One Year After

PROLOGUE

This is BBC News. It’s 3:00 a.m., Greenwich War Time, and this is the news for today.

This day marks the second anniversary of the start of the war that saw the detonation of three EMP weapons over the continental United States, another off the coast of Japan, and a fifth weapon believed to have veered off course and detonated over Eastern Europe. The effects of this attack—never fully confirmed but believed to have been an act between Iranian-supported terrorists and North Korea—continue to reverberate around the world. It is estimated that upwards of 80 percent of all Americans, and more than half the population of Japan, Eastern Europe, and what had been western Russia and the Ukraine have died as a result. China has been seen as the new superpower in the wake of the attack, with significant Chinese forces, defined as humanitarian, now occupying the West Coast of the United States and Japan. Western Europe and our own United Kingdom, though spared the direct results of the attack, are still feeling the profound economic impact as the world attempts to reestablish economic and political balance. In south Asia, intense fighting continues in the wake of a limited nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India.

The second anniversary of what most now call “the Day” was commemorated today by the king, who attended a memorial service at Westminster Abbey. After the service, a renewed pledge was made by the prime minister to help our European neighbors with their rebuilding efforts and to extend continued aid to the United States.

More on that memorial service and the lasting impact of the Day, but first, this report from the provisional government of the United States capitol at Bluemont, Virginia. The administration’s announcement two weeks ago of the mobilization of a million men and women for the Americans’ Army of National Recovery, or ANR, is now in full swing with draft notices having been sent out in a move unprecedented since the Second World War. The majority of America’s armed forces, which were based overseas on the day of the attack, have now been deployed to the western and southern borders to contain further expansion by foreign powers.

Therefore, the purpose of this Army of National Recovery, according to the administration, was reiterated today: to establish security in those regions within the United States still ruled by lawlessness, to restore domestic tranquility, to aid in reconstruction, and—when necessary—to augment the military presence along those borders claimed to be in dispute. Our panel of experts will discuss the implications of the creation of this new military force within the United States later in the hour.

And this message for our friends in Montreal: “The chair is against the door.” I repeat, “The chair is against the door.”

Now for other news from around the world…