Author's Note: This fic takes a long time and I have to be "in the mood" to write this particular fic. Surprisingly my mood has been in just such a dark place as to be able to make some progress on this.
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Tunnel 7, 21 weeks Post-Apocalypse
Danny did not seem to be getting any better. After the operation to repair his shattered skull and the hematoma, Danny still hadn't regained consciousness. They were lucky that they had gotten to him quickly that he hadn't had a hemorrhagic stroke. However, the pressure on the brain had caused atrophy of some blood vessels and the aftermath of the release of the pressure still hadn't caused his brain to fully correct the damage. For now, Danny Zhou was still in a coma and they were no further to finding out who did it.
"Tosh, we have no idea when Danny will come out of the coma or if he will come out." Dr. Raoul Mendez, head of the shelter trauma team said. "It all depends on how well he fights off the neurological damage and whether his brain reroutes the relays so that he can regain consciousness."
"So he may not ever come out of his coma?" Animal asked looking down at an ashen Danny who lay motionless in his bed. Dr. Raoul Mendez shook his head, his expression sorrowful.
"It may come to that." Was his only response.
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia – Tom Boone's Quarters, 21 weeks Post-Apocalypse
"I want you to find out who the goddamned hell did this to Danny!" Boone snapped, his countenance ferocious. "I don't care if you have to take every damned occupant and line them up against a wall with a fucking Tucker Telephone attached to their privates. I wanna know who the hell did this and I wanted to know who…yesterday!"
"Goddamn it. Tom!" Animal exploded. "We do that, we're going to have a bloody insurrection! I'm just as fucking pissed off as you, but I'm not going to turn around and torture someone to get the information out of them. What we need is a person who will feed us information cunningly; maybe one of the cooks in the galley, who the hell knows…but we need to do this resourcefully so that they don't get the idea that we're on to them."
"OK, smart-guy, what do you suggest?" Tom retorted sarcastically as he looked around at Harm and Animal. "You have an idea how we can manage to get a mole into the population?"
"They'll talk; it's just that they won't if we're around. We need to keep those of us away from the rest of the population so that they have the space to start chattering amongst themselves and we've done that by taking over the armory. What we need is a mole and we need several to keep feeding us information so that we can eventually smoke the guy who did this to Danny out." Harm's eyes narrowed as he thought for a long moment. "And who less obvious than a cook? Most guys talk while they're shoveling food in their mouths. And cooks are always in the galley cooking food while the rotations come in and out. If we swing a few extra perks their way, then they might be likely to give up information and we'll find out what we need."
"So who's going to approach them? We're too obvious." Boone said. "We're the ones that the rest of the populace doesn't like."
"Bait and switch." Animal suggested, with an evil grin. "Haul a cook up here on the pretext that he's getting called on the carpet for something with regards to the food and then lay it out on the line for him that we want him to be a mole."
"In other words, make him a deal that he can't refuse?" Boone asked. Animal nodded smugly. "So you think you can manage to get him to deal cards?" Boone looked doubtful as he looked over at Harm. "What do you think about the whole thing?" he asked Harm.
"It's worth a shot. Tom. Otherwise we'll never smoke out the guy who did this to Danny."
"OK…so who is the likely candidate in the galley to approach?"
Ballistic Missile Submarine October Revolution; McMurdo Station, 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse.
"Captain Van Buren, you are welcome to McMurdo Station, comrade. What a mess we have found ourselves in." Captain Semyanov smiled. "I wonder if there is anyone else who has survived this exercise in stupidity."
"So far, Captain, we've found nobody else. And our communications array is still being affected by the radiation drifting in both hemispheres." Captain Van Buren replied to the Russian officer. "So far we have no idea whether anyone in either hemisphere other than ourselves have survived this nuclear exchange."
Captain Semyanov snorted. "Curse war…" he uttered a Soviet quote. "Leonid Brezhnev once said… Detente is a readiness to resolve differences and conflicts not by force, not by threats and sabre-rattling, but by peaceful means, at the conference table. It is a pity for the world that we did not listen to his recommendation."
Captain Van Buren had no ready response for that, only that he agreed entirely with Captain Semyanov's assessment of the situation.
"Sir!" Commander Turner approached Captain Van Buren. "There's a temperature drop coming courtesy of a polar jet stream headed our way. We're going to have to get our men under cover."
"Alright. Commander Turner. Do so quickly…inform the Russian crew as well that they need to get under cover. Captain Semyanov, I will have to return to my sub with my crew for the duration of this windstorm."
"Very well, Captain."
Freedom Bunker, Somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains, 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse
"Saul is coughing up blood now." Rachel told Billy Joe. "He's dyin'; he can't keep anything down and everything's breakin' down inside him." Saul looked ashen, and Rachel had to clean him up several times because he couldn't keep anything inside him, not food, not water, not even waste.
"Ain't nothin' I can do…Rachel, I gotta keep the rest of us alive." Billy Joe replied as he looked at the rest of the group in the bunker. "How much food do we have left?"
"Enough to keep us for about another three months." Timmy replied looking over at Chet and Shorty. Lisa and Riley were cooking up some chicken soup from a can. "Don't tell Mel Saul's dyin'. She won't be able to take it."
"Radiation levels are still too high to go out safely. Dad." Patrick told Timmy. "When are we gonna be able to get out of here."
"We'll get outta here, son, when we get outta here, not a minute sooner." Timmy rounded on Patrick, his eyes flashing. "You understand. Out there is death and you step outta here, you step right into its jaws. Now's not the time to be going cabin feverish." Grabbing his son by the shoulders, Timmy shook him hard. "Don't you be thinkin' about makin' a break for it. Cause you'll contaminate the rest of us."
"Yeah, Dad. I'm stayin' right here. I don't wanna die." Patrick looked fearful, looking at the very edge of sanity in his father's eyes.
"We stay here till we run out of food, then we have to go out and start lookin'." Billy Joe replied as he looked over at Timmy. "We've got three months of food excluding Saul." He said coldly as he looked for any dissent. "Saul's dyin'. There ain't nothing I can do about that. It means one less mouth to feed and more food for the rest of us. We stay for two more months until we run down to one month of our supplies left then we start migrating west." Billy decided as he looked over at the group. "We stay here we perish."
"So where do we find more food that isn't contaminated by radiation?" Rachel asked doubtfully.
"I'm sure the forest and mountains have shielded the majority of the small towns from a lot of the fallout. We'll hunt through their convenience stores and see what they have…to add to our supplies and then we'll head southwest and then due west; avoidin' the big cities." Billy Joe pulled out a map and pointed to the Kanawha State Forest. "Here's where we are…here's the route we're going. We're going to stay clear of Lexington. It's big enough that it's gotten hit."
Australian High Command Nuclear Bunker, Alice Springs, Australia – 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse
"Captain Brumby." Formerly Commander Mic Brumby still hadn't got used to his new rank. As a Navy Captain, he now wore four stripes– the one nearest the neck looping in a circle, promoted after he learned that the majority of RAAN High Command was now vaporized It differentiated the rank from the Seppos who wore straight stripes and an upside down star. "We've established communications with Cheyenne Mountain. Evidently they've survived. The Chinese landed quite a few good hard hits on us before we hit them back. Watson got pummeled. The Chinks saved a Dong Feng for us; bloody slant-eyes knew where to hit us. So our maritime warfare training school is radioactive rubble." Lieutenant Commander Colin Jones informed Brumby.
"Bloody hell…" swore Brumby as he looked over at the report. "Get them on the line. I want to know if the Seppos have managed to link up with any of their survivors. If they haven't got anything new to update, I don't wanna be pushing shit uphill with a rubber fork on a hot day." When the connection was made, Brumby asked. "Alice Springs, Cheyenne Mountain, have you got an update?"
"Alice Springs, Cheyenne Mountain, We know most of our bunkers survived. We're in communication with Mt. Storm and Crow Rock. Mt. Storm decided to go on their own." The response came soon enough. "Crow Rock is encased in radiation due to multiple nuke hits but they haven't been breached.
"Any chance we'll have trouble with Mount Storm?" Brumby asked.
"Negative…they just want to be left on their own for a while until they come to grips with the situation. So that's what we're doing."
"So what happens now?"
The reply from Cheyenne was sobering. "We wait out the radiation..."
"Did we wipe out all the nuclear weapons?" Brumby inquired, hoping the answer was 'yes' and hoping that the Americans had used up all their weapons as well as any other nuclear power.
"Negative. Mt. Storm has 36 special weapons still left in their armory. But they're all aircraft delivered, gravity, no MIRVs; no ICBMs."
"So they have control and bargaining power. That's just fucking great. Any left in your bunker?"
"Negative. We are command and control, no special weapons."
"God, Cheyenne, you got a rogue bunker that has nuclear weapons?" Brumby slapped his own forehead. "I sure hope this doesn't come back to bite ya in the ass."
"We're monitoring the situation, Alice Springs."
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. Office Commanding Officer,
North American Aerospace Defense Command, 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse
"Have we heard any thing as to how Mt. Storm intends to go?" General Stafford asked.
"Well, sir, we heard from RADM Boone, he intends to remain neutral for the time being. Right now they are in the control seat as they have thirty-six special weapons still remaining in their nuclear armory. Since we are command and control, we have nothing of the sort with which to retaliate if they launch an attack."
"What about Crow Rock."
"They only have SADMs which they would have to expose themselves to lethal radiation to egress from their shelter." Colonel Mitscher replied. "Of concern is the fact that Mt Storm has access to six Mod 11s in their arsenal of B-61s air-drop weapons; the rest being mod 4s." General Stafford's eyebrows went up in consternation. "Yes, sir. 340kt warhead yields on the six Mod 11 B-61s – it can do a lot of damage, sir even though they wouldn't be able to penetrate our blast doors."
"And Mt. Storm also has a subterranean air-base from which to conduct airborne operations." General Stafford said. "This is a dangerous situation, but you don't prod the bear if you don't have a means of reprisal." He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "Right now, we wait to see how it goes."
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Armory; 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse
Harm looked worriedly at Animal when Animal sighed. "Tomorrow we call in Mike Hughes. According to Bud, that's one of the guys who can feed us information."
"He's a cook?"
"Yeah, one of the ones that we have in the galley." Animal replied as he reached for the file on the desk and handed it to Harm. "Here's his dossier."
"OK…I'll take a look." Harm replied as he looked over at the file looking for a hope that they would be able to find the person that had perpetrated the assault on Danny Zhou.
National Audiovisual Conservation Center, Culpeper, VA 22 weeks, Post-Apocalypse
The National Audiovisual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia was not prepared for the nuclear holocaust. The conservation center was designed with storage of either monies or artwork and music in mind. Security cameras trained in on the workers in the vault and on the atrium. If anyone was alive to view the security cam footage that looped endlessly taping over what had been taped previously in eight- hour increments, they would have seen the security guards were found dead of radiation exposure out in the atrium. Even worse yet, would have been the sight of the few grisly remains of those in the vault, the survivors cannibalizing the bodies of those who had died and who had, in turn, died when that gruesome form of nourishment ran out. The vault had become a necropolis.
The radiation had yellow and withered the grass outside the reflecting pond, the trees suffering radiation burns causing the chlorophyll to dry up and in turn, destroying the tree from the inside out, leaving nothing but skeletal remains of what used to be an icon of nature. The wooden trellises remained intact from the radiation, a malignant reminder of formerly living architecture in the face of death. Culpeper, VA had been too far away from population centers to have received the full wrath of nuclear weapon bursts but had been subjected to radiation and fallout which had wreaked their damage upon whatever had been alive. Large regional airports were targets, subjected to near one megaton airbursts, low enough in altitude to do serious damage to runways and infrastructure, putting them out of commission.
In fact, the Russian and Chinese target strategy had been to eliminate all large runways that could support jet aircraft, thus the United States had been carpet-bombed with nuclear weapons to eliminate such eventualities as jet operable runways and functional energy centers such as electrical power stations, atomic reactors, and oil, natural gas and propane refineries. Trade centers such as seaports were also targeted by tactical nuclear weapons from submarines.
Likewise, the United States had responded in kind, targeting population centers to erode morale and military centers. All in all, this had resulted in the complete and utter annihilation of the Northern and much of the Southern Hemispheres which were now covered in lethal radiation, despite eroding exponentially, was still hazardous to life. Much of earth's species were eliminated; the only ones remaining were radiation resistant bacterium. Earth was a sterile, radioactive wasteland. Repopulation was a myth and would remain so for many tens of thousands of years on the surface of the earth. In the bunkers however, humanity struggled to survive.
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Armory; 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse
Mike Hughes' view on the situation was frank and honest. He gave his viewpoint as he saw it. He agreed with Harm that they wouldn't survive if the situation with the Malcontents was allowed to continue and decided that he was willing to take steps to bring any suspicious activity to the attention of the Privileged. He was brought there on the pretext that something was wrong with the food that was being prepared and was ready to defend himself against false accusations but his defensiveness was defused when he was approached by Harm to ask him if he was willing to notify the Privileged of any attempts to sabotage and/or hurt those in charge. An insurrection was the last thing Mount Storm needed.
"I'll do it." Mike replied extending his hand to shake Harm's. "I'll keep a quiet eye out and let you know if there's anything going on. I'll report to Bud Roberts and he'll let you know."
"Good. We want everyone to survive and if everyone is to stay alive, we have to all be on the same page."
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Corridor 7, Unit 16, 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse
"Are you stupid?!" Sarah Mackenzie held her K-Bar at the throat of Andrew Simone as she gave him a glare that she wished were lethal. "You now have the Privileged paranoid. They're already armed with side-arms, now they venture from their hidey-hole with submachine guns. Do you really want a confrontation with them that badly?"
Simone spat, "Better than hiding under rocks like a cockroach or letting the Privileged do with us as they will…"
"One of these days, you'll bring the wrath of the Privileged down on us and end our lives." Mackenzie uttered; her voice guttural and ominous, "And when you do…I hope I'm still around to see it when you're cut down like a rabid dog."
Simone smirked. "Are you frightened? Mackenzie? Do you really think they've caught on as to who cracked that chink's head like a watermelon? Right now the Privileged can't find their way out of a water-tank with a gaping hole; they're too busy fucking each other to care."
"Don't think so…" John Hambly, the Malcontents' leader replied…as he stepped into Unit 16. "We've heard scuttlebutt that the Privileged are looking for those responsible for the injury to their own. You were told to keep this on the down-low, and you fucked up." He snarled at Simone. "You fuck up one more time; I'll find a way to make you suck rads."
Simone shook off the hand holding him to the wall and batted the K-Bar aside. "That sounds like a threat." He squared his shoulders, muscles rippling and leaned forward to Hambly as he took a threatening step forward. "I don't give a shit about what the Privileged are doing…"
"Well, you'd better care about what attention you're bringing down on us." Mackenzie snapped back at Simone. "…because what you're doing will get us dead quicker than you can blink. Right now you're nothing but a rabid dog snapping at anything that moves."
John spun around and smashed a fist into Simone's face, sending the former Marine crashing to the ground. "…and you'd better hope and pray that your actions don't bring the Privileged's attention on us or I will slit your throat." Pulling his own combat knife, he held it in his hand, silently daring Simone to get up and challenge him.
"One of these days, I'm going to make you regret that…" Simone's face twisted into a feral smirk. Hambly's response was a grim stare as Simone gathered himself up and slunk out the door of the unit.
After the door closed behind Simone, Mackenzie said. "We're going to have trouble keeping him under leash. He's a ticking time-bomb and it's only a matter of time before he blows up and takes us all with him."
"So what do you suggest we do to defuse him?"
"Set him up for a fall…" Mackenzie replied. "It's going to mean that I'm going to have to talk to one of the Privileged to remove him, but that'll take the heat off the rest of us."
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. Office Commanding Officer,
North American Aerospace Defense Command, 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse
General Stafford stood at the head of the conference table as he looked over at his staff. "What info have we got from the Russians and do they have any second strike capability?"
"Not from what we can see, sir." Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Michel Parenteau, Royal Canadian Air Force, replied, "But we have a complete communications blackout, radiation storm arriving in sixty minutes." The prevailing jet stream was sending radiation around the globe interrupting any surviving communications and microwaving any living organism standing outside the bunker if there were any still alive.
"So the only way we know if the Russians still have active nuclear weapons is if one lands on our doorstep? Hell of a way to get intel." Stafford quipped.
Colonel Hanson looked at his commander, the deputy commander of NORAD/NORTHCOM, "Sir, the only stockpile that we believe is still active is the research that the Soviets did in the fifties. Everything else was used in the all or nothing strike – the bomb casings for the bomb known as Tsar Bomba or Kuz'kina Mat' are in museums that may or may not have been destroyed. Unfortunately, we don't know if they still have useable uranium. The Kuz'kina Mat' was a U-235 core with a lithium trigger with a suspected yield of over fifty megatons. They were considering testing one that was almost a hundred megatons in yield, but opted to go with the lower yield for the actual test in sixty-one." He paused for a long moment. "If they drag out the secondary weapon, it will more than likely be set for full yield of one hundred megatons and that would crack any of our bunkers like an egg."
Sharp indrawn breaths were audible around the table at the grim news. General Horner replied. "So Colonel, what do you suggest we do to prevent our demise from a hundred megaton yield weapon like that?"
"The only hope is that they haven't got any more pilots to man any surviving nuclear-capable bombers such as the Bear, because that's the only way that they'll get it over to us. It's a gravity bomb and is dropped from an aircraft. There's no way the Russians can fix it to a missile and launch it at us, if there are even any missiles left for them to fire at us."
"So, we don't know anything about any threats from overseas…" General Stafford commented. "We're blind to any threat that's still out there, other than rogue bunkers."
"Sir, all we know is that we've irradiated the entire Northern and Southern Hemispheres to the point where there isn't a single damned thing on this earth. I don't think the Russians will be retaliating any time soon. With any luck, they've gone back to living underground like moles…" Colonel Hanson replied. "…just like we are."
"How many of us are in this bunker?" General Stafford asked.
"We have at last count over twelve hundred people, sir."
"Do we have enough rations to feed all of them for an extended period of time?"
"Sir…our water supply is replenishable, our foodstocks are not. The farms that were supposed to be implemented so that we could grow food were axed in the the 1996 budget cuts. We will have to venture out to the surface in a year or risk starvation."
It goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars between nations result. ~Hideki Tojo
USS Birmingham SSBN-588, McMurdo Station, Antarctica, 23 weeks Post-Apocalypse
Captain Van Buren looked over at Commander Turner. "What are the readings on the Geiger Counter?"
"We're still holding steady at 400 millirems considering that the background radiation level is significantly higher with regards to UV-B radiation." Commander Turner replied as he assessed the gauge. "Our medical officer should be able to inform us as to what the health ramifications of the increased exposure to UV-B." Luckily the USS Birmingham's medical officer was on an onboard rotation when the war started, so she ended up staying on board.
Lieutenant Sandra Leighton was the onboard undersea medical officer who ended up in charge of health onboard the US Navy ballistic missile sub. When they had debarked at McMurdo, she also assisted Captain-Lieutenant Aleksey Golubev, the Chief Medical Officer on board the October Revolution to help the Russian sailors as well as did Golubev in return for the American sailors.
Every so often spikes of radiation from the north caused the sailors to have to retreat into the cover of their ships, but the good news was that the radiation was starting to lessen 23 weeks post-nuclear war. Perhaps the Antarctic would create an oasis from the wastelands that were the Northern and upper Southern hemispheres.
"Are there any signs that the radiation is receding?" Captain Van Buren asked.
"We've noticed a lessening in the radiation counts." Commander Turner responded pointing to the radiation reading charts. "It's a good sign, but I'm wary still…"
"How are the rations over at the greenhouses at the station?"
"We're doing alright, there was a good supply of seeds from the greenhouses that weren't contaminated by excessive amounts of radiation so we've started them growing. The greenhouses are warm so that the growing time isn't excessive. The UV-B radiation is a concern though, at least that's the impression that I got from the officer in charge of greenhouses. The main concern is the two and a half degree rise in temperature. That could start melting the polar ice-cap and cause significant ice sheet melting." Turner looked at his commanding officer – the concern in his tone of voice alerting the captain to a potential danger.
"If there are any structures currently built on the ice-sheet we will have to look at alternatives. There is no current topographical map indicating where dry land is on the Antarctic continent, is there?"
"Not readily available, sir."
"So I guess we're just like Hillary, having to rely by the seat of our pants to figure out the safest locations on this continent." Van Buren stated scratching his chin in a gesture of contemplation.
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Armory; 23 weeks Post-Apocalypse
Bud walked over to Harm. "I got something. A note passed along to me from Mackenzie." He said shortly. "I wasn't sure if this was legit, but she said it was before she slipped back into the hallway. "She said something about some guy doing in Danny…and that she knew the name of the guy who did it."
Harm looked sceptical. Mac had been suspiciously absent for the past four months since they had gotten to the shelter and had ostracized them. Vicious scuttlebutt had put her with the Malcontents and as much as he didn't want to believe it, he also didn't trust her. Too many lives were at stake. "Is this legitimate?"
Bud still held out a sense of optimism – he wanted to believe that Mac hadn't gone to the dark side and thrown her lot in with the Malcontents however, the opinion of the rest of the Privileged was that Mac was a traitor and not to be trusted. But the information and the name was too important to be disregarded. "She said it was…"
"We'll check it out…" Harm nodded at Bud. "Go see Harriet and see how she's holding out."
"Sure thing, sir. I'll do that, nothing better to do in this hole." Harm hoped that his friend would keep his optimistic outlook no matter what the situation devolved to in this bunker.
He notified Animal and took the note to Tom Boone.
"Can you trust her?" Tom asked when the three of them were together. "She cracked like a bad egg when the bombs went off." His tone expressed just exactly what sort of person he thought Mac was.
"Right now…" Harm replied. "I don't see that we have much choice in the matter. If we don't find this guy now, it could be any one of us that gets it next. Danny doesn't look like he's going to come out of his coma any time soon; his catatonic state could be permanent and if this is the guy that did it, he needs to pay for it."
"The guy's a psychopath, Tom." Animal interjected. "You remove psychopaths from the gene pool."
"I got no problems with removing them from the gene-pool, Animal. I just want to remove the right guy. If we get the wrong guy, the same problems continue. If we get the instigator, then the problems stop."
"I say we take him into custody…" Harm insisted.
"I agree." Animal agreed with Harm's assessment of the situation.
"Concur." Tom assented.
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Unit 68, 23 weeks Post-Apocalypse
"Hold yer damned horses, I'm comin' to the door…Who the hell is it?" Simone snarled as he got to the door. "You'd better be coming to tell me something important." He was hurled back three feet knocked to the floor as the door imploded inwards from a heavy kick. "What the fu-"
"Andrew Simone, you are under arrest…for the attempted murder of Danny Zhou." Animal uttered, holding a MP5, it's muzzle trained on the prone torso of Simone.
"What the fu-" Simone didn't get more than two complete words out as Harm leaned forward and smashed a sizeable fist into Simone's face knocking him unconscious. Between Harm, Animal and three others they dragged the unconscious ex-Marine back to what passed for the brig – which wasn't too far from the armory.
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Brig Unit, 24 weeks Post-Apocalypse
"Have you anything to say for yourself?" Harm asked the burly ex-Marine.
"Nope, haven't got any regrets. It would have been nice to take each and every one of you smug bastards down."
"Who are your conspirators." Harm asked. "We know there's more than just you."
"I ain't talkin'. Navy."
"You know the penalty for attempted murder in this situation is death?" Harm glowered at the ex-Marine ominously. "You think Boone is going to shy away from imposing the death penalty on you after what you did to Danny?"
"Like I care…" Simone's response was flippant but his mind reeled; the punishment could be a slow death from starvation, radiation exposure from banishment out of the shelter or whatever sort of punishment could Boone improvise; and his legs trembled.
Mt Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Cafeteria, 24 weeks Post-Apocalypse
The judgement was held in the cafeteria because Boone wanted to make a statement out of the judgement. He wanted to ensure that every single person in the bunker knew what would happen to them if they committed such a heinous act again.
Simone was dragged into the room chained and bound.
"This is a summary judgement." Boone said, his demeanor dark and forbidding, he was separated from the cafeteria by means of a video camera and a large-screen TV mounted in the cafeteria. "I have read the evidence provided and hereby make this judgement. You, Andrew Simone, for the crime of attempted murder of Daniel Zhou by means of bludgeoning, will be sentenced to death by exposure. You will undergo the same bludgeoning that you inflicted on Daniel Zhou and you will be cast out into the elements to fend for yourself for the remainder of your days on this planet. Whether you live or die will be by your own hands. But you will no longer be our problem. May God have mercy on your soul!"
Simone paled visibly and nearly crumpled but was held upright by two armed guards. Shackled, he could not resist when he was struck hard by a pipe in the head. Bleeding from his nostrils he was guided to the main blast door, by two rifle-armed men in radiation suits and cast out, screaming in protest, into the elements. The blast door was swiftly shut before Simone could rush back in. The silence was ominous and the judgement was clear. Boone would not be defied.
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