Нэнси Кресс - The End Is Nigh

“You let him get away,” the agent repeats, and kicks a chair.

“Is it even possible?” Toto asks. “You can’t really think he’s able to hack into our nuclear launch system?”

His eyes widen as he reads the room. Everyone in here believes it.

“To get into the nuke codes.” I look at them, following Toto’s thinking. “Aren’t there, like, daily changes of the code. Security. Chain of command. Two people to turn the switch and all that?”

The FBI agent stares down at me. “Well, Haswell thinks he’s found a way around it. And seeing as that he was able to take over someone’s car to try and kill them, we can’t afford to take the chance he’s bluffing, can we?”

Haswell had said he was going to push the power switch. System reset. What kind of system reset do you think a guy like Haswell’s planning if the FBI says he’s trying to get his hands on nuke launch codes?

A chill runs down my spine.

They cut us loose a few hours later. We flee town, tails tucked between our legs.

“Goddamnit, Toto. This is worse than Florida,” I shout. My laptop’s been seized, as well as my phone. I’m probably going to have a criminal record. The suits ensconced in their air-conditioned, glass palaces would throw me out the door twice as hard now. No normal office job life on the table now, not even as a back up.

And that didn’t even matter, did it? I’m freaking about the wrong shit. Because Haswell might be trying to launch nukes. Or sell the codes. Hold us all hostage. Or something horrific. Whatever he’s going to do once he gets them, it can’t be good.

“I’m sorry,” Toto says softly.

“Fuck!” I hit the dashboard. “Why’d you have to try and fix everything? If you’d just left it alone. Let me keep trying for an office job.”

“I’m sorry,” Toto says again. He looks beat, head bowed and shoulders slumped.

I soften. “No, I’m not being fair. Not your fault. I should have scanned for signals. Should have…” I stop. I’ve been thinking about how to track him. How to hunt down his trail. I want to stop this from fucking everything up even more.

But now I’m thinking we need to find where he’s going. We need to skate to the puck.

“Overalls,” I say to Toto. “ Overalls .”

We don’t have a phone. We don’t have a computer. We have a car, and I make Toto spin us back around. There are ICBMs hiding underground around the small town in concrete silos, scattered between the farms. Strange crops. Blank spots in the map. “Since budget cuts, they’ve been outsourcing some plant maintenance for the military. Risky, so the background checks on it are high, but the money is good. No one gets to touch the missiles, but obviously Haswell’s found a way in. He was wearing overalls for one of the companies handling silo maintenance.”

Toto speeds up. Something falls off the Corolla and bounces into the ditch. We’re wobbling like a bad amusement ride but making good time.

“No one’s gonna listen to us, a couple of crazies showing up at a secure military installation. We should go into town and tell the feds.”

“We forced Haswell’s hand. He’s going to hurry now.” Reboot the machine, he had said. “Let me talk to the guards when we get there.”

“They’re gonna shoot you,” Toto predicts.

I’m quiet for a while. They’ll be armed. Won’t take any kind of threat peaceably. Hell, they’ll kill Haswell if they realize what he is up to.

Which is why, I realize, Haswell isn’t going to be trapped in the silo when the damn thing surprisingly launches.

“Stop. Stop! Now!”

Toto obliges. “What?”

“He doesn’t want to get shot.” I kick the door open, as it doesn’t want to swing on its warped hinges. Toto has stopped on the shoulder of the road.

I clamber onto the back of the Corolla and onto the roof, surveying the flat horizon of land stretching away. It’s approaching dusk. I’m looking for something tall enough Haswell can broadcast from.

I spot blinking aircraft hazard lights hanging in the air.

I jump down to the ground. “There.”

Haswell needs line of sight, and somewhere to swamp the world with a powerful wireless signal to access the electronics he’s snuck into the missile silo… or silos. Haswell needs a tower. I start trying to wave down passing cars, and up begging to borrow a phone for a second off a wary looking older man in a minivan.

I can’t reach the sheriff. The FBI puts me on hold. I leave messages for them both, give back the cellphone, and head back to the car.

We’re going to have to do this ourselves.

Toto sees the look on my face and knows. Once more into the breach .

I drive, hunkered down over the wheel and looking up into the dusk for the blinking lights that will guide us in. He kicks the glovebox with a knee and pulls out a thick, gray revolver with what looks like a forearm-long barrel.

As we pass from asphalt into dirt service road, the car skidding and kicking up dust, Toto flicks the chamber open and calmly, expertly, inserts six bullets.

“You can get out,” I say, voice quavering slightly. “I can go in alone.”

“It’s my mess, too. I’m not leaving your side.”

I hide my relief. A minute later I slam the car through a wire mesh fence and come skidding to a halt near the electric company truck that slammed into us earlier. The front end of it is all twisted up from the impact. There’s another truck just past it, near the foot of the massive radio antenna. Thick coaxial cables snake out of the van and up to the tower’s base.

There are computers lined up on folding tables, all plugged into thick bundles of fibers. They’re being powered by a large bank of batteries on the ground under. It’s a full mobile server setup.

The Corolla’s hood starts leaking steam, obscuring everything. The engine coughs, sputters, and then dies. Sorry Toto. I’ll try to make this up to you . Somehow.

But Toto doesn’t seem to care. He’s out through the door with that massive gun, lips pressed tight, murder in his eyes. And I’m suddenly seeing the enforcer. The guy who, if he isn’t teamed up with me, lapses back to that other person. The person who causes people to step aside nervously.

“Stay behind me,” Toto orders.

I do as I’m told.

“Hey!” one of the men who crashed into us yells as he steps out from around the van. He has a pistol in his hand, and Toto doesn’t bother saying anything back. He aims the revolver and the world splits apart with a crack. Blood splatters the logo on the side of the white van and the man clutches his chest.

Toto keeps walking forward. He shoots him again, in the knee and yanks the man’s pistol away from his trembling hands.

“Safety’s still on,” Toto notes in disgust. He pushes the small lever and hands me the acquired pistol. “If it moves, shoot it.”

“Stop!” someone shouts. “There’s no reason to hurt anyone.”

Haswell steps out in the open, hands up. He looks a bit pale.

“Where’s the other one,” Toto growls. “Tell him to come out.”

“Danny!” Haswell shouts. “Drop the gun and step out.”

A young man steps around the van, holding a shotgun. He tosses it into the dirt.

“It’s too late,” Haswell says to us. “It’s already running, so there’s nothing you can do now. It’s all over.”

And he smiles. Wide, terrifyingly enthusiastic, and full of vision.

I’m rooting around the servers, Toto by my side, trying to figure out what I can do. Trying to figure out what the fuck Haswell has done. Toto’s got both men covered by the large revolver, but he’s looking over at me.