I left Zhang in the reception area by the inner checkpoint and proceeded into a vast office carved directly into the rock. The walls were so skillfully paneled with wood, and the interior replicated a complete copy of the Oval Office in the old White House building—with that very atmosphere of power and stability that no longer existed for us in the real world.

  Besides President Arnold Dixon, two unfamiliar people in worn but clean civilian clothing sat at the table. Upon my appearance, Dixon rose and came toward me. But instead of a dry handshake as I expected, he patted me on the back in a friendly manner. The gesture was warm, almost paternal, and thus particularly strange within these sterile, underground walls.

  "You're certainly surprised by the personal invitation? But it's simple. We have many military, but scientists are catastrophically scarce. Few survived. So we're gathering you, so to speak, bit by bit, from every surviving shelter," he said.

  Then, pointing to a chair where an elderly, bearded man already sat, he asked: "You probably know each other?"

  I felt I had seen this bearded man somewhere before, but I couldn't remember who he was—his face was familiar, but the name escaped me, hiding in the recesses of memory cluttered with the events of recent months.

  "We caught crabs together on the Chesapeake," the man smiled, shaking his head. His voice was hoarse, smoked-roughened, but incredibly recognizable.

  "Only one person has a voice like that," I brightened, as if something had finally clicked in my mind. "Dr. Vickers! Professor Vickers!"

  It turned out he had managed to take shelter in one of the nuclear-proof bunkers in Virginia and made his way here with a group of survivors, walking over a hundred kilometers across bare, scorched earth. We exchanged quick, understanding glances—scientists truly were worth their weight in gold now.

  Then followed questions and sparse accounts of who had survived and how. But not a single word was spoken about the main reason for my arrival: what was the true cause of the catastrophe and what was its full scale? Everyone seemed to skirt this topic, as if afraid to even utter aloud what everyone already knew.

  After a meager meal—our invitation passes didn't entitle us to a full lunch, but what was most important to me was the hot food in the complex's cafeteria (canned beef with mashed potatoes—a luxury one could only dream of on the surface)—we all headed to the meeting hall. The room was enormous, designed, judging by the rows of seats, for several hundred people—probably the Joint Chiefs of Staff had once gathered here. Now the hall was less than a quarter full.

  The abundance of military uniforms immediately caught the eye in the hall. Officers of the highest ranks, many adorned with all their regalia and medals, sat with impassive faces. As if they had all gathered here not to discuss survival in a post-apocalyptic hell, but for some ceremonial occasion. The gold of shoulder boards, the gleam of orders—all of this looked monstrously inappropriate against the backdrop of what remained of the country.

  "Why are they here? The war is over, it seems to me, and they've already done their job… And, judging by what's happening on the surface, very poorly," I quietly hissed to Professor Vickers, leaning cautiously close to his ear.

  From how he glanced around fearfully, I immediately understood how right I was to be cautious: criticizing the military was considered dangerous here. This immediately stirred bitter irritation within me. After all, hadn't these people spent decades assuring Congress and the people of the reliability of the missile defense system? Hadn't they received the lion's share of the budget for "guaranteed deterrence"?

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  But in reality, it all turned out to be a bluff, a cynical game with the lives of three hundred million people as the stake. And now, with the continent lying in ruins, they had again donned their orders to preserve the remnants of power and privilege in this underground kingdom.

  President Dixon took his place at the central podium. Light fell on his face, emphasizing deep wrinkles and an ashen pallor.

  "Let us begin," the president's voice sounded tired, almost resigned. "Of the five hundred thirty-five members of the National Emergency Council, twenty-nine remain alive and in communication. According to fragmented data, of the country's three hundred thirty million population, by the most optimistic estimates, forty to fifty million have survived. But due to disease, radiation, cold, and the lack of qualified medical care, this number is decreasing at catastrophic rates daily. We have no healthcare system, the water supply infrastructure is destroyed, ninety-five percent of housing is gone. Energy sources remain only in isolated, well-protected shelters like this one…"

  The president continued speaking about the consequences of the catastrophe, but many in the hall weren't even listening. They whispered among themselves, some smiled at their own thoughts, others stared into space with vacant eyes. I was struck by this monstrous, bureaucratic egoism, which had been characteristic of certain "responsible leaders" even before the catastrophe. Now, against the backdrop of universal death, it had taken on grotesque, almost clinical forms. No one, it seemed, cared about the global questions of saving the nation. Everyone thought about their own concerns—about skin ulcers, about ringing in their ears, about whether the supplies in this complex would last until next winter.

  The first to rise after the president's address was a senator introduced to us as Graham. He was a heavyset man with a face that had once, apparently, been florid, but was now gaunt and covered with a strange rash.

  "We need to think only about today and the immediate benefit for this complex," he declared, his voice breaking into falsetto. "What talk can there be now of national problems, when…" He rolled up his shirtsleeve and raised his arms.

  We all saw it. His arms were covered with purplish-black, oozing ulcers. They extended from his wrists to his shoulders, some had opened and were festering, emitting a sweetish, nauseating smell that reached even my nostrils.

  "This isn't dirt," he said loudly, and genuine horror swam in his eyes. "This is something new. Something that's eating my flesh alive. I don't know about the rest, but I feel… as if I've been assembled from someone else's parts, and I'm about to fall apart."

  A muffled murmur rippled through the hall. Many averted their eyes, but some looked at the senator with the same hunted expression—apparently, they had the same problems.

  Then the floor was taken by the eldest of those present, Hiram, a former governor of an agricultural state, a man once held in great respect. He rose with difficulty, leaning on a cane, and his voice, which had once thundered at rallies, now barely reached the neighboring rows.

  "On my land… On the lands where we grew wheat and corn for the whole country… now they don't sow. There, bonfires burn—bonfires where they cremate corpses to prevent a plague from spreading. The few who remain alive have gone mad. There is no medical help. And I… I can barely hold on. There's a constant ringing in my ears… like the bells of Doomsday tolling… They call me there, to my people…"

  Without finishing, he suddenly fell silent and slowly sank back into his seat, dropping his head onto his chest.

  "They're all insane," a thought dawned on me. Or going insane. Radiation, hunger, loss of everything—it's breaking their minds faster than their bodies.

  "Catastrophe is the apotheosis of evil and failure," I began, taking the floor and surveying those sitting in the semi-darkness of the hall. My voice sounded louder than I expected, and for a few seconds, silence reigned in the hall. "But it is precisely on this ashes that something new must be born. The striving not just to survive, but to restore something human. Trust. Reason. Compassion."

  I paused, gathering my thoughts.

  "I want to tell you about a female officer named Sarah. She, risking herself, saves others in conditions you cannot even imagine. She fights for every life, be it an old scientist or a wounded soldier from another country's army. Her courage and loyalty to duty are the beacon we need to guide ourselves by. But to make decisions, we need the truth. The whole truth. First, what exactly happened? Was it a deliberate exchange of strikes, or someone's single fatal mistake? Second, what is the real, not estimated, scale of destruction? Third, what are our actual reserves? Food, medicine, fuel. Here, at Raven Rock, and in all other shelters. How long will they last us?"

  "That… is information of extreme importance. Almost all of it falls under the category of top secret information," came Dixon's uncertain voice. He was twisting a pencil in his hands, not looking at anyone present.

  "Secrets again?!" Professor Vickers exploded, jumping from his seat. His beard trembled with indignation. "More games of classification, when there's nothing left to hide!"

  "Secrets again, while we're dying!" several voices from different corners of the hall supported him.

  "Then why are we gathered here?" I addressed the president directly, feeling that very irritation I had so long suppressed boiling inside me. "Who, besides those present here now, already has the right to decide what is a secret and what is a matter of life and death for the survivors?"

  From the way the president nervously glanced at the seats occupied by the military, I understood: he was not in charge here. He was a hostage. A hostage of his own security, his entourage, the system that now, when everything had collapsed, was tightening around him like a noose.

  I, however, had nothing left to lose.