She clenched her jaw, nerves tingling. Soon her mind would be swimming in the crazed voices of monsters across the country.
And she would be the lone person infiltrating their ranks.
“Ready,” she said. “Connect me.”
***
Ringgold heard gunshots and screams, the cries of her people rising in the night. Galveston was losing to a fresh siege of Variants, and her people were dying.
Soldiers. Civilians. Women. Children.
She wanted to fight, but she had no weapon, nothing but her hands.
Two gunshots popped in the hallway outside her room. Voices called out, then a scream of pain and the crunching of bones and teeth tearing flesh.
“No,” she muttered. “God, no.”
Ringgold froze.
A long, deep scratch came on the door. Blood pooled underneath it, soiling the carpet.
She scrambled backward into the corner of the room, cowering.
The Variant outside slammed the door hard, nearly breaking one of the hinges.
She pressed her hands over her ears to block out the screams of people being torn apart. The banging on her door grew into a violent cacophony, broken only by a loud voice.
“Madam President, please open the door.”
She jolted awake, sweating where she lay in bed panting.
Get ahold of yourself, Jan.
It was just a dream. Just a nightmare.
But the truth was reality was just as much of a nightmare.
“Madam President,” the voice at the door said, followed by another knock.
“One moment,” she replied.
Ringgold splashed water on her face in the Galveston hotel room, exhausted as usual. The tasks of organizing the streams of refugees, reinforcing surviving outposts, and strategizing military actions were like throwing a jigsaw into the air and trying to put all the pieces together before they hit the ground.
The burden of all the lives lost, all the people without homes, the prisoners taken by the Variants who might still be alive out there crashed over her like a violent avalanche.
She drank a glass of water and opened the door to find it was Chief of Staff James Soprano waiting outside.
“Madam President, I’m sorry to bother you, but your call with the vice president is in a few minutes.” He held out a coffee. “I thought you might need this.”
Ringgold took the cup, savoring the aroma. “James, you’re a lifesaver. Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Soprano said. Then he shot her a concerned look. “Are you okay?”
“Just trying to catch some shuteye.” Ringgold stepped out of her room, quick to change the subject. “Any word from Outpost Houston?”
“Yes, we just received a message from Commander Jacobs. The science team initiated their connection with the Variant network and are currently monitoring all communications.”
“And Captain Beckham?”
“He’s consulting with the Canadian engineering team and Commander Jacobs on how best to reinforce Outpost Houston’s defenses. They have also set up the first SDS sensors around the outpost’s walls.”
“Very good,” Ringgold said.
The hotel corridors took them through the second floor that Ringgold had turned into her latest version of the fabled West Wing. As they walked, she tried to count the times she had relocated the country’s capitol. No other president in history had moved it as many times as she had.
She and her administration had constantly been trying to stay one step ahead of the New Gods.
This time, she vowed, her administration would not be running anywhere. The truth was, they hardly had anywhere left to run.
While Lemke was setting up a new, safer Central Command in Puerto Rico, she wanted to stay with her people for as long as possible.
Soprano led them down to the first floor to the conference room where she had met with Beckham and Kate several hours ago. General Souza and Lieutenant Festa were already there, ready for their first in-person meeting since arriving from Puerto Rico.
General Cornelius sat across from them at the otherwise empty table, his face buried in a briefing.
They all stood when Ringgold entered, and she nodded a greeting at them before taking a seat at the head of the table. Soprano placed a conference phone between the four leaders and dialed into an encrypted line.
“Lemke here,” a voice crackled over the speaker.
“This is Jan,” Ringgold said. “How are things?”
“President Ringgold, good to hear your voice. Things are moving along here. The port was a mess when we arrived, but we’ve cleaned things up enough to dock a few of the fleet’s ships. We’re transporting supplies to and from the island by tender for those ships that can’t dock.”
“Any reports of hostiles?” General Souza asked.
“Only a few Variants,” Lemke said. “Nothing’s changed dramatically since you and Festa returned to the States. We’ve taken precautions against the seaborne variety as well, but we haven’t faced anything that can’t be dealt with easily.”
“What we have seen in PR aligns with our intel,” Festa said. “It seems the New Gods activity is strictly in the Allied States for now.”
“What about human survivors?” Ringgold asked.
“There weren’t any in San Juan,” Souza replied.
“But there could be pockets of survivors we haven’t encountered yet deeper in the island,” Lemke said. “We’ve sent out a few scouts to check likely locations.”
“I see.” Even more pressing was a question that had pained Ringgold ever since she had left the First Fleet. “Have you found any collaborator infiltrators in the fleet?”
“No, Madam President. Thanks to General Souza’s help, we’ve secured the entire fleet, and I’m confident we’re free from any collaborator moles.”
Ringgold wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but she knew not to be too optimistic. “Stay vigilant. We cannot take anything for granted anymore.”
“Rest assured, I haven’t taken our search for traitors lightly. How are things in the States?”
“We’re down to twenty-three outposts as of today, almost all located within the American southeast.”
The line went quiet.
“Dan, are you still there?” she asked.
“I am… it’s just… my God, only twenty-three?”
“Yes, but I do have some good news,” Ringgold said. “Canada and Mexico are committing their first two-thousand troops to the cause. That puts us at nearly nine-thousand men and women fighting against the evil plaguing our country.”
“I’m confident we’ll retake the States,” Cornelius said.
