The room remains silent. Then all heads turn towards Chris.
So we are picking a single commander today. Somebody needs to state the obvious. “Chris,” I say.
Angela fixes me with a cold stare, turning back to Rivera. “I agree,” she replies, a thin smile on her lips. “Chris has the practical experience and background for this task. He will be a fine field commander.”
Well, duh.
“How about it, Alpha One?” Colonel Rivera growls, impatient.
“I’ll do it,” Chris says, locking gazes with me. “I’ll need help.”
“Angela, you will of course retain staff authority as militia leader,” Chris says, nodding at her. “I will handle combat operations. As to the officer corps, Alexander, Max.” He nods at each of them, leaning forward, looking directly at me. “And…Cassidy.”
I stare at him. Me? An officer?
He smiles. Vera stiffens, but says nothing to protest the appointment. I don’t speak, only nod slightly to indicate that I accept the appointment. What am I going to do? Say no?
Not happening.
“I’ll need new weapons and equipment for my troops,” Chris says, turning to Colonel Rivera. “Give us what we need, and we’ll be ready to go.”
“Excellent.” Colonel Rivera folds his arms. “Now that we’ve got that squared away, let’s get one thing straight: this base operates solely on its own electricity. It was built years ago as a failsafe in the event of a catastrophe for the elites, if you will. A place for federal and state leaders to bunk out in the event that something huge went down. It was a way to preserve the chain of command, from the Executive Branch down. Well, folks, the catastrophe is already here, and the feds and everyone else in between never made it to the shelters. So the National Guard utilized them.” He stops and surveys the room. “The Federal Government has been protecting itself from a possible EMP attack for years. True, Washington D.C. and the Eastern Seaboard have been nuked, but remnants of the government still survive. State governments. State militias. State law enforcement. Our leaders are gone, but what we’ve got in this base — and in bases across the country — is access to electricity, food, water, weapons and information.”
“Define information,” Chris says.
“Sit back and enjoy the show.” Colonel Rivera grabs a black device off the table. A remote control. He dims the lights with one flick of a button, and a white screen rolls down from the ceiling.
“What the hell is this?” Alexander asks. “A power point presentation?”
Chris holds up a hand, a wordless warning to be silent.
I look up, my eyes falling on a projector mounted to the ceiling. A burst of color blossoms on the screen. Speakers in the wall crackle with an electric hiss. I stare at the screen, dumbfounded.
It’s been so long…this is so alien.
An image appears. It looks like security footage. A grainy picture of a large parking lot. There’s a Wal-Mart and a collection of fast food restaurants and clothing stores in the background. It’s night. Everything is glowing with color. Cars are driving through the parking lot.
“What is this? Derek mutters.
There’s a clock at the bottom of the film feed. As soon as it hits 1832 hours — 6:32 p.m. — the lighting in the shopping center shuts off. The Wal-Mart sign, the restaurants, the car headlights. Everything. Several vehicles careen off the road and smash into parked cars.
“This is footage from the night the EMP hit,” I say. “How did you get this?”
“Satellite,” Colonel Anderson replies. “There are devices that the military — and the government — put into use that were resistant to a technological attack. We’ve used images and footage from those devices to learn more about what happened that night.”
It switches to another image. This one is of an outdoor patio along a fancy walkway near the beach. The lights are glowing brightly. People are dining at tables with white napkins and wine glasses. The power goes out. Everything turns black.
I bite my lip.
“The following images are footage we received from a satellite,” Colonel Rivera says. “It’s not pretty.”
The image is similar to something you’d see on the weather channel. A long distance shot of the earth from above the atmosphere. I can clearly make out the eastern coastline. It’s a sunny day, and from below something disrupts the landscape. There is no audio — not that there would be from a satellite in outer space. There is a sudden, blinding flash of light. The screen goes dark. A few moments later the screen resolves to show a cloud growing across the coastline. And that’s when it hits me: This is footage of a nuclear bomb detonating in Washington D.C.
I don’t realize that I’m holding my breath until Colonel Rivera shuts the projector off. The lights come back on. The room is dead silent. No one knows what to say. What can we say? The mushroom cloud represented the instant death of millions, the agonizing radiation poisoning of millions more. The beginning of the end.
“Omega will bring their invasion force into the east and west coast,” Colonel Rivera says, his voice a hollow echo in a room full of shocked people. “They will bring a force of five thousand troops from Los Angeles into the central valley. We will meet them at the mouth of the foothills and choke them out.”
“How long do we have until they get here?” I whisper.
Colonel Rivera takes his cigar out of his mouth, taps it on the edge of an ashtray, and holds it between his fingers.
“Two weeks.”
Chapter Nine
Warfare is all about patience. It’s the same thing, day after day. Sheer, complete and utter boredom occasionally interrupted by sheer, complete and utter terror. For the first time in my life, I realize why organization and structure is so important in the military. It’s not just to keep guys in line. It’s about keeping guys from going out of their minds with impatience.
We’ve been here at Sector 20 for one week and the waiting is driving me crazy. There are no windows that allow us to see outside. The barracks are sterile and boring. The bright spots in the day are our meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. The chow hall is also a huge underground room. The food is filled with protein and calories — meat, potatoes and vegetables — and for that I am incredibly grateful.
I go on scouting missions with Chris during the week, looking for enemy activity. This is my escape from the mundane routine of life on a military base. I get to see the sky at night and watch what society has become. And let me tell you, it’s not pretty.
Nomadic gangs rove the urban areas, pillaging everything that’s been left behind since the EMP hit. You think downtown Fresno had a gang and graffiti problem before the EMP? You should see it now. It looks like a can of spray paint threw up on every blank wall and billboard in the county. There’s hardly a single building in the city with even one window still intact. We avoid the roving Omega patrols, who seem content to bide their time, waiting for backup to arrive.
Occasionally on our scouting missions we will see buildings erupt into flames, casualties in gang wars or just a random spark catching fire. The city is not safe, but gangs ignore us. Our firepower and numbers are far superior to theirs. And they know it. They would have to be suicidal to start a turf war with us.
During the daytime hours I stick with Sophia. We stay in the Dugout, a nickname for the day room at the base for soldiers to spend time away from their barracks. There’s a pool table, a library, couches and board games, along with items that have been salvaged from abandoned houses. Last night somebody brought Uno and Connect 4 from a loft apartment downtown.