However, as she hopped back and forth, desperate to catch sight of the shoes, she did finally catch the scent of a person she recognized. She froze in place, waiting to see if it came again.
“Would it be all right if I found another bag?” Biscuit asked, clearly not on the same page as her.
“No! Wait a second.” Deogee sniffed the air. “There!”
She broke into a run, but realized Biscuit wasn’t following. “Biscuit! Follow!” She barked twice.
When the lab chased her, muttering incoherently about too much running, she headed for the source of the scent. The wolf in her locked on and dialed in distance as the smell grew in strength. “We’re close,” she shouted.
“To what? A bag? I’d like a new bag!”
“It’s better than a bag,” she replied, sure the scent was getting stronger.
Minutes later, she turned onto a familiar little street. It wasn’t the same one where she’d met Biscuit, but it looked very much like it. To her, most of the human dwellings looked identical. The first one on the street had two of the humans’ cars in the back yard; one was flipped completely. However, she ignored the oddity. There was only one house that meant anything to her.
“It can’t be!”
Deogee barked over and over as she ran.
“This is the one!”
Biscuit followed but was a couple driveways behind her.
More barking.
The door of the target house opened. Her keen eyesight recognized the human face, the long, shaggy fur they kept only on their heads, and the yellow running shoes that tasted so good.
“Melissa!” she barked.
The woman didn’t leave her doorway. She waved her over. “Deogee? How did you get out? Come inside!”
“Melissa!” she repeated over and over. Though she knew nothing of God and miracles, the sense of overwhelming surprise and relief at seeing her lost friend would have made a believer out of her.
She ran up a few steps at the front porch and jumped toward Melissa with the vigor of a puppy.
“I’m home!”
Melissa wrapped her arms around her for a moment before speaking. “Who’s your friend following you? Where have you been? How did you get out?”
Not wanting to stop licking Melissa’s face, she did pause for a second, intending to introduce Biscuit to the pack leader. However, when she turned around to watch Biscuit arrive, she heard herself bark, but, oddly, her voice came from another part of the room.
“What the hell?” Melissa exclaimed, looking behind her. “There are two of you?”
A dog stood across the room who looked exactly as she did. Gray fur. Big wolf-like build. Same collar. It was the same canine she remembered when sitting next to her human’s mirror. It was another Deogee. It was exciting, and scary, and confusing. She and her twin barked hello at precisely the same time.
“It is me,” she thought.
Melissa grabbed her by the collar and pulled her inside.
“What about Biscuit?” she whined, not forgetting her traveling companion.
The other dog was coming off the street and onto the grass, trotting along without a care in the world. However, once she reached the door and saw there were two dogs named Deogee, one of which was being held by a strange human, she stopped to sniff things over.
Deogee expected her to make a comment about the unusual situation, but she remembered her pal lived only in the moment.
After a short pause, Biscuit barked several times. “You’re right. This is better than a bag. Now I have two friends to play with!”
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
After a few moments of shock at meeting the president, Tabby became more practical. “Sir, why are you here at the bottom of this hole? Did they stick you down here to put you in prison?”
He dipped his head. “I’m afraid I am. Come inside and we can talk about it.”
She followed him away from the windows and toward a tunnel off the main loop. It emerged in a utilitarian living area, with several plastic chairs and one plastic table. Other small rooms connected to the first, including a bathroom and a bedroom. Tanager stood next to one of the chairs, gesturing for her to sit.
“Thanks,” she said, flattered to be shown some courtesy for a change.
He sat at the table across from her. “The attack took us all by surprise. I was in the White House with my chief of staff when I got word something was funky on the West Coast. I only had enough time to make it to the situation room before the wave of energy hit us. The last act of my security detail was to shove me in what I always called the ‘survival ball.’ It’s an indestructible safety device which gets dropped into a deep well under the White House, with me inside. It was designed to save a president if a nuclear bomb was about to fall on Washington D.C., and there was no time to escape.”
“Like a panic room.”
He chuckled. “The president doesn’t panic. That’s why I called it a survival ball.”
They both laughed a bit.
“Anyway, did you know people only survived if they were underground?”
She smiled. “I did know it, actually. Me and my friends were inside an old lead mine when the attack happened…” She paused, desperate not to get emotional thinking of all the people she’d lost, parents included. “When we came up for air, everyone was gone.”
“Bingo,” he replied. “The same thing happened to me. When I came up into the White House again, I was confused as hell because the building was intact, but all the people were gone. There were lots of clothes, of course, and I was sure it was a prank put on by the opposing party.”
“It wasn’t,” she interrupted, getting into his story.
“No, it wasn’t. I’d been up top for about ten minutes when David’s people showed up and said the whole nation was gone. They made me strip
