In Augustof 1945, as an attempt to end the second World War, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, followed by another at Nagasaski. Within a week Japan surrendered, the second World War ended, and the atomic threat began.

Rain came down again today. It might have been acidic, I couldn't tell. I saw some paint peeling off a car but it could have been from something else. Today's wartime training was brutal. They still can't get enough scraps together to launch anything into the sky so we can't go anywhere yet. But still we have to train, have to prepare for the day we can fly. Or maybe for the day he finally comes down to earth. Not like we can do anything. I know what happened to New York. I was driving away when they got hit and I was just able to outrun the fallout. I heard today they're going in and getting scraps from there again so the radiation must be clearing.

I don't have much time left to sleep today. Training is really cutting into my time. Ever since I rented out that stupid apartment and the government could draft me it's been hell. I want to go back to being a vagabond. I want to be a vagrant again. Sleeping all day and watching the moon at night. Shooting gulls out of the sky from boredom until the sun rises again. But at least I had freedom. It's 1962 and I can't run around my own streets anymore. Now I know how the Jews felt, trapped in their own town killed like sheep. Lucky me I haven't been killed yet. Only a matter of time.  

 Some days I wish I was a woman. They aren't getting drafted yet. You get to do whatever you want all day, especially if you have no husband or kids, which I wouldn't have. It's a nightmare being a guy.

In 1949 the Council for Atomic Advancement and Space Exploration was formed (C.A.A.S.E.) and the secret of the atom bomb was shared with America's choice allies. They then pooled resources and looked to the stars with the Sigma Project, with the lofty goal of using nuclear power and arms to get humans to space.

I can't believe my dad has died. I finally get a letter from New York only to find out it was not from my dad but from some commission telling me he had died of flash burns in a hospital in Newark. Of course he would have demanded to be treated in Newark where he grew up. I bet if he had been seen just outside New York he could have been saved. I'm going to get revenge for him on Moch. That rat bastard has been hiding too long dropping bombs where he pleases. Probably running around Russia. The Reds must've been a part of this for a long time. Nobody could have done what Moch did. Not against America and Russia and Europe. Couldn't somebody have stopped him? We had the firepower to stop the Nazis and the technology to send nuclear missiles to the moon but one hijacker comes along and half the world bows down to him overnight? At least I wasn't in France when they got hit. Now I hear that it's unlivable there. An entire country succumbing to radiation sickness and nuclear fallout. At least we can rebuild New York when this is all over and Moch is dead. Maybe we will put his grave under the city so that anyone can dance on it. Or maybe we will launch his body into the Sun.

I went to the Army offices again today as well. They still rejected me. Got enough women nurses and ammunitions ladies running around. Don't need me for infantry and refuse to let me join the ranks. I know a couple boyish women who got into the artillery division and some who work on the tanks, but a thin thing like me doesn't get very far. Pretty faces and frail bodies were coming into their age with the men before Moch took over. So Moch took my dad away and he took away my place in society. If a woman can't serve her country and it isn't a time for courtship then what use am I?

In 1951 the Sigma Project was successfully sending nuclear missiles to the moon, alongside men, utilizing atomic energy to launch them. The repercussions of this would not be known for many more years, but for the time it was considered a success. Russia attempted a similar project to little success, but for C.A.A.S.E the possibility of lunar missiles was almost complete.

The night is falling on me but I can't get to a shelter. My normal way home was cut off. Some nut blew himself up in the street and shut down my road with his guts. Now I'm late and might miss the cut-off. If tonight is the night Chicago blows up I'll find that suicidal bomber in the afterlife and make it hell for him. I can even see that damn moon rising. I remember when I was a teenager, Lucy and I would stare up at the moon and make wishes about the future, of a world where war was fought by robots and rockets could take us to Mars overnight. A place without Reds or Commies,, where a pill could cure all your illnesses and everyone had more money than they knew what to do with. All we had to do was look at the moon. Now I can't bear to see the night sky because I feel like that lunatic is up there watching me.

I know he is supposed to be on Earth because he's running Europe now, and Russia, and China, and anywhere other than here. But he has South America and Alaska and soon he'll have Canada and as soon as he gets close to here I'll kill every single person in his army until he comes out to fight me. He won't come though. He never comes out. If he did we would have gotten him by now. Instead, the chase remains, but every time the moon rises he can push a button and take out half the world. If we could just get to the moon.

Still haven't found a shelter though and I'm running out of time. There are lots of flimsy ones put up all over the place but I know better than the layman. If I'm not behind six feet of concrete I'm not safe, plain and simple. If I didn't have to go train with the soldiers I'd be at home. So much better if I was a woman.

There's a shelter up ahead, doing its last call. I'm going to have to hop in and take my chances. They won't have any food rations for me, going to have to go hungry tonight. I would have so much more time if it was still the summer, but the days are getting shorter. Winter is when Moch reigns supreme. I'm in a shelter for tonight though, so it's another safe day for me, unless the big bombs come down like in New York. Nothing can save us then. There's only ten people in this shelter, very small for such a large place, and yet they're all huddled together in the middle. Good facilities though, lots of cookware, and preservatives. Maybe I will get to eat.

There's a young girl in here though, maybe only a couple years under me. She looks a lot like Lucy if she was older. If Lucy hadn't passed away. As my father would tell me, "God took her away." I don't think God could have done that.

In 1955, C.A.A.S.E announced the implementation of a basic computer system that could launch missiles from the moon within two hours of the command being sent. Missiles could only be fired at targets the moon was over. In the same year Russia pushes for a War Arms Reduction Act, but is denied.

Someone came into our shelter, a stranger, and my mom took me aside when she saw it was a man. I hate when she does these sorts of things. I'm no longer a child and I haven't been for a long time. If I wasn't stuck here because of Moch I could be out living a real life. And if the army would let me enlist I could leave my mom's side once and for all and not get a lecture every time a young man walks by. The man had to show his army credentials to stay with us though. I learned the hard way you can only get in to your own shelter, except for the big downtown public ones. That way they can keep criminals from slipping in to people's shelters. Only soldiers can go where they like and rest where they want to, mostly because their duties keep them out late. I heard once a crazy soldier went in a shelter once and the next day he walked out covered in blood. Everyone inside was dead. It makes me shudder to think about what happened to those people. You'd think that we would be more willing to work together now that we are under nuclear threat but no, people are crazier now than ever before. But this man looks trustworthy. Maybe I only say that because he's handsome. All the soldier-type men, gruff and squared, are always so handsome, their faces with the shadow of stubble, and their clothes covered in grime. That's the kind of man I want. Maybe that's why I want to join the army. To find myself an army husband. And certainly not one of those boy soldiers. I want a real man by my side.

My mother wants me to avoid talking to him. Doesn't want me to get my heart set on a soldier only to see him die the next day. Of course the way things are now, anyone can die the next day you fall in love with them. Her love just died the other day and she doesn't get it. She still thinks like an old woman, thinking this is the world before the war. Not a lot of older people seem to understand what kind of world we live in now, one in which tomorrow night, the whole country could become irradiated and everyone would die.

There was a newspaper that my mother found in my father's old things, talking about Hiroshima. It was terrifying to read what happened to those people, but they deserved it, to end the war and save the world from the Japs. It was the cost of total war. But now, what Moch does, there is no war and no reason. We must wage war against him solely because he says the world is his. The world is not his. It is supposed to be a free place. It is the same reason we fought the reds when they tried to suppress the freedom of the world. At least none of the Russians declared themselves rulers of the world.

In 1956 a worldwide study indicated that there were enough nuclear warheads in operation to end all life on the planet three times over. A different study indicated a third of all the world's missiles were now on the moon. C.A.A.S.E. declared that New Haven was the first self-sustaining moon colony, and all of it was dedicated to running the missile silos on the moon. Russia again pushes its War Arms Reduction Act and the UN gives it a hearing but admits a stalemate on enacting it.

Turns out I made the right choice falling into this shelter. Lots of people have gone missing from it, leaving during the day and never coming back, and so they have extra food for me and lots of space. I'm lucky to have the privilege to enter any bunker I want but the only reason I need to use it is because of my soldier position, the same one granting the privilege. The people in here are suspicious but nice enough. Nothing unusual. That young girl reminds me more and more of Lucy the longer I look at her. I wish she'd stop staring at me. Maybe she is suspicious too or maybe she's got that trapped girl love desperation things. Either way I don't need to be reminded of Lucy every time I look over there. When I learned what her damn father had done to her, exposing her to that radiation for government research, how she died of cancer, I almost burned the whole town down in anger and I certainly don't want to go there again. Lucy was the only girl I ever loved.

In 1958 the War Arms Reduction Act was passed. Dismantling and disposal of warheads had begun but only to a level of wartime usage. Missiles on the moon were deemed indestructible unless fired and so they remained. The estimated number placed almost half of all American warheads on the moon, more than double the amount to end life on Earth.

This soldier, his name is Joe, finally talked to me. I stared at him for only an hour or two before I got up the courage to ask him what the army was like. He said it was hell for him. He swears a lot. Uses damn and hell a lot. My mother doesn't like it one bit but I think it's daring. I don't need a perfect gentleman. He was nice though, said I looked like someone he knew once. I bet it was a really pretty girl, or maybe his sister or something. I'm sure it was a compliment. I even ended up sleeping next to him but he rolled away as soon as he saw that. Must be a shy guy, maybe a lone wolf. I can tame a wolf though.

It's funny that when I look at him I stop thinking about Moch or how bombs can be dropping outside. I don't think about anything really, just him and how I like looking at him. But he had to leave in the morning and when the thick door was opened in the morning the outside world came flooding back into my mind. And I decided to follow Joe to the training grounds he has to report to so I could ask them if I could join. But Joe ended up heading back to his own house; he wasn't required to train today. It was so bizarre yet liberating to follow him back to his house. He never looked back at me though, always ahead, so we never spoke and I ended up staring at his apartment building in dismay, because he had gone inside and I was locked out.

In 1959 C.A.A.S.E. hired a technician to update the computer system used to control lunar missiles. A revolutionary new computer was to be brought in using a new punchcard system. The technician was a young man from Belgium, completely unheard of, who became famous overnight. Russia began to push for the dismantling of lunar missiles, while withdrawing Communist ties to Vietnam in a gesture of good faith.

This Lucy lookalike, her name is Sarah, she has been so fascinated with me and it's making me damn near crazy. I think she wanted to see the training grounds so she followed me. Disappointing since I don't have to do that today and it would have been much easier to get rid of her at the camp. She's wearing on me though. All I see is Lucy behind me, chasing me, driving me mad. Maybe I should give this Sarah a chance and see if I can remove the image of Lucy from her face, once I get to know Sarah. What does it matter anyways if tomorrow a bomb could drop on both of us?

In 1960 the United States signed a pact with Russia to reduce the amount of warheads on the moon or to dismantle the computer controlling it. C.A.A.S.E. declares they will put a man on Mars by the end of the decade, by using lunar missiles to launch a man in two stages. America then declares a state of emergency as the computer controlling lunar missiles is hijacked, destroyed, and replicated somewhere else through remote control. Moch declares over the radio he is the new ruler of the world, and will use lunar warheads to destroy any who do not submit to this new dictatorship. France is destroyed as an example.

I've been seeing Joe for a week now! He comes to visit me every so often and if he doesn't come say hello to me on his way home I go to his house in the morning to say hi myself. He doesn't always seem to be happy to see me though, more like he puts up with me, but I can see I'm growing on him slowly. And I still cannot get in to the army yet, but Joe said if I wanted to so much I could take his place. What a silly guy!

Moch is making it tougher to forget about him and focus on Joe. The bomb got dropped on Los Angeles today, and they say more will be dropped all over California. The president got on the radio and announced the consideration of surrender to Moch so as to spare all the lives of the people. That got people going around here. A fight broke out in the streets about whether we surrender or not and Joe and the soldiers had to come in and break it up. Well things got really ugly then, and suddenly you had soldiers fighting one another and the civilians and my mother and I had to run back to the shelter to get locked in for safety. I don't know if I care anymore. I think I just want to be with Joe now, under Moch or not. I'll always want our free United States though. I don't want to be stuck in a place where you have to toil in a factory all day just to get by, to no end, so that eventually you will die so that some power-hungry person can rule another day. That's a terrible life I would never want to live. I thank God we have this wonderful free country. Moch will be gravely punished by God for what he is doing, of that I am sure.

By the end of 1960 Europe had surrendered to Moch, along with Eastern Asia. Russia followed shortly after when a bomb was dropped outside St. Petersburg as a warning. This new country, named Moch, drafted an army, Moch's army, and quickly annexed Africa. Moch declared he owned more than half the world. America declares it will use its warheads against any army under Moch's banner.

After the damned outbreak of pacifists and patriots running around I've had enough of this crap with the military. There's been too much talk of bombs lately and whenever that happens I get the worst itch to leave town. Always seems like as the tension grows Moch can feel it and fires the next missile there. So I'm going to grab myself a military car and take it to be inspected at the hangar outside town, at which point I'll skip town in it and find the next place to live. Going to have to use back roads and travel off-roads to avoid checkpoints and military convoys. Would be tough to explain to them why I'm running around the country with a military owned vehicle that's missing inspection.

For the weirdest reason I feel like I should bring Sarah with me. Maybe I need the companionship this time, maybe I just like looking at Lucy's face again. This girl is a little more annoying than Lucy was but she grows on you after awhile and the dopey loving look she gives me when I'm in uniform is so reminiscent of a little puppy's unconditional love that I can't stay mad at her annoyances. I think if I left without her she would either kill herself or run after me until her legs broke so there is almost a requirement from my guilt to take her with me. I don't know where I will go though and if Sarah finds out I'm quitting the military she might not love me anymore. I suppose I'll have to lie to her about it all. Not like I've lied before. I haven't even been a scavenger one day and I'm already acting like one.

By 1961 America had repealed its statement to use missiles on armies under Moch's control due to public and political pressures on the ethics of firing on people who are forced to fight and the global catastrophe mass usage of nuclear arms. Moch begins attacks on South America and Northern Canada but is often repelled by combined forces between invaded countries and America. Lunar bombings slow down and most are used as warnings against cities within the country of Moch. America begins programs for space interception and reclamation of the moon and the"cold war" of using spies to find Moch begins.

Joe is being transferred to a post in California, closer to the war in South America but he needs to take a vehicle there and do an inspection of rural safehouses along the way. The best part is that he has invited me to travel with him and keep him company on the trip! I've never been more excited, not since the day the fake headline came out about Moch being caught came out at the start of the year.

Joe says we have to drive at night and sleep at day, that way we move away from places that could be bombed at night. He doesn't think roadways will be bombed so long as they aren't near a city so we should be safe. He is always amazing me lately. He seems to get more charming the longer I stay with him and I get the feeling he is falling in with me the same way I'm enamored by him. He even let me hold his hand a little as we headed down towards the vehicle depot. Gave me a hug too when I cried a little about leaving my mother. I look forward to this road trip, especially such a long one since I've heard a man can only hold out for so long without a woman's touch and it will be doubly hard on him with a young lady so close to him. This will be...fun.

In early 1962, American spies discovered Moch in Belgium and killed him. Having been the technician for the lunar computer, Moch could easily replicate it on his own to hijack the missiles. The news of Moch's death was leaked to the public then was renounced as false. "Moch" continued to rule over his country. America continued to increase restrictions on its residents to promote safety and unity. America launches satellites to orbit above targeted countries. Satellites are equipped with nuclear warheads to be used on country below in case of emergency.

Sarah and I have been on the road for days now. It's tough dodging the military these days. Things have been getting tighter and tighter lately with military action and more and more people are being drafted for service. They seem to be bringing the rural folk to the city as well in an effort to consolidate safety and insure everyone has a fallout shelter. I'm not sure if that will work as well as they hope. Might just increase casualties. But bombs have been slowing down quite a bit lately so perhaps Moch is committed to the war on the ground now that he has established a country and he doesn't want to tarnish the lands and resources with radiation. I don't give much of a damn these days though. Sarah and I can roam the country and stay safe from both the bombs and from my services and it isn't too bad. Just last night I finally got to see her naked form, to unravel my own clothes, and to make love to her. I thought of Lucy though at one point and felt a little guilty but I think I'll move on, eventually, as we all do. The world of yesterday is gone and today is slipping away, but tomorrow we will all move forward to something different from the last tomorrow, as we do every day, such is the progress of man.