“America is under attack.”
Manny, standing behind the cameraman, experienced that slight disconnect between watching the president speaking on a screen and in real life at the same time. She let those words sit for a moment. “America is under attack.” They’d gone back and forth on the phrasing. So much was unclear. War and earthquakes, hurricanes and landslides, terrorist attacks and industrial accidents. Those were all things Manny knew how to handle. He already had words for them. They were all things the American public understood. But this was something different. That much was obvious. And that had led them, finally, to the decision to be as clear as possible. There had been some concern in the room about stoking panic, but after a few minutes of debate they all realized they were well past the moment of worrying about stoking panic; panic was already there.
“I don’t use these words lightly,” Stephanie said to the camera. “By now, most of you will have seen the horrifying images coming out of Los Angeles. While it may be hard to comprehend in an age of technology and terrorism, the threat we are facing appears to be a natural one. A little more than three hours ago, at approximately 3:45 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, a freighter ran aground at the Port of Los Angeles. The ship appears to have been carrying a very aggressive and dangerous species of spiders. We do not know for sure how the spiders got onto the ship, but we believe they must have been among the cargo, perhaps hatching inside a shipping container en route. At least some of the cargo containers came from the same province in China where the nuclear explosion occurred earlier in the week. The Chinese government continues to state that the nuclear incident was an accident, but based on our own intelligence reports, we believe it was a deliberate decision made by the government in an attempt to contain an outbreak of these same spiders. While we cannot confirm with one hundred percent accuracy that they are the same, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that the menace in Los Angeles is connected to the incident in China, and to the reports of the city of Delhi being overwhelmed. The Indian government has been much more helpful, despite their own crisis, and they have been sharing information with us, so we hope to have confirmation within the next twenty-four hours.
“As your president, I say this with a heavy heart: our country is under a real and immediate threat.” Stephanie paused. She looked, Manny thought, both presidential and exhausted. The weight of the world on her shoulders. And he knew why she was pausing: because what she was about to say had been a brutal decision. “If you are in or around the Los Angeles area, you must shelter in place. I have issued an emergency order of quarantine inside a two-hundred-fifty-mile radius of Los Angeles. That means that if you live within two hundred fifty miles of Los Angeles, you are required to remain in that area. The National Guard, local police, and state police, with the assistance of the army, navy, Marines, and air force, will be enforcing this quarantine zone. Again, if you live in Los Angeles or within a two-hundred-fifty-mile radius of it—which means south of the city all the way to the border of Mexico, east to the state border, and north past Fresno—you are under an order of quarantine. No vehicles or citizens will be allowed to pass beyond this area. I say this with a heavy heart but with hope for the future; to those of you who are within this zone, I want you to understand that you are not alone. The country is with you.”