James Nash walked quickly down the hall, escorted by an entourage of conspicuously dressed men and women. And although the corridor was very sparsely populated, anyone who found themselves in the path of the smartly dressed pack made sure to give them a wide berth. Eventually James reached the end of the corridor as the doors were opened, ensuring he didn’t need to slow his stride as he entered a large room containing an equally large, ovular table. The eight people who were already seated around the table all stood up as James entered the room, leaving his security detail just outside of the door.
“Mr. President.” An older man said, gently adjusting the slightly disheveled collar on his button down shirt. It was clear that he had been here for a while.
“Someone tell me what the hell is happening.” James ordered curtly, taking his seat at the head of the table. Once the President has taken his seat everyone else in the room followed suit, but only one person took the opportunity to speak up. A woman picked up the small remote placed in front of her, using it to turn on the large screen at the front of the room.
“Approximately two hours ago, a large, unidentified structure was discovered just off the eastern seaboard. We’ve so far been unable to discern where the object came from. Based on the exterior appearance, the object seems as if it was constructed, not naturally occurring.” The woman clicked through various slides showing images that had been taken of the large sphere that was currently sitting in the Gulf of Maine. President Nash watched intently as the slides continued to change.
“Well, who have we been in contact with? China, Russia, Japan? This thing belongs to someone and I want to know who built it and why.” James rhythmically rapped his fingers on the table as he stared at the mysterious orb. He hoped that someone would have some answers for him. Even if the object was constructed by foreign aggressors, it seemed preferable to the unknown possibilities that could have placed this thing in his territory.
Another voice picked up this time, as yet another short, older man began to scrounge through his notes. “We’ve made contact with Beijing, Moscow, and Tokyo, I’m addition to our allies across the Atlantic. No one is claiming responsibility for the construction of the sphere.”
“And we believe that?” The president asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“We have no information that would lead us to believe that any of our enemies have been in the process of manufacturing this superstructure. Least of all any method to deploy it into U.S. waters without detection.” The man continued.
“Well what the hell are we-“ The President was cut off by one of his service agents stepping forward to whisper into his ear. The room fell deathly silent as the message was relayed, everyone assuming that it was in some way related to the important discussion at hand. Everyone took notice of the expression painted on Nash’s face as the agent stood up straight. “Turn it on.” In response to James’ command, the screen at the center of the room quickly flashed as the static slideshow of pictures was changed over to a live video feed being recorded from a military helicopter circling around the object. A series of murmurs echoed across the room as the administration watched as the panels of the sphere began to shift, emitting a heavy fog of smoke.
“Holy fucking shit…” James declared in utter disbelief.
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Kayla gripped the armrests of her chair tightly as she felt her transport pod begin to shake violently. She closed her eyes tightly, silently praying that she hadn’t made some sort of fatal mistake. The noise emitting from the machinery within the pod grew louder and louder as Kayla began to fear that something had gone wrong. Her heart sank as she considered that if she were to perish on this journey, her friends, her family… they would never know what happened. She felt as if there was no more oxygen left in this damned sphere. “Is this how I die?” She asked herself, when suddenly she felt the vehicle come to an abrupt stop. The intense impact caused the monitor to break off from the chair, as well as resulting in a thick concentration of smoke beginning to pour into tight confines of the pod.
When she felt that the shaking and crashing had stopped, Kayla began to quickly undo the harness that fastened her into the chair, and made her way to the pod’s door. She unlatched the lock and swung open the doors of the pod, throwing herself out into the open before she took in too much smoke. Unfortunately for her, Kayla had not expected to land the pod in the water. She tumbled forward as her foot crashed below the surface, her whole body following in being submerged in the cold water. Thankfully, it didn’t appear to be too deep and Kayla managed to prop her feet on the bottom, pushing her head back above the surface to suck in some fresh, clean oxygen. Wiping the salty water from her face, Kayla opened her eyes, praying that she was alone and no one saw her fall out of her pod. And it only took her eyes a second to adjust for her to see a weird, tiny boat floating in front of her face.
“Holy fucking shit…” She muttered to herself, as she saw a number of itty bitty creatures scurry across the deck of the miniature ship, desperately trying not to be flung off of the ship in the waves of her massive wake. Suddenly, the young woman became aware of the dozens of other ships floating in the waters near her, as well as the many aircraft circling overhead. Taking to her feet, Kayla began looking all around her, absorbing every little detail about her surroundings. It didn’t take too long for her to come to the realization that... “I’m fucking huge!” She exclaimed.