Internet Kill Switch (17 page)

45

Two hours later they were in a fifth-floor room in the Renaissance Nashville Hotel, for which room prices had suddenly jumped from $200-plus per night to $1,000-plus. They were well stocked, as Rick had done an extensive amount of shopping. He’d gotten them all backpacks, extra clothing  and a portable, battery-powered radio along with a month’s worth of C batteries. The yellow radio was about the size of a lunchbox. Rick fiddled with the radio knob, trying to find a clear station. There should be tons of them in a big city, but instead he went up and down the dial and mostly heard static.

“I lucked into this baby,” he said. “I was in
an electronics store, checking out the radio section. There’s a lot of radios in Nashville, you know. But they were gone, sold out. It was that way everywhere, the guy who worked there told me. He said radios were one of the few Internet-proof communication channels left, so people had wiped them out within a day. I had to use the bathroom, which was right next to the employee break room. I peeked in and saw that it was empty. The radio was on a table. I had the backpacks with me – I bought them at the clothes store – so I grabbed it and threw it in the backpack, then walked out.”

“You stole it?” Scarlett blurted out. She was used to hearing these kinds of stories now, but it still surprised her how nonchalant Rick was about
lawbreaking.

Rick, however, wasn’t phased in the least. “You betcha. Walked right out of the store with it. The
alarm systems don’t work.”

“Don’t you think that’s wrong?” Scarlett asked.

Rick looked at her and rolled his eyes at her innocence. “Look Scarlett, in case you haven’t noticed, things aren’t exactly normal anymore. We need to know what’s going on out there. And we’re probably the only ones who can fix what’s broken. There’s nothing wrong with getting equipment that’ll help us do that.”

Scarlett went into the bathroom
, shaking her head. “Whatever,” she said as she closed the door.

Tony watched Scarlett
, which had become his favorite spectator sport. He would never have said it, of course, but he agreed with Rick in this case. These weren’t normal times. Stealing a radio wasn’t a big deal; not now, anyway. Tony would never have done it, but he didn’t mind at all that Rick had the nerve – and the good sense – to do what was necessary.

Rick
noticed the black TV screen. “TV doesn’t work?”

“Nah,” Tony said. “Must be
network connected.” Rick finally found a radio station in the middle of a report, and turned up the volume.

“
Wall Street is dark for a fourth straight day. The financial crisis is growing more desperate, as traders can’t trade, stocks can’t be bought or sold, and banks continue to search for ways to conduct business without relying on the networks that are their lifeblood.

“
President French has urged the public to remain calm, but panic has instead continued to sweep the nation. 9-1-1 systems remain down, and both local and national law enforcement are getting overwhelmed by the increasing crime in urban areas, a wave of lawlessness that’s spreading into more rural sections of the country. Many businesses remain closed, and those that are open have often resorted to hiring their own security personnel, many of them nothing more than citizens who own a gun and need money.

“Meanwhile, efforts to restore the Internet continue. Officials report that the top computer scientists in the world are working around the clock to bring the Internet back online, but have so far been unable to make any substantial progress.

“At the same time, attempts to determine the cause of the Internet failure continue. President French said that the government still doesn’t know who, or what, caused the Internet to crash, but he hasn’t ruled out cyber-terrorists or foreign governments like Iran. The president added that if it was an attack from a foreign source, he reserves the right to launch a counter attack, or even go so far as to bomb the source of the cyber attack, if that’s what it was.”

Rick
turned off the radio. “That’s incredibly scary,” Tony said. He felt a pounding in his head. He went to the window and opened the blinds, looking out over the parking lot and into the countryside. It was raining now, great gusting sheets of water slashing into the glass.

He closed the blinds and shut the heavy curtains. When he turned back around, he could hear Scarlett’s soft sobs through the bathroom door.
He looked at Rick, who nodded at the door. “She’s at it again,” he whispered to Tony with another roll of his eyes. Tony responded with a shrug; he wanted to defend Scarlett immediately, but saw no point in getting Rick angry. After all, he was bankrolling everything.

Rick bounced in his chair, agitated. “Man, it’s been days since I’ve been able to play,” he said, going through a furious air-guitar riff. “It’s killing me.”

After 10 more minutes, Scarlett came out, red-eyed and holding tissues. She’d stopped reflexively checking her phone over the last day; instead, she now chewed her nails reflexively. She sat on the bed and did just that.

S
he suddenly slapped the wall against her bed hard, startling the guys. “I miss texting my friends. I miss Facebook. I miss YouTube. I feel so… disconnected from life. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore,” she said miserably.

Rick shook his head. “Don’t know what to do?” he
said, throwing his hands in the air.

Tony jumped in. “C’mon, Rick…”

“No, Tony. Look, Scarlett, I feel bad for you. I do. The other day I was talking about the stuff I missed, too. But I’ve gotta say, if your life’s ruined because the Internet’s gone, I mean, what kind of life is it?”

Tony was sharper this time. “That’s enough!”

But Rick was on one of his patented rolls, and kept going as if Tony hadn’t said anything. “Life’s for living, you know? Experiencing things out there” -- he pointed toward the window -- “Not having your whole life wrapped up in finding out what other people are doing every second of the day. I mean, if you’re going to cry, cry over something important, like the fact that order’s breaking down and people are dying.”

Scarlett felt like she’d been slapped
. She decided to slap back. “At least I’m not a thief. At least I’m not a liar. At least I’m not…” and she stopped, before going too far. “Just leave me alone, Rick,” she said quietly, then turned away from them.

Rick rolled his eyes again, and mocked Scarlett
by pretending to cry and wiping his eyes. His heart wasn’t in it, though, and he soon picked up a newspaper.

Tony didn’t know what to do
. He’d feel like he was taking sides if he hugged Scarlett, which is what he wanted to do. He also wanted to wring Rick’s neck and slam his head into the wall for talking to Scarlett like that. At the same time, he was still so incredibly grateful for all Rick had done for them; and, he knew, all that he’d continue to do.

Rick could be an arrogant
tool, no doubt. Many times over the years Tony told him where to get off. But, like best friends, the anger didn’t last. Rick had always apologized to Tony for acting like a butthead, and Tony admired him a lot for it. He just wished Rick would think more before opening his trap.

Only three days had passed since Max had killed the Internet, Tony thought as he yawned, ready for sleep; how many more would they have to endure? And what would that do to Scarlett?

46

The next morning, Scarlett woke up first. Sweating, she immediately noticed that the room was hot and stale. She opened the curtains; the sun dazzled her eyes. She looked down at the street and saw a buzz of activity.

She checked her iPhone, which showed 11 a.m.
; they’d slept very late. Then she noticed that the phone hadn’t fully charged overnight; in fact, it only held about half a charge. She went into the bathroom and turned on the light, but it remained dark. The electricity had gone out again.

She woke up Tony and Rick, and updated them on the
power. “This is seriously getting old,” Rick grumbled. He walked down several flights of stairs, heading to the front desk to get some answers. A haggard-looking man at the concierge desk shook his head at Rick as he approached.

“Sorry sir, the electricity’s
out indefinitely, it seems,” he said, anticipating the question.

“How long has it been out?”
Rick asked.

“Since about 3 a.m. Normally, it’s come back on in an hour or two, then gone out, then come on. Not this time. People are saying the whole national electric grid has collapse
d. No power anywhere.”

Rick
closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, feeling another headache coming on. His expression was one the concierge had seen many times that day.

“Any idea...”
Rick started.

“None at all. No one seems to know when power might be restored. Could be days, weeks or...
” he trailed off and looked around the darkened lobby. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“And getting crazier,”
Rick said as he headed back up the stairs, glad they were on the fifth floor instead of the 20th. Climbing stairs wasn’t his preferred form of exercise, but until the power came back on, the elevators were out of commission.

That day passed slowly. Their room was paid for, so they stayed, even without electricity. Mainly, they stayed so Tony’s leg could heal more, and they could find some transportation. With no gas available, options were severely limited.

Max, being solar powered, still worked
, but Tony found talking to him less interesting than ever.

Max seemed to sense it. “I’ve suddenly gotten incredibly boring,” it said a
fter Rick and Scarlett headed out to find the best non-gas transportation they could think of: bicycles. “With no Internet to connect to, I can’t find witty quips, or give you directions, or find solutions to problems. It totally freakin’ sucks.”

Tony chuckled; he like
d it when Max tried to adopt teenage phraseology. He often got it wrong, like this time. “‘Totally freakin’ sucks’? Close, but not quite there.”

Max sighed. “It’s harder to keep up now since I can’t see w
hat kids are saying on Facebook.”

“You must feel kin
d of like Scarlett,” Tony said. “She’s really bummed about the lack of Internet.”

“I imagine it would be like
you being suspended in a completely black, soundproof room,” Max said. “You can’t see or hear anything, can’t feel anything. You just... exist. Your connections to everything are gone. I have no idea what’s going on in the wider world, and no way of finding out, other than what I see in my cameras and hear on my mics.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, feeling useless. “But you’ve done so much for us so far. And you have the most important job of all, once we get to Maryland.”

“It could be awhile, at this rate.”

“I know,” Tony said, looking at his leg. It felt better today, but still far from normal. “I wonder how much ground we can cover on bikes. Who even knows if stores will be open now, with no electricity. And there’s gangs out there, popping
up all over. It’s dangerous.”

“The power will come back on eventually,” Max said. “They’ll figure out ways around the Internet. They never had it until about 20 years ago, don’t forget. It’s just a matter of re-remembering
, or re-learning, how they did it before, then figuring out how to get the systems working without the network.”

“How long do you think it could take?” Tony asked.

“I really don’t know. I’d know a lot more, of course, if I could follow their progress through the Internet. If I were to throw out a wild guess, I’d say two or three more days at a minimum, or maybe three to four months at a maximum. Power grids are complicated.”

“Three or four months
!” said Tony. “Wow. It could be, like, a whole different country by then.”

Max agreed. “Chaos is spreading rapidly. Who know
s how much damage could be done? It’s like we’re back in the Revolutionary War days, even back before the telegraph was invented. Communication is just dead; with power out, the phones are out, too. We might have to go back to the Pony Express, delivering letters on horseback.”

“Or smoke signals.”

“Right.”

“We’re still around 700 miles away from where we’re going,” Tony said. He’d been studying the map for hours
, mainly because there wasn’t a lot else to do. “On bikes, that could take like a week or two.”

“It won’t be easy,” Max said. “But it beats walking.”

“True dat.”

“What?” Max said, perplexed.

Tony laughed. “That’s right, you can’t automatically look this stuff up in Urban Dictionary. It just means ‘yup’.”

“Ah,” said Max. “Word, baby.”

Tony cracked up, as Max hoped he would. He wanted Tony to laugh, since he suspected it would be in very short supply from now on.

Finally, with nothing to do, Tony eventually nodded off,
seeking escape and solace from the screwed-up real world in the dream world. He doubted even a nightmare could be worse than what he’d been through, and would probably still have to go through.