Pinko Commie Superbunker, Part 6/7

Meteors!!! Or is it Asteroids?

Feb 21, 2025

Welcome to Part 6! The movie will be shortly entering the final act. In the meantime, Armageddon outta here.

If you missed Part 5, click there. To start at the beginning if you don’t want spoilers, click there.

In the previous episode, all Cali’s superbunkers have been constructed and he got a little wistful. And there’s conspiracy theories galore about what’s going on and what mischievous Katy may be up to.

In this episode, the White House is about to play a game of Meteors. Or is it asteroids? Meanwhile, Katy is still up to something. As are our vivacious couple with the radio on.

By the way, when I wrote this story, Joltin’ Joe Biden was the President. I’m sure you’ll be able to visualise him.

In your meantime, I’m going to do a little devious mind control on you. Specifically, I am commanding you to watch this intro video. If you don’t watch it, you will not be allowed to read the rest of the story.

Six months to impact…

“This kinda puts the whole climate change thing in the shade, huh?”

“Fuck climate change, Mr. President.”

*chuckle* “I thought we already were!”

Someone coughs.

“Don’t worry, we’ll edit that out.”

“So, what am I looking at here?”

Most of the Great American Public was watching the live broadcast from the White House briefing room.

“Well, that grey ball there, Mr. President, that’s Ceres. That’s the target, obviously. Notice it’s spinning.”

“And we wanna increase that spin, right?”

“That’s the intention, Mr. President.”

Mr. President nods in an attempt to look sagacious. The SpaceForce Admiral ignores it. “Those blue arrows there, those are our nukes. Obviously the red ones are Russia and China. The black ones are everyone else.”

“Isn’t it great to put our differences aside and embark on a global public-private partnership to save the planet?”

“Absolutely, Mr. President.” Ms. Vice-President smiles at the camera. “Absolutely.”

“And those white pulsating lines there, those are the megalasers.”

“Hmm. Looks like that arcade game I played in college. Remember that? What was it called again?”

“Meteors, I believe.”

“Are you sure? Not Asteroids?”

*Shrugs*

“Maybe you’re right, Mr. President.”

“You sure it wasn’t called Thrust?”

“Thrust?”

*More shrugs*

“Anyway,” the President grins inanely, “should’ve put that arcade music to it. Make it get more intense when the arrows get closer.”

Everyone chose to studiously ignore that.

The arrows get closer.

“Are all the selected safely ensconced in their bunkers?”

“Yep,” Cali said, “all 224,990 of them. The only ones left are the six crew in the jet, plus you, me, and Nathan and his mom.”

“And it’s ready to take us to Switzerland?”

“Fuelled up and ready to roam.”

“And no external communications from the bunkers, they are aware of that?”

“Yes, they are aware of that. Even if they’re not, the AI wouldn’t allow it. But you seem somewhat on edge. Are you, of all people, actually worried about what’s about to happen?”

“You mean with Ceres? No, not that. I know exactly what’s going to happen. It’s the other part of the plan that’s far more important.”

Now it was Cali’s turn to give a concerned look. “Perhaps now is the time to tell me what that is, then?”

Katy took a little breath before answering. Then she said, “We’re not getting on that plane. But we need everyone to think that we are. There’ll be one of those aircraft trackers confirming the flight on social media, so we’ll use that to our advantage. So, tell the plane to take off and fly to Zurich. Then the crew need to take the first available commercial flight back here and join us in our original bunker.”

“Hah!” Cali exuberantly threw his arms up. “I knew it!” he waggled his finger at her. “I knew you were up to something! Right. I suppose, then, you’ll be telling me when we’re down there, rather than right now, eh?”

“Far be it from me to disappoint…”

“And what’s that curvy line there?”

“That, Mr. President, is the current trajectory of the target object. Hopefully, we should start to see it shift after impact.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Well, it’ll be a direct hit right here on the White House.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No, Sir, Mr. President. The target object is 600 miles across. It would tear a hole at least that size right through the crust, into the mantle, releasing hellish amounts of molten lava and sulphur, probably brimstone too while we’re at it, and, well, the planet would become entirely uninhabitable.”

“May I have a drink?”

The megalasers keep flashing and the arrows get closer.

Someone fetched the President another drink. On a side screen they could see one of Musk’s satellites following alongside all those thermonukes and streaming back a video feed for everyone’s entertainment.

As for Musk, Bezos, and some British guy called Branson, they were just about to lift off. Whilst everyone else was otherwise distracted.

Another plane, a private one, took off smoothly not far from San Francisco and banked east as it climbed to cruising height.

Some pseudonymous doxxer on Twitter unwittingly fulfilled their part in the machinations, and kept a running update of the flight path of Caligula Jones’ private jet. By this time, they had at least ten million followers.

Our heroes, however (plus Nathan’s mom – who doesn’t have a speaking part, so as not to disappoint you there – although not his dad – don’t think there’s going to be some schmaltzy reconciliation scene; this isn’t Spielberg, you know), made their way down to the movie theatre on Level Nine where 140 other humans were watching the big screen.

All of them with big eyes and even warmer hearts.

“Here we go Mr. President. The first of the nukes is about to strike in ten seconds.”

“Best of luck everyone.” For once, this President was humbled. Reduced to the same size as everybody else in the world. Kind of fitting, don’t you think?

Five seconds… four… three…

It’s going to take a while for the trajectory to change, reader dear. You do realise that, right?

There’s about twelve thousand thermonuclear warheads to get through first, after all.

“I knew it!” Cali exclaimed.

He and Katy were in a private monitoring suite now. She’d told him how long it would take the humans to work out the new trajectory.

“What’s that?”

“That pale blue dot there, Ms. Major, is a modified Dragon capsule, which has just docked with an Artemis, which is now heading on a direct rendezvous course with our dear old moon. And no prizes for guessing who’s on it.”

“Deodorant guy, by any chance?”

“Yep. I just knew they’d have some Elysium thing going on. Didn’t you? Didn’t I tell you!”

She was smiling broadly. “Put it this way, Cali. I was hoping they would. Dark side of the moon, I presume.”

“Now that’s a great album. Anyway. So then, what’s really going to happen?”

“The trajectory will change. It’ll probably be confirmed by the time our guests in the cinema have finished their disaster movie triple bill. Then we’ll tell them the good news. Essentially, there will be fragments, and most of them will swarm down dutifully on all those corrupted one percenters huddled together in Middle Europe. However, they won’t know that until it’s too late. You’ll have to wait until the time comes for that one, though. Sorry.”

“Hah! I don’t care! And you know what?”

“What?”

“I absolutely love not having any money left!”

“Just as well. Because in this place, there isn’t any.”

Cali grinned, then glanced across at her. “Do you play golf, by any chance?”

Seven hours later…

Cheers erupt in the White House briefing room.

“Well,” says a grinning aid, “congratulations on your re-election, Mr. President.”

The old man nods repeatedly and shakes endless hands. He is not, however, entirely certain what just happened.

Someone helps him out.

“It should pass by at approximately two hundred thousand miles, Mr. President. And it’s gonna make a damn fine show to herald the new dawn of your second term.”

“Are the cameras still rolling?” Ms. Vice President is a little more circumspect, uncharacteristically.

“It’s on a ten second delay, Madame Vice President. We’ll edit that out too. Here. Have a drink.”

SpaceForce Admiral has a quiet word with an assistant. “Any news on those fragments?”

“Still working on that one, Sir. It’ll take a while. But the way it looks right now, they’re still caught in Ceres’ gravity and are just following it on the same course.”

“So, what you’re saying, Lieutenant, is that thing’s got a tail?”

“Have you cancelled the tickets yet, honey?”

“Sure thing. Spoke to the travel agent in my lunch break. Now where in the darn toot did I put the Viagra? Turn the radio on.”

“…smell a rat! Just think about it, folks. We no longer have a nuclear deterrent! And we all know what Russia’s hypersonic capability is, right? No? Well let me tell you, it’s WAY better than ours. Add red China into the mix and we are VASTLY outnumbered. They could launch an invasion anytime. So do I smell a rat here? I sure do! And a cat! So I’m not sleeping easy just yet. Still, it’s great to be debt free. Thank you very much, Mr. Caligula Jones. Hope you’re having fun. Don’t go away folks, after these expensive messages we have an interview with a guy who knew a guy who used to work for the CIA!”

“Honey, where did you say it was?”

“In the meds cabinet!”

A few days later the crew from the private jet arrived safely and slipped in under cover of night.

The superbunker was duly, silently sealed up, and the AI overrode all external communications, just as her interconnected sisters did with the other 1499.

Caligula Jones wasn’t entirely telling the truth when he said he was broke. He still had around twelve million bucks sitting in some bank somewhere in NYC. Although that turned out to be the algorithm’s fault in the end, for adding pending interest.

But he didn’t notice.

They kept their eyes on the news and the social media. It was all happy for a change. Peace had broken out several months before nuke day and ratified shortly after. The Israelis pretended to agree to a two-state solution for the time being and neither China nor the American Empire could be bothered about plucky little Taiwan anymore.

Zelensky told a few bad taste jokes and landed a whole heap of investors keen on the reconstruction projects.

Everyone’s individual character couldn’t help but reveal itself. Katy had been right about that. The bad guys thought only of saving themselves, and were rightfully embarrassed about it, while the vast majority just spent time with their friends and families and helped out in the community. Those who were once estranged sought, and received, reconciliation.

Husbands bought flowers for their wives.

Golf handicaps went down.

Katy topped the bestseller list. The irony of the fact that she was now richer than Caligula was not lost on either of them.

In the meantime, what everyone had come to believe was Caligula Jones’ altruistic communal living experiment proceeded silently and successfully away from prying eyes.

With one month to go before Event Day the vast majority of the 225,000 had all but forgotten about the approaching Ceres, with its by now very beautiful tail.

After all, every professional astronomer they invited into the television studios assured the glamorous airhead presenter and her viewers that not a single one of those fragments was coming anywhere close to a theatre near you.

“We’ve done the calculations a thousand times, America, and there’s no need to worry. Black Friday has, we assure you, not been cancelled.”

“Oh, that’s so good to know. Now over to Maisie for the weather. Maisie…?”