Apocalypse Atlanta (57 page)

“I need to have a look at it.”

“Yeah, well its all yours.” Mendez backed out with a scowl on his face and a multi-plug power strip in his hands.  “I found three of these, but no extension cords.”

“There’s more around here somewhere.” Peter said reassuringly.  Even in the middle of Atlanta hipster central he’d lay incredibly long odds against there not being at least one more extension cord somewhere in the complex.  Probably, if they bothered to find them all, they’d turn up at least a couple dozen.  They were just one of those things people tended to have for one reason or another.

“Good.”

“Sarge.” Whitley interrupted from the closet.  “Lend me your tac light.”

Peter unlimbered his AR and slid the light from the mounting rail beneath the weapon’s barrel.  Whitley’s hand was outstretched behind her as she poked at something in the closet, so he slapped it into her grasp.

“Thanks.”  She turned it on and shined it on the left side of the closet, high up on the wall, then frowned and backed out.  “Is there a chair or something I can stand on?”  She asked as she pulled the Leatherman out of her pocket.  The previous owner was one of those who had converted and tried to eat them the night before, so Peter figured he wouldn’t mind that she’d appropriated it from him.

“Desk chair, right here.” Peter pointed.  There was a standard looking office type chair, with wheels on the bottom and reclinable.

Whitley scowled.  “No thanks, nothing with wheels while I’m working with wires.”

“I’ll find something.” Mendez said, but Peter shook his head.

“No, stay and help here.  I’ll do it.”

Peter went back out in the main living area, but the only furniture was an enormous couch and a long coffee table positioned precisely in front of the equally large television.  He spent another few seconds peering around the room, then shrugged and went outside.  In #8 he found a small dining table setup in the corner of the living room, complete with four wooden chairs.  Peter grabbed one and went back to #7.

“Here, this ought to do you.” he said as he reentered the bedroom.

Whitley looked up from the back of the computer desk and saw what he had and grinned briefly.  “Yeah, perfect.”  She positioned it in the closet and climbed up on the seat.  She propped the tactical light up on her shoulder, holding it there by leaning her head down atop it.  With her hands freed and able to see, she started sawing at the wall with one of the Leatherman’s blades.

“Yo, everyone decent?” Smith called from the living room.

“You find more cord?” Peter called back in lieu of a proper greeting.

A few moments later Smith entered, paying out a yellow extension cord behind him.  “Sure did.  Two more, in fact.  Which was good, since they’re both really short for some reason, though I guess we’re good.”  He shrugged as he made it to the desk without running out of cord.

“No we’re not.” Whitley grunted as she continued sawing at the wall.  “The satellite gear is wired into the house circuit directly, so I need to splice it in to something that’ll run off the inverter.  Anyone know how to strip wire?”

“Sure.” Smith said with a shrug.  “I mean, it won’t be pretty, but it’ll be stripped.”

“Great.  Cut the female end off that other cord you found, then separate and strip the wires inside.” Whitley said.  “And, just to be clear, you’re doing this without plugging it in.”

“What do you take me for, a retard?”

“Well you did compare this shit we’re stuck in to a fucking video game.” Mendez told him.

“Hah fucking hah.” Smith said.  He pulled a pocket knife out and went back into the living room.

Whitley worked for another minute, then the sounds of the sawing stopped.  “Okay.  Uh, someone check the room light for me.”

“What?  Why?” Mendez asked.

“Because I didn’t flip the house mains, and I’m just nervous about the power.” she shot back.  “Trained habit.”

“I can go hit the breaker if you want.” Peter said.

“No, no.” Whitley sighed.  “Just . . . someone humor me and toggle the light switch a few times so I’ll feel better.”

“Okay.” Peter said, shrugging at Mendez who was giving him a look of ‘what the fuck’.  He went to the doorway and flipped the light switch up and down a few times, making sure to do it hard enough that it sounded audibly as it went back and forth.  “How’s that.”

“Lovely.”  Whitley said.  Peter couldn’t see what she was doing, but judging by the lack of cursing or any long periods of inactivity he guessed it was going okay.  By the time Smith came back with the extension cord butchered to her specifications, Whitley seemed satisfied with whatever she’d done in the wall.

“Where’s, oh good.  Give me that.” She said, looking around and holding her hand out to Smith.  He gave her the cord.  “Do NOT plug this in yet.”

“You’re kind of a bitchy bitch, anyone ever tell you that?” Smith said.

“Yeah, your mom every Saturday night when I short change her after she gets me off.” Whitley shot back as she turned to face into the closet.

“Guess I can fill in for her then, since today’s Saturday.” Smith said with a smirk.

“I know, she’ll be so disappointed.” Whitley said.  “But she’s a lousy lay anyway.”

“Hey now.” Smith said, his grin turning a little forced around the edges.

“Don’t start shit you can’t take.” Whitley said with a chuckle.  “And . . . this is done.”  She got down from the chair and moved it out of the way.  The cord hung from the left closet wall, and she picked up the plug end and the power strip Mendez had found.

“Okay, everyone ready?”

“Just do it.” Mendez said, dropping into the wheeled chair in front of the computer desk.  Whitley shrugged and plugged the power strip into the end of the cord that led in from the inverter outside.  Pulling it over to the desk, she moved the plugs that fed the computer gear from the wall outlet to the power strip, then plugged the closet cord in too.

“Let there be no fire.” Whitley muttered as she flipped the switch on the power strip from off to active.  A red light lit on it immediately.  Mendez waited a second or two, as if giving her a chance to stop him, then reached down and hit the power button on the front of the computer.

Immediately there was a whir and a hum as the computer powered up.  “We have lift off.” Mendez said with a grin.  He hit the button on the widescreen monitor to turn it on, then waited for the boot up cycle to complete.  Peter tried not to fidget, but it was a chore as he watched the messages that never made any sense to him come and go on the monitor as the computer did whatever it did when it went from off to on.

Finally the familiar Windows desktop screen came up, and Peter allowed himself a faint smile.  “Is it working?” he asked.

“Well, it’s not quite done yet.  This guy’s got a bunch of stuff configured to run at boot.” Mendez said, moving the mouse around.  “Let’s just cancel the anti-virus, don’t give a shit right now.  Same for the program updates.  Hey Whitley, look at the sat modem.  Is there a ready light?”

Whitley knelt and craned her head behind the desk.  “Uh . . . green power, yellow incoming, yellow outgoing.”

“Okay.  Might take it a minute.” Mendez said.  He clicked a few more things, then sat back and folded his arms.

“What’s wrong?” Smith asked.

“Waiting on the dish.” Mendez replied.  “If it’s turned off it has to find the satellite again and sync up.  That can take a couple of minutes sometimes.”

“Oh.”

They waited in silence for another minute until Whitley finally spoke again.  “Okay, greens all the way down.  Try it.”

Mendez clicked an icon on the desktop.  The computer thought about it and then changed the screen to an internet browser.  Peter saw the Google home page come up.  “We’re in?”

“Wait.” Mendez said, clicking a link near the top.  There was a pause, longer than Peter was used to waiting for the internet, then the screen filled in with a bunch of text and pictures.  Peter moved closer, standing behind and to one side of Mendez so he could see the screen better.

“We’re in.” Mendez said.  “Those are current article links.  Google’s servers are still active.  Or at least their news servers are.”

“And I guess some newspapers are too.” Smith said, moving closer as well.  Whitley joined them behind Mendez, who was now clicking on links in rapid succession.

“Just starting a few things loading . . . net seems slow, and it’s not just the satellite either.  Haven’t had to surf like this since my dialup days.” Mendez said absently.  He finished opening tabs, then clicked over to the first new one.

“Holy fuck!” Whitley blurted.  Peter could only nod in silent agreement, staring at the monitor with the rest of them.  The top of the screen read ‘New York Times’, then the date, then a big picture of Times Square that appeared to have been taken from above.  It was a sea of zombies, a mass of hundreds, probably thousands, of walking corpses all packed into the world famous intersection.

A lot of them appeared to be looking up at the camera, their hands and arms stretched up as they tried to reach for it.  Other parts of the picture showed clusters of zombies that appeared to be kneeling down.  Peter could just barely see a body one group was feeding from laying in a pool of blood.  Mendez scrolled the screen after a moment, and a headline and text slid up as the picture vanished off the top of the monitor.

‘Dead everywhere.’ the headline read.  Peter ignored the article beneath it, instead scanning across the screen at the other headlined articles.  Another read ‘Military gone’, a third ‘Federal Government evacuated from Washington’, and a fourth ‘Updated list of Evacuation Points’.

“So it’s not just us.” Smith said soberly.

“Nope.”

“Doom 3.” Smith said without humor.  “Told ya.”

“Shut it.” Mendez said without turning.  He clicked over to the next tab he’d opened.  The screen changed to the Los Angeles Times’ website, which was effectively a mirror image of the New  York Times’.  The picture was smaller, and was of a street Peter didn’t recognize, but it was also covered in zombies.

Another click, and the screen changed, this time to one with a FEMA heading.  “Wait, what’s this?” Peter asked.

“Supposed to be a list of camps or something that FEMA is setting up around the country.  I was going to check our area.”

“Well, check.” Whitley said tightly.

Mendez didn’t say anything, didn’t look away from the screen, but he clicked on a drop down box and selected Georgia.  The screen changed again, this time to a picture of the state on the left side that had colored shading and some dots covering it.  Peter noted almost immediately that Atlanta was covered in red; not a dot, but a blob of red.  He was betting he knew what the red meant, since he was standing damn near in the middle of the shaded area.

“Hmm.” Mendez said, leaning in closer to the monitor.  “Let’s . . .ah, there it is.  This says it was updated two hours ago.  He scrolled, and the picture slid up out of view as he went down the list that was on the right side.  “Okay, this says there’s evacuation points in Cartersville, Cumming, Buford, Monroe, Griffin, Newnan and Villa Rica.”

“What’s at the evacuation points?” Smith asked.

Mendez clicked, waited for the screen to change, then leaned in to read.  The text was coming up very small.  “Hmm, it’s not real clear.”  He clicked back, then tried another, then another after that as well.  “Okay, they claim there’s food and water and shelter.  If it’s a FEMA operation then that means they probably took over a school or something and set up a tent city on the football field.”

“Guards?” Peter asked quietly.  “Military units providing security, anything like that?”

“Doesn’t say.” Mendez shrugged.

“Try to get into NIPRNET.” Peter said after a moment.  “We need to know if we’re cut off or if there’s anyone left who might can get us out of here.”

“How?” Mendez said, looking over his shoulder at Peter with an expression of rebuking confusion.  “I’m don’t have my login information with me.”

“You don’t have it memorized?” Whitley demanded.

“Hey, sue me.” Mendez shrugged.  “They make me change the password every week, so I stopped bothering to remember it and just kept it written down.”

“Where?”

“In a notebook I keep in my locker at Clay.”

“Fat lot of good it’s doing us there.”

Peter reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his wallet while Whitley was berating Mendez.  Opening the well worn leather billfold up, he rummaged around in one of the many little pockets and produced a folded piece of paper.  “Try this.” he said, handing it to Mendez.

Mendez unfolded it carefully.  The paper was old enough and had been folded up long enough that it was sticking a little to itself.  It made a lot of noise as he got it flattened out, the paper creaking and crackling in protest.  “Okay, sure.” he said, propping the paper up against the monitor and grabbing the mouse.  A few clicks opened up a fresh browser screen, and he typed something into the URL field.

The computer hesitated for several seconds, then loaded a page that had some National Guard logos and text scattered around the two boxes in the middle of the screen.  Mendez clicked, then typed from what was on the paper, then clicked again.  Another pause, a long one, then the screen cleared and went to one Peter was familiar with from before he’d retired.