Free 12|21|12 by Larry Enright Page A

steps inside the fire tower were intact, but the block walls were covered with a spider web of stress fractures. Another tremor shook the facility, and the door behind them buckled and crumpled beneath the weight of the concrete. They climbed hundreds of feet to a door at the top and ran into the open from the small block enclosure hidden in some tall bushes on the South Lawn of the White House. A fiery yellow sun glowed high in the sky behind thick rolling clouds, and wind whipped across the open space, lashing at them mercilessly. Devastation was everywhere: massive old trees lay toppled and thrown about like twigs, the east wing of the White House had caved in and smoke was rising from a crater next to it, fires were burning throughout the city. The earth shook again, and the White House groaned as it shifted on its foundation.
    Cameron steadied the stretcher. “What’s happening, Dr. Loeb?”
    “I don’t know. This whole area is unstable. We can’t stay here.”
    The woman on the stretcher grabbed his arm. “Camp David,” she said.
    Loeb showed her the device that had fallen from her hand. “What is this?”
    She took it and pressed a few buttons. Nothing happened. She held it out to him and nodded: “Camp David.”
    A helicopter sat on a pad across the lawn.
    “That’s our ticket out of here,” Bowen said. “Let’s go.”
    “Can you fly that thing?” asked Michael.
    “You bet your ass I can.”
    They made their way through the debris to the helicopter. The sky darkened in disapproval, and the air temperature turned subarctic. The earth rolled in waves underneath their feet, and Loeb’s world spun wildly.
    “We’ve got one problem,” Bowen said. “That helicopter won’t carry all of us. It’s a four-seater. We’ve got too much weight. Unless one of you can fly this thing, you four have to pick which one stays behind. I vote her. She’s not going to make it anyway.”
    “Maya…” she whispered. “Camp David.”
    “We can’t leave her,” Loeb said. “It’s our fault she’s like this, and she’s the only one who can save us. Don’t you see? She’s trying to tell us something about Camp David.”
    “Like what?”
    “Maybe her ship is there, or maybe she has another one of those handhelds. It could be the transporter device. Maybe there are others like her there.”
    “And maybe you’re full of crap. What about the rest of you? What do you say?”
    “What good is saving ourselves if we lose our souls?” Michael said. “I’ll stay.”
    Cameron shook his head. “No. I’m not going unless we all go. There has to be a way. Isn’t there anything else we can get rid of, like the seats or something like that?”
    A fierce wind rocked the helicopter as Bowen cast off the last of the lines. “There’s no excess cargo, and we don’t have time to unbolt the seats. If we’re going to make a run for it, we’ve got to go now.”
    “You can’t run from this, Mr. Bowen,” Cameron said. “We need to do the right thing here.”
    The woman squeezed Cameron’s hand and closed her eyes.
    His voice cracked: “As humans, that’s all we’ve got.”
    They lifted the stretcher onto the helicopter.
    Michael shook his head: “I’m dying. Don’t you see? It makes perfect sense for me to stay. At least the rest of you have hope.”
    “This is absurd,” Loeb said. “Only one of us has to stay behind, and it should be me.”
    “The captain going down with his ship? No, I can’t let you do that,” said Cameron. “It’s all or none.”
    “If you three want to die here, suit yourselves.” Bowen started up the helicopter and shouted: “Ferret, you coming?”
    A light came on in the Oval Office, and a window over the South Lawn opened. It was Ferret. He waved to them.
    “Ferret!” Loeb shouted.
    “Look at me, I’m the president of the world!”
    “Get down here!”
    “No sir, I ain’t going in no helicopter and I ain’t going in no spaceship. I’ll die right here on good old