Part 5: Concentration

Lt General Michael Rassmussan looked once more down the long, hallowed hallway. It was quickly becoming a relic. Where the mightiest of world’s powers once prowled, now there was only empty hallways webbing together empty offices. The Pentagon was, for most of its existence, the most massive office complex in the world, but now it had begun to smell like the museum it would become. There were echos here now, and a hollow shade of past glory.

Rassmussan turned and fixed his cap on his head. He had the dubious distinction of being the last man to leave the working Pentagon. Tomorrow The Smithsonian would be given the keys and free run of a building that not longer housed military manpower or equipment. As tragic as it was, however, it was well past time.

Conflict still plagued the world, and strife remained the only language spoken by all men, but the world was changed. The last real war ended thirty years ago on a bloody patch of Canadian desert. Rassmussan had been there, a green lieutenant set on preserving his country’s way of life. He’d fought with the 151st mechanized infantry against the Conglomerate, and laid waste to countless other lives. Now history barely remembered how the Allies had lost that war because the last of the oil was used up within only a few years, and it hardly mattered any how.

It had been pointless war, but lessons were learned. Maps were meaningless in a world where ideas blew on the wind. Gone were the days where battlelines could be drawn. Enemies tended ebb and flow on political tides. Armies became irrelevant as ideas became the battlegrounds.

Conquering concepts may be more difficult than toppling nations, but preferable to killing when soldiers were so few.

And perhaps, Lt General Rassmussan, contemplated that was more at issue. Populations across the Americas, Europe and Africa were down dramatically. The only sectors of growth seemed to be religious sects, and that wasn’t good for the business of war. Some areas of rural Asia were still heavy breeders, but with global population down to four billion, cities were empty, energy available, and land abundant. Save unforgiving religious and cultural biases, there was little left to fight for.

Rassmussan’s heels snapped on the tiles throwing longing echos down the hall. He pushed through a heavy steel door, taking one last look back. The Pentagon wasn’t dead. It was being moved to a new, smaller complex a few miles to the south, but LTG Rassmussan wouldn’t be back here. With a sigh he conceded that one day he would bring his grandchildren to this great building. Show them where he worked. Slip them trivia no tour guide could know. But on that day this building wouldn’t be the same. He was dismayed by that. And he was glad.