Day XXVI - Story Beginning Number 2

Release the Super-Strong Crazed Genetically-Engineered Sloths!

“Mr. President.”

“Just a minute Bob, I’m on the phone with my publicist.” The President of the United States spun on his big leather chair and looked out over the rose garden.

“Go ahead Ethel. Uh huh, so if I were to have an affair, with whom do you think I should have had it? Lopez? Yes, I suppose it would help with the Hispanic voters if I had had an affair with Jennifer Lopez. Not Jlo? Well then.” He chewed on the cord of the phone a moment. “Triny Lopez, that might help with the senior vote, but…Not Triny Lopez either. Then who Ethel? Manuel Lopez? Manuel Lopez, my gardener? Ethel, don’t you think it would just be easier if I signed the Gay Marriage Bill?”

“Mr. President. This is urgent.”

“Just a moment Ethel.” He spun back to face Bob. “Woman’s a nut.” He mouthed silently.

“Mr. President, Dr. Itaz, the head of SETI is here and he says he’s had a message from an…” he looked both ways and put his hand up to his mouth, “A-L-I-E-N.”
The president’s lips moved along with Bob’s. “He has ailurophobia, a fear of cats? What’s that got to do with…”

“No sir, an ALIEN!” Bob had been shoved aside by a very large and round man in thick glasses and a white lab coat.

“Dr. Itaz I presume?”

“Yes Mr. President. We’ve just confirmed a message from an alien craft that’s on its way to earth.”

“Are you sure, how do you know?”

“The message was,” he pulled out a sheet of paper and read from it. “‘There’s Earth right there. I told you I didn’t need to stop for directions. I know the turtle needs a pit-stop. He’ll be fine as soon as we reach Earth. About two days.” He looked up and adjusted his glasses.

“That’s it?”

“Yes sir. Now based on my experience I think we can assume that there are at least two aliens in a ship that will arrive on Earth today.”

“Today? The message said two days.”

“Yes sir, but we had to confirm the message and cross-reference it with several radio observatories, and it was a holiday weekend.”

“My god.” The President jumped to his feet. “Bob, we’ve got to put a team together.”

Bob wasn’t there. He had slipped back out of the Oval office when Dr. Itaz had bustled in.

“Bob!”

“Sir?” Bob appeared with mustard and mayonase all over his face.

“Bob, we need a team to meet these aliens. Get me three soldiers, one that really knows what he’s doing and two more for ray-gun fodder. We also need a single mother, maybe a minority, and an average Joe with some secret talent and a precousous youth.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Doesn’t matter. The boy must be shy, cute and brilliant. The girl must be brassy.”

“Yes sir.”

“Bob?”

“Yes sir?”

“What’s that noise?”

Dr. Itaz pointed over the President’s shoulder out the window. The President spun around to see a turtle larger than the Capitol building crash into Pennsilvania Avenue.

“I guess we should forget about the team sir?”

“No no. Get them.” He waved Bob away as he stepped out into the garden followed by Dr. Itaz.

The turtle was of course enourmous, but the strangest thing about it was that it was girdled by what looked like a metallic tire inner tube. A door opened in the tube and two creatures exited.

They looked like a cross between a snake and a komodo dragon and a snowmobile. They were about fifteen feet long and six feet thick. They had four broad, short legs even spaced around the back third of their bodies and four arms. Their mouths opened like a Phillips head screwdriver and they had four eyes all around their heads. They wore belts and pouches all around their bodies, including a speaker-looking box near their tails, but no other clothes. They moved like sea serpents.

A unemotional, mechanical voice blasted from the speaker box on one of the creatures. “All right woman, get off my back, I’ll ask. Angry and annoyed.”

It slithered over and grabbed a man standing on the street.

“Take me to your leader. Demanding.”