Wargames

by David Bischoff

  “You know,” said David, after a time of silence, “it’s not just a game.”

  “Huh?” asked Jennifer. “What did you say?”

  David shook his head. “Nothing.”

  When the ferry docked, David and Jennifer sprinted ahead of the cars and other people onto the island.

  Jennifer’s feminine charm had coaxed directions from the surly ferryboat captain. “Just up Woodland Road, ’bout half a mile,” he said, scratching his tangled beard. “Tall Cedar Road is just a narrow dirt lane.”

  They hiked up through the woods, bordered by thick forest that only occasionally yielded glimpses of water The air smelled good and crisp and clean. It was a beautiful place. David wished he and Jennifer were there for reasons other than to locate the missing Stephen Falken.

  What if they were on the wrong trail. What if Falken was dead, and the machine had faulty information in its memory banks. Well, at least he’d have a little more time with Jennifer here on this lovely island.

  “There it is,” said Jennifer pointing to a slanted old sign. “Tall Cedar Road.”

  “Come on. We head back toward the water now, I think.” Encouraged, David increased his pace.

  After another half-mile walk they came to a high, overgrown cyclone fence that surrounded a large section of waterfront property. By the entrance stood a battered mailbox, displaying the name “Dr. Hume.”

  David was elated. “This is the place!- he said.

  “Terrific. How do we get in, though?” Jennifer wanted to know. She pointed to the heavy chain lock on the fence. “No tape recorder lock-pick around here.”

  David tried the lock anyway. Secure. No sign of any kind of buzzer, either.

  “Hullo!” he called out.

  No answer.

  “Come on, Jennifer. Maybe we can get through by going around on the waterfront side.”

  “I dunno, it looks awfully gloomy through there.”

  “Just call me Mr. Gloom and Doom.”

  She didn’t laugh, but followed him.

  “Good thing I wore jeans,” she said when she caught herself in a patch of briars. “Too bad they’re my good Calvin Kleins.”

  “Brooke Shields will never forgive you,” said David, picking off the stickers, “I’ll put in a good word for you, though.”

  “You’re just too kind,” she said, continuing their noisy progress. “David, you don’t really think she’s beautiful, do you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Brooke Shields.”

  “Heck, no. Anyway, she probably can’t even break ten thousand on Pac-Man.”

  “I can.”

  “That’s what drives me absolutely crazy about you, Jennifer “

  Jennifer laughed.

  They moved on in silence along a dry gully that afforded them easy movement down the slope. Certainly better than scraping past pine needles, thought David. Honeysuckle vine lent a trace of sweetness to the air. A robin stirred among oak leaves, then flapped away, a burst of brown and red. Their footsteps scuffed up gravel, which rattled down the steeper parts of the water-dug gully before them.

  Jennifer lost her balance once, but managed to grab hold of twisted oak roots exposed by the erosion.

  “Oh, look, David!” Jennifer said. “Strawberries!”

  “Yeah, I’m hungry too,” David muttered. “We should have thought to bring something along. Too bad we had to race to catch that ferry. We could have bought something.”

  “Maybe Mr. Falken will give us something to eat.”

  “Yeah, if we can find him!”

  It wasn’t long before they could hear the crash of the breakers ahead of them. The scent of the sea was full on the air, and the forest began to thin. David helped Jennifer out of the gully, and they followed the rusty fence the rest of the way down. At the point at which the metal post and mesh met a jumble of rocks, it began a tangled disintegration. The forest stopped there. Between low tide and the forest’s verge stretched an outcropping of rocks bordering tidal mud flats. The last of the dusky sun threw reflections from the little pools of water in the mud, like little mirrors sewn into the expanse of brown.

  David pointed. “This is where the property begins. We’ll have to move up here this way.” He stepped down. Mud welled up over his foot as he stepped off the rock.

  “Yuck!” said Jennifer.

  “It’s not deep. I’ll buy you a new pair of shoes,” David said, offering a hand to help her down.

  “No problem,” Jennifer said, gamely squishing into the mud. “Just a comment. I repeat. Yuck!”

  The mud sucked on their shoes as they made their way toward dry land. The smell of salt and seaweed was dense here. David’s tennis shoes were soaked. Sea chill surrounded his feet and calves.

  Jennifer strode on bravely ahead of him, concentrating on her footing. There was certainly a lot more to her than the shallow, pretty teen-ager David had at first perceived her to be—an unfamiliar feeling stirred deep within him as he watched the breeze blow and tangle her hair.

  Suddenly a form swooped out of the darkening sky, passing a few feet above Jennifer’s head. A seagull? thought David. No. Much too big.

  Jennifer flinched back and lost her footing, tumbling into the mud.

  “Jennifer!” David cried. He looked up in shocked disbelief as the figure of the creature moved against the light.

  Good grief, thought David. It can’t be!

  Leathery wings spanning a good eight feet flapped above, carrying a reptilian body and sharp, scissor-like head higher into the air. It looked like a pterosaur. But it couldn’t be, thought David, because pterosaurs had been extinct for more than sixty millions years.

  Pterosaurs were dinosaurs, for God’s sake! What was this, the Lost World?

  Jennifer was floundering in the muck. David went to help her up. She was a real mess, all of one side pasted with mud. “Come on,” David said, surprised at his calm. “We better make for cover.”

  Jennifer wordlessly obeyed. Holding onto her arm, they began the difficult business of slopping their way to dry land.

  The creature lowered one bony wing, banked, and then glided back. Swiftly it swooped and turned toward them again. “Get down, Jennifer,” David yelled, pushing her into the mud as he flailed an arm at the pterosaur. He missed and flopped across Jennifer, pushing her face into the mud.

  The flying reptile gained height and circled upward along the side of an outcropping of rocks.

  “It’s going away,” David said, helping Jennifer up.

  “What is it?” Jennifer asked, her eyes showing white in contrast to the mud covering her face. She made her way unsteadily to her feet.

  David’s eyes were fixed on the creature. “Ptera-something. Pterodactyl, pteranodon. Pterosaur anyway,” he muttered, relieved that the thing apparently had lost interest in them. “Whatever it is, it’s im—”

  His eyes traveled to the top of the rocks where a lone figure stood: a man, holding some kind of box. The figure of the flying reptile glided toward the man, who grabbed it out of the air by its talons. The wings folded; the creature was still.

  Reality registered in David’s mind. “It’s only a model!”

  “Huh?” said Jennifer, looking up as the man began to descend.

  “That man up there is operating it! C’mon, Jennifer. Let’s have a talk with this guy.”

  Holding muddy hands, they slogged toward the shoreline. As they reached it, a man dressed in dark, rainslick material, holding the folded-up pterosaur and its control box, bounced down from a rock.

  “Greetings!” the man said, cocking a thin, delicate face to eye them with cool consideration. “So sorry that Terry and I put a startle into you. Bit of fun, what?” His English accent seemed dulled by years of Yankee living, but his mannerisms gave him an eccentricity, a flamboyance, a disregard for the conventional that was immediately evident. This guy is straight out of The Avengers TV series, David Lightman thought. The man tapped the plastic head of his model. “Just imagi
ne, once upon a time the sky was filled with these little buggers.”

  “Dr. Hume, I presume?” Jennifer said snidely, wiping off some of the mud already crusting on her face.

  “Ah, you’ve read my mailbox. Splendid.” He petted his creation fondly. “Did you know that aeronautical engineers claim that pterosaurs couldn’t have flown? Anyway, as you can see, they can fly and fly quite well, although I haven’t solved the problems of taking off and landing. But then, they probably dropped from high cliffs where they hung like bats.” He smiled at them hopefully. “Are either of you paleontologists? I prayed God would send me a paleontologist.”

  “Sorry,” said David.

  “Are you deliberately trespassing?” the man said, clearly disappointed. “I mean really... you are on my property and I didn’t invite you.”

  “You’re Stephen Falken, aren’t you?” Jennifer said, excited. David had assumed as much, and was quite shocked when the man lost his smile, spun around, and began walking away.

  “Just there you’ll find a path that leads to a length of chain link fence,” he said, pointing brusquely and impolitely. “Follow the fence until you come to a gate. Open the gate, exit the property, and please give it a good slam so it locks behind you. Then, if you hurry, you’ll just make the six-thirty ferry to the mainland.” His tone was curt, perhaps even nasty.

  “Dr. Falken,” said David, moving after him. “I really need your help!”

  “Stephen Falken can’t help you, old fellow. Stephen Falken, like Marley, is dead as a door knocker and doesn’t plan any chain-clanking or imminent Christmas visitations.”

  “Doctor...” called David. “I’m here because of Joshua.”

  That stopped the man cold. His head jerked up, and he spun around to regard the two teen-agers with a look that had an entirely new expression: astonishment.

  “I say, you mean the one who fought the battle of Jericho?”

  “No, sir,” said David walking up to him. “And not your son either, who died. I’m talking about your computer program.”

  “Ah,” the man said thoughtfully. “My goodness, you two are a pair of messes, aren’t you. I just happen to have a couple of showers, fluffy towels, and some clean clothes that should fit quite well. A spot of dinner, too, hmmm? Yes, quite.” He spun around, beckoning the two to follow him. “And then, dears, you perhaps would care to tell me just how two kids know about a top-secret computer program.”

  Jennifer smiled. David sighed with relief as they began to follow Dr. Stephen Falken home.

  Radar Analyst Adler popped a pair of Alka-Seltzers into a glass of water at a safe station to the side of the consoles. His stomach grumbled in anticipation.

  Just as his lips were about to touch the fizzing liquid, a warning signal ripped through the air.

  His insides seemed to do a double flip as he put the glass back down and ran to his radar scope.

  “Take a look at those babies, Adler,” said Jones, one of his assistants.

  On the radar scope two blips slowly moved across Alaska, heading toward the continental United States. “Check for malfunctions,” Adler ordered.

  “Already have,” said Jones. “High confidence. This is for real. And readings just come up ‘UNKNOWN.’ These aren’t ours, Adler. “

  Adler swallowed back his fear and clicked on the intercom to the command balcony. “Regarding warning signal. Radar reports two unknown—repeat, unknown—tracks penetrating Alaskan air defense zone. Flight profile suggests Soviet Backfire bombers.” That was just a guess, popping out of his mouth, but he had to say something.

  General Berringer on the command balcony felt a surge of adrenaline course through him. He turned to Colonel Conley. “I want a visual confirmation of this. Scramble some interceptors to take a look.”

  “They’re up on the board now, General,” Lieutenant Dougherty reported. Then he turned to his console and fed in some information. “Their flight path will put them right over PAVE PAWS.”

  Colonel Conley said, “If they knock that out, we won’t be able to detect a sub launch!”

  “Those sons of bitches,” General Berringer said, pounding the board in front of him, palm down. “I knew they were down there. Let’s go DEFCON 2. And I want to talk to that flight leader myself!”

  It was but the work of a moment to switch the scoreboard from DEFCON 3 to DEFCON 2, but it took a while longer to get the F-15 jet interceptors up. Soon, however, two more pairs of blips, these known, headed toward the unknown blips.

  Flight Leader Bill Johnson sat in his cockpit, clouds and snow and mountains stretching before him, blue sky and space above him. He tapped the radar controls again, and it still gave him the same reading.

  “Crystal Palace,” he said into his face mask. “This is Delta Foxtrot Two Seven. I have negative radar contact. Repeat. Negative Soviet aircraft.”

  A loud voice boomed in his ear. He had to turn down the volume. “Two Seven, this is Brass Hat. They’re right in front of you. You’re almost on top of them!”

  Bill Johnson shook his head and looked again. These guys were going nuts. He shrugged and spoke again into his radio transmitter. “Brass Hat, we’ve got nothin’ on radar and forty miles’ visibility. There’s absolutely zilch out here, General. Bunch of blue sky.”

  Back in the command balcony, General Berringer’s face was red. “God damn it, they’re on our screens. They must be invisible or something. They must—”

  General Berringer stopped in midsentence as the two unknown blips on the big board suddenly raced westward—and disappeared.

  “What the devil is going on?” the general said. Inside of the WOPR, Joshua continued to work on its plan for the perfect world war.

  The United States would win this one too.

  Joshua, after all, was a program designed only to win. Now it had its chance.

  Finally.

  Dr. Stephen Falken’s house was a split-level, modernistic affair, with lots of glass, and a solar-heating unit that Falken claimed to have designed himself. “Not installed, mind you, though I am quite capable,” he had told them as they crossed the neatly clipped lawn of the estate. “I simply want to do my bit for the unemployment dilemma, don’t you know. Did you realize, my friends, that the government statistics do not take into account the millions of unemployed dead people in this country. Frightful!”

  The place was fashion-designer beautiful, housekeeper-clean.

  Falken nattered on about this insignificance or that obscurity, refusing to speak on the subject of Joshua until both his guests had taken their showers, were fitted with dry clothes, and had sampled Falken’s steak and kidney pie.

  Finally he said, “Now, please tell me how you two happened upon Joshua.” He raised an elegant eyebrow. “I take it that one of you is a computer programmer. Quite intelligent, aren’t I?”

  Jennifer, wearing an oversize red flannel shirt and smelling quite sweet and feminine, sat close to David. She gestured to him. “He’s the one.”

  “Ah. And I take it also, Mr. Lightman, that you are one of those private computer enthusiasts of this wonderful free-enterprise country known colloquially as a ‘cruncher.’ Namely, you stick your computer’s nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “They think he’s a Russian spy!” Jennifer said, looking at David with something like amusement, perhsps even pride.

  “I was just looking for Protovision. I got Joshua.”

  “Whoa. Now, I realize they say that a number of monkeys working at full speed will eventually produce the complete words of Shakespeare, but I find it rather hard to believe that a youngster could just happen upon the backdoor key of my program.”

  “I helped with that,” Jennifer said, half in defense of David, half in accepting part of the blame. “I mean—”

  “Now, please, take a nice brisk gulp of your coffee, if you will, Mr. Lightman, and start at the beginning.”

  David told the story as quickly and succinctly as he could. As Falken listened, he carefully tamp
ed shag-cut tobacco into a briar pipe. They sat in an activity room, replete with Ping-Pong and pool tables, a hearth where a fire now crackled, many bookshelves, and a television set.

  As David spoke, Falken reacted in various ways to different sections of the story, puffing Sherlock Holmes–like on his pipe, or scrunching about in his place on the couch, nodding his head, or simply staring off into space, as though he were thousands of miles away.

  “They wouldn’t listen to me!” David finished up, his cup of cocoa forgotten and cooling on the marble-topped coffee table before him. “And then when I realized that you were still alive, they wouldn’t let me talk to McKittrick. So you see, Mr. Falken, I had to talk to you. You’re the only one who has the chance of convincing them that Joshua is trying to start World War III, that it’s not the Russians, and certainly not me!”

  “Ah yes, though your beady little eyes apparently perked up when they saw ‘Thermonuclear War’ on that games menu, hmmm?”

  Jennifer came to David’s defense. “You haven’t really been listening, have you? He—we thought it was a game.”

  “Well, it is, isn’t it? And I have been listening.” A light of mirth danced in his eyes. “I loved it when you nuked Las Vegas, my dear. A fine biblical end for the place.”

  David spoke in a tone of astonishment. “But aren’t you going to call them and explain what Joshua’s doing?”

  “He’s doing just what he was made to do, David. He’s doing just what some Russian computer is no doubt doing.”

  Stephen Falken lifted his thin frame from the sofa and went over to a bookcase, where he absently let a finger drift across the back of a number of volumes. “Children, behold my collection on that most human of games, war We’ve been doing it a very long time, you know. It was pure instinct that caused your delight with the notion of playing Joshua’s ‘Global Thermonuclear War,’ David Lightman. So you need not bask in guilt. We are all bloodthirsty beasts, deep in the bone. We revel in war games, ah yes, we do.” Falken drummed a mime tattoo, and chuckled. “But before this century, we could have our little games of death and continue stumbling blindly on toward the light of civilization. Alas, then we stumbled upon nuclear energy, and what was it that we first thought to do with it? Why, make bombs, naturally, and create the wonderfully Byzantine technology to deliver those bombs accurately across expanses of thousands of miles, and create a controlling network of intricate machinery to function as the brain of this gargantuan technology. The computer, my dears, was not built as the result of an urgent desire of mankind to see a little yellow ball gobbling up dots in a maze. The computer is, in a very real sense, the child of war—and as Wordsworth says, the child is the father of the man.”