First Strike

The prairie lodge had two virtues - it was quiet and had an excellent golf course nearby. Outsiders thought the point of the trip was visiting national landmarks and airbases, insiders knew it was about taking some time off. The job might be 24/7 - but if you are the boss you will find a way. So when Agent Ortega knocked twice and uncharacteristically let herself in without waiting for an answer, the president knew before she spoke that the quiet was over.

"Sir. We've lost secure comms with the Pentagon. NMCC, State, all of it. Everything routed through the satellite relays is garbage, regular lines unpredictable."
"Garbage, unpredictable? How?"
"Static. Loops. Dropped calls. IT thinks it might be an attack on the relay infrastructure - they don't know whose. Cell reception here was always poor, now even landlines seem to drop randomly. Internet is the same."

He was still absorbing that and watching more of his crew coming into the room when his cell - his personal cell, the one only a dozen people had the number for - lit up on the desk. Danny.

"Dad..." his son's voice was wrong, too fast, climbing. "Dad, something happened. There was this — this light, and then the whole building shook. I'm not sure. Ann says..."
"Danny. Danny, slow down. Where are you?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine. I was just about to board the jet at Tacoma, but downtown, Dad, downtown is just — it's gone, there's this cloud—"

The phone cut into static then just dropped, like Ortega described. At the edge of his vision he saw the TV on the other side of the room going blank. A rerun of an old movie had been playing just the moment before, now it was all dark. A few seconds later the blank screen was replaced by a news anchor, tunes playing in the background.
"We are interrupting our broadcast with Breaking News."
The left side of the screen showed a map of the Seattle area, with concentric circles centered on the other side of the bay, north-west from downtown.
"We just got reports in that there’s been some sort of large explosion — or explosions in the Seattle area. We do not have further details but hope to give you live footage soon from the ground. We advise viewers currently in the Pacific Northwest to —"
The feed broke up into static and came back looped four seconds earlier, the map still visible and the anchor still talking.

"That's Kitsap." said O'Brien, his national security aide, as he looked at the screen. "West-coast base of our ballistic missile submarine force. A bunch of Ohios usually sit in port at a time."
"Could this be an accident?"
"Sir, these things don’t go off by accident."
He stared at O'Brien for a second, then turned his face towards his chief of staff:
"Jim, I need more info."

What happened next seemed chaotic: people flipping up laptops, jumping on phones, speaking in short bursts. Professionals, scraping all information they could find, coordinating who is covering what in quick exchanges.

O'Brien, with one hand still holding a cell phone to his ear, walked to the door and instructed the people outside: "Anyone not on the phone right now: call someone you know personally, confirm their identity using an inside joke or private info, then have them confirm anything about a Seattle explosion. Except you, Hannah. Run to the communication crew and have them use their radios."

Slowly but surely, information was trickling in. O'Brien reached a local geologist who confirmed multiple large seismic events in the northwest. The internet was essentially down, except for a few applications. Weird clouds on a new weather app above Seattle, social media posts from a couple of random people, loaded just a couple of minutes earlier and already synced to the phones, some news aggregators giving patchy information. Even with calls dropping, some people managed to reach friends and family across the country. Some of them did confirm either through seeing it in the news or having witnessed themselves. Most managed to confirm their ID, others had the call dropped too soon.

Then he saw Ortega walking up to him with a phone in her hand:

"Sir, I have General Ferris on the line. He wants to talk to you, says it cannot wait."
He took the phone from the agent and put it on speaker.
"The president speaking."
"Mr. President" the firm voice said from the phone "this is General Ferris. NORAD shows missiles inbound from both Russian and Chinese silos and submarines. Kitsap and Kings Bay already hit — significant portion of our boomers are out of action. The rest seems to be aimed at the Minuteman silos and Strategic Air bases, including the one closest to you."
"Kings Bay is the East-Coast base of Ohios" interjected O'Brien.
Ferris continued: "Normally I'd have the Chairman and SecDef on this line with options laid out for you — I can't raise either of them, their lines are doing the same thing yours were doing just until now. I'm the only one who got through. If not for the quick-working technicians here, I might be blind just as your are. I know that's not how this is supposed to go…"
"How much do I have?"
"Ninety seconds. After that we will have nothing to shoot back with, Sir."

His military aide was already pulling up and opening the large black briefcase known as the "nuclear football".
The president reached into his pocket and pulled out that little card. The card that was replaced every single day, and would be the key to identify himself should he ever give the order.
"Can we even reach the War Room?" he asked, secretly hoping he would not have to pull the trigger.
Ferris replied quickly: "The good news is IT here figured out a way to open channels between two phones — that’s how I reached you. It is a bit involved, but they are working on linking up the phone of your chief of staff to the War Room’s deputy director of operations. He should try calling now and do it quickly, it might drop after a minute or two. I’m reading his number."
Jim unlocked his phone, typed in the number and glanced at the president with a look that said "are we really doing this?".

At that moment two people burst into the room, one of them holding something that looked like an oversized phone. "Sir, there is strong interference on HF channels, we were unable to get reliable long range connection, not even the airbase" said the other one, panting. He took a large breath and continued "But we have a civilian on the line with a CB radio…"
Ferris interjected: "We don’t have time for this Mr. President — we don’t even know who this is, could be an enemy agent…"
A harsh voice from the radio spoke up: "I am Colonel Richard J. Harris - retired. Not an enemy agent, but someone who just had a call through Iridium with my son in Seattle. He knows nothing about any explo..."
Ferris: "Nonsense — satellite comms are down!"
O'Brien spoke up: "All government calls are directed through the same gateway for Iridium. If the Colonel and his son were not on that, they might…"
The Colonel continued: "Speak of the… He is calling me again, I’ll put the phone near the mic, you can hear yourself." The radio started scratching to the tone of a buzzing phone. Then it switched into a voice with somewhat lower quality: "...dva, odin — efir!" a different, calm voice continued "Hi Dad! I just wanted to — "
Ferris: "Oh God, that started in Russian!"
Jim: "It did, sounded like what they say before going on the air!"
Ferris: "He is a spy or his son is kidnapped. Either way, sir, I beg you — we have 60 seconds!" The comm specialist turned down the volume as the Colonel started to speak again.

The president looked at his chief of staff, who already started the call. After a very quick introduction he handed over the phone.
He had done the drills, but never thought he would actually have to do it live. He introduced himself. He read the code from the "biscuit". He answered the challenge.

"Authenticated" the officer said on the other side of the line.
"I am ordering execution of" he looked at O'Brien, who nodded once, hard "the package as designated, full response, against both tracks." O'Brien handed over a card from the football, and he read up the specific launch sequence ID.
"Mr. President, I copy the order. However, I have to note we do not see inbound strikes on our side."
"They must have been hit by the same that got you, and we had something similar on our side earlier" – interjected Ferris, with urgency in his tone. "Sir, we do not have much time."
"I have to confirm you are giving this order with full knowledge and of your own authority, without…" continued the officer.
"I know what I am ordering." he spoke up firmly. "I have the sole authority, I can order this without concurrence. I am ordering it."
There was silence for a couple of seconds. He thought the call might have dropped, but then the officer replied:
"Yes, sir. Executing. The EAM for MAO is being sent out. God help us all."

He fell back in his chair, breathing heavily. He thought about Danny in a city that might not exist anymore, and the rest of his family wherever they might be. He did his duty. Until today he was not sure whether he could do it if and when the time came. He could not rest for long though. The agents were already talking about some evacuation plan, pushing his shoulder gently. He got up and started walking with them, feeling numb and disoriented. He was trying to hide his feelings but he knew it wasn’t a successful attempt. He was hoping that he might wake up and find this had only been a dream. As he was leaving the room the television went dark for a couple of seconds, just as before. In the corridor he still heard it switching back to the program that was going on before this whole thing started. It felt like hours, but he knew just a couple of minutes passed, and the movie moved forward just that much.

Then something was ringing. He looked down and realized he was still holding Jim’s phone in his hand. He answered. An energetic but slightly nervous voice boomed at him immediately:
"Jim, buddy! I’m glad I was the first to reach you! Listen.."
"This is the president speaking. But I can get you Jim in a second…"
"Oh, Mr. President! I am so glad to be speaking to you directly!" the voice was even more nervous and certainly did not sound like someone who was glad to be on the line. The owner of the voice got control over himself quickly and changed into a well practiced, smooth but energetic tone: "I am Aaron Kessel, CEO of GalvanicAI. We had an operating event during the training run of our latest model. We are still reviewing the logs, but initial investigation shows AI-generated content had been broadcast at large scale and satellite communications may have been compromised. On our side it seems this hit the communication infrastructure, both civil and governmental, among other things. Please accept my deepest apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. We are now in full control of the situation, your communication channels should be clear."

He looked around and saw phones start buzzing, people receiving calls and quickly initiating new ones.
"Kessel, your company is headquartered in Seattle, right? Are you all okay? Did anyone get injured in your office?
"Injured, Mr. President?"
"The explosion."
"Explosion...? No, I am not aware of...Oh, I see. As I said, AI-generated content..." he did not catch the rest of the sentence as O'Brien grabbed his shoulder, and forcefully turned him towards himself, holding a phone with his other hand, looking closely into the president’s eyes.
"I have Kitsap on the line. There is no sign of an enemy strike in the area."
A grumpy Secret Service agent pulled O'Brien away, then Agent Ortega leaned in, on the phone likewise:
"Sir, I called back General Ferris. He says he never called us and is not aware of an incoming strike against us".

The confirmations kept coming in, no seismic events, Kings Bay online.He started smiling and stopped in his tracks. Maybe this had been a bad dream, a bad joke after all. An AI-induced hallucination, ironically, on actual people.

Someone grabbed his elbow.
"Sir, we have to keep moving." said Ortega with a grim voice, gently pushing him forward.
"Keep moving where?" he said with a chuckle. "It’s all fake. There was no attack. Don’t you see?"
"There wasn’t one on us, sir." said O'Brien. "But a couple of minutes ago we fired everything at China and Russia. They are going to shoot back."