For all you doomsday preppers out there.
It’s Thanksgiving week. In one of the ubiquitous Manhattan
apartment buildings, those who haven’t left New York for the weekend are getting
set for a group feast. Mike Mitchell, wife Lauren and 2yo son Luke are, however, dining
with her folks who want them to move back home to Boston. Mike ain’t happy.
In the days approaching Christmas, Mike and Lauren’s bond is
coming apart. And the snow starts falling, and falling, and falling. Then the
power goes out, then the water fails. Before long, all utilities in not only
New York, but in the whole country are shot to hell. The entire internet-based grid has
collapsed to a crawl. Who is behind it? Rumors fly. The Russians. The Chinese.
Iranians. Some international criminal syndicate. Where is the military? Has the
US been invaded?
Manhattan quickly turns into a cold, snowbound refugee camp.
Makeshift hospitals, food distribution depots, roving gangs of looters.
Diseases. Paranoia. Water needs are paramount. And it keeps snowing. Seven feet
piles up. Waste and bodies litter the streets.
Mike’s neighbors are struggling just like the rest of the
city. One of the neighbors is a wannabe prepper. Chuck has supplies in a
storage locker and a cabin in the Shennandoah mountains. The all take in this
young guy, Damon, who has lost his girlfriend in a huge train wreck in Connecticut. Smart
kid. Knows how to manipulate cell networks. Some think he’s a hacker. He sets
up a kind of network that goes viral allowing people who can get connected to communicate.
Six weeks they struggle with the cold, snows, death,
disease, thirst. But do manage to get out and head to Virginia, which is a
dream compared to NYC. Off in the distance, they can see a glow over DC. Mike
agrees to walk there and find out what’s going on. When he arrives, all he sees
are refugees walking. The entire mall between the Capitol and the Washington
Monument is fenced off. He climbs to a neaby roof to see what's inside. He sees a
massive military installation . . . a Chinese installation.
The author’s notes say that this was a self-published book
at first, got picked up and has been optioned to Hollywood - an American success story I'd say. Mather’s
exploration of survival after a digital collapse is a Cormac McCarthy-bleak look at what might
be thought of as a Lord of the 21st Century Flies. One cyber security
type read the book and said it was an accurate depicting what people who play
‘what if’ games expect to happen in the event of a digital collapse.
Who needs a zombie apocalypse when a digital apocalypse is
more believable and might actually happen?
East Coast Don
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