Grid Attack (Cyber War #2) by Emerson Hawk

joking about Tony’s answered prayer. I wasn’t religious at all, but I knew Tony believed. And I won’t lie…there were times when I wished I knew of a God to pray to. I just had a hard time believing in so much of what was being taught at the mainstream churches.
     
    “I’m gonna have to get you a bunch of plaid flannel shirts.” I jested, poking fun at Tony for finding wood AND food.
     
    He chuckled as Carl and Evan took the deer and strung it up on the tree behind the garage.
     
    Out here, it wasn’t anything to see people gutting their kills in their back yards. In the city, you’d have someone calling the cops.
     
    I began to see that having the extra help would really be nice, because my parents just weren’t doing as well as I had hoped. Mom was putting on a happy face, but she was in a lot of pain. She had been really working hard to keep things going, but trying to cook and eat without power was starting to take it’s toll.
     
    While the guys were out getting wood, I had set up a makeshift outdoor kitchen on the deck, using the awning as our roof, but taking some tarps to hang around it to keep out the wind and rain. It would be safe to use the camp stoves and grill without the risk of burning down the house. Plus, we didn’t want to poison ourselves with carbon monoxide.
     
    I also decided to build a couple of rocket stoves with some pavers, bricks and old grill grates. Having done this in the past, I knew it would work to give us extra “burners” to put pots on.
     
    By the time I was done, we had a nice working setup that allowed us not to freeze to death and to cook outside without worry.
     
    And now that I was there, I would be helping with any of the heavy lifting that mom was trying to do.
     
    Albert had kept himself busy by making sure we had all the tools we needed to do whatever projects we had going and helping mom whenever she called to him.
     
    I went down into the basement and found him tinkering with an old transistor radio he had found in one of the boxes in the garage. He and mom liked to go to yard sales for fun. They would find neat things they could add to their already bulging collection of things that weren’t needed, but it was something they enjoyed and gave them something to do in such a small town.
     
    “Do you think you can get it to work?” I asked as I plopped my weary body down into a recliner and pulled a quilt over me to try to warm up.
     
    “Maybe. These things could last a lifetime and this model was one that could pull in stations that other radio’s couldn’t.” He said proudly.
     
    He went on to tell me about how the GE Super Radio was considered high end in it’s time. As he fiddled with some wires and tube looking things in the back, he pulled out a fresh package of batteries and loaded it up.
     
    He pushed buttons and turned dials, trying to make it work, but it was dead.
     
    “Well, so much for that.” He said as he sighed.
     
    “Maybe not. I remember mom said there was a trick to making the older things work.” I said as I pulled myself up out of the chair.
     
    “Oh, yeah? What’s that?” he asked.
     
    I grabbed the radio and gave it a good smack. With a flicker the lights came on and the it began to hum a little.
     
    Albert and I both let out a laugh. It felt good laugh. It felt good to not be so afraid. I sat back down in the recliner and thought about how good things were finally going.
     
    It was going to be hard work for sure. Life was definitely going to be different and we were going to have challenges. But I finally began to relax and felt as if everything was going to be alright.
     
    Albert started searching the airwaves, trying to find any sort of signal. Since there was only AM and FM, we figured it would be just like before. Nothing but static.
     
    Then, Albert found the signal that had the repeating Presidential broadcast. Only this time, it wasn’t the President. This was a new broadcast.
     
    We had caught