The Pulse: An EMP Prepper Survival Tale (6 page)

Mark scanned the store for a possible
purchase. "It sure is. My car broke down, and I'd like to purchase
a bike." He didn't have time to burden the man with his EMP
theories.

"Yeah, I noticed a lot of cars like that.
Could be the busiest day of the year for me if this keeps up."

Mark laughed. He was surprised the store
hadn't been cleaned out yet.

"So what kind of bike you lookin' for?" the
clerk asked. "Wait, a minute," he added. "Do you have cash?"

It was a strangely direct question, but Mark
understood the clerk's predicament.

"Yes, I have cash," he answered.

The clerk breathed in relief. "Good then. Our
credit machines are down, and I can't very well take IOUs."

"I understand completely," Mark said.

"What can I help you with then?" the clerk
asked.

Moments later, Mark emerged from the store
with a 10-speed Huffy Mountain Bike. It cost him $110 plus tax, and
while he could have gotten something cheaper, his instincts
suggested reliability. Mark rode the bike down the sidewalk weaving
around pedestrians who, themselves, seemed lost and confused. Any
police officers with the misfortune of being stranded found
themselves hounded and mobbed with questions of what was happening.
"I wonder," Mark thought, "if I'll ever see my car again."

Chapter Seven

Professor Cook

Monday September 21, 2025 8:30 A.M.
Milledgeville, GA

James pulled into the faculty parking lot of
Georgia College thirty minutes before his morning class started. He
liked to arrive early and go over his lesson plan briefly before
class began. His office was a short walk from the parking lot to
the humanities building. Inside, he took a seat at his desk,
cluttered with notes and history books, and placed his briefcase on
the oak surface. A tall bookcase stood nearby, stocked with many
fiction, nonfiction, war history, and literature.

The new semester brought a
slew of fresh-faced undergrads that James had gotten to know over
the weeks. They were a good group of kids and, James enjoyed their
energy, spirit, and eagerness to learn. For his first class he’d
prepared a lecture on the Civil War. The war fascinated him, not
just because of its high costs
—
the largest number of war deaths in
American history
—
but because of the complex and traceable events that led to
the war and ultimately into a divided country. There were major
lessons to be learned from the Civil War, lessons he would focus on
during his lecture.

James gathered his notes and took one last
sip of coffee from his oversized mug. In the corner of his desk sat
a dusty ten-year-old framed picture of James, his ex-wife, Anne,
and his son, Cliff. He didn't have a more recent picture, and until
he did, the dated family photo would remain.

He walked into his classroom, carrying a
satchel over his shoulder and a coffee mug in his hand. His wore
gray tweed coat, pants, white dress shirt, and blue tie. Five
minutes to nine, and ten of his fifteen students had already taken
their seats.

"Good morning, class," James said as he
walked to his desk at the front class.

The students, most of them fresh out of high
school, said hello and nodded back politely.

"Good morning, Professor Cook," a girl seated
in the front row said.

James placed his satchel on the table next to
his podium, and proceeded to go through his lecture notes. A
massive dry erase board hung behind him, covering nearly the entire
length of the wall. He grabbed a nearby marker and wrote the day's
date on the board: Monday, September 22, 2015, then wrote, The
American Civil War (1861-1865).

It was almost time to start class. James put
his glasses on and turned to face the class at the last of the
stragglers slipped into the room and sat in the back.

"Good morning again, everyone, I hope you had
a great weekend. I know most of you labored hard on school work and
abstained from anything remotely relaxing and fun."

The class laughed politely.

"Last week we had discussed at length the
American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Hopefully, you
learned a lot about those events in high school. And I hope that
you were able to gain a more advanced perspective from our
discussions. With that in mind, I want to stress the notion of the
significance of war itself; the reasons we go to war, the high
costs involved with these decisions, and the end result of years of
battles and bloodshed. War is an exercise of force, whose purpose
is to achieve a desired goal. Sometimes that goal is just, like
ending slavery in the Civil War. Other times the goals are
ambiguous; World War One, for example. It is my view that no
meaningful change in history or society occurs except as a result
of war. This is not to say that I'm pro-war. Terms like pro-war and
anti-war don't really mean a thing.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.
“Though they do mean something in an ideological sense, what I want
us to discuss are the events that lead to wars, the execution of
those wars, and how society rebuilds and reconstructs itself after
such catastrophic bloodshed."

The students remained quiet, attentively
listening.

"Behind me I've written the
dates of the Civil War, an event that we're all familiar with. It
is the costliest and most significant war in America's history. It
showed the true results of a fractured republic. It showed what it
means to be a divided nation, and the results of that division when
compromises can't be met. We can theorize that had Lincoln accepted
the southern states’ call for secession
—
eleven states in all—the war could
have been avoided and slavery would have existed for another
century or longer. That, among other dilemmas, was what our
sixteenth President faced when calling on Union troops to defeat
the Confederate army. The Civil War began April 12, 1861 and
officially ended June 22, 1865. A long and difficult reconstruction
process followed throughout the South in attempts to repair the
war-torn and decimated landscape so that it could rejoin the Union.
The fundamentals of the war were fairly simple. One side wanted to
split from the main body while the main body itself wanted to
remain intact. So let's think about this. Could a Civil War of such
magnitude possibly ever happen today? Could we imagine such a
thing? Do we believe that such a thing is beyond the realm of
possibility?"

The class was silent at first. One student in
the middle row raised his hand.

"Yes, Eric?" James said, pointing.

Eric lowered his hand and spoke. "Of course
it is," he answered.

"And why is that?" James asked, pacing in
front of the dry erase board with his hands locked behind his
back.

"Because there will always be divisions,"
Eric said.

"That's true. Some divisions are greater than
others. Many philosophers throughout history have suggested that to
exist is to exist in perpetual conflict. But what about our
nation's motto, 'United we stand, divided we fall?' Are we
dishonoring those values when division is created?"

Eric thought for a moment then answered. "I
guess it depends on what kind of divisions those are."

"Very good, Eric, very well said," James
replied, satisfied. He turned to his class after picking up a
textbook from the table.

"Let's open our books to chapter three and
dive right into the years leading up to the Civil War." As James
continued, the lights in the auditorium flickered rapidly then went
out. The momentary distraction threw James off a little. He tried
to look at the book but could barely see anything. Faint light
streamed through the small windows near the high ceiling,
preventing the room from falling into complete darkness. Small
chatter began to grow louder when the overhead lights showed no
signs of coming back on. Several students were even more perplexed
to find that their laptops were dead. At the very moment the lights
flashed, their laptop screens went blue and shut off. The
synchronized outage of all things electronic was eerie to say the
least, but no one could pinpoint the cause.

"That's strange," one student said out loud.
"What the hell happened to my Mac?"

Other students, with their tablets and cell
phones out, felt the same abject confusion.

"All right everyone, let's just stay calm.
The lights should be back on soon." Though he wasn't sure of this
himself.

"Yeah, but my computer went out too, and it's
running on battery. How did that happen?" A girl in the front row
called out.

Murmurs from the class followed.

"What do you think is going on, Mr. Cook?”
another boy asked. "My cell phone's dead too."

In unison, all the students in the class took
out their phones and tried to get them to work. To their near
horror, they were met with blank screens, as if all their phones
had been synchronized to shut off at the same time.

"Please, everyone, put your phones away. We
don't want to get carried away here. Just give it a couple minutes,
and the lights should be on."

"I'm not getting anything on mine. It won't
even turn back on," a disappointed boy said, pressing the power
button of his iPhone.

"Me neither," another male student added.

James placed the history book on the table
and sighed. As long as the lights were out, he was going to have
trouble maintaining the students’ attention. He leaned against the
table and waited, deciding to listen to what the students were
saying. Something hit him. A pattern emerged, and he suddenly
perked up. “It couldn't be,” he thought. “That's insane.” Or was
it?

He was a prepper after all.
He drove a 1979 F150 for a reason. Years ago, James had bought the
truck not only for its affordability and low maintenance but
because he wanted to be prepared in the event of EMP attack.
Conventional wisdom suggested that a magnetic pulse powerful enough
could disable all vehicles with a microprocessor, electronic
wiring, or computer parts. On the other hand, James had also read
that such claims were considered a myth. He read that most
cars
wouldn't
be
affected anyway because wiring and electronics are well shielded
against electromagnetic interference. There was no real certainty
either way. At the very least, James knew that diesel engines, like
that in his Ford, had no ignition system and would be protected
against electromagnetic manipulation; at least that was what he
hoped.

James's mind began to wander, as he still
hadn't fully accepted that anything so serious had interrupted his
morning lecture. He students were still griping about their
electronics when he excused himself from the classroom and went
down the hall to check on his colleagues. The first thing James
noticed was that the lights were out all over. The building had no
power. There was no air conditioning, no emergency lights, no
functional vending machines, nothing. He stuck his head into the
office of one of the adjunct professors, a thirty-something named
Pat, who taught English composition. Shane sat at his desk staring
at the blank screen of his laptop.

"Good morning, Pat. Everything okay?" James
asked.

"Damn power went out, right when I was in the
middle of grading one of my student’s online assignments." Pat
buried his face in his hands in frustration. "This is unbelievable.
Nice fucking timing."

"Yeah, same here. I was in the middle of a
lecture.”

"I don't understand it. My laptop wasn't even
plugged, but why would it go completely dead like that?"

"I don't know," James said, thinking. He
tapped his fingers against the wall, trying to think of ways to
offer Pat some help, but didn't really know what to say.

"Have you talked to anyone else?" James
asked.

"Nope," Pat said, putting his face back in
his hands.

James looked around. "I gotta talk to my
class; I'll catch up with you later.”

"This is a nightmare," a distracted Pat
mumbled in weary defeat.

James walked back down the hall, looking
through the windows of the other classrooms. Each room had the
lights out. One of the double doors flew open as a classroom of
students, clearly frustrated with the power outage, entered the
hallway and walked out of the building. James opened the door to
his classroom and found that most of his students still remained.
Only a few had left, most likely in frustration.

"Power's out through the entire building,"
James said. "I may have to find the Faculty Director and see what
he wants to do."

"None of our phones work,
not one," one of his students, Ryan, called out from the middle
row. James stopped to think for a moment. He had left his cell in
the truck accidentally
and had no way of
verifying it for himself. He asked Ryan if he could take a look at
his phone. Upon examining it, he could see that the screen was
completely blank. James pushed the power button, but nothing
happened. There seemed to be something more to the case than just a
random power outage. He began to put together the pieces, and
offered the class a theory.

"I think it's fair to say this power outage
is a huge distraction. We'll wrap things up so I can
investigate."

"What do you think happened, Mr. Cook?" Ryan
again asked.

"I don't know for sure, Ryan. Our electronics
have been disabled," James answered.

"How?" a girl in the front row asked. The
students were looking at him, waiting for an answer.

"So far everything looks to me to be
consistent with an EMP type scenario. How many of you have heard of
an EMP?" A few students raised their hands.

James continued. "An electromagnetic pulse is
capable of sending a burst of energy into the air that can be
fatally damaging to electronics. The threat of a nuclear EMP weapon
was a very real concern back during the Cold War, but it's since
become more of an unlikely threat. The purpose, however, of
engaging in electronic warfare would be to eliminate the entire
infrastructure of a country in order to create panic and chaos. I'm
not certain, but it would explain your laptops and cell phones not
working."