invasion of the crazy bots2.5

"So give me some updates!" The President said cheerfully, "Tell me whats happening. Talk to me."

"We've been watching the Pyramid that has been aproaching and it has not changed its course and if this continues to be the case, it will strike the Atlantic Ocean just as the first person that you had working on the assingment predicted, zero nine hundred, GMT, ten days from now. Based on the simulations that I ran which take into consideration this object continuing on its current tragectory, the impact will result in a tsunami that will rise three meters and in most places along the Eastern sea-board and will cause mild to serious damage to homes. However, I ran some of my own numbrs and I have come to the conclusion that there is a very high probability that this object will make some sort of breaking manouver that will bring this pyramid in for either a hard or soft landing in the Heart of New York City."

"Excuse me. Pyramid? Its been a busy week, would you refresh my memory about this pyramid?"

"Um, well, sir. It is very large pyramid, 500 by 500 metres at it's base. It has that has been observed and determond to be heading directly towards the Earth and, I'm told that you are aware of the consequences of a large extra terrestrial object that might apear in the skys of our largest city."

"My god, it would be terrible!"

General Tratarez spoke up, "Mr. President, I will remind you that the object's current trajectory will crash it into the ocean and cause a perfectly managble tsunami," The general glared at the Doctor and continued, "that is what we want you to provide more detail on! This is not a time for speculation. We need to know the facts. We need to know exactly whats going to happen!"

"Well sir, I can't tell you exactly what will happen, but it is perfectly possitioned to exicute a breaking manouver and slow its self down to make a soft landing."

"We must not jump to conclusions."

"No of corse not."

"Is is possible that this 'breaking manouver', as you call it, could be strong enough as to keep this object from entering the atmophere at all."

"Well, yes, sir, technically that could be the case, but-"

"Well, I understand that you have enough security clearance to know that sometimes these kinds of things happen. They are normally not a big deal."

"Yes sir, but even if it doesn't land, it has the potenial to be a major sighting."

"And what do you propose we do about that?"

"Well sir, with all due respect, that is up to the president and I am under the impression that he listens to his generals first."

The attention of the room shifted back to the commander in cheif who was making notes. He was slightly startled when he looked up and saw that everyone was looking at him. "Huh? Oh yes. The pyramid. Hm. Like I said we are heavilly commited to maintaining the smoldering flames of freedom on the other side of the canal, but ours is a nation of infinate power and political capital. We can easily tackle this hurtle without breaking our stride or loosing composure. Now tell me son. At this point, how far away is the pyramid?"

"As of nine o'clock this morning, twelve and a half million killometres or seven and three quarters of a million miles."

"Excuse me, did you say 'million'?"

"I said, seven point seven-five million miles."

The president waved frantically for his aide who the president pulled by the neck-tie when he came close so that he could wisper in his ear. The aide the wispered back long enough for other conversations to start around the room. The president's face became grave. At last he cleared his throat and spoke, "I am aware that you are all aware that sometimes large man-made objects from deep in outer space some times peek in our neck of the woods. They are all of no conserns. They are either just passing through or they are curious and want to take a peek at our wonderfull cities and farms. I'm sure some of them want to study our technology to see what they can learn. However, some of them are different. Some of them may or may not behave like other objects from deep in outer space. They might seek to reveal them selves in a way that would harm the delicate natural ecconomic ballence that we have acheived. The people of our great nation and indeed the world are not ready for this kind of knowlede and that is why they must never know."

"So what you're saying," said general Tratarez, "is that you want a business as usual approach to this issue. Is that correct Mr. President?"

The commander in cheif hessitated. "I just want to do what is best for the country, and if that means doing nothing, then so be it."

"Mister President may I ask a question?"

"Of course you can."

"My question is: what do you plan to do if this pyramid suddenly floats down from the sky over New York City?"

Befor Doctor Chase could finish, General Traterez interupted, "We have brought you here to present technical data and information of that sort. We don't need you to waste our time with stupid questions."

"Perhapse it is my job to ask stupid questions." The Ugly General with the Eye Patch stated, "Mr. President, what if the object comes out of the sky and 20 million people see it with their own two eyes? Sir, that would change everything."

"Who says anyone will see it at all? It is probably just taking pictures or measurments or something like that. Perfectly normal."

"Its shape is highly unusual and it is very large. We have never seen anything like this befor. I don't like to assume that this thing is just comming in to take a peek. As you know, I've always been an advcate of maintaining a strong domestic garrison for many reasons including these occasional uninvited guests that poke around. What if this is a clumbsy or aggressive ship?"

"We maintain a significant airforce presence in the area. I think they should be more than enough to take care of anything that the pyramid could through at us."

"General Tratarez, that is a stupid asumption. We don't know what kind of technology exists on this object. For all we know it is useing the City as a sort of human sheild to prevent us from useing the nuclear option, and your plan of inaction would have millions of people in the area who obviously be killed if we had to attack it with all our available resources, which incidently will be also be much less since you will only grudgingly permit a single battle group to leave the Gulf."

After a long silence Traterez said softly, "Perhpase you are right. Our Navy and indead all branchs of our great military must be able to handle several threats in different parts of the world at the same time. I am prepared recomend a comprimise to the President,"

The President boldly stated, "It is comprimise in the hands of wisdom that made this nation strong."

The was silence again untill Traterez spoke again. "Comprimise. I will comprimise the forces that we maintain in an unstable reigon; perhapse unwizly, I recomend to you, Mr. President, that we call Battle Group Delta home immediatly."

"Are you sure that's wise, General?"

"No. But the Ugly General with an eye-patch thinks that this Pyramid that appears to be heading towards the Earth, as, I might add, many strange objects have in the past and will in the future, might be hostil, as so few ever have been. Perhapse when this object, which I believe will either crash into the ocean or fly off again into deep space. Perhapse when it is fadeing into the distance the Ugly General will consider sending a spare squadrin of heavy bombers to help me preserve the freedom of our alies."

"Perhapse indeed." Reflected the president.

General Laddin spoke up, "Who was the guy that we had here last time? Doctor Charlston?"

The President's aide answered, "Doctor Carlton."

"Yes. Him. He was given the task of trying to contact this pyramid. Has he returned any results?"

"Hm. No. Sorry sir. We havn't back from him yet.

"You havn't heard back from him let?" The Ugly General asked with disgust, "Have you tried getting in touch with him?"

"No sir. I'm sorry. We've been very busy."

Traterez said, "I would like to come back to the subject that we brought Doctor Chase here for: the impact that will result in the absence of his so-called 'breaking manouver'."

Doctor Chase took a deep breath, "Why would it plung into the ocean?"

"My mother taught me to never answer a question with a question."

Doctor Chase very much wanted to say, 'What a stupid bitch!' "It seems extreamly unlikly that it would come hundreds of trillions killometers only to crash into the ocean."

"It could be dormant. It could be millions of years old. Things are not always as they seem you know."

He strongly suppressed the urge to say, 'They usually are when you look close enough.' "If it was dormant, why would it be on such a precise trajectory towards us?"

"But its not on a precise trajectory. Its going to crash into the ocean."

"Unless it exicutes the breaking manouver that it is perfectly positioned for."

"Which will probably just take in for a sight seeing tour of our great country. Maybe it is just picking up a smaller ship or dropping one off."

"It could do that easilly without comming so close to the planet, Newyork City specifically."

"Doctor Chase, would you like me to strangle you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Would you like it if sqeezed your neck so that you couldn't breath?"

"You'd better watch out." The presedent warned with a goofy grimace, "He'll do it. I've seen him do it. It's not pritty."

"Do you want to leave this room alive?"

"Yes sir."

"Then without any further ado, Doctor, you will tell use what we want to hear. What will happen when this object falls into the ocean?"

Doctor Chase took a deep breath. "First it will create heat. The friction of it moving at hyper-velocity through the atmosphere will be the equivalant of a 200 megaton nuclear bomb detonating at 80,000 meters. This will cause a bowl in the ocean about 150 kilometres wide and 2 metres at it's deepest to flash into steam. Any boat with in 500 kilometres of the site will be destroyed, perhapse vaporized.

"There will be a powerfull shockwave in the air with the potential to break millions of windows accross Europe."

"That sounds very serious." The president commented.

"That is not all. The impact will also create a wave that will radiate accross the ocean and inundate low lieing regons of the coast on both sides. Fortunately, most of Spain's and France's shores rise steeply from the ocean. Parts of England will do far worse. The Thames in Londen will probably back up and spill over. And on our side, the entire Eastern Sea Board is at risk of flooding."

"How long will it take this wave to reach our coast after it impacts?" Asked General Traterez.

"About three hours."

"So you see Mr. Presient, this is nothing more than a matter of emergancy responce. You can tell the people that as soon as it hits that they must leave the cities in this part of the county. Have your emergency responce people working on martial law exersizes at the time so that they are ready, " the president gestured to his aide who began writing, "It will splash down. There will probably be a few videos of the cloud, perhpase the actual even. Some witnesses will report a ball of fire decending from the sky. .we'll have to pull some strings but we can have lots of extra cattle cars lieing in wait at this time. I know some people I can talk to."

"I'd apreciated it if you would do that for me general."

The ugly General with the eye patch spoak, "You seem awfully sure that the pyramid will not exicute Dr. Chase's breaking manouver."

"Call it a hunch."

"Well, with all due respect for your hunches, General, I prefer to act on the facts."

Crazy laughter burst out in the room. It was General Ladden. The attention of the room became focused on him as he eventually got out of his chair and excused him self.

"The facts are as our little scientist friend presented them. Why can't you just listen to reason?"

"Call it a hunch, but I think you've presured him a little bit to get him to say what you wanted to hear. Why do you not want to treat this as a possible threat to the stability of our country?"

"Look at it this way: if we prepare to evacuate under my plan, we can be ready for the any sort of 'breaking manouver' that might find its self occureing. We can move the emergancy forces from along the coast and they can form up in New York."

"That's the kind of foward thinking I've been trying to bring back to the city council. Good work."

"Thank-you, sir."

General Laddin spoke up, " I have some more forward thinking that I would like to bring to the table. I suggest that we assign Doctor Chase here some more work. I suggest that we tell him to study the possibility of the object doing the opposite of what he insists will happen. Perhapse it will accelerate rather that slow down."

There were mumbles around the room.

"Do you think that this possibility exists, doctor?" Traterez asksed.

"Well, yes of course. However, I will caution the comittee that this strikes me as highly unlikely simply..."

"I suppose it would crash in Europe. Spain perhapse, depending on how quickly it accelerated."

"Yes."

"I want you to come back to us with a projection of where it might land and what the results of such an impact might be."

"I can tell you right now that its line of possible impact site would project in the opposite direction of the line that I've shown you here that will take it in for a soft landing in Central Park, in Midtown Manhattan."

And would you please discribe what you think such an event might be like, if this object indeed crashed into the Heart of Europe as it is clearly well possitioned to do. Well, Doctor. Give us your highly educated guess asto what might happen." Doctor Chase spent several moments like a deer in the head lights of Admiral Traterez's freight train eyes. He looked for a moment to the well postured president who who looked back at him intently with his hands neatly folded on the desk.

Doctor Chase cleared his throat and said, "It would be devistating."

"Can you be more specific?" Admiral Traterez asked.

"Well sir, of course there would be no tsunami, so, I suppose, in that sence the damae would be more localized, but, um, depending on how much the object accelerated, there would be a great deal of area where every thing would be flattened and there would be an area of smaller radius, where many things would be vaporized."

"Vaporized?"

"Yes sir."

"How wide spread would this damage be?"

"I don't know. Maybe a sevear damage zone of 300 killometres in radius or so. That's just a guess, of course I'd need to run some more simulations to get a more accurate estimate."

"Mr. President I recomend that you assigne Doctor Chase here to study the possibility of the object accelerating."

"Doctor Chase," said the president, "Do what the admiral said."

"Oh and General?"

"Yes sir?"

"You look like shit. Get some more sleep."

"Yes sir. Sorry sir. I've been working late."

"I can't have you at my BBQ looking like that."

Doctor Chase became facinated and terrified by the topic of conversation.

"I mean really," continued the president, "You look like a bag of shit that has been beaten for three days by a sorority of pissed off, menstrateing lesbian feminists like the ones that were in Harvard when I was there." the room burst into riotious laughter. Traterez chucked lightly as General Laddin pounded his fist on the table and then fell backwards in his chair and onto the floor.

Doctor Chase looked on in disbeleif as tears of myrth poured from the eyes of the men of the war council. Admiral Traterez chuckled harder. and shot a bizarre look at the dumbfounded scientist. He saw that only the ugly General with the eye patch was not laughing. The ugly general sat at the table looking very grumpy. He rested his head on his hand looked up at the celing. The single brown eye in his head looked down and met the dumb founded face of Doctor Chase. They looked at eachother and felt a breif, sad connection as the laughter in the room died down. The ugly general shook his head solomly.

"Yes, perhapse, my apearance is as disgracefull as the preformance of General Smith's canidate in Haiti." The room Oooooed and chuckled a bit more.

General Smith turned slowly in his chair, pushed by the grinning man beside him. "My man faced a very popular opponent, who by the way stands an elivated chance of suffering a terrible bout of cancer in the near future. Nobody off the island will notice, especailly if we a national emergency like a tsunami caused by an object falling from the sky." Mild ausment crossed many of th faces at the table.

Doctor Chase looked found him self at the focus of an akward silence. Two generals were wispering to eachother and one pointed at him breifly and then stood and walked to wisper to another general and then he spoke into the ear of Admiral Traterez who nodded. The wispering general then walked towards Doctor Chase. "You will come with me." "May I ask why?" Suddenly both of Doctor Chase's arms were firmly in the grip of men in military fategues. They followed the general out the door taking the scientist with them. "Where are you takeing me? I didn't do anything!" He was over come with a strange and uncomfortable familiar feeling. He felt as though he'd expereinced this before, but he simply couldn't bring the memory to his consiouisness.

The four of them walked down the hall breifly and stoped at a door which one of the soldiers knocked on. It was opened by a very small man with long grey hair and a long grey beard.

"Memory wipe, ten minutes.." Said the general as Doctor Chase was forced into the room were he was deposited into a chair. His hands were strapped to the rests and his legs were fastened together.

"Look," he said, "I've got lots of security clearance. I don't think it should be too big of a deal. I'm sure this can be delt with by by filling out some accidental discolsure forms.!"

"You'd wouldn't beleive the paper work involved." The general smiled, "You understand." The general patted him on the shoulder and walked out of the room. Doctor Chase looked down at his shoulder where the short man with the long beard was pulling a needle out of his should and looking up with thick, gleeming glasses.

Doctor Chase awoke long enough to realise that he was back on the jet. He slept untill he found him self being nudged by the man that the president's aide had sent. "We're here." He said. "C'mon. Wake up. Let's go."

"Fuck off!" Doctor Chase stuck his middle finger in the face of man that the president's aid had sent. There was no further prodding as Doctor Chase rubbed his face for several seconds.

Wind gently rocked the airplane and bits of sand sounded off the fuseloge.

He yawned and discovered that his feet were tied together. what the? He looked up at the man that the president's aide had send who looked from the front window of the plane back towards him.

"What?" Asked the president's aide's aide.

"Why the fuck is there strap around my legs?"

"Oh shit." The aide pulled out a cellular phone-like device and spoke into it, "The doctor needs another memory wipe. Someone left the fucking leg strap on him.."

"What are you talking about? Why is there a--" He felt an ugly sensation come over him, realising that something very unusual was happening. "What's going on?"

The Aide said, "stay where you are!" and walked out the door of the jet, closeing it behind him.

Doctor Chase looked out the window beside him at the familiar empty desert scene. It was very quiet inside the plane. He got up to look out the other side and fell into a seat where he saw the man that the president's aide had sent standing with his black to the air plane, his tie, jacket and thinning hair blowing in the wind.

He banged on the wall and yelled, "Hey! What's going on? Why do you got to erase my memory." He didn't even know that such a proceedure existed and he had never asked. In his line of work information was so compartimentalised that this didn't come as a big surprise to him. He thought as hard as he could about what he could remember before wakeing up in the jet but he drew a blank. His most recent memory was of a ride in a limosein in the capital. Accross the river to the Pentigon, this was very vauge and foggy. He saw that the leg strap was velcro and he pulled at it. It was strong velcro and he was weak and it came slowly. When it was off he rubbed the tender spot where it had been. He thought some more and he vaugly remembered an uncomfortable meeting, but that was a blur. A meeting where everyone had laughed.

There was soft sound to acompany the wind. A hissing noice. A strange smell. Doctor Chase lost consiousness again.