The World After: An EMP Thriller Read online

  The World After

  Book One

  Ryan Casey

  Higher Bank Books

  Contents

  Bonus Content

  The World After

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

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  The World After

  Book One

  Prologue

  NASA HQ

  Washington, DC.

  Sadia Bailey always expected the world would come to an end someday. But, like everyone else, she never really thought she’d see it in her lifetime.

  The weather indicator on the bottom right of her computer monitor said it was ninety-three degrees outside the NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. A day this scorching in Washington was a rarity, something that only came along every now and then during the summer. Sure, they had good summers, but compared to the likes of Florida and further south, they were just outside the ideal sunshine territory.

  But it didn’t matter to Sadia or anyone else inside NASA’s headquarters. There were no windows deep in the offices, in the underbelly of this place—just lots and lots of windows into the worlds of space in the form of computer screens. There were no sounds of birds chirping, or people having fun and enjoying themselves in the summer sun. Just the tapping of keyboards, the muffled mumbles of conversation.

  And right now, all of those computers screens were focused on one thing in particular.

  S4573.

  “Now, there should be a level of concern,” Mr Boston, her project manager, said, standing at the front of the offices with his hands to his sides. He was wearing his white shirt, stains under his pits, sweat covering his forehead. He sure looked like he could do with getting outside and getting some fresh air right now. “As with all solar events, we have to exercise some caution.”

  Sadia could understand Boston’s concern. After all, solar storms could be devastating things. Whether the general public realised it or not, it wasn’t dictators that held the biggest threat to the planet. It wasn’t any other kind of outside solar event, like an asteroid or meteor. It wasn’t terrorism or nuclear bravado.

  It was the sun itself.

  “Back in 2012,” Boston said, “a massive solar flare was kicked out of the sun, followed shortly by a coronal mass ejection—or CME.”

  The screens all changed to digital imagery of the solar event, which was enough to give Sadia the shivers.

  “That CME gave off enough energy to cause total devastation across America and the rest of the world.”

  The screen changed again, this time to a map of the USA. On that map, there was a whole load of dots showing the particular systems that would be affected by the flares. Suffice to say, that map was absolutely packed. America would be devastated. The rest of the world would follow.

  “If that solar storm had hit us, the devastation would’ve been unprecedented. We’re talking about fifty times the costs of Hurricane Katrina. But money would be the least of the world’s problems. The time it would take to fix the world’s power grid would be unlike any other mission humanity has ever faced. The majority of society would be without power for months… in the best case scenario. Years in a realistic scenario. And in a worst case scenario… well.”

  He didn’t continue. Sadia knew what Mr Boston was talking about. Everyone did.

  The worst case scenario?

  A global blackout. Forever.

  “Now, CMEs have hit in the past. The largest was the Carrington Event in 1859. A solar flare and CME double-team destroyed all the hard telegraph work the world had established at that time. But that was 1859. This is the 2010s. Think of the infrastructural changes since then. And think about the devastation that could be caused to society.”

  Sadia Bailey thought about it, long and hard. She looked at the theatrical-looking image on her screen, now. A large, blackened sun, with huge waves of solar energy coming off it.

  “The 2012 solar flare missed Earth by a whisker,” Mr Boston said, walking to the front of the room now. “But who’s to say the next one won’t hit? Who’s to say the next one won’t be the one to send us right back to the dark ages?”

  Mr Boston caught Sadia’s eye. Just for a second, she saw the sincerity in his expression, like he was really, really worried about what he was talking about.

  And then the lights flicked on, and he smiled. “But like I say. It’s unlikely it’ll hit. We have provisions in place to prevent it happening, even if by a chance of nature it does get close. For now, we just keep calm and carry on, okay? Sure. You have a good day, folks. Stay vigilant, but stay relaxed. I need a breath of fresh air.”

  Sadia let go of her breath and returned to her computer screen.

  “Man,” Mike said, leaning over to Sadia. “Talk about the conspiracy brigade showing up here.”

  “Hey,” Sadia said, logging into her emails. “You know as well as I do just how dangerous a solar flare could be.”

  Mike held out his palms. “Well, yeah. But it’s not like it’s ever gonna happen, is it? I mean, we’ve got systems to detect this shit. That’s what he always glosses over in his little melodramatic speeches. We’ve got stuff like STEREO A and B to research these things. And we’ve got ways to prepare people, even if this kinda thing did go down.”

  He crunched down on an apple and leaned his feet against his desk.

  All Sadia could do was nod.

  She looked at the screen, at the image of that July 2012 solar flare, and remembered what Boston had said about the Carrington Event in 1859.

  The sheer devastation that had caused. And that was in a time before Edison created the lightbulb. Those were the days where the media could use paper to control people, and where everyone didn’t rely on digital money and digital identities and digital everything.

  “Just relax,” Mike said, closing the solar flare imagery and opening up a video game in the far right edge of his screen. “This flare’s gonna miss. All our systems have it narrowly missing.”

  “And that gives us a right not to warn people?”

  “Warning people just scares people. We’d be causing unnecessary hysteria.”

  Sadia nodded. She was still unconvinced. Something was still getting to her.<
br />
  “And if it does hit?”

  Mike turned to her then. He leaned in close.

  “Then the end times have arrived!” he said, in a sarcastic, forced voice.

  He started laughing, and Sadia couldn’t help grinning, too. Mike was right. She was just being paranoid. They had the best systems in the world right here, for this sort of thing. There was no way that solar flare was going to affect Earth. Maybe one day, just not anytime soon.

  She kept on telling herself that when she left work later that night, and as she walked down the corridor, the lights flickered.

  Chapter One

  Manchester, U.K.

  I took a deep breath and waited for the interview that I knew would make or break my life.

  Let’s be honest. Judging by my recent luck, it was probably going to be a life breaker rather than a life-maker.

  I sat in a hallway that I’d walked through so many times. I’d always walked past these brown chairs and observed just how uncomfortable they looked. Kind of like those chairs you’re made to sit on when you’re in the lower years of school. The sort that creak when you sit on them, the plastic seeming ready to snap at any moment.

  It was a rare stifling hot day in Manchester. Outside, I could hear the collective impatience of people stuck in their cars, honking their horns at one another so they could get home and to the beer fridges quicker. Inside here, though—my workplace at Holmes & Wisdom Media, a private company that had recently just been taken over as part of a merger—it was stifling.

  The smell of sweat was strong in the air. Some of it mine, I had to concede. But not all of it, at least I hoped. Some of it had to belong to the three other people sitting by my side, they too waiting to be interviewed.

  The silence in this corridor stretched on. Nobody had said a word to one another. I couldn’t blame them, to be honest. What were they supposed to say? “Hey, Scott. I’m Danny. I’m the guy who’s trying to get the job you’ve had for the last eight years. Nice to meet you. I’ll stab you in the back when you turn around, okay?”

  No. Nobody said anything. Of course they didn’t. There were just the occasional moments of awkward eye contact followed by the inevitable fake smile and nods. The tapping of feet. The scratching of backs of necks. The glances at watches.

  I didn’t know why I was so afraid, to be honest. My old boss, Gavin, had given me an absolutely resounding reference. I worked in SEO and content management, and as far as SEO and content management went, I was pretty damn good at it. Not very good at anything that didn’t involve SEO and content management, whether that be keeping in touch with his friends, socialising with women, or pretty much any work that could credibly be reclassified as exercise.

  But everybody had their strengths, and everybody had their weaknesses.

  I just happened to be so weak in every other area.

  Including interviews…

  “Scott Harvard?”

  I lifted my head and jolted to my feet right away. “Yes? Yes?”

  The woman at the door—I recognised her as Sally, one of the new people from West Brook Media, the new owners—smiled sympathetically at me, tortoiseshell glasses dangling around her neck on a little beaded chain. “We’re ready for you,” she said.

  I rubbed the back of my head. My face felt like it was on fire. My heart raced at a million miles an hour. I had this. I just had to be myself. I knew my stuff. I had nothing at all to worry about.

  I glanced back at the three people waiting in line. All looked more chilled than me. All looking better dressed, younger (even if I was only thirty-one), and more qualified (as true or false as that may be) than me.

  I smiled at them.

  All three of them shot fake smiles back at me.

  Then, I followed Sally into the room that I knew would define the rest of my life.

  Well. Maybe not so dramatic. But it was a pretty big deal that I got this job here. After all, I didn’t fancy my chances of getting a job elsewhere. Not with the way my nerves were these days.

  When I walked into the room, I noticed the immediate drop in light, and I realised it was because the blinds had been closed. The interview room resembled an interrogation room more than it did the casual, airy meeting area that I’d sat at so many times before.

  At the opposite side of the desk, I saw two people. One was Gregg Warburts, the new owner. The other was…

  My stomach dropped.

  “Where’s…” I started, then stopped right away because I realised even questioning where Gavin was revealed an element of weakness.

  But I was already too late.

  “Gavin is sick,” the woman said. “Came down with a sudden bout of stomach cramps. So I’m sitting in for him today. Is that okay with you?”

  I saw the fake smile on Julia Wilkinson’s face and I knew I was screwed, right then.

  “Sure,” I said, pulling back a chair—which scraped across the floor. “Let’s get this done with.”

  “In a hurry to be somewhere else, Scott?”

  “No, I just… Just a figure of speech.”

  Julia waved a hand at me. “It’s okay. I’m just teasing you.” She looked down at the folder in front of her. “Anyway. I suppose we should begin.”

  She started with a few stock questions just to ease me in. The usual, like my prior experience (none), my passion for the job (above average, I thought). All of it was pretty straightforward. But the problem was, Julia Wilkinson hated me because I’d stood against her when she’d been trying to climb the ladder at Holmes & Wisdom. She took my move, although nothing more than a career step, as an attack of loyalty, and had been trying to turn the knife ever since even though she’d ended up on top. If it wasn’t for Gavin, I wasn’t sure I’d even still be here at all.

  “Anyway, we’d like just to provide you with a hypothetical coding issue. If you could take a look at the code on the left and the website on the right, and establish where in the code the problem is, then that would be fantastic.”

  I froze. “But I…”

  Julia narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to say something, Scott?”

  My heart thumped and my collar suddenly felt very tight around my neck. I loosened it, shook my head and smiled, then pulled the laptop close so I could get a better look. “Of course not,” I said. “I’ll… I’ll take a look.”

  She smiled at me again. Of course she did. She knew damn well I didn’t know how to code. I’d be frigging surprised if anyone here at Holmes & Wisdom knew how to code. Coding wasn’t what we did. We purchased themes and customised them visually. We didn’t mess around with HTML or CSS unless it was very basic stuff.

  But still, I could see Gregg Warburts watching me, silently, his big bald head and his massive hands intimidating in their sheer size.

  If I wanted to win him over, here was my chance.

  I squinted at the website on the right. I couldn’t see any immediate problems, so I looked back to the left. Then I looked right again, and left again, and then right again.

  I glanced up over the screen, sweat building on my forehead.

  “Everything okay?” Julia asked.

  “Yeah,” I lied, loosening my collar once again, “just… just double-checking I’ve, um…”

  I realised after a solid minute—which felt like an hour—that I was stuffed. There was no way I was winning this battle. So I had to take plan B. Honesty followed by passion.

  “Look,” I said, sliding the laptop back towards Julia. “I have to be honest. I didn’t see the problem. But that’s because CSS and HTML and all that coding stuff haven’t really been at the forefront of Holmes & Wisdom operations over the last eight years. However, there were a lot of things I didn’t know when I started working here, and which I’ve learned and am now exceptionally adept at. I’m sure, if West Brook Media want to take our business in a more coding hands-on direction, then I would be able to adapt to that shift in no time.”

  I saw the blank stares from the three of them. I saw the
surprise on Gregg’s face.

  But mostly, I saw the slight look of victory on Julia’s face. Like she’d won this battle.

  “Okay,” she said, closing her notepad. Gregg and Sally soon followed, then they stood. “Well, we’d like to thank you for your time, Scott.”

  “Wait,” I said. “The coding problem. Just out of curiosity. What was it?”

  Julia glanced at Gregg, who raised his eyebrows. Sally cleared her throat and looked away.

  Then Julia looked right at me. “The coding problem wasn’t a coding problem at all. If you’d looked closely, you’d have seen that the copy was riddled with spelling errors and that the company logo was upside-down.”

  My stomach turned, and I felt like a hole was opening up beneath me. “Wait. I… I saw that.”

  “You had an opportunity to say you’d seen it. You didn’t.”

  “I—You said coding.”

  “A logo upside down? That is technically coding.”

  “But—but I—”

  “Goodbye, Mr Harvard,” Gregg said.

  It was the first time he’d spoken throughout the entire interview. But in his booming voice and his strained expression, I could see that he was severely disappointed by Gavin’s golden boy—his first choice for the job as SEO and Content Manager.

  I wanted to fight my corner. I wanted to show some willingness.

  But in the end, all I could do was shake his hand and leave.

  When I walked down the corridor, past the waiting trio, I saw their smiles.

  And this time, as they watched me slump away, I knew those smiles weren’t fake.

  Chapter Two

  I walked into the cemetery and every instinct in my body told me just to turn around because all that waited for me here was misery.

  Five days had passed since my interview, and I still hadn’t heard any news, good or bad. I had been granted extended leave from work, which, as far as I saw it, pretty much confirmed that I wasn’t going to be going back there anytime soon. Obviously, I was annoyed. I’d worked at that place since I was twenty-three, my first “proper” job that didn’t involve washing pots or cleaning filthy toilets. I’d felt such pride when I’d gone to that place to work. Really, it filled me with confidence and kick-started my life.