In a Twinkling

Nobody expects the world to change in a moment. I certainly didn’t. People always say, “your life can change in an instant,” but I never thought that would apply to me…and everyone else…Here I am trying to say something profound…just in case somebody ever listens to this recording…well…let’s see…

I’d been hiking since dawn. Took a break for lunch. Decided to move on, to make it to the next station before nightfall, or before the approaching storm hit, whichever came first. But in the late-afternoon, I picked up a fellow hiker. She said her name was Sarah, and looked to be in her early 30’s. She blundered in from a side trail, if you could call it that, and asked if she could walk with me to the way station. “Sure. No problem,” I said. I figured as long as Sarah can keep up with me, we can make it to the cabins in time, and maybe we could have a decent conversation along the way. I doubted it, though. I came out here to be alone with my thoughts – not to talk to people, especially small talk. I hate small talk. And I didn’t think I’d have much in common with someone half my age. I should have known something was up when Sarah started dragging my pace. At first, she did fine, but then she wanted to rest a little too often and looked more like she was out for a stroll than a purposeful hike. We had ground to cover and she didn’t seem to see any urgency in beating the dark clouds coming our way.

I told Sarah my GPS said something along the lines of, “miles to go before I sleep,” a reference she didn’t seem to get. When the first drops of rain began to fall, I suggested pitching our tents in a clearing just off the trail. Sarah said, “I don’t want to make camp here.” She had a better idea. There was a cave, just a little farther along the trail. “We can hole up there. It’ll be better than just a tent,” she said.

“As long as it’s not already occupied by a bear,” I said.

“Nah. It’ll be fine,” she said.

Just as we made it to the cave, the bottom dropped out. We broke out our flashlights and headed inside. It was large enough that even a 6-foot-two guy could easily stand upright. Better yet, no sign of a bear, but a few signs that people had camped here before. We set up our tents anyway, far from the entrance, near the back wall. The cave veered to the right as we entered, so we took advantage of the extra protection from the wind and rain. I took out a can of sterno and warmed up some pre-fab stew, which Sarah seemed happy to share. She kept looking over her shoulder, though, and I tried not to notice.

At length, I asked, “are you expecting someone?”

“No. Just watching the lightning,” she said. “Do you think it’s getting closer?”

I counted to ten in my head. “I don’t think so, but it is getting pretty intense,” I said as casually as I could.

The rain came down in buckets, as my dad would have said. I said, “It’s not a fit night out for man nor beast.”

Sarah said she hadn’t heard that one before. She laughed and said, “that’s a good one. I’m stealing that.”

“OK by me,” I replied.

In a couple of hours, the sizzling strikes and ominous rumbles subsided, and we headed to our respective tents for some sleep. It was too late to move on and we agreed it would be better to start at the crack of dawn. Sarah told me she felt safer being with me, even though we had just met. I told her one of my old friends suggested that my voice had a soporific effect. I had to explain that soporific meant soothing or sleep-inducing. “I can see that,” she said.

2.

Did you ever experience a flash so brilliant and long-lasting it startled you awake even with your eyes closed? The lightning the night before was one thing. This was another. And it was just a few seconds before dawn. I was so startled I checked my watch. The dawn literally broke, more like the big bang than a gradual sunrise.

Sarah stumbled out of her tent. “What the fuck was that?” she grunted.

“I can tell you what it wasn’t and what I hope it isn’t,” I said.

“What…?” she mumbled.

“It wasn’t lightning. And I hope it isn’t a nuclear bomb,” I said nervously.

“Oh. My. God. You’re scaring me,” she said.

“I’m not trying to. Maybe we should wait awhile before going out,” I advised.

She looked puzzled. “Who said anything about the two of us going out?” she asked.

“I meant…before leaving this cave. There could be a shock wave,” I clarified.

“I knew you didn’t mean going out, as on a date. I’m just a little freaked out right now,” she told me.

“That makes two of us. Let’s not panic. We’ll just pack up our stuff and by then we can venture out. If we don’t hear any really loud explosions or trees breaking in half, that is. OK?” I said.

“OK,” she said. But she didn’t sound OK, and neither did I.

Hearing no hydrogen bomb-like roaring blast, we grabbed our gear and headed out of the cave. We were greeted with…silence. Dead silence. Except for leaves rustling, there were no sounds. No birds chirping. No footfalls. Even more disturbing, we saw no squirrels, deer, or any other animal you might expect to find active at dawn. A few yards away from the mouth of the cave we found something that made Sarah stop short and draw a deep breath. I just said, “What the…?” There was a backpack and a set of hiking clothes, collapsed to the ground as if the wearer had been teleported elsewhere. And there was a pistol lying beside the pile of clothing. After a few seconds, Sarah shouted, “Danny!”

“Who’s Danny?” I asked.

“My friend,” she answered.

“And you know this because…?” I asked.

“That’s her pack, her boots, and her clothes…” Sarah sounded shaken.

“And her gun?” I asked.

“About that…” she stopped.

“Yes…about that. What was she doing with a gun?” I asked a little louder.

“Do you really want to know?” Sarah countered.

By then I had picked up the gun, removed the clip, and cleared the chamber. “Yes. I do. It’s time to be honest. I don’t know what happened to your friend, but if you intend to stick with me until we reach civilization, I need to know what the hell is going on,” I said.

“It was her idea,” Sarah broke down. “She wanted to rob you after I got you into the cave, where you’d be cornered and couldn’t run away.”

“And kill me too?” I shouted.

“God, NO! Just take your money and whatever valuables you had and run off. Danny had an escape route planned,” she started crying.

“Good to know your friend Danny was a planner,” I was being sarcastic.

“Except the storm must have held her up,” she said.

I said, “Strange choice of words.” I was still being snide. I believe I deserved to be.

“Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe this is a prank,” she said. Then she called out, “Danny! Danny! Come on! This isn’t funny!”

I broke out my dad voice. “I don’t think your friend is here. Why would she leave her backpack? And her boots? Why would she leave the gun?” I tried to talk sense, but what sense does it make for a person to be missing from their clothes? I had a hunch about what happened to Danny and the usual wildlife I expected to see and hear. But I needed more information.

“Do you think she suffered?” Sarah asked.

I told her I didn’t think so. All I could manage to say was, “I don’t think she saw it coming, whatever it was.”

I put the gun in my backpack, and added, “Let’ s get going. If you know a shortcut to town, now would be a good time to show me.”

I wasn’t a happy camper anymore. This damn millennial was planning to rob me, and she was culturally ignorant to boot. Yet, it wouldn’t do any good to yell at her or tell her what I thought of her. She had just lost her friend. Maybe that was punishment enough. And if what I thought had happened really happened, we were both in serious trouble. There was no need to get all worked up about it.

3.

Being retired left me with a lot of time and an unfinished bucket list. A solitary walk in the woods. A three-night, four-day hike. Nothing too strenuous. Nothing to worry about. Just some alone time to think about what should come next in my life. Halfway through my wild, but mild adventure, I was interrupted, twice. First by a thieving millennial, next by a flash so intense it could have been cosmic. I was sure it wasn’t a typical nuclear blast. I’d seen the footage and read the descriptions. I was also pretty sure it wasn’t an asteroid either, mainly because I was still alive. If you’re still thinking it was “The Rapture,” because that neatly explains the missing body, you probably need to keep listening.

Sarah opened up to me about her life so far. She sounded convincingly contrite. It seems to me the sudden death of a loved one has that effect on most people. And, giving her the benefit of the doubt, a lot of people were desperate for money then. So desperate that a “nobody gets hurt” hair-brained scheme might have sounded OK, if you believed a friend’s assurances and all. I wasn’t rich by any stretch of your imagination, if you are still listening to this, so I can understand.

Here’s the short story on Sarah. She had not gone to college. She had no money and no parental support, mainly because she came out when she graduated from high school. Her parents didn’t know how to deal with that and pretty much kicked her out of the house. She had some retail jobs, but retail was in free-fall, so she worked in a call center until she got fired for “some bullshit reason,” as she called it. Then, she met Danny – short for Danielle. The two of them must have been a pair, or an odd couple, depending on how you look at it. Danny always had ideas – schemes really – that seldom worked out. I believe Sarah was the trusting one, always ready to give it another try, even if she could face larceny and assault charges. I explained to her that I had no intention of turning her in or anything like that. At this point I was more focused on two things: Survival and finding out what the hell happened.

Sarah really did know a shortcut to town. As we walked, we both picked up on the fact that there was practically no animal life. The vegetation was fine, and we spotted a couple of lizards, but we couldn’t spot anything furry scurrying around. We hadn’t seen a stream yet, so we weren’t sure about the fish. The silence encased us. “Spooky” was the word Sarah kept using. I began to think about why we were spared. Maybe being covered by tons of solid granite and just the right angle of exposure had something to do with it. I kept these thoughts to myself. Sometimes being “educated” has its downside. What’s that proverb? “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” I was already feeling sorrow. I couldn’t see much of an upside to missing animal life, even if one kind of animal might have robbed or killed me. We kept walking.

I told Sarah I was sorry about Danny. I really was. But my mental radar was anticipating that we might find more of the same in town. I had to prepare Sarah. I was afraid she would totally freak out and become more of a liability than an asset. She had said she felt “safe” around me. So, I put that feeling to a test. I told her what I was thinking. I said something like this.

“Sarah. I don’t want to scare you or anything, but so far all I’ve noticed are some insects, a snake, a couple of lizards, and a bird or two. I’ve been thinking about Danny, trying to figure out what happened. I don’t think you noticed, but as I picked up the gun, I saw a waxy ash-like residue in and around her clothes and boots. I’ve also noticed little piles of that same ash around the roots of some trees and on the trail. I think that big flash had something to do with Danny’s disappearance, and the maybe the missing animals as well. Even though it was bright as day for several seconds, I’m thinking we were just far enough into the cave that we were shielded by tons of solid rock. Besides, we were probably on the shady side of the mountain. I’m afraid when we walk over the next hill and get to town, we’ll find more piles of clothing and no living people, except for maybe one or two who might have been protected by chance, as we were.”

“Seriously?” Sarah asked. “How could that be? Of course, we’ll find other people there.”

As she said this, she sounded less and less certain.

She added, “Come to think of it, I’ve always seen a deer or two around here at this hour. But not today.”

“I said, “Look, Sarah. It’s possible the flash we saw was a new kind of weapon. Have you heard of an EMP?”

She said, “No.”

I explained, “Well, an EMP is a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere designed to take out electronics, power, and communication. It stands for Electro-Magnetic Pulse. A large enough pulse can fry many kinds of circuits, especially the kind that run the modern world.”

At this point, Sarah took out her cellphone. “It’s dead,” she announced, and then added, “Now, I’m officially freaking out.”

I told her not to freak out yet. It could just be a dead battery. But I was worried my prediction would come true. I had a feeling this was probably more than a conventional EMP. I told Sarah to be prepared for the worst. I told her this could be a weapon well beyond an EMP, one that could have been built to target living animal cells. I had no idea how, but this made more sense to me than “The Rapture.” And besides, the Good Book doesn’t mention any ash-like residue or missing wildlife.

Sarah remained hopeful. I told her I was trying to be positive, too. She was sure we’d find people in town. I wasn’t. I started thinking about checking underground areas, bank vaults, and so on. I’d seen “The Twilight Zone” episode about the bookworm who survived a nuclear apocalypse inside a bank vault. You know things must be pretty bad when “The Twilight Zone” offers a note of optimism. On the other hand, Sarah had never seen the show and it seemed pointless to discuss its merits with her. Somehow, I was oddly relieved to remember I’d packed an extra pair of glasses.

4.

If you’re still listening, I shouldn’t have to tell you that we found more piles of clothes with ash-like residue in town. There were no dogs or cats on the streets. But there were a few wrecked cars and trucks. All the buildings were intact though. Sarah and I somehow managed to keep ourselves just on the sane side of freaking out. Just for the sake of my Twilight Zone-inspired curiosity, we went to the bank. I was disappointed to find a pile of dress clothes just outside the vault. There was no sign of a living human being, though. Over the next few hours, we searched garages and basements hoping to find people, but all we found were empty clothes and shoes, empty underwear and socks, and more than a few showers and tubs left running. We set a dozen or so pet birds free, and a few hamsters and gerbils as well – for all the good it will do them. Absolutely no humans were out and about. Cell service was down. The good news was that there was food in the grocery store. The bad news was that the power was out and frozen foods wouldn’t stay that way much longer. It was like a zombie apocalypse, but without the zombies. I was trying to maintain a sense of humor, if nothing else.

I asked Sarah where she and Danny were planning to go next and she told me Danny had friends in the next town. So, I did something I never thought I would do in a million years. I stole a car. We found a classic 1965 Pontiac GTO at a gas station with keys in the ignition and a full tank. Cars made back then didn’t have computer circuits to fry, so I saw the car as a stroke of good luck, even if it was ethically challenging. All we had to do was clear out the pile of clothes on the front seat and brush away the ash. We tossed the shoes out too. Sarah seemed squeamish about the human remains, but what choice did we have? The human body is 70 percent water and the remainder is mineral dust. “Ashes to ashes…dust to dust,” so the saying goes. Besides, the wind had already blown some of the guy away.

Every little town in the area was pretty much the same – nobody around, no large mammals and few birds. We were encouraged to notice some fish swimming in the first river we crossed. Apparently, they were deep enough under water to be shielded from the weapon. I wanted to call it, “the flashy thing,” but Sarah knew that reference and vetoed the idea. “Let’s not ruin that too,” she said. After a few days, we were no closer to finding out what happened than we were in the woods. All the car radio picked up was static and there was no cellphone or cable service anywhere. So, no news. At first, I was disheartened that there was no word from survivors, but on second thought, a world without a 24-hour news cycle and smug political pundits was becoming more and more appealing.

When we came to a larger town, we stopped for supplies and gas. As we drove away, a man in coveralls practically jumped out in front of the car with a shotgun pointed in our general direction. Sarah yelled, “Stop!” But I was already stopping. I had to talk him down. I asked where he was when the big flash happened. He said he didn’t see a flash. He was at the bottom of a parking lot elevator shaft four floors below ground the morning in question and when he took a break mid-morning, everybody was gone.

He shouted, “All I wanted to do was get an early start, and now all my friends are gone! My mother’s gone! She always wanted me to go to church more. It’s ‘The Rapture,’ isn’t it? And you all are part of the tribulation, aren’t you?!”

“Not exactly, friend, but I’m afraid we’re all facing tribulation,” I said, trying to keep him calm. Sarah looked at him with kind eyes. She understood. This guy had a couple of days to freak out – all by himself. Sarah was dealing with it as well as anyone could. I went on to explain what happened to us, about the possibility of a new kind of EMP, the ash-like dust, the cave, the animals – everything we knew so far. I asked whether he’d found any other survivors. He said, “Nope,” and lowered his gun saying, “I’m sorry, Sir. My name is Jake.” I introduced myself and Sarah, calling her my daughter, just in case our new friend was getting any ideas. I convinced Jake to unload the shotgun and jump into the back seat. Crisis averted. But part of my hypothesis was confirmed.

5.

I remember a line from a Matthew Broderick movie, “There’s a kind of freedom in being completely screwed…because you know things can’t get any worse.” As we made our way to a larger city, I knew things could in fact get worse. I just hoped they wouldn’t. We were close to being completely screwed. Eventually we wouldn’t be able to find food. Eventually, we would need to farm for a living, and that was assuming we could figure out how and count on bees for pollination. But for now, we could go anywhere we wanted, say anything we wanted, and do anything we wanted. Jake, Sarah, and I shared my two goals: 1. Survive. 2. Find out what happened. If there was a third goal, we hadn’t thought of it yet.

We needed answers. It was likely those answers existed somewhere. Jake suggested it first. He said, “You know, I’ll bet those bastards at the Pentagon know what’s up.”

It became clear we needed to go to DC if we wanted to know the truth. There was still no news – at least available to civilians – and we were unlikely to encounter the truth at random. Nevertheless, a stop-over at Richmond brought us two fellow travelers, Lilly and Nate. They said they were working below ground in a hardened server room when the weapon hit. They admitted, with a little too much giggling, that all they’d been doing for the last couple of days was having sex and drinking wine – “rinse and repeat.” All Sarah could say was, “TMI, TMI…” We found them by accident after Sarah suggested we just drive though the city and “see who shows up.” They happened to be coming out of a liquor store as we drove by, with quite a bit of PDA, I must say. Jake stopped the car, and we headed to DC with a full house. I thought about how nice it was to hold a paper map again. And, after we saw our second or third smoldering airplane, I hoped these kids would be alright.

6.

The “Kids,” as I called them, helped with the driving. They voted that it was OK for me to call them, “Kids,” if they could call me, “Old Man.” Fair enough, I suppose. I had a lot of time to think about what might have happened. It seemed to me only the Chinese, the Russians, and the US had the capability of building EMP weapons in the first place. With all the posturing about the Space Force, “fire and fury,” and all that, I thought it was possible there was a nuclear exchange, or something had gone horribly wrong. All speculation, I know, but what else can an “Old Man” do with hours of spare time in the back of a 65 GTO trying to ignore millennial lovers?

I wondered, how widespread was the “attack” or “accident” or whatever? How many were lost? How many survived? What caused it? In my most cynical moments, I shrugged inwardly, “At least we won’t need to dispose of all the bodies.” Small consolation. The Kids said it would bring “closure” to have some answers. I just wanted to know how stupid my fellow Americans actually were. If something this devastating was not done out of malice, it must have been a monumental act of stupidity. I resolved to teach the Kids about Hanlon’s Law and a great many other things before our time was up.

It was slow going at times. We had to weave in and out of stopped and wrecked cars on the highway. The EMP had taken out an awful lot of car ignition computers. Here and there an older vehicle had simply run off the road and crashed. We did more than our share of siphoning gas out of other cars and picked up a few five-gallon gas containers to make life easier. We also became quite a crew when it came time to rob a convenience store or grocery. For now, at least, supplies were plentiful. But one red flag popped up when I overheard Sarah and Jake talking about an invasion. We had to face the possibility that if some other country had attacked us, sooner or later someone would be coming to occupy an awful lot of free real estate. As far as we knew, the only survivors happened to be those who were in the right place at the right time. Another plus, for Nate and Lilly, if for no one else, was the fact that every motel had rooms to spare and a huge discount. Prices would never be this low again. Money might as well be toilet paper for all it’s worth. We agreed if the big flash was world-wide, a barter economy could be in our future. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

By the time we got to Springfield we had to give up trying to drive on I-95 entirely. Too many wrecks and stopped vehicles. We had to work our way in on state and county roads. It stood to reason if this was an attack, much of it would have been concentrated inside the beltway. Even though many people questioned the intelligence of those inside the beltway, Washington DC was still the seat of government and had to be a major target. I remembered the time one of my college physics professors asked us to calculate the Coriolis deflection of a missile launched from Moscow to Washington. Our results showed that even if the navigation system failed to account for the Coriolis Effect, the missile would explode near I-495 and would still cause significant damage. If several big flash devices had targeted the DC area, there would be no escape, unless you were far enough underground at that exact moment. “Always look on the bright side of life…” Sorry for my bad singing.

Apart from sheer tedium and encroaching depression, we were doing fine. The Kids were handling this remarkably well, I must say. Maybe better than I was. At one point, Nate got out of the car and said, “Who knew a 65 Pontiac could run this good?” Lilly, who had spent a little time rummaging through the glove compartment, simply replied, “Well, we should all be thankful Mr. Sherron took such good care of his car.” Meanwhile, I kept thinking about the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie. When Charleston Heston finally realized what happened and shouted, “We finally really did it. YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! AH, DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!” Now and then, one of the Kids would take me out of my pessimism, reminding me it wasn’t over yet, that maybe somewhere others survived. This became our third goal. 1. Survive. 2. Find out what happened. 3. Find other survivors. So far, the first goal was going well. If we were lucky, we would find out more about goal number two very soon. We tried to stay optimistic about goal number three.

7.

After a few detours, and a stop to fill-up the car and our gas cans, we reached the world-famous Pentagon. We decided to just walk right in, tax dollars at work, so-to-speak, and take a little tour. We were greeted by two armed civilian guards with weapons drawn. At first, we all thought we were seeing things. They had to ask us to “halt” twice. As much as I wanted to say, “Are you kidding me?” we complied. I introduced myself and the Kids and reported what we knew so far. The events. The trip. Just the five of us. I expected a little more transparency, but all we got was a perfunctory “follow me” from one of the guards. At least we no longer had guns pointed at us.

“Why did you come here?” the ranking officer asked us. He looked like a Navy Lieutenant, about the same age as the Kids. His name tag read, Hansen.

“We’re looking for answers,” I said. “Can you tell us what the hell happened?” 

“No,” he said.

I kept at it anyway. “Well, what can you tell us? How many survived here? Were they all underground, like us? Has anybody else showed up at your door? Has anyone made contact by radio or…”

The Kid Lieutenant became surprisingly talkative. He said, “There’s not much to tell. We have 87 survivors, plus a dozen who wandered in, plus you all. We were all in the lowest two levels, about ready to go home after working the night shift. Most are maintenance staff. I was only on that level to check on an alarm that went off just before dawn. When I tried to return to the upper levels, the elevator didn’t work.” He went on haltingly, “So, I took…the…stairs…I saw…no one…just piles of clothing – uniforms, coveralls, civvies – but no signs of life. My whole security detail was gone. I’m afraid we haven’t heard a thing from the outside world. The good news is that we were able to start up an emergency generator and the commissary is well-stocked – for now.”

Nate broke in and asked, “Are your servers down below?” 

“I don’t think I’m allowed to answer that,” the Kid Lieutenant said.

“Come on,” I said. “We won’t tell anybody if you won’t. And for all we know, you might be the highest-ranking officer in the US Navy right now. Besides, it looks like you can use all the help you can get.”

“Alright, the Lieutenant said. “The servers were protected, but they have no power, and we have no electricians.”

Jake spoke up, “I think I can help with that.”

Nate offered, “Lilly and I happen to know a lot about servers.”

I said, “Well Lt. Hansen, what do you say we look for some answers?”

While Jake was working on getting power to the servers, I persuaded Lt. Hansen to help us look for anything we could find about the Space Force or any kind of EMP weapons. He told me all he had to go on was scuttlebutt. “Better than nothing,” Sarah pointed out. We recruited several of the staff and poked around the Space Force offices. I suggested we look for the highest-ranking uniform and start with his office. “How will we know who’s the highest-ranking?” Sarah asked. Hansen said, “The one with the most stars.” I think young Hansen had his eye on Sarah. None of us had the heart to tell him he was barking up the wrong tree.

Nate turned out to be a certified expert in cyber-security. He and Lilly were working below ground for Bank of America in Richmond at the time the big flash hit. They could have worked for the feds, but private enterprise paid more and well…who could blame them? After a couple of hours, the two had a “high five” moment. They found some files labelled, “Operation Off-Switch.” It was a “Star Wars” type of project intended as a preemptive strike using orbiting EMP devices. The Space Force was planning to deploy the devices in Earth orbit to disable a potential attack anywhere in China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan – all the usual suspects. They found no evidence Operation Off-Switch was ever officially launched, yet here we are.

8.

Before I go on, I need to tell you about the Kids. I already mentioned Sarah. Despite the robbery-gone-wrong thing, she’s a good Kid. She almost makes up for…maybe I’ll say more about myself later. She has a good heart. She’ll do what she can to help. So, if you’re listening to this and she’s asked you for a chance, please give her one. Sometimes her voice is all that kept our little squad together. She’d already faced a lot when this whole flash thing got started, and I don’t blame her for following Danny. The world had gotten pretty screwed up by that point, and now that we’ve nearly hit bottom, maybe she and her generation can get things straightened out.

Jake is a fine young man. He’s sort of a “jack-of-all-trades.” Fixes things. Elevators, cars, planes, boats, plumbing and electricity, small engines…you name it. He’s also a philosopher. It seems he and I have read a lot of Buckminster Fuller. We both liked this quote: “Human beings always do the most intelligent thing…after they’ve tried every stupid alternative and none of them have worked.” He said he was working as an elevator mechanic until he got his mechanical engineering degree. The fact that he was working on a degree in his thirties impressed me. It’s one thing to go straight to college and earn a degree. It’s another to go to night school and wake up before dawn to go to your job…you get the picture. I like him. He’s the grounded one in our group – no electrical pun intended.

Nate went to a small midwestern college, like the one where I used to teach, and excelled in math and computer science. He has an advanced degree in network security. To hear him talk, and he doesn’t talk a lot, I’m glad he’s not a hacker or we’d all be screwed…wait, we are, so maybe the Russians or the Chinese have someone just like him, or Lilly. But, “he’s as honest as the day is long,” as my Grandpa would say. I trust him with my life. Not that I’ve had much choice. I’m glad he’s getting to the bottom of this flash business. And I’m glad he’s found Lilly. They seem to compliment each other perfectly, more like old marrieds who really understand each other, like my…well…

Lilly is more self-taught. I’ve overheard her talking with Nate about what went wrong, and it seems to me even though she dropped out of college after three years, she knows almost as much as he does about cyber security. Back then, Lilly had a sick mother to care for, and bills to pay. To make a long story short, her mom died a couple of years later, and her dad was stuck with the bill. His health was failing, and the prospect of foreclosure was killing him. That is, until Lilly hacked the hospital system and made the bill go away. Graduate school cyber fraud there. But I can’t blame her. As I said, the system was already screwed up, and what difference does that make now? I’m just happy Lilly and Nate have each other. I’m also happy that when I took Jake aside and asked him to take care of Sarah in case something happened to me, he said, “Sure, Old Man.”

And the Kids made me proud that day. They were a damn good team. Jake re-routed the basement generator to the server room. Lilly and Nate worked on digging through classified computer files – in normal times they would both be in a Federal prison for that. Sarah ran around talking to the other survivors when not helping look for clues. Even Kid Lieutenant was finding a place on the team.

The problem was the files Lilly and Nate found were short on specifics. We couldn’t decide if Operation Off-Switch was just proposed or actually implemented. It became clear, in bits and pieces, that the plan was to encircle the earth with dozens…or maybe hundreds of EMP devices, each capable of taking out electrical systems in a 100-mile radius. These devices were to be selectively deployed to stop rogue states and others from using their weapons by shutting off power and communications. There was nothing in the files about disappearing people, much less whether “Off Switch” was funded or deployed.

I asked Lt. Hansen if he know of anyone who might have seen paper documents about “Off Switch.”

He said, “only Esther Jordan, but she can’t tell you anything.”

“You mean, she didn’t make it?” I asked.

“She made it…“Old Man,” he said, shuffling his feet. “She just isn’t talking. Hasn’t said a word since that morning. Came in to her office a half-hour before dawn – way early, as always. Now she just sits in there like a statue. Totally shut down. Maybe you can get through to her. She’s about your age, FYI.”

Putting aside the notion that boomers all have some kind of secret bond, I decided to give it a try. Maybe she knew where to find a few pieces of paper. I went to her office. Above the door it said, “E. Jordan – Archivist.” Maybe she had security clearance she was willing to throw out the window now that…well…

“Esther…” I spoke quietly, but she didn’t respond. I told her my name. I told her how the Kids and I got there. The whole story. Sarah and Danny. Animals missing. Cars and trucks off the road and in jumbled piles. Planes flattened on the ground. Passengers just gone. No power. No cellphones. Our “sweet 60’s ride.” That’s what Jake called it. The Pentagon. Hansen. The Kids. As much as detail as I could as gently as I could. Still she just sat there. When I talked about the Kids and what they meant to me, her eyes welled up. “Esther?” I asked gently. Tears fell on her desk.

I knew I had to tell her about me. She was on the verge of getting lost inside herself, as I would have been without the Kids. If you’re listening to this and tell them about any of it, I swear I’ll hunt you down. I tried to keep my private life out of it with them and I don’t want to start sharing now. But with Esther I figured I had to make an exception. I closed the door and pulled up a chair facing her on the other side of her desk.

“Esther…” I looked at her as kindly as I could. “I might know a little something about what you’re going through. I had a beautiful, loving wife and two of the smartest, most caring kids in the whole world. Chances are, they’re all gone now. In a flash. I saw the smallest sliver of that big flash from a cave under a mountain of rock. If none of them just happened to be a few stories below ground or in a bunker somewhere, all that’s left of them is…ash. I can hardly bring myself to think about this. 30 years together, gone in a…”

“Twinkling of an eye…” Esther sighed. “That’s why you’re hanging on to your new kids.”

“Yeah. I suppose so. I always thought I’d be the first to go, you know,” I told her.

“Me too,” she said, and she began to cry.

I reached out and took her hand. “I’m so sorry, Esther,” I tried to sound reassuring.

“It’s not your fault those effing idiots have done this!” She hissed. “This didn’t have to happen. My kids. Your kids. My husband. Your wife. Everybody should still be alive.”

“I’m afraid we’ve reached the limit of human stupidity,” I sighed.

Esther’s emotions broke through, “And I’m afraid we haven’t! I’ve been worried about this ever since our scientists warned us about what might happen if we weaponized space. None of our self-absorbed politicians paid any attention, though, and now their best laid plans – maybe if they thought more about their goddam plans rather than getting laid – now all their so-called plans have gone to hell! All those greedy, shallow, narcissistic, incompetent politicians have brought us to this. Not you. Not me. Not our kids!”

She was angry, and I didn’t blame her. I just let her get it out. She said nothing I hadn’t already thought, and it was cathartic to hear another human being express what was on my mind so accurately and so forcefully.

All I could do was agree and let my new sister preach. But we were the choir. The Kids were the choir. So were all the other survivors. When Esther had calmed down a little, I hugged her, and she hugged me. There’s something to be said about human contact between people who have suffered loss. That hug seemed to make everything a little more bearable. Esther and I didn’t deserve this. The Kids certainly didn’t, not even the Kid Lieutenant. Nobody did, except maybe the damn fools who ended the world. But we still needed to know where to go from here.

I told Esther what we knew so far about Operation Off-Switch. I asked her if she knew anything more. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Esther was blessed or cursed with an uncanny memory. A professor like me can use a good memory to become a better teacher and mentor. However, after too many years, memories have a way of coalescing into a tangled thicket of confusing relationships. You have to be careful to keep your bearings or you’ll get lost in there. Clearly, memories had made Esther’s life worse. She had a dangerous combination – a high security clearance and an eidetic memory. She knew what was in most of the files she had sworn to keep secret. She carried the burden of knowing what was up – literally – and what was not.

She said, “if we could get into the vault, I could show you what Off-Switch was all about, but you already know the gist of it. By last year, the Space Force had deployed at least 300 satellites capable of blanketing an area the size of the US with enough of an EMP effect to knock out all power and communication. These satellites were little saucers, each the size of a large suitcase, and were supposedly under the control of the Space Force in Colorado.”

I asked if Operation Off-Switch was designed to target people and animals. Esther said, “no,” but remembered some scientists on the project warned that if too many devices went off at once, the results could be…“unpredictable.” She recalled something about a “cascade effect.” One declared, “The most complicated systems are almost always the most precarious.” We talked about the arrogance of our so-called leaders, trumping up war after war, funding weapons system after weapons system. It was only a matter of time until humanity lost its game of Russian Roulette. As far as the American public knew, our intrepid Space Force had refrained from placing weapons in orbit. However, Off-Switch had taken place in secret, over several years, whether we the people wanted it or not.

The Kids wondered if Off-Switch and the Space Force, like a lot of life, in the end just followed the law of unintended consequences. A lot of what we do turns out to be a response to the results of something else we did. I pointed out that nothing is exempt from Murphy’s Law. “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” I said. Esther nodded. The only physicists who might have been able to tell us more were absent not only from our discussion, but likely from the Earth as well. Esther’s remark about “a twinkling of an eye” summed it up. Lives had vanished in a flash of human stupidity. It was entirely possible that on the morning in question, someone, in a moment of inattention, just plain screwed up. None of us knew how widespread the event was at this point, but at least we knew more than we did a few days before.

9.

Lt. Hansen and Jake had been working on a little surprise for the rest of us. They didn’t want to get our hopes up, but they’d done a little restoration work. They found a vintage short-wave radio in a sub-basement storage area. It was the kind with tubes and analog circuitry. I told you I liked Jake. I believe that Kid can fix anything. Well, to make a longer story short, we were able to rig an antenna outside the building – 100 feet of bare copper wire was enough. With a little trial-and-error, we were able to receive. Everyone’s mood picked up when they heard we were not alone. We couldn’t transmit, of course, but we could hear someone broadcasting from Ottawa and someone in the Florida Keys. Nothing from anywhere else in the US, though. It sounded like Canada was not hit very hard, except for places near Buffalo, Detroit, and Seattle. We began to think about moving out of our nation’s capital.

After a lot of debate, we voted to get out of town. I was glad to be getting the hell out of Stupid City. I still have a hard time finding the words to describe my anger and resentment over the loss of so many friends and family. I know for a fact everyone shared my rage and grief. Nobody, not even our political enemies, deserves to be erased from the face of the Earth for the sake of…what…national defense…make that hubris. We were all glad there was no longer any Facebook or Twitter, though. Our little community of 104 had pretty much decided we were better off without all the drama and artificial lines of division.

The Kids thought maybe some people had survived the flash in the mines of West Virginia or Pennsylvania. When I heard them mention West Virginia, I remembered that there was an old Presidential Bunker located at Greenbrier. I told them, if my memory was correct, it was around 700 feet below ground. I pointed out that maybe someone survived there.

Esther seconded my motion to pay a visit. She said, “Call it what you want, but I recall that place was mentioned in something I saw. There may be more than meets the eye in that old bunker.”

We made sure the buses we were fixing up had extra spaces to pick up more survivors. Our plan was to make it as far as Harrisonburg, then on to The Greenbrier the next day, unless we got very lucky. Even if we found nobody alive, at least we could spend a little time at a world-class resort for free. Then we would work our way north to Canada. We hoped the Canadians would be kind enough to let us in even though certain ‘exceptional’ Americans had caused this calamity. Sarah remained optimistic and said, “Maybe the big flash didn’t affect the whole world – just some parts of it. Most people could still be alive.” I thought, even so, the world will never be the same.

10.

As we approached the exit for the Luray Caverns, Jake suggested a pit stop. “There might be someone alive there,” he said. Apparently, Esther wasn’t the only one who had hunches about things. There only a were few cars in the parking lot. Lt. Hansen made sure to remind everyone, “OK, remember the buddy system.” Nobody felt like a spelunker that day, though. Most explored the museums and grounds and visited the restrooms while the Lieutenant and a couple of volunteers checked out the entrance to the caverns. There was no power, of course, but the new entrance was a gently sloping corridor. Apart from a few piles of clothing with staff badges and a couple of empty wheelchairs near the top, there were no signs of life. But in Shenandoah Heritage Village there were people! Nate and Lilly found 15 of them. They were a group of geology students from the University of Virginia who were given early access to the Caverns. Their professor, yet another Kid to Esther and me, said they were about to return to the surface when a flash lit the entrance to the cave – through a tiny crack in the big doors. The lights went out, but they were able to use their flashlights to get to the surface. They found what we found. No people. No cars would start. So, they decided to live in the 1800’s village for a while. Not a great plan, I think, but there was food in the restaurant and a couple of the students knew how to preserve some without refrigeration. The gift shop and museums had tools they could use to live off the land if they had to, and well…

Our expanded tour stopped overnight in Harrisonburg. There was a nice Country Inn and Suites there. No more free breakfast or WIFI, of course, but they still had running water. Some of the Kids called our group, “Team America,” which they found hilarious. I just thought it was sadly ironic. Esther and I were becoming, well, if not exactly best friends yet, at least comrades in arms. We were the oldest, so some of the Kids tried to call us Mom and Dad. I told them that was crossing the line. “Just call our friend, Esther or Mrs. Jordan. But I’m OK with Old Man,” I told them. “Yes, Sir, Old Man, Sir,” they laughed. I laughed too. What else could I do?

That night I dreamed. My dream began with, “for it is written, your old men shall dream dreams…” Then I saw the world for what it was. A fragile blue sphere hurtling through space, corkscrewing its way around the galaxy at 45,000 miles per hour. I saw its human inhabitants taking what they wished from on and under the surface of their planet, with hardly a thought about the future. I saw some humans using what they found to build ever deadlier, ever more complicated weapons, from clubs to nuclear warheads. I saw the blasts at Los Alamos, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the myriad tests of nuclear ‘devices’ at Bikini Atoll, the destruction of natural habitats, the encroachment of my species looking more and more like vermin than intelligent beings. I saw the aftermath of the big flash event. Off-Switch turned off not only the power, but the lives of most mammals bigger than a one-quart carton of milk and disrupted ecosystems that had taken thousands of years to build, with and without the interference of humans. I saw life struggling back, insects, reptiles, and small animals emerging from cracks in the earth, birds reestablishing their nests, species from Canada and Mexico invading the former United States. I saw the reluctance of those nations to take in survivors, immigrants from a land that now had few people and would sooner or later belong to others. I saw people coming from nations all over the world to occupy what were once complacently called, ‘our shores.’ All the nationalism, all the misplaced pride, all the feelings of superiority, all the so-called greatness that Americans sought, all of these were rendered meaningless “in a twinkling of an eye,” as Esther’s voice repeated, again and again, in my dream. Others would build another nation here. That nation might once again strive to turn many into one. We learned too late that we are all connected, despite those who tried to divide us by class, race, gender, religion, or nationality. But, with any luck, we would learn to value each other more after Operation Off-Switch than before. It was going to be hard. For a generation or two. Clearing away the artefacts of a failed system. Rebuilding power and communication. Rediscovering what was worth communicating in the first place. I woke up in a cold sweat. Later, in a quiet moment over breakfast bars, I told Esther about my dream. She shook her head and said, “That’s strange. I had pretty much the same dream.”

11.

The Greenbrier Resort was as stately as I remembered it, although much quieter. No golf carts running about, no clatter of dishes in the restaurant, no chatter of happy guests, nothing but wind in the trees and a few flapping flags. It was eerie. None of the Kids had been there, except for a couple of the UVA students, a brother and sister, whose grandparents had treated them to a weekend in the fall. Someone shouted as we got off the buses, “If you want to shop for resort clothes, now’s the time!” I added, “Best keep it practical. We’re headed to Canada, remember?” “OK, Dad,” a couple of the Kids joked. I managed a weak smile.

Kid Professor, a young man named Brooks, took good care of his charges. Or at least he tried to. He told the men and women not to room together, as school policy stated, but I doubt that made much difference. The rules had changed out from under all of us. College kids, and kids in general, would have to discover their own rules or rediscover what rules made sense, now that all bets about the future were officially off. After hearing Brook’s instructions, Esther asked if it was alright for her to room with me. “No hanky-panky,” she said. “I just don’t want to be alone.” I told her I understood and that I wasn’t thinking of any hanky, much less panky. She smiled for the first time since I met her. I told her I too would be glad to have the company. We traded stories about our families as night fell and the silence overwhelmed us. “So, this is life in the 19^th Century,” I mumbled as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, we began our search of the old Presidential Bunker. The map we found in the gift shop showed where the tours started but was pretty sketchy about what was down below. Using flashlights, it took hours to find anything that looked like a ‘behind-the-scenes’ door. But patience paid off. And by this time the team was beginning to suspect all kinds of possibilities. Lt. Hansen and Jake were the first to burst into the light – literally – a door they found opened to a lit hallway, but four armed guards stepped out to stop them. Jake had the gun I found, and Lt. Hansen still had his sidearm, but the odds were not good. Jake called out, “Hey, Old Man! We found something!” We were amazed to find a Bunker within a Bunker, almost as much as the guards were surprised to encounter a group of civilians 700 feet below ground. It was a good thing nobody over-reacted. For a long few seconds, I thought this was going to be the end of the road. However, apparently these guys were disciplined enough not to open fire or at least respected Lt. Hansen’s uniform enough to stay cool. To his credit, the Kid Lieutenant stood his ground. But, oddly, when asked whether he was the person in charge, he deferred to “the Old Man,” pointing to me. It’s funny how age confers a certain amount of authority.

I followed Hansen’s lead, figuring there must be a more senior person we could talk to. I still wanted answers and these guards were clearly there only to stop unwanted visitors, not to satisfy my curiosity. Maybe we registered as ‘mostly harmless,’ to use a Douglas Adams term. Nevertheless, Lt. Hansen, Jake, and yours truly were escorted to the person in charge. I recognized her from her public appearances on behalf of the administration a couple of years ago. How she came to be the civilian in charge of a secret modern base inside an obsolete old bunker remains a mystery to me. Maybe it has something to do with campaign contributions or connections or something I just don’t care to know about. “What’s done is done,” the saying goes. She was apparently in charge and military personnel were following her lead as if she were the President of the United States. And for all we knew, she now was. I played dumb about knowing her name, despite her former high profile as an evangelical Christian who supported the right policies at the right time to become a cabinet member.

She was as cordial as anyone could be under the circumstances. When I asked about her connection to the Space Force, she was evasive. “That’s need-to-know,” she said. When I pressed, unlike the Kid Lieutenant, she did not give in. “You’re still not part of the government,” she said. “What if I was a reporter?” I asked. “There’s nobody left to report to,” she said. “We both might be surprised,” I countered.

I told Marie Devine, or as the Kids and I called her later, Cruella Devine, what we knew about Operation Off-Switch. I left out the parts about how we knew any of this. We could tell two things by her reaction. First, that she was surprised anyone other than her team knew about Off-Switch, and second, that we already knew way too much. Yet, another thing we noticed was a sense of relief. Her shoulders relaxed, and her attitude became a little less stilted. Maybe knowing that we knew allowed her to let her guard down. “Sit down,” she said.

Our host told us more about Off-Switch. She said she felt free to share that Off-Switch was intended to be used on rogue states, terrorist camps, and regimes that posed a threat to the Untied States. We knew this, but she at least confirmed what we knew, so there was that. She added that she and her team had come to The Greenbrier to carry out a preemptive strike on Iran. Several of the Off-Switch devices were to be deployed to shut down areas known to have nuclear facilities. According to her story, the crew in Colorado had another mission in mind. “When I got here, they had already hijacked the system and were planning to knock out part of mainland China, major population centers in Russia, North Korea, and several countries in the middle east, except for our friends in Israel, of course,” she said.

I was proud of Kid Lieutenant when he jumped in and said, “Wow, that would’ve been the biggest dick move of all time!” He caught himself and added, “Oh, sorry, ma’am.” But the words were already out.

“Apology accepted,” Ms. Devine said. “Others feel that way too.”

“Well, what happened then?” I asked.

Ms. Devine went on with her story. She said there was a battle for control of the Off-Switch Control System, the OCS. Colorado vs. West Virginia. The Colorado team was trying to reposition the orbiting devices and it became clear that soon they would be able to execute a general attack sequence. In another three or four passes, the devices would be armed and programmed to descend towards their target areas. They would then shut off everything in their range, and billions would suffer.

She went on, “So, we tried to deactivate all of them in orbit – before they entered the upper atmosphere, and before they could be detonated. But we couldn’t get our commands to go through. We thought the boys in Colorado had locked us out. We kept getting a message saying, access prohibited – deployment not authorized. That was a relief. We hoped Colorado would not be able to override our instructions. We thought even if we failed, most of the devices would explode over the Pacific, and we would have prevented a total catastrophe. At last, we got a message saying, authorization required for system control. So, I entered my code. But nothing happened. The screens all went blank. I thought we had won. But all we could do was wait. The next thing we knew, the tracking screens came back up and showed all the devices arrayed over the continental US. Then communications went down all over the country, and we soon learned the population of the Greenbrier area was…zero.” Ms. Devine appeared shaken at this point, so I didn’t press further.

Her story made sense. Somehow the cyberbattle had delayed their command just long enough that the devices detonated all at once over the continental US. Seeing that we were only a ragtag group of survivors, Devine’s appraisal of the situation appeared to be correct from our point-of-view. We could tell she had hoped for better news but had resigned herself to the situation. I couldn’t help but think about a certain public official declaring, “It is what it is.” That recollection was what it was – bitter and cold. People who say such things are usually more responsible for ‘what is’ than they are willing to admit.

Ms. Devine welcomed several of us into the Bunker within a Bunker. Sarah wanted to call it a “B in B,” but that was too much even for the dad humor center in my brain. For a couple of days, we seemed to be forming a larger community, able to share in the privilege of living at the venerable Greenbrier with a platoon of 20 Space Force survivors, discussing what to do next. Stay or move to Canada? Locate other survivors or rebuild a little part of America here? I felt like we were colonists on another world, uninhabited except for us – a world full of promise, to be sure, but also full of hidden obstacles and dangers.

All was going as well as it was going to be until one of Devine’s team whispered into my ear after lunch. “She told it backwards,” he said. “Devine was trying to make the world safe for Christianity. Colorado tried to stop us.”

11.

Attempting to investigate the government is difficult even when there is a whistleblower and that government consists of only 21 people. We had to steer clear of Cruella, of course, and according to the Kids we had to play a longer game. Sarah suggested making friends with the Space Force platoon, 14 men and 6 women. Esther and I needed to keep an eye on Cruella – without acting “creepy.” The trick would be to give Nate and Lilly some time to see what was in the system, to determine who hacked whom, so to speak. We weren’t sure what to do next, but it seemed a confrontation was probably in our future. Esther pointed out that there was not much Cruella could do at this point, unless she had us all shot. But we outnumbered the platoon, and such a move was likely foolish.

The long and short of it is that the “B in a B” was mostly unguarded after a week or so. The Pentagon Kids and Cruella’s Contingent formed some relationships, and I suspect there were more than a few “hook-ups,” as the Kids call them. What did we expect to happen after the end of the world? One day, Esther and I were able to keep Ms. Devine occupied over lunch, while down below, Nate and Lilly, with a little help from their friends, were able to uncover what I was led to expect. I don’t want to know how they were able to distract the guards, but they assured me their methods were non-violent.

Esther and I decided to work together when the time came to confront our nemesis. By then, we figured we had already achieved some common ground with Ms. Devine. The subject of faith came up during our conversations, and we had already established that she saw herself as a “committed Christian.” Esther had much more street cred than I did in the religion department. She’d spent a lifetime in church and could quote scripture like a pastor. It turned out that she was a preacher’s kid on top of all that. On the other hand, I consider myself more of a Christian humanist, in the tradition of Erasmus. Esther said I was more of an intellectual but just as devout as anyone she knew. She said her father would have approved of me.

After the world as we know it ends, how are we supposed to cope? Ms. Devine said her faith in God gave her comfort. She believed everything happened for a reason. As troubled as I was by that notion, I resisted the temptation to ask, “what if that reason is our own stupidity?” I tried hard not to alienate the one person who could possibly give us some answers. On the other hand, Esther was a gem. She said she always believed “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” no matter what. Ms. Devine nodded her head in agreement. When I suggested we all might have been kept alive for a purpose, and asked Ms. Devine what she thought that might be, she shared her thoughts with Esther and me. She began with something like this:

“Look, this country has strayed pretty far away form God’s will. The whole world has. Many countries are hostile to the faith. Christians are being persecuted here and abroad. People have turned away from the Bible, from morality. Most people are following their own ideas about right and wrong, and acting as though God doesn’t exist – drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex, homosexuality, and all kinds of unnatural behavior are the norm. Secularism, feminism, socialism, communism, Marxism, fascism, terrorism, and all other kinds of -isms are more important than God’s word. Our religious liberty is under attack. It’s becoming unsafe to be a Christian – practically everywhere. It seems like all our rights are being given away to people who mock or defy God.”

I didn’t try to argue. I just listened. When I sensed an opening, I asked whether she could understand what motivated the Colorado group to try to reprogram the system. I asked, “So, you think they might have been justified, then?” She said she could see their point. Then I said, “Well, somebody needed to do something. The world was getting out of control. The Godless were taking over. It seems to me the guys in Colorado might have been right. Maybe you should’ve just let them do what they planned to do. Despite how things turned out, I’m glad someone had the guts to stand up for what they believed and didn’t give in to the forces of evil.”

Then Esther chimed in. She looked at me and quoted Joshua. “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Is this what you mean?”

We witnessed Ms. Devine’s conflicted reaction. It was in her body language and on her face. She wanted to be seen doing her duty, but she also wanted to be seen doing God’s work. By then she must have believed we were all on the same page.

She blurted out, “I couldn’t just stand by and let evil win! Muslims, ISIS, illegal immigrants, the Palestinians, the North Koreans, the Russians…the Chinese – they have first-strike capability, you know – all those who are hostile to America – they must be stopped! God gave us the technology to stop them. So, we decided to use it. With the armies opposed to Israel and America out of the way, we could have won the Battle of Armageddon easily. I’m only sorry it didn’t work out that way!”

“And I’m sorry any of it happened,” Esther said quietly. “I’m sorry there may only be a few thousand left alive East of the Mississippi. I don’t know about the rest of the country.”

“At least we know the truth,” I said, and added, “Tell me, Ms. Devine, what would have been our next move? The US couldn’t possibly occupy half the world.”

“We could have easily freed the captives and left those countries to the consequences of their sins,” Cruella said.

“Yet, it seems we are the ones who have suffered the consequences for our sins,” I said. “Maybe God thinks Operation Off-Switch is the greater evil.”

“I could have you all arrested!” Cruella shouted.

“But we have you surrounded, and many of my Kids have firearms,” I said. “Are you sure you want an armed confrontation with one of the last remnants of the land of the free?”

12.

All but two of Devine’s detachment immediately sided with the Kids. And even those were reluctant to remain in her camp, seeing as how she brought the American Experiment to an abrupt end. We were still facing a decision. With winter coming, should we stay at the Greenbrier and forage for supplies or head to Canada, not knowing what would be in store at the border? Ms. Devine wanted to stay, but her credibility was questionable at best. Her motives may have seemed pure at the time, but it’s easy to cross the line between doing what God might want and what some humans think should be done. Esther told me her father always said the third commandment doesn’t mean what many people think it means. She said I would’ve liked him. In the time before the big flash, too many people confused their religion with their political agendas. It seems 300 Off-Switch devices provided more temptation than some could bear.

Eventually we learned Cruella wasn’t the top of the hierarchy. She was a torchbearer for a group of Congressmen and Senators, plus a couple of Cabinet members who were working towards the dominance of the Christian faith in the US and the rest of the world. They were aligned with certain Zionist factions in Israel and some white Nationalist groups in Europe and here at home. I began to pray that we didn’t encounter any survivors from these groups if we decided to go to Canada.

On the night before the big flash, while Sarah and I were holing up out of the storm, the members of the self-proclaimed Christian Congress had lost control of Off-Switch. Nate and Lilly confirmed it was likely all 300 of the devices had detonated simultaneously over targets across the continental US. There may have been a resonance phenomenon among the devices – the “unpredictable results” Esther remembered. The data stream showed a recurrence of the detonation signal thousands of times over several seconds after the initial blast, each time with increasing energy. This was not the type of EMP the Space Force had designed or intended. It was an EMP failure. Like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which tore itself apart when it reached maximum resonance, Off-Switch failed with epic proportions and lethal results. Millions were disintegrated where they stood, sat, or slept. At least they wouldn’t have suffered much.

When Nate and Lilly announced their findings to the entire group, no one could speak for several minutes. There was nothing but silence until Sarah said, “we should say a prayer for all the people who were lost.” Esther seconded that motion, and everyone bowed their heads. All I could think of was, “God forgive us.”

The good news was the rest of the world was spared. Only the US paid the price for its arrogance. Off-Switch didn’t make America great. In a twinkling of an eye, it made America nothing.

13.

A travel log of the trip to Canada would probably read like an adventure story – the kind we all used to watch on TV before the big flash. Downed planes, wrecked vehicles, and burned buildings added an air of suspense to the more mundane difficulties of finding food and fuel. Fortunately, there was always room at the inn for our ragtag group. I’d like to say we were one big happy family, but that wasn’t exactly true. Mostly, we were random strangers trying to get along, to make the best of a situation none of us asked for. There were plenty of political quarrels at first. That is until we agreed to stop arguing about who voted for who and which party was to blame for Off-Switch. We could all agree none of that was doing us any good now.

Problems of survival took over. No power meant no food preservation and no wells could be pumped. We stocked up on bottled water, as well as canned and packaged foods whenever we could. We siphoned gas from vehicles and rigged a few hand pumps to raid gas stations. The Kids began to feel like bandits, stealing to get by, and I had to try hard not to feel like their Fagin.

We travelled from town to town, hoping to find more survivors. And we found some – and even rescued a few. But with each addition to our family came more challenges. Beyond the logistics, there wasn’t a person among us who hadn’t lost someone. Yet, our random membership included no counselors or clergy. The closest anyone got was either Esther or Marie Devine.

Surprisingly, Ms. Devine turned out to be a sympathetic person and a pretty good listener. Maybe she was trying to live down her zealotry and what it cost everyone. Maybe under all her misplaced loyalties there remained a little of the Gospels after all. Esther said Marie needed all the grace we could scrape together. Truer words were never spoken. Devine reminded me of Eustace Scrubb in “The Chronicles of Narnia.” Seduced by material wealth, the boy turned into a dragon, but was later redeemed by the grace of Aslan. Marie Devine once believed the power of technology could secure the Kingdom of God on Earth. She learned the hard way that weapons, like dollars, are just tools, and only as good as the purpose for which they are used and the people who used them. As the Pennsylvania Dutch say, “Ve get too soon oldt, undt too late schmart.”  

The original Kids did great, though. I’m as proud of them as I would be of…well…they really helped a lot of people keep it together, including me. And the GTO still ran great, too. Jake, Sarah, Nate, and Lilly took turns driving her. Esther and I rode on one of the five old church busses Jake and a couple of the Pentagon Kids were able to salvage. Too bad our trip was not as carefree as a high school field trip.

14.

We decided to skirt around nuclear power plants on the upwind side, which meant detouring farther west. None of us could be sure one or more of the reactors in our path hadn’t failed, and when Esther and I reminded the kids of the radioactive cloud that spewed northeast out of Chernobyl back in 1986, the vote was unanimous. I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross into Canada at Windsor, Ontario, but that was our most direct route. At that point, I didn’t share my concerns about the possibility of encountering some remnant of one of the Michigan Militia groups. I guess I’ve always worried about such things, but then again, I never imagined the big flash. How could I?

After a few days on the road, Ms. Devine told us more about the plan to use Off-Switch to “further God’s Kingdom.” It seems the idea originated with the Vice President, who, like her, was a “committed Evangelical Christian.” His brothers and sisters, he claimed, were tired of Christians being harassed and oppressed around the world. He also wanted to show the world that the US was still a great world power and not to be toyed with, much less provoked. He’d managed to convince a few key generals, cabinet members, and the President himself that turning off the power and ending the military threat of several countries at once would be in our “national interest.” The so-called Christian Congress truly believed they were elected to return the country to dominance and to make sure it became a Christian nation once again, so they assumed using a top-secret Space Force program to do so was the will of the people. When I mentioned that Jesus said, “those who live by the sword die by the sword,” Marie broke down and cried. Esther and I tried to remind her that she was only a pawn in a larger game. Somehow, Marie Devine didn’t care whose fault it was, only that she was the person who had thrown the switch.

That’s the point isn’t it? Someone must throw the switch, or light the fuse, or pull the trigger. Heinous acts don’t just happen. Suicide bombers must first be convinced to sacrifice themselves and innocent others to achieve…what, exactly? When Off-Switch went into resonance, millions were lost in a twinkling of an eye. And precious ideals were betrayed. For what, exactly? Cruella didn’t believe she was being cruel. She said she wanted to “serve God.” She simply tried to strike a blow for justice, for what she believed with all her heart. But that’s the trouble with belief. How can we be so sure what God wants us to do? Would God really want his people to harm others? Would God want us to crush “evil” so “good” might triumph, or would God want us to find a way to turn evil into good? Lincoln asked, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” The first option seems so easy. The second is obviously much harder.

To make a long story short, we didn’t face any militias on the way to Canada. Later, we learned that Off-Switch hadn’t affected the U.P. and most of the northern border of the US. The doomsday preppers who happened to be cleaning out their bunkers that day probably survived and are now thinking, “We told you so.”

We managed to pick up a few more survivors on the south side of Detroit. They were headed south, but we persuaded them to cross the bridge to Windsor with us.

15.

It was about this time that my symptoms began. First, a feeling like butterflies or a cat purring in both my legs. The feeling came and went with greater frequency. Later, my arms began to be affected as well. I still had good function, just this odd sensation, like my limbs were part of a vibrating hotel bed, but without the bed or the tremors. When I told Esther, she asked around to see if anyone else had these symptoms. One of Kid Professor’s students, a young woman named, Katie, said she started feeling the same things about the same time I did. Katie reminded me of a former student, also named Katie, who was similarly petite and sprite-like. I have to face it. Most of these “Kids” remind me of my old students or my own kids.

When we got to Windsor, a team of Canadian doctors examined and interviewed each of us. The good news, if you could call it that, was that others had arrived with the same condition as Katie and me, so we’re not alone. These were the people who both saw the big flash and were close enough to it to have longer term effects. I was much closer to the cave entrance than Sarah, and Katie remembered she was the closest in her group to the Luray Caverns entrance. So far, the best news is that Sarah and the others are doing fine.

The bad news is the effects will get worse, with increasing headaches, blurred vision, fatigue, and according to a previous patient, “a ringing in the ears that sounds like jingle bells scraping on a blackboard through a distortion pedal.” There were already about a dozen cases and the doctors were at a loss to do anything other than help them feel more comfortable. When I asked if this would be fatal, my doctor just hung her head and said, “I’m afraid so.” I didn’t really need to ask. The long and short of it is that I’m sitting here in Katie’s hospital room keeping her company while telling my story to a voice recorder, knowing that I will soon be following her into whatever place you go when you die. …I shouldn’t say this, but I overheard the doctors talking about how there was no way they could stop our internal organs from turning into Jell-O when the time came. I just whispered that last part, so Katie wouldn’t hear me.

“Hear what?”

That was Katie. Never mind, just rest, Katie. I’ll keep watch.

“I’m scared, Old Man. Will you rock me?”

You know, Katie, my little girl, Elizabeth, used to ask me to rock her whenever she wasn’t feeling well. OK. Come here. I hope nobody will think I’m being an old perv if I do.

“Ha, Ha…I don’t think so…I really don’t feel so good, and you’re the closest thing to a dad that I have. Maybe rocking will help.”

Maybe. Just close your eyes and try to rest.

16.

The nurse on duty overheard our conversation and quietly stepped out of the room. I gently rocked Katie for a few minutes as she fell into a peaceful sleep. Another minute and she stopped breathing and felt limp and heavy in my arms. After another half-hour I was able to pull myself together enough to press the call button.

I’m back in my room now. I know my time will come before long, so I’m going to say a few words.

I don’t know what’s going on in the former United States, and frankly I don’t care to know. I just don’t give a damn. All I know for sure is that life is composed of moments and each of them is priceless. What matters most is that we do our best to live them to the fullest, by being kind to each other, seeking the best for each other, and working together. If our religion helps us do these kinds of things, I’d say it’s a good religion. If our religion leads us to crush others to benefit ourselves, I’d say it’s a bad religion. All we have are moments. All we have is each other. And all the gold in the world will not buy back what we had before. In a twinkling of an eye, all we know can change. It’s up to us to make sure that change is for the better.

17.

Hi, this is Sarah. I just want everyone to know that Esther and I were with the Old Man when he died. Esther held his hand and I offered whatever support I could. He thanked us for being there just before he lost consciousness. We’re all thankful for him and for our new friends in Canada too. They’ve been great. People helping other people make the world great, not money, religion, tech, political power, or the number of weapons we have. The Old Man did his best. I guess it’s our turn now.

We’ve learned that our country lost at least 99.9% of its people, plus just about every large mammal and about half the birds. I talked to the Old Man’s doctor about the US. She told me my former country now resembles the early Cenozoic era in terms of surviving animal life, except for the Canadians claiming territory in the northern states, and the immigrants from Central and South America who are rapidly taking over the southwest. I’ve heard the EU and Britain are having talks about occupying the east coast, while China is already airlifting thousands to occupy the west coast. Apparently, Russia has big plans for Florida and the gulf coast.

We had hoped for a different world, but this is the one we’ve inherited. I don’t know, but maybe everyone will act differently from now on. I do know I learned a lot of things the hard way. Some with the help of the Old Man. By the way, the Old Man’s name was John. He never told us his last name. Good bye, my friend.