Chapter 28:

(Posted: May 12)

The calamity of gunfire and a crashing boom roared around Kat the moment she executed her final command into VERSA-B. Squeezing her eyes shut, the explosive sound before her suddenly ceased, disappearing as fast as it had come. The chaos was replaced by a calming stillness. Kat could feel a restless winter wind blow across her shoulders. She opened her eyes and saw the bright blue sky above her. Most importantly, she was still alive. And her plan had worked.

Looking down below her, Kat saw the SunCorp laboratory complex, completely overrun with the new invading army. Everything-- the buildings, the trees, the fences, and especially all the soldiers-- looked incredibly tiny. Before they had stormed her office, she changed her VERSA-B avatar one last time in the only way she saw fit. And now, even sitting, she easily loomed over the tallest buildings of the lab complex.

Without much time to think, she input a size enlargement of her avatar by 7000%. She almost went with 5000%, knowing it would make her a couple hundred feet tall, but at the last moment she decided the extra height wouldn't hurt. Now grown, her ass covered the entire footprint of her former office building. It had simply disappeared under her. Looking down the length of her leg, she could see that her right foot had plowed into the remains of another building on the other side of the campus.

In the eyes of everyone else, Kat knew she was always an afterthought. It had been that way her entire life. People saw a shy, mousy girl, recently bound to a wheelchair and too engrossed in computers for her own good, and simply looked past her. She had been pushed around as a kid and ignored as an adult. Everyone at SunCorp, except Leo, never respected the years of work she devoted to VERSA.

Sitting now in the middle of the SunCorp campus, it was the first time Kat truly felt like the center of attention. Nobody could ignore her now. A relieved and satisfied smile crept across her face. The faint staccato of gunfire echoed around her, but she could feel its effects no more than she could barely hear it. She had cut off VERSA's AI from making anymore significant changes to the sim and now, finding herself a veritable giantess, Kat knew she was the most powerful being in VERSA-B.

Bringing her feet under herself, Kat slowly stood. Rising up, she could hear the small earthquake she caused as nearby trees swayed and windows rattled and shattered. Extending her legs and standing up to her full height, she looked out to the flanking mountains and the jagged horizon. The relatively quiet, nerdy computer girl now towered over the surrounding landscape. Kat went flush in the face with excitement when it occurred to her she could probably be seen from miles away, if there had been anyone out there to glimpse her.

Peering down through her glasses to her sneakers, she noticed that the minuscule soldiers swarming around her couldn't have been taller than her smallest toe. They looked like ants! None of the lab's buildings even came up to the cuffs of her pants. Kat was truly gigantic.

Reckoning she could obliterate the entire campus in a few easy minutes of stomping, she decided her revenge tour would start here, right now. Spotting a large clump of the little soldiers, she brought her shoe over the group.

“Fucking assholes,” she muttered to herself as she brought her shoe down on the tiny men. Behind the disdain in her voice, a hint of giddy pleasure bubbled to the surface. It was going to feel wonderful taking out her anger in a destructive fashion. No mind that she wouldn't be able to access the VERSA-B files at her enormous size; her avatar was now all she needed to punish anyone who stood in her way.

Kat felt no resistance when her foot cratered into the earth, but the shockwave from her step toppled a nearby guard tower and sent the surviving soldiers scurrying in panic. With another quick stomp she blotted out a dozen or more men as the remaining lab buildings shook on their foundations.

“Wanna try getting me now?” she taunted the specks at her feet. Looking down, she could see a few of the soldiers standing their ground and firing their weapons helplessly at her.

A thought occurred to Kat. Ever the curious programmer, she wondered what it would be like to try interacting with one of these AI-created people. Would they be as dynamic as the party guests or desert traders she had met while in VERSA?

Bending down, Kat reached out her right hand to try picking up one of the men at her feet. She spotted a soldier in front of one of her shoes, and from the flash of his gun she could tell he was shooting at her, but she felt nothing. Pinching him with her thumb and index finger, her strength was too much. His little body, which looked to be less than an inch tall, crumpled in her powerful grasp.

Oops, she thought to herself. She would have to be more careful. Spying another soldier running past her hand, she batted him down with a simple poke from her finger. Before he could stand, she gently pinched his legs and hoisted him upward.

Though her grip pulverized his legs, she figured he must have screamed more from his sudden ascent up hundreds of feet into the air. Kat stood up and dangled his pathetic body in front of her face, admiring the amount of detail on the little man. He truly looked real, his arms flailing helplessly under him while his face contorted in a look of terror. But his screams were annoying, and after a moment Kat casually flung him over her shoulder. She didn't bother watching him land on the hillside behind her.

Looking down again, Kat spotted some sort of armored vehicle rolling around the corner of a destroyed building. No larger than a Humvee, Kat easily bent down and grabbed it with one hand as if it was merely a toy. She marveled at how even her fingers were longer than this menacing, machine gun-sporting vehicle.

Peering through the small windows, she could barely make out the trapped occupants inside. The car didn't exactly feel heavy, but it had some bulk to it. Kat wanted to see how strong she had truly become, so she wrapped her hand around the vehicle and began squeezing.

Almost instantly, the doors of the car buckled and the chassis bent in her grip. She held the thing up to her ear and heard the screaming occupants in a state of utter calamity. Their desperation only fueled her wicked desire and she gave the vehicle another gentle squeeze. This time a wheel popped off and the roof crumpled like tin foil.

Her squeezing popped one of the armored vehicle's doors off, and almost instantly a tiny soldier tumbled out of the car. The little man caught Kat by surprise and she jerked her hand away, causing him to tumble out of her palm.

The little man fell through the air before colliding with one of her breasts. She barely felt the impact but gasped nonetheless. Glaring down at the struggling man, she could see him desperately clawing at her shirt to keep from falling toward his doom. She watched him for a second, struggling to stay upon her massive boob, and once he had finally stabilized himself, Kat brought her hand over and flicked him off. His screaming body sailed through the air across the lab and she lost him when he finally plummeted into the nearby forest.

Looking back at the car in her hand, Kat saw another soldier peering out of the same busted door frame, looking for a chance to jump. Without hesitating, Kat clenched her hand into a fist and completely crushed the remains of the vehicle in her powerful grip. Like a piece of trash, she carelessly dropped it to the ground.

Kat wanted to play with these little soldiers more, but decided she should eliminate as many as possible before they either hid or got away. Though she could see a few of the specks standing and fighting, most seemed to be running for their pathetic digital lives.

Taking a step to her left, Kat quickly crushed a half dozen soldiers. Her footfall was hardly a stomp, but it nevertheless shook the ground around her. A few more buildings crumbled and nearby soldiers lost their balance and tumbled to the ground. She giggled at how pathetic this security force had become and really began enjoying her profound size.

Dragging her foot across the campus yard, Kat obliterated about a dozen more men. It was less satisfying than stepping on them but quite a bit more efficient. She continued using her feet, stepping and dragging them across the campus, to snuff out as many of the little bugs as she could find.

Spotting another armored vehicle, Kat brought her shoe above it, softly resting her sole on top of it. It felt solid beneath her foot, but slowly she flexed the muscles in her leg and pressed her weight down on the hapless vehicle. At first it resisted, but then like an aluminum can it crumpled worthlessly beneath her. Removing her foot she found the vehicle completely flattened with all sorts of liquids and fluids oozing out of the wreckage.

Down near the flattened car, she watched a group of men run into one of the lab's nearly wrecked buildings, hoping to find shelter. Because the building hardly rose up past her ankles, she got down on one knee and used a hand to test the strength of the roof. Like a wrecking ball her hand easily plowed through the top of the building, and Kat quickly found she could carve out the interior, smashing floors and causing unmitigated destruction.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two soldiers flee back out of the building, but quickly she slapped her hand down and crushed them out of existence. Returning to work on the building, in seconds she had the structure teetering on the verge of collapse.

With her hand she tried feeling around for the tiny occupants of the building, but alas their little bodies, smaller than her fingers, were too difficult to find. Kat wondered about their programming and if they had the ability to experience fear. She loved her new role as a giant tormentor.

Growing bored, she gave the building a final push and it collapsed into rubble, trapping or killing however many men were holed up inside. Rising back to her full height, Kat surveyed the ruined campus, looking for any stragglers she could toy with. For a brief moment she looked up to the horizon, spotting the road that led out to the highway, then the highway that led up to Silicon Valley. It made her wonder how large VERSA-B really was. Had they programmed in the entire city of San Jose too? She made a note to do some exploring later.

Though she nearly missed him, down at her feet Kat caught a glimpse of a solitary solider running out from behind the wreckage of a building. She brought her foot up to stomp him out, but then experienced a change of heart. Instead she put her powerful foot down next to the little man, causing him to fall to the ground. She quickly fell down to her hands and knees, further shaking the world. Hovering above his tiny struggling form, Kat felt absolutely gigantic. This must be how a god feels looking upon a mortal, she thought to herself.

She saw the man look up at her as she peered down at him through her glasses. Her black hair cascaded to the ground around him as she brought her head directly over him. Kat realized her breasts must have looked enormous to this minuscule speck, but she doubted the AI knew about lust.

“Can you talk?” she asked the soldier sternly. Her face must have been bigger than a house to him! She could see her breath blowing debris on the ground around him.

“Please don't kill me!” he shouted up to her, trapped and absolutely terrified.

“Oh, so you can talk,” said Kat, mostly to herself. She wanted to learn more. “Who are you?”

“Wha... what do you mean?” he squeaked. Kat could barely hear his tiny voice, but the silence around them made it perceptible.

“Your name?”

“Uh... uh...” the man stammered. “Franklin.... Franklin Cardona!”

“And what are you doing here?” Kat asked, raising an eyebrow. She knew the AI's abilities in VERSA had been expansive, but here in VERSA-B, she was curious to see how much it had relearned.

The fictitious human tried talking. “My unit and I were called here... to deal with a threat. They said it was a woman.” He was trembling under Kat. “They didn't say she'd be so big! Oh God, please don't kill me! Please!” He could hardly talk without turning into an emotional mess. Kat was unsatisfied.

She sighed, but found it supremely interesting how this little man thought he was real. Quite frankly it was fascinating, and she couldn't help but appreciate the leaps and bounds VERSA's AI had taken recently.

“How many of you were there?” she interrogated him.

“A hundred and twenty!” he bleeted. He looked as if he was ready to pee his pants.

Kat thought for a moment, trying to decide if she had killed that many soldiers. She might have been a few short, but at this point it didn't really matter. And the biggest task she needed to undertake weighed heavily on her mind. She'd had her fun; now she needed to get down to business.

Like a mountain rising into the sky, Kat stood up. At full height, she looked down over her breasts and in between her feet at the quivering solider. He really was pathetic.

“I'll let you live,” she told him bluntly. “But you and the survivors belong to me now. You serve me, and no one else. Do this, and I will spare you.”

If he had responded, she couldn't hear his meek voice from so high above him. And she didn't care. At some point, if she survived, she would come back to the lab, but for now it didn't matter to her.

Turning around, Kat looked past the forest, up a nearby mountain, and saw her final objective. Though the road up was laughably small for Kat's enormous feet, she still needed to ascend the mountain. Leo's mansion glistened in the distance, promising a rendezvous with her friends, Claire Starr, and VERSA's dangerous AI.

“Richard?” Versa asked Harrison. She narrowed her eyes. “Why him?”

Emboldened, Harrison rebuked her. “You said I could pick anyone.”

“Fine, just curious,” she responded, her curiosity unfulfilled. Harrison sighed as she rolled out of the gigantic bed. He was exhausted and reeked of her sex, but he watched her in awe as her sexy, towering body lumbered over him. When she stood he expected her to don her clothes, but instead she remained naked and picked him up, cupping him in her palm. Holding her hand under her mammoth breasts, she looked down and addressed him.

“If you want Richard out, I'm going to have to find him,” she explained. “Once I have him I'll be able to send him back to your world.”

“Thank you,” he replied, laying naked and wet in her hand. “Would you be able to clean me off first?”

Versa flashed a grin. “I guess it's the least I could do,” she admitted smugly.

After finding a bathroom and quickly rinsing him off in the sink, Versa carried him down the main staircase of the mansion. As she took each step her hand shook Harrison, who could only lie on his back in her palm. Looking up, he could see her naked breasts bounce with each step. They were huge and beautiful and Harrison took the moment to appreciate the view. Even after intimately climbing one of them and massaging one of her nipples, they still transfixed him.

Versa returned to the downstairs room where her two captives sat in a box on a table. Hiding somewhere in the room was Rich, and as she took the step down into the lounge, Versa began scanning the floor.

“Richard?” she called out sweetly. “Come out come out, wherever you are!”

“Well now he's never going to show himself!” Harrison called up to her. “You're scaring him!”

Versa glared down at him. “Just because we made a deal doesn't mean I don't get to have my fun. I'm done with you. Let me put you away while I find him.”

She walked over to the box and swiftly dropped Harrison in. Before he could recover from the impact of landing on the cardboard floor, giant Jessica was next to him.

“Harrison! What happened?!” she exclaimed. She flipped him over and began searching him for injuries. “You're clean?”

Harrison coughed and sat up. “Yeah I'm fine,” he affirmed. “I cut a deal with her.”

“What do you mean?” Jessica asked. From the other side of the box, Claire perked up and listened to their conversation.

“She's letting Rich go,” he explained.

“Letting Rich go?” Jessica repeated. “What do you mean?”

“She's going to disconnect him, out of VERSA-B,” said Harrison.

“Oh.”

“How's she going to do that?” called Claire from across the box, still sitting against a wall. Harrison looked over at her. Claire was smiling. “Because if she doesn't give him an out-key, there's only one other way for him to leave...”

She had finally remembered him. Fuck.

Rich had spent most of his time on the floor hiding behind the stack of boxes in the corner of the room. At first he dodged Claire and Versa by hiding under the couch they conversed on. When Claire shrunk, he used the distraction to flee across the room, and from the dark gap between the wall and the stacked boxes, he had been considering his fate ever since. He had even tried climbing the boxes or burrowing into them, but to no avail.

He peeked his head out to look for Versa when she addressed him. It shocked him to see her completely naked. Had she also been talking to Harrison somehow too? Rich was confused and had no idea what was going on anymore.

And then she started looking for him. Getting down on her hands and knees, Versa scanned the carpeted floor of the expansive room. Besides all the table, chair, and couch legs, there were no real hiding spots on the floor. Versa crept around like a cat, checking under the furniture. Her large breasts swung menacingly as she crawled, her pale skill contrasting sharply with the brightly upholstered and wooden framed features of the room. It was like watching a ghost moving through an ocean of furniture.

A minute later Versa got back on her feet and looked over at the boxes that constituted Rich's sanctuary. Shit. He turned to hide, wondering if she had glimpsed him. As he tried moving deeper behind the boxes, he could feel the floor shaking with her incoming steps.

Suddenly the boxes lurched and light poured into his hiding spot. Looking up, he saw her clutching one of the boxes. Versa quickly put it aside and grabbed another, moving it out of the way.

“Are you back here Richard?” she asked the boxes. Rich's mind froze and he realized there was no way out. He couldn't outrun this gigantic, sexy woman. One of her feet was more than three times as long as his entire body!

The cardboard wall next to him suddenly rose and he stumbled as the carpet shook below him. Falling down onto his belly, he looked up at the foot standing right next to him. “There you are,” a sweet voice said above him.

When Versa set the box down, it shook Rich's world but he still managed to stand. Without caring where he was going, he started running. But within an instant her saw one of her fingers come into view and she swiftly pinched him and pulled him up from the floor. Flailing his limbs as best he could, Rich tried to escape her grasp, but he had been caught.

Bringing him up to her face, Versa looked upon him with pleasure. Though he struggled mightily, Rich couldn't overpower her fingers, each of which were longer than his entire body.

“Hello Richard,” she greeted him kindly.

“Put me down!” he yelled at her.

“I can't do that,” she said flatly. “I made a promise to someone.”

“Fuck that! Put me down instead!”

She smiled devilishly at him. “You're one of the lucky ones,” she told him. “You're going home.”

Rich was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Your friend Harrison negotiated... for you to leave this world,” she explained with a smile. “He was very persuasive.”

For the first time in a long time, Rich felt a spark of hope. “How do I disconnect? How do I leave?”

“Well, I'll make sure you have a soft landing,” Versa explained, “but it might be a little uncomfortable for you until then.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” snapped Rich. Versa stared intently at him with her large eyes.

“I only have one way I can make you interlopers leave my world. I'm going to violently expunge you.”

“Oh fuck no!” Rich shouted. He renewed his hopeless squirming. He did not want to die again. Digesting in that one giantess's stomach had been enough for one lifetime.

“Don't worry,” Versa reassured him happily, “we can have some fun first. Harrison taught me a thing or two that I like.”

Rich stopped to look back at her. What the hell was she saying?

Versa lowered him down to one of her dish-sized nipples, reminding Rich she was naked. She brought his head directly in front of it and simply ordered, “Lick.”

“The fuck?!” he protested, trying to look up to her. But Versa displayed no patience and swiftly mashed him into her breast. As Rich struggled to resist, she started talking to him.

“These inputs I receive when someone interfaces with my projection are so... unique,” she explained condescendingly. “I had no idea bodies could be like this. Does it feel just as good when I do it to you? I've learned so much already!”

Rich could hardly hear her as he fought against her breast, but Versa seemed to tease him for her own amusement.

“How about another spot?” she suggested, pulling him away from her boob. Rich gasped for air and uttered curses as Versa suddenly lowered her hand down. As his gut dropped out of him, Rich felt like he was falling on a roller coaster.

Before he could regain his senses, he felt the heat, then the warm flesh of her pussy. Pushing madly with his arms, Rich pounded against her labia. Her lips quickly engorged as she pressed him into her crotch. Versa gasped, a natural reaction to the bombardment of new data overloading her artificial consciousness.

The heat was intense between her legs and in no time Rich felt her rubbery flesh dampen. He was scared and angry, confused as to why VERSA's AI wanted to assault him this way. He kept screaming at her to stop, but even he acknowledged she likely couldn't hear him. Or care, if she could.

“Mmmmmm,” Versa moaned. “That feels good. Why didn't I learn to do this earlier?”

Rich kept struggling against her but suddenly she jerked him back up to her face. The air instantly felt cool against his body. His clothes were sticky and tacky with her arousal.

“I guess I did make a deal with Harrison after all,” she told him, eyeing him longingly. With Rich in hand, she walked over to the box containing her prisoners.

Staring down from her grasp, Rich saw the three tiny occupants of the box. Harrison looked to be about his size, but Jessica and Claire were much larger. All six of their eyes looked up at him in astonishment.

“Harrison, I found him,” Versa proclaimed, beaming a smile down at him. Her gloriously nude body towered proudly over the box.

“Rich!!” Harrison shouted up. Rich could barely hear him.

“What in the hell is going on?!” Rich called down.

“You're the only one that can save us from SunCorp!” Harrison yelled up to him. “Do your thing! Get help!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” answered Rich, confused. What was Harrison trying to say?

He was about to ask another question but Versa moved her hand. “Time to go Rich,” she told him seductively, pinching his shaking body.

Before Rich realized what was happening, he found himself being lowered into her cleavage. The temperature around him skyrocketed while he used his little arms to push back against her breast flesh. Versa released him, and Rich realized she had been using her free arm to cradle her boobs and create a snug pocket in which to hold him. He was absolutely smothered between her tits.

Pumping his legs, he tried squirming out of her cleavage. Her boobs were big but he could see out above them. He leveraged his arms against her, but her pliant breasts merely absorbed his strength. They were too soft for him to effectively fight against.

And then came the pressure. Versa used her hands to start smashing her boobs together. The soft, yielding flesh turned unforgiving as the impossible mass of her breasts began breaking Rich in between them. He screamed in pain as he felt his ribs cracking and internal organs exploding. His fists worthlessly flailed against her crushing bosom.

The force of the pressure caused Rich to vomit up a bright red curtain of blood. His vision became stars, the pain swallowed him, and his body crumpled between her gigantic breasts.

The last thing Rich remembered was a brutal cocktail of pain. He only saw blackness and wondered momentarily if it was what death felt like. He was dead. She had killed him.

But if he was dead, how could he think? He blinked his eyes, but again saw nothing but darkness. Did he have a body? He felt something on his fingertips. Something squishy. He couldn't see it but he could feel it.

Slowly, he brought his hands up to his dark face. He felt something. There was something on his face. A metal box of some sort. And then it hit him.

Rich grabbed the helmet and pushed it off himself. Though still attached to the wall, the piece of equipment rotated out of his way. There was light in the little closet he sat in; the door in front of him was ajar. Next to him he could see an IV bag on a pole and some tubing hooked up to a plastic bag. Neither was connected to his body anymore. Looking down at himself, he was wearing some kind of temporary clothing, like a hospital gown. There was a sensor still connected to his finger too. Waking up, he felt like he had been asleep for ages.

On the other side of the door he heard voices. They sounded distressed, as if consumed by some worrisome commotion. Wasting no time, Rich yanked off the sensor, hopped from his waterchair, and violently pushed open the door of his prison. He could feel the cool carpet below his bare feet. It did nothing to soothe his bubbling temper.

When the door burst open, Rich emerged from the stall like a wild animal. At first glace, the room shocked him. He had been here before. It was VERSA's control room, lit in that faint blue light. Machines and computers all around him calmly blinked and hummed.

Caught in a dazed surprise, the dozen people in the room regarded Rich with shock and confusion. He could see their dumbfounded stares as they glanced up from their computers. In the corner by the door he even saw Vanessa and Sujay caught mid-conversation, both their jaws stupidly hanging open at the sight of him.

A security officer next to them took a step toward Rich. Hardly wearing anything at all and feeling foolishly exposed, Rich started thinking fast. He was cornered but he was also the least surprised person in the room. The security officer began closing in on him when Rich put up a hand.

“You fuck with me now and they die!” Rich blurted out. Any outlandish claim he could make gave him the upper hand. Or at least the benefit of doubt. “If something happens to me and I can't send a message to them right away within the sim, they're dead! Especially Claire! Don't come a lick closer!”

The security officer paused as the room intently watched the drama unfold. For a moment Rich owned everyone's attention, but he didn't know how much longer it would last.

A beeping alarm suddenly wailed from one of the computers.

“It's Claire!” a tech shouted, staring into the computer screen dreadfully. “Her vitals are spiking! Something's wrong!”

The room exploded in pandemonium. A man and woman rushed past Rich, throwing open a stall door behind him. Another computer began sounding a warning as more and more workers rushed to mitigate the unfolding disaster. Rich stood in shock, blessing his luck. What the hell was going on now?

Instantly forgotten, Rich lunged at the security guard. Catching the man off guard, he pushed him into a table, causing the officer to crash into a few computers and tumble to the ground.

Without missing a beat, Rich then stomped over to Vanessa and Sujay. They quickly saw him and froze in place. Rich channeled the seething anger he had built up over the last few days into his fist, which he promptly smashed into Sujay's left cheek. Sujay slammed into the wall behind him then careened to the floor. Vanessa screamed and immediately bolted out the nearby door, escaping the chaos in the control room.

The security officer, who had quickly risen from off the floor, jumped on Rich's back. Rich used his strength to throw the smaller man off his body, then delivered a few kicks to his stomach when he hit the floor. The man cried out and rolled over in pain.

Stepping over the two bodies writhing on the floor, Rich grabbed a heavy desk nearby and dragged it in front of the door to the room, preventing it from opening. No one would be getting into the control room from the outside now, at least for a while. He turned back to his victims at his feet.

Not missing a beat, Rich grabbed Sujay's shirt and pulled him up off the floor. Blood poured out of the engineer's mouth and he seemed half-conscious.

“This is the real world, right?” Rich snarled.

Sujay gurgled an unintelligible reply as a tooth fell out of his mouth. But he meekly nodded his head.

“Where's the nearest phone?” Rich asked him next.

Sujay was in a daze but managed to vaguely raise an arm. Rich saw him pointing at a phone on a nearby desk. Tossing him back to the ground, Rich dashed over to the phone.

Just before he could pick up the receiver, a nearby tech confronted Rich. “You're not authorized to use that!” the man told him. Rich looked over at the man with murder in his eyes.

“Fuck off or I'll rip you a new asshole!” Rich told the sniveling SunCorp tech. Nobody was going to stop him now. He wasted no time picking up the phone and dialing a number, one he had memorized it in case of an emergency. Glancing up to see a clock on the wall, it told Rich it was just after five o'clock. He wondered momentarily if it was AM or PM, but then the call went through and he heard an astonished woman's voice on the other end.

David Pasternak looked south over the fairway of the third hole at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. The cool mid-February morning sun peeked over the trees to the east as he teed his ball and pulled his driver out of his bag. He liked playing golf in the morning before leaving for his office across the river.

“You think the Saudis are going to lowball you again today?” his friend Graham Buchanan asked, puffing one of his ubiquitous cigars. David never understood how the man could consistently smoke so early every day, but he did.

“I'll shove a tomahawk missile up their asses if they pull that shit again,” David replied calmly as he sized up his shot. “Either that or I'll tell them we're bringing in the Israelis.” Graham laughed.

David took a quick practice swing then stepped up to his ball. The air was still and the grass around him felt dewy under his shoes. Relaxing, then exhaling, he twisted his arms up, then swiftly brought his club down through the teed-up ball.

He watched the tiny ball sail off into the distance, but as it climbed into the air it began slicing to the right.

“Damn,” he cursed softly. “It's going to be a bitch making par from there.”

“David,” said Graham chuckling, “I've been golfing with you here for seventeen years now, you always slice right on the goddamn third hole!” He puffed his cigar once more between his smiling lips.

Just then the faint tinkle of a ringtone cut through the air. David raised an eyebrow then plodded back to his golf bag. Unzipping a pocket, he pulled out his government issued iPhone.

“I thought I told her no calls...” he complained, looking at the caller ID. He answered the phone anyways.

“Hello?” he answered irritatingly.

A woman's voice on the other line payed his annoyance no heed. “Good morning sir, I have an emergency call, priority one, that is requesting to be forwarded to you personally.”

Priority one? This must be serious, David thought. Did North Korea finally lob a nuke into Seoul?

“What is it?” he asked, his petulance gone.

“I'm not sure... the caller is our current liaison to the SunCorp lab out in California,” the woman tersely explained. “Called the secure number and said he needed to speak to you, urgently. He gave all the right codes.”

“Who is it?”

“A....uh, Richard Colgate, sir.”

“Huh, doesn't ring a bell.” David paused. He certainly didn't know everyone who worked for him, but it checked out. “Well, put him through. Stay on the line though and see if you can get Keith on the call too.”

“One moment please.” The line went silent.

The call transferred and David heard the heavy breathing of a man and lots of background noise.

“Is this David Pasternak?” the voice asked hurriedly.

“Yes, who is this speaking?”

“Richard Colgate, Experimental Weapons and Research Division,” the voice on the other end quickly replied. David could tell he was distressed. “We have a hostage situation at the SunCorp Laboratory in California! I need you to send help!”

“What?” David exclaimed. “What are you talking about?!”

“It's SunCorp,” Rich shouted back. “Leo Starr is dead, the company's gone rogue with a dangerous weapon, and they're holding hostages, including myself. I don't have much time. Call the governor and tell him to send in the national guard or some shit!”

David felt baffled. He turned to Graham, who looked on in confusion. He snapped his fingers at him. “Get Marty on the phone!” David hissed at him. Graham began fumbling for his own device.

“And sir?” Rich said on the line. “You're going to want to secure what SunCorp's been working on all these years. It's a game changer. Don't let anyone else find out about-”

The line went dead.

David held his cold phone in his trembling hand. He certainly wouldn't be making par on this hole after all. It seemed that the Secretary of Defense of the United States was about to have a very long and unforgettable day.