Maureen couldn't sleep. The tent was cold and draughty, and the indistinct sound of some activity from beyond the thin walls had kept her lying awake on the hard bed.  She shared her sleeping area with the dozen or so other people that she had arrived in the truck with, though a few of them had been picked up by the people in suits and hadn't been seen since.  The rest of the day, however, had passed in an incoherent blur as she and the other survivors were prodded and pushed along by the camp staff; stripped, washed, dressed in denim overalls, fed rations, and finally interrogated by a number of military personnel with varying levels of compassion and patience for the horrific events they were encouraged to describe.  In spite of just how physically and emotionally exhausting the past twenty-four hours had been for her and, come to think of it, mankind in general, from the violence and terror of Diane's ascension to the unquestioned goddess of this world to the tedium of the long journey and finally the barrage of activity and settling unease in the camp, rest eluded her.

Lying awake on the cot in the darkness only brought more images of the horror that she had just endured; even with her eyes open and staring at the drab roof of the tent, in the absence of anything to distract her, her thoughts would always drift inexorably to a jumbled, incoherent mess of ruined buildings, crushed people, and Diane herself standing triumphant above the destruction she had just inflicted.  Eventually, Maureen could stand it no longer, and rose clumsily from her bed.  Clad in a set of ill-fitting pyjamas that were a few sizes too big for her, she tip-toed her way around the rows of beds, some empty and some occupied by a fellow survivor in varying states of sleep and wakefulness.

The night was chilly, so Maureen wrapped her thin arms around her chest when she emerged from the slit in the tent and into the cool outside.  The harsh spotlights shining down from above like a judgement from heaven startled her.  Blinking away the spots in her eyes until she could see adequately again, she stumbled across the field to the next tent.  The space between the two tents were mostly empty, with only a bored sentry smoking a cigarette and staring aimlessly at the vast expanse of black that was the sky.  He didn't seem to notice her, or at least if he did he gave no indication.

The other tent served as some sort of communal area, with an assortment of stiff plastic chairs scattered around some tables, some vending machines, and an old CRT television.  There was some sort of news broadcast on, though Maureen couldn't hear it over the sound of the only two other people in the tent arguing.

"We already went through this shit!" one shouted, a taller, broader man wearing a stained T-shirt and jeans instead of the ubiquitous denim overalls everyone had been given.  He gesticulated at the television emphatically with a finger.  "We all saw it, I don't want to see it again."

"I'm watching this!" said the other.  He was a shorter, thinner man sitting on one of the flimsy chairs, his eyes alternating between watching the television and looking up at the one standing over him.  "Go somewhere else if you don't like it."

Maureen stood by the tent flap, unsure of whether or not to intervene or make a discrete exit and fetch the bored soldier outside, and so trapped by her indecision she merely stayed put and watched the two.  The man standing up looked as though he was about to say something, but then he was distracted by the news show displaying a short video clip of Diane's sole filling the sky and bearing inexorably down from the heavens, and the abrupt ending of the clip left little ambiguity as to the ultimate fate of whomever filmed it.

"Oh, fuck you," he spat, and turned on his heels to storm out of the tent.  "I don't have to put up with this."

As the man marched past, Maureen thought she saw tears rimming his bloodshot eyes, though the speed of his exit made it difficult for her to tell.  Feeling a little awkward at watching the exchange, especially now that the guards must surely be alerted to the disturbance, she considered going back to her bed.  However, the TV show interested her, now showing two middle-aged men in suits arguing and a female presenter in the middle trying and failing to keep the discussion civil, and it was hardly worth trying to go back to sleep now, so she slinked in, eyeing the one remaining person in the room, and took a seat at a table close to the exit.

"I can't believe you're advocating surrender to this monster!" exclaimed the man on the right, emphasising his point by shaking his hands emphatically.  He leaned forwards on his seat, as though he might suddenly leap across the desk and the woman separating him from the other pundit to strangle him.  The ticker on the bottom of the screen identified him as Fred Russell, the editor of some Washington D.C.-based newspaper whose main office and printing press were now flattened with not only the entire block but about half a dozen adjacent ones too in an enormous footprint.  "The United States has never surrendered before, and never will."

The man on the left shook his head, and then adjusted the thin-rimmed glasses on his nose.  The text on the screen identified him as Hugh Murphy, a spokesman for the White House.  "What I'm advocating is the best chance we have to ensure the survival of the United States of America and our way of life."

"By surrendering?" Fred spluttered incredulously.

"Well, what choice do we have to protect our people?"  Hugh had thrown up his hands in apparent defeat.  "We should put our faith in the new administration to come to some sort of agreement with Diane."

Fred responded by pounding the table emphatically with a fist.  The water in the glasses on the table wobbled disconcertingly.  "We must fight!" he shouted.

"We tried that once and look what happened; she got bigger, the attack was a failure, and an entire city and everyone in it is all but destroyed."  Hugh's voice had adopted a somewhat condescending tone, as though he was trying to explain all of this to a small child.  As she watched, Maureen decided that she didn't like either of the two talking heads, and judging by the only other person watching the television shaking his head and muttering not-so-subtly under his breath she was not the only one.  "We simply don't have any other option now.  Another attack is only going to lead to more people dying."

"People are dying right now, you goddamn quisling."  By now, Fred's face had turned a somewhat unhealthy shade of red.  "They're getting... they're getting stepped on right now.  Every time that giant woman walks somewhere or simply moves entire towns full of American citizens are getting wiped out.  I can't believe you're okay with that."

Hugh jabbed his finger on the desk for emphasis.  "I am most certainly not okay with that."

"But you're the one saying we should just give up and not do anything."

Hugh chewed on his lower lip for a moment and threw his hands up in exasperation, breathing a heavy sigh of frustration.  "No, what I'm saying is that we should play the long game.  Conventional weapons don't work, if anything they made the situation even worse, but if we give her what she wants now that'll give our scientists enough time to work out how and why this happened and how we can stop this threat.  If not, then we may have to settle for an arrangement that will allow us to at least co-exist peacefully."

The man watching the television with Maureen snorted and muttered, "Idiots."  His voice seemed to be quiet enough not to attract too much attention from whomever may be lingering outside the tent, but only just loud enough for Maureen to hear it.  The subtle inclination of his head in her direction and the side-eyed glance certainly implied that she was meant to.

The debate continued, and Fred leaned in closer, supporting his broader frame on the sleek, attractive desk that separated him from his opponent.  The hostess, however, appeared to be looking behind the camera, presumably at the producer or other such network official there, and not particularly paying attention to the discussion at hand.

"There's one thing we haven't tried," said Fred in a low tone of voice that suggested that he might have a trump card hidden up his sleeve.  "The nuclear option.  We nuke the bitch."

Hugh's eyes bugged out of his skull at the statement, and even the hostess stopped staring at the distraction taking place out of shot and looked at Fred as though he had suddenly grown an extra head.  His opponent, for that matter, sat back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest.  There was a smug sense of triumph about his whole demeanour now.

"You're kidding, right?" said Hugh incredulously.  "No administration is going to sanction a nuclear attack on American soil."

"If we don't, then the Russians will, or maybe the Chinese, who knows?  Do you honestly think the rest of the world is going to lie down quietly and let this carry on?  But it's better that we do it."

"And what happened to worrying about people dying?  The collateral damage from a nuclear strike would be devastating, and there's no telling right now just how many nukes will be needed.  I mean, we could be talking about rendering the entire East Coast uninhabitable from the fallout."

Fred scoffed and waved his hand dismissively.  "The entire East Coast is already uninhabitable because there's a giant living there.  We have to make difficult decisions to ensure the survival of our great country."

It was then that the hostess interrupted the argument by raising her hand and leaning forward on her desk to provide some sort of barrier between the two participants.  "I'm afraid that's all we have time for," she said, her voice sounding rather stern and strained, which to Maureen watching seemed to betray a certain level of emotional toll that this grim, horrifying, and downright bizarre news story was taking on her and presumably the rest of the news team.  "And now, here's Ted with the sports."

The other man in the tent lifted up the remote, and with an exaggerated motion that imitated the recoil of firing a pistol turned the television off.  He then turned to face Maureen, who shifted uncomfortably under his curious gaze.  He was not unattractive, she thought, though like most of the other survivors here was a little dishevelled in appearance even after the shower and the replacement clothes that didn't fit.  His expression, however, was most unsettling; his eyes were wide and alert, devoid of the haunted and empty look of everyone else who witnessed the horror of Diane's murderous rampage and had somehow survived where so many others had not, and overall seemed far too placid and calm for her liking.

"They're all wrong," he said, shaking his head.

"Sorry?" said Maureen, unsure of what to say.

"Everyone," he said as he stood up and made his way towards her.  "They think Diane is something they can fight against or control or negotiate with.  They don't want to accept that our goddess has finally come to us.  What do you think?"

"I..."  Maureen shrugged her shoulders and looked away from him.  She felt like she wanted to be alone now, and contemplated calling for the guards.  "I don't know."

The man's eyes sparkled with the zeal of a fanatic and he smiled down at Maureen.  "The goddess is going to cleanse this sick, twisted world and a new age will begin for the faithful," he said.  "Just make sure you're on the right side."

He left, and Maureen was finally left alone.  Sitting there in the plastic seat with only the latent background noise of the camp itself to remind her that she was somehow not the last remaining person in the world, she buried her face in her hands and wondered just what was the point of all of this utter insanity.  Perhaps the strange man was right, and if her former friend Diane declared herself a goddess the no one, and certainly not anyone the size of a mite compared to her enormous stature, could dare say otherwise. 

Whether or not she was truly divine was irrelevant, only that this one individual now held such immense power of life and death over millions, for whom the distances and obstacles that separated states, countries, and continents no longer restrained her, and against whom the military might of superpowers were utterly ineffectual, that to call her anything but a goddess would be as insulting as it was factually incorrect.  Somehow, Maureen had been chosen to survive where so many did not, and will not if Diane's current behaviour towards her near-microscopic subjects was any indication, and when she considered the utter devastation that had been wrought upon her home city that to have lived through it could not have been random chance.  For what purpose, she did not know, but, she thought, perhaps she would find it with that strange man.  Finally lifting her head from her hands, she resolved to find both him and her new purpose in the morning.