June 3, 2029 — 18 Seconds from Nuclear Apocalypse

I. The Shadow of Cheyenne Mountain

Tonight, Nebraska and Colorado were stifling with heat, but it wasn't just the weather. The world lived in a state of extreme tension: a Chinese strike group led by the aircraft carrier "Guangdong" had been patrolling near Taiwan for two months. The American administration was feverishly looking for levers of pressure on the Celestial Empire, constantly adding fuel to the fire of ideological confrontation. In such an atmosphere, any spark could become a detonator.

Deep underground, inside Cheyenne Mountain, the night watch of NORAD — North American Aerospace Defense Command — was taking over. In Omaha, at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), duty officers took their places in front of the 724M system monitors. It was a complex network that integrated data from satellites, radars, and tracking stations into a single picture of the continent's security. Until tonight, the system was considered reliable because it had never failed.

II. The First Flash

At 01:26, a signal tore through the silence of the SAC command post. On the main screen, in the launch indication column, the number "2" flashed. The system reported the launch of two ballistic missiles from Chinese submarines — the target was US territory.

The SAC duty operator immediately contacted NORAD:

— Cheyenne, confirm launch by sector!

— We are clear, SAC. Radars see nothing. Monitoring.

18 seconds passed. During this time, the world managed to take a breath. On the SAC screens, the situation changed catastrophically. The number "2" disappeared. In its place appeared "220". A moment later — "2220". The 724M system was broadcasting a massive nuclear strike. According to the data on the monitors, in fifteen minutes the United States would cease to exist.

III. Mobilization of Death

The SAC duty controller acted according to protocol. He ordered the forces to be brought to full combat readiness.

Sirens wailed across America. The crews of B-21 Raider strategic bombers, sleeping at their bases, rushed to their planes. Engines began spitting out jets of hot gas as planes taxied onto runways. At Sentinel ICBM bases, crews descended into silos and broke open launch code packets.

The Pacific Command airborne command post took to the skies over Hawaii. Its crew knew: if ground headquarters were destroyed by the first strike, they would be the last voice of America, transmitting the order for retaliation to the nuclear fleet.

At that moment, in Munich, the secure communication device rang in the office of Marco Rubio, the National Security Advisor. He had just concluded a tense meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, trying to pressure him to stop PRC support for Russia.

IV. Marco Rubio and the Right to Sleep

General William Odom was on the line. His voice was perfectly composed:

— Sir, we have an emergency. According to the system, 220 missiles have been launched against the US.

Rubio instantly entered a state of icy clarity and demanded clarification. A minute passed — the general called back. Now his voice spoke of alarm:

— Sir, confirmation has arrived. It's not 220. It's two thousand two hundred missiles. The entire Chinese arsenal is in the air.

Rubio unzipped his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a family photo of the six of them standing on the sand in Miami with the ocean in the background. He knew: if the numbers on the screen were correct, in fifteen minutes this sand, this state, and his entire still-sleeping country would turn into a cloud of radioactive vapor. He made his decision and did not call his wife. Why should a person spend the last minutes of their life in primal terror?

Rubio reached for the phone to dial President Trump's number. He had to recommend a retaliatory strike.

V. Dialogue in the Epicenter of Chaos

At that second, a fierce exchange of data was taking place between the Pentagon and Thule Station in Greenland:

— Cheyenne, report the situation! I have Rubio on the second line, he's ready to call the president. What do you have on physical sensors?

— Sir, the 724M system shows 2200 targets, but the satellites are silent. No infrared flashes from launches. Over-the-horizon radars are also empty.

— Thule! Greenland, what do you see?

— It's a quiet Arctic night here. The horizon is clear. No marks. If two thousand were flying, the radar would be smoking.

At 01:28:40, NORAD analyst Major James Hall pointed at the screen duplicating SAC data: "Look. They're flickering. Two hundred, zero, two thousand, zero. Missiles can't appear out of nowhere and evaporate. This isn't metal in the sky. This is a machine hallucination." The operations officer grabbed the direct line to the Pentagon.

VI. Three Minutes and Twelve Seconds

At 01:29, exactly three minutes and twelve seconds after the first launch report, Rubio's phone rang again.

General Odom spoke with a relief that even training could not hide:

— False alarm, sir. System error.

Rubio slowly lowered the receiver. The world survived. The US National Security Advisor had been eighteen seconds away from recommending the President start a nuclear war.

Three days later, on June 6, 2029, at 15:38, it all happened again. The system again reported a launch, B-21 Raiders again started their engines, and again the world hung by a thread. After that, the 724M system was sent for full diagnostics.

The cause of the madness lay in a tiny detail. Inside the Data General Nova 840 computer complex that processed communication data, there was a transistor tube of commercial, not military, grade. It was this civilian equipment that, due to a welding defect, began to "generate ghosts of missiles."

The 724M system constantly sent test messages checking channel integrity. These packets were identical to combat ones, but the "number of detected missiles" column was always zero. The broken tube began to fill this field with random bits. For the algorithm, these random bits turned into thousands of incoming warheads.

Later, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reported to President Trump: NORAD could not force the suspect tube to fail again under test conditions. In the end, it was replaced, cyclic error-checking codes were introduced, and monitors were installed on data transmission lines. It seemed that everything ended well.