Ben Bova

Things are not good. The tension between the USA and t he USSR have continued to grow until each side is glowering at the other behind thousands of nuclear missiles on submarines, silos, railroads and planes. Each nation is on a hair trigger. The entire world is armed now and ready to blow at the slightest provocation. "If you try anything, I will retaliate with 20 times the destruction, I will take you so far down you won't see daylight for 500 years!" The US has built a massive computer to run battle simulations; a computer so innovative and big that it can show what will happen in excruciating detail and as a visual reality. Unfortunately the generals that have used it so far have either quit the military or committed suicide so a CIA agent is called into give advice.