Lightning crashed. Thunder boomed. In the bunker, under a cold caged bulb, four figures sat in silence, pouring over a tangle of papers and blurred photography.
At last they sat up, one by one, each making solemn eye contact.
General Goreblit lit a cigar. He ran a hand through his crew cut and confirmed that it was still precisely angled, and breathed a sigh of relief. “So. What is this we’re dealing with?” he asked.
“Ah uh um, eh, the uh, technical term for it is a Borborislich zerblinnia, as referred to by Linnean classifaction schemes, ahem,” said Doctor Wirms, pushing his giant spectacles a little farther up the enormous nose that almost disguised his entirely missing chin. “In uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh layman’s terms, it’s a MONSTER.”
“A monster?” asked the woman.
“Good god, man,” said General Goreblit, lighting a cigar. “Speak English, American English. What’s this thing’s capabilities? What are its motives? What can we do about it?”
“I’ll tell you this thing’s capabilities,” said Captain Tom Johnson, whose chin shone diamond hard in the electric glow of the room. “It’s dangerous. I’ll tell you this thing’s motives: it’s a menace. And I’ll tell you what we can do about it: we can blow this monster to kingdom come through good old know-how and hard-work and can-do spirit and me making this face where I squint a little bit.” And Tom Johnson made that face where he squinted a little bit. .
“That’s the spirit!” said General Goreblit, lighting a cigar. “Doctor, you heard the man, it’s all taken care of.”
“Right,” said the woman. “So… what kind of monster is it?”
“I think the question right now, of course,” said Tom Johnson, “is exactly what kind of monster we’re dealing with here?”
“Hard to say,” said Doctor Wirms. He pointed at the incredible large metal box that filled half the room with itself and the other half with its grinding hum. “We’re still uh crunching data, uhm, er, uh. But it’s a monster. It could be uhhhhhh almost anything. Anything, that is to say, viz, dangerous, per se.”
“One thing’s for sure, egghead,” said Tom Johnson, “it’s not from around here. It’s a stranger. It’s from out of town. And that, doc, makes it the nastiest peace of work I’ve ever heard of. We’ve gotta stop it before it kidnaps our woman.”
“What?” said the woman. “Where’d THAT come from?”
“With all due respect,” said Doctor Wirms, “the Pythagorean Theorem suggests that it’s uhm, the result of uh. Careless yet quirky use of lab materials. One of my err colleagues must uh have ipso facto left dangerous SCIENTIFIC MATERIALS somewhere and caused MUTATION or, quid pro quo, UNCONTROLLABLE ROBOTS.”
“What kind of problem we looking at there, doctor?” asked General Goreblit, lighting a cigar. “Give me the worst-case scenario.”
“Oh, they’ll eat power plants or something. Or build more of themselves, Carthago delenda est, perchance to uhn, ahem, RULE THE WORLD.”
“By god, I won’t let that happen,” said Tom Johnson. “Count on me, doc. Give me the straight-shooting solution to that sort of mess.”
“If it’s robots, uh, ahem, asking them to solve for uh…love will do it, the lorem ipsum effect. If it’s mutants, it gets uhhh…trickier. Lots of guns or something.”
“What if you’re WRONG, doc?” asked Tom Jonnson, planting his knuckles firmly on the table and leaning over the doctor like a testosterone-flush mountain over an emasculated anthill. “What if this monster isn’t from earth at all….but from SPACE? I flew jets once. I know about space. It could be an alien, the worst kind of stranger, which is the worst thing of all! And I know those suckers REALLY love kidnapping our woman.”
“Who is this ‘our’ here?” asked the woman. “And did anyone just hear that?”
“It is scientifically impossible for extraterrestrial organisms to be the source of this problem,” said Doctor Wirms. “The Fermi Paradox prohibits it! No sophisticated alien would visit as anything more than a robot probe, due to Asimov’s Three Laws. Although uh, I guess it could be an uhm, unsophisticated organisms, such as err…. A large, ravenous goop, constantly consuming all matter.”
“It sounded like a knock,” said the woman.
“Disgusting,” said General Goreblit, lighting a cigar. He lit a cigar and squinted through the massive haze of smoke in front of him. “Well men, I won’t lie to you. This monster has to be stopped here and now, or it means nothing less than the extinction of the human race and by that I mean a few cities in this country, which is much more important. Good luck, godspeed, and give ‘em hell.” He lit a cigar, shook both their hands, and lit a cigar. “Honey, get the door, will you?”
The woman sighed, got up, dodged a pinch, and opened the door to the bunker.
“Hi. Who is it.”
“The monster.”
The monster was a smiling, sober gentleman in a tidy and respectable suit, the kind you’d find on a really earnest – but not overeager – middle manager, or a thoughtful executive who’d earned his keep through hard work and loyalty. His hair was parted perfectly. His eyes were filled with kind wisdom. He was the size of a five story building and his shoes were well-cared-for.
“Now,” he said warmly, “why don’t we all just have a little sit-down and talk about all this? Man-to-man.”
“Right then,” said the woman. “I’ll just…. go.”
“That’s right, doll, just siddown somewhere,” said Tom Johnson, elbowing her to one side. “Sir! Captain Tom Johnson, ex-pilot, but just call me Tom. What can we do for you this fine day, sir?”
“Ah, a no-nonsense sort of man,” said the monster. “My favourite kind. You know, I was in the army when I was younger. Gave ‘em hell. But that was a simpler time, eh?”
“Over here,” said the woman, edging around the corner of the bunker.
“General Goreblit,” said General Goreblit, giving the monster a firm and honest shake with his right hand and lighting a cigar with his left. “Call me Harold. What can we do for you today, citizen?”
“Oh, nothing much,” said the monster. “This is just a social call. Well, maybe a bit of business, but that’s nothing personal. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. You know, you remind me a lot of my brother. A good man, he was. He got shot down in ’41. His radio was dead.”
“For a while,” called the woman, as she turned the keys to the jeep.
“In point of fact,” said the monster, “there’s one very important thing that needs to be done around here. I’d like to step on your whole town, starting with you. It seems harsh, but I think you’ll agree it’s fair and practical. Let’s not get fuzzy-headed about this, we all knew what we were getting into when this business started. Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work.”
“Logically speaking, you make perfect sense!” beamed Doctor Wirms, adjusting his comically enormous bowtie. “Oh my goodness, I haven’t been so excited since…err…Los Alamos! Gee whiz!”
The woman honked the horn once as she went ‘round a curve in the road, and was gone.
“Fantastic,” said the monster. He gave them a fatherly smile as he raised his enormous shoe. “Now, just remember, this is going to hurt me a lot more than you.”