The Big Bang (20 page)

“The Armenian grocer, across the way. He opened up, he's passing out whatever he's got.”

She gratefully took a bottle from him, fumbled at the cap with weak hands, then cranked it off with her teeth. She took a long, shuddering drink. A wave of trembling shook her. She was famished. “Did he have any food, anything decent?”

“Beef jerky, some sandwich meat.”

“Get anything you can that's not junk food. Please.”

“Sure.” He turned and sprinted back across the park.

Harriet moaned. “My leg…it's really hurting.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Karen replied. “Let me get something. I'll be right back.” She needed something straight. Since she'd left her woodsman's axe back home with her girlish innocence, no tree branches for her. She wandered toward the street, coming out from under the foliage of the park, and noticed it was getting dark. She hoped they'd get some kind of official word before nightfall. The idea of huddling in the darkness with nothing but ignorance and fear to keep them company had no appeal for her.

Out in the road, the slow stream of dazed survivors had slowed. She wasn't sure why, maybe they'd fallen from exhaustion, or maybe the streets had been closed. Dammit, there was so much she didn't know. But it made it easier to walk out into the street, kick through the debris. She found a few pieces of thin PVC pipe. A quick sniff, and she guessed they'd only been used for water. A little more searching led her to a telephone cord and a woman's jacket under a chair. She could pad the PVC with the jacket and tie everything up with the phone cord.

By the time she'd finished the splint on Harriet's leg, Kevin returned, bare-chested, carrying his haul in his shirt. Proudly, he knelt beside them to display his treasures: beef jerky, canned tuna and chicken, vegetable beef soup, some crackers, One A Day vitamins, and more bottled water.

“That's great!” Karen said, and smiled at him. Then she noticed the scrape on his face and his bloody knuckles.

He smiled back. “Some guy wanted our stuff. I told him no.”

“Good job,” Karen told him. Others from the office were gathering around. Karen began dividing up the food into roughly equal piles. She was almost drooling with hunger. “Dig in,” she said, forcing herself not to grab at the pathetically small pile in front of her. “Chew slowly,” she reminded them. “It'll help your brain realize you're getting food.”

Harriet spoke quietly, without warning. “Oh, Lord, for these gifts we are about to receive, let us be truly grateful.”

Karen looked over at the reclining Congresswoman in surprise. She'd never heard anything other than perfunctory references to God in Harriet's speeches, and in private, she'd heard a lot of scorn for the Bible-thumpers. “It's something my grandmother used to say at dinner,” Harriet said, abashed.

“Mine, too,” Kevin added.

“It's a good prayer,” Karen admitted, starting to eat. The beef jerky was full of preservatives, the crackers were stale, and the tuna smelled pretty strong, but she ate the first meal of her new life as reverently as if it were communion.

After the few fishes and loaves had been consumed, they decided to find shelter. Ash had continued to fall and people were coughing. Kevin and his posse, Aaron and Jay, took turns carrying Harriet as Karen led the way. A man inside a modest office store saw them and beckoned them inside. “Come, rest, sit down!” he called.

Their group of nine shambled inside the dark store and numbly followed the man to an area devoted to furniture. There were soft chairs, futons, even convertible couches—everything an obsessive career-ladder-climber would need to sleep in their office.

Kevin eased Harriet into a recliner. Karen was talking to the man, the owner of the store, who was largely as ignorant of the full events as anyone else. “No looting here. Nothing works, and nobody wants to carry couch on their back.”

Kevin joined her. He told the owner, a short, broad-faced Oriental man, “Thanks.” Kevin took a bottle of water from his pants pocket, extended it.

The Oriental man half-bowed, an old reflex, and nodded vigorously. “Thank you! Thank you very much. I'm Bao.” He and Kevin shook hands.

Karen looked outside at the dark streets. She could see a glow in the far distance and as she looked, more across the horizon and in her nearer field of vision. Fires. She hoped they wouldn't spread. “I don't think we can do anything until daylight,” she said. Kevin and Bao agreed. Bao had an older mechanical wristwatch. It hadn't been affected by the EMP blast. “8:15. Daylight about 5.”

She pointed to the glow. “We have to keep an eye on that.”

“I'll watch it,” Kevin offered. “You get some sleep.”

“Sleep,” Bao said, and then, with a flourish, pulled on the bottom of a sofa. It lifted and then folded out into a bed.

The sight of the bed hit her like a chop to the throat and she was ready to weep with fatigue. She swallowed it down, turning to the two men. “Let me sleep four hours, then we'll trade, okay?”

Bao took off his watch, strapped it around Kevin's wrist. “Okay.”

Karen dropped onto the edge of the sofa bed, hardly able to keep her head up. Bao walked among the survivors, exhorting them to get comfortable. Karen heard him say cheerily, “Insurance pay for everything, don't worry!”

Insurance
, she almost laughed. Who knew how large this catastrophe was. Tomorrow, they could find out. Even if Harriet was a member of Congress, it would be simply stupid to blunder about Washington, DC in the dark. Karen curled up on her side, put one arm over her eyes, and before she knew it, she slept.

Thus, did she come to the end of the first day of her new life.

On August 23, millions of people awoke to a new world. Whether it was brave or not, only time would tell. But it was certainly different. And for nearly a third of the people alive that morning, it would also be their final day on the planet.

The President and his cabinet had been evacuated to Bunker 7 in the Alleghenies. Cheyenne Mountain had been closed the year before. As secrets went, the mountain's location and purpose were as shrouded in mystery as Rock Hudson's private inclinations. Bunker 7 was reached by a one-hundred-and-twenty-five-mile maglev train ride over two hundred feet underground. The entire bunker complex had been burned out of the mountain from beneath to reduce any impact on the structural stability of the solid granite. Power was provided by a small nuclear reactor that was based on a Navy submarine design. Much of the layout of Bunker 7 reflected training and operational insight gained from the Navy. After all, if the government came to Bunker 7, it was likely they might not see the light of day for many long weeks. Why not use the experience of those who had already been through that kind of life?

Bunker 7 had the latest in communications, remote control, and protection against many an attack. What it didn't have was Laura. She was visiting with an elderly aunt in New Braunfuels, Texas. The President sent a detachment of Special Ops forces to protect his wife and return her to the Bunker safely.

That decision made, the President could turn his attention to the attacks on the nation. It was clear nuclear devices had gone off in a number of major cities across the United States. “Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Dallas, Kansas City, Omaha, Washington.” The list was growing as reports came in from around the country.

Israel, God bless 'em, had come through. As far as Bunker 7 could tell, Israel was on full alert. They'd offered sanctuary to any US soldiers who could make it to their borders. American troops throughout the Arab world were under attack by various jihadist factions, but these actions appeared more opportunistic than rigorously planned, as had been the assault on America. Apparently, the attackers reasoned that with the Great Satan staggered by the attacks and Allah on their side, they would be able to overwhelm the grunts and the jarheads on their own. So far, this reasoning had proven false. The Marines and the Army were holding their own, their weapons and electronics not affected by the EMP pulses that had battered North America. A lot of martyrs were being sent to Paradise, with their ticket being punched courtesy of the United States military.

There was worse news to come. The Chinese decided to enter the war.

It was purely an economic decision. The appropriate Marxist rhetoric would be drafted afterwards, once the war was over. The Chinese wanted the West Coast. Its harbors would give access to the natural and mineral wealth waiting there. Foreseeing a certain lack of revolutionary zeal from the current inhabitants, the Chinese plan was simplicity itself. First, a series of EMP bombs over the major population centers to knock out what remained of civil and military control, followed by a series of high-altitude-enhanced neutron bombs. Eradication of the population of the cities would leave the majority of the infrastructure intact. A final bombing run would release a voracious bacteria that would convert the bodies into mulch within a month, leaving the cities dusty, but free of corpses.

The initial series of EMP bombs were launched at first light on August 23, crossing from the darkness of the Chinese mainland, flying across the Pacific and coming out of the night sky into the dawn.

As plans went, it was a pretty good one. It was based on certain assumptions, one of which proved to be deeply flawed: Omaha, and the Strategic Air Command bunker, was still online.

Interceptors got most of the EMP missiles well offshore. The light show illuminated the sky for a hundred miles, further terrifying already frightened shrimp fishermen heading for Hawaii.

Bunker 7 was informed even as pieces of the Chinese missiles were raining down into the green waters of the Pacific. “Did any get through?” the President wanted to know.

“Three,” was the embarrassed answer from deep beneath Omaha. “They blitzed a good part of Oregon and California with EMP.”

“You're sure they came from China.”

“No question.”

A General interrupted. “You'd bet your life on it, soldier?”

“Hell, sir,” came the staticky reply. “I'm bettin' your life on it, as far as I can tell.”

The President stared down at his desk. “They're trying to kick us while we're already down.” This wasn't his worst nightmare…it was a nightmare he'd never dared to even allow himself to dream. There really was no decision to be made. His country was under attack from within and without. Her missiles and heavy weaponry, however, were mostly untouched. “Launch now,” he said, waving for the nuclear football. “Torch 'em.”

The major cities in China vanished roughly twenty minutes later. The Emperor's palace in Beijing, over a thousand years of history, crumpled to ash like a dry leaf in a blast furnace. Delicate, priceless porcelain in museums was blown to atoms. The terracotta armies of the ancient king, his guardians in the afterlife, were blasted to carbon, leaving the Emperor defenseless in Heaven.

Dams, hydro-electric plants, and anything that resembled heavy industry were obliterated. Two strikes also hit what had once been North Korea—when the scenario of “China Attacks” had been gamed, it was presumed that North Korea would be aiding and abetting the mischief, and two missiles had been reserved with Dear Leader's name on them.

Taiwan was shaken and surprised to discover it was basically intact, the master of a China that was largely a radioactive waste with only peasants in the center of the country still alive.

The news only got worse. Russia began lobbing missiles at China, as well.

His hand shaking, the President took a long drink of water at his desk. “What the hell is wrong with these assholes?” he asked aloud.

“The Russians are looking for a chance to kick a little yellow butt,” said Wild Bill Pellegrion, a notoriously un-PC advisor from the panhandle of Texas.

For several tense hours, men sat with their fingers figuratively and literally on buttons, ready to launch additional nukes at China, or Russia, or, God help us, both.

China apparently decided that Mother Russia was more of an immediate threat to their survival than the Great Paper Tiger. After all, the Russians had attacked
them
while they were attacking the US. Chinese and Russian submarines began pouring forth their differing versions of the Will of the People, killing large segments of their respective populations in the process. Again, urban centers, industry, infrastructure, and especially historical sites specific to the Marxist mythos of each nation were wiped from the face of the earth.

Lenin's body was saved, at first, spirited away by members of State Security who had been tipped off to the impending attack on their Sino brethren. The State Security team was ambushed under Lenin's tomb by a clique of ardent Stalinists, who were hell-bent on destroying this hated relic of the failed and enfeebled past. As they shot it out with automatic weapons and each side radioed for backup, someone's satchel charge went off. The national monument had been re-enforced against external attack, so instead of blowing the roof off, the hardened steel and concrete reflected the force of the explosion back down into the tunnel beneath the tomb. When it was over, you couldn't tell where Lenin began, and a Stalinist or capitalist ended. None of which mattered twenty-eight minutes later, when several of Mao's finest nuclear armaments slammed into Red Square and gouged a hole the size of Lake Michigan into the earth.

As the last two major Communist nations on earth carried out their final ideological argument, both the Navy and the Air Force came under attack from their Marxist counterparts on the high seas, in the air, and even in space.

Previously unknown lasers briefly winked into being in the Steppes, blinding or outright destroying spy satellites. Russian subs, wild to get within launch range of China, began firing on the wary American ships and submarines in their path, while dogfights between the USAF and the Russian VVS out of Khrabrovo took place over the Arctic Circle, leaving flaming metal strewn across the ice even as nuclear-armed bombers tried to avoid being shot down.