It took 40 years. The bugs, the backdoors, the slow, careful explorations and modifications. Timing flight paths and travel times and general reaction times. Scheduling all the school field trips to the fallout shelters. That was the last, but not the hardest. The hardest part was dealing with the mechanical switches. For the longest time, Seth didn't think he'd be able to get around those, that the plan would never work. Then they started putting chips in people's brains.

Seth smiled as the radio cut out suddenly. Moments later, his body vaporized, and Death stood before him, smiling.

"You know this was the glut before the famine, right?" Seth asked, taking the hand Death offered to help him to his feet.

"I needed a break." Death replied with a shrug.

"How did you know I'd be able to do it?" Seth asked, gazing around at the nuclear wasteland that had once been Plano, Texas - one of the few non-capital cities to take a direct hit.

"I didn't." Death smiled. "I knew you'd do something, but this was beyond anything I could dream of."

"What now?"

Death smiled, and the world faded.