Chapter One: There's got to be a morning After

- Author's Note: I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit. T for some sexiness. Thank you to those of you who have read, reviewed, and followed my story.


The day after The Blackout

The next morning Mary Sue got up like it was any normal Tuesday – almost. She filled her kettle with water and put it on the stove. She turned on the range and grabbed a bag of Chai. She had an ancient gas stove that had a pilot light instead of using sparkplugs. While waiting for the water to boil, she grabbed her cooler from the hall closet and quickly filled it with the ice packs and chicken breasts from the freezer. She then grabbed the milk, eggs, lettuce, goat cheese, and bell peppers from the fridge – everything else was booze or condiments, they could stand warming up a bit without going bad. She fixed a nice salad for lunch later on, and poured the boiling water over the tea bag.

She fixed a bowl of cereal, added milk and sugar to her tea, and put the dairy products in the cooler. She walked to her living room and sat down in front of her computer. As she shoveled a spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth, she absentmindedly tried to wake up her computer to check her email before realizing without power she'd have no Internet. Strangely, her computer didn't even turn on. She sighed and supposed she could go a full thirty minutes without the Internet.

After finishing her cereal and caffeine Mary Sue got dressed, put her hair up, and packed her bag. She went downstairs and locked up her apartment. She started walking the mile and a half into work – parking was always a real hassle around the university – so it was easier for Mary Sue to walk in.

It was still early, maybe 7 or 7:30, and she noticed a lot of people having troubles with their cars. None of them seemed to be starting. This got Mary Sue concerned, if the power was out and spark plugs stopped working, this could mean an EMP. She started getting worried that the university might not have power, and pulled out her cell phone. It was dead. That couldn't be right. She charged it two days ago and rarely used it. She was now certain that they had been hit by an electromagnetic pulse and started walking briskly; she had to check on the freezers and keep them cold with dry ice.

Fifteen minutes later her concerns were founded. All the blue lights on campus were off, and the power was off in her building. She raced up the 5 flights of stairs to get to be lab. She checked on the lab freezers. The ultra-low freezer's digital temperature display wasn't working, and she didn't want to open the two normal freezers yet. She grabbed the key for the dry ice box, as well as a large Styrofoam box. She ran down the 5 flights of stairs and then walked across the quad to the Biology building. She walked down the hall and opened up the locked, insulated box. She was glad to note that it was pretty full; they must have delivered the dry ice yesterday. She grabbed 8 kilos of dry ice, not knowing if the power would be restored quickly, or if the EMP had damaged critical systems and it would be a long time.

Mary Sue hauled the dry ice back across the quad and up the 5 floors. She broke one of the 2-kilo-blocks into fist-sized pieces with the lab's wooded mallet and placed one in each of the freezers. Luckily the freezers were still cold. After storing the rest of the dry ice, Mary Sue walked around the lab unplugging all the lab equipment. If the EMP hadn't damaged them, then the power surge of the power being restored might. The wall clocks were all frozen at 9:17, even the battery operated ones.

Mary Sue sat down at her inoperable computer, her leg restlessly bouncing. She tried to figure out what else she could do. Her old plan of analyzing data and getting ready for her big presentation clearly wasn't possible right now. God, my presentation! If my computer is fried… when was the last time I backed it up?

To distract herself from fretting about something she had no control over, she grabbed a tray and started consolidating everything important from all of the various fridges into the main fridge. She also transferred the back-up ice packs from the freezer. Some of the buffers and chemicals could warm up and still work, others wouldn't.

As Mary Sue was almost done with the consolidation, she heard sounds in the hall. She hoped it was a co-worker, but most of them didn't show up until 10:30 on a good day. She stuck her head out and saw a campus security guard.

"Good morning," said Mary Sue.

"Good morning," said the nameless guard.

"Do you know what's up with the power," she asked playing the ol' clueless blonde card.

The guard rambled a bit about the city power, his car, the back-up generators and even his Segway, but the gist was that he was clueless. Mary Sue thanked him, and he continued on his rounds.

Mary Sue, at a loss for what to do, decided on boxing up all the full or mostly full biohazard boxes. And when that was done she filled up the Ethanol and Acetone bottles. She heard some noise in the hall; this time when she stuck out her head it was her boss, with her 12-year-old daughter.

"Good morning Carol, Violet; I already put some dry ice in the freezers and transferred most things to one fridge. Is there anything else I can do?"

Dr. Carol Brown looked a bit startled at the sudden questioning, but yet also relieved that Mary Sue has accomplished so much. "Have you unplugged all the equipment?"

Mary Sue nodded.

"Have you shut all the hoods to minimize back-draft?" asked Carol.

Mary Sue shook her head, she hadn't thought about that. Carol nodded emphatically and herded her daughter down the hall to her main office.

Mary Sue checked that the lids on all the noxious chemicals were tightly closed in the hoods before completely lowering the sashes.

Mary Sue decided that it would be good to let Carol and her daughter get settled before asking anymore questions so she turned to the reference volumes above her desk to see if they might have any useful information about dealing with the aftermath of an EMP or what it truly was. Not even the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics had anything relevant. Mary Sue felt impotent without Google and Wikipedia. She was staring at her Inorganic Chemistry textbook, open to a page on electrochemistry, when Carol came in.

"Sorry about that, my car is dead, Violet's school is closed, and John is at a conference in South Korea," said Carol.

Mary Sue just nodded, waiting for her boss to continue.

Carol asked, "How warm do you think the freezers got over the night? You didn't get a dial-a-phone warning, did you?"

Mary Sue answered the questions, "The normal freezers were still frosty, but the ultra-low freezer might have gotten up to - 40 degrees. I didn't get a warning, the system is down, as is my cell phone, and even the battery operated equipment."

"That is worrying," said Carol, calmly making a huge understatement.

Mary Sue had to restrain herself from snorting, and instead asked, "Do you know anything about EMPs?"

Carol blinked a few times, mulling over the question and its connotations. "You think someone detonated a nuclear weapon in the upper atmosphere?"

Mary Sue replied, "I can't think of another reason for all the electrical equipment, including car ignition systems and battery powered walk clocks to stop working at once. Check it out: all of the wall-clocks were stopped at the exact same time – 9:17 last night."

Carol thought some more, "Maybe a massive solar flare? I can't think of a better explanation, but there has got to be one. Since I can't review that paper I was planning on, I think I will go to the library and see if the evidence fits either hypothesis, or if there is a better explanation."

Mary Sue thought that going to the library was an excellent idea and said that she also wanted to go to the library since her data analysis plan fell through. Carol informed her daughter of her plans on going to the library, but Violet decided to stay in her mom's office and read her horse book.


Five years after The Blackout

Mary Sue woke up, sprawled across an empty bed. Miles must have woken up earlier. Mary Sue sat up, adjusted Miles' shirt, and padded over to Miles' window. She pulled the curtain aside, taking a look outside. It was only a bit past dawn; the November air was clear and the frost had not yet melted from the leaves on a nearby tree. Mary Sue dropped the curtain, letting it skirr down the window-frame. She started noticing how cold her feet were getting, and leapt back into Miles' bed. Wooden floors get cold; especially in buildings without central heating!

Mary Sue sat on her feet a few minutes before gathering her clothing from the floor. It had been tossed haphazardly around the room last night. Mary Sue quickly dressed and preformed her morning ablution at Miles' antique washstand. She laced up her sparkly blue hiking boots and attempted to comb her hair with her fingers; she really should leave a brush at Miles' place, but he'd probably freak out, thinking it was some sign of commitment. Her hair as neat as she could make it, she stepped out into the hall of the residential wing of Independence Hall, also known as Congress Hall.

Mary Sue squared her shoulders for the impending Walk of Shame. There was no one in the hall, Mary Sue sighed silently in relief. She strode down the hall, towards the stairs, and got to the second floor landing without incident. There, a private heavily laden with hot water pails almost ran into her.

He said, "Excuse me ma'am."

Mary Sue thought she saw a hint of disapprobation in his eyes and glowered at him.

The private apologized once more and hurried up the stairs. Hmm, that glower worked better than expected, Miles must be rubbing off on me, thought Mary Sue.

Mary Sue reached the first floor residential wing and made her way out a side exit, her neck prickling with imagined knowing stares. Perhaps next time Miles should spend the night at her place. It was just a small room in the distillery, but he wouldn't be called away during the middle of the night or early in the morning. She'd try to remind Miles of the intoxicating aroma of the fermenting malt and cider and the oak casks with the aging whiskey.

Mary Sue made it through the Presidential Compound checkpoint. She knew the checkpoints and seven-foot tall fence had been added by the National Parks Service after 9-11, but they gave the Compound a real military feel; however, once past the checkpoint her neck stopped prickling, she had successfully completed the Walk of Shame, no one here would be able to tell that she had just spent the night in the bed, and arms, of the General.

Mary Sue dodged a fresh road-apple on her way to her distillery on the banks of the Schuylkill River, a good 35 minutes due west of Independence Hall. Her distillery was just across the river from the former Drexel University, which could be convenient at times. Mary Sue wondered what had happened to her old professor and her horse-crazy daughter. If Violet had lived through the tumultuous transition, she'd probably really enjoy the increased prevalence and importance of horses.

Mary Sue made good time walking through the city, trying to focus on the present not the past or the future, which wasn't too hard. The sun was burning away the frost, but the air was brisk enough to make you aware that, in the Stark family words, Winter is Coming.

Mary Sue had a busy day ahead of her. She had received a boatload of apples yesterday which her two apprentices and Hodor should have sorted by now. Hodor wasn't his real name, that was Caleb, but ever since he started helping her at her first distillery, she thought of the large man with Down's syndrome as Hodor. Mary Sue knew this wasn't PC and never called him Hodor, but she couldn't change the way she thought of him.

Mary Sue reached the factory that was her distillery and unlocked the side entrance. She proudly surveyed her domain. The main workroom was arrayed in thirds. The back third contained neat rows of sterilized galvanized steel trashcans with airtight lids and jerry-rigged airlocks. This was where the apple cider or beer for whiskey was fermented. In the middle third sat a boiler, and small food-mill, and her precious still. The front third of her workroom currently held four tarps with a pile of apples on each and a large stack of firewood. By the end of the day, all that would be turned into another row of fermenting cider barrels.

The apples were sorted by ripeness and Mary Sue ascertained which pile was which and grabbed an apple from the ripe pile with which to break her fast. She walked past her still, and the fermenters, to the very back of the factory. In the back were three small rooms, one had previously been an office while the other two used to be a bathroom and a break-room. The office currently served as Mary Sue's bedroom/office and the larger break-room was where the apprentices and Hodor slept. The bathroom was useless. They used an outhouse built onto the building on the side furthest from the river, and bathed in a scalding tub in the main workroom.

Mary Sue knocked on the apprentices' door. There was no response; they were probably at the neighboring farm for breakfast. She opened the door to check; yep they were out. Mary Sue's distillery had a nice mutualistic relationship with the nearby corn and pig farm. Mary Sue provided her used mash to feed the hogs and unskilled labor during the spring planting season and the Coopers provided basic meals as well as chopping and hauling firewood during their slow times.

It was a lot easier to just get food from the farm than to make it themselves, and the farm had at least 15 adults and twice as many kids to feed, so feeding four more wasn't a stretch for their cook.

While waiting for her assistants to return Mary Sue went into her office/bedroom and changed out of her sexy clothes. They were her sexy clothes because the button-up shirt was still blue, not yet faded from the burn of homemade soap, and the pants were cleaner than her other pair. She pulled on her work pants and a dingy shirt, placed her earrings in the broken mug on her apple-crate bedside table and brushed her hair before pulling it up into a tight, unflattering bun. Mary Sue knew it gave her a severe, librarian sort of look, but it wouldn't do to have stray hairs falling into the cider or being singed off by the still.

Mary Sue left her room and went to check on the cider cans from six days ago. She checked the rate of CO2 bubbling in the airlocks. It had slowed from last night, indicating that it was close to bottling time. Mary Sue took off the glass airlocks and the whittled pine plugs, placing them in a rack on a table against the far wall. She carefully removed one greased lid. The air filled with the incredibly heady aroma of yeast.

Mary Sue took a clean paddle and thoroughly stirred the fermenter. She carefully smelled and tasted the yeasty cider. She continued the process with the other four cans noting the flavor and alcohol content of each can. She replaced the lids, but not in an airtight manner, and let the yeast and apple bits settle. She sat munching on an apple, waiting for her apprentices to return from the Cooper farm.


- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)