Cold War 2395 - Chapter 1 Teaser!
CHAPTER 1
Wesley
Earth-003: District of Columbia, the White House
“A cure for the communist cold,” the Americans had cheered, as though voting for Roseanne Faust and her archaic platform of Cold War fearmongering was something to be proud of. Sitting across from the unmanageable woman in question, my mood as gray as her wiry hair and the cloudy sky peering through the Oval Office’s windows behind her, I think the American people got it wrong.
“There’s no business left to discuss, Madam President.”
“How long do you think you can avoid picking sides, Wesley? Even if the Russians haven’t exhausted your limited usefulness yet, we can all see the end from here.” She rises out of her chair in a fit of barely tempered rage. She’s a touch more aggressive than I’d anticipated.
“Neutrality suits me quite well, thank you very much,” I reply. “And wiping away a transaction that’s all but set in stone would gravely harm my reputation as an unbiased businessman.” I let out a huff and prepare to stand.
“Ha. You know what would gravely harm you even more?” she asks, not giving me time to respond. “A Russian OSV-12 laser rifle. Nice suit, by the way.” She pauses to take a sip of water, then sits down. Her brow furrows as she scowls at me.
“You’ve put me in a very tough position and show no signs of cracking,” she says, scraping her nails against the Resolute desk’s flawless resin finish. “I have one final offer.”
Although I can’t fathom what could possibly make her so interested in the Nebulus sector—a patch of barren, resourceless planets that have long been my least attractive piece of interstellar real estate—I also don’t care. I just need to know how much she wants it, and her desperation is evident.
“I’m listening,” I say, relaxing into my seat again.
“Wesley, in exchange for the entirety of the Nebulus sector, including but not limited to any sections already agreed upon by a Russian party, I am prepared to pay a bill of two hundred trillion dollars. Whatever that converts to in pounds.”
“Pound sterling.”
“Look, I’ll pay it in teatime biscuits if that’s what your prime minister wants. Point is, that’s twice the original offer, a sum I can’t increase any further without robbing our national treasury.”
“Music to my ears. Now, I’m almost prepared to—”
“Madam President,” interrupts one of the two Secret Service agents who’ve been silently stationed at the back of the room. “We’ve detected a security breach.”
Though the room is incredibly quiet, I can make out a distinct hiss, almost as if a cat got its tail stepped on a mile away. The agents each have a finger pressed firmly against their earpieces. Their eyes narrow as they receive audio feedback until, in unison, they dash toward us.
“Get back!” one yells, his next words muffled by a blast of white noise that drowns out all other sound in the room.
One of the agents loops a massive arm around my upper torso and whisks me out of my chair, as if I’m nothing more than a child under his control. He sidesteps the desk the other agent has just flipped over and tosses me to the ground behind it, scrunching his bulky frame in beside me as I pick myself up off all fours and crouch, my breath quickening as I try to make sense of what’s happening. Within the timespan of a few unhealthily fast heartbeats, Faust and I are hunkered down behind her keeled-over presidential desk, agents peeking out on either side of us with weapons drawn.
The white noise doesn’t let up, meaning I still can’t hear a thing. To compensate, I abandon my self-preservation instincts and rise above the side of the desk, just enough to see what’s going on at the other end of the room.
Puncturing the pristine white paint of the Oval Office’s northern wall, a single bottle-cap-sized scorch mark appears. It begins moving, singeing the wall as it travels, making perfect right angles until it has formed the burnt outline of a door. The agent to my right grabs my neck and slams me down to the floor, yelling at me. The white noise is dissipating, and I can hear the tail end of his sentence.
“. . . your head down!” he shouts, pistol drawn as he braces his recoil shoulder against the desk. It’s quite good advice, as a massive detonation deafens the room again and sends burnt plaster hurling across the Oval Office with such force that pieces rocket overhead and smash against the windows behind us, coating us in dust and residue.
In a desperate attempt to bottleneck whatever lies waiting outside, the agents unload suppressive fire through the breach in the wall. As sound returns to the room in the form of nonstop gunfire, I wonder if we might be able to stave off the attack by simply waiting until backup arrives. It’s a very thick desk, after all. But my hope disappears when I turn my head back toward the Oval’s rear windows, where three glowing green eyes stare back at me.
On the other side of the glass, a figure clad in jet-black dragon skin armor and luminescent trifocal goggles finishes planting some sort of charge, then rappels upward as soon as they notice I’m watching. Before I can warn the preoccupied agents, the intruder detonates their explosive, swings through the shattering window panes, and plants bullets in both my protectors’ skulls. Beside me, my last means of safety slump over, dead.
The rappelling assailant lands directly behind the last two of us alive, flanked by a second armored soldier who has followed them through the breached window. With their rifles aimed at us, they tell us not to move. Their English is broken, their accents unmistakably Eastern European, and I find myself regretting that I wasn’t a little more amicable to Faust during our negotiations a few minutes ago.
Faust and I comply with the soldiers’ demands and remain frozen as more intruders filter through the hole in the wall across from us. Seconds later, we’re surrounded by a full squad of troops. They waste no time binding our wrists, gagging us, and mobilizing us.
We pass through the smoking hole in the office wall and are met by a marching party of other captured civilians. The soldiers shove us in line with them. Our hostage parade then begins its trek through the West Wing’s halls.
We make it a few dozen meters before we’re stopped in front of the press briefing room. I see remnants of a scene similar to the one I had witnessed firsthand just a few minutes ago: a smoldering hole in the wall and a lot of dead Secret Service agents and civilians. As far as I can tell, the only living occupant remaining is a downed staffer who looks critically injured. Her body is covered in burn marks, and her legs are crushed and pulpy, riddled with debris from the attack. The soldiers don’t allow me time to vomit as they shove me forward, not happy with my wide-eyed, quivering-lipped dawdling. I get one last glimpse of that poor woman as a bullet is put through her head, shot by our escorts so our parade doesn’t lose its pace.
For every act of horror along our thorough sweep of the White House, one question echoes inside my head: Where is the military, the police, or any other defense? So far, the only people who’ve given these intruders any resistance are a few stray Secret Service agents and a handful of stupid, or perhaps immeasurably brave, civilians. Oddly, the president herself isn’t one of those individuals. It’s not like I’m expecting her to spit the gag out of her mouth through sheer willpower, but still, seeing nothing more than her head hung low enrages me. She’s taking the situation like a coward.
The moment I have that thought, I want to punch myself, as it’s clear I’m no better. People are dying around me, and what am I doing? Watching and trying not to process it. The thought haunts me right up until our party is herded outside through the front doors of the White House. Awaiting us are three small, civilian-class shuttles, stationed right on the front lawn.
Though it’s too little, too late, I finally hear them: the distant sounds of sirens wailing and people shouting. None of it matters, though; the troops are already corralling us aboard the shuttles. The first five of us in line, including myself and the president, are rushed up the boarding ramp of the closest craft, accompanied by four emotionless soldiers. They bark at us in Russian, but my body is on autopilot and I barely hear it. My head is turned, looking back at the civilians still stranded on the lawn. I watch them for as long as I can until the rising boarding ramp blocks out everything but the American flag waving despairingly atop a defiled White House, the last sight I see before I’m trapped in darkness.
Our shuttle’s engines roar to life, and a soldier smashes something against the back of my head. Unable to fight the bells ringing inside my skull, I pass out, certain that death won’t be far behind.
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