Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse

The East Coast had held out longer than anyone expected.

From the shattered remnants of Boston down through New York, Philadelphia, D.C., and into the southern ports of Charleston and Jacksonville, survivors had once believed they could outlast the Bloom. They built barricades. Fortified urban centers. Fought block by block.

It hadn't mattered.

Within two weeks of the West Coast's fall, the Bloom had crossed the Appalachians and spread like wildfire through every major corridor along I-95. Cities became husks. Ports became hives. The Atlantic breeze carried spores deeper inland with every tide.

By Day 89, the East was gone.

And now, like before, Overwatch drew a line.

But this time, it wasn't drawn in retreat.

It was drawn in uranium and steel.

Missouri Arcology – Overwatch High Command

Thomas Estaris stood before the central operations table, arms crossed, unmoving as a new satellite uplink came online. The real-time thermal feed bathed the entire East Coast in deep crimson—a living smear of bio-contamination, pulsing with the residual heat of infestation.

Angel worked quickly from the elevated terminal deck behind him. "Recon confirms full-scale Bloom infestation across all Tier 1 coastal metros. New York, Boston, D.C., Atlanta, Miami—total saturation. Secondary cities along rivers and highways have already collapsed."

Rebecca, standing at the foot of the stairs, didn't flinch. "No strongholds? Not even underground?"

"None," Angel said. "We lost contact with Fort Drum last night. Last signal came from a commander screaming into static. After that, nothing."

Thomas leaned over the steel table and tapped a section of the digital map, zooming in on the eastern seaboard.

"How many payloads do we have in the silos?"

"Forty-four," Angel answered. "Twenty-one thermobaric, seventeen high-yield fission, and six multi-stage hydrogen warheads. All silo-ready."

Phillip, armored and standing off to the side, raised an eyebrow. "You're thinking of going nuclear?"

Thomas turned his head slightly, meeting Phillip's eyes.

"I'm thinking of winning."

High-Altitude Recon – Reaper Wing Over New York

The Reaper drones buzzed silently above the blackened skeleton of Manhattan. Where skyscrapers once kissed the clouds, now stood towers of Bloom—organic spires fused with steel and bone. Times Square had become a pulsing crater, with biomass tendrils stretching across entire avenues.

Reaper One-Three transmitted its final data packet before diving into the mass, kamikaze-style.

The last image was of the Empire State Building, twisted into a fungal totem.

Then static.

Overwatch Launch Deck – Missile Command Authorization

Inside the hardened steel vault of Overwatch's Cold War-era missile complex, launch officers stood at attention.

Red lights flashed.

Keys turned.

Codes confirmed.

"Authorization granted," the system intoned.

Thomas stood behind the glass partition, observing.

"All silos. Prepare to fire."

One by one, missile hatches opened across the Midwest. Hidden facilities in Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas came online. Crews sealed chambers. Countdown timers blinked to life.

"Launch sequence engaged," Angel confirmed over comms.

Thomas took a breath.

"Fire."

Phase One – Strike on the Northeast Corridor

From deep underground, twelve thermonuclear warheads rose like pillars of death into the sky. The cameras mounted on their exteriors streamed footage until blackout altitude.

Target 1: Boston.

The warhead detonated three miles above the city center. A blinding white light flooded the coastline. All Bloom growth within twenty kilometers was reduced to ash. Whatever remained of the city's iconic harbor boiled into a dead sea.

Target 2: New York.

Five missiles for this one.

Two detonated over Brooklyn and the Bronx, vaporizing entire boroughs.

A third targeted what was once Lower Manhattan.

The detonation turned the Hudson River into a superheated flood. The shockwave flattened Bloom towers like paper cutouts.

A fourth struck Newark, taking out the root trench of the Bloom that had spread beneath the city's ancient sewer lines.

The fifth—manual override—pierced the base of the Queens Nest, where the Bloom was suspected to house a pseudo-core.

The result was total erasure.

A mushroom cloud rose nearly fifty thousand feet into the air.

Target 3: Philadelphia.

A single hydrogen warhead descended on the city's Bloom-strangled center. The Liberty Bell, preserved in steel, disintegrated midair.

Target 4: Washington, D.C.

A long-range cruise missile launched from Missouri and curved through the stratosphere before diving on the nation's former capital. The Bloom had wrapped itself around the Lincoln Memorial like a parasite. The detonation left a crater hundreds of meters wide where the National Mall once lay.

Overwatch Command – Real-Time Uplink

Thomas watched in silence as the digital map changed. Red zones faded to scorched orange. Then gray.

"Status?" he asked.

Angel replied, "Direct hits. Full vaporization across all strike zones. Secondary seismic readings show collapse of Bloom roots extending into subways and aquifers. Zero neural activity."

Rebecca approached. "We just killed over a hundred million infected."

Thomas nodded grimly. "Then we gave them mercy."

Phase Two – The Southern Burn

Target 5: Atlanta

A Bloom hive had been growing beneath the old city center for weeks, spreading across the state border through fungal rail lines and abandoned freeways. Two fission warheads detonated—one over the city, another beneath it, delivered by a modified bunker-penetrating missile.

Target 6: Jacksonville

The Bloom here had adapted—growing thick carapace-like towers resistant to traditional bombs. Thomas didn't gamble.

A multi-stage hydrogen warhead was launched from Valkyrie Two over the Gulf.

The resulting explosion collapsed half the city, cracked the earth, and set fire to the St. Johns River. Bloom structures dissolved into slag.

The Atlantic Fireline – Operation Hurricane Wall

To ensure no resurgence from coastal marshes or unseen nests, Thomas ordered the final wave.

Eight low-yield fission bombs were launched in a sweeping arc along the Eastern Seaboard—targeting barrier islands, abandoned naval bases, and suspected underground hubs. Norfolk. Savannah. Charleston. Cape Hatteras. Even parts of the Everglades.

Everything burned.

Aftermath.

The eastern sky was no longer blue.

A rolling tide of ash swept inland. Radiation readings spiked across Appalachia. Fallout shelters reopened for the first time in decades.

But no more Bloom signals.

No more seismic readings.

No more screams.

Just silence.

Missouri Arcology – Command Balcony

Thomas stood alone, looking eastward.

The horizon was darker now—lit only by the glow of afterburn, faint auroras of nuclear discharge coloring the clouds in hues of violet and red.

Rebecca joined him, her armor dusted with fallout grit. "They'll say we destroyed the country."

Thomas nodded. "Because we did."

She waited.

"But only the part that was already lost."

Behind them, Phillip and Angel reviewed new containment protocols. Drone teams were being dispatched with Geiger counters and decon suits. The U.S. East Coast was no longer a battlefield—it was a quarantine zone.

And beyond that zone, a nation still lived.

Public Broadcast – Overwatch Frequency

"This is Commander Thomas Estaris of Overwatch."

The camera zoomed in on his tired, worn face.

"The United States of America no longer exists as we knew it. But our people remain. Our spirit remains. And our duty remains."

He looked straight at the lens.

"Today, we buried our past in fire. But we've made room for the future."

The broadcast cut to aerial footage.

The East Coast—scorched clean. Radioactive. But Bloom-free.

A chance to rebuild.

To reclaim.

To fight for what was left.

Final Note – From the Journal of Angel Cortez

We killed the East so that the center might live. We watched cities vanish and monsters vaporize. And in those fires, we saw the face of extinction blink and look away.

Thomas didn't cry.

He just turned away from the screen and said, 'Next, we burn the Rockies.'

And none of us argued.