ATOMIC TALES – Strange Invaders #41: Return of the 50-Foot Femme

Agent Seven, “Ruthless” Ruth Donlevy

“Happy birthday, Wild Bill!” Agent-in-training Gloria Gale “Gigi” Brock threw her arms wide and gave Agent Eight a big hug as he stepped onto the driveway in front of his split-level in Reno.

Most people would have waited for visitors to arrive at the door, but Eight a.k.a. “Wild Bill” Hayes knew that we wouldn’t be celebrating in the house, on account of his wife Donna. She’d been turned into a 50-foot tall giant in September of last year.

We’re still not sure how that happened, though under hypnosis Donna claimed to have seen strange lights, gotten kidnapped, and been experimented on, all while Bill slept soundly nearby. Then she went rampaging through downtown Reno, until Bill, Agent One, and I managed to pacify her.

Now Donna stayed in a circus-sized cargo tent behind the house while Dr. Shannon Teragon, her brainy father, and I—along with the rest of the USSB’s science branch—searched for both an explanation and a cure.

“Gigi… Great to see you,” Bill said. “You, too, Ruth. I hope you’ve left your ‘Ruthless’ persona at home, because it’s party time. And Shannon… What a surprise.” He shook Shannon Teragon’s hand enthusiastically, though his eyes looked wary. “How are things in the lab? How’s your dad?”

“Things are good,” Shannon said. “Dad’s pleased as punch about our bug spray breakthrough. I brought along a sample to show you.” Shannon retrieved an atomizer from her purse. “Hold out your hand.”

Shannon spritzed the back of Bill’s hand. “Compound T, Formulation Three,” she explained. “Completely harmless to humans.”

Bill frowned. “Stings a little.”

I sprayed his hand with a second atomizer and handed him a hankie. “Washes off with water.”

“And it kills bugs like… Ka-Pow!” Gigi enthused.

Bill wiped his hand and grinned. “That’s great news! Some birthday present! Does this mean you’re closer to finding a cure for Donna, too, Doc?” The hope in Bill’s eyes looked like a kid waiting for Santa on Christmas.

“I wouldn’t go that far… yet,” Shannon demurred. “But it’s given us some new angles to pursue.”

He clapped her on the shoulder. “Great. C’mon out back. Donna’s by the pool.” He continued as we walked. “Things haven’t been easy the last six months, but we’ve muddled through…”

When we came around the house, Donna was lounging by their in-ground pool, same as she’d been the last time I saw her. She looked like a titanic-sized cat sunning herself on the big strip of canvas that served as her beach towel. Despite Bill’s concerns, it seemed like his wife didn’t have a care in the world.

“…Our food bill would have broken the bank without the USSB picking up the tab.” Bill forced a big grin. “Still, Donna’s happy… And that means I’m happy, too. But it’s… difficult… You know?” His brave smile seemed close to cracking.

“Bill…?” Donna’s voice boomed across the back yard. “Who’s that with you?”

“Just some more party guests, honey. Agent Seven… I mean Ruth… And Gigi… And you remember Doc… er… Shannon Teragon, right?

Donna sat up and pouted. “No normal guests? What about my friends and family?”

“You know we can’t, baby. Not until we figure this thing out.”

“Not while I’m still a giant, you mean.” She pounded her fist on the patio cement and the backyard shook.

The handful of other guests milling around by the barbecue looked up, startled.

I recognized all of them as local USSB operatives: people who’d been assigned to keep tabs on Bill—and mostly Donna—in case anything went awry. The agency’d bought out all the other houses in this small hillside subdivision to keep prying eyes away from our resident giant.

Donna, towering over the rest of us, scowled.

Bill gazed up at her plaintively. “Honey, you know this won’t last forever. The agency will…”

She tossed her huge mane of dark hair. “The agency…! That’s all I ever hear about!”

“Donna,” Shannon said, “my dad and I have been working on your problem day and night…”

“And now that we’ve found a better way to kill the bugs…” Gigi put in.

“What?” Donna’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve found a way to kill the bugs?”

I gave the biggest grin I could manage. “Look at us talking shop. Don’t we have cake and presents or something?”

“Cake and presents!” Bill thrust his finger into the air, seeming as happy as I was to change the subject. “That’s what we need. Bring out the cake, guys!”

Several of the local ops darted into the house and emerged moments later wheeling out a towering, white-frosted cake on a kitchen cart. The cake wouldn’t be more than finger food for Donna, but she looked thrilled at the prospect.

Aside from being a giant, she appeared… healthy. She eyed the triple-decker treat greedily.

We all sang Happy Birthday, and Bill blew out the candles and cut the cake. He served the rest of us from the top two layers, and then wheeled the remainder over to Donna, who devoured it with gusto.

Next came gift time. Shannon presented Bill with a new watch from the agency. The local folks gave him ties, socks, and the like.

I pulled a framed photo from my large, combat-ready purse. “This is from last spring’s company picnic.” It showed Bill and Donna together, beaming at the camera, from before her “incident.”

Bill teared up a little as he took it. “T-thanks. I’m sure we’ll be able to take pictures like this again… soon.”

“I got you this…” Gigi handed Bill a mysteriously thin, yard-long package.

Bill looked puzzled as he opened it. “A… Kite…?”

Gigi grinned. “It’s something you two can do together… at home.”

“How… thoughtful,” Donna said, seeming unimpressed. She leaned on one elbow as she reclined, her long dark hair brushing the patio. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you anything, but… It’s not like I could go into town.”

“You could give him a lock of your hair,” Shannon, standing right next to Donna, suggested. And without waiting for permission, she pulled a pair of scissors from her pocket and snipped off a foot-long tress.

Donna screamed as if she’d been scalded and sat bolt upright. “What have you done?!” she boomed. “Give it back!”

She grabbed for Shannon, but the doc stepped out of reach, putting the pool and the other guests between her and the giant. “It’s just a lock of hair.”

Bill looked horrified. “Doc… What are you doing?!”

“Give it! Donna lunged at Shannon, seemingly not caring about the people between her and the scientist. She sent several of the local operatives sprawling and knocked poor Gigi into the pool.

“Shannon… Donna… Stop!” Bill cried.

Shannon kept backing away as Donna rose to her full height.

Doc Teragon waved the lock of hair in her hand, like a trophy. “Look, Bill… Look!”

To the amazement of the party-goers, the hair transformed into strands of green goop and then dissolved into nothingness.

“Now, Ruth!” Doc called.

When the giantess lunged toward my boss again, I rushed forward, splashing the contents of a specially prepared bottle onto Donna’s right heel and the back of her towering leg.

Donna wheeled on me, her face an inhuman mask of rage and pain.

She reached for me but then—as everyone watched in horror—she dissolved into a pile of foul-smelling putrescent green slime.

Bill screamed. “What have you done?!”

The enormous puddle of goo that had been Bill’s wife was evaporating even as the echo of his shout died away. In under a minute, nothing remained.

Bill sank to his knees and wept.

I helped Gigi out of the pool. “What just happened?” she asked. “What did you douse her with?”

“Compound T,” I replied. “Harmless to humans—and capable of turning a transformed human, like Dr. Hedison, back to normal.”

Shannon nodded. “But fatal to mutant constructs, like the bugs. Agent One’s recent encounter with the Queen Bee proved something I’ve suspected since the previous hair sample Ruth obtained vanished: the giant Donna was never human.”

“What…?” Bill looked like someone had clobbered him. Gigi put a wet-but-comforting arm around his shoulders.

“The cube-square law says that humans can only grow to perhaps seven or eight feet, before our bodily structures will fail to support us,” Shannon continued. “The giant bugs and other huge invaders work around that by changing their anatomy.

“They may look like titanic insects, and snakes, and whatever, but inside, they’re very different. Mutants like the yeti, the geckos, and the shrews have also undergone changes to support their enlarged size. But when we treated samples of their cells, those cells didn’t dissolve, like the bugs, but returned to normal.

“The same would have happened to Donna if she’d still been human. But she wasn’t. She was a construct, like the bugs.”

Bill remained shell-shocked. “B-but, she had Donna’s memories… She knew things that only Donna knew.”

I frowned. “We’ve theorized that she was being fed info on Donna’s life… somehow.”

“Like a giant spy!” Gigi put in.

“You likely didn’t notice flaws in Donna’s personality or knowledge because of her overwhelming physical change, Bill,” Shannon offered.

The forlorn Agent Eight sat and dangled his legs into the pool, despite still wearing shoes and socks. “But why would Dr. M., or even the Soviets, do any of this crazy stuff? Why create a 50-foot woman… or a Queen Bee? Why make giant bugs at all?”

Shannon looked grim. “We don’t know.”

“And if this wasn’t my wife, where is she? Where’s the real Donna?”

Just then, one of the local ops came from the house with towels for Gigi and Bill to dry off. “Hey, guess what, Bill…? Your radio’s working again.”

“After all these months…!” Bill slumped his head into his hands.

Shannon snapped her fingers. “There’s a lead we can follow—radio interference!” I could already see the gears turning behind her eyes.

I put a supportive hand on Bill’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Bill. Whoever’s behind these giant bugs, whoever’s taken Donna, we’ll figure it out. This war’s not over until we get your wife back.”

THE END

About “Return of the 50-Foot Femme”

Finally, the truth can be told…

When is a giant woman not a giant woman…? When she’s a strange mutant like the bugs!

I know I’ve said this before, but I’ve waited a lo-o-ong time to tell this story.

I’d written the original Atomic Tales tale, “A Sci-Ant-ific Problem,” to rebuke the idea that all giant bugs were absurd, because the cube square law proved they couldn’t actually happen. Insects just did not scale up: larger size couldn’t support their weight, and they wouldn’t be able to breathe, either, because of their basic pulmonary systems.

In that first tale, I argued—through Agent One—that there could be giant bugs, because their biological systems would be different than that of their smaller cousins, and that you could make a giant bug similarly to the way you’d construct one out of metal.

If you could make a mechanical giant ant for a special effect in THEM!—which they did—then you could do something similar with biology. Bingo! We have giant creatures everywhere. That’s the pseudo-science “gimme” of this series. (Well, one of them, anyway.)

But, if you bought that argument at the start, you might still have been scratching your head and asking: “What about Donna? Humans are affected by the cube-square law just the same as insects would be.”

And you’d have been right!

Because Giant Donna has been “Bug Donna” right from the start, except that I was the only one who knew it.

Which leads to plenty of other questions, some of which have been given voice in this story, and more of which will certainly come up in the future.

But I did lay some clues as to Giant Donna’s true nature from the start. Did you catch any of them? Did you piece them together? If you haven’t before, hopefully you’re having a satisfying “Ah ha!” moment now.

As we draw ever nearer to the end of the Strange Invaders arc, we’re gathering up the clues and closing out storylines. Hopefully, the conclusion will be rewarding for all of us.

And don’t worry, there’s still plenty of action to come!