It was a cold and cloudy day, as it was most of the time in the Soviet Union.  The wind whipped  around the mountains of snow which seemed to extend to the edge of the earth.  The evergreen trees stood so solidly straight, they must have been frozen through and through.  The great city of Vladivostok  stood strong to the south, and soft curls of smoke could be seen rising off of it.
    A train whistle sounded off in the distance, which was my usual sign that it's time for another day to begin.  I threw back my thin wool blanket from my cot and began to strap on my boots.  I grabbed a broom and started out on my cleaning.
    I slowly walked down the narrow hallways.  They were dark, and flashed lightly with the old fluorescent lighting.  I turned a corner and entered the main control room.  It was a large room compared to the rest of the base, with a tall ceiling.  Computer terminals and radar screens lined the walls and bright light poured down from overhead.  A short, thin man worked away at his terminal as I entered.
    "Good morning Boris!" said the man.  His name was Nicholas, and he had been a technician here at Soviet Nuclear Launch site #128 for about 3 months.  He seemed to me to be about twenty-five years old and very bright, but very overconfident.
    "Good morning Nicholas," I replied politely, "How are you today?"
    "Wonderful!  The scope is clear and the capitalistic pigs are at home shaking in their booties at our might."
    I sighed and shook my head at him, knowing to just let the remark slide.  I smiled at Natasha, who had just walked in the room with her coffee.
    "Hello Boris," she said.
    "Hello Natasha," I returned, as I started sweeping out the room.  She was a tall, beautiful woman of about thirty.  She had been around almost has long as Nicholas had.  She was the kind of person who know when she was right, but knew when she was wrong as well, a rare mix.
    Natasha slowly sat down in front of her computer terminal.  "Nicholas?" she asked quietly.
    "Yes my dear," he said with indifference and an overconfident smile on his face.
    "When's the last time you ran a maintenance scan?"
    "A few hours ago I suppose," still with his overconfident smile.
    "A few hours!  You are supposed to check it every fifteen minutes."
    "So what?  Nothing is going to happen while I am in control.  I am . . . "
    All of a sudden, all of the electricity went out, interrupting Nicholas.  THe emergency lights flickered, and turned on so there was light, barely, but all the radar's, computer terminals, and other fancy things shut down.  Nicholas went into a frenzy.  He ran wildly around the room, flicking switches and turning knobs trying frantically to restore power.  Natasha just sat smiling, trying to think of the excuse Nicholas would use, I assume.
    Finally, Nicholas got tired and plopped down i his chair.  Natasha smirked and stood up.  She slowly walked across the large room with Nicholas' eyes following her the entire way.  She opened a maintenance panel and flicked a single switch.  It must have been the only one in the entire building he had not tried, for when she opened it he smacked his forehead.  Immediately the lights and monitors switched on and the computers began to reboot.  Natasha stood there smirking at him and he pretended the whole incident never happened.  I walked over and smiled at Nicholas, and gave him a pat on the back to say better luck next time.
    At last computers were back and the technicians turned back to their work.  A high-pitched "beep beep" began sounding and the room flooded with red light.  The conversation between them after that was too fast and frantic from me to get it all, but I did catch Nicholas saying, "American Missile headed for Vladivostok , ETA twelve minutes," and, "Communication with Moscow Command lost."
    Air raid alarms began sounding wildly.  THe complex began to shake gently as the missile doors began to slide open.  Soon after, a short and stocky man ran in with the full Soviet military dress on.  He gave a solute to Natasha and Nicholas.  They returned it, and Nicholas said, "Comrade Lenin!  We have an American Missile on out scope, may we return fire sir?"
    I felt my stomach contract into a ball and jump into my throat.  I though to myself that I was witnessing the end of the world.  I collapsed into the corner, scared out of my mind, and waiting to die.
    "Comrade!" exclaimed Natasha, "We had a small power outage earlier, this may just be a bug in the system as a result of that.  I heard of something like this happening near St. Petersburg."
    Comrade Lenin looked thoughtfully towards the blip on the radar for several seconds.  Finally he looked up and said, "Get General Sonerov on the speaker.  Those capitalistic pigs will pay for their crimes."
    Natasha threw a scared look at Nicholas as he punched up the communication.
    "Line open Sir," Nicholas said.
    "General Sonerov!" Lenin exclaimed.
    "Yes," the voice came booming through the loud speaker.
    "This is Comrade Lenin at Launch Site #128.  We have an American Missile entering out airspace.  Our missiles are armed, targeted, and ready.  Do we have permission to fire sir?"
    "Fire??!  None of the other bases have reported anything.   Are you sure your readings are correct?"
    "There was a small power failure  that could have affected it, but our readings are quite clear.  Sir! We must launch now before it is too late!"
    There was a long silence and we all knew that he was deciding the fate of the world from this moment on.
    "There will be no launch Comrade.  Close your missile doors and reboot your system.  I will not start an Armageddon war over a computer malfunction.  Good day Comrade Lenin," and he hung up.
    Comrade loosened his collar, turned on his heels, and walked off.  Natasha and Nicholas stared at each other in amazement of what had just happened.  With a few strokes of the keyboard, Nicholas silenced the alarms and returned normal lighting.
    I slowly stood from my spot in the corner and stumbled out of the room.  I had a tremendous craving for a smoke, so I walked up the long flight of stairs to the surface.  I strapped on my thick jacket, unlocked the large metal door and stepped out into the cold.
    The cold wind blew hard against my back as Lit my cigarette.  I sighed deeply and looked out onto the horizon.  I watched the soft curls of smoke rise off of Vladivostok.  A Silence fell over the land and a searing flash erupted from the South.
 

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