“I’m sure they are,” he reached under her shoulder as if to lift her to her feet.

She burst with a shout that caused him to lose his balance and fall backward onto the floor.

“GODDAMN IT you have to hear me, Omar! You MUST listen to me. Trevor MUST listen. You have to tell him. I can’t go-not like this-but you have to. You must tell him!”

“Calm down. We will send a message to him.”

“NO!” Then calmer, “No. You will go to the front and tell him yourself, Omar. You will tell him what I have learned.”

She stared at him with hard eyes for a long moment, and then collapsed into sobs as the weight of her work, of her life in the dungeon, of the truth she had learned, came falling hard on her shoulders.

He whispered in her ear, “What has this place done to you?”

“I know, Omar,” she answered by telling him exactly what the horrors at Red Rock had finally taught her. “I know why the universe is empty.”

4. Spoilsport

In the world before Armageddon, Wichita, Kansas earned the nickname “Air Capital of the World” due to the volume of aircraft manufactured in the vicinity as well as McConnell Air Force Base, one-time home to the 22 ^ nd Air Refueling Wing.

A small military contingent of Kansas National Guard and Air Force Combat Controllers kept McConnell operating during that first summer of the initial invasion. They flew re-supply sorties across the country, even topping the tank on Air Force One in late July. Eventually they lost contact with the President after his return to Cheyenne Mountain and the orders-as convoluted as they were-ceased.