The Future War

The others looked at one another uneasily. Cars are out, that's certain, Snog thought. He was glad nobody suggested it: maybe he'd lucked out, and everyone here would be a survivor type.

'Yeah,' Yam said thoughtfully. 'Something we can take off-road, like a dirt bike.'

'Or a mountain bike,' someone else said.

'Yeah, that'd be perfect,' Terri agreed. 'Then we wouldn't have to worry about gas.'

Snog nodded. 'So we'll keep our eyes open. Meanwhile, we'd better get moving.' He checked his compass. 'North is that way.

Everyone keep as far back from the road as possible. We'll go through backyards as much as we can, okay?'

Everyone nodded and they started off. It was eerily silent; except for the occasional, distant sound of an automobile engine, even the birds were quiet.

'Where is everybody?' Dr. Chu asked.

No one answered, no one even wanted to think about answers.

NATIONAL COMMAND CENTER, WESTERN

MARYLAND

'Air Force One has been lost,' the general said, his heavy face grave. 'We're forced to conclude that there are no survivors…

Mr. President.'

The vice president said nothing for a long moment. He'd wanted to be president; for that matter, he'd planned to run in the next election when the current idiotic incumbent was out of the way. But not like this. He looked at the general, noting the slight sheen of sweat on the man's face. 'There's more,' he said.

'Yes, sir,' the general agreed; something flickered over his features, a faint air of I told you so. 'We've lost communications.

We're cut off.'

' We're cut off,' the new president said in disbelief. 'I was led to believe that was impossible.'

'So was I, sir. It was impossible until we routed all our communications through —'

'I believe you called it a 'point failure source' during the discussions, General. Yes, go on.'

The general paused, then looked the president in the eye.

'We've also lost life support. We've reconnected the supply of canned oxygen, but the recirculation systems are all down.'

The president raised an eyebrow.

'We have about twelve hours' worth of air, sir.'

'Then why don't we leave?' the new president asked in exasperation. What kind of a Mickey Mouse setup is this anyway?

'The elevators aren't running, sir. The ventilation ducts and blast baffles have all closed down, and we can't get the hatchway motors to respond—those baffles are twenty-four-inch armor plate, sir, originally from scrapped battleships. The chemicals for the scrubbing system have been vented to the outside by the computers that controlled life support. And the stairway was sabotaged.'

'Sabotaged, how?' the president bit off.

'Explosive charges were set at several levels, sir. Essentially the stairs are gone. Buried under tons of rubble and twisted steel. We have engineering parties working on it, but excavation would take weeks with the tools available. Even if there weren't unused explosive charges still set, which there are, and more blast doors at every level, which there are.'

After a few false starts the president managed to ask: 'So how do we get out of here?'

'Even if we could get out of the bunker complex, Mr.

President, we have every reason to believe that within half an hour the entire East Coast will be a nuclear furnace. There's nowhere to go, sir.'

President of Cinderland for twelve hours. I guess I can stop feeling guilty about surviving. 'I don't suppose I'm dreaming this?' he asked.

'No, sir.'

'What should we do?'

'Sir, I intend to visit the chaplain. It's been a long while since I went to confession.'

ALASKA

John hissed in frustration. He'd finished his list of contacts early and Sarah had put him to breaking into Skynet's communications, but the damn thing was so fast he just couldn't seem to get through. Snog or Carl or any of those guys could do this in their sleep, he thought bitterly.

There was plenty of equipment; they'd installed the best.

Unfortunately their experts were running for their lives from homicidal hedge cutters and ice cream trucks, and so were unavailable. Suddenly it occurred to him that what he needed was a computer to do this for him. Which meant creating a program. He sighed and leaned back. It wasn't that he couldn't do it, he could. But his attention was so divided that he didn't think he could do it now.

'Mom,' he said.

She looked up, her brow furrowed with concentration.

'We should probably send out that message.'

They'd prerecorded and loaded a general warning intended to go out over radio and TV via satellite, but hadn't sent it yet.

Sarah considered his suggestion and flashed a look at Dieter, who paused, then nodded. 'Go,' she said to John, then went back to work.

John keyed up the program, tapped in the code, and hit enter.

His lips tightened. Every time he did that it reminded him of his fatal mistake. 'I feel guilty,' he said to no one in particular.

''Bout what?' Sarah asked, not looking up from her station.

He made a helpless gesture. 'Here I am sitting and typing while the world's about to go up in flames. Doesn't seem right that I should be so comfortable.'

His mother gave him a narrow-eyed look. 'Poor baby. You're not dodging killer cars and berserk bulldozers to escape a soon-to-be-blasted-to-hell city. Don't worry, son. We're all going to see a bellyful of blood and murder before this thing is over.

Enjoy this respite while you can.'

'Maybe enjoy isn't quite the right word,' Dieter admonished gently. 'We are waiting for the end of the world as we know it.

But perhaps we can utilize this time. I've finished my list. Let's brain-storm some contingency plans. Then we'll put our minds to breaking into Skynet's communications system.'

'Yes,' Sarah agreed, still looking distracted. Then her face changed as if something had occurred to her. She looked at John. 'Sorry,' she said. 'I was a little rough there.'

'Not a problem, Mom. I know what you're like when you're working.'

Sarah looked puzzled. 'What does that mean?'

Dieter laughed.

She glared at him indignantly. 'What? What?'

MASSACHUSETTS

Snog, Brad, and Carl hunched down beside a Dumpster and checked the road that curved away before them. They'd left the others resting behind the high stone wall of an apparently empty house. They'd seen an occasional battered body lying in the road or on a sidewalk, but no one looking out a window or creeping through a backyard as they had been.

'I think they've been gassed, all these suburbs,' Brad said.

'The animals we saw, you know, the dogs and cats, with the convulsions and vomit…'

'Shouldn't it have gotten us, even down in the drainage tunnels?' Carl asked.