Date: Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Time: 4:06 AM EST
Location: Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), White House Complex, Washington, D.C.
The command center beneath the White House buzzed with an energy that straddled chaos and purpose. The scent of burned wiring and cleaning solution still lingered faintly in the corridors above, but down here, beneath layers of steel, concrete, and classified infrastructure, something else was in the air, a storm of preparation.
Inside the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, now rededicated as the Ground Zero Command Annex, President Howard Smith Jackson stood at the central operations table. His jacket was off, his tie loosened, but the fire in his eyes had never been clearer. Surrounding him was a growing storm of motion military communications officers, White House staffers, National Guard liaisons, and agents from every remaining branch of homeland security.
At the far side of the room, Director Clayton Sanders leaned over a satellite operations console, a black marker in hand as he updated the strategic board on active defense postures across NORAD, EUCOM, and NORTHCOM. Redacted reports from the Joint Chiefs were being decrypted and queued for real-time analysis.
Behind them, Angel Liberty Jackson, synced directly into the room's core command interface, walked slowly through a volumetric 3D display of the current state of the United States red and amber indicators scattered across regions, power grid instability reports, partial law enforcement communications blackouts in six major cities. Her expression was calm, focused, and infinitely precise.
"Emergency broadcast infrastructure has been reestablished across 96.3% of U.S. television, radio, and satellite platforms," she said, her voice carrying clearly through the bunker. "Redundant signal routing is standing by. Mobile carriers have been re-tasked to reroute data packets for livestream access in civilian population zones."
Howard turned to her. "Will they see me, Angel? Not just hear the words but see me?" Angel nodded. "Yes, Dad. I'll make sure of it. No camera tricks. No edits. Just you."
Across the bunker, Samantha Jade Jackson stood near the sealed blast doors with Jade and Amy at her side, speaking in low tones with CAT operators coordinating rooftop security and presidential egress routes. The dogs remained alert but relaxed eyes constantly scanning, bodies coiled with discipline learned through years of combat K9 training.
Samantha turned to Howard, her voice strong despite the sling on her arm. "You're not going to speak to the country from down here, are you?" Howard paused. "No. I'm going up." Samantha raised a brow. "The South Lawn?" He nodded. "Exactly. Where the people can see that the White House didn't fall. Where they can see that their President is standing under the same stars they are."
Within twenty minutes, a makeshift outdoor broadcast platform was being assembled on the South Lawn, directly facing the remnants of the Capitol dome in the distance. Angel deployed one of her hardlight projector drones to serve as a redundant holographic capture and audio cleaner. Technicians pulled secure satellite feedlines from underground access points. CAT units and Marine guards re-secured the perimeter, now bathed in floodlights and surrounded by flags illuminated from below.
Howard stood before a mirror in the command annex. He took a slow breath and adjusted his tie. Then he looked down at the silver cross around his neck. The engraving was still there, gleaming softly: Joshua 1:9 – Be strong and courageous.
Behind him, Samantha stepped forward and pinned the gold cross meant for her onto the inside hem of her blazer, close to her heart. The two of them locked eyes. "You don't have to be perfect out there," she whispered. Howard nodded. "I just have to be real."
Angel's voice returned over the PA. "Broadcast systems are green. All networks are ready. Twenty seconds to go live. Jackson One, I am linking your signal to every active military installation, state broadcast channel, and federal emergency alert system. Three, two… one you're on."
Howard stepped into the night.
He emerged on the South Lawn, flanked by subdued floodlights, the battered columns of the White House behind him. His suit was clean but wrinkled from the hours of survival. His hands bore the marks of travel and war. His eyes looked straight into the lens as the wind gently rustled the flag beside him.
And then he spoke to a broken country, a grieving capital, and a watching world.
Time: 5:03 AM EST
Location: South Lawn, The White House, Washington, D.C.
A cold wind brushed across the South Lawn, carrying the distant smell of smoke from the still-smoldering Capitol ruins. Floodlights, mounted hastily along the perimeter, threw long shadows behind every figure standing watch. A silence, thick with mourning and determination, settled across the crowd that had gathered not of civilians, but of those who stayed. First responders. Medics. Firefighters. White House staff. Members of the Secret Service Counter Assault Team (CAT) and HMX-1 personnel. They weren't standing in lines for show they stood as a human bulwark behind their new Commander-in-Chief.
At the center of the lawn, with the White House still scarred by broken windows and smoke behind him, stood a simple presidential podium. No bulletproof glass. No teleprompter. No grand backdrop. Just the flag of the United States rippling behind him and four silent giants of aviation, draped in solemn ceremonial banners: VH-60N "White Top" Marine One, VH-92A "Patriot" Marine One and Two MV-22B Ospreys from HMX-1, their engines were cold, but their purpose blazed louder than turbines ever could.
President Howard Smith Jackson stepped up to the microphone, his footsteps audible in the silence. Clad in his navy-blue "POTUS" combat-dress uniform reinforced, bulletproof, and clean, save for the slight scuff of coyote blood on his left cuff he looked every bit the soldier that had climbed from the forests of Maine to the frontlines of history. The silver cross necklace tucked beneath his shirt hummed against his chest, engraved with the words that now echoed in his mind: Be strong and courageous.
His wife, Samantha Jade Jackson, stood nearby in a dark tailored coat, arm still in a sling, eyes fixed on her husband like she'd never lost faith. Beside her, Angel Liberty Jackson, their daughter projected in perfect clarity via her hard-light matrix stood silently at parade rest, her quantum core in its gray cross-emblazoned wrap cradled gently in Samantha's free hand.
Howard exhaled once, then spoke. His voice, steady but raw, carried into the early morning like a slow drumbeat. "Good morning, America and my fellow Americans. I wish I could greet you under different skies. I wish I could tell you the Capitol still stood, that all your leaders were safe, that last night was just a nightmare we could all wake from. But it wasn't. What you saw… what we lived through together… was an attack not just on buildings or people, but on the spirit of our nation. And yet here we are."
He paused, letting the wind move through the flags like a hymn. "I stand here not because I sought this office. I never campaigned. I gave no speeches. I kissed no babies. I was in the woods with my brothers, on a hunting trip in Maine. But I took an oath, a soldier's oath, years ago, to protect and defend this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath… never expires."
The camera feeds, managed directly by Angel's processing, broadcast the entire moment to every major television network, news app, and military command screen in the country. Soldiers in forward bases, survivors in emergency shelters, and nurses in hospital cafeterias all watched as Howard continued with no script, no rehearsal. "I'm not here to promise a quick fix or a magic solution. We are at the beginning of a long and painful road. But I promise you that we will walk it together. I don't lead from behind. I never have. And I won't start now. I'm a soldier. A husband. A father. And as of yesterday, I am your President."
At his final word, Angel stepped forward, lifting one hand toward the crowd. Her hard-light eyes shimmered with a quiet intensity as she spoke: "You are not alone, America. I am Angel Liberty Jackson. My name is written in code, but my heart was raised in this country. My parents built me to serve, to protect, and to stand watch. I will not let you fall."
Her voice echoed over the South Lawn, followed by the sound of hands clapping, slowly at first…then building. Even the wounded staff who had hung the flags that morning began to weep and cheer.
The American flag raised behind the podium caught the breeze just as "The Star-Spangled Banner" began to play over the loudspeakers. And in that moment between ruin and rising the country didn't just watch a man give a speech. It watched a nation refuse to fall.
Time: 7:15 PM EST
Location: Emergency Broadcast Coordination Hub, PEOC Media Division, The White House
Across the nation, every television channel, major news outlet, and digital platform faded into black then lit up not with a news anchor, but with the blue-gold seal of the President of the United States. Beneath it, white letters scrolled across the bottom of the screen: "America, meet your Commander-in-Chief and your President of the United States."
The first video that followed wasn't shot in a studio. It was raw, personal, and unmistakably homegrown. It was a child's voice at first, shaky but sure as he looked into the camera, standing in his backyard next to a frozen garden in Auburn, Maine. "I know President Jackson," the boy said, "He helped my dad get back on his feet after his service. He's not scary like the news made it sound he's just.. kind."
The screen cut next to the weather-beaten steps of the First Union Church of Portland, where Pastor Elijah Barnes stood with Bible in hand and wind blowing through his silver hair. "Howard Jackson sat in the third pew from the back, every Sunday since he was sixteen. Never asked for special treatment. Never raised his voice unless it was in song. I buried his uncle, baptized his daughter Angel's core with prayer, and I'll tell you plain he was born for this hour."
Then came the voices of Maine's wilderness. Maine Woods Wildlife Officer Riley Quinn, now a sergeant, stood in front of the Jackson Family Private Hunting Cabin, her uniform stiff from the cold. "That Mini-14 you saw? That's not for show. He's the reason I carry one. Scoped, chambered in 69-grain 5.56 NATO, five-round mag, Leupold VX-Freedom optic. He taught me to track, taught me to wait. Howard saved a moose calf once from drowning in the Penobscot he didn't shoot unless it mattered."
More footage: grainy bodycam and combat drone feeds from 2012 Iraq. Soldiers pinned in alleys, insurgents with T-72s rolling through smoke and fire. Howard's voice rang clear across the comms: "You hold that flank! Air power's inbound!" The screen shook as A-10C Thunderbolt IIs screamed overhead, followed by AH-64D Apache Longbows, F-15E Strike Eagles, and finally an AC-130H Spectre, losing hell on the enemy. The camera caught a single image of Howard throwing himself over a wounded British soldier, shielding him with his body as mortar rounds cracked pavement around them.
A shift. Colonel John Cote of the Maine State Police appeared in uniform beside the interstate that Howard's convoy had rolled through just the night before. "We blocked the roads not because of orders but because we knew the man behind the wheel. We knew he wouldn't run."
Then came the gas station mechanic in Skowhegan. The hunter from Bethel. Two veterans from Bangor. A nurse who remembered Howard quietly paying for a family's entire cancer bill. One by one, every corner of Maine stood up, not to shout, but to testify. No titles, no politics. Just the truth of a man they already knew.
Back in the White House, the PEOC fell silent. Samantha stood still beside her husband, tears in her eyes. Angel's avatar flickered quietly on the far screen, her sea-gray eyes watching the nation hear the name "Howard Smith Jackson" not as a mystery, but as memory.
By the time the footage ended, and the last voice faded into the March wind, the message was clear. He didn't campaign. He didn't run. But Howard Smith Jackson was already the President in the hearts of the people.
Time: 8:45 PM EST
Location: The White House – Residence and West Wing
The White House, though shaken by the thunderclap of national tragedy, stood beneath a flood of lights and surrounded by the flutter of red, white, and blue banners hastily raised at first light. Inside its halls, where historic portraits looked down on scarred marble and hurried footsteps, Samantha Jade Jackson moved like a constant calm, firm, and human. Her Secret Service jacket was zipped up to her collarbone, the Director's badge now gleaming boldly over her heart, a symbol of both survival and inherited burden.
"I need names, full rosters, and medical reports by the hour," she said softly to a junior aide as they passed a row of chairs overturned from the Capitol shockwave. "Everyone with nowhere to go we bring them home. Here, or to Andrews, if needed."
Behind her, Angel Liberty Jackson, projected in full form, walked with her hands folded behind her back, shoulder-length silver and red hair gently trailing in motion. Her sea-gray eyes scanned each section of the hall as she actively logged and cross-referenced wounded staff, orphaned dependents, and available quarters across D.C.'s secure zones. The names were more than data to her; they were neighbors, caretakers, teachers…people who had once stopped to speak kindly to a teenage girl they thought was just software.
Angel's calm voice echoed with depth, a blend of digital clarity and daughterly heart. "Mom, two of the injured Secret Service agents from CAT are stable. Room 103 and the East Bunker Med Bay. One is asking if Director Jackson will visit."
"I'll go myself," Samantha replied, her boots pausing outside a supply closet-turned-temporary triage room. Inside, a nurse dabbed blood from a staffer's temple as children in oversized Secret Service jackets huddled near MRE crates.
Jade and Amy, the family's Belgian Malinois twins, padded silently beside her, one on each flank. They made no sound, no growl, but their sharp eyes watched every shadow. They had once been trained for perimeter breach response; now, they had become unofficial comfort to whoever dared reach down to stroke their fur. They never left Samantha's side.
In the press briefing room, now a secondary staging area for family tracking and inter-agency coordination, Samantha pulled aside a FEMA logistics officer and handed him a secure tablet. "Every orphaned military child on that list is to have a full protection detail. You get them home, you get them safe, or you bring them here."
The man nodded and left without a word. Orders from the Director of the Secret Service carried more than weight; they carried memory, grief, and a sacred vow.
Later, as the White House quieted, Samantha stepped up to the window of the West Residence. She could see the dark patches of grass still churned up by chopper landings. Floodlights gleamed off the sleek hulls of Marine One and the MV-22 Ospreys. Firelight flickered inside the South Lawn tents. Her fingers lightly touched the glass, and her voice dropped to a whisper, the kind that still held command even in its gentleness.
"We're going to rebuild this… together."
Angel stood silently behind her, hands folded, her core data quietly pulsing from the table nearby. And in that moment, nothing needed to be said, not from the AI, nor the dogs beside her, nor the silent house that bore the soul of a nation.