President Carlson and the members of his crisis team turned as the screens on the conference room finally displayed images of Kelly Hanson. As big and easy to find as she was, it had taken considerable effort to get the right assets in position to monitor her actions. The screen on the right displayed a view of her directly from above. Director Brown realized that it had been taken by a satellite. He felt some unease when he realized about how noticeable she was in a frame that would have normally been used to show general situation status about an area. The screen on the left showed her at an angle. Reading the small white text on the bottom right corner, Brown saw that it was being recorded by an observation plane. Then, he felt awestruck when he saw that Kelly Hanson was getting out of the frame and realized that the plane could not keep up with her. He had been trying to understand her magnitude over the last hour or so, but he knew that he had not succeeded yet.

He focused on the satellite image. Whoever was operating the satellite was doing a good job of keeping Miss Hanson properly centered in the screen.

Silence had taken over the conference room. Then, someone in the back said “Holy shit” a little louder than he had probably intended.

Director Brown’s eyes were glued to the screen, like everyone else’s. She seemed to be walking parallel to a road. In the distance it seemed like a highway, but he was not sure.

Suddenly, another screen came to life. Director Brown received a message in his phone as the images showed a satellite view of a small town. His cellphone message identified it as Cranston, a small town of less than 20,000 people. He briefed the rest of the crisis team:

“The images of screen three are of the town of Cranston. Apparently Miss Hanson stopped there for some time a few minutes ago”

A close up suddenly showed an image that reminded too much that of a natural disaster. In some weird way, it looked as if a meteorite had fallen in the middle of the town. There was a large crater and inside and around it the remainders of several houses could be seen. The image zoomed in and they could see flattened vehicles and, soon enough, the high-resolution camera in the satellite let everyone see multiple corpses.

“What we are seeing is apparently the result of Miss Hanson’s actions” Director Brown added. The message he had received was not much more informative than that.

“Oh God!” someone screamed

The President then slammed a hand on the table. Everyone shut up and turned to look at him.

“We cannot let this woman terrorize our country any longer!” he said in a loud tone. “We have not been doing anything since we got in this plane. I want an action plan now” the President said, looking around the table

Director Brown had to make an effort to prevent people from noticing what he thought of the President’s leadership skills.

The first one to talk was the National Security Advisor:

“Can we nuke her?”

“Oh fuck” Brown thought, as he realized that he was surrounded by idiots.

A very professional voice took over almost immediately:

“I would not advise this course of action”

Brown realized it had been the Secretary of Defense. She had become famous for being the first woman appointed to this post, but Brown had heard some very good feedback about her capabilities and skills in his private circles. She went on:

“To start with, we do not know what the effects of a nuclear blast would have on the woman. We all assume they would be deadly, but we have been surprised too many times today… so I would advise to check any plans on offensive actions with the experts at the FSD. Not doing so has already had too many negative consequences today. We do know what the impact of a nuclear blast would be in the population, though. Miss Hanson is heading north along the Atlantic coast of the country. Her path will cross many of the most densely populated areas in America. The victim count would be in the millions”

Brown saw that her words had hit home. No matter what their gut was asking them to do, no one would stand by a course of action that would cause such a tremendous number of collateral victims.

So, it seemed that what he had heard about Secretary McAllister was not far from the truth.

“I… I thought the FSD had been annihilated” the National Security Advisor said, looking a little embarrassed. Brown just remembered that he had had some expectations to be Secretary of Defense himself. Brown was glad that he had not had his expectations fulfilled. In any case, it was his turn to respond. His main mission in the crisis team was to update everyone with the information they needed to know.

“We could evacuate the key people and enough data and material just in time” Brown said. “They should be operational within the hour”

“What should we do, then?” the National Security Advisor asked, sounding too much like a man without ideas.

Director Brown looked in the direction of the Secretary of Defense. It was really up to her to propose a course of action. He knew that she did not have too many options. The best one was actually to give the teams at the FSD enough time to find a solution to clear the mess they had created. But the President and the cabinet would be expecting something else, of course.

Secretary McAllister took the challenge without flinching.

“I had a call with the Joint Chiefs just before joining this meeting. Unfortunately, we do not have enough concentration of forces to confront her while she is on the move. Based on previous experience, they do not recommend attacking her with forces similar in size to the one she faced in Hollner. As a matter of fact, they do not recommend engaging with the woman until they can make sure they have both the necessary numbers and the necessary weaponry to have a reasonable probability of success. We are moving troops in a pattern that should ensure maximum availability for a full-scale attack soon. In the meantime, we are diverting as many resources as possible to the FSD. Our current assessment is that there are more chances to stop Miss Hanson from the efforts in the FSD than with a pure military action”

“Not bad” Director Brown thought. Having a sensible Secretary of Defense was important, in a situation like this. He did not want to imagine what would have happened if she had suggested nuking Miss Hanson, as well. “It’s not as if she had too much to build her story with, anyway” Brown’s mind went on. “Too bad they are not going to buy it” it added.

The National Security Advisor, probably still feeling a little pissed off at the reaction to his previous suggestion, attacked in the obvious flank.

“How soon will troops be ready to attack Miss Hanson?”

Secretary McAllister swallowed hard and then said:

“We don’t have an exact estimate yet. No sooner than nightfall, in any case” she said

“Are we all crazy?” the National Security Advisor said in a loud tone as he slammed his hand on the table. “We cannot leave the country at the mercy of that woman for hours!”

Secretary McAllister swallowed hard once more and said:

“I like it as little as you do. But unfortunately, I believe that it is the only option we have been left with. Unless the FSD can come up with a solution before, our current assessment is that we do not have the assets to successfully attack Miss Hanson while she is on the move. Our assessment is also that any unsuccessful attack on her will make her angrier and will increase the damage she will cause in the population. We have not been able to find a good enough pattern in Miss Hanson’s actions yet, but there are some indications that suggest that the amount of destruction she causes significantly increases when she is attacked, while she keeps a less destructive approach when she is left alone”

The president finally raised a hand, making everyone shut up and indicating that he was going to take the word.

“About time” Director Brown thought

“Sorry Catherine, but this course of action is not acceptable. I want another proposal from the Joint Chiefs” he said

Secretary McAllister was not taken completely by surprise, but the President’s blunt tone had made her look a little uncomfortable. She needed a couple of seconds to react and said: “I’ll re-evaluate the matter with them…”

“Let’s do it now. Bring them on-line” the President said, his tone even less friendly

A minute later, several faces filled different squares in the large screen of the conference room. Names and titles labeled each of them.

Then, the President started speaking. Director Brown did not like his tone.

“Secretary McAllister has briefed me about your recommended action plan to deal with the threat posed by this giant woman, whatever her name is”

He stopped for a couple of seconds. He went on, his voice icy:

“So, let me understand it. A woman is terrorizing the country, causing countless deaths and billions of dollars of destruction… and your action plan contemplates doing absolutely nothing during several hours?”

The faces of the Joint Chiefs reflected a combination of surprise, puzzle and unease. One of them, General Anderson, spoke:

“Sir, we are doing everything we can do. We are carefully planning large-scale troop movements. Unless the woman moves too far away from the north east, we should be able to pin her between overwhelming forces by nightfall…”

The President slammed a hand on the table. Everyone shut up.

“Where the hell is the air force? Why aren’t there fighters firing missiles at her at this precise moment?” he asked, raising his tone

“Sir, missiles have proved highly ineffective in previous attacks. Our weapons experts are working with the FSD to determine which weapons have higher likelihood of being effective…”

“We spend more in weaponry than the rest of countries in the world combined. And you are telling me that we don’t have anything that can hurt a woman?” the President asked, sounding irate

Director Brown did not flinch. He did not like the direction things were going. The President did not seem to be thinking very clearly. He had never trusted him too much. Hell, he had voted for the other guy, hadn’t he? But he would have expected that he would react better when faced with a crisis.

“Fire something at her” the President then said

“Sir?” General Anderson asked

“The country will never understand and even less accept that we let this woman roam free for hours before we tried to do something. I want you to have someone using a significant amount of firepower against this woman” the President said. “And I want this to happen within the hour”

“Sir… sir, our analysts have concluded that it would not be wise to attack Miss Hanson unless the chances of success are reasonable. Unsuccessful attacks seem to trigger her most violent side and the number of victims has increased significantly after each attempt to kill her…”

 “General Anderson, you are fired” the President said. Then, he looked at the screen and said: “And the rest of you will be fired in the next five minutes unless you tell me which units of our armed forces are going to engage with that monster right away!”

He yelled his last words. Director Brown had been worried before. Now, he realized that the man in charge had lost his mind, which was much more concerning.

None of the Generals knew what to say.

“Mr. President, maybe we should discuss this before jumping too quickly to conclusions or decisions…” Catherine McAllister started to say

“There is nothing to discuss” the President said, his tone quieter but still sounding very annoyed. “You had your chance, Catherine. If you don’t know how to do your job, I will need to do it for you”

Suddenly, the lights before some of the faces of the generals in the screen turned red. There was a moment of confusion.

“What is going on there?” the President demanded

It took a few seconds for anyone to reply. When the answer finally came, Director Brown’s concern increased a couple levels more. It was one of the generals who finally informed those on the plane:

“It appears that Miss Hanson is heading directly this way. We are being evacuated”

She would not have paid attention to what was going on at the highway unless she had heard the sirens. The reaction of the little people to her presence made her feel depressed so, as a defense mechanism, she had been ignoring them for a while, as she followed Kelly’s trail up the Interstate.

The sirens had been loud enough, though, so Lisa turned and saw another massive pile up and some vehicles trying to get to it. There were a couple of fire trucks and a couple of ambulances. Observing the pile up, she soon found the small fire in its center, produced by a car that had caught flame, apparently after crashing with another one.

She stopped and saw that there were a few people around the car in flames. Some of them seemed injured and not too able to move. She pondered what to do for a second. She caught herself heading in the direction of the highway.

The people’s screams intensified and those that could tried to get as far away from her as possible. Once again, their reaction felt as if she had been stabbed through the heart. Lisa forced herself to ignore them, though. Getting next to the highway, she knelt and took a closer look at the scene.

The flames had expanded and trapped a few people. Lisa’s first reaction was to push her lips out and blow gently, as if she were trying to put a candle out. What happened was not what she had been expecting, though. The fresh oxygen from her lips only managed to fuel the flames and make them spread to some neighboring vehicles.

“Shit!” she said aloud

Thankfully, her carelessness had not resulted fatal to anyone.

She pondered on what to do for a few seconds. Then, she reached out with her right hand. People close to the spot where she was moving her hand increased the intensity of their screams. Lisa frowned, but managed to ignore them. Then, she brought her hand down on the fire. She could feel the heat through her skin, but she realized that she was not getting burnt.

Lowering her hand until it was touching the flames, Lisa felt the heat intensity, but not to the point where it was uncomfortable. Out of air, the fire started to extinguish. Happy with the results, she repeated the operation until she had managed to put out most of the flames.

She thought the screams had become a little bit less loud, for a change. She allowed herself to smile. Then, she realized about the dozen or so people lying on the road, obviously injured. She was about to reach out for them, but then she stopped. It was not as if she was going to help them like that, was it?

The sound of the sirens gave her an idea.

“You need to help those people” she said, addressing the ambulances. “I’ll help you reach them. Don’t be afraid”

Reaching out, Lisa picked one ambulance in each hand. Then, she moved them to the area where the injured people were. Finding a spot for the first ambulance was easy enough. The second proved to be more challenging. She had to solve the issue by picking an obviously abandoned vehicle up to free the necessary space to set the ambulance down.

“It’s up to you now, boys. Hurry up!” Lisa urged them

When she saw that no one was getting out of the ambulances, she sighed, bothered.

“Come on, I’m trying to help here. You have to man up and do your job, for God’s sake”

Then, sighing again, she added:

“I’m leaving, in any case”

Standing up, she moved a few paces away from the highway and set in her original way once more.

Sheriff Jeff Solomont had not felt so troubled since the day his predecessor in the post had died, six years ago. He could not take his eyes from the small TV set in his office.

“Some people are getting very nervous, Jeff” Al Kovak said, sitting across his desk

“They should have fucking executed them! I told you! Especially that monster Casey Morgan!” he said

“You know that I completely agree, but you cannot just stay in here and repeat this all the time. The mayor doesn’t know what to do and some people have started to evacuate on their own. We need to do something, to put some order”

“Well, it’s not that easy to try to put some order when it seems that the entire city has become crazy” Sheriff Solomont said

“Well, I guess that’s why we get paid so much as we do” Al Kovak said in an ironic tone

“The last time anyone saw her, she was more than five hundred miles away” Jeff Solomont said

“The fact that she disappeared and no one has seen her since then is what is making people nervous, Jeff. Hell, it is what is making you nervous, is it not? The difference between us and the rest of towns in the country is that we know what those girls are capable of. Especially Casey Morgan. You and I are probably the only ones that are more worried about her than about Kelly Hanson having become massive”

“What do you think she will do?” Sheriff Solomont asked

“Who, Casey?” Al asked

Jeff nodded.

A loud siren started to sound before Al Kovak could reply. They both knew its sound. It was used to warn people in Henford when the water level in Henford creek got too high and there was risk of floods. And they both knew that the chances of floods in summer were close to zero.

“Oh shit!” Al Kovak said

Jeff Solomont remained speechless.

Casey smiled widely when she saw the dry bed of Henford’s creek and the two-lane bridge that crossed it.

“It looks new” she thought. “Of course, I didn’t leave much of the old one standing” she added with a smirk.

Looking at her hometown in the distance made her feel good. After the circumstances of her last moments in Henford, being back there, bigger than ever, was definitely good.

She had been eager to get back here. She would have probably not even thought about Henford if she had not had to come here to find what she was looking for. But now that she was here she was very happy that she had come. She knew everyone in town and she was damn sure that everyone in town knew her. And this made things better, more special.

Haste had made her almost ignore most of the population centers between the coast and Henford. Thousands of people would never learn that they had to thank a small town deep into the country for their lives.

It was not as if her trek had been harmless, though. Two long stretches of highway had witnessed the consequences of the careless advance of a giant woman. In her wake laid dozens of crushed cars and hundreds of victims, as well as every single overpass and directional sign that had been in her path.

She advanced into Henford’s Creek and smirked when she saw that it was barely as deep as her knees, at her new size. Soon enough, she was next to the bridge. A lone car was trying to cross it, speeding as much as it could. Casey crouched and timed her punch perfectly so that it would get the car right in the middle. It was instantly flattened as her fist moved further and brought a large section of the new bridge down.

“You can build a third bridge, if you want. The next one, I’ll bring it down with my pinkie finger” Casey thought

A few cars had stopped right before the bridge, on the road that led to town. They were now trying to turn around and get back into Henford. Their movements were painfully slow.

Casey easily stepped out of the creek. Her second step ended with the closest car.

She let the rest go as she stopped and observed her hometown with her hands on her hips.

“Home, sweet home” she said aloud

“It feels good to be home” she thought. “It feels much better than I had thought. I was not even thinking about this, when I decided to come, but now that I’m here, it’s obvious that I have a lot of catching up to do”

Casey remained motionless for a while. Those brave enough to look at her in the distance could easily see that she was trying to make her mind up on something.

“I have time. And I want to do this”

She advanced until she reached the city limits. Then, she raised her voice, announcing her arrival to everyone.

“Hello my fellow Henford citizens. I’m Casey Morgan and I’m back! Have you missed me?” she asked

A couple of seconds later, she added:

“I’ve missed you a lot. I’m really dying to see how tiny you are all now!”

Her tone was excited. Her body language matched it. Without further word, she took a step into her town.

“Oh no! Oh, please, no” Lisa yelled aloud as she ran through the last stretch of road before getting to the FSD campus. In her path there were more of Kelly’s massive footprints. Lisa was almost ignoring them now. She just moved around them. Still she could not prevent looking into them from time to time. Thankfully, Kelly’s path north had mostly been some distance away from the Highway, so the effects of most of her footsteps had not been as dramatic as those of the first ones she had taken when she had left Hollner.

For some reason, she had started walking along the road once more once she had got to the one that led directly to the campus. And while that road had never been too heavy on traffic, Lisa could start seeing the remainders of some flattened vehicles on the bottom of the imprints of Kelly’s foot.

This was not what was making her anxious, though. Her mind was set on something else. She got to her destination soon enough. When she got there and saw what awaited her, Lisa fell to her knees as tears started running down her cheeks. She started sobbing. Then, her cries became even louder.

What had formerly been a research site with several buildings that had spanned in a wide extension of land was now nothing more than a crater. Or, to be more precise, a concatenation of craters of different depths and shapes. Nothing was left standing.

It was obvious that no one who had been there could have survived to whatever had brought the campus down. Lisa’s eyes burned and tears kept on running down her cheeks as images of Joe and Stella rushed through her mind. She slammed her fists into the ground in rage and let a loud and anguished scream out.

She had been crying for what seemed like forever when a wave of rage took over her. There was only one possible cause for what had happened here. There was only one person to blame for the death of her husband and her daughter.

Lisa took her hands from her face and clenched her fists. Then, she screamed in a mad voice:

“Kelly!”

There had only been one person Lisa had wanted to kill before. Of course, that had been Casey. But she had not wanted to kill her nearly as much as she now wanted to kill Kelly. A rage she had not experienced before took over her until it filled every inch of her body. Before she could realize, Lisa was standing, her muscles tense.

She wanted to find Kelly. She wanted to make her pay, to hurt her first and kill her later. Her mind was clouded by ire. Then, it started working in ways she would have never expected. Suddenly, Lisa wished to be bigger. Big enough to face Kelly… or even bigger. So big that she would actually be able to hold her in her fist and crush her bones slowly. She wanted to have the power to make her suffer.

For an instant she almost felt as if she were stretching, as if her body was obeying her mind’s wishes. Then, the feeling faded away and she realized that she was standing right in front of one of Kelly’s footprints and that it still was almost as long as she was tall.

She felt disappointed at her wish not having come true. Lisa was not thinking with clarity anymore, though. She was just focused on finding Kelly to make her pay for what she had done. She was convinced that once she saw her she would find a way to do it.

She turned and identified Kelly’s footprints moving away from the FSD site. She started running along their path.