Burn for Now

BURN FOR NOW Bob Howard Copyright © 2023 Bob Howard All rights reserved. ISBN-13: 978-1-945754-46-3 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental. This book is dedicated to my wife and our kids. Your ideas, your support, and above all, your love are why my books get written. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would be doing a disservice to the great authors who have reached their audiences through a more traditional path if I failed to thank them for paving the road for me. In the past, I’ve acknowledged the people and the industries that have given independent authors the opportunity to create their work and get it into the marketplace. Before there were computers, the great authors of our time worked much harder to write a book of fiction than I ever have. I tried to write on a typewriter, and it didn’t go well. I tried to research in libraries and in historical society archives, and the hours were brutal. Now, I can write on one computer while I research on another. The tools of the trade have made it easier, and I have a deep appreciation for how dedicated those great authors must be. I want them to know that their long hours of study in the craft of writing weren’t wasted because they have given a generation of independent authors study guides to follow. When I read a book now, I study the structure, the choice of words, and the carefully placed key words that make their books the mind-bending stories that they are. I ask myself if I’ll ever write a book that’s as good as theirs, and the only answer I can honestly give is that I’ll try. I know in my heart that sometimes I become so immersed in writing that the story seems to write itself. Another reason I felt it necessary to acknowledge traditionally published authors is because now I can understand how they felt to see thousands of independent authors entering the market. In the near future, I expect to see novels written by Artificial Intelligence applications. I can imagine there will be people who take advantage of those sources to produce the work for them, and that will give readers anther choice. I personally would stop writing before I would let an AI create a single sentence for me, and I’m sure traditionally published authors would do the same. Contents Prologue Chapter 1 - Wyoming Chapter 2 - Evacuation Chapter 3 - Silo Chapter 4 - Slaughter Chapter 5 - Discovery Chapter 6 - Isolation Chapter 7 - Alexandra Chapter 8 - Dependent Silo Chapter 9 - Shannon Chapter 10 - Condo Chapter 11 - Solitude Chapter 12 - Protection Chapter 13 - Donner Party Chapter 14 - Plan B Chapter 15 - Keys Chapter 16 - No Failure Chapter 17 - Options Chapter 18 - Clues Chapter 19 - Breach Chapter 20 - Horde Chapter 21 - Cornered Chapter 22 - Shelter Secrets Chapter 23 - Voltage Epilogue About the Author Prologue The Jasper silo had never housed a nuclear missile, but it did hold a wealth of information about the missile fields that were part of the United States triad of nuclear weapons. Specifically, there was information about the decommissioned silos that had been converted to strategic storage facilities located near the active silos. Their mission was to provide support for the Air Force personnel who would be left with no way to survive if they ever had to launch their weapons. There was a network of hardened tunnels that ran between them, and over time, the tunnels were upgraded to allow for easy access to the missile silos. Most of the documentation on the Jasper silo computers was highly classified, but once again, Gentry Campbell proved to be every bit as good at hacking computer systems as she was at everything else related to science. She uncovered one particular file that outlined how the Air Force would evacuate personnel in stages to living quarters inside the storage silos. It was an incredibly complex operation that included the movement of personnel to different locations around the country in a very short amount of time. If it was possible to keep the bombers in the air, they had to be able to return for new payloads, and that meant having them land near their resupply depots. The Department of Defense had to decide which silos would remain active, which would be repurposed as storage facilities or living quarters, which would become tourist attractions, and which would be sold to private investors. There was no lack of interest from the private sector with prospective buyers lining up at the doors of their Congressmen and Senators. The Department of the Interior wanted to be first to choose which silos were the best ones for tourism, and private contractors were sending bids to anyone who even remotely stood a chance of obtaining the silos. The prospects for developing the system were met with great enthusiasm. The largest vendors of nonperishable supplies increased production as if the United States was at war, and shipments arrived at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming before the silos were even renovated, but that only meant there would be no delay once the silos were ready to be stocked. The same was true for the major suppliers of weapons. Shipments of small arms and ammunition were stockpiled by the manufacturers and ready to distribute as soon as they were given a destination. The General Accounting Office would make the final decisions, and they were pressured to find a way to make everyone happy. That was how they wound up building silos around the country. Since there weren’t enough missile silos for everyone, locations were selected that were supposed to ensure the continuity of civilian populations as well as military