Afraid of what she would find, Zava swiveled her torso to look behind her, the machines menacingly tracking her every move. The sun had now dispersed the mist enough. She was in some kind of sandy surface covered with incredibly fine moss (or was it grass?), that she could feel on her fingers as she propped herself on the ground with her hands.

As she finished turning, Zava’s jaw dropped. There was what seemed like a miniature lighthouse, built from red clay bricks, about 12 feet high, at about 30 feet from her. But what astounded Zava was that below the lighthouse, and to its sides, there were hundreds of people. Little people, screaming and pointing at her. Strange, tiny flashes of light flickered among them, periodically. Many were holding over their head small square devices, pointing in her direction... some kind of cameras, as well?

The multitude was held back by a military barricade, manned by also dozens of miniature men in black riot gear. Beyond the barricade, and closer to her, but still at a distance, there were some military tents, including one rather large, near which there was a flag atop a pole, with red and white stripes, flapping in the wind. There were also some military vehicles, heavily armed and ready, surrounded by many soldiers in green fatigues. Most vehicles were facing her, as were what was obviously weapons on top of them, pointing in her general direction.

When she faced the soldiers and the men, she could see, amazed, how the multitude of people recoiled from the barrier, with panicked screams, and the soldiers closer to her (about 20 feet away), also started to retreat, warily. Even at this distance, she could see fear and astonishment in all these little men’s and women’s faces. They are deathly afraid of ME.

Zava’s jaw dropped even more as suddenly, what seemed like an oversized black and red bumblebee appeared flying from the direction of the multitude and whizzed past her head, buzzing noisily. Zava yelped and swatted at it, but it was too fast and effortlessly evaded her. As she moved her arm to swat at the bug, the sentinel machines gave an alarming howl, obviously disapproving of her flailing arm, so she stayed as still as she could, lowering her arm to her leg.

The strange bug kept flying around her, first at a little above head height, and then lowering to chest and then abdomen height, circling and circling slowly around. Then it flew up a little, to hover close to her face, but out of arm’s reach. She then could realize, stunned, that it was also a kind of machine, with what looked like a camera on board, scrutinizing her.

She continued to look at her surroundings.  In front of her the ground sloped downwards towards a cliff, before which there were some wooden fences, beyond which the sea could be seen. To her right and left, about 30 feet away, there were low dwarfed trees surrounding the grassy place where she was sitting. Behind her, the lighthouse. This whole situation seems so unreal… how did I possibly end up here… and where is Mark? The flying camera suddenly sped away whence it came.

She cautiously turned on her ass to face the tents and the lighthouse, as any answers were likely to come from there. She hugged her knees, still shivering, and not only from the cold. She did not have to wait long. When she faced the lighthouse, there was a kind of turmoil near the big tent, and soon two little figures came out of it, and started walking resolutely her way, with an armed escort of over twenty soldiers around them, heavily armed with what seemed to be portable cannons and large machine guns. They crossed a low stone wall that surrounded the lighthouse and stopped about ten feet from her.

Zava could now see that the two officers were a woman and a man. The woman gave the older man, probably the commander, what seemed to be a kind of loudspeaker. Tense with anticipation, she braced for what was coming. The commander faced her with the loudspeaker.

“This is colonel McAllister from the United States Air Force, Quonset Point Naval Air Station. Please identify yourself”. The little man said.

****

A little before this scene played out, colonel McAllister was lying in his private tent’s cot, replaying in his head the events of the last 24 hours, probably the most eerie and confusing hours of his whole life, when this mess landed in his lap. He was in charge of a situation that had already swept like a wildfire on all news agencies, channels and the internet, as it was bound to happen with an unprecedented event in the history of mankind. This had the potential to become a world-class clusterfuck.

He had been shuffling some paperwork in his office at Quonset base last evening when he received a distraught call from the Governor of Massachusetts himself, telling him Aquinnah police department had a situation that required immediate military presence, but refused to elaborate. McAllister immediately gave orders for three VTOL airships with fifty troops and three armed helicopters to be prepared and manned and he himself went on one to Martha’s Vineyard. As they crossed buzzards ‘bay, he saw several ferries packed with people heading for the island, obviously going to see the same thing he was heading towards.

He expected to see a foreign vessel or airship stranded there, probably a military one judging by the urgency in the Governor’s voice. Nothing could have prepared him from what he saw in the darkening twilight, as they did a flyby on Gay Head lighthouse, their destination. No wonder the governor refused to tell him anything. Everybody on the ship was speechless.

What looked like a giant woman was lying in the grassland in front of the lighthouse, near the cliffs. She was lying on her back, dressed in black tight shorts and a blue crop top that left her midriff bare. She was barefoot and seemed to be unconscious or asleep. Was this some kind of elaborate prank? They descended to the east of the lighthouse and he was promptly approached by an agitated police captain Joan LeLacheur.

She promptly assured him that it was no prank. After a sudden thunderstorm that seemed to come out of nowhere at about 2 PM had abated, the lighthouse keeper heard some strange bellowing sounds outside, so he came out and found a giant woman lying sprawled near the lighthouse. She was moaning in pain… seemingly unconscious. He immediately called the police, who soon realized they had no way of restraining the woman if she awakened, so they requested military presence.

 She was no hologram or dummy. It was a human, although of gigantic proportions, and she was alive, as confirmed by her breathing noises and a LeLacheur herself, who had touched her wrist, feeling a strong pulse. They had to act quickly before the media got wind of the situation and gawkers started pouring in, said LeLacheur. McAllister agreed. He immediately requested additional support in the shape of more troops and three sentinel walking drones armed with armor-piercing shells, and a carbon nanotube 3D-printer to build the shackles needed to restrain the giantess. LeLacheur, in the meantime established a perimeter with a riot control squad. His troops were already establishing a camp.

McAllister hoped they could have everything in place before the titanic being woke up, surely scared and liable to cause a lot of damage, if unchecked. Where did she come from? Was she perhaps the victim of a twisted experiment? And how did she get here, all the way to the island, without anybody noticing? A few troops did some reconnaissance at the base of the cliffs near the sea, beyond the lighthouse, but no giant footprints had been seen.

No tracks also in the grass near the lighthouse. and judging by the deep furrows the thrashing of the unconscious giant left in the earth each time she moved, it was obvious that more tracks should be everywhere. Did she fall from the sky? He also called for a Homeland Security team to establish the identity of the woman and provide possible medical support. When they arrived from Boston, it was over six hours after the woman had been found. Some troops helped the bewildered medical team to set up a portable lab and warily approached the colossal girl to draw blood and try to get fingerprints, as a drone equipped with a 3D scanner performed a capture of the girl’s features and body for analysis. The general accompanied them. As they worked hastily near her giant right hand (the left was lying on her belly, and nobody was going to climb her body to get there), he also took the opportunity to touch the giant fingers. They were thick-skinned, but unmistakably alive, warm, and human, with fingerprints and all. He could even smell her perfume and her sweat...

As they returned to camp, LeLacheur informed him that the first people had been starting to arrive to the checkpoints and crowd control barricades, as were some news crews with drones and photographers. It was now too dark for them to see everything, but he expected that in a few hours, after dawn, it would become a veritable circus, no doubt being broadcasted worldwide. Soon, he was notified that the 3D printer had arrived.

McAllister went to the medical team’s tent. Dr. Poole, a young woman in a blue labcoat was leaning over an analysis console, frowning at the screen; her assistants were scurrying around the improvised lab. McAllister was now also thinking of the logistical nightmare of feeding the giant when it woke up, not to mention taking care of the resulting excreta, and how to give the woman some privacy and shelter. He already had been informed by his second in command, major Restrepo, that there were no vehicles capable of hauling the woman by air or by the narrow roads in the island. She would have to walk on her own to the port or to the beach, to be carried elsewhere… how are we going to transport her, and where the hell are we going to take her?

“Dr. Poole, what can you tell me of this woman” Said McAllister, wearily,

“Well, colonel. I’m afraid there is more that I cannot tell you. Her face or fingerprints do not match any federal database, nor any international one I have access to, and given the fact this could be a national crisis, I have been given clearance to CIA’s databases as well. We ran DNA queries and had zero matches in parentage or first-level ID whatsoever”.

“What about ethnicity” queried the colonel. “She seems to be a Latina or perhaps middle-eastern”

“No, colonel, as a matter of fact the DNA results were so out of whack that I ran them several times, to no avail”

“What do you mean? Is she some kind of genetic construct or something?”.

“I do not think any government or private research facility exists with the tech to come up with something like this, and even less considering my other findings… the results are not only inconsistent, but unreal”

“Please elaborate, we do not have much time”

“Colonel, DNA on Earth ALWAYS coils right handed. But this woman’s DNA coils LEFT. Because of that, our tests yield no results at all, as they depend on the geometry of the molecule to react with the enzymes we use to do the gene separation and mapping. At first, I thought she might be some kind of synthetic android, but on a hunch I ran some spectrographs and I discovered that the chirality, that is, the side of the molecules coil themselves on, is merely reversed on the DNA of this being. More tests have yielded similar results for some of the tissue samplings we took. Many, but not all of the amino acids and proteins from her body are reversed”

“Reversed as compared to what” Said the colonel, already guessing and fearing the answer. Looking him in the eye, doctor Poole said, ominously.

“Reversed, as compared with similar compounds on EVERY living being on Earth. This being, resembling a human woman, is alive, but NOT human as us, although probably a sentient person. There is a very strong, almost certain possibility this being is NOT of this Earth; its chirality, that is, the orientation of the organic molecules that make up it… her being are reversed, although not entirely, only some of them”

“Are you sure this could not be a construct?” said a dismayed McAllister

“Making a being of this scale and complexity from the ground up, even building individual left-handed molecules of DNA AND right-handed proteins, the reverse of all known life on Earth, would make it impossible. Hell, even now, in 2035, there is NO way anyone could build something like this with the correct chirality, not to mention the size”.

“By occam’s razor, I take it is more likely that she came here on a spaceship from another world?”

“Or another dimension, for all we know. It almost certainly, I mean she almost certainly did not originate on this planet. It has certain disquieting implications, as well”.

“What could be more disquieting that having an alien in our midst… could more be coming?” Mcallister shuddered at the thought of facing a squad of armed troops and weapons of the woman’s scale. He had touched the giant girl’s clothes. They were some kind of spandex, obviously the product of an advanced industrial society, not made by a bunch of giant, barbarian cavewomen and men. If they came at them with armed aircraft and bombs, they would be crushed. However, given the gender and dress of the woman, she seemed to be a civilian… it would be better to keep her in good condition should her fellow aliens come looking for her.

“No idea” continued Dr. Poole. “But we do not know if we can communicate with her… what language could she speak that we could understand? And with all that altered biochemistry, can she eat the food we give her?” Mcallister paled at the thought of having to deal with a giant woman vomiting her guts out, and or with diarrhea… or dying from food poisoning in front of the world’s media.

“She could be carrying some pathogens, and we have no way of knowing if they will be more or less virulent to Earth’s population given their different organic make up. If that is the case, the damage is already done…” Ended Dr. Poole grimly. Clusterfuck indeed. “But I do not think so, she seems to be healthy and it is more likely genetic incompatibility make any pathogens she may be carrying harmless to us, and vice-versa.  A team of experts from CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) is already heading this way from Atlanta… and other thing I have just thought of: there is no safe way to tranquilize her; Anything of that entering her bloodstream could kill potentially kill her or have any number of unpredictable and harmful side effects. Also, a human of her proportions cannot have evolved on Earth, she is too heavy… but too slim. If she remains here much longer, bone and heart problems are sure to develop”.

“Dr. Poole. I do not have to tell you that the possibility that the woman is an alien should NOT be communicated to anyone outside this tent” Poole assented.

“Of course. But, colonel,  there are some public health concerns we musts see to. We’ll have to insert a catheter inside her to collect her urine (can’t have her pissing all over this limited space) and please have a team ready of your troops to collect and carry away any other resulting excreta, whether she wakes up or not”. McAllister winced as he thought of the task of undressing the giant and sticking a hose into her privates… or making his troops shovel a truck filled with giant human feces… not to mention having to suffer (and keep the spectators from seeing) the procedure of said excreta coming out… and the resulting cleaning of the giant’s body… this was going to be interesting, to say the least.

McAllister thanked Dr. Poole and left to oversee the operation to restrain the… alien, and find some hose to make the cathether, get a fire truck to wash the giantess’ body and get a truck and shovels to carry away the shit. He approached major Restrepo and gave the necessary orders.

Major Restrepo, a Latino woman of strong complexion, took notes and then faced the colonel.

“Colonel. We have finished analyzing the 3D scan taken by the drone and biometrics are calculated. The gravitonics carbon shackles will be printed in 10 minutes. The woman is approximately 24.3 meter high, and weighs over 140 tons. We have no vehicle or vessel capable of supporting such weight…. Airlifting her is out of the question, too. If she does not wake up, we’ll have to build a giant tarp around her…. if she wakes up, we’ll have to… convince her to walk on her own to the beach below so we can carry her off…. In any case, the sentinel drones are already in place and configured”. McAllister did not tell Restrepo the woman was likely an alien, of course. “We also estimate we’ll need at least 3 tons of food and 6000 gallons of water ready to keep her fed each day if she wakes up… or 12000 gallons of drip feed if she does not wake up, each day”

“I want you to print handcuffs as well. There is no telling how strong she is, and I do not want her grabbing anyone to keep him or her as a hostage…” Or kill them, he thought grimly.

“How are going to put those on her? That would require cranes as it is” said Restrepo.

“If she does not wake up, they won’t be needed. If she wakes up, we’ll have to persuade her to put those on herself. In any case, I do not want ANYONE within 20 meters of her”. He ordered. “Any chance she has any weapons on herself?”

“We have not searched her, of course, but her clothes are just too tight for any obvious weapon to be concealed. The scan detected nothing metallic on her… person. If she has anything on, it could be at her back, under her, and it would have to be ceramic or carbon”.

Ten minutes later, a team of 10 very scared soldiers had put on the shackles on each of her feet. A construction truck was tied to one of her ankles and used to get her ankles together, and then the shackles were joined together. Then they all retreated, relieved, to a safe distance. She did not stir during the procedure. The possibility she was in a coma and NEVER woke up was high, as was the possibility that she woke up disturbed, scared and violent. Or weepy and terrified…  how would he make her understand, if she did not speak any Earth language, that he had orders (the President, no less had called him as the shackles were being put in place) to use deadly force with the drones if she tried to run into the crowd. The President was NOT happy when McAllister informed him of the disquieting findings of Dr. Poole and her Homeland Security staff. In any case, orders had been given to keep the woman safe, clean and fed; preparations were already in place for that. There still was the possibility she was an American, somehow.

McAllister had fallen asleep while musing on this, when Restrepo came into the tent, wide eyed, to shake him awake.

“Colonel, we have some activity”. He hastily donned his helmet and stepped out to a camp lit by dawn.

“She has just spoken English, colonel” said Restrepo, excited.

“What did she say?”

“She woke up, sat up and noticed the Sentinels. Then she started calling for a Mark. She actually screamed his name, it’s a wonder you slept through that”. Said a breathless Restrepo. “The crowd is in a panic”.

“Get me the loudspeaker. We need to talk to her before she gets more agitated”.

A few minutes later, McAllister, with some escort, approached the giant girl. She was sitting, huddled and hugging her knees. Trembling with fear, cold or both. The look on her very, very young and comely face was one of perplexity. She clearly was as amazed of them as they were of her.

Now in daylight, McAllister could see that she was a young woman probably just out of her teens, slender and athletic, and bronze-skinned; she could be the age of his daughter. Her hair was straight but tangled, with dark, intelligent eyes that looked at them steadily from over 10 meters above the ground. She was massive. He was not psychologically prepared to face a being of her scale, probably larger and heavier that any whale. He had no doubt that if the gravitonics shackles and the drones weren’t around, she could wipe the floor probably with all his troops by just kicking and stomping them before she could be brought down. Steeling himself, he took the loudspeaker from Restrepo and said:

“This is colonel McAllister from the United States Air Force, Quonset Point Naval Air Station. Please identify yourself”.

For a heart stopping instant, the woman seemed to look at them, uncomprehending. As McAllister, dismayed, prepared to repeat himself, she spoke, with a womanly but booming voice two octaves too low.

“I’m Zava Casafus… where am I”.

“This is the town of Aquinnah, in the island of Martha’s Vineyard, on the state of Massachusetts. You are in territory of the United States of America”. Said McAllister, legs trembling. “Please state your provenance and purpose”.

“I… don’t know… I mean, I come from the state of Bitagweh, city of Hewtwango…. But I suppose these places would not mean anything to you” she said, dejected.

The woman spoke clear, unbroken English, if strangely accented with a singsong tone, and a strong, un-American and un-British weird emphasis in her T’s and R’s.

“How did you come here”

“I have no idea. The last I remember I was on a hike with my… husband, and we took refuge in a cave. There was a thunderstorm, and I got suddenly dizzy…it seems I passed out and hit my head against the ground” Zava Said. “his name is Mark Wilson… is he with you… please let me see him”

The possibility of having not ONE, but TWO giants around briefly troubled the colonel, but just as quickly he realized that although he had never heard the name Zava nor the last name she mentioned, Mark Wilson could be an American name.

“Is Mark an American?” said McAllister.

“Oh yes! He is from Los Angeles… please tell me is he is safe”

The fact that this woman was married to someone from LA just gave the whole matter a very unexpected twist, thought McAllister. Had she somehow become enlarged and her molecules twisted by a freak dimensional accident, as going through a mirror?

“What country are you from?” Asked McAllister.

“I told you, I’m from Bitagweh”. Said Zava. Her look of fear was now gone, replaced by a determined look. McAllister looked at Restrepo, who shrugged her shoulders and produced her smartphone, ready to google it.

“Could you spell that, please”, said Mcallister.

“It would be useless… it is not on this world, I know”.  McAllister, with an inner groan, could hear the collective gasp of the crowd and soldiers behind him, as she herself confirmed she was an Alien in front of everyone. Given her accent, not to mention her impossible size, it was impossible to doubt it.

“So you’re not an American, not even an Earthling, but are married to one… how?”

“He crashed on my world some years back, on a ship called the Spindrift. But I understand they should be back now, as the ship was eventually fixed and left”. Zava explained. “ He remained in my world and we live together”.

The name Spindrift was familiar to McAllister, who turned to Restrepo. Restrepo said:

“Yes, the Spindrift was a ship that was lost about five years ago in a suborbital L.A.-London flight. They came back roughly a year ago, pretty ragged, thin and only four of the original seven. There was no talk of aliens, much less giant ones. The tale was that it had somehow gone through an unknown relativistic singularity and some passengers and crew was lost to unknown phenomena. It was all over the tubes when they returned”.

“Excuse me” boomed the giant Zava, interrupting a conversation she obviously could not hear. “Please tell me if Mark is safe”

“We have no idea if he is here. No one with that name has come forward”. The giant face visibly paled. As the woman seemed to be cooperative, McAllister decided to push it.

“Miss... Zava. We have been given orders to keep you fed and safe. But we have also been given orders to keep you restrained. This is standard procedure. I will have to ask you to cooperate and let us handcuff you to your back. Your feet will remain shackled, as well, but if you cooperate with this and give me your word you’ll comply with our instructions and not attempt to escape, grab or otherwise harm anyone, the foot shackles will separate, allowing you more mobility”.

“I will not resist you”. Said Zava dolefully, looking at the ground. McAllister could see, with a stab to his heart, the tears started flowing out of her eyes and running down her lovely face. He turned to Restrepo:

"Get me Homeland Security. We need to find and question these people from the Spindrift. They have a lot of explaining to do".