CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Michael Esterling stared across the war room, eyes focused, but not on the maps on the walls or battle plans scattering the table. After years of preparation, he knew those by heart. Adam and Eve had been specific regarding the fall of Europe and proved instrumental in aiding Jake and him to formulate their plan. Everything had occurred as they had predicted, and the senator found himself leading the largest region of survivors under a single banner.
They promised I’ll win the war, too, when it comes. As long as I take charge.
Affixed to the far wall of the bunker hung what was once a symbol of freedom. Previously flown high above the land of the brave, the colors had boasted they would never run. Now, more than ever, the American flag should stand as a beacon of light drawing others toward a new democracy. But the United States had fallen. The young senator had already accepted that fact. A new system was necessary to take charge of the many warlords.
Helpless to aid what remained of the people he once governed, he read the words recited by Adam and Eve one more time. North America is a wasteland. The report he held in his hand painted a picture of widespread chaos across an endless ocean.
I’m no longer a senator, he realized. Jake’s army sees me as much more now. They recognize me as their president. He chuckled at the notion. He had dreamed of the oval office since childhood.
The reality, he knew, was that he was no different than the factions popping up around the world. Just as in the years following the collapse of the Roman Empire, civilization had entered a dark age. A long chapter in history had ended, but the page had not yet turned over to the next. Instability gripped the globe, and the citizens who he had sworn to protect were too far from his reach—or dead.
This new society must be a utopia of freedom, but one we control. Democracy has no chance if the world surrounding it is in ruin.
The door opened and several young officers entered. One woman carried handwritten dispatches in a bundle. She handed these over with a warm smile for her commander in chief. “All six recon teams are reporting successful rendezvous with friendlies.”
“Has Braston seen these?”
“He was briefed separately, and his summary is on top.”
“Thank you, Captain.” He tried to return her smile, but exhaustion prevented the gesture. He shoved aside the other reports he had read and set these in their place. “That will be all,” he told her, then broke the seal on the envelope. She and the others left without another word. Thankfully, someone had replaced the pot of coffee in the corner with a fresh one. His staff had grown accustomed to his fatigue and had begun to anticipate his needs without question.
Jake’s letter described the condition of German forces in their host country. As predicted, what remained of the Bundeswehr was scattered, lost and awaiting guidance from their government in Berlin. With no word forthcoming, one Herr General Richter had actually reached out to their NATO alliance, asking for help in securing their nation while searching for survivors below the surface in Berlin.
He paused. One line in the report caused his pulse to race, the result of a decision his friend would force him to make. He read it again. Martial control over the splintered states of Germany will fall to our forces, ushering a need to reunify and assume liability for resource distribution. He picked up Yurik’s summarized interview of Adam and Eve and compared the pages.
The girl, despite her tiny stature and pleasant demeanor, had recommended a similar course of action. European nations, now fractured and without guidance, will squabble over resources until the new regime centralizes and provides the astia for normalcy. Stephanie had scribbled etymology in the margin, providing clarification for the use of a Finnish word. Astia meant vessel, receptacle, or container.
For clarification she had added, When I pressed Eve regarding the word astia, suggesting she may have used a more appropriate choice, Adam interrupted. “It must be astia,” he argued, “for our bodies are the astia of your future.” I will follow up on this line of verbiage at a later date. Marked here as “for interest.”
Michael frowned and considered the meaning. Our bodies are the vessel of your future? Is that what she meant? Why indeed, he wondered. While he mused, he picked up his pen and scribbled the word atop Jake’s report, darkening the horizontal line in the capital “A” in Astia. Then he drew three question marks beside it with an arrow. Then he wrote, Finnish, Finland, Scandinavia, Nordic. With a shrug he set the top page aside and read through the other documents.
Roark had secured Stuttgart, and other teams garnered support from Hohenfels, Ansbach, Germersheim, Spangdahlem, and Wiesbaden. Some were taking longer, but he expected word very soon. They had even sent scouts to Berlin to verify the destruction of the capital. This expanded presence gave him and Jake an upper hand in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, and the important Rhineland. He frowned with worry. But what then? What comes after the regions are secured? But he knew the answer. He had already summoned the interim leaders of each surviving province. They would arrive within weeks.
The plan to secure Germany was going as planned, just as Adam and Eve had said it would. But his anxiety remained. Even with their assurance he would win the battle, their prognostics warned of invaders challenging his power very soon. The door opened and he looked up, thoughts broken by the interruption but not altogether gone. Brooke entered, sliding into the seat beside him. She picked up her brother’s report and read it thoroughly.
Michael raised an eyebrow. “You know that’s classified, right?”
“I don’t think anyone within our bunker’s a threat, or don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I just want to know what my brother’s up to. Any luck restoring normalcy any time soon?”
Normalcy. The word echoed in his mind and he thought again of the child’s prophecy, so stubbornly set upon using the Finnish word astia. It again coursed his thoughts, … until the new regime centralizes and provides the astia for normalcy. He smiled disarmingly and said, “We’ll do our part to aid the fragmented host nation, then reconnect with our forces outside of Germany. It’ll take time, maybe even years since we lack communications.”
“Nothing works?” She chewed her lip the same way she did in college, the tiny habit that betrayed her thoughts weren’t on the conversation.
“Nothing,” he agreed. “Our radios are inoperable, and all forms of modulation are useless given the lingering radiation and volcanic ionization. It may be generations before we can transmit a single message long distance, and, even then, it will be in Morse code.”
“David’s work in telepathy will help with that. Is that one of your goals? Train emotants to fill the information void?”
“Precisely. That was our second mandate of the Andalon Project.”
She frowned. “What was the first, Michael?”
“Remote viewing. Have you never heard of a psychic warrior?”
“Didn’t the government try that during the cold war? I think I saw David reading a book on it.”
“That’s the program. The CIA and Pentagon utilized psychics to remote view the enemy while attempting to acquire HUMINT—human sourced information—all without placing an agent in harm’s way. It supposedly worked on a primitive level, but the gathered intelligence was unreliable and couldn’t be corroborated. But this…” he trailed off, noticing that Brooke still chewed her lip. He asked, “What is it? What’s bothering you?”
“I think David knows.”
“You think he knows what?” He watched her closely, noticing the way she fidgeted in her seat as she answered.
“I think he knows this baby isn’t his,” she admitted
“We’ve been over this, Brooke. Trust in the process. It’s important he accepts it’s his, not that it actually is.”
“But it will affect his research if he finds out he failed. He was certain he could change us both, removed the block so we could conceive.”
“He did, regarding you.”
“Yes, but removing a block is one thing. It’s easier to repair damaged DNA than it is to reconstruct it altogether. His cells don’t have flagellum. They can’t swim. They also contained flawed nuclei that prevent fertilization. He never overcame that part, so his experiment failed.”
“He doesn’t know, and he never will. Stephanie altered the data in the computer, and each test he runs on your unborn child will show a genetic match for you and him so long as he uses this lab, and it’s the only one in existence anywhere in the world. So you see? It doesn’t matter what we did.”
Brooke let out an annoyed snicker. “We didn’t do anything.”
Michael smiled. “No, not physically. But I was the donor.”
“The only reasonable choice,” she agreed. “Same build, similar hair and eyes. Hopefully he’ll see enough of his own traits to believe our child is his.”
“Regardless, Stephanie’s competent and I trust her completely.”
“Oh, do you?” she asked with true apprehension in her voice. “How can you be so certain?”
“Because she and I are an item. We’ve been friends for several years, but six months ago finally decided we wanted more. I trust her. When all this is over we plan to marry.”
Brooke calculated, “Six months?” Her hands went to her belly. “Good heavens, Michael! And she’s okay with what we did?”
He nodded. “She is. I ran it by her early on, before we dated. Once we became intimate, I asked her again if she minded. She actually encouraged it. She knew we’d need him on board, and he must continue to feel successful. Even Adam and Eve talk about David’s son. They’re adamant his line would be prophesied for more than a thousand years to come.”
Brooke relaxed and stopped biting her lip. “Okay,” she said. She noticed Jake’s report laying on the table. Holding it up, she asked, “Tell me about this. How will you reestablish the United States?”
“I won’t.” He noticed her look immediately, then explained. “I actually can’t. The union is dissolved with the disintegration of the state governments. The constitution that stood for two hundred and forty years is dead, and we don’t have the logistics to cross the Atlantic. There’s no way to restore political boundaries before warlords redraw them. Someday, maybe we will, but not any time soon. The radiation is worse there and, according to Adam and Eve, gangs and militias are destroying each other as we speak.”
She pointed at the line in Jake’s notes about martial control. “You’ll take Germany as your own? Reestablish centralized society here?”
He nodded, knowing he could trust her with his and her brother’s plans. “Yes. While teams are rejoining our fractured armed forces, Jake also has an elite corps gathering and stockpiling resources: medicine, food, clean water, weapons.”
“Weapons…” she shook her head with mild disgust. “You’ll seize what belongs to the people, take away their ability to defend and hunt, then enter into a social contract that provides both food and protection.”
“Put more crassly than we’ll actually do it, but essentially yes.”
“So which of you is to become the despot? You or my brother?”
“We’ll take turns,” Michael said, “but first we must establish martial law under a combined NATO force. Jake will be a co-leader until it’s obvious a new government is needed. By then we’ll have the structure in place to govern. After a time, if self-rule is possible, we’ll turn over power to the people and restore democracy.”
Brooke stared back with unblinking eyes that mined his soul for deeper meaning or traces of broken promises.
After she had been uncomfortably silent for far too long, Michael cleared his throat. “You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, Michael. But what I want to know is whose idea this was?” She pointed to the hand written word atop the page. “Is this what you’ll name your kingdom? This dream of a place called Astia, was it yours or my brother’s?”
“Neither,” he admitted. “Astia isn’t a name.” He pointed to the report taken by Stephanie. “Read this,” he urged, and she did. He watched as her eyes scanned the page. They grew larger the more she read.
“So it really is gone? All of America.”
“There are pockets of civilization, but most is dying off quickly from radiation. There are two societies I believe will survive, based on this report. The people in the Ohio River Valley are reasonably healthy, as is a group further south along the Mississippi River. Other than those, yes. They’re gone, Brooke.”
“I wonder what Adam meant by astia for normalcy. It seems a strange choice of words.”
“I agree,” Michael said. Changing the subject, he added, “Don’t worry about David finding out. Stephanie Yurik is thorough and has taken care of everything.” Her silence betrayed doubt so he added, “Brooke, he’ll never learn the truth.”
“We’ll see,” she replied.