Nightmare Factory, page 9
I fed the pup and made myself a sandwich. I had supplies to last; my larder was nearly full of freeze-dried or dehydrated food stocks, plus I could hunt and fish. I thought we would be okay for a while, certainly my bigger issue was the medicine. I eyed the vials in the container, debating whether to take them now or wait until I saw the first signs. I decided to wait.
“How long do you think it will take before normal deliveries are back up?”
There was an unusually long pause before my AI responded. “I don’t think you fully understand, Joe,” she said in a tone a kindergarten teacher might take with a particularly dense student. “The country cannot survive this, maybe the world. These attacks are a crippling blow to all of humanity.”
The thought was inconceivable to me. I sat back on the wooden floor, my mind spinning at her words. All night long, I had been focusing on contingency plans, my own survival and how to get to D.C. or maybe to Bayou’s sister, but was that even enough? Could humanity actually die out? How could this happen? “Even if both coasts were in ruins, wouldn’t the country survive?”
“The war is here, Sergeant,” Ada answered. “Yesterday’s attack and our counterattacks were just the first blows. But—they were damn good blows. This enemy was smart. They hit everyone at the same time. They seemed to know the weak links in every chain. They took out nodes and hubs that control commerce, communication, food distribution, and defense. Joe, whoever was behind this, knew the key points to wipe out. It was a killing blow.”
The world as we know it is gone. That was what my AI had been trying to tell me since the Black Alert first came down. I thought about all of my pre-planning, moving my banking around, stocking up on gold that was supposedly in a vault somewhere, probably buried under half a mile of debris now. I was already living in my bug-out shelter, so heading there was out. The food in my storage lockers was a good move, but that probably only delayed the inevitable.
Still, I was a soldier, used to extreme situations. Used to living off the land or going native if required, and I was just about as thoroughly unprepared for this as everyone else. The bombs hit, and the first thing I realize is I must get to civilization for something. Shit…I’m an idiot. Just like one of those in my dad’s old movies. Usually, the dumbass that gets killed off before the first commercial break.
It was nearly nightfall before I had Grandad’s old truck finally going again. The charge rate showed the old cells would likely drain more rapidly than ideal. The cruising range on a full charge was supposedly 500 miles, now that might be cut in half. With no assurances that I could find a working recharging station, that meant I needed a backup plan. That took some help from Ada, but the backup plan consisted of two large plug-in solar mats that I could lay out to catch the sun. They were high-energy rated but still probably could only get a quarter charge per day. That would mean sitting idle somewhere for the primary sunshine hours. Not a good plan for a risky ground journey like this.
Locking my supplies inside the cab after mounting a seat I had built for Sumo, I went to get some rest. Looking out over the valley once more, there were no house or streetlights to be seen. Normally, a few specks of light would pepper the scene. Nor did any of the typical glow of cities on the horizon break up the unyielding darkness. My dad talked about blackouts growing up and the ‘grid’ being down, but that system of power distribution had been abandoned long ago in most places. Homes now typically had standalone power systems: solar, wind, or even the ultra-small self-contained fusion reactors if you could afford it. Towns of any size had hydro, solar, or more likely one of the larger nuclear reactors. The reactors were safe, cost efficient to maintain, and could supply everybody inside the town and up to fifteen or twenty miles out. Larger cities used the same setups just with a reactor on every few blocks or even on top of individual buildings if they were needed.
Electricity was just not the vulnerability it once had been… or so I thought. As Ada kept reminding me, we were addicted to electricity the same way we’d once been addicted to oil. Every damn thing we did used it, drank it in, and the hungry beast never got satisfied. Even out here in the woods, my cabin consumed more kilowatts in a day than a large family home in the suburbs would have thirty years ago. Everything was more efficient now, but we just had more of it.
We also now use the ubiquitous little square wafer p-cells for almost everything. Over the prior decade, they had gradually taken the place of batteries in most things and were referred to not completely inaccurately as ‘reactor on a chip.’ The damn things could run almost forever, and a double handful could power a hotel for a week. I had spent much of the day gathering all of them I had. Nearly every weapon I had used one either for the pulse energy power slugs or for the IR targeting scope, lights, lidar, and other accessories. The MK4 would go through p-cells quickly, but it was throwing out bolts of high-intensity energy. Most other items could go for months or even years with no deep recharge.
Sumo came over, bumped my hand, then licked it. He sensed the melancholy mood I was in. I scratched him behind the ear, then right between his eyes. He loved that more than anything. “You ready for this, big guy?” He wagged his tail.
“Yeah, I should have known. You love an adventure.” I fed him, then myself, and put us both to bed early. Tomorrow, we begin.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
There was an unseasonable coldness to the morning air, or maybe it was just me. I blew across the steaming cup of coffee knowing it would likely be my last for a while. Travel distances had become so meaningless as I couldn’t even understand how close or how far I was from the capital. I liked the remoteness out here, but when I was needed, it seemed like I was only an hour’s flight away from anywhere. Of course, being part of an elite RDT squad, you get special perks like transport in one of the ultra-classified TriCraft. One of those would be damn handy right now.
I was wearing the slate blue Rivex base layer of my standard issue battle suit. That was as comfortable to me as a second skin and offered me some basic protection, but I was less enthusiastic about donning my battle armor. It would be hot and uncomfortable, a pain in the ass to wear all day, but I might regret it if I didn’t. No telling what I might be facing. In the end, I donned the lower half but left my torso segments off. I placed it just behind the seat where I could slip into it in under twenty seconds. Yes, I knew because I timed myself doing it. I’m a soldier, that’s what we do. We practice, we drill, we get shit right before it matters.
Sumo chuffed, a signal that he thought my dressing and undressing activities were pointless, and he was ready to go. Like me, the dog was a warrior. He did not enjoy retirement, or downtime, or whatever the fuck you called much of the last year. The dog wanted to hunt, to fight, to battle evil wherever it was. Right now, he mainly wanted to lick himself, and well, yeah, there was that.
“Come on Romeo, load up.”
The dog hopped in, looked at the makeshift seat, then proceeded to move over to my driver’s seat. “Not that kind of car, dog, I have to actually drive this thing. If I can still remember how, that is.” It took a bit of coaxing, but eventually Sumo relented and lay down on one of the few bare spots in the back of the double cab. I hadn’t brought everything I owned but had brought everything I might need.
“Ada, can you lay out a map to the lab?” She can overlay images on my visual cortex with any information I require. Very handy in a lot of situations, but don’t say I have a computer in my brain. She’s really just a virtual assistant, and she isn’t technically in my brain; she resides in the implanted comms link just over my left ear. She does, however, have neural interlinks that extend from my spine into my cranium and can access to the web, and well… shit, okay she’s a computer—in my brain. Are you happy now?
As odd as having that enhancement was… is, it is amazing how quickly I got used to it. Within days of her activation, I was relying on her for even the most routine of tasks, and in a couple of weeks, there was no strangeness to it at all. In fact, now I felt handicapped if she went offline, which had only happened once when an EMP grenade went off too close. She was fine, but some of the logic circuits had to be replaced when the squad got back to base.
The cabin was locked down tight; anyone trying to break in would get an unpleasant surprise. As I dropped the truck into drive, though, I wasn’t sure I would ever see this place again. It had always been less a home and more of a hiding spot. Truth was that home was wherever Space Command JOC wanted me in-between missions. There is a detachment that career soldiers have. I saw it in my dad. He cared less about the house, the town, or the area than he did his toys. His cars, weapons, and the collection of movie and sports memorabilia. He needed a house to house his stuff, and you could mostly include wife and kids in that descriptor. I don’t mean that the way it sounds, but it is the truth. That was just who he was.
I made it a grand total of seven miles before I had to consult the map. Seven miles from my hidden drive was as far as I had ever paid attention when coming in by ground. That was sad and scary. If nav systems were down permanently, how the hell would other people find their way? Printed maps were a thing for museums and retro collections. Towns no longer grew up by interstate highways or train tracks or along the shores of mighty rivers. The highways were mostly the same, but in urban areas, over half the commuters would routinely take an air cab. The rest spend the time in the autocars doing work or relaxing, watching a holoscreen show. Outside was just changing scenery, not places you needed to actually think about.
I crossed over into Pennsylvania as Ada thought it would be less likely to have roads choked with stalled cars. The towns in this area are small and widely spread out, but the highways are also just the typical mountain two-lanes. Sumo and I were on the road less than an hour before we ran into our first issue. An automated logging truck had come to a stop at a bend in the road. Its trailer full of logs was blocking all of one lane and the cab most of the other.
I got an uneasy feeling easing up slowly on the roadblock. This was rural America, not enemy territory, but something had clearly changed in the last twenty-four hours. I flipped the MK4 onto the maglock receiver on my back and felt it click solidly into place before I stepped out. Using combat hand signals, I motioned Sumo to take the right side. I wasn’t expecting trouble, but then again…I always was.
Sumo slipped silently through the underbrush along the roadside while I moved up along the left side of the big rig. Several other cars were now visible on the highway beyond. All apparently had come to a stop at the same time; if one of the detonations was an EMP, that would explain the why.
The log truck had no cabin for a driver, just a sloping engine cab covering the main motor and guidance system. The other cars appeared empty as well, but Sumo and I methodically worked our way through the small traffic jam to make sure.
I tapped my left ear for comms. “Ada, do these trucks have a manual bypass like the military transports?” They were similar in size, and I was hoping maybe a similar tech was involved.
“No,” she said, grounding my brief enthusiasm. “But they have a remote override. They mainly used it for the loading yards where the yard master has to move around trucks for upcoming assignments.”
“That would work. Can you gain access?”
“Working on it now, Joseph.”
I’d noticed she’d taken to using my full first name when she was exasperated with me or trying to make a point. Yes, my computerized assistant was getting an attitude. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sumo go rigid and make himself smaller in the weeds. I took the warning sign and did likewise, moving the Rattler from my back to a low-ready position. And where was the rest of my body armor? Oh, yeah, sitting in Grandad’s pickup right where I had placed it to be tactically accessible. “Stupid, Joe,” I whispered as I glanced past the massive truck tire to see three burly men walking down to the road from the woods. All were carrying weapons.
A sound came from the log truck I was taking cover beside.
“I have access to the vehicle. Should I move it now?
I wasn’t sure what scared me more, the armed men or my local AI moving this enormous truck just inches away from me. “Not yet. Let’s see what our friends want.”
“Perhaps you should be wearing your body armor, Sergeant.”
“Ya, think?” I whispered really freakin’ loud.
“Yes, I do,” she responded, clearly not getting my sarcasm. “They are carrying old-style cartridge style weapons. Your armor can easily…”
“Quiet!” I ordered. I needed to concentrate. I could see Sumo was glancing my way, looking for instructions. He was a combat dog, and in our many missions together, he knew how I thought. Problem was, I didn’t know if these were the enemy. I gave a quick hand signal to hold position. Despite all the post-apocalyptic holovids I’d watched, it seemed a bit soon for a full societal breakdown, but I had a gut full of artificial organs convincing me to be cautious.
“That’s far enough,” I said, resting my weapon optics on the one whom I took to be the lead guy.
The threesome had apparently been oblivious to the fact that they weren’t alone until that moment. One began raising his rifle. Bad move; my barrel moved to him as my finger applied pressure.
“Whoa, whoa friend,” the middleman said, forcing the other’s gun down. He slung his own weapon over a shoulder and raised both hands as he took a cautious step my way.
“I said stop.” While simultaneously, I gave Sumo the signal to, well…go bad ass. It’s a thing he does where he suddenly can make himself appear twice as large and ten times as mean. If the men were surprised to see me, they were literally shitting themselves to see a ferocious-looking devil-hound charging down the hill at them. Sumo slid to a stop ten feet from the three and bared his very impressive set of killing teeth. He’s really a people-person kind of dog. Disney will probably make a kid’s movie about him one day.
To their credit, the men stopped moving, stopped talking, pretty sure one of them stopped breathing. I rose up and motioned with my gun for the other two to put theirs on the ground. They complied with eager nods. Seeing me in my ‘almost’ full tactical gear seemed to convince them they might not have the advantage. My brain had already picked out the one I thought might be the biggest threat. An enormous slab of mountain man with a frayed t-shirt that may have once actually fit his body.
The stand-off lasted several awkward seconds before one of them found his balls again and spoke.
“We… we don’t want no trouble, okay? Just wanted to see if we could get my wife’s car going. She had to walk home after the… uh. You know, the…”
“The attack?” I offered.
He nodded. I slowly lowered my gun back to low-ready but did not release Sumo from full alert. The dog would act independently of my commands if he sensed trouble, and his instincts were even better tuned than mine. I wasn’t getting a vibe from these men that they were anything other than what they indicated. Three locals trying to figure out why their car was dead in the middle of the road. “So, you live close by?”
“Yes, sir, not too far,” the one on the left said. The middleman turned and glared at him for obviously revealing more that he thought wise.
“Yeah, we came over the ridge, cuts off about five miles. If you aren’t going to kill us, can we get busy… that’s hers over there.” He pointed to a red, two-door Ford in the right lane just ahead of the log truck. “Going to be a long walk back if she won’t start.”
I nodded; it might be interesting just to see the three large men trying to all fit in the tiny compact car. “Keep your guns stowed, please. My dog… well, he’s a might antsy when weapons are around.”
“You have any idea what happened?” the middleman, the presumed leader, asked as he ambled toward the car.
I shrugged, “We were attacked, everything electronic is out.”
One of them spotted my truck. “That’s still working. It wasn’t here yesterday.”
I shook my head. “Don’t get any ideas. It was in pieces when the EMP hit. Not sure how long the batteries will even last.”
“No, no, sir. I didn’t mean anything. Just smart, that’s all, reverting to old tech. I can get that log-truck out of your way if you want,” the nervous, smaller man said. “I mean, if it’s still functional.”
He walked over confidently, now eyeing one of the readouts on the access panel I’d opened. “I used to work over at the lumber yard.”
While Ada could likely do this, I nodded. Despite my admiration for the super AI, I trusted flesh and blood a bit more on some things. The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Pete, by the way, my brother, Hank, and the pretty one is called Peanut.”
Peanut was the mountain of a man, and I had to smile. “I’m Joe, and thanks for your help. I’m just trying to get through.”
The other two shouted greetings as they were already busy going over the motor compartment of the red Ford. I heard the log truck’s tires crunching on gravel as it slowly backed up within inches of my GMC before straightening out and moving over to the side of the road. “Nice work, Pete.”
He took the compliment humbly. I was beginning to think these were just good old mountain folks. The kind that would help a stranger out instead of shanghaiing him for his old truck.
“So, you some kind of soldier or something.?”
I gave a short nod while motioning for Sumo to stand down. “Something like that.”
“That’s a pulse rifle, aint it? A Glisson Rattler.”
“You know your guns,” I replied. His focusing on my rifle was not making me feel better.
“Seen ‘em in pictures, you know, online. Never in person—not even at the gun shows over in Richmond.”
The envy in his eyes was clear to see. He wanted to ask to see it, but we both knew that wasn’t happening. Our little parties had reached a minor plateau of camaraderie. We had essentially committed to not killing each other over a roadblock. That was enough progress for one day. He met my gaze, got the unspoken response, and nodded briefly before heading back to help his friends.
