“Has anybody heard any announcements? Is there anyone left out there?”
“It was war,” Lucia whispered. “Real, nuclear war.”
“With who?”
“China. Our cities, their cities. Nobody’s sure who started it.”
“What about the anti-missile satellites?” Ruppert asked. “The Skyfire system? The President said it would protect us.”
“Who knows?” Lucia whispered. “Maybe the Chinese took it out. Maybe nobody turned it on. Maybe it never worked.'
'Maybe it never existed,' muttered a man in a meshback cap.
Ruppert shook his head. “Nando, are you all right?”
Nando nodded without looking up. He'd returned his attention to a heaping spoonful of peanut butter.
“Again, this is Jerry Rothman, licensed chiropractor, broadcasting by ham radio from Garrison, North Dakota,” the radio voice said. The sound was full of hiss and static. “I’ve heard from survivors as far away as Eau Claire. They say they’ve heard people from upstate New York. Reception is not good. There has been no word from the government. We have known survivors in the following areas…”
Ruppert looked out through the tall windows into the predawn dark. Looking south, he thought he could see bright embers of the holocaustic light, unnaturally white, glowing over the southern horizon, consuming the cities of North America. He thought of his parents in Bakersfield, his wife in Los Angeles.
Lucia took his hand.
“What do we do now?” she whispered.
Ruppert watched the sun begin to rise over the smoldering ruins of the civilization. He didn’t know the answer.
