It takes a great enemy to make a great plane.

—U.S. Air Force saying

The deep mechanical voice was male; hollow and metallic—devoid of any human personality.

A look from my uncle warned me about asking questions.

“GOLEM, I want to bring my nephew down to the control room to say hello to the vice president. I think an hour’s visitor’s pass should be more than adequate.”

“Security clearance granted.”

Uncle David escorted me through the unmanned security checkpoint, then down an antiseptic white corridor to a series of elevators. We took the first one, descended six stories in silence, then exited to a steel door requiring a clearance pass. The general swiped his plastic card, its magnetic strip opening the lock with a click.

With my curiosity burning, I followed my uncle into the control room, a high school gymnasium-size chamber of reinforced concrete and steel. Rows of computer terminals were occupied by men and women in jeans, shirts, and white lab coats. The entire forward wall was a computerized map of the world. The Space Tracking and Surveillance System, an elaborate satellite-based array originally designed to home in on submarine signatures and ballistic missile activity, now traced power outages along a fractured North American energy grid.

No one so much as looked up as we walked by.

The general pointed to the map. “The green blips are wind farms; orange, solar arrays; the blue, hydroelectric dams. As you can see, their coverage bands are quite limited. Problem is, we can’t expand the grid without the petroleum-based plastics and other raw materials necessary to erect the infrastructure. It takes energy to make energy—in this case the energy needed to recycle raw materials for new uses, so it’s two steps forward and one back.”

“What are those blinking red lights?”

“Fusion reactors. All under construction. Once we get them online this grid will light up like a Christmas tree.” My uncle looked around, perhaps more for the glowing blue orb along the ceiling than for me. “The VP should just be finishing his meeting, let’s say hello.”

Like a dutiful soldier, I followed my uncle up a short flight of stairs that led to an atrium and the outer doors of what I assumed was a conference room, with the tinting on the thick soundproof plastic windows adjusted for privacy. The general pressed his thumb to a keypad and the locks clicked open.

Inside, seven men and two women were seated around an oval smart table. Most of the people in the lab coats were familiar—each scientist representing a key sector of the Omega Project.

The strapping gentleman in the gray suit seated at the end of the table flashed a broad smile as he strutted around the table to embrace me. “Ike, how the hell are you?”

“Good, Lee. Real good. Or should I call you Mr. Vice President?”