The silence under the bridge was crushing, broken only by the distant drone of traffic and the faint tap-tap of Amos's fingernail against an aluminum can.
In the bunker, the silence was of a different kind. Rapid breathing. Swallowed panic. The frantic rustle of pockets turned inside out, coins and keys clattering in desperation—all carried faintly over the phone line.
"F-fifty cents?" a young officer's voice cracked so high it nearly broke, smothered a heartbeat later by a colleague's hand.
"Nickels! Dimes! Move! Who the hell's got fifty cents?!" another voice roared in a whisper. The sound of drawers yanked open, chairs scraped, men and women of power reduced to frantic drunks searching couch cushions for cab fare.
Amos scratched the pull-tab on a can, the screech cutting through the line. His patience was thinning. "Well? If you don't have it, I'm hanging up. I still got my quota to meet."
"Yes! Yes, we have it! Please—just wait a moment, sir!" the liaison nearly shrieked, his voice warping with absurd urgency.
More shuffling. Barked whispers. A strangled cry of relief: Found it! A sweating bureaucrat held up one gleaming quarter and five nickels, palms trembling as if clutching the ransom of a planet. The general snatched them like holy relics, his knuckles bone-white.
"Sir!" he cried into the phone. "We have it! Fifty cents, cash! Please—stop the countdown!"
"Oh." Amos's voice was flat, indifferent. Like he'd been told tomorrow's weather. "How do I get it?"
The bunker froze. A thousand miles away. Concrete and steel between them. How the hell—?
"Coordinates! Sir, give us a location, we'll deploy a jet, the fastest we have—"
"Trouble." Amos cut him off. "Just drop it. Right there, on the floor. I'll get it."
The general's throat went dry. On the floor? In a bunker buried beneath hundreds of meters of concrete?
But no one dared argue. Slowly, reverently, the general crouched in the command center's open space. In full view of every terrified pair of eyes, he set down the coins—quarter and five nickels—onto the polished concrete.
They chimed as they hit the floor. Then, nothing.
Until the coins were simply… gone.
No flash. No sound. No distortion. One instant they existed. The next, they didn't.
Gasps sucked the air from the room. A man stumbled back, pale as ash.
On the phone, a metallic clink—coins landing in a palm. Amos muttered, half-satisfied, "Alright. Fifty cents. Good enough."
On the NMCC's main display, the doomsday clock froze at 19:43—then vanished. The blood-red borders bled away, replaced by cool, neutral blue. Target markers winked out. Strategic threat indicators dimmed.
Dead silence fell again—this time filled with relief so profound it bordered on religious awe.
"System reports…" a technician whispered, voice cracking, "…all nuclear alerts—terminated. Missile silos—standby. Enemy signals collapsing. They… they look just as confused as we are…"
The crisis was over.
For fifty cents.
The general sagged, knees buckling. Propped up by aides, he gasped into the phone with exhausted reverence. "Th-thank you, sir! Thank you—"
"Mm." Amos cut him short, bored already. "Hanging up. Too noisy."
"Wait! Sir!" the general's desperation flared, one last ember. "What about after? The Global Alliance—if they strike again—"
Amos sighed, sharp with disdain. "You're a pain in the ass."
Then, not to the phone but to the world itself, he spoke three simple words:
"Knock it off."
The phrase did not travel through wires. It detonated across consciousness, an unspoken command tattooed into the minds of every decision-maker on Earth.
[Stop. Forbidden. Consequences.]
In Brussels. In Moscow. In Beijing. In New Delhi. All across the world, war rooms froze. Fingers hovering over red buttons recoiled as primal terror clamped their throats. Attack orders were rescinded in blind panic. The war machine, global and unstoppable, screeched to a halt.
---
Florida. Under the bridge.
Amos snapped his flip phone shut with a clack and shoved it back in his pocket. He studied the quarter in his palm, tilting it toward the sunlight. The faint outline of a face looked back at him, blurred and unimpressive. Not as nice as a bottlecap. But it would do.
He slipped it into a different pocket, pushed his squeaking cart, and went back to sorting cans.
High above, an F-35 roared past in a low sweep, rattling the concrete overhead. Dust showered down.
Amos scowled at the noise. Looked up. Muttered something nobody heard. Then flicked his finger at the sky like shooing a fly.
Miles away, the pilot screamed as every instrument blinked dead, then back to life. Engines hiccupped, shuddered, nearly dropped him from the sky.
Under the bridge, Amos didn't look up again. He just kept sorting cans.
The fate of the world? Not nearly as valuable as the aluminum in his hands.
At least cans were worth five cents.