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wouldn't be on the map but he wanted to check the other landmarks to make sure he was still headed in the direction he thought the base must be in. He didn't hear the figure step onto the path behind him until an arm snaked about his neck. Jeremy choked and fought against his attacker's grip in a desperate panic until he heard the sound of a gun being cocked beside his ear.
         "Stop it, kid, if you want to live to see the sun set,” a gruff voice ordered. Jeremy stopped squirming.
         "Look, mister…"
         "Shut up, kid.” The man released his hold and shoved Jeremy away from him. Jeremy whirled around to get a look at him and almost broke into a smile when the man's camouflage-green uniform.
         "I'd tell you,” the man continued, “to go home, but I guess none of us really have one anymore…"
         Jeremy stared, bewildered, at Geoff. Geoff was in later fifties with gray hair covering his head. His eyes were bloodshot and it looked as if he hadn't shaved in several days. Yet bulging muscles rippled beneath his uniform as he moved with cat like grace, scooping up Jeremy's backpack and slipping it onto his own shoulder.
         "…So I suppose I am going to have to take you back with me."
         "To the base?"
         "To what's left of it anyway, kid."
         As they made their way together through the woods, Jeremy listened to what Geoff knew about what was going on and about what had happened at the base Geoff referred to as Def-Con IV.
         Days ago, the strange light Jeremy experienced had been a wave of energy striking the Earth. No one knew where it came from but its origins came from somewhere far beyond the solar system and the space known to humankind. The best guess was that the energy was some kind of shockwave from somewhere out there in the unknown. Perhaps it was from some distant battle in an interstellar war or an alien species messing around with dark matter that had gotten far more than they bargained for. It didn't really matter much where it came from. When it struck the Earth the light was merely a side-effect of it entering our atmosphere and reacting with the matter it found within it. A portion of the energy wave's main body had broken off becoming trapped by those same gasses. Like a super and perpetual EMP on a global scale, the wave and its lingering remnants caused technological failures throughout the world as most forms of known energy used by man had simply ceased to be, dampened or disrupted to the point of uselessness. Only basic things worked now, electricity, nuclear energy, etc. were out of the question until the field left behind dispersed. The alien energy field left in the Earth's atmosphere also produced a type of ambient radiation which scientists believe would still be here in a thousand years unless someway was found to deal with it. This radiation was what caused the “plague” of madness which ran rampant everywhere. It broke down the neural pathways of the human to their very most basic core and leaving empty human shells full of only instinct and violence in those who not immune and very few people in the world were.
         At first, Def-Con IV retained contact with a handful of other base like itself both here in the United States and in the United Kingdom, for the first day they had even been in touch with the President and the White House. Though the energy hadn't grown in strength and was actually losing its ability to interfere with long distant communications, they'd lost contact with other bases one by one as the victims of the radiation plague and other problems took their toll until Def-Don IV became completely cut off. For all Geoff knew, Def-Con IV could very well be the last humanity left in the world.
         During the first few hours of the chaos when the wave had first reached the Earth, the base had opened its doors to the local people who came seeking shelter in the wave's fallout until Def-Con IV was