Richard Stephenson - Collapse

Max was confused. “Howard Beck, the billionaire computer guy? Thought he was some sort of hermit.”

“Thought the same thing myself.”

“Okay, we keep getting off topic. Still don’t know why you have your town barricaded.”

“Yeah, right. So they practically emptied the tanks at the gas station. Owner kept demanding documentation so he doesn’t lose his business trying to pay for the gas they took. He tried to pull the driver out of the tanker to stop him from leaving. Some soldiers got out of their Humvee and beat the living shit out of him. I couldn’t do anything but watch. I tried to stop it, but one of the soldiers drew down on me. Said if I touched my sidearm he’d kill me.”

“Holy shit,” Max declared.

“I drove him to the hospital only to find more bullshit. They had one of their empty five-ton trucks backed up to the lobby door loading it with medical supplies. Just about cleaned out the pharmacy. The hospital administrator was pleading with me to stop them. Said they weren’t leaving enough medicine behind to treat the patients in the hospital.”

“That’s insane! They were putting the lives of sick people at risk? What’d you do?”

“I put my foot down. I called for every officer on duty to report to the hospital. Once they got there, I demanded to speak to the captain. They kept loading up our medicine and recited the ‘we have orders’ line. We outnumbered them two to one, so we drew down on them and put ‘em in handcuffs. Held up a radio so they could call their captain over. Didn’t take him long to get there.”

“Wow!”

“I didn’t care, throw me in jail. I wasn’t gonna let those grunts give a bunch of sick people a slow death. Captain got there, and we have their three soldiers in cuffs right in front of us. Nice little hostage situation. Finally got their full attention so I could do some talking.”

“I bet they were all ears.”

“Damn right they were. Captain said we were all gonna be tried as traitors and executed. I told ‘em they were gonna unload the medicine and leave town. Well, that didn’t sit well with the captain. He started screaming. I started screaming. Standoff lasted about five minutes until about a hundred of our good citizens showed up armed and turned the tables on the National Guard.”

“How many men did the Guard have?”

“Maybe fifty. We put ‘em back on I-25 headed north and told them not to come back.”

“That explains the roadblock.”

“We’re lucky our town only has two exits on I-25, one at the southern edge of town the other at the northern edge. Wish we woulda searched their convoy before they left town. About ten minutes after they’d left, we found out they had kidnapped three doctors and a nurse right out of the hospital. No one in the hospital really noticed. They told the doctors they had wounded soldiers outside, and they were going to check on them. They never came back inside.”

“Kidnapped? Are you positive?”

“Yes. An x-ray tech was in the parking lot and saw them get in a Humvee. She said they didn’t seem to be in distress or going against their will. Grunts probably still had them convinced everything was on the up and up.”

“Any possibility they went willingly? A chance to see the inside of Beck Estates? Sounds like something anyone would wanna do.”

“I thought of that. The nurse and two of the doctors have spouses and children here in town. None of them contacted their families to tell them they were leaving.”

“Outrageous.”

“We’ve turned away anyone that exits from the interstate. Most see the barricade and turn around on their own. You were the first one to stop. I saw your vehicle was from Texas and didn’t want to risk it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing we can do, really. We don’t have a large police force and we need everyone here to keep the town safe. They took damn near all of our gas. Three other gas stations in town and they’re damn near empty. They were expecting tankers before The Pulse that definitely aren’t showing up now.”

Max didn’t reply but had an idea. “How do I get to the hospital? I need to talk to my friends.”

“It’s down this road a few miles on the right.”

“Thanks. Will you be here?’

“Yes, sir, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’ll be back soon.” Max got back in his SUV. One of the men got down off the roof of his car and pulled forward, opening up a hole in the barricade. Max gave him a polite wave and drove down the road a few miles to the hospital. It wasn’t really much of a hospital; it was a one-story building that looked pretty old. Once he was in the parking lot, he understood why they needed Dr. Stone so badly. Three doctors and a nurse was probably half of their staff. He walked in the front lobby and found Elizabeth sitting in the waiting area.

“Hey there, handsome man,” she said warmly.

“Hey yourself,” Max winked at her, “where’s Diana?”

“Hard at work. You hear about what happened here?”

“Yeah, I thought the National Guard was supposed to be protecting us, not robbing and kidnapping people.”

The little toddler walked over to Elizabeth and handed her a magazine. Elizabeth beamed. “Thank you so much, little man!” He giggled and handed Max a magazine.

“Maxwell, what do you say?”

“To a little boy who doesn’t talk?”

“Don’t make me smack you!”

“Great example you are, showing him that hitting is okay.”

“Say thank you!”

“Thank you, little boy. Go and play.” The little one giggled and started piling magazines from the table into the chair next to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth waited until the little boy wasn’t paying attention and kicked Max’s foot. “You’re terrible!” She loved flirting with him and gave him her cutest grin. “What’s the plan, boss?”

“I can’t just sit on my hands and do nothing while these people need our help.”

“You want to stay here and run for chief of police?”

“Cute. I think the position is filled. If you think this little man will stay with Diana, I’d like to take you with me to Colorado.”

“Mountain climbing or skiing? I’d be happy with either one.”

“Not what I had in mind. I’d like to visit Beck Estates and ask the Guard why they think it’s okay to steal anything they want and kidnap innocent people.”

At an altitude of ten thousand feet, Howard Beck’s escape pod lost all power and began its decent back to the earth below. The electromagnetic pulse caused by the nuclear detonation high in the atmosphere had destroyed every electronic circuit from the eastern coast of the United States to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains down to the northern half of the Gulf States. In an instant, every aircraft in the sky fell back to earth; Howard’s escape pod was no exception.

Howard had absolutely no idea how to fly the craft any better than he could drive a car. He knew that if Hal malfunctioned or went offline, the craft would no longer have a pilot. Howard designed several fail safes in the event that Hal ceased to function. Howard designed the craft to fly on automatic pilot in the unlikely event Hal was unable to fly the escape pod. While it was cruising on auto, Howard could make repairs to Hal and put him back in the pilot’s seat. If the craft was severely damaged from a lightning strike or an errant flock of birds, the seat that Howard was strapped into would eject, and he would parachute safely to the ground. The final failsafe was the one that Howard was currently waiting on. If the canopy above him was damaged and he could not safely eject, a pair of ten-foot wings would unfold and turn the craft into a glider. Then, when the glider was a thousand feet from the ground, large parachutes would deploy from the roof, slowing the craft and allowing it to land safely. All of this was done by hydraulics and set off by a gyroscope. Howard had no idea that he had just been struck by an EMP and would later discover that the final failsafe saved his life, due to the simple fact that it did not involve electronics to operate. The gyroscope measured the orientation and momentum of the craft. Once it detected that the craft was behaving erratically, the final failsafe would kick in and do its job. What Howard didn’t anticipate was the fact that in order for the gyroscope to launch the final failsafe, the craft had to be in a free fall for a thousand feet. He had designed the craft years ago and in the extreme stress of his current predicament, did not recall this crucial information.