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  She went over and turned on the Keurig, it didn’t turn on, “figures” she thought, “if it’s not one thing it’s another”. She went to get a nice cold bottle of water out of the fridge, everything was still cold but the light didn’t come on, “odd” she thought. Mel hadn’t quite caught on yet, she went back up stair’s and changed into her running clothes and headed out for her morning run, it was still pretty early on a beautiful Saturday morning.

  Once changed she headed down stairs and out the door “damn!” she forgot her iPhone and carrier so she could listen to music while she ran. She turned around and headed back in, into the kitchen were the cell phones were kept at night to charge. She grabbed hers, the exercise carrier, headphones and turned and headed back out. She slid her phone into the carrier, plugged in the head phones all this time not noticing it wasn’t even on. She finally looked at it, noticing it was off she tried pressing the power button several times and nothing happened “when it rains it pours” she thought. She finally stopped and took in her surroundings, she looked around, and she noticed there were two cars stopped in the middle of the street with no one in them.

  There were several of the neighbors standing outside either at their homes or near their homes talking to other neighbors, she waved. She walked over to talk to Susan, they had lived next to each other for other ten years, Susan asked, “Is your power and water out too?”

  “Yeah it is I wish they would let us know when the outages were going to happen.” said Mel.

  “It’s the entire neighborhood, Howell Livingston, that’s his car the red one on the street; he was on his way home this morning after a late shift at the hospital. He said his car just quit and rolled to a stop right there and won’t start.” said Susan.

  “Why doesn’t he push it out of the street or to the curb?” asked Mel.

  “Don’t know, I think he’s waiting for his sons to get up and there gonna help.”

  Susan asked, “Are you going for a run?”

  “Yeah I was but my cell phone is dead, I wanted to listen to some tunes when I was running.”

  “There all dead.”

  “What is?”

  “All the cell phones, well at least everyone or most everyone’s in the neighborhood.” Susan said.

  “Susan,” Mel said. “Does your car start?”

  “Nope dead as a door nail too. Have you tried yours?”

  Mel thought for a moment, “Let me go try, wanna come?”

  “Sure it’s not like I’m going any place.”

  They walked over to Mel’s house and grabbed the car keys, then back out to her Lexus parked in the driveway. They both got in, Mel stuck the key in the ignition turned it and nothing happened. The light in her mind clicked on, “uh oh” she said.

  “Uh oh what?” asked Susan.

  “Susan think about it, we have no power, no running water and the cars in the neighborhood aren’t running, put it all together.”

  “What? Susan said. “It’s going to be a shitty day?”

  “No an EMP pulse.” replied Mel.

  “A what?” asked Susan.

  Mel spent the next fifteen minutes trying to explain to Susan what an EMP pulse was. Mel had talked to her about it several times over the years but no one ever wanted to hear doom and gloom so they tuned it out. Susan responded, “I’m sure everything will be back to normal by noon, no worries.” With that Susan headed back home to wake her husband and see what he had to say about the situation.

  Mel thought for a moment about the situation, John was a Camp Parks and she knew the 19th wasn’t headed to the field till later this morning so it was possible they were still in garrison. She could drive out there in the Jeep if it started, it was now kept it in a single car garage that was in the back of the house with access via the alley. She headed back into the house, tossed her Lexus keys on the table and grabbed the Jeep keys that were hanging in a box in the kitchen. She then headed out of the back of the house, unlocked the garage door, entered and there was John’s pride and joy his 1967 CJ5 Jeep he had since College that he fully restored.

  She climbed in, prayed for a moment, stuck the keys in the ignition and turned it, the engine cranked right over and started with no problem, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The next step was to get the kids up and moving, she didn’t want to scare them, she had to think how to approach the situation. Her idea was to tell them her car had broken down and their father called and said he wasn’t feeling well and asked for her to come and get them. They were still too young to leave at home by themselves so they had to go, that’s her story and she was sticking to it.

  She then thought about how she would get there, she needed to stay off the freeway, she had no idea what that would look like and thought it was early on Saturday, as opposed to rush hour on a Friday where there would be a lot of traffic, there may not be many cars stalled on the road. The plan had always been to take back roads to Camp Parks, they had traveled them many times over the years and she knew the back roads very well.

  She went upstairs and got changed into her camping clothes, she then went ahead and packed a few bags with some for her and the kids then took it down to the Jeep. She then got the kids up and told them to hurry up and get dressed; they complained the entire time also wondering why they had to get up so early on a Saturday. They were also hungry and wanted mom to cook them breakfast, she stopped for a moment, they had a gas stove, she wondered if it still worked. She went to the stove and turned it on; sure enough the gas was flowing. She cooked the kid’s breakfast; she wanted to cook what she could before some things went bad.

  While they were eating she went through the house and placed all their valuables in the safe, she grabbed her pistol and stuck it under the seat of her Jeep. She went through and locked up everything, they did have shutters on the house which could actually be closed and locked. The shutters were made out of a Kevlar material, once they were closed and locked it would make it damn near impossible to get into the house that way. She went through the emergency checklist in her head, she followed it methodically, and she knew what she had to do.

  Once the kids were done eating they tried to wash the plates and pans but found there was no running water. She gave them a bucket and told them to go get some water from the pool, they did without question, they did think their mom might be a little touched though. They filled the sink with water and had one more bucket to rinse them with; they then dried them and put them away. Mel felt it may be the end of the world as we know it but my kids were still going to be raised right.

  She explained to them her car wasn’t working and they were going to take the Jeep, they went out back and into the rear garage, Kai opened the garage door which was heavy; it was a heavy metal, also Kevlar reinforced. Mel backed the Jeep out, Kai then locked up the garage with a bullet resistant lock, and it also couldn’t be cut with bolt cutters. The door they had entered the garage was also Kevlar reinforced and locked with a bar across it from the inside. They were careful here because it was also one of two entrances to the shelter inside the garage.

  Kai got in, buckled up and Mel took off down the alley they were on their way to Camp Parks.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Signal Company was hard at it trying to get some old fashioned communications set up. They had a twenty-five year old field switchboard set up and the cable dogs had been and were still running cable all over post. They did have some laptop and desktop computers that they had in the cages, they also had a well-stocked underground shelter that was huge, it held everything you could think of, it was almost thirty feet deep, steel reinforced, wire type caging surrounding the entire thing encased in cement, it was a nuclear blast shelter built years ago to survive pretty much everything except for a direct hit on it.

  The 19th thanks to the Special Operations Command had stocked it well, it even had vehicles, Rails, Dirt bikes, fuel, food, medicines, all sorts of batteries, you name it they had it and in large amounts. Not large enough to su
pport a large population for years, but certainly a small one. But even before he got into that he needed to see how far they could get with what they could scrounge and they had in the faraday cages and boxes.

  Sergeant Major Aleho had been receiving reports back from the two A-Teams outside the wire. They were reporting back that cars were stalled every place and there were a lot of people leaving their vehicles and walking. Some people in town were riding bikes; there were a couple of older cars that were being driven just fine. Gas station pumps were down and so were bank ATM’s, people were waiting in line to get into the banks which at this time were refusing to open because they had no access to records, everything was online, people were not happy.

  Many stores were closed, the few that were open were doing a cash only business and cleaning up, they were definitely gouging their customers. Sooner or later that was going to come back to them many of the team members thought. They reported they were being stopped by a lot by people who were asking what was going on there only response was that they didn’t know and they were ordered to check out things which were what they were doing. They wanted to make sure they kept it as non-confrontational as possible.

  They did run into several Police Officers who attempted to throw their weight around, the simple truth was that they were seriously outgunned and out trained by the A-Team. The Police standoffs didn’t last long when they realized the Soldiers weren’t going to back down. The Sergeant Major ordered them back.

  The two squads from A Company 184th Infantry made it to the ValleyCare Medical Center and found the staff rather frantic they lost all power and the backup generators dead. SSG Eric Padia and his squad walked into the main lobby of the Valleycare Medical Center in full combat gear, they were ready for a fight. What they got was a lot of stares and smiles. The staff was happy to see them; they were taken to the Medical Centers CEO, Thomas Lowery, a tall thin man in his late fifties, SSG Padia leant Mr. Lowery his radio to talk to Colonel Clayton.

  Mr. Lowery told Colonel Clayton he had already had several patients coded this morning and die because they had no electricity.

  “Mr. Lowery,” Colonel Clayton said.

  “Please call me Tom.” Tom quickly interjected.

  “Alright Tom, I’m sorry to hear about your patients. I can send some of my mechanics over to look at your generators if you like?”

  Tom thought for a moment, “I don’t’ think that will be necessary Colonel I appreciate it. We have our own personnel looking into it.”

  With Tom and the Soldiers was the Medical Center’s Senior Administrator Michelle Li, at the time Tom was talking about the generators she was shaking her head no towards Tom, “One moment Colonel, please. What’s going on Michelle?”

  “Tom,” Michelle said. “Plant Services said they can’t fix them, they’ll need to call the contractor to come out and fix them.”

  “We don’t have any phones? And cars aren’t running. What’s there next plan?” Tom asked Michelle.

  “They said that’s all they can do.”

  Tom waiting for a moment, “Colonel our plant services said they can’t fix them, we’re going to have to give our contractors a call who works on them.”

  Obviously Tom hadn’t grasped the severity of the situation, “Tom are you aware of what an EMP event is?”

  “Isn’t that when a nuc or solar flare knocks everything out?...oh….” It struck Tom that they were now in very deep shit. “Are you suggesting Colonel the reason we have no power, no phones or anything else is because of this EMP event?”

  “I’m not suggesting it Tom, I’m stating it matter of fact.” stated Colonel Clayton.

  “What exactly does that mean Colonel?” Tom with concern in his voice.

  Colonel Clayton sighed, “It means Tom that even with power your computers or any device that uses computer type technology is not going to work.”

  “My God Colonel that’s just about everything we have. People are going to die, a lot of them without those resources.”

  “Yes Tom that’s what it means, we might be able to get your lights back on for a bit, but generators run on fuel and fuel is finite.”

  “Well Colonel you can’t let that happen you’re the government.” said Tom.

  “I’m sorry Tom there is only so much we can do we have finite resources too. And your hospital is just one out of many that is going to need help. First you need to understand you have to figure out a way to get by without computers, you’re back at square one.”

  “We’ll get sued left and right, hundreds of lawsuits.” said Tom.

  “No Tom there won’t be for now and the foreseeable future maybe no courts, everything they have is computerized too, they also need cars to get back and forth for all of their employees and a whole host of other issues.” Colonel Clayton told him.

  “Then why are your men here Colonel?”

  “You still don’t get it do you Tom?”

  “Get what Colonel I’m lost.”

  “Tom in the next few days’ people are going to start to realize their government isn’t going to come to their rescue. Within a week or two they will start to run out of food and water and people are going to start looking for medical help and they won’t have a way to pay for it. I suspect quite a few will try to take what they want from you via force, guns, knives whatever type of weapons they have. We (the US Army) can’t let that happen the hospital be as it may is a community resource for as long as we can have it. We can help ourselves on the medical side we have the 352nd Combat Support Hospital and the Troop Clinic but these are here to help Military Personnel and their Families first. Our intention is to do reach out to the communities around here; we’ll do what we can. Soon, some of your own people will stop coming into work feeling they need to take care of their own families first. I suggest you do your best to get ahead of that if you can, how you’re going to do that I don’t know.”

  “Seriously Colonel you think it’s going to get that bad?”

  “Yes I do and worse, I want to help, we can provide force protection for your medical facilities as we push out to the other communities we are going to have to confiscate a lot of items from stores so we can use it for the good of the community and not individuals, people are going to start hording soon if not already.”

  “Honestly Colonel we are already starting to see some scary types come are way and are demanding help, we had a half dozen here when your Soldiers arrived which scared them away. Do you think you’re mechanics can get our generators back on line?”

  “I won’t promise you that, I will promise you that if they can’t we will find another way to get you some electrical lighting, but that will pose other problems so keep that in mind too.”

  “Like what?” asked Tom.

  “Simple, when people see you have lights, lights generally mean safety, people will start to head your way, then some are going to try to take it.”

  Tom was rubbing his temples he could feel a massive headache coming on. “Alright Colonel let’s see what we can all do together.”

  “Great Tom I will have some mechanics there shortly, by-the-way they will be driving, we still have some vehicles running. If you can send your people out to check their own if they haven’t already, if there older vehicles maybe you’ll be in luck, you could use one or two as an ambulance. I’ll also get you hooked up with the Commander of the 352nd Combat Support Hospital here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mel and the kid’s arrived at the front gate, the guards called in her arrival, there instructions were to let no civilians in without calling it in first to the OD (Officer of the Day) or the NCO in charge of the guard detail, they were allowed to pass.

  They noticed that everyone was very busy and everyone was armed, it was hard to tell if the weapons were loaded. It took her about ten minutes to get to the 19th HQ, once there John was out front waiting for them. He wore a big smile when he saw them pull up, Mel earned herself a big kiss and the kids got big hugs, they w
ere all very happy to see each other.

  Mel asked, “It is what I think it is?”

  “Well sweetheart if you’re thinking EMP, then I think so.” replied John.

  “Where do you need me?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you take your beautiful self-up to Dog and he will get you and the kids squared away. Then I’m sure if you’re still looking for something to do he’ll find it for you.”

  With that Mel gave him a big hug and a kiss, “I love you sweet cheeks!” she said to him. The kids laughed and the Soldiers who overheard the exchange thought it was the funniest thing in the world and soon to spread the word around camp.

  It was almost 0900 and he had another Command Briefing to find out where they stood so off to the HQ conference room he went. As he entered the conference room the Sergeant Major called out, “Atten hut!” the Colonel replied, “As you were, please take your seats.”

  “Sir where would you like to start?” asked the Sergeant Major.

  “Personnel first, where do we stand?” asked the Colonel.

  First up was the 19th and the reinforced Battalion he was in charge of his XO (Executive Officer) was located in Los Alamitos, standing in for him was the Sergeant Major.

  “Sir all 19th personnel will be staying, most of them are single, the ones with families which is about a quarter would like their families brought in, they all lived within the fifty miles.”

  “Thank you Sergeant Major, how about the 352nd Colonel Spears?” said Colonel Clayton.

  Colonel Spears stood, “Sir most of the unit will be staying, there are three - two PFC’s and a Sergeant who have family about a hundred miles or so and want to find out how they are. They had a single working vehicle that is topped off with fuel. They’re going to be using that, they plan on getting their families and returning as soon as possible. Half the unit has families locally or within the fifty miles and would like them brought in.”