It was going to be Bigger Than The Olympics...Bigger Than The Moon Landing.
Other worlds lying hidden in incomprehensible dimensions alongside of our own
had long been postulated by highbrowed men with German accents. It took
decades, though, for the theory to go from the realm of infinite numbers
(including "imaginary" numbers that had been dreamed up in an attempt to explain the
initial theories) into hard, touch-me reality, which was going to happen on a
single glorious afternoon before a worldwide television audience.
After years of probing by researchers into the Infinite Void around them, they had
found something at last. Energy pulses, fleeting, constantly moving
but too organized and repetitive to be simple static. As computers evolved into
supercomputers and then to ultracomputers, Mankind finally had the tools it
needed to decode those pulses. Like a bat using echolocation to "see"
its surroundings in total darkness, scientists using an ultracomputer aptly
named "Bacardi" (for the bat, the graduate students all insisted)
decided that what they were seeing were the energy signatures of buildings,
cars, and most excitingly, living things. The images were far from clear, and
in fact many were open to broad interpretation, but one thing was certain:
there was life, and indeed civilization, on The Other Side.
Further research required a significant infusion of money, however, and while the
government was as slow as ever to react, the Broadcast Industry was clawing like a pack of wolves at
the university's door. After years of wringing their hands over dwindling
audiences and mourning the lost Golden Age of Television, the entertainment
moguls saw in this discovery the opportunity to win back the viewers whose lives
they had once ruled. A few were cautious at first -- Remember Al Capone's
Vault? they asked each other worriedly -- but in the end the research money
came pouring in. No questions were asked; no request was refused. The only
requirement was that absolutely no results were to be made public. The final unveiling of
the discovery would be done on live television and broadcast to every corner of
the globe. One leak, even a tiny one, would mean shutting off the money-faucet forever.
Though smarting over such muzzling of their academic freedom, the researchers were
reluctant to part with those limitless grants, so they grudgingly
agreed.
Television stations ran teasers as far in advance as twelve months and with lots of exclamation points.
"The Most Colossal Scientific Breakthrough Since the Splitting of the
Atom!" "We are not alone, and you will see the proof for
yourself!" "Worlds Within Worlds! Hear the voices from The Other
Side, exclusively on this station!!!" "Exclusively" was, of
course, a big fat lie. Any network boss who tried to sign exclusive rights was
beaten to within an inch of his life by his competitors (at least figuratively,
though not always), and thus by the time the Great Experiment was ready to be
televised every single network from New York City to Singapore had rights of
coverage. No one wanted to be left out. Advertising campaigns were so breathless
and ecstatic that it was guaranteed that more people than ever before would drop
what they were doing and rush home to watch the proceedings live, something that
historians would later credit with significantly reducing the number of
casualties.
The big event took place at seven PM on a warm midsummer evening, and was
trumpeted as "The Other Side -- the Day We Made Contact." The plan
was, as the scientists liked to call it, brilliant in its
elegance. Their sightless groping into the mysteries of the
neighboring dimension had allowed them to identify electrically-produced sound
by what they termed "digital noise." They postulated that if they
could pinpoint a localized source of digital noise, which would almost certainly
be emitted by some type of communications equipment such as a loudspeaker or,
hopefully, a television or a radio, they could, utilizing newly-developed
equipment that cost more than the Gross National Product of an African nation,
actually take hold of that object and pull it at least partway into our world.
From there, they hoped to be able to listen in for the first time to the sounds
of an unknown dimension, and eventually to tinker with the artifact to the point
that they could broadcast their own greetings back.
The site for such an experiment could only be a sports arena, the only
place big enough to hold all of the reporters, camera crews, celebrities, VIP's,
and people willing enough to pay hundreds of dollars for a seat on the
50-yard-line of scientific history. A gaudy stage had been erected in the
center of the field. Bands performed, comedians warmed up the crowd, and
scientific luminaries gave speeches that they had been admonished to keep
"short and dumb" for the folks at home. Nearly ninety thousand people packed the stands,
a record number for any event,
while outside, tens of
thousands more joined in a vast street party and watched the show free on jumbo
televisions while frequent advertisements reminded them of just who was
responsible for bringing them this sure-to-win-a-Nobel-Prize development.
All
of those thousands of voices rose at once and then went silent as Doctor Main Attraction made his way
to the stage. Clutching the microphone in a trembling hand, he informed the
world that a clear source of digital noise had been located that was more intense than
any that had ever seen before. It represented perhaps dozens of speakers, any one
of which could offer Mankind its first whisper of sound from a world not our
own. The audience applauded exuberantly, and continued to do so as what was
now the world's most famous scientist nodded to his technicians. Equipment
whined into life. The stadium lights flickered. All eyes were fixed on a
white painted circle in the center of the stage where the alien artifact was
expected to materialize, which it never did. What came over instead was far
from what anyone would have expected.
The stage was obliterated by a colossal foot, scaled and clawed and big as a
boxcar. It was followed immediately by a cascade of fabric falling like a
collapsed circus tent all around, the impact sending a billow of dust and
wreckage rushing out in every direction. Another foot, just like the first, came
down with the sound of a great drum magnified a million-fold. It was joined in
rapid succession by four more, equally huge but clad instead in thick fur. The
stadium as well as most of the city rocked and shuddered as the mighty feet
rose and fell, crashing and stomping and thundering while tiny people scrambled to
get out from underneath. Some made it; most did not.
The pounding lasted for five of the longest seconds in recorded history, and
then jolted to a halt. A final wave of dust surged upward and outward as six
circus tents flopped to the ground, leaving behind the sort of unnerving silence
that television producers loathe, although this time even they were too
stunned to voice a complaint.
The feed from the many cameras shook, blurred, then focused and began to pan
upward. Up, almost hesitantly, along six towering columns of
sequin-and-shiny-rivet decorated cloth that each could have draped a
twelve-story building. Higher, beyond where the columns joined, to three lean
and youthful torsos, two rippled and firm while the other was curved and
delicate. Higher, at last, to three sets of astonished, inhuman eyes.
Despite the size of the crowd not one person made a sound, until somewhere a bewildered voice
whispered into a forgotten and open microphone, "What the fuck is this?
The Chinese Zodiac?"
It was an unplanned but nearly accurate description. The largest, with scales
and horns and fins, could well have been a dragon. It was he who had destroyed
the stage, although it seemed at the time that he had not even noticed.
Clinging to his arm was doubtless a rabbit, her ears standing high, her dollop
of a tail dusting nervously over the waist of billowing, gaily-ornamented
slacks. To complete the impression the third should have been a tiger, but
while he was certainly a cat he was not orange but gray, not striped but
spotted, and his fur was so immensely thick that would he have gotten wet he
might indeed have shrunk to the size of a man. Behind him a tail as wide as a
blimp lashed about in alarm, and his face was as dumbstruck as the others' as he
gaped down at the tiny people gathered about.
Flawed though it might have been, the pronunciation woke the crowd from their
stunned silence. Flashbulbs winked in a starfield from one end of the stadium
to the other. Television cameras swept and bobbed as orders rang in the
headphones of the operators. The three giants stood motionless, then all at
once they turned to face one another and huddled close. As they spoke together
they cast frequent, apprehensive glances at the surrounding crowd, whose
curiosity had led them to pile onto the field where the security crew had their
hands full trying to maintain a perimeter. Microphone booms stretched to catch
even a single word from above, but all that reached them was a rolling thunder
of voices far too massive, far too deep for the human ear to comprehend.
Dragon's tail was the first to stop its agitated lashing. Cat's followed
soon after, but dainty Bunny's was still twitching when Dragon turned away from
his companions and took a single, slow step forward. The crowd squealed and
retreated as the shadow of his long toes fell upon them, but there were no
casualties this time when his foot came down, landing with a low and echoing
boom and sinking a yard deep into the field. The hem of his trouser leg fell
with a flop, then rode up again as he settled carefully down on one knee. The
crowd fell back further as he leaned forward. The stadium lights glittered
in merry patterns off of his shirtless torso. Slowly he lowered his hand, laying it
palm-up at the head of the crowd, and there he waited.
Almost immediately the entire stadium burst into raucous applause from an
audience so excited that most seemed to forget that they had just watched people
die. Overwhelmed, the security guards were trampled by the rush as
hundreds pushed forward, grappling with one another in a rude game of
king-of-the-hill as each tried to be the first to scramble up into that waiting
palm. This was far beyond anything any of them would have imagined. Instead of
dragging cold and anonymous trinkets from beyond the veil, science had given
them living, breathing -- albeit very large -- beings from another world.
Euphoria swept the cheering throng like fire, strangers hugging one another,
save for those trying to take their neighbor's place on Dragon's hand. No one paid attention to
Cat as he tugged at the front of his trousers and leaned in to whisper
into Bunny's lengthy ear; nor did they notice her giggling reply. Some clung to
thick fingers and eventually fell as Dragon's hand rose into the air, but it
hardly seem to matter. The rest gazed up in rapture at the approaching yellow
eyes, and as they drew nearer they raised their arms in worshipful greeting.
Tears of joy streamed down their faces as they met the gaze of the most
fantastic being to grace this world since Jehovah. Other worlds indeed were
real! Mankind was not alone! At long last, contact had been made! Someone
began to sing reverently; others joined in, and the song continued right up
until Dragon opened his mouth wide and clapped his hand up against his lips.
Silence fell over the stadium, so quiet that the sound of Dragon
swallowing seemed as loud as cannon fire. The low gulp was accompanied by a
great round lump rolling down the length of Dragon's throat, all the way to his
chest where it vanished. Dragon's mouth opened again, empty now. A long tongue
swept out, displaying a round and shining ball that clicked noisily over picket teeth as he
licked his chops.
Cat's laughter thundered through the stadium, and even Bunny laughed, too, followed
immediately by the screech of thousands of voices all raised at once.
The crowd, who moments ago had been embracing one another and dancing for joy,
now turned into a boiling, pushing mass of terrified humanity all struggling to
remember which exit was nearest. The cameras on the ground were jarred by the
panic and useless. Those on booms that managed to avoid being toppled swung this way and
that, lost and bewildered, until a few focused on Cat, who was crouching and
reaching downward. In a network exclusive, viewers at home got to see the
fluffy and gigantic hand sweep through the crowd, scooping up what must have
been a hundred kicking bodies. Rising, he once again tugged and adjusted his
trousers before he hoisted his captives up and tossed them glibly into his
mouth. Millions watched in dreadful close-up high-definition as
Cat's jaw worked, slowly pushing a big lump from one cheek to the other and back
again, and then with a sly smirk in Bunny's direction he opened his mouth and
showed off the whole pile wriggling on his tongue and scrambling over his own
gleaming stud. Bunny made a face and stuck her tongue out, then turned and
swept a leg over the rim of the stadium. Helicopters' electronic eyes followed
her across the parking lot, where at first she minced and tiptoed and staggered,
but after she realized that there was simply not any way to avoid
staining her paws on the swarming humanity, she gave up and simply trampled
heavily over their soft little forms.
Chuckling, Cat spat the mouthful into his hand and shoved them into his
pocket for later, then he turned his attention back to the crowd below.
The grin on his face was horrible, filled with teeth and mischief. It was
captured on tape by a cameraman who would later win a posthumous Halderman
Medal. Cat's body loomed while rushing figures flashed past the edges of the
shot. Very slowly he raised a foot, and just as slowly swung it into view.
It filled the frame, the black pads on its underside growing steadily larger
until there was nothing else. It was only the first of many such images that would
be saved for posterity, but it was the last in which the bottom of that great
paw would be free of human remains.
Dragon laughed an earthquake-rumble while Cat gleefully set about massacring
the people still trapped on the field, then shaking his head, he lifted a leg over
the stadium's rim as Bunny had. His heel caught the top of the wall and
crumbled it but he paid no attention as he stepped out into the parking lot.
The reporters who had been too slow to go after Bunny found themselves given a
second chance. They beamed back crisp images of the big clawed feet smashing
cars into foil which was swept up and sent flipping through the air by the brush
of Dragon's pant legs. Alas, all of that footage was taken from behind; the
cameramen were not at all eager to get in front of the giant, not with the
gruesome aftermath they witnessed of the people who had not gotten out of his
way in time. Instead they followed him, swerving past deep footprints and
overturned vehicles while hastily-gathered experts argued and opined from inset boxes over his
motivations. One after the other they piped up and tried to out-talk one
another, even though they were largely ignored by the viewing public who pressed
their noses to their screens and watched as Dragon strode through the streets,
his footfalls straining the microphones with a BOOMthud-BOOMthud-BOOMthud
cadence, stepping callously on cars and human beings alike, until he reached the city's main bus station.
There, as people poured
in howling streams from every exit, Dragon leaped into the very center of the
terminal and began stamping his feet with powerful, determined blows. A cloud
of debris surged up and obscured the cameras' view for a full minute; when
finally it cleared Dragon had crossed the street, kicking through the elevated
rails and twisting his body to sweep entire train cars off of their tracks. Then he
turned his attention to the subway entrances, following them from block to block
and methodically collapsing them beneath his feet. The experts had a hundred
different opinions on this, although strangely enough not one of them concluded
that Dragon might be deliberately destroying the city's primary
means of evacuation.
Bunny, on the other hand, seemed hardly to notice the people as she wandered
through the city, at least at first. Ignoring even the news helicopters that
buzzed and circled overhead, she strolled from one block to another, peering
into buildings, occasionally stopping to pick up something shiny like a mailbox
or a bicycle, then quickly losing interest and tossing it away. At one point,
though, she quickened her lazy pace and chased down a bright red sports car
whose driver had charged thoughtlessly from an underground garage directly into her
path. She snatched it from the street and shook its shrieking occupants out
before sliding it down into her pocket. It brought a smile to her face, and somehow
piqued her interest in the populace who had previously needed only to
worry about staying out of her way, but who had now gained a new fascination
for her. She bent and began to pluck individuals from the crowd, squinting at
them, turning them over and over, sniffing them, then eventually dropping them
and reaching for more. After a few disappointments she seemed to find what she was looking
for: a bicyclist in a garish and almost blindingly bright body suit. His legs
continued to spin as though riding for his life even as he was hoisted high into
the air. She smiled and churred thunderously at him. Gripping him as
carefully as she could between two fingers, Bunny reached with her other hand to
unclasp one of several great metal rings in her ear. Squinting one eye and
poking her tongue between her lips, she opened the ring and gingerly impaled the
little man upon the ring, then fastened it again in her ear. Whether the metal had
been stuck through the fabric of his suit or through his shoulder would remain
an unsettled debate since his body would never be recovered, but in all
subsequent footage of Bunny his colorful limbs could be seen flapping and
kicking in a constant dance against the base of her ear.
A distant roar sent the helicopter lenses panning frantically and zooming
out. Dragon stood nearby, grinning and casually leaning against a building
whose facade cracked and crumbled beneath the weight of his shoulder. The
camera trucks that had been pursuing him skidded to a halt just in time to catch
Bunny's booming reply, which she delivered with a coquettish flip of her hair
that showed off her latest accessory. They exchanged a few more words that
would defy months of effort at translation, but which left Bunny giggling and
covering her mouth with one hand. She turned her face away, but not her eyes;
her face might have been shy, but her eyes were not.
Dragon stood up straight and started to slink toward her while eight networks
simultaneously broadcast the deaths of hundreds of people who had been trapped
and now huddled in the street between the two. BOOMthud-BOOMthud-BOOMthud. Halfway along he
paused and crouched to seize a stalled city bus front-and-back between his
hands. Standing majestically, he raised it to his midsection and began to press
inward. Bare chest bulging, shoulders tensing, he crumpled the bus like an
accordion and leered at Bunny, who warbled her approval of the display of his strength with a
lick of her lips.
Another short discussion, another BOOMthud, dozens more deaths, and it was
Dragon's turn to stoop and to pick one of the people from the crowd, which
trapped between Bunny's large paws and those of the approaching reptile was
becoming increasingly compacted. He had selected a young woman, or so it seemed
-- he or she would never be identified -- in a tight and brilliantly yellow
T-shirt. He rumbled something to Bunny and clicked his metal tongue-stud over
his teeth, at which point to the horror of network executives everywhere Bunny
crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged deftly out of the halter top that
had been the only garment above her waist. In homes and pubs and appliance
stores worldwide a collective gasp went up as the cameras zoomed in on the giant
lapine's bare breasts. The view focused and lingered. The sheer newsworthiness
of the spectacular invasion had left no room for prudes.
Dragon's eyes locked in just as hard as the cameras did. He rolled his
shoulders, flexing his muscles grandly, then closed the distance between them, stepping on
hundreds more people like ants. His fingers, despite the apparent clumsiness of his claws,
worked with surprising
dexterity at Bunny's left nipple, and when they moved away the cameras revealed the
yellow-clad figure crucified by a gold bar that pierced through both Bunny's
nipple and the arms of the captive's shirt The operators tried but could not
get a clear image of the poor woman's face since every time she kicked she would
send a shudder through Bunny's gigantic body that would set the whole breast
swaying.
Down below, those who had managed to avoid Dragon's tread were now streaming
behind him in a fanning wave that was parted by a single news van whose driver
bravely ran his vehicle right up between Dragon's feet. The camera panned
upward, providing the world at large a fantastic (and another award-winning)
view in sharp perspective, capturing the moment just as Dragon fastened the
latest human bauble on his lady-friend, the reporter inside babbling a shrill
commentary even as Bunny reached down to unfasten Dragon's trousers. Tons of
fabric suddenly collapsed toward the camera. The scene went black, even though
the reporter's frantic chattering went on for several seconds before the feed
was abruptly lost. It was up to the circling helicopters to fill in the detail
of dragon lifting his feet to step out of his pants, left foot coming down on
the squarish lump that was the news van and casually pressing it flat.
Now the censors were beginning to take notice, even though no one paid any heed to
them; they were too busy gawking at the sight of Dragon's colossal erection vanishing into
Bunny's mouth. Hands on his hips she rocked slowly to and fro, lips sliding
along the glistening length, making it appear and reappear hypnotically. People
who had been buried and had managed not to be crushed beneath the acres of
trouser began to squirm free. Some, perhaps too stunned to do anything else,
simply stood gaping upward, and would lose their lives when Dragon eased Bunny's
mouth off of his penis and then gently nudged her onto her back. In a single deft motion he
tugged her trousers down and off and tossed them away, and then he
knelt between her knees with a leer whose meaning, despite the alien appearance of his muzzle,
could not be mistaken.
People were still stumbling away. One commentator likened the scene to the crash of the
Hindenburg where crewmen were seen racing away from the enormous bulk of the airship as it hit
the ground, and then he interrupted himself with a blurted "Holy shit!" when Dragon
leaned over and lowered his head toward the runners. His jaws parted; a long black tongue shot
forth, silver stud flashing, and whipped around three of the fugitives like a hungry snake. He
lifted his head and carried them, clustered together and kicking madly, down between Bunny's legs.
Alarmed, Bunny sat up and tried to push his head away, but Dragon stood firm. His breath ruffled
the fur of her thighs as he thrust his tongue forward, the three screeching captives and the silver
stud disappearing all at once inside.
Bunny, with one fist cocked back ready to swat Dragon a good one, suddenly dropped her hand
and fell back with a bone-rattling groan. The look of disgust on her face lingered for a few seconds
but quickly faded while dragon's nimble tongue worked itself within her. He watched her closely,
his eyes half-lidded and smug, while his tongue slid languidly in and out; before he withdrew it he
pressed his lips against her more tender ones, obscuring the view and leaving it maddeningly unclear where the
hapless three had ended up. The debate was already raging on the Internet while Dragon
crawled forward, crooning down at the uncomplaining Bunny, and settled himself
heavily atop her. Reporters, peeking from nearby skyscraper windows stammered
and struggled to find the right words to describe the sound that was made as he ground
his thick penis into her.
In Tokyo, an estimated ten thousand people watched the massive bodies thrust and gyrate
against one another on an enormous electronic display. Many of the women
flushed and covered their mouths; none of the men thought to look away.
Coincidentally, the birth rate in Tokyo rose twelve and a half percent the
following year.
As much as the lurid multi-angle coverage of the mating giants annoyed the
censors, the footage captured by the sole surviving cameraman at street level
gave them fits. He had been on foot, caught with the rest of the crowd between
Bunny and Dragon, and his feed had gone dark too when Dragon's trousers had
dropped. So intent were his directors on the gargantuan sex-show that at first
they did not notice that the feed had come back online, but once they realized
that they had a street-level scoop they quickly ran it as an inset. The scene
played along the vast scaly wall of Dragon's leg, and then swept away and began
bouncing along behind the fleeing survivors. Calls to swing back to the
scale-on-fur action were ignored, either the cameraman's headphones or his nerve
having been broken. The bosses decided, though, that the lurching images of the
retreating crowd were a good counterpoint to the grotesque scene that the people were
trying to escape.
Moments later the bouncing stopped, and so did the wild exodus. The camera
zoomed out to show that the street ahead was blocked by a wall of dented and mangled cars
that had been piled five and six high across the entire width of the street. Here and there
was a limp and motionless arm dangling from a shattered window. The surging
crowd piled up against it, groping, confused, pushing back against those who were slow to
grasp what they were up against.
A dull boom made the image jiggle for a second. The car pile lurched, one of the vehicles
toppling out of sight behind. The people swayed and stumbled and held their
hands up and grabbed at one another for balance. There was another boom, then a
singular scream from every throat at once as an immense, padded paw swept over
the top of the cars and landed in the thick of the crowd. Those underneath it were shoved
roughly down, compressed, and then there was just a row of broad toes with
a river of blood pouring from beneath them. Another paw crashed down
nearby, leaving a small army of people trapped between. They cowered, screaming in
terror that lasted only a few short seconds before something unbelievably
enormous and furry sat on them.
The camera became perfectly motionless, almost as though it had been set on a
tripod, even though the cameraman had no such equipment available. Above the
crashing and shrieking his voice could be heard chanting a mantra of "Oh
god oh god oh god." Cat, having grown tired of his earlier amusement, had
shed his trousers, a bit of which could be seen draped over a hotel in the
distance. An erection as black as iron and as big as a bus nearly filled the
screen. The cameraman's mantra quickened, its pitch rising. People started to rush away, only to
be caught by a gigantic and fluffy hand and scooped backward and squeezed
against equally gigantic and equally fluffy testicles. A sound like a
mufflerless tractor drowned out the cries as a second hand came down and
gathered up more people like a handful of pebbles, then lifted them and clasped
them rudely against the mighty erection. Up and down, up and down, pausing only
to reach for more when the bodies of the first batch began to come apart, then
up and down, faster and faster, even the cameraman's "oh god oh god"
lost beneath the increasing hurricane-roar from above, until the immense organ
was pushed downward, aimed, and the feed was lost again in a blast of white.
Dragon's roar of pleasure shattered windows over a four-block area, sent the
nearest helicopter wavering and careening before the pilot managed to regain
control, and blew out the audio on three of the eavesdropping cameras. The great scaly
body relaxed. He let his head sag down and rested his chin on Bunny's shoulder
while he panted and groaned. Bunny's breathing was deep as well, her eyes
shut blissfully. Nearby Cat, in proper feline fashion, doubled himself over
and licked himself clean of all the mess he'd made of his helpers. When he was
finished he sat up and rumbled a query to Dragon, who, having gotten his wind
back, slowly withdrew from Bunny with a kiss on her cheek and stood and
stretched himself tall. Some of the cameras zoomed in on his bobbing,
still-erect phallus, but quickly panned back out under furious orders from their
distant superiors, not for fear of censors but fear of missing what
might happen next.
Darkness was beginning to fall as Dragon turned and strode to where Cat was
sprawled. He reached down and gripped Cat's hand and helped hoist the fluffy
feline to his feet, and both of them stepped through a block of buildings --
through, not over, as though they were kicking through Autumn leaves -- and
arrived on a wide and nearly empty street. Three of the helicopters followed, and were joined by
two additional mobile units on the ground who had managed to fight their way
through the rubble and footprints, and which now gave viewers a fantastic
five-angle perspective as the two big males squatted and stared at the pavement.
Cat's ears twisted forward, and with a grin he pointed downward, then
leaned to his side and slapped a hand down hard on a subway entrance. Dragon did the
same on the opposite side of the street, and then with his other hand he began
to rake his claws into the pavement, gouging deep furrows and flinging car-sized
chunks of concrete into the surrounding facades. Cat watched, tail lashing, and
licked his whiskers hungrily. Breathless news anchors on every continent prayed
aloud that what they were seeing was not happening. Dragon dug deeper, until
his claws gripped something solid and with a mighty heave he dragged up a slab
of concrete half the size of a football field. The circling helicopters
helpfully shined their powerful spotlights down into the hole, where they illuminated
hundreds of gaping, upturned faces. Dragon licked his lips too as he shoved
the slab away. Both he and Cat grinned and reached eagerly down into the hole while the
people below scrambled and pushed at one another and the helicopter cameras
jockeyed for the best position to record the victims being captured.
No one was. Both of the giants' hands retreated. Confused, the camera
operators panned back to the two males' faces, which looked equally confused and
were turned to peer at something off in the distance. The cameras followed their gazes
to reveal Bunny, who in the race to pursue Dragon and Cat had been completely
ignored. She was standing now beside a squat cube of a building that stood
waist-high to her. Colored lights were flashing on its roof, and as Dragon
and Cat rose to their feet those lights were joined by green and red laser beams
that jerked fitfully side to side. Bunny was barking and growling at them and
gesturing urgently with one hand.
The helicopters were already hastening in that direction as the two males
left their intended meal behind and made their way curiously toward Bunny. By
the time the folks at home were able to get a clear view of what was happening,
all three giants had surrounded the building, peering down with
inquisitive expressions at a sight that left many an anchorperson mumbling "What
the hell is this?" The rooftop, broad and flat and square, was in the throes of a
colorful seizure from dozens of lights affixed to poles, some of which were
still being fastened into place by frantic workmen. More and more lights were
coming online by the second, illuminating the three towering onlookers with
swirling rainbows and painting laser patterns across their naked chests. From a
hatchway a gang of men was struggling with immense speakers that they were
half-rolling, half-dragging into place.
Cat let out an ear-shattering laugh and sneered down at them. Spreading his
stance, he reached down and gripped his thick black penis in one hand and aimed
it scornfully at the workers on the rooftop, and there is no doubt that he would
have followed through had Bunny not given him a good smack that
left him blinking and rubbing ruefully at his cheek. She hurled some angry
thunder at him that made him cringe and then bent down and stared, fascinated, at
the activity below.
While the three watched along with most of the wired world, the speakers were
pushed into place and cable was hurriedly strung. In the midst of the frenzy a small army of young
people came stumbling out of an elevator shaft, young people bare to the waist
and half tripping over bulky, oversized legwear, all festooned with shiny metal
and tiny chemical glows that made them look like a swarm of fireflies. They were followed
closely by armed men nudging with their weapons at the backs of the
youngsters, who turned frightened stares from the gun barrels to the looming
audience and then back again.
The speakers whispered something at first, and then began to blare out an
awful cacophony that sounded as though someone had recorded gravel being poured
onto a tin roof and then slowed the sound down a thousand times. The teenagers
huddling together in the center of the roof held their ears tightly, but after a few
angry gestures and the ominous cocking of weapons, they began to dance,
slowly and shakily at first.
Bunny broke into a big-toothed grin that reflected all of the dazzle from below and
immediately joined in, throwing up her arms and stamping her feet in a violent
rhythm. Dragon laughed and joined as well, followed eventually by Cat. The three
moved into a park that stretched in front of the building and within seconds had
demolished it, smashing down the trees like blades of grass, pounding walkways
and bridges into sand, reducing the koi ponds to mud. Censors at this point
threw down their clipboards and resigned as millions of televisions the world
over presented in the heart of prime time three naked titans swaying and gyrating and
grinding against one another, huge fleshy appendages swinging and slapping in a
lascivious display never before seen on any but the highest-numbered channels.
The young people on the roof grew bolder at the sight and their dance grew more
energetic, a few of them sobbing with relief as the gunmen finally lowered
their weapons.
The song, if human ears could call it that, came to an end with a crashing of
building-sized garbage can lids. The teens retreated to the far side of the rooftop
as the giants, panting and moist and grinning enormously, approached the
building once again. They were met by a lone figure garbed in very high-end business
attire, who rushed forward clutching two long
red glow-sticks which he waved in wide arcs as though he were guiding a jumbo
jet in to land.
Dragon reached down and caught the man roughly between two fingers and
hauled him up high. The world watched, breathless, waiting to see Dragon
squash the puny man like a berry. Instead, he placed the wheezing
figure into the palm of his other hand and stared at him closely. The man was
momentarily transfixed, but after a few seconds he gathered his wits and began to
sweep the glow sticks together in the direction of the building. Down there, he
told the jumbo jet pilot,down there.
Dragon's eyes followed, as did the hovering cameras, and everyone saw a
huge white drape being unfurled and rolling down the face of the building. It
was covered with blocks of lettering, much of it filled with incomprehensible
words like in perpetuity and party of the first part hereunto
referred and cross-collateralization. Squinting, Dragon
knelt down and brought the man close to the drape. Long, silent minutes passed as the man
danced about in Dragon's palm, waving his glow sticks and making great
sweeping gestures, pantomiming the meaning of each paragraph as Dragon's hand
lowered him in stages from one to the next. When they reached the bottom Dragon stood and,
even though it appeared he was being careful, still tipped the man off to a brutal landing on the roof.
Dragon turned then to his companions,
and the three spoke among themselves for a very long time while the world
watched anxiously and even the anchorpersons were too afraid to make a
sound.
Eventually the conversation ended. Dragon turned back to the building and
squatted down in front of it, his nose very close to the little man with the
sticks. He made a grunting noise that broke the remaining windows on the top
three floors, then held forth a clawed finger which the man eagerly clasped
between both hands.
A small group of men in coveralls shuffled forward, straining to carry with them what
looked like a telephone pole whose sharpened tip had been dipped in tar. Dragon picked it
up effortlessly, accidentally knocking a few of its bearers onto their rumps,
and handed it politely to Bunny, who took it and bent down to make a scrawling
mark at the base of the drape. She giggled and handed the pole to Cat, then
stood suddenly, leaned over the roof, and quickly snatched up one of the young dancers.
He squealed thinly while she cuddled and stroked him like a pet, as Cat crouched down to make
his mark on the drape, followed at last by Dragon, whose mark was by far the largest and the boldest.
The growling "music" started again, and joined by the little
teenagers and the slightly limping glow-stick man, the three giants started their
lewd and wild dance anew. The legalities and liabilities would be settled
later. The Broadcast Industry had entered at last into its new Golden Age.
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