President Sonya Deville's first moments were spent on her knees on a bathroom floor, spewing up into a toilet. After being sworn into the most powerful job in the world, a wave of nausea that she had been unable to suppress had hit her, sending her running for the bathroom.
"Christ almighty," Sonya groaned after emptying the contents of her stomach into the bowl. She wiped her mouth with toilet paper, then pushed the button to flush.
"You got that right," a voice said from the next cubicle, startling Sonya. She had rushed into the bathroom so quickly that she hadn't noticed the cubicle was occupied. "No survivors, they're saying," the voice went on. "I can't believe it. Who could have done it? I can't see how it's possible."
Standing up, Sonya opened her door and stepped out at the same moment as the other person did the same. "I don't know, but we're damned sure going to find out," Sonya said. She recognised the other, much shorter woman as Zelina Vega, the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. She was one of the people who reported to the Secretary of State, who was now dead, along with every other senior member of the administration.
Emerging out of her cubicle, Vega saw who she had been speaking to. Recognising Sonya as a cabinet member, she quickly processed the situation. "You were the designated survivor?"
"I was," Deville confirmed with a grimace.
"But that means… excuse me, Madam President," Vega said deferentially.
Sonya felt the room spinning around her again. Madam President. It was the first time she had been addressed as such. It was something she was going to have to get used to, and fast. "I never thought I'd hear someone call me that," she admitted.
"No, ma'am. Anything I can do to help you, I'm at your service."
Nodding her appreciation, Sonya moved over to the basins to wash her face and swill out her mouth. The reflection in the mirror didn't look much like a President to her. It looked like a scared thirty five year old woman who was way out of her depth in every way, including experience.
Leaving Vega behind at the basins, Deville dried her hands and walked out into the hallway. The same man who had met her and Amanda when they arrived was standing waiting. "This way, ma'am," he said as soon as he saw her.
"No, stop," Sonya said before he could take off. "Who are you?"
The man turned, looking annoyed with himself for failing to introduce himself. It was perfectly understandable in such a chaotic situation, Sonya thought.
"Seth Rollins, ma'am. I am, was, I guess, Assistant to the Chief of Staff. I need to get you to the Presidential Command Centre ASAP."
"For right now, you're my Acting Chief of Staff," Sonya decided on the spot. She knew that no matter how out of her depth she was, it was crucial for her to project authority to the people around her. A time of crisis was a time for leadership, whether she felt like a leader or not. What she also needed was people around her who knew what they were doing. Rollins would fit that bill.
"Thank you, ma'am," Rollins said, obviously eager to set off walking.
Sonya, though, had a question for Ronda Rousey, who was standing next to Rollins. "Where's my wife?"
"With a doctor, ma'am. She was having what looked like a panic attack to me. The doctor will make sure she's okay, and she'll be taken to the residence."
Instinctively, Sonya wanted to go to Mandy, but she knew it wasn't going to go like that. The President's duty was to the country first and foremost, and there was an unprecedented act of terrorism to address. "I want updates, Ronda. I want to know Amanda's okay."
"Yes, ma'am," Rousey said. "She did say one thing: 'Tell Sonya she knows how to lead.'"
For a second, Sonya took that in. Even in a moment of absolute panic, Amanda had wanted to say something to help her, and it really did help. Sonya loved her wife so much, possibly more than ever in that moment. And Mandy was right, she thought. She did know how to lead. As a cabinet member, she'd had a staff working under her. She had to try and set the incredible shock and anger at what had happened aside and lead again, albeit on a much, much more important level. It was what her country needed.
"Madam President, we have to go," Rollins said urgently.
"Lead the way," Sonya instructed him.
Rollins surprised her by entering the first room along the hallway. She knew for a fact that it was no Presidential Command Centre. Entering the office behind him, she saw why she was there, and her blood ran cold.
A man in a military uniform replete with honours on the right breast stood beside a table. On the table was a large black case, opened up in a similar fashion to a laptop computer. On the display was a map of the world, with white dots marked on it.
"Madam President, this is Major Brisco," Rollins said. "And this is the nuclear football."
"Madam President," Brisco said, standing to attention. After a moment, he turned to face the device to show her how it worked. Sonya wasn't sure she wanted to know. But no, especially in the current situation, it was information she needed. Further attacks might come at any moment from whoever had carried out the bombing at the Capitol Building.
Brisco explained how the nuclear football worked, and what the procedure would be if she ever needed to use it. He advised her that he and the football would always be close by, whether she was at the White House or traveling. It was a truly sombre moment for Sonya. With an order and a confirmation of a verification code, she could order the annihilation of literally millions of people. How could a person, any person, have that kind of thing at their fingertips and not feel numbed by it?
"These white dots signify all of our missile locations, on land and at sea," Brisco was saying.
Sonya saw many locations in America and some Europe, and a couple in the Atlantic Ocean. There was one off all by itself in the Indian Ocean. "What's that one there?" she asked, pointing at it.
"That's the USS Iowa, ma'am. She's the..."
"I know what the Iowa is," she cut in politely, picturing the US Navy's biggest and newest missile submarine, launched only a matter of months earlier.
With Brisco's explanation complete, Rollins led Deville back out of the office. It was time to head to the Presidential Command Centre, a room in the White House that she had never heard of before. But then, she reasoned, she had never had a need to know about it before. She knew that was going to be the case with a lot of things in the coming days.
A minute later, they turned into a short hallway. At the end was a door with a man in a military uniform standing guard outside it. Upon seeing Sonya approaching, he saluted. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to return the gesture, so she didn't. There were much bigger problems right now than observing formalities.
Entering the Command Centre, Sonya saw a large rectangular table set in front of a huge wall display which was currently displaying satellite images. All of the seats around the table were occupied, a couple by people Sonya recognised by name. In the seats closest to the empty place at the head of the table were Bob Orton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Kurt Angle, Director of the CIA. Everyone at the table seemed to be loudly talking at once, creating such a cacophony that it would be a miracle if anyone could actually have a conversation. Such was the level of chaos, no one noticing Deville enter the room.
Approaching the table, she didn't feel comfortable shouting down all of these high-ranking people; men and women who had much more knowledge and experience than her, and likely would have no respect for her, save that dictated by the office of the President.
"Excuse me," Sonya said, sounding a lot more timid than she would have liked. It mattered not, since no one heard her or noticed her arrival. She heard Amanda's voice in her head, telling her that she knew how to lead. It made her suck up her nerves as best she could and address the group as if they were the staff she was used to having working under her. "Quiet!" she shouted loudly.
Silence came immediately, and lasted a couple of seconds as everyone turned towards her and took a moment to process their first sight of the new President. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, she was hardly a formidable sight, she felt sure. Out of respect, they all stood up.
"Madam President," Orton said, the first to find his voice. "I'm General Bob Orton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs."
Deville chose not to advise him that she already knew that. "What do we know, General? Who did this to us?"
"Too early to say ma'am," Angle said, taking it upon himself to answer the second of her questions. "Kurt Angle, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I can tell you we are getting a lot of chatter out of Iran, plus another disturbing development that's unfolding as we speak."
"What development?" Deville asked.
General Orton gestured towards the satellite images on the display at the far end of the table. "These images are fifteen minutes old. They show Iranian ships starting to form a blockade in the Gulf of Oman."
"It's something they've been wanting to do for years, Madam President," a male analyst said from further down the table. "They're making a play to cut off oil supplies to the west."
"They've never had the balls before," Sonya said thoughtfully. The blockade itself did not mean that Iran were the ones behind the attack though, she thought. "They're trying to capitalise on what's happened," she said. "They know we're shocked and weak by what's happened, and they see advantage in it for them. We need to project strength and show them that now is not a time to get into a pissing contest with us."
Around the table, she saw positive reactions to her firmness of tone and political stance. She imagined they had doubted a woman, particularly a relatively young one, would have the strength of character she had just shown. They would quickly learn the opposite. Sonya Deville was no shrinking violet.
"Yes, ma'am," Orton said, a note of approval in his voice.
"What are our options?" Sonya asked the group as a whole.
"First of all, ma'am, diplomacy," a woman who Sonya vaguely recognised as a foreign policy advisor said. "I suggest meeting with the Iranian ambassador and telling him we want those ships gone."
Sonya pointed to the speaker to indicate her acceptance of the idea. She turned to Rollins to give her first Presidential order. "Get onto the ambassador and tell him I want him over here, and I mean now."
Rollins nodded. "Yes, Madam President." He headed out of the Command Centre to carry out the order.
Again, Sonya looked around the group. "I want to know how blew up our capital and killed our people. And I want plans as to what we're going to do about it when we find out."
Orton said, "The FBI will have a large team conducting a thorough investigation as soon as the site is made safe for them to work. The fires are still being dealt with at the moment, then there will be a search for survivors."
"I was told there wouldn't be any survivors," Sonya said in a grim voice, thinking of all the people who had been murdered.
"It's likely there won't, but there will be a search anyway."
Deville's attention returned to who might have perpetrated the attack. "Do we actually think Iran did this to us?" she asked. "Or are we looking at Middle Eastern terror groups?"
"Impossible to say as yet, ma'am," Angle said. "But the amount of chatter we're picking up from them is a serious concern. It's reminiscent of what we got from Bin Laden's group after 9/11. We have to seriously consider the possibility that Iran has committed an act of war on us."
Nausea took over Sonya again. Even if it wasn't Iran who had carried out the attack, she was going to have to respond by taking her country to war with someone, and that meant ordering American men and women to put their lives on the line. Thinking about that prospect made her hands start shaking, so she stuffed them in her jeans pockets to prevent anyone noticing.
She realised that right now, there wasn't much else she could do. She had to allow her people time to work, and time for the situation to continue unfolding. Her next job was to meet with the Iranian ambassador and demand the removal of the ship blockade they were putting in place in the Gulf of Oman. How that meeting went would tell her a lot about their potential enemy's intentions. Diplomatic discussion at such a high level would be something she was totally new to, and she needed advice. Luckily, Rollins walked back into the room at just the right time.
"The Iranian ambassador is on the way now, Madam President," he reported.
"Thank you, Seth," Sonya said. "When he gets here, how forceful do I get with him?"
"There's a significant chance Iran are behind the attack. Even if they're not, we cannot let them blockage oil supplies. I say be as forceful as you're comfortable with being."
Sonya looked at him with a hard expression on her face. She had picked up something in his tone that said he didn't think much of her ability to hand the ambassador. "I think you'll be surprised by how forceful I'm comfortable with being, Mr Rollins," she said firmly. "I'm a straight talker, and I have a feeling that will be new to a lot of people I have to deal with."
A/N: Thank you to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter. I greatly appreciate the overwhelmingly positive response you guys gave me. It gave me a lot of confidence considering this story is a step outside of my comfort zone, writing something completely different to wrestling.
President Deville is about to go into her first diplomatic meeting. With tensions running so high, how do you think she will do?
