Jonathan Paulson
Inferno
A loud ring roused Tom out of blissful sleep. Everything was flashing red. “What the…?” He checked his
watch: 3:00am. “Goddamn temperamental system! Can’t a man get a decent night’s sleep around here
without being woken up in the middle of the night for God knows why?” It felt good to complain, but it
wasn’t doing much. The alarm continued to ring relentlessly. And it wasn’t satisfying to complain to a
computer. They didn’t give a damn. You had to do something about it. At 3:00am in the morning. The
alarm continued to ring. “Alright, alright, I’m coming.”
With a few more muttered curses, Tom sleepily made his way to the computer station. “Alright, what’s
the trouble?” Then he saw it. “Oh my God!” Tom rubbed his eyes blearily; that couldn’t be right. Still
there. No. That was impossible. No one… Ah, of course. Nightmares were no surprise, in a place like this.
He pinched himself expectantly. Nothing. Oh God…it couldn’t be true… The alarm continued to ring.
Tom continued to stare down the radar screen, hoping to bully it into changing. It didn’t work. The
screen, like the room around him, was a flood of red: a swarm of hundreds and hundreds of angry red
dots. And every one of them with a mushroom cloud in its heart. My God! The alarm continued to ring.
Tom suddenly felt wide awake, more awake than he’d ever felt in his life. He took down the facts from
the computer. 238 missiles. Targets: New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, Boston, Houston, Phoenix,
Houston, San Francisco…he began to scroll through the list; it was too much to take in. Impact time:
3:30am. Half an hour till the end of the world. Less: 25 minutes, now. The alarm continued to ring.
So this was it, was it? Two centuries it had taken to build a nation that ruled half the globe; it would take
two seconds to destroy it. How could they? The Russians were evil, yes, but this wasn’t evil…it was
madness. To destroy the world… Whatever happened to deterrence, to mutually assured destruction?
Well, it sure as hell was mutually assured now. Tom broke into hysterical laughter. 23 minutes.
Mechanically, Tom picked up the red phone sitting by the desk. Direct line to the president. Of course, it
didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now. No time. But it was protocol; it was his duty. And Tom wasn’t
about to shirk his duty, Armageddon be damned. He stifled another bout of hysterical laughter. It was all
so pointless.
The phone rang insistently. Once. Twice. The end of the world, and they couldn’t be bothered to get the
phone. Tom burst into laughter. Finally, “What is it?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded
annoyed. Annoyed.
“This is Thomas West, at the Missile Watch Facility. The Soviet Union has launched over 200 nuclear
warheads at cities throughout the United States. All major population centers are targets. The fallout
will cover most of the country. The missiles are projected to impact simultaneously in twenty minutes,
sixteen seconds.”
For almost fifteen seconds, there was dead silence on the other end of the line. Then, as the silence
grew uncomfortable, a harbinger of what was to come, an answer came: “Are you serious?”
No, Tom wanted to say. You can’t be serious about the end of the world. It’s too big to be serious about.
It’s a goddamn cliché, something out of a B-movie. But all he said was “Yes,” and then he hung up. He’d
said all there was to be said. And you couldn’t do anything about it in twenty minutes anyway. And even
if you could, there was nowhere to run. Tom thought about the millions of people asleep in their beds.
They would be incinerated in their sleep, never realizing what was happening. They would never even
know the world was ending. Tom envied them.
18 minutes left. And the alarm continued to ring. It was growing annoying. Tom wanted it to turn off,
wanted the room to stop flashing. Wanted to fall back onto his soft bed and dream sweet dreams as the
fire took him. He knew what the alarm wanted, of course. Not for him to do anything about the Russian
missiles; too late for that. Something much more vengeful: Retaliatory Nuclear Strike, the manual called
it. To be activated as a last resort in the event of nuclear enemy aggression. That was the deal: you kill
us, we kill you.
It was a raw deal, Tom thought bitterly. But hey, that’s life, and what can you do about it? He reached
over to press the red button that would end the alarm (and the rest of the world, a voice whispered in
his mind, too softly to be heard). And then he paused in wonder. That button would launch almost five
hundred nuclear missiles. And half an hour later, half the world would be up in smoke (the remaining
half, the small voice whispered). Just press the button. Everything else was taken care of: the computer
had pre-calculated flight paths, loaded the fuel, put the missiles into position…just press the button. It
was too easy, damnit. Just press the button…and a billion lives and a dozen countries are up in smoke. It
was obscene, for such a little action (just press the button, an insistent voice whispered) to be capable
of so much. To kill a billion people without even seeing their faces. Without even squeezing the trigger
of a gun. It was unreal. Until the flames came. Than it was real enough for anyone. Tom glanced at the
clock. 15 minutes left.
His hand hovered over the button. He’d thought about it, made it “real”. Whatever the hell that meant.
And yet…it was all so pointless. Press the button, don’t press the button…nothing changes. Not for Tom,
anyway. Not for America. Nothing changes…except a billion people die. Nothing changes…except the
rest of humanity, of civilization, dies out. Nothing changes?
He had to do it. It was in the manual, after all, right? It was his job. Just following orders? They killed us.
Don’t they deserve payback? All billion of them, they all deserve payback? A few men decide to launch
the missiles, and a billion die for it? One man decides to press a button… He left the thought unfinished.
And in its place, a new and horrible thought arose: was this what the Russians were counting on? It was
insane, to launch. To invite destruction. Unless… Retaliation is pointless. Therefore…there would be no
retaliation? Life is sacred. Therefore…no one would kill a billion people for no reason. No. Monstrous.
Their insanity enabled by my sanity? True? Irrelevant, Tom decided. They’ve played their hand; whether
they were right to do it doesn’t matter. What matters is my decision.
12 minutes. The alarm continued to ring insistently. Tom longed to cast himself into the oblivion of
sleep…but that was no longer an option. He…had to see it. The end. He knew it was coming. He knew.
And you can’t sleep when you know. He wished to god the alarm had never sounded…but you can’t
unring the bell. You can’t not know. And once you know, you can’t not act. Sleep was a lie, a denial of
reality…pleasant, comforting, but a lie nonetheless. And the worst lie of all: the one you tell yourself.
What the hell, Tom thought. It doesn’t matter; the world’ll be ashes in…11 minutes, now. But that was
another lie. It always mattered. Even now. Especially now.
So…press the button? Same old question, still unanswered, sill persistent. Questions always did that, till
you answered them…or until time (10 minutes now, he noted subconsciously) ran out. But letting time
run out was a kind of choice in itself. So…press the button? Tom almost chuckled. Stop evading. Stop
wandering. Yes or no, no more, no less. Press it? Teach the Soviets a lesson, punish them for their
insanity? Except…there’d be no one left to learn. Some lesson. What was the old jaw: Time is the best
teacher, except that it kills all its students. Step aside, Father Time: you’ve been outsourced.
Technologized. You’re out of touch. Tom shook his head. Focus. Everything said to leave the button be.
It was the Soviets or nothing. America was gone. Killing a billion people wouldn’t change that. And
yet…it just wasn’t fair. For their sin, mass murder on a scale never before imagined, the Soviets would
not be punished? And for our restraint, we were to be cast into the fire? The Lord has a funny sense of
humor.
Six minutes. Fair? Life wasn’t fair. Death was fair, though. All people are created equal: bunch of bullshit.
Mozart, composing symphonies at age 5, wasn’t created equal. Everyone died equal, though. Americans
and Russians both. Equal…fair…just…but dead. Sterile. Death was fair…life wasn’t…but Tom figured he’d
take life any day. But that wasn’t an option. Not for him.
I’m a dead man, Tom thought. And a dead man’s got nothing left to lose. Except his principles.
Except…Tom wasn’t sure just what his principles were. Orders? Justice? Civilization? The alarm
continued to ring, demanding. Tom ignored it. More important things to worry about. Four minutes left.
Maybe it would be better, Tom reflected. What a mess this world is in. So much pain and suffering and
death. “The wickedness of man was great in the Earth”, he quoted from half-remembered Sunday
school lessons. “And it repented the Lord that he had made man…And the Lord said ‘I will destroy man’”.
By water, then; by fire, now. Time to start again? Except…who plays Noah? The waters took 40 days to
subside; how long for the radioactive fallout? With God, it is said, all things are possible. But Tom didn’t
think God was watching over them right now.
Two minutes left. If I don’t push the button…America and Western Europe are gone, the Soviets win,
and…? Communism spreads unchecked, worldwide. They get utopia. Be careful what you wish for…Tom
didn’t expect the Soviets would be very happy in utopia. They were already starving in their own country.
So, don’t push the button…and give them their own personal little hell, made to order. Poetic. And yet…
The alarm began to ring louder, more insistently. Fifteen seconds left. The end was nigh. The apocalypse
had come. Now was the time to choose and be judged. Choose! Ten. Press the button? Nine. Or don’t?
Eight. So simple, in the end. Seven. The end was always simple. Six. So simple, and so complicated. Five.
A single decision. Four. Yes or no? Three. Do or don’t? Two. Tom’s hand hovered over the button. One.
Tom made his decision. And then all was fire.