As I was zooming in on the severed strands of glass, a car crunched to a halt on the asphalt behind me. I turned to see a Serenity Springs police cruiser. A young officer who looked like he had barely started shaving stepped out. His nametag read Miller. He looked flustered, his hand hovering uncertainly near his sidearm.
"Sir, please step away from the, uh, wire," he said, his voice a full octave higher than he probably intended.
"It's a fiber optic trunk line," I corrected him, unable to help myself. "Or, it was a trunk line. And I think I know why our entire neighborhood, including your dark little substation over there, just got punted back to 1995."
I gestured with my thumb towards the lifeless police building.
Miller's eyes widened. "Our what? Our phones are down! The computers are off! Sergeant Davis is about to have an aneurysm!"
As if on cue, a second cruiser—this one a bigger, angrier-looking SUV—pulled up with a squeal of tires. The man who got out was the polar opposite of Miller. He was a slab of granite in a police uniform, with a salt-and-pepper flattop haircut and a face that looked like it had been carved from a block of pure cynicism. This had to be Sergeant Davis.
"What's going on here, Miller?" he barked, his voice like gravel grinding together.
His eyes swept over the scene and landed on me. He took in my tech company T-shirt, my cargo shorts, and the phone in my hand, and his expression soured even further. I could see the gears turning in his head: Hacker. Nerd. Probably lives in his mom's basement. Two out of three wasn't bad.
"This guy here says he knows why we're down, Sarge," Miller said, pointing at me.
"I'm the guy who pays a ridiculous HOA fee to live here and currently has no internet," I said, stepping forward. I pointed down at the cable. "This is the cause. Someone took a pair of shears to the main data line for the entire subdivision."
Davis squinted at the orange cable as if it had personally insulted him. "So, call the cable company. Why are you messing with it? Is this some kind of protest?"
I had to physically restrain myself from sighing.
"First," I said, holding up a finger, "it's fiber, not cable. There's a difference. It's light, not electricity. Think of it as a superhighway versus a dirt road. Second, calling them is a fantastic idea if you want to navigate a phone tree for forty-five minutes and then be told a repair crew might be available sometime next Tuesday. Third," I held up a third finger and made sure I had his full attention, "and you might want to pay very close attention to this part, Sergeant: your station is on this line. That's why it's dark. Which means you have no computers, no access to the 911 dispatch system, no way to run plates or check warrants from the state and federal databases. Right now, your entire operation is running on a prayer and whatever's left on your cell phone batteries. You're not just offline; you're blind."