After hours of fiddling with the antenna up on the roof early in the morning, Haskell managed to find the right channel an hour before the scheduled program.

We crowded into the intimate lounge inside the camper, opening the windows to let some of the fresh air in (we didn't bother turning on the AC, or else it would eat up our electricity). We were all nervous and excited about what was going to happen, and I had imagined everyone in the country felt the same. A countdown clock to the speech was embedded on the bottom-left corner of the screen, telling us we had forty-five minutes to go before the live press conference.

Logan sat next to me on the dinette with Indy on his lap, his gaze glued to the TV screen. "Will we see home?" He asked me.

"Maybe." I would turn into a puddle if I had a glimpse of Portland. Hell, I'd probably cry if they filmed in the same street as my home. I only wish...

"Look! That's LA!" Yousef shrieked, eyes wide, finger pointed at the TV. He looked like a kid who had seen Santa. I must admit, everyone in that room looked like that kid. It was the first time we saw something so...normal. A reporter on the street just interviewed some pedestrians lazily strolling some broad beach walk as if the pandemic never happened! They looked surprised when the reporter showed them images of the sick in the hospital with how they acted on the screen. Some were even denying that the pandemic wasn't that bad. We were all overacting, and that these images only belonged to the worst wing in the hospital, and that the media did not show the mild symptoms ninety-eight percent of the patients got, and who got better.

"Do you know anyone who got better or who survived from this disease?" The reporter asked one man in his late forties, who wore a yellow tank top with a coiled rattlesnake on it.

"Yes. My friend Mark got it two weeks ago, and he's feeling better now! He lives in Atlanta, and he sent me pictures often where they even had had barbecue and cookout in the middle of the street! Completely normal in the summer. Not like what had been in the news lately. No crazy people in the picture. Here. I'll show you." He then pulled out his phone and showed him a picture of his friend and the barbecue on the street.

When the reporter asked him if he could call his friend for an impromptu interview, the man quickly said his friend was busy and that he needed to be somewhere. She then asked him to show the viewers the images once again about this supposed barbecue in Atlanta, one of the worst-hit cities, and the man was more than happy to "educate the public" about the true nature of this disease. The reporter quickly figured out that the location stamp on the picture happened within LA two days ago.

"That's not Atlanta!" The reporter remarked.

The man quickly put his phone back, swearing how it was real and that he needed to get back to his office because he was running late and on his break, which was followed by the reporting quipping after him, "You work in the office with that outfit?" The man merely cursed at the crew before he disappeared from view.

"What the fuck?" Logan gasped. "That's some bullshit."

"It looks like LA wasn't hit," I said. "Well, not yet, anyway."

"They seem so...off. Like..."

"Normal? Crazy?"

"Yeah."

"They don't know what the vectors are like."

Logan bit his bottom lip and frowned. "I wish I didn't."

"Ignorance is bliss."

"Does this mean the west coast didn't have any outbreaks?"

I shared his frown. "God, I hope so."

It was the first time we had watched real news on TV since Albany, the first time since we had a glimpse of the outside world. I held tightly on Luke's jacket resting on my lap, anticipating the images appearing on the screen, shaking and sometimes hoping to catch a glimpse of our hometowns, or just any semblance of news around our homes would certainly make us happy.

There were a couple of mentions of Fort Wayne and the vast shelter set up there, which broke Yousef into tears. Even if it was only for a brief moment, and I could tell he wanted to know more, but the news kept cutting away to more chaos across the country, mainly in the cities around the eastern seaboard.

The northeast was hit the hardest, calling it The Red Zone, and the news never cut away from the footage of thousands of body bags laid in mass graves in Boston, the city already surrounded by high walls twenty feet tall, a mass of vectors waiting just behind it. Then, they changed the feed to the bodies left rotting on the sidewalk across Atlanta for pickup by military trucks, then to a platoon cleaning out an infested building within the same city and calling it a victory. They shifted to Philadelphia burning, dozens of billows of smoke rising to the air, multiple gunfires heard from the horizon as its citizens fought back against the vectors. Hundreds of refugee camps were set up across the midwest, where millions of displaced people huddled in makeshift tents, and food and water riots were common.

It was then we heard about the Alphas, and the news dedicated ten good minutes talking about them with the pundits in how they were disrupting a bunch of the shelters' supply lines in the south and close to the Red Zone, which sparked the food riots, to begin with. They also talked about Hank Ludlow, the leader of the Alphas, and his manifesto on YouTube, claiming that the pandemic was God's plan to remake the world for stronger, well-deserved people. Most of the pundits were making fun of him as an incel, racist, and basement-dwelling Stallone wannabe. I cringed. Turning him into a joke could only go so far and did not consider that his cause was growing by the day, and he was getting more dangerous. They're ignoring the fact that Hank Ludlow was a charismatic former congressman and senator who tried to run for president last year but failed to gain his party's nomination. I've seen how his followers think, too fanatical in their belief. And I almost got killed because of it.

Most of the major networks were still in the air, although they had moved all their headquarters to Los Angeles and San Francisco, where they claimed it was safer. Apparently, the west coast was hit the least by the pandemic due to the immediate grounding of air and interstate travel where heavily-armed military blockades were set up in the major freeways and highways crossing the cascade mountains and the Rockies. Both the treacherous mountain ranges and then the Great Basin and Mojave desert acting like natural defensive barriers against the refugees, and to some extent, the vectors.

There was no news of Pittsburgh, but with the heavy focus on burning cities, mass graves, and riots, I took it that the city was safe. I speculated that the media went for the violent imagery in the name of ratings, but there's an extent to what one man could stomach about seeing the fate of the world and its trajectory (none of it looking good). All this death and destruction was very depressing.

"Shh!" Yousef hushed everyone's small chatters. "It's on!"

The news came back to the studio, where the newscaster announced that the president would be live in five minutes. It then switched to the reporter within the said conference room in Seattle. Apparently, the president, the rest of his surviving cabinet, the senate, and congress, moved into the city a long time ago. Seattle had been declared a temporary capital of the United States because Washington, DC was too close to the Red Zone.

Logan shifted uneasily next to me. Indy felt his anxiousness and whimpered a little. A part of me was curious what the president looked like, but I found myself not caring what he had to say. I doubt it would change a thing given what we had seen the past three months. I thought it was better to lower my expectations.

The timer at the bottom-left screen counted down to a minute. Still, the secret service and the president's staff burst into the room early than usual from the side door, forcing the reporter to cut his spiel so that the cameraman could refocus the lens toward the stage. Dozens of cameras flashed and clicked; a soft murmur swept through the crowd. A blonde woman in her late thirties welcomed the press then let the audience know that this conference was live across the globe, across 117 countries and territories. She followed it with the announcement that the president would take only three questions after the speech. After a few grumbles from the crowd, the press secretary let everyone know that they were free to submit any follow-up questions that the president and his staff could answer in the following days.

"That's convenient," I said to Logan, and he nodded in agreement. I thought that was a thinly-veiled attempt at picking the questions they liked without it being caught off-guard, but who am I to judge? I'm just a viewer three thousand miles away.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States," the press secretary announced.

The side door opened once again. A man in a neatly-fitted navy blue suit and dark gray tie came out, salt and short blond hair promptly coiffed and heavily styled to look perfect on camera, his strong jaw cleanly-shaven, face stern and purposeful without any readable hints into his nature. He was in his early to mid-forties with his tall and wide frame, broad shoulders, and piercing blue eyes. He had movie good looks and pearly white teeth when he started addressing the press with this deep voice, welcoming and thanking them for coming. I thought he was chosen to be the next president due to his looks and commanding presence alone because the entire room had his full attention. Hell, even in the RV, it was palpable.

Miguel tapped Peter on the shoulder and said, "Hey, we got Thor for a president." He then turned to me, sharing what I thought of it—a puppet president.

The chyron banner read: President John Marshall Addresses the Nation. Even his name sounded made up. Logan turned to look at me with a slight cringe in his smile, thinking the same thing.

"Good afternoon. To everyone watching from home and across the world, I stand here today humbled by the current state of our planet, against violence and hatred, greed and malcontent. The sacrifices we have to endure to survive the past few months—homes lost, families separated, our economy weakened, and the fear growing of an enemy we cannot see. This is a raging storm that tests America's might and us as a people. Still, we carried because we persevered through our adversities by the dream and tenacity of the people who hold our laws and office in the highest regards. The people's faith remained firm to the values of our forebearers and the tenets of our constitution.

"You may find it alarming to see a new face on your screen. Yes. I am the fiftieth president of the United States. As part of the sacrifices we have to make, the American people had not voted for me to be in this distinguished and respected office, though I am part of my predecessor's cabinet, sworn in by the senate. I promise that I will do my part in upholding and honoring the institution of the seat in which I am bequeathed, to use its power for our country and our people. My predecessor...is with God, along with many of his staff, cabinet, several in the senate, and congress. Many were my co-workers, and some of them I may even call my friends."

President Marshall paused. No one was shocked by the news, but the cameras were fixed on his face, letting those watching catch their breath who hadn't heard the news yet.

"Wait, did he just say he's the fiftieth president? Shouldn't he be forty-seventh?" Miguel asked. "What happened to the previous three?"

"Dead, probably," I said, surprised it slipped out of my tongue. Everyone turned to look at me, a sinking feeling dawning on them. Three presidents dead within three months. "Or they quit? The job got too much for them?" I added, though no one seemed to buy that.

Miguel was the only one who spoke out loud, "Well, we're off to a good start."

President Marshall continued, "Now that you know who I am and why I'm here, I know that many of you wonder what I'm going to do about these so-called 'patriotic' protests, food riots, the violence in the cities, complaints about travel restrictions being too strict, and about when we are going back to normal just because its...shall we say, hard to live with all these rules and regulations. First of all, let's cut all that bullshit. This is a fucking pandemic, and we should know better to take this threat seriously and set aside these childish and foolish notions."

There were audible gasps from the crowd, the flickers of the cameras intensified. There was a glint in President Marshall's eye as he scanned the crowd once again, lips thinned, a slight reddening in his cheeks. Though, his composure didn't break. I was surprised that he just dropped an f-bomb on live TV, thinking he was going for a more respectful and uneventful conference, perhaps promising the usual bravado of a firm and tough leader like his predecessors.

I was mistaken. Not a puppet, then.

I leaned over to Logan and said, "I guess that's where we're heading."

Logan nodded. "The son of a bitch just said fuck on TV."

The president added, "We meet at one of the most defining moments of our history—we are at an indefinable war of great catastrophe, something the world has never seen since World War II and the Cold War. In war, no one is here to hold your hand or soothe your worries just because it's too damned tough. It's fucked up. Everything is shit and getting worse by the day. You only have to turn on the news and see that for yourself, and if you ignore it willingly, you are a fool and a coward, and you do not deserve my respect. And if you call yourself a patriot after what you have seen after you look at your significant other and your own children in the eye and still be ignorant, then you are no patriot at all, and you endanger the lives of the ones you love. I am not here to soften you up or carry you off to the sunset. So if you are not with me, you are against me, against this country, and this planet's survival. We are facing the greatest threat we've ever faced as a country and as a species, and right now, we are at the precipice of the end."

Murmurs from the crowd grew. President Marshall lifted his finger to quiet all of them down.

"Well, that's it, folks. Good talk," Haskell whispered, which prompted Yousef to shush him up.

"But not until my say so, and I'll be damned if I don't take any chance to fight back against this menace." He paused again, eyes daring the crowd to interrupt him. "I have a plan. I can tell you that, and hopefully, by God's grace, this works. It's a little complicated, and we're gonna spend time with the details, so bear with me. Let's start with the first. Over the past few months, I have called back all the troops from the Middle East and Asia back to the United States. They arrived three weeks ago. Currently, they are stationed around the Gulf of Mexico, one of the reasons why there are fewer outbreaks in the south than in the northeast. With each outbreak that sprung up, our boys get the job done. Our troops keep the west coast relatively safe and unscathed because they fight in the frontlines, creating barriers across the midwest from north to south. We call it the Flyover Wall, a network of concrete-walled towns and cities to screen refugees from the east and stopping the infected from crossing westward, garrisoned with over 250,000 servicemen and volunteers from the national guard across thirty-three cities.

Logan shifted and looked at me. "Does that mean..."

"Oregon's safe," I said. My breathing grew ragged, and I held on to Luke's jacket tightly.

"Do you know how many soldiers we have?" Logan asked Peter and me.

Peter shook his head. "A million at most?"

"Not on the top of my head," I answered. It wasn't until many years later where I found the actual number for this: 2.6 million servicemen across all branches. That didn't consider the volunteers and the ones drafted throughout the coming months to fight the infected.

"That's only a quarter of the plan. The second point is that I am beginning an initiative to build a wall around our larger cities, some of which started making them two months ago, like Chicago, Houston, and Pittsburgh. These cities will be our safety net, that if the infected so much as have control of the continent, we still have shelter left. The third point pertains to the so-called Red Zone of the northeast. We do not know how many survivors are inside this area nor how many infected there are, though one source says to the low thousands, others numbered up to the more outstanding millions. We do know that there are still intact safe zones with thousands of accounted survivors waiting for rescue. As of now, we are maintaining a search & rescue plan for the past two months within the Red Zone, bombing infested areas, and we have saved over thirty thousand non-infected survivors trapped in remote cities and towns. Now for the important part—my fourth point.

"With the cooperation with the Canadian Forces, over the following days, five field corps, numbering around half a million American and Canadian soldiers, will march toward the northeast and will make camp along the Susquehanna River and to the north along the St. Lawrence River. These will act as the barriers for the Red Zone and the rest of America and Canada. Why rivers, you may ask? Well, we have learned that the infected are very shitty swimmers, and these major bodies of water and tributaries will act as a natural chokepoint against them. So, we will protect the bridges, the ports, and other means of crossing toward the rest of us. This is how we all survive.

"As of right now, thousands—perhaps millions—of infected are moving outward, threatening the regions without any records of outbreaks, and a large mass of them are going to reach the Susquehanna River within seven days." Another row of gasps took hold of the crowd. "But our soldiers will put a stop to that. And if they're successful, they will move into the Red Zone in the coming months to rescue the survivors in various safe zones that are still standing and liberate our cities from the infected. When this day comes, it will be known as Reclamation Day, on July 11th, a day to be fucking proud of."

"We're working with the Canadians!" Yousef exclaimed happily.

"They already put a name on it: Reclamation Day," Miguel commented. "A bit too optimistic."

"Jesus," cried out Haskell. "Five hundred thousand troops? Will that work?"

"Who knows? We might be there right now," Peter said.

"Do you think the others are there now? Captain Ramos, Kahler, and Payne..."

"I don't know. Maybe they're dead or one of the vectors now."

Haskell pursed his lips, finding nothing to say.

Logan leaned toward me, said, "Half of them aren't going to make it, right? You think it'll work?"

I held my tongue. Jun got up from his seat and walked out of the RV without a word, not looking too impressed with what he had just heard. The others didn't mind him, and Peter left the door wide open just to let some fresh air in.