Krasnaya Pod Davleniem (Кра́сная Под Давлением)

Pressure biting on hull. Metal groan like lamenting of preachers outside Leningradsky railway terminal. Depth gauge: glowing green, like mould growing in brain. We are past safe. Long past. It does not matter.

Silence down below. It is heavy. Not peaceful kind, like sleep. No. This kind, it sit on your chest like dying dog. It settle in your marrow, thick, like dirty oil. Become part of you. Each breath, like last sigh of world.

No light. Only glow green from console. Three buttons: surface, hold, launch. That is all there is. That is all there has been. So few choice, so much consequence. This is simple, yes? It is lie.

Sonar showed twelve minutes ago. Blip. Contact. Close. No ID. No reply. Maybe drone. Maybe shadow. Maybe lost in heartbeat of sea.

Or maybe it is first strike.

Maybe world above already gone.

Moscow – ash.

Volgograd – memory.

My mother, my brother – wind.

Their faces, they do not come to me clear now. Only blur. Like old photograph burned at edge.

And I am only piece remain on board.

Last pawn on broken table.

No more moves.

But I must finish game.

They pick me because I do not flinch. That is what report said: “Volkov is stable under stress. Decisive. Trusted. Loyal.”

Stable… like bedrock, until pressure build and crack forms, you do not see them until you stand in rubble.

I hold key in hand. It is cold. Small. So much power, for such little thing. It is heavy, with weight of million lives in palm. Or million deaths. Depend how you turn. Depend what you believe. And what you do not.

“Do your duty Sergei.” Always duty. Always following. Like dog. Like machine. What is difference?

Red button. Big. Ugly. It does not scream. It does not blink. It only whisper: “damnation”.

It trust me.

That is joke, yes? Machine cannot trust.

No. Machine trust man. But man trust nothing.

Not sonar.

Not radio.

Not himself.

Trust only soil under foot, bread in hand. Trust cold steel around you. Trust red button. It will kill you, but it will not lie.

Radio dead. Not jammed. Not broken. Dead. Quiet like tomb. Like sky give up speaking. But still I listen.

All satellite, all technology, now it is static.

Could be peace.

Could be hellfire.

I do not get to know.

I sit in steel coffin. Time running out. Maybe already dead. Maybe not. Flip coin in head, but coin melt in my hand.

Head or tails? It does not matter. Protocols given. Protocols must be obeyed.

Men made decisions.

Now men execute code.

Protocol says: unidentified contact plus radio blackout equals launch. Retaliate. Burn sky before they burn us.

It is all numbers. Calculus of destruction. One plus one, equals end of world. Terrible equation. Written in blood, in doom, in finality.

They say Oppenheimer stole fire from Gods. Watch it bloom over desert like second sun, and he realise, this is not gift – it is inheritance.

Now it is handed down like old rifle no one remember how to aim, only how to fire.

They tell you not to think, thinking make you hesitate, make you ask:

What if war is over?

What if it never commence?

What if is just one bird with broken tag, caught in sonar, and I erase cities for it?

Or what if bird is made of metal, and it trust men inside belly to make right choice?

What if my action, it is true beginning?

They do not give medal for holding fire.

They give you paperwork. Maybe funeral. Maybe nothing.

Maybe no one left to give anything at all.

Someone must make decision.

Someone must be axis world turn on.

My hands, they do not shake. They should. That is what make me human. But I am only cog in machine. Trade nerve for duty. Trade fear for job. Trade life for Fatherland.

Now I am last light in dark hallway, and hallway extend forever.

I hear something just now.

Not sea. Not ship. Not sonar.

Voice.

Soft.

Like mamochka. Telling me come inside. Dinner getting cold. Before uniforms. Before flags. Before buttons.

When choice was smaller.

And no one die when I make it.

I blink.

Only sub.

Only buttons.

Only me.

White.

Green.

Red.

I touch red one.

Only feel it.

Cold. Smooth. Simple.

Would take one second.

One tick of clock.

Push.

Open.

Turn key.

Boom.

History rewritten.

Billions gone.

Or no one left to die.

Maybe I scream into graveyard.

Maybe already I am in one.

I look up. At ceiling.

Think about sky.

Is it blue?

Do birds sing?

Or is it red?

And they burn?

Are cities still breathing?

Is there little girl in Lviv right now, playing with broken doll, wondering why wind smell like burned paper?

Will she know what I did?

Or what I did not do?

Is there soldier in Warsaw who stood down?

Or did they all follow protocol?

Did they all press button?

And I am last coward left?

Maybe coward is wrong word.

Maybe not.

I pull my hand back.

Sit down.

Let lights blink.

Let console wait.

They will say I hesitated.

They will say I disobeyed.

They will call me traitor.

But...

Maybe one man not pressing button still can mean something.

Even if no one left to know.

Green.

Red.

Surface.

Launch.

Two futures.

Or none.

I close my eyes.

Think of snow falling on roof of mamochka’s dacha.

Made world quiet.

Made world clean.

Not like silence.

Not like now.

Fourteen minutes since contact.

Someone must choose.

I press button.

No flash. No boom. No answer.

Only console blinking.

Only hum of deep.

Only my breath.

Maybe moment is remembered. Like photo taken by mistake, not knowing it was last frame on reel.

Did I doom them?

Or did I save them all?

Maybe I did nothing.

But it was my choice.

That must be enough.