It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.

Melinda comes to Washington DC to visit her friend Debbie, and to find a job in government, where she hopes to do her part to make it better. She gets a lower echelon administrative position at the Pentagon, and finds things pretty slack. Her boss seems to be more interested in getting into her pants than trying to find lost data on the Russians. Melinda resists his advances and begins working her way up in the Pentagon, finding subtle ways of getting her policies implemented by manipulating the slovenly males that populate the Pentagon, including finding a way to defuse the mounting conflict with the Russians