She tried to clear up Thom’s confusion. “Power supply isn’t a priority for DoD, except as it affects defense readiness. In a time like this they have only one focus: maintaining national sovereignty.”
“What, they’re afraid we’re going to be invaded? Isn’t this happening all over the world?”
“Ninety percent of it, yes. But the Defense Department’s first responsibility is maintaining critical infrastructure. Their critical infrastructure. Army installations have to tie into the grid too, so their primary mission will be to protect and restore their own assets.”
“What about food?” he asked. “Water? Social order?”
Dr. Singh started to answer, but then squinted into the camera. “Is that—I’m sorry, there’s a pair of hands that keeps coming in and out of—Are you getting a haircut, Thom?”
Irritated, Thom waved away the hands. Chloe, the yoga instructor, had been personally selected by Thom to be the beneficiary of a twelve-week course in hair styling, in order to fill a double role at the bunker. She’d never taken to hair and, if Thom’s current cut was any measure, she hadn’t practiced in the two years since she’d finished the course.
“Sorry. Little shaggy. I’m done.” He pulled the bib off and glared up at Chloe, instantly regretting it. Chloe was young, just in her mid-twenties, and she was sensitive to criticism, as well as racial injustice, income inequality, misgendering, and apparently, frowning. “Sorry, Chloe. Thank you very much. We can pick this up later.” Noticing her expression, he added “It’s looking great. Really fantastic. You have a natural gift.”
Chloe let her straw-colored hair flip down in front of her face and hid behind it as she packed up her things without a word.
Chloe was a problem in the making. It had not gone unnoticed by Ann-Sophie that Chloe bore a resemblance to her, both in coloring and body type, with the notable and irritating exception of being at least a decade younger. Chloe, alert to vibes of all kinds, had picked up that the boss’s wife disliked her, almost as much as the boss seemed to take an interest in her. She was navigating the hostile waters as best she could.
Thom turned back to the screen. “Sorry. You were saying?”
“I was saying,” Dr. Singh continued, “that the army will hunker down, island their assets, and try to maintain combat readiness in case of attack.”
“What about continuity of government? All those plans—the President, Congress, that enormous bunker under the Denver airport. Where are they all? Do they have power?”
“Probably, but you have to understand, the federal government doesn’t matter anymore. It is incapable of helping, except in its capacity to direct resources to local governments so that they can handle it. FEMA stopped supply-chain-resilience oversight a decade ago. Do you know the distribution organization the government has planned to use, in the event of a widespread food crisis?”
“I do not.”
“Walmart.”
“You’re joking.”
“It makes sense. Who has better infrastructure for the mass dissemination of cheap goods? Who’s got a wider spread throughout local communities? The federal government will simply pay Walmart to give away food and supplies. That’s all it can do.”
Thom thought. “You’re saying there is now, or soon will be, no hierarchy of command in the United States?”
Dr. Singh nodded vehemently. “Things are already beginning to break down much the way they were detailed in the New Madrid mega-scenario FEMA developed a few years ago.”
“I missed that one. What did it say?”
“Basically? Be nice to your mayor. You’re going to need her. Communities will become localized and insular. Then again, that’s not entirely a bad thing. With the internet down for the indefinite future, rumor and disinformation will transmit much more slowly. It’s a lot harder to spread lies face to face than it is online. Local truth will become the only real truth, which I guess is how things ought to be anyway.”
Thom declined to argue her simplistic, Luddite view of information technology. She took advantage of the pause and glanced at her watch. “I should probably get going. Does that give you enough of a picture for now?”
“Not yet.” Since she’d accepted the $10 million, Thom felt free to dispense with conversational niceties. “What are the cities like?”
“Not post-apocalyptic, or not yet anyway. Exit flow from New York and New Jersey was better than expected. But we’re still at the threshold. Most people don’t have a problem maintaining a 72-hour personal sustainment mindset, but longer than that—well, after the first week we’re headed into the great unknown.”