Surviving the Fall (Surviving the Fall 1)

The whine grew louder as the speck grew larger, and Rick soon made out the shape of a large aircraft hurtling toward the ground. He stared, slack-jawed, as the aircraft impacted with the back side of the terminal building, sending another fireball into the sky. Flaming pieces of wreckage from the impact hurtled through the air and, as Rick watched them begin to descend toward the rows of noisy cars, he realized what was about to happen.

“Run! Get out of here!” Rick screamed at the people around him, but no one paid him any mind as they stared at their non-functional phones and tried to talk to each other over the din. Rick shouted at a few of the people closest to him yet again but they merely looked at him like he was insane.

Not willing to wait any longer, Rick took off running, cutting laterally between the vehicles as he made for a small patch of grass that separated two roads from each other. As a piece of wreckage from the terminal landed a few dozen feet behind him, he could feel the ground shudder from the impact. The vibration and noise were accompanied by a faint whoosh as the fire from the wreckage ignited the gasoline fumes that were gathering around and beneath the cars. The whoosh was followed a second later by the sound of multiple explosions and the feel of even more intense heat on his hands, the back of his neck and head.

Rick didn’t look back as he ran forward, pushing his feet to go even faster, until he finally made it to the grass. He continued running away through the grassy area until he saw a small open garden with a few benches and pieces of art carved into large boulders. He dove into a corner and curled up next to the closest boulder, putting his luggage in front of his face and chest to shield himself from the seemingly infinite explosions that were erupting around him. They continued, growing louder as the fire and flames spread from vehicle to vehicle, drowning out the screams of those burning alive, each of them the first victims of a battle that would engulf the world.

Introduction

Although there are still holdouts, the world’s economy is rapidly trending towards becoming completely digitized. The concept of money becomes more abstract with each passing day as credit cards, electronic transfers and digital payment systems become ubiquitous in our everyday lives. Some countries have embraced this change, believing that a one-hundred percent digital economy is the wave of the future. Others aren’t so sure and are fearful of the known—and unknown—negative implications that this will have on our future.

The unasked and unanswered question that lurks in the backs of the minds of those who are suspicious is this: what if this all vanishes? Without something tangible like gold, silver or even scraps of paper that hypothetically represent gold or silver, our wealth feels all the more ephemeral and fleeting. So what would happen if someone were to turn off the lights on those 1’s and 0’s and all of our money was gone overnight? That, however, is only a small piece of the rapidly evolving puzzle.

As the economy moves from the physical to the digital, so too do all other aspects of our lives. Refrigerators, beds and even thermostats are now connected to the Internet as part of what’s called the “Internet of Things.” These devices are pushed onto the market by corporations so quickly that proper security testing cannot be performed. Exploits are routinely found in home appliances and gadgets that render them vulnerable to attack.

With this in mind, that nagging question becomes even more complicated. What if not just our money—but all aspects of our lives—were turned off in the blink of an eye? Not by an EMP or a nuclear war but by an act of aggression, either war or terrorism or something even more insidious. Some would say we’ve survived without the Internet before and we can do so again. The fact remains that fundamental parts of our lives depend on this technology. Tractors have built-in security chips that prevent farmers from working on their own equipment. Cars made in the last few decades all have computer chips, and many recent models connect to the Internet.

So what if, overnight, every single device that depends on the Internet to function stopped working? The economy—driven more each year by the Internet than ever before—would fall to pieces. Bank accounts would be zeroed out. Phones, computers, vehicles, airlines, shipping lines, power plants, military defense systems and more could all be rendered virtually useless. Anything containing a sophisticated enough computer along with fuel or a battery could be turned into a bomb and used to maim or injure those nearby. It would be, in a word, chaos.

In a world such as this, only the most prepared and resourceful could survive.

In this world, only the most prepared will survive the fall.

Chapter 1

The Waters’ Homestead

Ellisville, VA

Autumn was truly in the air, and the leaves on the trees showed it in full force. A cold front had blown through from North Carolina up through New York the previous night, and by the time Dianne Waters woke up the next morning she was shivering. After making an early breakfast of warm oatmeal, toast, eggs and cereal, Dianne cleared the breakfast table and sat down for what she lovingly called “another day on the farm.”

Set on the far outskirts of Ellisville—itself on the far outskirts of Blacksburg—the Waters home was a modest-sized two story building set in the dead center of a forty acre plot of land. Thick woods ringed the property and a long, winding driveway passed through them from the house out to a gravel road that, after half a mile, connected up with a country highway.

The property was isolated, charming, beautiful and peaceful—no one ever visited except to deliver the occasional package and piece of mail and, even on a clear day, it was hard to hear any cars or neighbors

nearby thanks to the density of the trees. A small spring bubbled into a creek that passed a few hundred feet from the house, meandering down into a three-acre lake at the bottom of a long sloping hill. The area in between the house and the lake had been cleared and turned into a mixture of fields for growing small amounts of crops as well as for keeping a small variety of animals.

Dianne listened to her children as they bumped along upstairs, doing more playing than cleaning, and smiled as she looked out the window. The leaves were finally changing from green to a dazzling display of orange, red and yellow. She sighed and ran her fingers through her dark hair, pulling it into a ponytail as she heard another loud bump followed by the scream of Josie, her youngest at six years old. It was once again time to play the exciting game of “which one of you made your sister cry,” starring Josie’s older brothers Mark (thirteen) and Jacob (ten).

“Boys!” She shouted up at the ceiling, smiling with some small satisfaction as she heard the whispered panic in her son’s voices. “Get your butts down here right now!”

All three of her children showed up a few minutes later, standing in a row at the end of the table. Mark and Jacob both looked solemnly at the floor while Josie, sporting a red bump on her head, fidgeted with her hands and feet as she stood, unable to stay still.

“What is it you boys are supposed to do with your sister?”

“Be nice to her?” Jacob was the first to speak as he tried to gain an advantage over his older brother.

“Correct. Now, I don’t know which one of you pushed, poked, tripped or hit your sister, nor do I really want to know. I want you both outside feeding the animals right now, then when you’re done, I’ll have a few more chores for you before you start on school for the day.”

Dianne waved off the pair of “aw, man’s” that came next and pointed out the door and at the field beyond. As the boys traipsed off, she watched them for a moment before glancing at Josie. “You’re not off the hook, missy. Come on, let’s get to your work.”

Dianne had been a vocal proponent of homeschooling ever since she was a child, and Rick had gone along with her desire while offering a few suggestions and conditions of his own. In addition to the education they received at home, each of the children spent a few hours every other day with after-school programs, learning to do everything from cooking and basic engine repair to computer maintenance and programming. While Rick wasn’t able to participate in their education as much a he wanted due to his job, ensuring that they had a well-rounded childhood and solid foundation were of paramount importance to both him and Dianne.

As the morning turned into the afternoon and all three children took a break for lunch, Dianne began packing their things into the family car to take them into town. One of the perks of being married to someone reasonably far up the food chain at a car manufacturer was getting a new car to test drive every few months. Dianne was particularly happy with the van that was parked in their driveway, especially since it had some of the latest self-driving and collision avoidance features baked in.

“Kids! Let’s go or we’re going to be late!” Dianne walked out to the car, listening to her children slowly follow after her as they talked to each other about a book they had been reading for the past few nights. When Dianne arrived at the van she opened the door, tossed their backpacks into the front passenger’s seat and leaned in to turn on the ignition before heading to the back seat to strap Josie in.

As Dianne buckled Josie’s booster seat straps, the soft tones of some local soft rock station abruptly cut off, followed by the sound of the van’s engine sputtering a few times before it too, died. A second later the van’s horn began to sound and the radio kicked back on at full volume as it cycled through the local radio stations at an increasing rate of speed.