Nightfall
He didn’t know what to do with himself. For the first time in a very long time, it was quiet. Normally, he would busy himself with one task or another, even though the end of his workday had long since come and gone. Learning, playing, or simply watching something, he would sit in front of his screen for many hours. He would continue until he was tired and then go to bed, laying down beside his wife who had long since passed into slumber. In the morning, he would get up, sit down at his desk, and do it all over again.
Today was different. Today was the day that the world as he knew it had ended. There was no more internet. There was no more work to be done on his computer. There was no more electricity surging from the plug to power his host of electronic devices. The refrigerator was silent while its temperature slowly rose. How long would it take for the food in there to start spoiling? There was no more air conditioning or laundry machines to make his life easier, but those are not the things he would miss. What he would miss the most was right here at his desk. His devices that held his attention for all his waking hours was dead, or they may as well be with no power to make them function.
For days now, the media had been covering the conflict brewing between the US and Russia. It was everywhere, and it was all anyone seemed to want to talk about. He would catch bits and pieces from content creators on social media and political pundits he followed. Like most, he got a very one-sided picture of things. The algorithms had long since learned his browsing habits and only showed him those articles and shows that were in line with what it thought he wanted. For the most part, it had him pegged accurately.
Russia had threatened to cut the under-sea internet cables along the Atlantic, and the US was threatening to place nuclear weapons in Poland (at Poland’s request). Once Poland had accepted membership in NATO, tensions skyrocketed in the region. Once Russia began to build up their forces on their western border, NATO responded by mobilizing a large presence on Poland’s eastern border. It appeared both sides were gearing up for war.
He remembered sitting at his desk watching the news unfold. He wasn’t concerned. There was no way that the top officials would let it spiral to that point. Just like in the past, everyone would rattle their sabers, make a good show of it, and then they would all sit down and hammer out an agreement. By this time next week, everyone would have a good laugh at all this. At least, that is what he thought would happen. No one would have guessed what happened next.
As he sat there this morning, he watched the breaking news from the comfort of his home. The conflict had started. However, it didn’t start with one side shooting down a plane or firing at a tank. It didn’t happen because some aircraft strayed into the opposing side’s airspace. No hostages were taken. No territory was invaded, and no insults were issued to the enemy. The world was brought down by a cyber-attack.
He watched the news as experts explained that the power grid was under attack by a computer virus unlike any that had ever been seen. It had been implanted into the regional electrical hubs that service the 3 sectors of the continental US. The cyber unit at the FBI was trying to fight the virus and keep it from doing any real damage, but they were losing that fight. Somewhere along the line, the perpetrators of this attack neglected to consider that these hubs were still connected to the internet. This virus had been programmed with a simple directive. Replicate and spread as far as it can. This mistake, coupled with the simple programming directive, would backfire on the creator. The virus did not stay contained to the US electrical grid.
Other countries started to notice the virus popping up in their electric grids. The underdeveloped countries didn’t have the same counter-cyber capabilities as the US, so the virus spread faster there. To everyone’s horror, it became clear what the ultimate outcome of the virus would be, total system shutdown.
What’s worse, the virus started being found in computer systems unrelated to the power grid. Every computer system on the planet was infected within 12 hours. One by one, systems began blinking offline. First, the less secure systems in the under-developed regions. All of Africa was offline by hour 20. Slowly, the world grew smaller and smaller.
Military systems had been the last to go. Everyone watched as the US and its NATO allies readied themselves to strike Russia, who by now had been identified as the culprit in the cyber-attack. As the world watch the tanks, helicopters, fighter-bombers and infantry begin crossing into the Russian Federation, all the feeds just went black. For about an hour, the American people stared at their screens, willing it to come back on so they could see what was happening. Then the power went out … everywhere … all at once. It didn’t cascade like they show in the movies. It was like someone flipped a switch, and the power just turned off.
He didn’t know what to do. His entire life was entangled in the technology that he used every day. How would he fill up his days? How would he provide for his family? Without the wealth of knowledge on the internet, how would he find the information he needed to know about what to do next? He walked outside and sat on the lawn chair in front of the fire pit in his back yard. His wife had already started a fire and was pulling out meat from the now-dead fridge. They would have to cook this food before it went bad. There was a gas grill and a wood burning smoker.
He sat and listened. It was quiet as a tomb. There was no buzz from the lights of the neighborhood. He could hear neighbor talking and smell their grills going with food on them. Everyone seemed to have the same idea. It had only been 6 hours since the power went out, and already everyone was settling into a new routine. Not him though. He didn’t want to live in this new world where there were none of the devices that he so loved. He didn’t want to never play computer games again. He even missed the work he did from home. He loved the numbers and spreadsheets. He looked forward to those reports that told him he was doing a good job. Meeting KPI’s and production numbers were very satisfying to him. No, he decided, he didn’t want to live in this new world at all.
The half a bottle of sleeping pills he had dissolved in his beer were starting to take their effect. It wouldn’t be long now. He watched his wife scurry about between the house kitchen and the outdoor kitchen pulling things from the fridge and putting them on the grill or smoker. He wondered to himself how she would take it when he was gone. He felt guilty for a second. Was he being selfish?
He didn’t have time to ponder that thought as the pills took him into unconsciousness. Right before he drifted off, he saw a brilliant light. “This is it,” he thought to himself. As the last of his consciousness left him, he heard his wife yelling something. He thought she almost sounded happy. What was it she was saying? Just before his final moment, he realized what she had said.
“Yay, honey, the power is back on!”