You may also have heard rumors that we lost one of our pilots. The rumors are true. Captain Kara Resnik is dead. She died in New York two days ago. We’re working on a contingency plan, but it’s a long shot at best. That means, for now, we can’t use Themis for anything but transport. We can teleport her, but she can’t walk. And she can’t fight. Right now, she’s lying in the woods, covered with branches and a whole lot of camo netting.

The alien robots are immune to…well, to everything we’ve got. Just ask India how effective their ground assault was. Russia dropped more firepower on Moscow than they did during World War II. It didn’t do anything. A nuke didn’t work. Let me say that again. A nuke didn’t work. Half of Europe will glow in the dark for the next decade or so, but the Madrid robot’s still standing. I told you people all of that the last time we met, but you didn’t listen. You got scared, and you did stupid things like scared people do. You need to stop that now. Stop fighting. You can’t win! They are better than us. Stronger. They have the upper hand.

I see by your faces you were hoping for something a little more positive. There’s nothing rosy about the situation. There are over one hundred million dead—one hundred million. Probably a lot more coming. Civil liberties have been curtailed, everywhere. Most of the governments represented here have imposed some form of martial law. We’re losing lives. We’re losing our way of life. We’re losing, big-time.

I lost someone…someone very close to me. He’s the reason I’m standing here today. He got me into this mess. I didn’t want this job. I didn’t want to be a general either, but I understand the army. This? I’m a soldier. The last thing I wanted was to deal with you people. But he thought that was a good thing, and he convinced me. For those of you who know who I’m talking about, you know how convincing he could be. To be honest with you, I was really counting on him to make everything better. He won’t. He’s dead. Lots of people are. I came this close to losing my whole family. I didn’t. I was lucky. I know some of you weren’t that lucky. You have my deepest sympathy. A lot of people are grieving today. There isn’t anything I could say that would make it…better.

The only piece of good news I have is that they’ve stopped killing us for now. It’s been thirty-six hours. They stopped shooting out gas, all of them. They’re not moving around. They’re not doing anything.

Why? I don’t have a goddamn clue. Maybe they’re waiting to see if we’ll nuke ourselves into oblivion. How long will it last? I don’t know that either.

So…Why am I here? What do I want? Before I can answer that, we have to talk about the giant elephant in the room. Why should you listen to me? What good is the EDC without its only weapon? Well, I don’t know if we’re good for anything! I don’t know that anyone is. What I do know, and what I told you before, is that if there’s a solution to the goddamn mess we’re in, it won’t be a military one, it’ll come from our science team. We don’t have a big robot we can use anymore, but we still have what matters most: smart people. Big brains! They’re working right now, in a cave, trying to save this world. Let them do their job.

There might be a way to stop these things. There might be a way to neutralize that gas. Even if we can’t, roughly one out of every two thousand people survives it. They do more than survive. They’re completely immune to the alien gas. We have no idea why. I’d call them lucky, but most of them have had to watch their loved ones die in front of them. Still, if we can replicate whatever makes them…not die…Well, I’m sure all of you would like to have that pill.

There’s a…security guard in the garage at the EDC; not sure what his name is. This morning, just before I left, he said: “You know, sir, they might just leave.” Seemed so goddamn naïve. I felt like slapping him on the back of the head. It must have shown because he got all defensive, and he said: “They might!” You know what? He’s right! They might just leave! Truth is we know nothing about these people. We don’t know why they’re here. We don’t know what they’re thinking. We don’t know how they’re thinking and we might not understand it if we did. I’ll keep working on the assumption that they won’t because it would make no sense for them to pack their bags now. But it doesn’t have to make sense. If there’s one thing we should have learned by now, it’s that we’re not the greatest thing in the universe, certainly not the smartest. Seems logical there’d be a great many things in it we can’t comprehend.

I do have hope. I believe there is a solution out there, waiting. There’s always a solution, at least that’s what I think. If we don’t survive this, it’s because we’ll have been too stupid, too selfish, too greedy to find it.

I realize I’ve been wrong about one thing this whole time. I’ve let my ego get in the way. I thought…I still think our best hope for survival is with the EDC. I thought you people were just getting in the way. I forgot that the EDC is supposed to be an extension of this room, that you’re all a part of it, in a way. It was stupid of me to ask you to stand aside and do nothing. God knows I couldn’t. I know you’re all as vested in this as we are. I know you wanna help.

This morning, I’ve asked my people to share all the data we had on the alien gas with each and every one of your governments. You should have it by now. I know many of you were working on a cure already, but if you weren’t, get your best people on it. Hell, get your worst people on it. You never know. We will also share everything we have on the alien robots, all of it. We’ll make that data available to everyone. Our data should be on the EDC website this evening. Tell the world. The key to our survival might be in the hands of a really smart kid, somewhere. Make sure he knows. That is what I want from you. Help us. Do not send your armies to die in vain. Do not launch more missiles. Help us.

I have hope.

That’s all I have to say. Now go home. Go home and tell your family you love them. Tell them ten times, a hundred times. Do it while you can. And if we somehow survive this, keep doing it. In the end, it’s all that really matters.

FILE NO. 1594

INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT COUTURE, CONSULTANT, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

Location: Shadow Government Bunker, Lenexa, KS