Ryan Westfield - Final Chaos

Jim sat at the workstation in his dusty little computer repair shop in Rochester, NY.

It was a cloudy day in early spring. The air still had a bite to it, but after the intense lake-effect snow of the winter, it was a welcome change.

Rather than computers, Jim’s workstation was piled high with cell phones. Half of them had broken screens and the other half he’d already fixed.

When Jim had opened his shop four years ago, he’d made a decent living. But then the computers had gradually stopped coming in. Laptops these days weren’t made to be repaired. The internal components were often soldered together, making the only solution to simply buy another one. This had hit Jim’s business hard.

Now, he was barely hanging on to the shop by repairing cell phone screens.

And he hated doing it.

Growing frustrated with one of the phone screens, Jim groaned and shoved the whole mess away from him.

The bells on the front door jangled as the glass door swung open.

Jim looked up.

It was his friend Rob, barely holding onto a tray of coffees and a large paper bag of bagels.

“Ready for some coffee?” said his friend Rob.

“You got four? Are you crazy?”

“I need the boost this morning. I’ve got an interview at that mattress store over on Monroe.”

“Plushtown Mattresses?”

Rob nodded. “They’re looking for managers.” He settled down into a beat-up armchair as he handed Jim one of the coffees. He took the lid off another, and began gulping it down. At the same time, he began digging into the bag of bagels.

Jim took a small sip of his coffee. Black, just the way he liked it. “You’re really going to drink three large cups? Remember what happened last time?”

“Yeah, I talked my head off and sounded like a lunatic. But this time, I’ve got a plan.” Rob took another large gulp.

“And what’s that?”

“I’m not going to talk my head off,” said Rob, dead serious.

Jim raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He’d learned over the years not to try too hard to steer his friend on the right path. Rob had a long history of botching interviews, getting fired, getting laid off, and getting evicted from his apartment.

He was a good guy, but he just couldn’t always keep it together. He was big. At least six-four, and about two-eighty. He kept his weight up by devouring plain bagels at all hours of the day.

“You still working on those cell phones?” said Rob, his mouth full of bagel.

“Aren’t I always?”

“I don’t know why you never take my advice and start repairing other things. You know, high end watches and stuff like that. There’s good money…”

“No one around here has a high-end watch,” said Jim, cutting him off. “And besides, I’m good with my hands, but you have to train for years to be a watchmaker.”

“But…”

Rob had a tendency to go on and on, and Jim wasn’t in the mood for it this morning. He’d known Rob since they were both kids, and he couldn’t very well throw him out of his store.

“I’m going to get some air,” muttered Jim, standing up and moving through the store.

“How’s the wife, anyway?” called out Rob as he flicked on the TV.

Jim didn’t answer. He heard the sound of the news announcers, groaned again, and pushed open the back door that led to the back alley.

Jim let the metal door slam heavily behind him.

A couple shops shared the same back alley, where two overfilled dumpsters sat.

Jim glanced up at the sky, as if to check to see if it was still grey, and reached for his phone.

No messages. No texts.

He and his wife Aly were going through a rough patch. They’d had an argument about two weeks ago. It’d somehow started with the sponges in their apartment, and eventually it had grown to encompass everything.

The last thing Jim remembered her screaming at him was, “And you don’t even like computers! It’s time to let the shop go!” Then she’d gone to her mother’s house in Pittsford and he’d barely heard from her since.

It was true, he didn’t like computers. Or repairing phones. He was good with his hands and knew how to do the work.

He didn’t even look like he belonged in a computer shop. He kept himself in shape, and had rugged good looks. He got asked out a lot by the female customers, even though he wore a ring prominently. Of course, he turned them all down.

Who knew. Maybe it was time to sell the shop. Not that he’d get much money for it.

But it was his dream. His dream of working for himself. Being his own boss. Being in control of his own destiny. All that stuff.

Jim put his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath of the cool air.

The door behind him opened.

“The power’s out,” said Rob, still holding his bag of bagels.

Jim groaned and reached for the small LED flashlight he always carried. “I guess you don’t know how to flip a breaker switch?”

“It’s not that,” said Rob. He sounded strangely worried. “They were talking on the news about something to do with the sun…”

Jim ignored him as he pushed past him to get into the shop, now completely dark except for some dim light that came in through the front windows.

Jim found the breakers, but none of the switches were flipped.

That was weird. It couldn’t have been the light bulbs. Maybe a transformer had blown somewhere nearby.

He went out through the front door and walked out into the middle of the street.

All down the block, there were no lights on that he could see.

The world sounded silent.

Strangely, the sounds of nearby traffic had died down. And that background hum of distant appliances had fallen to nothing.

The owner of the antique store next door, a woman in her early fifties, was standing in her doorway with curlers still in her hair. She gave him a wave and shrugged her shoulders, as if to say she didn’t know what was going on either.

Out of the computer shop, Rob came running. He still held a coffee and his bag of bagels, one bagel clutched between his teeth.

The door hit him on the way out, knocking his paper coffee cup. Coffee spilled all over his shirt, and he tossed the cup aside.

“Looks like the whole block’s out,” said Jim. “And you’re going to need another shirt for your interview.”

“Jim, listen. I was trying to tell you. On the TV, they were saying that there’d been something… something from the sun… and that it might knock out all the electronics… I knew I’d be screwed for the interview. First the power’s out, and now I’ve ruined my shirt.”

“You mean a solar flare? Was that the term they used?” said Jim.

“Might have been. Listen, what do you think I should do about this job? Should I go?” Rob fished in his pocket for his cell phone. “Shit,” he muttered. “It’s out of battery.”

“It’s not out of battery,” said Jim. “It’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“Here, look at mine.”

Jim handed his own cell phone to Rob. It too, of course, was dead.

And it wouldn’t turn back on.

Jim knew know what this all meant.

A solar flare had caused an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse, that had knocked out all electronics.

The whole system would come crashing down. The power grid would be down. And the communication networks.

Whether the EMP had affected upstate New York, the whole country, or the whole world, was yet to be seen.

Why hadn’t they gotten advance warning? Well, it didn’t matter now. The damage was done.

“Your phone doesn’t work either,” Rob was saying.