I should have known something was wrong, but you know how it is? I am usually quite focused on what I'm doing, so the subtle clues are easily missed.

This morning, Lynn and I crossed paths in the hall. There were two other people there, but they were in the shadow of the overhang, and Lynn is the kind of lady that holds one's full attention. She waved, took off her sunglasses, and smiled. I began to wave back, but one of the others in the hall suddenly lurched toward me. The sudden motion registered in my peripheral vision, and I rotated out of the way reflexively. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. The man was already too far off balance and ended up taking a header into the wall. I still remember the sound of impact, a moist thud like rotten fruit thrown in the compost heap.

Lynn gasped, but she rushed forward to help. I felt like an idiot, like I should have caught the guy. Before she got to the man, he was already pressing himself away from the ground with stiff, awkward movements. I think we were both startled as we probably both recognized the man at the same time. He was an administrator from one of our facilities, named Will - usually an easygoing, but very professional guy. He looked drugged out of his mind. I was thinking that this can't be the same guy.

Lynn started to ask him if he was alright - she kind of winced when she asked - and offered to call an ambulance. Will just resumed walking in his original direction as if nothing had happened. We followed him for several paces, but couldn't even get his attention. Lynn was obviously freaked out, but I was just confused - obviously she has more sense than I...

We walked to my office to lookup the phone number of Will's building and make sure he would be taken care of. The assistant's desk was vacant, which is not unusual, so Lynn used the phone while I picked up my cell. While I did, I noticed that only a few of the people I expected were present. Belisario mentioned something about a radio report of a construction accident on the 101 that was holding up Northbound traffic. That explains the lack of live bodies in the place, I guess.

I walked Lynn to her office - just because I felt weird about the morning, and wanted to reassure her I that I'm not as big an ass as it must have seemed. The rest of the morning was spent in project mode.

We had four techs in a room, all of whom should have been intently focused on design and deployment procedures. The one we call "the Wizard" started loosing focus pretty quickly, complaining of dry throat, and taking a lot of breaks. Then, the younger one, "baby Jesus" started talking about going for sushi near the mall for lunch. It was really distracting, so I figured maybe they should just go. I brought my lunch and a book anyway, so I let them go on their way, and went out to read.

Thirty minutes later, I returned to get some work done before the afternoon session. It must have been an hour later when I finally realized that none of them had come back yet. I went to the restroom to splash some water on my face - this being in another building, by the way, requiring that I step outside. The halls were strangely quiet, but there were sirens in the distance. Strange as it may seem, this is not unusual, so I didn't pay too much attention at first. When I got back outside though, I saw several plumes of thick smoke rising from downtown. When I went to the rail to check it out, I passed by Lynn's office. She must have seen something, because she met me at the rail a minute later.

I still haven't gotten any good news about what was going on, but with the mad rush of sirens and smoke, it couldn't have been good. Lynn said that there were only two others in her office, no one had called, and no e-mail was coming in from contacts outside the office. Usually, that means that there is something wrong with the mail server, but instead of checking on that, we compared notes and decided to check the rest of the buildings. Almost everyone was gone, which was really freaky in itself, but working there you quickly become used to the security protocol - no one had locked their doors or set the alarms.

When we got around to the North side and looked down the hill to Will's building, which used to be a high school back in the 80's, we saw a bunch of people milling about in the field. It looked like some kind of political rally at first, but then more like a mosh pit without a band. It was too far away to hear anything, but there seemed not to be any particular order to it.

Everything was out of place, and we didn't have any idea what was going on, so we went back to Lynns office to check the Internet news sources, and local radio. Nothing had made the national or regional news, and the radio stations were mostly just playing music - those that weren't were broadcasting static. After a while of channel switching though, it turned out that the stations playing music were playing the same songs in rotation.

I know I felt like a rock had formed in the pit of my stomach. Lynn didn't look too happy either - she looked up from her screen and just said, "Let's get out of here." I know, in retrospect, it didn't make any sense, but nothing else made sense either. For some reason, getting home seemed like a good idea at the time. So, I offered to drive.

I grabbed my stuff and locked my office - Belisario was gone - no one was there. We drove through the university, just out of habit, really. The turn back to the 1 North was blocked by a slow rolling train, so we kept going to the underpass. There were a bunch of cars backed up heading toward the Highland and Santa Rosa intersection, so we took the old agricultural lab road. That got us all the way to the 1, but the highway entrance was blocked and CHP looked like they were trying to keep the highway clear. They were checking the few cars in front of us when several humvees and transports sped by heading into town. People were getting out of the cars in front of us and approaching the officers, who seemed to be ordering the people to get back in their cars. Some complied, but the people from the car in front of us kept going, like drunks already trying to walk the line. Two of the officers drew down on the people, almost simultaneously. There was shouting, and then a shot rang out. One of the people lurched, but recovered and kept moving, as if they were wearing body armor. Several more shots were fired at each of the people in turn. People in the other cars were freaking out - I could hear screams amid the shouted orders to stop. The people moving toward the officers were finally taken down, but only after an unnatural number of wounds were inflicted.

That was another slow motion moment. My mouth must have hung open as the engine idled. Lynn was saying, "Oh my God", over and over. I said something like, "I think we took a wrong turn...", and then put the car in reverse as fast as I could, and gunned the engine until we had backed up far enough to turn around. We turned, but didn't really have anywhere to go. If I'd had a 4x4, and a pair of solid bolt cutters, we could have made it through El Chorro, at least. We got as far as the rails, and almost back to the traffic jam when I figured we might as well get out and walk. Then, it came to me.

I pulled the car into the lot of a utility shed, popped the trunk, and grabbed my ready-bag. The freight train was approaching, still rolling pretty slowly. I said, "Come on", and it seemed like Lynn knew exactly what I was thinking. We both started running for the tracks, climbing the steep incline after the traffic underpass. We made it in time to jump an empty flatbed car. She got the first rails, I got the last. Once on the car, we rode up into the switchbacks going into the hills - not really the direction we were intending. Nothing seemed wrong with the world - no hurricane, tornado, earthquake, tsunami - but everything seemed to have gone awry with the people - like the waters were changed, but no one bothered to tell us.

As the train started to turn inland, we decided to jump and hike back to the coast. The jump was rough, but the train was still powering uphill, so wasn't moving very fast. After that, we walked through freshly cut hay fields and pastures for about three hours. It was getting dark, so we could navigate by distant city lights for a while. Los Osos lost power early on though, and Cayucos shortly afterward. Morro was mostly online - and still is - plus, the terrain was becoming more familiar as we went. Strange as it may seem, this walk, though exhausting, was about the most normal part of the day.

Just got back here, cleaned up and got some food. Lynn is crashed out in the loft.  I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep for the rest of the week.

I have fresh water, canned foods, fuel for the generators, batteries for the scanners and radio, and Internet service - for now at least. There doesn't seem to be any point calling in sick tomorrow, but I'm not planning on going anywhere. I'm not sure where to go if it should become necessary to leave though.

Just wanted to post this - you know - in case things don't work out...