Prologue: The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
It's like a storm that's never ending
It's like a shadow on the land and the sea
There's nothing so sad as
A tomorrow gone bad
The future ain't what it used to be
The old man noticed when the soft sussurations of his horse's hooves in the sand turned to the clopping sounds of iron striking concrete. Although the roads surrounding what was once Walker Air Force Base were erased by the hand of time, the large, thick slabs of the jetways still peaked from beneath the sands. He pulled the reins, steering the horse towards an outcropping of rock and sand that hid the entrance to an ancient hangar.
After dismounting, he shielded his eyes with a hand as he judged the height of the sun. It was late morning, and the desert heat was already stifling. Stepping into the shade dropped the temperature by at least twenty degrees. He sought and found the doorway he'd first entered over two decades ago. It looked exactly as he remembered, which he expected considering that memory would be made less than a month in the future. He shook his head to chase away the echoes from the past—his past, but his friends' future—that sometimes confused and overwhelmed his thoughts.
After forcing the door open with a teeth-rattling screech of metal, he retrieved the horse and led her inside. In that space, the old man found the openness of the hangar was unnerving. One side of the building had collapsed under the weight of the rock and sand deposited over the centuries, but enough remained intact to hold two or three jet fighters. But no aircraft sat in silent expectation. No, they would have all been in the air when the bombs began to drop, he thought.
However, the hangar was not completely empty. On the side opposite the collapse, crates of supplies and munitions covered by a layer of dust and sand lined the wall. A jeep covered with a tarp sat on its metal rims, the remains of the rotted rubber of the tires scattered around each wheel. His gaze lingered over the crates; but now was not the time to unbury the secret roller door behind them. Instead, he headed toward the back of the hangar, to the office and the long-range UHF radio that was part of the base's communications system.
He had a long overdue call to make.