Doomed by Tracy Deebs Page A

“Let’s go there. My dad has an old radio he’s using to keep in touch with his partners. Maybe he knows more about what’s going on.”
    I don’t speak until we’re back in the car. I’m in front this time, next to Theo, whose hands are clenched on the steering wheel so tightly that it amazes me he can even turn it. “Why are the credit cards failing?” I ask quietly.
    “They’re not failing. Or at least I don’t think they are,” Theo says. “But with no phone lines or Internet, they can’t make a connection with the banks, so nobody can charge anything.”
    “And this is happening all over Austin?” I’m horrified.
    “I’m pretty sure it’s happening all over the country.”
    “So there’s no money?” Emily asks incredulously. “Anywhere?”
    “Oh, there’s money.” Theo shoves a hand into his hair, and this time it doesn’t fall back into place. I take it as a marker of how upset he is that he doesn’t even notice. “But people can’t get to it. At least not without actually going into a bank. And since it’s eight thirty on a Wednesday night, that’s so not going to happen.”
    “Oh my God.” I slump back against my seat and bury my head in my hands. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
    This can’t be happening. This just flat out can’t be happening.
    But as we head through the quaint little shoppingdistrict, I realize it is. People are everywhere—in the stores, on the streets, in loose groups on every corner, and outside every shop. They look angry, confused, panicked, distraught—all of the things I’m feeling but don’t know how to express.
    Theo flips on the radio. It’s tuned to the alternative station, but he quickly presses the scan button. Nobody says anything as the radio plays a few disjointed seconds from each station, but then there’s really nothing to say. Nothing good, anyway.
    Finally, the radio hits on someone speaking, and Theo presses the button to keep it there. It’s a news station, and the commentator is talking about today’s communications collapse as if it really is the end of the world.
    “The Internet is down in every city and state in America. It’s down in Europe and Asia, Africa and South America, and even Australia, crippled to the point of total and complete uselessness by the Pandora’s Box worm.
    “Phone systems are down. Satellites are failing. The digital networks we use for our cell phones are collapsing in places as far flung as Malaysia and Norway even as I’m saying this. Control systems are also being affected, for everything from assembly lines at the Oreo cookie plant to systems that regulate air traffic control, and they are all grinding to a halt.”
    Emily starts to cry a little, and I reach back to squeeze her hand even as the announcer’s words send me reeling.
    “The streets are filling up with preachers screaming that the end of the world is here, while thousands of people are at home playing a game created by the same person whocaused all of this, in the hopes of making things return to normal. I don’t understand what’s happening here. I’m not sure anyone does.
    “The Pentagon is calling it cyberwarfare, and Homeland Security promises they have their best agents at work trying to track down the ‘evil genius’ who created this. In the meantime, they’re asking people to refrain from playing the game in case it makes things worse. But no one is listening—the number of players in the game is increasing with every minute that passes, as people buy into the promise, ‘Beat the Game. Save the World.’
    “Since the government can’t stop it, why not give us the chance to fix things? Besides, how much worse can it get, people? All of this seems like too little, too late to me. The Internet is built to withstand nuclear war, but not a worm? Or a ‘blended threat,’ as Homeland Security is calling it? So what
is
going on, and how on earth are we going to fix something that we never thought could break?