by Evan Currie
“Well that’s good, I guess,” She said hesitantly.
Like nearly everyone else in the area, she and her family were at the Lodge on vacation. It was an adventure, see some gators, enjoy the sun, generally get to reconnect with nature and all that. Running from a massive forest fire wasn’t exactly the sort of adventure she had in mind.
Everyone was milling around, now, certainly getting their fill of excitement, which was just fine. It would be a great story to tell when they got home, after all.
*****
It had a name.
Once.
Long forgotten now.
It no longer cared about such things. They were irrelevant. All that mattered was the moment. The future, the past… they too had mattered once, but no longer.
It left the already decaying body that had died in the impact, an unpleasant experience… but a familiar one.
The area around it was wet, green… well, had been green. It could tell that much. Now it was black and burning. There was very little alive within a significant range.
That would not do.
It sought out the closest life, noting with pleasure that there was a great deal of life in all directions. An intensely dense populace of the living, all virgin life as well.
It could tell.
Lips, or a facsimile of such, drew back over dripping black teeth as it began to shamble forward through the burning flames, focus now on the closest being of interest.
It laughed softly, the call rolling through the flames and travelling unusually far.
The moment was all that mattered, and this moment was…
Perfect.
*****
Cynthia put a hand up over her nose and mouth, trying to block out the smoke that was beginning to thicken. She made her way down to the edge of the wetlands, eyes scanning the murky water for a moment before rising to examine the plume of smoke and fire in the distance.
That must have been a hell of an impact, she thought with a sense of wonder.
The explosion had been heard across the southern half of the state, if the reports on the news and social media feeds were to be believed. She was counting her blessings that it didn’t strike just a little farther north.
“Did you hear that?”
Cynthia turned, looking at the speaker. She didn’t know him. He was just one of the crowd that was milling about.
“hear what?” She asked, shaking her head.
“I don’t know,” The man admitted a moment later. “Just something…”
Cynthia just shrugged, “Didn’t notice anything, but I heard a lot of sounds. It’s like there’s…”
She was cut off as a figure detached from the woods, exploding out into the open, and bolted straight at them. She barely had time to jerk around in surprise before it blew right past her and kept going.
Cynthia twisted, eyes wide, “What the hell…?”
It was a deer.
Then more animals emerged from the trees, bolting at full speed across the manicured grounds of the lodge, racing right through the crowd of people like they weren’t even there.
She saw more deer, wild cats of some kind, what looked like dogs or wolves or something, she wasn’t sure. None of them paid any mind to the people, though, bolting north for the road.
“Animals are running from the fire,” The man beside her said.
“You think we should take the hint?” Cynthia asked, getting a little concerned.
“I doubt it’s going to get here,” He answered. “but if it does, we’ll have lots of warning. Plenty of time to pile into the cars and get clear anyway.”
“Yeah,” She nodded, “Right.”
The chill she’d felt upon seeing the animals bolting like that passed. There was nothing to be worried about, it was just a fire. There was lots of water around, and they had a way out in the worst case.
They’d be fine.
*****
The area it traversed was verdant, filled with life to exploding. In all directions it could feel the pull, drawing it this way and that. The moment called, however, and it focused on the strongest of the sources around it.
Flashing quickly through the smoke made by its arrival, motion and light blurring around, it located its target through all the murkiness that surrounded it and paced it briefly.
Strong. Living. Afraid. Moving with purpose.
It hadn’t been detected. The target was simply moving away from the fire.
In the moment, it lunged and dragged down the target.
A bellowing howl filled the air, rising above the roar of the flames and the general commotion, but it was too late.
*****
“What in the hell was that?” Cynthia shivered as she heard the unreal sound, filtered through the swamp and forest.
“Black bear,” The man beside her said, “sounds hurt.”
“Poor thing,” She breathed out, shuddering again at the memory of the sound. “I’ve never heard anything like that before.”
“Not too many people do,” The man told her, “Probably got too close to the water in the rush to get away from the fire and a gator got ‘im.”
“Ugh. Horrible way to go.”
“Not too many good ways out there, really,” The man snorted, glancing over at her, “James, by the way.”
“What? Oh? Cynthia.” She said.
He nodded, “Pleased to meet you.”
“Right, same, I guess. Better circumstances would be nice, I guess?” She said awkwardly.
He laughed, “No doubt.”
She looked around, “How long do you suppose before firefighters get out here?”
“Well, normally I’d say quite a while,” He told her, “but a meteor impact? If that’s what it is, I imagine the whole place is about to become a zoo for everyone from first responders to the press.”
“Ugh, great,” She sighed, “That’ll make things a pain I imagine. We came out for a week of peace and quiet.”
“Family vacation?”
Cynthia nodded, “Seemed like a good idea.”
“Well, it’ll be a story to tell, I suppose,” James told her.
She was about to respond, but her attention was caught by motion from the trees.
“What’s that?”
James turned to where she was pointing, eyes widening as he caught sight of it.
“I… don’t know,” He admitted.
It was a bulk of motion, neither of them could quite describe. Sections so black they seemed to absorb the light, and others almost iridescent. The reflected flames and sunlight popped and vanished moment by moment, as the bulk seemed to… shamble forward. It seemed so ungainly and big that both of them were caught with stunned shock by how fast it managed to get close to them.
Cynthia started backing up as James just stared, head tilting in either direction as he tried to understand what he was seeing.
“James…” She called, “Be careful!”
He didn’t respond, cautiously starting to step around the approaching beast.
“I think it’s a bear,” He called, his tone entirely uncertain. “Just stay clear… Black Bears usually aren’t aggressive. Let it pass.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know, some contamination I guess…”
James had cleared back and to the side, giving the animal a lot of room. He waved her further back, “Give him room. Give him room.”
Cynthia nodded fervently, backing away even more as the… bear? Stopped and slowly seemed to look around.
“No one run,” A new voice said, “Just stay calm.”
*****
People!
Not mere life, but thinking, sentient, people!
This was one of those worlds.
It felt a joy rush up in it, subsuming everything else. Where there were sentients, the hunting was always great, the moments were sublime. Nothing quite smelled and tasted like sentience.
It took a moment, puppeting its new body around a
s it took in everything about it. There were three nearby, very near. There was fear on the waft of the air, like a spice that permeated everything. It overpowered the smoke and flame.
It focused on the greatest source, taking a moment to soak in the chemicals that filled the air.
Then it moved.
*****
Cynthia glanced to one side, seeing the Lodge owner arriving with a rifle in his hand. Cynthia breathed a sigh of relief, though she hoped that the animal moved on without harm.
A little more relaxed now, she took a moment to examine the bear more closely, confused by what she was seeing.
She could see the bear, though it looked far bigger than she’d expected a black bear would be. Still, she couldn’t say she had much experience with animals up this close so that was probably just her. Whatever it was covered in, though, it didn’t look pleasant.
“Is that some sort of toxic waste?” She blurted, taking another step back as the thought occurred to her.
“Nothing out this way like that, far as I know,” The lodge owner, William, said, “but there’s always some jackass dumping in the glades to save a few bucks, so it could be.”
He had his rifle pointed generally at the bear but didn’t seem too intent on taking any shots as the beast wasn’t making any motion toward any of them.
The bear twitched, looking around itself as though it were uncertain, or maybe looking for something.
Cynthia didn’t know which, but she wished it would just leave.
She didn’t even have a chance to scream when it suddenly lunged.
Gunshots roared across the wetlands.
Chapter 9
President Strand looked like he was fighting an urge to be ill as he looked over the video feed that was being piped into the War Room from the fast response groups that had hit San Francisco just moments easier.
The city was on fire, and what wasn’t burning had been drowned. There wasn’t any estimate on casualties, mostly because no one had any time to be counting. Rescue operations were already in full swing, with local responders doing what they could while they wanted for help from the state and federal resources.
“I want everything we have, from FEMA to the National Guard, into the city before the sun comes over the mountains,” He said firmly. “Am I clear?”
“Yes Sir, we already have units moving while others wind up,” the FEMA director said from across the table. “The governor has declared a state of emergency, as of ten minutes ago, and the Guard has recalled everyone to active duty.”
Strand nodded, eyes slipping across to the map that showed the various hot spots across the world.
A tidal warning was showing up in Hawaii, but so far, no sign of casualties or damages so perhaps the ocean strike hadn’t been powerful enough to raise a wave of any significance. China, well that strike had undoubtedly killed hundreds, and would probably kill dozens or hundreds more from indirect issues relating to debris falling across Beijing.
That was bad, but it was better than it could have been.
Had the strike come down in the city there, as it had in San Francisco… well, the numbers would have been horrifyingly higher.
Part of him wished it had been Beijing rather than San Francisco.
Another part of him hated himself for that.
He didn’t have time for self-loathing, however, he had a job to do.
“What reports are coming out of Florida?” He asked finally.
Florida was still a black spot on the map almost. They had a response team alright on site, but the impact had cut them off… probably killed them, but they didn’t know that yet.
General Hardy shook his head slightly.
“We have men in the Glades now, heading for the impact site, but we still don’t have any contact with our advance team,” He said. “We’ve been pulling our best information from Social Media, actually. Every cell phone out there is putting the scene up for the world to see, which is a double-edged sword I don’t have to tell you…”
The men and women in the room snorted. All of them at some point or another had run afoul of the vagaries of social media even as most had used it to their benefit as well. The first response on social media was often the only response that mattered, few if any people bothered to follow up on the flavor of the day, whether it was right or wrong.
In this scenario, though, the boots on the ground were going to start with civilians wielding cell phones rather than soldiers lugging rifles.
They would use that as best they could.
The large screen flickered, showing a burning waste as seen through a shaking camera while people yelled in the background.
“Jesus,” A general mumbled. “That’s a lot of damage.”
“We were lucky here,” Strand said darkly. “No casualties reported yet, though that could be just because anyone in the region who survived just hasn’t gotten to help yet. It’s still going to be extremely low, between zero and low tens at most, probably closer to zero.”
That was the good news, of course.
The bad news was that they’d lost a Marine helo, likely with all hands, and they still didn’t have any idea what the hell those things were.
“We have people monitoring life streaming out of the hot zone,” The Secretary of Homeland Security spoke up. “There are dozens of feeds already, with more every minute practically. Most of them are useless, but we’ve been able to glean some valuable intelligence from the feeds nonetheless.”
“What sort of intelligence?” The General in charge of USSOCOM asked.
“Mostly we’ve been able to specifically identify areas affected with greater precision, as well as begin establishing the identities of people in the area who can be confirmed safe,” The Director of Homeland Security responded. “However there has been some small items of interest…”
He gestured and the imagery on the screen altered, showing fires in the distance and a cloud of dust reflecting the orange light forming in the sky.
“The damage is not consistent with what we registered during our approach scans,” He said with a scowl. “Either the mass of the entry vehicle, or its’ speed, were badly miscalculated. The impact was considerably higher than expected, which goes far to explain the shocking level of damage in San Francisco.”
“We were tracking speed until they got below our coverage,” An Air Force General said emphatically, “I’ll stake my career on those numbers.”
Strand frowned. “You might be doing just that, General.”
“It’s possible that the vehicle accelerated after dropping below our detection threshold,” The DHS Director said, cutting through the tension. “It’s also possible that the vehicle was more massive than it appeared. Without getting better information, there’s no way to tell.”
He was about to go on when the door burst open, a young woman pushing her way in through the security.
“Mr. President? You’re going to need to see this!”
*****
USS Bunker Hill, Pacific
Riggs looked out over the waters, eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary as he tried to put the thoughts of what was happening to the East out of his mind. He, like the rest of the crew, wanted to be steaming toward San Francisco, not out into the middle of the Pacific, but orders were orders and there wasn’t much they could for the burning city anyway.
Instead they were hunting the missing object, the one that had supposedly gone down between the mainland and Hawaii, with enough force to have raised a tidal wave that never made an appearance.
“Taccom reports no contact,” Burke said, walking up to him. “We’ve got ships combing this region, but there’s nothing here. It must have gone down.”
“We can only hope,” Riggs said darkly.
He didn’t have any idea what the contacts were, no one in the chain seemed to have much better either, but he had good reason to hate them. Thousands of dead civilians, friends on the Champlain, and some distant family in the city all
contributed to that.
“Until we get word otherwise,” He said after a moment, “We keep looking.”
“Aye Skipper.”
*****
CVN 81, USS Doris Miller
Admiral Morrow looked out over the deck. The controlled chaos of the well-run flight operations always calmed him no matter what he was dealing with.
And he needed calming at the moment.
He was coordinating multiple elements of PACCOM, including the Dory Task Group, a dozen Destroyers, several Fast Attack Subs, and various other groups. They were scouring the sea for any sign of the object that had impacted, and his orders seemed to indicate that there was a good chance that there was actually something out there to find.
That he was having a hard time believing, if he were being honest about things.
It must have hit like a freight train, Morrow thought once again. How the hell can anyone expect there to be anything left, let alone anything that we might find? It should all be at the bottom of the Pacific by this point.
Orders being orders, however, he said nothing beyond confirming receipt and sending them on to his Captains.
The brief he’d just received had put things in a bit better perspective, though only marginally so.
That the objects had been maneuvering meant that there was a possibility that they’d been intended for recovery… somehow.
He still wasn’t sure how that was possible, not given the speed at which they’d been clocked just before slamming into the ocean, but all scanners had lost the damn thing a few seconds before impact. Maybe it was possible for it to have slowed.
The initial hits from the Tsunami Warning system monitored by NOAA had made it clear that something had struck the ocean, and it had been moving fast. However, no sign of the tidal event had been seen by responders, and even NOAA’s system was no longer registering anything out of the ordinary.
What that meant, he honestly had no idea.
All Marrow knew was that it was going to be a long day.
*****
F-35 at FL50, Pacific
Commander Elise ‘Cans’ Cannel banked her fighter slightly to port, examining the sea below as she brought her plane around in a tight turn. The light of the sun was just starting to broach the horizon, making the surface sparkle below her as she sped overhead.