Wargames

by David Bischoff

  “Sir, this is Airman Doughterty, sir. “

  “This is General Berringer at NORAD. The current situation...” He cleared his voice and started again. “We are tracking approximately twenty-four hundred inbound Soviet warheads... however, at this time, we cannot confirm this. I repeat, we cannot confirm this. We’re estimating impact at—”

  He glanced over at Airman Fields, the unofficial timekeeper, who promptly piped up, “Twenty-five seconds, sir”

  On the other end of one of the lines, Airman Kenneth Doughterty was suddenly aware of moisture creeping down his legs.

  He looked down in horror to realize that he’d wet his pants.

  Lieutenant Colonel Bowers in Grand Forks figured it was just a test, so he stayed perfectly cool.

  Colonel Chase, however knew that everything was for real, and he quietly made peace with his Creator.

  “We’re right there with you guys,” General Berringer’s voice said over all three lines. “We’ve taken all the steps we can. Stand by to launch missiles on my command.”

  To his added shame, Airman Doughterty realized that he was whimpering.

  Berringer said, “Stay on this channel as long as possible. We’ll be standing by.”

  And God help you, the General thought as a deathly stillness settled over the entire combat operations center.

  Somehow the hope that Falken was right made the situation even more hellish. A man resigned to the worst prepared himself; the same doomed man, given a sliver of hope, could go mad.

  Airman Fields interrupted the breathless silence to provide an unrequested countdown.

  “Six seconds, sir,” the young man said, straining to keep his voice even. “Five...”

  All heads were turned toward the center board.

  “Four...”

  On the board above, the arcs of the leading warheads approached their targets, just about to impact on the stations at Loring, Grand Forks, and at Elmendorf.

  “Three...”

  General Berringer looked down at David Lightman and Stephen Falken. The odd couple, he thought.

  “I hope to shit you’re right,” he said, almost to himself.

  “Two.. one...”

  The lights struck their targets. A spray of colored diodes splashed out designation of symbolic explosions.

  “Zero,” said Airman Fields.

  General Berringer grimaced. He waited for a moment: then, face pale, he nodded to Colonel Conley.

  “This is Crystal Palace,” said Colonel Conley into the mouthpiece. “Are you still there... I mean, are you still on? Crystal Palace, calling. Come in!”

  Dead silence from the loudspeakers.

  Colonel Conley’s voice broke. “This is Crystal Palace, are you still there? Come in, for God’s sake.”

  A burst of static fell from the speakers, followed by a voice.

  “Yep,” came Lieutenant Colonel Bowers’s voice. “That’s affirmative, sir.”

  “Yeah, we’re here,” came the squeaky voice of Airman Doughterty. “Jesus H. Christ, we’re still here!”

  All eyes turned back to the big board, where the diodes flashed crazily with silent explosions. They looked, David Lightman thought, like a gigantic arcade game gone insane.

  Colonel Conley shook his head as though to clear his vision. “Our boards are confirming impact—”

  “No,no impact,” Colonel Chase reported. “We’re alive and well.”

  A relieved General Berringer slammed a fist into his palm., “Recall the bombers and let’s stand the missiles down.”

  “Oh, David, you were right!” Jennifer said, throwing her arms around him again, even as she jumped up and down with joy. David could feel the tension dissipate on the battle floor. All the technicians called out a raucous cheer

  David Lightman looked around to congratulate Falken. The man was gone.

  John McKittrick was still gazing up at the board. He was obviously relieved, but nonetheless still troubled, as unanswered questions poured through his head.

  “Do you believe me now?” David said. “I really didn’t mean to do it... and I wasn’t in league with anyone else.”

  “I need...” said McKittrick. “I should talk to Falken. This Joshua.... This could be very serious... even now.”

  “Where did he go?” Jennifer asked.

  McKittrick pointed.

  Dr. Stephen Falken was wandering along the front of the room, the huge electronics displays towering above him. He seemed oblivious to the atmosphere of celebration, as the giant map obliterated itself over and over again with its symbolic rain of nuclear explosions.

  “C’mon,” David said, grabbing Jennifer by the hand, hurrying over to the computer genius. “Falken.... Stephen.. We did it!”

  “Did we?” Falken said. “I wonder....”

  “What do you mean?” Jennifer asked.

  Obviously troubled, Stephen Falken shook his head. “Joshua won’t like this. He’s older now. but he’s still a child, you know, just a child who wants his way.”

  On the command balcony, General Berringer and his aides ebulliently congratulated themselves, while Colonel Conley ordered the bomber and submarine forces back.

  Major Lem smiled as he typed instructions into the WOPR console.

  His smile faded quickly as he tried to log onto the system.

  What the hell! thought Major Lem, alarmed.

  He turned to Colonel Conley. “Would you get me Dr. McKittrick right away?”

  John McKittrick walked toward Falken. There were things that needed settling. A lot of things, the man thought as he made his way through the din of celebration.

  Falken looked up from his conversation with David and Jennifer, and saw McKittrick approaching.

  “Uh oh,” he said. “Let’s all get out of here before he offers us something to ,eat.”

  Just as he was about to reach the group, a technician grabbed McKittrick’s arm and tugged him toward a console, holding a headphone. “Dr. McKittrick,” the man said, “Major Lem is on the line for you.”

  McKittrick put on the headset.

  “McKittrick here. What’s up, Major?”

  “Sir,” returned Major Lem’s voice, “something very strange is happening. The WOPR refuses to let me log back on. I can’t get in to stand down the missiles or recall the bombers.”

  I was afraid of this, thought McKittrick. He looked up, spotted Falken. “Hold on,” he told Lem.

  Quickly he sat down at a spare terminal and tapped the “enter” key.

  LOG ON, the monitor screen replied.

  McKittrick tapped in:

  7KQ201

  McKITTRICK

  The monitor responded immediately:

  IDENTIFICATION NOT RECOGNIZED.

  YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED.

  Immediately, John McKittrick jumped up and bellowed to Falken. “Stephen. Stephen, quickly, come here! The WOPR is not letting us back in!”

  Falken hurried back to the terminal, David and Jennifer following.

  McKittrick dialed up the computer center. Richter answered. “Paul,” McKittrick said, “I can’t get into the WOPR.”

  “I know,” replied Richter, a frenzied tone to his voice. “It’s weird. No one can get back on. We’re trying everything. It’s like the entire password file has been wiped out.”

  As Stephen Falken drew up to the console where John McKittrick sat, David Lightman’s attention was attracted by something on a lower screen, One below the fantasy holocaust spread out above.

  A series of ten random numbers and letters flashed on the lower screen, changing so rapidly that the digits were blurred.

  “Hey!” he cried, pointing up at the board. “What are those?”

  McKittrick shot an annoyed glance at David, but as he saw the digits, his expression changed entirely into an expression of pure dread.

  “Christ!” McKittrick said. “The launch codes!”

  Jennifer Mack looked up at the changing numbers, then back to McKittrick. “What are t
hey?”

  Falken pursed his lips as he looked down at the monitor screen.

  “Looks like Joshua is getting ready to send up the real missiles,” he said, and there was no joking in his tone.

  Chapter Twelve

  As Paul Richter lead a team of jumpsuited technicians through the NORAD computer center; opening up processing units, probing circuitry, frantically searching for electronic clues, to try and stop it, the computer program in the WOPR relayed its instructions to the nine ICBM missile bases located in the continental United States.

  In Minutemen missile launch capsules in Montana, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, and Mississippi, identical orders played over the console display screen of the computers controlling the missiles:

  MISSILES ENABLED.

  TARGET SELECTION COMPLETE.

  TIME ON TARGET SEQUENCE COMPLETE.

  YIELD SELECTION COMPLETE.

  CHANGES LOCKED OUT.

  The only thing needed now to launch the missiles, snug in their silos, was the launch code.

  Suddenly, at the bottom of the computer screen in all of the United States’ launch capsules, ten bold white characters—three letters, four digits, three letters—appeared at the bottom changing rapidly, in seemingly random order.

  There was, however, no one around to watch these numbers, anyone able to stop the launches.

  For no one was inside the capsules.

  And everything was now completely automatic.

  David Lightman listened as Richter’s voice came over the intercom.

  “We’ve checked the random number generators, but they’re not even running. I have no idea... it could be coming from anywhere.”

  “Keep looking, Paul.”

  McKittrick, on the command balcony now, looked up at the confused military personnel hovering around him. “The machine has locked us out. It’s still trying to launch those missiles.”

  Pat Healy was busy operating a calculator. “There’s an eighty percent chance of it finding the bunch codes in six minutes.”

  Berringer was bemused. “Just unplug the goddamned thing! Jesus Christ.”

  Too bad Jim Sting isn’t here, thought David. He’d know what to do.

  McKittrick shook his head despairingly.

  “We can’t. The command capsules would interpret any shutdown to mean that this facility had been destroyed in an attack. The computers at the silos would then carry out their last instruction, which was to launch.”

  Berringer fumed. “McKittrick, after careful consideration I am prepared to tell you that your new defense system sucks!”

  David watched as McKittrick lost whatever cool he had left. “I don’t have to take that... you pig-eyed son of a bitch!”

  “You can’t even curse with originality!” Berringer said, smiling in obtuse satisfaction. “Dimwit!”

  Colonel Conley called to the general. “Sir..it’s the President.”

  General Berringer sighed and walked to the red phone.

  “What are you going to tell him?” McKittrick asked resignedly, his rage gone.

  Berringer answered in a defeated voice: “To order the bombers back to their fail-safes. We may have to go through with this after all.” His whole face seemed to sag as he accepted the phone and began to speak.

  Falken turned to David and Jennifer, speaking ruminatively, “You know, I visited a Minuteman base once upon a time. They even showed me one of the missiles. Three stages, six feet wide, seventy-eight thousand pounds. Nine megatons—oh yes, they gave me all the statistics. The one I was looking at could deliver its gift to the Russians six thousand miles away, traveling at fifteen thousand miles per hour.” He held his hand up, as though examining the ICBM again in his imagination. “But do you know what I remember most vividly? A bit of graffiti scrawled on the fuselage of that missile. It said ‘Reach Out and Touch Someone.’”

  Falken smiled sadly and put one hand on David’s shoulder. “We’ve done our best.”

  McKittrick was sweating over a console. He glared up at Falken. “Stephen... maybe you could do it! Try and get back in, please!”

  “John, I would if I could,” said Falken, holding his delicate-fingered hands up helplessly. “But you’ve taken out my password. Joshua doesn’t know his papa anymore!”

  David was hardly aware that he was speaking, until half the sentence was out of his mouth. “Maybe it’ll open for something it’s interested in!”

  “What?” McKittrick said.

  “It likes to play games,” David said emphatically. “Maybe it’ll want to play a game.”

  Falken shrugged and smiled as David looked at him. “Good idea. You try it.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Stephen—”

  “No, let him,” Jennifer said. “He’s played it before. We know Joshua.”

  Falken nodded. “After all, he can hardly do worse than you have, John.”

  David Lightman barely noticed McKittrick’s reaction to the insult. He was too busy concentrating, thinking.

  Okay, Lightman, he told himself. You’ve put yourself on the spot. Now produce.

  Sometimes, when he got real interested in writing a program or in debugging a program, it was as though the very nature of time shifted, as though he were in some different universe altogether. Time slipped by so quickly.. and when he “woke up,” there was something new, something he hadn’t known he was capable of before.

  Adding to the tension and chaos of the situation were a bunch of system programmers huddled around Major Lem at the terminal, spewing out suggestions. It sounded like the Tower of Babel!

  “... Feed it a tapeworm,” one chubby man said.

  ti

  “No, too risky,” another said. “It might crash the system.”

  “How’d the kid get in?” somebody wanted to know.

  “The back door.”

  “We took it out.”

  “... Shit. Can we invade the deep logic?”

  “We keep hitting a damn fire wall.”

  Thinking hard, David watched as Major Lem tried the back-door password.

  JOSHUA5

  The monitor responded immediately.

  IDENTIFICATION NOT RECOGNIZED.

  YOU HAVE BEEN.DISCONNECTED.

  “There you go, old boy,” Falken said, touching David’s shoulder “Have a go.”

  “You can do it, David,” Jennifer said. “I know you can!”

  “Kid, if you can, you’ve got yourself a job!” McKittrick said.

  David Lightman nudged his way through the huddle and leaned over Major Lem.

  “Have it list games,” he suggested.

  Major Lem turned back and looked at David, surprised. He turned to McKittrick with a puzzled expression.

  McKittrick nodded. “Try it, Bill.”

  Jennifer said, “No, not him. You should do it, David.”

  “I guess you know it as well as I do by now,” Major Lem said, standing and allowing David to take his place.

  David sat down, took a deep breath, and said a silent prayer.

  He typed into the computer: GAMES.

  “Put it up on the center screen, Bill,” General Berringer said, “so we can all see it.”

  Major Lem leaned over a control board and hit a few switches.

  GAMES was now projected on the huge center screen of the big board.

  David hit the “return” button.

  Immediately the computer reacted just as it had when David had first contacted it through his modem.

  FALKEN’S MAZE

  BLACKJACK

  CHECKERS

  CHESS

  FIGHTER COMBAT

  DESERT WARFARE

  THEATERWIDE TACTICAL WARFARE

  GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR

  David Lightman typed in: CHESS.

  Joshua had wanted to play chess first. Maybe he was still open for a game.

  The monitor replied: IDENTIFICATION NOT RECOGNIZED.

  POKER, David typed.

  Maybe it w
as in the mood for bluffing. It certainly had been doing that enough these past few days.

  But again the monitor replied: IDENTIFICATION NOT RECOGNIZED.

  “Shit,” he said. “The security system won’t let anything through.”

  “Try ‘Global Thermonuclear War,’” Jennifer suggested.

  “Okay,” David said.

  He typed in GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR, to which the monitor responded: GAME ROUTINE RUNNING.

  STOP GAME ROUTINE, David ordered.

  There was a pause. Jennifer’s nails were digging into David’s shoulder, but he hardly noticed.

  It seemed to take forever.

  The monitor said:

  IMPROPER INSTRUCTION.

  ROUTINE MUST COMPLETE BEFORE RESET.

  YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED.

  The screen went blank.

  David felt like crying. The programmers were jockeying for position, eager to try new approaches. David looked out over the balcony railing, watching the furious activity below. He glanced at Falken, then to the launch codes running out rapidly on the lower screen of the big board.

  It seemed so frustrating....

  So futile... so very futile..

  “Futile!” He shouted.

  “Huh?” General Berringer said.

  “Futile!” David Lightman cried.

  “Well, if it’s futile, fellow, get the hell away from there and let someone else try!” the general said.

  “No, no, you don’t understand. What you said before, Dr. Falken! On the island!”

  Quickly he turned back to the WOPR terminal and put the games list back up.

  “We’ve already tried that!” Lem said.

  “Falken, it’s not on the list. Why isn’t it on the list?” David asked, as the games list flashed onto the large screen.

  “What?”

  David typed in TIC-TAC-TOE and entered it. Nothing happened.

  “If it’s not on the list, it’s not in the computer, surely,” McKittrick said.

  Nothing happened for a moment, then: NO SUCH PROGRAM, the monitor said.

  “You were telling me that you played it with Joshua, your son, dammit!” David cried desperately. “Where is it?”

  Falken smiled. “Oh, yes, my goodness, but that was... I say, you’re right, David, I’d forgotten all about that program. That was an easy... Well, it’s really quite simple.” He leaned over and typed in another word: