“Nothing good,” the technician said. “NORAD is down, I can’t reach Cheyenne Mountain and now I’m trying STRATCOM at Offutt.”

Penn shifted his gaze to Representative Holt.

“Those are all major commands that have no doubt been pre-targeted,” she said.

“Maybe we should try some Navy installations,” Angela Fortnight suggested. “Or Army.”

“Or Marines,” Penn said.

“All are on the list, Mr. Speaker,” Scott Johnson reported. “We’ll keep trying until we find something.”

Kent Kiser raised his hand. “What are we doing here, exactly? What are we supposed to be doing?”

“Our jobs,” Penn replied. “War and reconstruction are expensive endeavors. The House of Representatives is the only agency within the government that can appropriate the necessary funds.”

“And then what?” Kiser pressed. From Missouri’s Seventh Congressional District, Kiser was an acolyte of Angela Fortnight’s, and ever since taking office, he’d harbored a bitter dislike for Penn Glendale and anything the Speaker stood for. “Who’s going to sign the appropriation bills? And what are we going to pay them with? I’m betting that people aren’t going to give much of a shit tomorrow about paper money.”

“Decorum!” Penn snapped. “Watch your language, sir. This is still the House Chamber.”

“Is it really? Or is it just a converted theater?”

Angela Fortnight arose from her seat. “Kent, you’re really not helping here. Everyone is stressed.”

“You think?”

“Bad language and sarcasm don’t help,” Angela said.

Kiser stood in place for a few seconds, as if considering what to say next, and then he plopped himself back into his seat like a petulant child.

Members of Congress had been at each other’s throats for over a decade. Fanned by rhetorical winds, the fires of partisanship seemed to burn hotter with every passing week. For over ten years—that’s five Congresses—the fracture within the Capitol had transformed comity to a zero-sum blood sport. Any proposal raised by one party was reflexively torpedoed by the opposite party, merit of the legislation notwithstanding. As the two caucuses maneuvered for position, and polarization became more extreme, the result had been to effectively drive more and more power to the White House, whose occupants of necessity became progressively more dictatorial, governing by executive order.

After Penn had been elected to the Speaker’s chair, he genuinely thought he had a plan to change things. After twelve consecutive terms representing his constituents in Danville, Virginia, he thought he could leverage the friendships he’d developed over three decades on both sides of the aisle to mine compromise from the intractability that had ossified the House. And if he’d had even a slightly larger majority, or if the president had been from his party, he believed he could have made it happen.