GENERAL Tarvish walked in. The glass doors closed behind him and his escort, Captain Ben, his rival of many years. They were both a little toasty from whiskey at Cpt. Ben’s retirement ceremony. Thirty-five years as a United States Army Captain, and now it was time to get his send off.

Who better than from his friend, ol’ Tantrum Tarvish.

The two had graduated every school together, and Ben was even the husband of Tarvish’s now ex-wife.

They’d had many of the “no hard feelings” talks throughout the years. Every time they talked, Tarvish would smile, grip Ben’s neck by the back and say, “you owe me. Don’t you forget.”

And now they were entering DEFCON, responding to a massive explosion in Ohio. Tarvish wiped his face by the raised scar on his temple. He didn’t usually wear his class A to DEFCON, but when the phone rang, it was DEFCON 1.

Tarvish walked over to the command center, where Lieutenant Collini was operating events. He had a wired earpiece, and he was chatting briskly into it. Collini was in his own existence. The mist was just darkening on the fog of war. Collini had the entire East Coast National Guard unit directory on his monitor. There must have been 25 individual operators in the conference channel.

“Yes, Real World, Cleveland Ohio has been hit.

Casualties are unknown.

We’ve scrambled jets, they’re still catching up to it.

Radar is locked on target.”

Tarvish waltzed over, with steps of frosted lead. He put a hand on Lieutenant Collini. “Pop the monitor off.”

Lt. Collini looked up, eyes glazed almost incoherently. He couldn’t possibly want to go offline. This was Homeland Security. This was happening.

“Pop off that god damn monitor, son. That’s an order,” Tarvish repeated.

Collini swung and clicked off. The monitor channel was deleted. Its evidence of communication wiped. Collini then swung in his metal swivel chair to face his General. He didn’t stand, and it almost pissed Tarvish fully off, had all this not actually been happening. Cpt. Ben stood behind him at ease. He had technically been a retired civilian… in DEFCON. Tarvish would eventually see this in a court-martial case to slander his military record.

Tarvish gulped and said, “Son, you tell me everything that just happened, and you don’t leave out one god-damn detail. Now. What in the hell just happened?”

Collini looked him dead in the face. He gazed, chugged a big breath of air and

testified.

“Sir, it appears that, at about 12:01p.m. at the First Energy Stadium in Cleveland, you know, Browns Stadium, there was a military fly by. You know the ones. They happen at every game.” Tarvish nodded in agreement. “The new Presidential Executive policy to equip every operational bird just backfired. During fly-over, the flight team not only engaged weapons, but they dropped half their payload of m84 GPs and carpet-bombed the entire stadium.

“Sir. That Stadium isn’t there anymore. We’re still getting RECON. Those bombs blasted holes through it. The Steelers and the Browns, sir, aren’t football teams anymore. All coverage of the game has cut out. It’s unclear whether anyone watching at home saw the explosion, or whether the feed cut out, but as far as the news is reporting, there was an unidentified explosion on Lake Erie in Cleveland. We’re the first to know that the fly-over blew up the stadium.”

Tarvish jumped. His head pulsed back at the intelligence he received. Under his command. His heart was stiff. His scar, now cherry red, pulsated with it. He was still and his great brow furrowed hard over his eyes. He was frozen by the utter thought that he controlled the real story. Had he wanted, he could shut this out of the media. Could he really?

“And there’s more. FAA and NORAD reported that the pilot cut out communication moments before impact. His whole system went offline and left a digital fingerprint to Syria. and Iraq. Our whole system received various coordinates. It’s still coming in. We don’t know where the aircraft is. We have jets closing on the location, and radar has the object heading for Detroit.”

“It’s a terrorist attack, sir. It’s…”

“Cyber,” said Ben.

Tarvish turned to face him and screamed with his eyes deep down Ben’s throat. He would have cut him down in that moment were they on the sand in Kuwait. But that was light years away now. Now he had to play General. Soldier time was over.

“Don’t make me remind you of rank,” said Tarvish, getting the color back in his face. He turned back to Collini. His brow refurrowed as he jumped back into his stoic meditation. This was his masterpiece. He was running the show for the next 12 hours, and the Cleveland fucking Browns, that shit team, and their rival Steelers? Gone. The Way of the Dodo. No one in the room knew that Tarvish was born and raised in Lakewood, in the 216. He’d rooted for the Browns as a child. Played plenty of football at St. Ignatius. Still remembered knocking his friend Bey out cold on the pavement as he rallied into the Muni. Back when it was Cleveland Stadium.

It couldn’t be more Cleveland if it wanted to be.… The fact that on the Browns/Steelers game, it was their stadium that got hit. That it would be Cleveland fans that met their fiery fate. So many deep, cold, disappointing Cleveland Browns seasons in frozen Lake Erie, and they got nuked. Now they were roasted dead. He wondered how the Stadium must look from the Munilot. He wondered how many people were able to see the destruction from that parking lot… Those lucky few who may have forgotten their tickets in the car. Gotten arrested for being too drunk to enter the stadium. Passed out or got too sick pregaming and eating undercooked meat. They were the surviving class, and now, even sunny Cleveland Ohio felt the true wrath of the world.

“I want you to get me on the phone with every news outlet you can in the next two minutes. I’m going to release a press statement to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and have an emergency meeting.” He turned to several operators in the flashing metal and leather command center. “Get the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state on the line and GET THEM IN THE AIR. Mounsey, open up a line to Homeland Security and The National Guard. Get boots on the ground in downtown Cleveland. Get any available ambulance in the Greater Cuyahoga Area to go straight to the Lake shore and let every hospital in that area go Code Blue. They’re about to get a LOT of people, and even more bodies. Scramble every fighter you can on the Canadian border.”

“Sir,” Collini marked. “You’re live with the news.”

Tarvish stopped and looked at the monitor. He counted 15 outlets in the channel. These better be good he thought of Collini.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is General Tarvish, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if you don’t already know who I am.

“At 12:01 pm there was an attack against America. It happened in Cleveland Ohio, at the Browns Game. A military vehicle dropped a bomb on the stadium at kick off. The death toll is unknown. The payload is unknown. The only thing that is certain is that a bomb was detonated, and that it was strong enough to destroy the satellite communication from the stadium.”

The room was as tense as violin strings tuned too tightly. Tarvish paused. He made sure he said the next part correctly, calculatedly, so there was no margin of error slight enough to be mistaken. He knew the current administration was too inept to handle this properly. It was time for the military to do it’s job and save this country.

“I want you to report everything I just told you. The country is officially in a State of Emergency. I repeat. America is in a State of Emergency. All law enforcement officers are to report to active duty. All ambulance and first responders in the five counties around Cleveland are to report to their posts. Their hospitals, their trucks, whatever they need in order to save lives. Tell them to haul ass into downtown Cleveland. Fire too. All Engines to the Lakeshore. The state of Ohio is under martial law until further notice. All citizens are to remain in their homes, or otherwise immediately seek shelter until further notice. You tell that to whoever you can, however you can, but do it immediately.”

Ben leaned over to Mounsey and whispered, “Can he do that?”

Mounsey looked up with eyebrows saying, I’m not about to argue with that crazed General.

“Mounsey, how are we looking?”

Lt. Mounsey returned to his monitor. He was beyond encapsulation and spoke directly.

“Rear Admiral Razali is online. They have eyes in the sky, two F-22s en route. They’ve tracked the bird over Lake Erie. ETA: 4 minutes to visual. The bird has diverted from flight path to Detroit. They don’t have confirmation on payload. B-2 communication is going in and out. We’re trying to track it via satellite.”

Tarvish flew over and took the earpiece. “Razali. Can you hear me?”

He heard the faint call of his Rear-Admiral comrade. “I want you to take that bird down. Take him down whatever means necessary. That is an order, Admiral, take that bird down, and take it down before it can even see Detroit in its windshield. Send your eyes in the sky to Chicago, to Buffalo, and to Canada. Open a channel with Canada and break their airspace. We want them to have as many birds flying in the next five minutes as they can. When the target is neutralized, you report back to me. ASAP.”

“Sir,” marked Collini, eyes like an owl. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff are online. Rear Admiral Rust is on vacation.”

Tarvish took his earpiece out at Mounsey’s station, only to walk over and replace it with another earpiece at Collini’s.

“Hi,” said Tarvish. He immediately seized up, remembering that he was supposed to be sipping champagne at Ben’s ceremony. “Gentlemen, there’s been a terrorist attack. This is the biggest one we’ve ever had. We think it could be radical Islamists. I’m calling a meeting in Washington tonight. Put down whatever you’re doing, because this may be war.”

Tarvish then looked at his rival. With the mic still on in his headset he erupted.

“And get the FUCK out of here, Ben! You’re a civilian. Go fuck my wife or something.”

Captain Ben recoiled, like a punch hit his bald spot. He was no longer a military man.

Without protest, two officers in the room approached Cpt. Ben’s side. They were armed with Glocks at their holster ready. They didn’t dare lay a hand on his class-A retirement suit. It was holy. It was on a civilian, a veteran, really. Not active duty.

Cpt. Ben stiffened to attention. Tears could have flowed from them if he wasn’t an iron box. Tarvish looked away, back into the Real World screens, and channels to dignitaries, generals, presidents, and anyone else who needed him. Cpt. Ben turned, away from his military career, and out the glass doors to a life untouched for the better part of half a century.

And Cleveland burned on.