“Will he live?”
A gloved hand reached in and pried an eyelid open. A beam of white light illuminated a pale blue cornea, causing the tiny muscles of the iris to constrict the black portal of the soul. The fingers released, and the eyelid sprang shut.
“Mr. President, can you hear me?”
A guttural groan escaped his lips, barely masking his distress.
Specialists in white lab coats and nurses in teal scrubs converged. The throng of suited presidential staff pushed its way into the scrum.
“President Manfred, can you hear me?”
More groans.
A nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff on the president's arm. Her nametag read “Baum.” She was thin, with shoulder-length, toasted-blond hair. Plain, with thin lips and wounded-looking eyes, she performed her tasks with stolid efficiency. She removed the cuff and injected medication into an IV line.
The president began to open his eyes. “Whu… Whu…” he mumbled.
Everyone dressed in suits drew back and sighed in relief. Many had heard the rumor that POTUS was brain-dead. Some still weren’t convinced he wasn’t.
“You're safe, Mr. President,” answered the doctor.
“Whu… where am I?”
“You’re at Fletcher Memorial ICU.”
The president struggled to sit up. His coal and gray hair, long matted against the pillow, splayed outwards from his beady-eyed, puffy Irish face as he pulled himself upright. “Fletcher Memorial? I'm in the SuperBunker?”
“That’s correct.”
“I've got to get… get up… back to the White House.”
A broad-shouldered man in a navy suit jacket and unbuttoned collar stepped forward. His dark eyes probed from under his thick, hooded eyelids, and his black hair was closely cropped. When he spoke, his baritone voice filled the room like the rumble of a diesel train engine. His name was Dexter Fricke, Secretary of State.
“I'm afraid that's not possible, Mr. President,” Fricke’s voice rumbled.
“Wh… why??” the POTUS asked as he plowed his fingers through his hair.
“We're in COGCON 2, Mr. President,” Fricke announced.
“Di… did we win?”
“Win what, Mr. President?” Fricke asked.
A doctor motioned Fricke back. “He sounds a bit confused. We still don't know the cause or after-effects of his episode.” He turned to the POTUS. “Tell me, Mr. President, what is the last thing you remember?”
“D… Did we win?” he demanded.
“War has been averted for now, Mr. President,” Fricke answered.
“No. No… Not the war… the… the…”
“The what, sir?”
“The f—”
“He's lost his ability to speak!” someone interrupted.
Everyone leaned in for a closer look to judge for themselves.
“The f—”
A military officer pushed his way in and stood next to the president. He held his cap under his arm. He was sixty-ish, with a pinkish complexion, and receding, cropped, ashy-blond hair. His crystal-blue eyes were set narrowly under bushy, ginger eyebrows that punctuated a puffy, weathered face that invoked the image of an unmade bed. He was Fitzmaurice Buckminster, the Secretary of Defense. He bent down and whispered in the president's ear, as if he were talking to a child.
“We'll win, sir. I've no doubt.”
“No…” grumbled the POTUS.
“Sir, we've gone through this a dozen times. Stick to the plan.”
“Not… not the war!” the president bristled. “The game.”
“The game, sir?”
“I think he means the football game,” Fricke explained.
“Oh, yes,” Buckminster said. “Yes, the football game. Right. Well, sir, you'll be happy to know that your Saxons beat Pittsburgh 24 to 18.”
The president grinned behind the green plastic oxygen tubes hooked into his nostrils.
“Sir, that game was Monday. Do you know what day today is?” asked the doctor.
“Not sure. Tuesday?”
“Today is Thursday.”
“Thursday? I was to meet with the Prime Minister.”
“Do you remember what day that was?”
“Wednesday… Wednesday morning.”
The doctor turned to the president's nurse. “Nurse Baum, make a note.”
She marked it in her pad.
“What's happening? Why am I here?” asked the president.
The doctor nodded at Fricke, and Fricke stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with Buckminster, who refused to yield even an inch. “Mr. President, it appears you’ve suffered some sort of systemic breakdown.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Breakdown? What do you mean?”
“You became very agitated when being briefed on the USS Henry Harrison situation. You collapsed and lost consciousness. They think it was a seizure or possibly a minor stroke.”
“A stroke?”
“We don’t know. We’re still running tests. The amount of stress you're under has been tremendous. The burden of nuclear war would be an unimaginable weight for anyone to bear…”
“But you are bearing it well, sir,” Buckminster affirmed.
“But the war hasn't started?”
“No, sir.”
“Where's my fullback?”
Fricke pointed towards the door of the room. The throng parted to reveal a thin, gray man in his seventies, also in dress uniform, clutching a large leather satchel.
“I'm right here, sir,” replied Major Kilgore in a voice that sounded like sandpaper scraping a rusty pipe.
The president breathed a relieved sigh.
Kilgore nodded, his gentle gaze set within his leathery, war-hardened face.
“We'll make sure he is always nearby,” Buckminster said. “Perhaps we should clear the room and…”
The president started pawing at his intravenous lines and monitor cables.
“Please, Mr. President,” begged the doctor. “Try to relax. You need rest.”
“Your country needs its leader in top shape, now more than ever,” added Buckminster.
“Mr. President,” Fricke interrupted. “We still have a window of opportunity. We can work this out with Timoshenko and Hu Li.”
The president stopped struggling and took a deep breath, then fell back onto his pillow, knocking strands of his black and gray hair loose over his forehead as he relaxed. Nurse Baum rushed in to reattach his wires and hoses.
“Where's Tibbles?” the president asked. “I need to speak to him.”
The executive staff all looked at each other and shrugged.
“I said, where the fuck is Tibbles!?”
“Mr. President,” Fricke said with reluctance. “It appears Tibbles was not issued a valid bunker access PIN.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“We believe it was a clerical error, sir. We could not get the appropriate UN validations, so his entry into SuperBunker was denied.”
“Oh, to hell with that. Get him down here.”
“We are doing everything we can, sir.”
“What about Yates?”
Buckminster answered, “The protocol is for the vice president to be relocated to an independent bunker. That location is classified.”
“What about Peters?”
“He made it in, sir.”
“We'll send for them in a couple hours,” said the doctor. “Right now, you need some rest.”
“What about Norris?” the POTUS continued, unabated.
“She is unaccounted for at the moment.”
“Haberdash?”
Buckminster’s eyes flashed with contempt. “He's just outside the door, Mr. President. I’m sure he’s listening in on everything we say.”
“You will be pleased to know that the First Lady is safe in the bunker as well,” Fricke added.
“Oh, swell.”
“She's resting comfortably in the presidential quarters.”
“Okay, okay,” the doctor intervened. “I want all nonessential personnel out. The president needs rest so that he can get back to ruling the world. Let’s go. Out! Out!”
The staff all took their turns smiling and patting the president on the forearm or lower leg, gently, so as not to disturb his intravenous lines and cabling, before shuffling out of the ward. Only the doctor, Fricke, Buckminster, and Major Kilgore remained. Haberdash, a husky dude with wavy, greasy, blond hair and a graying goatee, stepped into the doorway.
“Is everyone out?” the POTUS asked.
Fricke poked his head out past Haberdash, then came back in and nodded to affirm everyone was indeed out of earshot.
“Fricke…”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Come closer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fricke…”
“Yes?”
The president stared at him with a look that was a cross between furious anger and desperate anguish.
“Fricke…”
“Yes! What is it, sir?”
The doctor studied the charts on his pad.
“Fricke…” the president said again, reaching out his hand suspended by his wavering arm.
Nurse Baum typed notes into her pad.
“I'm right here, sir. What is it?”
But as the sedative swept through him, the POTUS’s hand dropped, his face flack with surrender, consciousness slipping away.
