Seriously, have you played Defcon ? Once again reminded me of that game. There are a couple of typos in there, you might want to fix, but besides this is a really nice story. Could even tie in with your other ficlet.

Haven’t played defcon, but I’m glad that you were able to understand the story and see where I was going with it.
Both this and ‘Machine’ were inspired by a ficlet called ‘The Fifteenth’, but I felt I should get a few of my own ficlets down and see what reaction they get before doing any proper prequels/sequels.