“We have a problem with the readings on…” Mason looked up at the Secretary and then back at the table behind him. “It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” said the President.
“428B, sir. The ICBM. It was right there a minute ago and now it’s just… gone.” He turned back to the console. “And there goes another one, in Kansas this time. They’re self-destructing, sir.”
“All of them?” asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Flannery. “We put hundreds of birds in the air.”
“No, not all of them, but… Wait a minute, sir. Some of our own MDA sites are firing… at our own rockets! Our missile defense system is working against us.”
“Let me hear it,” said the President with disgust. “There’s no point maintaining radio silence now. HAL2 obviously knows he’s under attack.”
A moment later, the chatter came in over the conference room speakers. Decker could hear the soldiers talking over each other. They were coming in from all over the world.
“It’s going down,” someone shouted. “That’s the fifth Interceptor from Kaua’i. I repeat, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system Tango Delta Charlie has successfully intercepted medium range HEMP missile. Also, PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 has destroyed three short range HEMP missiles. Do you copy?”
And then, “E-LRALT airdropped over the broad ocean area north of Wake Island from U.S. Air Force C-17. Yes, sir. Staged Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. AN/TPY-2 X-band radar, located THAAD system, Meck Island, tracked the E-LRALT. Copy that. THAAD interceptor successfully intercepted medium range ballistic missile, equipped HEMP-4 tactical warhead. THAAD over-ride from the Thirty-Second AAMDC. They’re trying to understand what went wrong. It just launched, sir. Yes, by itself.”
Without warning, the lights in the conference room flickered. Everyone stopped and looked about as the TV screens on the walls came to life. They watched as a rocket came out of the ground, only to explode as it cleared the hatch of the silo. Another blew up in mid-air. The images repeated themselves on all of the screens. Now, dozens of rockets and missiles exploded.
“Where are those pictures coming from? Who’s broadcasting?” said the President.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Mason.
“It’s him,” Lulu said. “HAL2. He wants us to see. He wants us to know what he’s capable of.”
And then, “USS FITZGERALD successfully engaged low flying cruise missile. Aegis also tracked and launched SM-3 Block 1A interceptors against three long range inter-continental ballistic missile equipped with HEMP-4.”
“Sir, it’s the same everywhere,” Mason said. “We’re even getting reports now of our own fighter bombers turning against us, against their own pilots. Some have self-destructed. In some cases, armadas of drones, like the Phantom Ray and the Mantis, are firing upon our own missiles as soon as they’re launched, or they’re intentionally running themselves into them before the missiles can reach escape velocity. It’s hard to see anything. Our Space Tracking and Surveillance System Demonstrators are down.”
As if in response to his obvious frustration, the screens began featuring rockets being swarmed by clouds of dark drones. They looked like alien insects as they buzzed about the giant ICBMs, like small flying saucers, crashing into them in smaller explosions, eventually driving the massive missiles back to the earth.
“Sir, the Data Center in Bluffdale is under attack.”
“What? Put it on,” said the Secretary of Defense.
“…but our forces are pinned down at the entrance by robots. Little Hounds.”
A screen in the middle of the room flashed onto the scene.
“They’re everywhere,” the soldier continued. He was hiding behind some kind of concrete structure, looking out at the main entrance to the base. The field was littered with bodies, dead and wounded soldiers. A tank burned off to the side. One young man was moaning and asking for water when a Little Hound noticed him and started over to investigate.
“We tried to enter the base at oh four hundred, while it was still dark,” continued the soldier. “It’s just about sunup now. We haven’t heard from the Base Commander in over an hour. He was the last contact we had. We’re falling back. They say that the only way to re-take the base without massive loss of life is to destroy it via missile, rocket or bomb. But those weapons systems are no longer available to us.”
The Little Hound approached the solider with his arm out. The robot climbed up on the soldier’s legs, moved up his torso and chest, and then paused as the soldier turned and peered up at him. There was a small explosion and the soldier flew back to the earth, a piece of his head missing. The robot crawled off. He scurried like a bug to the side where he sidled up to a much larger Big Hound, headless and grotesque, covered in yet more Little Hounds. They scampered off the back of the Big Hound like baby spiders and vanished from sight.
The image on the screen was suddenly replaced by white clouds. “We can’t pull back,” a voice screamed over the throb of jet engines. “This is Staff Sergeant Mandy Tichawa, 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron loadmaster, aboard C-17 Globemaster III… We’re climbing… pilot can’t course correct.” The screen showed the frightened young airwoman, and beyond her and the com console, the cockpit.
“We were en route to Seventh Airlift when the plane… Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! We’re closing in on some kind of missile. I can see it ahead of us now. It’s really bright. The tail is glowing white hot. We’re like a moth to the flame and, oh my God, we’re going to hit. We’re going to…”
The radio went silent for only a moment before more reports crackled in.
“Turn it off,” said the President. The live tenor of his voice cut through the radio and television transmissions. “Turn it off!” he repeated.
A deathly pall fell over the conference room. No one said anything. No one stirred. Silence crushed the air from the chamber. One by one, the TV screens faded to black and went out.
What had been a cacophony of chaos, of destruction and death, now seemed even louder, more violent and more horrific in the contemplative quiet that followed.
You could have heard a flower opening, Decker thought. It was like the sound at the end of the world.
The lights flickered and buzzed. They flickered and buzzed, and went out.
Pitch black!
This time, the blackout seemed even more Stygian, the darkness more absolute. Not even the little red and green lights of the com console were visible.
Decker felt cold fingers clutch at his throat. He could almost sense HAL2 in the invisible circuits of the communications display, behind the black TV screens all around them, waiting in the light fixtures, oozing through the wiring, watching from the plugs in the walls.
Then, the emergency lights flicked back on. They spluttered at first, and then finally settled. The communications console began to hum too. Moments later, the NSA analyst turned toward the President and Secretary of State. “It’s over, Sir. The mission…”
“I know, son,” said the President.
Secretary Pancetta hung up a telephone. His normally tanned, Italian complexion looked chalky white.
“What is it, Leo?” asked the President.
“We’ve been completely closed out,” he replied. “We’re lucky we have emergency power here at the White House. HAL2 now controls all IP-based systems worldwide, military and civilian. Every phone system. Every utility. Every radio and TV network. You name it. If it plugs in, he owns it.”