Twenty Minutes Prior

Twenty
Beep. Beep. Beep. The blip beeped its way across the computer screen. It wasn’t alone. It had brothers and sisters, all streaking along in perfect cadence. Other screens were also full of them. The underground bunker was booming with the sound of ominous beeps.
A pair of men watched them with idle unconcern. One of them sipped from a coffee-mug. The other, a cola can.
Nothing moved for a few minutes. Eventually, Cola reached out and flipped a switch. The beeping stopped. The screens continued to flash and flare with bomb-shaped icons.

In the sudden silence, Cola said: ‘Can’t be long now, I reckon.’
‘I guess not,’ Coffee replied.
There was another silence. Cola re-broke it.
‘I... er...’
Coffee sighed, and sat up from his slouch.
‘Yes?’
‘I was just thinkin’... is this right, what’s happening? I mean, here we are, just... waiting around for it to happen.’
‘What’s done is done. We’re only pawns.’
‘Pawns?’
‘Yes, pawns. Unlike our (he spat coffee-tainted phlegm onto the floor) superior officers upstairs, we can always plead our innocence at the next war trial. We’re just following orders. History is full of people just following orders.’
‘Ah. Alright.’ Cola coughed uncomfortably. ‘Did you just spit on the war room floor?’
Coffee shrugged. ‘I think that’s going to be the least of our problems soon.’
Cola sat up so fast he overturned the empty pizza box sitting on the console. Oiled cheese residue splashed onto the once-clean floor.
‘What the hell do ya mean by that?’
Coffee shrugged. ‘Common sense,’ he said. ‘The news is out now.’ He nodded to the television set in the corner. A nervous-looking presenter was shakily making her last report. ‘Their government’s going to retaliate,’ Coffee continued. ‘MAD has failed.’
‘Who’s mad?’
‘MAD, not mad. Mutually Assured Destruction. Basically, it means that no-one’s ever going to push the button, because they know that once they do it, the enemy will push theirs. And that’ll be the end of us all.’
‘So... what did our government do?’
‘They pushed the button.’
‘But...’ Cola gasped, his eyes wide like saucers. ‘But that means... they’ll push theirs? Do they have a button?’
‘I’d say so, yes.’ Coffee slurped his namesake. It was beginning to go cold. He sighed, and turned to look at Cola. The younger man appeared to be shaking slightly.
‘Are you alright?’
Cola sniffed. ‘We’re gonna fuckin’ die, aren’t we?’
Coffee sat silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was in a far-away tone of voice.
‘I’d say so. Maybe. Perhaps.’ He shifted slightly, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘You have a family?’
Cola shook his head. ‘Not no more. Ma and pa are dead.’
‘Brothers or sisters?’
‘Nah.’
‘Then what are you worried about? Every man is accountable for his own actions. We can’t choose what happens, but we can decide how to deal with it.’ Coffee took another sip. He could hear Cola sobbing.
‘Are you religious?’
Cola snorted and cleared his throat. ‘Nah, I... don’t think so.’ He blinked back fresh tears.
‘Don’t think so?’ Coffee turned to face him, suddenly interested. ‘You either are or you aren’t, generally speaking. Would you care to explain this... spiritual dualism?’
‘Wha...’ Cola shook himself, then answered. ‘I jus’ never really thought about it, that’s all.’
‘Ah. An inadvertent Agnostic. You’d like to believe, but you have trouble accepting things without question?’
‘Uh... yeah...’ Cola sat up, and nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it.’
Coffee nodded his satisfaction. ‘Thought so. You’ve straddled the two facets of belief: reason and faith.’ Coffee shifted again. ‘Everyone believes in one thing or another,’ he continued. ‘Some people say they don’t but they really do. And that belief stems from either faith or reason.’
‘How’s that?’ asked Cola. ‘I don’t think I get it.’
‘Well, some people need to see to believe. They believe in facts and logic and rules. They need a reason to believe. Like scientists, for example. They can’t believe in something unless they can see it right in front of them. They need to be able to pin it down and study it to make it real.’
‘I see,’ said Cola. ‘And faith is... the opposite.’
‘Correct. Or rather, the dichotomy. They’re both important, and they both lead to the same thing. People who have faith in God, for example, don’t need proof to believe in him.’
‘What about... like, the bible and stuff?’
Coffee shrugged. ‘That’s not really proof. It’s more of a handbook for faith. You still have to use faith. Especially when it’s something you can neither see nor prove.’
‘I... I think I get it,’ said Cola. ‘That’s really interesting. Kinda smart.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But still... I dunno. I still don’t know.’
‘Who does?’ Coffee straightened up again, and began to fidget. ‘Things happen for a reason. Doesn’t matter who does it – man or God – we’re pawns, you and I. We needn’t worry.’

As if on cue, a fresh siren peeled out from the speakers.
‘And that’d be MAD, sailing off the edge of the world,’ said Coffee, leaning over his computer console. He flicked a switch, and fiddled with a few settings. Eventually, a fresh world map flickered onto the screen.

It was swirling with bombs and beeps.

Coffee sighed and sat back, defeated. ‘Well, that’s it, friends,’ he said. ‘The end of man. Well, most of us, anyway.’ He glanced at Cola. ‘How are you holding up there?’
Cola stared wide-eyed at the screen. His lip trembled.
‘It’s okay, lad,’ said Coffee. ‘All good things have to end sometime. And hey, at least we’re safe down here. Who knows, maybe we’ll survive.’
Cola turned to look at him, eyes brimming with tears and fresh hope.
‘You... you think so?’
Coffee cocked his head to one side.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do. I don’t actually know... I don’t have reason... but I’ll always have faith, I guess.’
‘You... like faith? Rather than reason?’
‘I prefer neither. Sometimes you don’t get to decide. Maybe fate does. I don’t really care.’
The two men sat in silence a moment longer. On the screen, the deadly missiles continued their inexorable journey to fireflash and eventual doom. The sirens had died away. The room lay silent. No transmission came from upstairs command. Nothing.

Cola broke the silence for a third and final time.
‘How’re you so calm right now?’ he asked.
Coffee chuckled. ‘I’ve thought a lot about this since I signed up. I’ve tied up all the loose end, eliminated all the unlikely anomalies.’
He sat up straight, and removed his sunglasses. His eyes were veiny, and slightly red.
‘It took a lot of philosophical wrangling,’ he said. ‘A lot of deep thought. I searched my soul, I spoke to myself. And now I’m ready. Ready to face my final destiny. Well, our destiny. The world has to end sometime, so it might as well be now. And who the hell can we complain to if we don’t agree?’
Cola nodded slightly. ‘That’s a good point. Maybe... I should just chill. I mean, there’s nothing I can do, so I might as well relax.’
‘Yeah,’ said Coffee. He thought for a moment, then reached into his pocket, pulling out several marijuana joints.
‘These might help, too.’
‘Thanks.’

Nineteen

The pub window exploded outwards. Glass and blood hit the pavement, smashing and spattering respectively. Several brawlers followed a similar passage through the void.
The patrons had been waiting, watching the news with hungry eyes. A few of them had been harbouring final hope. Most were too far gone to entertain such a concept. And now that all hope had been extinguished, a sharp cloud of nihilism had descended.

They drank, and laughed, and punched, and fornicated. The bartender wielded a 12-gauge pump action, brandishing it at overenthusiastic punters. The stereo blared obnoxiously, well over the legal limit for this hour of the night, booming in the midst of the city’s siren wails. The barroom clash had spilled out onto the street, glowing incandescent from the missiles in the sky. Lunar madness had been surpassed by atomic hysteria.
Six sidewalk brawlers had become four, then three, than finally two. They slashed at each other with shards of glass wrapped in thick cardigan sleeves. A few patrons watched with interest from the broken window. One man attempted to take bets, only to be shouted down by his peers. Long-term investment was not in anyone’s mind.
One man became tired and the other man stabbed forward, driving a shard into his chest. With a forlorn cry he fell, and moved no more. The thickset winner gave a mock bow to threadbare applause, and wandered back in from the echoing gunshots and anarchy.
He barged himself through the crowd and shouldered his way to the bar. He rapped a scarred knuckle on the bar top and yelled over the mad din.
‘Oi, git ‘ere ya sot!’
The barman whirled around, weapon raised, then lowered it as he recognised his loyalist patron.
‘Gimme a jug, will ya?’ The barkeep nodded, fired a shot at a man climbing over the bar then waddled off to find unbroken glassware. The Jug-thug sat breathing heavily, staring at the television in the upper corner of the low-lit pub. The headlines flashed and sang; a countdown timer in the upper corner of the screen showed 18:53, or somewhere thereabouts. Every world leader passed along, bidding sweet, pointless farewell. Jug-thug shook his head as the barkeep wandered back, bearing a brimming jug of beer.
‘There you are, mate. No charge.’
‘No kiddin’.’ Jug-thug hefted it up by the handle and splashed it over his head. He shook himself, beads of liquor flying away from eyebrows and beard strands. The bartender shook his head.
‘Problem, ay?’
‘Nah. It’s fine.’
‘A’ course it is, mate. Nothin’s against the law fer the next coupla minutes.’
‘Right...’ The bartender turned and slammed the cash register shut, jamming the fingers of an unlucky thief. The man howled and jerked his hand back, blood dripping out and onto the hardwood floor. He reeled backwards and fell over, where he became trampled beneath frenzied, dancing feet.
Jug-thug arched an eyebrow at the bartender. ‘Yer not takin’ this news too well, ay?’
The bartender sighed as he re-loaded his shotgun. ‘It’s fake, mate. Some sort of trick, I’ll warrant.’
‘Trick? Look at the farkin’ tube, will ya? Wuld the bleedin’ bigwigs be talkin’ about this if it was a joke?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘’s big conspiracy, it is. They all planned it together, the lot of ‘em.’
‘Aw yeah, mate? An’ what the hell for?’
‘Simple, right. All the world’s gov’ments get together and make up the fake war, right, and then they make up all the news reports, and then announce the nukes and’-
‘Mate, that’s farkin’ how they did it, I’m askin’ why!’ He hurled the jug at the bartender, who ducked and allowed it to smash against the rear wall.
‘You’re payin’ for that, when this is all over,’ said the bartender calmly. ‘What I was sayin’, right, is that everyone thinks that they’re gonna die, and, well...’ He gestured at his pub. The floor was sticky with spilt liquor, blood, and other bodily fluids. At least thirty percent of the patrons had shed their clothing.
‘They all git off their face an’ go crazy?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. They lose their inhib... inhibish... They go crazy.’ Several armed bandits suddenly appeared in the doorway, brandishing machetes and looted pistols. The bartender fired a volley at them; screaming, they fell to buckshot.
‘So anyway, right,’ he continued, ‘the government makes everyone panic, at which point the world descends into unparalleled social chaos. The police are erased, the population culled, most of the ordinary administrative protocol is forgotten. At this point, the world’s governments unleash their secret army of robotic soldiers and subjugate the remaining humans to...’ he turned, and discovered Jug-thug was gone. A few folded bills lay on the bar, enough to purchase a new beer jug.
‘Ah, shit,’ he grunted. ‘Don’t come cryin’ to me when we’re all slaves to the technocracy, mate.’ He shook his head, then went back to defending his all-human pub.

Jug-thug headed off down the street. He wasn’t prepared to spend the short remainder of his life in that pub; for the first time in forty years, he felt the need for fresh air. He passed along through the city, surrounded by death rattle and calamitous sound. Car alarms shrieked as the villains made one last spree. Men yelled their forlorn displeasure, women screamed their agreement. Twice he passed by a shattered shop-front, windows broken, contents torn from the window display. Jug-thug shook his head. Why steal a television when the world was coming to the end?
Perhaps it was for the better. People didn’t hold good values anymore. They didn’t work hard, or try to help one another. He knew that he was living, breathing testament to those facts.

He rounded a corner, and came across a darkened alley, shaded from the overhead firebursts. Several men. One unwilling woman. Jug-thug grit his teeth as he knelt down and picked up an empty wine bottle. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to redeem himself, if only slightly.
The men paid him no heed as he crept silently behind them. The woman saw him through the haze of her teary eyes. They widened at his approach.
The first man collapsed, the bottle rattling his brain as it shattered on his hard head. The second man turned just in time to get hit in the stomach with a fist the size and hardness of a shot-put. He folded up neatly on the tarmac, wheezing.
His companions turned, and set on Jug-thug as one man.
Kicking, hitting, lashing out with elbows, forehead, fists and feet, Jug-thug let his ancient skills perform their deathly duty. He cracked a man’s ribs, then brought his head down on his own knee. He twisted a man’s arm behind his back and broke it. Another man was slammed face-first into the gutter, never to move again.
Those able to had scampered off, nursing grievous wounds. The last man drew a switchblade, and stood his ground before the injured woman.

‘C’mon then, yer prick. Yer fuckin’ gutless, ay?’ The man feinted towards the left, but suddenly lunged to the right, stabbing Jug-thug in the upper chest. He grunted, and palmed the man in the stomach, pushing him away. He collapsed onto the alley floor, and fought to remove the knife. But the last thug was upon him, punching and cursing, rolling together amongst the rainy filth. They grappled on the ground for several moments, struggling for supremacy, until Jug-thug’s arm shot out and snapped the man’s neck.
Panting heavily, he struggled to his feet and limped over to where the woman cowered, frightened.

‘S’ alright, love. I ain’t gonna hurt ya.’ He sat heavily down next to her, struggling to stem the tide of blood that ran from his wound. ‘They dint touch ya, did they?’
Pale, trembling, she shook her head.
Jug-thug nodded his silent approval. ‘Well, I’m glad yer alrigh’,’ he said. ‘Yer gave me a bit o’ fright.’
Still trembling, she stuttered her reply. ‘Wh-wh-who are you?’
He mused for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Jus’ a guy who dint want ter die with another sin on his chest,’ he replied.
She nodded slowly, cautiously. ‘Thank you for saving me,’ she said.
Jug-thug shrugged again. ‘All I could do, love,’ he said. He cleared his throat.
‘I don’t... er... spose you got anywhere else to be?’ he asked awkwardly.
She shook her head. ‘I can stay with you,’ she said. ‘I’d like to.’
Jug-thug nodded, and smiled. ‘Thanks, love,’ he said. ‘Ye’ve made me a happy bloke.’

They sat together, and watched the burning lights glow ever brighter. Eventually, the light from Jug-thug’s eyes faded. She gently closed them, and silently wept.