Almost from day one he hated it. The political back stabbing in the corporation turned his stomach and he watched several young upstarts bully their way up the ladder to senior positions even though he knew they didn’t have any real leadership skills. Roger never liked bullys and had fought against such things all through his career. He knew his days in the company were numbered.
Roger took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Looking up from his plate, he glanced around the diner. It was one of those older 60’s style places with yellowed wallpaper, out-of-date hanging lamps above each booth, and a lot of stainless steel in the bar and kitchen area. The guy cooking seemed to be wearing the same spotted and frayed apron from the month before. A waitress was leaning on the table beside the cash register looking at some magazine. Even the customers were familiar. Leaning back in his booth, Hammond stared up at the ceiling. The tiles were different colors depending on how long they had survived the onslaught of grease and cigarette smoke from past abuse. Occasionally a darker spot showed where something leaked long ago but no one had bothered to paint or replace the tile.
Hammond sat alone. Despite everything he sacrificed, it took his wife less than a month to file for divorce. It didn’t matter about his good job, good pay or the fact that he still loved her. She met someone on that last deployment and decided she wanted a change. At first she said getting out of the Navy would make a difference, but she was still sneaking off to see the guy. Roger came home early from a trip to find them in bed. She screamed at him as if it were his fault, packed her bags and left that day. The divorce was quick and painful, but came out on his side.
Oh well, he sighed to himself. At least he had his retirement. There are more jobs out there too, he thought. He looked back down at his so-called meal and scooped up a mouth full. It even tasted the same. He stared at his plate and determined he was better than this. Better than the job, a better husband and even better than this dive he was in. He was going to take charge of his life again. He would start off finding a job that met his standards and then never look back.
Roger was half way through the second bite when the sky outside turned bright as day. At the same instant, the lights in the restaurant got bright in intensity and flickered out. At first he simply stared out the window as the light dimmed to a ball hanging in the sky. Then it dawned on him what it really was.
“Everybody down!” he shouted as he shifted out of the booth and dove under the table.
The others in the restaurant stared at him like he was some freak until a dull boom echoed from outside. It rattled the windows a little. The boom sent everyone to the floor, scurrying to find some sort of protection. After a few frightening moments, Roger eased out of his spot and looked out the window again. The ball was nearly gone and there was no light coming from outside. Even the streetlamps were out.
So this is what a nuclear war starts like, Roger wondered.
“What the hell was that?” one of the patrons asked in the dark behind him.
“Probably a transformer,” the cook called out. Roger could tell he was still behind his counter.
“That was no transformer,” Roger said. “I suggest everyone go home right now.”
The fry cook stumbled around in the dark. The swinging door from the kitchen screeched open. “Just hang on a few minutes. I’m sure the power will come back on,” the cook said. No one noticed that even the emergency lights weren’t working.
Roger knew exactly what it had been, but was leery of voicing it. He sat down at his place shoveling his dinner into his mouth quickly and drowning it with the tea sitting beside the plate. He stood again and made his way toward the door.
“You’ll have to wait till I can ring it up,” the waitress said as he came towards her.
Roger pulled out his wallet and felt for a bill. He knew it was either a $10 or a $20. He handed it over in the dark. “That should handle it all,” he said.
“But I don’t know how much this is,” she complained.
“Then bill me,” he yelled back as he went through the door. Hammond made his way to his car and opened the door. Climbing inside, he slipped the key into the ignition and turned the switch. The car turned over, but that was all. After cranking in vain for about 3 minutes, he got out of the car and looked around him. Other patrons were now in their cars doing the same thing. None of the cars would start. Roger watched as each got out and cursed their vehicle, wondering what had happened.
After a few more minutes, as breakers were manually reset at the power company, lighting and power were restored around them. Roger watched as streetlights first came on, then lights in the buildings and homes. The restaurant lights flickered but were a little dimmer. Some had burned out in the flash. He could hear the waitress trying to operate the cash register inside. Her complaints to the cook on how the machine was “busted” became loud and vocal.
Hammond noticed the patrons from other establishments filing out and making their way toward their cars. Like Roger, each tried in vain to start them.
Perfect, Roger thought to himself — a faint smile crossing his face. He chuckled under his breath. “Electro-magnetic pulse,” he muttered.
He reached back into his car and tried turning on the radio. Like before, nothing happened. He turned it back off and removed his keys. Looking around at the confusion in the parking lot, he shook his head and resigned himself to being on foot. Luckily he was only about four blocks from his home. He thought a moment about the possibility of fallout, but decided that since he had no shelter it really didn’t matter anyway. While the people around him wondered aloud what had happened and what to do, Roger eased his way past and began his trek home. His own problems had just been put on hold.
President Steven O’Bannon was in a fine Irish temper. He was only three months into his presidency, having defeated a one term liberal who decimated a number of programs, including defense, and now he was stuck with a nuclear war. He sat with his teeth tightly clenched. It was bad enough he had to clean up the mess, but getting blamed for a war he didn’t start was a political nightmare.
The President ran on a platform of national security and cleaning house. He was tired of seeing countries ignore human rights, instigate military buildups, and aid in the proliferation of terrorism while the US stood by and watched. He wasn’t alone. Nearly every American demanded something be done. That had been his rallying cry. The previous administration was still closing bases, cutting defense programs, and using the saved funds to build government instead of returning it to the taxpayers, even up to the day of his inauguration. What’s more, the opposing party was blocking his appointments and delaying his programs. Now he was sitting alone in a bomb shelter and everything had come crashing down.
The President had just settled down in his bed for the first good night of sleep in almost a week, when the Secret Service agents burst into his bedroom and almost physically threw him and his wife into an elevator. Their two children were hustled in within seconds, each with a look of horror on their face. The doors closed and everyone went weightless as the elevator dropped rapidly to a place four hundred feet below. He remembered his wife clinging to him and the frightened whimpers from his children as the elevator fell.
Just as quickly the elevator began to brake and slowed to a stop. The doors opened into a sterile world better known as “the sub-basement.” Secretly built during the Truman presidency while rebuilding the interior of the White House itself, the sub-basement was in actuality a bomb shelter for the chief executive.