Location: Downtown, Uffton TX
It should not be understated that the township of Uffton TX was hardly accustomed to tense situations. There was the odd tornado of course, a bank robbery in the summer of '08... 1908; and now this...
Arresting a jaywalking Godzilla.
The police had been reduced to what amounted to a demented game of whack-a-mole in the attempt. As the moles. They had guns, lots of guns, from high caliber rifles and shotguns to service pistols and small hold-out revolvers.
It wasn't doing much good.
This is not to say that the combined efforts of the Uffton P.D. wasn't having any effect at all. There were thousands of little streamers where green vapor leaked from the wounds that peppered Godzilla's hide. One would think that a three storey tall mutant iguana would have tougher skin but aside from that the giant lizard just blithely kept trying to snack on the police officers diving back under cover in buildings and cars.
It was like an anteater and a hive of slightly underarmed blue bodied ants with wide brimmed hats and radios.
Then Besty rolled onto Main Street...
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The ATF really would have liked to have a word with Aaron Baetsky. Simon didn't know what Aaron had loaded into the firing chamber- Aaron hadn't told him anything for legal reasons save that it was custom made by, 'a guy who knew a guy' and that it had, 'an extra pop'.
Simon insisted that Aaron explain what he meant by, 'an extra pop'...
Aaron insisted that Simon better not goddamn miss...
Creak-Creak-Creak-Creak-Creak-Creak-Creak-Creak-
Chatta-Chatta-Chatta-Chatta-Chatta-Chatta-Chatta-
The tank rolled to a stop as Godzilla swung its head fom side to side to get a good look. It placed a beady black, hub-cap sized eye about ten feet away from the 90mm turret.
Chatta-Chatta-BOOM!!
A basketball sized cloud of ball bearings caught Godzilla in the face, and began to burn.
It turns out that Simon was pretty handy with a shotgun...
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Simon Hughes & Aaron Baetsky
Simon and Aaron were the toast of the local constabulary, which is probably why no one asked about where Aaron's white phosphorous coated grape shot came from or if there was more aboard. They were even allowed to park Besty on a major throughway while the two, over Simon's protests that he needed to find the missus, went into a local Walmart to get a couple of cases of cold brew.
They were just across the street when the alert came in over Aaron's hand-cranked and battery powered radio for receiving emergency broadcasts. The two men listened over the radio as a man with an amazingly even voice, probably had ice for blood, matter-of-factly listed the salient points.
To put things in a more Lovecraftian cast... It walks, that which lives no more...
More to be announced as updates emerge...
Then the stench of death hit the two men...
It is a curious thing terror. It can drive a human being past self-imposed limits to realms of heroism or cowardice that were until tested, unknown. Whether it was cowardice or heroism that drove the two men to investigate the awakening zombies is uncertain. They went toward the source of their town's zombie infestation, they did it in a tank. Best to think of it as a prudent course of action perhaps.
A tank rolled into the parking lot of the local Walmart.
Two men got out, and as quickly as possible without raising a fuss, began to gather bottled water and what canned foods they could find into several carts. They quietly passed them through the express checkout counter as fast as they could, making multiple trips. Then they walked up to the elderly store manager, introduced themselves and showed him a video taken by phone. They had him listen to a radio at low volume. Finally, they took the increasingly disturbed man out back to see what was stuck in the threads of their tank.
A tank rolled out of the local Walmat parking lot.
CHATTA-CHATTA-CHATTA-CHATTA-CHATTA-CHATTA...
A few minutes later after making a few telephone calls of his own, the pale and sweating manager passed a flashcard to a checkout girl with instructions to make a storewide announcement. She was a pretty blond thing, working her way through college.
"ATTENTION ALL WALMART SHOPPERS. DUE TO AN IMMINENT ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE THIS OUTLET WILL BE TEMPORARILY CLOSING IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES. ALL SHOPPERS ARE ASKED TO PLEASE REMAIN CALM AND PROCEED TO CHECKOUT IN AN ORDERLY FASHION. THOSE OF YOU WHO CANNOT FIND TRANSPORTATION AWAY FROM THIS LOCATION WILL BE ALLOWED TO STAY IN THE STORE PROVIDED THAT YOU AID IN ITS DEFENSE. ALL MANAGEMENT TEAM LEADERS ARE ASKED TO MEET THE STORE MANAGER AT AISLE SIX, FISHING AND HUNTING. ATTENTION ALL WALMART SHOPPERS..."
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Location: Bastion One
In a secret bunker that to all intents and purposes didn't exist, a certain briefing with the President of the United States of America didn't occur...
Drs. A, E, I, O and U were teleconferencing using a technology that wouldn't be available for mainstream public usage until the year 2045. The quantum etherlink was the only method of communication so far that Dr. I had found to possibly be capable of bypassing potential alien monitoring. Not even land lines were safe given what Dr. U had determined about the nature of the burgeoning 'Zombie Apocalypse' and the situation with the invaders in general.
"Let me get this straight, gentlemen, lady;" The President repeated, "These 'zombies' and that... thing the Secret Service shot after it ate Bo... This was all caused by some alien technology, specifically nanotechnology?"
"Yes, Mr. President, that is correct." Dr. O answered with a nod.
The President's eyes quickly scanned the device in his hand, before looking back up, "Are we certain that this is an extraterrestrial attack? Is this some sort of grey goo scenario?"
Dr. A felt a surge of nationalistic pride in the president's obvious viewership of the Discovery Channel and to a lesser extent, in the man's ability to query Wikipedia and pose semi-pertinent questions on the fly as if he'd been thinking about the matter all along.
As the current Chair, it was Dr. O who answered on behalf of the assembled men and woman. "While we do possess samples of technology approaching this scale, the Organization does not currently field a working device at this degree of sophistication."
A look and a gesture permitted Dr. A to cut in. "As you may remember from our report and briefing," She said, referring to the 11,379 page document currently anchoring one end of the president’s desk to the floor and the three hour lecture followed by a fourteen minute PowerPoint presentation with animation respectively.
"Even the means of nanoconstruction available to the Organization via the Tunguska event is based on a hybridization of the bottom-up/top-down approach. Technically, calling this a nanotech based threat is a bit misleading."
The President interrupted her with a frown, "What do you mean misleading? You just spent three hours of my day briefing me on... what then?"
Dr. A hurried on, "O-oh, no! The creatures themselves are definitely a form of nanotechnology... b-but the basis of it is..."
"A self-sustaining pseudo-plasmatic energy waveform…" Dr. E interjected for his floundering colleague. Dr. A was a lecturer through and through, throwing in random questions tended to put her off her game, "One that via quantum resonance, and other mass quantum scale interactions, binds matter together into devices of any size and conversely deconstructs such devices through the same interactions."
Knowing that the President wouldn't have followed the explanation Dr. O got to the heart of the matter as painlessly as possible.
"Intra-solar tracking shows a meteor shower with a radiant energy signature similar to what can be detected from the nanomaterial we examined. It was flagged when we widened our search for possible sources of the phenomena."
"So this attack is definitely extraterrestrial in origin." The President stated.
Drs. A, E, I, O and U looked at each other briefly.
As the chairperson Dr. O was the one to speak up. "Actually Mr. President, we think..."