Invasion

Coffee, he thought, and staggered out the door and down to the next flat. It had never been occupied, or at least it had never been occupied since Joshua had moved in, and it had become the communal kitchen, despite some dark mutterings about creeping communism. Between the thirty men, women and children who lived in the apartment block, they’d amassed quite a surprising amount of food and equipment, including campfire stoves and other camping gear. If the power failed completely, which Joshua suspected was likely to happen sooner or later, they would be still capable of boiling water and cooking their food. The whole arrangement worked on trust and while Joshua would have scoffed before the war, now he was amazed by how well it was working out.

As long as the food holds out, he thought, sourly. Sally Adair, who had been appointed official coffee maker, poured him a cup without even being asked. Joshua didn’t know who’d thought of electing a twelve-year-old girl as coffee-maker, but he had to admit that it had been devious; somehow, trying to cajole or steal more coffee out of her was impossible. Their father had been making daily trips to the bank, trying to build up a supply of dollars, but Joshua suspected that it wouldn’t be much use. The President might have restricted withdrawals to three hundred dollars a day, something that would have been unthinkable a month ago, but dollars were becoming less and less useful. In time, Mr Adair might even find himself faced with his cash becoming useless and the other thing he had to trade would be his daughters…

Joshua shook his head, hoping to banish the image, and took a seat in the corner. Sally got very irritated when people took her coffee mugs away and didn’t return them. The city was slowly being eaten out of food and drink…and when it ran out completely, all hell was going to break loose. A city the size of Austin, which had a population of nearly eight hundred thousand inhabitants, consumed an astonishing amount of food and drink…and while there had been stockpiles, they were being distributed out to the public in hopes of preventing a panic. The Governor had tried to make hording illegal, but as a law, it was about as unenforceable as the laws against copying CDs and putting them on the internet. There had been a couple of cases where the police had met with armed resistance to their plans to distribute some of the larger private stockpiles and the entire city was on edge. The damage to the infrastructure surrounding the city meant that incoming food was going to be reduced…and, when the city dwellers worked that out, there was going to be panic.

He took another sip of his coffee and shivered. The entire global infrastructure, according to the internet, had been completely knocked down by the aliens. Ships were being sunk, more or less at random…and international banking had been destroyed. America didn’t import much in the way of food – in contrast to Japan, which did and therefore would be on the verge of starvation within a week – but everything else that was imported would be…delayed. Chinese steel, Japanese electronics…everything that came from overseas would now never come, while the internal transport network had been shot to hell. No wonder the Governor had thousands of policemen and National Guardsmen patrolling the city; it wouldn’t be too long until the social order started to collapse completely.

Sally called over to him as two more people entered the room. “Good coffee?”

“Yes, thank you,” Joshua replied, placing the cup in the sink and earning a dirty look. It was the work of a moment to clean the cup and place it neatly on the side for someone else to use. He was supposed to be on the guard shift in an hour – so far, no one had tried to break into the apartment, but they all knew that it was just a matter of time – but until then, he had to return to his apartment and start logging into the internet. It wasn't what it had been before the war…but then, what had?

The thought stayed with him as he walked back to his apartment. America looked the same on the surface, but the entire country had taken a beating. Television was almost completely off the air, apart from a handful of minor channels, and radio was…erratic. Kids had to play with their friends now, rather than watching television all the time, and older children had to grow up fast. Schools and colleges had been cancelled for the moment and most parents were trying to keep their kids off the streets. People were pulling together, with or without help from the feds…but Austin was one of the lucky cities. If the radio or internet was to be believed, Detroit was on the verge of restarting the civil war.