Contact Us (14 page)

The crowd offered up “Stay Awake,” “Life Pills,” “Stayin’ Alive,” “No Die,” and “Die-Not.” The marketing VP pointed out that “Stay Awake,” was already trademarked by the Win-Rite drug store chain, as if that mattered.

Louis stumbled off the stage but jumped right back up again. “Okay, ‘Die-Not’ it is. Can we stamp that on the pills, ‘die’ on one side and ‘not’ on the other? No, not enough time? Okay, just make them bright red. No, no, Day-glo orange. Okay, next. No, no, wait, red on one side, orange on the other. Okay. Next is police disruption. Manny, you’re in charge of that. Your name is now Manny Mayhem. I want explosions and I want fires, and can we put LSD in the water supply? Doc, look into that. Hit the power stations first. Got it? I’ll come with you. Tom, go call 911 from pay phones. Make each call sound different. Report fires, murders, snipers, anything else?”

“Looters!” someone yelled from the crowd.

“Yes, good. Looters.” Louis applauded violently, and the crowd joined in. He stopped and held his hands up, and the applause stopped. He put his hand next to his mouth and stage-whispered, “But do that only for stores south of route 40, and we’ll loot to the north.”

Louis went back to shouting. “Got it, Larry? You’re in charge of looting. Larry the Looter. Looter Larry. I’ll get to that next. Okay. Wait. Tom? Tom, what are you doing here? Go make those calls. Go, go, go. Next, everyone stays awake. Even if you haven’t used our product before, help yourselves. Meet with The Doc to choose an optimum dosage. Can I have an amen?”

“Amen.” The group showed more smiles and energy. They were certainly beginning to see how this situation would benefit them.

“Where was I? Ah, looting. Larry the Looter, you’re in charge here. I want systematic looting of drug stores for pseudophedrine and all the other drugs we usually use smurfs for. Check with production to find out exactly what they need. Plus, we’re branching out to other stay-awake drugs, so loot the hospitals for narcolepsy drugs like Modafinil and Ritalin and anything else people might want. Check with me or The Doc for a list.”

A mousy woman named Beth raised her hand and shouted. “But all looters will be shot.”

“Right. Beth, Beth. That’s not a problem, Beth.” He shook his head sadly and addressed the whole crowd. “Beth says that looters will be shot. Let me tell you, that’s not a problem. Here’s why.” He held one arm up with his index finger pointing to the ceiling. “One, there aren’t enough police to go around. That’s true now, and soon it will be truer than ever.”

He put his other arm up, two fingers extended. “Two, you’re going to have guns. They won’t expect that. Your guns are the best money can buy. The police have guns that are the cheapest money can buy.”

He waved both arms around above his head, as if warding off insects. “And three, and this is the biggest reason, you don’t care.” He made an exaggerated shrug, held his hands out, and shook his head. “There’s an eighty-five percent chance that you’re going to die anyway”—Louis tilted the odds in his favor—“so you’re just changing the odds a little bit, right? But think of all the money you’ll have if you don’t die. You know I’m not in this for the money. The money goes to you. The Lord will share the bounty with you through our profit-sharing plan. You, you, you. Think about how much money you’re making now then multiply that by ten. If you wake up alive, you’ll never have to work another day in your life. Amen!”

“Amen!”

“The next few hours are critical. We want to come out on top. Praise the Lord!” said Louis.

“Praise the Lord!” replied the crowd.

“Meeting adjourned,” said Louis.

“Amen!” said the crowd.

The company well-organized, and everyone rushed off to complete their tasks. Louis went with Manny Mayhem, loaded some explosives and firebombs into the company Hummer and headed off to Consolidated Electric’s Sioux power plant. Traffic was lighter than ever, and they got there in only thirty minutes.

They set charges at the base of a huge transmission tower. They targeted two of the tower’s four supports, figuring that was the best way to make it topple. What they lacked in demolition smarts, they made up for in excess explosive power.

As they drove away, Manny slapped the dashboard. “Oh, man, that was a waste, it’s not going to work.” His kinky blonde hair looked like some kind of a kitchen scrubbie, and he had the pale complexion of someone raised in a dungeon.

“What do you mean?”

“Even if this plant is destroyed, I think the other plants will just take over. We’re thinking old technology. We need to hack into the power telecom system. We can do a lot more damage that way.” Manny pulled out his phone.

“How do you know about that?” Louis asked.

“I’ve been hanging out with Tom Burkhart.” Manny apparently had Burkhart on speed dial and was already waiting for him to answer.

“Our distributor?” asked Louis.

“He’s also a user and he works for Consolidated Electric. He was telling me how he could bring the company to its knees any time he wanted. If he’s alive we could have him—” Into his cell phone, Manny said, “Tom? … Can you get him. Is he alive? … Okay.”

Manny turned to Louis. “He’s alive, I know he can—Tom? … This is Manny. How’d you like free meth for the rest of your life?”

Manny winked at Louis. Into the phone, he said, “Can you hack into Consolidated Electric’s telecom system and shut down the power? … Right … No, this whole place is about to go to Hell. You’ll be in the clear … Tom, if Kansas City’s power goes out today we’ll supply you with free meth for as long as you live and give you ten thousand dollars right away. Just a sec.”

Manny looked at Louis who nodded. Manny switched the phone to the other ear. “Yeah, ten thousand right away. If the power goes out and stays out, I’ll send someone to your house with ten big ones and twenty grams of product … Yeah, you got my word. Yeah, right now … Okay … No, you da man, Tom.”

Manny flipped his cell phone closed and put it in his pocket. “Now we’re working smarter.”

They heard a dull thud from behind them, where they’d set the charges, and pulled the Hummer over by a gas station. The lights in the station flickered off then right on again.

Manny shook his head. “See? It didn’t work.”

“I guess it’s up to Burkhardt now,” said Louis. “Drop me off at his house. I want to give him a little extra motivation.”

* * *

Louis Corby entered Burkhart’s house and followed him single file over to his desk. It had to be single file, because piles of boxes, clothes, and inexplicably, rolls of toilet paper filled the rooms, with the dirty carpet showing only in paths. Louis looked around.
People really live like this?
Instead of an organized high-tech man-cave Burkhart lead him to a cheap laptop sitting precariously on a stack of papers.

But what Burkhart lacked in equipment, he made up for in password knowledge. Consolidated Electric had unwisely provided him with its top passwords just a week ago.

“Well?” Louis asked, still gazing around at the scary evidence of a hoarding disorder.

“It’s, ah, it’s going good.” Sitting down at the desk, Burkhart looked first over his shoulder to Louis then back to the screen. “I’m already in the system and ready to eff it up.” Burkhart was as skinny as a Buddhist monk on a low-carb diet. He wore a pair of dirty pajama-jeans and a tie-die wife-beater top.

“Eff it up?”

“You know, screw it up.”

“Okay, do it,” Louis crossed his arms and tapped his right hand on his left elbow.

“Let me explain what I’m going to do.”

“No, just do it.”

“Wait, I’ve got this clever idea that’s going to really screw things up for a long time,” said Burkhart.

“Okay, tell me quickly then do it.”

“Right. We have substations that have a lot of electrical current going through them. They have breakers.”

“You mean like the circuit breakers at a house?”

Burkhart laughed. “Yeah, but much bigger. Like as big as a pickup truck. Now, if you were to just open a big switch it wouldn’t work, because there’s too much current.”

“What do you mean it wouldn’t work?”

“The electricity would arc across the opening, right through the air like lightning.” He looked at Louis. “So instead, you have one of these huge circuit breakers that’s filled with oil. Okay?”

Louis nodded and rolled his hand. Get on with it!

“Okay, but these special breakers are surrounded on each side with regular old switches. If you need to work on a breaker, you open the oil-filled breaker first, so that the current is shut off, then open the switches. Everything’s cool as long as you do it in that order.”

Louis understood. “Got it. You’re going to open the regular old switches first. Do it now.”

“Okay. I’ve got everything set up and now when I hit the enter key, all of the switches in all of the substations will be opened. The switches, not the breakers. Okay, here we go. Ten … Nine …”

Louis reached around him and hit the enter key. Within seconds, the lights flickered, and the power went off then on then off again.

Burkhart was up in a flash. “Follow me.” He sprinted to the front door not even bothering to stay in the cleared paths. He fell down once, slipping on a pile of newspapers and sending some toilet paper flying. Louis shook his head and followed.

Outside, Burkhart clambered up a ladder that he’d pre-positioned. Louis followed and found Burkhart on the flat roof, alternately clapping and pointing. Several blocks away, searing white arcs of electricity snaked around between the different metal components at an electrical substation. Buzzing filled the air. Black smoke rose from the arcing. After two minutes, an explosion, one they saw before they heard, rocked the substation with an orange fireball the size of a house.

Louis turned to Burkhart. “Praise the Lord!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When the EAS message ended, Marie Keller switched off the radio and turned to Claire. “Okay, there isn’t much for you to do here with the phones out, but people will probably start coming to the station for answers. Tell them to keep calm. Explain that we can get through this, and have them listen to the radio for further information. Claire—”

The phones started ringing again.
Good.

Marie said. “Claire, how do you know that the sheriff is dead?”

“His wife called.”

“Okay. Are you all set here?” She put her hand on Claire’s arm, and Claire nodded. “Harold, you come with me, and we’ll talk in the car.”

Marie pulled the deputy uniforms out of the lockers and she and Harold got into the SCOP cruiser. They drove over to Sheriff Roberts’ house, only five blocks away. His wife, Olive, stood on the porch, seemingly unaware they had arrived. Marie got out of the car, went to her, and gave her a long hug.

“Olive, I’m sorry about John. We all loved him. Right now I need your help. Can you tell me where John’s badge is—and the keys to his car?”

Olive stood there as if she hadn’t heard.

Marie looked at Harold. “Harold, please check to see if the keys to John’s cruiser are in the ignition.” She took Olive into the house, sat her on the couch, and got her a glass of water. In the cluttered bedroom, she found the sheriff in the expected dried-up state and was relieved to see his badge on the top of the bureau. She picked it up along with his official hat and gun belt.

Back in the living room, Olive was more responsive, and Harold was holding the keys up triumphantly. “Right in the ignition,” he said. “Can you believe that?”

Marie gave Olive another hug and grabbed the keys from Harold. The two of them hurried over to the sheriff’s cruiser and got in. She debated whether to use the siren even though there was little traffic on the street. On the one hand, people would hear it and know that the police were active, but on the other hand it would add to the sense of emergency.
Perhaps just the lights.
No, she wasn’t going to dawdle along at the speed limit as she headed the ten miles to her great grandson’s house. She switched on both lights and siren.

She turned to the mayor and raised her voice to be heard. “How you doing, Harold?”

“I’m doing.”

“Okay, I want you to repeat this. ‘I’m calm, and things are under control.’”

“Yeah, right. Neither of those things are true. You know that—”

“Harold, take a deep breath. ‘I’m calm, and things are under control—”

“What, are you using the force now? ‘These aren’t the droids you are looking for.’ Give me a break, Marie.”

“The only hope we have here is if people stay calm. When I see you, I see panic, and that’s contagious. I don’t want people to see that.” Marie picked up the radio. “Claire, how are things going there? Are the phones still working?”

“Yes, but apparently only the landlines. Cell phones are down, but that’s good news because I’m getting fewer help-me-my-wife-is-dead calls.”

“Here’s a job for you in between calls. I want you to locate retired personnel who can help. Electricity, phone, doctors, farmers.”

“Slow down.”

“That’s it, unless you can think of others. When you’ve got a list, make some calls from it, find out if they are alive and willing to help. Marie out.”