After a much-needed bath, and as he dressed himself Mark looked at the time on his cell phone. 9AM. The day before, Zava and Mark had been notified by email that at 9:30 both were expected to attend near the stage where Zava’s panels had taken place. No hint was given, however, of the reason for the meeting. Mark had been informed by Kahanoff, the astrophysicist, of the reason, and after that he himself had some good news to give to Zava, who was now understandably chafing under the long confinement and the long days of paperwork and questioning. He looked at Zava, who was already dressed and putting some makeup on, aided with the projection on the wall of her face, zoomed in to even more gigantic proportions than usual to help her give precise touches to her makeup. The news will have to wait until after the last panel, though, thought Mark.

After Chilton had been expelled from the Committee, things had been relatively smooth for Zava, and there were really no big issues. Mark and Zava were now confident they would be let go into a less restrictive life in California. In fact, Mark had been assured by Kahanoff that would happen today, which is why he had made other preparations, which were part of the surprises he had for Zava. Support for her in the media had soared after Chilton’s blunders.

The man had become a laughing stock to the media and social networks alike, his presidential campaign collapsing completely as everyone but the most strident donors, withdrew their support and endorsement, in all respects and purposes killing his political ambitions, for good. He refused to resign from his congress post, however, and he was wise enough to keep a low profile after his public embarrassment. Mark hoped it stayed that way.

So, it was that at 9:25, Zava and Mark were already in front of the stage. Zava was sitting cross-legged, with Mark sitting atop her left knee. She was wearing a loose, long, light yellow gown and had her hair in a braid, which now hung on her right shoulder.

Patel, the Secretary of State, soon climbed on the stage, trailed by Kahanoff, and a plethora of aides; Dr. Poole and McAllister were there, too. The long table used in the panels was now gone and a lectern with a slim microphone was in place, and a few chairs were on the back. The camera crews and drones were around, too. Unlike before, stairs had been fitted to the front of the stage, allowing access from there, instead of from the back, as when the quarantine was in place.

At 9:30 sharp, Patel climbed onto the lectern and started speaking.

“Hello, fellow Americans, and people of Earth. On behalf of the people of the United States of America, I would like to thank Mr. Mark Wilson and Ms. Zava Casafus-Djacome for their patience and cooperation during the long days of the panel sessions from the ‘First Contact Advisory Committee’…”

As politicians are wont to do, Patel kept droning on, Zava barely keeping from letting a loud sigh of anticipated boredom, trying to keep a politely interested expression on her face, aware that many cameras were focused on her reactions. This time, she had black, tight shorts under her skirt, to avoid flashing anyone, in case she was asked to stand or walk around. There was a cold breeze. Zava, as usual, warmed her hands by rubbing them on her wrist shackles, which got noticeably warmer every time she moved her arms. When she wanted them to be even warmer, wriggling her hands did the trick, as she now tried to do unobtrusively to combat the cold in her hands. Today the shackles got warmer a little faster than usual, and soon she stilled her hands before the restraints became uncomfortable. As Patel’s speech continued, Zava got the sensation, however, that they kept getting warmer despite her hands being still…

***

On the back of the stage, McAllister, eyes glazed, was thinking of lunch as Secretary Patel was finishing her long-winded speech (he had seen the drafts when they were trying the teleprompter, so he knew it was approaching the climax and was looking forward to it), when Major Restrepo nudged him and whispered.

“Sir, can we speak in private, please? Now…?”

McAllister turned to look at his assistant, and his slight annoyance turned to worry as he saw the usually unflappable woman pale and wide eyed. Knowing this had to be grave, he motioned her with a nod to follow him and walked down the back stairs of the stage, trying to be inconspicuous. Nobody payed them any attention. As soon as they were far from any sound technician or aide, McAllister said:

“What’s the matter, major?” Restrepo had been clutching her tablet, knuckles white, taking frequent glances at it as they walked off the stage.

“Sir… in the last few minutes, we have intercepted and blocked several wireless attempts to commandeer the walking drones, so I completely shut them down to avoid any chances of that happening”.

McAllister gasped. Two of the tough armored and armed bipedal robots were now (and had been for the entire month of the panel sessions) near the stage, covered but ready to unleash a veritable firestorm of armor-piercing, depleted .50 uranium slugs onto the body of the giantess should she attack, something that now, after getting to know Zava better, seemed utterly ridiculous, but security protocols were strict. If someone was able to control them and fire upon Zava and the personalities on the stage, it would be an unfathomable disaster…

“Who could be doing this?” he muttered.

“I’m afraid it would have to be a member of the American military, that is, us, Sir. The only reason they could not take full control is that we had them in stand-by and not full at the ready because we know they can cause interference with sound equipment when on, and therefore were slow to start from the remote command, giving me time to react and cut the remote access off. Now we would have to go near them and manually switch them on. However, we have not been able to trace the signal, as it was broadcast from space. The activation protocol and signals, however, were unmistakably American. If any foreign government had hold of this, we would be completely helpless to defend ourselves. It is most likely an inside job”.

McAllister shuddered. This was of course a disturbing development. The only reason to commandeer such deadly weapons would be to mow down Zava,  as shooting puny humans with the unwieldy robots and tank-killing ammo would be overkill. He had a grim suspicion of who could have the connections (and motive) to pull off something as this, feeling sick to his stomach that anyone could be so vindictively petty, so murderous and at the same time powerful enough to engage in such acts, obviously pretty sure that they could be performed with perfect impunity on innocents, and Zava, an extra-terrestrial, was utterly innocent of the intrigues of spiteful, narrow-minded humans. He was dimly aware of Patel’s speech continuing in the background, as his brain leapt to a disquieting thought.

“Check the stats on the carbon restraints”, he said. Restrepo did so, and paled even more.

“Inner temperature is slowly but steadily rising, colonel”. Looking up in despair at McAllister, Restrepo added: “I cannot shut them down… we have been shut off… since yesterday’s evening, according to the access logs… they could go off any second, the four of them!”

***

“… and that is why I am honored to be here to declare that Zava Casafus-Djacome, of the planet Lur, has successfully and uneventfully completed the required 30 days of Quarantine, and is now free to go home with her fiancée. Also, as the first friendly extra-terrestrial sentient being to come to Earth and the United states in peace, I am pleased to announce that she has been granted an eb-1 visa, which allows her to petition for permanent residency if she wishes to remain in this country, where she is in any case, most welcome. Zava, congratulations!”, ended Patel’s speech.

Zava, concentrating on keeping her stage face on, was distracted (also thinking of lunch, like McAllister) and almost missed the last part of the speech, but she came together and gasped as she caught on the good news. The twenty or so people in the stage got to their feet and clapped and cheered, loudly. Patel was handed by an aide a meter-wide copy of an EB-1 visa which she took and then she climbed down the stairs with it, approaching Zava. When she was about ten meters from her, she paused, and Zava, taking the hint, smiled and extended her left hand and took the card, extending her right pinkie so an also smiling and clearly pleased Patel could mimic a handshake with it. Patel’s hand, unlike Mark’s, was so thin and delicate as to be almost insubstantial.

“Thank you! I…”  But she did not finish, as she saw McAllister approach almost at a run and give her a doleful look as he shouted into the loudspeaker he was holding:

“Red Gulliver!!!”

***

All hell broke loose. Mark saw Patel’s bodyguards appearing seemingly from nowhere. They bodily lifted the bewildered Secretary off her feet and carried her away from Zava, running. The people on the stage scrambled off the back stairs. Even the perimeter soldiers took off at full pelt, looking for cover. To his credit, McAllister stood his ground.

“What’s going on?” said Mark. Zava was speechless with bewilderment. She had no clue what was taking place.

“I’m sorry, Wilson” Said McAllister, muttering into his loudspeaker. “The carbon restraints on Zava have been remotely hacked and can explode at any second. I’m going to have to ask you to step away from her and come with me while we try to deactivate them manually”.

“Hacked? What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain later. Zava, please let Mark get to a safe place while we sort this out”.

A grim-looking, tight-lipped Zava, without giving time for Mark to protest, quickly grabbed him off her knee and put him next to McAllister, and then, just as fast, stood up and stepped away, looking around to find a place where she could hunker so the possible explosion did not harm anyone but her.

“Zava, no!!!!” Said Mark, trying to shake McAllister off. The colonel, aided by two burly airmen, was trying to drag him away, but Mark was too strong to be easily subdued. McAllister knew there was no way to manually deactivate the bracelets, despite what he said. If they could not regain remote control soon, and it was very unlikely they could do it in time, they would go off.

Zava managed to get about 100 meters away in a few long steps in a space between hangars, when she felt the bracelets and ankle manacles get almost unbearably hot, and they started emitting a high keening sound. She crouched down, her back to Mark, and she crossed her arms over her chest, to keep the force of the explosion away from him, shielding it with her body. Turning her head to Mark, tears streaming down her cheeks, ruining her carefully applied makeup, she managed to say…

“Mark!”

I love you!

… Before a blinding flash made everyone close their eyes. An earsplitting explosion was heard, followed with an equally deafening scream of anguish from the giantess. The shockwave swept McAllister, Restrepo, the airmen, Mark and everyone close off their feet.

Mark, ears ringing, was the first to be on his feet afterwards; he felt as if he was kicked in the chest by a horse: his ribs hurt. The bottom fell out of his stomach as he saw Zava sprawled, motionless, on the tarmac, covered in flames all over. Her body, plastered in what obviously was napalm or something similar, was ablaze with three-feet high rolling flames in some places. Black Smoke covered most of her lying figure, and he could not see her head or face, and he was not sure he wanted to… a feeling of hideous, nightmarish unreality swept over Mark as he shambled, more than jogged, near the remains of his fiancée. The tarmac was cracked in places and the asphalt was running like black butter under her because of the terrific heat. He was oblivious to the sounds of the airport firefighting trucks approaching.

The heat was so great, that he could not get any closer than 15 meters to her body, black smoke billowing and covering what was left of her, the rest that he could see was covered by the bright, unrelenting flames. He fell to his knees… he caught sight of part of one of her sandals near him, ripped by the explosion. It did not even get to catch flame.

“It can’t end like this… it can’t…” he mumbled, unable to sob, unable to weep from utter shock. The first fire truck, a gigantic red truck, dwarfed, however by Zava’s motionless, flaming and smoking bulk, arrived with screaming tires and immediately started spraying foam and water all over. Soon five more engines, just as large, were at work, rapidly dousing the blaze.

McAllister approached. “I’m so, so sorry Mark…” he managed to say. Mark turned to him, and, astonished, saw the hardened official weeping openly as he looked dejectedly at Zava’s remains. “I failed to prevent this, but…. All I can do is swear to you that I will not rest until the person... s responsible for this atrocity are brought to justice”. Mark saw Kahanoff approaching as well, and others behind him, but he was past caring.

Mark did not answer. He was mortally tired, tired of life itself, tired of the world, tired of humankind. McAllister, however, had said the only thing that could motivate him to keep living. The colonel was right. This evil could not be left unpunished. And he had a pretty good idea of who was responsible… even if he could not prove it, Chilton was going to pay… dearly, but not with his life: there were worse things than death, like the empty remaining lifetime ahead of him without Zava, made even more horrible by the memory of her ghastly, totally undeserved demise. He was vaguely aware that the camera crews had also approached to film the scene, including him. The fire trucks were almost finished… the smoke was drifting off.

Mark did not want to see the charred remains of his beloved, but it felt wrong, cowardly, even, to just walk away without seeing what was left of her. He now started to seethe with the thirst for justice or vengeance, whichever came first… as he steeled himself to take a last look at what remained of her surely ravaged face… he stood up…. he thought she saw her blackened, looming form twitch and…

“Mark?” Zava’s sweet, melodious voice boomed, freezing everyone in place. “Are you OK?”.