This teaser introduces a “near future” political landscape following a reorganization and realignment of the United States branches of government. Expect massive mayhem, snarky criticism, and congressional process. Challenges internal and external will test the limits of the founders. And just maybe, a familiar cast and crew might sneak into the light.

1 Shadows on the Wall

“You know this reminds me of something I read once, in High School. One of those old philosophical stories about puppets.”

I raised my eyebrow, rested the old stone rake back down on the fresh gravel and wiped sweat from my brow.

“Mr. President,” I said carefully. “This is the fifth random topic you’ve mentioned today, and it’s only ten in the morning! What’s next? Baseball stats?”

Our 49th president, Earl Bartholomew Cooper, set down his ear protection on the hood of the red tractor and raised a bushy eyebrow at me. His lungs expanded in what I had learned in the morning to be a sign of gathering his thoughts for a lecture. The beep of his watch saved me from another topic change.

“Ah, crap. I’ve gotta get cleaned up for a damn meeting in fifteen minutes. Samuel, can you finish up this corner? I’ll get the box blade attached tomorrow and we can crown the road properly. Just fill in these holes and pack it a bit.”

The morning had been a slog of moving bucket after bucket of material along a torn up access road to the recently renovated house up the hill behind us, just back in the forest from the main road. The small bucket on the subcompact tractor had made the work take longer than Earl Cooper had planned.

“Sure, sir.”

Setting the rake aside, I climbed onto the seat. An intake of air beside me made my hand pause on the key.

“Plato. One story in Republic. Allegory of the cave. That was it! Remember it, kid?”

“I don’t think so…”

“What you’re doing with that camera gear, Mr. Brown, is like painting shadows on a cave wall. Through your video cameras and filter gadgets and AI, you’re removing the bearers of objects from view and exposing brief hints of reality to the people. People who have been imprisoned in a dark cave their whole lives.”

“You’re referring to how we’re cutting all the people together at these press conferences?” I asked.

Cooper nodded slowly and grimaced down at his watch, which buzzed more angrily this time.

“I should get going. Think on it, though. When we bend the truth with our toys and our tech, we have to remember that our actions have consequences. If you hide something from people, if you take away a bit of the truth, you devalue that truth.”

I had to frown at this one, struggling to keep up. Again. It had been a theme of the morning. Every darn break in the work, this tall farmer would launch into something! Heck, I’d learned more about hydraulic systems and diesel engine maintenance that morning than I thought was possible.

“For another time, Samuel. Just keep a close eye on your faith when you mess with what people see. Got it?”

I nodded, cranked the little 3-cylinder diesel to life, and moved off to the now much smaller piles of stone and gravel to take a bite.

The sounds of the working tractor masked the approach of an old silver sedan coming down the drive away from the house. As I’d been lectured that morning tens of times, when I changed directions, I checked my corners and had plenty of time to move out of the way with a fresh load to let the car pass.

The driver, Jimmy Chen, was one of the two secret service agents assigned to this “Safe House” location on the edge of an old port facility in Beaufort, North Carolina. While the former Duke Marine Lab had closed almost a decade before, the warehouse space down the hill from the old house and barn had been shuttered in the 1990s. The location; isolated but with access to major roads on a rocky hillside above water, and with easy access to the ocean, made it ideal for one of thousands of distributed sites now maintained as part of the official government footprint.

Gone were the days of in-person sessions in Washington. The United States had taken the “Work from Home” initiative and ramped it up into an epic logistic spiderweb.

An hour later, I parked the tractor under a cover attached to the side of the barn. While filling up the fuel tank, the silver BMW scrabbled back up the now smoother drive which had been almost impassable by the cars the day before. A fresh face in the passenger seat gave me a pause.

As I was standing with a heavy fuel tank balanced in a rather awkward position, covered in dust and grime, shirt torn at a sleeve and soaked through with sweat, the lock of eye contact with a pretty young woman in a business suit took me by surprise. I spilled a little fuel as I juggled with the sudden embarrassment.

The girl glanced my way twice as Jimmy helped her get a pair of cases and a backpack out of the trunk. The pink hiking pack didn’t match with the satin blouse and pencil skirt. The hiking boots didn’t match the outfit. I caught myself staring.

Fuel spill mitigated, tools put away, and key hung on the marked hook in the garage, I ducked in the back of the house to figure out a way to sneak past the massive dining hall where I could hear President Cooper exchanging greetings with our new houseguest. The smell of pizzas in the oven made my stomach rumble.

Shower accomplished, I was toweling off my hair and getting caught up on email when a knock at my door drew me out of the screen.

“Joining us?” Carl Weber said from the crack. “Oh, and that social media specialist arrived. I set her up on the desk next to yours in the small office. Figured she’d be editing videos with you too and needed the blackout drapes.”

My space had now been invaded. I swallowed, tossed the towel on the bed, and nodded. “Probably.”

“Don’t worry, kid. She doesn’t bite from what I can tell.”

Phone pocketed, I moved for the door. Carl looked me over and raised one hand and rubbed his bald head with his other. “Put on a fresh shirt. The cargo pants are fine, though.”

“What’s wrong with…” I checked and noticed the t-shirt I’d pulled off the laundry basket was a faded Georgia Tech soccer team affair. “I’m normally behind the cameras, Carl.”

“Telling you this not as Special Agent In Charge Weber, but as a father of two strong-willed and impressionable girls. Set the tone right from the start. It’ll be easier.”

Although confused, I swapped out to a black polo shirt which wasn’t too tight around the shoulders and headed down.

The third floor had stairs on both ends, with the longer path spiraling into a massive sitting area. I took the back stairs past the new bathrooms on the second floor next to the master suite where the president was staying for the week, and into the large kitchen. We’d eaten meals at the stone counter there every day of my stay, and as expected, the three pies Carl had baked were on cutting boards with plates at the ready.

“Ah, Samuel, this is Anne Zelazny, socials coordinator.”

I nodded at Cooper and accepted the hand from the young woman. Noting that her foot ware had been exchanged for black sneakers. Half a foot shorter than me at around five foot four, she was on the striking side of pretty, brunette hair and slight tan, showing signs of regular time outdoors. Strong build, and a firm handshake. Not a hair was out of place. If she was wearing makeup, I couldn’t tell.

It was her smile that wrecked me.

When I finally noticed I’d acquired a plate and two pieces of pepperoni and a coke, the conversation had shifted from the current status of constitutional amendment processes to house duties.

“So, what are you cooking for lunch tomorrow?”

I glanced in a panic over at Carl, down at my boots, and then over at Anne. Her brown eyes locked on mine.

“Um. Burgers, I think?”

“I’ll be taking our housekeeper shopping in two days, Anne. I’ll put you on the cooking rotation after that. One of us always makes lunch to give Gretchen a break. I’m assuming Mr. Brown here phrased that as a question to you about whether you eat meat?”

Anne shrugged at Carl. “Sounds fine. I’m not picky. This is all the staff, though? The last house I was assigned to had about fifteen, plus the senators and their aides.”

“Talk to boss man,” Jimmy pointed over at the president. “He picked our house this week.”

“I think he just wanted to run the tractor,” I mused.

“Exactly! I needed to get my hands dirty. I’ve been picking all my stays based on the chore charts. Two weeks cutting wood up in Maine coming to me next! I can’t wait.”

Anne scribbled down a note on a tablet with a stylus and then snagged a second piece of pizza with a predatory look.

“And that, young lady, looked like you had a lightbulb moment. Care to share?”

Pausing with a mushroom and sausage halfway to her mouth, Anne smirked. “Oh, I’ll share it once it’s baked, Mr. President. But ya, you gave me an angle.”

“It’s Bart,” Cooper corrected. “Or Cooper.”

Anne scribbled a second line and her smile broadened, the pizza slice held forgotten in the air.

“There is another reason, Anne, that the president’s at this house. Or one like it. Tell her, Samuel.”

“As long as she doesn’t blab about it,” Carl said sternly.

“Oh, ya,” Jimmy said. “Don’t blab about it. Nada. Zipper on full send.”

“This old farmhouse is sitting on a few miles of solid rock. And in that rock, starting with caves carved out before the Civil War, is an entire sequence of tunnels and shelters. Since we have threats of major attacks, keeping leadership near nuclear fallout shelters kind of makes sense.”

Carl checked his phone and scrolled through the afternoon’s schedule. “Press conference is at 4 P.M. today. I know you’re all setup for it, but can you walk Miss Zelazny through the procedures to enter the shelter system? Also, she’s listed as weapons qualified, so get her a key for the armory lockers.”

“I might need to make some changes to the conference configurations,” Anne said. Her tapping again on her tablet. “The ratings on the announcement from here yesterday were good, but not great. We can do better.”

Her eyes went to mine, checking to see if I was offended by the comment.

“No concerns. With either the tour or the setup. I’m not a media guy. Just run the glass and edit the effects. Gear’s ready to go.”

Anne nodded and moved her attention to the pizza. Jimmy cleared his throat.

“Go ahead?” Carl asked.

“You gonna tell him, Carl?”

Carl looked surprised for a moment and then closed his eyes. “I guess we should. Mr. President. I regret to inform you that early this morning, a drone strike was made against your farm in Tennessee. There were total animal casualties, and the barn has been destroyed.”

“They killed my Rufus! Those… Bastards! No!”

2 The Shelters

Through a hidden pair of pocket doors in the back stairway, we entered a landing at the top of a hand carved set of stone steps. At my suggestion, Anne had switched to hiking boots.

“You know, you’re confusing.”

We turned a corner from old and worn to fresh cut and well-lit stone tunnel. Motion sensors moved the light with us along the hundred foot cut before another bend.

“How so, Sam?”

I glanced over to see Anne hug herself.

“Sorry, I’d remembered the suggestion of footwear change, but forgot how cold it is.”

“It’s fine,” Anne said. “The confusion bit? You mentioned I confuse you.”

“Never ran into anyone who has perfect hair and mismatched socks.”

Anne giggled.

“Was that Hello Kittie and Veggie Tales?”

She giggled again. The sound echoed in the space.

“Carl should have walked you through, but he’s claustrophobic and doesn’t like it down here from what I’ve seen.”

“You’ve been here for how long?”

“Just a week. Him and Jimmy and Gretchen, about six months. Throughout the final renovations.”

“Do you think it’s going to happen?” Anne asked.

Her voice had been small, half as loud as the question before, and her pace slowed. I resisted the urge to put my hand around her shoulders.

“The convention? Or the attacks?”

“What’s the meme? Why not both?”

I thought for a moment, thinking back to President Cooper’s mention of allegory. “I think nothing will stop the constitutional convention from being approved. Though which way Congress will select for ratification? No clue.”

“I’m not sure I understand the two options. Heck, I’ve been writing about them for a year now. My work with the senators from Florida was all about the constant message they wished for us to go one way.”

“Which was that?”

“You don’t know?” Anne asked.

I shrugged. “Don’t follow news much. Heck, I haven’t even been near politics until a month ago when I graduated.”

Anne paused at an intersection in the tunnel to read a sign. “I thought you were a little older. Just finished school?”

“Four years in the Army.”

The sign processed, Anne pointed right in the large darkness. This main tube could pass a semi-truck. “That’s another way out?”

“Yup, that path comes up right into the back of a warehouse down the hill. Same keycard or biometrics will get you in that way. Easy to find it, now that you know what to look for.”

I motioned left, and we continued on the last run to the surface rooms.

“So, what did you do in the Army?”

“Drone’s mostly. And Electronic warfare payloads. I never deployed. My unit prepared and maintained gear at Fort Bragg.”

“That explains the old guy vibe,” Anne said.

I badged us into a set of metal doors on the left side of the tunnel end, next to a pair of very rusty shipping containers and a broken forklift. The doors were centered on a sixty foot long concrete wall. The squeal of bearings against stone grated the nerves in the large space.

“Armory is on the right, supply closets and a medical on the left.”

I pointed to a row of 20 foot shipping containers, welded together with a square tube in neat rows.

“Here’s the cool part. Notice the doors at the end?”

“Do they… roll to the sides?” Anne pointed industrial grade garage doors, mounted sideways, with a seam in the middle.

“Yup. Two elevators down. One escape hatch with facilities into the air tunnel line. An entire 40 foot shipping container can be lowered. Some blast doors are on roller systems and worm gears. The whole shelter system is all ready-made in boxes. I’ve been told all the new shelters are like this. Benefit is, they are all identical.”

I badged into the armory container, revealing racks of small arms. Three belt-fed XM250 light machineguns sat on the center table, drums attached and loaded. Tens of armor plate carriers, various sizes, extended out of one wall on poles.

“Tap in.” I pointed to a little touch screen. “Up to you if you wish to take back something you’re qualified on.”

Anne tagged the pad with her badge, and a limited menu opened up. She scrolled through for a moment, selected a Smith and Wesson pistol, and a little green light illuminated on a rack of hand guns under a shelf of holsters. She frowned. Checking over her shoulder, I noted her options included a few shotguns and rifles.

“The last place didn’t have an armory.”

“Nor a fallout shelter, hundreds of feet underground, I take it.” Without thinking, I set a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s weird not having an entire squad of secret service around. Okay, just in case. I’d rather be armed than not.”

Anne crossed to the rack, drew and checked the pistol, holstered it, and put the package in her purse. I nodded approvingly as she added a pair of spare magazines and a flashlight.

“Jimmy carries the same pistol, Carl and I both have Rugers.”

“Don’t try swapping mags. Got it,” Anne swallowed and shrugged. “I’ll think about grabbing a shotgun or something for my room later. Unless I’m required to?”

“Optional here at this house. Carl’s place. Carl’s rules. Let’s go. I can see you’re freezing.”

Anne looked down at herself and noticed two obvious pokey parts showing. I knew my face was bright red. A rain jacket found its way off a hanger and was in her welcoming hands. At the sound of zipper and tapping of feet behind me, I continued onto the large freight elevator to the side of the cavern. The rolling door wanted to stick, but with a kick at the lower linked metal cage, the stubborn thing closed.

Three levels on the controls were listed. T, C and B. I clicked, and we went down the equivalent of seven stories.

“This is usually where Carl shakes, according to Jimmy.”

Anne laughed at that and put her hands in the jacket pockets.

At the bottom, the fiddly doors opened and revealed three identical doors in a small circular room.

“All are the same. Independent life support systems. Independent everything. Full isolation in case of issues, however, you can cross between them. And all have an escape hatch to a ladder, but that unit on the right has a flooded tube, so you’d have to go out one of the other units.”

I walked Anne into the center unit, which held a gym and fitness pod, large storage unit with a year of food and water, kitchen and bath unit, and finally a small living space with a pair of large TVs, a wall of books and magazines, a video game console, and a stack of newspapers. Space ended with a pair of doors, both open for air flow, four beds per room.

“It doesn’t smell too bad down here,” Anne sniffed. “A little musty and damp. I’d expect worse.”

“The systems cycle a few times a week. If in active use, I’m told it warms up nicely. Water is a problem, though.”

Anne shuddered. “I just had this vision of a leak filling this place up.”

I pointed over my head at a hatch. “And at eight people per unit, not horrible. Also, there are hammocks in storage, and hooks everywhere. I think Carl said these can take up to thirty people for months, but that would be a bit… cramped.”

“Okay, I’m freezing. Good to go?”

“I’ve got the manual in my room. I’ll pass it to you to read. The systems aren’t all that hard to figure out. All are dual-redundant units. Automatic backed up by a full manual or a semi-manual system. The only one that seems to be magic is the sewage processor.”

Anne skidded to a halt on the rubber floor. “Don’t tell me they recycle our pee or something?”

I laughed and nodded. “There is a reclamation system. But the amount of fresh water right under our feet is likely more than we’d even need. There are two wells. Different depths and angles.”

“Whew!”

After one more look around the place and a shudder, Anne followed the path out between the pods and back to the freight elevator.

“So what was your big idea?”

“Oh, that? Something about the chainsaw comment the president made. Also, you never answered me about whether you think the attacks might happen.”

“I don’t know, Anne. I’m guessing yes, though. I don’t understand why people are so bent out of shape over restricting politicians to a single term. It’s been working out great for the executive branch, and most states which use it are doing well.”

“Follow the money, Sam. Follow the dirty money. Senator Flanders had me work up a segment for her about this one guy. Piece of work was in office for almost 40 years. Never worked a day in his life, frequently donated large portions of his salary to charity. Didn’t come from money, but when he finally passed away, he was worth 200 million. Guy owned seven houses, a yacht, and had a collection of Ferrari’s. Explain that to someone struggling on 50 thousand more per year.”

“That’s really what I don’t understand. I get that people who have been in office for years and benefited from it would want to stay. But they’re not the ones threatening massive drone attacks. Who is?”

Anne paused again and touched my arm. “Think, buddy. Those career politicians might have started out from nothing. The old way of getting elected required major investments. Who do you think they borrowed money from to get elected? Who do you think they borrowed more from to kick start their investment portfolio, or finance their mansion?”

“Or pay off their competition?”

Her light touched turned to a soft slap. “Now you’re getting it!”

“That’s also why your job is so important. We shine the light for all to see. Now if I can just figure out what the president was talking about with the shadows on the wall…”