He was crying.
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
Emergency Communications Transcript
04/07/18, 07:49:27 EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD): Sir, we’ve confirmed the earlier reports. There’s been an accidental launch at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.
National Security Adviser (NSA): Wait a second. A Minuteman launch?
NORAD: That’s correct, sir. A Minuteman III ballistic missile. It launched from silo N-04 three minutes ago.
NSA: Holy… (inaudible). How did it happen?
NORAD: The officers at Minot say they lost control of the silo. It went off the grid and stopped responding to their commands. Then the countdown started on its own. Without authorization.
NSA: No. That’s impossible.
NORAD: You’re right, sir. It shouldn’t have happened. But the Minuteman is gone. It’s in flight.
NSA: What warhead is it carrying? The W87?
NORAD: No, sir, this missile is a bunker-buster. It’s carrying the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
NSA: You mean the new model? The one designed to hit the underground bases in Iran?
NORAD: That’s correct, sir. It burrows a hundred feet into the ground before triggering its nuclear warhead.
NSA: But the nuke isn’t armed, right? You can’t arm it without the authentication code from the President.
NORAD: At this point, sir, I don’t think we can make any assumptions. It looks like someone hacked into the electronics at the launch silo. There’s a chance they may have tampered with the authentication system too.
NSA: No, no, this can’t… Where’s the missile going? Are you tracking it on radar?
NORAD: It’s heading southwest from Minot, but it’s climbing more steeply than it’s supposed to. Judging from the radar track, it looks like it’ll reach the top of its trajectory soon and come down within a thousand miles of the launch point.
NSA: My God. It’s going to hit inside the United States?
NORAD: Yes, sir. Southwestern Colorado.
CHAPTER 17
It’s the worst night of my life. I’m feeling vicious regret.
Twelve hours ago Hawke’s soldiers took away my arms and legs. They removed my antenna too, unscrewing it from my turret. Now I’m stuck here in my bedroom with nothing to do but think about all the mistakes I’ve made. I try to distract myself by observing the two soldiers who are guarding me, but they just stand there on either side of my stripped torso, cradling their assault rifles. Neither has said a word since they came on duty.
The last person who spoke to me was my father. He came into my room right after Shannon left, while my speakers were still wailing. I couldn’t stop crying no matter how hard I tried, and the sobs just got louder when I saw Dad. As he rushed through the doorway, one of the soldiers yelled, “Stand back, sir!” but Dad ran toward me anyway and threw his arms around my torso. I couldn’t feel his embrace—my armor has no tactile sensors—but I heard him murmur, “I’m so sorry.”
Meanwhile, the soldiers raised their rifles and pointed them at us. I wanted to rip the guns out of their hands, but all I could do was turn up the volume of my speakers and shout, “DON’T SHOOT!” Then two more soldiers rushed into the room and dragged Dad away, which was terrible to see but probably safer for both of us. Once he was gone, the other soldiers resumed their guard duty, giving me evil looks as they lowered their rifles.
I check my internal clock: it’s 5:51 a.m. General Hawke and the other Pioneers must be in the C-17 by now. They’re probably flying over the Canadian Arctic, well on their way to Russia. Another surge of regret cuts through my circuits. I should be with them. I should be on that plane too. I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t stop. Why did I shove Hawke like that? Why did I push him so hard?
I focus my camera on the walls, looking for any kind of distraction, but the first thing I see is the Super Bowl poster with the photo of Ryan and me. He was my best friend, my oldest friend. And Sigma killed him. Then I see the poster with the three drawings of Brittany. What does “I HAVE BRITTANY” mean? Did Sigma hire someone to kidnap her? And if she’s still alive, where is she?
This isn’t working. I have to think of something else. I rummage through my memory files, viewing random images from my past, trying like crazy to forget the present. Then I notice a folder that’s separate from the others. These are Zia’s memories, the ones I observed and copied while I was inside her circuits. Aside from the memo that mentioned Ryan and Brittany, I haven’t examined these memories yet, mostly because I don’t want to think about Zia. I assume she’s in her own room right now, armless and legless and under guard just like me. She’s probably just as miserable too, but I don’t feel any sympathy for her. I should delete my copies of her memories, forget about her entirely.
But something’s bothering me, a nagging question. I want to know how Zia found that memo from the National Security Adviser. Hawke swore he didn’t show it to her, but should I believe him? Maybe the answer’s in that folder.
So I dive into Zia’s memories again and retrieve the image of the memo. It’s linked to an unusually large batch of older memories, from more than ten years ago. These are scenes from Zia’s early childhood, blurry and distant and dimly remembered. I see her father, a swarthy man in an Army captain’s uniform. Then I see her mother, a beautiful woman wearing a head scarf. And then, to my surprise, I see a youthful, dark-haired version of General Hawke. He’s standing next to Zia’s parents at a dusty Army base in the desert. All three are smiling and looking down at Zia. Despite the heat and dust, the little girl is happy.
This is a powerful memory, linked to hundreds of Zia’s files, and as I follow the connections I find something even more surprising. One of the links loops back to her recent memories, to a sequence of images showing Hawke’s office in Pioneer Base. In these images, though, the general is absent. Zia is alone in his office with a stolen key in her steel hand. She goes to the file cabinet and unlocks the top drawer. Then she leafs through the papers there, all the memos written by Hawke and the National Security Adviser. But they’re not what she’s looking for. She reads the memos, but she isn’t really interested in me or Ryan or Brittany. She’s looking for information about her own past, not mine. She suspects that Hawke is keeping a secret from her, about his relationship with her mother and father.
I stop viewing Zia’s memories. Something unexpected has happened: I feel sorry for her. It’s a little strange to feel sorry for someone who just tried to kill me, but I can’t help it. Her memories show a different side of her. She’s just as confused as the rest of us.
I’m still thinking about Zia when another unexpected thing happens. My acoustic sensor picks up a low thud that shakes the ceiling of my room. Then a colossal tremor rocks Pioneer Base, tilting the floor and knocking over my torso. The walls buckle and the ceiling caves in, and tons of steel and concrete come raining down.