Saturday August 8, 2026 [8/8 +0]
Washington D.C., United States of America
The motorcade pulled through the White House security gate. When it stopped, Sheridan and her two children exited after being prompted by the numerous Secret Service agents who surrounded the car.
Sheridan, her family, and a cadre of Secret Service agents entered the building and rapidly made their way towards the West Wing.
“Where are we going? Who are we meeting?” Sheridan asked Agent Harvey, who was leading the small group.
“Ma’am, we will be headed towards the Cabinet Room, where you will be briefed on the latest intelligence that we know about the phenomenon. I do not have any information on who will actually be there.”
Tight-lipped, Sheridan continued along her way through the elegant corridors of the White House. Along the way, her well-ordered mind sorted through the pieces of information that she had received since she was whisked away from her home in Arlington less than a half hour before.
The president cannot wake up, she thought. Sheridan knew Parker Rhodes well enough to know that he rose before the sun every single bloody day to get his morning workout in (unlike herself, who allowed the luxury of sleeping in on weekends). The president must have fallen victim to this… phenomenon.
There are scores of unconscious people in the prisons. One thing that came up over and over again on the news sites that Sheridan searched was that several prisons around the world was in an emergency situation due to a high number of prisoners that fell unconscious earlier that morning. Why prisons? Poor sanitary conditions? Awful food? Sheridan filed this info in her brain for later consideration.
This hit us while most of us were sleeping, but the majority of the world’s population was awake. The American time zones were such that when this phenomenon hit, the majority of the nation’s people were in bed. The Eastern seaboard was the only zone which was largely awake at the time of the phenomenon. The majority of the world’s population lives in the Eastern hemisphere, hence most of the world’s people were fully awake when this thing happened. It is quite likely that there were a large number of accidents due to people unexpectedly passing out while driving, operating heavy machinery, hell, maybe even while performing surgery. Sheridan shuddered a little at that. There will certainly be a large death toll due to this thing.
This phenomenon may be biological… it may be chemical… or it may be something else entirely. Sheridan was a “lightly religious” person, in that she paid lip service to Christian values and took her kids to church every Sunday; however, deep down she had to admit that she was doing it more for political than spiritual reasons. This… thing that just happened was a worldwide phenomenon. Was there even a scientific explanation for what happened? Millions of people getting knocked out cold on the same day? God, did you do this? Sheridan had a feeling that her core beliefs were going to get a rigorous self-review in the next few days.
The small group finally approached the Cabinet Room. Agent Harvey held out a hand to pause the group from going in.
“Ma’am, I will have to have the children escorted to another area. I assure you that they will be well-cared for.”
“Aaron, thank you, so much. I’m sure they will be fine. William, Victoria, please go with these nice men, they will show you around the White House. Is that right, gentlemen?”
Two of Agent Harvey’s men broke their stoic professional character and kindly took the children’s hands and led them away down the cavernous hallway.
Sheridan drew a deep breath and entered the Cabinet Room.
The large room was nearly empty. The long, mahogany table had only three people seated at the far end. Sheridan looked past the attendees and above the fireplace mantle at Charles Armand-Dumaresq’s painting The Signing of the Declaration of Independence and got a momentary chill up her spine.
She had a gut feeling that she was going to bear witness to a similarly critical event in American history.
