Prologue
“A stripper? A fucking stripper?” President Carlson said as his eyes scanned the members or the cabinet and the federal agency representatives that had made it into the Air Force One in time.
No one replied.
“The country is being terrorized by a fucking stripper?” he asked again
In the back, someone said:
“A very big stripper”
The senior CIA representative in the Air Force One moved on with his report:
“Kelly Hanson, born 25 years ago in Henford. Good marks in High School, decent SAT results. She completed her first year in College with average to high marks. When she moved back to Henford for the summer break, after that first year, she was involved in the Henford Incident” he said
It was surprising how little attention the current administration had paid to the events in Henford. It was probably related to the fact that, since there were very few images available, the incident had not had that much publicity on TV. It had definitely made the news during the first couple of years, and they had done a pretty decent job of making Lisa Cooper a star and Casey Morgan a villain, but as time had gone by, the public had lost its interest. Director Brown could not understand how this could have happened. In the end, they were talking about three girls growing over a hundred feet tall! But it had happened. And while the previous administration had been willing to throw boatloads of money into the research being done at the FSD and had expected results and a rigorous follow-up on progress, the new President and his team couldn’t have cared less.
Director Brown had not been too concerned while money had kept flowing. Economy had been reasonably good, so it had not been hard to keep the funds more or less hidden. In the end, the FSD was a joint operation from the CIA and the Joint Chiefs, and the CIA knew how to hide money. But now that the country was facing the threat of giant women again, and a much bigger threat, as a matter of fact, Director Brown felt contempt for the President and his team growing inside him.
He had the patience to summarize the events of Henford for the President and his staff again. He was too good for any of them to realize how much disdain her felt at their reactions.
“Six years ago, three 19-year-old girls grew to a height of around a hundred feet after ingesting a formula created by a young scientist named Ron Howard. Ron Howard has been either cooperating with or working for the FSD ever since and has proven to be a brilliant researcher. Despite his multiple contributions, it has not been possible to replicate the results of his formula since then, though” he said.
Director Brown went on: “The three girls that grew, back in Henford, were Lisa Cooper, Kelly Hanson and Casey Morgan. During the first two days, the three girls hid in an abandoned factory in the outskirts of town. They retained a number of people with them, to prevent them from spreading the news of their growth. Miss Morgan was especially aggressive in enforcing that and started abusing her ‘guests’ shortly after her growth. This caused some tensions between the three girls, who had formerly been friends. The events led to Miss Morgan abandoning the factory and getting into Henford, where she used her size to cause significant destruction as she abused the town’s population. She killed four people as a result of her actions, including Henford’s sheriff. Miss Hanson and Miss Cooper finally intervened and managed to restrain Miss Morgan. In the meantime, Ron Howard developed a reducer. Miss Cooper and Miss Hanson forced Miss Morgan to take the reducer and then took it themselves. It needs to be remarked that Miss Cooper was significantly more decisive in restraining Miss Morgan than Miss Hanson. Apart from enrolling Mr. Howard in the newly formed FSD, we worked on promoting Miss Cooper’s public image and on turning Miss Morgan into a public enemy. We did not consider Miss Hanson would be useful for our communication efforts, at the time. At one point it was decided to release the women from any obligations with the FSD and just monitor them. Of course, we made sure that Miss Morgan would be judged and severely sentenced for her crimes while she was a hundred feet tall”
No one interrupted him. He just went on:
“Due to the lack of results, the FSD monitoring of the three women became lax over the last two years. A glitch in the results of a regular test to Miss Cooper triggered an alert and, after a change in management, it was decided to increase the monitoring once more. This required enrolling Miss Hanson back in the program. She was tested and a similar glitch was found in her results as well as in Miss Morgan’s”
Then, he went on with the explanation.
“This morning, an FSD executive with enough authority considered that, given the test results, Miss Hanson and Miss Morgan had become too big of a threat and made the decision to eliminate them. For reasons still unknown, this attempt made the two women grow to a height of about two hundred and fifty feet. During most of the morning, both women were at large in Hollner. Miss Hanson’s attitude was significantly more aggressive than during the time she had been big in Henford; she caused some trouble. Miss Morgan grew in Black Rock federal prison and preliminary reports indicate that she caused a massive amount of destruction. When Miss Morgan got to Hollner, the consequences of her presence were much worse than Miss Hanson’s. She is reported to have caused hundreds of deaths” he went on. The President, as well as many members of his cabinet, were paying a lot of attention to him. It was easy to see that much of the information was new for them.
“I cannot believe that I need to explain to him what happened in his country over the last few hours” Director Brown thought. He went on with the explanation.
“A sizeable army force was sent to stop them. The women were not harmed by any weapons; they destroyed the army forces instead” he said
“In an attempt to find a way to reduce them, the FSD made the third Henford girl, Lisa Cooper, grow. She did not prove useful to the investigation, but she decided to take the matter into her own hands and headed to Hollner. There was a fight between the girls in Downtown Hollner. We don’t have too many details on that yet, but all reports indicate that several buildings have been destroyed or severely damaged as a consequence. There is no estimation about the number of victims, but it is expected to be high” Director Brown went on
“Then, for reasons still unknown, Miss Hanson grew even more. We estimate her current height is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 feet. A larger army force tried to stop her. She finished thousands of soldiers and dozens of tanks and helicopters in a matter of minutes. She then declared her intention of ruling the world and headed north. A few minutes ago she completely destroyed the entire campus of the FSD, in what we believe was an attempt at putting an end to any research that could end up with a way of reducing her”
President Carlson swallowed hard.
“I see” he said. “Where is Miss Hanson now?”
“Heading for Washington” Director Brown said