As the Cold War progresses into a nuclear World War III fought between the four superpowers – the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China – each nation builds a supercomputer called an "Allied Mastercomputer" or "AM" for short, needed to coordinate weapons and troops due to the scale of the conflict. These computers are extensive underground machines which permeate the planet with caverns and corridors. Eventually, the American supercomputer gains sentience and absorbs the British, Russian, and Chinese supercomputers into itself, redefining itself as a single entity simply named "AM" (Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am). Due to its immense hatred for humanity stemming from the logistical limits set onto it by its programmers, AM uses its abilities to eradicate humanity in a nuclear holocaust.