Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One Read online

  Praise for Dissolution

  “Ranchers and university students fight to survive after an economic crisis turns American citizens against one another in this thriller. An absorbing, realistic dystopian tale with a superb cast.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Gear conjures a frighteningly realistic dystopian future in his Wyoming Chronicles series launch. Gear’s impeccable detail work and timely references to MAGA and coronavirus make for a dystopian world that feels immediate and all too plausible. This harrowing future is sure to linger in readers’ minds.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Hold on to your hat. This thriller introduces Sam Delgado to the literary landscape in a story rooted in the archaeology and practices of the Shoshones colliding with a modern catastrophe where perhaps the only safe place to be is high in the mountains of Wyoming with some ranchers at your side.” —Candy Moulton author of Roadside History of Wyoming and Chief Joseph: Guardian of the People

  “No one reads a Gear novel without being transformed in beautiful ways.” –Richard S. Wheeler

  Dissolution

  The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One

  W. Michael Gear

  Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles Book One

  Kindle Edition

  © Copyright 2021 W. Michael Gear

  Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  eBook ISBN 978-1-64734-271-5

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-64734-272-2

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  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Financial War

  Chapter 1

  The Once and Future War

  Chapter 2

  They Had No Idea

  Chapter 3

  The Collapse

  Chapter 4

  The Way it Worked

  Chapter 5

  Chain Reaction

  Chapter 6

  The Catch

  Chapter 7

  Chain Reaction

  Chapter 8

  What’s A Dollar?

  Chapter 9

  Fiat Money

  Chapter 10

  The Shock

  Chapter 11

  Ripe For The Fall

  Chapter 12

  Perfectly Conditioned Turtles

  Chapter 13

  Self-Sorting

  Chapter 14

  The Infernal Invention

  Chapter 15

  Politics By Any Other Name

  Chapter 16

  An Identity of Division

  Chapter 17

  The Enemy Is Us

  Chapter 18

  The Inconceivable Moment

  Chapter 19

  Social Justice?

  Chapter 20

  Rating Our Way To Apocalypse

  Chapter 21

  Mini

  Chapter 22

  Jill

  Chapter 23

  Felix

  Chapter 24

  Morality

  Chapter 25

  Ultimate Myths

  Chapter 26

  Ultimate Truth

  Chapter 27

  The Line

  Chapter 28

  Atrocity

  Chapter 29

  The Balancing Act

  Chapter 30

  Rock Bottom

  Chapter 31

  Essence

  Chapter 32

  Random Chance

  Chapter 33

  The Weapon

  Chapter 34

  Death’s Head

  Chapter 35

  The Poser

  Chapter 36

  Slickside

  Chapter 37

  Word Count

  Chapter 38

  Changed

  Chapter 39

  Contemplation

  Chapter 40

  The Die Is Cast

  Chapter 41

  The Value of Life

  Chapter 42

  The Hero

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  We Lost It All

  A LOOK AT Flight Of The Hawk: The River: A Novel of the American West

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  About the Author

  Dissolution

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to international banking consultant Brian Yarrington for his thoughtful explanation of the American banking system and its vulnerabilities.

  Financial War

  I would have told you that the very idea that a nation could be destroyed without a shot being fired was a fairytale. And, hey, I was an economics major at the Daniels College of Business while attending the University of Denver. I was going to be an investment banker. That was my goal, what I wanted out of my seriously messed-up life. I was doing well. Had a 4.0 grade point average. That summer I was working as an intern for Seakliff, an investment and financial firm.

  COVID should have taught us that war is more than bullets, bombs, soldiers, airplanes, missiles, and warships, right?

  Those things would come later. But in the beginning, even a sophomore in economics like me should have known that disabling an economy, the destruction of wealth, and the social upheaval that comes with it, would have been catastrophic.

  No one would have thought that a single string of code, a silly little malware, could be much of a threat.

  — Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.

  Chapter One

  If anyone, Sam Delgado should have understood the collapse of civilization. He had just turned twenty-three, a graduate student working on his PhD in anthropology. The collapse of cultures—including the Harrapan, ancient Rome, Cahokia, Chaco, and the classic Khmer at Angkor Wat—fascinated him. Much of his interest stemmed from his Mexican heritage. Lots of empires rose and fell in Mesoamerica: Maya, Mixtec, Toltec, Itza, Aztec, and so many others.

  Turns out that being an anthropologist didn’t help. Knowing something academically was really freaking different than living it.

  The day the bank accounts were hacked, Sam sat behind the wheel of a sleek black BMW 740i headed for archaeology field school in Wyoming. He was last in line in a three-vehicle caravan, driving north across a whole lot of nothing on Interstate 25 between Cheyenne and Casper.

  So what if the “Breaking News” on MSNBC was that something had gone zonkers with bank accounts all across the country, and the FDIC had ordered closures? It was, like, something to do with accounting? So, figure out the numbers, make the fix, and life went on. Right?

  “What’s the hype? Cyberattacks happen, right?” Shyla Adams asked from the BMW’s passenger seat as she stared at the passing emptiness. The ash-blonde was one of the three undergraduate students in the car. And, oh, was Sam achingly aware of every breath she took.

  “The Feds will straighten it out. They always do,” Kirstin announced from the back seat. She said it with authority. But that was Kirstin. The BMW was hers. A high school graduation gift from her rich parents in D.C. Bored, her earbuds in, Kirstin’s
head kept jerking in time to whatever played on her iPhone.

  Also in the back seat, directly behind Sam, Ashley Tempest had her knees up, was streaming something on her tablet. She was the soccer- and- softball-playing jock, also called the “Dorm Queen”. Looking for an easy A, she’d left her girlfriend back in Ohio. Sam wasn’t sure that field school—especially this field school—was going to save her eligibility.

  Sam had grown up in Hempstead on Long Island. As a kid, when he wasn’t in school, he’d worked his ass off in the folks’ Mexican restaurant. Called The Yucateca, it had been his private hell, prison, and salvation all rolled into one. When he wasn’t in school, he was in the kitchen. Well, but for a couple of trips back to Mexico to visit relations.

  That had changed when he went off to study anthropology at the university. That’s when the salvation thing had come slowly and painfully clear. His years at The Yucateca had given him a work ethic most of his fellow undergrads hadn’t had, and it showed in his grades. Now, for the first summer in Sam’s life, he wasn’t working all summer in the restaurant to make money. He was off to help run a field school.

  Wyoming had him half-stunned and amazed. This was the real West. It had started to settle in while they were crossing western Nebraska. But at least I-80 had traffic. Big eighteen-wheelers, cars with plates from lots of different states. Turning north on I-25 brought the emptiness home. Miles of rolling hills, grass waving in the wind, and nothing but the vault of the sky, puffs of cloud, occasional cattle and empty interstate. Like he was driving through the middle of wide-open nothingness. He’d never driven anywhere without traffic. This was crazy. A whole interstate, and almost no one on it.

  If he could conjure an image of paradise, this was it: luxury car; three female undergrads including the ethereal Shyla for company; and the open road. The destination was a back-country archaeological site in remote northwest Wyoming where he’d be crew chief for the university field school.

  The news about the banks barely filtered through the rest of the crap coming out of Washington. The Republican speaker of the house was threatening to impeach the Democratic president in the endless tit for tat. Texas and California had voted for secession. Again. The country was paralyzed. COVID cases were up again.

  One of the commentators said, “Depending upon the scale of the cyberattack, we could be looking at apocalypse.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Kirstin crossed her arms and leaned her head back against the leather.

  Sam stared out at the distant mountains to the west. Man, there was nothing between him and infinity but grass and rolling hills.

  “Apocalypse?” he wondered. “Compared to, like, the thirty million who might have died in the collapse of the Lowland Maya? Or the fourteenth century black plague?”

  “’Bout time we did something different. The same ol’ same ol’ is a real bore.” Kirstin sounded sour.

  “It’s just news.” Shyla kept her eyes on the distance.

  Sam understood why apocalyptic themes dominated his generation. He’d written an undergraduate paper on Hunger Games, Walking Dead, and Divergent and how the themes both molded and reinforced his generation’s dystopian perspectives and energized antifa, BLM, and social unrest. And then there was COVID and the ever more bitter political deadlock. Most downtowns were boarded up, graphitized, and half abandoned to the armed mobs.

  “Lot of nothing out here.” Shyla was staring at the sagebrush flashing past the window.

  “Nothing and cows,” Ashley finally chipped into the conversation. “Never been anywhere with more cows than people.”

  That was the thing about the end of the world. Should have been more fanfare.

  No one had had so much as a clue in Cheyenne that morning. Life was normal. It was Friday. The start of the Memorial Day weekend. The field crew had been driving west for three days. They had stayed that night in a Best Western, bought breakfast, fueled up, and headed out on the last leg of the journey that would take them to some ranch in Owl Creek Range in Wyoming. From there, they’d horse-pack up into the mountains, record, map, and test a remote archaeological site for two months.

  Sam would find something to write his dissertation on.

  Rock-shock cool.

  Casper was supposed to be just another forgettable stop on the adventure of a lifetime.When the caravan exited off Interstate 25 and into the Flying J truck stop in Casper, they pulled up behind a line of cars inching through the pumps.

  A hastily made sign read CASH ONLY. SORRY!

  Even more ominous, a police car was parked off to the side, lights flashing. The cop stood with hands on his gun belt, locked in heated conversation with what looked like a really pissed-off trucker. A small crowd, many with crossed arms, watched from the side. No one looked happy.

  Up in the lead, driving the college van with all the equipment and field gear, Amber Sagan waved her convoy off and led the way back onto the street. Amber was the co-Principal Investigator. That meant she was in charge along with Dr. Evan Holly, a professor from University of Wyoming. At thirty-five she was older than the rest and had a personality akin to sharp nails and jagged glass. Unkind souls in the department said that dealing with Amber Sagan was like juggling a hand grenade with a loose pin.

  “What the hell?” Kirstin cried. “Hello! Gotta pee here!”

  But then, Kirstin—an English major—was always irritated by something. She was a petite wiry thing with soft brown eyes and light walnut-colored hair...who’d stick a figurative knife in your belly faster than an MS13 gang banger.

  Amber led the way past three stations all with signs asking for cash before she turned into a Maverick convenience store parking lot. Here, too, hastily scrawled “Cash Only” signs decorated each pump.

  Sam followed, third in line, behind Dylan Collins’ big Dodge Ram pickup truck. Up until then, the drill had been that they’d line up behind Amber’s university van; and as soon as she’d fueled up, she’d pull forward. Dylan would then drive up to the pump where Shanteel held the nozzle, and she’d fill his rig on the same charge. When Dylan was topped off, Sam would ease Kirstin’s BMW up to the pump.

  He waited as Amber got out of the van and walked inside.

  “’Bout time!” Kirstin cried.

  “Afuckingmen,” Ashley asserted.

  Doors opened like butterfly wings as students headed for bathrooms, drinks, and snacks.

  Sam had been behind the wheel of Kirstin’s BMW since Cheyenne. The break was long overdue, or so his bladder insisted. So, like, what the hell was wrong with the pumps? He shut the BMW down.

  Kirstin’s folks being high-powered lawyers in Washington DC, their daughter didn’t exactly want for things. Sam got to drive the BMW; it was Kirstin’s attempt to prove her devotion to social justice.

  As Sam waited, he savored the view as Shyla Adams crossed the parking lot in her sultry long-legged walk. Ash-blonde hair hung down past her slim waist and swung in time to her stride. She might have been the dream of every man in the department, but Sam worshipped her.

  As if a Latino kid from the mean streets of Hempstead had a chance.

  She was the ultimate party girl, complete with a wealthy football-player boyfriend. Word around the department was that if a guy wasn’t rich—or a high-status athlete on scholarship with pro potential—don’t even bother to say hello and expect her to notice. And she still kept a three-point-something GPA?

  So, here he was, his academic career teetering, in search of a dissertation topic, half dying of unrequited love for Shyla Adams, stuck in Casper, Wyoming, at a gas pump, with a full bladder.

  Screw it. He took the keys and stepped out, heading for the store.

  As he passed, Dylan rolled down his window where he sat behind the wheel of his Dodge. “What’s up with all the cash signs?”

  “Hang on. I’ll find out.”

  “That cop back at the Flying J looked pissed. Think it was a robbery?”

  “Naw. Growing up in my neighborhood? I’ve seen robbe
ries. That looked more like what they call an ‘altercation’.”

  Sam stepped into the store to see the usual line outside the women’s room. The field school was heavy on females.

  Shyla was talking with Shanteel. As Sam walked in, she actually glanced his way and smiled. He would have liked to have believed it was his entrance that conjured such magic, but odds were Shanteel had said something amusing.