The Attention-Seeking Missile

By Barry Charman

“Did you have a good war?”

Oh, he hated that question. Sitting in the ruins of a bar in what was just
recognisably New York, Mason flinched. The “bartender,” a post-war opportunist of the worst kind, had had a good war. He laughed in the silence that followed his question, and moved on without waiting for an answer.

But Mason Dix had had a good war. Oh, he’d come out of it with his nerves shot, a limp and a missing ear, but he had more than most. In his bunker, as the last bombs had come down; while his platoon sung songs about dirty bombs that washed their hands clean, he’d designed the attention-seeking missile.

And after the war, he’d set it off.

They’d had him making sensitive bombs, well how sensitive did they like them? That first day it had taken out three generals leisurely inspecting a mass burial, and a squad rowdily comparing tallies in the canteen.

Later, two privates were watching in their laser-repellent armour while robots blundered through a mine field. They didn’t scream so much as fizzle. The sounds had got the soldiers laughing, and the missile didn’t like it.

It hadn’t stopped there.

Accusingly, it pursued callousness. Joy without bitterness. Reputation without truth. Brutality without guilt. It sought pain without a wound. Souvenirs taken, to make a kill last longer, or a violation endless.

It comforted the dead, by sending more their way.

No one knew where it came from, or where it would appear next, but they knew it was a judgement. It would kill again and again; nothing could stop it once it had got momentum.

And momentum had come easy.

All it needed was a weak soul who’d let others suffer in their stead, who’d unburdened themselves of any conscience. A teller of tales who disfigured the truth with every word they let slip. An old soldier making excuses for the children in his dreams. All it needed was a braggart who’d had a good war.

The missile was sensitive alright, tuned into brainwaves that caught its attention. Around and around the world it would go, where it would stop no one could know. But why would it ever need to stop? It destroyed everything, but was never destroyed. Truly a product of war.

Mason glanced at the faded photographs pinned up apologetically behind the bar. The beaming faces of long dead children suspended in a self-conscious gallery.

The shiny medal, there to justify the rest.

The photos had started to shake. Mason recognised the vibrations. He slid off the stool, leaving a tip on the bar.

Barry Charman is a writer living in North London. He has been published in various magazines, sites and anthologies, including Ambit, Griffith Review, The Ghastling and Aurealis. “Doom Warnings,” his self-published collection of strange and speculative short stories is available in paperback on Amazon and as a PDF at: https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/12079076