Stacy Goes Online

It occurred to her that if she hooked up the laptop to a phone line then, assuming that the whole world hadn't suffered the same fate as this small corner of it, she ought to be able to make contact with someone. Perhaps they would be able to shed some light on what had happened here.

Ten minutes later she had found a suitable phone socket and was online under the identity of Amelia Johnson (presumably the name of the laptop's owner). At least that meant that the phone network and the ISP that she was using were still operational. With phone and Net systems being highly automated, though, that didn't prove much. They could probably keep running for many hours without any human intervention.

Stacy realised that she was fairly computer literate. She knew all about newsgroups, and Web-based chat rooms and IRC. She could check any or all those areas for signs of current or recent activity. But the obvious first step seemed to be to look at a site such as CNN's, and see whether there was any news of something strange having occurred at a New York ferry terminal.

1. There was. It was the lead story.
2. It wasn't just a local thing. All over the world, she learned, large areas had mysteriously been depopulated, causing great disruption and panic.
3. Worryingly, the CNN site hadn't been updated for over an hour, at which time all had seemingly been normal. None of the other news sites she tried had been updated recently either. Was she the last person left alive?
4. At that moment there was a beep, indicating that a new email message had just arrived, presumably meant for Amelia.

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