The Los Alamos research centre has been busy constructing elaborate computer models of the United States, trying to see what would happen when a terrorist blows them up. Computer systems in the research centre are running countless virtual cities inhabited by millions of virtual individuals, which are then responding to some form of attack upon those simulations.

Researcher Steve Fernandez showed the Post what happened when several power-relay plants in the Pacific Northwest get shutdown offline. Another boffin was working up mathematical models to work out the best place to release biological agents in San Diego.
This sort of thing very much puts one in mind of the simulations in War Games, that classic computer hacking gem from 1983.