Main Conference Room, National Security Council Building, Washington D.C.
"Good morning, President Clinton, President-elect Bush. Welcome to the National Security Council."
"So this is where the Friday Follies are held. Seer, right? How are you doing?"
The Seer shook George W. Bush's extended hand. "Very well, thank you, Sir. How much did your father tell you?"
Bush gave him one of his slanted smirks. "Nothing confidential of course, but he did remark on how much he missed the classified briefings. He also gave a high appraisal of your predecessor."
The Seer's lips gave the barest hint of a grin at that last comment.
"I will also miss the Friday Follies," declared Clinton. "Though I'll still have to trudge through politics with my wife on the budget committee."
"Where she'll no doubt put up a hard fight against me."
"Well probably on everything but SAC. Seer, why don't you tell George what he doesn't know about the Friday Follies."
"As National Security Advisor, it's my job to personally give you the classified briefing on world events as assembled by the NSC. The NSC exists to provide an outside, independent viewpoint free of perceived institutional bias, and you can trust our briefings because as contractors we're paid well to do so. The same goes for our staff like Naamah here."
"As the Seer says, Mister President-elect. Since we aren't here because we agree with you, if we disagree we can only resign, and this job pays too well for that."
"And Naamah's skills reflect her high pay, George. You won't find a better executive assistant. It's been a pleasure working with you Naamah."
"Mine as well with you Mister President. Here's your copy of the briefing book. As usual, sign it here. Mister President-elect, please sign here at the bottom of the front cover. Once you're finished reading, return it to me and I'll file it away here."
"Gentlemen, this week I bring both good news and bad news. The Iran Satrapy of the Caliphate, known internally as the Ummat al-Islamiyah, has decided to step up our secret intelligence-sharing agreement regarding locating and destroying the numerous biological and chemical weapons labs hidden by the Ruling Council within their territory. The bad news is that since the relocation of the Ruling Council to Syria, things appear to be heating up there. The Iranians have told us that the border skirmishes between Syria and Iraq have grown in size and frequency. There are also some reports that some Syrian civilian groups have started to protest against the skirmishes and the unconfirmed allegations that the Syrian military has used chemical weapons. This may finally be the straw that breaks the back of the Caliphate."
"Bill, what's your administration's policy on this region?"
"Well George, we've been slowly but successfully engaging with the moderates in Tehran to prevent the rise of the Ruling Council's fundamentalist supporters to power in Iran and crackdown on their non-nuclear WMDs. We're committed to supporting them at least with aerial assets should they get dragged into a full-scale civil war. Our secret agreement with the Iranians, and the fact that the Syrian civilians disapprove of their government's actions, show that we should avoid nuking the whole damn place if possible if another bioengineered disease gets unleashed like in Algeria back in 1972."
Bush shuddered. He remembered his elation at being accepted into Havard Business School for their MBA program when he got a call from his sister, Dorothy, to turn on the news. The guest medical expert's description of how Blackpox was initially exhibited within a victim as normal smallpox before unfailingly progressing to the naturally rare forms of Confluent Smallpox, where the pustules merged, and then to Hemorrhagic Smallpox, where the disease progresses inwards and attacks the vital organs. The doctor's horrific statement of how many victims, like the French nurses working at the military base close to ground zero, chose to overdose on morphine and kill themselves rather than wait in agony cemented the entire conversation into his mind.
Not that he would have had a particularly hard time to remember if he had wanted to. He had to have a good memory as a former fighter pilot. The event changed his outlook on the amount of effort he was putting into various aspects of his life, and he later took that scheduled physical exam he was planning to skip. It turned out to be a good decision as the airforce doctor informed him he would have been suspended from flying should he have skipped it.
His personal mission that he never told anyone but Laura for following in his father's footsteps into politics was to prevent such an attack from ever occurring on US soil.
And may God help him.
"What else are we doing to stop the threat of another biowar?"
Clinton looked at Seer, who explained.
"Aside from destroying all production sites that we find, there is little we can do to prevent such an attack from a determined enemy other than screen all people entering the United States for sickness, which of course would put a tremendous burden on the economy. Since 1972, every administration has conducted CDC planned exercises to ensure as much as possible that all levels of government and emergency services are ready to perform the duties of enforcing lockdowns, quarantines, and general disease prevention measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing. Reagan passed a bill before he left that enables the federal government to make it a crime to refuse to take vaccines defending against such a bioweapon for all medically able residents in the United States."
"I remember that," said Bush. "The ACLU was all over that for a while until someone started passing rumours in congress that the alternative was right to death legislation since everyone who got sick would rather kill themselves than wait."
There was a moment of silence after that. Blackpox had only been declared eradicated in 1997 after remaining endemic in Algeria and the most western reaches of the Caliphate for so long until continuing vaccine enforcement in those regions finally starved it out. They never did find an outright cure for it, just more effective treatments that increased survival rates along with its natural mortality rate decline as it adapted to not kill its host too quickly along with diminishing rates of transmission.
"Continuing on," said the Seer, "a future bioweapon would likely be even more deadly than all of our nuclear strikes since The Big One when we destroyed Germany. President Putin's scientists have confirmed that many of the samples discovered so far are based on T2-trichothecene. It constricts the blood vessels and produces progressive gangrene that turns their limbs black. A drastic simplification of the result is that the victim rots away while hallucinating unimaginable nightmares. And the worst part is there's so far no way to prevent this from happening to someone exposed to it. We know fundamentalist scientists within Caliphate have been working on deadlier variants since 1986."
"Oh my god."
"God indeed George. I was shocked by the seriousness of the problem when I first heard this from Seer. It's something few in the public truly understand."
"So since 1986, under Reagan's authorization, Project Lifeboat has been underway under Space Administration Command."
"Wait, that's what SAC stands for? I always thought it was Strategic Aerospace Command."
"Your father had a habit of neglecting its official term. I mean, of course, I was told this by my predecessor. SAC was first renamed Strategic Aerospace Command from Strategic Air Command during President LeMay's administration and then renamed again to Space Administration Command when Reagan folded NASA into SAC after the Columbia disaster."
"Of course, only SAC, the Seer, and Reagan bother to use its new name, George. SAC is still strategic to the rest of us."
"I guess so Bill. To think that just a few years after I left the air force after flying F-102s new pilots would be flying F-121s straight from atmo to space."
"Ahem. In the past, the public thought that the space stations and the Moon station were just for scientists and the military, but their true purpose is to be the last bastions of humanity should the worst come. At present, after spending a bit over $120 billion, we are now nearing completion of the centrifuge-design Manned Orbital Weapons Station-3 series, MOWS-L4 and MOWS-L5, located at the Lagrange points in deep space. Along with the geostationary facilities, in total, we have the capacity for 22,000 people, though not currently anywhere near maxed out of course. So far a moderate success for the First Phase despite the increased cost resulting from the necessity of redesigning the stations partway through MOWS-1's construction. Achieving enough self-sufficiency to outlast a potential bioweapon has proven to be a problem, however. We anticipate improvements in GMO technology at current levels of funding will allow the stations' plant production to reach the required amounts within the next two decades. Water too currently will eventually run out without fresh supplies faster than we'd like as the scientists and engineers research ways of improving our recycling efficiency."
"So our Noah's ark won't last 150 days just yet, huh, Seer."
"Not yet Mister President-elect. Not yet."
The Seer spent the next forty-five minutes going over the increasing budget of the Marines and the Army, which Bush knew started back when Reagan demanded an alternative response to massive retaliation after the Falklands War. The war happened after the take-off of American nuclear-equipped B-70s stopped an Argentinian invasion of Chile, but the overthrow of the military junta by the Argentinian public afterwards convinced everyone that populations shouldn't have to suffer annihilation due to the actions of their unpopular government. He went over the recent implementation of free trade between the members of the Triple Alliance (India, Thailand, Australia, et al.) and the increasing tensions between India and the Republic of China.
"What about the nucular threat from Japan?"
Clinton laughed. "Nuclear, George. You don't want to make that mistake in pronunciation again in front of the Seer. I learnt my lesson early on."
The Seer frowned slightly. "Mister President-elect, with the Japanese still recovering from losing their war in Vietnam and break-up with China and Korea, their nuclear threat to us has in-actuality decreased. They've diverted what little resources they could to regional strike capability since China developed nuclear weapons of their own."
"Nor would they want to go against us, George. Not since they attempted to shootdown MOLPOL-4, that's Manned Orbital Laboratory (Polar)."
"Wait what, Bill!? This is the first time I heard of this."
"Mister President-elect, in 1986 a rogue IJA general decided to try to get us to nuke Japan rather than live through their economic collapse after their Korea Division got wiped out at the Battle of An Khe in Vietnam. He routed a 20 kiloton warhead-equipped orbiting anti-satellite weapon towards the MOLPOL. Luckily the XF-121 test pilot was on MOWS-1 and managed to travel over and intercept the weapon. I've heard that the Emperor himself commanded the general to commit suicide for nearly getting the country destroyed."
Bush recalled the slogan that summarized America's infamous policy of massive retaliation popularized after The Big One: 'America doesn't fight wars against its enemies. It destroys them.'
The Seer moved on to his last topic of how the shadow conflict going on between the economically competing members of the relatively new Commonwealth of Asian States (China, Imperial Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) in the Golden Triangle was reducing the supply and increasing the price of drugs in the US.
Around that last section of the briefing, Bush started to pay less attention. The war on drugs was growing increasingly expensive as presidency after presidency allocated more and more of the budget towards it, and the danger of drugs was a sideshow to the looming existential crisis of a potential biowar. Although he hadn't campaigned for or against the war on drugs, Bush decided here and now that he was going to attempt to divert resources away from it towards the next stage of Project Lifeboat and increase GMO development and water recycling funding to speed along its completion. He remembered that he had been approached during his campaign by members of something called the Drug Policy Foundation. He had declined a meeting at the time, but now perhaps he should schedule one with them once he assumed office. He wasn't sure if there was a solution to avoid the political fallout that would probably come with outright cutting the budget towards the war on drugs, but if nothing else he was not going to expand it.
Earth Orbit, Approaching MOWS-1
Major Bobby Hamilton watched as his B-101 slowly caught up to MOWS-1. As the first Manned Orbital Weapons Station, the MOWS-1 was essentially a square of junk. On the top was a flight deck that matched the imperfectly joined deck from an old aircraft carrier. Attached to the bottom like a screw was a rotating ring. The much cleaner design of the ring revealed its newness compared to the 17 billion dollar scrap heap it was attached to. While the newer stations had much of their structure built within a ring, the only facilities inside the MOWS-1's ring were the crew sleeping quarters. It turned out that muscle atrophy, which could be mitigated by exercise, was not the only threat to space residents. Unforeseen by the designers of the MOWS-1 was the problem of space blindness. An epidemic of untreatable nearsightedness had been observed among the longer-serving crew of the station, and the only solution was to enable future crew members to live and work in a higher gravity environment. The design overhaul of the newer stations and the quickly attached add-on ballooned the initial expected cost by $20 billion. Hamilton remembered as a kid that the request for an increased budget by SAC in 1994 for FY95 had brought fury from several members of congress who attempted to compare the impossible to predict problem to NASA's mishandling of the shuttle program and attempted to call for additional civilian oversight. The vote on the request was stalled until news broke out that Matsumoto, Japan had suffered a sarin attack by non-state actors who were quickly caught afterwards. While the Kenpeitai was explaining to the world media how a doomsday cult of all groups managed to produce sarin undetected, SAC took the opportunity to point out that the high frontier was the only place safe from future biochemical attacks, especially now that biological and chemical weapons had proliferated beyond the total control of governments that could be massively retaliated against.
As his B-101 got closer, the voice of his navigator interrupted the silence. "That's no moon..."
The Defensive Systems Operator finished the line, "It's a space station."
The entire crew laughed briefly at the joke. Ever since construction started, the media had called the station "The Death Star."
Hamilton's headset lit up with the voice of MOWS-1's flight control operator. After receiving his instructions to change descent rate and his current relative velocities and altitude along with expected landing time, he read them back.
"Diana, read-back correct," confirmed MOWS-1.
Hamilton checked he had correctly toggled from maneuver to landing mode and eased his control stick forward. The B-101's reaction control system tilted so it was facing up, and with a command from the computer systems, there was a quick burst from the RCS rockets. Now the Diana moved closer to the flight deck.
"60 seconds to landing."
Hamilton dropped the undercarriage and hook.
"Nosewheel down. Main wheels down. Hook down. All down."
Diana gently bounced as the hook caught the arrestor wire.
Soon enough, a yellow tractor piloted by an operator in the full white spacesuit made its way across the deck. There was a jar as the tow cable was connected, and the B-101 was pulled along the deck to a large elevator near the end marked by two differently sized yellow triangles labelled B101 and F121. The B-101 was positioned over the larger triangle, and the tractor operator got out and rotated the clamps into their locking positions around the bomber's wheels.
A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision drew Hamilton's attention to his mirror. The arrestor wire was slithering its way across the deck back to its original position.
There was a larger jolt as the elevator descended, and he felt the bomber float up before being held in place by the clamps. The bottom of the well was shrouded in pitch darkness, but an array of red lights turned on. Looking up he could see the hatches on the deck enclosing the well, and the bomber creaked as he assumed the well doubled as an airlock. Once the lights turned green, Hamilton saw in the mirror that additional crew not in space suits were now driving in on an additional tractor. They connected another wire to the hook before undoing the elevator clamps. Soon enough, the B-101 was pulled along to its hanger spot alongside another B-101 and 3 F-121s. Clamps were placed again before the hook was finally free of a wire.
Hamilton saw the suited crewmember from before, now without a helmet, give him a thumbs up.
He released the service door locks and began unbuckling his restraints. "Alright, folks, thank you for flying Air SAC."
The rest of the bomber crew quickly got up and opened the door ahead of him before stepping aside and allowing Hamilton to exit first.
"Welcome on board MOWS-1, the longest-serving station in the fleet and the home away from home of forty men and women, sirs."
Hamilton pulled himself along the steps before getting a good look at the tractor operator. The man was dressed in the new blue fatigues of SAC. His nametag read Brooks.
"Thank you, Lieutenant Brooks."
"Allow me to show you where you can store your suits, sirs. Once you're all square in the living module, Lieutenant-Colonel Willard Hitchins-Yates will see you, sirs."
The Oval Office, Washington DC
"Yes. President Putin, General Zhuravlyov's delivered your gift basket to my office. My wife will certainly appreciate the Pavlovo Posad shawl… My administration will certainly continue to use his expertise… Thank you for your country's continued support against biological and chemical threats… I look forward to the continued cooperation and friendship between our great nations. Have a good night."
President George W. Bush put down the phone. "That's the last call, right Naamah?"
"Yes, Mister President. It's now 3:49 pm. You have about an hour before you have to begin preparing for the inaugural ball, which starts at 5:30."
Bush stretched in his chair. His throat felt dry from about forty straight minutes of talking to various world leaders on the phone. "Naamah, can you please call up a can of Coke?"
"Right away, Mister President."
Within a minute, the butler arrived with a glass of ice and a can of Coke. "With ice, Mister President?"
"Yes, please. Thank you."
As fast as he came, the butler quickly left the room. Bush drank half of the glass then poured in the remainder of the can.
"Naamah, go tell Laura I'll join her as soon as I'm done with this here."
Naamah respectfully left the room and gently such the door behind her.
Bush took in the majesty of the Oval Office, now fully alone. It took a lot to get to this moment, but he knew from his father's experience that he would only have to work harder. Now his next hundred days would be spent attempting to keep his campaign promises. He closed his eyes and took in his first moment of blissful silence since his inauguration. With the help of God, he prayed, his presidency would be a smooth one.
Justina Road Elementary School, Jacksonville, Florida
George W. Bush stood in front of the elementary students and their teachers; the security team and his aides; and the press and their cameras. Congress was proving highly resistant to his education reforms, and so Bush found himself spending much of his time campaigning to force the Capital to pass the bills to fulfill what the nation already voted him in for. With index cards in one hand, he glanced over at his brother. The governor of Florida slightly nodded, and Bush began. Bush motioned an arm over towards him.
"It's about time he got it right, isn't it?"
His aides laughed, followed by the teachers, and then some of the press. The children weakly laughed too as they mimicked the adults in the room without much understanding.
He looked at his brother pointedly. "Governor."
There was more laughter. The governor smiled.
Bush turned his attention back to the TV cameras. "Obviously, we were raised right, because Jeb's priority and my priority are the same – that is to make sure every child gets a good education in America.
We understand – we understand – that an educated child is one that is much more likely to realize the great American experience. And it is so important that we get it right in America. And I'm proud of my brother; he's doing a really good job here in Florida and I appreciate Jeb."
Bush paused for the polite applause that followed before continuing.
On Board Diana, Approaching Red Sun Test Range, Nevada
"You think they'll send up the experimental interceptor this year?"
"Maybe."
"I hope not today," said Hamilton. "It would certainly mean our job would become infinitely harder."
According to historical trends, a new generation of bombers and fighters would be developed and put into full operation about every decade. Since the B-101 and F-121 began dominating air and space in 1993, a new aerospace interceptor should be in testing about now.
Russian and American anti-nuclear bomber strategy was based around satellites and manned observatories tracking incoming bombers and then mustering orbit-based interceptors and space-station missile batteries against them before relying on ground-based interceptors like the F-112 and ground missile batteries like the Zeus. As a result, it was rumoured that the next-generation fleet will consist of stealth aircraft that severely reduced the effectiveness of radar-tracking and therefore reduce the time for any response.
"I'll give any young gal a run for her money and let her choke on my exhaust before I retire."
The crew laughed at Diana's joke. It was always a mystery as to who among the crew actually voiced the aircraft of SAC, but the acknowledgement by the crew that they all heard the same comments over their plane's comms meant it was certainly more real than the "shared delusions" SAC's psychologists liked to profess.
A beep alerted Hamilton to the next stage of their flight towards Red Sun. Diana had departed MOWS-1 and made most of a full orbit around the Earth to simulate a fractional orbital bombardment run. Now Hamilton fired up the RCS to decelerate the bomber and deorbit it into the atmosphere to avoid the ground-based radars that provided tracking for the SAMs protecting the target at Red Sun for a few more crucial minutes.
"Vampire, vampire! Confirmed F-121, designating now as Bandit-One. Jamming now!" reported the DSO.
Hamilton immediately started turning the bomber away from the fighter as soon as the Offensive Systems Operator launched an AIM-54 Pheonix at it. In real operations, the missile would be a nuclear-tipped AIM-54C, but as this was an exercise the fired AIM-54B veered off and detonated its conventional warhead harmlessly in empty air.
"Bandit-One destroyed according to Red Sun. She's descending now."
"Yes!"
"Gotta be mad he didn't even get to launch his missiles at us."
"I saw him crack and immediately begin evasive maneuvers as soon as our missile was launched."
Hamilton sighed. In previous years the interceptor pilots performed better. He checked their distance from the target. "Just five more minutes until we reach the ground-radar tracking zone."
"We're painted! Missile incoming!"
"The hell! Where did that come from?"
"Attempting to find its exact position… Got it, damn that cross-section is small. Unknown airframe."
"Fox-Three!"
Hamilton was desperately trying to turn Diana enough so that she was at least perpendicular to the computer's projection of the incoming missile and thus force it into a tail chase.
If the unknown airframe had been picked up on Diana's radar or ESM earlier, her Defensive Anti-Missile System could have intercepted the incoming missile with an LDM-74 "Pye Wacket". With the late detection, Hamilton could only hope that the ECM would divert it away or Diana would outpace its calculated explosion range.
Then the windows automatically darkened as the entire sky lit up with bright light.
"Oh shit!"
"Who launched a warshot?!"
Justina Road Elementary School, Jacksonville, Florida
"Now, one has passed the House and one has passed the Senate. Both bills have got really good features to them. And it's now time for people to act in the nation's Capital and get the bill to my desk, so that people at the local level can start to plan and start to strategize, and to make things happen in a positive way.
There's too many of our kids in America who can't read today - maybe not in this school, but around the nation there's just too many. And now it's time to wage war on-"
The classroom was suddenly engulfed in very bright white light. Bush reflexively closed his eyes mid-speech for a second. When he opened them, still blinking away the flash, he saw the security team immediately rushing towards him. In the commotion, he heard an old voice saying, "Duck and cover! Duck and cover! Get underneath desks now!"
"Mister President, get down!"
Bush crouched down, then felt his head pushed a bit further lower as he heard a desk being dragged over him. Tilting his head to see the room, he saw that some teachers were frantically attempting to have the children follow the example of their old principal, who had rolled up into a ball. The other adults, mainly the press and his aides, were panicking. Some just dropped to the floor, there obviously being not enough desks for everyone to hide under. Two of his aides squeezed under the teacher's desk. Naamah had taken a school desk closer to him. A couple of people went to the window. The security team was surrounding Bush and Jebb, attempting to shield them from the window side of the building.
"Get away from the window!" cried the principal. "The blast wave will break the glass!"
One of the people looking outside turned away, crouched, and covered their face in response. The other just stared outside, too stunned to respond.
"Is this a nuclear attack?" asked Bush.
"We don't know for sure yet, Sir," responded the bodyguard.
The man at the window, a reporter, appeared to be looking up into the sky. After a few long seconds, he spoke. "There's no mushroom cloud I can see, and the sky would normally turn back to normal in a nuclear attack right?"
"What do you mean back to normal?"
"The sky is completely white."
"What?"
"Does anyone how long it would take for a blast wave to reach us?" said someone else.
"I don't know."
The reporter walked out of the class.
"Okay, it's been two minutes and we haven't felt anything. John, you go check the window," said the security team chief.
The agent tentatively got up and then looked through the window. "The sky's changed colour completely. It's not blue, it's all white. I see an airline jet still flying in the distance."
The chief got up himself. "People are coming out of the homes on the other side of the street. There doesn't seem to be any fallout falling from the sky. Okay, team, we're pulling the President out."
"We're getting the Governor out as well," responded an agent from Jeb Bush's team.
"President first. Mister President, please get up and follow me."
The desk was pushed away from Bush. He stood up and, surrounded by the security team, was escorted outside and into the limo. As he got in, he saw that the reporter along with a growing crowd was now looking up at the unsettlingly white sky, as if the sky was that of the heavens of artistic depictions. The police motorcycle troopers, who were waiting at the entrance, got on their bikes and started them up.
"To the heliport, Officers."
The police gave a thumbs up and pulled away ahead of the limbo.
"Mister President, there's a phone call from the Pentagon for you," said Naamah.
Bush picked up the satellite phone from his right side. "This is George W. Bush speaking."
"Mister President, this General Jumper, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. The Chairman is currently on his way back to the Pentagon."
"What's going on General. Is it an attack?"
"No reported attacks, Sir. However, we have lost contact with our foreign partners. Hold on a second, sorry, all foreign contacts. We cannot contact anyone from Ottawa to Moscow to Tokyo. We have shut down airspace and begun the process of landing all aircraft over the United States and its territories right now. Mister President, the phenomena you see outside is being reported at all our military bases outside the continental United States. Our bases in Russia report that night has suddenly turned into day. We have unconfirmed reports that all land outside the US and its military bases have disappeared."
"The land has disappeared? How is that possible? Short of an act of God."
There was a pause from the other end. "I could not tell you, Sir. Space Administration Command is informing us that the space stations, which you know, should be in space, are also in a white void, though they are apparently still experiencing low gravity as normal. They are currently sending down images to us. We expect the data to be fully downloaded and processed shortly."
"Is that all you have for me at the moment?"
"Yes, Mister President."
"Continue updating me as new info comes in."
"Yes, Mister President."
George W. Bush hung up and attempted to make sense of what he just heard. Was this God's doing?"
On Board Diana, Above Red Sun Test Range, Nevada
"I repeat, the exercise is cancelled. All aircraft land as soon as possible," ordered the voice from Red Sun's Mission Control Center.
The sky looked extremely disorienting as bright white light permeated to the clouds below. Hamilton spent the next few minutes receiving clearance and instructions for landing. Ahead of him, Hamilton could see an unfamiliar dark grey silhouette fly over the clouds for a while before descending into them.
"That's a fat girl right there," remarked the copilot.
"Not fat, just big legs instead of arms."
"Two engines in the middle right? Like the Navy F-14."
"But rudders are way more angled."
"Beginning descent now." Hamilton was just relieved that apparently no one had fucked up and launched a live-nuclear missile during the air-to-air portion of the exercise and sent them to heaven.
They ended up following the unknown aircraft to the same airfield. The DSO was obsessing over how small its radar cross-section was right up until they touched down.
When they eventually climbed down from the bomber, they found themselves face to face with a Colonel. After proper greetings were made, he spoke. "Gentlemen. Regarding the aircraft you came down with today, you are not to speak a word nor syllable about it…"
Air Force One Conference Room, Jacksonville International Airport, Florida
The small oval windows that would normally have a view of the other planes parked at their gates had been covered up. About half an hour ago, the sky had finally returned to its normal shade of blue. Initially, he had wanted to take off for Washington DC right away, but he had been advised that it was decided that flights should remain grounded for at least a couple more hours. The technicians had spent the last twenty minutes fiddling around with the projector and the conference phone. Bush was drinking from a water bottle when an aide finally alerted him that the meeting was ready to begin.
"Mr. President," came the slightly muffled voice of Vice President Bruce Cheney, "All statuary and regular attendees of the National Security Council are present. In addition, we are joined today by the Director of the National Weather Service, Dr. Louis Uccellini… I hope I didn't mispronounce your name Doctor."
"It's fine. Just call me Dr. Louis."
"I will now cede the call to the national security advisor, who will provide the general overview of the situation."
"Thank you, Mr. Vice President." Somehow, Sage's voice broadcasted clearer over the conference phone. Bush thought he heard a slight shift in his accent as the advisor spoke.
"Mr. President. What you should see on your projector is a highlighted photo taken from MOWS-1 over the United States of America as it is now."
"Oh what the hell!?" exclaimed Bush.
The borders of the United States were highlighted in black in the photo. The land stretched across the photo from one ocean in the west to another in the east, but instead of the lands of Canada and Mexico enclosing the north and south… there was only water as blue as the oceans along the west and east coasts of America. Alaska was now an island. Upon further inspection, he saw that the Hawaiian Islands and Peurto Rico were captured in the frame.
"As you can see, the entirety of North America, and in fact, all landmasses we could observe outside of the United States mainland and its possessions are missing. Here is another photo."
The unbelievable image was replaced with an image of Alaska along the right side of the photo. To the left of Alaska was a red circle drawn around what appeared to be a small island chain.
"What am I looking at now Sage?"
"Those islands, Mr. President, are the lands of our military bases formerly located in Russia and Eastern Europe."
"I would normally say you were bullshitting, Sage, except I've never heard you ever tell a joke."
"And I would never joke. This phenomenon also applies to our moonbase, Mr. President. We now have an asteroid base and no moon."
"No moon?"
"No moon, Mr. President. In fact, we now have an asteroid belt. SAC has confirmed that space is devoid of all objects previously known to us except for American assets. The stars that will now light our night skies are unknown, which means-"
"We're not in Kansas anymore." Bush sunk back into his chair and rubbed his forehead.
"It is the informed opinion of the astronomers of Space Administration Command that the United States of America has been transported to a different planet in a different galaxy. We have indeed been Oz'd."
"Then what about our citizens who were outside the United States? What about all the foreign visitors and residents within?"
"All foreign visitors and residents now have no country to return to as far as we know. Any American citizen who was abroad and not within the limits of any of our possessions or bases now effectively doesn't exist. Luckily for the military, as it was late at night in Europe during this… um… transferal. Most personnel and their families are safe. Of course, there are plenty of issues regarding the stranded unfortunates that the Secretary of State will address later on in this meeting, but currently, the NSC has identified three major concerns we must focus on right away.
The first is that the loss of all our trading partners is disastrous for our economy. Agriculture and manufacturing will need to quickly draw down production levels as they recalibrate from export to the domestic market. The general production of all goods created in the information era will see severe drops as our manufacturers run out of the rare metals and other input resources they require. The central bank will have to immediately commence stabilization measures to address the complete loss of institutional investments in foreign loans and stock. It is likely trading on the stock exchange will have to halt for an unprecedented period of time. In general, as the Secretary of the Treasury will attest, the US dollar faces severe deflationary pressures as we must act to prevent bank runs and the complete collapse of the modern financial system. All this means we will see the biggest unemployment crisis in history, perhaps greater than the Great Depression. The only good news is the sudden slowdown in our economy means that the scale of our imminent energy shortage will be slightly reduced as we prioritize life-critical services, particularly emergency services, food transportation, and heating while we slowly ramp up energy production."
"But ramping up will be too slow," moaned Bush.
"Yes, Mr. President. The only consultation is that we wisely chose not to be dependent on the Caliphate with its ostensibly cheaper light oil. Otherwise, our refineries wouldn't even be able to process the oil we do have.
Moving on, the second is general security. We can expect panic and looting to set in, if not in the next few days, then by next week or the week after. In addition, subversive elements who were inactive before may decide that now is the best time to attack our nation. Sabotage of power stations, incitement of riots, and even attacks on government officials are all at increased risk. We strongly recommend consulting the state governors, invoking martial law, imposing an early curfew, and deploying the national guard to protect all critical infrastructure. Our outwardly aimed security resources will have to be redirected inwards.
The third is, well, big weather problems. I'll cede the call to Dr. Louis, who'll better summarize them."
"Thank you, uh, Mr. Advisor. Our sudden displacement and the replacement of the moon by a ring have disturbing implications for our climate. As you may remember from primary school, the moon was responsible for our tides due to its gravitational pull on the Earth. With an asteroid ring, this gravitational pull is heavily reduced, meaning we expect a much higher low tide and lower high tide. Perhaps the tides will be about a third of the size than before. This will have a disastrous effect on our coastal ocean ecosystems, as creatures such as clams and crabs depend on the nutrients carried by the tide receive less and begin to starve. This starvation will cascade to our ocean and land food chains, assuming there's nothing native to this new world to fill in the broken links. The tides are also responsible for regulating the climate, meaning we can expect erratic weather patterns. All this means our local food production in about a couple of months is likely to be reduced. The addition of new coastlines has greater implications than just new beachfront property. Border states like Texas will now have to deal with the possibility of floods and hurricanes. Weather disasters that they simply are not prepared for at all. Warning and response systems will have to be implemented as soon as possible and building codes updated when financially possible, otherwise, casualty rates in the worst-case scenarios could match that of Tropical Storm Thelma in the Philippines."
Bush vaguely remembered what Dr. Louis was referencing. About a decade ago right? Bush couldn't remember the damage done, but he was nevertheless appreciative of the doctor's warnings. Unfortunately, he felt that all of the problems Dr. Louis just described seemed somehow even more difficult to address than the impending implosion of the American economy. Was he about to preside over the collapse of the United States as he knew it?
"Thank you, Dr. Louis," said Seer. "Mr. President, we will address in detail the specific actions we will take to mitigate the imminent damage as soon as possible, but we must also concurrently work on the solution that will eventually solve a lot of these problems."
"What do you suggest?"
"Fundamentally, we need new sources of resources and trade to heal the nation. SAC has spotted unknown landmasses across the water that we can reach. We need your authorization to begin exploration missions."
"Mr. President," interrupted Colin Powell, the Secretary of State. "I believe that I along with the esteemed staff of my department should head the planning of these missions."
"I agree Colin, though I think SAC should conduct thorough aerospace reconnaissance as the first step in your plans. Seer, I authorize you to commit the NSC's unbiased expertise to the disposal of the Department of State for exploration of the lands outside the territories of the United States of America."
"Yes, Mr. President. Now, the summary is done. Let's start with the Treasury. Mr. Secretary O'Neill, please inform us of your department's first actions."
Author's Notes
Made an edit to add a mention of DAMS and F-112s.