“It’s just all bullshit.” Courtney fumed, stomping down one of the congressional tunnels linking the White House to Congress.

  “Like, who the hell do they think they are? I was voted into office to serve the American people-”

  “And Senator Jackson wasn’t?” Her Chief of Staff, Christian Meadows, deadpanned.

  President Pierce rolled her eyes, then whirled on him. “And Senator Munroe, and Senator Deckich. Nobody likes a smartass.” She argued, extracting a chuckle from Christian.

  “I get your point, but it’s basically their job to be a pain in your ass. You’re a bit new here, but I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you-”

  “Politics is a bitch?” Courtney interrupted.

  “Well, not in so many words, but-”

  “Yeah, yeah, go suck a dick.” She interrupted again, but it was with a smirk on her face. “Just because they should be a pain doesn’t mean I want them to be. Big difference there.” She said, wagging her finger at him.

  Christian just gave a smirk right back. “Smartass, remember? Look, they’ll come around after you and the other democrats throw them a few bones-”

  “I don’t want to throw those apologists any ‘bones’.” Courtney interrupted -for the third time- rolling her eyes. “Russia can take it up the ass for all I care, or quit being assholes. That’s how I roll.”

  Christian gave an annoyed huff. “And how Congress rolls is, you win some, you lose some. You want to put the hurt on Russia? Talk to China about it. Until then, we’re stuck with what we got.”

  Courtney snorted at that. “Yeah, right. You have some nerve saying that. You know what happened with Taiwan.”

  Christian put his hands up in surrender. “Hey, my nerve is why you like me. Besides, regardless of how that war went for you personally, Taiwan is still ours. The Koreans might still be working out their kinks, but we came out on top in that one too.”

  Courtney shook her head. “I’m not worried about the now, I’m worried about the future. They can exert way more soft power over them than we can, it’s only a matter of time. Seriously, don’t bring that shit up again, not when I’m already pissed off.”

  They reached an intersection, turning and continuing on. The Capitol underground was an expansive labyrinth, one that Courtney- and, she imagined, the rest of Washington's scavenging lawmakers- appreciated. Levels upon levels of underground facilities left her safely in her own little world, away from the partisan politics beating a war drum into the minds of her fellow Americans. There was something placid about the stark concrete and the industrial atmosphere. Still… Courtney almost wished she’d been able to take the Beast. It’d be a waste, but stalking around down here felt too much like admitting defeat. Sometimes, she appreciated the call to battle of the upper world as much as anyone else.

  “Hey, sorry.” Christian started, interrupting her thoughts. “But you can’t avoid them forever.”

  “I can stonewall them though.” Courtney pointed out, getting a sigh out of him. He slapped a fist into his open palm as they walked, obviously in thought. It didn’t last long before he spoke up again.

  “World’s changing, Courtney. I wouldn’t work with you if I didn’t trust you to do what’s best for the country. Just… politics is a tricky game. Your enemies your enemy until they’re not, and sometimes your friends hold knives closer than your foes.”

  “Really? Of all people, you buy Jians bullshit? I thought you were good at sniffing out snake oil?”

  “I am. That’s why I don’t think it’s bullshit. They’re worried about you, Courtney-”

  “Good.”

  “No, not good. Jian knows China needs American money right now. Russia’s keeping Europe on the precipice, so they’re not safe investors. Our friends in Africa and South America have their own messes and nascent power struggles to figure out, not to mention a lack of capital. And the rest of Asia is just as wary of China as we are. They need an out, Courtney, and there’s two ways a country that powerful gets it. Jian is gambling on trade and stability, and we both know all too well where the other path leads.”

  “You’re not going to change my mind on this Christian. Maybe if I were older and wiser or some other bullshit, but I ran for President to make them pay. And the voters agreed. Who am I to argue the will of the people?” Courtney taunted.

  Christian shook his head ruefully, but shifted his focus to another intersection ahead. He started to angle to split away from her and her pack of escorting Secret Service agents.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” She called after him.

  That prompted a laugh. “I’m not fleeing, Courtney. Don’t sound so upset. I just have some paperwork to do and reports to file. I’m sure they’ll wind up on your desk later, and we’ll resume this conversation. Just try to think about what I’m suggesting, ok? You don’t trust him- that’s a good instinct. Another one is knowing how to gamble.”

  “I don’t gamble.” Courtney grumbled, prompting a mock salute from Christian as he spun off, walking backwards down the hall.

  “You will!” He called. She offered him a wave, and he waved back. Then a confused look crossed his face, and just as she turned the corner down another tunnel, she noticed him pull out his phone. She continued on down the hall, nonplussed. It wasn’t like she was a stranger to odd phone calls.

  She still wasn’t alone, of course- she could never go anywhere without her screen of Secret Service agents. Some of them had a strong and silent complex, and unfortunately the ones in the tunnels had that in spades. Sometimes she wanted to reassign them, but it let her vent, too.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Assholes.”

  — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

  It was a slow day for Courtney, thankfully. She wouldn’t have another meeting for a whopping 30 minutes, which gave her ample time to wander the tunnels under DC aimlessly. Sometimes, the lack of any real control over where she was going was something she needed. It was all fun and games to pretend she ruled the world up in the White House, but the tunnels gave her clarity. Not quite peace or serenity, but it let her regain a sense of self away from the cameras and the other scurrying politicians.

  Which was why it surprised her so much when her phone rang. Unknown Caller blared out. Courtney jumped- always a good idea in heels, and on concrete- thankfully not rolling her ankle in the process. When it rang again, she was momentarily confused. Ordinarily, her personal escort carried a phone with them that senators, representatives, and others might contact her on. But when she glanced back at them, they looked between each other, confused. Then it rang again, that same shrill trill she liked to make her ringtones, and she realized it was coming from her personal phone.

  Courtney’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “It’s yours?” One of the agents, a short, blonde haired woman asked.

  Everyone knew her phone was heavily encrypted- it’d been standard protocol since Obama insisted on carrying his Blackberry around. An unknown caller shouldn’t have been possible. Hesitantly, Courtney took her phone from one of the pockets on her suit. Sure enough, just as she extracted it, the phone rang again. Unknown Caller blared once more. She had one more ring before the connection dropped.

  “You probably shouldn’t-” One of her agents started.

  Courtney answered the phone anyway. “Ok smartass, you already got me when I’m pissed off, who the fuck do you think-”

  “A pleasure as always, President Pierce. Unfortunately, this is a business call. I’d rather spare you the specifics and cut straight to the chase.” The voice was smooth, yet accented. The man on the other line spoke perfect English, but Courtney would recognize that voice anywhere.

  She nearly dropped her phone in surprise. “How’d you get this number, Jian? Tell me. Now.”

  “Spys, how else? I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if my phone was tapped in the same way.” Courtney knew it wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. Luckily, they couldn’t have gotten that much information out of her. It wasn’t like she used her personal phone for business. Still though, it pissed her off that someone in her guard was obviously compromised. Only…

  “If that’s true, then you just lost an amazing tool for espionage. Why the hell are you calling me? You’re a hell of a lot more formal than this, I’m usually the aggressive one. Are y’all going to declare war again? We both know your economy isn’t in a position to-”

  “Moscow’s gone.”

  “You’re lying. Why are you lying? Why would you say something like that?” Courtney blurted. It was the only thing that made sense- why else would he-

  “It happened an hour ago. Some kind of signal distortion kept us from seeing it. We only knew what to look for after we got a call from an invested, unknown third party. Know anything about it?”

  Courtneys breath caught. There was just- there couldn’t be any way he was telling the truth. “Look, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing here, but there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell we wouldn’t have seen Moscow get taken out. Hell, we’d probably be the ones to do it, if anyone. And we didn’t. And what the hell do you mean an unknown third party? Did the fucking Taliban give you a heads up or something?”

  “You don’t have time for this.” Jian said, annoyance dripping from his words. That was almost as odd as everything else he’d been saying- the man never lost his composure. “It’s like you said- everyone knows you’d be the ones to do it. Ironically, we’re the only ones that know you didn’t. The nearest we can tell, it might have been an asteroid strike. There's some heat radiation in the air, but nothing like a nuke, at least not anything we can get on what sensors work over the city.”

  That left Courtneys mind swimming with even more questions. “An asteroid strike? We’d have seen it!”

  “Not necessarily, apparently. We were only made aware when our third party mystery clued us in on it. Our intelligence was able to verify that by checking data on our spy satellites. Specifically, one that was hacked while spying through one of your satellites. Everything’s burned- we don’t know where the hack came from. I talked with who we’re assuming to be the hacker on the phone. He spoke limited Chinese, and good English in some kind of African accent. The thing is, I don’t know any country on the continent with the resources to crack the phones of both my Defense Minister and my Economics Minister. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone, would you?”

  “Even if we did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Well, that answers my question well enough.”

  “Why are you even calling me about this? Surely you know the CIA would’ve gotten this news to me eventually. Did you call to congratulate me on an act of God?” Courtney felt Jian pause, and she could almost feel him squirming in his seat.

  “Our intel suggests… that what's left of the Russian government might try to retaliate.”

  “Really? They must be dumber than I thought if they’re going to get revenge on space.”

  “I don’t think you’re quite parsing my meaning.”

  That took Courtney a second. When she realized what he meant, she felt the floor swoon toward her. She managed to keep her feet, but felt suddenly nauseous. “You know we both go down if nukes get into the air. You have to convince them it wasn’t us. Please. I don’t know if they’ll listen to us. We’ll be reaching out on every channel, but you gotta-”

  “We have been, but their government’s in total disarray. It’s night over there. We can’t even reach most of them, and the ones we can get to aren’t aware that anything’s happened. Conservative estimates put their federal government casualties at 90%. When I said Moscow was gone, I didn’t mean destroyed. I meant the entire urban area of Moscow has been leveled. Gone. What’s left are regional governors, generals, in short, no one that's prepared for a catastrophe of this magnitude.”

  “I’m not worried about them.”

  “I wouldn’t be either. Aleksandr Petrov is awol, he’s a ghost by now. If anyones going to do something rash-”

  “I know. I know.” Courtney interrupted, giving a sharp intake of breath again. She realized she was a bit panicked, her heart racing. She could use that, at least, after the dredge of spending the last hour with Congress. Courtney almost wanted to laugh at the thought- did she really prefer getting nuked over being in a Congressional meeting?

  “I need to get in touch with my people. See what we can do, and see if we can get some contingencies in place if Aleksandr decides on the nuclear option over dialogue. And I’m burning this phone in my office trashcan- if I get a hint of something like this again, we’ll dismantle your entire government in a cyberattack.”

  She felt his arrogance leaching through the phone. “I’m sure we’ll keep each other apprised through more formal means in the near future. Hopefully, we can work together on this.”

  “Go fuck yourself.” Courtney snarled, before hanging up the phone. She whirled in place, and her agents looked at her with no small amount of concern on their faces. “Well, what the hell are you standing there for? Get me in contact with everyone, we have to get the whole government on this ASAP.”

  Just as they started reaching for various phones though, quick footsteps began to echo down the hall. Everyone turned in time to see Christian jogging around the corner, sweat beading on his brow as he huffed. A look of concern was etched across his face, morphing into confusion as he took in everyone looking his way. It took him a fraction of a second longer to notice that everyone was reaching for a phone.

  “Did you get the…?” He trailed off when Courtney immediately nodded her head.

  “I just got a courtesy call from President Chang. Moscows gone, and he thinks Russia’s about to nuke us.” Christian didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised though, and she quirked her head at him in confusion. “You’re acting like I just said a completely normal sentence.”

  “Well, I just had the same thing explained to me.”

  “Let me guess, by a mystery man with a vaguely African accent?”

  That managed to take Christian by surprise, and he gave her a look. “The same person got ahold of the Chinese defense and economics ministers. Jian told me about him.” Courtney answered.

  That got Christian chuckling. Courtney wasn’t exactly in the mood, though. “How in the fuck is any of this funny to you?”

  “No, no. It’s just- I can do you one better. Do you remember where I served as ambassador before you tapped me as secretary of state?” He asked.

  “We’re a few hours away from being nuked, and you want to play a guessing game?”

  “Sorry, right. He’s gotta be east African. Maybe Rwanda, Somalia, or Ethiopia? I couldn’t quite place it, and I haven’t the slightest clue how he has the resources he seems to, but I’m willing to bet we can get a head start on the Chinese. ”

  “Well, keep wracking your brain for it on the road. We’ve got to get to work. I’d hate for my legacy to be a ball of nuclear fire.”