The Hand Of God

"National security is not my thing."

"I'm not that informed on national security"

Imagine, if you will, you wake up and there is a gun pressed to your temple. No matter how you try, it won’t detach. It’s stuck there like some sick modification grafted by some B-grade freakshow horror movie antagonist. You can feel the steel, smell the residue, you know it’s been fired before, know it's loaded, know what terror it might render, yet you’re still alive.

Odd. An odd apparition indeed, but it’s okay because this is America and having a gun to your head is worth at most a second glance. You don't panic. You're smarter than that. You go on with life. It’s fine because, well, you’re not a dolt. As long as you keep your finger off the trigger, no harm, no foul.

That is until one morning, your pointer finger starts to get a little…curious. It starts as a spasm, an investigation, testing its limits of independence against your central nervous system. 

Then the next morning comes, and another finger revolts.

Then another.

Then an arm reaches, explores, tests the limits of your resolve.

Then even your pinky toe reaches for that destructive power in the hope that it might, for the briefest of moments, gain primacy over those disparate extremities.

For the rest of your life, you’re forced to contend with these powers, knowing a singular moment of weakness might tumble to destruction. Forever, in perpetuity, you're fighting these disparate elements whose machinations you can never fully understand.

Because these aren't extremities. They're groups, countries, nations, blocs, Hell probably the corporations building our AI overlords at this point, all vying in their own ways and with varying degrees of urgency toward that trigger.

Such is life in 2026. 

But you “don’t do foreign policy”, or “politics”, or “things that don’t impact me today”.

Sure, fine, whatever helps you sleep at night, but know this:

If and when that moment of judgement comes, you’re either the finger pulling the trigger or the head.

And no amount of “not doing,” will change that. 

The reality is, it’s not just your head in the firing line, though I cannot fault you for keeping your own primacy. It’s your wife’s, your husband’s, your son’s and daughter’s, neighbor’s and ex’s, everyone that you’ve ever loved and hated and lusted for and despised walking around with a gun molded to their head. 

The technology I reference isn’t new. It’s older than microwaves, velcro, LLMs, smartphones, smart cars, smart…everything. It’s a technology Herbert and Asimov knew well and almost every major sci-fi work has referenced in some way shape or form. There’s about 12,000 of them laying around the world, ready, waiting, the proverbial gun to our heads. 

Waiting until Armageddon comes, out of the darkness, brighter than a thousand suns.

A single megaton in Manhattan–a location, given the timing of this publication, is both intentional and not done lightly–in a singular instant, a microsecond so infinitesimally small, you haven’t yet finished reading the word, and 3.7 Million lives destroyed, vanished, evaporated, ruined. Untold scores impacted with grief beyond comprehension. 

Not even Sodom suffered such a horrendous fate, for at least they suffered God's wrath, and not the fruits of man's boundless imagination and fallibility.  

Yet here we are, hearing, accepting leaders who believe, “national security is not my thing.”

Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t accept that notion. Maybe, just maybe, such willful ignorance should be disqualifying and not just embarrassing.

But what do I know? I'm just a lowly writer.

To harken back to a happier, simpler time (AKA 2003), “You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner... you’re in one.”

A/N:

If you've enjoyed this, please leave a like and an insight below. If you really enjoyed this, tips to fuel my coffee addiction are always appreciated. All formatting is designed for desktops. All my works can be found below: