Grid Attack (Cyber War #1)
Grid Attack
Cyber War
Book One
Emerson Hawk
Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters or incidents are all a product of the author’s imagination. Any likeness to persons, places, and things are purely coincidental.
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Chapter 1 - Katherine
“What the hell? Well, isn’t that the shit!” I said to my cat, Socks, as I watched the washer stop filling and the dryer slow to a halt.
I went over to the breaker box to see if anything tripped, but I could tell just by the lack of sound that it wasn’t just in the basement. The whole house had stopped its usual hum of appliances, and I could hear the quiet chatter of the chickens in the back yard.
I looked out of one of the windows and up towards the sky. Not a cloud. That was normal for this time of year. The first couple of weeks of November in Missouri were usually awesome. Today was no exception. Clear blue sky and crisp breezes softly swirled the crunchy leaves around the yard.
I pushed the washer button to off so that when the power came back on it wouldn’t surge and did the same with the dryer. It seemed like lately there had been a lot of sporadic power outages. They wouldn’t last for long, but it was an inconvenience.
“C’mon Socks, you want some lunch?”
His ears perked as he hopped off the top of the warm dryer and ran past me up the stairs to the kitchen. He waited at the top of the stairs looking at me as if he was telling me with his eyes to hurry up already.
He was giving me little purring mews as I pulled a small plate from the drawer and then went to the refrigerator to pull out his can of food. He knew the routine.
After putting his food down, I decided to see if it was just us that had lost power or if it was the whole block, so I opened the front door and stepped out onto the front porch.
I saw my neighbor across the street and down a few houses out walking her dog.
“You got power?” I yelled.
She shook her head, “No, you?”
I shook my head as well as I walked over.
The sun felt warm on my face as I pulled my jacket around me. The November wind had that winter chill to it already. All the leaves had fallen from the trees except a few stragglers that refused to let go.
“Were they doing some kind of maintenance here, do ya know?” I asked as I got closer.
“I have no idea. But when I called the electric company, they had a recording that said it was a statewide outage.” She said.
“What? Statewide? That doesn’t sound good. I think I need to go call Tony. Let me know if you hear anything, okay? I will do the same.” I replied.
She nodded in acknowledgment and I went back to the house.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I was getting ready to text Tony when I got one from him.
[Power’s out here. Totally dead now.]
{Same here. Just talked with Annette. She said she called the power company and they had a recording that said it was statewide. That can’t be good.} I replied. {Gonna call myself…stand by}
I grabbed the home phone and realized that the VOIP service I used wasn’t the same as the old copper line. I had no home phone service now. Just my cell.
At least texts were working and I could see I had some bars showing I had a phone signal. I called the electric company and got the same recording.
{Okay, just called, same message. Entire state out of power. I wonder if it is other states? Going to pull out battery radio.} I texted.
[Okay, huney. I’m just waiting here to see what happens.] He replied.
I pushed the button to turn off the screen on the phone to save power. Using the screen caused the battery to be used up fast and since I learned a long time ago that smartphones are dumb when it comes to power usage, I made sure to use all the tricks necessary to save battery life.
I pulled out my backpack from the upstairs closet and dug out the radio. It was just a cheapo battery powered radio that had AM/FM/Weather bands on it for when we had storms or a power outage from bad weather.
It helped us to feel that we hadn’t lost touch with the rest of the world. It amazed me how much that made a difference when there were no lights and all you could do was watch the candles flicker.
I turned it on and it barely crackled. Dead batteries. Fortunately, I had just gone and recharged all the AA batteries in the house, making sure to replace ones that had outlived their usefulness.
I pushed in some new ones and it sprang to life once more.
Turning the knob, I turned up the volume and began to search the dials. It wasn’t one of those digital tuners, but the older style that just had a line that went back and forth over the numbers.
Searching for the local talk radio station, I was able to get it tuned in as the announcer was in the middle of reporting what was happening.
…and what appears to be power outages all over the country. We are getting reports from most major metropolitan areas in Missouri and Illinois, as well as Arkansas and Tennessee. Regulators are unsure at this time why the outages are so widespread. This station is currently running on generator power and will stay on the air as long as possible to continue to update you as reports come in. Hang in there folks…
I felt an uneasiness wash over me. Like, this was something bigger than just a power outage. I mean, how often is it that an entire state has the power out at the same time? Like, never. Usually, it is just one area that is usually affected and that is after some kind of weather event.
We haven’t had any bad weather in the entire state for the last several weeks. In fact, it had been so quiet on the weather front the local meteorologist teased that if the weather kept going as nice as it was, he might be out of a job.
I decided to text Tony again and see if he had heard anything.
{Babe? Radio guy says it’s not just us. I’m concerned. I think this is bigger than just a simple power outage. Please come home. Now.}
I began to pace the floor a little while waiting for his reply, still fiddling with the radio trying to find any signs of life.
My phone chimed.
[Sweetie, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Why don’t you bring in some firewood? We can have a romantic candlelit dinner by the fire tonight. :)] He replied.
My neck bristled. I knew he was trying to calm me, but it always irritated me when he “poo-pood” my concerns about the SHTF type scenarios.
{Please babe. I’m serious. Think about it. This isn’t your standard power outage. Call me.}
I waited for the phone to ring. Thank god the cell towers were still working.
“Hi babe, I know you think I am being paranoid. I’m not. I really think this is going to turn into a problem.” I said, not even saying hello.
“Babe, I know you do. You’ve been telling me for years that something big is going to happen. And just like Y2k, 2012, etc., it was always just a false alarm. Just like this will be. It’ll be fine.” He persisted.
The tightness in my gut was getting worse, and now every part of my being was screaming that this was not just a drill, but was a real threat.
“Look, the power is out and you can’t do anything anyway. So come home now. If the power comes back on before the end of the day, you can go back to the office. It's not like it’s that far.” I pushed.
“I can’t babe. I don’t want to risk losing my job. You know how it is. Unless the boss tells me I can leave, I…”
The call dropped. Grrr…
I went to return the call. No bars. My phone still had plenty of power. I just wasn’t getting any signal. I walked around the house and then outside to the back yard to see if I could pick up a stronger signal. I got one bar, but it kept fading in and out.
I tried to send a text, but it just hung and then failed.
Shit. I remembered reading somewhere about how the cell phone companies will throttle phone calls to save power on the cell towers. I don’t know how they did it, but it usually allowed us to text even if we couldn’t call.
I hoped that Tony was figuring out the same thing and just saying to hell with work and coming anyway.
The chickens had gathered around me, looking at me for treats. They had stress-free lives in our little city back yard. I squatted down as they came to say hello, giving me quiet chirps and looking at my hands to see if I was holding some seeds. I reached out to pet them and they would dodge out of the way just in time.
I sat on the bench near the coop and just watched them scratch through the brown grass and straw, a million things running through my mind.
There was nothing but the sounds of cars and trucks, and I could actually hear the interstate that was a half mile away. In a way, that was a relief. I had learned that an EMP would totally disable most cars and trucks. That told me it wasn’t an EMP and made me feel slightly better about whatever was happening.
Still, it was unnerving not knowing exactly what was happening. Damn. I should have bought that inexpensive HAM portable radio. I didn’t have a license to use it, but I could still listen. And it would have given me a way to know more about what was happening.
One of the chickens jumped on my knee and chatted with me for a bit. We both jumped when my phone chimed from a text and she took off running.
I fumbled the phone out of my pocket. It was from Tony.
[I’m on my way. Arm yourself. Will explain when I get there.]
I knew at that point, life was going to change for good.
Chapter 2 - Anthony
My call had just dropped with Kat and I was trying to get a signal to call her back when my boss came to my office.
“Tony, can I see you in my office for a moment?” The boss said. The look on his face said it wasn’t really a question. I walked down the hallway and into his office, along with a few of the other men that were managers like me.
He came back in and closed the door.
“Listen, gentlemen, I decided to tell you this without the rest of the employees because I didn’t want to cause a panic.” His face wrinkled as he looked down at his desk.
“I got a call from an old friend of mine, an old retired military buddy. Now, I can’t tell you everything he said, but what I can tell you is that this power outage we are having…well…it isn’t just here. It’s nationwide. There was an attack on the grid.”