Today is the worst day of Olivia’s life. It took all her willpower to stop from screaming manically in the middle of class. FUCK! FUCK, I AM SO SCREWED! She wailed to herself. The harbinger of her sorrow was standing at the podium at the front of the class, explaining the final to the gathered students. Professor Wu was truly beyond compare in her passion for her subject: Ecology. Olivia had to respect it; once, Professor Wu was literally brought to tears over a ‘highly neat’ graph of deer populations in the large forests surrounding the university. If anyone deserved, or was destined, to teach ecology, it was this woman.

One issue with the Professor, however, was she could be demanding. The class she taught this semester, Ecology of Universes, was notorious for its many difficult assignments. Essays, quizzes, exams, presentations, and the like were there in spades. But the real tough stuff was the field work. Usually given for the final, Professor Wu required each student in her roughly 15-person class to go out and actually see the concepts she taught them. As one might guess by the name of the class, that meant going out to another dimension and bringing back samples of interesting ecosystems, habitats, even entire biospheres. The students must then write a paper and present their samples to the class. This entire endeavor was worth 40% of the class grade. A student was graded not just on the depth of her analysis, but on the novelty and uniqueness of her finds. “I’ve hand selected a multitude of universes to go to,” she explained. “They’ve all got plenty of interesting lifeforms and you have 2 weeks to do this, so no excuses! I want to be surprised by what you bring me, that’s what’s so fun about science! Be sure to reserve a universe on the spreadsheet so two students don’t fight over the most interesting thing there. I’m sure you already know this, but please use the proper way of traveling dimensions! Remember, tunneling into universes can seriously destabilize them! You’ll be in big trouble if I find out you’re tunneling! Alright, that’s everything for now. We won’t have class until the finals period where you’ll all present. If you have any questions you can just text me. Good luck! Find me something cool!”

Olivia ran her fingers through her dirty blonde hair, pushing it behind her ears to fall at her shoulders. She could handle field work, that was fine, but 40% of the grade was just too much pressure. She walked up to Professor Wu as the teacher slid her laptop into her bag, “Professor? Can I chat real quick?” The professor looked up, “Sure, Olivia. Got a question about the final?”

“Yes, well, kind of. I’m just worried about doing the field work. I know you picked the universes out, but since we’re graded on how novel our picks are I’m uncertain how to assess my own work. I’m just not sure what ‘interesting’ look like to you, I guess,” Olivia internally cringed at how blunt she was being. Normally, she is not this direct or confrontational. The professor stayed still a moment, then spoke, “Well, I’m not sure what counts as ‘interesting’ either, to be honest. Hmm… I still want you to try and find something unique,” She tapped her index finger on her chin as she contemplated. “I used to record the presentations students gave me. What if I gave you an example presentation from a few years ago? Not for you to crib off of, but to use as a reference. All the recordings I kept were quite intriguing to me, at the time. How’s that sound?”

Olivia smiled, “That sounds good. Thanks a lot!” That wouldn’t completely stop the nerves, but at least the clarity from a prior project would help reduce the uncertainty a bit. Olivia sauntered out of the room and headed to the food court for some lunch.

-- Five hours later --

Olivia slammed down into her desk chair, mind swimming, body sore as she returned from the gym. A full day of classes and studying necessitated a long exercise session to de-stress the college junior. It may have helped, but it did not eliminate the intense pressure she felt for her ecology project. I need to pass this class. If I fail, that’s no med school for me. Olivia had ambitions of becoming a surgeon, a dream of hers for years, and applying was fiercely competitive. Even with her research, volunteering, leadership, sports, and academics, it wasn’t a sure shot she’d actually get in. With a failed class, even an elective like her ecology class, her career plan would be ruined.  What would I do then? Work in labs? Teach? Maybe that’s good enough for Professor Wu, but not me.

As the anxiety threatened to leap up at her, she resolved to check out the recorded presentation her teacher sent her. She opened her laptop and found the emailed video. She saw a short redhead, jumpy and excited enough to be picked up on the camera situated at the back of the room, holding up a petri dish of what looked like tiny sea sponges, about 10mm in height. The woman began her presentation,

“Here is the apex species of the planet X80AEEB-L11-09 in universe APOE442-H554-Rose. An alien species nearby calls the planet ‘Thovax’ and these sponges ‘Porvia Ilthu’ which according to their radio transmissions means ‘Great Towers.’ These are a great example of ecosystem engineers, and are at the same time the keystone species for most of the planet’s biosphere. Here,” She advanced her presentation slides to a close-up picture of a massive forest of calciferous columns, “Is a pretty typical sponge colony. Note the different colors and hole density; I’m pretty sure these are all the same species, just different variations, which is neat! Anyway, these colonies are dispersed throughout the entire planet, and seem to be where most of the life is. Looking at the biofilters, we can see they all have DNA like us, but there are genomic signatures with different GC content on the inside of the sponge compared to the outer walls. What you’re seeing is all the other organisms that live in the sponge! The sponges likely provide a safe, stable, nutrient rich environment for the resident organisms and they probably give the sponge food and maybe certain nutrients the sponges don’t make. So that’s pretty neat! I did some dye tracking on a few just to see how the water flow through the sponges influences…”

The redhead continued on and on, never once tiring or stopping her rapid deluge of information, all coated in a nearly sickening glaze of pure passion. That woman is a born ecologist, Olivia thought. After having watched that, Olivia figured that the presentation was an actually achievable task. Just find a good looking planet, use the cross-dimensional scanners to get the basics, then go there for an hour or so, do some scans, take pictures, then grab a sample. Not too hard! Olivia closed the video once the presentation was over, shut her laptop, and went to dinner. She planned to just take all of tomorrow and knock this project out.

It was 8:22PM the night the project was due, and Olivia was… not done with the assignment. She had gotten most of the report written, and a great deal of data collected, but she hadn’t actually traveled to her planet yet. What a find, though! Wu’s gonna flip! Olivia had stumbled upon a fairly typical temperate planet orbiting a fairly common star, but the inhabitants of the planet were interesting. They looked a lot like Olivia! At least, her species. Automatic drones survey different spots of each universe and one drone caught a picture of the inhabitants of this planet from years ago. There were organisms identical in appearance to her species, and there was some kind of subspecies, too. They looked similar as well, but they were taller and had some kind of extra appendage between their legs. Kinda gross looking, actually. Maybe they’re livestock for the apex species or something. She could see grainy footage from the dimensional viewers, these showing live footage, of pale bipeds using tools and living in primitive structures that resemble tiny buildings. So cool. I’ve never seen a lesser species look so similar to us! Figuring that they must be ecosystem engineers like the sponges in that example presentation, Olivia pre-wrote her report before actually seeing the planet with her eyes. Using the fair bit of data she already had from the scanners, she constructed a half-confirmed story about a species that mastered its planet, integrating the rest of the biosphere into their own habitats. It looked like they had totally engineered their environment! She could see fields of grey that covered the entire planet. Spaceships and massive stations enveloped the sphere in a cloud of metal dots. Maybe it’s one big city! So big that they needed to go into orbit to keep expanding. So cool!

She fantasized about getting out there, excited for this class for the first time ever, but administrative constraints jeopardized this part of the assignment. To travel across dimensions safely, one needs to use the proper equipment. Said equipment is called a “Muonic Resonance Defoliator” and is used to gently displace a person from this dimension, the highest one in existence that they know of, to any other. The process is safe, as all one must do to ‘reverse’ the process that displaces them from this universe is think about going home. Willpower for Olivia’s species was strong enough that one could influence reality, especially in the lower dimensions. A simple thought would return her to her home dimension. Getting out of it was what needed some pushing.

The problem was that MRD machines are the size of a house and draw the power of a city, and so access to them, even for legitimate reasons like research or school, was tightly controlled, expensive, and always had a backlog. Olivia reserved a spot online two weeks ago, but spent the time waiting for her turn, seeing her place constantly moved back in favor of last-minute travelers paying extra to jump the line, researchers using grants or preferred contracts with the machine’s operator, even other students doing the same assignment who somehow just got placed in front of her. Now, she was running out of time.

But there was another way… a dangerous way. Dangerous for the universes we go into, not for us. “Tunneling” it was called. A similar principle to the MRD, that is displacing a person into a new dimension, but it worked less gently. In essence, it uses focused energy to rip a hole in spacetime and shove a person into the new dimension. The amount of displacement and the force of entry can have consequences for the destination. Reality itself is often changed, though the inhabitants of the destination have no clue it happened. Still, it can tarnish a universe and permanently ruin the contents within. There’s literally infinite universes, though. Like, why care about any of them except ours? Olivia tried to justify to herself that tunneling was not only needed, but it was actually not a big deal. This effort convinced her to commit, and yesterday she texted her roommate, a physics grad student, to arrange a deal for a tunneler device. Tonight, after being paid a bottle of vodka, her roommate brought in a black box roughly the size of a laptop.

“It’s so… small. This is the real thing?” Oliva was skeptical her roommate hadn’t just scammed her.

“Yeah, that’s it,” her roommate replied. “It’s small, but trust me, it works. You don’t need all that extra equipment for this stuff. MRDs are big because jumping safely is so hard.”

Olivia nodded, content with the answer, “Alright. Well, I have no time left, so I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Wait, you’re going dressed in that? Girl, are you gonna take a nap there?”

Olivia did forget to dress appropriately. She liked simple, comfortable clothes and wore them whenever she had the chance. Right now, she was wearing a pair of black leggings and a slightly tattered blue t-shirt with her university’s logo on it. She wasn’t even wearing shoes, all she had were some white ankle socks. Olivia shrugged at her roommate, “Well, the lesser species won’t care, right? And besides, if someone catches me, I’ll just say I was sleeping when I got displaced suddenly. That’s happened before!”

Her roommate chuckled, “What an alibi. Well, have fun. I’ll get help if you aren’t back by midnight. Try to keep in touch, alright?”

Olivia grinned, “Yeah, I will. Thanks!” and with that, she pressed a large green button on the device, punched in the coordinates for the target universe, and waited for the machine to start. Immediately, a white circle erupted from the device, the height of a person. The circle was partly reflective, and Olivia could see her deep brown eyes staring back at her. The circle flashed twice, then a loud zapping came from the circle. The tunnel was forming. This continued for a few minutes until suddenly the circle burst open, the opaque white receding, and Olivia could see blackness peppered with a few dots of light. The lesser universe! Olivia jumped feet first into the portal, ready to get her samples.

The tunnel traversal has the side effect of blinding the traveler temporarily when she gets into the new dimension. Olivia rubbed her eyes to adjust to the light, and when she could see again, she froze in shock. Rather than the normal blackness of space, she was surrounded by… magma? Um… that wasn’t there before. Olivia felt the heat on her skin, though it didn’t burn her. She could stand on the surface of a neutron star and not be hurt by the heat. But the rest of this universe was less resilient. She saw the nearest stars burn out instantly, and realized that the magma was spreading out. Looks like it’s moving at the speed of light here. I wonder where it’s going. With a thought, she gained awareness of all of spacetime near the portal. She could see and feel every atom, every photon, and know the forces that moved them. In this heightened state, she saw all the stars nearby and the magma ball as it was beginning to expand. The stars in her view died out one by one as the magma rolled over them. Olivia noticed that the magma was beginning to accelerate. Uh oh. Looks like there’s so much energy here, the laws of physics here are changing. Oops. This was undoubtedly her fault. The tunnel punched too hard, and the magma ball would probably swallow the entire universe. Shit, my planet! Olivia panicked, thinking her target was already consumed. She took out her phone, which had apps for planet tracking when traveling universes, but saw something confusing: her planet wasn’t here. It wasn’t in this universe. She looked at the universe locator on her phone and slammed her hand into her forehead. Ohhh, shit. I got the wrong universe! She made a typo when entering in the universal coordinates. Reeling from her error, she began thinking of herself back in her apartment, and instantly she was there. The portal destabilized and closed, showing one last view of a universe doomed to total destruction from her careless mistake.

Olivia’s roommate walked back in, hearing the commotion of the student returning, “Hey, that was fast. You get what you need?”

“No. Got the wrong universe. Also think I fucked that one up with the jump.”

Her roommate shrugged, “Eh, it happens. Usually the way you go in affects the entry to the universe. Try to slowly walk into the portal. You went in fast, so all your kinetic energy overwhelmed that dimension.”

Olivia nodded. Would’ve been nice to know that beforehand, but okay. She typed in the correct coordinates, triple checking her entry, then started the machine up. Once the tunnel was made, the portal cleared, and this time, a bright yellow star was dead center in the portal. Olivia recognized it as the planet’s home star. Better already! She walked in the portal, going comically slow. She scrunched her shoulders in anticipation as her vision went white.

When she could see again, she gazed at the little star. No magma. Yay! Pulling out her phone, she snapped a picture of the system and began scanning the place more. Got the local physics recorded. Hmm… no other lifeforms in the system. Some more species a few lightyears away. Looks like no contact with these guys were ever made, though. That was odd, since she remembered the drone showing spaceships that looked capable of interstellar travel. Indeed, she actually could see a few ships near the cloud of dust surrounding the star. But her scans indicated they weren’t from around this part of space. Observers, or invaders? She really didn’t care all that much. Once she had her collection, she would leave this universe and probably never return. Still, she decided she didn’t want any others to watch her work. She brought her left hand up to the ships, filled with hundreds of lifeforms, and pinched her thumb and index finger together. The ships exploded instantly on her skin, their annihilation barely registering as a little tickle on her digits. Olivia sighed; she needed to get close to her target. She sped through the cloud of dust and asteroids and approached the third planet. Her phone’s automated translation recorded radio transmissions coming from there and allowed her to know what they were doing and saying. For Olivia, this didn’t matter. This universe was unusually low in power, so much so that she already could feel each lifeform on the planet. She saw every being’s life, their perceptions, their minds. She learned what the apex species called themselves: “humans”. And she knew what their little planet was called: Earth.

The ringing phone on Carlos Hernandez’s nightstand vibrated itself onto the floor below. Groaning, Carlos slowly picked it up. It being 2:05AM, he guessed his subordinates were calling. Carlos was a distinguished astrophysicist in charge of the Very Large Array, a creatively named radio telescope array in New Mexico. Being so Very Large, it was one of the world’s best methods of detecting space objects, usually comets or meteorites. When someone called Carlos after the sun went down, that typically meant someone found something odd or new. Almost never a true threat or anything. But when Carlos actually answered the phone, he found he was not speaking to anyone he knew, but instead was being berated by the panicked pleading of some gruff-voiced man, “Dr. Hernandez I am General Joseph Rogers, US Air Force. Your array has picked up… something and we need you here. Now, Doctor.” Carlos shot up out of bed, “What exactly did we pick up?”

-- 56 minutes later –

“A what now? Dr. Greene, are you high?”

Carlos was truly astounded. Being roused out of bed by a technician usually turns out to be nothing, but this call? This was worse. The tech’s report is utterly preposterous.

“A person, Carlos. I swear,” Dr. Greene repeated her observation. “I know it’s just a smudge now, but there is a huge gravitational anomaly right where the smudge is. And that smudge looks like a person.”

Carlos shook his head, “Sure, Bridget. It looks like a person. A person who’s 10,000 miles tall. Was that really enough for you to call the fucking Air Force!? And somehow enough for them to take you seriously?” Carlos made a note to put Bridget on report for wasting government resources. And I had such high hopes for her. Oh well. She is a goddamn crackpot.

Bridget seemed to refuse to back down, “Look, you don’t have to believe me on that. But check the tracking on Pluto and Neptune. They’re way off orbit! It’s like something as heavy as the sun just appeared out of nowhere!”

Carlos looked at the screen, noting that the projected orbits were very off. And the other planets are starting to move off track, too. Carlos furrowed his brow, his displeasure with his technician disappearing as scientific curiosity took over. Not worry, just curiosity.

“Yeah, I see. Hmm… Let’s map out the degree of deviance from the projected orbits. Maybe we can figure out a trajectory,” He grabbed a marker and went to a nearby whiteboard. Writing down notes, he and Bridget started a mathematical dance, as she read out data and numbers, and he responded with calculations. She would keep the dance going by asking questions, shooting down theories, and proposing new ones. The general was here in the room, his fear of whatever was out there clouding his appreciation for the scientists’ mental harmony. After some time, the performance died out, the two dancers looking solemn and grim. The general called out, “Okay, Doctors, bottom line this. Is this a problem? This sounds like a problem.”

Carlos and Bridget exchanged a look. Bridget started, “Well, the data are clear. Whatever the anomaly is, it is moving. Right toward Earth.”

Carlos continued, “The center of the anomaly should get here soon. In a few minutes.”

The general’s face drained. I thought there was more time. Fuck, I need everyone on alert now. “Okay,” he responded calmly, hiding his panic, “I’m waking the president. If anything changes, you two let me…” He trailed off as Bridget brought up a feed of space from a visible-range telescope in orbit, Mars partly taking up the screen. Something was there, adjacent to the red planet, and it was growing larger and larger on the screen as it approached Earth.

It was… a woman.

The general gulped, “We need nukes.”

What is this? This isn’t the Earth I wanted! Oliva’s frustration surged as she approached the tiny sphere. She already figured something was off, as the radio and psionic signals were too weak for a planet of the size and complexity she saw from the drone footage. Fucking tunnel. Probably set these bugs back a few centuries. At least there were still cities, but they were much smaller and less interesting. The greenery of the original biomes seemed to remain, surrounding the human habitats in a wall of chlorophyll. Maybe it was pretty, but unique? Impressive? Hardly. Fuck, now it’ll look like every other student’s project. I need this to be novel! She contemplated time travel; going forward a few hundred years might produce a species worth harvesting, but that was too risky. With reality altered, the species might not live long. Maybe something was changed with how they operate, their biology. Maybe they get enslaved by alien invaders. Or maybe their species is now destined to do something dumb that would kill them all. Olivia had seen other lesser species wipe themselves out by using poorly managed, outdated technology that destroyed their climates, but those were especially backwards lifeforms. These humans can’t be that stupid.

As she approached the destination, she shrunk herself to what she estimated humans would measure as 65 “miles” in height. This is about double her height back home, but in this primitive dimension she has mastery over her own size. She stood atop the planet’s only moon. Pockmarked with craters, she added two new depressions in its surface with her socked feet. The moon groaned, threatening to crack in two from her immensity. Likely they can see me now. Maybe I should have been invisible? Nah, I don’t need them to be docile. Olivia took some time to survey the planet more closely. Scanning it with her phone, she recorded all the physical, chemical, and biological data she could. She had most of this from reading the minds of every human present, but she needed it all on written record. The blue world was almost impressive in how generic it was. Oh, how interesting. She sarcastically chided to herself. Your planet has a nickel-iron core? It’s mostly water on the surface? Oh neat, the atmosphere is mostly water, nitrogen, and oxygen. Sooooo unique. Her disappointment was immeasurable. Surveying the puny human settlements, she decided the best strategy would be to start at the most populous area on the planet. Looks like this spot here. They call it ‘Asia.’

Olivia jumped, willing herself to fall feet first down onto a small teardrop-shaped island just off the main continent. The entire island crumbled under her socked feet, her landing so powerful that it made a massive earthquake. With her awareness, she saw millions of humans nearly instantly buried under her socks, and saw the massive waves generated by her arrival. She groaned as the felt millions more on the mainland killed by the quakes, their engineering against earthquakes never expecting to handle the stomping of a giant woman like Olivia. Those who survived the quake found themselves facing a wall of water as the gargantuan waves, nearly coming up to Olivia’s ankle, reached inland for miles, drowning everyone in their path. Behind her, the waves swallowed whole islands and archipelagos, dooming the humans there to an undignified, watery grave. Ah, those cities looked interesting. Oh well. Maybe population is a bad metric. How about I just pick a spot and start looking? At random, she started walking into the ocean, using her power to walk on the surface of the water, and headed for a weird looking landmass across and up North. Some ocean water absorbed into her socks, and she cringed at the uncomfortable feeling of water-logged soles. As she approached the landmass, she yelped, feeling a little sting on her thigh…

“Mr. Secretary, I need more than that!” The US Secretary of Defense bristled at the words of his boss, the President of the United States. He never particularly liked her, partly because he distrusts women, and partly because he feels she is not decisive enough to be an effective leader. Now, though, her words were clearly indicative of a person ready to make the quick call. The man stammered, not totally prepared to speak to an authoritative woman, “M-madam President, this is obviously something we never expected to encounter. So-ss-so that’s all the information we have confirmed at this time.”

President Farris glared at the tall man, her patience officially expended, “So, what we know is that there are aliens. Said aliens apparently look like twenty-year-old girls, but they’re fifty miles tall and weigh roughly the mass of the moon. And, we know she’ll get to Vancouver in fifty minutes. Am I missing anything, Steve?”

“No, Madam President. We’re working on additional--“

“Can we kill her?”

Steve looked at the woman, her gaze cold and icy, “We can try.”

She nodded, “Go get ready, then. I’ll tell you when it’s time.”

“Right away, Madam President.”

President Farris sighed as her subordinate left the command room. She had not planned to be spending this night on an Air Force base in Las Vegas, but that’s presidential life. She had been here to campaign for reelection, Nevada being a battleground state between her and her rival, but now all flights were grounded and she needed access to the US military command to respond to this crisis. Already the reports from what’s left of the 7th fleet in Asia were disturbing: Most of China is flooded, supposedly entire cities just… gone. Taiwan is now a foot-shaped hole in the Earth. The Philippines are totally underwater, as is most of Japan. Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, even the East coast of India, all experiencing massive earthquakes and catastrophic tsunamis. If our allies weren’t all dead now, I’d be celebrating the fall of China. But it looks like this ‘woman’ isn’t on our side. The phone rang in the command room. It was base security, “Madam President? We have the scientist you asked for.”

“Good. Bring him to the base commander’s office right away. And tell the base commander to leave his office.”

---

As if Carlos’s night couldn’t get any weirder, he was now shaking hands with the President. Okay, this is fine. Totally normal. No big deal. Had he not just seen millions die in real time on live stream, he’d probably tell her what an honor it was to meet her, and how he’s a big supporter, etc. But all he could muster now was, “What did you need from me, ma’am?”

President Farris seemed amused by his directness, “I need to know everything you know about this alien, Doctor. You already debriefed countless generals, and government officials, and I’m sure random reporters have been harassing you, too. I want to know, what is really going on?”

Carlos was confused, “W-well, I’m not sure what you mean by—”

“What I mean is… all that data you got, the pictures, all useful, but it’s not what I really need. I give all that to my staff and the army and they come up with the best plans to deal with her. I’m a people person. I want to understand her. Her motives. What she’s capable of. I can’t get that with data. I need a person’s experience. So… what do you know about her?”

Carlos recalled seeing the woman in space for the first time. The realization that the anomaly wasn’t some asteroid, or artefact of the array. It was something alive. Sentient. He remembered the expression on Bridget’s face, too. Not panic, not fascination. But dread. The kind of dread one gets when walking home alone at night, or when one’s car breaks down in a place they’re not familiar with. You think you’re not in danger right now, but you feel the anticipation. Your body knows something bad is just around the corner, just up the road. Even if it may not really be there. Some kind of instinct, basal and unconscious, was telling Bridget ‘Get ready. There’s something out there in the dark.’ Carlos responded to the President,

“Ma’am, I think this woman is the closest thing to God we humans have yet to encounter. When I calculated the trajectory of her arrival, saw her on the satellite image. She moved with this complete indifference. Like what she planned was a routine, boring chore for her. And the way she just… watched as millions died from just her steps. Like she was looking at a sandcastle crumble at her feet. I don’t think she’s malicious, or wants to hurt us. She just, doesn’t care what happens to us.”

President Farris hardened her gaze, “I see. We’re like ants to her. Then if she thinks we’re so powerless, we must demonstrate otherwise.”

“Ma’am, respectfully, I don’t think we should do anything. Maybe try talking to her, see if she wants something in particular?”

“There’s no time for that. If we wait to communicate, she could destroy more. We can’t just sit by and let her break any American cities. I can’t just sit by.”

“Well, if ants started biting you, wouldn’t you crush them?”

The President pondered Carlos’s point, then dismissed it, “Doctor, thanks for the input. I appreciate your profile of this woman. But leave the tactical decisions to me.” She waved to the guard outside, who dragged Carlos out of the office to the security station outside. He watched as the activity at the base picked up, men and women running around, barking orders at each other. Oh fuck. She’s really doing it.

She has doomed us.

--- Over the Pacific Ocean, just past Vancouver, Canada

“LIMA. ROMEO. BRAVO. SIX. SIX. GOLF. SEVEN. TANGO.”

The code came in loud and clear on the radio of the B-2 stealth bomber leading a formation of fifty bombers and 75 fighter escorts. It was the “big one” that Air Force bombers all dread to hear: the green-light to engage with nuclear weapons. The pilot was dead focused, his target right in front of him as she had been for the entire time he was airborne. He could see all of her when his bomber was scrambled, but now he could only see the lower part of her thighs. Good enough place to hit as any, he thought. A commander from a nearby Navy vessel was providing coordination, “Sub-launched missiles engaging above 60000ft. Do not climb beyond 50000ft. Bomber targets are woman’s knees and ankles. Formation break, engage at will.” The lead was the first to drop his bombs. His payload could wipe out a city the size of Shanghai, leaving it a smoldering ruin. He climbed to 45000ft to avoid the shockwave, feeling the massive blast followed by a messy chorus of explosions as the full might of the US Armed Forces unleashed on the giant girl. His co-pilot engaged a camera at the back of the bomber, ready to confirm they hit the woman. She just stared into her screen. The pilot glanced at her, “Hey. Lieutenant. Update? C’mon, what’s the damage?”

“S-she’s still there. The nukes did nothing. But she brought her hand down.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“S-she… smashed all the bombers.”

“You little shits! That stung!” Olivia spoke for the first time, swatting away the little ships, breaking them on her palm. The explosions released from them didn’t hurt her, but they were powerful enough to feel a bit like a mosquito bite. And clearly they were smarter than Olivia gave them credit for, as they were attempting to hit her knees to knock her over. Still stupid to even try that, though. You want to play, little fleas, fine. My turn! Using the absolute control she had in this universe, she pointed a finger at the nearest city, and make a click sound. Instantly, the city was vaporized in a massive nuclear explosion. She had split 1000 atoms at random points in the city, producing an explosion of greater yield than any weapon the humans ever made, according to their own brains. The city did look cool, but there were a ton of them around, so she didn’t mind wasting this one to teach the bugs a lesson.

“You know what? Fuck it. I’ll check each city here. If I like it, I take it. If I don’t, I smash it. Sound good, little worms?” She could make the humans understand her, but she felt it would be more amusing if her motives weren’t known to them. Maybe they’ll start worshiping me. That’d be hilarious! Olivia took off her wet socks as she took her first step onto this other continent, her soaked foot flattening the city on the other side of the bay, this one half-destroyed already by the explosion she caused. The last survivors, most of whom were blind or deaf from the atom-splitting, experienced a brief flash of pain as her smooth sole compressed them into the ground. The soil here felt nice on Olivia’s feet, and she wiggled her toes, glancing down at her freshly painted hot pink toenails. If these bugs make me chip a nail, I swear… Willing her feet to become instantly dry, she surveyed the cities in her view. Nah, all these are boring. First, she took two steps to the South, grunting as she felt the entire city pop under her right foot. She focused on the humans in the city, feeling their confusion, fear, and searing pain as she killed all of them. Mmhh… feels nice. Little things get put in their place! She stepped around to the East, flattening more cities under her soles, occasionally stopping to pop smaller towns and cities under just her toe. The force as she jammed a digit into a human settlement was a different kind of satisfying from feeling a big city groan and crumble under the whole foot. Man, so many cities! I should speed this up… She walked off to the East, spying lots of humans on the other side of the continent.

Every city she saw on her walk over to the Eastern half of this continent left her wanting, and all met their end under her soft feet. By now, her soles were dirty, having accumulated the remains of hundreds of settlements and millions of little human bodies. She could will them clean again, but she decided to subject the rest of the bugs to some humiliation if she didn’t like their city. Coming to a large city by a few little mounds that snaked down South to a little peninsula, she hovered a foot overtop, wiggling her toes. Debris, metal and concrete as well as parts of people, rained from the sky. The entire region was coated with dust, burying countless lives. She didn’t even stomp the city, she just let it sit in the detritus of the others. She then arrived at a corridor of cities. Is this a megacity? That’s cool. But kinda ugly. And it looks like there’s lots of good land, water, lakes around. I mean, if you couldn’t make a megacity here, you really can’t call yourselves ecosystem engineers, right? She crouched at the edge of the cluster of humans. Holding out her hand, she slammed it down onto one of the really dense areas. The slam created flames that sprang out past her impact point. She could see the humans’ perspective as fire rolled over them, scorching them instantly. Poor little bugs! A lot of you are scared of me, aren’t you? Digging her fingers into another part, she scooped up a handful of buildings. Glancing around, she saw a separate city a few feet away from the megacity. Grinning, she threw the buildings at the city on the ground, watching as the two collided. Survivors on her hand cried in terror as they approached the grey stubs at neck-breaking speeds, their bodies mixed with a sea of broken steel and concrete rubble.

Olivia was enjoying herself, but was also getting worried. I’m running out of time. I need a city picked, soon. Hmm… I wonder if I can survey all the cities at the same time. She sat down, her ass smashing into and obliterating a row of cities lining a big lake to her backside, closed her eyes, and focused hard on the entire planet, all the humans at once and where they nested. After about a minute of this, she opened her eyes and made a wide smile. Standing up, wiping the dirt and leftover city from her leggings, she speed walked over to the Southwestern part of this region of Earth. She stopped in a desert, her toes digging into the sandy soil, and glanced down at the greatest city in the world. It’s perfect. The bugs call it “Las Vegas.”

Carlos wasn’t really sure what was happening anymore. I’ve really lost the plot here. All I know is America’s dead and humanity is doomed. That’s it. He took solace in the fact that quite literally no one around him seemed to know what was happening either. The strikes failed, and the military around him quickly forgot he needed guarding as they fled their posts, desperately trying to find ways to contact friends, family, loved ones in the cities the giant girl had attacked. Few of them even knew where she had actually gone, since so much infrastructure was damaged that the internet was nearly non-functional.

Carlos would have slipped away in the chaos, but he instead found himself in the company of the president, her entourage of MPs and secret service staying by her side. Traveling by armored car into Vegas, the physicist tried, for the fourth time, to ascertain why she had drafted him, “Ma’am, please, just let me be on my way. My sister’s in Cleveland and I need -”

“She’s dead, Doctor. Most likely everyone near the Great Lakes is dead. And you can’t be sure of anything. There’s been earthquakes everywhere,” The president was the one exception to the chaotic attitude of everyone else. Somehow, she reacted like this was a scenario she actively drilled on before. “No, now I need anyone with a brain and who can talk. You’re probably the best qualified I got right now.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment, ma’am. But, what are we going to do? Your nukes didn’t work.”

President Farris shot a glare at him, “I know. We’re at the mercy of the girl. We can’t get anywhere else but Vegas for now. So what you and I will do is get downtown and start organizing. Fire, medics, supplies, shelter. I just need a smart, confident looking male to bark my orders at other people so they actually do their jobs and help people. That’s all you and I can do right now.”

Carlos tactically shut his mouth for the rest of the trip, as they eventually pulled up at a large hospital in the heart of the city. The scene was already a mess, riots from panicked people had led to an influx of patients already. Farris pointed at the ED entrance, “I’m setting up a forward command post here. Go to the Emergency Department. Get all the staff you can, get me a list of what they need, and keep them moving. MOVE!” Carlos was shoved out of the car and he sprinted into the room. Identifying himself, he was brought back immediately, as Farris had apparently told them ahead of time he was arriving. The ward was cramped, filled with blood, broken people, and trash strewn on the floor. A nurse approached him, “Hernandez, right? I’m Julia, I’m the nurse shift manager,” She was rock steady, acting like this was a typical Friday graveyard shift for her. Carlos found his own panic subside by her presence, “Good to meet you. Can you brief me on your status?” Julia glanced at the room, “We’ve had about sixty people in so far. Mostly minor stuff, lacerations and burns, a few gunshot wounds. But I’ve got some folks buried in rubble in a few buildings on their way. The quakes have gotten worse, so that’ll make things more crowded.” Despite his misgivings, Carlos tried to do his job as the president’s mouthpiece, “Alright. Let’s go over what stuff you’ll need for that and I’ll relay to the president. She’ll get you anything you need. Now, the president also wants to know about personnel concerns…”

Carlos and Julia kept at this all night, with Carlos relaying information and requests to the president and back again. He helped to manage assignments of doctors and nurses to ensure the ever-worsening backlog of patients could be chipped away at. Julia stayed cool the whole time, intervening personally when the rushes got too bad. Carlos admitted, things seemed to be going alright--

THUD

THUD

THUD

FUCK. FUCK. She’s here.

Carlos rushed outside where the president was coordinating and immediately hurled in fear as he saw the alien. His initial sighting of the woman in New Mexico could not prepare him for the real thing. The videos he saw before the internet went out didn’t capture how truly, incomprehensibly massive she was. He could make out the tops of her toes, coated in a thin layer of dust and debris. Carlos stood, frozen in fear as he awaited the inevitable. This is it. It’s over. But she didn’t crush the city. Instead she just stood there, with an expression of… glee? Carlos tried to parse her intentions, but she beat him to the punch. He heard her voice, though her mouth did not move. “HUMANS. YOU MAY BE SPARED. PUT ON A GOOD SHOW OR I SQUISH YOU” Her voice was loud, commanding, yet oddly pleasant. He remembered a nice barista he saw when he was a postdoc had a similar voice. His thoughts seemed more controlled than the president’s, who had finally broke from seeing the woman who devastated her country. “BITCH. We’ll kill you for this!”

Carlos shouted out, “Wait! Do what she says! Please!”

The president was shaking in place, “What does that even MEAN!? A show? Wh-what -”

“It’s Vegas! Get the casino owners and the city utilities and have them turn on every billboard, lightshow, casino sign, whatever! Do that fountain decoration! Fireworks! Just entertain her!”

The president kept shaking, but slowly processed his order. Nodding through her convulsions, she motioned towards Carlos, “Do it. Use all the power we have! Turn the lights on!”

The wait was agonizing, as engineers and technicians tried desperately to divert power to the wasteful excess of the lights and decorations of the Vegas Strip, under the eye of the giant blonde, who grew more and more visibly impatient. Each second lost brought them further to death, but finally the signal was given. Vegas erupted in light, fireworks shooting out from every which way. The casinos of the strip blasting color into the sky, even with all the visitors cowering inside of them, terrified. The next moments were tense, as the entire city waited for her reaction. Finally they received it, “GOOD. YOU ARE ALL COMING WITH ME.”

The ground shook. Not like an earthquake, though, there was a twisting motion that predominated. Carlos realized what was happening from her mental assault, “Everyone get inside, NOW!” He sprinted into the hospital and reach the inside just as the entire city flew upwards, the ground it sat upon coming with it. He looked back to see some people were too late. President Farris, running desperately, found herself thrown about by the sudden movement upward, and she flew to the right, out of sight forever. Who will save us now? Carlos couldn’t think about that as the motion threw him and the others in the hospital around, too. He crouched under the front desk in the lobby, hearing the sickening crunch of bodies smacking into walls, poles, and doors. Finally, the movements stopped, and Carlos looked up. Entering into the ED ward again, he asked a nurse for Julia. She’ll know what to do. God, I hope she knows. But the nurse just shook her head, and pointed down the hallway. Julia lay there, head covered in blood, eyes cold and lifeless.

Carlos walked outside, not caring if anymore movements kill him, and realized he could now see the woman’s face. She had placed the city in what looked like a giant petri dish. Her brown eyes, the diameter of a battleship, stared with wonder at the lightshow, uncaring of the plight of the people running it. Carlos just sat on the road, resigning himself to the random, pointless death he surely would face.

Olivia looked at her city, all its pretty lights now shining as the humans understood her demands, and thought about just heading home now. I should leave, I know I should. But, shit it’s fun messing with these bugs. And honestly, I can read their minds. They kind of deserve this. Convincing herself that she wasn’t just indulging, she decided to keep Las Vegas safe while she kept on playing with Earth. She locked the city into a petri dish and encased it in a bubble of spacetime, to prevent anything from damaging it until she took it back. Once the sample of humans was secure, she focused on her size, and felt herself grow even larger, the crater that once held her city flattened under the wrinkles of her sole.

Now hundreds of miles tall, she started to walk South, smashing a plethora of cities south of Las Vegas in a single step. She stopped for a moment, the idle movements of her toes now burying a large metropolis just in front of her in pounding, unceasing earthquakes. I can maximize the damage West, back where I landed. Lots of bugs there. She willed herself over to the sea near the area south of her landing place, finding an arrow-shaped continent banded at the North by tall mountains. With a sly smirk, she brought her left foot up to her pelvis, balanced on her other foot, and stomped as hard as she could. She watched in amusement as the Earth itself split, hot magma erupting from her stomp. She saw entire cities vaporized by just the impact, any evidence of habitation slowly burned away in the lava. The seas writhed at the energy she released, flooding more and more land nearby. The continent itself detached from the mountain range, and slid under the waves.

As the continent sank into the ocean, Olivia decided to get even more creative. To do that, I need to think bigger. She grew and grew, flying off the surface of the planet to float near it, now easily spanning its entire diameter. If any of you didn’t think I was a deity compared to you, you do now! With only a few undisturbed places left, she turned her attention to a large continent, with a dry desert at its top and dense jungle in the middle. She contemplated its fate for a minute, thinking about just how deadly water has been for the humans during her time here. Olivia brought a hand down into the oceans nearby, scooping up a handful of salty liquid. Slowly, she brought it to the continent, and poured it over, watching as the deluge washed away entire civilizations in mere minutes. The force of the pouring was such that much of it evaporated as it fell, so Olivia kept pouring water, slowly but surely drowning the entire continent.

As she watched it flood, Olivia noticed her stomach started to growl. Well, I don’t think a planet would be appetizing. Maybe I’ll just get an apple back home. Although I am curious… She floated up a bit, an idea beginning to take shape. She hovered over another landmass, full of scared humans, unsure whether they were next to be destroyed. You all got off easy. I’ll see how you things taste. She leaned further in, feeling the heat as her face collided with the atmosphere, and began to lick the continent. She immediately gagged, wanting to reflexively retch back. The taste was awful, but the texture was worse. A wet earthiness, the cities she picked up on her tongue barely offsetting it. The only thing which spurned her to keep moving her tongue over the land was the feeling of millions crunching and drowning in her mouth. Oh… That’s satisfying. The humans here clearly thought they were special, better than the others. Their final moments being subjected to this… degrading act made their agony so much sweeter. Eventually, she ran out of land, flicked up her tongue and swallowed, dooming the few hundred thousand not dead to a quick, painful end inside of her.

Olivia floated back to the landmass where Las Vegas was, this time surveying the lands to the far South. A massive rainforest system ran for hundreds of miles. Olivia could feel the sheer density of life there. Of course, she also knew the humans were in the process of destroying that rainforest. Well, you would have done that before I broke your universe, but now it’s not even to make a cool planet-city, she thought. This species is so uninteresting now. If they can’t use their forests for neat projects, do they really deserve them? Olivia answered her own question by leaning in, hovering her mouth over the center of the rainforest. First, she blew, casting the humid air of the rainforest away toward the flooded continent to the East. She could see the mighty collection of trees and plants begin to dry out, with many outright ripping from the ground from her hurricane force breath. Grinning maniacally, she summoned a bit of static electricity from her finger and pointed it to the ground, right in the middle of the rainforest. Immediately a miles wide fire began, quickly accelerating into a full-on firestorm the proportions of which humans had never seen. In mere minutes, billions of tons of plant matter were aflame, the smoke coming from their burning swallowing the poor continent. Olivia could feel the humans there, the ones that survived the planet-wide earthquakes, choking and boiling from the toxic gases being released.

The planet was on its last legs. I need to get back. But, maybe a little more fun first. She turned back to the continent which attacked her. Spying a large cluster of undisturbed humans just by the ocean near where Las Vegas originally stood, Olivia tensed her index finger behind her thumb. Bringing her hand to the southern tip of the region, she drew back her thumb, flicking the landmass. Millions were dragged into bedrock by her finger, her massive fingernail the last thing any of them saw. Dirt, rubble, and bodies flew into the air, colliding with one another in a beautiful display of explosions. Turning to the Eastern half, she decided to really show the humans how insignificant they are. She would show how she can change their whole planet’s ecology in a single movement. She plopped a finger onto “Quebec City”, nail facing the “St. Lawrence Bay” and dragged it down, pulling up as much rock as she could. Her digit barreled past the megacity she played with already, scooping up more of the little grey patch, accumulating more and more earth until she reached “Tallahassee” (the names of human settlements were so amusing to her) where she flicked her finger up, sending all the accumulated rock up into the atmosphere. The mass of dust spread outward, mixing with the ash from the immolated southern continent. Soon, the whole planet will be covered. No sunlight for you, tiny things!

Olivia floated back, surveying the planet she had spent the last hour bullying. Every inhabited continent was mangled, scarred, drowned, or burned by her slightest efforts. If a city wasn’t directly destroyed by her, the massive quakes from her steps and attacks leveled them into piles of rubble, the efforts of billions of humans over centuries of labor all completely nullified by one girl in a few hours’ time. She breathed a sigh of satisfaction, happy to have not only gotten her city sample, but to have also blown some steam off in the process. Taking her dish in her hand, she focused on the mental image of her apartment. Soon, she was back in her own dimension, her little city by her side, safe.

Olivia rubbed her hands together, trying to keep her panic at bay. 40% of the final grade, right here in a little dish. She had gotten back before the report was due, but she didn’t have time to alter the report to be accurate to the Earth she actually visited. Now, she had to pretend that there was still a planet called Earth full of humans who turned their whole planet into one big city. Not the burnt pile of death and debris she had turned it into. The report was submitted, and now she just had to repeat her lie in verbal form. She had gotten to the classroom twenty minutes before the finals period, and had been staring at Las Vegas for the whole time she waited, thinking that early arrival might help her calm down. It did, until people started to show up. Now, everyone was here, all with little boxes and jars of their samples. A bunch of thick trees on one desk, some kind of swamp with purple water and blue plants on another, the girl next to her had a box full of what looked like cats the size of Las Vegas’s buildings. She was suddenly feeling her city would be inadequately interesting, even with all the lights. Please, professor, find these little shits cool.

Professor Wu clapped her hands together to start the finals period, “Alrighty gals! Let’s start right away. We can get all of you through with some time after each for questions. I’m looking around at what you’ve brought me, and I’m interested to hear more about what you’ve all got. Okay, first up is Olivia!”

FUCK. I forgot I was first! Olivia would be setting the bar for the rest of the class. Now, she was bound to be usurped by some other girl’s collection. She walked up to the front, hands so shaky the city was nearly tossed over as she held it in her grasp. She set up her presentation on the projector and began her final speech,

“Uhh, Hi! S-So, I went to universe EM5YR3-I910-Teal where planet 7POFBM4-A01-03 is. This planet is like a lot of inhabited terrestrial ones, except this one has been totally taken over by the apex species. Their entire surface is coated in one massive city as you can see by this image! These guys are the ultimate in ecosystem engineers, since they altered the whole biosphere! Even cooler, here’s a couple close-ups. They look a lot like we do!” The class all looked surprised, at least the ones actually paying attention. “Yeah, kinda cool. So I looked at some more biological scans to see if their habitats create pollutants that…”

Olivia went on, her nervous shakes dissipating as she seemed to be convincingly telling the story of humanity before she tunneled in and changed their reality. She showed off Las Vegas, terming it a “pleasure center” where humans congregate for psychological health and mating. From reading the minds of the humans, she knew the real purpose of Las Vegas, a haven for wasteful spending, drug consumption, and general debauchery, so her lie wasn’t really far off. “I picked this part because this section of the human habitat is very old. From archive scans, it seems this place was built on top of a barren desert. That little lake there with the dam? It was built centuries ago, and the existence of the lake is the only way the primitive humans even sustained it for a long part of its history. Here’s proof that they were good ecosystem engineers a long time ago, too.”

Eventually, her presentation concluded. Professor Wu looked up from her desk, having been taking extensive notes the entire time, and spoke, “Alright, let’s all snap after each person is done,” The room briefly sounded like a bunch of crickets had moved in as the students awkwardly snapped at the presenter. “Now, who has questions?” The room was utterly silent, each student avoiding the teacher’s gaze. “No one? Okay, well I have a question, then,” Olivia turned to Professor Wu, her shaking returning as the lecturer seemed to wear a face of both confusion and suspicion. She asked,

“I’m looking at the cross-dimensional scanners, and here it looks like ‘Earth’ is… well, uninhabitable. I don’t see any cities or space stations. Are my scanners glitching?”

Olivia stammered, “N-no, when I left the whole planet was destroyed --I mean-- I didn’t destroy it, it just got destroyed,” Her anxiety spiked, she felt like her guilt was obvious.

Professor Wu cocked her head, “Oh. They had space travel, right? Were there any other places they lived in?”

Olivia shook her head, “Nope. They were all congregated on Earth,” At least that part isn’t a lie.

The professor sighed, “So, they’re probably all dead, in that case. Damn. Never good when a cool species like that goes away. What happened?”

Olivia was in the danger zone now, “Well, it was going fine, then all of a sudden there was a flash on the moon of the planet and everything went black for a minute. Then, the entire sphere, and its moon, were all burnt up. My city was already in the jar and I kept it protected in my spacetime bubble. I think it was the humans themselves. Their communications did say there was a lot of experimental physics research on that moon,” This was the riskiest part of the lie. What she was describing was a textbook reality break caused by tunneling.

The professor’s eyes narrowed in confusion, “Wait, you’re saying the humans broke their own dimension?”

Olivia was drenched in cold sweat now, “Yes. That’s the only explanation for this phenomenon.”

Professor Wu stared at Olivia for a moment, then shrugged, “Yeah, I guess that is the only good faith explanation. Anyone else have a question?” The room was silent again. “Okay, let’s snap for Olivia. Up next, Anna,” Olivia took Las Vegas and walked to her seat to the sound of awkward snapping, still shaky but ultimately satisfied with the presentation. She sat back, half-listening to her fellow classmates talk about their strange little lifeforms.

After all fifteen presentations were done, Olivia was starting to agonize about her results. I should just wait till final grades get released, but that could be weeks. Grrr, I need to know now. She gingerly walked up to Professor Wu as she organized her presentation notes. “Hey professor. I know you probably can’t answer this right now, but I was just looking for a ballpark about the grade. How’d I do?” Being direct worked a few weeks ago, maybe it’ll work again.

The professor looked up, “Well, I haven’t made anything finalized yet, but I’ll say that was… good! You’ve almost certainly earned an A.”

Olivia beamed with pride, “Great! Thanks! And, thanks so much for teaching! Your passion for this subject is super infectious,”

This attempt at flattery was blatantly about assuaging suspicion over her weird story, but it seemed to work. “Well, thanks,” Professor Wu responded, “I’m hopeful you take at least something useful from this class in whatever you do in the future. Again, nice work on the presentation, Olivia.” The professor turned to talk to another student. That was messy, but I guess it worked! Smiling, Olivia left the classroom, content with her efforts.

Back in her apartment, Olivia placed the city on the desk in her room and went to fold some laundry she had been putting off for the last week. Professor Wu’s question still rung in Olivia’s mind. She thought her answer was at least convincing enough to not get her in trouble, but she found it interesting to contemplate the devastation she wrought from another person’s eyes. The damage she did was extensive. The humans definitely weren’t coming back to dominance anytime soon. But the professor said the planet is uninhabitable. Could she have killed off all the humans? Clearly, it’d be easy to do, but Olivia thought she had been careful to at least leave some humans alive. There had to be some lucky ones, she speculated.

Truthfully, Olivia wasn’t bothered by the idea of wiping out a lesser species. It was just curiosity that spurned her to ponder the question more. She decided to scan the real Earth, to see what the real damage was. She put her laundry away, pulled out her phone, and entered in the information for the planet and universe she visited. A bio-temporal AI scanner would predict the fate of the planet and its species. This would tell whether her visit doomed humanity.

The scanner worked for a few minutes, then her phone beeped as its analysis finished, “Massive damage to planet biosphere detected. Cause: extreme seismic and volcanic activity. Likely effects: mass extinction, life only supported in deep aquatic environments. Likely effects on user-specified species ‘human’: toxic gas and pollutants likely to cause respiratory issues. Toxic gas likely to cause infertility and damage to biological functions such as vitamin metabolism and immune system function. Five-year extinction probability: 99.3%. Intervention strongly recommended.”

Well, no intervention’s coming from me. The planet was a fun distraction, but going back is too risky. And besides, there’s no guarantee that she can help them, she doesn’t know how much abuse they can really take. Olivia looked back at her city, its lights coming back on as the sun went down in the window behind them. Not all the humans are on Earth, though… maybe we can test their resilience here. She walked up to her petri dish, gazing at the city while the city gazed at her crotch. She opened her phone and texted a lovely woman she knows.

“hey sam”

“you up?”

SLAM. SLAM. SLAM.

The buildings of Las Vegas barely withstood the rhythmic tremors of the city’s captor’s steps, her flip flops smacking pavement drowned out any other sound as she traversed what Carlos could only surmise was a typical-looking college campus. Old buildings. Lots of grass. So many pedestrians. Feels like I’m back at Stanford. He felt it imperative to fixate on the past, because his present was such a nightmare. Being held up in front of the other women, displayed like they were nothing more than a souvenir was humiliating. The blonde woman’s nerves from presenting caused her to shake uncontrollably, and the city felt all of it, bits of debris and shattered glass from broken windows had kept the hospital busy. Most of the seriously injured from their initial capture were now either treated or dead. That grim fact meant he could take a step back, and let the surviving medical staff organize care on their own from here.

Instead of relaxing, however, Carlos spent his time outside, gazing at the campus, trying to convince himself he was dreaming. It wasn’t working: the tremors, the ash, the screams of the dying all were far too real to be conjured up by his mind. I never did have realistic dreams, he thought. He would at least feel better about his fate if he knew what it was. But the intentions of their captor were an enigma. They were some kind of project for her, obviously, but that project seems over now. She was smaller than before, maybe 20 miles tall by Carlos’s estimate, but still big enough to wipe them out if she wanted.What will she do with us now?

Carlos pondered this the entire trip back to the woman’s apartment. The tremors finally stopped when she placed the city on a massive desk. The few minutes of peace when she left the room were all they would get as she walked back to them. She just stood there, looming over Las Vegas, her black athletic shorts casting a shadow over the entire dish. After a minute, she pulled out a phone and started typing. I guess texting is a thing here, too. Why is everything in this dimension the same as ours? Suddenly, she put her phone on the desk and opened the lid. Cool air rushed in, feeling rather pleasant on Carlos’s skin. The relief he felt disappeared as he saw a massive thumb careening down towards him! Sprinting down the street, he heard a crashing sound as the woman crushed the hospital, dust flushing out to envelop him. He fell to his knees, watching helplessly. She retracted her thumb, then snapped her fingers. What happened next stunned Carlos: the hospital reappeared, unharmed! What? Did she just-

SMASH. She destroyed the hospital again, this time slicing it in two with the edge of her fingernail. The dust rushed out again, but before it hit Carlos, it disappeared, and the hospital was back. Carlos rushed into the building, now a sea of screaming, panicked people. He was shocked by who was there: Julia, and all the workers he saw dead back on Earth were now alive, cowering on the floor of the ED lobby!

“Julia? Are you okay? What happened?” Despite all that he had witnessed, Carlos was still in disbelief as he rushed up to the nurse.

Julia shook uncontrollably, “Where are we? Who are you?”

“Ma’am we’re still with the woman. She took us from Earth. We seem to be in her apartment now. She destroyed the hospital and then… brought it back somehow.”

“What woman? What the fuck is going on?”

Carlos’s heart sank. She doesn’t remember. The giant resurrected them, but erased their memories. He began to explain where they were, but stopped as a series of screams rang out from the street. Carlos rushed out, and when he saw what transpired outside, he could do nothing else but laugh, as his sanity began to break.

It was another woman. Kissing their blonde captor.

--

Samantha was ecstatic to hear of Olivia’s successful presentation, knowing how stressful it was to her. The two college students were just friends with benefits, but they had met during their first week orientation as freshwomen and had been close ever since. Full commitment was neither of these students’ style, so this arrangement worked well. Sam kissed her friend, excited to see what Olivia wanted to show her.

Olivia, meanwhile, was spending their greeting holding back a flood of compliments about Samantha, because in Olivia’s eyes she looked absolutely stunning today. Her dark brown hair flowed straight back to under her shoulder blades. Her white tube top and tattered jean shorts showed off her strong thighs and toned arms. She accented her look with some bright earrings and a necklace Olivia had gotten her for the winter holidays, all of which brought out the color in her deep green eyes. Olivia wanted to get lost in the gaze of the short woman in front of her, but she kept her brain out of her crotch just enough to actually talk, “So… it’s in here. The reason I’m passing ecology! Right there!” She pointed at the dish on her desk. Sam walked up, wearing a frown of confusion, “So, you got a bunch of bugs? And you’re just keeping them now?”

Olivia shrugged, “Well, yeah I guess. Can’t think of anything to do with them, but they’re the last of their kind, so I figured maybe give them some more time.”

“Last of their kind? And I’m sure you had nothing to do with that?” Sam shot her eyes back at Olivia. Olivia giggled, “Uhh, totally not! Their planet just kinda, died by itself…”

Her friend clearly didn’t believe her, “Well, that makes this a little fucked up. But they are lesser life. We can do whatever we want to them.”

Olivia started to talked excitedly, “Yeah, that’s really what I want to show you. It looks like when I went to their dimension I picked up some residual power over them. Watch…” Olivia opened the lid to the city and summoned an electrical storm over some of the buildings, “Now, the bugs here call themselves ‘human’. They’re really backwards, but still sentient. Can you feel them?” Sam nodded. “Good,” Olivia watched as the storm burned the city, feeling thousands of humans die out. She continued, “Now I’ll think about the city being repaired-” Suddenly, the storm stopped and a flash of light covered the petri dish. Once it cleared, the section of burned city was fully fixed! Samantha’s eyes widened in surprise, “Huh. I can feel the humans again. You can resurrect them, that’s cool.” Olivia smiled, “Yeah, and I can give them their old memories, take them away, or even give them new ones. Here,” Olivia snapped her fingers, and the humans in the city suddenly began fighting, each person savagely assaulting anyone nearby in a frenzy of animalistic rage. “I just made them think all the other humans are really demons. Look how weak minded these things are!” She snapped her fingers again, and the humans returned to where they were seconds ago, docile and scared.

“Let me try!” Sam asked, wanting to try this city bullying for herself. Olivia nodded and stepped back as Sam brought her face up close to the humans. She took a moment to take her victims in a bit, and then blew right at the city. The gale force winds she made with her breath toppled the weak buildings and blew away anyone outside. Their fragile bodies exploded on the tossed over buildings. Their fear and anguish was wonderfully amusing to the massive girl. Half the city was turned to ruin by her breath. Sam concentrated on the mental image of the city before she destroyed it, trying to resurrect them. Something happened, but not what she wanted. The rubble and destroyed bodies began to shake in place, shuffling back and forth. The shaking reduced everything to a fine sand. Sam concentrated harder, trying to force the debris to take shape again. Suddenly, the sand fused together and expanded, exploding and congealing into a spiky amalgam double or triple the height of the dish. Sam sighed, “Wow. Can’t resurrect them. That took a lot of effort for… whatever that was.”

Olivia frowned, contemplating what this meant, “Maybe I can remake them because I was there, in their dimension. I’ve got some more fine control over their existence from that.” She shrugged, not totally sure of her hypothesis.

Sam seemed satisfied with it, “Makes sense. So, you can make repairs and resurrect humans… can you make new buildings or people?”

“Dunno. Let’s try!” Olivia was so glad Sam was here, she always had that creative spark. Olivia repaired the city, and then imagined a cluster of buildings, remembering what the buildings of the humans on Earth looked like, and pointed at the desk, next to the dish. Instantly, a whole city, roughly half the size of Las Vegas, appeared. Devoid of humans, Olivia felt the minds of the captives in the dish for inspiration. A moment passed and the new city was full of the screaming things. Samantha’s mouth was stuck open, “Wow! That’s so cool!” She grabbed a large building, ripping it from its foundation. Holding it between her fingers, she examined it like it was an interesting geode, “I can feel these ones, too. You must be able to make real humans with your thoughts,” Sam focused her energy on spawning her own humans, but all she could do was warp the new copies, their buildings’ structures and their own bodies bending on themselves into impossible shapes. She gave up, and the new city shattered into pieces from the focused psionic energy. Olivia simply pointed again and spawned a new city. “Well, now we can play with them all we want. We don’t really need the original now,” She said, eyeing Sam with a sly grin. Sam knew what that particular look meant. She rubbed her fingers together, turning the building she held between them into blood-stained dust, and sat down on the new city, the fresh inhabitants seeing the bright denim crashing towards them. Her ass flattened the city and erased the humans in an instant as she teased her friend, “Oh? So that’s why you called? You did good on your final, and now you want your reward?” She got up from the desk and walked right up to Olivia, watching in amusement as the taller girl’s face turned red, “Ah- I mean, that’s not the reason. But my roommate’s out for the night, sooo…” Olivia looked away. Sam held Olivia’s hand, and used the other to caress her hair, “I’d love to. Do you want this?”

Olivia looked back into Sam’s shining eyes, “Yes.”

“Do you want to try the humans, too?”

Olivia smiled, nodding at her friend, as Sam looked over at Las Vegas, feeling the humans’ unease skyrocket. Guess they do this, too. Well, you all get a new perspective on sex today. Gently, Olivia plucked up the city’s dish and felt herself get ready as Sam led her by the hand to her inviting bed.

--

Samantha shuddered; flooded with satisfaction at their session. She enjoyed Olivia by herself, but the unspeakable acts they did to the captive humans enhanced her pleasure tenfold. Both she and her partner had felt the buildings and the bodies smash, drown, dissolve, and burn on and inside them. The sensation of their annihilation on the skin of the women mixed with the unceasing anguish of the humans fully melted the giants. “Mhh… they’re just bugs,” Sam was spooning Olivia, gently rubbing her partner’s belly, “Why is abusing them like that so… satisfying?”

Olivia gazed at the petri dish by her side, now nearly totally destroyed. She had needed to replenish it several times for their session, but she wanted to leave this copy by itself because the damage made a funny looking pattern of rubble. “I think it’s because they look like us,” She responded to her cuddle partner, “At least, half of them do. And you can feel their thoughts, so you know they thought they were the most important, most interesting, most powerful species in existence. Now, they know they aren’t.”

Sam licked her lips, “Yeah, it’s fun to put them in their place. And it’s fun to watch you humiliate them like that…” Sam squeezed Olivia a bit harder, eliciting a giggle from the blonde. Olivia read the minds of the surviving humans, experiencing their memories and lives before they became her toy. Very social species. So many connections and friends and lovers!

She hovered her finger over the dish, spawning a new set of cowering humans. Sam asked, “What are those for?”

“Giving them some company. I’m gonna give them one last little gift then I’ll toss this city. I’ll just get a fresh one later.”

--

I am alive. I am alive. I. Am. Alive.

Carlos wandered aimlessly, as most humans now did, through the streets that were still traversible; this amounted to around two city blocks. There was no point leading or responding to crises. The humans were playthings of their captors, nothing will change that. All anyone can do now is learn to accept this. He had died at least three times from what he could remember. Assuming, of course, the giant woman hadn’t erased his memory at any point during their… fun.

That was fucked up. From this angle, seeing that is… horrifying. Some men and women likely enjoyed the show, at least until the lovers decided to rope the humans along and involve them. The experience of dying for a giant alien’s pleasure erased any voyeuristic enjoyment that a person who liked women could get.

Death, for the record, is actually quite boring in hindsight. Each time Carlos died, heexperienced resurrection immediately. One moment he is… somewhere on the brunette’s body and the next he is back in Vegas, alive and stable. There is no perception in between. Not darkness, not some void where only consciousness exists, no rest. All Carlos gets is life, and the infinite horrors it brings.

One such horror was the gaze. The women were now staring at the city, their eyes seemed to focus on the surviving specks. Their expression was one of passive disinterest, which angered Carlos to no end. Are we not even entertaining to you anymore!? Are we just suffering for no reason!? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!? He had screamed all that out loud before, but by now he simply let the words ring inside his mind. He passed a woman laid out on the sidewalk, taking her last breath as she stared up at the ceiling, hundreds of miles above them. Carlos felt no pity or sorrow for the woman, only jealousy. He wished they’d throw them in the trash and let him die for good.

Suddenly, the blonde woman brought her massive index finger over them. Again? Alright, just do it. He sat on the sidewalk next to the dead woman, readying himself. But death did not come. Instead, he heard screams. Fresh screams, the kind a person makes when seeing some novel terror. No one has screamed like that since we left Earth. He looked around and saw a mass of humans who had not been there before. Oh fuck. She makes more people!? He watched in horror as the new people ran wildly in all directions, confused by their surroundings. He noted that many seemed to know each other, particular groups seemed to embrace for comfort. Are these people… real? Do they--

His brain stopped as he saw a thin, short man with an earring in his left ear and a uniquely bad haircut. The man was standing 10 feet from Carlos, staring at him. “J-John?” Carlos walked towards his ex-husband, a man he had not seen for years, who Carlos had loved and still loved. The man he had spent ten years of his life with was frozen in fear, unable to process where he was. “Carlos? Where am I? What’s going on!?” Carlos just stood there. He didn’t know how to start or what to say. All he could muster was, “We’re… lost. We’re stuck in this city.”

John stammered, “W-what? Are we safe?”

“No. I don’t know why, but we’re going to die here. I’m so sorry,” Carlos wanted to say nothing and just throw himself into his arms. But John walked back, wearing the expression of unease he wore constantly towards the end of their marriage, “Oh my God. Who are they!?” He turned to see the women, the rumbling of their voices shook the ground slightly. “Our owners,” Carlos replied flatly.

They were interrupted by the brunette’s hand reaching to grab the city. John steadied himself, not expecting the rocking motion as they were brought to the stomach of the other woman. He screamed, and embraced his ex-husband, as tears began streaming down Carlos’s face. He was utterly helpless, now forced to watch the love of his life die along with him. Carlos focused on the man, spending what he prayed were his true last moments comforting someone as the pair approached death. “It’s going to be okay,” he lied to John. As the woman loomed over them, Carlos braced himself, knowing the end was near. He thought of John, and his family, and his coworkers, picturing each face to attain one last spark of human joy.

He closed his eyes.

I’m ready.

--

Olivia motioned for Sam to let her roll onto her back. Placing the petri dish on her stomach, Sam towered over the remaining buildings, understanding what Olivia wanted, and forcefully spat at the intact part of the city. Olivia giggled, shaking the embattled settlement, “Hah! Poor things thought they could get away unscathed!” Sam brought her fingers, her nails painted a clean white color, down onto the drenched buildings, gently collapsing them and mopping the humans up onto the pads. She rubbed her fingers together to homogenize the mess, keeping the humans alive by forcing them to be unnaturally resilient. She then stuck her fingers into Olivia’s mouth. The two women felt the humans break and drown on the woman’s lips and tongue as Sam stopped protecting them. Quickly, the last remnants of Las Vegas trickled down Olivia’s throat, into oblivion. Samantha made a wicked grin, “Ahh… fuck that was good. Let’s get you cleaned up, muffin.”

The two women cleaned each other and dressed. The drenched city was unceremoniously dumped in the garbage, all the humans now dead from either drowning or collapsed buildings from the movements of the women. The sun was down, and Sam had a club meeting that night, so she and Olivia said their goodbyes. Walking into the kitchen, Sam filled her water bottle from the sink and went to put her sneakers on. Suddenly, she turned and asked Olivia, “Hey. Can you make some copies in my shoe? I wanna see if they can massage me while I walk.”

Olivia grinned, “Oooh. Sure! Just humans? No buildings?”

“Just humans. Can it be only that subspecies? More of them seemed to like watching us than the apex species…”

Sam’s partner nodded and snapped her fingers. Staring into the sneakers, Sam could see fresh, terrified humans, reacting to the dark and humid prison of her shoe. Slipping her bare feet in, she felt a good number flatten under her sole. Oddly, none of them popped, “Did you make these guys more durable? They aren’t squishing.”

“Yeah, I figure if they last longer it’ll be a better massage.”

Sam smiled, “You’re so considerate. Take care, Olivia,” and with a wink she opened the door and left the apartment. Olivia sighed with satisfaction, happy with her session. She got some soda from the fridge and returned to her room. Without her little city, the desk by her window looked so… lonely. Getting out another dish, she summoned a new Las Vegas, with fresh memories. The city panicked as if she had just plucked them from their planet. Willing each human to instantly understand her terms of survival, the lights of the city all turned on, filling the desk with a canvas of pretty blue and purple lights. Just to make sure they understood she was serious, she gently plucked an unlit building up and dropped it into her soda can, the little insects inside drowning in the cold, bubbling ocean. She sat at her desk and drank, watching the humans react to their new lives. I’m the only one who can make more… but any woman can have total control over these things. And it’s so fun to play with them. I wonder who might pay for some little toy cities? Her mind began to turn, and she started writing out a business plan next to her little domain, whose inhabitants were unaware of their owner’s plan to make them a commodity. After writing out initial ideas, Olivia felt her exhaustion from the day hit her like a truck. She tapped on the sides of the city, shaking the buildings and kicking up dust from the desert. “Goodnight, my little moneymakers.” She crawled into bed, staring at the little light show as sleep overtook her.

A short figure cloaked in rags, animal skin, and leather mounted the craggy hill made of concrete and rebar. The skies overhead were barely lit, indicating it was daytime (or at least, the equivalent to that). It had only been three years since Her arrival, the ash and dust from Her rampage still blanketed the atmosphere, so this was all the natural light anyone on Earth would get. Nowhere near enough sunlight for most plants, and the surface of the planet was frozen solid. It remained a frigid -5C in July in the remnants of the city once called Phoenix. The figure could remember before She came when the city would routinely exceed 40C to no fanfare. Now, the last of humanity resided underground, in precariously maintained shelters and natural caverns. This is needed not just for warmth, but for protection from the toxic ash, as its sulfuric contents will burn out even the sturdiest lungs after a while. The figure on top of the rubble got around this by wearing a gas mask, though this too was risky. Gas masks are rather rare, and having a functioning one indicates you are a person of means. This makes one a target of the many humans without means.

It was humans that the masked figure was watching for. They had been scavenging all day for some very specific supplies. While not valuable to most others, their community needed what they had found. Bandits, cultists, rival shelters, and cannibals all roamed out here, looking for easy prey. No matter what they were carrying, others will attack them if they have the opportunity. Armed with a long rifle, the figure gingerly placed their bag over the concrete and scanned the horizon. The entrance to their shelter, an unassuming manhole cover, was only 1000 feet from them. Once they climb in, it’s 4500 more feet through a booby-trapped sewer to safety. But just as the figure began to move out, they saw a brown smudge dart in and out of their peripheral. Presenting their rifle, they disengaged the safety and scanned closer. A whooshing sound forced them to slam to the ground out of training instincts. They looked behind them to see a javelin embed itself in a piece of rotting wood. The figure listened, counting at least 8 sets of footsteps, all shouting, apparently giving up their stealthy approach. Guessing that they couldn’t run away, the figure sighed, thought of the people back home, and mounted the rifle on top of the concrete barrier in front of them.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Instantly, four humans, all clad in tattered rags and rotten cloth and armed with clubs and shanks, fell to the figure’s gunshots. Some writhed on the ground for a while, some died instantly. The figure took no time to feel guilty, and focused on another group to their left, three more running in zig-zags toward their position. Pop. Pop-pop. Pop. The second group fell in succession, spending their last moments gazing up at the ashen sky. The figure did not relax, still scanning for stragglers, when they felt a strong arm push them over to their back. A man, scrawny and haggard, holding a spade towered above them. He held the spade up above his head, aiming for the figure’s chest. The figure tensed, ready to feel the release of death, when they suddenly heard a whizzing, and saw the man’s head burst like a grape. Blood gushed from his neck, painting the figure’s gas mask red, as a bullet from far away ended his meager existence. The scavenger stayed still, hearing a new set of footsteps, unsure whether it belonged to friend or foe. Soon, they heard a knocking: three raps on the concrete where the rifle was, then two hits on rebar, then two hits on concrete. The masked figure shot up, recognizing the “I’m friendly” signal from their tribe. They reciprocated, seeing another figure cloaked in leather and wearing a gas mask, holding a sniper rifle. The other eyed the bag of supplies, gazed at the scavenger, then silently motioned for them to follow. The scavenger sped away, more confident now that they had an escort. They approached the manhole and entered, crawling through rickety tunnels and concrete pipes to the massive bunker that the two called home.

Once the two were a few thousand feet in, the escort stopped. They took their gas mask off, ready to converse with the scavenger. The escort, a male with buzzed black hair and a scar under his chin, spoke to the shorter figure, "You are, beyond any doubt, the luckiest scavenger alive, Bridget.”

The scavenger took off their gas mask, the woman underneath wearing a scowl, “Unluckiest. Those fuckers tracked me four miles. Thought I shook them, but I guess they’re getting smarter. I swear, one of these days they’re gonna find the bunker.”

The man nodded, solemnly agreeing with her prediction, “We need to be ready. But maybe people will be friendlier when they see what happened down here?”

“I wish I shared your optimism,” Bridget said bluntly. The two continued the trek home, arriving at a set of massive steel doors, a man in a military uniform standing next to a control panel. “Bridget, you find it?” the guard asked. “Come on in, show Theresa!” He spoke a codeword on the panel’s intercom. The doors slowly swung open, making a screeching sound as they did, and the scavengers walked into their home.

The bunker was as spartan as one would expect. Concrete covered every wall and floor. Metal reinforcements kept the structure from failing when the giant woman crushed the metropolis above. Meant as a shelter for government officials to survive nuclear war, it was just about the best option for living in the new world. Most everyone here had some connection to the federal government before said entity was dust under Her feet: Aaron, the man in front of Bridget, was a sergeant in the Army, for instance. And Theresa, the elected leader of the bunker, was Deputy Secretary of Energy in President Farris’s administration. Wonder if the president lived, Bridget thought. Wouldn’t mind if she didn’t, honestly. That woman had such a hard on against social welfare. For herself, Bridget got in through her connections with the VLA, and from describing what it was like being the first person to see the woman who ended everything. She was put to work like everyone else, but her story garnered her some extra respect among the survivors. Her survival skills and crack-shot accuracy didn’t hurt her reputation, either.

That respect is why she was selected for this scavenging mission, and why she will be the one to present the contents of her heavy bag to the elder stateswoman. Theresa was tall and thin, with a shrewd gaze that seemed to cut through a person’s defenses. Bridget always had to prepare herself before interacting with her, as her hazel eyes stun the scavenger whenever she looks at her. The leader was standing by the medical bay, exactly where she was three days ago when Bridget left on her quest. “Bridget, we’re glad you’re safe.” Her delivery was muted, as it often was, but there was genuine relief in there, too. Bridget nodded once, “Me too. Better thank Aaron for that, ma’am. Without him I’d’ve been killed by outsiders just a mile from home.”

Theresa’s eyes glanced towards the floor, “Those crazies are getting more and more bold every day. Cultists? Or cannibals?”

“Cannibals, most likely, ma’am. No one shouting about sacrificing me to the Great Goddess, or anything.”

“Alright,” Theresa sighed. “Given the choice, I’ll take the cannibals. At least they’re the kind of crazy that makes them stupid and disorganized. We’ll keep a closer eye out there. On to other news, did you find it?”

Bridget gave another curt nod, “Yeah. Intel was right, the backup power was still keeping the fridges running. Found a few boxes full of it, all unopened and unexpired. Should be about three year’s worth in the bag. Some of the data servers there were intact. Got a recipe, but don’t know if we can make it. I’m not a biologist.”

Theresa smiled, “Good enough. We’ve got three years to sort production out. You’re a goddamn hero, Bridget. You deserve to be the one to tell her.”

Bridget was startled, “M-me? Ma’am are you sure you shouldn’t? Or maybe Dr. Nguyen? Someone more eloquent?”

“No. I don’t want some speech. In fact, don’t even try, just give the stuff to her. Her reaction is all anyone will need. We may all feel real hope, for once.”

Bridget paused, taking in the responsibility. She grabbed the bag, and slowly entered the medical ward. The place was crowded, not with patients, but with spectators. All centered around one woman, clad in a dark green gown, holding a little baby in her arms, the infant quiet and emaciated. The mother looked up at Bridget, her eyes betraying a vulnerable mixture of worry, fear, and unshakable love for her newborn daughter. Bridget opened the bag and took out a vial of insulin. The mother, and all the spectators, laughed and cried at the sight of it. This baby was a miracle: no one could carry a child to term before her. Her birth was cause for celebration a month ago, but Dr. Nguyen had little insulin stocked, and the girl would die without it. Now, real, genuine joy emanated from the cluster of survivors. Aaron came up next to Bridget, tears streaming down his face as he lost himself in the hopefulness. The former physicist patted him on the back, finding herself moved in a way she thought she’d never experience again after that fateful night in New Mexico.

And for the first time in three years, Bridget smiled.