John Ringo - Von Neumann’s War

“Exhibit A present yourself in front of Dr. Reynolds’ desk, please.” Cady winked at Tina, who marched and stood at attention in front of Roger’s desk.

“What’s up? Hi Tina.” He leaned back in his chair, amused at the parading teenager.

“Hi,” she whispered while still at attention.

“Miss Pike, please smile real big for Dr. Reynolds,” Cady instructed her.

“Roger that, Top!” She grinned as big as she could at Reynolds.

Roger looked her up and down for a moment still sidetracked by the report he was working on for Ronny, but then it hit him like a ton of bricks. The report that Gries and Cady had given him upon their return from the initial attack in Paris came foremost to his mind.

“Awww shit! I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Mr. President as far as we can tell, most of the major cities have been evacuated to redoubts and refugee centers in the Midwest plains and in the large expansive areas that have no major infrastructure and are near lakes and rivers and other water sources. All refugee centers were built with wood, plastic, and other synthetic material construction and all personal vehicles were moved to locations at least five miles from those encampments.” The President’s national security advisor Vicki Johnson continued through the President’s Daily Brief or the PDB.

“Are they living with no power or other things that metals enable?” President Colby asked.

“No, sir. There are areas set up outside each encampment that are several hundred feet below the ground. Hopefully, the bots will not find the underground locations before we can figure out a way to beat them back. The Neighborhood Watch group also believes that the cities will be enough bait for them to keep them busy for a little while. All of these underground locations have modern facilities, wireless and wired Internet, ice machines, laundries, hospitals, and so on. The problem is that the number of refugees at each camp far exceeds the amenities and capabilities within each of the underground facilities. So a rationing and sharing protocol has been put in place.”

“That’s right, Mr. President,” General Mitchell agreed with the NSA. “We have implemented the largest evacuation and survival center in distributed locations across the country and the U.S. territories in the history of mankind. It has taxed every service, civilian, and military, beyond their limits, but we believe we can survive a full occupation for an extended period of time.”

“Are all of the people out of the cities and in either the redoubts and refugee camps… refugee camps, God Almighty I hate that term.” The President sipped at the coffee mug before him. He paused and looked at it. It had been his favorite mug: he’d kept it on his desk in the Oval Office. The mug had a picture of the White House on it and the official seal of the President of the United States of America etched in it. Across the presidential seal was etched the autograph of all four of the currently living former presidents. He couldn’t stand the fact that the White House — the entire country — would be occupied by an outside threat during his watch. What would they have done? he wondered as he considered the names on the mug.

“Well sir, many are. Those that didn’t go to the official centers decided to chance it on their own and fend for themselves. Some stayed behind in the cities. Some have become nomadic, and some have moved to the various desolate and unpopulated regions of the country. Dr. Reynolds calls them Farnham’s Freeholders for some reason. He has also created some models that have tried to estimate their numbers. He guesses between five and fifty million citizens are Freeholders.” Vicki closed her notebook, which usually signaled the President that the PDB was coming to an end.

“Is that all?” President Colby looked around the War Room at his advisors.

“No sir, there is one more thing. Dr. Guerrero and Dr. Reynolds have brought to our attention—” Vicki crossed her hands over her notebook in front of her and sighed. “There are estimated some seventy-five million people in the United States under eighteen. At any given time about a third to a half of those have orthodontic braces of some sort. Add in Americans older than that with orthodontic braces and then those with some sort of surgical metal implant, we end up with between fifty and a hundred million Americans that have metal physically attached to them somehow…” She paused to see if the president was catching on. He was.

“God Almighty! We’ve got to get those damned things off every single one of those kids before those damned alien machines get here! Oh Christ, how many kids must’ve been killed or maimed in Europe?” The President put his face in his hands and began to weep. Then he wiped his eyes, stood, and pounded his right fist into his left hand, “Vicki, you do whatever it takes to take care of this. This takes first priority over everything we’re doing. If we can’t protect our children, then Goddamnit what use are we!”

“Roger, the President wants to know what is happening worldwide. Our over-the-horizon radar doesn’t seem like a good idea. All aerial missions we’ve sent have been completely lost. The only real recon we’ve received is from Major Gries, Sergeant Major Cady, and the two pilots who survived the disaster in France. Oh, we’ve put together reports from the many survivors but a lot of those accounts are jumbled and don’t really include much useful intel beyond what we got from Major Gries.”

Ronny sat in his makeshift headquarters office at the Huntsville redoubt. The accommodations were about the same as the office he had had in Virginia before the major cities were evacuated. Instead of moving him to the CIA redoubt in Langley, the President had ordered him to stay with his Neighborhood Watch team that had served so well to this point.

“I understand that, Ronny. I’ve got the guys working on just how in the hell to get aerial or space recon without metal and radio. That’s not an easy task, mind you.” Roger squirmed in the leather guest chair making it squeak as he did.

“Could we build a nonmetal refractive telescope and nonmetal film camera?” Ronny asked.

“Sure, we could even build the camera with a clever plastic spring-wound timing system. The optics on the telescope would be heavy, though. Most of the glasses would only work worth a damn in the visible spectrum. Infrared would be possible with some glasses and the right film. The wavefront error would be horrible without being able to put a deformable mirror or tip-tilt corrector in there to take out atmospheric distortion.” Roger thought out loud while removing his ball cap and rubbing his fingers through his hair.

“Yes, yes, Roger. But could you do it? Fuzzy images would be better than none.” Ronny rested his elbows on his big metal desk as he steepled his fingers together and leaned his chin on them.

He laughed to himself at the thought of all the metal inside the redoubt. In the wiring, the computers, the monitors, the structure, and even the furniture. He considered that ironic or crazy; old construction habits must be hard for the corps of engineers to break. But at the same time he knew that if the redoubt fell a metal or a plastic desk would make no difference.

“Sure we could. How do we get it up and back is the question.”

“Perhaps we should learn from history, heh?” Ronny smiled.

“What do you mean?”

“KH-1 through KH-7 ring a bell?”

“KH-1 through 7,” Roger mouthed. “Hmm, KH is Keyhole, oh, sure the Corona project, but… heh.” Roger knew exactly where Ronny was going with the comment. Corona was the first spy satellite program. It was a little satellite that was launched into a decaying low Earth orbit. The little satellite had a camera in it that snapped a bunch of pictures on a timer and then it fell back to Earth. The camera box was caught by a big net that was pulled behind an aircraft. Roger knew that aircraft were out of the question, but parachutes or something similar might work.