Blackout: A Tale Of Survival In A Powerless World- Book 1 Read online

  “Out here’s where most of our agriculture workers live,” he said, pointing to the small cottages. “They’re up earliest and they work the hardest, so they get the benefit of living close to their work instead of traipsing all the way out here from the dorms every morning. Do not bother them. Do not complain when they wake before dawn and make noise outside. If you do, I won’t hesitate to revoke the privileges of a private cottage.” He rifled inside the pocket of his coat and drew out a stack of laminated, color-coded squares. “These are your identification cards. They state your name, your immunization record, your job title, and your demerits. Demerits are given out if you do not perform your duties as asked or cause trouble within the camp. If you get three demerits within the timespan of a month, you will be asked to sit in front of a tribunal of five camp superiors who will then decide on an appropriate course of retributive action. Believe me, you do not want to deal with the tribunal, so take my advice and keep your noses clean. Here.” He passed out our identification cards. “I spoke to my department heads, and you have been assigned job titles according to our current needs.”

  Jove stared at his brown card. “Sanitation? What the hell does that mean?”

  Ludo shielded his eyes and pointed to a series of massive tanks far outside the fence line of Camp Haven. “See those beautiful pieces of machinery out there? They filter our waste. Your job is to transport waste from the outhouses to the tanks. They run on manpower, sir, so we need plenty of strong men like yourself out there to keep them operating.”

  “You want me to shovel shit?” Jove shoved the identification card into Ludo’s chest. “Go to hell.”

  “Someone’s gotta do it,” Ludo replied. “If you think the work’s beneath you, then feel free to see yourself out of the compound.” When Jove stood his ground, Ludo tucked the identification card into the pocket of Jove’s coat. “Glad to hear you’re on board. You start this afternoon. Any other questions?”

  “Miscellaneous crew,” Jacob read off his red card. “What’s that?”

  “You basically do whatever we need you to do,” Ludo explained. “Hauling, building, planting, wherever we need a hand.”

  “Why can’t I do that?” Jove demanded. “Or run security?”

  “Don’t worry, the crew pulls sanitation duties sometimes too,” Ludo said. “And our security officers have to pass a rigorous physical test before they’re approved for duty.” He looked Jove’s massive figure up and down. “You think you got that in you?”

  An embarrassed blush crept across Jove’s face.

  “Didn’t think so,” Ludo went on before turning to Jacob again. “Eirian works miscellaneous as well, son. He’ll teach you the ropes. Most of the boys enjoy it. You get to do something new every day.”

  “If you say so,” Jacob replied.

  “I have a question,” Pippa said, holding a card that was half-blue and half-pink. “What’s a maternity specialist? I haven’t given birth yet, and I am far from specializing in anything concerning babies.”

  “Which is exactly why you’ve been assigned to that position,” Ludo said. “All of our new mothers are temporarily re-routed as maternity specialists. They take care of the kids in the compound. You’ll learn everything you need to know about raising a child.”

  “How very patriarchal of you,” Pippa said dryly.

  “On the contrary,” Ludo said, “half of our maternity specialists are men. We think it’s important to teach both boys and girls the value of good parenting.”

  “Ninnies,” Jove muttered under his breath.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “As for you, Georgie,” Ludo said, pointing to my bright purple card. “We had to fly by the seat of our pants. We created a position for you.”

  I glanced down at the card. “Communications manager? That’s a promotion, I suppose.”

  “Matched the color of the card to your hair,” Ludo said with a grin. “Anyone who gets assigned to Communications will get a purple card too. You’re in charge though. I’m trusting you to build up the department. Feel free to recruit a few people to help you out. Interview some of the other campers. Let me know who your choices are. Once you get a radio tower up and running, it will be up to you to operate and maintain it. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great,” I said. “You guys like morning talk shows?”

  “Can’t say we’ve ever had one,” Ludo replied. “But we could all do for some entertainment. Here we are.”

  Ludo stepped up to the porch of one of the block cabins. It was smaller than the rest, set deep in the recesses of the compound. It was a good thirty minute walk back to the start of the camp. Ludo gestured us inside. The one-room building was just large enough for two double beds to fit against the walls. It was barren of decoration or adornment. There was one window. On the upside, it smelled like mountain air and cinnamon sticks.

  “Home sweet home,” said Ludo.

  3

  I could practically taste Jove’s disgust. It filled the tiny room with a bitter bite to match a look of distaste that he didn’t bother to disguise. I helped Pippa sit on one of the beds. The blankets were stiff but clean. Woven from sheep’s wool, they carried a distinct must that Pippa wrinkled her nose at.

  “This is it?” Jove thundered. “This is your grand family suite? This is ridiculous!”

  “This is not a five star hotel,” Ludo replied. “I’m sorry if you were ever under the impression that it was. We do what we can here. If you think you would all be more comfortable in the dormitories, then I would be happy to escort you there.”

  “No,” Jove said, shucking off his coat. He pointed to an archaic iron furnace in the middle of the room. “How do we turn this thing on?”

  “Light a fire,” Ludo said, “to heat the coals.”

  Jove stared at him.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to start a damn fire,” Ludo said.

  “I can do it.” I patted Ludo on the shoulder. “Thanks for everything, Ludo. I know that this has been a major imposition on you.” Jove scoffed, but I pretended not to hear him. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Ludo said, stepping toward the porch. “Let me know if you need anything. Lunch is at noon. Take the morning to rest and get used to the place. I’d like to introduce you to your positions in the afternoon.”

  After he left, I sank onto the bed next to Pippa, who cast a glance between me and Jacob but was wise enough not to comment.

  “How the hell are we supposed to know when noon is?” Jove grumbled as he opened the grate to the furnace and poked around in the cold coals. “There are no damn clocks.”

  I kicked off my boots and massaged my feet through my thick socks. They were sore and numb from walking and running for a solid forty-eight hours. At this point, I was happy to wiggle my toes free of their prison despite the cold air.

  “They probably use the sun,” I said. “Here, get out of the way.”

  Camp Haven had left a fire starter kit next to the furnace, which my father had taught me how to use way back then. I struck the pieces together, which sparked and flashed until the kindling caught fire. I closed the grate and looked up to find all three of the Masons staring at me.

  “What?”

  “How do you know how to do all of this again?” Pippa asked.

  The bug bags were under the beds. I pulled one out and unzipped it. “Pippa, it looks like this one’s yours.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she said as I tossed it up on the bed. “I’m dying for a change of clothes.”

  “Listen, we don’t know how laundry works around here yet, so don’t get too overzealous,” I told her. I unzipped the second bug bag and tossed it to Jacob. The third one was mine. Thankfully, the camp had been kind enough to give most of my things back to me. I was only missing a few pairs of socks. That made sense. I imagine people wore them out pretty quickly working out here in the woods. I pulled a comfortable sweater over my head and burrowed under the
covers beside Pippa.

  “What are you doing?” Jacob asked. Jove had already sat down on their bed to unlace his own boots.

  “I’m taking a nap,” I told him, plumping the rough pillow beneath my head. The coals in the furnace had started to heat up, and I reveled in the relative warmth and comfort of the bed. “You should too. We’ve been awake for way too long, and they’re expecting us to work this afternoon.”

  Jacob knelt by the bed and lowered his voice. “Don’t you think we should talk?”

  I opened one eye. Jacob’s expression was unreadable. Did he actually want to talk or did he simply want me to give him an excuse not to? “Jacob, I’m tired.”

  I rolled over, toward Pippa, which put an abrupt end to the conversation. I stared through the window. From the low angle, all I could see were the peaks of higher mountains around the camp. Was my father up there somewhere? Or was he traipsing around the land that was once our home, blending in with the residents of Camp Haven, hauling water and filtering waste? He couldn’t be. He hated people. Or if he didn’t hate them, he mistrusted them. My entire childhood had been built upon that mistrust. It took years to overcome it, but now here I was again, dredging up old memories to make sure that we survived.

  I WOKE up when the sun rose high enough to strike the warped glass of the window and fill the inside of my eyelids with a blinding red. The Masons were all asleep, including Jove, who must have been too exhausted to complain about the low thread count of Camp Haven’s sheets. I slipped outside, where the rest of the camp continued their daily activities. The agricultural specialists picked the late-blooming winter squash, while others escorted bundled-up children of all ages on some kind of field trip through the camp. I smiled when a toddler wrapped up in an impossibly large parka tripped over the hem of the coat and bounced to the ground. The adult in charge didn’t react immediately. Instead, she let the child pick himself up and dust himself off. In the world outside this one, a parent would have overreacted about the child’s fall, but at Camp Haven, children apparently learned to care for themselves at an early age. The door to the cabin opened and closed, and Jacob sat on the porch step next to me.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked him.

  “Do what?”

  “You told Ludo that we were together,” I clarified, squinting into the sun rather than looking at Jacob. “We’re not anymore. Are we?”

  “Georgie, what I said to you last night was rash and hasty,” he said, “but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t true. I don’t really know you.”

  “It’s a simple yes or no question, Jacob,” I said. “Are we together or not?”

  He pondered the question for a long moment, gazing toward the main part of the camp. In the far off distance, the red cross above the med bay stood out like a beacon. “No.”

  I wasn’t sure what answer I had expected, but I definitely hadn’t anticipated the intense rush of relief that flooded my chest and let me take my first deep breath of fresh mountain air. If there was one good thing about tragedy, it was that it made you realize certain things about yourself. Jacob and I had never been well-matched for each other. I had gone after him because he had the things that I’d always wanted. He had grown up in the city with other people and learned how to socialize and be loved by others, whereas I struggled to connect with my peers after years of only knowing my father. No matter how much I tried, I was always going to be the survival-based introvert, and being with Jacob wasn’t going to change that.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “That’s it?” he asked. “That’s all you’re going to say after five years together?”

  “I’ll tell Ludo,” I said, pushing myself up from the porch and dusting my hands off. “He’ll want to assign me to the dorms.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute.” Jacob leaned forward and took my hand before I could get any farther. “You don’t have to do that. I meant what I said this morning. You don’t have to sleep with a bunch of other people. The rest of the camp doesn’t have to know we’re not together anymore.”

  “That sounds like a recipe for disaster,” I told him.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “We’ve known each other for a long time, Georgie. Just because we’re not getting married anymore doesn’t mean we have to be strangers. For one thing, this place is not very big, and it’s going to be impossible not to run into each other. We may as well be cordial.”

  “I wasn’t planning on anything else.”

  “Stay here,” he said, pouting with his big brown eyes like a sad puppy. “Please. We need you. Pippa loves you too, and she’s going to need a friend here until she settles in.”

  “What about your dad?” I asked.

  “What about him?” Jacob said. “He’s going to have to deal with it. Whatever it is.”

  He still had my hand. I reclaimed it as my own. “Fine. I’ll stay for now, but if things get weird or Jove is insufferable, I’m going to Ludo. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  AFTER LUNCH, Ludo dropped us off to the heads of our departments, which meant that Jove, Jacob, and Pippa all had someone new to report to. I, on the other hand, worked alone for the present, so Ludo became my temporary Communications Assistant. The camp had set aside all of the radio parts that I’d brought with me. It wasn’t much, but it would at least get us started. Ludo helped me inventory what I had then asked me what materials I would need to get started on building a freestanding radio tower. For each item I listed, he asked me for the purpose and for potential substitutes in case we couldn’t find what we needed. It was engaging, creative work that challenged me to think outside of the box. Ludo didn’t know much about radios to begin with, and I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed teaching him about it. We worked through the entire afternoon and into the evening, until a bell rang to signal that dinner was served at the Bistro.

  “That’s the day,” Ludo said, clapping me on the back. “You made it through. How ya feeling?”

  “Safe,” I replied as we packed up our notes. We’d been working in Ludo and Jax’s shared space, which was even smaller than ours. “That’s all that matters.”

  “That’s a great attitude to have,” Ludo said. “I hope the rest of your family sees it the same way.”

  “Me too,” I muttered.

  “Before we head over to the Bistro, I have one more thing to show you,” Ludo said, leading me out of the tiny apartment. His place, along with a few other rooms meant for married couple, occupied a building adjacent to the dormitories. DotCom was just across the way. He led me to the community building, through the empty main hall, and into a private hallway in the back. From there, rooms branched off in every direction, labeled for use. Most of them were storage, but we finally reached a door that did not have a plaque on it.

  “Here we are,” Ludo said, unlocking the room. “Have a look.”

  I peeked inside. Like the others, it was small, but instead of being full of extra food or supplies, this one was empty except for a desk.

  “It looks like an office,” I said. “What do you use it for?”

  “We don’t use it,” Ludo replied. “We keep a few rooms empty in case something like this pops up. I thought you could use it as your office. If you get your tower up and running, you can broadcast to the camp from here.”

  “Really?” I walked into the office, running my fingers over the layer of dust on the desk. “It’s going to take some time before I get everything up and running.”

  “Understandable.”

  “And we probably don’t have everything on hand to do what I really want to do,” I went on.”

  “We usually send crews into the city when we desperately need something,” Ludo explained. “I was planning on sending a salvage crew in anyway, what with all the insanity. We need to take action before this goes further south, get what we can while it’s still available. That includes whatever you need to get this communications system up and running, so it’s very important that you don’t h
old back. Just remember the foundations of what this camp was built on. No electricity here.”

  “How do you feel about batteries?”

  “They run out of juice eventually.”

  “Good point,” I said. “No worries. I can make do.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Ludo replied. “Come on. Let’s go eat. By the way, did I mention that tonight is open mic night?”

  It turned out that Camp Haven wasn’t all work. After dinner each night, the camp held a variety of community activities like open mic night, talent shows, s’mores nights, and ghost stories. Most days, the entire camp gathered in the center square around the massive bonfire to be with each other. If it was too cold, they relocated to DotCom. I learned quickly that “cold” to us was not “cold” to Camp Haven. They were used to the extreme mountain temperatures. When it dipped into the thirties, I expected the open mic night to be inside, but we gathered around the fire instead.

  The fire had been stoked to roar higher than the tallest resident of Camp Haven. From a general guess at the number of heads, about a hundred people lived here. They all turned out for the after-dinner event, and the bonfire seemed to warm all of them. I stayed close to the roaring flame, but not so close for it to lick the seams of my winter coat. A few members of the camp had been assigned to douse the fire if it got too out of control. Camp Haven had safety precautions for everything. On one hand, it seemed like paranoia. On the other hand, they had survived out here for this long according to those precautions.

  Jacob spent the first hour of the event attempting to convince everyone in the vicinity of our mutual love. He was trying too hard, holding my hand, kissing my cheek every few minutes or so. After a while, I told him that I was going to help distribute the hot cocoa, slipped away, and lost him in the crowd. I bypassed the ladies serving the cocoa, disappearing into the cold, dark night.

  A few minutes later, I found myself at the base of the hill atop which my father’s cabin sat. A small plume of smoke puffed out of the chimney. Someone was inside my home—Sylvester, supposedly—cooking or sleeping or whatever.