Yue sipped her coffee silently. The fake smiles of the anchors now appeared super sinister to her. She immediately realized her dad was right about all of the broadcasts looking the same now. There were no more videos of reporters from the field showing the advance of the infected. No more talk about how many infected had already crossed into the United States. A cold chill went up her spine. If the government was controlling the media, then that meant her dad was right. They were screwed.
She pulled out her phone and bounced her index finger off the icon for her web browser. Instead of pulling up her normal homepage she was redirected to a webpage on the department of homeland security website. There were a bunch of links for things like local news by zip code, lists of shelters, and all kinds of useful looking links. Unfortunately, the page was frozen. When Yue hit refresh, an error code popped up saying that she couldn’t get to the server anymore due to bandwidth restrictions. She tried her different apps for all of her social media sites.
“Locked out of everything?” Bart asked her. He was watching her panic-stricken face as she tried accessing different sites.
“Nothing’s working.” She muttered.
“May have to use your phone to make phone calls now. Can it actually do that?” Bart wondered if he should just stop trying to make jokes. The look Yue had just shot him had been pretty deadly. He knew he wouldn’t be able to help himself. He just needed to be ready to duck in case she threw something at him.
They sat in silence drinking their coffee and flipping through the channels. The reporters kept revisiting the same old stories. The fact that the fences had been setup and the military was in place to hold back the invasion. Video was shown of power plants that’d been retrofitted with massive stadium light systems to keep the infected away. It wouldn’t stop the freshly infected but once they hit the stage where they weren’t able to tolerate bright light it should serve as an effective deterrent.
Yue hopped up excitedly when she remembered there were other ways of getting on-line besides her phone. She ran up to her room to try her laptop on the WIFI they had from their cable TV provider. The only difference turned out to be that this time the links on the government site worked. She was able to get to the helpful links that were listed on the page. None of them provided any information beyond what was already being shown on the news. She sighed and walked back downstairs leaving her useless computer sitting in the middle of her bed.
By the time she got downstairs Drew and LeBron were sitting on the couch sipping on coffee as well. Bart was telling them why Yue had gone rampaging upstairs to try out her computer. LeBron was already playing around on his phone to see if he could get his to connect.
“Well?” Drew asked looking questioningly at Yue.
“Same deal on my laptop.” Yue replied dejectedly. She plopped down on the couch and looked over at LeBron hopefully. He’d be the one able to hack his way around whatever the government had done to the internet. LeBron was intently trying different things on his phone when he looked up and saw everyone staring at him hopefully. He shook his head and leaned back on the couch. He tried a few more things before flinging his phone across the couch in disgust.
Nancy showed up and they had to explain to her what was going on. She wasn’t as upset as the rest of them. The internet had never really been her thing. Since she wasn’t quite so internet focused, she was the one who came up with the idea that made Bart want to smack himself in the forehead.
“Hey honey. Can you try calling your old office and see if you can get a straight story out of them?” She suggested.
Bart pulled out his phone and ignored the knowing look from Yue. She was reminding him that he’d been the one who’d just told her she may have to use her phone to actually make phone calls. He shrugged and then ignored her as he pulled up his contacts. He couldn’t get the main number to work but he was able to get through via the direct number to dispatch. He had them transfer him to the new Sherriff. He stayed on the phone for about five minutes before saying that he understood and wishing the man on the other end of the line good luck.
“The cops are getting the same level of news we are. They’re patrolling for looters and the infected. Crime in general is ticking way up since everybody is freaking out. He suggested we check out the shelter but make sure we carry a gun. He said if we had our own supplies to consider just hunkering down at home. The only place he thought was going to be safe any time soon was going to be in the middle of the ocean on a boat.” Bart told his family. He hated he hadn’t been able to get any more news than that for them. He didn’t tell them that based on the overall tone of the brief conversation it wasn’t looking good.
“I know some people with boats.” Drew brought up.
“Boats won’t do us a ton of good without supplies.” LeBron said.
“We can fish. We can raid vacation houses. Just a thought. Better than sitting here waiting to die.” Drew shot back testily. He was tired and pissed at himself for falling asleep on guard duty.
“It’s a thought. We need to keep coming up with ideas like that.” Bart trailed off as they all heard
