George Monroe III was pleased with himself. Better than a self-made man, he was a self-preserved man. This feeling of triumph far superseded any victory he had marshalled as a hedge-fund manager. He was the last man standing.
“Travis!”
“Yes, sir,” Travis panted as he made his way from the security screen to Monroe’s smoking room.
“Bring me a bottle of the 2015 Musigny Domaine Leroy. I’d like to celebrate. Make sure it has a chance to breathe.”
“Of course, sir, but I was just coming to tell you something. I saw some movement in Sector 4. There might be survivors, sir.”
“Survivors? What are the radiation levels outside?”
“Four-hundred and thirty-two rads. Enough to fry an egg inside a chicken.”
“Then there can’t be any survivors. After you’ve brought me the wine and a generous slice of the Stilton you thawed out for me yesterday, eat one of your MREs and rest your eyes.”
“Yes, sir, but I’m sure I saw…”
“You’ll be even more sure after you’ve had a nap.”
The Stilton was the perfect complement to the rich and full-bodied burgundy, something that an uneducated palate, like Travis’s, could never appreciate. Relaxed by the wine, Monroe moved over to the security screen to see what had set off Travis’s overactive imagination.
He switched the view from section to section, taking in the ruins of homes which had once housed his neighbors. As they had their fallout shelters converted to spas and recording studios, he had bought all of the lead-clad building materials that were pulled out at a steep discount and used them to assemble the megashelter that housed him, Travis, the most resplendent wine cellar in history, a library of deep-frozen food from LA’s finest restaurants before the nuclear devastation, and enough surplus military MREs to keep Travis well enough to guard him.
He saw something moving in Section 4. It was like a sausage-shaped Airstream trailer with six wheels which appeared to have independent movement and suspension. This allowed it to move unimpeded through the debris-littered terrain. It came closer and closer to his home until it stopped just outside the thick titanium hatch that separated the haves from the have nots. Monroe watched through the Sector 1 camera as a door opened in the side of the vehicle and a robot-like metallic figure emerged.
It was a mech suit that tech wizard Zach Muhlberg had been working on for NASA. Its impregnable waterproof, temperature-proof, and radiation-proof skin was designed to allow human astronauts to visit every planet in the solar system except the gas giants. The head portion tilted up towards the camera and through the unbreakable carbon glass, Monroe saw the face of billionaire Muhlberg himself.
“Let me in! The foodstores in my bunker are compromised.”
“Travis! Come help me secure the entrance. If he dies, I become the last sophisticated man on earth!”
Travis and Muhlberg thoroughly enjoyed the Brazilian steak from Kravings. It paired well with the remainder of the burgundy.
Literature in Small Doses 