The red button tempts me like the apples of Eden. So much knowledge, so power to be had, in just one tiny finger movement. I can’t tear my eyes away from its radiant color. It’s calling to me, beckoning me to come closer, closer . . .

The glass cover is cold and dusty, and it lets out a short, sharp creak when I lift it up. A last squeal of resistance, perhaps. And of course, there is the button itself. So smooth, so red. Shiny, like the fire of the gods. I am entranced, and there is only one option available to me. Slowly, shakily, I allow my finger’s full weight to fall upon the button, and slowly, surely, it allows itself to be dominated, slowly clicking when it reaches its mechanical nadir. A feeling of elation washes over me.

Then the terminal initiates a loud beeping sound and the screen flashes the words “NUCLEAR LAUNCH INITIATED” over and over. Sirens scream throughout the building, and ten seconds later a stream of enforcers followed by four guys in expensive looking suits swarm down the hallway, yelling at me to step out of the room and pointing machine guns at me. I comply.

A suit-wearing man pushes his way to the front and screams “Do you know what you’ve just done? You’ve destroyed the world! The missiles will kill everyone!”

“Well, yeah,” I reply. “I figured that’s what ‘Nuclear Launch Initiated meant. Assholes.”

The suited man stammers for about fifteen seconds, completely dumbfounded, and then yells something resembling “Shoot him!”

In the millisecond before my body is riddled with hot lead, I feel a slight twinge of pity for the fact that I have singlehandedly destroyed the entirety of the human race. Then my body hits the ground in a swarm of bullets, and the ground shakes and everything goes white, and as it all disappears, I realize I never much liked the bastards anyway.

End.