Chapter Seventeen

 
The sentry stood next to the large, wrought-iron gate and cursed. Gray rain clouds overhead. He wouldn't be allowed to head in until the end of his shift, and that was still an hour off. Soon he'd be soaked to the skin and standing in an inch of mud. God, he hated rain.

There was a distant rumble. The sentry looked up, then fumbled for the binoculars on his belt. He realized a second later that there was no need. What was causing the rumble was easily visible from his six hundred yards' distance.

It was a giant woman, clad entirely in form-fitting black, striding confidently across the plains. The sentry cursed far more loudly, then reached for his pistol. No, that wouldn't work either - what would a 9 millimeter round do to a three-hundred foot tall woman? He thought back to a news program he'd seen earlier that day, which he'd quickly dismissed as a joke. Something about a rampaging gigantic woman in the city nearby.

As she came closer, he could see the expression on her face, and was slightly relieved. She didn't look upset, merely concentrated. Furthermore, he could make out several small vehicles trailing behind her massive feet. If she didn't attempt to hurt them, she wouldn't try and hurt him, right?

Right?

Soon enough, the sentry had no more time to ruminate. Two feet, each the size of a small chopper were planted about fifty feet away. Then the woman bent. So did the sentry. He bent into a fetal position, and began to sob. The size hadn't really hit him until she crouched.

"Take it easy," said a man's voice, and the sentry looked up. Above him was a man with a jutting jaw and intense eyes. His arm was covered in some strange, silvery material that looked simultaneously liquid and solid.

"She's on our side," said a blond haired woman who was climbing out of a recently parked Jeep. The sentry recognized her as Chloe Strand, a high-ranking official. Several other soldiers began exiting nearby vehicles.

"You might want to open the gate now," came a thunderous rumbling voice from above, which while feminine was still utterly terrifying to the poor guard.

"Yes, m'am." was the stuttered reply.


Sarah curled up on the elevator in a manner almost feline, leaving several soldiers to emit audible groans. There was only enough space now for one other person, being myself. None of the others were quite willing to get close to my lover.

As the large platform began its descent into the bunker, I looked up at her. "Why exactly did you position yourself like that?" I asked, trying to be discreet.

"I like having you all to myself," Sarah said seductively. "Plus, I get closer to eye-level with you this way."

Eye-level, now that was a joke. Even lying down, Sarah still had to look down some twenty feet to see my comparatively diminutive face. "Well, now that you've got me all to yourself," I replied slyly. "What are you going to do to me?"

She responded with actions, instead of words. Cupping me in her hand, she quickly raised me to her lips, which paired together formed a soft pink wall as tall as I was. She pressed me into this wall with two fingers, and I reached out with my hand and stroked the insides of her lower lip. This seemed the most natural course of action, as I didn't have many options.

Then a tremendous red thing came bursting out of the wall, almost knocking me over as it playfully stroked me. "This your way of slipping me the tongue?" I laughed.

The tongue slipped back between the massive pink folds, and I was hit with a blast of sound and humid wind. "This is."

Her lips opened, revealing the spacious darkness that was her mouth, and stuck out her tongue, using it dexterously to pull me in.

Now that I wasn't being ordered in by a certain insane Colonel, I felt free to enjoy myself. I glided over her soft, slick tongue, reaching out a hand to stroke one of her gums as it passed. She passed me side to side, playfully relishing the unique sensations both of us were experiencing.

Then, all too soon, I was ejected from her mouth, back onto her hand. She clumsily patted my head with a finger. "I think we're almost at the bottom, and you've got to get cleaned up."

I moved away from her tree-trunk sized finger. "I think you're mussing it up more than helping," I replied in jest. I slicked down my hair with my hands as best as I could. "Well, I guess the president will have to deal with me in my semi-unpresentable state."

The platform came to a jarring halt, and we were faced with a long corridor, paneled floor to ceiling in gleaming white plastic. The corridor was wide enough, but only fifty feet tall. Sarah grimaced. "Looks like I'm crawling from here."

"That won't be necessary," said a trim man with neatly clipped and gelled hair and a smart appearance, as he stepped out from a small doorway. I recognized the person behind the suit and shades.

"Peter, you bastard," I gasped. "You're a suit now?"

"Not just, Eric," he responded. "I'm THE suit, if you will. Top of the brass."

"You always were ambitious," I replied, trying to ignore the explosion of anger welling at my core.

"'Ambition should be made of stronger stuff', my friend. I'm but a hard worker who through constant striving managed to make it to my humble position."

"Always were fond of quotes, as well." My vain effort to parlay the tension into some form of truce.

"I suppose I have a weakness for them." Peter flashed a cold smile, then turned back to Sarah. "Now my dear, we've specially arranged an area for you to view the conference in."

"I suppose, then, dear," Sarah returned with an exaggerated accent on the word 'dear'. "That I shall have to follow you. But I do so only in the company of my man."

"If that must be so," said Peter, slightly flustered by the turning of his own flowery language against him.

He led us into a vast space, about the size of an aircraft hanger. A fifty-foot diameter projection screen was outfitted on one of the walls, currently showing static. "I assume this is what I'll be watching it on?" Sarah asked.

"You assume correctly." Peter replied curtly. "Now, if I may, I will take my leave of you. Dr. Lehmann, you will be expected in the conference room in one hour."

I didn't bother to ask where the conference room was. Peter was already striding out of the area, and I had no desire to bring him back.

"What a prick," Sarah muttered.

"This room is probably bugged," I said as Sarah brought herself as lightly as possible into a cross-legged sitting position. "You might want to be careful of what you say."

"The guy already knows I don't like him. I bet he doesn't like me either. I'm not telling them anything they don't already know."

"Well, he's more of a prick than you know." I confided.

"You mean he does worse than mangle quotes from Shakespeare?"

I laughed along with her on that one, but my mood quickly returned to serious. "He does much worse."

"So, we've got an hour free," said Sarah quickly, trying to steer the conversation off the darkening path it had taken. "What do you want to do with it?"

"I believe the question," I replied. "Is what do you want to do with me?"


We finished forty-five minutes later, leaving me just enough time to get cleaned up and find a change of clothes. When I emerged from the restroom Peter was waiting. He didn't bother conversing, simply gestured for me to follow. Like a pompous butler, I thought.

He led me into a rectangular, wood panneled room with a large table in its center. Around it were seated several dignitaries, obvious by their puffed chests and haughty demeanors. The political scene had lost all of its interest for me after my incident with the military, and as such I didn't know the diplomats' names. The president, however, obviously seated at the front, struck me as looking rather simian.

I took my seat at the opposite end of the table, and Peter went to the forefront of the room, standing in front of a small video screen. Once everyone was seated and the whispers that were prevalent in the room died out completely, the lights dimmed and the screen lit up.

On screen came a birds-eye image, likely taken from a helicopter, of Vanessa destroying a city block. "I'm sure most of you gathered in this room are well of the events that have taken place within the last hour. We've been introduced to an unprecedented threat, which has the ability to destroy most of our populated areas. Due to its fast rate of motion and unbelievable strength, it has been exceedingly difficult to contain said threat.

The image changed to one of the fallen Vanessa, seen from afar. A small figure was just visible at her neck, holding something in place. "Thankfully, a small group of operatives were able to neutralize the threat, allowing some small measure of survivors." Typical of him, I thought bitterly, to downplay my role in the success of the mission, and even its success at all.

"Unfortunately, this prior threat was not the only of its kind." My mind raced. What was Peter talking about?

The video screen lit up once more, this time lit up with another news-feed helicopter shot. A gigantic, blond woman was destroying much more crowded streets, filled with neon. The view zoomed as her delicate hand hefted a bus full of screaming tourists into the air, only to crush them into oblivion.

The letters on the top of the screen read "Tokyo".

And so it was in London, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro. A different giant woman every time, but all of them taking exceeding pleasure in destruction. How could this be? Where had all these giantesses come from?

That's when I remembered. The military never goes in without backup.

The lights returned. The president spoke first. "What can we do about this? None of our strategeries were, uh, construed for such a situation."

A black woman to his left politely cleared her throat, then said, "We obviously don't have enough firepower to safely solve the situation."

"We should just nuke the hell out of them!" A fierce-looking bald man to the president's right growled.

"Think about the cost in civilian lives -" The black woman began.

"Screw the civilians!" The bald man shouted back.

"More importantly," Peter interjected. "Destroying them will only lead to more appearing."

"What other options do we have?" cried a grizzled, gray-haired general.

The discussion was quickly becoming a shouting match. Everyone was looking angry, except the president, who merely looked puzzled. The options were few, I understood, and this was making everyone agitated. I had to take action.

I stood, and loudly coughed. Everyone quickly quieted. "The only solution to this problem," I said firmly, "Is to defeat it at its source. And that source is in another world. We have to destroy the portal that leads to this world, and only then can we worry about neutralizing the threats already here."

There was general silence after that. I clumsily sat back down. What was I getting myself into?

"I concur," said the bald man and the black woman in unison.

It looked like I would be returning to Sarah's world sooner than I'd expected...