Mushroom clouds and Heart-shaped lockets?

Dust and dirt. As far as the eye can see, just dust and dirt. No one was prepared for the world war that the U.S. had caused. We were targeted because of bigotry and the petty squabbles we were having with ourselves. We may have been ready to allow everyone to be as they wanted but all the religious countries saw was weakness. Our allies or who we thought were allies abandoned us.

Britain abandoned us because they had never forgotten about our rebellion when we first became the United States. Turns out they had been waiting for something like this to happen. Israel and the middle east we were surprised to find out had all come together in a large alliance based on the idea that having a religion was more important than accepting everyone. Mexico did not want to help us because all of its people kept trying to get into the U.S. all these years. They felt we were being dumb and stealing their people in our oblivion. Canada recalled a time they had reached out asking for help and we refused. After those large dominoes fell no one was willing to stand beside us.

On that day we had bombs coming from everywhere. At first, it was just one but when the others saw them do it they all joined in. First, it was Montana, North Dakota, and the corner of (Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado) Then it was California and while everyone was worried about the western U.S. regions it then started on the eastern coast. Washington D.C. and Virginia, and southern Georgia. North Carolina, Connecticut, and West Virginia. 10 bombs took the United States out.

While everyone was running around trying to figure out what was going on that is when the second and third waves began. These were not nuclear waves. It was chemical warfare and cyber warfare. Chemical warfare at first was not recognized for what it was. Who knew they could create a virus that could target people who survived the nuclear bombs. Somehow it could recognize small levels of radiation in a person's system and attach to that to mutate. Cyberwarfare took out our ability to communicate with each other and has so many false news reports that we had no way of knowing what was real and what was not.

During all the chaos and confusion one journalist managed to keep track of everything that had happened. Everything was stored on a chip in a heart-shaped locket. This had become the mission of the only elite force left standing in the U.S. Make contact with the brave journalist and acquire the heart-shaped locket. I would have been surprised 5 days ago if you had told me the only chance for the U.S. to survived rested on a heart-shaped locket. The journalist was amazing at her job. She even managed to get a working copy of the cure for the chemical warfare which was also contained in the locket with the chip.

It was time for me and the troops to make our way toward the big easy. This would be difficult as we were located in Washington State. There are no planes flying, no trains, really no way to use a car either as most gas stations are not open due to the chaos going on around us. I am sincerely surprised that some even have electricity. Maybe when the president said we needed to get off our dependence on oil it was for a reason. So many of our vehicles are biodiesel and electric we could use one of them. I feel sorry for the people who didn't listen and are not able to get out.

This will be the scariest part. There are many mini organizations that know about this locket and its resources. We have to get there first before some would-be dictator beats us to it for the money value of it. I am all for the cartoon pinky and the brain but running our country like that is a scary thing to think about. What if one of the black power or white power people got ahold of it. There would be massive amounts of deaths on top of what we have already lost.

We estimate the trip will take more than a month however we do not have enough room for that many supplies. We will have to take guns and hatchets in order to forge off the land as we go. I just wish that ammo and guns were not so hard to get ahold of. We will need extra clothes for the long trip so we can change. We will take the basic cleaning essentials and hopefully stop by rivers and streams along the way to clean our clothes and ourselves. Instead of tents though we will use camouflaged hunting blinds as to not indicate where our location is. We will have to have a couple of varieties of camo as the vegetation is going to change as we move closer to our location.

Our unit is a melting pot of the American people. We have the young female Asian American Asha she is our resident computer and programming specialist to help should we encounter any issues of an electronic nature. She is also a very highly recognized Marine. We have Darius who is very skilled at sneaking in and out without being seen. The speed of that guy is unprecedented. Darius is African American and has learned how to use his differences as advantages, he is a very skilled Green Beret. We have Carmen she is a master of making food that is plain extraordinary. She is also the best chemist and chemical engineer I have ever seen her ability to turn basic into deadly is phenomenal. Ace is a redneck and all-around survivalist. He can sneak in and out as quickly as Darius but can also come out with something to eat when he comes out. He spends most of his time in and out of the woods and wilderness. He is also a pretty good mechanic so if we have any mechanical issues he is our man. His snipping abilities are significant. Then, there is me. Honestly, I am about a criminal. I am skilled at the horrific natures of the human psyche. I can get in your head faster than you will ever want. I am one badass female whose path you would never want to cross.

The planned route would be to go from Washington to Idaho, down to Utah through the lower part of Colorado so we avoid the deserts in New Mexico and Nevada, down through Oklahoma into Texas, and across to Louisianna. Staying as close to the upper portion as possible since it is likely that in all the chaos there will be fights happening near the Mexico border. In the desert areas should we go close we will encounter nomads that are ruthless. We will have to watch out for people in doomsday biodiesel vehicles. If someone approaches us do not engage. Stay the course. When we receive the locket Asha will work on the chip and retrieving the data and then Carmen will work to figuring out the compounds in the cure. Darius is in charge of retrieving the locket and then the rest of us (meaning me and Ace) are here to keep everyone else safe along the way.

It took us a little bit of time to make it from Washington to Idaho. People were migrating to areas of the U.S. that had not been bombed hoping to find a safe place to settle back down. I imagine it looks a lot like it did when the pioneers came from the east to the west. Except with one major difference modern vehicles. Those that had electric cars used them. Those that didn't use bicycles. It is a very sad sight to behold. People from Montana heading west and people from California moving north. The traffic was so heavy they used both sides of the road. We were the only ones headed southeast. We had people honking at us and urging us to turn around there was nothing in that direction but we had to keep going.

We did not encounter any real threats until we reached Utah. There we encountered people who had put traps up in the roadways to try to rob people to get what they needed. So regardless of how exhausted and tired we were, we had to keep going. We could not afford a chance encounter this early in the trip. Up to this point, we had taken 5 days to get this far and the situations were only going to get worse. Especially since we were headed into Oklahoma and Texas. It is the end of May. That means tornados. We did have luck on our side in one way though because all the devastation from the bombs is to the north so we did not have to worry about fire or radiation in the tornados. We also had some bad luck as well. We ran out of fuel so Carmen had to find us some. Luckily though when all the bombing happened the work stopped so we hit up some fast food joints and converted fry oil into biodiesel. It did take Ace a small amount of time though to convert our hybrid vehicle so we could use it.

Around Colorado, we started noticing animals that were not acting right and almost seemed a bit rabid. I suppose though in hindsight it makes sense cause the bomb would have messed up the food supply and likely scavangers had feasted on plagued meat. Though the dog missing its hair with one eye dangling even turned my stomach. I quickly pulled my knife and slit its throat.

Through the stretch of Oklahoma and Texas we encounted multiple tornados. It was worse though in Texas cause the tornadoes had pulled up oil derrick towers and was tossing them at us. All we knew was we had to move faster than the tornadoes and faster still to make it to Louisianna before June. June is the start of hurricane season for Louisianna. Dodging weather and people is all we have accomplished so far on this journey.

Finally, we meet up with the journalist (Americus) in The Big Easy, (New Orleans, Louisianna). The mission was a success. We had 3 days left in May when we finished all the objectives. Maybe one day things will get back to normal. Who would have thought the fate of the world as we know it would depend on a heart-shaped locket?