Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1)
Read Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) Online
Authors: Marcus Richardson
MARCUS RICHARDSON
ALEA JACTA EST
The Future History of America: Book I
© 2011 Marcus Richardson.
All Rights Reserved.
2
nd
Printing, November 2013.
3
rd
Printing, August 2014.
This is a work of fiction. The people and events in
this book are written for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to
living and/or deceased people is purely coincidental and not intentional.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior
written consent by the author.
For Sara
Without your unflinching love, support, and patience
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Books by Marcus
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The Future History
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TABLE OF
CONTENTS
SARASOTA
- The Calm Before the Storm
SARASOTA
- The Uncertain Home Front
WASHINGTON
– The Slippery Slope
CHICAGO
– Rise of the Brotherhood
NORAD
– North American Air Defense Command
SARASOTA
– The Clock is Ticking
FIST OF THE JIHAD – The Fist Strikes
IRAN
– Delivery Overnight, Guaranteed
SARASOTA
– Greetings and Salutations
SARASOTA
– The Reluctant Caesar
NORAD
– The Trials of Leadership
U.S.S.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT – The Big Stick
U.S.S.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT – No Quarter
FIST
OF THE JIHAD – Fanning the Flames
SARASOTA
– To Secure Peace, Prepare for War
U.S.S. THEODORE ROOSEVELT – Haze Gray and Under Way
SARASOTA
– Calling Down the Thunder
NORAD
– The Speech Heard ‘Round the World
SARASOTA
– Daggers and Decisions
U.S.S.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT – The Big Stick Strikes Back
SARASOTA
– Of Pipers and Whiskey
THE
LEADERS – Enemies, Foreign and Domestic
SARASOTA
– Voyage of the Tarpon Whistler
ARIZONA
– A Rifle Behind Every Rock
U.S.S.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT – Haze Gray and Under Way
The Great Blackout
Three years ago...
ERIK LARSSON SAT behind
the wheel of his car, waiting at a red light. It was just another Thursday
afternoon for the rest of the world, but for him, it was another day without
landing a job.
It had been
two months since he and his fiancée Brin Hideyo had moved to Florida’s “Sun
Coast” and he’d so far been unsuccessful in finding a way to help pay the
bills. He knew it wasn’t for lack of trying, but it depressed him
nonetheless. She had been recruited the previous winter by a big pharmaceutical
company, so that when the two had finished school she was ready to start work.
He planned to start his quest for a master’s degree in a few weeks. Everyone
back home told him he could find work as a teacher in the meantime. It was
time for the Baby Boomers to retire after all, and all the states were going to
be in sore need of new teachers.
A small
beep brought him out of his own self-pity. The orange “Service Engine Soon”
light had just come to life on the dashboard. Again. Erik sighed. This was
the second time in as many weeks that the car had begged to be taken to a
service station—the last trip had cost him $500 for a fuel injector cleaning.
He bit back the comment he was about to make about the car.
This thing
does have almost 150,000 miles on it…I’m surprised it hasn’t died on me by
now. Just keep it going a little longer,
he told himself.
Oh
well. That's what credit cards are for.
Erik sighed
again and the light turned. Erik pushed down on the accelerator and continued
on his way to the local giant-size chain department store. The car was just
going to have to wait its turn. He had a list of things they needed for the
new apartment and he and Brin simply could not deal without this stuff any
longer. He thought once again how strange it was that she was out working
while he stayed home to clean and tidy up the apartment, get the groceries,
cook…the role reversal seemed strange. It was a little unnerving. But at
least they didn't have any friends that would require explanations yet.
I’m
domesticated
, Erik thought as he pulled into the store parking lot and
began the hunt for a spot. When he found a space and pulled in, he reached to
turn off the radio. He had been listening—somewhat—to the local AM station
broadcasting the nationally syndicated conservative talk show host Malcolm
Hide.
Hide was
lambasting someone in California about the pathetic state of political
affairs. The radio suddenly went silent. His hand was almost to the dial; he
hadn’t touched it yet. The car was still rumbling in idle, cool air
conditioning blowing against his face. He looked around the parking lot for a
few seconds, waiting. Nothing. He looked at the time on the clock—4:17pm.
“Okaaay.”
He switched to another local station, this one from Tampa. Erik hadn’t heard
of this local guy before, but he was also talking about liberals dragging
California into the abyss. Then the host stopped mid-sentence and started
talking about some sort of power outage being reported in New York. The man
commented that none of the TV superpowers, CNN, MSNBC, or FOX were covering the
breaking story yet. He quickly wondered aloud if terrorism might be involved.
Erik held
his breath and switched back to Hide’s show. Still nothing. Just as he was
about to switch back to the local guy, Hide came back on, sounding very
excited.
“—
so
we can see again. I don’t know if you can tell me if we’re on the air or
not? I don’t know either…okay, well folks, if you can hear us, that’s news to
me. The lights here in Manhattan just went out and we’ve lost power, but
thanks to a back-up generator, we have emergency lights. I don’t know if we’re
still broadcasting or not—hey, Mike, do we still have the ex-governor on line
four? No? Well, see if you can get him back
.”
Fascinated,
Erik listened to the show while the host talked with producers. They didn’t
know they were still on the air. Erik leaned in towards the radio a bit to
listen…after all, it was breaking news. He ignored the curious looks of the few
people as they walked past his car towards the store. Erik was raised in
Upstate New York, so no matter where he was in the country, he still paid
attention when the Big Apple was mentioned. It was a habit.
Erik sat in
the air conditioned car for a few more speculation filled minutes. Lower
Manhattan was out…there was a fire at a power plant somewhere near New York
City. No, it was in up-state New York. Now
all
of Manhattan was out—reports
were coming in that part of Greater New York was out. Then, parts of New
Jersey. No one knew what had happened or why.
The last
time something like this had happened was back in 2003 and before that,
September 11, 2001. The same dark feeling in the pit of his stomach settled in
on this sunny day in southern Florida.
His first
thoughts now, like then, had been about his family. Where were they and were
they safe? He could see himself in his mind’s eye: he had paused to check off
where his parents and sister were. Everyone had been well away from the city,
mom and dad at their cabin on Lake Champlain, his sister in Virginia at grad
school. Today was much the same. His parents were still in Upstate, his
sister, now married, was in Maryland.
Erik had an
overwhelming urge to get home. He wanted to see the news on TV. He had to get
inside and shut the doors, seal himself in some place secure.
I must have
lived in a castle or something in a previous life.
Erik forced
himself to focus on what was being said over the radio. So far it was only
reports about the power loss and speculation about what caused the outage.
Nothing further was mentioned of smoke or fires or attacks or
anything
.
The rational part of his mind convinced Erik to just go ahead and find what he
was here to get and go home. Chances are, by then someone would have learned
something and the news channels would have video of the unfolding drama.
Wow, am I
that far gone that this is exciting to me? I need to find a job.
Erik quickly
went down his shopping list and picked up the cleaning supplies, food, and
printer paper he needed, then practically ran back to his car, snapping on the
radio first. The news was pretty much the same, but just about every radio
station was talking about it now, including the sports talk programs. He drove
home listening to the updates, waiting for the other shoe to drop; waiting for
someone to say the unspeakable words: was it a terrorist attack? He couldn’t
imagine what it must feel like to be in downtown New York at that moment.
Erik pulled
into the parking lot of his apartment on the other side of town. He passed
workers installing a big brick pedestal-mounted sign that read ‘Colonial
Gardens’. The apartment complex was only a little over a quarter built, so
there was always a chance that some construction workers might leave a random
nail or something on the ground, ready to puncture a tire. Luckily most of the
buildings around their apartment were complete. Only the three big multi-story
buildings on the south side of the complex and the one in the middle were still
under construction. He carefully found a spot near his apartment and slowly
pulled in, half expecting to run over a nail.
He put the
old Buick in park and listened to the reports with new interest. Now the power
was out as far away as Detroit and Cincinnati. Even parts of Canada were
affected. It looked like half the East was out, from Detroit and Cincinnati to
New York, then up to New England and over the border up into Canada. Philly
and D.C. were spared, as was Chicago, but just about everything in between and
north was knocked off-line.
Erik
whistled at the sheer magnitude of the power outage, then grabbed his stuff and
went inside. By now, someone would have something to talk about. Erik felt
slightly guilty about looking forward to this bit of morbid ‘entertainment’.
But, it was too early for football and nobody cared about hockey this far
south, so...
He had a
stocked fridge, all the snacks and soda and beer he needed, a comfortable couch
and an exciting news story. Brin was out of town on her training trip. Job or
no job, his evening was set. At least he had electricity and his fiancée, was
safely in Atlanta.
Thank goodness the power is still on there
, Erik
thought.
THANKS BE TO Allah,”
said Hakim Sharif Hassan and smiled at the television. He sat in his air
conditioned apartment in the bad side of Lincoln Park. It was one of the
sections of Chicago which most decent people tried to avoid. At this moment, he
loved it. The young man from Iran watched the incessant news reports about
the Great Blackout with barely contained glee.
“Now you
Imperialist dogs will know what it is to be hot,” he commented sourly, thinking
of his family back home. They few electrical luxuries like the air conditioner
that spewed arctic air into his room. Hakim's mother and sisters suffered
through heat and cold on a daily basis isolated as they were in the mountainous
highlands of old Persia.
At least he
had taken care of them somewhat when he joined the Fist of the Jihad. It was a
splinter cell of Al Qaeda that placed the majority of its operatives as sleeper
cells in the United States and other Satan-worshiping western nations.
The Fist
took care of its own. When a Brother of the Fist was killed or killed himself
in the name of Allah, the Brother’s family is set up for life with generous
donations from concerned benefactors. They had many connections and almost as
many financial pipelines. There were a lot of people out there besides Al
Qaeda that would like to see America fall from its high horse. Communists.
Anarchists. Neo-Fascists. The list was nearly endless. They all contributed,
then let the operatives of the Fist take the heat, the fall, the pressure.
That was fine by Hakim. He'd be happy to take the glory. And the cash that
went with it wasn't bad either.
When the
Holy Osama had wrought destruction upon the Twin Evils in New York City, the
Fist was there. Five of the hijackers were sworn members of the Fist. Hakim
only lamented the fact that he himself was not chosen to fly one of the planes
right down the Americans’ throats on that glorious day of vengeance. His
family could be living in a palace right now.
The current
news channel put up a graphic of the affected areas, then began to criticize
the government for allowing the U.S. power grid to be controlled by only three
main power hubs. One for the East, one for the West, and one in Texas. If a
hub failed, as evidently it had in New York, the potential for the entire grid
it served to fail was enormous. Hakim stared in wonder at the graphic for a
second before grabbing his pad of paper and a dull pencil. He quickly
scratched down notes in Arabic
.
Praise
Allah!
Here the stupid Americans were actually telling him what had happened, how, and
what
might
happen in the future if one or more grids went down. The
fools were giving him all the information he needed.
Hakim was
downright giddy by the time the news channel went to a commercial. “Thank you,
CNN,” he said reverently. An idea was forming in his head. The Fist knew that
one way to humble the Americans for pillaging Afghanistan and Iraq was to
cripple their power systems. They knew many details about the American
infrastructure, but this revelation that America was divided into three large
grids, with three main hubs to control everything…it was pure Divine
intervention.
“Allah is
great!” He intoned and retrieved a cold beer from the beat up fridge. He
looked at the can for a second, a pang of guilt reverberating through his dark
mind. “What the Imam does not know, cannot harm him. I am of the Fist…I am
above normal rules, for my life is sacred to Allah,” he said in a mockery of
his swearing in oath. He convinced himself once again that what he was about
to do was perfectly acceptable to his Islamic teachings. He quickly drained
the watery American beer and pitched the empty on to the pile of other cans in
the corner of the kitchen.
Behind him
in the living room, CNN had gone back to New York, showing scenes of the
growing darkness and the unlit buildings looming above the millions of people
crowding the streets in an effort to walk home or just get out of the city.
Hakim ached to see a bomb go off—even just a small one—in the middle of all
those densely packed people. A single man with some dynamite could slay
hundreds, then kill thousands in the stampede. Hakim sat back in his chair and
sighed over missed opportunities. He hoped his brothers in arms were paying
attention.
Night was falling
in New York City, without power on one of the hottest days of the year. In the
post 9-11 world, the reporter was saying, people were more apt to panic and get
out of town than wait around for the lights to come back on. Speculation
mounted about when the looting and violence might start.
“You swine
automatically assume the worst in your own people. No wonder this country is
so polluted that other nations choke on your fumes,” Hakim said, sipping his
second beer. Details mattered little to Hakim when it came to his religious
belief and his world view. After all, Allah was with Islam, so Allah must be
against everyone else, no? People who refused to accept this Truth were fools
and deserved no mercy.