Bobby Akart - Armageddon

What if he’d been exposed to the radiation already? What could he do to stave off the harmful effects of the radioactive poison that would destroy him from within?

He was gonna have to go back into the mall. But first, he needed more sleep.

Friday, October 25

Mount Weather Operations Center

Northern Virginia

Deep underground and protected from the carnage above, President Helton was exhausted as the day came to an end. He stood stoically at the head of the conference table, dark circles around his eyes and his hair mussed. His advisors from the Department of Homeland Security and his national security team had gathered in the conference room to provide him a more up-to-date assessment of the nuclear exchange. As the military leaders and intelligence personnel gave their reports, he soaked it in. With each new assessment, the news became grimmer. He wasn’t sure if he could take any more.

The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security tried to respond to the president’s repeated requests regarding the death toll. In an attempt to provide the president accurate information, he made matters worse.

“Sir, admittedly, it’s impossible to have an accurate death toll. That may take many months if we’re able to do it at all. Frankly, part of the problem may have been the ballistic missile warning apps and the overall system employed by governments at all levels.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the president as he furrowed his brow.

“Well, Mr. President, after the first false alarm initiated by Sacramento that was also sounded in Oregon and Washington, many residents failed to heed the warning when a real threat was inbound. By the time they tried to react like their neighbors and coworkers, it was too late.”

“Their hesitation may have resulted in their deaths,” added the chief of staff.

The president shook his head in disbelief and buried his face in the palms of his hands. The stress was taking a toll on him, and many in the room privately had chatted outside of earshot about his ability to perform.

President Helton turned to the team from Homeland Security. “What are we doing to help people?”

“Sir, at this time, nothing,” responded the FEMA administrator.

This response nearly brought the president out of his chair. “What?”

“Well, sir, there are multiple reasons for this. Our vehicular assets in the affected regions were disabled by the EMP. However, even if they were not, the superfires surrounding these cities are covering vast areas of the surrounding terrain, much worse than our simulations ever imagined.”

“And at a faster rate, sir,” added the DHS secretary. “Weather satellite data indicates winds at ground level have reached hurricane force, and current infrared imagery reveals air temperatures within the zone of fire can exceed two hundred degrees, near the boiling point of water.”

“Sir, if I may explain?” said Dr. Theodore Pascal, a scientist with the United States Geological Survey, or USGS. “This is my first opportunity to attend a briefing of this nature. I am the leading volcanologist for the USGS.”

“Volcanoes?” asked the president.

“Yes, sir. Although my area of expertise has routinely been applied to nuclear detonation analysis.”

“Okay, proceed.”

“Mr. President, at the period of peak energy output, a one-megaton nuclear weapon can produce a temperature of one hundred million degrees Celsius at its center. That’s four to five times the temperature at the center of the Sun. This sudden blast of energy results in enormous emanations of light and heat for hundreds of miles.

“The light can cause blindness, but the biggest threat, in addition to the direct impact, of course, can come from the ferocious hurricane of fire pushing away from ground zero. These fires, once initiated, will not only destroy everything in their path, but they will, very efficiently I might add, heat large volumes of air near Earth’s surface.

“As this heated air rises, cool air from beyond the vast burning area rushes in to replace it. The ground-level winds will reach a hundred miles per hour or more, forcing the superheated air into the stratosphere. This air will be full of radiated debris together with lethal toxic smoke and combustion gases.”

The president held his hand up, directing Dr. Pascal to pause for a moment. “I assume this happened in South Asia and the Middle East to an extent.”

The volcanologist nodded. “South Asia especially. The nuclear warheads may not have been as strong as what North Korea delivered, but the sheer numbers have resulted in a climate catastrophe unsurpassed since the last eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.”

Chief of Staff Harrison Chandler asked, “This is devastating, to be sure, but how does it factor into casualty estimates?”

Dr. Pascal responded, “Sir, the standard model for calculating deaths and even nonfatal injuries from hypothetical nuclear attacks assumes the same casualty rates will occur from blast overpressure as those which occurred at Hiroshima at the end of World War II. We call this the blast effect or blast scaling. It’s standard methodology used by government agencies to estimate casualties in nuclear war.

“I maintain this methodology is wholly inaccurate because the Hiroshima death tolls didn’t take into account the deaths resulting from the superfires and contamination of the atmosphere. I and most of my colleagues at the USGS and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena believe the death toll will be four to six times what the generally accepted methodology allows.”

“Mr. President, if I may,” interjected the secretary of Homeland Security. “This issue is important because the natural inclination is to rush into the blast zone to look for survivors and provide them medical assistance. This may sound callous, but we can’t help them, sir. We can, however, as Dr. Pascal will confirm, help those outside the immediate blast area.”

“That’s correct, Mr. President,” added Dr. Pascal. “In our estimation, as it relates to the fires, those within a one-hundred-mile blast radius cannot be helped. It’s possible to provide assistance beyond that on a city-by-city basis.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the president.

“Sir, by way of example, each of the West Coast cities have been subjected to a fireball so hot that it began to violently expand outward from ground zero at several million miles per hour. It was slowed only by its hunger for combustible materials. As this shock wave pushed farther away from the point of detonation, it expanded for hundreds of miles, an unstoppable force immune to any form of firefighting methods.”

“What can we do?”

“Find a way to notify survivors of what is coming their way.”

“And tell them what?” asked the president as he leaned forward in his chair.

“Run.”

Saturday, October 26

Fair Oaks Mall

Fairfax, Virginia

After making another run into the mall, Peter Albright slept until the next day. He woke up refreshed but very sore from the beating his body had taken when the bomb was detonated in DC. He lay there in the dark, doing a medical self-assessment. He put his body through an examination, searching for any feeling or sensation out of the ordinary. He breathed deeply in a prone position and then standing with his arms high over his head. He really didn’t know what he expected radiation poisoning to feel like, but thus far, he wasn’t showing symptoms of anything other than muscle soreness, hunger and an incredible thirst.