Arc Five : The Bright Side of the Earth


“Now, a Dullahan named Jaqueline Autry, who currently hails from the Camlann Refugee Site, has written a letter, her interest in me having sprung from reading my articles in the London Daily Express. She has politely asked where and what exactly was I doing during the Third World War. Well, to answer your question, Jacqueline, it's something of which I’m somewhat ashamed, but not afraid to admit. I had just drank myself into a blackout at The Blue Ball of Braunston. My landlord, the kind fellow that he was, arranged for his son, a constable, to take me back to my room and place ear-muffs onto my head. They had put me into bed just minutes before the invasion began, and I slept peacefully, well into the evening of January 1st.

As I was all alone in the flat by then, I took my laptop to the basement and masturbated to a 30-year old English-dubbed maledom hentai called Keraku-No-Oh, which I am sure was selected as a result of drinking prisoner fruit-laced tapwater. After that, I decided that I would cross something off my bucket list. To watch the entire Stargate franchise using my landlord’s DVD collection. Starting with the original 1995 movie, I completely lost track of time until the power went out while I was viewing the first season episode in which a space warlord named Hathor tries to conquer Cheyenne Mountain by charming all the men, but the women of the facility band together to defeat her. My laptop battery finally died during the credits of the episode in which Doctor Daniel Jackson accidentally transports himself to a parallel universe in which the lives of him and his friends had vastly diverted in 1994. By Jove, this had to have been a premonition, but to what exactly, I know not.

After that, I decided to face whatever was going on in the world outside. So I took a notepad and a box of blue ballpoint pens that had been left on my landlord’s kitchen counter. I opened the door, stepped onto the sidewalk, and I began to write. It was at that point upon which my journey truly began.”

-excerpt from the Mamono Encyclopedia Britannica, First Edition, Chapter Seven: How I Learned To Keep Worrying And Hate The Bombs





Chantilly, Virginia
14390 Air and Space Museum Parkway
January 2nd, 20--
8:24 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(At the same time that Secretary Non and his group meet FPS Agent Whaley, they know not that at that exact moment, a certain Arlington County SWAT vehicle has just pulled off of State Highway 50, on a literal crash course for the museum’s parking lot.)

(Rehema) “Oh come on, pleeeaasssseeee let me put on some R. Kelly?”

(Azneth) “Not in a million eons! I REFUSE to intentionally listen to men who’re into watersports! It’s disgusting!”

(Rehema) “Well shall we at least listen to something rather than Marvin Gaye? This is the FIFTH time in the last twenty-four hours that I’ve been in a vehicle that was blaring the Sexual Healing song!”

(Azneth) “Fine, I’ll put on some Backstreet Boys next time. Doesn’t matter right now, we’ve reached our destination. Daddy! How’s your senses feel? I think he’s close, quite close! He’s got to- OH SHIT!”

(Having forgotten to turn the headlights on due to inexperience with operating an automobile, the 34th-born Princess fails to see a barricade on the road in time. Said barricade is made up of three 6th-generation Ford Broncos. Forgetting to slam the brakes, she instead pedals to the metal, smashing through the cars. The entire MCC shakes, but not as hard as they thought it would be.)

(The Ultimate Hero) “He’s in that building, most certainly! What’s our information on this place?”

(Stacey) “My lord, from what I can compile, this place is a museum dedicated to flying machines of all sorts. Not very difficult to penetrate, not very easy to reinforce. An assault was attempted yesterday on the other side of this building, but it was called off after the treeline to the west was found to be layered with explosive traps. Their defenses wo….hold on! Miss Azneth, what do you see ahead?”

(Azneth) “I can make out the lights of gunfire from the middle of the building. What are they shooting at?”

(Rehema) “They’re canines like me! I can hear their howls! Some of them are panicking, some of them have found their men, and….some of them are in serious pain.”

(Margaret) “We’ve got to send for medics!”

(The Ultimate Hero) “I’m going to assist them! Azneth, stay here! By your mother, I WILL neutralize that man and bring him here to you.” 

(As the incubus exits the back door, the bovine-woman patches through to the Smithsonian Castle.)

(Margaret) “Yes, that’s right! I’m with Princess Azneth! We are currently at the Air and Space Museum Annex, and we’ve got a large force of dogs under fire! Send whatever medical assistance you can! Don’t worry about reinforcements or enemy AA. This won’t be another White House problem! The Hero is personally going in to deal with them.”

(Stacey) “From what I can dig up, there shouldn’t be much resistance inside. Only people recorded to be here are a few random stragglers, museum security, and a significant amount of military mechanics. They must have been sent to refurbish some of those airplanes and helicopters inside. A few helicopters have left the area, but the last reported sighting was four hours ago! They must have ran out of parts before we came. But that would mean they were doing this for a few…..Princess! I think they knew we’d be invading around this time! And I don’t mean this museum, I mean our entire invasion!”

(Azneth) “They did. We had several serious information leaks, some excusable ones from prattler scouts that didn’t know their lover’s homes were bugged, and those that were tortured by that Valkyrie. And an inexcusable one from that turncoat alp, Renard. He used to be in Modia’s inner circle, until Epsilon Lime captured him. He sold us out on every single plan and rumor he could remember, all so he could live in comfort with an endless supply of all the long, dark underwater cylinders that his pucker can take. Bastard! I’ll sterilize him for that!”

(Stacey) “How did you find out that he was the major leak?”

(Azneth) “Because Modia herself was almost hurt when her forces walked right into a field of claymore-type bomb-traps near Gettysburg! Right when they got here, right out the portal! Only Renard was privy to when and where they had planned to ‘port to, and he wasn’t there like he was supposed to be! And earlier this morning, my troops uncovered information at the capitol’s police headquarters, regarding the arrest of a male prostitute that fit Renard’s description."

"That arrest occurred only hours after he had left for Earth. He was declared a protected informant, then transferred to naval crime investigators, which is where I assume he was given to Epsilon Lime. We don’t even know a damned thing of where he and his faggot lovers are, since he went through multiple layers of witness protection, that led one of the Rosnair’s to a dead end at an empty apartment in eastern Philadelphia. It’s possible that he isn’t even in the United States anymore.”

(Stacey) “Really makes you wonder why your mom even thought it was a good idea to let the homos join us.”

(Terri) “Maybe she was afraid that we’d have difficulty competing with boy-pussy. After all, if you can’t beat them, then you ought to make ‘em join you.”

(Stacey) “Damn you, Terri! This is NOT the time to go rambling again about why you think twinks are the best kind of guy to mate with!”

(Terri) “And I’m going to KEEP rambling about them until I get one!”


(Azneth) “Shut up! Both of you! HE, is in there! My husband! My soulmate! I’m getting out, I’m going to take him, and then I’ll figure out how to properly share him with the soon-to-be Dark Valkyrie! If you want to come with me, if you want your own man, then let’s go!”

(Terri) “I’ll hold the fort down until y’all get back. Just save me a guy if you can find one! You know my type!”

(Stacey) “We will if we can, pervert.”

(With the museum’s parking lot crowded with cars, Azneth and her group find it a cakewalk to weave through the vehicle rows without being spotted. Only Margaret has a problem, due to height issues which would make her a bull’s-eye target [pun intended], so she splits away to slowly sneak around to the back of the complex. A few screams of shock and disbelief are heard from the Virginia National Guardsmen that are being slashed by Demon Silver, only seconds after their machine guns had critically failed to even slow down The Ultimate Hero.)

(As the cheers of the large wolfpack drown out the sound of footsteps, and the distant sounds of ambulance sirens and medevac helicopters slowly get louder and nearer, the Princess and her tactical troupe enter the building, to find that the front door security-men have been dragged out the front doors to be fucked into submission by several werewolves at the same time. Walking around the ongoing labors of love, the group quietly walks towards the ground floor balcony facing the incomplete Blackbird and the Space Shuttle Discovery. Azneth lifts her head up high, sniffing around to sense her would-be-lover’s aura.)

(At that same time, Sherry Phillips walks backwards towards the Engen Hangar, getting good footage of Secretary Non as he walks away from the B-29 bomber. Non briefly spins his head to scan the room, noticing Azneth and her group on the balcony. Freezing in panic, along with internal shock that his sentimental rant had cut so close, he fails to move when Azneth snaps her head at a lightspeed 90-degree angle, peering right into his eyes. If there were ever a time to play the theme from Ironside, it would be now.)

(Azneth) “I SEE YOU, MY DEAR!”

(SecHS Non) “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

(The Alaskan panics, grabbing his Uzi with his left hand, and pulling the Double Eagle from its holster with his right hand. Just as The Ultimate Hero joins his daughter on the balcony, Non fires wildly at the Kenkouan royalty, failing to land a single bullet, except for one that shreds right through Stacey’s left shoulder blade. The Night Gaunt drops to the floor screaming in pain as Non and Phillips madly dash for the hangar, Azneth, her father, and company rushing down the stairs in close pursuit. Four werewolves that had heard the commotion from the gift shop, also rush down a different stairway to join in on the chase. The Secretary and his associate make it into the hangar, as Phillips dodges a kikimora that fails an attempt to tackle her. Reaching the hangar, four technicians quickly shut the door behind them. As the wolf-bird-maid starts banging on the door and howling to direct reinforcements, Non assists with tossing an arc welder over to a technician to permanently shut the door. Noticing that some other incomplete vehicles are in the room, but not the Bell XV-15, Non speaks out.)

(SecHS Non) “Dude, where’s my VTOL!?”

(Technician #1) “Already outside, sir! This here’s the Sikorsky X2!”

(Phillips) “Then let’s blow this popsicle stand! What are your buddies waiting on?”

(Technician #2) “Well, we, uh, we’re taking our chances in CSM-104, that Apollo-Soyuz command module over there. I mean, these aliens are clearly here to hunt YOU guys down, so if we just wait it out in there, they’ll abandon this place, and we’ll be free to finish up on that L-5 Sentinel!”

(SecHS Non) “Oh, so WE’RE your diversion?”

(Technician #3) “Eeee-yup.”

(SecHS Non) “.............Listen up, you yellow-bellied cowards! We’re ALL getting on that Bell, and we’re ALL gonna help save America!”

(Technician #2) “Hate to break it to you, Mister Secretary-man, but we’re mechatronic college interns from Ontario Tech! Now we’re cool with fixing up your stuff to help Yank civilians out, but your military shit is NOT! OUR PROBLEM!”

(Non reloads his Uzi and Colt, intending to use Alphonse Capone’s adage regarding kind words and guns, to force the Canadians into cooperating. But right as he pulls the guns back up, the college interns pull out their own Inglis Hi-Powers, taken earlier from a barely-opened exhibit on a complete Avro Arrow Mark 1, on loan from the Canadian Air & Space Conservancy. Phillips lifts up her Browning BPS, while the American technician puts his hands up and speed-walks to the backdoor exit. He opens the door, only to immediately get his shirt collar grabbed by Margaret the Holstaur, who gags his mouth with her right breast, taking him back to the Mobile Command Center for forceful indulgence in her motherly fetishes. Now in a two-versus-three Mexican standoff, Non and Phillips need to think fast before The Ultimate Hero manages to cut down the door, with the banging of his sword getting louder and louder from the other side.)

(Technician #2) “Now, now, just hold your horses, cowboy! Don’t you think there’s better things to be wasting bullets on, than us? Like those skeets and their squatch boss right past that door, eh? Just get outta here and forget we ever existed.”

(SecHS Non) “......Fine.”

(The three interns climb into the command module, while Non and Phillips run out the door just in time to see Margaret turn the building’s corner with their technician. They move their heads to the north, attracted by the sound of propellers. The Sikorsky XR-4C is already flying off, while the Huey is just starting it’s take-off. The HH-52A is also starting it’s takeoff, as Non and Phillips rush to the open door of their VTOL ride. To Non’s disappointment, N703NA is not in the color scheme he had specifically requested. Unlike it’s V-22 Osprey descendant, the XV-15 only has a single side door for passengers, rather than two doors on each side and a back ramp.)

(Phillips) “Aw, hell. I hope that guy wasn’t our pilot.”

(SecHS Non) “Don’t think so, that ICE kid would’ve been with him if he was!”

(Rushing into the passenger entrance/exit, Non slips in without a problem, while Phillips nearly bumps her head against an FN MK 46 Mod 1, which had been added in a jury-rigging to give N703NA some measure of self-defense, or fire-support capabilities, however small. The two buckle into their seats, with Palmieri handling the door-mounted light machine gun. Joining the three are the pilot, one museum technician, Jake Taliente, and three Federal Protective Service officers, counting Whaley. Non notices that Wayne is missing, so he pulls out his phone to speed-dial him. Wayne answers halfway through the first ring.)

(SecHS Non) “Wayne! Where the hell are you? We’re FINALLY ditching this shitshow of a metropolitan area!”

(Wayne) “Sorry I didn’t tell you this earlier, my dude, but Mount Weather was always my priority! I just needed you guys to give me some safe passage over here! Sorry for the deception, but you know the rules of The Great Game! I’m in the Seaguard! Forget about me, you gotta go out there and do what you gotta do to save America! Just don’t forget me in the next world! Remember that I was always in your corner! Good luck, and we’ll meet again! Don’t know where, don’t know when!”

(The Central Intelligence deputy director abruptly hangs up, removes the SIM card from his burner phone, crushes it with his boot, then tosses the now-useless phone out the door. One of his fellow passengers, a Smithsonian security guard, looks at him confused.)

(Wayne) “OPSEC, you morons! That was a burner phone! There’s no chance in hell that I’m gonna have my phone’s signal traced, and there’s even less of a chance that I’d blab about where I’m going, to anyone that ain’t on a need-to-know basis! Fuck! Non blabbed! And now they’ll be on his ass till he gets to Nashville, assuming they aren’t already setting a trap for him!”

(Security guard) “So why didn’t you tell him?”

(Wayne) “Because if he dodges the city, then THEY might know that I know, which could put me on a higher priority list for capturing! Don’t you get it? We need to stay as under-the-radar as possible until the aliens call it quits, or the Earth gets a mushroom-cloud sendoff. As far as that Princess and her old man need to know, I’m still at Langley pissing myself under my office desk! And if John Wilkes Booth could give the Feds a good chase for twelve days straight with nothing but a horse, I’m sure we could last longer!”

(Security guard) “But….we ARE the Feds!”

(Wayne) “Exactly!”

(At the same time that Phillips gets into the VTOL, Azneth and her group reach the exit, as her father needed time to slice through the door with his original sword, gifted to him centuries ago by the Pope that ruled The Order, back when he first started on his quest against the Demon Lord that preceded his wife. Fourteen werewolves rush past the Hero, breaking for the exit. They rush outside, only to meet a hail of 5.56 gunfire from Palmieri and her new FN machine gun. Five of the canines are killed, and two injured, before they pile back into the hangar to let the Hero take point. Correctly guessing from the loud noise of flying machine engines that the elusive Secretary is about to escape again, he dashes out the door to find that he is too late. The VTOL is already hovering off, while some moving pot-shots from the Congresswoman bounce off of him. Clara and Brycie attempt to fly off to rip the pilot out, only to be shot to pieces by a Huey door gunner, the helicopter having had its original M60s reactivated.)

(The other Huey-riding gunner is ripped from his seat by a Gandharva reinforcement from Dulles International, while several of the wolves open fire on the XR-4C, using the fifty cals formerly operated by Donelly and Roberts, who are currently indisposed on account of their new Hellhound wives. Within five seconds, the heavy machine gun rounds utterly destroy the primitive helicopter’s engines, forcing them to make an emergency landing on the southern end of the Dulles airstrip. Both pilot and co-pilot bail out as the cockpit catches fire, breaking their legs on the tarmac on account of not having enough airspace to deploy their parachutes. As several of the wolves, kobolds, and kikimoras realize in horror what they’ve done, the men’s self-declared pack-wives seize and rush them to the airport’s medical facilities. With the last of the gunfire ceasing, Azneth and the rest of her accompanying forces rush out onto the backyard grass.)

(Azneth, pointing at the XV-15 that is currently flying off into the darkness of night, their lights all turned off.) “Daddy! Is that them?”

(The Ultimate Hero) “It most certainly is. That southern Congresswoman was the one shooting at us.”

(Azneth) “How many…..oh. Five. By the first Lord, five too many! Death! Death, is what HE always manages to leave in his wake! A trail of bodies and broken men and women, all the way from the legislative center to here! When does it end!? WHEN!? He can’t keep getting away with this! There’s got to be some way to find out where he’s going! What could possibly be waiting for him to the southwest? I’m going back inside! There might be clues of… something! I don’t know!”

(Stacey, currently getting her wound patched up by a Dwarven paramedic, attempts to soothe her conscience, only for the Hero to shut her down.)

(The Ultimate Hero) “Before you say anything, Lady Stacey, I must warn you that she was placed in charge of conquering this city. And for all her genius, of the sort that I must say, surpasses her more outspoken sisters like Druella, what does she have to show for it? Certainly, her efforts to convert the civilian population has been an outrageous success, along with neutralization of the American communication networks and their overall capability to counterattack, but at what cost!? She takes it upon herself to assume responsibility for every single casualty, every woman who failed to get a man, every man that has escaped our loving grasp.”

(Stacey) “But that’s not fair, sir! There’s too many variables, too many possibilities to account for! You CAN’T win a war without casualties! Even on your old planet, that must have been true as well!”

(The Ultimate Hero) “Yes, to some extent. The presence of Demonic Realms, and the energy that imprinted itself onto inhabitants, made casualties immeasurably rare due to their healing capabilities. Along with the fact that the firearm and rocket technology of this world vastly exceeds the flintlocks and fireworks that The Order had barely managed to put into mass-production before their bitter end. And of course, the obvious presence of artillery and weaponized flying machines. Without these things, the physical traits of most Mamono made swords, spears, and muskets into a triviality in the majority of battles. Some of the better Heroes and highly competent warriors could last for a time, until sheer numbers overtook them. Sheer numbers! THAT, was what Druella considered to be her grand strategy for conquest here!”

(Rehema) “I had heard that her first great victory was in the conquest of a major kingdom called “Lescatie.” And all she did was the same thing that Azneth tried to do with the Yank government. To show disgruntled women of high political and military standing, just how much better their lives would be if they joined us. Then all the bloody dominoes would fall into place, or so the plan went.”

(The Ultimate Hero) “Most did, but it is clear now that the Valkyrie had warned Mister Non of this tactic, and so they used our own strategy to lure us into several layers of traps. And that’s another thing that angers Azneth so much. Because she was just following Druella’s advice. If she had devised her own strategy from the start, it’s possible that she and the Valkyrie would already be filled with the gifts of that man’s loins. But you are correct, Lady Stacey. Let’s go inside and cheer my poor daughter up.”

(They rush back inside to the lower museum floor, passing by a Cheshire cat-woman and two Weresheep, who quickly salute the Hero before entering the Engen Hangar. At the floor, they find Azneth slowly pacing around, her face on the floor.)

(Rehema) “My lady, what on Earth are you doing?”

(Azneth) “Trying to trace his footsteps by following his scent! He was standing right here when we saw him, so I’ll start from here!”

(Stacey) “Ew! Don’t tell me you’re one of those foot fetish fucks!”

(Azneth) “I’m not! But it’s the easiest way to trace his scent, other than his armpit stench! And it leads right to this plane…..oh my goodness.”

“It’s….you.”

(Rehema) “Who? Who’s you? Who’s….oh shit. Enola Gay! That’s the bloody Hiroshima bomber!”

(Azneth) “It is. So YOU, are the legendary metal bird that killed more humans in a single day than some Demon Lords have been able to do in an entire career. Enola Gay. Hardly even half the size of a single pre-morph dragon, though your wingspan is impressive. Take a good look, ladies. As well as you, father. Non must have taken the time to pay reverence to this steel beast. To a man who wishes to drown our worlds in atomic fire, I suppose that to him, Lady Gay is the closest thing he has to a goddess worth worshiping. We stood at that balcony, an unwitting offering of blood to the great Atom-Splitter that stands before us. As my mother changed the fate of our entire world with her transmogrification spell, so has this lady single-handedly changed another world’s fate. By imitating the power of the stars, laying waste to a city, to an empire, with her baleful gaze of unshackled heat and disease. She is the harbinger of this age, bringing an end to unceasing millennia of empire versus empire in increasingly destructive and cruel methods of open-battle warring. Until we arrived, the great nations of Earth warred in the shadows, in the stock markets, on the airwaves, and in the computing servers. Her descendants would threaten to deliver even harsher balefire upon whomever would upset that….order, that had been established with the downfall of the Japanese dynasty and their European allies.”

“Miss Gay’s children go by many names. From the Tu-4 and B-50, to the Tu-95 and B-52, titanium wretches that, where their progenitor would annihilate a city, they could erase entire nations, just a single metal bird. Once this land becomes a Demonic Realm, perhaps we could be able to animate her, and the others here. Will she be ashamed of what she did? Of what horrors she unleashed? Or would she have evil joy in her actions, pride in how powerful her progeny has become, how they rival gods in what destruction they can deliver? No matter. I’m going to stop the Secretary. Stop him before he can send BILLIONS to the same fiery fate that Lady Gay sent the poor inhabitants of Hiroshima to. Do you hear me, mechanical monster! I’m going to send you and your sister to the dustbin of history! To leave you two as nothing more than relics of terror, of an age that no sane being would ever wish to return to. You will continue to exist, while I render your actions into a zero-sum, your service to your nation, worthless. While I send your children to the scrap heap, as their purpose for existence will no longer exist. You and the nation you served will be nothing but sad memories to frighten Mamono children, with just how many close calls their ancestors had before we enlightened this world. Let’s go, father. Let’s show that Alaskan, that murdering piece of shit, just who the FUCK does he think he’s dealing with!?”

(Rehema) “What are you scheming, my Lady?”

(Azneth) “I know where Non’s going. One of the workers saw the pilot of their vehicle input the coordinates for that city’s main airport. That worker had informed of this just before his new kikimora wife took him to have some privacy at a mini-theatre somewhere in this building. Margaret confirmed it over the radio, she’s mating with one of the engineers that was following the Secretary, he saw those coordinates as well.”

(She reactivates her radio.) “Admiral Addams!”

(Addams) “Yes, Princess?”

(Azneth) “I’m at the Air & Space Museum Annex! Are there any airplanes at Dulles International that could carry a police Mobile Command Center? Something fast!”

(Addams) “Well, that would be a complete cakewalk for a Boeing C-17 Globemaster. There’s nothing at Dulles but Dreamlifters, and that would take quite a while to load your vehicle inside. The Pentagon left three Globemasters at Ronald Reagan International, though. Top speed on those babies is six-hundred-twenty miles per hour. You could make it in about 25 minutes if you go warp factor over there."

(Azneth) “Excellent! Prepare one, with as much fuel as possible! You’re in command until I return!”

(Addams) “What exactly is the occasion?”

(Azneth) “Secretary Non has escaped the city, and I must pursue him! Send out a warning to all our forces west of the capitol, that he is currently in a white helicopter-airplane hybrid with blue stripes, and a NASA logo on the tail! According to this plaque, it’s called a ‘Boeing XV-15’! We’re on our way to that airport, have our plane ready on the runway right as we get there!”

(Addams) “Acknowledged! They’ll be ready, my lady. Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing!”

(Azneth) “Yes, yes, eyes on the road and all that! Azneth out!”

(She puts her radio back into her pocket, now addressing her group.)

“Pardon my flippancy, ladies, but methinks we need some new muscle. Shall we go and find some of these wolves that haven’t found a man yet? We need at least two-”

(Unknown voice) “Make that one!”

(In a zip of over-dramatic effort, a particular Papillon does a spinning leap off of the balcony onto the display Vought F4U-1D Corsair, right as Azneth and her entourage prepare to climb the staircase to said balcony. She nearly slides off the left wingtip, but manages to get a stable grip using the balcony railing.)

(Papillon) “Fairfax County Deputy Sheriff Ann Wilkinson, reporting for duty!”

(Azneth) “Well met, Deputy! What brings you here, and what’s your game in joining us?”

(Wilkinson) “Well, firstly, I know that my soulmate took off on a different helicopter than yours, so here’s the deal. I help you get your man, then you help me get mine!”

(Azneth) “It’s a deal! I’m not a Demon, nor any sort of Imp, so you’ll have to excuse the lack of paperwork or signatures. So what do you bring to the fight?”

(Wilkinson) “You’re looking at the three-years-running champion of the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Department yearly marksman competition, in both revolver classes of speed and range! Laugh if you want, but while you suckers were speeding around with your thumbs up your snatches, I managed to disable that Secretary’s vehicle, if you’ve noticed the wheels and front dashboard.”

(Rehema) “So where in Juno’s name were you this whole time?”

(Wilkinson) “Long story, they disabled my motorcycle at the same time. A while back on the highway. Thankfully, I regrouped with this one cat, and we flagged down a Peterbilt to get here. Nice folks, that Dullahan driver and her husband. Poor girl needed to duct tape her neck to keep that head in place at every stop.”

(Azneth) “Well, you certainly came closer than anyone else besides my daddy and I. Good enough, you’re in. Now about another one….you there!”

(The Princess looks over the balcony to point at a High Orc that looks lost and confused.)

(High Orc) “Ayo, where ‘da black men at?”

(Rehema) “Grotty, another fetish freak.”

(Stacey) “We’re magical mutants with super-duper sex drives, ‘Elizabeth the Third’. Get used to it! You say ‘fetish’, an intellectual says ‘a type.’

(Rehema) “And I do say that being too specific with your choice in men will lead to nothing short of disappointment.”

(Stacey) “True, but that doesn’t make me wrong.”

(High Orc) “That was a joke, you blue waffles. No lie, I’ll take any guy that puts a decent effort in at the gym”
 
(Azneth) “I’m afraid that I have to cut this short. We’re chasing down one of the top American politicians, and he probably has the chance to use their superweapons. Now since Non didn’t just swooce into Reagan or Dulles to hijack a plane, it’s my best hypothesis that he’s got some angle. If all he needed to do for launch authorizations was to get out of range, he’d have found a much faster vehicle than the one he’s in right now. He needs something at his destination, and I don’t know what. So we’re going to outrun him to that destination, and we’ll try to find out just what that thing is. He’s too slippery to engage in open battle, so the best way to take him down is to lay a trap, and pray to whatever higher being you worship that he falls for it. Because we have another entire city to lay a net over, and there is a realistic chance that he may completely evade us. But there is an equal chance that we’ll be able to get the drop on him. With that knowledge, Miss….?”

(High Orc) “Chloe Bernice.”

(Azneth) “With that knowledge, Miss Bernice, are you still in?”

(High Orc) “Fuck it, I’m in. I needed a good reason to get out of this city anyways!”

(Azneth) “Then follow us! We ride immediately!”

(Stacey) “Where to? What’s his destination?”

(Azneth) “My friends, tell me everything you know about Nashville, Tennessee!”


Washington, District of Columbia
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Presidential Emergency Operations Center
January 2nd, 20--
8:43 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Senator Dupree) “They did it! They’re clear! I repeat, Palmieri and Non managed to get a new ride at Udvar-Hazy! They have flown the coop, they’ve left official D.C. airspace! Someone tell the Valkyrie! She’s clear to head out for Offutt!” 

(Secretary of the Interior Lawrence) “Alright, alright, alriiiiiight! Can anyone gimme a sitrep?”

(General Hoboken) “Hoboken here. I’m at the second floor security room, I’ve got eyes all over! We’ve lost our outer ring of anti-air batteries, but they managed to shoot down two airliners that didn’t respond to our IFFs! We have reason to believe they were packed with enemy paratroopers. We’ve lost all our outer defenses, but our air support pulled through and carpet-bombed the National Mall! Most of their southern reinforcements, and those encampments, are blasted to bits, but it’s still a steady stream from the north! All our vehicles are gone, and they’re currently trying to scale the roof, even over piles of their own casualties!”

(Meanwhile on the rooftop, Eydis of Kurgania, Seal Team Two, the Norfolk ‘knights,’ fourteen Capitol Police officers, eight Marines, 1st Lieutenant Wollcroft, and Senior Airman Petrov, are tossing every bullet they can at the hordes of Mamono trying to climb onto the roof, as Addams has ordered that it would be the least costly tactic for flooding the building with their troops. Wollcroft and Petrov overhear Senator Dupree’s order, just as they run out of bullets. Both nod in agreement to run for the ammunition pile right next to Eydis, replacing their spent magazines while informing her of the strategic development. All rooftop troops have been cycled out into varying degrees of MOPP Level Three and Four gear, done in response to a well-timed maneuver involving a slurry of prisoner fruit aerosol grenades, nineteen minutes earlier.)

(Petrov) “Hey, Angel! Your boyfriend managed to find another chopper to blast out of the city! He’s already left the local airspace, on his way to do that Phase Five thing, whatever it is!”

(Wollcroft) “Guess we owe you now for losing that bet on him getting outta that crash! Sucks for Marston, though!”

(Eydis) “How so?”

(Wollcroft) “Your SO’s first ride slammed right into the General’s private boat!”

(Eydis) “Oh, truly a shame indeed! But I thank you for the update! I’ll be off now, but there’s one last thing I need to do!”

(Petrov) “Do what!?”

(Eydis) “You’ll see! My only hint is that you all ought to brace yourselves! Best of luck, my friends! Believe that my love will seize victory from Lilith’s hands, just as he believes that you can keep this palace secure!”

(She drops her Glock 18 to raise both of her hands out towards the sky, as Cupid rooftop snipers focus their fire on her. Tranquilizers, bullets of the conventional, explosive, and Demonic Silver-tipped sorts, all bounce off of the shield she has formed around herself and the two warriors conversing with her. The Cupids have enough common sense to tell that she’s about to unleash an offensive spell of some sort. And offensive it is, as her body begins to glow across her body, starting from her fingers to her toes. Yellow sparkles form around Eydis, similar in appearance to fireflies, rising slowly from the ground towards the sky. About twenty feet above her, the sparkles form together into a pillar reaching another one hundred feet into the sky. The Valkyrie closes her eyes, and fifty-two seconds later, she opens them to a blinding glow of the Old Testament variety. She recalls an ancient Earth account of a prophet who parted a sea with the power of his faith. Today, she will use her faith to part the sky.)
 


Two-hundred and fifty-one miles above sea level
The International Space Station
Rassvet Service Module 
Presently in a geosynchronous orbit over Kourou Administrative District, French Guiana

Current crew status as of 10:42 Greenwich Mean Time -3 : 
Leon Mikhaylov (Flight Engineer, stable)
Gustave Vanderlin (Flight Engineer, unstable)
Shaina Amos (Flight Engineer, stable)
Edmund Kimball (Commander, stable)
Soga Atsuko (Flight Engineer, compromised)
Leonardo Alencar (Tourist, compromised)
Leia III (Extraterrestrial, hostile) 

{priority note to Benhall and Paris-Daumesnil, hostile insists that we refer to her as ‘Dragon,’ rather than ‘extraterrestrial’}
 
-Commander Edmund Kimball, still here, still human
 
(Atsuko) “Open this door RIGHT NOW, Gustave! You want me….. I KNOW you want me! Do you think that I HAVEN’T seen you take glimpses at those pictures of geisha strippers? Of those video-whores that suspiciously resemble me? How your thick stick bulges through your scrubs when you exit the tab thinking I don’t know? You’ve even resorted to hentai, you poor, poor man! Just one little step, love! Just one press of a button! Just disengage the door lock, and we’ll join the Two-Hundred-Fifty Mile High Club! You wanted to win a record, Gustave! Here’s your chance! We’ll be the first Earthlings to mate, to conceive, IIIIIINNN SPACE! I know you’re lying if you haven’t thought of me in a stretched jumpsuit floating around, or preparing a sponge bath, or resting in a zero-gravity sleeping bag! Stretched by the growing children that we cou-that we WILL have, once you unlock this damn door!”

(Amos) “So that mic’s one-way, right? Do moths have heightened hearing?”

(Mikhaylov) “No indication that she can. But you know what? Let’s test it.”

“Atsuko, you dumb wool-muncher whore! Your mother was a JAV star, your father was a NEET, and your sister is comfort woman in Seoul, paid in Fried Kentucky Chickens!”

(Atsuko) “Guuuuuuuussssssstaaaaaaavvvvvveeeeee!!!!!!! Please! Leia and Leo have a module all to themselves! We can have one just for us, too! Amos and whichever of those two she picks get their own! For science, Gustave! We HAVE to know how long it takes for a baby to gestate up here! Or if it takes a longer or shorter timetable for her to come out! Or even if the act of bearing your daughter is different or not! There’s only one way to solve any of these riddles!”

(The station’s resident Russian presses a button to activate a remote speaker.)

(Mikhaylov) “Bold of you to already assume that the child will be a daughter.”

(Atsuko) “There’s a LOT you don’t know about Leia’s world! We’re astronauts, Leon! I don’t believe for a second that you’re not interested in exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life, or new civilizations! Leia is the answer to all three!”

(Mikhaylov) “I’m a cosmonaut! COSMONAUT!”

(He takes his hand off the push-to-talk microphone.)

(Mikhaylov) “So, they cannot hear us. Amos, my friend. I must head over to that door, stand guard in case those three try to smash their way through. If you would please, go see if Kimball and the baguette have re-contacted anybody yet.”

(Amos) “Stand guard? With what? As much as I want to see the first real fistfight in zero-gravity, or even the first ever fistfight with a dragon, also in zero-gravity, you can’t actually think you can win, right?”

(Mikhaylov) “Fear not! For I have a weapon as grand as the swords of archangels! Behold! The mighty fire extinguisher! The natural bane of those who harness fire! It is only the bestest weapon you can take to a dragonslaying.”

(Amos) “Your big tactical move…. is to bonk them. Roscosmos ingenuity at it’s finest. But it beats nothing, I guess.”

(The Russian and the American float off into the Zarya module, separating afterwards. Commander Amos heads towards the other side of the station, crossing from the Russian Orbital Segment to its American counterpart, while Polkovnik Mikhaylov takes his empty weaponized cylinder to hold by the now-sealed entrance to the Zvezda Service Module where their three enemies lie, in complete control of that portion of the Russian Service Module. Doctor Atsuko pounds on the sealed door in futility, while Alencar and the alien intruder are busy creating the Two-Hundred-Fifty Mile High Club from inside the Nauka science module. Amos reaches Node One, also known as the Unity module, finding her fellow Commander Kimball operating a laptop, without their French associate.)

(Kimball) “Oi! Where’s Leon? Oh God, they got him too, didn’t they?”

(Amos) “Calm down! He’s fine. He’s just keeping a close eye on our ‘problem.’ If something happens, he’ll yell, and we’ll hear him. We’ve been up here for five weeks now! But about that, where’s Gustave?”

(Kimball) “He’s in the Columbus. It’s downright ghastly. The poor sod’s been on his laptop all this time, keeping a camera-eye on the good Doctor. He’s not insane, Shaina. He’s just incredibly depressed. And I think he believes that somewhere inside that nubile insectoid mutation, the real Soga is still in there. He’s waiting for all that horny to burn itself out. And I doubt it will, from what these data packages say.”

(Amos) “What DO they say?”

(Kimball) “It's all about biological facts that MI5 and your army’s Delta Force ‘ave been gleanin’ from captured advance scouts over the previous months. According to this, there IS no ‘off-switch’ for The Big Horny. It all comes down to their personalities, altered or otherwise. Astronomically few of them can behave themselves in a proper society, which makes it infinitesimally unlikely that our two monstrous maidens will be able to keep their hands off us. And I DO mean ‘us.’ Going back over the footage, it’s clear that while that reptile enjoying fucking Soga’s snatch with her tail and playing with her tits, it was a means to an end. Once Soga started….metamorphosing, Miss Leia made a beeline for Mister Alencar, and she hasn’t let go since.”

(Amos) “So you’re saying they’re only temporarily gay for the purpose of force multiplication?”

(Kimball) “Not the words I’d use, but that’s pre-CIS-ly it! It adds up with what our friends at Hexagone Balard and Moscow had to say on that topic. The Pentagon and my own folks haven’t been too forthcoming on that aspect, unfortunately. You ask me, I think they got cut off before they finished transmitting to Houston.”

(Amos) “Yeah, about that! Are we back in business with H-town?”

(Kimball) “Nope. The whores of the stars have the place. I only found out about it four minutes ago, from an intercepted Mexican army transmission. I tried to break through to them, but I was mistaken for a prank caller. Understandable, given the situation.”

(Amos) “Alright, well, keep trying. I’m going to see if I can slap some sense into the snail-chomper.”

(She heads further down the station, reaching Node 2, AKA the Harmony module. Turning right, she finds Marianne’s sole interstellar representative in the Columbus module, as expected. His laptop is floating, and still turned-on, but unattended as Capitaine Vanderlin is curled into the corner. Amos knocks on a metal portion of the wall, gaining his attention. Gustave’s eyes are red from excess crying, and he puts on a terrible excuse for a smile, while pointing at the IBM Thinkpad’s screen to gain Shaina’s attention. It’s a camera view into the portion of the Zvezda Service Module that connects to the Poisk and Nauka modules, however the Nauka is sealed off for love-making reasons. Doctor Atsuko is still right by the door, by now she’s also undergoing a mental breakdown, crying in frustration as she spins around the room in zero-gravity.)

(Vanderlin) “Open that door. Keep Nauka sealed, get Leon into Harmony. I’ll wait inside Rassvet, lure her in, then you will seal us off as well. There is enough food in there to last a week, and you three will be able to re-access the rest of the Russian side. It’s the only way. Please understand, I NEED her. Can’t you see, we need each other. I’ve been as professional as I can on this voyage. I have patiently waited for all of us to land before admitting how I feel about Soga. Now?! There is no longer anyone to punish us for being true to ourselves, unless Kimball was serious about the threat to empty out our airlocks.”

(Amos) “You saw the info on what the aliens and mutants can do to us, Gustave. You KNOW they’ll turn ya' into one of those incubus-things.”

(Vanderlin) “I know. And I do not care anymore. If we’re all stranded here, then I shall make for the most time that I can have with her. Before we completely run out of subsistence. To be frank, I don’t think they’ll be sending anything up to rescue us. I don’t think anyone down there, even cares anymore that we’re still up here. And that is not even considering the possibility that atomic war could ha---”

(Kimball’s voice thunders through the American section, interrupting Gustave.)

(Kimball) “Bloody well done, my Frankish friend! You’ve jinxed us!”

(Amos) “What!?”

(Kimball) “I’ve established contact with the Marshall Flight Center, and right on time. We’ve got quite a few…. important…. things to report.”

(Amos) “Huntsville’s still online! Yes! You hear that, Escargot! We’re back in action!”

(Gustave) “So what is this ‘jinx’? The chance of starvation?”

(Kimball) “No. Look out the Cupola. You’ll see.”

(The two head up, as the Liverpool scouser floats over to grab a headset to speak with the ground-bound NASA facility.)

(Amos) “Holy shit! And I thought the volcanoes were the worst. Oh my god, oh my god. We ARE gonna die up here.”

(Gustave) “Just as I thought.”

(Kimball) “Huntsville, Huntsville! Are you reading me? This is ISS Station Commander Edmund Kimball! Are you receiving?”

(A voice crackles for the first few words, clearing up by the end of the first sentence.)

(Voice) “ISS, we read you. We've been having problems with patching into your feed, you’re going to have to manually turn on your webcam.”

(Kimball) “Done.”

(Voice) “Thank you. Oh, praise baby Jesus, you’re still human! Space Force Tech Sergeant Jim Lyman here. We heard the last message from Canaveral, something about an alien stowaway. Mind giving us a quick rundown on what happened since contact was lost? Canaveral and Houston are compromised, and Vandenburg’s on lockdown and radio silence.”

(Kimball) “Righty-O. The reptilian alien, a female that calls herself “Leia the Third”, appears to have teleported right into the Harmony module, upon which she immediately dove for the airlock of Zvezda, to attack and sexually violate Doctor Atsuko. After transforming the good Doctor into some sort of moth-woman, they cornered our SpaceX guest, Senhor Alencar. Leia then dragged him to the Nauka module for some privacy, where they are still having intercourse. In response, we have sealed off the entire Russian Orbital Segment, save for the Zarya and Rassvet. Thirty-three minutes ago, the two lovers shortly paused their fornicating to use that module’s Orlan-MKS space suits.”

(Lyman) “You’re telling me that a dragon was able to fit in an Orlan?”

(Kimball) “With difficulty, to be fair. And of course, she had to keep her wings retracted at all times, once Atsuko explained what a suit breach would do.”

(Lyman) “I take it that they tried to do an EVA to circumvent your deck-sealing, with a space-stroll over to one of our ‘Yank’ airlocks.”

(Kimball) “Completely correct. They tried to get in through the Bishop, but we had already used the manual overrides to keep them locked from the outside. If you can send anyone up here, you’ll have to dock at the Russian section, and fight your way through. If guns are necessary, don’t worry. We’ll have our own space suits on in case of decompression or life support failure. They gave up after trying to break in again through the Quest, and now they’re back in the Nauka, fucking some more.”

(Lyman) “Hot damn, did you record any of that? As fucked as the whole thing is, we’ve got the first monster-astronaut, and first spacewalk of their kind! Some of that info might be useful for the few friendly ones.”

(Kimball) “Yes, yes, it’s all right here. Sending the data to your center’s public e-mail address. The Google one.”

(Lyman) “We’ll get someone on that ASAP.”

(The Technical Sergeant’s voice is now muffled, after yelling to some civilian intern to keep an eye out for the incoming e-mail.)

(Lyman) “So, sure is a shame that it’s a day late for that intruder of yours to be considered ‘first contact.’”

(Kimball) “Ha! Funny thing ‘bout that. It was thinking about that Star Trek movie that reminded us to double-check on the airlocks. Turning humans into ‘upgraded’ and brainwashed abominations, with the intention of adding our civilizations to theirs? Our ‘biological and technological distinctiveness to their own’? Seems that we’re dealing with a magic and horny version of the ‘Borg’! Think their leader’s as smokin’ as Alice Krige?”

(Lyman) “Hol’ up! You think that bald greasy chick with the green veins and all those wires and tubes in her fuckin’ head, was sexy? Wow, now that’s what I call a fetish!”

(Kimball) “Shut it! Until less than an hour ago, I ‘aven’t seen T&A in over three months! Not even the risque stuff via the Internet! Your mind goes places when that happens! Places that I’m not proud to admit, but places nevertheless!”

(Lyman) “Alright, alright, I get it. Well, there’s a Soyuz at Vandenburg waiting for last-minute checkups and fueling. International cooperation, Noviy Glasnost and all that jazz. Whoever wins, they’ll probably send it up and bring y’all home. Anything else to report?”

(Kimball) “Yeah. We can see all those Pacific Ring ash clouds, just beginning their roll around the world. We’re looking at probably a three-degree drop in temperature, celsius of course. It’s indubitably going to be another Year Without a Summer. Maybe two.”

(Lyman) “ So it’s shaping up to be a shitty autumn and a catastrophic winter. Stay cool, ESA is probably going to comp you guys and your families to hang around French Guiana until the weather’s back to normal.”


(Kimball) “You’re probably already aware of India, Pakistan, and the Utah thing, and we have smoke trail footage to confirm that the American launch came from eastern Montana. Give us another hour, we can trace that trail down to a two-mile radius. We saw the detonations from here. Along with the one in central Colorado. It was NORAD, wasn’t it?”

(Lyman) “Eeeeeyup. Sucks for them, but if there was ever a place with an H-bomb booby trap, it was Cheyenne Mountain. That completely fucked up all our communications with other agencies and military branches. Truth is, we’re almost flying blind. Not just NASA, I mean the United fuckin’ States of America is flying blind. We’ve lost contact with the ESA and Roscosmos too. Most comms satellites, compromised! Most of the TV broadcasting and radio stations? Compromised! Most of the Internet’s been DDoS’d or their servers fried, and we've even got a few reports of suckers getting lured into ambushes through Morse Code! Those E.T. sluts deffo saw Independence Day!”

(Amos) “Eddy! Get over here! Bring the laptop, NASA’s gotta see this too!”

(The Englishman and his laptop float up into the Cupola module and into the observation area, all shutters unlocked. Moving the laptop’s camera to face North America, the three astronauts are stunned into silence.)

(Lyman) “W-what the fuck is that?”

(Amos) “I-it a-a-appears to be the, uhh, the g-glowing ice crystals that, uh, Friendship 7 saw back in ‘62. Looks just like the kind that was in The Right Stuff. John Glenn’s fuh-fireflies! That’s gotta be a shitton, for us to see it from here! They appear to be converging over the US Atlantic seaboard, and I have zero clues as to why they’re glowing! Maybe it’s some kind of message?”

(Vanderlin) “They’ve got to be connected to all of those plasmasphere anomalies that we were tracking last year.”

(Kimball) “Damned right at that. But why over there, of all places? Most of those anomalies occurred over Antarctica or the Pacific, which……”

“Oh good Lord. Those anomalies were intelligently designed! They picked the least crowded places to avoid interference! It’s these Makai aliens! They’ve been the culprits! But for what?”

(Lyman) “Beats me, ISS. That info’s way above my pay grade. Maybe it’s a----HOLY FUCK!”

(The pulsating glow transforms into an aurora-like wave of yellow, then suddenly converges into a bright dandelion-yellow ball about ten miles wide. The ball then violently discharges three rods of bright plasma down to the Earth. A mild shockwave erupts through the interstellar void, slightly shaking the ISS, enough for Kimball to butterfinger the laptop, causing Huntsville to lose orbital sight of North America, as the laptop spins 80 degrees before stopping, acquiring a good look at the upper-atmosphere vapor trails of Indian and Pakistani ballistic missiles, streaking on the other side of the globe.)

(Lyman) “I’ve lost sight! What was that? What!? Talk to me, ISS!”

(Vanderlin) “Orbital laser strike, obviously. Have you people got any ideas on what kind of person could do that? That was certainly no machine.”

(Lyman) “Not a damn clue. Any idea where it hit?”

(Amos) “It struck somewhere in the mid-Atlantic region! Baltimore, Philadelphia maybe? That whole area’s covered in clouds from the Chesapeake to Cleveland! I can’t get a good lo-”

“Wait, Huntsville! Those laser-blast-things opened a hole in that cloud layer! Shit, that is something right out of an anime! It’s clearing up, there’s lights around, there’s a river, there’s…...oh my God, that’s the Potomac. Sergeant! See if you can patch us through to the White House! D.C. was the target!”


Washington, District of Columbia
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Presidential Emergency Operations Center
January 2nd, 20--
8:53 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Secretary of The Interior Lawrence) “Well, we’re still here, still alive! What WAS that?”

(Dupree) “The Valkyrie, that’s what. She did some kind of ritual to do some kind of space beam-cannon bombardment! Had to be lasers, this whole bunker would’ve caved in if they were Rods of God, pun intended. Still probably registered on the Richter scale, though. One hit Lafayette Square right by us, one hit the Pentagon, and the biggest one struck Arlington National Cemetery.”

(Lawrence) “But why the graveyard?”

(Dupree) “Best guess is that she wanted to nip a zombie infestation in the bud. Or ghosts, maybe. Let’s ask her. Oh….. Shit.”

(Lawrence) “Oh shit for what?”

(Dupree) “Eyewitnesses on the roof all confirm that she’s poofed into thin air! And someone else just got in the line, it’s…….. the ISS!?”
 
(A beleaguered Sergeant-Major Wheeling knocks on the door, his voice pushing through.)

(Wheeling) “Hey, hey, you punks! That Jap Secretary done went and ditched us, then she blew that secret Metro subway exit!”
 

Wright Field, Hangar 11
Dayton Metropolitan Area, Ohio
January 2nd, 20--
8:57 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone

(Voice) “Orders confirmed, this is Senior Master Sergeant Ellis Walsh, Civil Air Patrol. We’re rolling onto the airstrip, we’re loaded, and we’re ready to go. What’s next, mister Secretary?”

(Secretary of Homeland Security Non) “Get off the ground, ASAP! Then head straight up, your next orders will come out of that fax-looking machine. It’s wired to the altimeter, so the message will only come through once you reach an altitude of at least 22,000 feet. You’re in a B-29, so your max ceiling ought to be at 31,000. Remember, Walsh. I had your crew hand-picked from World War 2 plane reenactors, and you’ve got two guys from the 655th ISR Wing. I wouldn’t have given the lady to you guys if I didn’t think you could handle her. Thank God I called. The folks at the Smithsonian said she wasn’t ready, but those Wright-Pat engineers actually pulled through! You’ve got two nukes, and I had ‘em built just like back in the good old days, so you don’t need an EAM from the President to drop those heaters. The message will give you the targets, and the post-mission rendezvous. Is the ATC going to give you any lip?”

(Walsh) “Probably. She’s a procedure stickler, and this mission ain’t exactly official, sir.”

(SecHS Non) “Head out anyways. I’ll deal with ‘em.”

(The Secretary hangs up, then quickly calls the commanding officer of Offutt AFB, Brigadier General Rockwell Hudson.)

(SecHS Non) “Hudson! How’s tricks?”

(Hudson) “Cut the funnies, Eskimo, what’s with the call?”

(SecHS Non) “Well, I got three questions. First, have you got any reports about a blonde Viking woman with a sword?”

(Hudson) “Yeah, we did. She’s a friendly, and she just made contact with the 2nd Weather Squadron’s security forces. Right now, she’s on her way to assist with the campaign to retake Omaha. She said she was working with you, so we’re just following her lead, since she seems to know a helluva lot about dealing with these aliens. What is she? Like, Captain Iceland or something? Norwegian Wonder Woman?”

(SecHS Non) “That’s top-level classified, but not for long. Got a name for the campaign yet?”

(Hudson) “Affirmative. It’s Operation Clearance Sale. You see, everything must go.”

(SecHS Non) “Heh, well that’ll be a knee-slapper for the history books. Second thing, how’s STRATCOM?”

(Hudson) “They’re safe, and I’ve tripled security on their part of our base. Mostly local militia folks guarding the outer areas, opening up space for our security forces with the right clearances to focus on the VIP sector. Admiral Rogers is with me on the other side of the room, she’s still all shook up from an attempted kidnapping yesterday, but she’s physically fine. They got her mother though. She's been turned into one of those red lizard-women, we've had to restrain her in the brig with a straightjacket.”

(SecHS Non) “Shit. Isn’t her mom pushing 80?”

(Hudson) “81, actually.”

(SecHS Non) “My sympathies either way. Third thing, then. I need you to patch me through to Wright-Pat Field’s ATC tower. Fleischer’s still at the base, but he can’t get through. And it’ll take too long for his fat ass to waddle up there. I need to talk to them, and I need to do it five minutes ago!”

(Hudson) “The main control tower’s center?”

(SecHS Non) “Yes!”

(Hudson) “You got it. Just hold on for another minute. So where are YOU?”

(SecHS Non) “That’s classified. Buuuut, I can say that I’m safe, I’m in a VTOL, and I just managed to slip out of D.C. That ion-cannon-thingy is sure gonna take the heat off of me, which was all part of the plan.”

(Hudson) “Jesus H. Christ, you were still in Washington? You must’ve SEEN that orbital strike then!?”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah, that was the Valkyrie’s work all right. I’ve been helping her for some time now with rooting out alien spies and saboteurs, but I never knew she was THAT powerful! I can’t believe this! I asked her to make a light show, not a Death Star! She’s been holding back on us this whole t---. Eh, she must’ve had a good reason. I’ll ask her the next time we meet.”

(Hudson) “I’ll hold you to that. So here’s Wright-Pat on the line. I’m going to escort Rogers to a more secure room, she’s beginning to lose it. See you on the other side, Captain Alaska.”

(A new voice comes in over the phone.)

(Voice) “This is Major Erikson, 557th Weather Wing. Identify yourself!”

(SecHS Non) “This is the Secretary of Homeland Security. I heard it through the grapevine that you’re giving a prop bomber crew some trouble. CUT IT OUT! They’re on a classified mission, so let ‘em through, or everyone in that room is gonna be guarding supply runs to Diego Garcia for the rest of their careers!”

(Erikson) “Uh-yuh-um-uh, y-yes sir! We’ll l-let ‘em through, effective immediately! Bockscar, the pattern is clear! Godspeed!”

(Non ends the call, looking around with his other passengers. Phillips and Palmieri have been talking amongst themselves, while the others are all trying to take a rest after going through the utter chaos of the last two days. With his call over, Phillips stops talking to look at the former Advisor, right into his eyes.)

(SecHS Non) “Is….something wrong?”

(Phillips) “Oh, no, no. Nothing's wrong. Me and the Rep were just talking! About….a few elephants in the room.”

(Palmieri) “She’s understating. You have a LOT of elephants in the room. So answer ‘em!”

(SecHS Non) “You know I can’t tell you everything about our next moves! That’s need-to-know, and you guys don’t need-to-know yet! What if another tentacle monster splits our assholes in half? What if we run into a Lilim? What if that Traitor Hero jumps out of a plane, smashes right through our ride, and dicks you ladies down? Then you’ll be brainwashed, and you’ll have all the steps to my master plan! Didn’t you morons see or read Watchmen? I am NOT giving out the master stroke until AFTER I do the stroke, no pun intended!”

(Whaley) “They’re not talking about your master plan to save America, or the world, or whatever. They’ve been talking about your personal life.”

(SecHS Non) “That…..I don’t wanna talk about it.”

(Palmieri) “No. We ARE gonna talk about it. I can see it on your face, pal. You’ve got issues and you need to vent. Admit it, we’re the best you’ve got right now.”

(SecHS Non) “Gabe put you up to this, didn’t he?”

(Palmieri) “From one tough guy act to another, he knows you’ve been hurting inside for a while now. Is it guilt? Are you feeling guilty that YOU’RE gonna be pushing The Big Red Button?”

(SecHS Non) “A bit, yeah. But it’s not the main thing. I’m…..mostly worried about my family.”

(Phillips) “Tell us about ‘em, then.”

(SecHS Non) “Well, there’s my mom and dad, of course. My older brother, his wife and kid, and my younger brother. My extended family doesn’t keep much contact with us. Or maybe it’s just me they avoid. It felt….like too much of a power abuse, you know? To use my position to get shit done in my personal life, besides keeping security tabs on my folks. I don’t know if they’ll make it. I don’t….even know if they’re safe. I don’t want Paul an-and Daniel, my little brother and my nephew, don’t want them to wind up as fuckpuppets for the Mamono."

"Don’t you see? They won’t love them for who they are inside! They’re just settling for the first unfortunate Tom, Dick, or Larry that they run into, then they mold themselves into being a dream-woman, and then the mold the guy’s brain into being a dreamboat! That’s unfair! It’s unfair to both sides! Y-y-you….are you guys getting it now? Nobody should have to be someone they aren’t, especially if it’s for getting a significant other! That’s the world that I’m trying to make! A world where I can dump all the stupid secrets we’ve hoarding over the decades, the CENTURIES, and everybody will be able to judge the past through the lenses of TRUTH! That’s why I’ve been funneling money and resources into helping Wayne rebuild MKULTRA! Not to reprogram Kenkouan minds! But to DE-program them! So they can face the world as just another person! To face the world as the people they truly are on on the inside! So we can judge them based on who they REALLY are! Not what the Demon Lord says that they ought to be!”
 
“This is about FREEDOM! Freedom from consequences! The freedom to be your own person, whether other people like it or not! And Royal Makai wants the opposite! They want to grab us all by the pussies and balls, domesticate us, put us all in little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky that all act just the same! If someone wants to do that on their own volition, then more power to ‘em! But I don’t want it! I want to have a relationship with a woman that I can love for who she really is, even at her worst! And, and all I ask is that she’ll love me for who I am on the inside, even at my own worst! They circlejerk themselves off all day about how their relationships are sOoOoOoOo pure, and oh-so-much better than ours, but that’s the biggest chunk of bullshit in existence! It’s a lie! All their relationships are built on lies! Whether the man lies to himself to accommodate their wife, or the woman lives a lie to accommodate her husband! How about neither! How about I flip the whole table, and make it so that there’s as few penalties as possible for being true to yourself, and to everybody else!”

(Phillips) “........You’re talking about rearranging civilization as we know it.”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah! I am! What, do you REALLY think we’re gonna come out of this intact? As a society? Yeah right! We’re gonna be as fractured as a broken mirror, and there’s gonna be a lot of folks looking for someone sane and strong to guide them! Someone like me, like Palmieri here, like Delvecchio, like…..like Governor Tunstall, down in Georgia! We have the power! We have the opportunity to make sure that the new America is led by the mighty and righteous, or they’ll meet the business end of Eydis’s blade, or I guess a fuckin’ space laser cannon!”

(Several of the FPS agents clap in approval, as Sherry Phillips coughs loudly as a motion for them to shut up.)

(Palmieri) “I believe you. That is, I think you’ll try. And I’m with you every step of the way. But here’s some food for thought. For all that talk about being honest with others and yourself, why haven’t you told the Valkyrie that you love her?”

(SecHS Non) “I-I-I-I……”

(The Alaskan is at a loss for words. And after about forty seconds of trying and failing to come up with something grandiose, he begins to break down in tears, knowing he’s on camera, but no longer caring.)

(SecHS Non) “Be-because I’m scared. Not about Eydis, but-but because of what it could do to us. I’m scared that the Demon Lord and her family will use our love against us. It’s what they do, Representative. It’s been their M.O. since day one. They’ll throw everything they have at me, incubize me, then use me as a trap to lure her out. If they succeed, we’ll be living a lie. If the trap fails, she’ll kill me, and it’ll break her poor heart so badly that she’ll probably do a suicide-by-proxy beeline for Lilith herself. I can’t-I can’t do that to her. She’s suffered enough because of them, and if I fail, then I’ll have been just another ‘could-have-been’ to her, instead of her emotional rock. She lost her family. She lost her parents to a random accident caused by a monster invasion, then she spent the last few decades little by little, losing all of her friends, everyone she could trust, everyone she ever cared about, all to the brainwashing that comes with the transformations. She lost everything but the power and the clothes on her back! I can’t be the best thing in her life! Not yet! Not until AFTER we make sure that Royal Makai can’t warp our minds and hearts! Only then is it gonna be safe to run up and wrap her in my arms, kiss her on the lips, tell her I love her and that everything’s going to be okay!"

"This is part of my job! I HAVE to consider and plan for the possibility that we’ll lose! And I take my professional work VERY, VERY seriously! I love Eydis! But the job and the mission come first! Once Operation Shower Shank is over, then I’ll pop the whole question to her, even if I have to resign! But not a second before! I am NOT going to risk the fates of over eight billion people, just so I can indulge my lust for a bit! That’s the kind of thinking that erased those short-sighted fuckwads that led Kenkou’s humanity to their doom! Retards! All of ‘em! Too concerned with the rats in their walls to see that the whole house was about to collapse! And it most certainly DID collapse on ‘em! What kind of a fuck-fuck circus were they running, that made something as shitty as monsterization look like a legitimately good idea!? That’s not gonna happen here! Not on my watch! Not ever!”

(The rest of the XV-15’s passengers stay quiet, giving the Secretary two more minutes to wind himself back down from his rage and vitriol. His voice has gone from loud anger into restrained solemnity.)

(SecHS Non) “I’m afraid of losing. Afraid that every sacrifice we’ve made as a nation will have amounted to nothing. I’m playing the most dangerous game in human history. Well, not ‘dangerous’. More like, the game with the highest stakes. And this ain’t chess, and it ain’t checkers either. This is a ten-player match of stud poker! Me and my eight counterparts across the Nuclear Club, and Lilith. And only time can tell who’s bluffing, who’s got a royal flush, who’s got aces up their sleeves, and who doesn’t. I don’t know how many players are still in the game, but as long as I or a Kuiper proxy stays at the table, there’s still hope.”

“So in a nutshell, let me reiterate. I’m going to unleash our nuclear arsenal on both our enemies on Earth, and against Kenkou. My skin in the game is that I’m doing it to save my family, and I’m doing it so that I can have a real relationship with Eydis, without the fear of being twisted into a false relationship. That’s it.”

(His rant over, Non turns away from the others to peer out the window.)

(Taliente) “There’s nothing out there but thick clouds.”

(Whaley) “Shut up, desk jockey. Give him some space to think. He’s the second coming of Paul Revere, so show the man some respect.”

(The congresswoman gets out of her seat to move towards the Secretary. Gently placing her arm around his shoulder, she starts a personal conversation with him.)

(Palmieri) “Well, I have to say that that’s…..awfully responsible for the two of you to put aside your love for everyone else. I’m….sorry about the immaturity comment back before that golf course. I don’t think I can comprehend just what kind of pressure you’re under, and it looks like you’re a lot tougher than what I thought you were. I know how you feel about protecting your family. Did they manage to make it to a bomb shelter or something?”

(SecHS Non) “Only my little brother Paul did, as far as I know. He called me and made it quick, in case our phones were tapped. All he said was that he’s still in Juneau, and that he’s pretty sure he’s nuke-proof. I have no idea where the rest of my family is, but I’m sure my parents are boarding up the windows and all that stuff. How’s your folks?”

(Palmieri) “Just my mom, sorry to say, My old man died of tuberculosis about eight years ago. Mom’s with one of my uncles somewhere in west Pennsylvania. Both of my maternal grandparents were on vacation in Sardinia, and I haven’t got a rat’s ass of a clue about ‘em.” 

(SecHS Non) “Sorry to hear that about your dad. Must’ve been a great guy to have raised a nice lady like you.”

(Palmieri) “Thanks, ‘kid.’ Yeah, he was the coolest dad a girl could ask for, but he couldn’t let go of his nicotine addiction in his last years. That reminds me of something though. Wanna hear about how I met Gabriel?”

(SecHS Non) “Sure. Take your time, we've got plenty of it.”

(Palmieri) “Alright, so this was about seven years ago. I’m still in the Army, stationed at Fort Bliss. 10th Chemical Company, our nickname was “The Enforcers.” Our whole battalion was nicknamed “America’s Guardians.” Hazard Response was our game. So me and some of my fellow troops would go out for wings and a view at this nearby strip club called ‘Big Mike’s.’ They catered to bisexuals, so they had men and women doing dirty dances at the same time. I was down the dumps hard, on the first anniversary of my dad’s death. Now, I had seen Gabriel a few times before then, and yes, he was one of the strippers. He looked good then, but he’s better now. So there I am, trying to stay cool, when I obviously wasn’t cool. So Gabe sees me, asks some of my fellow troops what’s bugging me. They tell him the truth, so he gets off the stage, his shirt already off, and guides me to a booth in the back, then calls out for a waiter to give me some hard bourbon, on the house. I still remember the brand, it was a Stagg Jr.”
 
“I could see it in his eyes, Non. He really was concerned about me. So I chugged what I could, vomited my guts out in the restroom, and stumbled out the front door, shuffling back to my apartment. The next week, me and my pals go back, Gabe’s on waiter duty. He doesn’t serve our table, but we pass a few glances at each other. I fluttered my eyes, he blushed, I saw his cock start to bulge through his leotard. So I ask our server when his shift stops, and I make up my mind. The plan was to take him back to my apartment, and 69 him until he’s pumped at least three loads in my mouth. Maybe even a titjob, if he’s into headpats and shit."

"So it’s been twenty minutes after his shift ends, I’m waiting outside the employee exit. He still hasn’t come out, so I head inside from the back door to ask around. The back door’s right next to the restrooms, so right as I pass by that door, it slams open. And there’s Gabe, he’s on the floor, there’s some blood coming down his left shoulder, and he’s foaming at the mouth. And he’s reaching out for someone to help him. The back door’s still open, so I drag him outside by the shoulders. I’m not stupid, so I knew he was shooting up some drugs. But he’s fucked up, and if I take him to a hospital or call EMS, he’s looking at a few days in jail once they run a blood analysis. And I owed him for helping me out the other night.”

“So I managed to stuff him into the back of my Chevy Malibu, and we sped off to my apartment. Bliss MP’s didn’t hassle me because I was living in off-base housing. So I dragged him to my guest futon, a neighbor saw me, so I covered it up by saying that he was just blackout-drunk and that he was one of my CO’s. I knew what druggies could do, so I restrained him to the futon. All I had was zip-ties for garbage bags, but that shit hurts. So I grabbed a gag present my mom had sent the previous Christmas. Fuzzy cuffs. I strapped him to the futon with fuckin’ fuzzy cuffs. So he wakes up at about 5:00 AM, and I’ve gagged his mouth with a pillowcase so he doesn’t accidentally get the cops called on us, since I’ve technically just committed kidnapping."

"He spent a half-hour freaking out, then he calmed down. I slowly explained to him about what happened last night. Then we introduced ourselves for real, ........he tried so hard not to laugh about the fuzzy cuffs. By the time we had lunch, I 'released' him. He got serious, and told me about the drugs, About how he was coming down with a heroin addiction. We…..just clicked. So I offered to be his sponsor at rehab, and he agreed. Awfully fast, you’re probably thinking, but he was smart enough to know that he had just hit the jackpot with me. And he’d do anything not to lose me. So over the next year, we cleaned his act up, and he quit his stripping job to become a waiter at this steak house called Corralito. I’m still surprised about how not a single muckraking journalist managed to dig that up when I ran for The House.”

“We got married five months before I left the Army with the rank of staff sergeant, and we had our first son right afterwards. With all the lobbying money I pulled in once I took office, he didn’t need to work anymore. So he’s a full-time house-husband now. He even insisted on taking MY last name, but the rest of my family talked him out of it.”

(Phillips) “So what’s your maiden name?”

(Palmieri) “Magdalene. Yeah, very sacral, I know. So, wanna tell us how you and the Valkyrie met?”

(SecHS Non) “Well, I was going to do a tell-all interview with FOX News anyways, so this is how it went. I had gotten barely three hours of sleep the night before, on account of an extended interrogation I personally ran on a Demon that tried and failed to bait me into a spirit-contract. The doorbell doesn’t ring, but I could hear her knocking very loudly on my door. So there she is, in all her perfect angelic glory, a plain-white long conservative dress that hourglassed her waist, and a large yellow straw hat. It’s last year May, there’s a heat wave in Arlington, she’s got no sunglasses and she’s in bare heels. I was wearing just my boxers, a thick grey bathrobe, and matching flip-flops. I had no gun, I was exhausted, my hair was ruffled, the plain black Red Bay coffee was still heating up, and I had a seven o’ clock shadow. I immediately mistook her for a Lilim or Dark Angel in disguise, so I froze up. It would’ve been game over for me, right then and there. I wouldn’t be able to reach a gun in time, and I wouldn’t be able to reach the ground floor’s silent alarm hidden under the bread box either.”

“Now before Eydis came along, Epsilon Lime was basically running crippled. We were outgunned bad by Mamono heavy-hitters, and we'd be utterly useless against the Lilim. Almost all the info we had to work with, came from ELINT. Bugged phone calls, chat room surveillance, and the odd moron that would gloat to us about how our efforts were pointless, spilling the beans on their lesser objectives knowing full well that we’d be too late to stop ‘em. We were just one plug filling in a leak, even when the whole dam was on a countdown to burst. Our long-term goal was just to buy time for other D.C. higher-ups to get to the nukes when the day would come, and our chances at success were far lower than they are now. I was depressed, I was a defeatist, and I was almost nihilistic. So I surrendered to her, right then and there, and I asked her if she’d like some hot coffee first. She didn’t understand the Grand Theft Auto punchline, but if my efforts to get ahead in the world were about to become a zero-sum, then I might as well end it off on a stupid joke. So we went inside, I took my bathrobe and flip-flops off, and I made us some coffee. We stared into each other’s eyes for about a full minute straight, then she abruptly informed me that she wasn’t a Mamono. That she was basically the leader of Kenkouan humanity's resistance against Royal Makai’s inter-global domination. And that was when our odds VASTLY improved.”

“About two months later, she’s on our task force. She doesn’t think too highly of me on account of my bad first impression, and she’d only speak candidly to our troops that had gone above and beyond to waste or capture the HVTs. We had a situation where a woman in Walla Walla was turned into a Centaur. Some off-duty cop saw her, called it in, but wrote her off as some elaborate animatronic. The word came to us, and we cornered her cabin Ruby Ridge-style. Eydis stood back to see what a Remington 700 sniper rifle could do. The Centaur’s husband was already incubized, and he threatened to detonate a ring of explosives that he claimed to have hidden right under us. Saying he’d also detonate if we tried to run, or if he saw reinforcements."

"So my plan was to hide behind a van where he couldn’t see me, then call in a drone airstrike on that cabin. Or a low-yield standoff missile. So I called it in, our overwatch Predator fired an AGM-154A, that’s a long-range glide bomb, and the house was blasted like a Michael Bay prop. It was an airburst, so the basement was still intact. Eydis opened it, and found the couple’s still-human six-year old daughter and infant son. They’re still in protective custody at a black site, on account of having seen too much, but Eydis threatened Menendez at swordpoint to not separate those shell-shocked siblings. Some of us came to her private quarters that night to ask about what her big deal was. We were being judgmental, and just looking for excuses, and she knew it. So she demanded that we all leave her room.”

“I didn’t. I would’ve been the last one out. But instead, I closed the door, sat down on the side of her bed, and politely asked her what was wrong. Some fucked-up situation happened to her, and I wanted to hear it straight, melodrama or not. Without judgment, without condescension. I gave her compassion and patience, and I broke through to her. Long story short, the cabin siege was eerily similar to the incident that got her own parents killed, and ended in her painful transformation from a human into a Valkyrie. It opened up a deep wound in her heart, and so I did what I could to help her fix it. I liked her from the day we met. But I didn’t LOVE her until that night, when we poured our hearts out to each other. And I know that’s when she decided that I was a keeper.”

(Taliente) “So did you score?”

(After that question registers in his brain, Non’s proud face of joy in remembering that night with Eydis, shifts in a split-second to fiery rage that could thaw liquid nitrogen. He gets out of his chair, against the pilot’s advice. As the others move out of the way, Non grabs his unloaded Uzi, and bashes Jake Taliente in the stomach with the folded steel buttstock. Falling over to the floor, the ICE employee screams in pain. Non then pulls out his actually-loaded Double Eagle, shoving it into Taliente’s mouth. Knowing that the safety is on, Non pulls the trigger to a fake-out, then pulls the gun out. It takes Taliente a few seconds to mentally register that he isn’t dead, then he starts bursting in tears.)

(Taliente) “Oh, oh, Jesus Christ, you psycho! You would’ve blown my brains out!”

(SecHS Non) “Safety’s on, dipshit! Didn’t you learn any hard-knock lessons in high school about why you shouldn’t joke about real kids with REAL dead parents, or kids that die of frostbite! Consider that payback for missing out on all the swirlies and locker-room big-mouth beatdowns that you clearly managed to dodge!”

(Taliente) “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry! I was just trying to lighten up the mood, dude! We’re tense, we’re all clearly itchin’ to blast as many aliens as we can, we’re a puh-puh-powderkeg of fru-frustration! Look, I have a girlfriend back in Maclean, who’s definitely worried sick about me! This shit’s classified, that much is obvious! I can’t tell her where I am, or that I’m okay, or that everything’s gonna be alright! I’m mad as hell, too! But sticking guns in friendly faces isn’t gonna solve anything! So cool off, and keep your shit sharpened against the REAL enemy!”

(SecHS Non) “Fine, fine! You have a point! But that joke was still uncalled for!”

(Whaley) “Can we change the damn subject? Phillips, how’s your personal situation?”

(Phillips) “Me!? Oh, I’m still in shock. Shock about a lot of things. About how aliens are real, how they’re sexy monster-human hybrids that want to assimilate us all through rape, about how it’s looking like everything I worked for in life is about to become pointless, and about how out of a planet of nine billion, I of all people, have won a front-row seat to the opening of the Sixth fuckin’ Seal! I’m about one bad conversation from putting loaded guns in smartass mouths too! I don’t know anything! I don’t know where my parents are, or my grandparents on both sides, or my cousins, or my four nieces, or my two nephews, or my boss, or my friends, or my coworkers! All I can do right now, is to suck it up for just one more day, and ride Non and Palmieri’s coattails into whatever fresh hell they’re taking us to! You want my advice, Taliente? SHUT UP, and TRY to enjoy the ride! You have NO idea just how lucky you are to be here, and you’ll see what I mean in about twenty-four hours.”

(Taliente) “Yeah, I kinda understood that last part when I saw the Secretary here holding a very certain briefcase.”

(Special Agent Whaley, up in the front, knocks on the glass that separates the cockpit from the passenger section.)

(Whaley) “Hey, ‘Cochrane!’ We hit Warp One yet?”

(Hodges) “The recorded max speed of this baby is 419 miles per hour, but for the sake of the engines, I’m keeping us at 380. So it should be an hour-and-a-half flight, but it’s 542 miles from Dulles to Nashville’s city airport, and the Bell’s only got a fuel tank for 512! We’ll have to stop for gas somewhere around Knoxville or London. Kentucky’s London, that is. They’re populated enough that they should have stocked heliports, but as for an enemy presence, we’ll just have to cross our fingers.”

(SecHS Non) “Sounds like a plan. Proceed, Captain.”

(Palmieri) “There’s another thing I have to ask about Eydis. When you two kissed on the White House roof, I read her lips. Who’s ‘Nemesis’? Some superweapon you’ve hidden behind enemy lines? A coded password or something?”

(SecHS Non) “It’s me. I’m ‘Nemesis’. It’s my codename for our nuke-launch sleeper agents, like you. That’s what the Kuiper Protocols are. A secret group of people with backdoor Presidential clearance for giving out Emergency Action Messages and Foxtrot Broadcasts. We’re all codenamed after micro-planets, comets, and asteroids in the Kuiper Belt that surrounds our Solar System. You knows who you are, and keep it to yourself. Eydis is in on this, and I’m ‘Nemesis,’ the mythical dark star that lies beyond the Oort Cloud, a red dwarf twin to the Sun. Supposedly, Nemesis is the usual cause of Earth’s mass extinctions, on account of its gravity well moving objects towards the Sun on collision courses for us. Nemesis isn’t real, as far as we can tell, but the name was too fitting for me. I’m working outside of the conventional ‘System’, I’m about to cause a mass extinction event, I’m red-skinned, and I’m smaller than Eydis. She’s the light that shone over Kenkou, bringing down the literal heat. And I’m the cold force of cataclysm that lies in the darkness, just beyond their known space. She’s the Sun, and I’m dancing in tandem with her.”

(Palmieri) “I thought you were big on avoiding melodrama?”

(SecHS Non) “I was, but I’ll make an exception for this. Being ‘Nemesis’ is just too damn cool.”
 
(Palmieri) “And here I thought my codename was a Greek democracy thing. Now I get it. So that’s why you were fixed on taking me with you! You thought it’d be a good idea for one more layer of backups, you slick customer!”

(SecHS Non) “You’re goddamn right. If they get to me, then you’ve still got a chance to take The Football over to your backup destination.”

(Phillips) “I take it that Raven Rock was her primary one?”

(Palmieri) “That’s right, it was.”

(Phillips) “I see. Well, I have to say, I agree with Non’s idea of what a relationship should be, but there’s two flaws that I can think of. First, I know that you mean well, but your idea is going to lead to a LOT of bad people dragging down good people, because your idea is going to pressure people into just stepping aside when their SOs do self-destructive shit. Second, I’ve heard similar ideas, and they were mostly thought up by slobs and losers, who cope with being midwit mistakes by blaming everyone but themselves for their problems. A small amount of ‘em are actual good people who’ve had serious bad luck, and I agree that we should rewire society in their favor. But at what cost? By giving them a helping hand, we’ll open the floodgates for all the autists and spergs and morons who think they deserve to ‘win’ at life because they followed an instruction manual! Don’t they get it? That’s EXACTLY why they’re failures!"

"I can’t speak for every woman, but I can speak for myself! And I’m pretty good at sniffing out who’s genuine, who thinks for themselves. And I’m also good at sniffing out the retards who DON’T think for themselves, who try to fill out a checklist like they were middle-age Karens at Wal-Mart! Life isn’t a series of role-playing speech checks, you autistic sociopaths! Oh sure, you can stretch out a few lies, finesse your way into her bed, all the way to the wedding vows! But soon enough, the mask slips and she’ll see that she got hitched to a lie! That goes both gender ways, and that’s what causes so many divorces, if you ask me! They promise the sky, and when their spouse tries to cash in, they can’t even deliver the troposphere! So, yeah! I think that people who cheat their way into a relationship DESERVE to get divorced! They deserve to be just another name on a veteran’s memorial after stepping on a random landmine left behind from World War One! I think these assholes deserve the Mamono! You wanna live a lie just to check off something on the shopping list of life, then you’ll get a woman who does the same!”

(SecHS Non) “I tried that, Sherry. Oh boy, did I try. I also offered Royal Makai a deal, repeatedly. At first I offered to round up all the celibates, voluntary and involuntary, and send them on a one way trip to Kenkou! It would’ve been a win-win! They get their men, we drop a ton of dead weight, everyone’s happy! But no! No, they pushed the envelope! They wanted ALL of our unmarried men over eighteen years old, so I offered a compromise. I offered that we’d invade a ton of Third World countries to capture and hand over their men, but NO! All I got was a short text, and I remember it well! All Druella had to say was ‘Why should I let you cut a slice of the pie and put it on my plate, when I can just take the entire pie and you?’ And the tragedy is that she’s right!”

(Palmieri) “Yeah, I can already spot the major hole in that plan. You offered her our table scraps with a few good pieces in. They want the cream of the crop, leaving their minions to take the leftovers. Those people aren’t choice cuts, they’re the human landfill! The kind of folks who never had the makings of a varsity athlete! We’re varsity athletes! We’re fit, sane people who understand the score! We’re the cream of the crop! Well except Taliente over there, but he seems normal, by these standards! You fucked up hard, pal! Did you really think they’d be sated by greasy three-hundred-pound basement gamers? Menendez said back at the Pentagon that they have a woman for every kind of man, even if it means warping their own minds to be able to stand ‘em! Now that sounds like they’d settle for the oxygen thieves, but from what I’ve overheard back in D.C., it sounds like they’ll just mix their lowest common denominator with our own.”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah, I know. I didn’t realize that until Eydis spelled it out for me a few days later. She gave me an example with that Lescatie kingdom. Druella’s first major win, and she did it with two slick moves. That Lilim’s first phase was to recruit an inner circle by monsterizing a motley crew of disgruntled women who’d all been shat on by their rat-chasing superiors. Like I said before, their lives sucked so bad that being brainwashed and unable to have sons was honestly a better alternative to their previous situations. Then they massively sabotaged the kingdom’s defenses to make way for a surprise invasion. In the middle of that invasion, they lured that land’s ace in the hole out. Some orphan dude called Elt, top enforcer and confidante of that place’s Princess, or so the story goes."

"You ask me? I’d bet he was actually just some nobody in the right place at the right time. Like Sherry and Jake here, no offense. So the guy lucks his way into a princess’s bed, then racks up a huge harem over the course of just one night, I kid you not. We’re talking Muslim warlord-level here, like, nine wives. And before you think, ‘oh, what a lucky son of a bitch,’ I’ll remind you that just one monster-lady will keep your dick real busy, so multiply that by nine! How that guy gets anything done, I don’t even think I WANT to know.”

(Whaley) “You’re talking like you have some major beef with this guy. What, did he make a zippy trip to Earth just to do a Taco Bell shit on your welcome mat?”

(SecHS Non) “My beef is that he raised his kids well. TOO well. Eydis’s sources say that his family’s tight with Druella, and her upper command echelons are packed with his descendants. Beats me why she never made a move on him, but I guess that even to a Lilim, ten’s a crowd. Now Elt got baited out into the open, with no one having his back. They tried pulling the same trick on me. In my first-and-last act of complete cocky retardation as National Security Advisor, three of his grandkids lured me out to a fake one-on-one whistleblower’s meeting. I went on my own to Los Angeles, it was Halloween, and I was dressed like Dick Tracy."

"Idiot that I was, I went all alone, believing that I was going to meet with a 4chan moderator who was actually an NSA info-comber, and he was going to trade me a promotion and a salary-quadrupling, in return for an IP-traced home & work address list of a bunch of ‘monster fans’ who made the sorts of forum posts that only jack-offs who knew too much would say. So there I was, thinking that I was about to nail a bunch of sloppy digital dipshits to the wall, but I found out that there was only one sloppy dipshit that evening, and it was me. I drove over to the designated meetup, which should have been the red flag to make me bail. Specifically, it was the base of the ‘big D’ of the Hollywood sign.”
 
“So after about three minutes of leaning on my rental’s hood with a metaphorical thumb up my ass, I feel something thump my chest. I looked down, and it was a tranquilizer dart. My muscle memory took the reins, so I pretended that it DIDN’T harmlessly impact on my body armor. This nine-tailed fox-babe and a snake-woman pick me up by the limbs, carrying me to a Ford Freestar with blacked-out windows that their Witch cousin had just pulled up in. I asked ‘em who they were, acting like I was slipping into unconsciousness. They told me who they were, and that they’d love to add a catch like me to Lescatie’s royalty. So I acted fast, slipped a hand into my shoulder holster, and popped a couple of .357 Magnum shots out. They dropped me, I fired the rest of the cylinder to put some distance, ran back into my rental RAV-4, and I hyperdrive’d my ass outta there."

"They followed me in their textbook child molester van, but I lost ‘em at the intersection of North Beechwood and Winans, downhill in the maze of eighty million dollar mansions. I was still scared shitless, and I wound up blasting through eleven red lights before the LAPD busted me on Wilshire Boulevard, right by the La Brea Tar Pits. My reptile brain was telling me that there was a high chance that the cop who pulled me over was a Mamono in disguise, and I almost fucking shot her through the door. But she was a human. I showed her my credentials, and she freaked out for having arrested the National Security Advisor. But I fed ‘em a three-fifths truth about how some cult freaks almost made me a kidnapping victim, and they bought it.”
 
“I gave them the description of that Witch and the van, since she’s the only one of the three that could pass for a normal human and safely go outside for groceries and location-scoping. But a city of four million is enough of a cakewalk for the other two to lay low in a basement, until yesterday. The trail went cold, a van fitting the description was found roasting that morning at the Griffith Observatory’s parking lot, no fingerprints, no identification, no clue as to where the van came from. So they’re good. Real good. Exactly what I’d expect from Druella’s proteges. I ended up spending the rest of the night drinking the panic away at a Schwarzenegger costume party, since I had an invite from Patrick. The Dick Tracy outfit paid off, since no one could tell that I had pissed my pants around the time I ran the red light across Santa Monica Boulevard.”

(Taliente) “Hey, hey, wait a second! Halloween, last year…..woah-ho! Yeah, that’s where I recognized your face! That was the shindig where that ancient son of a bitch Van Damme busted out his old Universal Soldier desert uniform and tried to fight Steven Seagal again! There was this one guy in the middle of the crowd wearing a yellow suit and matching hat, and he looked pretty drunk as a skunk and laughing his ass off! That was you!”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah, that was me. Fred Durst told me about the fight the next morning, but I’ll be real here, I blacked out on a couch that night, and I can’t remember anything important about that party after old Jean-Claude told me how I haven’t lived until I know what it’s like to rail two lines of Columbian white, while railing balls-deep in a 1994-vintage Kylie Minogue pussy.”

(Palmieri) “Fucking west-coasters. This is why I never go to the Hollywood parties. We east-coast big shots usually have the sense to run our meets with a lot more tact when the paparazzi’s around.”

(SecHS Non) “Hah! Yeah right, that Gulf Stream just turns you all into sticks in the mud. Funny thing is, Eydis was more pissed about me getting blasted on 2002-vintage Pappy Van Winkle, than about the whole kidnapping thing. I didn’t hear the end of it ‘til Thanksgiving!”

(Palmieri interrupts by punching his shoulder.)

(Palmieri) “You dickhead! You know, as a married woman and a mother of two, the more you talk, the more I’m realizing that it’s the Valkyrie that’s your sanity-anchor, instead of the other-way around!”

(Phillips) “Man, I bet Non would’ve killed himself by now in a reckless livewire accident if he’d went with that electrician hustle. No angel to bail your sorry ass out! So how accurate is the National Enquirer on the drug scene with you Pacific coast celebrities?”

(SecHS Non) “Ahahehehehehehe, honestly, I’d give them a 7/10. They’re spot on with the stimulant abuse accusations, there’s a lot less weed than they claim, but a lot more psychedelics than they think, on account of all the old hippies in our crowd. I only touched that shit twice after joining the White House, but I did do a bit of experimenting in college. DRUG experimentation, Phillips! I know you’re gonna ask about sex crap! I don’t like dicks that aren’t mine, and that’s that!”

(Whaley) “What kind of experiments? After becoming the NSA, that is.”

(SecHS Non) “Well, a week after I took office, Health and Human Services Secretary Dhar invited me to a party at a Venice Beach mansion. I jumped at the chance to meet a bunch of cool actors and musicians, so I tagged along. About an hour into the party, we find out that Eric Clapton owns the place. I met him, he thought I was cool, and he asked me if I could snort a full dime-bag of cocaine. Now my dumb ass didn’t want to disappoint Eric fuckin’ Clapton, so I did it.”

(Palmieri) “Okay, it’s official. You’re a complete peer-pressure idiot, and Eydis needs to keep you on a very short leash. The lame kind that goes around your upper body, not the kinky kind that goes around your neck like a collar.”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah, you’re telling me. I ran out onto the beach and started flailing my arms around like a used-car dealership’s inflatable advertiser. I started scaring some of the other partiers after I’d been doing that for a half-hour straight, and I ended up kicking Oscar Isaac in the balls when he tried to pin me down for everyone else’s safety. Everyone panicked, that Backstreet Boy Nick Carter pinned my arms from behind, and Mike Tyson clocked my lights out in five punches. Isaac was drunk that night though, and he didn’t even feel it when he woke up, so he didn’t press charges. Officially, I slipped on some wine that Sammy Hagar spilled, and I fell down the stairs. Hagar’s cool though, so he helped cover that story up by comping me a $5000 gift card to Cabo Wabo. Nobody snitched because Simon Dhar, Barron Trump, Khloe Kardashian, two of Mick Jagger’s grandkids, some of Kate Hudson’s friends, and Joseph Baena were all there doing coke too.”

(Palmieri) “So THAT’S the inside joke! My last baby shower, I overheard Thomas Jane make a joke against one of Sorrentino’s parties, about how you’re not allowed to have anything stronger than Adderall, unless Tyson’s around!”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah, yeah, he knocked me flat on my ass for four hours straight. Moving on to the other incident, I dropped acid on the second day of the last G20 summit. Jonas Andrade, Brazil’s UN ambassador, slipped me a freebie tab for shits and giggles when he found me washing my hands in a restroom after the last round of negotiations. I was unofficially there in case Royal Makai tried any funny business, but we didn’t find any leads. Nothing exciting happened when I was tripping balls, since I was all alone in my hotel room watching The Thomas Crown Affair, the Brosnan one, for that whole duration. In hindsight, they probably took advantage of the summit to redirect Epsilon Lime’s attention. But at least I finally got to meet Elias Panoglou face-to-face!”

(Whaley) “Ain’t that the Greek NATO big shot that used to host a bodybuilding show? I think I remember something on CNN about his baby daddy allegations. A LOT of ‘em.”

(SecHS Non) “To be fair, only three of those allegations are true, and he’s taking responsibility for all of them. He’s also partially responsible for everything we’re going through right now, but NOT in the way you’re thinking. Elias works for the North Atlantic Council, running their intelligence division in the International Military Staff. He was one of the big movers and shakers whose teams found out about Kenkouan infiltration in the first place, and passed it on to me and my associates around the Atlantic, while me and my Canadian counterpart, Bernard Shepard, passed that info down to certain folks at SEATO.”

(Palmieri) “Say, where IS Bernard in all this mess? Don’t tell me he’s copying you and hiding out in Ottawa.”

(SecHS Non) “He called me at about 9:00 AM today, told me that he was boarding a jet airliner and heading north. Now that could mean anything from Charlton Island, to south Greenland, to the Svalbard Archipelago, to a submarine hiding under the North Pole for all I know. I DO know that he told me not to call back until exactly 48 hours after I activate the Big Ones. But back to Elias, oh man, he’s the coolest commander I ever met! So me and a couple of other politicians followed him around on the day after G20 ended, and we had one hell of a guy’s day out! We’re talking the best Italian joint around for breakfast, skipping lunch to work out all afternoon at an officer’s gym, a homemade-falafel and spa evening with the whole cucumber eyes and pedicure deal-io, and…..I probably saw him conceive Kristi Leppala’s son.”

(Palmieri) “Oh, you motherfuckers! That poor woman could do SO much better than that…. himbo! I KNEW there was something funny going on when I saw him kiss her belly at the UN! I thought it was just a Greek thing, but he knows what he did was wrong! I swear to God that she’d BETTER be one of the three women he’s half-steady with! And whaddaya MEAN, ‘probably’? Either you saw him bust a nut in her with no protection, or you didn’t!”

(Phillips) “Who’s Leppala?”

(SecHS Non) “Finland’s head observer at the North Atlantic Council. She’s been kissing the Pentagon’s ass hard, on account of Helsinki’s recent distancing from the European Union. She usually gets real aggro with us Five Eyes guys, but I’ve been convincing the others to cut her a ton of slack, on account of the pregnancy hormones and all that shit. But about the ‘probably,’ I mean that after I got a killer back massage and a good long skin-pruning hot shower, me and Interior Secretary Lawrence passed by Elias’s private quarters. You guys want the full details, or not?”

(Whaley) “Full details! You can’t just drop a conversation bomb like this and NOT see it all the way down!”

(SecHS Non) “Fine, but I’m warning you, Congresswoman. If you try hitting me again, I’m gonna throw a punch back. These hands are egalitarian to a capital T, sweetie! So.....we walked by Elias’s room to tell him to quiet down on the Herb Alpert he’s blasting out into the hallway, and we peeked through a crack in the door. Lawrence is above me, and there they are. Leppala and another one of Elias’s wedlock child-bearers, are licking his meatstick at the same time. The other one was Croatia’s attorney general. Ostojic, I think her last name is. So his gene gyro is gettin’ double-teamed, and then there’s Japan’s UN ambassador in the restroom, and he’s railing his English translator, that chick from Okinawa with the tits straight out of a hentai. Never leaves his side, and for good reason. Lemme tell you guys a fact. Shintaro don’t just bang, my dudes. He FUCKS.”

(Taliente) “Jeezy Pete, so this wog’s power play is to run around and knock up whatever foreign politicians from allied countries he can!? This greaseball’s playing life on Crusader King rules, like, 800 years late!”

(SecHS Non) “Eeeeeeyup. But at least he makes time for all his little bastards, God bless them. That G20 summit lines up with Leppala’s pregnancy, so I’m sure that Elias blew a load in her later that night.”

(Phillips) “So who’s the lucky lady number three?”

(SecHS Non) “One of the Faud princesses, can’t remember her name.”
 
(Taliente) “Faud!? Like, the Egyptians?”

(SecHS Non) “Right! It sure seems that Panoglou could be on his way to start a Neo-Ptolemaic dynasty, if he plays his geopolitical cards right. Ah, what a guy.”

(Palmieri) “So as American politicians, what does this have to do with us?”

(SecHS Non) “Oh, ye of little imagination. My dear Representative, do you REALLY think that I haven’t been running a long-term scheme to win a fair-and-square Presidential election? It BEHOOVES me to play nice with the Europeans, if it means showing China just where they can stick it. Why do you think I’m the biggest advocate around for defusing Ukraine and Russia’s bullshit with sane and unbiased mediation, and inviting the old Bear into NATO itself! Has it occurred to nobody in Congress, just what we could accomplish in a REAL team-up with Moscow! Not that half-assed, unfair, lop-sided Clinton-Yeltsin shit!"

"Together, we’d be unstoppable! Together, we could launch a whole-ass counter-invasion into Kenkou itself! I couldn’t break through in the last administration, but after this week, I KNOW Delvecchio’ll be a lot more eager and willing to do his part in awakening TWO sleeping giants! And once we’ve cracked the secrets to portals and scrying magic, just imagine what OTHER worlds are out there! Do I need to say anything else!?”

(Whaley) “Smooth moves, dude. You can’t even run for another six years, and here you are already making power plays of your own!”

(SecHS Non) “Hey, if it worked for FDR and Dubya, then I’ll make it work for me too!”
 
(The Congresswoman rolls her eyes and points her thumb at the Secretary, making sure to get it on camera.)

(Palmieri) “I’m not surprised in the slightest that his sorry ass is playing politics at a time like this, but as long as it doesn’t interfere in Operation Shower Shank, I don’t care.”
 
(The pilot interrupts through an intercom.)

(Hodges) “Hey! So whatever happened to those engineers that were still in the restoration hangar? Shouldn’t they have come out with you last two?”

(Phillips) “They told us that they weren’t tagging along. Fucking leafs think that hiding inside a cosmonaut capsule will save them.”

(Hodges) “Whaddaya think, Mister Secretary-man? About if they’ll make it or not?”


Chantilly, Virginia
14390 Air and Space Museum Parkway
Engen Restoration Hangar
January 2nd, 20--
8:31 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Technician 3) “How long are we gonna sit in here?”

(Technician 2) “As long as we need to. Look, if that Yankee Doodle Dandy launches their nukes, then we should be safe from the radiation, as long as we stay all up in this space-bitch. We’ve got enough vacuum-dried astronaut food and water to last a month if we ration it. And I have piss buckets set up in the airlock-connector. We’ll smell like shit, but we’ll be alive.”

(Technician 1) “He’s right. We stick to the plan, we’ll be safe. But we COULD go for some lights in here. There’s not a chance they’ll see from outside, so long as we put the lights out when we open the airlock-thing for piss & shit breaks.”

(Technician 3) “So…..where are the lights?”

(A woman’s voice cuts through the darkness.)

(Voice) “Right here, boys.”

(A zippo lighter turns on, revealing the Cheshire Cat that had passed by Azneth earlier. In an immediate panic, the three college students pull their pistols out to point right into the naked feline’s face.)

(Cheshire) “Oh, come now, cuties! I know those guns are faker than a boobjob from the Bahamas! Don’t think I didn’t read the exhibit that said your Hi-Powers were deactivated for the display! Now we can do this the easy way, or the hard way! The choice….is yours!”

(Technician 1) “We-we-we…..fine. The easy way. We surrender. Just….please don’t hurt us. I’m beggin’ you!”

(Cheshire) “Mmmmmmmmm, sure, I’ll play nice, my new scratching post. But I’m afraid I can’t make promises for your buddies.”

(Technicians 2 & 3) “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what!?”

(Right on time, the feline’s sheep-esque friends open the airlock-connector, crawling their way to the other two men. The cat tears through the lead intern’s jumpsuit, to gush in joy upon finding out that he was going commando this whole time. She immediately impales herself on his penis, using her left hand-paw to shut his mouth and silence his screams of joy and fear. The Weresheep neutralize the other two using the pacifying properties of their wool. Warmly and slowly starting to make love to the other two, all six still inside the capsule, the feline squeezes her first blast of baby batter out of the Canadian in less than four minutes. In her throes of passion, she pulls her hand off his mouth, allowing him to breathe normally again. With the last remaining brain cells left that haven’t given in to mindless lust, the leader of the three men has only three things to ask.)

(Technician 1) “Buh-buh-but how’d you find us? How’d you get in here?”

(Cheshire) “Your spirit-scent, silly! You three were also standing in a puddle, so there was a trail of footprints that led right to the ladder!”

(Technician 1) “Aahahahahahahaha! Oh, ohohohohohohooooo! It’s always the little slips that getcha! But, I thought you people were going to hurt us! This, oh baby, this feels SO GOOD!”

(The feline boops his nose with a paw-finger, then moves her tail to massage and gently wrap his testicles. The first rub alone is enough to bring him to orgasm again. She pushes his face into his, giving him a huge sloppy kiss, then gets back up.)

(Cheshire) “Gotcha!”
 
 
Twenty-one thousand and fourteen feet above sea level
Currently flying over southwestern Augusta County, Virginia.
9:27 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(SecHS Non) “I’d put down money that they’re literally fucked, and probably getting fucked as we speak.”

(Phillips) “So, how far are we from the White House? That jamming thing was a two-hundred mile radius if I remember right?”
 
(Palmieri) “That’s right, two hundred miles. Lemme check my phone’s map app.”

(She swipes, types, and searches around the app, her face turning to disappointment.)

(Palmieri) “We’re only about a hundred and thirty-two miles away right now. Another sixty-eight to go.”

(SecHS Non) “I’ll get this laptop ready once we’re down to about fifteen miles.”

(Whaley) “Great! And….then what’s the next step of your master plan?”

(SecHS Non) “Crashing China and Kenkou, with no survivors. Or that would be the best case scenario, but I’m afraid that we don’t live in a best-case world. Hell, this whole thing? Us nine in an experimental VTOL that hasn’t been seriously used since 2003? We’re on, like, the seventh major deviation from my original plan.”

(Palmieri) “So what WAS the original plan?”

(SecHS Non) “Well, to make it short, Royal Makai would invade as per the schedule we had. Which would have been tomorrow at sunrise, London time. So, about 3:00 AM for this time zone. That Blackbird at the Smithsonian would already be on the Dulles airstrip, ripping and ‘rarin to go. I’d board it as a co-pilot, we rip the sky at Mach Three-and-a-half, I bail out over a certain missile silo in east Montana, I link up with Roquefort, we head over to a VIP bunker codenamed STYX, like the Greek underworld’s river. We launch the missiles from there. Easy as pie. BUT NoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO!”

(He uses his left hand fingers to demonstrate.)

“Deviations! It’s all deviations! One, the invasion was too early! Two, the Blackbird wasn’t done! Three, Dulles got taken over as one of their first plays!"

"Four, I was at fucking Fort Sumter when the invasion started, so I had to wait FIVE HOURS until we got rescued by a yacht! Then the yacht’s pilot turned out to be a Sea Bishop, so I had to kill her and take a crash course on driving boats, just to get back to shore! Then I bicycled across town to Joint Base Charleston, only to find out that an Antifa cell had taken advantage of the chaos to torch all the planes! So I snuck up on one of those trust fund commies, bashed his head in with a sledgehammer, jacked the keys to his Chevy SSR, then spent all of yesterday evening and night speeding my way back to D.C.! After a few traffic jams, six Mamono roadblocks that I shot my way through, four instances of evading aerial hostiles by going off-road to drive through hiking trails and heavily-forested private property that got at least fourteen potshots fired at me, getting detained by the Greensboro PD on suspicion of being an incubus imposter, then again by the Virginia National Guard when I got to Lynchburg, I finally reached the Pentagon at about six A.M. So I grabbed my Colt .45, some ammo, changed my clothes, helped out coordinating SEATO to link up with the Russians, and put together some booby traps at my office there.

"Five, I ditched the Chevy ‘cause it was falling apart, wasted God knows how much time trying to figure out how hot-wiring a car works, until I scored a 2019 Honda Accord. "

"Six, I got sidetracked when Secretary of State Walaszek lured me to the National Archives, then tried to kill me! We did a Tom & Jerry routine in the no-tourists-allowed sections for about TWO HOOOOOUUURRRRS, before I stabbed him FOUR times in the throat! With a broken shard of glass that came out of a spare frame for the Declaration of Independence!”
 
“Seven! I had to take another detour over to the Supreme Court, when I realized that we needed to get one of their John Hancocks for the REX-84 purging protocol. Since I wasn’t in the Cabinet yet, I couldn’t do it myself. So long story short, the whole courthouse was compromised except for George Abernathy and his son Jack. Jack killed the other Justices with two white phosphorus grenades, and I don’t even know where he scored those. George signed that Emergency Order right before he took off in his own armored car."

"Eight, the President, Vice-President, and most of their staff were compromised BEFORE I could get The Football, so we had to hack n’ slash all those traitors before we could rescue the hostages. In the original plan, I was supposed to slip out of the White House with one of the three devices right when the invasion kicked off. Then, I’d remotely self-destruct the other briefcases before the collaborators could figure out that I pulled a fast one, and lock me out."

"Nine, I had to readjust my escape plan, again, to account for Palmieri and Phillips. Ten, our Antarctic-style Jetranger crashed, which brought us right here. And eleven, we detoured so Wayne could use us as a free ride.”

“Shit, that’s even worse than seven! At this rate, it’ll be high noon in ten days by the time I get to CHARON!”

(Palmieri) “Look, that’s aaaallllll behind us now. Just chin up, buck up, nut up, and take it easy from here on out. How’re we gonna save the USA if you get an ulcer before then?”


Twenty-one thousand and thirty feet above sea level
Currently flying over Roanoke, Virginia.
9:47 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Hodges) “Ok, Mr. Big Shot! We’re about 192 miles from D.C.! Get that supercomputer ready! It’s about high time to make them suns rise early!
 
(SecHS Non) “Understood. Let’s fucking go.”

(The Secretary takes the laptop out of the briefcase. He opens it, then presses the backspace key thrice. The first key-hit takes the system back to the vast list of usable Major Attack Options. The second hit takes it back to the choice of selecting a Major Attack Option, Selected Attack Option, or Limited Attack Option. The third takes him back to the primary boot screen. He hand-motions the others to be quiet, opens the computer settings, then turns on a built-in microphone. With the microphone now on, Phase Five can truly begin.)

(SecHS Non) “Kilo, Uniform, India, Papa, Echo, Romeo. This is ‘Nemesis’, standing by.”

(A chilling robotic voice responds back. It repeats words that appear on the computer screen, calming Phillips, who is recording the digital launch sequence, and about to freak out. She’s relieved that this is clearly a novelty text-to-speech program, and not an actual artificial intelligence.)

(Text-to-speech voice) “Good evening. This is the Preparatory Launch Unilateral Transmission Organizer. National Command Authority has been established. Kuiper Protocols are now in effect. Voice and handprints authenticated. Welcome back, Nemesis.”

(SecHS Non, speaking into the microphone.) “And a good evening to you too, P.L.U.T.O.”

(P.L.U.T.O) “Secondary password authenticated. Security measures deactivated. How can I help you today?”

(SecHS Non) “Deliver update to current personal status.”

(P.L.U.T.O.) “Eleven attempted unauthorized entries in the previous seventy-two hours. All attempts at handprint duplication succeeded. Seven failures at duplicating registered eyescans. Four failures to bypass secondary password precautions. All unauthorized entries had their Internet Protocol addresses traced and logged. Addresses have been sent to appropriate ECHELON purge logs, along with counterparts in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice, Defense Intelligence Agency, Military Intelligence Section Five, General Directorate for Internal Security, and Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

(SecHS Non) “Deliver update of current Kuiper status.”

(P.L.U.T.O) “CHARON - Inactive
STYX - Inactive
HYDRA - Inactive 
KERBEROS - Inactive
NIX - Active, current user logged as HAUMEA. Identity confirmed.
DYSNOMIA - Active, current user logged as Defense Intelligence Agency Director. Bennett Coleson. Identity confirmed.
NAMAKA - Active, current user logged as ORCUS. Identity confirmed.
HI’IAKA - Inactive
WEYWOT - Compromised. Lead intruder appears to be ‘LILIM’-class extraterrestrial. Priselin, Twentieth-Born Princess. Identity unconfirmed, confidence is high. 
VANTH - Active, current user logged as United States Army Chemical Corps Commanding Officer. Brigadier General Joan Dread. Identity confirmed.
ACTAEA - Inactive
XIANGLIU - Inactive
 
WEYWOT has been isolated from Kuiper Protocols. All relevant data was flash-wiped…..12.3 seconds before entrance was breached.”
 
(SecHS Non) “Odds of the discovery of WEYWOT’s factual directive?”

(P.L.U.T.O.) “ Currently 3.6% for the next twenty-four hours. Highly unlikely, not impossible.”

(SecHS Non) “Thank you, P.L.U.T.O. Deliver update of Nuclear Club status.”

(P.L.U.T.O.) “United States of America. DEFCON TWO. 
One CBRN deployment in the previous seventy-two hours. 
Attack Plan predicted as : {MORE INFORMATION REQUIRED}
Target was Salt Lake City, Utah. 
Estimated American casualties. 3.1 million.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. THREAT LEVEL CRITICAL. EXCEPTIONAL RESPONSE. 
Zero CBRN deployments.

French Republic. STATE OF EMERGENCY. 
Zero CBRN deployments.

Russian Federation. FULL COMBAT READINESS. 
Three CBRN deployments in the previous seventy-two hours. 
Attack Plan predicted as : {MORE INFORMATION REQUIRED}
Targets were Grozny, Chechnya; Makhachkala, Dagestan; Kabul, Afghanistan. 
Estimated Afghan casualties. 4.8 million. Estimated Russian casualties. 1.7 million.

People’s Republic of China. COMBAT READINESS CONDITION 1. 
Zero CBRN deployments.

Democratic People's Republic of Korea. STATUS UNKNOWN. 
Zero CBRN deployments.

State of Israel. STATUS UNKNOWN. 
Zero CBRN deployments. 

Islamic Republic of Pakistan. HIGH ALERT. 
147 CBRN deployments in the previous seventy-two hours. 
Attack Plan predicted as BANGLADESH THEATERWIDE.
Estimated Indian casualties. 1.36 billion.

Republic of India. DEFCON ONE. 
163 CBRN deployments in the previous seventy-two hours. 
Attack Plan predicted as SUBCONTINENTAL MAHAPRALAYA. 
Estimated Pakistani casualties. 265 million. Estimated Bangladeshi casualties. 178 million. Estimated Sri Lankan casualties. 21.8 million.

Islamic Republic of Iran. STATUS UNKNOWN. 
Three CBRN deployments in the previous seventy-two hours. 
Attack Plan predicted as CASPIAN SEIZURE. 
Targets were Tbilisi, Georgia; Yerevan, Armenia; Erbil, Kurdistan. 
Estimated Kurdistani casualties. Two million. Estimated Georgian casualties. 1.4 million. Estimated Armenian casualties. 900 thousand.
 
Republic of South Africa. STATUS UNKNOWN. 
Four CBRN deployments in the previous seventy-two hours.
Attack Plan predicted as ZULU-BOER SUPREMACY.
Targets were Mbombela, Mpumalanga; East London, Eastern Cape; Lesotho; Swaziland.
Estimated Lesothan casualties. 2.3 million. Estimated Swazi casualties. 1.3 million. Estimated South African casualties. 810 thousand.
 
(By the time that P.L.U.T.O. finishes stating the Nuclear Club status. The Secretary begins to metaphorically sweat out a puddle, as does everyone else in the passenger section, save for one of the FPS agents. Neither is Captain Hodges. After about 40 seconds of stunned silence, the cool-keeping agent with a patch nametag of Missouri speaks up.)

(Federal Protective Service Agent Missouri) “So, are any of those nukes headed for us? Honestly, you folks were preeeetty naive to think that Pakistan or India WOULDN’T take advantage of the situation to make their mutual pressure cooker pop off. Or the Kremlin going all out to settle Yeltsin and Gorbachev’s old scores. But South Africa? I’ll admit, that surprised me. Hey, technician guy! You were at the Smithsonian, you’ve taken a look at the guts of a buncha’ nuke bombers and missiles, you gotta have SOME kind of opinion on this?”

(Technician) “We’re about to enter a whole new world of pain. I knew it the minute those portals started popping up. Surprised it took this long, but here we are anyways. As long as I’m alive, human, and not pumped with roentgens, I’m just gonna shut my mouth and go with the flow.”

(SecHS Non) “God…. this is all my fault.”

(Phillips) “No it’s not, dude. You’re a slick customer, that’s true. But I don’t believe for a minute that YOU told all these wackos to atomize themselves? You’re good, but you ain’t THAT good.”

(SecHS Non) “You’re partly wrong, but also right. I told Tel Aviv to hold off on the Samson Option until all surrounding nations were overrun, or once I finished Phase Five. But Pretoria…..fuck. It was me. Officially, South Africa gave up their WMDs back in 1989. Unofficially? Me and Neil Van Huering, my counterpart in South Africa, cut a deal with Israel and Taiwan, four months ago. After letting them in the loop on Kenkou’s looming invasion, I arranged for Israel to covertly supply nuclear weapons to the other two countries. Naive asshole that I am, I trusted them to save the use of those as a Kenkou counterstrike backup, in case the rest of the Nuclear Club was taken out, or to maintain order AFTER I successfully enacted the Kuiper Protocols. I didn’t FUCKING TELL THEM TO…...TO…. TO VAPORIZE THEMSELVES EVEN A SECOND BEFORE!”

(Palmieri) “H-how many? How many did you give South Africa and Taiwan?”

(SecHS Non) “Taiwan has…..fuck, what was it…...oh yeah, seven Popeye Turbo submarine-launched torpedo-nukes. 200 kilotons per warhead. Meant to eliminate any Red Chinese port cities in the area, if they were overrun and Beijing was a goner. Or if Royal Makai tried pulling a D-Day using Chinese, Flip, Japanese, or our naval assets. Taipei’s still on standby, it would seem. P.L.U.T.O.’s not supposed to report anything regarding them or South Africa until after the fact, just in case anyone who doesn’t need to know, tries to know. South Africa’s got fourteen Popeye Turbo’s, and seven heeb knockoffs of Peacekeeper-3 MIRVs, all disguised as RSA-4 satellite launch vehicles. Or they did. Now they've got three.”

(Whaley) “How do you know that?”

(SecHS Non) “Same reason I’m disappointed, but not worried, about Pakistan and India. I’ve got it on-screen right here. Launch trajectories of every long-range ballistic missile on Earth. System’s not perfect though. It can track launches and detect ground or airburst detonations, or space ones up to four hundred miles above sea level. But it can’t detect underground detonations. Can’t detect plane-dropped bombs, or artillery, or missiles used within a forty-mile distance either, not until they’ve already exploded. Check it out.”

(He turns the laptop around for the other passengers to view. They see an absolute mess of digital trails blanketing the Indian subcontinent, along with the clearly-viewable trails of the missiles already used by other nations, and Roquefort’s Utah annihilation. To everyone’s obvious relief, no missiles are currently heading towards China, Russia, or the United States.)

(Taliente) “So what are the Jews getting in return? Giving away….twenty-eight A-bombs? That’s gotta be one hell of a catch.”

(SecHS Non) “Simple. We shut the fuck up when they purge whatever Muslims end up in their crosshairs, and we look the other way when they seize the Suez Canal. The only compromise I managed to negotiate was that they take Kuwait City off of the Samson Option target list. Unlike the rest of the Middle East, those guys always did right by us, and they always asked ‘how high?’ when we told them to jump. And we won’t forget that. Cynically, it’s also the best place to do force projection over the Middle East. Same goes for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I took them off of our target list, since there’s a few poor bastards still alive in those cities that were there the first two times we opened some cans of instant sunshine. And I say they’ve learned their lesson. Of course, this is all sentimental and moot, since those three cities are sure to be Chinese targets.”

“You know, I briefed the Rising Sun’s prime minister on how we would probably resort to atomic retaliation against Royal Makai. And you know what he told me? He said, ‘Mister Non, as a man who spent a good part of my childhood taking care of a great-grandfather who was blinded by Fat Man, I have only one thing to say about other nations getting the atom’s sting. Time’s up. It’s your turn now.’ And then he went on a rant about how he hopes Moscow drops a Tsar Bomb on Tokyo, since he thinks that city’s had it too good for too long. Absolute whackjob, but I understand where he’s coming from. After all, he’s a Nagasaki native. Ahahahahaha…..he’s totally gonna shit himself and blow a gasket when he finds out that Bockscar’s reactivation was a direct order from yours truly. I already have a bet with Menendez on whether he’ll try to stomp my nuts, or break my nose next time we meet.”
 
(Phillips) “So that’s that, huh? This is it. We’re going into the ninth inning. Think about it! Pakistan’s gone! India’s gone! That’s like……..Jesus Christ. About 20% of the entire human race just….DIED. Holy shit. Don’tcha think that the aliens are gonna go into overdrive now? Now that they’ve lost one-fifth of their top objective?”

(SecHS Non) “They might. They probably will. Stay frosty, losing our cool at this point won’t do us any good. Save the crying and panicking for after our missiles fly. Not to mention that that means there’s two less countries for them to focus their efforts on. You thought D.C. was bad? We might be seeing a second surge of portal reinforcements when we get to Tennessee. And….. we’re definitely out of jamming range by now. So, Lilith. Let’s dance macabre.”

(Palmieri) “So this is it?”

(SecHS Non) “Sure is.”

(Hodges) “We’re with you every step of the way, sir. You can’t believe just how glad I am to be flying with you right now. Bring on the heat.”

(Whaley) “Yeah! Let’s show the ‘Body Snatchers’ just what happens when you fuck with Uncle Sam!”

(Taliente) “Fuck ‘em up!”

(Missouri) “I need to text my parents and husband, give 'em a headstart to the nearest bunker.”

(Palmieri) “You’se already know my score.”

(Sherry holds onto Non’s free hand.)

(Phillips) “We’ve got this in the bag. Like the captain said, I can’t even think about where to start, so I’ll cut to the chase. Thank you. Thanks for getting me out of there, and for giving me a chance. But why me?”

(SecHS Non) “Sherry, you didn’t sign up for this. You were the only person in the building besides that barista, that didn’t deserve to be there. Eydis understood the score when she first picked up her sword back on Kenkou. The rest of us? We knew the risks when we took our jobs and swore our oaths to the Constitution. We knew that everyday we woke up, there was a non-zero chance we’d get a….a car-bomb to the everywhere, or get a free Boeing 737 delivered straight through our office windows, or get a 6.5 bullet to the skull, or get some cyanide in our Kool-Aid. We’re soldiers, law enforcers, and politicians. We expect to die, or at least the smart ones do. "

"You’re a civilian, you don’t. I wanted a cameraman, and it wouldn’t be fair at all to leave you behind. And I have a personal policy to MAKE things fair if I have the opportunity. I have the authority, after all. And think of it this way. That barista wanted to stay behind and fight. But you were hesitant. And that could get you or your battle-buddies raped, or maybe even killed. So I pulled you out before you could possibly cause an accident. It’s cynical, it’s cold. But that’s part of my job. I’m part of a pivot, Sherry. The pivot that balances the expendable losses from the unnecessary losses.”

“And in an atomic war, we’ll need to save as many people as we can, within reason. And we--hold it! What the hell!? I’m getting an email on this thing. Sent through to…... Delvecchio’s Oval Office inbox. It’s addressed….to me? It’s just a phone number. A 347 area code. Anyone know where that is?”

(Missouri) “Brooklyn, Queens, or The Bronx. One of my cousins has that area code. This sounds like a trap though.”

(SecHS Non) “It’s definitely a trap. Rep, take The Football. I’m gonna encrypt my phone first, then call. If there’s some hoodoo voodoo bullshitium over the line, then you’ll have to press The Big Red Button. You’ve got the Kuiper clearance.”

(As the Secretary punches in the phone number, he waits for the Congresswoman to select a Major Attack Option. With the Kuiper Protocol now in effect, only two options are in play. She selects the one labeled ‘OPUS-32’. That choice opens another layer of Attack Options.)

(The options labeled are, from top to bottom: EDISON-1898
DRAGONSLAYER
ALASKAN FRIED CHICKEN
RHODESIAN RIDGEBACK
THE LAST BANANA WAR
MOMBASA-2552
BROKEN QUIVER
RAGNAROK N’ ROLL
UNCLE SAM AND THE LAST CRUSADE
ROMULUS-2156
WHITE FLAG)
 
(Palmieri) “What in the name of Lemay are these? Look, I can’t make a choice like this without knowing what they are?”

(SecHS Non) “Relax. Select an option, and it’ll give you a Mercator map simulation, and projected casualties. After that, it’ll give you a Y/N choice to proceed. I had that put in, just in case I wouldn’t be able to explain the attack plans to the other Kuiper members.”

(Palmieri) “Okay, okay. I can do this. Alright, let’s see…..RAGNAROK N’ ROLL.”

(As the Floridawoman looks at the screen in horror, Non makes the call. It rings once, then picks up immediately afterwards. There’s energy on the other side. Even across faceless satellite-based voice-only communication, the Secretary can already feel an unwanted erection begin to rise, and a feeling of heat from inside his body and mind. A clear, immaculate female voice, a textbook example of vocal sensuality, cuts the silent tension like a solar flare through a stick of butter.)

(Voice) “Greetings, Earthling. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with, on this enchanted evening?”

(SecHS Non) “This-this-this is, uh, this is the Secretary of Homeland Security. I’m afraid that I have NO idea who exactly this is, but…..the sensations I’m feeling, there’s only one answer. Yoooouuuu are most definitely a Lilim. But which one?”

(Voice) “Guilty as charged, handsome. Here’s a hint. I’m enjoying a most delectable confit de canard on the roof of the…...what is this skyscraper called again?”

(An unintelligible background voice answers her question, as the lead voice continues afterwards.)

(Voice) “Ah, yes. One Vanderbilt Place. Thank you, Lady Mistiv. The view from here is among the most gorgeous that I’ve ever seen! My compliments to your architects! But, I do miss the homeliness of stone fortresses. I’m displeased to see how that Castle Clinton derelict was not up to my standards, and neither that Belvedere, but no matter! I shall have a castle worthy of my splendor, built over the obsolete glorified office complex of Ellis Island. And while I am at it, why not replace that New Colossus--hmmmmm. In actuality, I’ve just had a greater idea! I’ll enlist elementals to add sustainable landmass to MY Liberty Island, use that extra land to lay down a statue of my Mother Most Immaculate, side-by-side with the green libertine.”

(SecHS Non) “.....Fourth-Born. I should have known. So, we meet at last. Player-to-player, pimp to pimp. Besides the Ritz-Carlton encounter of ours back in June. But we were both wearing our metaphorical masks back then. You, the idealistic food-industrialist on a crusade of kindness, and I, the sycophantic pencil-pushing buffoon.”

(Druella, Mistress of Lescatie) “Mmmmmmm, yes, I perfectly recall that brief meeting. You kiss women's hands well, and you wore a lovely sequin necktie. You would not happen to be wearing that same gray business suit, would you? A Kamakura design from Madison Avenue, I recall you saying. I remembered to note that down, for a suit worthy of my future husband.”

(SecHS Non) “Oh ho, still haven’t found a man in all this mess? And here I thought you were holding a candle for yours truly.”

(Druella) “Masterful bait. You and my thirtieth younger sister are excellent at pushing each other’s buttons, a sure sign of a beautiful relationship in the making. But, that will not work on me. You haven’t truly honed your argumentative chops until you’re able to debate mana theory with my dear friend Mimil Miltie for at least ten minutes straight. You’re not my type anyways. You have the sort of will that I can appreciate, but you lack the humility and eagerness to devote yourself to one such as I. You, have an ego the size of this island, and that just dries my womb. But you’ll complement Azneth quite well. Poor thing, her self-esteem was always in shambles, ever since she failed to seduce that one knight. T'was not even her own fault, the man simply had an unquenchable craving for the sort of genitalia that only an equine-woman could provide.”

(SecHS Non) “That’s the fourth most disgusting idea that I’ve mentally pictured today. The Centaur thing, not your sister. How’s it going in The Big Apple? You’ve got to be close towards winning, I assume.”

(Druella) “Quite right! Manhattan was the first to fall, despite your Air Force’s best attempts at dropping the hammer down. Brooklyn fell next, followed by Staten Island, then Queens. The last of those who attempted to hide in the subway systems, were shown our light hardly an hour ago. All that stands left is the outer north of The Bronx. But enough of strategy, we’ll have much time to speak of such things after Azneth weds you. Tell me, what have you done with Secretary Matsuda?”

(SecHS Non) “I convinced her to join the winning team. Wasn’t too difficult, since she had just seen how Mickelson had handled Plains-Flower. That Injun came quite close to causing quite a bit of damage.”

(Druella) “How so?”

(SecHS Non) “Well, you must be aware by now about how successful his signal-jamming ploy went. After Freyja found him out, the red man took Mickelson hostage, and he had quite the chance to put a bullet right through Delvecchio’s eyes. Too bad his gun jammed. Astronomical luck of that level, I’m pressed to suppose that somebody up there’s got our backs. Are you absolutely sure that the position of Chief God is still vacant? Because if so, then I need to send my resume to your mom. I think that I could do a pretty good job! Seeing as how I really like the human race, I think that angelic holy beings are quite cool, I’m good at operating through intermediaries and proxies, and I too, enjoy sitting on my ass in a celestial panic room while the walls of defeat close in on me.”

(Druella) “Ahahahahahaha! Oh my, that….that was quite good. But I’m sorry to say that you’re on a blacklist from having any semblance of power, beyond how loose or tight Azneth’s fuzzy-collar will go around your neck. I shan’t trust you to even run a falafel stand in Hell’s Kitchen, lest you execute some well-thought plot to use your profits and connections to resurrect Tammany Hall. But fret not over Matsuda. I forgive her for this triple-cross, as I cannot blame her for doing whatever it takes to thrive and survive. No punishment to be meted out. But about that, well….that’s why I’ve made this courtesy call. I could sense that you were about to do something grand, as my father and little sister have as well. I’m going to give you another chance to surrender. Just land wherever you wish, deactivate your doomsday device, and let us love you."

"Cooperate without any intentional funny business, and I give you my word that we shall do all in our power to spare your Valkyrie. I will even give you the opportunity to talk her down, in person. But do not take this offer as a sign of weariness. I am not my mother, nor my father. I have a perfect insight as to how devious and depraved your species can be when us Mamono are not around to reign your kind in, and I am not underestimating you in the slightest. Do not metaphorically fuck me, Mister Non. Or I WILL arrange for you and your Valkyrie to be taken to the furthest wastes of New Mexico. There, you two shall meet the business end of the last atomic bomb. Poetic justice, for what the two of you had planned for I and my family.”

(SecHS Non) “You’re obviously too intelligent to have not thought this up, but…...why haven’t you targeted ME, if I’m such a great enough threat."

(Druella) “Courtesy! Respect for Father and dear Azneth. Now, you are an equal match to the lesser succubus, in more ways than one. But you are NOTHING, compared to the demi-god that is our father. You can outsmart him, outmaneuver him, outrun him. But he is truly ‘The Implacable Man’, as some called him back home. You will tire, and you will slip up eventually. You will run, you will hide. Yet inevitably, he will catch up. At the end of it all, you are only an slightly-above-average human male, with not even thirty years of life experience. Father has over three-hundred and thirty. He’s experienced every trick in the book, you have only read of most such things. So, I leave it to them to see you neutralized. Goodbye for now, Mister Non. I’ve got a metropolis to rule, a husband to seek, and several scheduled meetings with architects and urban planners. The next we meet, you will have become an incubus, and we’ll all have fine wine and a toast to how grand and intoxicating your naivete in the human spirit was.”

(SecHS Non) “Your whole plan hinges on me not wiping the board clean.” 

(Druella) “Oh, you. I’m no brain cell-bereft bimbo, Mister Non. If you had truly wanted to wipe us out with no hesitation, you would have already found a way to do so. Shit, my dear. Or get off the pot. I don’t know why you’ve moved your chessboard pieces into the places they are now, but I do declare that you are bluffing, when it comes to total global saturation of the plutonium variety. So by all means, continue with your pawn moves, King. You merely delay the strange aeons that come next. After all, it’s always much more hot when a handsome man puts his all into fending us off.”

(SecHS Non) “You’re forgetting that even a Queen can be taken off the chessboard.”

(Druella) “I’m flattered that you think that’s my role in this match, but your intel was incorrect.”
 
(The call ends, leaving Non to his own devices.)

(SecHS Non) “So, gang, that was the top-level succubus that I THOUGHT was the head honcho. But I guess not. That can only mean three things. One, she’s lying. Two, her Mom really has assumed direct control over the invasion. Or three, the real chief cum-slut is a different Lilim. My best guess is number one. Doesn’t change things much even if it’s option two, to be honest. Unless she uses her dark goddess powers to teleport right into this plane and fuck us all into submission. Which she HASN’T! Which means that she ain’t omniscient. Alright, Rep. You at the Big Red Button yet?”

(Palmieri) “No way. No, no, no, no, no, no, this ain’t happening! Help me out here, dude!”

(She hands The Football back to Non, who sees that the screen is locked out. Unable to send out the EAM’s, he hits the backspace key to see a warning message that states “SYSTEM LOCKED. REQUIRE HANDSHAKE PROTOCOL FROM KUIPER HARDWARE TO PROCEED FURTHER.)

(SecHS Non) “Aw hell, I know what’s the deal! Plains-Flower gave us one last fuck-you from beyond the grave. His jamming signal triggered the software lock! It was only supposed to go into effect if an authorized user failed the log-in stage! Oh, Christ Almighty, not another deviation!”

(As every one of the passengers panic like headless chickens, it takes about five minutes for Sherry Phillips to pull herself together and think. Two minutes later, she has a eureka moment.)

(Phillips) “Hey, wait a minute! The Football said that you need special hardware to finish the launch. So let’s go find that hardware and do it! It’s gotta be in one of those Kuiper stations you were talking about.”

(The Secretary ceases his near-hyperventilation as he listens to the accountant. In realization, he gets back into the mental saddle.)

(SecHS Non) “She’s right! I’m... I’m gonna need a bit of time to come up with a new plan, but I’ll have something by the time we lift off from our refuel! Speaking of that, how’re we looking on the fuel situation, Captain?”

(Hodges) “Just peachy keen, pal! Radio chatter indicates that we’ve got just enough fuel to reach our safe zone, that is, safe for now. The FBI’s done an eminent domain on this one fancy-ass resort about twenty-three miles southeast of Knoxville. They’re currently using the place as a rendezvous for civvies that’ve managed to get out of that city, and they’ve still got a grip on the surrounding town of Sevierville, but they’re losing ground fast in the town of Pigeon Forge, which is right to the south. I just overheard an argument between their ATC and some guy that wanted to know where the VIPs were going.”

(SecHS Non) “And?”

(Hodges) “ATC said that was classified, and they’ve marked down that guy’s radar blip as a target for the Tennessee ANG. That dipshit kept pressing the question and wouldn’t identify himself. Has to be an incubus. Doppler radar says we’ll be heading out of the clouds in about 40 seconds, so keep your eyes peeled for anything around us. I’ve been getting word that those Air Force pilots that’ve gone done turned, are back in the skies in their jet fighters. They’re shooting down everybody they can, and they’re getting past the IFF by manually using their cannons! I didn’t go through all that training on spotting friendlies, just to get blasted outta the sky by .50 cal from an AT-6B!”

(SecHS Non) “Tell them that you’ve got some Yankee-White category three VIPs on board. That’s for ceremonial shitheads, so if any Mamono are tapped into their lines, they won’t think I’m on board. If they ask about me anyways, tell ‘em that I took a parachute and jumped out over…...uh…….hmmmmmmmm…...Dublin, Virginia! Yeah, that was on our way, it’s plausible. That’ll give ‘em one hell of a wild goose chase. How much longer until we get there?”

(Hodges) “Should be about forty-five minutes. I suggest that y’all get your stuff locked n’ loaded. You know, just in case this is all an elaborate trap, and the LZ is lava-hot. Might have to shoot our way in and out, or we might even have to ditch this ride for another chopper, or even a van or a bus. Best to pick a random vehicle near the resort. If the LZ is already compromised, then I’d bet my Volvo that all the rides in the parking lot are bugged or rigged to go boom.”

(SecHS Non) “So how top-notch are we talking, in terms of the resort?”

(Hodges) “Well, the resort itself is irrelevant, we don’t have time to run around and gawk. But they have a helipad that doubles as a massive freight elevator, installed not long ago. It’s got a blizzard-proof shield-thingy that covers it up when it’s underground, so we’ll be safe from aerial reconnaissance until we’re already fueled and raring to go. Most of the place’s parking lot was cleared out to make more space for medevacs and private helos. Once that shield is in place, the only way into the underground depot is through the resort, which the FBI’s already fortified. They've getting some good help from locals, stragglers from the Knoxville area, and Rangers from the Smoky Mountains National Park.”

(Phillips) “So what’s the Fibbie’s deal with the place?”

(Hodges) “I’ve been listening in on that a bunch of their higher-ups were staying at that resort when all this shit began. The VIPs flew the coop around noon today, so I’m thinking that they’re now using the place as one huge decoy to draw enemy troops away from their real safe zone. That’s why I think we might be coming in hot. It’s funny, kinda. We might get rape-washed by bitches who came lookin’ for a completely different group of government big-shots.”

(SecHS Non) “I COULD call Willemsen to ask him for reinforcements. But that’s a bad move. We need to stick with going under the radar, and I’m sure that the Pentagon has already tapped all outgoing calls within five miles of the White House by now. It’ll draw too much attention if a bunch of FBI guys start to rapidly converge on a random resort in the middle of the Smokies, they’ll realize quick that a major VIP is there. Captain, don’t forget to tell them that we’re a V-22 Osprey! Were you on any personnel lists, any paperwork, back at the Smithsonian?”

(Hodges) “Ain’t nobody got time for that shit when we were all busy fixing up the museum pieces. And nobody except Taliente recognized me. Rest of the museum folk didn’t know shit. Made sure to alter our flight code so that they’ll think we’re part of VMM-365. Told ‘em I was a Sergeant Hollis from Oakland. There’s a real Sergeant Holis with the Blue Knights, but he’s got only one ‘L’, and NO sense of humor at all.”

(Taliente) “He’s right. I didn’t tell anyone who he really was. Did it to protect his family, in case those aliens decided to target them if they couldn’t catch us. Honestly, they’re probably already fucked, since they were staying at the Bronx Ramada right by Pelham Bay Park. Right under that super succubi’s nose.”

(Hodges) “They don’t know I was in D.C. I lied. Told ‘em that I was gonna drive to Pittsburgh and lay low over there.”
 
(SecHS Non) “Good move. So, Mister Taliente. What was YOUR big plan?”

(Taliente) “No lie, I was going to hijack a jet from Dulles, parachute out over the Florida Keys, then take a boat to Puerto Rico. Sip margaritas out of coconuts and live the high life, until some alien decides to pussywhip me for the rest of my life. Or die in a firefight with the Cuban Navy, I guess. But following you guys seems like the least retarded idea I’ve had in a while.”

(Palmieri) “No, no, you did good, kid. We woulda’ nevah’ found the captain and this VTOL in time without your help. Just how old are you?”

(Taliente) “I’m 20, ma’am. Been working at ICE right out of high school. Just got my applied science Associate’s degree from Stratford, and I was in the middle of a year-long break from further academia. It’s surreal, ain’t it? All the stress and shit from college classes, or crunch time at work. None of it mattered starting yesterday. It was all completely fucking pointless. ............Oh come on, if I’m the only one thinking about this, then I’m surrounded by liars!”

(Phillips) “No, you’re just wrong! None of it was pointless! All that bullshit you went through, sent you down a path in life. And that path, one way or another, brought you right to us! So NOW, you’re getting a real chance to survive! Instead of waiting for a Chinese atomic depth charge or something to vaporize you and your stupid Caribbean vacation spot! For want of a nail, in spite of a nail, whatever you wanna call it? Everything you’ve ever done, culminated in a personal chain of events that got you to overhear us asking about a pilot and a ride. Just like me! Because everything I ever did, sent me down a chain of events that ended in me getting chloroformed for trying to steal an Army car! The Congresswoman here got…..actually, how the hell did YOU wind up in the West Wing?”

(Palmieri) “Well, I tried to escape the Pentagon through one of the emergency staircases to the underground parking lot. General Hamlets pulls up and offers me a ride. I take it, we haul ass, and then an entire steel girder smashes the front of our car right when we got to the ground floor exit.. We tried to back up and head out another way, but these two Orcs manage to lift the car up by the back bumper. Being a rear-wheel drive, we were screwed. So, Edgar tried to whip out his Beretta M9, but these two guys, who I gotta assume were the husbands of those Orcs, pull shotguns on us. We surrendered, they black-bagged our heads, and we got shoved into the back of a van. We stopped somewhere, they gagged us, took us into the West Wing conference room, then tied our hands and feet to the chairs. We were stuck like that for God knows how long, until Non and his team showed up to rescue us, and his angel girlfriend did most of the work.”

(Taliente) “So…...what’re angels like? Relationship-wise, that is.”

(SecHS Non) “I’m not even going to dignify that question with a real response. And even if I did have a real answer, I don’t kiss and tell. Once this is all over, go find one of those Dark Angels and ask ‘em yourself.”

(Taliente) “Alright, Mister National Man of Mystery, keep your secrets. I just might go do that.”
 
(Hodges) “Alright, Secretary. FBI’s asking me what our callsign is. Should I use one that’s already in my squadron, or should I make something up?”

(SecHS Non) “Hmmmmm, tell me, Captain. Any football-style names in your squadron?”
 
Sevierville, Tennessee
308 Collier Drive
January 2nd, 20--
10:07 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Voice) “Alright, Running-Back Four, you are clear for landing. I’m Agent Harmon Gibson, no relation to the movie star, and I’ll be your Air Traffic Controller tonight. Just get onto the big yellow H right next to the parking lot, you can’t miss it. Upon landing, please feel free to rest anywhere on the second floor of the main lodge. While you COULD go to any other part of the resort, we at the Federal Bureau of Investigation do not condone or advise this, due to the ongoing alien invasion, of which the possibility of encountering said hostile extraterrestrials or transformed hotel clients is likely. Thank you for choosing Club Wyndham Smoky Mountains, enjoy your stay.”

(The helicopter-airplane hybrid lands onto the helipad, which quickly begins to shake, then descend into a lower level approximately twenty feet below. A JST-30 pushback tractor is waiting for them, as a hotel valet hooks the front wheels to said tractor, quickly moving to drag it off the helipad and into the underground mini-hangar. The freight elevator-helipad raises back up to its usual position, to which two Goblins attempt to slide into the hangar before the elevator can finish. They only manage to get a few feet until they’re both shot by 12 gauge slugs, courtesy of an FBI agent and her Benelli M2. The VTOL stops at the closest designated parking slot. Another FBI agent knocks on the cockpit to indicate that the coast is clear, begetting Captain Hodges to head out for a break. Palmieri opens the passenger door, the first to leave. As everyone else peters out, Agent Whaley stays behind.”

(Phillips) “Yo, Pete, you coming with us? There’ll probably be food and drinks and all that jazz.”

(Whaley) “I’m good, thanks. Save me a bagel and a bottle of water, I’ll stick around and tend to the machine gun, just in case that elevator-shield doesn’t hold.”

(A desk jockey runs up to the group to shake Captain Hodges’s hand, as technicians rush around to run a check-up on the engines, and to refuel the vehicle.)

(Desk Jockey) “Good evening, Captain! I’m Agent Barstow, DEA. Been on liaison duty with Agent Gibson’s office up in Knoxville for almost two years now. Come with me, I’ll show you and your folks to the dining room.”

(He leads the group up three flights of stairs, the staircase is cold metal, surrounded by hardened rock.)

(Palmieri) “Sweet Guggenheim, this place looks a lot like Cheyenne Mountain! Who’s the billionaire that bankrolled THIS place?”

(Barstow) “Not just any one millionaire, miss. This place is one of several emergency shelters for local VIPs. Governor Van Carver arranged to have this one set up right after he took office two years back. Same time as when he changed TEMA’s name back to Tennessee Civil Defense. This specific shelter was some campaign concession to the Walton family, if I remember right. Eh, I liked Three Rivers and Publix better anyways when it came to groceries. Completely state-funded and built, Van Carver didn’t want FEMA to have even a single finger in this cookie jar. No offense, Ex-Deputy Admin.”

(SecHS Non) “Goddammit, am I really that famous?”

(Barstow) “Honestly, I barely cared about you, ‘till tonight. Saw you in the background during the new President’s big speech. Me and Gibson talked a bit about how you and the Attorney General looked mighty shifty, compared to the rest. Guess you two had some sort of escape plan on account of that briefcase? Wouldn’t happen to have ran off with a million bucks in platinum or something, would’ja? The Declaration of Independence, maybe?”

(SecHS Non) “That’s a long and classified story, but I can tell you that this isn’t money, artifacts, or financial valuables, although I certainly wish it was. It’s military shit, I’m just tonight’s designated errand boy. Designated Survivor is the new Vice-President.”

(Barstow) “You know where the VP is?”


(SecHS Non) “Not a clue. A whole ‘nother administration, and they STILL don’t tell me jack shit!”


(Barstow) “Well, ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss,’ or so the saying goes.”

(SecHS Non) “You’re preaching to the choir, man.”

(Barstow) “So who’re these other guys?”

(SecHS Non) “My bodyguards. Federal Protective Service. Captain Hodges here is with the Marines, and-”

(Palmieri) “Congresswoman Palmieri, repping Florida. Pleasure to meet you, Agent. Mickelson asked me to keep an eye on Non, so I tagged along. How’s Van Carver anyways? Haven’t seen him since Senator Mcmannis invited me to the inauguration party.”

(Barstow) “The Governor…..well, he’s the Governor. Still all about that autarky platform that he ran on, props to him for sticking to it, despite it being a completely retarded platform. The entire state of Mississippi is still seething and coping over that Costco fiasco last October, and he’s still got those unofficial warrants in Louisiana and Arkansas for ‘sabotage.’ Word has it that he’s in a ménage a trois with an ex-convict, and his wife’s dogs won some contest that’s going through court over rigging allegations.”

(SecHS Non) “That ex-con threesome arrangement is true. I looked into it when I was profiling all the governors and their staff in case they were already compromised. Some chick named Beatrice or something,  got arrested for bombing the house of Van Carver’s predecessor. Either politics really does make strange bedfellows, or she was in cahoots with Luc all along. They’re on our side though. At least for now. Any updates on him in all this mess?”

(Barstow) “Not much info on that, sorry. All I know is that Gibson overheard some enemy radio chatter. They were getting orders from some big shot in New Orleans, and those orders were to ignore Van Carver, since he’s holed up in Nashville’s City Hall. He’s no real threat to them, and they’ve got something planned for him at the Grand ‘Ole Opry.”

(SecHS Non) “Excellent. I’ll hit him up once we get to our next stop. If he’s got his own network of emergency management, then he might have something up his sleeve that I could use. But enough shop talk, show us the dining room. You DO have food there, I hope.”

(Barstow) “It’s mostly just continental dinner leftovers, but you guys have GOT to try the biscuits n’ gravy!”

(SecHS Non) “I’ll make a note of that. Oh, just one more thing.”

(Barstow) “Yeah?”

(SecHS Non) “You know any rooms in which the occupants are no longer with us, or compromised? I need new underwear, and I’d feel awful if I borrowed it from someone who actually needs it.”

(Barstow). “Uhhhhhhhhhhh, room 207? Key’s at the front desk, just grab it. That guy lost his mind and ran out the front door around midnight yesterday. Nobody’s seen him since.”

(SecHS Non) “Thanks a million, agent. Your country owes you one.”

(Phillips) “What the hell do you need new underwear for? Don’t tell me that Enola Gay made you bust a nut, or that you literally creamed your pants on account of that succubus that yelled at you?”

(SecHS Non) “No, it’s just that…...well…..do you really want to know?”

(Phillips) “I most certainly do.”

(SecHS Non) “Okay, I warned you, On account of all these ambient and direct exposures to demonic energy that I’ve had over the last two days, I can honestly say that my penis has permanently grown, and I need to switch out this medium underwear for a large.”


Somewhere over east-central Tennessee
Seven thousand feet above sea level
January 2nd, 20--
9:45 PM, Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Voice) “Attention passengers, this is your captain, the wonderful witch Glynda Baum speaking! We’ll be arriving at Nashville International Airport in about fifteen minutes! Thank you for flying with the 22nd Force Support Squadron, and we’ll be bringing out our final concessions of this trip right away!”

(The Anubis suddenly wakes up to a vibrating sensation on her leg. In disappointment that her dream was just a dream, and not actually a man jackhammering his cock through her fluffy thighs, she reaches into her pocket to answer the phone.)


(Rehema) “Bloody ‘ell, I forgot to set it to Airplane Mode. This had better be good.”

(She answers the phone to an unknown phone number, her iPhone 14’s caller ID app states that the call is coming from New York City.)

(Rehema) “Rehema Hampton, assistant to Princess Azneth, speaking.”

(Voice) “Oh, wonderful, the help. Addams gave me the wrong number. Would you be a dear, Miss Hampton, and hand this phone over to my sister?”

(Rehema) “If I could have your name, she’ll likely be more responsive to taking this call.”

(Voice) “This is her thirtieth older sister, Druella. Mistress of Lescatie and Queen of the Five Boroughs. Chop-chop, I’m a very busy woman. I won’t take long, and I’m sure that we’re all in for a long night. And I don’t mean that in a pleasurable way.”

(The jackal-woman quickly leaps from her seat, rushing to the cockpit. She dashes into the rest cabin, where the lower bed is occupied by The Ultimate Hero, his thirty-fourth daughter cradled in his arms. Failing to notice that the princess’s eyelids are red from soreness, or the stream of tears down the side of her head, she crouches to tap her father on his shoulder. Still experienced in the art of ‘not letting your enemies get the drop on you at your campsite, inn room, or house,’ from his years of adventuring and decades of ruling, he already noticed that Rehema was in the room.)

(The Ultimate Hero) “Can we help you, Miss Hampton? I apologize for being hard to find, but Azneth needed some privacy, save for me. She had a nightmare, she’s quite stressed, and she’s not used to sleeping in a place where her mother or sisters can’t keep her company.”

(Rehema) “Well, milord, it’s just exactly that. Druella called me by mistake, she needs to speak with Azneth. Margaret’s in the luggage room, enjoying her new marriage. And the others are in third-class seating, masturbating to work what little they can out of their systems before we start the hunt again. ”


(The Ultimate Hero) “Thank you for the update. Feel free to take the bunk above, I’ll talk to my other daughter.”

(Rehema shrugs, hands her phone to the Hero, then crawls into the top bunk if only for an extra ten minutes of sleep.)

(The Ultimate Hero) “It’s me, Druella. Azneth’s right here with me. She’s, quite frankly, losing her mind again. This was a mistake, I should have never let her join me in the capital pacification. She wasn’t ready to handle this sort of responsibility, but…. I am proud that she’s trying so hard.”

(Druella) “Good on her, then. Father, I completely understand. We’re all on edge, considering how much of a disaster it’s been to try and neutralize the mass destruction arsenals of this world. Our only success so far has been with Britain. And I take it you’re aware of what’s happened in the Indian subcontinent?”

(The Ultimate Hero) “I was just informed of that hardly twenty minutes ago. An extreme tragedy, but do NOT blame yourself. That land was a powderkeg for nearly a century. And your sisters knew the risks when they volunteered to handle that campaign. We’ve lost so many good men and women, but the atomic nightmare ends there. It ends tonight. I cannot do much outside of this region, but you have my word that the United States will be stopped before they can unleash their own horrors against anyone else. We’re about to set a trap for that Alaskan boy in this Nashville city, and I have faith that Vilinixia will have Moscow under control by sunrise. Once the Americans and Russians are dealt with, this world is functionally ours. And then we can get to work on freeing them from their old lives and restraints.”

(Druella) “Nashville, you say? Hmm, I appointed Claudette Tronmail in charge of taking that city. Look her up once you arrive at the airport. And you’re absolutely right. All we have to do, is to keep our heads together and stay the course. A week from now, I and Azneth will have our husbands, this world will be saved from itself, and Mother’s dream will take one giant leap for us all. Speaking of which, how was Mother when you left Makai? I’ve been so awfully busy, I didn’t even have time to say goodbye.”

(The Ultimate Hero) “She’s as fine as always. You should have seen the proud look on her face when she spoke to our daughters that stayed home in preparation for the liberation, right up until the last minute. Lilith and I shared our love one last time before I left with Azneth, and she’s undergoing a ritual to absorb as much demonic energy as she can from Earth. I don’t know what she’s planning exactly, but she said that it was a surprise. She also said that she left two letters with Carol, and they are not to be opened until a certain event comes to pass, which I assume is when your mother arrives at the United Nations headquarters.”

(Druella) “That seems most likely. Well then, you’ve got a busy night with your cat-and-mouse chase, and I’m still not done with Newark, outer Brooklyn, the Yonkers area, or west Connecticut. Best of luck to you and little Azneth, I will come see you as soon as I can. Good night, Daddy.”

(The Ultimate Hero) “And a wonderful night to you too, dear. I know how long and hard you’ve fought and struggled to find a worthy man, and I have a good feeling that you’ll find yours very soon. I don’t know where or how, but very soon.”
 
 
Sevierville, Tennessee
308 Collier Drive
January 2nd, 20--
10:18 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Barstow) “GO, GO, GO, GO! FUCK! GODDAMN YOU, NON, THEY’RE HERE, HOT ON THE TRAIL OF YOUR SORRY ASS, I’D BET!”

(Hodges) “THAT’S COMPLETELY FUCKIN’ IMPOSSIBLE! I SCRAMBLED OUR FLIGHT CODE, LIKE, FIVE TIMES!

(SecHS Non) “Save the blame game for the Congressional subcommittees! We need to ‘didi mao’, now! We lost that technician, god, I didn’t even get to know his name!”

(Whaley) “Jake! Get the VIPs and Phillips to the hover-chopper! The rest of us’ll be right here by the staircase entrance! That Gibson guy’s still yelling over the radio, and he’s gonna need all the cover fire he can get! That freight elevator’s still holding, so this door here is the only way in or out!”

(Barstow) “Uhhhhh, that’s not exactly true. There’s another emergency exit that’s only meant to be used exactly at a time like this! That whole back wall in the hangar, well, that shit can open up! It’s too low for regular helos, but it’s wide enough for a Falcon 7X, which means it outta be wide enough for your Osprey-ripoff!”

(Hodges) “Ripoff!? Get bent, that baby’s the OG! If anything, the Osprey’s a lardass knockoff compared to how smooth it is to fly the XV-15! And what the hell is up with that alarm? It sounds like a clown making Transformers noises into a 2006 Dell laptop’s built-in microphone!”

(Barstow) “Ah, that’s just Purple Alert! Gibson got the idea from some Adult Swim show back in the day, something about Swedish dudes, I think.”

(The group reaches the hangar, where various cars are readying themselves to speed away, one HA-420 HondaJet readies its engines, and Agent Whaley is scrambling to load a new belt of 5.56x45 into the MK 46 machine gun. As the Captain leaps into the cockpit to start the engine, the rest of the group begins to double-check their weapons. Agent Barstow runs off towards the HondaJet, first making a stop at a computer terminal. Punching “BATMOBILE_1993” into a coding machine built into the “cave's" wall, said wall begins to split in half, revealing a direct exit/entrance to Collier Drive. The various cars parked in the hangar all proceed to blast off in various directions first, driven by whomever of the hotel staff, federal agents, or Tennessee Civil Defense mechanics and technicians that were lucky enough to have already been in the hangar. Still connected to the JST-30, a state Civil Defense technician gets on to safely drive the XV-15 out without damaging the rotor blades.)

(The JST-30 stops by the staircase entrance, waiting for the others to arrive. FBI Agent Gibson is the first to run out, making for the last car, his personal 2018 Dodge RAM 1500. After another two minutes, only Agent Missouri emerges, an arrow in her right knee, limping towards the XV-15. She nearly falls right before the door, only for Agent Whaley to catch and drag her inside.)

(Missouri) “P-punch us outta here, man! It’s all game-over up there, it’s just me! Johnson and Tucker are fuck-meat, and I’m hit! What the hell is this, man? There’s an arrow right there in my knee, and I don’t even feel hurt, I-I-I feel…..sexy?!”

(SecHS Non) “You’ve been sniped by a Cupid, dude! Stay cool, that arrow’s made of magic bullshitium, so it just FEELS like you’re in pain! Just pull it out, I swear that that’s all you need to do! Trust me, you’re not even close to the first guy I’ve seen to get hit by one a’ those!”

(The FPS agent obeys, quickly “ripping” out the love-arrow, tossing it onto the parking garage floor.)

(Missouri) “Oh my god, that really does do the trick! Well, what’re you guys waiting for? I blocked the door to the stairs, but that shit won’t hold forever!”

(Hodges finishes flight preparations eleven seconds later. Having seen only Missouri enter the hybrid aircraft, the technician stomps the gas pedal to get the XV-15 outside. Three Arachne rush in through the new entrance, only to be shot by the last of the various humans speeding out of the hangar. Agent Gibson is the only one left, his vehicle not moving. As the XV-15 passes by him, all Peter Whaley can offer is a confused shrug to Gibson. Closing the passenger door immediately afterwards, Agent Missouri gives Hodges the chance to safely start up the rotors. Quickly zipping out of the hangar, taking a right turn onto Collier Street, Hodges turns the rotors to full speed, the left one shredding an unlucky Beelzebub that was hovering in the way.)

(The HondaJet takes a left turn, requiring the straight line space of that part of Collier Street to catch air the proper way. Right before Sherry Phillips can open the door for the technician, Hodges sees him get tackled out of the JST-30 by a Satyros. Acting quick, he presses a button to auto-lock the passenger door, waving his finger at the others in a no-no fashion, then motioning his hand to his neck in a slicing motion. The passengers get the point. The Captain moves the rotors into a 90-degree angle, then quickly begins to hover upwards into the sky, only moving the rotors in a forwards direction after reaching 6,000 feet above sea level, flying off in the direction of the state capital.)

(Now the only free man left in the complex, Agent Billy Gibson gets out of his truck, going to his truck bed to reach a M60E3, deciding to go out in a Rambo-style blaze of glory. He gets it, already loaded, then runs to the center of the hangar. Pointing it at the staircase entrance, he readies himself to unload on the first E.T. or mutant that comes out the door. Not paying attention to his peripheral vision, an arrow flies by his head, impacting the helipad-elevator’s computer workstation next to him. He turns to the left, where four Cupids and a Basilisk stand. One of the Cupids has a pink PSE Stinger Max, already loaded with another demonic silver-tipped arrow, while the others are wielding M4 Carbines taken from various FBI agents upstairs. Looking down at himself, he notices that all four of them have laser designators aimed on him.)

(Gibson) “D-don’t try it! The Pig’s ready to roll, s-so unless you all wanna get chopped, I-I suggest that you let me walk!”

(Cupid bowgirl) “Unacceptable. You WILL submit, Gibson. I can keep holding onto this bow all night, but you’ll eventually get tired of the Stallone routine. The second you drop that Chopper, we drop YOU.”

(Gibson) “Then I guess we got ourselves a classic Mexican standoff then.”

(Seven seconds of stressful silence later, the Basilisk prepares to hurl her venom, only to stop herself once she realizes what’s going on at the other side of the hangar. For at that same minute, a Gremlin had managed to rewire some maintenance cables in the resort, activating an override for the helipad-elevator. The elevator descends, and Gibson turns around to see a whopping forty-two Mamono of every shape and size descend with it. An construction worker-turned-Amazoness lifts her sledgehammer in a threatening swordlike motion towards Gibson.)

(Amazoness) “Well hello there, big boy. Looks like you’re…...quite FUCKED.”

(A hotel valet-turned-Ice Queen next to her speaks up.)

(Ice Queen) “Jane, that was the most cringe one-liner I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’ve seen the whole Buffy The Vampire Slayer show.”

(Jane) “Shut your ass up, Mary-Lee. Why don’t YOU come up with a better one next time?”

(Mary-Lee) “I will!”

(With no way out now, Gibson drops the M60E3, putting his hands in the air. As the Mamono begin to close the distance with him, his fear increases to the point where he’s beginning to cry and piss his pants at the same time.)

(Gibson) “Oh, oh my god, this is some Romero zombie shit!”

(Now surrounded, the lead Cupid reaches around his body to unbuckle his belt, his pants dropping to the ground. The Amazoness lifts him up by the shirt, as the Basilisk goes around to abruptly begin sucking him off.)

(Cupid leader) “Now since you’ve been such a good boy, surrendering like that, seeing reason? You get the easy way!”


Sullivan County, New York
Twenty-five thousand and seventy-four feet above sea level
January 2nd, 20--
10:26 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Senior Master Sergeant Ellis Walsh) “Alright Mouseketeers, we’re about to drop bomb number one. We’re over Sullivan County, New York state, it’s 48 degrees in the cabin, and I hope you suckers brought cold weather gear, because our orders are taking us waaaaaaay out there. Mister Halpert, how’s Fat Man 2 and 3 coming along?”

(Halpert) “They’re ready, acting captain. I have no clue as to why the brass wants to give upstate New York a can of instant sunshine, but I’m not spergy enough to question orders at a time like this. I’d almost feel...inspired with awe and all that Herman Melville stuff, but since the Pakis and the Pajeets just beat us to being third place in the 21st century A-bomb almanac, I’m a little disappointed now. Just gimme the word, and I’ll drop it.”

(Walsh) “You get this one, Halpert, but I call dibs on dropping the next.”

(Halpert) “Deal, as long as you tell me where the next target is.”

(Walsh) “Well…...sure. It’s not like they had time to bug the electronics here or anything, anyways. Our next target is some coordinates that correspond to….. Essex County, Massachusetts. After that, we’re to rendezvous with a KC-46 somewhere over Newfoundland. Our next orders are only to be opened once we begin the refuel.”

(Halpert) “Alrigh- Oh, here we go! Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd, -plop-! Auf wiedersehen, Woodstock! I never liked Arlo Guthrie or the Grateful Dead anyways!”

(Walsh) “Woodstock!? That’s the target?”

(Halpert) “It’s gotta be! Not like there’s anything else important in this county!”

(Walsh) “But what the fuck is down there at Woodstock that’s worth using a whole-ass nuke?”



Cumberland County, Tennessee
Nine thousand feet above sea level
January 2nd, 20--
10:30 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(SecHS Non) “Ahaha! Bingo!”

(Palmieri) “Bingo what?”

(SecHS Non) “Bockscar just dropped its second A-bomb! I just got a text from Hudson, STRATCOM confirms that as of three minutes ago, everything within 3 miles of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts has basically ceased to exist!”

(Missouri) “What in the name of Picasso is a Bethel Woods?”

(SecHS Non) “Self-explanatory. It’s in the woods of a place called Bethel, in upstate New York. It also went by a much more simple name back in 1969. I’ve had intel that a massive gathering of Kenkouan wannabe hippies, and shittons of monsterized actual hippies, were swarming the area in preparation for a Flower Power extravaganza once the USA gets dissolved. Fat chance now, bitches!”

(Phillips) “So you atomized............Woodstock? With a zillion bohemians there? Holy shit, dude, that’s metal as fuck!”

(Taliente) “Now that’s what I call a ‘One Way Ticket To Midnight!’”

(Palmieri) “Gotta agree with Sherry, that IS pretty heavy metal.”

(SecHS Non) “Aha, just wait until you hear about the next target. That place has had it comin’ since 1692!

(Missouri) “Well, now that I’m feeling a lot less on edge, I have to ask. Are we gonna replace Tucker and Johnson once we touch down at Nashville International?

(SecHS Non) “There’s two things I have to say about that. First, we’re grabbing as many people as we can. We’re taking all the help we can get, and like the President said, America needs all hands on deck. Second, we’re not touching down at Nashville’s city airport.”

(Whaley) “Then where ARE we going? Don’t tell me we’re landing right on the state capitol lawn or something?”

(SecHS Non) “Oh no, you misunderstand me, Agent. None of you are coming with me. On my phone right here, I have a picture of a list of possible landing sites, and we’re gonna use the XV-15’s hovering-ness to scope out these helipads before we land. Once we do that, I’ll write down the exact coordinates to where I need Hodges to take you guys. Fill up all nine passenger seats back here, and the co-pilot seat too. We’re going to save as many people as we can. You guys will be refueling again, and I’ll run off to create a distraction and draw their troops away from you guys."

"Remember, they’re after ME. They didn’t give a shit about Palmieri before, she just happened to be the Air Force Chief of Staff’s passenger. Wrong place and time, they’ll forget about her in a heartbeat if it opens up more troops to hunt down ‘The Abominable Snowman’, or so they codename me in their not-so-secret chat rooms that the NSA’s infiltrated.”

“So here’s the plan in a nutshell. You guys fill the ride with eleven people, I do a switcheroo on The Football with whatever briefcase I can find at our landing spot, you guys refuel and haul ass to the location I’m about to give the captain, and then you guys standby until I arrive. I’ve got until about 7:30 PM tomorrow before my code expires, so don’t run around like headless chickens until then! We clear?”

(Whaley and Missouri) “Crystal, sir!”

(Palmieri) “Got it.”

(Phillips) “Understood. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”
 
(Hodges) “Roger, roger.”

(Taliente) “Loud and clear.”

(SecHS Non) “Just one more thing. Remember to verify whomever you find before they get on the XV-15. Check their phones in case they’re bugged too. They say that the Doppelgangers can be revealed if you check their mouths, but I think that’s just bullshit made up by someone who saw The Thing. But check that anyways, just to be sure. Maybe it works on some completely different sort of monster. Eydis dumped as much intel as she could with us, but even she didn’t know the full picture.”


1 Terminal Drive 
Air Traffic Control Center
Nashville, Tennessee
January 2nd, 20--
9:52 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(The thirty-fourth princess, her father, and the rest of her entourage arrive via elevator into the central command of Claudette Tronmail, save for Margaret and her husband, who’ve stayed behind to ensure that no infiltrators sabotage their Mobile Command Center. Incubi and their Mamono wives alike crowd the air traffic control tower’s top floor, attempting to fulfill their usual duties of handling the comings and goings of aircraft at the port, while also juggling the new duty of command & control over Davidson County. An excited Dhampir rushes up to the group, a stacked clipboard in one hand and in the other, a blood pack with a Capri-Sun straw stabbed in. She takes a long sip of red blood cells, gives a Roman salute, then addresses the others.)

(Dhampir) “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Baghdad 3. I’m Ionita Crescentria, second-in-charge around here. Miss Tronmail’s been expecting you, just follow me on to the conference room, first door on the left.”

(Stacey) “Wait, if this is Baghdad 3, then what’s Baghdad 2?”

(Irina) “Chicago. Trust me, you DON’T want to know how bad it’s going over there.”

(The half-vampire leads the entourage to the conference room, to find a table filled with files on local government officials, topography maps, detailed satellite thermal photographs of the county, stapled papers of troop details on both Royal Makai and the state of Tennessee, and a real-time battlefield display, projected onto a silver screen on the opposite side of the room from the entrance. They find a single beleaguered Holstaur, using a laser pointer on the display while simultaneously speaking with someone over the phone.)


(Holstaur) “....And for the last time, will SOMEONE get that Delmalori bitch to send us that prisoner list she promised us FOUR HOURS AGO!? I swear to the Maou, she’s gone rogue in that stupid opera house. I should’ve kept her on a tight leash here and sent out dang ol’ Ionita to do that op! This ain’t no Kentucky Derby, Androna! This is war! So PLEASE, do us all a favor and get crackin’ on huntin’ down that there Eskimo?”

(Azneth) “Lady Tronmail, I presume?”

(Tronmail) “Aw sh-uh, hello! Greetings and welcome, princess! And to you as well, mah’lord!”

(Azneth) “The pleasure is all ours. Now, we’re in a slight hurry, can you give us a quick debrief of the goings-on around here?”

(Tronmail) “Sure, sure! I’ll, uh, if y’all could take your seats, I’ll…..it’s….it’s just that….oh, sweet Lilith. Y’all want the bad news, or the worse news?”

(The Ultimate Hero) “The worse news, if you please. We’ll need the full truth if we’re to gain as much of an upper hand as we can.”

(Tronmail) “Alright, well…..where do I start…..the, um, it’s all be-......”

(The bovine-woman struggles to speak for twenty-six seconds, before falling to her knees and breaking down in tears.) 

(Tronmail) “Uh-huh, uh, oh gods! It’s a complete mess, an absolute dumpster fire, the whole thing! We’ve only got complete control over the airport and...and everything to the immediate north, south, and east! Just look at the map! We-we’re trying our best, but they’ve stopped us cold at this Interstate-40 and 24 intersection, and a lot of my troops are tied up evacuatin’ the now-homeless out to this J.P. Priest Reservoir over there, we’ve got TWO rogue Mamono groups having some kind of species infightin’ across the entire southwest part of the county!"

"Governor Van Carver’s still got everything inside the I-40 & 440 loop here under his control, and the I-40 & 65 loop here, up to the Cumberland River. We’ve lost all contact with the Grand 'Ole Opry, everything north of the Cumberland’s goin’ up in flames, we haven’t been able to take over all them news stations, I STILL haven’t found a husband, we’re seein’ significant civilian resistance in the southwest, and we just barely beat off an internal uprising from all them unclaimed male prisoners!”

“I haven’t slept since I got on this godsforsaken world, I ain’t found no time to milk mah’self, I’m cold, my best friend Cayetlin Amaltia done barely took Chattanooga, so it’ll be a while before she can spare reinforcements, and Rosurth out in Memphis went and called ahead ‘with a heavy heart,’ to say that any troops she can spare are headin’ downriver to Vicksburg! I’m going to be completely honest, and I don’t care anymore what they think about me! I NEED YOUR HELP! Me, Ionita, Cayetlin, we tried to get outta our grandma’s shadows, become better Three Musketeers than they ever could, but we fucked up bad! I dunno know what to do anymore, other than to hunker down on what we’ve already got! We’ve hit a wall, and we need some kinda ace up our sleeves!”

(The Ultimate Hero) “Consider your prayers answered, for here I am.”

(Tronmail) “I-I...Thank you, mah’lord! I’m sorry for letting y’all down, but I just wasn’t good enough.”

(Now leaning over the table, the would-be Musketeer leans over onto the table to continue crying, as Azneth and Terri get out of their seats to give her a hug. Azneth leans right into her breast-canyon, as Terri covers the both of them in her wings. The thirty-fourth born princess raises her hands to wipe away the Holstaur’s tears.)

(Azneth) “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, Claudette. I know exactly what it’s like to fail to get out of your relative’s shadow. Well, not MY grandma, may she rot in oblivion, but my Lilim sisters. Druella, for one, but Modia, Ilassa, and Mari were always top-notch at making me feel small, even though I know they do it out of tough love, not hate. You’ll find a way to push through this, just like me.”

(The Ultimate Hero) “While it takes a lucky woman to be able to succeed with limited resources, it takes a wise woman to put aside her ego, and ask for help. You’re already aware of our objective, and I have a plan. We’ll split up across the city, acquire communicator devices-”

(Stacey) “You mean radios?”

(The Ultimate Hero) “Yes, those. We'll split up, as Lady Crescentia will take command from here, with assistance from Lady Margaret and her husband. It'll leave Claudette free to personally deal with whichever one of these strategic dilemmas she wishes. I will personally go out to break the stalemate at that highway intersection, then continue the search for Mister Non.” 

(Tronmail) “That’s the best plan I’ve heard yet, and I’m all in! Anyone else got anything to add?”
 
(Chloe) “Yeah, we ought to decide who gets which uhhhhhh, sector, to deal with. I’ll head over to those outta-control riots in the southwest. If that’s what I think it is, then I bet I could wrangle a ton of them back into our fold. If that works, then we’ll open another front against the Governor.”
 
(Terri) “I’ll fly over and deal with the other rioting group. Non might try to use that chaos to slip through. Maybe they’ve even got a spare brother, cousin, or son that’s up my alley, so I can take him up MY alley.”

(Azneth) “I... will infiltrate the Governor’s palace. HE will likely show up there to fleece that Van Carver fellow into cooperating with some sort of scheme. He did the same thing with that new President, he’s likely to get cocky enough to try it again. And even if Non isn’t there, at least I’ll be performing valuable reconnaissance, maybe even some sabotage.”

“AND CAN SOOOOMEONE BRING A JACKET AND A PAIL FOR CLAUDETTE HERE?”

(Stacey) “I’ll handle the news station problem. Just give me a map that identifies which ones are already on our side, and those that aren’t yet. If I run into your man, I can’t promise that I won’t get even and put a bullet in his kneecap.”

(Wilkinson) “I’ll tag along with Tronmail. I heard about your grandma Paula, and if you’re even a cheap imitation of her, then I’d bet you’re still a gunslingin’ pro. Two guns are better than one, especially when you’ve got me. Relax, Missus moo-moo. I’ve won SEVERAL pistol competitions in the D.C. area. I know what I’m doing, and I bet you’ll measure up on the battlefield!”

(Tronmail) “Why, bless your heart, darlin’! I accept your help, and I know what to do. We’ll head on over to the Opry, deal with that Delmalori trumpart, rope her and her troops back into our fold the easy way, or the hard way.”

(Rehema) “I’m going to need a large supply of firefighter equipment, and a few large trucks and boats. I’m going into the inferno, rescue whomever I can, then turn the Cumberland River’s shore into a northern front. If Azneth’s best guess is right, then we can corner Non at the state capitol. This time, we’ll have enough anti-air assets to ensure that there won’t be any sort of helicopters for him to escape in. This time, we’ll be using air cavalry to assault THEM from the roof!”

(Terri) “Stacey, which news station are you hitting first?”

(Stacey) “This one here in the west. Channel 4, National Broadcasting Company.

(Azneth) “We set up the encirclement, and spring the trap the minute he’s confirmed to be inside. Sounds like a kinky plan. I’ll remember this when I wrap my legs to keep him from pulling out! Alright gang, let’s split up and search for clues!”
 
 
5700 Knob Rd
Nashville, Tennessee
January 2nd, 20--
10:54 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(SecHS Non) “Alright, gang. We’re here!”

(Taliente) “And just what exactly is….here? I mean, this is obviously Nashville, looks like the west side of town. Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of fires goin’ ‘round for being 42 degrees Fahrenheit outside.”

(Palmieri) “Goodness, Non, how are you NOT freezing your ba-oh wait, you’re Alaskan. 42 degrees is a warm day by your standards.”

(SecHS Non) “Damn skippy that I’m born and bred for this kinda weather. Don’t worry, Rep. That table’s gonna turn, and you’ll see me down to a star-spangled speedo whenever I get around to Senator Buchanan’s invitation to hang out in Miami for the 4th of July!”

(Palmieri) “That is the absolute LAST thing I want to picture tonight.”

(Phillips) “Oh, I’m ALL up for seeing-uh, um, uh, uh, Miami on the 4th! Yeah, yeah, that’s what I wanna see. Lounging on the, uh, beach and shit, watching the fireworks and all that. Sounds badass.”

(Palmieri) “Hmph, alright, remind me to comp you a free plane ticket on the 3rd.”

(Taliente) “Helloooo!? Where the hell did Non drag us all to this ti-OH.”

(At that moment, Taliente turns a corner to see the entrance sign of the news station, identifying it as WSMV-TV, Channel 4, National Broadcasting Company-affiliate, and a Comcast partner.)

(Taliente) “Hey guys, we’re going live on NBC! Oh shit, crossing my fingers that the Seinfeld or 30 Rock crew’s in there.”

(Whaley) “Why the hell would a bunch of New Yorkers be in Nashville at a time like this?”

(Taliente) “Why would an Alaskan, a Bostonite, a Florida-gal, and a bunch of Marylanders be in Nashville at a time like this?”

(Whaley) “Point taken.”

(Hodges) “Let’s head inside and ask ‘em what the password to the fueling station is. Fuckin’ automated anti-theft bullshit software. This is Texaco’s fault, I swear. Agent Missouri, man the machine gun until we come back, and keep your eyes peeled for anyone trying to slap C4 or something onto the hull. Scream into the radio at the first sign of trouble.”

(Missouri) “Aye-aye, captain.”

(Hodges) “Stop calling me captain, dammit! We ain’t in the military chain-of-command no more. My name’s Roy, or you can call me Mister Hodges if you’re feelin’ fancy.”

(Missouri) “Well, if we’re on first name basis now, then you can all just call me Rose. Yes, I’m very much aware that ‘Rose Missouri’ sounds like a pornstar name, no thanks to my time in high school.”
 
(Ten seconds later, the group converges at the front door to the broadcasting station, all their guns drawn. Palmieri still has her Daniel Defense MK 18. Agent Whaley draws his SOPMOD Block 1 carbine, Non already had his Uzi drawn, as did Phillips and her Browning BPS. Roy Hodges pulls out a personal Smith & Wesson M&P R8 revolver, and Jake Taliente reveals a .40 H&K USP Compact that he had taken from the ICE headquarters armory earlier that day.)

(Palmieri) “So, anyone wanna place bets that the newsies inside are going nuts like the first Dawn of the Dead?”

(Whaley) “I’m putting fifty bucks that you’re wrong.”

(Taliente) “I’m betting sixty that the place is abandoned.”

(SecHS Non) “Seventy says the place is swarming with monsterchicks.”
 
(Phillips) “Eighty says that they’re as mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take this anymore!”

(Whaley) “Alright, here’s how it is. On the finger-count of five, I open the door. Everyone checks everyone’s six and three and nine, and we clear the place room-to-room. Under NO circumstance are we to split up before then. This ain’t fuckin’ Scooby-Doo. We get whomever’s still normal, we fill up the gas tank, we find enough survivors to fill up the VTOL, then we drag our fat cocks and grody pussies over to the rendezvous point, minus the Secretary.”

(The group finishes the countdown, busting into the front lobby. Only a single Barometz is inside, handling the front desk. The monster attempts to pull a sawed-off Baikal IJ-58, loaded with demonic silver beanbag rounds, firing one shot at Whaley, knocking him to the ground. Palmieri busts four 5.56 cap into the sheep-alraune hybrid, all shots hitting her in the upper body, as the Mamono then fires one failed shot into the ceiling, while dropping dead. Whaley gets up twelve seconds later, suddenly feeling the sensation of a direct infusion of demonic energy into the human body. He quickly gets up, his throbbing erection poking through his pants for all to see.)

(Whaley) “Aw shit, change of plans! I’m going to the big boy’s room, you guys keep clearing the place! I’ll see you guys in the….uh, the room where the anchormen and women do the talking!” 

(SecHS Non) “You mean the studio?”

(Whaley) “No way, the real name can’t be that simple! But yeah! That place!”

(Now heading towards the restroom, Agent Whaley goes in to relieve his aching nutsack. Heading down the freshly-painted white hallways of the building, the group takes a left. With an open hallway of multiple doors, the group’s heads all turn to Non for the next move.)


(SecHS Non) “Let’s, uhhhh, let’s just go to the main offices. Building map on the wall here says it’s the last room on the left. There’s two doors between that and the backdoor exit, but those are storage closets. Check all the doors anyways, in case of hidey-hoos. One of those almost got me, back at the Capitol Building. The Senate offices, to be exact.”

(The group quietly opens every door they can find in the hallway, except for Studio A’s door. Taliente makes one attempt to open the door, only to realize it’s locked.)

(Taliente, in a quiet tone) “Hey guys! This one’s locked! There’s gotta be someone in there, or there’s valuables inside! Either way, we gotta bust in! Anyone got a…...lockpick? Or maybe a paperclip? I mean, we COULD just use Sherry’s gat to blast the hinges off, but then we’d open ourselves up to a trap! Look, the best way to do CQB, is to get the drop on the other guy! Now, we could split up. One group busts in from the ceiling while Sherry and some others blow the door. Or we could find a chainsaw and just use that to intimidate them while we bust the door. Or, we could do this in the most quiet way there is.”

(SecHS Non) “And that would be…..?”

(Taliente) “The Resident Evil method. We just head over to the main offices, sift through the desks until we find the key for this, and unlock the door normal-like.”

(SecHS Non) “Alright, ‘Agent Kennedy,’ you take point once we get to those offices. You sure it’ll all be one big room?”

(Taliente) “I know it will. I did my college thesis paper on the efficiency of private offices versus open offices. Every news station I contacted over the phone or saw in person, told or showed me that they used open offices, with a few not-so-private offices that had two-way windows.”

“As for taking point, ugh. You got it, ‘Abominable Snowman.’ Damn, wish I had a cool codename like that. Alright, let’s get this done clean and quick. We’ll get another briefcase bag for your little switcheroo, too. Trust me, every news station has a bunch of those to pick through.”
 
 
5700 Knob Rd
Studio A
Nashville, Tennessee
January 2nd, 20--
10:46 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Inside of the locked studio, there is a lone man. He double-checks the circuit breaker to see if all the switches are on, then he walks over to turn on a single broadcasting camera, pointing it at the main newsdesk. After double-checking a computer to see if he’s broadcasting live on Channel 4 and it’s website, he also takes advantage of the FCC’s current turmoil, to use old FEMA software from 2002 that preempts every Public Broadcasting Service and FOX channel broadcasts with his own. Lastly, he jogs over to the weather forecast section of the Studio, where an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s Winter Jack lies waiting in a cooler. He opens the cooler, then walks back to the news desk, pulling up a chair. Placing the Winter Jack bottle on the desk, along with a fully loaded Ruger KP90, he begins to address the audience, trying his hardest not to pay attention to the chrysalis next to him.)

(Man) “Good evening! This is WSMV-TV, Channel Four of the National Broadcasting Company, for all you FOX and ABC fans out there just tuning in. I’m Olsen Kent, and the cocoon next to me is my co-anchor Suzanne Helperman and her husband. I turned thirty-three years old last week, and I’ve been proud to have given you the news as this station’s anchorman for the last four years, three months, and seventeen days. Apologies for taping over the President’s message, but this IS the 21st Century. You wanna hear him so bad, then turn on your phone, or change the channel to those kiddy-diddling faggots on Channel Five. If you’re looking for some real on-the-streets action, then head on over to Channel 42. Oh sure, it’s in Spanish, but I can personally assure you that Enrico Plaza’s a swell guy who always tells it like it is. And if you don’t already have an English subtitle option on your TV set, then you are one cheap motherfucker, you know that?”

“Now, me, Suzanne, her husband Gerald, our front desk clerk Esther, and that useless intern Larry whom I KNOW CAN HEAR ME, are the only folks left in the building as of right now. Esther’s a plant-sheep-freak now, and she refuses to leave her personal Venus flytrap thingamajig, that lazy bitch. As I am the only qualified and willing person left in this building, I take it upon myself to deliver you the news, one last time. Assuredly, our new overlords from the planet Kenkou will replace me, once one of their women put me out to stud. To that, I welcome you, but you’re going to have to personally come down to this station, this studio, and fuck me yourself. Until then, I will perform my duties to the best of my ability. Normally, there’d be a cameraman to move the camera over to the weather forecast area to my left, but since they’re all gone, I’ve taken the liberty to already put it on-screen behind me.”

(He rolls his chair over to his right, to cease blocking the forecast.)

(Kent) “Now as you can see, it’ll be a cloudy night, expected to continue for the next four days. Probably worse than the forecast expects, given all the smoke coming from the northside of Nashville, which I’m sure you’re by now all aware, has basically become one big raging fire that could be mistaken for Dresden in World War Two. Now, we zoom out to the Appalachian region, where we can see that there’s a front coming in from over the Great Lakes that gives us a chance of snow tomorrow morning, but it’s only a 15% chance. That being said, since when is the weather forecast ever right? Over to the northeast, there’s a huge cloud hole over Washington D.C., of which I have absolutely NO idea, at all, as to how THAT happened, other than hocus-pocus reality-bending crap from our new lords and masters. To the south, it’s sunny skies all over the Gulf states, save the majority of north Texas."

"You know, you’d think there’d be a few catastrophic hurricanes going on at a time like this, but it looks like Florida really does have its own special cocaine magic stuff. In worldwide weather, a ton of volcanoes have erupted around the Pacific Ring of Fire, for reasons that are probably the Kenkouan's fault. I’ve seen confirmed footage that Mount Rainier, the Big Island of Hawaii, and Mount Redoubt near Anchorage, have all gone kablooey. And I expect that the San Andreas and New Madrid Fault Lines will shit the crustal bed sometime this week. If the New Madrid one goes fucko-boingo, a lot of us are going to die, especially our viewers in Memphis. Sorry everybody, but that’s the way geology is.”

(Kent moves his chair back to his original position, then opens the Winter Jack to take a swig. After a ten-second break to soak in the 30 proof alcohol, he picks up his KP90, pointing it at his co-anchor’s cocoon. He nearly pulls the trigger thrice, stopping himself each time just before the firing pin strikes the bullet. He then nonchalantly resumes his reporting.)

“Now, I’m afraid that I can’t pull up any footage at the moment, but at this time, we are now occupied by the forces of some space princess named Druella. She’s got pink-hued skin, white hair, a lot of red eyes in all the wrong places, rune-paint all over her body, and impeccable taste in heels. Actually, I just realized that ALL their royalty have white hair. What’s up with that? Must be getting it from their parents. So I hear she’s out on the hunt for a husband, and I wish her good luck, on account of her incorrect thinking that there’s ANY sort of worthwhile man to be found within seventy miles of New York City. Locally, Kenkouan forces are-HEY! What was THAT noise? Sounded like the door, sounded like…..nah. I must be hearing things. Must be the booze talking, momma always said I was a lightweight.”

“Back on subject, Kenkouan forces in the Nashville area are being led by a cow-woman named Claudette Tronmail. What does Tronmail mean exactly, you may ask? Well, I for one, have no idea at all. She’s operating out of the Nashville International Airport, so if you want to surrender, there’s where you oughta go. If you don’t want to, I suggest that you head to the highway loops around the state capitol, where Tennessee Governor Luc Van Carver is mounting a defense that, miraculously, appears to be working. I believe that the Centennial Park Parthenon is being used as his command center, but I have no concrete evidence yet.”

“In other news from the frontlines, the Ku Klux Klan has surfaced in large numbers, and it seems that they’re operating out of the Belle Meade Winery. A former plantation, there’s hardly a more fitting place in this whole county to set up shop in their line of duty. The Black Panthers have risen in response, and I don’t know for sure about where they’re operating from. But, I did hear RUMORS that they were running their show out near west of Radnor Lake. Obviously, the area around Route 431 has become a warzone and a bloodbath, with monster-honkys and monster-niggers alike drenching the streets in blood. I have no idea who’s in charge of either group."

"Latest reports claim that the Klan is particular in their preferred recruitment of reptilian-type Kenkouans and their evolved Earth allies. Because let’s be honest here, all you women out there, watching this program? If you’ve been ‘mutated’, it’s not a mutation. It’s artificial evolution. You’re stronger, better, faster, stronger. Shit, I said that twice. Point is, yoooouuuu are objectively superior to a regular-ass human being! Like me! And I’m going to sledgehammer-smash the dicks of the jerks who won’t let us guys get evolved too. That incubization shit doesn’t count! All it does, is change your eye color, make your dick bigger, jizz harder, fuck longer, and do that refractory crap quicker! I didn’t need that! Okay, so our eyes look cooler now, I’ll give them that, but I was perfectly comfortable with my 6-point-3 incher! Come on, at least give us a choice on that!”

(He takes another swig of the Winter Jack, the bottle now halfway to empty. Another eleven seconds later, he resumes his broadcasting after a resounding burp.)
 
“These forced evolutions….. can occur through direct exposure to magic energy, or through the ingestion of edible liquids and solids that are pumped with said magic energy, or…... through direct sexual intercourse. You should probably know that by now, but if not? I’m absolutely serious about that last part. No condoms, it can be guy-on-girl, girl-on-girl, I’ve heard even guy-on-guy can work, although I haven’t seen any man-monsters yet. Therefore, I shall deem the guy-on-guy as ‘fake, gay, cringe, Mcfucking kill yourselves.’ Male-to-female transsexuals have been reported as all turning into succubi, fully-developed pussy and womb and boobies, the whole enchilada. Female-to-male trannys have been reported as turning into monster-women, not monster-men."

"Ahahahahaha, get fucked, losers. Ain’t no escape from the XX chromosome once you got it, but it looks like there really IS an escape from the XY one. Agh, finally! The eternal plague of ugly bitches, has come to an end. There doesn’t appear to be anything going on in the immediate area around this station, beyond the now-typical monster-women on the prowl for human men to dominate and declare their husbands.”

“I have nothing of importance left to report, and they haven’t taken me off the air yet. So, I’ll take the liberty to say some personal things from the deepest regions of my heart. If you’re a tourist, or you’re thinking of coming to Nashville, I must request that you abandon hope, all ye who enter. This ain’t the Garden of Eden, there ain’t no angels above. And things ain’t like what they used to be, and this ain’t the winter of love. I sincerely hope that a snake woman with big tits and non-curly hair takes me as a husband, and I’m crossing my fingers that Russia doesn’t ragequit and atomize the entire planet three times over."

"I’d like to admit that I have cheated on every single mathematics-related exam I’ve ever taken since 10th grade. Imam Bradley from Tenn State, I fucked your daughter and your ex-wife, but not at the same time, and your ex-wife’s butthole was WAAAAY tighter than your daughter’s. Dean Shelton is a bitch-nigga, no, a bitch-ASS nigga, and I really DID stalk Francine Dudley and her study-buddy who’s name I can’t remember. I didn’t actually intend to do anything sexual to them, I was just trying to find out their license plates. So I could go to Dudley’s house at three in the morning to cut her brake line, and doxx her lardass buddy so that the good folks at Kiwifarms could destroy her private life with a lot of trolling. This would have been in retaliation for Francine and the other ho ratting out one of my close friends, and getting her expelled. My boss, George Osborne, has been leaking stories to CNN for the last two years, and he’s been paying me under the table to keep quiet. Normally, I do not condone snitching. On the other hand, CNN is a pack of assholes and they all deserve to get muckraked.”

“I love my parents, I love my job, I love snake girls, I love my car, I’ve always loved United Airlines, I love Jerry Bruckheimer movies, I hate insects, and if I see any bug-people in the streets? I’m putting a .45 full metal jacket through their craniums. Yeah, this means you too, Lamonte. You know who you are, and I know just WHERE you live. I’ve also always lo-HEY, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?”

(Having quietly unlocked the door as Kent was distracted by his own post-report ravings, Jake Taliente enters the room. He pulls his badge out with his left hand, his right hand still holding his USP Compact.)

(Taliente) “Jake Taliente, Immigration and Customs Enforcement! We’re here to rescue you!”

(Kent) “............Rescue? Sheeeeeit, I was wrong! Well, you’re a little short for a stormtrooper, but you’ll do. Alri-whoa! The National Security Advisor? What the actual fuck are YOU doing out all the way out here?”

(Non walks on screen from behind Taliente, leaning his arm on the front of the newsdesk.)

(Kent) “Uh, hey, man, want a swig? It’s Winter Jack, still cold.”

(SecHS Non) “I’ll take a sip, but that’s it. Sorry, Mr. Kent, but I’m on the job right now. Fate of the USA and the world, super-duper classified shit. You understand.”

(Kent) “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII do! Sooooooo, what’s in the bag? Is it a…..shark or something?”

(SecHS Non) “Good guess, but it’s actually a bunch of really important military stuff. The kind that’s necessary to launch our nuclear triad, kick World War Three into high gear, you know the deal.”

(Kent) “Uhhhhhhhh…….I guess I DO know the deal. So…...you guys found Larry and Esther?”

(Phillips, entering the newsroom) “Yeah, about that. We kinda killed Esther, but in our defense, she shot at us first. We did find Larry Gordon though, he’s already in our ride outta here.”

(Kent) “I always knew Esther was a lazy slob, but a complete retard? Damn. Well, no use crying over smashed vases. Let’s bounce. But first, Agent Taliente!”

(Taliente) “Yeah!?”

(Kent) “Be a daisy and take this cooler. Head over to the break room, and raid the fridge.”

(Whaley) “And what the hell are YOU going to be doing?”

(Kent) “Unlocking the safe that we keep hidden in the employee lounge. I’m getting my hazard pay, and there should be valuable jewelry in there too.”

(Phillips) “Jewelry? Free? Count me in!”

(As Olsen Kent holsters his gun and places the Winter Jack back into the cooler, the Secretary of Homeland Security scopes out the room.)

(SecHS Non) “Wait a minute. Are these cameras running live?”

(Kent) “Just the one in front of the news desk.”

(SecHS Non) “The one in fron- HEY!”

(He pulls his Double Eagle at Olsen Kent, who puts his arms up in surrender.)

(SecHS Non) “You, you sloppy dipshit! Why would you do that? Now the whole-ass WORLD knows I’m here! All of you, get in the damn tilt-rotor and get the hell outta here, ASAP! Awwww shit, man! You’ve led the Traitor Hero and that Azneth stalker right to me!”

(Kent) “B-b-but I’m an anchorman! I’m SUPPOSED to do this! This is my goddamn job!”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah, but….but…..oh, man, you’re right. This IS your job. Oh well, guess I’ll have to cut the program short. 

(He turns to the camera.)

(SecHS Non) “Listen up, America! Strap your asses in, and stay alert. Looks like we’re in for nasty weather, and we’re all in for a bumpy night. Good luck!”

(He then shoots the camera.)

(Kent) “Oh come on, that was overkill and you know it!”

(Phillips) “Don’t jerk him around, dude. He’s got a submachine gun, atomic missile codes, and his sanity’s slippin’ by the hour. Hurry it up, ‘Howard Beale’, let’s go get that cash.”

(The anchorman and the accountant quickly leave the room, followed by Palmieri and Hodges. Taliente leaves next, with Whaley as the last one besides Non.)

(SecHS Non) “Agent Whaley! A moment of your time?”

(Whaley) “Wat’cha need, boss?”

(SecHS Non) “You still have your issued GoPro bodycam?”

(Whaley) “Yeah, it’s a PatrolEyes Edge, actually. It’ll record for eleven hours straight at 720 pixels, sixty frames per second. I got a charger for it too, somewhere in this dump pouch. Need it?”

(SecHS Non) “Technically, I don’t NEED it, need it. But right now, I have a lifetime opportunity to record this adventure, and I’ll take it.”

(Whaley) “Alright, let’s get this charger and get a good spot to clip this camera on.”



1 Terminal Drive
Aircraft Observation Area
Nashville, Tennessee
January 2nd, 20--
10:55 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(We cut to the Mobile Command Center, now parked in a different part of the airport to make room for possible emergency landings. Margaret is napping in her chair while her husband, former Smithsonian Institution aircraft mechanic Leonard Wade, is combing through messages on his computer workstation, in the hopes of finding a lead on the former National Security Advisor.)

(Leonard) “Margie! Margie, sweetie, wake up!”

(Margaret) “Who, huh, uh, oh. Lenny, baby, what’s going on?”

(Leonard) “Maggie, I know you’re tired, and I’m tired too. Especially after all our love-making tonight. But we’ve got a job to do! Once we nail Non to a wall, we can go home and nap and make whoopee for as long as we want! But no napping until we’re done! Here, I got a Redline energy drink. Triple Berry-flavor, you’ll love it. 300 milligrams of caffeine, it’ll keep you on edge till tomorrow morning. And relax about our target! He’s just one guy, there’s NO WAY he can fend off Azneth and her dad the whole night. Also, we just got an email from someone in Ilassa’s command crew, saying we ought to tune in to the local Channel Four. So I did. Check it out.”

(He pulls up the latest recording on the WSMV website, starting the video from the beginning.)

(Leonard) “Now, it’s just this one reporter guy doing his usual thing, then he starts going crazy, starts talking about all the bad things he’s ever done in life. I admire his guts in confessing, but that’s not the important part. Here’s the big da-da-daaaaa moment.”

(He skips to the part where Jake Taliente opens the door.)

(Leonard) “That’s that annoying kid from Immigration and Customs, got on my nerves back at the museum! The museum you pulled me out of?”

(Margaret) “Oh, yes! So he’s part of Non’s….crew?”

(Leonard) “See for yourself.”

(Continuing their viewing, Margaret sees the part where Non enters. Gasping, she bolts her arms out to grab a notepad and a pencil. Quickly writing down every important bean he’s spilled on camera, she only stops once Non has shot the camera, cutting the feed to a picture of discs with a small Native American head above the center disc. The screen requests for the audience to please stand by due to technical difficulties, as the song Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert plays instead of the usual broadcast static. Leonard stops the video at that point, as Margaret turns her radio on. Rolling her chair to another computer, the Holstaur can see the exact locations of the rest of Azneth’s tactical troupe, due to the transponders taped to their radios.)


(At that same moment, Azneth and her father were fighting their way through the Nashville School of the Arts, Rehema was at the Shelby Golf Course, Claudette and Ann were still on their way to the Grand Ole Opry, having been interrupted by several encounters with violent human resistance, and one failed assassination attempt from the DIA. Seeing that Stacey and Terri were right at the intersection of State Routes 431 and 155, the only ones within a reasonable distance, she turned her radio on to inform them of the target’s touchdown.)

(Margaret) “Chloe, Terri! We found him! Azneth was right, Non slipped up! He’s at the NBC Channel Four news station, hardly ten minutes from where y’all’re at! He’s over there lookin’ for humans to rescue, and don’t bother chasing after his helicopter! He’s trying to use ‘em as bait to get our attention away!”

(Leonard) “Forget about the Congresswoman, she can’t do shit with the A-bombs, since she’s not on the Cabinet! There’ll be another time to catch the rest of those trouts! The dumbass found out too late that he was blabbing his plans live and in Technicolor, it’s game over for him! He’s ditched the rest of his gang, and he’s got The Football! Orc, bat, find him and pin him down until Azneth can arrive on the scene! Don’t play with the briefcase either! That shit’s a million-dollar supercomputer that’s gotta be rigged with high-explosive self-destruct stuff! Your move, princess?”

(Azneth) “Proceed! Something’s wrong though! It’s my father! He can’t sense Non anymore! That is, the telltale sign of Holy mana is all over this city! Get it? That’s why he led us here! That Valkyrie must’ve known that her energy would seep into him, so she set up a ton of mana markers and runes all over this city, so Non could cover his tracks and blend in! Father’s homing sense is useless, and so are any tracking spells of mine! So we’ll have to resort to non-arcane means to track that man down if he slips through us again!”

(Terri) “He won’t get past us, no way, no how. Chloe’s got her eyes on the ground, and I’m your eyes in the sky. He may have outsmarted you and your old man, but he didn’t outsmart the Fourth Estate. …..That’s kinda scary when I really think about it.”
 
5700 Knob Road
Nashville, Tennessee
January 2nd, 20--
11:05 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Having found the keys to the helipad fueling station, Roy Hodges had already split with the group to begin refueling. By now, he’s done, and he’s restarting the engine. Having found that Rose Missouri had gunned down a five-woman patrol of Centaurs led by a Bicorn, the others begin to pile in. Larry Gordon enters first, holding the fridge’s contents in Target shopping bags. Then enters Phillips, having placed the looted money and jewelry into the Nuclear Football’s previous briefcase, her pockets stuffed with as many broken-in vending machine snacks that she could carry.)

(Taliente has placed the actual Nuclear Football in the cooler, along with the Gold Codes and anything else that was in the earlier briefcase. Non now holds a brown luggage bag, stuffed with a rigged explosive surprise. With the Winter Jack already passed around to emptiness and disposal, the cooler had nothing else inside. Agent Whaley takes the copilot seat, just for the sake of having an extra pair of eyes on the starboard side. Ending with Olsen Kent, who puts one leg into the VTOL, then puts himself back on solid asphalt.)

(SecHS Non) “What are you doing, ya’ clown? Get your ass in, and get the hell outta here! This is MY chase, MY fight, MY responsibility! Not yours! I’ve sent ENOUGH people up shit’s creek today to cover for my fuck-ups! No more! I gotta proceed alone!”

(Olsen Kent) “Oh, blow it your sanctimonious ass! I’m tagging along with you, bitch! I missed out on being a war correspondent in the War on Terror, and I’m NOT missing tonight’s action! Come on, we’ll hop in my car, blast down White Bridge Pike, take a left onto Harding Pike. After that, it’s a straight shot to the state capitol! Trust me!”

(SecHS Non) “Oh, fine! You’ve got yourself a deal, Mister Kent! 
 
(Non hops inside of the tiltrotor, having barely been able to hear himself or Kent due to the propellers.) 
 
(SecHS Non) “Palmieri! You’re in charge for the time being, so keep these retards wrangled, and remember to max out the passenger space! Don’t do school, stay in drugs, I want the kids in bed by 9:00 A.M., and tell Hodges to read the blue note first! It’s got specific instructions regarding the yellow one!”

(Palmieri) “Hey! The biggest retard around here is the one I’m looking straight at! So don’t worry your pretty Val Kilmer, ‘90s Patrick Swayze-lookin’ ass! I’ve got this in control! We’ll be waiting on you ‘till 7:30 P.M., don’t forget!"

"Well, I guess this is it! We’ve had one hell of an afternoon, evening, and night together, haven’t the three of us?”

(Phillips) “You can say THAT again. I think I’m gonna have shark-o-phobia, dog-o-phobia, and a phobia of flying in regular helicopters, once the adrenaline runs dry tomorrow morning!”

(Palmieri and Non in unison) “Pussy!”

(SecHS Non) “....But yeah, this whole thing really has been one batshit-nuts situation after another. It was a pleasure and an honor serving with you, Staff Sergeant Palmieri! I’m leaving Uncle Sam in your hands, and they’re damn good ones at that! If I don’t make it, tell Lawrence and Jamison to give that betting money they owe me, to my brother!”

(Palmieri) “Which one?”

(SecHS Non) “Paul, of course! Josh can kiss my shiny metal ass! And make sure Paul pays Phillips here, the eighty bucks I now owe her! And one more thing, in all seriousness.”

“If I get turned into an incubus, give the order to shoot me on sight. I don’t want Eydis to ever see me living like that. And tell her that I love her. And if I die, tell her that I’d want her to find another guy that’ll love her for the whole package. She’ll know what that means, and I bet you do too, by now.”

(Palmieri) “I do. You’re an odd guy, Non. But you’re a better man than you probably think you are, and I’m sorry it had to be this way. And thanks for trusting me enough for this Kuiper crap. You won’t be disappointed, you really DID come to the right gal. And good luck to you too, Mister Kent! I promise you, you’ve made a terrible mistake!”

(Taliente) “And I didn’t get to thank you for letting me tag along for the ride! I don’t know how I can make this up to you, but I’ll think of something, you can believe that! Word of advice to you, weatherman! When Non says to run, don’t run in the same direction as him! You’ll probably just wind up the other guy in the ‘be faster than the other guy’ saying! And just one other thing to Non, too!” 

(SecHS Non) “What!?”

(Taliente) “Can I get a promotion?”


(SecHS Non) “I dunno, MAY you, Agent Taliente?”

(Missouri, butting in as the new agent figuratively jumps for joy) “Thanks for bailing us out of that Smithsonian shitshow, sir. Me and Pete, we’ll keep an eagle-eye on the others. I hope you make it! Maybe this country wouldn't've been such a mess if folks like us came around earlier. Either way, we’ll see you on the other side!”
 
(Phillips) “I’m glad I met you too, ‘Snowman.’ You’re a good guy. And you know, it’s funny. Had none of this alien invasion shit ever happened, I would’ve gone to the Smithsonian annex, same time as you planned! And Enola Gay was on my itinerary! Hah! Who knows, had you never met the Angel, maybe…..just maybe we could’ve met….you know….seen where this night would've taken us! ......Certainly a different route than this one.”
 
(SecHS Non) “Who knows, Sherry. Maybe......maybe in another life. You’ve got good taste, and you’re not bad-looking yourself. You’ll be the world to some very lucky guy, someday, somehow. So long.” 
 
(Palmieri) “And you and Eydis owe me and Gabe a double-date at Cabo Wabo! Don’t think I forgot about that gift card you mentioned!”

(The Alaskan says nothing, responding with naught but a smile and a middle finger.)

(Non exits the vehicle, as the tiltrotor begins to climb immediately afterwards. Unable to hear over the engine sounds and through the closed doors, Hodges and Whaley get the gist of what the others were saying. Whaley gives Non a thumbs-up and a shit-eating grin, as Hodges gives a salute while mouthing out an “Oorah.” )

(N703NA flies straight upwards for 500 feet, then proceeds to fly forward in a northeastern direction.)
 
 
 
(Kent) “Well, there they go. Ah, finally. Larry’s out of my hair and in much better hands. I only kept him around because I promised his mom that I’d keep him safe. Esther wasn’t interested in softbois or guys in their thirties, so we were both clear. She never told me what kind of guy she was waiting for, exactly. Damn shame.”

(SecHS Non) “Huh. So, I take it you were trying to get in his mom’s pants?”

(Kent) “Eeeee-yup.”

(SecHS Non) “Fair enough. At least you kept your end of the bargain up. Come on, let’s go. If we aren’t stupid or unlucky, we’ll get to the rendezvous point about three, maybe three-and-a half hours late. So which car is yours?”

(Kent) “That white Honda Pilot over there. Model year 2015. Ah, those were the days. Back when all I had to worry about was the meth den three blocks down from my house, waiting on XCOM modders to make Vipers recruitable, how shitty the new Star Wars movie was gonna be, and what my next cheating strategy in high school math was going to be.”

(SecHS Non) “All the flavors of car out there, and you chose a Honda Pilot. Damn, nigga. You really ARE cruising for that homeowner’s association pussy.”

(Kent) “Who the hell died and gave YOU the N-word pass?”

(SecHS Non) “The Secretary of the Interior.”

(Kent) “Huh. Well, that’s certainly certifiable.”
 
(SecHS Non) “Alright, so here’s how it is. Everyone saw my ass on live TV about….12 minutes ago? Say that the Lilim’s big poppa is here. How long would it take him to get here, and get me?”

(Kent) “You’re thinkin’ they followed you all the way from D.C.?”

(SecHS Non) “It’s highly possible. That Azneth’s smart, no matter how much I try to gaslight her, or how much her siblings try to put her down and discourage her. I know how that feels. So she’s got to be in the same IQ range as me. She’s been on Earth for months, and we’ve never had a single lead on her. Just rumors that she was on this planet. Which means she’s got mad skills at laying low, keeping her associates’ mouths shut, and moving around without being noticed. Since she’s a Lesser Succubus, all she needs is thick upper-body clothing, sunglasses, a beanie, and wham, she can pass for a completely normal human. A plain hoodie won’t work, we spotted an Arch Imp in Spokane who tried that trick. Her horns stuck out bad.”

“So if they took a jet plane here, say a standard airliner, from Dulles International, then it’d be an hour, or maybe a 50-minute flight. If she’s at the airport, and my math’s right, then we got about fifteen minutes to leave before she personally arrives. As for her troops, they could be here any second now.”

(Kent, beginning to cold sweat) “You…..you’re being literal, right? Literally any second now?”

(SecHS Non, after smacking his lips) “Eeeyup.”

(Kent) “........just get in the damn car, right now.”

(With the streak of sarcasm over and done, the two men enter the Honda Pilot.)

(SecHS Non) “Your windows aren’t blacked-out. They WILL see us, so drive fast.”

(Kent) “Way ahead of you. Open the glove compartment, will ya’? There outta be three extra mags for my Ruger .45.”

(SecHS Non) “Good choice. A good chunk of the monsters can laugh off nine-millimeter, nine-Makarov, even low-grain ten-millimeter. Anything short of hot-loaded forty Smith & Wesson, you’ve ought to aim for their eyes. Or just drop the gun and give up already. And laughing off the nine is no joke, I’ve seen them do it. Thrice. Is that all the firepower you’ve got?”

(Kent) “Sure is, other than the four magazines I already have on me, and the one that’s locked in. I HAD a XM177 clone, a .450 Bushmaster AR-15 for home defense, a shitty semi-auto Tommy gun that I really only use as a mantlepiece, a Colt King Cobra, and a Micro-Draco AK that I bought as a joke.”

(SecHS Non) “You got burglarized?”

(Kent) “Good guess, but no. See that one skyscraper to the northwest? The one on our side of the Cumberland River, blue, all glass? That one right there.”

(SecHS Non) “That one with all the little fires all over it?”

(Kent) “Yeah, 505 Paramount. My penthouse is on the 27th floor, number 3. That whole floor’s up in flames.”

(SecHS Non) “Fuck, man. The Kenkouans did that?”

(Kent) “Nope. Antifa. They went from ‘Tax The Rich’ to ‘Immolate The Rich’ in sixty seconds, once all the federal authority collapsed. They weren’t scared of state and city authorities, or non-leftist vigilantes, or even plain old psycho opportunists and homicidal maniacs. Looks like they planned to burn down as much as they could, then scatter like alley cats once the military would roll in and take control. Didn’t work. Those groups I mentioned in that last broadcast? They ALL declared open season on Lenin’s fan club. Folks wearing red & black are STILL getting dragged out into the streets by ye olde neighborhood firing squads. Hanged, even, if they run into the Klan or the U.S. Marshals Service. Serves the bastards right.”

(SecHS Non) “They’ll go running straight into Kenkou’s arms, then. It's the only way for them to survive, besides laying low and crossing their fingers that they haven’t been identified. Ironic. They tried to beat capitalism, traditional moral values, the very concept of a republic. And now their best chance to live, means bowing down to an absolute monarchy that violently enforces polygamy for the alpha males, and monogamy for the rest. LGBTXYZBBQ will be history by next year. All the lesbians will be straight, all the man-fags will be straight women. Only men, homos-turned-women, and ‘regular’ women. No ifs, ands, or buts. But gender-study terrorists usually just use Molotovs and the odd jerry can. How the hell did they do all that damage in two days?”

(Kent) “They got their hands on some top-notch incendiaries, maybe even military-grade thermobarics. They’re not organized or smart enough to have robbed the military-”

(SecHS Non) “And there’s no chance the good folks of Royal Makai would willingly assist in this. They’re big on doing as little damage as possible to our infrastructure. It’ll make reestablishing law and order, their version of it, a helluva lot smoother.”

(Kent) “You thinkin’ it's coming from champagne liberals, using Black Lives Matter donations to buy from the black market?”

(SecHS Non) “I’m thinkin' something like that. Could be coming in from Venezuela, Cuba, Afghanistan by way of rogue CIA, maybe even rogue DEA. China’s always a usual suspect, but why here and now? This is hardly the sort of city to send a good message. Unlike that time back in 1996, when they got busted selling Strela-2 knockoffs to the Crips and Bloods, among other military-grade shit. On the other hand, maybe that’s exactly it! Nashville would be one of the last places anyone sane would ever go to look for PLA standard-issue explosives! But my money’s still on Central American commies.”

“So….you got any good music mix-CDs?”

(Kent) “Bruh, you’re about fifteen years behind the times. I’ve got a 64 gigabyte flash drive plugged in, all the music I’ll ever need. Pick a song, any song.”

(The Secretary scrolls through the central dashboard's Apple Carplay touchscreen.)

(SecHS Non) “Ooh, Eydis LOVES this one.”

(Olsen Kent finally turns his car on, driving down the station’s unmarked private road. The Secretary selects 'Higher Love' by Steve Winwood. Instead of taking a left turn in the direction of Knob Road, he drives straight towards the news station’s annex that contains the transmitting tower. Instead of pulling into the annex’s parking lot, the anchorman swerves just before, onto the grass. They both notice a Raiju, decked out in spelunking gear, climbing her way to the top of the transmitting tower. A struggling security guard is getting pinned to the tower walkways' metal wall while also getting screwed by an mostly-armored Dullahan, her head nowhere to be seen.)

(SecHS Non) “I know what you’re thinking, don’t do it. That’s a Dullahan, and you’ve gotta destroy the head to take one down. We ain’t got the time for a wild goose chase, not when the enemy’s big shots know exactly what general area we’re in. And where exactly ARE we goin’?”

(Kent) “Taking the scenic route through the woods!”

(SecHS Non) “Aw hell, not this shit again!”

(As the two speed on through the forest, passing between two grounding spots for the tower, they slow down to see a commotion past the treeline on their right.)

(Kent) “What IS that? Looks like some ritual. Couple of brown pig-people, someone in the middle. An elf?”
 
(As said elf stands in the center, she gets on her knees. Abruptly, the head Orc pulls out a Norinco 1911, and shoots the elf twice in the head. Non and Kent have seen the ordeal.)

(SecHS Non) “Floor it! That ain’t no ritual, that’s a Mob execution! Get going before they see us!”

(Kent) “Too late!”

(Knowing that two people in a moving car have seen them, the eight orcs open fire on the car. Armed with various M4-type carbines, they manage to make a moderate amount of holes in the car. The head Orc fires the rest of her 1911 magazine, none of which manage to hit the two men. One .223 bullet grazes Kent’s upper thigh, another smashes through the window, cutting up the left side of his face with shattered glass. Non is struck twice in his front armor plate by 5.56 rounds that ricocheted off of the dashboard and the right-side rearview mirror.)

(Getting out of range, Kent banks a hard right through a treeline, narrowly avoiding two trees. The car hits a tall stump right before reaching the cul-de-sac of Maudina Avenue, which causes both men to bonk their heads on the ceiling, and sends the car flying several feet through the air before landing on solid street. Blasting down the avenue at full speed, they both observe the neighborhood on their right, as a long wall on the left blocks their view on that side. They first pass a man getting amazon-position’d by a large Wendigo-woman, to which Non opens fire with his Double Eagle, missing all four shots.)

(Six houses further down, a Cyclops is carrying her man out of his house. Non fires the other four shots in his magazine, successfully getting four hits and a kill. The monster keels over onto the man’s car, as her husband slides onto the roof with no issue. Non gives a thumbs up, only to find out that the man has already been incubized. The incubus, now very, very, upset at the drive-by murder of his wife, whips out a whippet-style Remington Model 11, blasting the full tube’s contents along with a vain attempt to run after the two humans. However, he was an amateur who had loaded his shotgun with birdshot, so none of his shots amounted to anything beyond bouncing off of the rear of the Honda. Non also sees that back at the end of the cul-de-sac, the Orc group is following them.)

(He extends the stock of his Uzi, positions himself partially out of the bullet-shattered right window, then draws his submachine gum. Expending an entire 30-round magazine down the street, one bullet rips through the incubus’s right kneecap. He again misses the Wendigo and her new husband, although a few stray shots impact the ground near them, spooking them enough to take their procreation indoors. By the time the magazine runs dry and Kent takes a left turn onto Oceola Avenue, five Orcs are dead, and their leader has a .45 ACP bullet lodged in her right kidney. As the Pilot turns out of sight, the two unhurt Orcs give up their missed pot-shots and turn around, to pick up their warband boss and find medical attention.)

(After passing by two houses on Oceala Avenue, the second of which was halfway-burning down, Kent takes a right turn onto Burgess Avenue. Going across State Route 155, Non takes advantage of a lull in the action to reload, as Kent uses his left hand to drive, while drawing his KP90 out with his right hand to keep them covered. Kent sees a man running southwards across the street, being followed by a seemingly-human woman kitted out in a full tricolor-desert Interceptor Armor System. As the woman crosses the street, pawing towards the man in a suspicious manner, Kent smashes her with the Honda at 74 miles per hour, killing the Living Armor’s host. The LA’s magically-enhanced MICH helmet completely shatters the front window, leaving more cuts, this time on Kent’s left hand. Non silently thanks Hodges for letting him have dibs on an extra pair of white Oakley 5.0 golfing gloves that he had earlier found on a table in WSMV’s break room. The man waves at Kent and Non in thanks, then proceeds to hop a fence into a backyard, wisely deciding to stay off the suburban streets.)

(Kent turns right onto Rural Avenue. Ramming another monster, this time a Unicorn, he rejoices at having made the wise decision to install a heavy-duty chrome front bumper almost exactly two years before. Across the street, a Soldier Beetle neighbor and her husband rush out the front door, opening fire with their matching Colt MT6700 rifles in an attempt to avenge their equine friend. Eleven shots manage to penetrate the back of the midsize SUV, two of which land themselves in Non’s back armor plate, the rest wind up embedded in the back seats or pass through the car entirely, missing either human male. Further down, a roadblock is set up at the southernmost entrance to Big Picture High School, an attempt by the monsterized students to corral humans into the school parking lot. As an loud-and-proud orgy is erupting in said parking lot, Non gives into the adrenaline-pumped bloodrush, firing another magazine’s worth of .45 ACP out of his Series 90 Mark 2 at said orgy. Every one of his bullets miss, impacting the various cars in the lot, but he still manages to spook the sex party into stopping their acts, if only for about fifteen seconds.)

(Olsen completely ignores the barricade, smashing through the assorted Chrysler minivans at seventy-nine miles per hour. One Redcap student gets herself crushed to death in-between a Pacifica and a Voyager. Another student, a Myconid, gets severely injured as her legs are broken by the sudden impact of the front of a 2nd generation Town & Country. As Kent turns left onto Oakmont Circle, a Gargoyle busts through a fence at the second house down, as her husband runs onto the sidewalk to set off and lob three homemade pipe bombs that he had duct-taped together. The triple-pipe bomb bounces off of the Honda’s hood, landing onto the street. It dramatically explodes seconds later, ironically killing the Gargoyle and her husband via shrapnel. Said shrapnel peppers the left side of the car, taking out the rear-left tire, as Kent and Non successfully avoid the metal shards by ducking. Another right turn, this time onto Meadowcrest Lane. Passing by several harmless gawking monsters, along with a lone unclaimed human male relaxing in a rocking chair on his porch, Kent drastically slows down, as the two men finally find the time to freely talk.)

(SecHS Non) “Ugh…….ughhhhhhh..ack! Piece of shit seatbelt, choking me out like that! I’m taking it off!”

(Kent) “Oh my God, that was insane! What WAS all that!? Jesus, if I’d known that this neighborhood was crawling with our evolved brethren, I’d have taken 155 instead!”

(SecHS Non) “WHY DIDN’T YOU!?”

(Kent) “I REAAAAAAAAAAALLY UNDERESTIMATED HOW MUCH THEY’D ALL BE INTO EXHIBITIONISM!”

(SecHS Non) “Man, just get us back on the main road. And what the hell was up with those Orcs?”

(Kent) “You mean the pigs?”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah! Why the hell would they kill that elf? Friendly fire 101!”

(Kent) “Shit, man. You are WAAAY out of the loop in these parts. You notice that those pigs were all black?”

(SecHS Non) “Yeah, and the elf was whiiiiiii-”

“Sweet fuckin’ Lincoln, you tellin' me that there’s a race war going on around here?”

(Kent) “Yes. Did you NOT pay attention to my last broadcast? The one that your ICE boy interrupted?”

(SecHS Non) “We….tuned in right at the part where you were humble-bragging about your cock size. Not bad, not bad.”

(The two turn right onto Knob Road. Kent realizes the irony of having gone through all this trouble just to wind up on the same road, mentally labeling himself as a complete dumbass.)

(Kent) “So, it’s the usual suspects. Ku Klux Klan versus the Black Panthers. Panthers are going open season on Antifa too, since communists and anarchists don’t quite jive with neo-Nazi segregationists.”

(SecHS Non) “Wait, the black power folks are the Hitler fans this time?”

(Kent) “Half-right. I interviewed top lieutenants from both sides yesterday. They all left me unraped, on the condition that I was NOT to censor a single second of the interviews, under ANY circumstance. Both sides aren’t the traditional types of these groups. The evolved-Klan is full of esoteric Waffen-SS types, moderate-flavored.”

(SecHS Non) “Define ‘moderate-flavor.’”

(Kent) “They’re not in it to pull a Generalplan Ost, if you know what I’m talking about. So long as the non-whites stay away from procreating with whites, it’s all gravy to ‘em. Evolved-Panthers, on the other hand, are of the G.L. Rockwell variety.”

(SecHS Non) “You mean they wanna establish blacks-only zones, and everyone else-zones.”

(Kent) “Yup. Funny, considering that Rockwell and Malcolm Little had a gentleman’s agreement to split up the USA on racial lines, in case of a limited nuclear war that’d collapse the government.”

(SecHS Non) “Also interesting that you call Mamono ‘evolved.’ Artificial evolution, but at the cost of mental devolution.”

(Kent) “I dunno about that. Judging from the interviews, it’s not that monsterization makes them dumb, it’s more that it releases all their inhibitions. Since they’re all waaaay more impulsive than the average human, they just seem like morons, but they’re not. They just don’t give a shit anymore. Bravery, rather than stupidity.”

(SecHS Non) “You know, you just might be right. This the State Route?”

(Kent) “Yup. 115, here we go.”

(The two men turn left onto the route, also known as White Bridge Pike. Kent attempts to floor the gas pedal.)

(Kent) “Alright, now we’re in business! All we gotta do is- OH SHIT!”

(SecHS Non) “AAHHHH-”

(At the next left turn, a Nashville city utility service truck comes barreling out from behind a treeline, smashing into the back-left side of the Honda Pilot. With his seatbelt off, Non goes flying out the window, landing on his back armor plate, as he rolls off the road and into a drainage ditch. The thickness of his suit along with his angle of flight, prevents his arm from breaking, but it still hurts him like a sum’bitch. Kent bumps his head hard onto the dashboard, and as his head recoils back-and forth, the impact of the airbag smacks him unconscious.)

(As Non struggles to maintain consciousness, the driver of the utility vehicle emerges. A human male in a jumpsuit, with the nametag of Randall. Randall exits his truck, dazed and confused as to the speeding assholes that didn’t correctly check their street corners. Not knowing where the passenger went, he walks up to Kent, seeing that he’s got several bleeding wounds across his face, and a bad bruise on the right side of his head.)

(Randall) “Sweet Jesus, are you okay, dude? Fuckin’ moron!”

(Randall checks Olsen Kent’s pulse.) “Okay, okay, he’s still alive. Gotta get him out, get him in my passenger seat. Take him to a hospital. Maybe there’s a….a helicopter or something! Anything! Gotta get outta here, gotta get as far away as I can from those wiggers!”

(The utility technician opens Kent’s car door, as Olsen nearly spills out of the car and onto the street, had he not been held in by his seatbelt.)

(At that moment, a Geo Metro pulls up to the crash scene. The driver, a Lizardwoman, gets out, along with her passenger, a Lamia who’s lower inhuman half had taken up the entirety of the back portion of said car.)

(Lizardwoman) “Silly-willy Randy! You ain’t done finished up with those machine guns! You really thought we wouldn’t tail you on your piss break? Serves us right for letting a spic do a cracker’s job, right, Lana?”

(Lana) “Damn straight, Janis! Dead or alive, you’re coming back with us, Randy. And look what you’ve done! We let you out for less than FIVE minutes, and here you are committing road rage on random bystan- HEY! It’s Olsen Kent from Channel 4!”

(Janis) “Oh shit, that IS him! Goddammit, Randy, you almost killed a based reptussy appreciator!”

(Lana) “But where’s the President’s stooge?”

(Janis) “He’s not in the car, must’ve drove off in a different one. Probably halfway to that asshole Van Carver already. Come on, let’s get Kent outta the car, he looks pretty fucked! And not the good kind!”

(Lana) “Speaking of that…..you haven’t found a husband yet, have you?”

(Janis) “N-no……”

(Lana) “Uhhh…...um…...you-you maybe w-wanna share Olsen with me? He really wanted some snussy, but….maybe he’ll get a taste for you too!”

(Janis) “................Sure thing, bestie! All that sex magic stuff heals us up, so let’s get him off the street, get down and dirty on the lawn right over here!”

(Randall) “So…..should I just….leave you two at it or something?”

(Lana) “AHAHAHAHA, no, Randy! I’m afraid you’re just too much trouble to keep around anymore. The more of us that find our true loves, the more likely you’ll get a chance to squeal about our locations!”

(Randall) “And just what the fuck does that mean!?”

(Michele pulls out a 9mm Steyr 1912 pistol.)

(Michele) “It means I changed my mind. You’ve seen too much.”

(Randall screams and attempts to run towards the trees, only to be shot thrice in the back by Janis. He falls into the drainage ditch, right on top of Non, unseen by the others. Now fully-conscious, he bites into his right suit-cuff in an successful attempt to conceal his screaming, on account of the now-dead body on top of him. Lana hears his muffled screaming, but chalks it up to Randall dying slowly, which is fine by her. Allowing Michele to have first dibs on Olsen’s dick, she takes the battle belt off of Kent’s now-discarded pants, tightening it around her own waist. Now armed with the Ruger KP90, she provides cover for her best friend and shared-husband.)

(Michele) “MMmmmm, oh fuck, baby! His trouser snake just hits ALL the right spots! Oh fuck, I’m gonna cum fast! Lana, get over here! I wanna see him eat you out!”

(Lana) “I wanna, Michele, I really wanna! But around blacks, never relax! We’re not safe until we’re indoors!”

(Michele) “Mmmmmm, okay! I’ll tell you when I’m done! Thank you, bestie!”

(Two minutes, two orgasms from Michele, and one blown load from Kent later, a 5th-generation Chevrolet Tahoe of the Nashville Airport Police arrives on the scene. As 'City of Love' by Yes, emanates from the car's internal speakers, Chloe gets out of the car. Having recognized the NBC anchorman, Stacey gets close and unrolls her window, keeping the car running to shave a few seconds off the hunt.)

(Chloe) “How do you do, fellow Mamono! Looks like you’ve bagged that news reporter dude! Congrats!”

(Lana, now pointing the KP90 at Chloe) “Hold it right there, pavement ape! Move a muscle and I blow your head off! That’s OUR husband there, go away and go find a niggerman somewhere else! I’m giving you ONE CHANCE to leave!”

(Stacey) “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Look, we’re not interested in him, we want the guy that crashed his last broadcast! The National Security Advisor? Five-foot-eleven, light-red skin, blonde, short ponytail, gray suit, kinda looks like that one guy from that one heist movie with De Niro and Al Pacino?”

(Lana) “NO! NO, WE HAVEN’T SEEN HIM! GO AWAY!”

(Chloe, one movement away from drawing her Taser X26P) “Hey, calm down! Look, we came down all the way from Washington, we’re just here for one man. We’re all on the same side, we don’t need to fight over who gets who as their husband! There’s someone for everyone, you just gotta have faith in the Maou! She’s gonna provide for us in-”


(Lana fatally interrupts Chloe Bernice with a single 45-caliber gunshot to the head, well before the High Orc could even begin to draw her own weapon. Stacey screams at the top of her lungs, then slams the gas pedal in an attempt to run Lana over. The homicidal Lamia whips her lower half out of the way just in time, as the Night Gaunt keeps driving ahead. Lana fires the rest of the magazine at Lana, accomplishing nothing but a shattered back window. Stacey grabs her radio to scream for backup as she takes a hard left turn onto Knob Road.) 

(Stacey) “OH LILITH, THEY KILLED CHLOE! Oh god, oh fuck! Someone send in a tactical unit or something at White Bridge Pike and Stoneway Trail! There’s a psycho Lamia and a lizard-bitch on the loose, they’ve got that reporter Olsen Kent and they shot Chloe right in the fucking head! Non’s nowhere in sight, I-I-I’m continuing on to the news station! Terri, get down here! I’m gonna need reinforcements in case those nutjobs are a part of those riots!”

(Leonard) “Stacey, remain calm! Just get to that station, we’ll send out a police helo with armed backup onboard! We’ll nail those pricks and grill that Kent guy on where Non went, if he even knows anything!”

(Terri) “On my way! I've got Some important stuff to report about the riots! It’s those Ku Klux Klanners, I read about them in the briefings, and I gotta say, those pointy white hoods are pretty fuckin’ scary to see up close! I’m getting bad memories of that one Inquisition sect we took out back in Ulexath. These guys are packing way harder firepower though. I saw heavy machine guns getting installed onto a bunch of trucks, and they’ve got tanks! I saw seven Strykers, eleven Bradleys, at least three of those Abrams! They’re all heading south on Belle Meade Boulevard, deffo on their way to break the stalemate on Route 431! The reports of just being riots were really…..underestimative? This is all-out war! Should...should I do something about this?”

(Azneth) “Absolutely not! You’ve done an amazing job, Terri! But you need to go help out Stacey, keep her company until that helicopter arrives! After that, continue the search for Non! Intervening in that problem isn’t going to help us if it means that my husband slips away and rains split-atoms on us all! We stick to the hunt! My heart bleeds for Chloe, but Stacey’s car has a recording camera! We’ll identify those murderers and avenge our friend. Soon, but not now! I’m at Battlemont Park, resistance in the area was worse than we thought! There’s snipers and bomb-traps all over the place, and Daddy can only take care of one at a time! Still progress though! Once I know for sure that no one can see me, I’ll put on a human disguise.”

(Rehema) “Milady, I’m just about done here, I’ve found a good amount of people far more competent than I am at handling fire disasters. I’ve delegated as much as I could, but they do not need me anymore. Shall I stay here and continue assisting?”

(Azneth) “A better idea just came up, my fluffy friend. Acquire an automobile, preferably one with built-in armor. Be ready for a new message, I shan’t reveal the next step, not while those loyalist spotters may be able to read my lips. I will tell you where to rendezvous with me as soon as I can!”
 
(Rehema) “Understood, with utmost haste!”

(Terri) “Loud and clear here! Hang tight, Stacey, I’m on my way!”

(Stacey) “I knew I should have brought something tougher than this Taser!”


124 White Bridge Pike
Nashville, Tennessee
January 2nd, 20--
11:24 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone
 
(Lana) “One more load outta him, M! We need to bail! You heard that sambo, they’re from D.C.! They've gotta be Feds, and where there’s Feds, the Army’s right behind! Just ask that one kiddy diddler cult that got cooked in Waco!”

(Michele) “Sure, sure, fine! Your turn with him next! OH, OH YEAH! That’s it, baby!”

(Fifteen seconds pass before she gets off of Olsen Kent. His seed leaking from her cooch, she puts her jorts back on, and walks back to her Geo Metro to start up the car. Lana slithers over to a now-delirious Olsen, and wraps him up in her snake-half, taking him to the car. They settle in, as Lana begins to get aroused by the feel of the anchorman’s semen dribbling onto herself.)

(Lana) “Mmph, Michele, baby, take us on that Greenway down the road, then drive across the golf course to McCabe’s. This place’ll be swarming with Feds, the kind that’s in cahoots with that Demon Queen-Lord-Empress-whatever, that I don’t remember ever voting for.”

(Michele) “You vote?”

(Lana) “No, but that’s not the point! This place is too hot, so I say we grab some grub at McCabe’s, since Henriette’s cooking there tonight. Then we get the hell outta town, head up to Millersville, and lay low in one of them K-O-A cabins till this all blows over! We got a husband, we got a car, we got guns and ammo, what else do red and cold-blooded Americans like us need?”

(Michele) “Lana, you’re a genius! Alright, let’s blow this popsicle stand! Lorraine can go fuck herself, picking a fight with the Governor was a stupid idea anyways!”

(Lana) “Sure was. Weird that our boy here had a bunch of 1911 mags in his car, must’ve lost that gun while on his way here. Or maybe they got stolen while he was on TV. But why would they just take the one gun? Why not this Jew SMG? Eh, it doesn't matter. This stuff might come in handy later. Their loss, our gain.”
 
 
(As the two reptilians speed away, Non waits another minute before he pushes the corpse formerly known as Randall off of him. Nauseous from the close encounter of the dead kind, he shuffles his way back to the Honda Pilot, muttering to himself.)

(SecHS Non) “Dammit, just….dammit! We really SHOULD have just stuck to the neighborhood roads. Serves us right for deviating from the plan. Gotta check the car.”

(Looking into the car, he finds that the decoy Football’s bag is still inside, lodged under the front passenger chair. He pulls it out by the sling, then searches for his Uzi and discarded 1911 mags, only to realize that the Lamia must have taken it, along with whatever Ruger KP90 magazines had fallen out of Olsen Kent’s pocket. Although he finds a folded grey stainless-steel butterfly knife in the glove compartment, sliding it into his plate carrier’s admin pouch. Finding it highly unlikely that he’ll run into another Vector Arms-style Uzi or an M3 Grease Gun {of the original or A1 variety}, Non decides to leave the three last magazines in the driver’s seat.)

(SecHS Non) “Hah. Now THIS is gonna be a classic Resident Evil moment for the next sucker.”

“Now I gotta go find a new ride. That building down there looks fine. Sign says…..William F. Lyell...Medal of Honor winner….Army Reserve Center? Hah! Lucky day, uh…..night! Maybe somebody up ‘There’ has eyes on me! Besides Eydis, of course. Just gotta zip inside, grab another gun, some more .45 ammo, hollow-points. Get an armored or fast vehicle, then head downtown and blow sunshine up Luc’s ass for letting this shitshow happen on his watch."

"Gotta stop at the fake Parthenon for a quick look though. Only thing in this godforsaken place that I actually wanted to visit. Two mags left, another’s rocked and locked. That’s 24 rounds. Eagle’s topped off, that’s a quarter-hundred bullets. All gravy, a lot more has been accomplished by folks with even less shots.”

“Alexa, play 'Somebody Up There Likes Me' by David Bowie.”


 
“Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit.“ 
–R.E. Shay


LINK TO PART SIX : https://www.4binz.org/601