Lt. Col. Daniel F. Hunter: Rebuilding The Country

Chapter.28 "The Grey House And Projects At Hand"

    I woke up at about 3:00 AM EST in the car, I was extremely exhausted sleeping in an upright position and just wanted to get to the nearest bed that I could find. It was still dark outside and I could barely see a damn thing, the driver was also tired as the road like I said before was blown to bits during the war, but something seemed a bit off about this road. I was the only one in the car except for the chauffeur, the convoy was right behind us about a few miles back but it was extremely difficult for them to catch up. I hoped Maleter and the others could be a bit more cautious due to the fact that metrocop guerrillas were still active in the Appalachian mountains, the we came to an abrupt stop due to a farm cart in the way, I took this immediately as a warning. I told the driver who had almost no combat experience to carefully and calmly listen to my orders regardless of what happens, I took out my M1911 and slowly with calm step got out of the car. As I got out into the open breeze of air, the temperature was probably around 30 degrees which was pretty cold. Then it came to me suddenly that this type of trap is more of what a human would do rather than of what a metrocop would do, I recognized this as a human made trap, I immediately conducted a search of what in the hell was going on. I knew that I was taking a huge and unnecessary risk but I wasn't afraid to face off of whatever the hell it was, I was ready for anything, I walked to the cart and took a look inside of it. I found a note that said: "Do you love me?", I thought of this as some sort of prank that someone was doing on their crush. Then I got the all too familiar feeling of being watched by envious eyes, then the moon came out and lit up the whole area, it was the most brightest that I have ever seen in my life. As the area began to shine, I could see dark figures among the trees, I could also see a dark outline of a woman trying to hide in the trees but due to the moon, I saw everything.

    I stood my ground and said these words: "Ya'll think I am really that scared, I have seen shit that would give a sane man nightmares and reality checks for days, I am going to give ya'll the chance to stand down and talk this out with me the Chief, or all of you will face the wrath of the American People through me." Then a figure came into view but was quite hard to see since the moonlight shined on everything in my direction, I couldn't tell of who it was but this woman's voice was so familiar but I couldn't pinpoint exactly of who it was. The voice said: "President, I am very afraid of you, I am all but convinced that you are a monster for of what you did to that man.", I said in reply: "Listen, the reason of why I did that is because the motherfucker was committing treason against American and her people.", the voice said again: "President, I can't go on like this and let you destroy an innocent man like that". I finally recognized the voice as it had a thick english accent, I decided to call her by her name hoping for a successful conclusion. I said to Rotha: "Rotha, you have to understand that I am an elected official for the people and we face a grave threat of our time, and I am not allowing anything to stop me from reviving this great nation. I beg you to listen instead of trying to start any type of trouble, now it is not the time to start any trouble, I have way too much on my mind to play this game okay?", she replied in frightened manner: "O...Okay".

    I said in a much calmer voice: "Rotha, please stand down and lets end this in a peaceful way.", she then approached me and wrapped her arms around me, I carried her into the car and finally this crisis ended without violence. I could tell she was tired and she laid down in the back, I sat in the front seat and just watched the road for around 10-15 minutes until I got a radio transmission from Captain Vance, I had a walkie talkie incase if something was to have gone wrong. Vance said he was now in Eire, Pennsylvania trying to stabilize the region with the Canadians, to be honest, I always thought that our northern neighbors were a last holdout before the war. He told me that the Canadians had chose Adrien Arcand as their leader in rebuilding of what was left of Canada and Quebec had became their own nation, this was quite a surprise as I wasn't in contact with Arcand or any other Canadian that I know of, but I didn't really seem to care as I had countries problems to deal with. Vance also told me that there were two USAF S.A.C. Generals who were waiting to see me, I said to Vance who were they, he told me it was Four Star General Buchanan "Buck" Turgidson and Brigader General John Drake "Jack" Ripper. These two names seem so familiar to me but I can't pin point them of where they came from, soon, we were pulling into Appomattox Virginia. This town was desolated and quiet that I literally could hear an ant fart or a shooting star, we all saw a few guard shacks, burned out buildings, and some kind of Combine tank. I remember only seeing a few Universal Union tanks but none quite like this, this thing looked like the fictional M808B Main Battle Take from the Halo games that I used to play, I reported it to Dr. Kleiner but he was still working on how to close the portals off from our world to the Combines world.