Private Warfare

Fifty metres beneath North Dakota, in my solitary steel cubicle, a red light begins to flash. I’m worried this might mean the end of the world.

The 20th-century control desk is adorned with switches and blinking lights. As far as I’ve worked out, the green lights are good and the yellow lights are nominal. The red light is new. My AI Manager sits anachronistically in the middle, glossy black screens surgically implanted less than a decade ago.

The control room is the heart of a network of green-steel corridors, built long before the military was dissected and sold off to the private sector. The facility hasn’t been cleaned in months and the air tastes like pennies.

I open the handbook, looking for an explanation for the new light. I rip through its brittle pages of tests, inspections, and safety protocols, most of which are now performed by the AI. The yellowing paper flakes away as I turn; the book becomes lighter as I near the back cover.

A labelled diagram of a 1980s ICBM sits dormant on the last readable page. No answers, just frayed stubs where pages should be. If there’s an explanation to be found, it’ll be stuck between pages that have fused together.

A stooped body glides past the reinforced window and disappears into the dark web of corridors. Another ‘Scab’ as the ‘Nuclear-Weapons-Workers-Union #232’ had labelled us. We all ducked our heads as we crossed the picket line — out of shame, and to dodge their homemade missiles. ‘Traitors!’ They shouted. The largest class-conscious movement since the 20th century, and we’re scabbing for the corporations, only interested in the money.

I throw the manual back under the desk, scramble around for anything else. There is nothing but cobwebs.

The AI sits in silence above me. The same prepackaged, blue eye that judges my performance here laid off a thousand workers at my last job. I’ve avoided using it so far. But without answers, I have no choice.

I tap its response terminal. The screen glows accompanied by a digital harp. ‘ATOMAX — Brought to you by Automation Laboratories’. The logo fades into the interface screen. A string of letters unfold themselves in the blue-black darkness.

• UNRECOGNISED EMPLOYEE. PLEASE COMPLETE FACIAL IDENTIFICATION SCAN.

I hold my face close to its screen, staring down its blue dot of vision. It doesn’t flinch or twitch, but I can feel it taking in every pore of my unwashed face, every loosely tied strand of matted hair, every red vessel bulging in my eyes. My digitised face stares back at me behind the glass.

• WELCOME, NEW USER. YOUR EMPLOYEE NUMBER IS: UNKNOWN. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CREATE A NEW PROFILE?

I type my message, asking what the red light means.

• INFORMATION REGARDING ATOMAX NUCLEAR DETERRENT SYSTEMS CAN ONLY BE ACCESSED BY RECOGNISED ATOMAX EMPLOYEES.

I tell it I am working for ATOMAX. That I’m a non-union, non-employee, and responsible for the safety and operation of 150 privately-owned ICBMs.

It pauses. A thousand-million process cycles happening a second. Corporate AIs became popular about a decade ago, replacing the managerial class and even some CEOs. Where humans are limited by hesitancy, fallibility, and their ability to unionise, a machine’s only concern is numbers. Making sure the lines go up, the job gets done, and employees stay employed, in that order. Humans are only here due to government-mandated quotas — a fleshy, inefficient appendage of the private workforce. But while we are still here, the AIs must cooperate.

• THE RED LIGHT IS PART OF THE NUCLEAR DETERRENT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM. IT INDICATES THAT AN INCOMING NUCLEAR STRIKE HAS BEEN DETECTED AND IS AN IMMINENT THREAT TO THE CONTINENT.

A bead of sweat slides off my face. Something is forcing its way out of my throat.

I ask where they are coming from. The text interface is replaced by a map, the United Continents of America on the right, the Union of Eastern Republics on the left. A swarm of arcing lines inch their way over the pacific. A timer at the top estimates that the missiles will hit the mainland in ten minutes.

I vomit into a nearby metal bin. Ten minutes. I’m trying to think, but I can’t process a thousand-million thoughts a second like the AI. It’s all a blur, a solid block of static, Lydia’s face comes to me in flashes. All I can pull into focus is the blinking message on the screen in front of me:

• AWAITING FINAL INPUT.

I try to crane my head around the edges of the window. Not a grubby, white-collar in sight.

I drag my chair to the corner of the room and hold my phone to the ceiling. No signal. The nuclear deterrent system can tell if a butterfly lands on a leaf in Moscow, or if a man has burnt his fingers on a cigarette in Beijing. But here at the epicentre of an impending nuclear war, I can’t find out what’s happening fifty metres above me.

To the right of the desk sits an old rotary phone in pristine casing, emergency red. I can hear it. The analogue hum. The old fashioned chiming. Shaking until it rings off its hook, clattering to the floor, writhing till it shatters its plastic shell.

I try to clear my head and calm my breathing, lower my heart rate till it at least matches the pace of the flashing red light. The phone is still, sitting quietly, waiting for use. I look back to the screen.

• AWAITING FINAL INPUT.

I type back to the machine that I am waiting for strike confirmation from the commander in chief.

No response.

I wait, sweating against my chair. The timer passes nine minutes.

This job was supposed to be easy. ‘No contracts, no worries!’ The ATOMAX representative had said. Three months work while the unions are on strike. Pay your bills, support your family, and get out. In the worst recession of the decade, with no health insurance and Lydia needing chemotherapy, there really was no choice. And now the fate of the world lies in the hands of a tattered manual, an AI, and a scab.

The AI sits there, unknown processes ticking away beneath its obsidian screen. I look around at the array of switches and buttons, all in faded primary colours like forgotten children’s toys. I wonder which I’ll have to press.

At opposite ends of the control desk are two covered key slots. Behind me on the wall is a safe, carelessly left unlocked when I arrived. Inside is the confirmation code used to confirm the president’s order and two velvet cases holding keys.

I take a deep breath and run out of the room.

. . .

My footsteps clang against the floor, echoing through the base and coming back to me from every direction.

Due to privatisation, cuts, and strike action, the chain of command has been streamlined to the bare minimum of human interaction. It used to require a whole team of military and government personnel. Now it takes only two people. And everyone else has left.

From the other end of the facility, I hear a faint ping. I turn and sprint in its direction.

I spot a man at the end of a long corridor, jamming his hand repeatedly into the elevator controls.

“Hey!” I shout. He jams the buttons faster.

When I reach him I grab his shirt and try to pull him back into the oily corridors.

His round, pink face flaps away about the strike. I remember him from the first day, another worker, desperate and destitute.

He breaks away from my grip, eyes flicking between me and the elevator.

“Everyone’s gone!” He says, trying to pull me through the doors. “ATOMAX, they’re close to folding! ”

“I need you,” I say.

His small, dark eyes twitch.

“Why?” He asks.

I explain. The red light, the missiles, the phone, the two keys.

The man’s face falls open. The doors slide close behind him.

“Wh- who else knows?” He says.

I’m about to reply, but my feet have already started running. From the other end of the base, a phone is ringing.

. . .

I burst into the control room, heart beating in my extremities, the man trailing behind me. I find the safe on the back wall, take the two velvet cases, like engagement rings, and a plastic, credit card-sized packet. I take them all and throw them onto the desk while the phone rings.

The man stares at the blinking lines crossing the Pacific.

I take the receiver off the hook. Feedback pierces my eardrums. There’s a clunk, a fragment of ancient dial tone, and the static silence showing we’re connected.

A distorted voice crackles.

• This is president Moore.

The voice was female and gravelly, but robust enough to cut through the antiquated speaker. I glance around the room, unsure if I’m allowed to respond.

The voice comes again.

• The missiles are coming. Retaliation is necessary.

I break open the confirmation card. From edge to edge it’s filled with randomised words, changed daily. The commander in chief has an identical card. No amount of automation could be more secure.

There’s a small chime as the timer reaches five minutes.

I tell the president that I’m ready to receive the confirmation.

• This is president-zzzZzzz-taliation is necessary.

I clamp the phone between my ear and my shoulder and move over to the AI terminal. I begin typing a message when I see a flash of digital blue glance off my glasses. I look up. The AI is as still as ever. Something compels me to take the confirmation cards underneath the desk.

I finish my message: ‘Failure to authenticate presidential order. Strike withheld.’

There’s another clunk and a sustained note. I put the phone down, the fate of the world still in limbo.

The man takes his face out of his hands.

“Is- is that it then?” He says. I shake my head, his hands return to his.

The voice sounded like the president. Noble, firm, no-nonsense. Everything her sponsors had described her as three years ago. That same voice is played daily through every screen in the west. It negotiated with the Eastern Republics for prolonging ‘The Great Peace’. It secured lacklustre union rights against the corporate AIs. I’m certain of it. But that’s not enough.

I push my glasses firmly onto my nose and take the card out from under the desk, holding it close to my chest. I want to see if I missed anything in the president’s message, or maybe I’m just curious about the words that may end the world.

‘Desert — Skeleton — August — Constitution — Melancholy -’

The phone rings.

I launch myself towards it, sending the card skidding across the buttons, nearly pushing them all as I attempt to grab it. I take the phone and put it to my ear.

There’s the clunk again. Like something else is connecting to the ancient phone line.

“Yes?” I say, forgetting all propriety. There’s a few seconds of silence.

• Desert. Skeleton. August. Constitution. Melancholy. Grave. Star…

The voice began rattling off every codeword on the carefully-created, totally-randomised list.

• …Gaia. Quote. Brave. Rhetorical. Stuck. Force. Tropical…

Every monotone word sounded out perfectly, coming at identical intervals. I can believe it’s the president’s voice. Without a doubt. And yet, it doesn’t feel like I am talking to a real person.

• … Hunting. Craft. Learn. Beast. Confusion. Provoke. Stop.

That’s the end. Recited without fault. Not even a stutter. The codes confirm that the voice did indeed belong to the president.

• The missiles are coming. Retaliation is necessary.

And she hangs up without another word.

The man looks at me, all the pink drained from his cheeks. He looks back down at the key slot once he figures out my expression. We have our orders. Nothing can change that.

I type a message to the AI:

• ‘Strike order confirmed. Begin launch procedure.’

The base springs to life all too quickly, as if it had been waiting a century for this moment. An alarm begins to sound, quick stabs of a screeching buzzer. The little red light replicates itself across the whole control room and the corridors outside, throwing shadows across the pipes and beams. The doors to the room pneumatically seal themselves and the ground begins to shake.

The world map disappears, replaced by a chessboard of dark squares. Slivers of light creep across, spilling onto the pointed tips of the ICBMs as 150 holes open in the earth around us.

The base is alive for the first time, breathing and stretching into its true purpose that it was never used for even at the height of the Cold War.

The alarm comes to a stop and the earth becomes still. Silence, broken only by the two key slots flipping open.

I grab the two black velvet cases and toss one to the man, feeling the weight of my own. Inside is a key. Like a house key, only thicker and made of heavier, more durable metal. It guards something more catastrophic than my tiny apartment.

I imagine I’m there, with the green paint peeling from the door revealing rot-eaten wood.

I open it with the key and step inside, breathe the damp air made worse by our various plants, kick away the bills we avoid, slump down on the sofa just to feel the springs in my back. Lydia would slump next to me and I would stroke her smooth, newly-defined skull and she could take shelter in my arms.

“My name-” The man starts to say. “My name is Robert.”

I don’t respond. I’m home.

We turn our keys as one, and together we become history.

. . .

The launch process for a Minuteman IV nuclear ICBM takes two and a half minutes, designed to launch before a foreign missile can destroy our launch sites. It also limits the amount of remorse we feel as we wait for armageddon.

I sit scrolling through my contacts list, saying goodbye to all the people in my life, who may not even know they’re minutes away from obliteration. I see Lydia’s face, with her pre-chemo hair, the translucent skin around her eyes crinkling with her smile.

“I’ll meet you in the wasteland,” I whisper.

Robert started to throw things at the reinforced window. A stapler, the handbook, my coffee mug, and finally the office chair which he’s chosen as his main tool. It hits the window a final time and disintegrates into a pile of faux leather and plastic shrapnel.

“Those windows,” I say, “are built to withstand an 800 kiloton surface blast. Rest assured, we’ll be perfectly safe down here as we decompose.”

He sits down against the opposite wall, foot tapping. Neither of us has looked at the AI since we ordered the strike. Half of my brain is processing the guilt and our new place in the final part of history. The other half assures me that I’m a blameless cog in a wider machine. After all, we wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for a strike, and there wouldn’t have been a strike if there wasn’t an economic crash, and so on.

“Did we have a choice?” I say to Robert.

“I suppose.” He replies, his lips smacking with saliva and tears. “While there are still humans there’ll always be a choice.”

I suppose that’s why we’re here. Not because the unions demand it, but the world is just safer in badly-paid human hands. There’s something that doesn’t add up. Nuclear war hasn’t been on anyone’s mind since the early 21st century. The Great Peace is all anyone talks about. We keep our weapons for defence, to ensure global cooperation. An attack was unthinkable.

“Do you think,” I say, “do you think the ICBMs were real”

“What do you mean? The system made an error?”

“Not the system. Not an error.” I tilt my head to our co-conspirator, whirring away quietly as the new timer ticks. Robert shakes his head.

“Impossible. Corporate AIs can’t lie to employees. The unions made sure of that.”

It would take a great series of fuck-ups to let something like this happen. Whether the unions like it or not, AIs are the inevitable future of automation, like the printing press or the steam engine. We’re only here so the company can meet their quota. They may uproot us, fire us, destroy our way of work, but only in the name of efficiency. Direct attack is a human game.

Robert begins to scream. He beats his doughy hands on the steel floor, his spit flies everywhere. Is that how he wants to die? Maybe that’s how we should die.

There is a minute until the foreign ICBMs hit and a minute later ours will launch. In ten the world will be a mutually-assured, thermonuclear crossfire. But we will see the clear sun and the unscorched dirt again. I owe this much to Robert.

I pick up the biggest shard of the broken chair and take a guess where it will do the most damage, straight into the heart of the AI terminal. There’s a great crack and an electrical fizz. The blue eye winks off along with the room’s automated components, and the door hisses as it releases its seal.

Robert looks at me, the red returning to his face. Together we push against the unassisted steel door and sprint out into the web of corridors, the timer ticking unseen behind us.

We hit the back of the elevator, metallic air stinging our teeth as we laugh. Our smiles fade as the numbers tick up to zero and we remember where we are heading.

. . .

We step out into the grey sun, dirt crunching beneath our feet, wasteland stretching for miles. Nothing to hear but a creeping wind. The only discernible landmark is the throbbing bump on the horizon, their rhythmic chants barely carrying over to us.

I take out my phone expecting a flurry of messages and missed calls giving me a play-by-play of the end of the world. Instead, there’s a text notifying me of an update to my health plan, a love heart message from Lydia, and a two-for-one offer on any twelve-inch pizza.

I scour every social media and news app. There’s nothing. One of those rare days in history where nothing seems to be happening anywhere in the world.

One thing catches my attention. A headline: ‘ATOMAX Set For Bankruptcy As Government Decides Not To Renew Contract’. Alongside the article, detailing a gruelling union battle amidst the harsh recession, is a video taken today of president Jane Moore shaking hands with a Chinese Ambassador, both mega-nations committing to increased nuclear disarmament.

Robert is a few metres away from me, rolling on the balls of his feet and staring up at the empty sky.

A mile away, the strikers start singing. Hand in hand, union and scab alike.

Scabs like us. Non-union, non-employees…

Realising what we had done, I sprint back to the bunker.

. . .

There must be less than a minute until our ICBMs launch. I bruise my shoulders against steel corners as I sprint my way back into the heart of the bunker. The cycling red lights have returned, throwing faces across the pipes that scream with the terror of the Cold War alarm.

I nearly dislodge my shoulder as I squeeze through the unassisted door into the control room. I pull the jagged spike out of the AI terminal and lacerate my hand against the broken glass as I try to wake up the machine.

Its blue eye flashes on, fractured in glitching pixels. The incoming countdown is far into the minuses, our own launch quickly approaching.

I stab the screen with my finger until it tells me something. Until it admits that, from the top of the company to the bottom, the AI had rigged this from the start.

• NO INCOMING ICBMS DETECTED. RETALIATORY STRIKE IN T MINUS 30… 29… 28…

“Abort the launch!” I demand as I press all of the inoperable controls.

• UNRECOGNISED EMPLOYEE. ABORT PROCEDURE IMPOSSIBLE. RETALIATORY STRIKE IN T MINUS 24…

“You lied to me!” My tongue tastes like metal. I pick up the remnants of the chair and smash it into the screen.

A fractured, digital voice crackles from the speakers.

• THE MISSILES ARE COMING. RETALIATION IS NECESSARY.

The uncanny voice begins to break and fade, as what’s left of the AI’s processor short circuits.

• THIS IS PRESIDENT MOORE. THE MISSILES- THE MISSILES- THE MISSILES ARE-

The blue eye shuts down for the last time and a faint glow returns to the controls. There must be a way. I’m not an employee, and I’m only human, but there will always be a way.

I find where the manual lies in tatters. I root through the loose pages until I find it. A black and white, labelled diagram of the control desk, minus the insane AI. I need an off switch, an undo button.

— “MANUAL HATCH CONTROL” —

It’ll have to do.

I push the button. I hear, through dirt and steel, the hiss and earthy clunk of 150 holes closing.

With no work to complete, no obligations left, my tenuous contract has come to an end.

In the end, none of it mattered. Whether I had been plugging away under an AI manager, striking outside, or rotting in my apartment, another lowly soul would have pressed the button somewhere.

And after me, Robert, and this patch of North Dakota are vapourised, I hope the world will see that humans, for all their faults, never had the guts. But for the machines, it was only ever a matter of time. A ticking clock.

I sit on the floor, slumped against the steel wall, sliding until my shoulders are inches from the floor. With my eyes closed, the flashing lights become a faint alternation between states of semi-darkness, and the alarm sinks to the back of my senses.

For the first time in a while, my mind stops racing, my heart still beating. Lydia is waiting for me to come home. To our plants. And our bills. And our hallway that I’ll never get around to sweeping.

I look at the broken AI and laugh.

The earth is shaking.