Scene: Boardroom, Stratodyne Aerospace Headquarters, circa Now
The conference room shimmered with chrome surfaces and LED screens, a mausoleum for billion-dollar decisions. Aloysius “Al” Riparini, CEO of Stratodyne Aerospace and occasional reader of Popular Mechanics, slouched in his ergonomic chair like a sullen Apollo.
He forward, hands steepled, his face carved in the grim expression of a man waiting to hear bad news explained in worse terms. Across from him, Vance Trawick, the company’s Chief Operations Futurist, was already sweating through his tailored suit.
“So,” Al said, cutting the tension like a scythe through tall grass. “You’re telling me the rockets can’t launch.”
“Not yet,” Vance admitted, staring at a stack of untouched binders as if they might leap to his defense. “The chips… well, they’re good. They’re very good. But they’re not good enough. We need more processing power to handle the real-time computations—guidance, payload integrity, the whole system. The chips need to double their capacity.”
“And why the hell haven’t they?”
“Well…” Vance hesitated, then rushed out the words before Al could interrupt. “It’s the same problem everywhere. The Chinese are stuck at the same threshold. So are the Russians. It’s a bottleneck. Nobody can make the leap.”
Al’s fingers tapped on the table, a restless staccato that echoed in the uneasy silence. “So what you’re telling me,” he said slowly, “is that nobody’s going anywhere. Us, them, anyone.”
“Not until the chips double,” Vance said. “But here’s the thing—we can’t just make them double. The tech is there, sure, in theory. But to develop it—properly, reliably—it requires enormous investment. I’m talking decades of R&D money, Al.”
“Which we don’t have.”
“Which nobody has. Not without an external pressure. Something to accelerate the process.”
“And what, exactly, do you suggest?” Al asked, his tone suggesting he already regretted asking.
“That’s where I come in,” said Dr. Miranda Crick from the far end of the table. The Chief Philosopher of Applied Algorithms—her title read like satire, but her mind operated like a scalpel—had been silent until now. She adjusted her glasses, the movement slow and deliberate, as though she wanted the room’s attention fully in her grasp.
“What’s your solution, Dr. Crick?” Al asked, swiveling his chair toward her.
“A war,” she said, almost cheerfully.
The air seemed to drop ten degrees. Even Vance, used to her peculiar turns of phrase, looked startled.
For Al Riparini, the word war didn’t just echo; it reverberated in his chest like a Sousa march played by an orchestra of brassieres. A sudden heat surged from his toes to his neck, blooming in his face with the same intensity as an ad campaign for Liberty Bonds.
Al just stared, slack-jawed, waiting for her to explain.
“What do you mean, a war?” he said finally.
“A war,” she repeated. “It’s the only thing that would create the conditions for progress. Think about it. Right now, we’re in a stalemate. Nobody can launch their rockets because nobody has chips capable of handling the systems. If we wait, it’ll take years—decades, even—for natural development cycles to bridge the gap. But a war… well, a war forces everyone’s hand. Both sides—us, China, Russia—would have no choice but to invest everything in chip technology. Billions, trillions, poured into advancement. Each side racing to outpace the other.”
Al’s mind began to swirl with images: women in pin-up poses, draped in stars and stripes, standing provocatively next to missile silos. His hand crept involuntarily to the knot of his tie, loosening it. Was he sweating? Yes, but it was the righteous sweat of a man ready to serve his country—and possibly make love to it.
“And the rockets?” Al asked, his voice brittle with disbelief.
“They’d launch,” Dr. Crick said simply. “Once the chips are ready. And they would be ready, Al. Faster than you can imagine. The stakes would be too high for anything less. In the end, the side that pushes hardest would come out on top.”
“Then humanity wins,” she said with a shrug. “Think about it. Satellites with quantum chips. Communications systems operating on entirely new paradigms. Technologies that trickle down to the civilian sector. It would revolutionize everything.”
“And if there’s no clear winner?”
Al leaned back, his chair groaning. “And how exactly do you propose we, uh, kick off this war?”
“Not start it,” Dr. Crick corrected. “Just nudge things in the right direction. Wars don’t need architects, Mr. Riparini. They need opportunities. And opportunities, well—those are easy to arrange.”
A heavy silence settled over the room, broken only by the hum of the air conditioning. Someone at the far end coughed nervously. Al rubbed his temples, trying to stave off the migraine forming behind his eyes.
“You’re insane,” he muttered.
“Am I?” Dr. Crick said, tilting her head. Her voice was soft now, almost tender. “Or am I just the only one here willing to face reality?”
Somewhere, in a nondescript office on the other side of the globe, a Chinese engineer was muttering similar frustrations into a tea-stained telephone, his own chips stubbornly refusing to leap into the future. Meanwhile, in Moscow, a gruff general scrawled impatient notes across a budget report. By nightfall, a peculiar email with no sender address would arrive in all their inboxes, its subject line reading simply: Firestarter
Scene: Secure Transcontinental Conference Call – Codename: Project Firestarter
The screen flickered to life, a patchwork of encrypted pixelation and glitching audio that gave the impression the meeting was taking place inside an Atari game. On the American side, Aloysius “Al” Riparini leaned forward in his chair, flanked by Dr. Miranda Crick. His face was lit by the pale glow of his laptop, and his expression carried the uneasy enthusiasm of a man about to pitch a multi-level marketing scheme to old friends.
The Chinese representative, Wu Jingbao, appeared stoic but visibly annoyed, his frame hunched in an office chair that creaked like the gates of Hell every time he shifted. To his right sat a translator whose face said she’d rather be literally anywhere else. Meanwhile, the Russian delegate, Yuri Karpov—a tank-shaped man with a haircut that might have been achieved with a ruler and a cleaver—was sipping from a flask and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like cursing.
“Alright,” Al began, his voice cutting through the static. “Let me start by saying we’re all in the same boat here. Rockets, stuck on the ground. Chips, not doubling like they’re supposed to. Progress, dead in the water. Am I right?”
“Speak for yourself,” Yuri grumbled in heavily accented English. “Russia is not stuck. Russia is… strategically paused.”
“Strategically paused?” Wu echoed with a snort. His translator hesitated, then gamely rendered it into diplomatic Mandarin, earning a withering glare from Wu.
“Okay, fine,” Al said, holding up his hands. “Strategically paused, whatever. But let’s not kid ourselves. None of us are launching anything anytime soon. And I think we all know why.”
The translator fumbled through this as well, but the phrase came through clear enough. Wu sighed deeply, while Yuri took another pull from his flask. The silence on the call was deafening.
“Alright, here’s the pitch,” Al said after a moment. “What if… we gave war a chance?”
Wu’s head snapped up so fast it could have dislocated. The translator paused, clearly hoping she’d misheard. Yuri choked on his vodka.
“War?” Wu said, scandalized. His voice needed no translation.
“Are you insane?”
Yuri Karpov felt the word war slither through his veins like a shot of the good stuff, the kind that burned going down but left you warm enough to take your shirt off in Siberia. He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them, then crossed them again, the fabric of his trousers tightening dangerously.
Americans always with your war! Always the solution! No, no, no. Idiocy!”
“Listen, hear me out—” Al began.
“Hear you out?” Wu interrupted, his voice rising an octave. “You want us to burn down half the planet so you can make your rockets fly? What next, nuclear exchange to improve battery life?”
“That’s not what I’m saying!” Al said, hands raised defensively. “This wouldn’t be a real war. Just… enough to get the funding moving, right? Push innovation! Nobody actually has to, you know, die. Not too many people, anyway.”
The translator stopped mid-sentence, her face frozen in a mix of horror and disbelief. Wu waved her off and glared at the screen. “You’re out of your mind. Absolutely out of your mind. What about the environment? The economy? The—”
“—chips,” Dr. Crick interjected, her voice calm and deliberate. The room quieted as she leaned into the frame, hands clasped. “Think about the chips, gentlemen. That’s the real issue here. Without chips, there’s no space race. No global advancement. No progress.”
“We have progress,” Yuri growled. “Russia has many advancements. Efficient advancements. Last week, we launch weather balloon with… sensors.”
His mind was already rushing past battlefield strategy and into something far darker. Control, he thought. Submission. Oh yes, war was the ultimate kink—a nation bent over, braced against the harsh slap of fate. His pulse quickened at the thought of imposing his will on a trembling adversary, of hearing the whimpering whine of sanctions being applied like a leather crop to bare flesh.
“Yes,” Wu said drily. “Very inspiring. I’m sure the farmers were thrilled.”
Yuri narrowed his eyes. “China launched nothing. Only smug faces on conference calls.”
Wu bristled, but Dr. Crick cut in again before things could escalate. “Gentlemen, please. We’re not here to measure who’s more stalled out. The fact is, you both need us as much as we need you. The Americans can’t do this alone. But neither can you.”
“And so your solution is war?” Wu said, incredulous.
Wu Jingbao had froze when he heard the word, not because he was afraid, but because it hit him in the same way a perfectly brewed cup of oolong did—complex, stimulating, and faintly intoxicating. He closed his eyes and let the syllable wash over him. War. It was a word that demanded control, demanded precision. It was the sharp edge of a blade against a trembling neck, the teetering moment between chaos and mastery. His thoughts drifted to his prized silk restraints, dyed crimson to symbolize both passion and blood. He imagined tying the hands of his enemies—no, partners—to the four corners of a table, forcing them to admit their inferiority before granting them the sweet release of capitulation.
“Not war-war,” Al said. “Just… enough war. Like a Cold War! You guys loved that one, didn’t you?”
Yuri snorted but didn’t respond. Wu leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. The translator muttered something under her breath that definitely wasn’t in the script.
“It’s a simulation, really,” Dr. Crick said, seizing on the silence. “A way to organize resources and focus development. Yes, there’ll be some collateral damage—there always is—but the end result is a leap forward for all humanity. Rockets, chips, satellites. It’s not about who wins or loses. It’s about pushing the boundaries.”
“Pushing boundaries,” Wu repeated flatly. “Like pushing people off cliffs.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Dr. Crick said brightly.
Yuri stared at his flask, then at the screen, then back at his flask. “What kind of war?” he asked at last.
“Proxy skirmishes, mostly,” Dr. Crick said, her tone now soothing, like a kindergarten teacher explaining the rules of dodgeball. “A few tense stand-offs. Maybe an espionage scandal or two. Nothing too serious. Just enough to loosen some purse strings and get the chips moving.”
“Ridiculous,” Wu muttered, but his tone lacked conviction. His fingers drummed on the desk as he stared at the ceiling, calculating. “How would it even start?”
“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Al said, suddenly animated. “We’ve got, like, a dozen hotspots primed for this kind of thing. Taiwan, Ukraine, the Arctic—take your pick. We’ll poke a little, you’ll poke back, and bam! Instant arms race. The media eats it up, the funding floods in, and before you know it, we’re all back in space.”
“And when the war ends?” Yuri asked. His voice was softer now, more curious than combative.
“Whoever’s rockets go up first,” Dr. Crick said, smiling faintly, “gets to write the history books.”
Wu and Yuri exchanged glances. For the first time, their mutual disdain was tinged with something like camaraderie.
“It’s insane,” Wu said at last.
“Completely,” Yuri agreed.
They both paused. Then Wu sighed and leaned forward.
Wu leaned forward, his glare cold enough to freeze the Great Firewall itself. “Alright,” he said finally, the words dropping like stones. “But no nuclear weapons.”
Yuri smirked, leaning back in his chair and unscrewing his flask with exaggerated nonchalance. “Eh,” he said with a shrug. “Five, maybe ten tops.”
Wu froze, mouth slightly open, as if waiting for a punchline that never came.
“Tops,” Yuri repeated, raising the flask as if to toast. “You know, just to keep things… interesting.”
Al, sensing an opportunity to smooth over the moment, chimed in. “Right, right, just enough to, uh, raise the stakes. A little tension, but not mutually assured destruction tension, just… dramatic tension. Like a season finale!”
Wu’s expression tightened into something resembling the moment a poker player realizes his hand is garbage.
For a long moment, the room was silent except for the faint hum of encrypted audio. Then Wu let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge the absurdity of it all.
“Fine,” he muttered.” he said softly, his voice tinged with an almost musical cadence. His hand idly traced the edge of his desk, the lacquer smooth and cool under his fingertips. He glanced at his translator, who avoided his gaze, but he lingered on the slope of her neck, imagining the red marks his fingers might leave. “Harmony,” he murmured, leaning back. “Even war can have harmony, if conducted…correctly.” His lips curled into a smile as he allowed the thought to linger, warm and tantalizing.
Al clapped his hands together with manic enthusiasm. “Great, great! Look at us—collaborating already! Humanity, huh? We’ll figure this out yet.”
Somewhere in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, teams of analysts were already drafting war plans, their algorithms humming with renewed purpose. And somewhere else entirely, a single factory began producing silicon wafers at double speed, ready for the chaos to come.