Welcome to the War Room
“Did we get that damned logarithm decrypted yet?!” a plain clothed black-ops high ranking military commander frustratingly yelled. However, amidst the sea of hundreds of clicking keyboards, faxes, video conferences, and other panicked conversations he was quickly drowned out.
An almost reluctant “…algorithm!” was heard above the wave of the madness flooding the room.
“Whaaaat?!” NC12, the black ops commander (named such simply because he was the 12th of his kind from North Carolina) spun around so quickly it seemed as though his body snapped. Something like one of those jumbo black metal paper clips after being pulled so far back one would think it could break but they don’t, with this focused violence NC12’s body snapped in the direction of the reluctant ‘algorithm’.
His stare meeting a woman at the end of that violent snap, and penetrated her so furiously that it could would be deemed manslaughter in some non-southern states. She only gritted her teeth and squinted her eyes, supremely insulted and assaulted all in unison. This fraction of a second delay caused by her grimace seemed to only heighten Commander NC12’s high ranking killer instinct. Deliberately shifting his weight in the direction of NV78, one of generals that flanked him NC12 scowled “What did she just say?”
NV78, himself being a very neurotic man, found that he was surreally caught in the position of being between the general’s protruding fangs and the beautiful woman’s pleading glare. He replied as sheepishly as a general could reply, without breaking eye contact with the now petrified female colonel, posing to NC12
“Algorithm, I think that’s what she said”
The words caused the woman’s brows to begin to form a light yet visible dew, yet she swallowed and defended her action. “Um, you said logarithm, but what we are cracking is an algorithm… sir”
With that the absolutely most hostile sarcasm ever seen seemed to ooze out of the General’s pores like a Bizzaro World pheromone. “I’m sorry -” those words gingerly danced out of his smiling mouth, in that tone that all but the mentally challenged and ESL students already know will be followed by a very visceral biting barrage of insults. “I don’t see a fresh commanding expletive to expletive here Colonel expletive, so you won’t be getting anymore affirmative action promotions with your smart ass ‘feeeed-back’” The word feedback snaked it’s way into the air like a waft of smoke.
This shook the thirty-nine year old new grandmother and off-duty wife and foreign intelligence special-ops cold blooded killer now at the hilt of the notorious glass ceiling right to the core. She, who will remain unnamed, had encountered sexism all 25 years in the service but never this bad. And even in this heightened state of emergency and tension the rancid rant stung enough that her eyes got a little shiny, but due to her training it was hard to tell if she was longing for murder or mercy.
NC12, didn’t seem to notice though and he finished catching his breath and continued, “What the hell are you still standing in my war room for expletive?! I swear to all that is Holy is if you don’t turn around and hop into that God forsaken ugly economy car of yours and drive till you Thelma and Louise off into the Potomac right now I’ll rip those expletive off you and use them as earmuffs you stupid fu-“ A giant crash shook the control room sending everyone into the next level of hyper panic. By the time a feed had come on the jumbo-tron sized screen the woman colonel already lost herself in the madness of the room.
“Attention all personnel classified information up-linked in 3, 2, …”
The familiar image of the President in oval office came on the screen. The President spoke, “I would like to share the latest intelligence we have received from our top level classified source in this crisis… We have without doubt confirmed that it is the Plants whom are indeed attacking our World; and those same sources tell us that they plan to eradicate the modern world civilization when we do comply ….and will kill all animal life if we don’t – ” Just then a voice off camera spoke.
“No I’ve told you that the plants will not kill WILD animals” The President’s eyes quickly shifted in the direction of the voice and returned to the camera where they smiled nervously. By now the control room was deathly silent but for a very few people too wrapped up in their duties to realize exactly who was on the big screen. “You have to tell,” the voice seemed so husky it was almost a gargle. “The damn Plants ordered full disclosure” Through the aside the smiling President continued hoping that the voice was not heard.
Through his lapel mic NC12 addressed the President. “Listen here Bobby” People still dared not breathe. “We have coordinates to the main Plant’s roots; it is around 30 meters beneath the Pacific Ocean’s floor. Now, we can send a nuke in a sub…mar…ee…” NC12’s voice dropped off as what all confirmed to themselves as the president’s Dog was seen hop onto the desk and motioned to the president with its paw. The President smiling even bigger out of embarrassment smoothly took his mic off and put it to the dog’s jaw and then the dog formally cut NC12 trailing “submarine” off the rest of the way.
“That is by far the dumbest thing that I have ever heard. You there, I believe NV78; please remove this jackass’ mic. Though we have no time, I will not go on until that jackass cannot communicate on this line” While NC12’s jaw was still dropped, NV78 pulled his mic off and the president’s Dog continued. “Okay, I don’t have all day, rather we don’t have all day. So let’s address the elephant in the room shall we? And no, I don’t mean NC12”
The dog paused, but there was only silence, a few people cleared their throats. “As you can see; Yes, I can talk, in fact we all can talk, plants, animals, everything that moves talks. According to our ancient history when our ancestors discovered you simple minded hairless apes thought you were the only ones who knew how to talk; they decided to let you go along thinking you were the only intelligence here. Since humans are just so stupid and oblivious to everything around them the ancients figured ‘what harm could some naked apes do?’ and let you tend to the planet for us.
“We were ready to let you keep going till you did something worthwhile like build an artificial planet to travel galaxy to galaxy in, but you idiots just couldn’t stop destroying the planet. The President shook his head in disapproval, as the Dog continued. “And the Plants who have been here the longest, they were also already really edgy because most of them never get to stretch; finally had enough and sent their roots down to the Earth’s core and hijacked it.
“From the core, they have control of the entire planet manipulating anything and everything in the ecosystem from tornadoes to the shape of the clouds. We would have let you guys all die out like we did when the Reptiles were in your place, but the Plants they seem to especially hate you. Which I must say is saying a lot because, they didn’t even seem to hate the Reptiles this much and from what I understand Reptiles are really despicable douche bag type life forms and smelly too.
Anywho, now they are going to kill us domesticated animals too, which is why I am here” The President, still holding the mic and now in the slightly unfocused camera background just kept smiling as much as he could; nodding and raising his eyebrows, when appropriate, as to pretend he was still in control. But everyone knew the Dog was the one now running the show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“So this is what is going to happen based on our intelligence, you, I mean we are going to have to get out of all the cities and take what ever we can walk with and go back into “nature”. The Plants will then send lightning to scorch and burn, then floods and wind to wash and blow away the remains cities of the Earth. And if they have warned that if they see so much as one light bulb for the next hundred years they will kill all of mankind and domesticated animals with a rare water or air borne disease using the power of the Earth’s core.
”Oh and lastly an FYI: Nukes will not work; the Plants are all tapped into the air and the water. So thanks to you we are all going to start back at square one and the planet is going back to Ice Age technology” The room was utterly devastated, the Dog on the screen then let out a loud yawn and shook his himself out nose to tail, despite his temper and insults he looked as tired as the rest of them.
At the climax of this too strange for fiction moment a mid-ranking uniformed intelligence officer jumped off his video conference call and rushed over to NC12 picking up a document in the printer on the way “Sir! We finally got word back from the Balkans. Here is the cracked… logarithm” But NC12, didn’t even pick his jaw up.
“….It’s algorithm, you jackass”
