Chloe finished her morning séance with a slight bow and the spirits departed. She brushed her teeth and her hair and sat lightly at her computer. The sun was beginning to creep in through the tiny gaps in the drawn curtains, but she managed to retain her focus. Today she would be posting her 2,000th TikTok as Madame Strange and she was vibrating with excitement. I have achieved so much! 8.6 million followers. 1.6 billion likes. She had never expected it when she started the account. She just wanted to find some like-minded people with similar interests; similar questions that needed answering. Now it was all she could do, all she could think about, and - more importantly - a resounding success! She had been contacted by companies that wanted her to advertise their products to her viewers: scented candles, Ouija boards, and haunted dolls.
Just as she was about to draft a script for her next video, there was an assertive knock at the door.
“Madame Strange?” A tall, thin woman in a grey suit stood in the doorway, a look of harried confusion on her face.
“Err…” Chloe hesitated: it was rare that she was addressed by that name in public. Once or twice - when she had dared to venture to the shop - someone had yelled that name and given her a thumbs up of recognition, to which she had smiled and scurried away. But never at her home. “That’s me.”
“We need you to come with us.” The woman’s eyes glanced behind Chloe into the darkness of her house, and she winced.
“Who’s us?”
“We’re with the Ministry of Defence.” The woman looked sheepish, almost embarrassed to reveal the fact.
“Am I… in trouble?” Chloe racked her brain for her recent posts. What have I said or done that might be incriminating? The Girl in the Lake? The Goblin Boy of West Sussex? No, it must be something else.
“Trouble?” The woman flashed a shocked frown. “No. Your… expertise is required.” The noun was alive with nuance, rendering it almost indefinable and highlighting her doubt as to its validity in this context.
“Expertise.” Chloe replied, flatly. I have a second-class degree in Media Studies, and an expired Food Hygiene certificate. What expertise could I possibly be thought to offer?
“Are you coming?” The tone made it very clear this last statement was only tentatively disguised as a question.
“I’ll get my bag.”
Chloe had not been to London for years, but it was just as she had remembered it: an over-populous wasteland that had forgotten its deep past. Building after building thrown up on top of centuries of history, lost to the wind. These people fill in their spreadsheets, type out their memos, in their metal and glass towers, atop herds of ghosts. They neglect their past at their peril.
“Madame Strange?” A suited man with a bald head winced at the impossibility of the name as he offered a hand to be shaken.
“Please, call me Chloe.”
“Oh, good. Good to meet you, Chloe.” The relief was palpable, and she shook his clammy hand - with her own reflexive wince - before he turned to introduce her to the room. “This is Ms. Peters, Home Secretary; Mr. Choi, Prime Minister; Mrs. Rodriguez, Director of Counterintelligence-”
“-Burt.” An as yet unintroduced woman - in army uniform and with hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail - cut in; the single word ringing out like the crack of a whip.
“Sorry, yes.” He stumbled over his words and his composure, “time is of the essence. These people are all important and need your help.” He waved a damp hand over all of their heads and then slunk away to the corner, pursued by the ponytailed woman’s scowl.
“Please, sit, Chloe.” The Prime Minister suggested with a kind smile, and she obliged, very aware of the - thirteen, she quickly counted - people staring at her with glares that ranged from scepticism to out-right furious opposition to the validity of her presence. “Mary, will you summarise the situation, please?”
“Yes, Prime Minister.” A tall lady with a serious look stood up and faced Chloe. “Ms. Strange… I am the Secretary of State for Defence.” She placed a hand against her chest and took a breath. “I’m afraid the human race is at risk of annihilation.” Chloe was not sure if it was her being addressed by her YouTube persona by the Minister for Defence, or the fact that the most important people in the country were impatiently waiting for her input on something, or the declaration that humanity was at risk, or even a combination of all three, that made her vomit noisily into the waste paper bin that was fortuitously - or intentionally? - positioned behind her chair. Burt appeared from the shadows to remove the bin and hand Chloe a tissue with impressive haste. She wiped her mouth and held up a hand in apology, before burping softly and gesturing for Mary to continue. “We understand that there will be a cataclysmic event at oh two hundred hours tomorrow.” Mary continued with a frown.
“2am.” The ponytailed lady translated unnecessarily, with a patronising smirk.
“Yes, thank you, Sandy. This will spell the end of all the human race within the space of an hour or so.”
“What… what happens?” Chloe managed in spite of the room’s undulation around her.
“The specifics are not necessary, but it’s a natural undoing of the fabric of space and time, a “tearing of reality”, if you will.” She quoted the words with her fingers as if it were a commonly used phrase.
Chloe burst out laughing. She bent over double in her chair and wheezed into her lap. Tears fell from her eyes and plopped onto the tops of her jeaned thighs. She sucked in a breath with a squeak like a donkey and waved her hand in their air in apology. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The words came out in thin gasps of air as her lungs fought for the capacity to cope with the laughter and the apology. She wiped the tears from her eyes as they moved from one blank, judging face to another. “If I will?” She nodded frantically as some composure returned and then took a long deep breath to settle herself. “This is absurd.” She shook her head, solemnly as she dabbed her cheeks with another Burt-delivered tissue. “I guess, that’s dreadful. Sorry.” She cleared her throat and heaved in some air. “Oh dear. But what on Earth has this got to do with me?”
“My question, precisely.” Sandy said under her breath with a roll of her eyes.
“Well, it’s actually one of your… videos that caught our attention.” Mary said cautiously, with a sideways glance at the grumpy ponytail.
“Video? TikTok? YouTube? Instagram Reel?” Chloe was baffled, her mind whirring behind a frown to run though her entire back-catalogue for something even slightly adjacent to a dimensional severing. Nothing.
“Erm…” Mary raised a remote control and pointed it at the big screen at the far end of the boardroom. “This one.” She clicked a button, and the wall burst into life, causing eyes to blink in acclimatisation as they were dragged from the unnecessary dark.
“Hello, I’m Madame Strange, welcome back.” Oh god. Chloe’s stomach lurched again, and she looked for another bin to be sick in before she realised her empty stomach had nothing left to give. Her face was two foot wide and three foot tall and it beamed back at her in 4K resolution. Oh god oh god oh god. She loathed seeing her own videos, had even outsourced their editing to a friend to limit seeing them at all. But now she was there: Madame Strange. Larger than life and demanding her attention. She could do nothing but meet the ever-staring eyes through her fingers. “So, the aliens don’t like us messing with Nukes, apparently…” Why the voice? Why the faux Anglo-American hybrid that she loathed in other content producers? Why the fake smile and why so much make-up? Why Why Why? “…there is video evidence that shows when nuclear tests have taken place all over the world, or near misses, UAPs appear in the sky…” Her face disappeared and was replaced by a video montage of glittering lights in the sky, spinning around rockets in flight, dancing over the chimney stacks of nuclear energy plants. Oh. “Operation Blue Book-” Mary clicked off the video just as Madame Strange re-emerged, much to Chloe’s relief.
A silence filled the tight room as people shuffled uncomfortably, turning back from the screen and back to Chloe.
“This was a very insightful piece, Ms. Strange.” Mary said, coolly. “Not entirely accurate, but also not entirely wrong.”
“I think I might know where this is going.”
“The crucial part of the video is here.” There were some audible groans at the crowd having to redirect their attention back to the screen as Mary clicked the remote over her head.
Me again.
“So, if we want to make contact with an alien species, we just need to fire a nuke and jeopardise the existence of the entire human race. Worth the risk?” Madame Strange was paused and grinned a rictus grin at the sombre viewers.
“Hell’s bells.” Chloe managed.
“Indeed.” Mary replied. “Do you believe this to be the case?”
“That aliens would swoop in and prevent nuclear Armageddon? That these UAPs - whatever they are - have some desire to prevent our annihilation…?” She looked around the blank, patient faces. “I haven’t a clue. I make online videos. I’ve barely got a degree. I get this information from social media and subreddits. I would hope you guys have a better handle over what is real…” She lost her breath and trailed off.
“Yacob?” Mary gestured to a man with raised eyebrows and untamed hair who sucked in some air before responding.
“Well, there’s a lot of evidence to support what Ms. Strange has said… but we don’t really know if they are trying to stop an accident, or an act of devastation, or if they are just trying to get a better idea of that which we are capable.”
“But they would know that already.” Chloe said, as though it were simple fact.
“How?”
“They have technology that is beyond our intelligence: the speed they travel; their ability to just disappear. They will know everything about us already. And they won’t have any need for our science.”
Yacob shrugged and twisted his face into a look that said “maybe”, but he remained silent.
“So, how do we… antagonise them?” Mary asked, her impatience giving her voice a soft vibrato.
“Nukes.” Chloe said flatly, “lots of nukes. You need to threaten our existence.”
The quiet that filled the room was tangible, overwhelming. It was the answer they had expected, but it still filled them all with dread.
Mary nodded at Sandy and took her seat. Sandy walked with slow, calculated steps to the front of the room, her ponytail’s swish rhythmic, and the bodies gradually swivelled to watch her go.
“Well…” Sandy chewed a smile. “You know I think this is nonsense, but it seems we have no other choice.” She fumbled for the remote and then clicked the screen into life. A live camera feed of an underground launch pad fizzed into view. There were audible intakes of breath at the subtle violence of the scene. “We have prepared ten nuclear weapons which will fire on command. They are each programmed to fire on key capital cities - of nations with their own nuclear arsenal - across the globe. You want jeopardy? I can give you jeopardy.” She grinned and folded her arms.
“How long before a retaliation?” The Prime Minister said, staring blankly at the screen.
“The Russians have noticed our preparing and are already doing the same. Within seconds of launch, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Indeed.”
“Am I clear to launch, sir?”
The Prime Minister rounded on the group he had assembled in the room and rubbed his eyes. “Ladies, Gentleman, and everyone in between. It’s time to pray, or beg, or scream into the wind. Whatever it is that gives you comfort in this time. This is a seismic moment in the story of humankind, and it is our time to be counted-”
“-sir.” Sandy knocked him off his stride after an eye roll and he was snapped from his performance.
“Yes?” He replied, more embarrassed than annoyed.
“We simply do not have time for this.”
“Oh.” He cast his eyes sheepishly across the room and then gave a short nod to the woman with the big red button.
Twelve seconds. That's how long it took the Russians to respond in kind. The visuals were piecemeal and wanting - lines on a digital map akin to those that show how long is left to go on your flight - but they were very clear. Eighteen missiles headed for London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and - somewhat surprisingly - a town in Guatemala called York. This sparked the NATO countries to launch their own weapons on Russia, but not before Iran and North Korea had filled their own skies with apocalyptic packages. Within two minutes there were one-hundred and twelve nuclear missiles in flight, set to land somewhere on Earth in the next four hours.
The first to land would be on London: Russian Hypersonic NB (“Nasty Bastard”, according to Sandy during her explainer) missiles travelled at unmatched speeds. So, we have front row seats at the validation of the theory, Chloe pondered quietly in the room which now bustled with chatter and commotion. Just sit and relax, people. It's out of our hands now. Sandwiches and tea arrived, which calmed the group for five minutes, but then there were more briefings around potential plans in case there were any survivors and what infrastructure might still be standing. But they all knew it was moot. There was a missile aimed for two miles south of their location, so it was at least going to be somebody else's problem.
“Two minutes to impact.” A voice rang out, and people took their places around the table again.
“When do you think they'll intervene?” Burt leant over and whispered.
Chloe shrugged without looking at him. I am not an expert! I don't know any more than you. We're risking human existence on the back of a TikTok I made, to which somebody had written the comment “sounds dum.” This is all madness.
The screen was now alive with thick grey clouds that were moving at speed, the reason for which was not entirely obvious until the cylindrical, grey-black object appeared in their midst. It was running from top to bottom and the camera was moving rapidly to keep up with it. Then the London skyline emerged from the bottom of the screen and the missile plunged down into its core.
But then time stopped.
There was an electrical sizzling in the air that Chloe could feel in her fingertips and hear as a thin whine in her ears. She squeezed her hand open and closed in front of her face and it appeared to crackle with thin blue lines of lightning. Everybody else in the room was frozen, staring at the screen, hands on heads, eyes tightly shut, teeth gritted to breaking point.
“Madame Strange?” Burt said, though it was no longer Burt's voice; it was as though somebody were speaking through an old radio and she watched as his mouth moved slightly out of time. His skin and eyes glittered with the same blue charge that covered her own. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you.”
“What?” She managed, her voice thin and wiry, pathetic.
“Well, you've certainly caught our attention. What do you need?”