Doug: Awesome Dreams are Awesome

White House, Washington, DC.
“Sir! We have a situation.”
President Barack Obama glanced over his reading glasses at the man in front of him. The White House aid was flushed from running from one end of the building to the other. Sweat dripped from his brow and his tie was loosened. His breath came in wheezing gasps as his lungs tried to compensate for the taxing he had put them through. It would have been faster to call, but one does not simply call the President to inform him of things; even news of this magnitude.
“Go on.”
The aid paused, unsure of how to put this delicately, then decided there really wasn’t a way. “Sir, the Joint Chiefs are on their way here, but there isn’t much time. Six minutes ago several massive objects appeared in near earth orbit. Three minutes ago they launched a series of smaller ships, each roughly about the size of a Ford class aircraft carrier.”
The President blinked, looking vaguely like a deer caught in the headlights of a Mack Truck. “What?”
“It appears Sir,” the aid gulped down fear, “that we’re being invaded by an alien force of unknown composition and origin.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“No sir.”
“Shit.”
“Yes sir.”
Obama leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in thought. After a moment he looked up at the aid. “All right, deploy all our forces to meet this threat. Call in the reserves, pull in everybody, I want our full combat capability to be up and ready to fight as soon as possible.”
“What if they’re friendly?”
“They’re not.”
Presidential Bunker, ½ a mile below the surface
Six hours later, it was all over. The alien aircraft carriers had released hundreds of smaller ships to destroy all weapons systems brought to bear, while the fleet in orbit had used massive lasers to reduce military bases worldwide to ashes. The Chinese had attempted to bring nuclear weapons to bear early on in the game, but when the dust cleared, they had simply succeeded in irradiating a large portion of the atmosphere. France had attempted to surrender two hours in, but the Aliens had responded to this by using their laser systems to level the entire country, burning it out of existence. Similar things had happened to Iran, North Korea, and the Alien force was currently in the process of burning Russia out of existence.
The President watched all of this in high definition, wall to wall big screen in the bunker located beneath the White House. As he had six hours earlier he leaned back in his seat and folded his hands. “Well. Shit.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs muttered something into a red phone, then hung up and turned to the President. “Sir, the fleet that destroyed Western Russia has begun to cross the Pacific. They’ll be over American soil in an hour.”
Obama nodded. “Well then. I think it’s time we stopped fucking around.” He leaned forward, staring at the carnage in front of him. “Initiate plan PATRIOT.”
There were gasps around the room. “But sir, the American people won’t stand for it!” the Secretary of the Army said.
“We’ve no choice.” Obama’s voice was grim. “All true Americans will understand.”
There was a long silence and then the men gathered in the room all picked up their respective phones, moving the machinery that would initiate America’s last ditch defense, only called upon in her most dire of hours…
Seattle, Washington State.
The government Witch Doctor added a few more dashes of powder to the cauldron in front of him. Special Agent Robert Johnson of the Secret Service watched with some skepticism. “Is that really going to work?”
“Yes.” The witch doctor was covered head to foot in tattoos, clashing horribly with the suit and tie that all governmental agencies required their employees to wear. He didn’t bother to look at Johnson, his attention was totally focused on the evil brew bubbling before him.
“It seems kind of ridiculous.”
“So does Aliens dropping from the sky and invading the planet. Shut up. If I don’t get the mix exactly right then the summoning will be less than complete. I might even raise the entire cemetery.”
Johnson glanced around at the graves that surrounded them, thinking this was a terrible idea. Even if this worked, there was a less than ten percent chance that the individual they were about to raise from the dead would be actually useful. Still, it was their last option.
A few minutes later the Witch Doctor stood up. “It’s ready.”
“Should I say a prayer?” Johnson asked.
“NO.” Firmly. “It is unwise to call the attention of the Gods when you seek to defy their laws.”
“Right. Just do it then.”
The witch doctor muttered a few dark sounding phases in a language most people never knew existed, and then kicked over the cauldron onto the grave. He then took a few careful steps back. “You might ready your sidearm. We may or may not have just started the Zombie Apocalypse.”
“Great.”
The earth heaved and a rotted hand burst out of the ground in front of the tomb stone. The two government workers looked around frantically, but this was the only grave whose occupant had awoken. The hand felt around, then began to pull the body out behind it. A head and then a torso appeared, and after a minute or so, the entirety of the body was above ground. The half rotted skull looked trough sightless sockets, head cocked ever so slightly in what seemed to be confusion.
“He’s not trying to eat us.”
“No.”
“So it worked.”
“It looks that way, yes.”
Johnson took a deep breath and stepped forward, addressing the corpse directly. “How are you feeling?”
“Who summons me man?” The voice was that of a young African American man, though the vocal chords had long rotted away. “I was sleeping all peaceful like.”
“Mr. Hendrix, I’m afraid to tell you that you’ve been drafted… again. Your country needs you, son.”
Installation 04, Colorado Rockies two hundred feet below the surface.
“Are we prepared?” Air Force Colonel Jack O’Neill asked the tech before him.
“Yes sir.” The tech replied, double checking his control console. “All boards read green, give the order and the equipment will be raised.”
“Very well, do it.”
“Yes sir.” The tech flipped a few switches, and the ground began to rumble.
Two hundred feet directly up the top had begun to slide off the mountain they were inside. Several minutes passed as the massive piece of earth moved out of the way, revealing a secret hidden from the public eye for nearly forty years.
The tech flipped a few more switches, and massive speakers the size of aircraft carriers rose into the cold mountain air. O’Neill nodded in satisfaction, glancing over at the map of the United States that showed all the other installations raising their speakers simultaneously. Hundreds of lights winked from red to green all over the country, each signifying massive speakers rising from the ground, only a small, but key part of plan PATRIOT.
Presidential Bunker
“Sir, all pieces are on the board.”
Obama nodded, he seemed lost in thought. One of his aids leaned over and said. “Sir, it’s not too late to call this mad scheme off.”
The president shook his head violently. “A great man once said that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”. He clearly did not have to deal with Aliens falling from the goddamn sky. Initiate plan PATRIOT.”
***
All across the country Americans looked up to the skies in alarm, knowing their doom was coming. But suddenly, as if from everywhere, a sound arose. The faint strains of an electric guitar, an eerily familiar tune rising in volume and tempo, until it seemed to fill the whole world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_3uHYd7pV0
Hearts round the country swelled as people began to recognize the tune of their great nation’s anthem. But this was not the familiar Francis Scott Key version, this was the true glory of the tune, the mad dream of that Master of the Axe, Jimi Hendrix, raised from the dead in the time of his country’s most desperate need.
And as all these Americans listened to the anthem of their great nation, expressed in the voice of its greatest musician, they began to glow as if filled with an inner light, and they began to float off the ground. Their muscles grew as if by magic, and all of them were filled with the urge to bring battle to the certain doom bearing down on them.
Feral grins broke out, suburban, urban, and rural Americans became the predators they were meant to be, and raced forward to fight the invaders of their planet. Streaks of light filled the sky, the people of lesser nations looked up in awe as the American people brought down their enemies with their bare hands, punching holes in spaceships, hurling ships into the sea, and kicking the alien menace into the next solar system. In mere minutes, the hidden power of America brought quiet to a battle thought hopeless mere moments before.
As the last strains of the Anthem faded into the sunrise, the Americans came home, settling back down, accepting once again the surly bonds of earth. There was rebuilding to be done, but the power that had filled them before had faded, as it was only to be called upon in times of most dire need.
***
“Why did we not do that six hours sooner?” The White House aid asked, incredulous. He personally had destroyed a hundred alien ships, but his hands showed no sign of it. Nor had he even broken a sweat.
“Because it was a terrible thing to do, son.” Obama hung his head in shame.
“That wasn’t terrible, that was fucking awesome!”
“It was awesome,” The president paused, “and a terrible, terrible, sin. You see, now that we’ve raised Jimi Hendrix from the dead to motivate the entire country to go Super-Sayan to battle alien invaders, we’ve peaked. The world will simply never be that awesome again.”
-Doug
This was a dream I had. It was indeed, very awesome.