Camp Angel is overrun by Nimrod sentinels overwritten with Stryker’s personality. The Nimrods attack mercilessly, killing mutants and Storm watches horrified until John Walker, who has freed himself along with some other guards, snaps her out of it. He can get them out of here, he tells her. He orders her and the other guards to save as many children as they can and Storm finally begins to move and herds a group of children.
Walker leads his people and the few mutants they could save down a tunnel into the sewers. Why? Storm asks him. Why would their government send these things to kill them? Because of the uprising? That wasn’t them, Walker replies.
The White House situation room, Washington DC:
Watching the Sentinel attacks all across the USA, Phil mutters this can’t be happening. Val Cooper orders him to keep it together and run through it again. Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma. That is where the camps are, Val remarks. Phil points out that they are not just hitting the camps. They are attacking the cities. Punishment, Val decides. The Nimrods are punishing them for letting mutants live.
Phil moans this is worse than New York. Worse than the flood! Coolly, Val agrees. Phil asks what about Nick Fury and the Ultimates? Val replies the Ultimates are at half strength if that and halfway around the world, and even if they weren’t they wouldn’t stand a chance against this.
Phil remembers that his aunt retired to Arizona. Val tells him to pull himself together. Phil takes up a sheets. The police, National Guard units, they are refusing to fight. Why? Isn’t it obvious? Val asks. They know it’s already over.
And the Nimrods attack Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
In New York City, Kitty Pryde returns to the Morlock Tunnels with some groceries. Johnny Storm shuts the others up. He wants to see the president’s speech.
The president begins, informing the country they have witnessed an attack on their soil unparalleled in their history. Just after nine pm eastern time, under the control of a radical anti-mutant terrorist, their Sentinel fleet was lost and turned against their own defenses. The Sentinels have slaughtered thousands across the country, humans and mutants alike, and have laid waste to the vast majority of the southwest region of the country.
They mourn the dead, pray for the injured and do what they must to end this senseless devastation. They have under his orders effectively ceded power over the states of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma. All citizens of these states are ordered to stand down and seek shelter immediately, so that further bloodshed may be avoided. If there is some intelligence behind all this destruction he begs them to consider the pain and suffering they are causing. They can have peace. They can come to an understanding. Mercy is not weakness.
To the American people: those trapped in what is now enemy territory and those waiting that this horror ends, he says: be resolute. Their nation has been torn asunder before. They have faced grave threats, both at home and abroad. They triumphed and rose from it stronger than before. They will persevere. They will overcome. They will be united once more. Good night and God bless America!
Somewhere in the Arizona desert, Nimrod Sentinels land and, chanting “His will be done,” they begin constructing a huge statue, looking like a mix of Sentinel and William Stryker…
