The Preppers Chronicles
A collection of interlinked scenarios designed to help your mind explore as many possible scenarios as possible
(Setting the Scene)
The Fall
The BBC news from Robert Peston at 1PM those few months ago made the city traders panic and it was reported that both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had turned white when an aide broke the news to them. “How in god’s name did we end up in this mess?” was the PM’s first thought.
In less than 3 months the nation’s economic forecast had gone from a promising future to a state of borderline collapse, one minute news of the massive economic boom of the Chinese and Indian economies and healthy growth in east Africa was driving up the value of the Dollar, Euro and Pound and pushing the markets to record highs.
Total chaos reigned supreme as a coalition of most of the major oil producing nations announced that they were changing the focus of their oil production and its price structure so that China, India and Africa became the favoured customers in a huge deal that saw special trade agreements between Brasil, India and China and the Saudi Arabia headed Oil producing coalition of nations (OPEC).
The Chinese let this news rattle the western world for a few days before applying the Coup de grace of announcing in cooperation with the OPEC nations that the cost of a barrel of oil to the Western nations would be levied at $200 a barrel.
It really did not matter if the price rise was simply a tool to gain political leverage with or even a bluff, the effect was instant and devastating. Basically the stock markets and economies of the American, British and European nations collapsed within days.
The entire western world watched in stunned silence as the Chinese and Indians become the new global super powers without a shot being fired. Suddenly the value of the Dollar, Pound and Euro collapsed and the west could not afford to buy the oil that was essential to their economies. The oil stopped flowing west, and within days the Russian federation upon seeing who had the upper hand offered preferential trading agreements to the Chinese and Indians for the huge reserves of natural gas they had for sale.
The price of natural gas to Europe doubled overnight, Ukraine protested so Russia turned off the gas supply. Norway stopped exporting its gas reserves immediately and the UK government seized control over the remaining oil and gas wells in the North Sea. The cheap imported coal from South America and Poland which sustained the UK’s remaining coal fired power stations stopped coming. America immediately in cooperation with Canada stopped ALL exports of grain to anyone and everyone in order to try and appear to be doing something useful, but it was too late confidence in the Dollar was gone, no one wanted Dollars any more, or Sterling, or Euros.
The government of the UK tried to play down the seriousness of the crisis it took various steps to stabilise its economy, it made wild claims that the UK could sustain itself on North Sea oil and gas until the political crisis was resolved, it claimed the few remaining old nuclear plants and newly built wind farms could meet most of the nation’s needs. They were wrong.
Some rationing of petrol, diesel, gas and electricity were to be applied but the government assured the nation the measures would be temporary. Across the nation the masses did not care, did not understand and trusted blindly that the government would sort out the mess and take care of them, many would not live to regret that blind faith.
Whilst the power still flowed (intermittently) thousands of people who were often referred to as Small Holders, Survivalists, Preppers, Home steaders and Off-gridders furiously texted, E mailed and posted on their communities forums providing each other with information and news on the growing crisis. They regardless of the titles applied to them by the tabloid media ALL started making plans and provisions.
They exchanged files on growing and preserving food, making bio fuels, animal husbandry,micro power generation, self-reliance, self-sufficiency and self-preservation to each other. They agreed on dates, times and places where they could be contacted if all other forms of communication failed. They agreed IN ADVANCE on various locations in the UK where they would meet on set dates to trade and barter if society collapsed.
Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, The Washington Monument in County Durham, Hatton Locks in Warwickshire were typical of the places agreed upon to be the new hubs for the preppers to gather at in England to trade and barter.
“This is the BBC world service, today it was announced that Her Majesty the Queen and her ministers would be extending indefinitely their stay in Canada, The Trade minister said it was so Her Majesty and her ministers could negotiate face to face with the American and Canadian government to try and get grain shipments restored and to gain access to the huge reserves of shale oil the Canadians have”.
Those people prudent enough not to believe the promises the government set about updating their plans and preparing for the worst. Caches and stockpiles of food, fuel, medicines, seeds, barter goods etc were checked over and concealed in various locations. Vehicles were serviced and loaded with extra equipment, fuel tanks and spare jerry cans filled with stabilised fuel. Bug out Bags were checked, contents and refreshed. Extra food stuffs were bulk bought, sorted and stored, some families who were more advanced in their preparations or just better placed financially actually just packed up and moved out to their “”Holiday homes”” as their chosen places of safety were called in polite company. For a few die-hards who had long foreseen major problems coming they had already long since sold up and moved out of the towns and cities, these old time preppers just hunkered down to watch the world unravel around them.
“Reuters News article, It is reported that some members of the Royal Marines, Parachute Regiment Troops and members of the Special forces were now moving with their families into gated communities and large extensive Country Estates owned by the nation’s richest and most powerful people in the UK. An insider reported that the soldiers and families were being accommodated by the owners of the estates in return for providing 24 hour security to the owners and landlords.”
“BREAKING SKY NEWS, Reports are coming in that many hundreds of white collar and public sector workers from London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and London are refusing to report for work. The Mayor of London issued a statement saying less than 20% of the capitals police officers have reported for duty”
“London Evening Standard” headline is “Where are they going?”
The Standards society reporter is telling the news desk that as far as she can find out many hundreds of the social elite and rich from the Westminster and Chelsea areas are loading their Range Rovers and Mercedes G Wagons and leaving the city for “planned extended vacation in places the St Kitts, Guernsey and the Bahamas.”
The online version of BOATING & YACHTING NEWS is still being published but in greatly reduced form, It’s reporting in a massive surge in people re-provisioning their boats and offering huge sums of money for contract skippers with ocean going experience. They also report that large numbers of yachts and cruisers are leaving the south coast ports every day, destination unknown.
(END GAME)
The following Monday morning the government announced that its welfare payment system which distributed Unemployment Benefit, Sickness Benefit, Disability Benefit, Pensions etc had suffered a “glitch” and payments would be delayed by 14 days until the next due payment date.
The morning news reported the association of Chief Police Officers had issued an instruction to all holders of Fire Arms Certificates for gun owners to be responsible citizens and to take their fire arms to the nearest open police station and hand them in for safe keeping, The evening news reported how the ACPO were disappointed with the fact that only 5% of registered gun owners had surrendered their guns.
Five days after the government failed to pay out the billions in pension and welfare money it is reported that looting of food shops by desperate and hungry poor people were resorting to looting shops after charitable FOOD BANKS ran out of supplies.
That evening small scale looting of petrol stations was reported on roads leaving many cities.
BBC BIRMINGHAM REPORTS, Due to technical problems the main BBC broadcasts from London have been temporarily stopped and news will now come from Birmingham and Salford.
BBC SALFORD REPORTS, It has been confirmed the remaining members of the government have relocated from London to the secure facilities of an undisclosed military base near Corsham, and reports that the BBC film crew from Birmingham who were sent to assess the situation in London were found murdered near Wembley stadium.
At night for weeks on end across the UK, walking across the Pennine Way,hiking along the Manchester ship canal,trail following the East Coast Mainline,cycling along the Fosse-way, moving into the Brecon Beacons, along the Festiniog rail track and on hundreds of other pre-selected and well reccied paths if you were alert you may have caught glimpses of various groups of preppers and survivalists with their families heading away from the large towns and cities. They accessed their pre-deployed caches to re-supply, they rested at locations they knew to be secure, and they made their way quietly to their bug out locations to hopefully survive the nightmare descending on the country.
“The final report from the BBC Salford news team before their helicopter was lost confirmed that during their extended flight they confirmed Leeds, Bradford, Halifax and Sheffield are ablaze just as their previous reports had confirmed hundreds of fires visible in London and Birmingham. They also relayed a message from a RAYNET team near Bristol who report that both dysentery and cholera have been reported in Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea.
“It is also with great regret that we at BBC Salford and Manchester will be going offline after 8 PM this evening until we can obtain fuel for the generators.”
THE COLLAPSE
The city was huge, a behemoth a massive interconnected and inter-reliant lattice work of career people, families, travellers, traders, migrant workers, and refugees both economic and political.
Wealth creators and wealth users, consumers and producers all kept functioning by the never ending efforts of the utilities and service industries.
The city was like a giant living and breathing entity and it was dying. The massive swings in the global economy coupled to political uncertainty at home had caused the financial sector to take massive calculated risks with billions of pounds of investor’s monies; it had caused much of the nation’s remaining manufacturing base to move overseas seeking cheaper non-union work forces and lower production costs.
The rising unemployment in the nation especially affected the city as its wealth ebbed away on just trying to keep the utilities and public services running, more money haemorrhaged away on the various social welfare and benefits schemes that had flourished during the wealthier times.
The over indulgences that made the city so unhealthy and so vulnerable to the fatal infection was complacency and over confidence. People and systems became utterly reliant on services provided on demand at the moment of need. They became too confident that technology would provide all their needs 24/7/365.
People imported almost everything they needed without giving where those goods and services came from a seconds thought, or as to what would happen if those supplies stopped arriving.
People could and did simply go to the 24 hour supermarkets to buy that days food not giving a thought as to what they would do if the food did not reach the shops.
They turned on a tap and pure clean drinking water spurted out, they turned on a knob and natural gas belched out to cook their food with and to heat their water for washing with. They flicked on a switch and the electricity flowed to power their lights, run their computers, and drive their TVs.
The same people poured waste down sinks, flushed toilets, and put rubbish out and it simply “went away” the people did not know nor cared where all their waste went to. If a problem occurred such as a blocked drain, outbreak of rats or cockroaches they simply made a phone call and someone else fixed the problem.
When interviewers asked many of the city’s younger inhabitants where food came from or where fuel came from they replied most ironically “shops and service stations” and that was as far as their knowledge based reached.
Broken street lights, bunch of young thugs scaring the community, overflowing drains, a fallen tree, failed traffic lights, late running train, protest rally causing trouble, body found behind shops, insects found in take away meal, stolen car racing the streets, stranger enticing children, noisy neighbours stereo, thug with vicious dog attacking people, ethnic gang robbing school kids, overflowing bins blocking pavement, car on fire, light not working, missed parcel delivery, doctors surgery closed because of violent incident, young mum faints in street, anarchists squatting in mansion, illegal immigrants aggressively begging, burst water main, daily paper undelivered, bread delivery late, cash point out of action, fresh bought chicken leg found to be rotten, wheely bin gone missing , fallen tree embedded in shop front. This list goes on and on, and all are either fixed or made better by simply E mailing a department or phoning a help line. People simply relied completely on the “system” to provide for all their needs from cradle to grave.
But what would happen if the system failed or stopped?
8AM
Charles Winstanley city broker pulled up at the ATM to withdraw cash, he needed funds to pay for his daughters ballet lessons at Miss Markova’s that evening. The cash point refused his request for funds, the screen simply apologised and asked him to try again later.
8.10AM Gavin Boyd tried to fill up his car but the guy in the cubicle barked over the speakers to say “CASH ONLY the card reader was not working”. Gavin did not have any cash so had to leave without his fuel. Gavin was heading back to Northamptonshire over 100 miles away he only had enough fuel for probably 30 miles, He wagered himself the Bug Out kit in the back of the car would almost certainly be needed, some instinct confirmed by the radio news made Gavin very cautious about the day ahead.
8.10AM 3E27 was the train’s designation, 10,000 tons of prime coal for the power station, it is part of a never ending set of trains that continuously supply the power stations with the coal they need. They are called Merry Go Round trains because they follow a circular never ending route from coal mine (or docks) to the power stations. Day in day out they keep feeding the ravenous furnaces with the coal that is burnt to heat the water that is turned into high pressure steam that is used to turn turbines that in turn spin the generators. The generators that keep the city supplied with its electricity.
This morning was different though, Driver Ackland saw a yellow light followed by a red light in the far distance and slowed his train right down, when he finally got the green light to go ahead he was baffled to find himself being routed into a very long siding, and in that siding he found the sister coal train that was supposed to be 2 hours ahead of him. Driver Ackland could do nothing but sit and wait and took the opportunity to drink some piping hot tea from his flask. About two hours later Driver Ackland was startled to see that the route signalling lights were not showing any lights at all. So he decided to walk to the line side phone and check with the control room as to what was happening.
When he reached the little grey box he found the other coal train driver chatting with the driver of a local commuter train also held up on the southbound side just out of sight at the junction. They told Driver Ackland the phones were not working! The trio waited five hours before shutting down their engines off -loading the few passengers from the commuter train and setting off on foot for the next station.
8.35 Ali Saddiq of the village bakery tried yet again to phone the big regional bakery to find out where his supplies were he now had less than 4 hours to prepare enough bread, rolls and cakes for a 1200 place school and an 800 place sixth form college with whom he had contracts with. The lady on the other end said she could not help him and told him he had to phone another number which was a government agency number, not as he expected another department of the grain suppliers company.
The problem was the government number was permanently engaged. With little food available the schools were forced to close at noon and call the parents to come collect their kids. But by 7PM that evening nearly 300 kids were still uncollected from school.
9.08AM Tom and Louis stood open mouthed in awe and surprise they looked at each other in amazement. Roughly two minutes ago the entire control panel of the pumping station that they were in charge off went silent and dark. Normally the room buzzed with the sound of hundreds of dials, meters, printers, hydrometers, pressure monitors etc. The noise was normally compounded by the high pitched whine and rumble of multiple high and low pressure pumps and their associated electric motors. But two minutes ago the pumps and motors slowed down then stopped, the gauges fell and the dials and lights went out. The water supply for nearly two million people and businesses that they controlled had stopped flowing. A minute later they got a call from their sister plant at the other side of the city who reported that their pumps had also stopped, they also got a call on Link Net the emergency radio system that ALL of the areas effluent and sewage plants had stopped.
9.35AM “They are nearly two bloody buggering hours late” growled a furious bus depot fleet maintenance manager to his foreman, “Where the hell is my diesel delivery, last nights did not come and now my bloody buggering morning fuel delivery has not turned up. I don’t bloody buggering well need this, at this rate I will be pulling buses off the road just before lunchtime and head office will kill me if I do”. At 10.30 AM when his foreman went to meet his manager for coffee he found him dead on his office floor a massive stroke had calmed his rage forever. The foreman dialled 999 but the operator said it may be a while before help comes because they ambulance service is struggling to find fuel for its fleet.
12.02 PM Gladys Mabel Arkright stood at the bus stop and wondered where had all the buses gone to, 73 years old with a dodgy hip she now faced a 14 mile walk back to her village after a visit to her elderly sister in an nursing home.
15.40PM Ross Carr was feeling light headed and sweaty, her hands were trembling and she felt suddenly very tired. Ross was a type one diabetic as well as a teenager. And like many teenagers she took silly risks with the control over her condition. She had missed her morning shot and noon shot and was now paying the price for her folly. She got back to the tower block where she and her mum lived on the 5th floor. She found the main entrance door open which was unusual because it’s an electromagnetic card operated door system. She would tell her mum when she saw her. She hopped the elevator and pressed 5 but no sooner had the door shut and the lift started climbing it stopped dead and the lights went out. Using the battery powered back up light she found the emergency call button and pressed it, but no one answered it. Nor were they likely to either the microwave radio link to the control room was without power and its back up battery was defective. For 15 year old Miss Ross Carr, type one diabetic no one would find her until it was too late.
18.00PM a radio, phone, cell phone, text and pager message went out ordering all police officers to report for emergency deployment. Many officers look out the window and listened to the radio news about the developing problems and decided to stay at home with their families.
20.20 PM a group of commuters whose trains had not arrived and who could not get a straight answer from the few remaining railway staff were walking through Lake Valley Gardens the lowest point in the city, the street lights had faded out nearly an hour earlier, and as they walked in a group led by a guy called Adam who had a street map, flashlight, compass, light sticks and radio in his rucksack (someone asked if his nickname was Rambo the survivalist, he replied the name was wrong but the title right). The group reached the bottom of the gardens just as it reached the new executive housing estate that had been built on the old marshland five years ago. Adam paused and asked “can you smell that and can you hear running water?”
Playing his FenixLD20 flashlight out ahead he could see water or liquid percolating up out of the gullies and drains ahead of them. It had formed a growing pool across the full width of the path and was flowing very freely and quite fast into the streets of the executive housing development.
Sewage, neat untreated sewage, plus other effluents and waste water was pouring out of the drains and sewers, this was the lowest point on the drain and sewer network and pumps were supposed to carry the effluent from the underground Victorian built storage chambers and pump it to the treatment works outside the city limits.
The pumps had stopped and now the raw sewage was following the easiest route that gravity would allow, straight towards the homes of 30,000 city workers.
22.00PM , Chaz,, Kam, Dodger, Davie, Chris, Wayne, Akim, Paul, George, Wallace and Carl were all sat in the lounge of the regional secure unit for young violent criminals. All were guests of the state for carrying some of the most horrible and depraved crimes you could imagine. Our young products of broken homes had already noticed the night shift of prison officers had not turned up for work and in the last 90 minutes they had not seen nor heard from the remaining members of the day shift. Suddenly the lights flickered and went out and the emergency lighting kicked in. This made the boys laugh as it was a change from the drudgery and routine they were used to.
Then a few minutes later Kam noticed the electromagnetic door locks to the secure lounge were clicking like mad. Kam went to the door and pulled at the handle, nothing it stayed locked. So being a typical teen whilst he was about to tell his friends that the door lock was “doing his head in” he leaned back putting his weight onto the door just as the mechanism clicked again as the power supply to it was briefly interrupted. Suddenly Kam found himself sat on the floor staring at a now open door leading out of the lounge, and no prison officer was on the other side to remonstrate with him
By midnight with much pulling, prying, kicking etc aiding by an intermitted power supply the boys found their way to a fire door just off the library floor. From there eleven of society’s greatest failures, sadists, thugs and perverts found themselves outside in an unlit city with no sign of any authorities anywhere. It took them less than 40 minutes to rob their first late night store and to rape and kill the two girls running the store. From there the eleven melted into the night to add to the spreading anarchy and chaos that was devouring the city.
A collection of interlinked scenarios designed to help your mind explore as many possible scenarios as possible
(Setting the Scene)
The Fall
The BBC news from Robert Peston at 1PM those few months ago made the city traders panic and it was reported that both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had turned white when an aide broke the news to them. “How in god’s name did we end up in this mess?” was the PM’s first thought.
In less than 3 months the nation’s economic forecast had gone from a promising future to a state of borderline collapse, one minute news of the massive economic boom of the Chinese and Indian economies and healthy growth in east Africa was driving up the value of the Dollar, Euro and Pound and pushing the markets to record highs.
Total chaos reigned supreme as a coalition of most of the major oil producing nations announced that they were changing the focus of their oil production and its price structure so that China, India and Africa became the favoured customers in a huge deal that saw special trade agreements between Brasil, India and China and the Saudi Arabia headed Oil producing coalition of nations (OPEC).
The Chinese let this news rattle the western world for a few days before applying the Coup de grace of announcing in cooperation with the OPEC nations that the cost of a barrel of oil to the Western nations would be levied at $200 a barrel.
It really did not matter if the price rise was simply a tool to gain political leverage with or even a bluff, the effect was instant and devastating. Basically the stock markets and economies of the American, British and European nations collapsed within days.
The entire western world watched in stunned silence as the Chinese and Indians become the new global super powers without a shot being fired. Suddenly the value of the Dollar, Pound and Euro collapsed and the west could not afford to buy the oil that was essential to their economies. The oil stopped flowing west, and within days the Russian federation upon seeing who had the upper hand offered preferential trading agreements to the Chinese and Indians for the huge reserves of natural gas they had for sale.
The price of natural gas to Europe doubled overnight, Ukraine protested so Russia turned off the gas supply. Norway stopped exporting its gas reserves immediately and the UK government seized control over the remaining oil and gas wells in the North Sea. The cheap imported coal from South America and Poland which sustained the UK’s remaining coal fired power stations stopped coming. America immediately in cooperation with Canada stopped ALL exports of grain to anyone and everyone in order to try and appear to be doing something useful, but it was too late confidence in the Dollar was gone, no one wanted Dollars any more, or Sterling, or Euros.
The government of the UK tried to play down the seriousness of the crisis it took various steps to stabilise its economy, it made wild claims that the UK could sustain itself on North Sea oil and gas until the political crisis was resolved, it claimed the few remaining old nuclear plants and newly built wind farms could meet most of the nation’s needs. They were wrong.
Some rationing of petrol, diesel, gas and electricity were to be applied but the government assured the nation the measures would be temporary. Across the nation the masses did not care, did not understand and trusted blindly that the government would sort out the mess and take care of them, many would not live to regret that blind faith.
Whilst the power still flowed (intermittently) thousands of people who were often referred to as Small Holders, Survivalists, Preppers, Home steaders and Off-gridders furiously texted, E mailed and posted on their communities forums providing each other with information and news on the growing crisis. They regardless of the titles applied to them by the tabloid media ALL started making plans and provisions.
They exchanged files on growing and preserving food, making bio fuels, animal husbandry,micro power generation, self-reliance, self-sufficiency and self-preservation to each other. They agreed on dates, times and places where they could be contacted if all other forms of communication failed. They agreed IN ADVANCE on various locations in the UK where they would meet on set dates to trade and barter if society collapsed.
Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, The Washington Monument in County Durham, Hatton Locks in Warwickshire were typical of the places agreed upon to be the new hubs for the preppers to gather at in England to trade and barter.
“This is the BBC world service, today it was announced that Her Majesty the Queen and her ministers would be extending indefinitely their stay in Canada, The Trade minister said it was so Her Majesty and her ministers could negotiate face to face with the American and Canadian government to try and get grain shipments restored and to gain access to the huge reserves of shale oil the Canadians have”.
Those people prudent enough not to believe the promises the government set about updating their plans and preparing for the worst. Caches and stockpiles of food, fuel, medicines, seeds, barter goods etc were checked over and concealed in various locations. Vehicles were serviced and loaded with extra equipment, fuel tanks and spare jerry cans filled with stabilised fuel. Bug out Bags were checked, contents and refreshed. Extra food stuffs were bulk bought, sorted and stored, some families who were more advanced in their preparations or just better placed financially actually just packed up and moved out to their “”Holiday homes”” as their chosen places of safety were called in polite company. For a few die-hards who had long foreseen major problems coming they had already long since sold up and moved out of the towns and cities, these old time preppers just hunkered down to watch the world unravel around them.
“Reuters News article, It is reported that some members of the Royal Marines, Parachute Regiment Troops and members of the Special forces were now moving with their families into gated communities and large extensive Country Estates owned by the nation’s richest and most powerful people in the UK. An insider reported that the soldiers and families were being accommodated by the owners of the estates in return for providing 24 hour security to the owners and landlords.”
“BREAKING SKY NEWS, Reports are coming in that many hundreds of white collar and public sector workers from London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and London are refusing to report for work. The Mayor of London issued a statement saying less than 20% of the capitals police officers have reported for duty”
“London Evening Standard” headline is “Where are they going?”
The Standards society reporter is telling the news desk that as far as she can find out many hundreds of the social elite and rich from the Westminster and Chelsea areas are loading their Range Rovers and Mercedes G Wagons and leaving the city for “planned extended vacation in places the St Kitts, Guernsey and the Bahamas.”
The online version of BOATING & YACHTING NEWS is still being published but in greatly reduced form, It’s reporting in a massive surge in people re-provisioning their boats and offering huge sums of money for contract skippers with ocean going experience. They also report that large numbers of yachts and cruisers are leaving the south coast ports every day, destination unknown.
(END GAME)
The following Monday morning the government announced that its welfare payment system which distributed Unemployment Benefit, Sickness Benefit, Disability Benefit, Pensions etc had suffered a “glitch” and payments would be delayed by 14 days until the next due payment date.
The morning news reported the association of Chief Police Officers had issued an instruction to all holders of Fire Arms Certificates for gun owners to be responsible citizens and to take their fire arms to the nearest open police station and hand them in for safe keeping, The evening news reported how the ACPO were disappointed with the fact that only 5% of registered gun owners had surrendered their guns.
Five days after the government failed to pay out the billions in pension and welfare money it is reported that looting of food shops by desperate and hungry poor people were resorting to looting shops after charitable FOOD BANKS ran out of supplies.
That evening small scale looting of petrol stations was reported on roads leaving many cities.
BBC BIRMINGHAM REPORTS, Due to technical problems the main BBC broadcasts from London have been temporarily stopped and news will now come from Birmingham and Salford.
BBC SALFORD REPORTS, It has been confirmed the remaining members of the government have relocated from London to the secure facilities of an undisclosed military base near Corsham, and reports that the BBC film crew from Birmingham who were sent to assess the situation in London were found murdered near Wembley stadium.
At night for weeks on end across the UK, walking across the Pennine Way,hiking along the Manchester ship canal,trail following the East Coast Mainline,cycling along the Fosse-way, moving into the Brecon Beacons, along the Festiniog rail track and on hundreds of other pre-selected and well reccied paths if you were alert you may have caught glimpses of various groups of preppers and survivalists with their families heading away from the large towns and cities. They accessed their pre-deployed caches to re-supply, they rested at locations they knew to be secure, and they made their way quietly to their bug out locations to hopefully survive the nightmare descending on the country.
“The final report from the BBC Salford news team before their helicopter was lost confirmed that during their extended flight they confirmed Leeds, Bradford, Halifax and Sheffield are ablaze just as their previous reports had confirmed hundreds of fires visible in London and Birmingham. They also relayed a message from a RAYNET team near Bristol who report that both dysentery and cholera have been reported in Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea.
“It is also with great regret that we at BBC Salford and Manchester will be going offline after 8 PM this evening until we can obtain fuel for the generators.”
THE COLLAPSE
The city was huge, a behemoth a massive interconnected and inter-reliant lattice work of career people, families, travellers, traders, migrant workers, and refugees both economic and political.
Wealth creators and wealth users, consumers and producers all kept functioning by the never ending efforts of the utilities and service industries.
The city was like a giant living and breathing entity and it was dying. The massive swings in the global economy coupled to political uncertainty at home had caused the financial sector to take massive calculated risks with billions of pounds of investor’s monies; it had caused much of the nation’s remaining manufacturing base to move overseas seeking cheaper non-union work forces and lower production costs.
The rising unemployment in the nation especially affected the city as its wealth ebbed away on just trying to keep the utilities and public services running, more money haemorrhaged away on the various social welfare and benefits schemes that had flourished during the wealthier times.
The over indulgences that made the city so unhealthy and so vulnerable to the fatal infection was complacency and over confidence. People and systems became utterly reliant on services provided on demand at the moment of need. They became too confident that technology would provide all their needs 24/7/365.
People imported almost everything they needed without giving where those goods and services came from a seconds thought, or as to what would happen if those supplies stopped arriving.
People could and did simply go to the 24 hour supermarkets to buy that days food not giving a thought as to what they would do if the food did not reach the shops.
They turned on a tap and pure clean drinking water spurted out, they turned on a knob and natural gas belched out to cook their food with and to heat their water for washing with. They flicked on a switch and the electricity flowed to power their lights, run their computers, and drive their TVs.
The same people poured waste down sinks, flushed toilets, and put rubbish out and it simply “went away” the people did not know nor cared where all their waste went to. If a problem occurred such as a blocked drain, outbreak of rats or cockroaches they simply made a phone call and someone else fixed the problem.
When interviewers asked many of the city’s younger inhabitants where food came from or where fuel came from they replied most ironically “shops and service stations” and that was as far as their knowledge based reached.
Broken street lights, bunch of young thugs scaring the community, overflowing drains, a fallen tree, failed traffic lights, late running train, protest rally causing trouble, body found behind shops, insects found in take away meal, stolen car racing the streets, stranger enticing children, noisy neighbours stereo, thug with vicious dog attacking people, ethnic gang robbing school kids, overflowing bins blocking pavement, car on fire, light not working, missed parcel delivery, doctors surgery closed because of violent incident, young mum faints in street, anarchists squatting in mansion, illegal immigrants aggressively begging, burst water main, daily paper undelivered, bread delivery late, cash point out of action, fresh bought chicken leg found to be rotten, wheely bin gone missing , fallen tree embedded in shop front. This list goes on and on, and all are either fixed or made better by simply E mailing a department or phoning a help line. People simply relied completely on the “system” to provide for all their needs from cradle to grave.
But what would happen if the system failed or stopped?
8AM
Charles Winstanley city broker pulled up at the ATM to withdraw cash, he needed funds to pay for his daughters ballet lessons at Miss Markova’s that evening. The cash point refused his request for funds, the screen simply apologised and asked him to try again later.
8.10AM Gavin Boyd tried to fill up his car but the guy in the cubicle barked over the speakers to say “CASH ONLY the card reader was not working”. Gavin did not have any cash so had to leave without his fuel. Gavin was heading back to Northamptonshire over 100 miles away he only had enough fuel for probably 30 miles, He wagered himself the Bug Out kit in the back of the car would almost certainly be needed, some instinct confirmed by the radio news made Gavin very cautious about the day ahead.
8.10AM 3E27 was the train’s designation, 10,000 tons of prime coal for the power station, it is part of a never ending set of trains that continuously supply the power stations with the coal they need. They are called Merry Go Round trains because they follow a circular never ending route from coal mine (or docks) to the power stations. Day in day out they keep feeding the ravenous furnaces with the coal that is burnt to heat the water that is turned into high pressure steam that is used to turn turbines that in turn spin the generators. The generators that keep the city supplied with its electricity.
This morning was different though, Driver Ackland saw a yellow light followed by a red light in the far distance and slowed his train right down, when he finally got the green light to go ahead he was baffled to find himself being routed into a very long siding, and in that siding he found the sister coal train that was supposed to be 2 hours ahead of him. Driver Ackland could do nothing but sit and wait and took the opportunity to drink some piping hot tea from his flask. About two hours later Driver Ackland was startled to see that the route signalling lights were not showing any lights at all. So he decided to walk to the line side phone and check with the control room as to what was happening.
When he reached the little grey box he found the other coal train driver chatting with the driver of a local commuter train also held up on the southbound side just out of sight at the junction. They told Driver Ackland the phones were not working! The trio waited five hours before shutting down their engines off -loading the few passengers from the commuter train and setting off on foot for the next station.
8.35 Ali Saddiq of the village bakery tried yet again to phone the big regional bakery to find out where his supplies were he now had less than 4 hours to prepare enough bread, rolls and cakes for a 1200 place school and an 800 place sixth form college with whom he had contracts with. The lady on the other end said she could not help him and told him he had to phone another number which was a government agency number, not as he expected another department of the grain suppliers company.
The problem was the government number was permanently engaged. With little food available the schools were forced to close at noon and call the parents to come collect their kids. But by 7PM that evening nearly 300 kids were still uncollected from school.
9.08AM Tom and Louis stood open mouthed in awe and surprise they looked at each other in amazement. Roughly two minutes ago the entire control panel of the pumping station that they were in charge off went silent and dark. Normally the room buzzed with the sound of hundreds of dials, meters, printers, hydrometers, pressure monitors etc. The noise was normally compounded by the high pitched whine and rumble of multiple high and low pressure pumps and their associated electric motors. But two minutes ago the pumps and motors slowed down then stopped, the gauges fell and the dials and lights went out. The water supply for nearly two million people and businesses that they controlled had stopped flowing. A minute later they got a call from their sister plant at the other side of the city who reported that their pumps had also stopped, they also got a call on Link Net the emergency radio system that ALL of the areas effluent and sewage plants had stopped.
9.35AM “They are nearly two bloody buggering hours late” growled a furious bus depot fleet maintenance manager to his foreman, “Where the hell is my diesel delivery, last nights did not come and now my bloody buggering morning fuel delivery has not turned up. I don’t bloody buggering well need this, at this rate I will be pulling buses off the road just before lunchtime and head office will kill me if I do”. At 10.30 AM when his foreman went to meet his manager for coffee he found him dead on his office floor a massive stroke had calmed his rage forever. The foreman dialled 999 but the operator said it may be a while before help comes because they ambulance service is struggling to find fuel for its fleet.
12.02 PM Gladys Mabel Arkright stood at the bus stop and wondered where had all the buses gone to, 73 years old with a dodgy hip she now faced a 14 mile walk back to her village after a visit to her elderly sister in an nursing home.
15.40PM Ross Carr was feeling light headed and sweaty, her hands were trembling and she felt suddenly very tired. Ross was a type one diabetic as well as a teenager. And like many teenagers she took silly risks with the control over her condition. She had missed her morning shot and noon shot and was now paying the price for her folly. She got back to the tower block where she and her mum lived on the 5th floor. She found the main entrance door open which was unusual because it’s an electromagnetic card operated door system. She would tell her mum when she saw her. She hopped the elevator and pressed 5 but no sooner had the door shut and the lift started climbing it stopped dead and the lights went out. Using the battery powered back up light she found the emergency call button and pressed it, but no one answered it. Nor were they likely to either the microwave radio link to the control room was without power and its back up battery was defective. For 15 year old Miss Ross Carr, type one diabetic no one would find her until it was too late.
18.00PM a radio, phone, cell phone, text and pager message went out ordering all police officers to report for emergency deployment. Many officers look out the window and listened to the radio news about the developing problems and decided to stay at home with their families.
20.20 PM a group of commuters whose trains had not arrived and who could not get a straight answer from the few remaining railway staff were walking through Lake Valley Gardens the lowest point in the city, the street lights had faded out nearly an hour earlier, and as they walked in a group led by a guy called Adam who had a street map, flashlight, compass, light sticks and radio in his rucksack (someone asked if his nickname was Rambo the survivalist, he replied the name was wrong but the title right). The group reached the bottom of the gardens just as it reached the new executive housing estate that had been built on the old marshland five years ago. Adam paused and asked “can you smell that and can you hear running water?”
Playing his FenixLD20 flashlight out ahead he could see water or liquid percolating up out of the gullies and drains ahead of them. It had formed a growing pool across the full width of the path and was flowing very freely and quite fast into the streets of the executive housing development.
Sewage, neat untreated sewage, plus other effluents and waste water was pouring out of the drains and sewers, this was the lowest point on the drain and sewer network and pumps were supposed to carry the effluent from the underground Victorian built storage chambers and pump it to the treatment works outside the city limits.
The pumps had stopped and now the raw sewage was following the easiest route that gravity would allow, straight towards the homes of 30,000 city workers.
22.00PM , Chaz,, Kam, Dodger, Davie, Chris, Wayne, Akim, Paul, George, Wallace and Carl were all sat in the lounge of the regional secure unit for young violent criminals. All were guests of the state for carrying some of the most horrible and depraved crimes you could imagine. Our young products of broken homes had already noticed the night shift of prison officers had not turned up for work and in the last 90 minutes they had not seen nor heard from the remaining members of the day shift. Suddenly the lights flickered and went out and the emergency lighting kicked in. This made the boys laugh as it was a change from the drudgery and routine they were used to.
Then a few minutes later Kam noticed the electromagnetic door locks to the secure lounge were clicking like mad. Kam went to the door and pulled at the handle, nothing it stayed locked. So being a typical teen whilst he was about to tell his friends that the door lock was “doing his head in” he leaned back putting his weight onto the door just as the mechanism clicked again as the power supply to it was briefly interrupted. Suddenly Kam found himself sat on the floor staring at a now open door leading out of the lounge, and no prison officer was on the other side to remonstrate with him
By midnight with much pulling, prying, kicking etc aiding by an intermitted power supply the boys found their way to a fire door just off the library floor. From there eleven of society’s greatest failures, sadists, thugs and perverts found themselves outside in an unlit city with no sign of any authorities anywhere. It took them less than 40 minutes to rob their first late night store and to rape and kill the two girls running the store. From there the eleven melted into the night to add to the spreading anarchy and chaos that was devouring the city.
