- Spring 2028 Washington D.C. As winter begins.

“Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?” Malcolm asked as he was being secretly rushed out of the White House.

“Sir, we have to get you to Camp David immediately.” The lead secret service agent replied.

“Camp David? Are we under military threat?”

“We have credible evidence of that sir.”

Malcolm’s expression grew nervous. Who could possibly be considering an attack on the strongest military in the world? He then looked down at the piece of paper in his hands as he was being herded toward the secret service and military convoy. He looked up, with a smirk, as he read the words and looked towards his trail of staffers.

“I accept.” Trenholm said, looking directly at Grady.

“What sir? I, I don’t understand, are you talking to me?”

“I accept your resignation, effective immediately.” Trenholm replied.

“I don’t want him coming with us to Camp David, do you understand me?” Trenholm asked, looking at one of the secret service agents.

“Yes, sir. Come with me Grady.” The agent said, tugging at Grady’s shirt.

“Get your damn hands off me kid. I will follow you, but don’t touch me.” Grady said.

The agent obliged, preventing further escalation. He knew time was of the essence, not fighting with low level former staffers.

“I need your badge.” The agent said, while walking Grady towards the White House gate.

“Kicking me out so soon, eh?” Grady asked.

Grady reached down and grabbed the badge off his shirt and handed it to the agent. Grady’s mood was actually improving, despite the terrifying situation. He couldn’t help but feel the weight being lifted off of his shoulders as he edged ever closer to the gates. Freedom was about to come at last.

Once they reached the gates, the agent gave Grady a little shove across the security checkpoint.

“Don’t let this one back in. He has been relieved of duty.” The agent said to one of the guards, who nodded her head in understanding.

Grady was certainly curious about what the major threat was to the president was. But it wasn’t his problem to worry about anymore. The bigger problem at the moment was figuring out what to do next. Maybe one of his prepper friends, George, no, not George, John, would let him come and hang out for a bit to be safe.

Grady walked out toward his car, scanning the landscape as he moved ever so slowly away. He was looking to see if he could get any glimpse of a sign of what was going on at the White House. All he could really tell was that the secret service was scurrying around, getting everyone out of the White House.

Grady briefly scanned the air over the top of the White House. Was the White House under legitimate threat? Was some country really planning an invasion? Why attack the White House? A few questions ran through his mind.

Grady reached his car, and accidentally bumped into it, as he was so busy scanning the environment. It certainly didn’t feel as if there was a threat. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and for D.C. everything felt pretty orderly and quiet. Grady opened one of the back doors of his Jeep Wrangler and reached his hand out into the back under the blanket he had strategically placed there. He felt what he was looking for, his shotgun. He needed to keep it covered since he was sure there was probably something illegal about carrying it around here, but he didn’t really care what the government said. One advantage that he would miss about working for the White House was that he could much more easily get away with such things. That didn’t matter now though, and he was planning on heading someplace freer, maybe Montana or Wyoming.

Leaving the shotgun covered in the back, Grady jumped into the drivers side and turned the Jeep on and started driving. He was getting as far away from D.C. as he possibly could tonight.

************************************************************************************

“Why are we heading to Camp David, what is the exact threat and why is Camp David ideal?” Trenholm asked his security detail.

“Sir, the NSA intercepted communications about a potential invasion force targeting the White House. As you know Camp David is military hardened and should keep you safe from any kind of invasion force.”

“Really? They plan to send troops in? They will get crushed. Who is ‘they’ in this situation?”

“Sir, we are referring to China and Russia. Seems like it may be a joint mission.”

“Russia? Really? I thought we were on good terms with Russia.” Trenholm said aloud. He began puzzling over this disturbing piece of news. He felt he had worked hard to improve relations with Russia, and now they are going to stab him in the back?

President Trenholm looked down again at the paper he was still inexplicably holding in his hands. He crumpled up the paper and threw it in the trash can.

“Can someone get me Elias Brandt on the phone? I want him to know he is promoted, and I want him at Camp David as soon as possible. Also, when will I be speaking with the Generals?”

“Getting Elias on the phone as we speak sir. As for the Generals, we will be at Camp David shortly. They requested we limit communications until we get there unless it is truly an emergency, just in case the enemy is trying to listen in.”

“Hello?” Elias’ voice rang out.

“Elias old buddy, I thought you should know Grady Vance is out of the picture now. He quit just now as a matter of fact. I want you taking over right away.” President Trenholm relayed.

“Sir, this is wonderful news!” Elias shouted, excitedly.

“Yes, and I will need you at Camp David. We are heading there now, how quickly can you get there?”

“I am at home sir, but it won’t take me long if I rush, depending on traffic.”
“Clear traffic out of the way if you have to! I need you here ASAP, we are going to have an emergency cabinet meeting.”

“I am leaving now sir.”

*************************************************************************************

Grady was moving at a crawl. Traffic was always awful at this time of night. Well, traffic in D.C. felt awful most times of the day in actuality. Each time he traffic stopped he would look up at the sky, still wondering what might be happening. Could the intelligence be wrong? Was this all just a hoax? Who would have the guts to attack the U.S.?

Just then Grady was startled from his thoughts as his phone rang on the Bluetooth.

“Hello?”  Grady said quizzically as he answered the call.

“What the hell Grady?”

“Sophia, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me Grady. What the hell happened? I heard you were booted from th—“

“Jesus, word travels fast huh? I quit Sophia. I wasn’t booted. I quit. And all I can say is good riddance to this awful admin.”

“Why the hell did you quit? Why are you leaving me to answer to Elias? This is awful.”

“I couldn’t do it anymore Sophia. I can’t stand Trenholm. I couldn’t stand him for a long time. And – “

“But you are going to leave us all out to dry. Elias is already asking me to let some of your people go. I am sure I will be next out soon.”

“Is that what this is about? Your career? In the government? Come on Sophia, I thought I knew you better than that.”

“Grady, you know damn well I don’t care about my career or working for the government. But I think we are leaving this country in grave danger, and Elias is just going to let Trenholm –”

“Trenholm is not my problem anymore. America elected that idiot, they can deal with it now.”

“Grady, will you listen for a God damn minute? I was planning this call before I knew you quit, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this now that you have, but you are the only one I feel that I can trust, and maybe you can at least get the President to listen. For old time’s sake.”

“I doubt it but spit it out. And stop using the Lords’ name in vain, will you?”

“Didn’t you just say Jesus? Oh, never mind that. Anyway, I am sure you remember your meeting with Elias this morning, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I think it is worse than we originally thought.”

“Sophia, can you please get to the point? What is worse than we thought?”
“The AI Grady. It, is worse than we thought.”

“How so exactly?”

“We thought at first this was just a recent issue. But it turns out, it has been going on at least a couple of months. It makes something up, and then fills in fake details just like he showed you this morning.”

“OK, I can see that is a problem obviously, but I am not seeing why it is a huge issue. You know I didn’t help the President make plans based on that garbage anyway, we did all of the analysis on our own, and I basically ignored Elias’ reports.”

“I know our team is good, but I dug in with some help with a couple of techies from other parts of the admin. It is all over the place, through all of their analysis they have been doing. The more of my friends I contact, the deeper it seems to go.”

“That begs the question, what the hell do all you techies talk to each other about? Why didn’t you figure this out before?”

“Grady, you know damn well we just figured this out yesterday as I was finishing up the report you asked me to pass through Elias to you.”

“If you want to know why I quit, that’s it right there. Elias didn’t even blink, he thought it was great.”

“Yes, but that isn’t the point, Grady. We need to get this information through to the President. I think you are just about the only one who would be willing to do it, and you are probably the only one he would listen to.”

“He isn’t going to listen to me anymore Sophia. He was so happy when he saw my letter of resignation, you should have seen his face when he read it. Besides, he is locked away at Camp David, I couldn’t even contact him if I wanted to.”

“Camp David? Why is he there?”

“You didn’t know? I have no clue why he is there, the secret service just came in and hustled us all away, until Trenholm read my –”

“No, I didn’t have a clue. What the hell is going on?”

“You should know better than me. Can’t you do your little tech hacky thingy and find out?”

“You watch way too many movies Grady.”

“I know, you always tell me that.” Grady said with a chuckle.

“Hold on, I have a friend over at the NSA, maybe I can sweet talk him into some minimal amount of info. Can I put you on hold for a minute?”

“Sure, go ahead. I don’t know why you need to loop me in though, I am gone.”

“Grady, I know you are curious, even if you want to pretend like you are not.”

“Just do it Sophia.”

She was of course right. Grady was curious, deeply curious about what was going on. Grady heard a loud honk and looked up. The light was green; he hadn’t been paying attention too well during the call. The car behind him gave another curt honk before he put his foot on the gas pedal. Grady responded with a middle finger out the window.

Traffic came to a halt again not long after he passed through the light. Grady couldn’t understand at this point, as he looked around at the surroundings. Why was traffic worse than usual? As his car came to a halt, Grady saw in his rear view mirror the man in the car behind him open the driver side door. Grady unbuckled his seatbelt and reached towards the back of the car.

The man from behind pounded on Grady’s driver side window, cursing at him.

“I will kill you old man!” The man said to Grady.

He raised his hand to pound on the window again, but this time Grady revealed the shotgun in his right hand. The man looked at what was being displayed and put both of his hands in the air. Grady rolled the window down with his left hand.

“Look man, I am having a bad day. Now kindly go get back in your car before you have a bad day too.”

The man stood shaking with his hands up and nodded his head. He walked quickly back to his car.

Grady heard a rumble as the man entered his car. This brought Grady’s attention forward. What is that rumble? Grady jumped out of his car, forgetting that he still had the gun in his hand. As the rumble got closer, he heard a characteristic squeaking. That was the sound of a tank, no multiple tanks, heading his way.

Grady took a step from his still running vehicle and looked around. He figured he was about 5 miles from the White House at this point, looking at the buildings around him. That was his guess anyway. He could see some soldiers that were blocking traffic to allow the tanks to maneuver their way through. The sight was disturbing, and it was clear the people around Grady were nervous too, as they got out of their cars to look.

Grady looked down at his hand and realized he was still holding the gun.

“Oh damn.” Grady said to himself, reaching in the back to hide it under his blanket in the trunk again.

When he looked up again he saw the man who had just attacked him making his way through the crowd of parked cars towards the soldiers.

“Damn rat!” Grady said to himself.

“Hi Grady!” A voice rang out, startling Grady again.

“Jesus, woman, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“You wish. Anyway, I got a little something from my friend, you won’t beli—”

At that moment Grady felt the ground rumbling, but this time it felt like an earthquake, and the sky was filled with light.