Cthulhu Attacks!: Book 1: The Fear (6 page)

The interpreters for each leader simply said, “These epithets will not be translated.”

However, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was quite fluent in Russian and knew that Zhikin had essentially just told the leaders of the four other most powerful countries on Earth
Shut up
and
fuck you
. He did not share this knowledge with President Hampton, who was asked to speak last.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the United States has lost uncountable numbers of citizens both here and abroad. Our nation is home to more scientists in more fields than in all the rest of the world combined. We will first determine the physical cause of this disaster, and then, should martial steps be necessary, we will work within this Council to eliminate utterly those people responsible for unleashing this …
Event
… on an innocent and unsuspecting world.”

Every other member of the meeting nodded, including the Secretary-General. She then asked for a vote on establishing the facts of the matter, which would be followed by voting again on specific action to be taken as soon as enough data had been collected. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and China immediately voted in favor. The Russian General, now sitting alone, took a moment, looking distressed, and voted in favor as well, probably cognizant that his President would have his hide for doing so.

“A veto is just not prudent,” the Russian said. “This is not an action film with the United States or England in charge. Russia also is not in charge. No one is in charge. We must act as one.”

Secretary-General de Kova ended the virtual meeting and sat back in her chair as the media technicians removed the technology from her office. She had to think of what to say to the General Assembly that would not have every ambassador at the throat of every other ambassador.
We must act as one
, the Russian General had said. That would be de Kova’s approach, but as the leader of the organization intended to bring every country in the world closer to harmony, she didn’t believe for a second that it would actually happen.

White House Situation Room, Washington, DC

Event + 9 hours

The country’s most powerful generals, admirals, and civilians including the Secretary of State and Vice President Algernon Steele—all of whom had either worked through a take-out dinner or skipped it altogether in preparation for this meeting—stood when President Hampton and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the retired five-star general Arthur Adamson, swept into the room. Hampton bade them all to sit and got immediately to it: “We just spoke with the Security Council and got exactly nothing from them. Either they don’t know what happened or aren’t ready to share that knowledge with the world, which is fine. We don’t need their permission for anything anyway, but it’s always polite to ask.”

She gently cleared her throat to get the attention of the assembled big shots. “So, ladies and gentlemen, will someone tell me what in the name of all that is holy happened yesterday? I got an instant migraine so strong it almost made me pass out, and that’s true of everyone in this room, am I correct in that?”

Nods all around. A couple of eyes twitched slightly as the savage pain was remembered.

“More than 400 million people are dead from this? Is that what I am to understand?” She looked at Doctor Norm Tyson, who had been sworn in just the year before as the nation’s first Secretary of Science and Technology. “Norm, what do we have here? Nuclear attack? Neutron bomb of some sort? What in the hell do we have that can kill that many that fast?”

Tyson cleared his throat. “Madam President, there is no weapon on Earth that can do what happened yesterday. An unleashing of every nuclear warhead in the arsenal of every nation onto a single spot couldn’t kill that many people, and certainly not if it were exploded at the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility.”

“So what happened yesterday, it’s not possible? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not exactly,” Tyson said. “It just wasn’t done with any weapon in existence or any in development anywhere that we know of. It’s something entirely new.”

“Madam President, if I may,” Tyson’s undersecretary, Bob Nye, offered up timidly. He looked at his immediate superior, who nodded at Nye to continue. “Even if this were some kind of new, insanely destructive weapon made by human hands, the epicenter of the Event is one that practically guarantees the
least
loss of life compared to any other on the planet. Sergeant Berry?”

Nye motioned to the nerdy-looking Marine sergeant handling their audio-visual equipment, and the man stepped up to a console that lowered the lights in the room, and from that position tapped a few keys on a massively secure MacBook Air unconnected to any network anywhere. Upon the screen that rolled down on the wall across from the President, a stylized globe appeared. The Marine punched a few more keys and an animation started on the screen.

The computer graphics globe rotated (
much like Google Earth
, thought Sergeant Berry, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if it used the same software engine) until a spot in the southern Pacific Ocean was at the center of the screen. This spot was identified on the HUD as near latitude 49°S and longitude 125°W.

“Smack dab in the middle of nowhere,” the Secretary of the Navy muttered sardonically. “I know that firsthand.”

A ripple of amusement spread through the room. Kevin Berry wracked his brain for any reason why that exact spot in the ocean would seem so darned familiar to him. He was a Marine, but, unlike the retired admiral, had never been called upon to sail anywhere near there.

Nye smiled politely before standing and walking to the screen, all eyes following him. “Based on prevalence of morbidity cases, these coordinates seem to be the locus of the Event. Please remember, however, that we haven’t had time to do any real reconnaissance other than trying to reach any living person via Internet and observing television and radio broadcasts, since technology did not seem to be affected even slightly by the Event.”

“Just as is the case with nonhuman animals,” Tyson added. “This thing seems to have been fined-tuned for our human brains. Excuse me, Bob, please continue.”

“As I said, our first pass at figuring out where this anomaly occurred turned up this remote section of the Pacific. It’s quite close to Point Nemo.”

“Point Nemo?” the President echoed.

“Sorry, Madam President—‘Point Nemo’ is the area of the ocean farthest from any land. It is also known as the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. If this indeed were some kind of deliberate attack, it was calculated to hurt and kill the
fewest
people, not the most.”

“Even so, Russia and China would have the least to lose in such an arrangement,” the Vice President grumbled. “It seems awfully goddamn convenient that they barely got a scratch in all this.”

“Algernon, please do calm yourself,” Hampton said. “We all know the Russians and the Chinese are out to get us.”

“Madam President, it may be a joke to you, but the Communists have never given up their dreams of world domination,” Steele said. “I thought that’s why you added me to your ticket—to get the sensible man’s vote.”

The room was silent. Many ceiling tiles and shoes were suddenly fascinating to many of its occupants.

“Er … I wouldn’t know anything about that, Madam President, Mister Vice President,” Nye said with the trepidation of a kid at the dinner table while Mom and Dad are fighting. He shook it away and continued: “Speaking as a scientist and not a military or political entity, let me just say that the damage—that is, the death toll—spreads out from this approximate spot. It is a cold and inhospitable area, and satellite records show nothing of any particular interest about it. Of course, satellite can’t show the bottom, but other than its deep trenches, there aren’t any particularly interesting geographical features. And the west coast of the tip of South America is without much human inhabitation, a situation which actually spared even more people …”

As Undersecretary Nye continued his analysis, Sergeant Berry’s thoughts cohered and he blurted out, “It’s Cthulhu!”

Every head, every one of the most powerful heads in the free world, turned to glare at Berry, making his next thought not anything about Lovecraft or his monsters but instead:
Well, there goes this cushy assignment.

He stood ramrod straight and said in a tight military cadence, “Please excuse me.”

Chairman Adamson said quickly, “Madam President, I apologize for this—”

The President looked more amused than anything else, and she put up a finger to let the chairman know to hold off for a moment. “Young man,” she said with a little smile, “what is a
kuh-thoo-loo?
”

Sweating now even in the coolness of the Situation Room, Berry remained as stiff as an E1 in boot camp and said as neutrally as possible, “I’m sorry, Madam Pr—”

“No, Sergeant …” she squinted to make out his name on his brass tag, “Berry. Tell us what you are talking about, if you please. You know that half a billion people are dead, so I very much doubt you are making a joke.”

“No, ma’am. Um … well, Cthulhu is a literary creation of H.P. Lovecraft, a writer who lived from—”

“At ease, Berry,” Hampton said. “I don’t need a term paper, just the immediately relevant facts, if you please.”

General Adamson put a hand over his eyes and tried not to let the embarrassment show on his face. He was failing, he could tell.

“Yes, ma’am. Cthulhu is known as an ‘Old One,’ an interdimensional alien creature who was trapped millions of years ago underwater very near the coordinates of the Event. And also the Bloop.”

“The what?”

“The Bloop, ma’am. In 1997, within miles of what Doctor Nye has identified as the source of the Event, the loudest noise ever recorded emanated from that spot. Some people say it was glaciers or the sea floor advancing or retreating, but even now no one knows.”

“So you think it’s a space monster from a science fiction book?”

Berry’s sweat renewed its beading. “The coordinates in the story match the coordinates of the Event, ma’am. And when Cthulhu rose above the waves where he was trapped, the minds of humans were affected.”

“Madam President, really, we have to—”

“Berry, do you know why I’m asking you to tell me about this?”

The sergeant shook his head, feeling sweat trickle down his neck. “No, ma’am.”

“Because we have to put every idea on the table.
Every
idea. Doctor Tyson,” she said as she turned to face her Science secretary. “do you have any theories regarding the cause of the Event?”

“Yes, a few.”

“And Doctor Nye?”

“Only one thus far, Madam President. I believe it could be—”

“Hold off on that, please. Does anyone else have a theory,
any
theory, about what caused this Event, or even what the Event
was?
” Hampton looked into the eyes of each man and woman at the table, her sacred brain trust in times of upheaval and crisis.

No one had anything to say. Or if they did have something to say, they didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of this group and thus kept quiet.

“That’s what I thought. Arthur, can we get a new A/V person, please?” she said to the Joint Chiefs head.

“Of course, Madam President,” he said with a bit of relief, and nodded to his subordinate to make it happen. “I’m terribly sorry about Berry here. These personnel are trained to keep their bearing when allowed to work in such close—”

“No, you misunderstand me,” Hampton said. “We need a new A/V person because the sergeant has a contribution to make. I want him to join us at the table.”

It became so quiet in the room that one could hear not just a pin drop, but someone
thinking
about a pin dropping. General Adamson’s eyes goggled as he tried to process what the President had just said. “He’s talking about a science fiction
monster
. I mean no disrespect, but should we consider E.T.? Or maybe the Blob?”

Everyone was so stunned by the President’s words and the chairman’s sarcasm that not even a scintilla of levity arose in the room. “We need another chair for Sergeant Berry, please,” she said to a White House staff member who told a lower staff member to go get another chair. “Arthur, if you have no better ideas—or no ideas at all—you may go.”

“
Go?
Madam President, this is a military concern. As chairman—”

“We don’t know
what
it is. If you are not going to be a useful part of the brainstorming session, then please go and attend to your other duties.”

She looked around the table at the top brass and their expressions of disbelief. “That goes for all of you. The work you do is vital. If you don’t feel you can add to the conversation here, then you may leave as well and get your ducks in a row for whatever is coming.”

After a few seconds, during which no one moved away from the conference table, a new Marine entered and took her place behind the projector and laptop. The White House staff member rolled in another chair to a spot right next to Chairman Adamson, who hadn’t made any sign of leaving the room.