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it while she got ready. The screen lit, but all that it showed was a blue background and an error message. The sound coming from the speakers was white noise. She grabbed the remote and flipped through several channels. They were all the same. Weird , she thought to herself. No cell service, no TV. WTF? There was no more time to give it much thought now, though. It would be working again any time, of that she was certain. Right now, all that mattered was getting to class.
    Casey supposed Jessica’s phone could be off the air too. She had an Android phone on a different network, so it seemed unlikely, but it was also unlikely that the cable TV would be out at the same time too. Jessica had spent the night with her boyfriend, and Casey wondered if they could have overslept too. She would find out when they met at lunch. She slipped the closed MacBook that was lying on her table into her small backpack that doubled as a book bag and purse, slung it over one shoulder, grabbed her key
ring, and rushed out the door. Her bike was cable-locked to the wrought-iron balcony rail of the second-floor apartment that made up half of the small wood-frame house fronting Webster Street. She opened the combination lock, quickly carried the bike down to the sidewalk, and pedaled off. It was just a short three-quarter-mile ride to the Tulane University campus, and the bicycle was the only sane way to go with the parking situation being what it was.
    As she turned onto St. Charles Avenue, Casey was surprised to see large numbers of cars stopped everywhere in both lanes of the broad, live-oak-shaded boulevard. There was no moving traffic besides other students on bicycles, and some drivers were opening their doors and getting out. She narrowly missed wiping out when a man in a large SUV opened his door right in front of her. Why all these vehicles had stopped in the street was beyond her, but it was not her concern either, late as she was. It was already vexing enough that her phone service was out. She steered onto the broad sidewalk away from the cars, weaving among pedestrians as fast as she dared until she reached the main campus entrance from St. Charles and hung a quick right into the breezeway to the bike racks in front of Dinwiddie Hall.
    She locked the bike in an empty slot and made for the front doors, pushing her way through a cluster of students on the steps. Once inside, she was surprised at how dark it was, and she realized that all the overhead lights in the hallway were off. More people were milling about outside several open classroom doors.

    “What’s going on? Why are the lights out?” Casey asked the first student whose eyes met hers.
    “We were wondering that too,” the girl said. “They just went out all at once, like they were switched off.”
    “When?” Casey asked. “I had power at my apartment over on Webster Street when I left just fifteen minutes ago.”
    “It was, like, less than five minutes ago. That’s why everyone left class. The windows in this building suck. It’s too dark to do anything without the lights. I think most of the classes in here were dismissed.”
    “I wonder if this has anything to do with my phone not working? When I got up this morning my phone had no signal, and it still doesn’t. My TV was just static too.”
    “Tell me about it! Everyone I’ve talked to this morning said the same thing about their phone. Everybody’s phone quit working right after that freaky light show last night.”
    “Light show?”
    “I didn’t see it, but everybody who did is talking about it. The whole sky lit up like daylight at about two o’clock in the morning. They said it was awesome, like all kinds of colors and flashes—lasted nearly a minute. After that, all the phones went out.”
    “That’s freaky! What was it?”
    “People are sayin’ it was something like the Aurora Borealis, you know, the Northern Lights. They say it messed up electronic signals somehow.”
    “I didn’t think it