William Weber - Zero Day

“That’s very kind of you,” Liz said, handing him a warm mug. The house was toasty.

Nate took a sip, relishing the tingle it left as it went down. “Hmm, what’s in this?”

“Oh, just some twelve-year-old whiskey I had lying around,” Carl said, motioning to a seat by the fireplace. They had an insert just like Nate. In fact, Carl had been so impressed after seeing Nate’s in action he’d gone and ordered one for himself. His neighbor had a wide, friendly face with eyes that sparkled whenever he laughed at an off-color or somewhat dirty joke. His hair was white and curly and concentrated mainly along the sides and back of his head. They were a sweet older couple who had been close friends with his folks, John and Lydia Bauer. After his parents had relocated to Arizona, Carl and Liz had taken over the role of surrogate parents, which made the fireside chat seem normal, maybe even welcomed.

“Seems like just yesterday John and Lydia were living up the street,” Carl said. “Do you have any idea how hard your dad tried to get me to go golfing with him when he was alive?” Carl snickered, this time a low, throaty business. “I never saw the point of it. Nor did the good Lord bless me with the patience, but your old man, oh, he loved the… uh, endeavor.” On principle, Carl refused to call golf a sport and was prone to argue the point with anyone who dared to say otherwise.

Nate didn’t take the bait. “Golf in Arizona is a year-round affair, assuming, that is, you can stand the summer heat.”

“I never much cared for heat,” Carl said and Liz agreed.

“He breaks out in hives,” she said, smiling.

Carl ran his fingers along the side of his neck. “I get puffy patches running from my earlobe to my collarbone. Heck of a sorry sight.”

“Had to hit him with an EpiPen once,” Liz said, as if to prove the point.

“No, sir. I much prefer the cold.” Carl stared at Nate, his eyes narrowing. “You can always throw a sweater on if you get cold. But when you’re skinned down to your trunks and sweating your tail off, well, there ain’t much you can do.”

“It’s too bad my folks hadn’t shared your enthusiasm. They must have reached their threshold. Just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Carl leaned back in his recliner. The fabric about the arm rests had the look of a ratty old pair of slippers. “It wasn’t the cold they’d had enough of,” he said.

“Oh, not that again,” Liz shot back, with noticeable exasperation.

“It’s true, Lizzie. You know as well as me the Bauers struggled to live in that house afterward, pretending as though everything was normal. The mystery surrounding Marie’s disappearance haunted them to their graves. That’s the truth.”

Nate couldn’t believe Carl was bringing up his sister. “It’s haunted all of us,” he said, a touch more forcefully than he had intended to.

“That may be so, but her disappearance happened not far from the house, and when your parents were home no less,” Carl said, leaning forward, his elbows pressing into his thighs. “That’s not something any mother or father can easily forget or forgive. You were gone to university, but Marie was only a fourteen-year-old girl.”

“I remember,” Nate said, the pain squeezing his voice down to a whisper. And in his mind, that was how she would forever remain.

“Innocent,” Carl went on. “And confident. Not to mention curious. Yes, far too curious. My point is, I think the memories might have faded for a while, but somehow, after a time, they found a way to come back and far stronger than before. Made it difficult, maybe even downright impossible to live in that house another second. They died never knowing what happened to her, that’s the hardest part of all.”

“Oh, Carl, why?” Liz chastised her husband. “Why can’t you let it go? It happened a long time ago?”

Fun-loving as he was, when Carl got it in his mind to do something, there was no stopping him, come hell or a hundred-foot tsunami. “Living a lie never did anyone any good. He’s a man and soon enough he’ll be a father as well. It’s time he got the truth, warts and all. And just like your sister’s ghost your parents said they felt walking through that house, you’ve got a ghost of your own. One that’s been following you for a long time. It wasn’t your fault, Nate, and I wish for everyone’s sake you’d forgive yourself and let the dead be dead.”

Marie wasn’t dead. Not to Nate she wasn’t. But he stayed quiet, sipping his coffee and staring at the fire. The thought of jumping to his feet and storming out had occurred to him. But he also knew Carl was right. In trying to protect him, his parents had only swept an uncomfortable subject under the rug. What had happened to Marie was a terrible accident and none of it was his fault. He repeated the line over and over in his head, wondering whether that dark, gnawing shame would ever go away.

They sat for a moment longer before Carl broke the silence. “I suppose on the plus side, it sure is nice to be free of all those electronics, don’t you think?” he asked, setting down his cup and adding in a few fresh dollops from a silver metal flask. “The wife’s always on the Facebook. Tries to tell me it’s so she can keep track of the grandkids in L.A. I used to believe her too until I saw her posting all kinds of seems.”

Liz burst out laughing while Nate sat there puzzled. “Seems?”

“Memes,” Liz corrected him. “And stop fibbing to the young man.” She turned to Nate. “I don’t Facebook nearly as much. Not since Deputy Foster pulled me over for what he called ‘posting and driving’. I taught the little bugger in third grade and would you believe he hit me with a five-hundred-dollar fine?”

Now it was Nate’s turn to laugh. “Posting while driving. That’s a first for me. You’re lucky you got to keep your license. I’d say ol’ Deputy Foster did you a favor.”

“Ha!” Carl said, aiming a finger at her, his lips curled into a devilish grin. “I told you the same thing, nearly word for word, didn’t I, love?”

She grimaced in her husband’s direction. “Oh, shush, you old coot. Nate doesn’t want to hear you boast.”

Carl turned his attention back to Nate. “I heard you were asking about the shortwave radio.”

Nate set his mug on the table next to him. “I figured since the phones are out, we might be able to radio out to someone who knows what’s happening.”

“Seems a bit premature, don’t you think?” Carl said. “A storm this bad is likely to blow the grid out here and there. We shouldn’t be surprised if a few counties go dark.”

Nate realized it was time to come clean. He began filling them in on everything he knew.

“A cyber-attack?” Liz repeated, the words dangling from her slightly parted lips. The fear Nate saw growing behind her eyes was just as tangible.

“Evan says the company sent in a special team of engineers to help keep the core from melting down. He assured me the situation was well under control and that he’d warn me if anything changed.”

“So let me get this straight,” Carl said, leaning forward. “You’re saying someone did all this through a computer?”

Nate nodded, the corners of his mouth sagging as if to say, Hard to believe, but true nonetheless.

“How’s that even possible?”

“I know it’s hard to fathom,” Nate told them. “But consider this. Over a decade ago, the government ran a test called Aurora where hackers broke into a secured system and sent instructions to a diesel generator to self-destruct.”

“Oh, goodness gracious,” Carl exclaimed. “And here I was thinking Facebook was stealing my wife away. I never even realized it could also pose a physical threat.”