the 1930s or something.”

Scarlett concentrated on
her work, cutting off the leg of Tony’s pants above the wound. It meant cutting just below the level of his underwear, since he was shot mid-thigh. She unwrapped the bandages and wrinkled her nose at what she saw -- and smelled.

The wound had been stitched, but about half the stitches had pulled out from the walk on the
way into downtown. Blood oozed from the open part of the wound. The edges of the skin where it had been split were tinged red, but not from blood; to her untrained eye, it looked infected. There was also some yellow stuff that looked like pus, and a faint bad smell coming from it.

Tony had downed the first cup of water and gotten halfway through the second by the time Scarlett had uncovered his injury. Blood didn’t normally bother him very much, but when it was his own, it was a different matter.

“That smells nasty, Scarlett.”

“Yeah, but at least some of the stitches are still in. I don’t know how you made it here like that.”

“I was wondering the same thing.”

Rick pointedly look
ed away from what was happening, concentrating on his soup.

“Well, you probably need to hit it with that antiseptic spray before putting on the new bandages,” Tony said.

“I bet that’s gonna hurt,” Rick said, continuing to stare out the window.

“Thanks for the encouragement,” Scarlett said with a scowl.
She looked at Tony nervously. “Ready?”

Tony gritted his teeth. “I guess so.”

Scarlett pushed the pump on the large bottle of Bactine. Tony sucked in breath and closed his eyes. Scarlett held his hand; he held tight to it, gripping so hard that it made her eyes water. Tony’s leg vibrated with the hurt, and tears streamed out of his still-closed eyes.

Scarlett did her best to put
a new bandage on the wound and tape it in place. After a few minutes, Tony opened his reddened eyes. “Well, that was fun.”

Rick could look again, now that the bandage was on. “At least you had a
real
reason to cry for once,” he said. Scarlett didn’t know how to react to that, but once she saw Tony laughing, she joined in.

“One thing’s for sure,” she said. “You’re going to need a new pair of jeans.
You obviously can’t wear these anymore.”

“There’s clothing store
s all around here,” Rick said, “along with every other kind of store. Lots are closed, but some looked like they were still open. I want to see if I can pick up a radio or some other way to get information.”

“That’s a good idea,” Scarlett said.
“Tony needs to rest for awhile. I think we should find a nearby motel where he can rest for a day or two, and give us time to figure out how to get to Maryland without walking.”

T
he nearest hotel was the Renaissance, attached to the Nashville Convention Center across the street. They decided to head there after Rick finished his shopping trip. He left a minute later. Scarlett chattered away, mostly to keep Tony from thinking about the pain he still obviously felt.

Eventually, Tony tried a bite of his sandwich, and re-discov
ered his appetite. He found, in fact, that he was starving. He devoured the sandwich in what seemed to Scarlett like five bites. She also ate, but with considerably less enthusiasm.

As they ate, the restaur
ant went dark. “Not again!” complained a pimply teenager near them who was wiping off tables. Several people groaned.

“How often has this been
happening?” Scarlett asked the boy.

He
picked his teeth with his forefinger as he talked. “Well, we were closed for a few days after the Internet went down, like everyone else, and since we opened back up, it’s happened three or four times a day. They say the power grid or something is all screwed up.”

They heard some yelling from the front, and the boy ran
that way. Scarlett and Tony watched the scene unfold from across the restaurant.

A huge man with a skull-covered bandana
on his bald head and tattoos that mostly hid his muscled arms stood at the counter, pointing and yelling. “I want my damn food, and I want it now!” Others near him cleared out, leaving him alone.

The manager, a much smaller Asian-looking woman,
tried to calm him. Her frazzled countenance showed that she’d likely been dealing with guys like this a lot lately.

“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t open the registers with the power out, and we can’t cook the food. We’ll have to wait until it comes back on.”

The man leaned over the counter, until he was nearly touching her forehead.

“Nuh uh. You go find me whatever you got that’s already cooked, y’hear? I ain’t putting up with this anymore.”

The manager, not only tiny but old, backed away, fright draining her face of color. “I’ll call the police!” she said shrilly.

The man shook his head.

“Ain’t no police comin’, you know that. They’re too busy fighting gangs and chasin’ down murders. And even if they did come, they wouldn’t get here for hours at the fastest.” The manager looked in the back at the other employees, hoping someone would come to her defense. No one did.

The
standoff sent a chill through Scarlett. “Maybe we should get out of here, Tony,” she said.

Tony tried to move his leg. It hurt
. A lot. “I don’t know how well that would work right now,” he said. “Could we wait a little longer?”

Scarlett
bit her lip in agitation. “I guess...” she trailed off.

The bear-like man at the counter
had a woman with him. She looked near panic as her boyfriend continued threatening the manager. Suddenly she burst out in a pathetic wail, hands pressed against either side of her face. “I can’t take this anymooorrrre! What’s happening to everything?” She looked completely lost, like a child at an amusement park who’s slipped her parents’ hands and can’t find them.

The scream
brought utter silence down on the restaurant. Her boyfriend looked at her, shocked, his anger completely broken. He looked at the manager, who had backed away from the counter, then at all the faces staring at them. He hugged his girlfriend, and she clutched him fiercely, shaking. He tried to calm her, but she continued to babble about the end of the world. Eventually they walked out of the restaurant, head-down, looking defeated.

The manager, one
hand on her chest, started to cry. She rushed into the back of the store. Everyone, employees and customers alike, were stunned. No one seemed to know what to do next.

Scarlett was wide-eyed. “Did you see that?”

Of course he had. “Yeah. Wow.”

“Tony, I’m getting so scared. I... want to see my
Dad, my Mom...” She put her head in her hands, sobbing. “I feel like that girl. What’s going on? Has the world gone crazy?”

For the first time since they got in the restaurant, Max spoke. “It seems like it, Scarlett. And it’s my fault.”

“No way,” Tony said. “They used you. They did this, not you.”

“Yeah, but they couldn’t have done this without me. I made it possible.”

Tony shook his head. “You saved me, Max. You saved Scarlett when we got chased. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead right now. Bass’s guys were going to kill me.”

“Only becau
se I gave them what they wanted, and they didn’t have any use for you.”

Tony didn’t want this discussion
anymore. He put his hand on the back of Scarlett’s neck and rubbed it. “That feels nice,” she said through her tears.

Tony didn’t say anything, instead
just continuing to rub. It wasn’t a boyfriend comforting a girlfriend, Scarlett thought; it was a friend comforting another friend. Even when he’s the one in great pain, and all I’m doing is blubbering like a baby, he’s reaching out to me. No expectation of anything else. Like a real friend, he only wants to help.

What a good friend he is.