Chapter 11: Galaxy

From Hefmire’s Case Notes, dated 10/09/2011:

“It is still hard to believe the way the crisis surrounding Patient Zero, or ‘Beach’, was resolved. We still do not understand her psychology, and we underestimated her physical power at almost every turn, but the way events unfolded still shocks me nonetheless. It also vexes me that I never had a proper opportunity to examine the subject’s biology. So many questions go unanswered. Why did she come to Earth? Are there others like her? What kind of planet could such a lifeform have evolved on? How does her body scale up to accommodate her expansion? The answer to even one of these may have jumped our scientific understanding forward at least 200 years. And had we known who she was earlier, we might have gotten answers to all of them.”

***

“What just happened?” asked Awn in a choked voice, staring at the radar screen that had been tracking the progress of the missile.

“The target expanded exponentially,” reported one of his techies. “London is now entirely engulfed.”

“I mean...” Awn said blankly, “What really happened? Medically. Someone get Hefmire in here.”

“I’m here,” said Hefmire. “I’ve been in this room since you took the decision to nuke Patient Zero. There’s no need to brief me.”

“So what happened?” Awn asked again without looking round from the radar screen.

“At a guess? I’d say that Patient Zero has a facility for metabolising both the explosive power and radiation released in a thermonuclear explosion in the same way she would digest ordinary matter. She’s converted your nuclear explosion to fat, General.”

“That’s it then,” Awn announced. “We’re fucked. Go home, everyone...”

“Actually, I don’t know if we are fucked, Sir,” a techie said, looking up from the screen he was monitoring.

“And what are you doing?” Awn asked, dazedly.

“Watching the news in order to keep an eye on civilian reaction to the crisis. I think you should see this...”

***

Sashman and Jaff opened their eyes to discover that they had not been the victims of an impromptu nuclear strike- though they had been carried across London on a wave of expanding flesh. Their new position in the city was right next to one of the news crews who had been covering the event from what had been a safe distance. They could hear an earnest female reporter talking to camera.

“... the lifeform, whom we can now confirm is actually Beach, the plus-sized actress from the film ‘The Woman Who Ate the World’ did stand a moment ago in order to allow medical teams to recover those who would otherwise have been trapped under her belly unable to breath. Most people were able to stagger out of the danger zone unaided, but a few have required help. Beach has laid back down now in order to bring herself close enough to the director Raddy Sashman, whom she was believed to have been romantically involved with...”

“Ignore her,” said Beach, smiling at Sashman. “We still ARE romantically involved. Are you okay, by the way?”

“Fine,” replied Sashman. “How are you holding up? You just ate a nuclear warhead...”

“And I can’t say I liked the taste much. Still, at least it was filling. Look, I need to leave. Earth I mean.”

“You can do that?”

“Not until just now. I need an energy-source to survive in space without nourishment or oxygen. Now I have it.”

“How? What? I don’t understand,” Sashman admitted.

“The energy released from splitting the atom- the workings of a nuclear bomb. That’s in me now, powering me. Of course, it does mean I’ll have to leave soon. That energy just keeps on replenishing, and my body just keeps on storing it as fat. If I stick around, I’ll wind up crushing all of England before the day’s out, not just London.”

Sashman nodded. “One thing I still don’t get... how do you know all this now? You said you’re memories started the day you woke up on a beach... now you understand everything about your own body?”

“I was trapped beneath the rock of this planet’s ocean-bed for centuries and I didn’t have time to get my bearings before needing to escape the oil-rig that dug me up. But let me tell you, honey, eating an explosion really blows away the cobwebs!” she gave that tinkling laugh of hers, her body jiggling and causing tremors across the length and breadth of the nation. “There’s a funny story to how I ended up on Earth...”

“Then you can tell me on the journey to wherever it is you’re going,” Sashman said decisively, “Because, sweetie, I’m coming with you! And I’m bringing my camera!”

“You’re so sure of yourself!” Beach exclaimed. “How do you know I’ll be able to take you with me?”

“Well, you can, can’t you?”

“Sashman!” Jaff interrupted “I really think you should think about this...” There’s was a second of silence as he was ignored.

“Yes, I can take you,” Beach smiled. “I can use that power in me now to do almost anything. I can give you an atmosphere, and warmth. As for food... well, pack a few supplies, but I’m sure we’ll find other planets with human-compatible food on. It’s not like carbon-based life is super-rare if you look at the universe as a whole!”

“It’ll be amazing!” Sashman enthused. “I’ll make the first Space Opera ever to be actually filmed in space!”

***

Awn pulled back from the live television broadcast of this conversation and sighed.

“Well, that’s that over.” Pausing for a moment, he then turned to his crew and said “If any whisper of a hint of the cluster-fuck that took place today reaches anyone outside this room, I will personally castrate the man responsible. Dismissed!”

***

Some two hours later, London was treated to the once-in-a-lifetime sight of a giant woman rising out of the atmosphere, flesh rippling and jiggling as she and the man perched on the huge outcrop of her gut waved to the planet they were leaving behind.

“Don’t do anything that’ll give humans a bad name!” called Jaff up to his departing friend and co-director of many films. “And don’t forget to visit! Oh, and NASA called and said that if you could just take some fresh footage of the lunar landing site on your way by the moon to prove they really did go up there...”

“Bye, Jaff! I’ll see you soon, alright! Kiss a starlet for me!” Sashman called back. “And tell NASA that I’ll see if I can spot the lunar landing site on my way past!”

“Bollocks,” said Jaff, when they’d gone.

“What?” asked one of the news reporters covering the event.

“I just realised that that bastard ran off with our best camera.”

Night fell, a few hours later, as a comforting curtain of dark velvet, bringing with it the certainty that when the sun rose, everything would have returned to something approaching normality. That said, there would be a few differences compared to the world before it met Beach: London was a wreck and the night sky itself was altered- a couple of minor stars had vanished from it, devoured by the lifeform known as Beach as she passed them. Still, the world remained uneaten.