2 years ago, 146 PND
It was mid-June in the Cheyenne Mountain Residential District. The humidity in the area made your clothes stick to you uncomfortably. As usual, mid-afternoon, the clouds were rolling in. 'Great, another thunderstorm', Jon thought as he gazed out of the bar's energy shielded window. If it wasn't for the energy shield on the exteriors of windows these days, the hail that came with the afternoon thunderstorms would obliterate the thick windows. Not to say the windows were weak, hell they were nigh on par with bullet proof glass from the 21st century; that's just how strong the winds and hail were almost 150 years later.
"Tommy, I'll have another beer if you've got time." Jon looked down the solid oak bar at the portly fellow watching the holocast of some American football game from 2022. "Yeah, give me a minute, Kansas City's killing these guys!" Jon shook his head, every day Tommy watched reruns of all these games. It's not like he didn't know who would win or how the game would play out, it just didn't make sense to him why he watched on as if it was the first time seeing them. After the disaster, American football became history. Nobody played anymore, the game lost it's popularity as the world braced for what they thought would be the next World War.
It never came to fruition though. It was determined by NATO that the disaster had been accidental, with no particular country at fault. The fallout from it all helped to create the World Governing Parliament. One would have thought that baby would be born of NATO, but no, it was the G7 that ultimately decided on a world governing body. Conspiracies were everywhere at the time, blaming anything and anyone on how it came about; truth was, it was a long time coming. As to whether or not there really was someone to blame for the nuclear disaster, only the people present back then knew the truth. Anything and everything that could be found historically on the event was heavily redacted or just missing, as if the truth would change the outcome.
Jon played with his pint glass absent mindedly, rolling the bottom in a circular pattern by slightly tipping the glass and keeping his finger just inside the top lip. "You know, one of these days you're going to drop one of those damned things and I'm gonna have ta charge you for it Jonny boy." Tommy set a fresh glass of beer from the tap in front of Jon and reaching for the empty glass. "I know, I know, but I haven't dropped one yet!" Jon smiled as he took a long pull from the fresh draught. "So what's my tab up to anyhow?"
"100 terri's bud."
"That's it? I thought you were charging 30 terri's a pint?"
"Changed around my happy hour times. Don't know why I bother, you're the only one comes until the afternoon storms pass." Tommy grimaced, looking outside at the approaching lightning and hail. "They say it's done this for hundreds of years, but the history books only mention five to fifteen centimeter sized hail on and off, but usually it was small; not this forty centimeter plus crap." Tommy shook his head as he thought. "I wonder how much easier life in this region was back then."
Jon shrugged as he took another pull from his draught, frowning as he noticed he had already downed two thirds of his glass. "I don't know, from what I recall from school they always said the economy was ok at best. A middle class job could barely net you a 2 bedroom apartment. I'd venture to imagine we're far better off now than those folks were, even though it's a world government and we're all on this weird Imperial Credit system."
(Ah yes, the Imperial Credit system. That lovely little innovation from the governing body basically wrote off all the world's debt, opting to start from scratch. How does one do so? We may never really know, there were many people upset with the change in the status quo initially. Once it was all converted and everyone was properly "compensated" (read wealth distribution), the rich were still rich, but there was no longer the poor, so to speak. Imperial credits, or Imp's were the top of the system. 500 Regional credits, or reggi's, was the equivalent of an imp. 1000 Territorial credits, or terri's, made 1 reggi. And finally Divisional credit, divi's, were 1000 to 1 terri. It may seem convoluted, and probably is, but this was how the government kept the rich, rich, and made it so the poor were at least medially financially stable. Back to our story…)
"That may be all well and true Jonny boy, but not all of us had a windfall contract to hunt the 21st century military ruins." Tommy looked out the corner of his eye back toward Jon, a slight grimace on his face. You could say at one time he might have been ruggedly handsome, but decades of owning and tending a bar, he had gained quite a bit of weight. He was easily 1.9 meters, but he had become portly, at around 130 kilos, turning his once rugged features somewhat homely and ruddy. Not to mention his greatly thinning and receding hairline that was now more white than its former brown.
Jon looked up from the glass he had been frowning at, laying down his payment chip. "Just keep 'em comin' Tommy. With this weather it's not like I'm going to get any work done up the old NORAD site until late tonight anyhow."
"Should you really be heading up to…" Tommy stopped as a few of the locals rushed in through the side door, not wanting to let strangers in on his friend's secret. "You folks look to be a bit soggy, mind going back around to the front so's you can get properly dry with the rapi-dry system?"
"C'mon man! That sh*t's comin' down in sheets now! We barely got in from the transport paddock before the storm came in!" The leader of the group, dressed in too tight jeans, replica 21st century combat jump boots, and a leather vest glared at Tommy. Clearly he….or she?...maybe they?...one could never be too careful, had no intention of returning to the storm before getting a drink.
Tommy eyed the group, clearly not liking what he saw and debating whether they could even afford to get a beer, let alone a glass of water. He then yelled out, "Martha! Could you kindly escort these people to the rapi-dry by the loading dock? Don't particularly relish a soggy bunch wettin up the main bar!"
A not so small, but not quite portly, homely older woman toddled out from the kitchen. "Sure thing love." She looked over to the obviously motley group that had just entered, her light, sweet voice belying the disgruntled look on her face. "You lot can follow me, mind your hands, I don't need anything comin' up missin' from the evening menu now." With that, they followed her into the kitchen, headed to the loading dock.
After 10 minutes or so, the group came back out of the kitchen, taking up half the stools at the small bar. Once it was determined that they were paying for their drinks as they ordered them, Tommy pulled 5 draught pints of the cheapest beer he had and set them in front of them, promptly running their payment chips before walking back over to Jon. "Looks like it'll be a lively afternoon afterall."
A few hours later, the storm passed, and a drunken, slovenly, yet still somewhat handsome Jon stood up from his stool. "Well Tommy *hic* looks *hic* like it's *hic* time to get som *hic* ome work done." Tommy ran his payment chip, settling up the almost 1 regi tab as he looked at his friend somewhat pensively.
"Are you sure you're in decent enough shape to be heading up there?"
"I'm *hic* 'm right as rain buddy! *hic* 'Sides *hic* it's not li *hic* like anyone's real *hic* really been up there in *hic* over a cen *hic* century anyhow."
With that Jon stumbled out into the cool, humid air of Cheyenne Mountain Residential District. Tommy wondered if Jon would be alright, then recalled he'd left this place worse off and ended up just fine.
After walking for a couple blocks, Jon tapped his wrist display, awkwardly navigating the small menus to hail an official taxi to take him to the NORAD entrance. 'Damn, you'd think they'd have made these stupid things drunk friendly after a century of having the tech.' With this thought and a determined grimace, he finally managed to find the right menu. 3 minutes later, he was on a government sanctioned aero-lift to the entrance of NORAD.