Wargames

by David Bischoff

  Cabot nodded, clearly sympathetic. “What you’re saying is that our system right now—all this trillion-dollar hardware that we need so desperately—is at the mercy of those men with the little brass keys with an incredible rate of failure.”

  “The only problem, sir, is that they’re human. And sir, with all due respect, are any of us sure that if we had their jobs, we’d be able to twist those keys and snuff out millions of lives?” He looked around. Watson coughed. McKittrick stared straight at Cabot. This was the punch line. “You give me four to six weeks max and we can replace those men—mere fallible human mechanisms anyway—with highly dependable electronic relays. We can get the humans out of the loop!”

  Berringer interrupted with his usual lack of grace: “I’ve told you, John, I don’t trust this overgrown pile of microchips any farther than I can throw it. You’re talking about eliminating human control. I grant you, nobody in our military can match it for nuclear war experience. But we look to it only as an advisor.”

  McKittrick countered, “But once that advice is given, and if, God forbid, the President must act on it, there is just no time for any fumbles between him and our defense forces for the war to be fought properly. We’ll keep the human control... but where it belongs... at the top.”

  Cabot pondered for a moment, then said, “Dr. McKittrick, this is all so technical.. I think it might be best if you personally briefed the President on your views.”

  “Certainly,” said McKittrick. “I’d be happy to.”

  He smiled over at General Berringer, who grimaced.

  Cabot said, “Yes. Well, other than the jerking of a few liberal knees, I don’t see any problem in actually implementing your suggestion.” He stepped forward and halted, his hand just above the machine. “May I touch it?”

  “Sure,” McKittrick said. “Go ahead.”

  Well, Falken, he thought. I told you that one of these days I’d get my way. All this will truly be mine now. I’ll get the recognition I deserve. So screw you you goddamned genius. Screw you.

  Cabot seemed fascinated with the machine. “So, this is where Armageddon is played,” he said, putting his ear to the machine. “I think I hear the bombs bursting.”

  Chapter Three

  David Lightman hovered over the controls of the Atari Missile Command tucked neatly between the Frogger machine and the Zaxxon game. Tony was pounding dough by the ovens, listening to Pat Benatar shriek about false loves through a beat-up radio. The smell of a fresh pie drifted warmly through Marino’s Pizza Shop, so thick you could almost taste the cheese. David Lightman, carelessly dressed in the torn T-shirt and faded jeans he’d tossed on this morning, was oblivious to it all, however, aware only of the booms and rattles and whistles, the flashing colored lights of the game.

  Goddamned Smart Bombs! he thought as a white buzzing blip snuck through his latest volley of shots and headed for one of his six cities at the bottom of the screen. He spun the control ball, stitched a neat three-X line just below the descending bomb with the cursor, and watched with immense satisfaction as his missile’s streaked white lines to their targets, blowing the bomb right out of the phosphor-dot sky.

  As the machine added up his points and the color of the screen changed, he noted with satisfaction that he still had six bonus cities as backup, should one of the enemy bombs make it all the way down this time. And he had racked up over two hundred thousand points! All the initials of the top ten for this machine were going to be DAL real soon now!

  A troublesome thought occurred to him. He checked the time on his Bulova digital watch. Yikes—1:06 P.m.! Lunch hour was kaput, and he was late for his fourth-period class!

  He turned around to see if that kid he’d noticed peripherally watching him was still hanging around. Yep, there he was, eyes round in a freckled face. “Geez, man, you’re great,” the kid said. Tomato sauce had given him a red mustache.

  “You wanna finish for me?”

  “You bet!”

  “Go ahead.”

  Grabbing up his books, David Lightman rushed out of the snack bar and hustled toward Hubert Humphrey High. The sky above Seattle looked like it was about ready to cut loose with some serious wet. Of course, that was typical for Seattle.

  He raced past the duplexes and the town houses and cut across a well-manicured lawn, much like every well-manicured lawn of any American suburb. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to live in California or Florida or Kansas or anyplace else in the United States, but in the end he realized that they were all pretty much the same, and since he’d lived in Washington all his life, his father ensconced in a mildly profitable certified public accountant job, his mother discovering the joys of real estate, Seattle would have to do for a while longer.

  Humphrey High was a series of gray boxes strewn geometrically at a busy crossroads, surrounded by a useless mesh fence. David slipped under the much-used “secret entrance”—a section where the mesh had been clipped—and shot through the side entrance. Recklessly ignoring any hall monitors, he ran downstairs to where the homerooms and the chemistry and biology labs were located, found Room Fourteen, and then slowed to a casual saunter for his entrance.

  The place reeked of formaldehyde, animals, and fertilizer. Aquariums bubbled. A hamster wheel squeaked. The teacher, one Amos Ligget, stood by the blackboard, a piece of chalk gripped in a chubby hand.

  “Ah!” he said, noting the new arrival. “So glad you could join us, David.” He wiped back a clump of limp hair from his eyes and waddled to the black-countered lab table that walled him from his students. “Little present for you here!”

  David had already started for the back. Whenever possible he sat in the back of the class, keeping a low profile, yearning for obscurity. He halted, turned around, and went back to Ligget, who stood holding a blue test book displayed so that all the class could see it. The bastard! One of the key weapons of sadistic teachers was public humiliation, and Ligget wielded it like Conan the Barbarian wielded his broadsword—and about as subtly. Scrawled on the cover of the book, vivid as Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter they were reading about now in American lit, was a red-inked F.

  Ligget was smiling, showing faintly yellow teeth. A scattering of dandruff lay on his black polyester coat. The students called Ligget “Atom Bomb” sometimes because he had so much fallout.

  David took the book, his whole manner an eloquent shrug.

  He made his way to a desk and noted with some astonishment that the one by Jennifer Mack was empty. He sat, a little excited. He made a point of not staring at her, stiffly directing his attention back to Ligget, who now displayed another crimson F on a blue book.

  Oh yeah, old Ligget is feeling his oats today. David thought as the bulky man wandered before the class, waxing lyrical. “Question four! In the history of science, novel and innovative concepts occasionally come from sudden left-field inspiration.” He leaned against the table, his soft belly spilling onto the Formica. “Jennifer? Ah! There you are! Jennifer Mack, in answering question number twenty-four, ‘Why do nitrogen nodules cling to the roots of plants?...’”

  David turned to his classmate. Her hazel eyes were turned down in embarrassment, letting a sweep of brunette hair touch the desk top. Nice hair, soft and glistening.

  Absently, David wondered what hair like that felt like to the touch.

  Ligget continued, unmercifully, “... You have written the word Love.”

  The class turned around and looked at her, tittering. A wave of sympathy shot through David.

  “Love indeed, Miss Mack,” the jerk was grinning, enjoying himself. “Miss Mack, is there perhaps something you know about nitrogen nodules that we don’t? Some bit of salacious info to which you alone are privy?”

  Jennifer looked up and met his glance, almost defiantly. “No,” she said. David had never seen her look prettier.

  “I see.” Ligget turned away from her direct gaze. “You didn’t know the correct answer—symbiosis—because you don’t pay attention in class.”
Ligget made sure everyone saw Jennifer’s grade, then tossed it contemptuously to a student in the first row. “Would you please pass this to Miss Mack.”

  Jennifer sighed. She noticed that David was looking at her, remembered that he had not laughed. She smiled at him. He sensed a warmth and vulnerability in her that coaxed a response in him. “Don’t worry. F could mean ‘fantastic.’”

  “Uh uh,” she whispered. “F stands for the fanny my dad’s going to paddle when he gets a load of my grades.”

  Ligget sallied onward, discussing more of the dreadful exam. “Now, on the questions that concerned the definition of cloning, there seemed to be some confusion.” He looked entreatingly at the class. “Can somebody tell me who first suggested the idea of an advance organism reproducing asexually?”

  He turned to the blackboard and began chalking up some words. David turned away, from Jennifer, relieved that he didn’t have to continue the conversation. He had problems with girls. Not that he didn’t like them. They were just such unknown factors. Variables, computer language might call them, although girls didn’t follow any kind of logical behavior. Knuckling under to peer pressure, he’d taken a few out to movies, but he shunned the dances and the mixers. He felt clumsy and awkward at the best of times, but those affairs were worse than the Spanish Inquisition. The thing was, he felt like he had no control of the situation with girls.. not like his computer. He didn’t understand the way he felt when they were around, smiling at him. He almost felt embarrassed at how he wanted to touch them.

  God, if only he knew how to talk to someone like Jennifer Mack. She smiled at him a lot, especially since that day old Ligget had brought in the boa.

  They’d been discussing reptiles, and the next thing David knew, a tank had found its way onto Ligget’s gigantic lab table. It was a glass tank, containing a six-foot-long boa constrictor, as thick around in the middle as the right bicep on Hank Jodrey, the star wrestler. A truly evil-looking thing, it had slithered around, glaring at them, flickering its tongue as though it were hungrily liking its chops. Most of the girls sat in the rear of the class that week.

  One day, though, old Ligget topped himself. He hauled fat Herman, the class hamster, out of his cage, unclamped the wire top of the snake tank, and popped the rodent in with the boa. “I have to run an errand, class. I want a full report on what happens here.”

  As he left, the whole class grimaced in horror. The snake had been wound up in a pile in the corner, alseep, but when that little golden fellow started scampering around on the newspaper, Mr. B. C. took distinct notice.

  Most of the guys got fascinated smirks on their faces, watching what was going to happen. David, however, was disgusted. Without a word he raced up to the teaching dais, lifted the top of the snake tank, reached in, and yanked Herman out. The girls had applauded.

  “Hey, you asshole. You’re gonna get in trouble!” a creep named Crosby said.

  “You tell, John,” his girl friend said, “and you can forget Friday night!”

  “What are we gonna tell Atom Bomb?” someone wanted to know.

  “Tell him that the snake ate Herman,” suggested somebody.

  “But there won’t be any bulge.”

  “The asshole forgot his glasses today.”

  Jennifer smiled at him that day for the first time, and Herman was in the corner of his room now, safe from boa constrictors.

  ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION = WITHOUT SEX, read the scrawl on the blackboard.

  A few chuckles spread through the class, though nothing like the roar Peter Hawkins had gotten when he’d accidentally pronounced organism as orgasm last week.

  “I fail to see the humor in this,” Ligget said. “Mr. Rudway, would you please tell me who first suggested the idea of an advanced organism reproducing asexually.”

  Rudway moved uncomfortably in his seat. “Mendel?”

  “A bit early.”

  David grinned, his eyes lighting up. He leaned over toward Jennifer and whispered two words to her.

  Jennifer snorted. She tried to keep it in, but even her hand over her mouth couldn’t contain her loud chortles.

  Annoyed, Ligget said, “Miss Mack, are you having an epileptic fit. Just what is so funny?”

  Jennifer kept her head down, seeming to gain control of herself. But then she looked over at David and cracked up again.

  Ligget was incensed, and just like a shark, he wouldn’t let go. “All right Lightman. Maybe you can tell us who first suggested reproduction without sex,” he demanded, his face mottled red.

  David straightened, glanced at Jennifer, lifting an eyebrow John Belushi style, then turned and smiled at old Atom Bomb.

  “Your wife?” he said.

  “Mr. Ligget wants me to discuss an attitude problem with Mr. Kessler,” David Lightman said in his best Hi-here-I-am-again-in-the-vice-principal’s-office voice.

  Mrs. Mitchell, a young woman, looked skeptically up at him from above her half frames. “I do believe I’ve seen you here before.”

  She buzzed him through, and turned back to her typewriter, wielding a Liquid Paper brush like Picasso.

  David Lightman dragged on through the door into a short corridor. He plopped down on the hard wooden bench and stared intently at his scruffy Adidas.

  Hey, he thought. You know, as long as I’m here...

  He smiled to himself and checked on Mrs. Mitchell. Out of view. Good. He peered down the hallway. To the immediate right, of course, was the “Kaiser’s” office, Discipline Center of Humphrey High. A stern voice barked behind a closed door.

  At the far end of the room were the school’s two computer rooms. David could see that in one a middle-aged woman bent over a terminal. But the other room, door wide open, was empty.

  Hot dog! Just as he’d hoped. Jennifer was a good foil. He just prayed that the user password was displayed.

  Keeping a wary eye on the woman in the other room, David darted toward the deserted computer room. This stunt sure could play hell with his relationships with the high mucky-mucks at Hubert Humphrey High, but it was worth the strain.

  It was but the work of a second.

  Taped to the monitor housing was a long list of six-letter words, all crossed out but the last: pencil.

  Far out!

  David dashed back to the bench, sitting just as the VP’s door opened, discharging a cowed-looking student who scampered off like a guilty dog.

  “Kaiser” Kessler motioned David in. “Well, Lightman. What a surprise.”

  David moped in, proffering the note from Ligget.

  Kessler accepted the note, scanned it, then leaned back in his chair, pursing his thick lips as he surveyed David Lightman thoughtfully.

  “You know, Lightman, I can’t figure you,” he said. “Go on, sit down. I want a talk. No essays this time, no note to your parents, no call to your pop.”

  Suspicious, David Lightman sat down.

  “You have excellent SATs... particularly in math... yes, I checked with your counselor “ Kessler wore his hair in a crew cut. In his late thirties, he looked like a German drill instructor, which was why the student’s called him “Kaiser.” His fame as a disciplinarian was known throughout the school system, not necessarily for its effectiveness but for the real glee that Kessler seemed to take in his job. David suspected that the man actually regretted living in the 1980s and wished he ruled his roost in the era of paddles and canes. He’d make a great Dickens character.

  “So?”

  “You are a prime candidate for becoming a sterling student, and yet I see you in here time and time again.”

  “Gee, Mr. Kessler, I don’t beat up on kids and I don’t drink or smoke or do drugs....”

  “You’re just a smartass... you just annoy the hell out of your teachers....” Kessler chuckled and put his hands behind his head. “Now what kind of school would we have if everyone was a smartass, Lightman?”

  “A school of bright bums?”

  Kessler laughed. “You know, if you were my boy, Li
ghtman, I’d take you over my knee and brighten your bum. But then, I suspect it’s too late. It’s not an easy job these days to be a teaches Lightman. Class disrupters make it all the more difficult for teachers.”

  “Yes, sir. “

  “You’re a know-it-all, aren’t you, Lightman? You think you can have it your way at all times. You like to throw sticks in the wheels just to see a cog or two break. Oh, you’re not a bad kid. I know bad kids, believe me. Still and all, you’re a little perverse, aren’t you?” Kessler smiled as he took a toothpick from its pack and began cleaning his teeth. “You know, don’t you, Lightman, that I’m in charge of the activities room.”

  David blinked.

  “Yes, well, it happens I am now and I have a little note here.. my goodness, it’s an official request from one David Lightman requesting video games for the room. Well now, Lightman, some of the teachers think that this is a fine idea, but I just read the Surgeon General’s report on how very bad those things are for people—Pac-Man elbow, strained eyes, tendencies toward violence—and your coming in here like this, a perfect example of what video games do to the adolescent mind, makes me realize that the last thing I want to see in my activities rooms are video games.”

  Kessler tore up David’s letter and tossed it in the garbage.

  “Filed in the round file, Lightman. Now get out of here, and don’t let me see you here again.”

  Kessler turned his slightly protuberant eyes back to the papers on his desk.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sieg heil would be a better response for that creep. The other kids could call him “Kaiser,” but from now on in David Lightman’s book he was Führer all the way.

  The thing was, most of the people in charge, in positions of authority, were such complete turkeys, David Lightman thought as he left another scintillating day at Humphrey High behind him, walking home listlessly, a single book—trig—riding in his palm.