Dark Grid (4 page)

Jerry didn’t say anything right away, just looked at the sunrise.  Finally, after several seconds he let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.  “I guess I’ll be staying here.  I’ve been here ever since they commissioned her; I can’t just leave her now.”  His gaze took in the dam.  “My wife and I’ll be fine.  We’ve got a good six months or more saved up.  My son’s a Mormon and every couple of years we get a three month supply of food for Christmas and they last for a couple of years each.  I’ll let the folks in my area know what’s going on best I can; not like in a panicky sort of way--just so they know the power isn’t coming back on by the weekend.

Jerry squinted as he looked into the sunrise.  “Life’s sure going to be different for a while isn’t it?”

“That it is Jerry, that it is,” Chuck said.  They all shook hands, except for Sheri and Carol, who hugged and promised to keep in touch--then Carol started to cry when she realized what they’d just said.  There wouldn’t be any more email or Facebook updates and Sheri got misty when she realized she was going to miss the baby’s birth. “Chuck?” Sheri asked, “Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know yet Sheri, I honestly don’t know.”

“Wrong answer, Chuck,” Sheri smiled.  “You’re following me home to make sure my 10KW heater didn’t blow my house up when the spike hit, remember?”

With a slightly lighter heart, Chuck climbed into his pickup truck as Sheri climbed into her SUV and they both headed back to the outskirts of Nashville.

…

As Sheri turned the corner and her house came into view, her hand went up to the garage door opener on its own.  She held the button all the way to the driveway before she realized what she was doing, and that the door wasn’t going to open.  If she hadn’t been putting the Explorer in park she would have face-palmed herself. 
This is going to take some getting used to.

Chuck pulled into Sheri’s driveway but didn’t get out.  He wasn’t sure if she wanted him to wait for her or come inside, and although he was feeling protective, the last thing he wanted to do was make her uncomfortable.  So he compromised and rolled down the window.  Sheri took a couple of steps towards her front door and then waved to him.  “C’mon in Chuck, it’ll be a few minutes at least.  No sense in you waiting out here.” 

Sheri had her second ‘duh’ moment as soon as she opened the door and reached over to punch in the disarm code on the alarm keypad.  She got the first two numbers in and then just hung her head.  “This is gonna suck.”

“You mentioned there were some folks in the neighborhood you wanted to check in with?”

“Yeah, the Taylors are across the street, we’ll try them first.  It’s almost 8:30 so I’m sure they’re up.  Let me check on the fridge and run through the house real quick, and then we’ll head over.”

The food in the freezer wasn’t quite frozen anymore.  The ice-cream was more mostly-firm cream and the chicken and hamburger were starting to thaw.  She put the meat into the fridge and threw out a couple of things that just weren’t going to make it--not that anyone was going to be coming by to pick up the trash any time soon: old habits die hard.

In her home office there was the faint smell of ozone where the uninterruptable power supply/surge suppressor had shorted out.  It was possible it had saved her computer.  It had been in standby mode, which meant it was technically on.  She knew she should have turned it off when she wasn’t using it but she hated how long it took to boot up every time she wanted to use it so she used stand-by instead.  She’d invested in as close to a commercial grade UPS as she could afford and it may have prevented the machine from being fried.  On the other hand, she was sure the laser printer was toast because it was plugged directly into the wall and it was old enough that it wouldn’t go into power save mode anymore.

Why am I thinking about this right now?  It’s not like the Internet is up and I’ve got a bunch of email to respond to!
  Sheri tried to scold herself mentally.
  I know what’s happened and even I don’t want to admit it.  This is going to take a long time to sink in. 
Everything else in the house seemed to be fine.  It was time to head over to the Taylor’s.

As they came back outside, they saw that Joel and Rachael were already coming across the street.  Sheri wasn’t sure if she should be surprised or not, but she was touched.  It meant they had been on the lookout for her and that meant a lot.

“Joel, Rachael, meet Charlie Turner.  He’s my supervisor at the power plant.  He offered to follow me home to make sure everything was kosher here and that I got home safe.  Chuck, Joel and Rachael Taylor.”

After brief handshakes and the obligatory small talk, Joel and Sheri tried twice to bring up the same subject at the same time.  Finally, Joel, having been married for almost twenty years, put up both hands in the universal ‘I give’ gesture and let Sheri go first.

“Well, I see you aren’t at work today.  Did you go in and come back already or just decide to pack it in sight-unseen?”

“Actually, Eric came over and was hammering on the door at the crack of dawn, literally on both counts.  As a matter of fact, if you’ve got a few minutes why don’t you and Mr. Turner come on over and grab a rapidly-warming soda.”

“On one condition,” Chuck interjected, as they started back across the street, “don’t ever call me Mr. Turner again unless I’m dead or the President is on the phone.”

“Fair enough,” Joel smiled.  “I assume you’re ok with Chuck, or do you prefer Charlie or Charles.”

“I answer to all three, but most people call me Chuck.”

“Done.  In that case Sheri, can I ask you a question?”

Chapter Five

By that time, they’d made it back to the Taylor’s house and were on their way to the kitchen table and Joel had one of those fleeting epiphanies.  Why is it that in an emergency we all gather around the kitchen table?  We don’t go into the living room or the library or the office or the back yard; we gather around the kitchen table.  Joel wondered briefly what Og the caveman and his family had gathered around.

Sheri noticed that neither Joel nor Rachael had been much more than cordial when she had introduced Chuck.  They hadn’t actually been cold or hostile, just not their typical warm and friendly selves.  When Joel had asked permission to ask a question it put Sheri’s hackles up.

“How bad is it?”  Joel asked bluntly.

“Huh?”

“How bad is the power outage?”  Joel repeated.

“Why do you ask? The power has been out before and you’ve never asked me how bad it was then.”

“Honestly?  I’ve never had Eric pounding on the door at dawn either.”  Joel said.

“How bad did
he
think it was?”  Sheri asked.

“I’d rather not say until I’ve heard your unbiased opinion.”

Sheri glanced at Chuck, who was looking at Joel and didn’t look back at her, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath before answering.  “In my professional opinion,” Sheri paused, not entirely sure how to continue, “…Joel, the power plant took a spike that was over 800% of its rated load.  The power grid may be down for the foreseeable future.”

Joel didn’t say anything when Sheri finished. He simply looked at Rachael, who blinked slowly and seemed to thaw a little.  Sheri turned to Chuck and said, “He seems to have taken that rather well, don’t you think?”

“Crap.” Joel said matter-of-factly.

“All right then, Eric wanted to get together once you got home but we kinda called him a tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatic.”  Joel was leaning back in his chair now with his hands behind his head.  “He then accused us of acting like sheep--which we were--and suggested we get your take on the situation--which we have.”

Joel sighed.  “He’d pretty much put together what had happened and I think he’s got some ideas, but I don’t think he wanted to throw everything out on the table before he had some independent verification.  You do, after all, do this for a living.”

“Did,” Sheri corrected.  “It’s entirely likely we both
did
this for a living.” 

“Have either of you got any suggestions on how to move forward?  What to do next?” Joel asked.

“Honestly?  No.  I’ll admit I’d put all my eggs in the DoE basket.”  Chuck was weighing in for the first time.  “I’m no astrophysicist, but it really looked like they had a good plan in place to give us at least twelve-hours warning to get the grid shut down.

 “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Charles,” Sheri interrupted.  “You aren’t the only one who felt that way and let it go.  Let’s see what Eric has to say and take it one step at a time.”

Chuck nodded.  “Man I wish I had some coffee.”

“Same here, but I guess you know by now the electricity’s out.”  Joel had always been a bit of a smart-aleck; it was about to get him into trouble.

“Well yes, I had, but do you ever go camping?”  Sheri already knew the answer; she’d gotten their mail for them for two weeks last year when they had done just that.

Joel just looked at her for a few seconds until it hit him, “Aw geez, I’ve been sitting here for five hours jonesing for coffee and all I had to do was break out the Coleman!”

“Hang your head in shame, Mr. Taylor,” Rachael jibed.  “Not only that, you don’t get any until we’ve all had some.”

It took about ten minutes to get the stove set up on the patio table and the coffee brewed, and by then Joel had steeled himself for the walk of shame over to Eric and Karen’s place.  When he got there his first instinct was to ring the doorbell which, of course, did nothing but rub Joel’s face in the fact that he was in the wrong.  After taking a deep breath and shaking his head, he knocked on the door a couple of times and waited for Eric or Karen to answer.

“Morning, Joel,” Karen said after a few seconds.  “Everything alright?”  Assuming Eric had told her what had transpired at their house, Karen was being polite enough not to mention it.

“Morning, Karen, yes…well, no.  Sheri’s home, is Eric around?”

“Sure, just a sec.  C’mon in.”

Joel waited in the entryway while Karen went to get Eric instead of yelling for him to come to the door.  Yeah, she knew what had happened.  About a half a minute later Eric came around the corner looking like the world’s biggest idiot.  He had an aluminum foil hat in the shape of a colander on top of a string mop he was using as a wig.

Joel folded his arms and leaned against the wall in the entry hall and shook his head.  “I came over to tell you that Sheri’s back and that her analysis of the situation seems to bear out your initial take on events,” Joel said.  “That does not, however, dismiss the fact that you are stark raving mad, I want you to know that.  You aren’t just wearing a tin foil hat, you’re doing it while wearing a mop, which I assume is supposed to make you look like a sheep dog.”

Joel was shaking his head.  “I’ve heard of being crazy like a fox, but never crazy like a dog.  Do you want a formal apology or will this suffice?”

“I don’t need an apology, Joel, formal or otherwise,” Eric replied.  “I am glad I didn’t have to wear this all the way over to your place, though.  I get enough funny looks from the rest of the neighbors as it is.  Although, maybe I
should
wear it just to see what Rachael says.”

“However funny it might seem at the time it won’t be worth undoing the good that Sheri has done so far.”

“Right.  Gotcha.  Since everyone else is already at your place do you want to head back over there, and do I smell coffee?”

“Sure, and yes.  Sheri reminded me that we have a camping drip coffee maker.  We just finished brewing a fresh pot before I came over and you’re welcome to it, but take that stupid get-up off your head!”

…

Introductions all the way around took a minute and then everyone took a seat around the kitchen table.

“Where to begin?  Sheri, Chuck, was it the CME?”  Now that Eric had gotten past it the first time with Joel and Rachael, and he knew that both Chuck and Sheri knew what he was talking about, he was fine talking shop without beating around the bush.

“We don’t know for sure, but it looks like it.”  Chuck was the first to answer.  “With the way the power readings behaved, the auroras last night, the blackout, no radio, etc.--it really does seem that way.  Is there anything you know that would lead you to believe otherwise?” Chuck asked.

“I’m afraid not.  I went to a convenience store early this morning and they had a generator running but nothing was on inside of the store.  The clerk said that all the lights blew at the same time, and that some of the breakers wouldn’t reset even though the mains were ok.  It’s just one more nail in the coffin.”

“I think we’re agreed then.  Sheri, we’re looking for work.”

“I needed a vacation anyway.  I was sick of working graveyard.”

“Ok then, the question is how long is it going to stay bad and what do we do until it gets better?” Eric said.  “The grid is down, power is out, and people are going to panic.  Food is going to get and stay scarce for a while.  Until some sort of communications system gets set back up, there’s no central government--it’s going to be everyone for themselves.”

“I get the feeling you have a suggestion, Eric, or a couple of them.  Go ahead, we’re listening.”  Sheri prodded.

“Well, the Army--and I assume the other branches of service--had a couple of plans for this depending on how the population around the base or fort reacted.  If the civilians were ‘docile’ we would basically supplement the local police force, secure the surrounding area, and start re-energizing the area with generators from on base.  Let’s just say there’s a lot more mobile power generating capacity on a military base than it needs at any given time.”

“If it was feasible, the surrounding area would be under power restrictions but still have at least some power while portions of the normal generating capacity were repaired and brought back online.  Connections to the rest of the grid would be severed and the town, county, whatever, would become an electric ‘island’ that would expand as generating capacity increased.”

“That’s if the area was ‘passive’ or ‘docile’--I hate those terms.  Makes it sound like they were talking about dogs.”  Eric shook his head and then moved on.  “If the surrounding area was ‘aggressive’, ‘hostile’, or the population became violent--the base was to become an island unto itself and defend itself at all costs.  I won’t go into what that means, other than there are men, women, and hospitals on base; end of story, but not end of civilization.  Nobody ever actually thought it would go that far but the think tanks are full of nerds who read nothing but science fiction-- heavy on the fiction.”