“Is the President in the White House?” she asked.
“For security reasons I’m not at liberty to discuss where the President is at any given time. I’m sure you understand.”
“The Vice-President — is he in the White House?” she demanded.
“Ma’am, I’m sure you can—“
“The First Family — are they in the White House?”
“Ma’am—“
“They’re not here, are they?” she said. “They’ve all left, haven’t they?” she demanded.
“Ma’am, as I said—“
“Is this because of the meteor storm?” she asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Ma’am. If you’ll just call and schedule an appointment…”
She turned to face the camera. “Why have the people running our country all disappeared?” she asked, “and why have they disappeared now?”
The segment ended and Alex switched to another channel. Nothing about the disappearance of the political leaders was even mentioned on the other stations.
“They’re all in lock-down in the underground cities,” Major Samuels said. “I’m surprised someone had the balls to run with the story.”
“Yes,” John said, “but without another major news channel running the story, too, it has no support. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the whole story die within the hour.”
“Was that a major news station?” I asked Alex.
“Local station in Washington D.C.,” Alex replied, “not one of the big national ones.”
Major Samuels turned from the screen to us. “It’s not going anywhere,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked. “They can’t just tell the news networks what they can report and what they can’t. This is America!”
“Look,” John said, “whether we like it or not, the major news organizations depend on access to government officials and the White House. Without access, their viewers fall to zero. Their entire business depends on officials and the White House granting them access to information and people. The networks all know that if they run a story without the acknowledged nod from the government they will lose their access, and the loss of their business will follow shortly.”
“So they call the White House for every story?” I asked.
“They don’t have to,” Ed said. “Each network has a CIA officer on staff who approves each story before it airs.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I replied.
“And who ultimately controlled the stories that came out of NASA?” Ed asked.
“The DIA and the Pentagon.” I said.
Ed held his hands out, palms up. “Same deal.”
And that’s exactly how it played out.
Network News featured several experts explaining exactly how the missiles would intercept the meteor cloud and disburse the meteors. Conspicuous by its absence was any mention that the President had actually approved the plan or had any international support from other nuclear armed countries to cooperate in such an operation.
Two days before the meteor storm, Tia and I travelled down to Denver with John, Nancy and Ed. John wanted to be at the media center when the missile launches took place. Network News had been advertising that the launch would take place at four in the afternoon. Something seemed off to me, but I was having trouble putting my finger on it.
As four o’clock approached, we were treated to the images of military personnel sitting at control consoles going through their pre-launch routines. At four, the countdown began and the operators were shown turning both keys that were required to launch nuclear missiles. The tops of the missile silos were blown back and the monstrous Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles took to the air. Launch after launch was shown, with the most spectacular ones taking place in the dark.
“Why do we have a launch in the dark?” one of the computer techs asked.
I thought about his question. Then it hit me. The shuttle launches from the cape all arced to the east. They were using the rotation of the earth to add to the speed of the rocket to attain escape velocity. If the rocket arced to the west, the rotational speed of the planet would subtract from the escape velocity needed in order to attain orbit. It would take a lot more fuel to go to the west, so everything bound for outer space arced to the east. That meant the launches at four in the afternoon were headed in the wrong direction. In order to head into the meteor cloud, the missiles would have to be launched around midnight. They should all be night launches!
“John,” I said, “this isn’t right. The launches should all take place from midnight to three in the morning; otherwise the missiles would be heading in the wrong direction.”
“Carl’s right,” Ed added, “but that’s not the only thing wrong. The uniforms being worn by the military people at the control consoles are wrong, too. They haven’t worn that style of uniform in the last ten years.”
“It’s file footage,” John said. He opened his cell phone and called several of his observers near the missile silo sites.
“No one has seen any missile launches,” John said. “There aren’t any launches.”
“Maybe this is just a prime-time show for the public and the real launches will happen tonight,” Tia said.
“We can’t jump too soon on this,” Ed said, “If we’re going to announce that there are no launches, we have to be right.”
“We have to wait until tonight to be sure,” I added.
“Okay,” John said, “I want a complete analysis done with easy to understand displays ready to go by midnight. We go public if there are no launches by 1:00 AM.”
Tia and I spent the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening guiding the computer techs through the research and graphics development process, while John, Nancy and Ed headed back to the cabin. At ten that evening, John’s limo arrived for our return trip up into the mountains. We arrived at twelve-thirty in the morning and went down into the communications room. As soon as John saw us he shook his head.
“Still no launches,” he said. “I’m going to check once more at one and then I’m calling it.”
As one o’clock approached, John was on the phone with his observers. No launches. John called the media center and instructed them to put all of the information on the website and flood Facebook and Twitter with comments about there being no actual launches of nuclear missiles.
At two in the morning, Tia and I made one last trip with Ed, John and Nancy out to the rock outcropping to see the meteor cloud. We walked slowly enough that John didn’t have trouble keeping up with us.
“This’ll be my first look at the meteor cloud,” John said, obviously excited by the prospect. “Is it clear what it is?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “it’s kind of like a mouse watching the Titanic closing in for a collision.”
“A mouse, huh,” John replied.
“You’ll see,” I said.
We arrived at the outcropping and climbed up the back side of the rock to get to the top where we had the best visibility. The blackness engulfed the eastern portion of the early morning sky, almost up to the vertical point above us. The moon was past full and on its way to the third quarter as it approached the meteor cloud. We stood and watched as the white light of the moon faded and turned to red. The moon was moving into the shadow of the meteor cloud, and like a lunar eclipse, the change in available light on the moon changed the color we saw. In a few minutes the moon turned a blood red color. Mesmerized by the drama taking place above us, we continued watching as the moon turned darker red and was slowly swallowed up by the meteor cloud.
“That’s what’s going to happen to the Earth, isn’t it?” John asked.