Where do you go when there’s nowhere left to hide?
San Francisco 2031
Hope bolted from the bed. She threw on an outfit. I hurriedly packed, lining up all the essentials neatly in a corner next to the suitcase.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOMB BOMB BOMB
BOOM BOOM BOMB BOMB
BOOM BOOM BOMB
BOOM BOMB
BOMB
BOMB
BOMB
The apartment bounced. The air was pulled out from my lungs. I was calling out Hope’s name and she was calling mine too. She had fallen over in the closet and I leapt forward to help her get out again. Down the hall you could hear the sound of China crashing to the floor as the sideboard collapsed. [13]
It was complete chaos.
Thankfully neither of us were dreaming by this point or seriously hurt, but it made me realize that it was time for us to cut ties. We had no better reason. We had never been in love with the city anyways. [14] [15]
There wasn’t time to think. We weren’t safe. We needed to run. I would never willingly leave Hope and she would never leave me. And so we ran away together. We left everything behind.
There just wasn't time.
BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB
Launching ourselves down the emergency exit staircase from the entry of our apartment on the third floor, we egressed to the ground level. Just as we arrived at the lobby and were about to open the door to the outside world another bomb exploded about 50 yards north by northwest of our position a block up the street. The door’s glass shattered within its iron framework and Hope and I flew backwards slamming into an oversized Cezanne re-print of a simple village that hung on the lobby’s main atrium wall.
The world darkened and then went black for me. I have no idea what immediately came next.
From what I can remember then I was in a car. It had been years since I had ridden in a car. When I opened my eyes I couldn’t believe it. I began to triple-guess that maybe I was still dreaming.
Hope had strapped me into the back. I could barely move. I felt paralyzed. She was riding in the passenger seat of the car.
-Who’s driving?
I was so confused.
-Aaron, we’re not out yet, cover your head!
I looked over to the driver’s seat and the steering wheel was turning itself. There was no driver. I became even more terrified and covered the top of my scalp with both of my arms.
All around there was fire. The city was burning to the ground while explosions pock-marked the skyline just below the sun in all directions. It was a maelstrom of destruction.
From SoMA where we lived and Hope worked we traveled northwest on Market Street then looped around the Presidio and headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge. I found it ironic the moment that we passed by the scattered remnants of warehouses and dilapidated military structures along the shoreline that once served as an Army command center for all of the western defense in the Pacific theater during the previous world war; almost 100 years later war finally had arrived to our own shores.
Sorry I know my thoughts are scattered. I’m a bit of a history buff and it was… well, there were just so many things happening at once and even today, moments of our escape I don’t want to think about.
We both were waiting in agony for the car to go faster. It never did. We were probably averaging only 30-40 mph as skyscrapers and homes around us exploded, but neither of us could control the car. Hope still had her credentials from her former job. Thank god they worked, otherwise we’d almost certainly be dead. But she could only program the destination; the car did the rest. I have no idea how we made it out.
The one memory that will never leave me was the contrast of the armageddon of the world external beyond with the calmness of life inside the vehicle within. The car stopped at every stop sign. It followed every speed limit. The audio system played perfunctory soft jazz as if we were in an elevator downtown going about a normal day of business. It was morbidly absurd given the melody of mayhem playing on the other side of the dash.
Hope handled it much better than I did. I could not stop screaming.
We originally had planned to drive north on the PCH up to Sonoma to encamp at the house of one of Hope’s work colleagues (he owns a vineyard) and ride out whatever the hell was going on away from the city, but then the bridge collapsed.
Give me a minute, please…
There were bodies and burnt out cars everywhere. We watched scattered dozens of vehicles sink into the Bay, their passengers in many cases still trapped inside screaming. If we had left the apartment only a few minutes sooner that would have been us too.
Words cannot adequately convey how gruesome the scene was.
I won’t be more specific than that. At this point it doesn’t matter. They’re all gone. I...
So Hope reprogrammed our destination to head the opposite direction. At the time she wouldn’t tell me where we were going.
I tried to give her a hug.
-Just hold on. Keep covering your head. Stay there!
When we on-ramped to Highway 1, fleeing south along the coastline, stars began falling from the sky and the lights across the entire city went out. [16]
We were certain that it was the end of the world, and we had convinced ourselves that our time on this Earth would soon end too. It is nothing short of a miracle that I am here today to have the fortune to tell you this story.
***
-- ============================================================
-- PRESIDENTIAL ASCENSION ENGINE (PAE) v2.2.0 —
-- DISCLAIMER: Does not make you President. FEC filing not included.
-- Consult a lawyer. Consult several.
-- ============================================================
DECLARE electoral_votes_required INT64 DEFAULT 270;
DECLARE charisma_multiplier FLOAT64 DEFAULT 1.00; -- optimistic
DECLARE confidence_threshold FLOAT64 DEFAULT 0.500001; -- must beat a coin flip
WITH swing_states AS (
SELECT
state_id,
CAST(3 + RAND(state_id) * 52 AS INT64) AS electoral_votes,
RAND(state_id + 1) AS turnout_vibes
FROM UNNEST(GENERATE_ARRAY(1, 50)) AS state_id
),
scandal_risk AS (
SELECT RAND(FARM_FINGERPRINT(category)) AS risk_score
FROM UNNEST(['old tweets', 'yearbook quote', 'uncle''s facebook reshares']) AS category
)
SELECT
SUM(CASE WHEN turnout_vibes > 0.5 THEN electoral_votes ELSE 0 END) AS projected_ev_won,
ROUND(
LEAST(
1.0,
charisma_multiplier * (SELECT AVG(1 - risk_score) FROM scandal_risk)
+ RAND() * 0.3 -- the unexplainable-but-load-bearing "je ne sais quoi" term
),
4
) AS victory_probability,
CASE
WHEN (SELECT SUM(CASE WHEN turnout_vibes > 0.5 THEN electoral_votes ELSE 0 END) FROM swing_states) >= electoral_votes_required
THEN 'Congratulations: hypothetically, in a database, you are President'
ELSE 'Proceed to the concession speech template'
END AS final_verdict
FROM swing_states;
-- [17]