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The doors to the lunchroom were sealed. Donna scanned, automatically, for her boss. But Josh wasn't here; none of the senior staff were, just a bunch of schoolkids, a couple of nobodies in suits and some assistants and secretaries. The lunchroom must have been nearly full, with hardly room enough to sit down, and the high-pitched sirens kept blaring, a deeply unnerving sound here in a White House basement, with nothing to do but wait.
The kids seemed restless. About half of them were turned towards the TV on the wall, which was flickering badly. A few were crying. Donna didn't want to watch the screen. She had already heard. It was the last thing she wanted to think about.
Then there was a flash - only on TV? - and all the screens went dark.
One other thing was obvious from scanning the room -- she was the highest-ranked person here besides the security guards. Under the circumstances, that fact was far from comforting, but she still felt like she ought to do something. If only to keep from crying.
She waved to get the schoolkids' attention. "Young Scholars!" she shouted. They turned and looked at her, warily. "I know this is scary. It's scary for me, too. I- I want you all to know that we're going to bounce back from this. And- and, well, I guess you didn't get to finish your White House your, did you?"
A couple of them shook their heads, playing along.
"Well, now you have unlimited access, for as long as we're down here, to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff's personal assistant. Which might not sound like much, but it's- you're getting more than a lot of lobbyists do," she said, forcing a smile. The kids' faces were scared, solemn.
One young man in the front row raised his hand.
"Why are they bombing us now?" he asked. "I thought we were at peace."
"Russians hate America," a young woman volunteered, as if that settled the matter.
"They don't hate America because they're Russians, they hate us because they're Communists, and we're capitalists. The two systems can't coexist," another offered.
"Hold on, hold on!" Donna shouted, trying to get the situation back under control. She tried to keep her voice even. Out of the corner of her eye, the screens showed more darkness. She swallowed.
"It's not because they're Russian and we're not. It's not exactly because of communism and capitalism, either," she said. With a stroke of inspiration, she grabbed a marker and a flimsy whiteboard, which had been showing dinner options.
"Maybe we should start with a history lesson," she said, "since we might be down here for a while. Like a little... preview of your SATs."
(And a review of mine, she thought, with some trepidation. But she had the broad outlines, which was really all you needed for this exercise. The point was to get people talking and listening about something other than the world outside - which none of them could know about.)
"Now, who can tell me... uh, whose side Russia was on in World War I?" she asked. Silence. "Nobody, right. And I don't know either. Uh, which is, which is because it doesn't really matter from our perspective, because the Russians withdrew from that war. Because of the Revolution. This is where all that stuff about ideology, Capitalism and Communism comes from. That was, uh, that was when the Tsar was executed, right? And who led that revolution?"
The kids were silent. If anything, they looked gloomier. This wasn't going well.
One young woman raised her hand. "Are the Russians just trying to scare us? Like we did to Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or are they going to drop enough bombs to actually wipe out our population?"
"Are we fighting back?" asked a boy in the front row.
As she tried to think of something to say in response, Donna felt a chill wash over her, and realized with a start the doors were open, and standing in the cafeteria doorway was the President of the United States.
The doors swung closed behind him. The security guards were ramrod still at attention. The kids' eyes were like dinnerplates.
"I can answer those questions, and I will, because they're excellent questions," he said, taking a few steps forward. Then, as if suddenly remembering, he added, to the guards, "At ease, officers. Goodness knows that none of that matters much right now."
He limped straight over to where Donna was standing with her whiteboard. The crowd parted around his path like the Red Sea.
"I can answer all of your questions, and I'm sorry to say it will involve a little bit of history. But it won't be anything you've learned about in school," he said. He erased "Tsar", "1917", and "World War I" from Donna's whiteboard. In their place he wrote one word: "Theodosius".
"Now, you asked if the Russians want to kill us all. Of course, the Russians individually don't want anything from us. But it's easy to think, when something like this happens, that the Soviet government wants nothing more than to kill off every single American."
He glanced at the ceiling when he said "something like this"; Donna glanced up by instinct, but all she saw was ductwork.
"More than a thousand years ago an Emperor named Theodosius ruled over an empire that was in terminal decline. One difficulty, with which I have great sympathy," the President rapped his cane on the ground to emphasize the point, "is that an empire with huge territory and diverse peoples is almost impossible to govern. So for his sons, he divided the empire; the Latin half, the West, was given to Honorius, the younger son. And the older son, Arcadius, was made the emperor of the East - the Greek half of the old Roman Empire.
"So we are really two halves of the same empire. Two brothers trying to divide their inheritance - it's a story as old as Isaac and Ishmael. Our churches split in 1054, but we both stayed Christian. Now they're Communists, and we're capitalists, but we share the heritage of Rome. We almost reunited, back in '92. Maybe the chance will come again," he said.
"Russia doesn't want to kill all of us off. They want to make the old empire theirs, not wipe it from the Earth. I've met Premier Rutskoy, and he's not a madman. He just wants to break our spines, but we'll still be living.
"Here's some information that's not on TV: these are mostly conventional bombs. The nuke went off at sea - it won't be good for our health, but no cities have been leveled. They just want to hit a few strategic targets. A vigorous, healthy President who can bring America together would be their worst nightmare. But their other worst nightmare is you - brilliant, engaged young citizens who are proud to be American."
One young guy in a hoodie raised his hand very timidly. "Mister President, why are you here with us if these bombings are going on?"
The President sagged, as if the end of his own speech had put a twenty-pound weight back on his shoulders. He took another limping step forward.
"I told you that the Russian government has two nightmares. Well, they'll get their young, energetic President, with the motive force of fantastic tragedy pushing him forward. But it can't be me.
"I feel-" the President paused and wiped his eyes, something Donna had never seen him do. "I feel terrible telling you this, because your parts were written for you. None of you chose what's going to happen to you here. But I've chosen to join you, in this historic house. Because sometimes, in order to preserve the empire, it has to stand divided. You have to pass on the torch, right?" he almost seemed to be asking them. "For history to move on, the Emperor has to die."
The ground rumbled, and Donna realized what he meant. She stumbled over to a paper napkin dispenser so she could dry her eyes, in the last few minutes.