FOREWORD

by Ten To Midnight--Free(Lit)

  Francois’ existence was a model of routine. He rose at 4am to milk the cows and clear out the stables, while he listened to the weather report on the wireless. He couldn’t afford help, even though his wife kept reminding him that he was getting too old to do everything himself. Alas, they hadn’t been blessed with children, so it looked as though - barring some anomaly of science - he might be the last Gertilimon to manage the fields. After his death, the farm would probably fall into the hands of a co-operative and would be managed by a man in a suit who knew nothing about the land or what it was capable of.

  That was very sad. But at least Francois would be too dead to care.

  Small graces.

  When he rose on this particular morning, he heard the blare of police sirens and what sounded faintly like gunshots from the town five miles away. Yes, he thought, the worldwas going mad. But he didn’t afford that concept more than a moment’s thought. He had more pressing matters on his mind.

  As he crouched with his milk bucket to the first of his four cows – how much harder that was becoming these days – the wireless told him that some kind of war had broken out between America and Russia, two countries about which Francois had only read in newspapers and books. He was mildly concerned when the news announcer reported that the conflict had involved atomic weapons, but America and Russia were both far away from his farm, so he couldn’t imagine how such a thing might affect him, sad as it most certainly was.

  Stepping out of the barn, something caught his eye from above. Instinctively, he looked skywards. The dawn was blacker than normal for this time of year. Smoke from the atomic bombs, he guessed. Yet…

  There it was again. A pinprick of white light; there one second, gone the next.

  Another flash. This time it was shortly followed by a tiny bloom of fire that was brighter and lasted for a few seconds. There was no sound, just a bloom.

  Francois was not to know that he had just witnessed the destruction of a French Mirage fighter jet by a British Eurofighter at approximately 30,000 feet over the English Channel.

  As he blinked in confusion, he became distantly aware of something else approaching him at an impossible speed…

  He turned just in time to see the sleek black dart of a British prototype X-40 streak over his head, hugging the terrain at an altitude of no more than a hundred feet. Because it was flying at supersonic speed, the sound of its engines hadn’t reached him yet.

  In as long as it took him to wonder why, the sonic boom erupted like an earthquake around him. He instinctively clapped his hands over his ears, but that didn’t stop the ground shaking or the ferocious flapping of the trees as they struggled to maintain verticality.

  By this time, the X-40 was more than two miles away, and the only indication that it had ever been over Francois Gertilimon’s field was the lingering cacophony of hysterical farmyard animals, outraged at having been disturbed in such a forceful manner.

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  Many years ago, when he had been a newly ordained minister, Father Sean O’Malley had been asked by a young boy whether he believed in Hell, and if so, how he envisaged it.

  He had told the boy that, yes, he did believe in Hell, and he envisaged it not as the Hadean inferno of popular myth, but as an otherworldly place where everybody was destined to be alone for all Eternity, deprived of all contact with other souls.

  As he emerged from the basement where he had taken shelter during the blast, it occurred to Father O’Malley that he had been both right and wrong. Hell was indeed a desolate and lonely place, but it wasn’t otherworldly. It was right here and now, surrounding him, and for reasons known only to the Good Lord, he had been condemned to bear witness to its fury.

  The air was thick with a sweet, burning stench that reminded Father O’Malley of overcooked chicken. He didn’t care to pursue that thought any further. For the first time in living memory, the Houston skyline was unobstructed by skyscrapers and other creations of man. Only the foundations of the city’s gleaming concrete towers remained; pathetic testaments to a civilization whose fragility had been exposed in a moment of ultra-physical annihilation.

  Cars and buses had been contorted into parodical, abstract forms, their paintwork uniformly scorched black. Gas pipes protruded at impossible angles from the ruined ground, the protective layers of earth above having been violently uprooted by Godlike forces. Millions of tons of incinerated rubble mercifully concealed the numerous human forms beneath, although one didn’t have to look far for signs of human destruction. Corpses and parts of corpses, mostly charred black, scattered the smoldering landscape in abundance. Out of morbid curiosity, O’Malley stopped to inspect one such body. The cadaver was of indeterminate gender, so deformed had it been by blast effects. Its lips and most of its facial flesh had been seared into non-existence, creating the illusion of a hideous grin on what little remained of its features. Only then did O’Malley realize that he wasn’t looking at an entire corpse, merely a head and upper torso that had been separated from the rest of an unseen body.

  He held a hand over his mouth to prevent himself from retching over the remains, unwilling to further defile its final resting place with vomit.

  A few feet in front of him, a disembodied hand maintained a death grip on a dog lead, the other end of which was concealed beneath the ruins. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the lead was still twitching and a faint canine whimper was audible from beneath the rubble.

  And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

  Across the street were the remains of a tenement block. The upper three floors had been shorn off, but the bottom two remained. Atop the ruined building, he saw a human figure moving slightly. It was the first survivor he had seen. As he squinted to get a better view, he realized that the figure was that of a child dripping in blood where both its arms had been severed. Above the roar of uncontrolled fires, he could hear it screaming for its unseen (and probably dead) mother. The sound went through him like a warm knife through butter.

  And upon all this devastation fell a fine white dust, affording a wintry aspect to the charred remains of the city. Yet the dust was no less deadly than the firestorm that had preceded it. O’Malley knew this, but whatever fear he had left in him had been suppressed by the sheer narcosis evoked by the horror of such omnipresent destruction.

  From what he could ascertain, the bomb had exploded somewhere in the vicinity of Galena Park, approximately six miles to his north. Everything from Pasadena in the south to Jacinto City in the north; from the city center west of the blast to State Highway 9 in the east had been lain to waste. It occurred to him that he had no right to have survived, not when so many others more worthy than he had died in such horrific circumstances. Or perhaps the converse was true, he thought. Perhaps the dead were the chosen ones, and the few survivors like himself were the damned. Of course, how could it be otherwise? Virtually everybody in the immediate vicinity had been killed and yet somehow he had not. His injuries were slight, under the circumstances. The only wound of which he was aware was an emerging bump on his crown, where a loose beam of wood had clipped him during the blast. Destiny had either chosen him or cursed him to witness this tragedy, although only God knew for what purpose.

  And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains…

  He felt himself staggering zombie-like through the ruins, stopping occasionally to take in another grisly sight, each one seemingly less shocking than the last. Perhaps he was becoming immunized to the horror around him. That prospect disturbed him. How could anyone become immune to this?

  And the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up…

  O’Malley was drawn by the sounds of human activity coming from the banks of the Sims Bayou. As he got closer, the moans and weak cries of mankind’s to
rment became increasingly discernible.

  Nothing had prepared the priest for the sight that confronted him when he reached the Bayou. Burned survivors - many of them horribly disfigured or dismembered - were shuffling slowly into the cool, surprisingly tranquil water. Their slow, hesitant movements were those of a beleaguered, bewildered mass. Nobody spoke. Nobody cried. They simply moved forward as a wretched collective.

  But that wasn’t all that O’Malley saw. Many of the survivors were so horribly burned, their flesh literally melted away as they entered the water, as if the Bayou were filled with sulphuric acid. He focused on a woman whose protruding stomach suggested an advanced state of pregnancy. He knew what was going to happen as she silently waded into the water, but he was helpless to do anything about it. She was in God’s hands now.

  Globules of flesh and muscle fell away from the woman as she entered the Bayou. By the time she realized what was happening, it was too late. The last that O’Malley saw of her before she and her unborn child disappeared beneath the water was of her two arms reaching skywards in a silent cry of agony.

  Father Sean O’Malley had truly discovered Hell.

  Presently, he sunk to his knees and in a perverse mimicry of the woman he had just seen, stretched his arms to the heavens. And although he screamed, his cry was lost amid the deafening clamor of a moribund world.

  “Bastards!”

  GCN HEADLINE NEWS

  “And now, live from the President’s Emergency Airborne Command Post, the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Paul Nielsen.”

  The address was being beamed live to almost every country on Earth, but there was no corresponding picture. Nielsen’s words were broadcast over a series of still shots of KNEECAP’s interior. The luxurious furnishings of the E-4 provided a stark contrast to the conditions that many millions of ordinary citizens had suddenly found themselves forced to endure.

  “My fellow Americans, good morning. I’m not actually sure if that is the right way to begin, but I wish you good morning anyway.

  “Firstly, let me assure you that America has survived this terrible ordeal, and that your government continues to work on behalf of the American people. Secondly, I would like to explain why it is me making this address and not your President. A short time ago, President Mitchell suffered a suspected heart attack. Heis alive. He is undergoing treatment at the hands of some of our nation’s finest medical professionals, and I am confident that he will make a full recovery and return to office in due course. In the meantime, I have assumed the burden of office. This is a burden that on this darkest of days, no rational human being would want. Yet, as a public servant, I take pride in serving my country. And I accept this responsibility with a heavy heart.

  “You may ask - why Paul Nielsen? That is a valid question, which I shall endeavor to answer. The Vice President, who would normally have succeeded the President, was in Moscow at the time of the attack, and has been unobtainable since. Sadly, we are forced to assume the worst. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the Vice President and his wife. In peacetime, the Speaker of the House would normally have been next in the line of succession. But America is at a state of war. And, under these extraordinary circumstances, certain provisions exist for the Secretary of Defense to assume the role of acting President. I pray to God that you, the American people, do not find me wanting at this terrible time.

  “Many millions of Americans have died in the last few hours, and I fear that many millions more will yet join them. It is my duty, therefore, to ensure that their deaths do not go unavenged. Their murderers will be made to pay dearly for the genocidal crimes committed against our nation. This day of infamy will be etched into history for a thousand generations as the day when the forces of Good confronted and prevailed over those of Evil. For I promise you, we shall prevail. America may have been damaged, but it will rise again with a fury, for there is no spirit on Earth like that with which the American people have been blessed. We will need to work together, to help each other on the long road to recovery. That will mean we, as a nation, will have to adapt to the radically changed circumstances in which we find ourselves.

  “I would like to talk about how these changed circumstances affect you, and what your Government is doing to help recovery efforts on the ground.

  “Firstly, with the assistance of the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a number of camps are being hastily constructed across the country for displaced persons. Your local authorities will notify the locations of these camps to you. I have authorized deployment of Federal medical and food stockpiles to assist those of you in need of such provisions.

  “Secondly, FEMA is coordinating with local units of the National Guard, town and city councils to establish work committees assigned to reconstruction duties. If you are healthy and able, you should report for duty to your local committee as soon as possible. I shan’t lie to you – much of the work will be unpleasant, but it is your duty as Americans to pull together in our country’s hour of need.

  “Finally, all economic mechanisms have been indefinitely suspended. Prices and wages will remain frozen until further notice. There will be no hoarding, no black marketeering. Any evidence of such activities will be dealt with. Harshly.

  “I urge you to remain calm, to assist those in need, and to pray for those whose lives have been extinguished on this dark, tragic day. I will keep you informed.

  “Good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

  PERSPECTIVE: ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR

  Although it is only possible to speculate about the effects of a nuclear attack upon the American economy, it is safe to say that - even in the limited war scenario used in this story - the effects would be dramatic and in many respects calamitous.

  The most obvious impact of such a conflict would be on manpower, and in particular on skilled labor. That applies especially to the agricultural industry, upon which America depends for food and which accounts for a significant proportion of GDP. Some of America’s most fertile crops are within proximity of strategic military targets that would be heavily attacked in any such conflict. Note the abundance of ICBM silos and bomber bases in states such as Missouri, Kansas, Montana and Nebraska. This means not only the destruction (or at least contamination) of crops and livestock, but of skilled farm labor.

  As for other industries, approximately one third of the U.S.’s manufacturing capacity lies within regions likely to be heavily attacked in any nuclear conflict. Because of the interdependency of various industries, one likely effect would be that of “bottlenecking”. This is where the disruption of one industry has a detrimental impact upon others; for example a lack of steel affecting the car industry and machine tool production. Despite the possibility of product substitution (e.g. plastic for steel or cotton for wool), it is fair to assume that up to 25% to 50% of America’s manufacturing capacity would be devastated by even a limited nuclear war.

  The banking and financial system, meanwhile, would suffer catastrophically. Apart from the obvious loss of tangible assets (no business insurance would cover this type of disaster), the infrastructure of capital markets themselves would be severely impaired. Many banks and financial institutions would be in contaminated areas, accentuating the effect of financial paralysis. Given the near impossibility of the banks’ capacity to pursue normal lending policies, it is likely that they would have to defer or write off business and personal loans, particularly where the debtors have been killed or displaced. This would raise the specter of major banks folding under immense debt and, consequently, of businesses and individuals being bankrupted.

  It is likely that the Federal Government would be called upon to provide emergency regional disaster loans to help relocate displaced citizens. It would also be required to save key industries from bankruptcy and satisfy enormous social service demands such as welfare, medicine and emergency housing. This would require the Federal Government to seek vast loans, the main ef
fect being a detrimental impact on Bond prices and an incremental effect on Interest Rates in order to stifle the likely emergence of hyperinflation.

  Given the dependence of so many other nations’ economies upon the strength of the U.S. economy, it is difficult to say how much aid would be forthcoming from overseas.

  Perhaps the most calamitous effect, however, would be on transport and, thus, the distribution network. Since primary food and resource distribution routes pass through areas likely to be contaminated or destroyed, the effects of a breakdown in the transport system on the population and economy of the United States cannot be understated.

  XVII

  POWER PLAYS

  Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.

  (Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason)

  FEMA SPECIAL FACILITY, OLNEY, MARYLAND

  Since the nuclear attack on Washington, a scattering of civilians had found their way to Olney. The vast majority of them were suffering from an awful variety of burn and secondary injuries, although many were not physically injured at all, even though they refused to accept the fact. Even though the facility technically boasted a full medical staff, not all of them had made it in time. That it hadn’t erupted into chaos provided testament to the skill and dedication of those whohad made it into work.

  Fortunately, the existence of the emergency medical wing within the Olney facility was not widely known among the populace, otherwise it might have found itself more overwhelmed than it already was. Facility Director Carl Beakman guessed that a large number of survivors had instead found their way to alternative medical sites in the Washington D.C. area, such as Bethesda, Montgomery General and Walter Reed, all of which had barely survived the attack.