The Truthfinder

Chapter 1: State of the Union Address

"What about drones?" the President said.

"We can't send any drones if we can't monitor their feeds," the admiral said. "We'd be launching drones into a void with no way to recall them as we can't control anything past the Mississippi River."

The President asked about surveillance from satellites. "Some kind of signal jamming is preventing satellite surveillance," the CIA director said.

Then the admiral suggested that perhaps missiles fired from satellites could get through. These wouldn't need to be targeted – they could strike wherever in the blacked-out land mass – as a warning to the people responsible for what had happened. Make them think twice before attempting to do the same to the remaining part of the U.S.

The President had refused this suggestion. In her first full day in office she was not about to kill tremendous numbers of Americans if they were still alive. And if someone or something had already destroyed everything there, what good would sending missiles now do?

The rest of the briefing had been as bleak. And then decisions had to be made. President Perez had gone on national media to announce the "unknown incident," which the media had immediately renamed "The Disappearance." She had asked everyone to remain calm even though they couldn't reach loved ones in the blacked-out land mass. At that moment in time there had been hope that, whatever this was, it was only temporary.

Now a year later there were no more answers than there had been originally. Scientists and tech experts all over the world had weighed in on what could have caused this. Some pointed out that in 2015 there had been a warning of web vulnerability that could explain the phenomenon. Yet no one could figure out how, if that were the case, to reverse the situation.

Attempts to cross into the land mass from Canada or Mexico or from the Pacific Ocean were met with failure. Some kind of force repulsion barrier prevented anyone from getting close at surface level. The military had given up after the loss of several personnel.

Over time President Perez had been forced to make numerous uncomfortable decisions, the one announced only yesterday perhaps the most painful to date. The government would allow anyone with a spouse in the disappeared land mass to file for a divorce that would be final in 30 days without a court hearing. When her White House spokesperson had announced this decision, it had been emphasized that this was a voluntary individual decision – no one would be forced to divorce his or her missing spouse.

If she were honest with herself, she usually tried to avoid making the really painful decisions. That is why she had given approval to the FBI to try the experimental Truthfinder procedure for a "he said, she said" sexual assault. She wouldn't be even remotely connected to the outcome in that case.

She grasped her hairbrush as she pulled it through her shoulder-length hair. She had been lucky that her husband and adult children were in D.C. for the Inaugural events and thus east of the Mississippi River the day that everything changed. Yet her parents had opted not to come from California – they preferred not to expose their immigrant-accented English on national media – and she had no idea whether they were even alive. And she owed everything to the risks they had taken illegally crossing into California from Mexico with her older siblings when her mother was seven-months pregnant with her. That illegal entry two months before her birth allowed her to be President now.

She had gone to law school, focusing on immigration law, in order to help her family members and others gain the right to stay legally in the U.S. And now what was the U.S.? A portion of its former self. People flying from the East Coast to locations west of the former Pacific Coast states had to take flights that "circled round" the blacked-out states. Social media accounts of people in the disappeared land mass at the time had no updates since January 21 of 2029. Nothing, nada.

In the State of the Union address she would touch only briefly on this moment the world changed. After a year it was time to look forward – to plan for a truncated U.S. still resolved to be a major participant on the international stage.

President Perez fastened tiny pearl earrings into her ears. She knew that her hair, dress, jewelry, makeup and even fingernail polish would be critiqued by the media as part of the address – a scrutiny to which a male President would never be subjected. She also knew that behind her back some people whispered that The Disappearance had been caused by factions within the U.S. who wouldn't abide a female President, let alone a Latina with illegal immigrant parents – that this was why The Disappearance had occurred immediately after she was sworn in.

For the whole year since then President Perez had clung to the hope that this was a test. That if she did well under such stressful circumstances, the perpetrators of this occurrence would allow the disappeared land mass to rejoin the U.S. Yet her advisors had finally convinced her that this wasn't going to happen – that she had to start taking actions, such as the newly announced divorce option, to help stabilize social situations. Otherwise, for example, how could the justice system deal with sexual assault cases when the institution of marriage had been dealt such a strong blow?

Not for the first time did President Perez wonder whether that motivation of delivering a blow to marriages had been behind this drastic occurrence. Someone wanted out of his or her marriage without paying alimony?

She shook her head. That thought belonged in the realm of science fiction. For now she had to walk into the Capitol and deliver her first State of the Union address.

And in that address she had to try to assuage everyone's daily fear – that whatever had happened a year ago to a large portion of the U.S. could happen at any moment to what remained of the Union.

© 2018 Phyllis Zimbler Miller

Phyllis Zimbler Miller blogs on topics including gender disparities at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com and her novels are on Amazon at www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

Her feature film screenplay adaptation of THE TRUTHFINDER is available on Amazon Studios.