Richard Stephenson - Collapse

“We gonna have a problem with takeoff?”

“No, sir, I dispatched the maintenance robots to clear a path from the landing pad. We have an adequate amount of level ground free from obstruction. We are ready to depart on your word.”

Howard closed his eyes and gripped the armrests. “Let’s get going.”

The escape pod lurched from the landing pad and raced across the desert floor. Howard was so completely terrified that if he hadn’t emptied his bladder, he would have done so in the cockpit. As the craft picked up speed, Howard was pushed back against his seat with tremendous force. He felt his cheeks ripple back and could not move his head. As the craft ascended and leveled off, Howard opened his eyes.

“Everything okay, Old Man? I did not like that at all. Please tell me that was the worst of it.”

“We are fine, sir. The takeoff proceeded as I anticipated.”

Howard tried to ignore his anxiety and desperately wanted a distraction. “Hal, talk to me.”

“About what, sir?”

“I don’t know, anything. I don’t like to fly. Do you have any way of knowing what’s going on back at the residence?”

“No, sir. With my primary cores destroyed, I have no connection to the residence. My auxiliary systems were transferred to this escape pod. Once we arrived at the Castle, I was able to establish a connection to my secondary systems. While I am operating at full capacity, I am sorry to say that I no longer have access to Beck Estates.”

“I figured as much, thought maybe we had some sort of backup.”

“No, sir, you designed the failsafe systems to completely remove all traces of my program in an emergency.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Don’t want anyone to be able to link into your program and snoop around. Just wish we had some way of knowing what those bastards are doing in my house.”

“The failsafe worked perfectly, sir. They will not be able to access any of my programs.”

“What about Chicago? Any word from our offices? Is everything safe?”

“Riots continue to spread throughout the city; however, the Chicago branch of Beck Enterprises remains secure. I foresee no problem landing at our airstrip.”

“Good! Anything else going on that I should know about?”

“Sir, I have been monitoring a breaking news story for the past several minutes. However, given your current state, I’m not sure if you are in any condition to hear it. I was going to wait until we landed in Chicago to inform you.”

“I just had my house invaded, and I’m flying for the first time in decades. I think I can handle it.”

“Sir, it appears that…”

Hal was cut off mid-sentence, and the cockpit went completely dark. Howard’s eyes adjusted and he could see the stars in the sky.

“What’s going on? Hal! What are you doing? This isn’t funny! Hal! Answer me!”

Howard realized in terror that the engines had cut off. He pushed the buttons on the keyboard in front of him and nothing happened.

“Hal! Respond! The engines shut off! I can’t fly this thing by myself! Hal!”

Howard felt a tingling sensation in his gut and felt himself slowly rise up from his chair, the harness digging into his shoulders. The escape pod was in free fall, returning back to Earth.

Five hundred and twelve miles from the eastern coast of the United States, the Jabal class Iranian nuclear submarine, the Habibollah Sayyari , was stationary and submerged two hundred meters below the surface. The skipper of the boat, Captain Farzad Zamani, was simply waiting until the appropriate time to deliver his payload to the pre-determined target. His journey across the Atlantic was uneventful due to the simple fact that no one had any idea where he was, not even his superiors. He was given a target, a set of coordinates, and a time — that was it. The Atlantic was wide open and he made the journey without resistance.

When the radioactive material began to spill from Bunker Five and blind the Allied Forces, the Habibollah Sayyari was nowhere near the bunker. She was sitting in the Atlantic, twenty miles from the Port of Gibraltar. The Allied Forces were convinced that the Empire would attempt to sneak a nuclear device into the Arabian Sea and across the Indian Ocean. The tactic was not meant as a diversion, even though it did accomplish the task. The reason for the radioactive spill was to draw the Enterprise and the George Washington out of the Atlantic and into the Indian Ocean to look for a killer submarine with a nuke headed to the United States. Once the two aircraft carriers and their support vessels left the Atlantic, the Habibollah Sayyari raced across to the shores of the Eastern Seaboard with nothing in her way. The Empire didn’t want any Allied vessels in the Atlantic capable of shooting down anything that was launched from their submarine.

The most guarded secret of the Great Empire of Iran was the fifty-mile underground tunnel they built from Bunker Three, located in western Turkey, into the Mediterranean Sea. The construction took over four years at the expense of thousands of lives. The construction crews never knew what they were digging, or the reason. To protect the project’s security, the work crews were executed when their part of the project was completed, their families told of some horrible accident. A new work crew would be brought in for the next phase of construction and the process repeated. When the tunnel was completed, the waters from the Mediterranean poured in and flooded the distance to the bottom level of the bunker. The rest of the world was oblivious to the fact that the Empire had a secret route into the Mediterranean Sea

In the four years the tunnel was under construction, the Empire also commissioned a top-secret stealth submarine to be built. The submarine was roughly the size of a bus and had an eight-man crew. The engine aboard the secret craft was also a carefully guarded secret. The Iranians had developed a submarine that couldn’t be detected in anyway. No sonar could ping off it, it was completely stealth. The sole purpose of the craft was to sneak past the Port of Gibraltar undetected.

The mini-sub accomplished the task with ease and docked with the Habibollah Sayyari to deliver her nuclear payload. The mini-sub had been given orders to remain at the location and await the go-ahead to attack Gibraltar. After the mini-sub destroyed the James Russell and left Gibraltar ripe for the picking, she would embark on a bold mission that would send the mini-sub up the Potomac River into Washington, D.C.

Lindsay Sanderson and her two children awoke in their one bedroom apartment in the Bronx. The apartment was in a rundown building that would probably be condemned should it undergo inspection. After Lindsay and her children were evicted from the Central Park Obama-Camp, they had to sleep in alleys and dumpsters while they waited for William to send more money. The first paycheck he sent home from the U.S. Army to his wife was spent on food, clothes, and a few days in a cheap motel. Lindsay saved what she could, and by the time the third check came, she had enough money for a deposit on a cheap one bedroom apartment and the first month’s rent. They didn’t have enough to have the power turned on, but Lindsay didn’t really care. She also didn’t have to worry about paying for water. There was a communal bathroom on every floor. She would wait until the middle of the day when it was being used the least, and she and her two children would bathe, use the restroom, and fill up their containers with water to take back to the room. Lindsay was not naive or stupid. She knew that behind most of the doors in her apartment building people were engaging in prostitution or drugs, probably both. Anytime they left the apartment, she had a vice grip on her children’s hands. Her sweet, innocent children thought the first floor of the apartment building was a school since so many children wandered the halls. Lindsay knew the children on the first floor were prostitutes waiting to be sold into slavery. She never dared venture down the hallway on the first floor with her precious babies at her side.