Summoning the United States

Big Dipper

Bershet, Russia

"Do you think if I tap on it, it'll explode?"

"Don't do it, dumbass."

Artem laughs and gives a hearty rap to the warhead shroud of the decommissioned RT-23 Molodets intercontinental ballistic missile. Artem and Ivan are a pair of Russian teenagers fucking around inside the abandoned nuclear complex in Bershet, rural Russia.

He gives it another rap, like urgently knocking on a door, this time harder. "Ow!" He recoils as he hits the shroud a tad bit too hard, knuckles on cold metal.

"Shithead... you're gonna get us killed." Ivan's ten or twenty feet behind Artem, looking on amused. He stifles a laugh.

"You're a killjoy, dude."

"You look stupid. You're gonna break your hand, too." Artem looks back with a smirk, with that last part, then rears back as if he's gonna punch the shit out of a motherfucker, if that motherfucker was a dated Soviet-era intercontinental ballistic missile. And he does. It sounds like a bell and Artem clutches his hand afterward, half laughing, half expressing agony.

All the safety systems of the missile immediately malfunction, and a few seconds after the punch, the 10 550 kiloton MIRV warheads inside detonate. It's 1:31 in the afternoon, Yekaterinburg Time. It's a cloudy, downtrodden day, so it looks like a second dawn.

The nuclear fireball is 2.7 kilometers in diameter, vaporizing Artem, Ivan, the Bershet complex, and everything surrounding it. 22 kilometers away, the nearby city of Perm, thousands will die or suffer third-degree burns as the mushroom cloud rises. Glass shatters. The ground shakes.

A 24 km/hr wind to the east will bring fallout deep into Nizhny Tagil and beyond that. The rain is black. The estimated death toll is optimistic, under 6000.

"Dead Hand", or Perimeter, is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system, which will automatically relay an order from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, dictating a retaliatory strike, in the scenario of a nuclear war. Perimeter uses seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors to confirm a nuclear strike.

Despite being Cold War-era it is still functional. And it has triggered. In 30 minutes there are missiles 3000 miles above Moscow. Across Russia, upwards of 1400 total.

—

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

The warm Delaware night is soothingly dark and full of stars. Rehoboth Beach is beautiful during the day but at night, Dewey Beach, southward, is great for stargazing, with not many lights, and low humidity. It's beautiful. President Joe Biden thinks its beautiful. He needs a lot of breaks in this day and age.

"We need to move, Mr. President, Mrs. President."

"What's going on here?"

Now the lights are on in the little beachhouse bedroom, with windows facing the sea. The warm light clashes against that Delaware night softly. The President gets up first, slowly and bredgrudgingly, followed by his wife. The Secret Service agent who interrupted their sleep is comparatively wide awake.

"Mr. President, we've detected a Russian first-strike. ICBMs are en-route to targets in the United States as we speak. We need to move."

"Malarkey!" And now the President's wide awake like his protector.

They huddle quickly out into the state car, The Beast, 20,000 pounds of American strength compacted into a Cadillac. There is little time for them to get ready but that's a given. Their destination is Presidential Emergency Facility Site 6 in Pennsylvania, but its an over five-hour drive. Nukes aren't patient creatures. They've been huddled up in silos and haven't been used since World War Two, so they're itching to explode. They wait for no man, not even a President.