Level 7

This was an intricate and ingenious device which was said to be sensitive to atomic explosions occurring within a limited range: it would react to an explosion in our country, but not one in enemy territory. Though the atomphone utilised the principle of the seismograph, its function depended also on its sensitivity to acoustic waves, electro-magnetic radiation and some other properties. Thus it would not react to a mere earthquake. Moreover, it could classify the strength of the explosion. Once the atomphone had registered an atomic explosion, it would automatically issue the order for retaliation of the appropriate strength.

The twelve exploding H-bombs made this gadget set in motion the minimum retaliatory attack. Thus the first two thousand rockets were released.

This certainly was interesting news. Our politicians must have been still on the way to their shelters on Level 5 when the actual command was taken over by the atomphone. And this device issued the order heard by X-117 and myself, “Push Button A1,” which was probably tape-recorded.

The enemy’s reply to this news was surprisingly similar. Their leaders too did not actually give any instructions to strike back. As with us, any attack automatically set off a counter-attack of greater strength.

So the picture of what really happened starts to become clear. In all probability the war did start by accident. The retaliation was automatic. So was the retaliation to the retaliation, and so on. (The only exceptions, on our side, were the command to push Buttons C2 and C3, given locally on Level 7 because the C1 bombing was not quite effective, and the repeated command to push A4, B4 and C4, which had to be given locally because of X-117’s breakdown. And this explains why the voice giving the orders changed twice.) As each retaliatory measure was automatically more powerful than the attack which caused it, it was inevitable that the war should develop with increasing violence until the arsenal of one side was completely exhausted. As it happened, the two sides were of roughly equal strength and at the end neither side had anything left to fire.

Thus the progress of the war resembled the chain reaction going on inside the atomic bomb itself! On the other hand, it followed the pattern of most of the wars in history. One difference, and a big one, was that it was a war of weapons which fought by themselves, not of human beings armed with weapons.

I wonder why they needed to have PBX Command. The atomphones could have released the rockets directly, instead of ordering human beings to do it. What was the point of using us?

I suppose our leaders might have decided to attack on their own initiative, and then they would have needed us to carry out their orders. Or it might have happened that, in retaliation for a provocative attack, they would decide to use all our power at once. Such a decision could not have been made automatically. (Just think! If all the buttons had been pushed together, the war would have been over in about an hour.)

As it turned out, this was nearly as automatic a war as could be imagined. PBX Command was the only human link in the battle of gadgets. For that reason, as X-107 once correctly reasoned, we had to be housed in a safe place inside the earth.

It looks as if all that talk yesterday about our ‘hope’ and the enemy’s ‘viciousness’ was just so much old-fashioned propaganda. The human decisions were made long in advance. Then the gadgets took over and ordered the operational moves when the actual situation corresponded with the hypothetical one in the minds of the planners.

Perhaps the whole thing would never have happened if those twelve enemy rockets had not escaped their controls. It was just an accident, a sort of joke played on us all by—well, I do not know whose joke it was. The gods? Fortune? The devil? It really does not matter. It is all over now. The gadgets have destroyed themselves, and the buttons in the PBX Operations Room can become playthings for children.

No doubt something has changed, though. Up there the scene must have changed completely. Who has survived? Which levels go on existing? How many people have become the victims of this war of gadgets? Has humanity been destroyed by its own ingenuity?

These questions do not sound quite real, for down here on Level 7 everything is just as it was, except that I have no more work to do. But still… it will be interesting to find out how much of our country is left.

JUNE 12

The Operations Room has become a sort of museum. Or a sanctuary, if you like. Where once Security forbade any but my brother button-pushers and me to tread, anybody may now wander around.

I visited the place again today, for the first time since our operations. People keep drifting in to look around the room and play with the ‘keys’ of the ‘typewriters’. Some of them asked me some pretty silly questions.