Dark Fate, Book 10 Epilogue (Patreon)

Epilogue – Elsewhere

Being President was not the glorious job that it sounded like when you were a kid. There was a lot of work involved. Long days dealing with politicians, religious leaders, and corporate overlords, all of whom thought that the world revolved around them, and their agendas, both abroad and at home.

It was, to put it bluntly, a pain in the ass.

Especially since he hadn’t actually run for the office! He had never wanted to be President. He still didn’t want to be President. But when the damn Apocalypse kicked off, just over a year ago, he ended up being the highest-ranking survivor in the order of succession.

The President died when Area 51 exploded. The Vice President was killed when his toilet turned into a monster and ate him. Then that brainless idiot Greene from Georgia turned into a zombie, and started biting people. By the time anyone realized what was going on, zombies had overrun the capitol building, because too many conservative representatives and their staffers thought that the reports of zombies were fake news, and tried ignoring the bites. The Speaker of the House died when she, as Acting President, ordered an air strike on her own position, to keep the zombies from spreading to the rest of Washington. And the Secretary of the Treasury was killed by his own security after turning into a Wendigo.

Which left him, the former Secretary of Defense, now President of a country that was still reeling from having 90% of the Legislative Branch wiped out, trying to hold things together at least until the next election, when he could give this job to someone who wanted it. Unfortunately, that was still another year away. Until then, he was the one in charge, so, damn it all, he would do his duty.

The defense contractors and DARPA researchers were all abuzz with delight as they set about reverse-engineering the technology on the pirate ships that had been brought down in the US. Of course, they weren’t just figuring out how to make more of the pirates’ toys. Apparently, they were getting all kinds of ideas about how to mix this magic from the System with good, old, reliable science to make things that, only a year ago, would have been squarely in the realm of science-fiction.

Of course, they were having to combat the risk of ‘brain drain’. That Kingdom of Ceres that just showed up out of nowhere clearly had the edge on everyone. They had actual fighters, and a warship! NASA even reported evidence of ships moving out in the asteroid belt, probably mining. And, before the cloaking device or whatever it was went up, they could clearly see a shipyard at work, making more ships.

Naturally, all the scientists knew that joining Ceres meant that they’d get access to fully realized technology to start working with, instead of busted scraps like those on the ground were forced to use. The lure of that kind of knowledge, just waiting for them, instead of having to reinvent the wheel, was like dangling a steak in front of a pack of starving dogs. The only reason they had any researchers left was because Ceres was being particular, and only taking those who passed some kind of screening process.

The fact that this King of Ceres had apparently been a US Citizen right up until he made the Kingdom was especially galling. If they’d been able to get to him, before then? Well, they wouldn’t be scrambling to catch up in the new Space Race that had been kicked off by that pirate fleet showing up, and proving, once and for all, that humanity was not alone in the universe, and that not everyone out there was friendly.

The economy was also reeling. All pre-system national currencies were essentially being dumped and converted into the System’s currency. Cryptocurrencies had all basically been taken out back and shot, with the various crypto coins being worth less than used toilet paper, currently. Copper Pieces (cp), Silver Pieces (sp), Gold Pieces (gp), and Platinum Pieces (pp) were the new standard. And they were all minted by the System itself, out of thin air, apparently! Even if you had stacks of gold bars, it counted as a trade good, not currency under the System.

The only saving grace was that Unemployment was hovering around 1% for the first time since World War I. Industry was changing, and new roles were opening up all over. Some of that was due to deaths, but there were also plenty of people who were leaving their old jobs to try and be ‘adventurers’, or who were trying their hand at ‘crafting’ professions. Either way, hunting down monsters and diving into dungeons was bringing a steady influx of System currency into the Treasury through income taxes, which helped offset the collapse of traditional currencies.

And here, he’d been, enjoying a quiet evening for the first time since he took office, just finishing a late dinner with his family, when his aide showed up. Aides coming into the Residence, much less during mealtimes, was never a good sign. With a sigh, he downed the last of his wine, and said, “Sorry honey, duty calls.”

Not long after, he was walking into the Situation Room. As expected, there was controlled chaos as people tried to get a read on what was going on. “What do we have?”

General Falcone nodded to the President as he walked in. “Sir. As of twenty minutes ago, satellite surveillance detected a large blast in the North African desert near the Tazirbu oasis in eastern Libya. There are approximately ten villages in the area with a total population of roughly sixty-six hundred people.

“The actual site of the explosion is roughly thirty miles to the southwest of the oasis, in the open desert. It is located at the site of a suspected ISIS training camp, which had been abandoned shortly after the Apocalypse, but was later reestablished. For months, the camp has been using some kind of System tech to blind our satellites, giving us hazy images at best.

“At 01:23 local time, an explosion was detected, clearly visible on satellite. Initial estimates put the blast as roughly equivalent to a 750-kiloton nuclear blast, though that is only a rough estimate. Fortunately, the villages in Tazirbu were well outside the minimum safe distance of twelve and a half miles. Unknown on long-term effects.”

“Wait, nuclear? Are you saying that the terrorists were playing around with NUKES?”

“The situation is more complicated than that, sir. These images were taken just after the blast.” He motioned to a monitor, where an image of some kind of clearly man-made object was seen against the desert. The next image, the object was apparently flying.

“What am I looking at, General?”

“Sir, our analysts suggest that this shape is likely one of the shuttles used by the Kingdom of Ceres. That we are seeing it at all may mean that they had to shut down their cloaking systems temporarily to shield against the blast.”

“Get me a line to the Ceres embassy. I need answers, NOW!”