William Weber - System Failure

“Amen, brother. But with the disclaimers out of the way, all of North America’s gone dark and worst of all, no one knows why or who’s behind it.”

Nate’s back straightened. “I can venture a guess on both counts. I mean it should be simple enough to figure out who’s got the most to gain by America getting knocked off. The barbarians have breached the gates and they’re burning everything down, just like they did in Ancient Rome.”

Guy grinned. “That may be so. You see, ever since junior high, I’ve been something of a student of history. Those barbarians you mentioned, the ones often given credit for destroying the glory of Rome—well, would it surprise you to learn that most of them weren’t bloodthirsty savages wearing horned helmets? Some plundered and raped, sure. But most of them wanted one thing.”

“Food?” Dakota said, licking the grease off her fingers.

Guy shook his head. “They wanted to be Romans. Just look at all those European kings who followed. Some didn’t even try to hide it, like the Czar of Russia. Czar means Caesar.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you,” Nate said, his eyes narrowing.

“You mentioned earlier the people who attacked us were out to destroy America,” Guy said. “You might be right. But not because they hate us. They want to be us. They want all the great things we have. Want it so badly it drives them mad.” Guy pointed the deer bone at both of them. “Not that it changes a whole lot, mind you, but if we’re going to use reason to find a likely culprit, it helps to understand their potential motives.”

Dakota shook her head. “Looks like we’ll be in this mess for a while to come.”

“I’m afraid so,” Guy said, nodding.

Nate leaned forward. “At the risk of sounding out of line, I can’t help but see this as something almost providential.”

“Apart from a belly full of delicious food, I’d say there’s nothing divine about any of this.”

The corners of Nate’s mouth tensed. “Of course, it doesn’t feel that way now. But I can’t be the only one who’s felt for a long time the country and maybe even the world was heading in the wrong direction. And I’m not just talking politically here. Over the years, it seems folks have been getting crazier, deadlier, more disconnected from one another. Man versus man in a caged deathmatch that ends in mutual annihilation. I mean, that’s the way things have been heading for a while—into a garbage heap or a mushroom cloud. The only question wasn’t if, but how we’d get there. When the lights went out, it might have killed a lot of the things we loved, but it might also have removed the very things pushing us towards destruction. Look at us, sitting around a fire, enjoying a meal and a conversation. In the old world we’d all be glued to our phones.” He thumped his own chest. “And I’m a tech guy. You’d think I’d be singing its praises. I went into cyber-security because deep down, part of me knew all this wonderful tech would play a major role in leading us to our doom. But here’s my point. Maybe from all this bad something good can grow. We just need to make sure that if the lights ever do come back on we’ve done away with the rot that was killing us in the first place. That we have a new, much stronger foundation based on solid principles.”

“Something closer to what the Founding Fathers envisioned,” Guy said.

Nate nodded. “Yes, a kind of rebirth. It won’t be long before the cities empty out completely and the United States is nothing but a loose patchwork of independent communities. If one of them can be a model for the rest, then maybe some good can come of all this misery. Maybe we can claw our way out of darkness into something that’s never been done before.”

Dakota and Guy were both listening intently. Even Shadow, curled up by the fire, watched Nate through the dancing flames.

Slowly, the electricity of the moment began to fade and they returned to a quiet conversation. Nate knew he was onto something. But he also knew the transition he described wouldn’t be an easy one. The twin crucibles that had given birth to the country―once after the Revolution and again after the Civil War―had also nearly destroyed it. Although the vision was one worth fighting for, he also knew that it was always darkest before the dawn.

Holly’s only friend in Chicago was an old high school buddy named Amrita Bhatt. Although from different cultures―Holly was about as white as Wonder Bread and Amrita as Indian as Bollywood―they had been nearly inseparable until college had pulled them apart. Amrita’s burning desire to be a writer had only grown stronger during her high school years. And yet that same desire had also died a violent death the minute her parents learned of her intention to pursue a degree in literature. It would be as useless as an acting degree, they had told her. And challenging their disapproval had been too much for her.

Originally, Holly and Amrita had been planning on attending the University of Washington together. But after days of badgering, the writing had been swapped for an engineering degree and UW traded in for the University of Illinois. In fact, the entire family had uprooted and resettled in order to support and perhaps supervise Amrita.

In the years that followed, the two woman had kept in touch as much as was possible. After marrying a respectable Indian man five years ago, Amrita had settled into her new family life. The capstone was a million-dollar condo overlooking the downtown core, compliments of her husband, a renowned cardiologist.

In the handful of years since their marriage, Holly had promised time and time again that she would come visit. But life with Travis required giving him a full itinerary whenever she was out of his sight. The heartache of dealing with his drama had sapped all the fun out of a trip she’d been looking forward to. And yet Holly liked to think of herself as a woman of her word. Following a harrowing journey from Chicago O’Hare airport, trapped in a strange city that wanted nothing more than to take her life and that of her young son, Amrita’s high-rise condo was starting to look like her last hope.

Manny pulled the snowcat in front of the upscale Kensington Estates and killed the engine. “You want us to come up with you?”

The polite answer would have been to say no. To let them go on their way. But Holly wanted them to come up. Not because she was afraid. More so because she wasn’t sure what she would do if her friend wasn’t home.

“Where will you go after this?” she asked Manny.

“First I gotta find a place for Johnny and then I’ll head home to my family and hope everyone’s safe and accounted for.”

“Okay,” she said, rubbing her hands as she bucked up the courage to leave the warm cabin. She helped her son do up his jacket. “You ready, Dillon?”

He nodded without looking her directly in the eye. Another funny characteristic of those with Asperger’s.

All three of them exited with Holly and Dillon lugging their suitcases behind them. They arrived at the front entrance and entered a small reception area. On the wall was a keypad for guests to announce themselves and be buzzed in. Except none of that was working. Nor did it matter, since the second set of glass doors had been smashed.

“Not a promising start,” Johnny said.

The banker might have opted to stay in the snowcat if he wasn’t afraid of encountering members of the city’s rampant criminal community. No power also meant no elevators. By the fifth floor, the group guiding themselves with the final remnants of their cell phone flashlights, Johnny really began to whine.

“What floor did you say they lived on again?”

“Twenty,” Holly said, eyeing the walls of the staircase, which were spray-painted with all manner of vulgarities.