Digital Winter (23 page)

“My husband would agree with that.” She regretted the comment. Such things usually led to an unwanted discussion about faith in the family.

Pickett raised his head. “He sounds like a good man, this husband of yours.”

Her ache turned to warmth. “Yes. Yes, he is. I wish he were here.” She wished it more than she let on. Roni had always been independent, but Jeremy's strong arms would be welcome.

After a moment, Pickett said, “Do you hear it, Doctor?”

She listened, straining her ears to locate whatever noise he had in mind. “I'm afraid not. What should I be hearing?”

“Silence.” He raised a hand. “I know, a person can't hear silence. At least that's what we're told. But I hear the emptiness. No engine noises, no trash trucks, no street sweepers, no sirens, no lowrider with a booming bass. Nothing. What did Simon and Garfunkel sing? ‘The Sounds of Silence'? Before tonight, I didn't understand the title. They should have told us silence was so frightening.”

“We'll get through this, Dr. Pickett. We have a great staff. They'll make miracles happen.”

“That's what we need. A miracle.” He turned to her. “Thanks for letting me vent a little. Time for me to lift my chin and get back to work.”

He walked away, and if Roni didn't know better, she would have said the man was three inches shorter from the weight on his shoulders.

Roni turned her back on the black and quiet city and walked to the stairway. There was someone she wanted to check on.

Roni found Cody Broadway where she had left him in ICU, on a bed surrounded by medical machines that had nothing to do with him and that wouldn't work even if they had been needed. The room was dark, lit only by the light from the emergency lamps mounted near the exits. Cody's room was as far from the light as any cubicle in the space could be, so what little glow pushed through the glass divider that separated the room from the nurses' station did minimal good. Even so, Roni was glad it was there. Feeling her way around the ICU wasn't her idea of fun.

She passed the nursing staff and doctors, who looked wan from lack of light. She suspected the stress of keeping patients comfortable without electricity had also drained the color from their faces.

Before heading to Cody's room, Roni stepped beside Padma. The woman had the slight, narrow appearance of East Indian women, but it seemed to Roni that her friend had lost fifteen pounds in the few hours since she dropped Cody off.

“How's it going, Padma?”

“How do you think?” The response felt like sandpaper on skin. Padma closed her eyes. “Sorry. I'm…I'm a little…”

“On edge? Yeah, I know the feeling. They didn't teach this in med school.”

Padma conjured a smile, but Roni focused on the moisture in the woman's eyes. “All our emergency training seems inadequate in the face of the real thing.”

Instead of speaking, Roni pulled the woman into her arms for a moment. At first, Padma resisted, her shoulders and spine stiff, but then she melted and allowed Roni to hold her. They parted a moment later.

“Thanks,” Padma said.

“Yeah? Who said that was for you?”

Padma grinned. This one looked genuine. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine. Great. Swell. Peachy. Okay, I'm ready to find a dark corner and curl up. Fortunately there are plenty of those.”

“If you find one that will hold both of us, let me know.” Padma took a ragged breath, and Roni grew more concerned. The strongest, least flappable people in a hospital were found in the ER, the ICU, and pediatrics. Padma's shakiness wasn't good. “You here to see the boy?”

“Yes. How is he?”

Padma shrugged. “Haven't been able to check on him. I look in there every time I walk by. He seems fine. Quiet.”

“Thanks.” Roni patted the woman on the shoulder and then moved to Cody's room.

The boy lay on his side, staring at the pale green wall. He didn't move when she entered, but his eyelids flickered.

“Hi, Cody.” Roni spoke softly. “How come you're not asleep?” She knew the answer. What boy could sleep after all he had been through?

“I dunno.”

“You okay?”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

Roni stood at the foot of his bed as doctors did with patients. She had assumed “the posture”—authoritative, confident, knowledgeable, in control, but still exuding a measure of care. Force of habit. She pulled the visitors chair—a wide, yellow, faux-leather, midcentury-looking thing—to the side of the bed.

“Sorry I haven't been by sooner. It's been a crazy night.”

“Yeah. Crazy.” He didn't look at her.

She reached through the side rail and touched his hand. He didn't respond. “Things will get better, Cody. I know things are bad right now, and I know you're hurting. Things will get better.”

“No it won't. My mom is gone. My dad's been gone. I'm alone.” A tear pooled where the corner of his eye and the bridge of his nose met.

Roni felt her eyes burning, and she plumbed the depths of her mind, looking for something to say. The standard line, “We did everything we could and used all our skill and resources to save your mother,” just didn't cut it.

“Cody, I wish things were different. I wish what happened to you hadn't happened. It stinks, and I know you're hurting. What son wouldn't hurt? You have a right to be angry—”

“I'm not mad.”

“I am. I'm angry that a good kid like you has to go through this. Life isn't fair, and there's nothing I can say that will make it all right. I'm sorry, Cody. I really am.”

“What's going to happen to me?”

She feared the question. “A social worker will come talk to you whenever he or she can get here. Do you know what a social worker is?”

“No.”

“It's someone with special training to deal with things doctors can't.”

“They'll take me away. I won't see my friends anymore. They'll put me in an orphanage, and everyone will forget about me.”

Her first inclination was to disagree, to say, “No, that's not going to happen,” but he was right about some things.

“I don't think they'll put you in an orphanage, Cody.”

“Then what?”

“I imagine that social services will take you to a family, a special family. They call it foster care. There are mothers and fathers waiting to take you in and give you a home and a safe place to be.”

“I don't want to live with another family.”

“Cody, you can't live on your own. You're not old enough.”

He sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut. The tears found a way out. A moment later he dissolved into sobs. Roni stood, lowered the side rail and sat on the bed. Less than a second passed before she pulled the boy into her arms as abysmal sorrow poured from his body.

“I…I want to stay with you.”

Not possible. I don't know anything about rearing children. Even if this whole thing blows over tomorrow, I can't take on a new responsibility. No way. Not possible
.

“Please don't send me away.”

Roni's heart chipped, then cracked, and finally shattered. She added her tears to his.

J
eremy felt like a corked bottle floating on a wide, churning sea. Reports were trickling in from military bases with communication equipment protected from EMP attack. Early reports had cleared up a few things. Early evidence indicated that Jeremy and General Holt had been right. The EMP pulses had come from satellites at various orbits above the earth. The first contact made from Mount Weather was with NORAD. They tracked everything that moved above the planet. Some of the satellites had been in space for several decades and declared retired by their parent government.

The fact that the pulses occurred in sequence instead of all at once indicated planning. A few of the satellites had eventually been identified. What puzzled Jeremy was that no one country was responsible. Some had been Chinese, some Russian, some Israeli, and sadly, many were American.

One thing was clear. If the president was to be believed, and Jeremy had no reason to doubt him, the US had not ordered the activation of their space-burst satellites. They had gone off on their own, helping take down the Eurasian grid.

To make dark times even darker, non–Star Wars–style satellites had self-destructed. Those with emergency destruct devices installed to keep them out of the hands of the enemy or to destroy them should they start to fall to earth had blown themselves to pieces. Those that lacked explosives to do the work simply stopped talking to their earthbound handlers, most likely victims of the EMP pulses or a computer virus that shredded their electronic brains.

The world was without power and without satellite communications. Military birds had become multimillion-dollar paperweights, coursing through space and waiting until their decaying orbits gave in to their fiery deaths in the atmosphere.

Jeremy spent the night and early morning hours wondering how such a thing could be done. His body craved sleep, but his mind refused to allow it. There were thoughts to think and speculations to be made.

His computer had been wiped by the pulse, obliterating the information he needed to analyze the worm as he planned to do. He would have to find a way to retrieve that information from the NSA building at Fort Meade. President Barlow had made getting the information to Jeremy a priority, but it would be hours before he could have the material he needed.

The military had been crippled but not paralyzed. The possibility of an EMP attack had been considered for decades. No one could be certain about the effects such an attack would have on the country, but the computer models had been close. What wasn't known was what an entire wave of such attacks would do, or what would happen if a rogue worm had first infected the computers of the world.

Now they knew, and the answer wasn't pretty.

Still, military paranoia had proven its value. Many aircraft and vehicles, including those thought to be “hardened,” were out of commission, but some of the new craft remained useful or could be easily repaired. The question was, was the attack over? Were more powerful satellites still up there waiting to launch a new attack, maybe with some new twist in the force or pattern?

Barlow had decided to risk enough helicopters to search for downed aircraft carrying cabinet members and congressional leaders. They found several but no survivors.

The VP was dead, as were most members of the president's cabinet. Still, some had made it to Mount Weather, and the president was assigning new positions as fast as he could. The government would continue but as a shadow of what it had been.

President Barlow declared a national emergency, and the military swung into action but far more slowly and with less effect than anyone could imagine. Efforts were being made to get communication aircraft up and doing the work previously assigned to satellites. Only aircraft stored below grade had a chance of doing their work. Even hardened aircraft, previously thought to be immune, were hamstrung. They would fly again, but only after some serious work.

Jeremy walked from the underground facility to stare at a night sky formerly hidden by light pollution. Stars twinkled from light-years away, immune to the plight of seven billion people on a small blue orb in the corner of the galaxy. He saw other lights. Not stars, but what he assumed were fragments of scores of EMP satellites and clouds of radioactive material.

The red glow neared the horizon. The faux aurora borealis continued to dance with the solar wind. Bits of satellite streaked through the sky, turning to superheated dust on the way. How odd that the sight should look beautiful.

He gazed southwest to DC and wondered about Roni. The distance between them never seemed so great, even when he served overseas and she remained in the US to further her medical career.

The first congressional leaders and undersecretaries who were being ushered in to replace their deceased bosses arrived with their families. Soon, he thought, Roni would be sent for. He determined to take her in his arms and never let go.