SEATTLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY: 90 Minutes Before the Storm.

  My pencil tapped the margin again and again, leaving faint dents in the paper. My leg bounced against the chair, my foot tapped the floor, and I felt my focus slipping.

  "This is it, Gavin. All your procrastination is coming back to bite you square in the ass."

  I thought about all the nights I’d spent drinking instead of studying and the lectures I’d skipped. The consequences of a semester full of bad choices hit me all at once, and my stomach dropped.

  And don’t get me wrong, I’d done a lot of studying, but I’d also had plenty of… well, let’s say I’d had plenty of distractions. For the first time in my life, I’d found myself out from under my father’s shadow. I was able to make my own choices and experience life outside of a house full of strict discipline and expectations. Not that I had a messed-up childhood or anything, but I grew up an army brat, and I was the first generation of the Daniels family not to enlist. And what did I do the first time I felt like the microscope wasn’t on me for once? I drank and partied. I entertained a lady or two and went to every convention for games, anime, and comic books that I could get tickets for. Everyone screwed around in college, right?

  But I needed that grade. It was the last thing keeping me from an internship and my dissertation. I’d promised my dad that I would take them both seriously. So there I was, staring at the pages of Advanced Practical Engineering. My current professor insisted real engineering meant doing everything by hand. The man was convinced that we should still know how to use a protractor and a compass; both were tools I’d have liked to stab into my own eyes. Completely fed up, I slammed the book shut and took a deep breath.

  I pulled a can of my favorite energy drink from my backpack and noticed the librarian staring daggers in my direction. She was watching me like I was about to start a fire. I popped the tab and took a long pull, staring right back at her while I did it. I blew a kiss to Miss Dagger-Eyes and headed back to my dorm. It was only a short walk on a cloudy morning, but my headache was pounding, and I wanted to get back into bed.

  As I made my way across campus, I noticed a lot of people watching the sky. I looked up and was surprised to see lightning. The lack of thunder was odd, but not enough for me to slow down. All I could think about was getting back to my dorm and crashing for a few hours. I picked up my pace, squinting against the dull throb behind my eyes.

  When I finally made it back, my roommate was nowhere to be found. That meant things would stay quiet for a while.

  I didn’t even bother to take my shoes off. I lay down, pulled the pillow over my face, and screamed. I couldn’t fail this course. That would mess up everything, and it wasn’t only the internship. It was the whole picture I’d built up in my head, the career, the respect. Within minutes, exhausted and overcome by anxiety, I fell asleep.

  SEATTLE UNIVERSITY -- 2 hours 30 minutes after the Global Grid Failure

  I was woken by banging on the door. When I opened my eyes and pulled myself out of bed, I could already tell the sun had slipped later into the afternoon. I hadn’t meant to sleep that long.

  I heard the bang on the door again; this time, it was even louder. It became completely clear to me as I regained my senses that whoever was knocking wasn’t going away.

  "Jim’s not here. Piss off!" Only my roommate’s girlfriend could be that persistent.

  There was another loud knock. I marched to the door and swung it open. "I said Jim’s not--"

  A sharp-looking man in a military uniform stood in the doorway.

  "Good evening, sir. Are you Gavin Daniels?"

  "Yeah, that’s me. Am I in trouble or something?"

  "No, sir, but I’ll need you to come with me."

  I blinked at him. "Listen, man, I don’t have time for recruiters today, okay? Let alone the Marine Corps. My family dinners are awkward enough with my life choices."

  "Sir, I’m not here to recruit you. I’m here to escort you."

  Escort me? What the hell does that even mean? "This is bullshit. Seriously, bro, I have exams in the morning."

  "Sir, your exams are canceled. We require your presence at the Roslyn Research Facility. Please put your pants on, sir."

  That last part caught my attention. Did he say they canceled my exams? Honestly, this could save my ass. Also, where the hell did my pants go?

  I found them at the end of my bed, impressed that I’d managed to get them off in my sleep without taking off my shoes. I slid the old jeans on, grabbed my bag, and followed the man outside and down to a strange car. It was an older model and not what I’d expected. Something from the eighties.

  Listen, man, I’ve seen at least five crappy sci-fi movies that start like this.

  He opened the back door for me to get in and moved to the front passenger seat. The second man behind the wheel started the car, and we drove off.

  Something was itching in the back of my head. I pulled out my phone to message Dad and let him know what was happening. The screen was completely dead.

  "Hey, do you guys have a charging cable up there?"

  The driver took a little pity on me. He glanced back and smiled. "You haven’t been paying attention at all, have you? Nobody’s phone is working right now, sir."

  "Why the hell not? I wasn’t asleep that long. What did I miss?"

  I looked out the window as we pulled away from campus. People were standing around in groups, staring at their phones, tapping at screens that weren’t working. And the cars, Jesus, there were so many breakdowns. Every couple of blocks, we passed another one sitting on the side of the road with the hood up.

  The drive felt like it took forever. I knew the research center was a couple of hours from campus. My Marine escort wove in and out of traffic, dodging stalled cars along the way.

  At some point, I could hear the two Marines up front whispering to each other as they flipped through radio channels. I leaned forward a bit, listening closer as they kept switching. It wasn’t that there were no stations. It was the static itself. Every frequency they hit sounded the same. The same hiss, the same pattern, like they were all picking up the same signal instead of random noise.

  That’s when it hit me. These guys really didn’t know what was going on. That itch in the back of my mind was scratching hard now, and the pieces were finally starting to line up.

  My brain spun through possibilities, each one worse than the last. I wanted to act like some clueless college kid, but that was a lie. I was what most people would call a prodigy, whether I liked that word or not. Even with all my slacking, I was still near the top of my class. I knew how these systems worked. I knew the engineering behind them.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The only reason I had any doubts about my exams was that I’d spent the last semester chasing parties and girls instead of my doctorate. But sitting there in that car, watching them cycle through dead channels, the stalled cars piled up along the side of the road, I couldn’t pretend anymore.

  Something was wrong. Something big.

  I looked out the window and could see every intersection ahead of us for the next ten or fifteen blocks flashing red. People were rushing along the sidewalks. Traffic was piling up on the side streets, much heavier than normal rush hour.

  "Sorry, sir, it’s going to take a little longer to get you there. They closed I-90."

  Was the power out? I tried to remember back to when we left the dorm. Had the lights been on? I didn’t think so. But that wouldn’t explain the phones. Or the cars. Or the radio. "Hey, what’s with all the red flashing lights?"

  "I’m sorry, sir. Nobody knows what’s going on right now. We’re supposed to get you to the research facility as soon as possible."

  "But why me?" I leaned forward between the seats. "Out of everything that’s happening right now, why are you guys so focused on picking me up? Is this because of my father?"

  The guy in the passenger seat actually laughed at that.

  "It’s not only you, sir. There are cars all over the city right now picking up specific people and bringing them to the facility. I’m sure you’ll get more answers than we will once you’re there."

  Hours later, we finally pulled into the research facility. There were at least eight or nine cars ahead of us, lined up and moving forward one at a time. Each one would pull up to the entrance, let someone out, and they’d get rushed inside.

  When it was our turn, the guy in the passenger seat got out and came around to open my door. I grabbed my backpack and stepped out onto the pavement.

  That’s when I looked up at the sky. The color wasn’t right, like something was happening behind all those clouds that I couldn’t quite see. A weird greenish tint? I’d never seen anything like it.

  "Sir, I’ll take that for you. You’ll be able to retrieve it once you’re inside."

  I looked ahead at the line forming in front of the entrance. Security personnel pushed everyone through a rushed security check. Bags, keys, cell phones, wallets--everything was going into trays. For whatever reason, the X-ray machines were down, so security was going through every item and patting down every person by hand.

  I handed over my backpack. "Listen, I appreciate the ride and everything, but I’ve got to tell you, this is all completely freaking bizarre."

  The Marine gave me a tired look. "We’re just following orders, sir."

  I made my way through security and followed the markers taped to the floor down a long hallway. They led me into what looked like a break room, with cabinets lining the walls and a small kitchenette in the corner. The room was dim, lit only by whatever light managed to come through the window. There were already several people inside.

  I glanced around as I walked in. A girl sat alone at one of the tables with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Everyone else was scattered throughout the room. Over by the window, a tall guy stood with his back to us, staring outside like he was waiting for something.

  "Hey, guys. I don’t suppose anybody knows what’s going on?" I pulled out a chair and sat down.

  "They told us not to talk," the man at the window said. His voice had a light Indian accent.

  "Yeah, look, since they haven’t taken the time to tell me why the hell I’m here in the first place, ‘they’ can kiss my ass."

  The girl lifted her head enough to look at me. Her eyes appeared red. "They took me from my little sister. They refused to let her come." Her voice cracked on the last word, and she buried her face in her arms.

  Jesus. "Are you serious? This is all crazy. They pulled me out of my dorm and refused to tell me anything." I looked around at the others. "And the guys driving me over here kept switching through radio channels; it was all static, and every frequency sounded the same. That’s not taking into account the dead phones and power outages."

  The tall man walked over from the window and sat down at our table. He let out a big sigh. "They had to pull me out of an elevator. The damn thing stopped between floors. I don’t even know how the hell they knew I was in there."

  Everybody else in the room had similar stories, each one stranger than the last. Leaving us with more questions piling up with no one to ask.

  I looked over at the girl again. She still had her face buried in her arms, but I noticed the jacket she was wearing had a university logo on it.

  "Hey," I said in a soft voice. "Are you a grad student?"

  She lifted her head enough to look at me again, and I could see her eyes were still red and puffy. "Yeah. UC Davis."

  I didn’t know much about the school, but the logo looked familiar. The pieces started clicking together in my head, though. The rushed pickup. The security. All these random people were being brought to the same facility, all confused and stuck in a break room together. I looked around at the others, studying their faces. "Wait. Are you all signed up for the internship?"

  The tall man leaned forward, his expression turning serious. "You know, if we start talking about the internship, it could affect whether we actually get in, right? We’re not supposed to discuss it."

  I almost laughed at that. Like any of this was normal. "I said internship. I didn’t ask about Fight Club. It’s not that big of a deal to ask if we’re all here for the same thing."

  He smiled a little, shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. "You’re going to get me in trouble; I can already tell."

  I shrugged. "I don’t like it when I’m kept in the dark. I don’t like being yanked out of my dorm with zero explanation." I gestured around the dim room. "And honestly? I think I’ve had just about enough of this. Internship or not."

  I got up and walked over to the door. I tried the handle. It was locked. I pounded on it a few times, but nobody answered.

  I turned back to look at the others. "Are you kidding me right now? They locked us in here?" "We’ve been sitting here for like an hour. What if somebody needs to use the bathroom? There’s no food, no water. Only a couple of dead vending machines."

  That’s when I noticed the camera mounted in the corner of the room, with a little red light blinking on it.

  "Really?" I pointed at it. "So they do have power here. They’re using it to watch us."

  I grabbed a chair and dragged it under the camera. The legs scraped loudly against the floor as I positioned it, and I could feel everyone watching me. I climbed up and got right up in the lens, tapping on it with my finger. "Hello? Is anybody home? You know you can’t keep us here, right?"

  "Maybe somebody could come in here and tell us what the hell is going on."

  I climbed down and sat back in my chair. Ten minutes passed, fifteen. The room stayed quiet except for the occasional shift of someone in their seat or a nervous cough.

  Finally, I’d had enough. I got back up, dragged the chair back under the camera again, and climbed up. This time, I yanked the power cord right out.

  Someone in the room gasped.

  "What are you doing? You’re going to get us in trouble."

  I looked over my shoulder at the girl who’d spoken. She looked terrified. "Nope. I’m going to get us some answers."

  It only took two minutes. I heard the lock click, and the door swung open as two Marines stepped inside, both of them looking directly at me. They made way for a short, older gentleman in a lab coat who walked in behind them.

  The others in the room quickly sat down if they weren’t already seated when the man walked to the front of the room.

  "Listen, I know you want answers, and I promise we’re going to tell you everything that we know. But for right now, we need you to be patient. Understand that you’re not prisoners; we’re trying to keep you safe."

  "Please don’t start damaging the cameras," he said, glaring at me.

  The man walked over to the side of the door and picked up a beige telephone.

  "This line is hardwired and will connect you with an operator. If you need to use the bathroom, just pick up the phone. Let the operator know, and one of these two Marines will unlock the door and guide you to the facilities."

  "As for food and water," the man looked up at the Marine sergeant standing by the door. The sergeant looked back at him and smiled before walking over to the vending machines. With three swift kicks of his boot, he busted the glass on the front of the thing, sending shards scattering across the floor.

  As quickly as they’d entered the room, they left, and we heard the door lock behind them with a heavy click.

  We all sat there staring at each other for a long moment, processing what had happened. Finally, my new friend across the table got up and walked over to the broken vending machine. He reached through the shattered glass and grabbed a bag of chips before bringing it back to the table and sitting down.

  "That was dramatic." He turned the bag he had grabbed over in his hands. "I still don’t feel like we got any answers, though."

  I leaned back in my chair and shrugged. "Don’t worry. If we need to get their attention again, I can always bring them back."

  The girl sat up straighter, looking at me like she couldn’t quite figure out if I was serious or insane. "How are you going to do that?"

  I couldn’t help but grin a little. "Easy. The man in the lab coat made the mistake of telling me that there’s more cameras in this room." I paused, letting that sink in.

  The tall man let out a genuine laugh at that, and even the girl cracked a small smile despite everything. It wasn’t much, but for the first time since I’d walked into this room, the tension seemed to ease a little.

  The First Cradle. I've got other stories posted that you might enjoy as well. Feel free to check out my profile!