Nodding, Mike pressed the button and turned back to the screen. “Gene and I are splitting your next outing, so go be a new daddy and baby those mommas,” Mike said then looked up at Bruce. “They’ve earned it and so have you.”
“Thank you, brother,” Bruce said, wrapping Mike in a bear hug.
“With you leading us, Bruce, is how we win,” Mike said as Bruce released him.
“Looks like seven million blues will be pulled to the camp from our preliminary counts,” Matt said.
“That should do it,” Bruce said.
“Go,” Mike said, pointing at the door. “We have this.”
Bruce smiled and walked out, hearing Matt yell that he got to push the next button as Jake shouted, “You just want to rub it in Danny’s face!”
Epilogue
Sixty-four years later
A guard on the southeast wall looked down as the electric car stopped at the base of the wall. An elderly lady climbed out and he smiled as she pulled an ancient Galil assault rifle from the car and closed the door. She moved to the steps that had been built for her from the bottom of the berm up to the top, where a bunch of troops had built a small pavilion for her.
Every day she was in Base Hope, she would come around noon and just sit, looking out over the wall. Watching her come up the stairs, the guard smiled at how the eighty-plus year old moved. When she reached the top, she slung the rifle over her shoulder and the guard saluted.
“General,” he said, holding the salute.
Lifting her head and looking at the guard encased in a space-age suit of metal, Danny smiled at the guard, “I haven’t been a general for a long time, trooper.” She returned the salute and the guard dropped his hand.
“It’s my honor,” the guard said, bowing his head. “Do you need anything before I continue my patrol?”
Looking at the man’s rank, “No, sergeant,” Danny said as the man lifted his head and gave her a nod. As he walked off, she heard the mechanically enhanced suit he wore make whining sounds from the small motors. “I don’t care what anyone says, those suits were Jake’s and Matt’s best inventions.”
Taking her rifle off, Danny sat it by her chair and sat down, letting out a sigh. Turning to the north, she looked at the massive wall that housed the city of Hope. The original walled area held the base now. Hope was sixty miles by sixty miles and surrounded by a thirty-foot wall of concrete. Just like her Dad had said long ago, man would have to stay behind walls and it was still holding true.
Looking at the towering skyscrapers rising out of Hope, Danny shook her head. “I still can’t believe how far we’ve come,” she said, relaxing back in her seat. Her Dad had declared the war over five years after launching it, but even here in America, troops were still hunting blues.
The latest estimates put the total around five million, but they had a lot of area to hide in. Truth be told, blues were just one worry out in the wilderness. Wild animals killed more people than blues did now. Animals saw anything walking on two legs and attacked.
Just a few weeks ago, a man working on the railroad was killed by a herd of white tailed deer in Texas. The herd had charged him and stomped him to death. That was life in the wilderness. The area outside the walls was classified as the wilderness.
Huge walled cities held the sixty million people who lived in North America. Some lived outside of the cities, but even those enclaves were surrounded by walls, and all had to follow the law of the land.
Before Dad had relinquished power after the war, he’d rewritten the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, making several changes. The right to bear arms was made the first amendment and clearly spelled out that any citizen could own the same weaponry as the standing military, issued to the standard soldier. The only thing it excluded was nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Dad wanted to make sure if this shit happened again, everyone would stand a chance.
In that first amendment, he’d put that every citizen had to know how to protect themselves and their fellow citizens. That was why learning how to fight was part of the test to become a citizen. No longer, could you say you were a citizen until you’d passed the test and met the requirements.
Every citizen had to serve two years in public service before they could apply for citizenship. Dad wanted everyone invested in their country. You didn’t have to serve in the military. You could build bridges, maintain the infrastructure, help farming, anything that helped your fellow citizens.
The new second amendment was absolute sovereignty of an individual’s rights. If a person wanted to kill them self, they could. Or wanted to do drugs, they could. The only time that right was suspended was when it interfered with the rights of others.
The amendment that made Danny laugh was the ninth. Any politician that introduced or supported a bill that restricted, in any way, the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, received a death sentence.
There were twenty-three amendments and like her kids and grandkids, she knew them by heart. The twenty-second amendment stated that all laws passed had two sundowners’ clauses, each of four years. In this way, each law had to be passed three times before it became a standing law.
In the Constitution, Dad had redesigned the government and outlawed single judges. All judges were three person panels that were drawn from the population. From the twenty-seven in the Supreme Court to the local judges, no one person held massive power. Any person holding a Bachelor’s degree or above was automatically enrolled in the selection pool. The fact that over eighty percent of the adult population held doctorates, meant there were plenty to choose from.
The tenth amendment stated that the government, state, and federal combined, could never receive more than ten percent of any citizen’s earnings in taxes, if they were enrolled in education, and could never exceed twenty for any reason. That was why everyone stayed in school.
Healthcare was free and paid by your taxes, but if you weren’t in shape, you were fined. A person didn’t have to be a health nut but if you just sat around, you weren’t viewed in high regard by your fellow citizens. Unlike what she remembered as a kid, healthcare was now beyond anything one could imagine back then. What could be done now was incredible.
School started at the age of two and literally never stopped. Danny smiled, remembering her nine-year-old grandbaby asking her for help with her calculus. “Momma is proud,” Danny smiled.
The one thing that was driven into kids from an early age was honor. Honor in family, self, and country. There weren’t any real prisons because the only real punishment was death, with the exception of banishment and public floggings. Since the new America covered the entire globe, Dad had designated the country of Madagascar as a land of banishment.
If a person couldn’t fit in, they got a ticket to Madagascar. It was the only place on earth where the Bill of Rights and Constitution didn’t reach.
At the end of the war, the population demanded that Dad become president. Kicking and screaming, she watched her Dad sworn in as the first new president and Daddy Mike, the first vice president. She was sure the only reason Dad took it was because of the eleventh amendment. No person could serve more than ten years total in public office, state, and federal combined.
The first Congress adopted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, adding the twenty-third amendment. A popular vote by the population affected could extend the office by one term for any person holding that office, if the population so voted.
Dad almost vetoed that one, but went along with it. She was sure the only reason he didn’t was it had outlawed any political party and all for profit special interest groups. Another thing Dad had done was bring in a fourth branch of the government; the implementation branch. One representative elected from each state. Their only job was to make sure everyone else followed the letter of the law, set forth in the Constitution. Just to make sure it never got too strong, the other branches were given arms to oversee the implementation branch.
A smile parted Danny’s face as she reached up, tou
ching the glasses she wore. “Dad’s first Inaugural Address,” she said out loud. A prism of light shot from the glasses, forming a 3D picture hovering in front of her in the air, “Play,” Danny said, looking at her Dad.
“Yeah, you suckered me in here,” Bruce said with a huff and the crowd cheered. When the crowd became quiet, Bruce looked out over them. “The first phase of this war is over, but not the work that needs to be done. From our great nation of three hundred million, only five million are here with us today. I’m asking this new Congress to adopt what has guided us here. States will hold the power as it always should’ve been and the federal government is only there to make sure the states never violate that. Mistakes were made before the fall of mankind and I vow, those mistakes will never be made again.” The crowd cheered as Bruce looked back at Angela and Stephanie.
“Stop,” Danny said, freezing the image and looking at her Dad smiling. “Close,” she sighed and the image flickered off. That was the year they’d lost Marcus and Carroll.
A tear ran down Danny’s cheek and she wiped it off. “I’m not thinking about that today,” she said.
Hearing an electric car stop below her, Danny glanced over her shoulder to see an elderly woman step out. Reaching in and grabbing a rifle, the woman shut the door, slinging her long light blonde hair back. Walking up the steps as the car pulled away, Danny sighed at the pronounced limp as the woman favored her hip.
“I swear someone added some steps,” she said, stopping at the top and looking at Danny.
“Buffy, you say that every time,” Danny chuckled. “Hip hurting today?”
“I’m not getting another new one,” Buffy snapped as she moved over and sat down beside Danny. Setting her rifle down, Buffy looked out over the wall. “You ready for today?”
“As much as I can be,” Danny said and the smile dropped off.
Buffy turned her head back, looking at the road that ran past the farm. A line of statues was on both sides of the road. “I still want to blow up my statue,” Buffy groaned.
“Buffy, it’s been there for twenty-three years,” Danny laughed.
“So?” Buffy grunted.
Danny turned around, looking at the ‘Road of Hero’s’. It was a line of thirty-foot marble statues of the first command group and family, along with others from the beginning. The last was Dad. “I’ll remind you, like I did to Dad. If you do, you will be punished,” Danny said then looked across the road.
Directly across from the old farm an exact replica was built the way the farm looked before the Fall. Danny didn’t like going there. It was scary how much it looked like the place she’d grown up in. In the kitchen, were figures that looked just like Mom, Dad, Daddy Mike and Momma Nancy, sitting at the table like they did when the Fall started. Even her room looked like it did and that was because Mom had taken pictures all the time.
“I’ll take shit detail,” Buffy said, rubbing her hip.
Laughing, Danny nodded her head. “Yes, the one thing that has truly stayed is shit detail.” There was almost no crime with the exception of petty theft and those found themselves picking up shit, from the parks in the city to the animal fields outside the city.
“Daddy should’ve fought harder to stop them from putting them up,” Buffy said, leaning back in the chair.
Relaxing back in her chair, Danny said. “Buffy, Angela and Stephanie told him to keep his mouth shut. The people wanted to honor those that fought.”
“I know,” Buffy sighed as Danny thought about Angela and Stephanie. She was beyond thankful for Mom making sure Dad wasn’t alone. There was no doubt in Danny’s mind, they would’ve lost Daddy without them.
That didn’t mean she didn’t feel sorry for Daddy a lot. “Man, Dad never really had a chance against them,” Danny said out loud.
“Huh?” Buffy said, glancing over.
“Nothing, just thinking how Angela and Stephanie were always there for Daddy,” Danny said.
Looking back over the wall, Buffy nodded with a big sigh. “I don’t want to think of what would’ve happened without them.”
“Hell, I wanted to ask them if they knew what made kids,” Danny laughed.
Slapping her leg, Buffy laughed. “Yeah, Stephanie had five kids and Angela had four.”
When they stopped laughing, Danny looked over at Buffy. “Are you still mad at Marty?”
“He won’t quit spoiling the great-grandbabies,” Buffy huffed. “They need to be tough and he just lets them off. I did pushups when I got the answer wrong, and by damn they will too.”
“Buffy, you’re a little old to try to drag him outside and beat him down,” Danny grinned.
“Bullshit,” Buffy snapped. “You saw she did those pushups, didn’t you?”
“Did you know the answer?”
Buffy looked at Danny hard, “I’ve never studied particle physics. Why a twelve-year-old needs to know that I don’t know, but she better know how to do it.”
They both looked out over the wall as a loud thumping hum sounded off to their right. Looking out over the lake, they saw one of the airborne bases. Danny thought they looked like those flying aircraft carriers from the Avengers, just much bigger.
During the second year of the war, the scientists had developed remarkable hydrogen power plants. A fifty horsepower engine that weighed three pounds. Those scientists, along with Jake and Matt had developed some of the coolest and deadliest weapons ever conceived.
Guns that shot caseless bullets over nine thousand feet per second, mechanized suits that matched blues in strength, and later models that could fly. Danny had painted her first one to look like Ironman and almost made her Dad pass out; he loved Batman.
The first flying base was operational the last year of the war and took a whole year to build. It was twice the size of an aircraft carrier and when Danny saw it, she couldn’t believe her eyes when it lifted off in the air.
Of all the amendments that Bruce had put in, Danny remembered him fighting the hardest with number twenty. No more than ten percent of any estate could be passed down to another generation. Dad never wanted powerful families to ever again be above the law. Danny didn’t mind and loved it. Everyone started out the same and only through hard work and education could you advance.
Because of Jake’s and Matt’s companies, she was one of the richest people on the planet, and be damned if she was going to just give that away. She and Matt were slowly donating it, mainly to medical and space research.
One she always was hesitant of was the eighteenth amendment, that said the government could never maintain a standing army of more than fifty thousand and each state could do the same. This didn’t include the Praetorian Guard for each city. That one amendment almost cost the country and she had told Dad when he’d written it, that it needed to be changed. In Bruce’s last year of his first term, a mega horde crossed the Bering Strait.
Bruce became the second president to lead an army in the field as he’d called up all who had served and faced off against a hundred million strong blue horde. They may have had new weapons, but the clan still paid a dear price for this land. That was the battle in which the family lost David and Mindy, along with an entire regiment. In that battle, was when Danny got to push a button, launching a nuclear weapon and it still took another year to mop up the blues.
The eighteenth amendment was the only one changed that said each state had to maintain a fifty thousand strong fighting force, along with the government.
“Carroll got into the flight academy,” Buffy said.
Danny smiled at the name of Buffy’s grandchild. “What’s she going to specialize in?” Danny asked.
Letting out a huff, “Spacecraft,” Buffy said. “Look at all the cool stuff here and she’s going to fly ships out there.”
“Don’t let Matt and Jake hear you,” Danny grinned. Fifteen years after their fathers were in the Oval Office, Jake and Matt were elected. “The space program is their baby.”
“Remember that reporter asking D
ad what he thought about the space program?” Buffy laughed and Danny tapped her glasses.
“Interview of Dad talking to reporter about space program,” Danny chuckled.
“Which interview,” a small computer voice asked.
“The first one,” Danny said and a prism of light shot out.
“I remember when you had to type on a keyboard, searching the net to find stuff,” Buffy said, looking at the image of a sixty-year-old Bruce sitting across from a young lady.
“Buffy, I’m older than you,” Danny said. “Play.”
“Bruce, what do you think of your son’s decision to start the space program?” the young woman asked.
Bruce looked at the woman like she was stupid. “Any person with half a brain wants this. If something ever happens here on earth, we’ll have somewhere to run to, woman,” he snapped. “Another plague or asteroid coming? We can run, we will have an option.”
“Stop,” Danny said smiling. “With that one statement, Dad turned an idea everyone laughed at to a national directive.”
“Well, he was right,” Buffy said. “I wish Daddy Mike could’ve seen the first shuttle launch,” Buffy said with a frown.
Letting out a mournful sigh, “Yeah,” Danny said, thinking of the three-hundred-mile-long tunnel built across Cuba. It’d been the brainchild of Matt and Jake. A shuttle, three times the size of a 747, hovered in the tunnel using magnets and then accelerated to Mach 30 before it even left the ground. Mike had passed before it’d been finished, six years after the boys served two terms.
“So many have left us,” Buffy said, wiping her eyes.
“I’m not thinking about that today,” Danny said, forcing herself not to cry. The images of those that had died were pushed from her mind.
“Getting old sucks,” Buffy mumbled.
Danny laughed and looked over at her, “Yes, it does.”
Lifting her arm, Buffy looked at her watch, “The tourists should be cleared out, you ready to head down?”
The replica farm and the real farm were both tourist attractions now and always had a crowd. Hell, there was a group that took people on hikes that followed the route Bruce and Mike had taken from the hospital. But today, the real farm was cleared for family only.
Blue Plague (Book 7): Hope Page 52
