But it was the sight at the end of our street that truly set off the alarm bells in my head: the Serenity Springs Police Substation. It was a small brick building, more of a glorified office than a real station, but it was always lit up—a symbol of order in our beige paradise. Today, it was dark. No lights in the windows. The digital sign out front, which usually flashed reminders about speeding or upcoming community bake sales, was blank.
This had escalated. This wasn't about Braden missing his Cocomelon anymore.
I walked down the street, my steps feeling unnaturally loud in the quiet. I followed the line of the utility easement, marked by those little orange flags that Brenda so despised. The path led directly to the border of her property—a pristine stretch of lawn that looked like it had been trimmed with surgical scissors, bordered by an immaculate bed of prize-winning petunias.
And right in the middle of those petunias was a gash in the earth: a freshly dug trench about three feet long. Lying beside it, gleaming in the morning sun, was the murder weapon and the victim all in one: a thick, bright orange fiber optic cable.
And it had been cut.
I leaned in closer. This was no clumsy accident by a landscaper. A shovel would have mangled it, frayed the edges. This was a single, clean, deliberate snip right through the armored sheathing, through the Kevlar strengthening fibers, and through the delicate glass core within. It was an execution performed with a pair of heavy-duty shears. I could almost see the ghost of a satisfied, self-righteous smile hanging in the air above it.
"You magnificent, crazy bastard," I muttered, a grim smile on my own face. "You actually did it."
I pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures, making sure to get the pristine cut, the disturbed flower bed, and the corner of Brenda's house in the frame. I was documenting evidence; this felt important.
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."
The color drained from Miller's face. Sergeant Davis's jaw tightened. The cynicism in his eyes was replaced by a flicker of genuine alarm. He looked from my face to the dead station, then back to the severed cable at his feet. The full weight of the situation was finally dawning on him.
This wasn't an inconvenience. It was a full-blown public safety emergency, delivered courtesy of a pair of gardening shears and a pathological obsession with petunias.
The inside of the Serenity Springs Police Substation smelled like stale coffee and desperation. A few green-glowing emergency lights cast long, spooky shadows across the room, illuminating desks covered in useless, dark-screened monitors and silent phones. It was a digital ghost town.
Sergeant Davis was pacing behind his desk, his personal cell phone pressed to his ear, his face a thundercloud.
"What do you mean you can't get a clear signal?" he roared into the phone. "I'm standing in the middle of Serenity Springs, not the dark side of the moon! No, I can't get on the computer and file a ticket! The computers are what's broken, you idiot!"
He slammed the phone down with a final, guttural curse.
Officer Miller, trying to be helpful, was just making things worse. He scurried over to the sergeant's desk, holding a notepad where he'd clearly been trying to write down what I'd told him.
"Sergeant," Miller began, his voice trembling slightly, "he says the optical terminal is unlinked, and the provider's main trunk has been terminated."
Davis glared at him. "Speak English, Miller, for the last time! Is it a bomb? Is it some kind of coordinated cyberattack? Terrorism?"
I had been lingering in the doorway, observing the beautiful chaos. I decided it was time to make my entrance.
"It's worse," I said, leaning against the doorframe. "It's bureaucracy combined with suburban madness. You've got a better chance of seeing God than you do of getting an ISP crew with fusion splicing equipment out here before Thursday."
They both turned to look at me. Davis's eyes were narrowed slits of pure frustration.