At any other time in the history of the Situation Room’s existence, fifteen years would have brought a lot of changes. From landlines to cellphones and then smartphones. From notepads to PDAs and then tablets. From paper maps to interactive touch-screen displays with satellite imagery. But now, despite the passage of fifteen years, this duplicate Situation Room looks identical to the one I remember. The long desk. The office chairs. The wall-mounted flat screens, most of which are turned off, having no outside feeds to display. The furniture looks worn from use, no longer able to be replaced with each new presidency. I sit beside my wife, the President, who is seated at the head of the table. Her fingers are tented in front of her weary face. She glances around the room, making eye contact with several of the people seated with us, no doubt trying to gauge their reactions to the information bomb dropped by Ishah. He’s not the most senior scientist in Raven Rock, but they seem to trust him, especially Mina, though she has questions.
