America Appears in Another World

Chapter 3: The U.S and a New World

It was my first time entering the emergency operations center. They filled it with important national security advisers and important heads of executive departments. So why am I even here in the first place?

As I was thinking this, the president entered the room and sat at the head of the table.

"Okay everyone, what do we have so far?"

The secretary of defense stood up.

"For now, we have not run into any hostiles. Our scanners and sensors have not picked up any aircraft above any U.S. territory or state. For now, all military installations are on high alert, including state and local coast guards. And with your permission, we would also like to lock down the country so that only allowed personnel can leave and enter the country."

"You mean to restrict public boat and air travel?"

"We would prevent international travel. Domestic flights would still occur, but I will prevent international boat travel."

"Will this be enforceable?"

"If we really want to, then yes."

"I will give the okay on that. However, what of our military bases?"

"No word yet Mr President, we can only assume they vanished like all the other countries. If this is true, we can only assume that nearly 200,000 service members have gone missing. However, this happened right when a significant portion of our service members were rotating out, so it might be less. But we are still figuring out the exact numbers."

The president was silent in contemplation and spoke in a solemn voice.

"First, make sure we have tried all of our options. Our number one priority is to get those men and women safe at home. If we truly cannot contact them, then we must prepare for the largest casualty count since the Vietnam war."

"Yes, Mr President. We will do all we can to see if we can make any contact."

"Good, now what's next on the list."

"Mr President, after a few hours, we could finally put together a rough map based on photographs."

He prompts a map onto the screen in the emergency operations center.

"As you can all see, similar to the documents you each received about an hour ago, the world is significantly different. We have further discovered that to our south, instead of a continent, we now have identified a chain of islands. They are quite big, but it does not connect them to the continental U.S."

"Do people live on those islands?"

"For now, we have identified some inhabitants, however they don't seem to have any capabilities to communicate via telecommunications. But for now, we are keeping tabs on them."

"What of the north?"

"To our north is a vast forest uninhabited. However, our military has set up a rough preliminary border in the north."

"Why is that?"

"We have identified some hostile animals which look sort of like bears, but not really."

"What?"

"What I mean to say is that they are unlike anything we have seen before. But these, "bear" like creatures are hostile to people and can be quite dangerous. I suggest we set up a hard border to prevent them from spilling over."

"Secretary of the interior, what is your opinion on this issue?"

"Mr president, so far there has been no reports of these bears in the U.S. except limited reports in the state of Montana. If we set up this hard border, it will prevent an invasive and hostile species from entering. However, it appears these animals are quite problematic."