In 500... (or less)

The Outmoded Mouse

Finley studied the unusual key for a moment before blowing the dust off the old console. There was the keyhole.

She wondered what it opened; there didn't seem to be anywhere on the instrument panel for a compartment to open. She slowly pushed the key into the keyhole. The panel buzzed as electricity coursed through its veins for the first time in more than a century.

"What did you do?" her friend Nova asked, whirling around from a locked door she was trying to pry open.

"I'm not sure, seems like I turned this thing on."

They both stared at the blinking lights and old screens, still partially shrouded by decades of neglect and disuse.

"Wonder what it does?" Nova studied the lights and panels. The ones with visible labels had cryptic words such as GPS Targeting Engaged beneath them.

"What a weird thing, to bury a whole room in a mountain," Finley said. She looked around the room, trying to form a theory from her non-existent knowledge of history. It must have been something left behind by the Americans.

"I told you this cave would be fun," Nova said, eyeing a big, glowing red button that said ICBM Launch.

"I wish I knew what all these things stood for," Finley said. "GPS. ATS. I can't make sense of it."

By now, Nova couldn't even look up from the red button. She was under its spell.

"ICK-BIM," she said aloud.

"Huh?"

"'ICK-BIM' Launch, that's what this one says." She caressed the button gently, watching the little jets of red light from it shoot up between her fingers.

"Nova, you don't know what it does!" Finley protested. She was just as curious as her friend was. She tried to make herself sound cautious, but she was mostly jealous she hadn't seen the button first. 

Nova couldn't help herself, her curiosity had to be sated. The ground shook and alarms started going off. Giant metal slabs slammed down around the exits to the room, trapping the two young girls.

"What did you do?!" Finley yelled, scurrying over to a monitor which was now lit up. It showed a map with Empire City glowing, only with a different name.

"Moss....cow," she said. "This must be a really old map. Maybe before Empire City became the center of the world government, it was a place where they raised cows."

"I don't think so!" Nova shouted, reading the words Warhead Armed  from a panel light that suddenly came on. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

Finley knelt before the terminal, wiping the screen clean with the bottom of her shirt. She tapped furiously on the Abort button on the screen, but it did not respond.

"It's broken! The touchscreen doesn't work!"

"The arrow thing there," Nova said, "move that!"

Finley pressed her finger deliberately into the arrow and dragged it across the screen, but it didn't respond.

The missile closed in on Empire City as both looked at each other with dread.