Every employee had gotten the same message. Since the outage, no one has been able to make calls, only send short messages using low frequency communications. Even those take up to a minute to send.
The next message I receive is half expected, from Nathan. Another one of his middle-of-the-night texts that I usually never respond to.
"Aria was right," Mike explains. "They had an always-on power generator connected to their grid. I wasn't able to connect to anything meaningful, but I was able to access their door control system. Seems like it was one of the only things not connected to their generator. And it was slow too. Gave me like five minutes to do what I want.eeee
"Their firewalls are super strict though. I currently have access to door controls and logs, but if anyone checks their network activity its gonna be clear as day that something is wrong. Unfortunately, I can't get anywhere past the door control system because it seems to be running on its own network."
The plan to exfiltrate data from a government was already far-fetched, risking my job was a bet I did not have to take.
"Listen, nothing is going to come out of this," Mike explains, "for us at least. We're completely safe." Back at the safety that is the parking garage, Mike walks in circles around the back of the desk, trying to make the best of the situation. "Plus, what's the worse that could happen?"
"Well..." Aria begins, "if you ask me... the worst that could happen is the find out that we did it, come and raid us, and throw us in prison for the rest of our lives. Worse than being executed if you ask me. Or... they—"
"Wait," I say, interrupting Aria. "What about Stacy?"
"Who the hell is she?" Mike asks.
"She was at the desk when I came in." A wave of fear crosses Mikes face, quickly followed by concern. "She knows I was there. She didn't see me leave either since we left through the back."
Mike goes through the implications of what I just said. It hits everyone just as hard as it hit him. We fucked up. Attacking the country's infrastructure with the biggest incident since 201. They will find out who did this. It's only a matter of time.
"Why was she there?" He's mad.
"I don't know why she was there. We should have called this off when I saw her there."
"Was there anyone else there? Did anyone else see you?"
"No." I know it's not a definitive answer but it's the answer Mike is looking for. There easily could have been someone else there, but I didn't see them.
I should be the last person they expect to do this. I have credentials, but it all seems just too coincidental. Along with Stacy knowing I was there, our own door log knows I was there. I never badged out at any of the doors. As far as the system is concerned, I'm still in there. It's easy to make up something, but as soon as my lie is told, it becomes truth.
Kristen is still left in the dark. I feel bad but the less she knows about everything the better. She can't know. It's already bad enough I've been out of the house for two days unannounced the night of the party then tonight. But at least this time I have an excuse.
"I have to go back," I announce. "I need to know what's going on. Alone."
"We can't take that r—"
"I've already decided. If I'm there it'll make me look less suspicious. I'll be here later, but right now leave this to me."
Without any resistance I'm able to leave, but just after the door shuts behind me, a phone rings inside of the office. How? No one get's call service out here, yet someone's getting a call. Mike's voice answers it. I slouch down behind the door, hidden from the window.
"Make it quick... yeah he's gone," Mike says. It's impossible to tell who's he's talking to, but he only answers in short statements like "uh huh", "yeah," and "okay." After apologizing a couple of times he hangs up, making a loud clang on the desk inside.
I want to stay and listen more but decide to quietly leave. The outskirts have almost completely covered my car in dust and I need to brush off all the windows before I go. A grinding sound between the dust and my brakes is present for the first few minutes of driving. I don't have the experience that Mike does of driving out here, especially in the dark. I drive over a few rocks and almost took a tire off in a large pothole.
I breathe a sigh of relief when my tires meet the pavement outside Stonedel. After a few more minutes of driving, the large smokestacks of the power plant come into sight, illuminated by lights powered by the emergency generator. What starts as a blob of light turns into a circle of people with flashlights and headlamps. After parking my car next to the others, I join them.
With them is Nathan, Grover, Jordan, and a couple of technicians. Who isn't among them is the one that has been on my mind for the last hour, Stacy. Grover greets me by handing me a clipboard and explaining the situation. The fire department had come back with a hand written report of what's inside. The reactors had shut down gracefully and there is no sign of radiation. Nathan had sent in a small group to recover a couple of hard drives.
A construction light is setup connected to a generator with a fold out table under it. No datapad are to be seen. Datapads, tablets, and batteries are plugged in on the table along side a coffee pot.
"When they come back we'll all go in," Nathan says. He eyes me. Does he know? Does anyone here know? I have to assume they don't. I want to mention Stacy but hold back. "The building is running off the generator, it should be relatively safe inside if the fire department is right."
"Sounds good," I reply. Everyone here probably thinks that this is some usual failure, though the power being off this long is out of the ordinary. The effects of shutting down the output of the country's largest power plant, that provides 85% of the country's power, permanently will send effect much more than just our country. It'll take at least a week before any amount of power comes back. Dirt will need to be dug, cables completely removed and reinstalled, and numerous tests and certifications issued.
No one will be prepared for this. Technology has evolved to a point where every person, service, and household is dependent on it, and when it fails, barely anyone will be prepared. An event of this scale has never happened in anyone's lifetimes, only read about in textbooks. Businesses and large companies will have generators, but for the average citizen, it'll be hell. Natural gas will be turned off for safety issues. Gas prices will sky rocket. Companies will look for every way to reduce the need for power, including systems like security and climate control.
It takes a little bit but when four people come out walking out with a large plastic bin, Nathan puts the charging batteries in a radio and tosses me it and a headlamp. Those hard drives contain years and years of analytical data of power output and consumption, but most importantly, every single log file for the doors and and security camera footage of the last year.
Everything that could have possibly gone wrong, has gone wrong. When they do an investigation, they'll know that the footage was tampered with. On the footage, Stacy would not be at the front desk. The logs will show that I swiped through the lobby door, but I wouldn't be there either. If they took this super seriously, they'll eventually find out it's actually footage from a week ago. Those drives have to go.
Inside the power plant is eerie. The usual sound of machines running, tools grinding, and people shouting is gone. The bright white fluorescent lights are now a dim red making the whole thing seem like a horror movie. Strips of light on the ground move across a path showing the way to the exits. All of the doors are propped open and locks disabled.
We take the stairs down to the lower level instead of the elevator. After nearly three flights of stairs, a heavy steel door is pushed open. The Cube illuminates in a deep red when we enter. Grover and Nola walk into The Cube with a bag of cables and tools. The rest of us walk down the maintenance hall to reach the lower level of the reactors. The sound of gasses and fluids moving through pipes is gone and replaced by our footsteps and breaths.
Each step we make takes us closer to the reactors, but it also takes us closer to the room where Aria hit the button. Did I shut the door? I hope. And when it's in reaching distance, my heart is beating out of my chest. I try my best not to show it, hoping no one goes in to check. Luckily no one does, not even a glance.
We continue walking and eventually reach a powered blast door. Jake has to lift it up manually. With a little help it slides into the ceiling above and we're able to walk in. The wave of hot air hits us immediately. Taking off our coats and rolling up our sleeves, we begin to look around. At first, nothing seems out of the ordinary other than the fact that nothing is running.
"There's a buckled pipe up there," I say, pointing. It probably would be considered normal any other day, but I have to remove suspicion from those myself and those drives, so anything will go right now. "Maybe the computer detected a drop in pressure, and that's why."
A puzzled look falls over Nathan and Jordan's faces. "Maybe," Jordan says, before he looks back down at his clipboard, continuing to touch and look at various cables and pipes. At least it's in the back of their head now. I take a wrench from the construction bag that Jake carried in and start pretending to tighten various bolts. I'm surprised to find that some bolts were actually loose.
"Anything?" I ask after about fifteen minutes of inspections.
"Nothin'" Nathan says with a sigh.
"I tightened a few bolts on A3, but I need to get going back home, just to make sure my home is safe." A half-truth, but I need to find out where those drives are.s
"Understood, all good. You coming in tomorrow?" he asks. I reply with a yes, not like anything was planned for tomorrow anyways, especially with the power down. I walk down the hall we came from being sure not to walk too fast, they can see me leaving. I bolt up the stairs as soon as the door closes behind me and run out the front door.
A wave of cool air washes over me, reminding me to put on my jacket. The sound of a loud revving engine echos off of the building behind me with maniac laughing following it. At the light, instead of seeing a bin of hard drives, I see bodies. Dead ones. Three. Bullet holes are clean through the side of the head. Blood dripping off the blades of grass, staining the dirt below it.
Two of which I can't recall by name, but one I can. Ethan Pruin. The same man stowed away in the storage closet two weeks ago. Blood runs down his cheek and down his neck. When I get up to look at the other bodies, I notice the bin in the middle of the road nearby. Every drive inside smashed, shattered. Small metal parts and glass cover the street.
The power outage has already caused anarchism. It is going to get worse.