"Tie" is sometimes just an idealistic hope, although we do not give up hope.

McKittrick: [McKittrick approaches Falken's group on stairs] I don't know what you think you can do here, Stephen.

Stephen Falken: [suddenly noticing] John! Good to see you. I see the wife still picks your ties.

McKittrick: What is- What has this kid been telling you?

Stephen Falken: [looking at screens] How far's he gone?

McKittrick: Well the President about ready to order a counterstrike. That's what we're recommending he do.

Stephen Falken: It's a bluff, John, call it off.

McKittrick: No, it's not a bluff. It's real.

Stephen Falken: [raising his voice from stairs] Hello, General Beringer! Stephen Falken!

General Beringer: [standing] Mr. Falken you picked a hell of a day for a visit!

Stephen Falken: Uh, uh, General, what you see on these screens up here is a fantasy; a computer-enhanced hallucination. Those blips are not real missiles. They're phantoms.

McKittrick: [McKittrick approaches Beringer] Jack, there's nothing to indicate a simulation at all. Everything is working perfectly!

Stephen Falken: But does it make any sense?

General Beringer: Does what make any sense?

Stephen Falken: [points to the screens] That!

General Beringer: Look, I don't have time for a conversation right now.

Stephen Falken: [Falken speaks as he approaches] General, are you prepared to destroy the enemy?

General Beringer: You betcha!

Stephen Falken: Do you think they know that?

General Beringer: I believe we've made that clear enough.

Stephen Falken: [face to face] Then don't! Tell the President to ride out the attack.

Colonel Joe Conley: Sir, they need a decision.

Stephen Falken: General, do you really believe that the enemy would attack without provocation, using so many missiles, bombers, and subs so that we would have no choice but to totally annihilate them?

Female Airman First Class: [on loudspeaker] One minute and thirty seconds to impact.

Stephen Falken: General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.

Female Airman First Class: [on loudspeaker] One minute and twenty seconds to impact.

McKittrick: General, the machine has locked us out. It's sending random numbers to the silos.

Pat Healy: Codes. To launch the missiles.

General Beringer: Just unplug the goddamn thing! Jesus Christ!

McKittrick: That won't work, General. It would interpret a shutdown as the destruction of NORAD. The computers in the silos would carry out their last instructions. They'd launch.

General Beringer: Can't we disarm the missiles?

Pat Healy: Over a thousand of them? There's no time. At this rate it will hit the launch codes in... 5.3 minutes.

General Beringer: [smiles sarcastically at McKittrick] Mr. McKittrick, after very careful consideration, sir, I've come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks.

McKittrick: I don't have to take that, you pig-eyed sack of shit.

General Beringer: Oh, I was hoping for something a little better than that from you, sir. A man of your education.

Major Lem: [holding a telephone] General, it's the president.

McKittrick: What are you... what are you going to tell him?

General Beringer: I'm ordering our bombers back to fail-safe. We might have to go through this thing after all.