Outside a military hut in Scotland in the very early hours:

“Ummm... what are you doing Smith?”

“Aw corp, no-one was looking.”

“I was looking! You horrible little turd! Leave it alone when you’re on duty, sunshine.”

“But corp, it itches like buggery – ”

“I have no idea if buggery itches and I hope to buggery you don’t either.”

“Yes sir. I mean, no sir. I mean it’s been like this ever since yesterday’s march around the swamp. I think it’s falling off!”

“Quite likely, with you scratching away at the roots. I don’t know how that filthy green swamp bubbled up so quickly overnight but maybe if you hadn’t fallen IN it instead of going ROUND it in the confident sure-footed manner of a true British soldier it wouldn’t be itching. Or swelling up...”

“What?”

“That’s “what corporal?”. You’re busy wearing your fingernails out on your crotch but have you looked at your old chap since you went on duty? Looks like a proper old lump in your khakis.”

“I haven’t had the opportunity tonight corporal sir but it did look a bit, well, clumpy this morning.”

“Ergh. As soon as you go off duty, whisk it off to medical and have it looked at by a disinterested party. If there’s anything contagious in it, we don’t want to risk whatever it is leaking out and running rampant through our little corner of Britain’s military might, do we.”

“No corp, we don’t.”

“Right that’s settled then. Leave it alone, you don’t know what you might be doing to it.”

“But couldn’t you just have a peak at it now sir, just to gauge what’s been happening since I last saw it? You’ll have a better view than me.”

“Ahem... Private Smith... YOU are outside this hut guarding it. I am inside it enjoying a nice pot of Rosie Lea. We are in supposedly friendly territory meaning you are guarding it against nothing until four o’clock and I am inside it because I was told to be inside it until four o’clock. The only view of you I want to see – and this is pushing it – is the shadow of the top of your cap through that high window as you parade  back and forth while I drink my tea inside my hut. Not only do I have no desire whatsoever, not if you were dying in front of me, to view your no doubt blistered Percy, I very definitely do not wish to be exposed to whatever’s lurking in its flesh. You are a horrible little turd. That bore repeating.”

“Yes corp, a trip to medical it is then, straight after this spot of guarding against unknowable invisible enemies.”

“You’re getting the idea of army life, private Smith.”

Later that morning in medical:

“Oh private Smith my dear fellow, well well well I say that is rather unusual isn’t it.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Well it is now.”

“I’m sorry doc, but are you gonna do something about or just stare at it?”

“I’m not sure what I can do about. I’ve never seen one that thick and flaccid before. It’s not really snuggling down in its little nest is it. Was it always that long? That’s an odd shade of green. That and the red mottling effect would actually be quite attractive as a work of modern art. A bit like leopard skin, but different colours.”

“Blimey. Look doc, this time yesterday it was still pinkish, maybe a hint of moss green in the right light and a bit swollen, but nothing I haven’t seen before. We get round the track a bit when we’re on leave, you see. One quick jab up it and Bob’s your auntie. But this time I’m pretty sure something from the swamp got into it. I can definitely appreciate this is a somewhat different effect from normal but can’t you just inject a needleful of gunk up it as usual?”

“Hmm, well I could try that but frankly I think it’d be a waste of gunk, as you put it, in your current situation. I say Smith, I think I just saw a lump move! There weren’t any beetles in whomever’s bed you last occupied, hmm? Woodlice perhaps?”

“Doc please, moving? What? It ain’t wood, it’s flesh and it feels very itchy now. The lumps and colours have spread since I last handled it. Look at my balls!”

“Yes, fascinating. So it is irritable then? I didn’t think you could feel anything there. Err, do you wash your hands after urinating?”

“Not always doc, it’s only a lump of flesh isn’t it.”

“Hmm well Smith, just keep your hands on the paper sheet thanks.”

POP

“OW, I felt that doc! Why are you standing over there?”

“Because I saw a lump swell up just before it squirted. I was getting out of the firing line... well that’s scientifically interesting and, dare I say it, just a tad worrying... your splodge is slithering across the floor, private Smith! Is this some sort of parasite you’ve picked up from someone, or maybe that swamp you fell into?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I’m not doing it deliberately! It went off of its own accord! You think I’m sitting here pumping away? Listen doc, I’ve seen all those old 1950s sci-fi films, the grunt without the stripes always gets it in the neck. Or in my case the balls. Oh, lighter fuel, you think that’s gonna work?”

“It’s what I have immediately to hand Smith.  Seems to be working too, look at it squirm! Now if I set fire to it... BY GOD, that’s a volatile substance! The way that little splodge blew up, your multi-hued gentleman’s relish could nuke a medium sized town!”

“Doc puuhlease, if you can’t handle the job get someone who can!”

“Handle it, handle it?? Not likely young man. I think I’d better bump this upstairs. Crikey, look, it’s spread up over your tummy and down your legs while we were chatting! I wonder what your rectum looks like? Roll over and lean forwards, there’s a good chap. We’ll get to the bottom of this somehow.”

“Doctor, you do know they issue us with guns and live ammo, right? I’m feeling trigger-happy, call the bloody experts!”

“No need to be suicidal just yet – ”

“I meant you.”

“Oh I see, no need to feel murderous either. It’s not my fault you’ve gone peculiar. Hold on, I’ll call an ambulance. Still 999 is it?”

“Gurgle glugg.”

“The ambulance is on its way. Sorry I didn’t catch that, I’m not a dentist.”

“Itsh in me gulletsh. Han’t breathe.”

Ah. Then try not to breathe too hard, let it in and out, iiiiiiiiin and oooouuut.”

“Ooo ghunt. Wash hghappnin’... gagagaaaaah-aaaah.”

“Oh dear, that was quick, it’s taken you over completely... yes operator, get me the captain on the double! I think we need a flamethrower in medical!”

Later that afternoon in the Ministry of Defence:

“Sorry minister, I have no idea what caused the explosion yet. It must have been something hugely powerful to form a crater half a mile deep and three miles across. We know it wasn’t nuclear, there was no EM pulse and no subsequent radiation.”

“Do we have any actual nukes up there, general? We used to have quite a few rolling around Scotland once. Or did we sell them all to that nice Russian gentleman?”

“It was only a standard military training base, minister. No big boom-boom.”

“Good. But they must’ve been pottering around with something, I’ve had reports of garbled phone messages about a giant throbbing green and red phallus lurching around the place and something about a flamethrower and then BOOM. Sounds like some twit panicked and did something stupid, what. 200 personnel dead, general. Ho hum, that’s a lot of letters to sign. Damn good job it happened in a sparsely populated region we don’t care about. The PM’s demanding a complete report on his desk by eight o’clock tonight. A whole bunch of Johnny Foreigners worldwide have claimed victory in the name of just about everyfuckingthing you can dream of and we don’t like it, like it we do not.”

“Yes minister, it’s in hand – you’ll have something to put in front of Butch Cassidy tonight. Good job it was in Scotland, the normal overall atmosphere of deep frying disguised the smell of burnt flesh. Which Johnny Foreigner seems most likely?”

“Doesn’t matter – something we learned from a couple of lunatic former American Presidents is that it gives us a good excuse for a bust-up with anyone. For all we know it could have been a domestic job, Feed The Snails or some such don’cha know. And don’t let the PM hear you referring to him as Butch Cassidy.”

“Yes minister, an investigation team is on its way. I’ll trott off then.”

Later that evening in a hastily erected prefab laboratory on top of a mountain near a glowing green crater in Scotland:

“You’re chief investigator Bob, what are you going to tell the general?”

“I’m going to tell him donner kebabs are indifferent to the human condition whichever part of the UK one visits. What do you think I’m going to tell him?? We’re going to have to make this up as we go along and be convincing, Marty my young padawan. The only thing we can be pretty sure of after what we’ve seen so far is that it wasn’t a terrorism thing.”

“Okay I’m only the assistant liar, I get it. May the farce be with us. Never told the truth yet in any of our investigations.”

“Certainly not Martin, that way madness lies, not to mention culpability. Right, to work! We need to establish a reason, fictional or otherwise, for the green glow of the ground in the crater as well as the green glow of the atmosphere... it seems to be spreading out from the crater. How are our Star Trek red shirts coming along with their report?”

“They’re hiding in the toilet. You were right about the kebabs. There are vapourous streaks of red mist in air too now.”

“A phenomenon unrelated to kebab digestion. Make sure your hazard suit is as seamless as possible Martin, the next world beckons the unwary and those with loose zippers. What’s the weather report?”

“Not good. A storm moving in from the mid Atlantic region.”

“That’s unfortunate, no doubt a gift from the American weather control mob that doesn’t officially exist. The colonies have taken any opportunity for a low punch since the bewigged wonder was in charge.”

“Err... yeah, well leaving out the international bigotry, hopefully it’ll dampen things down.”

“Let’s hope it is only rain, Martin. The sketchy info we have seems to indicate that this green air has a propensity towards flammability. One thrust of lightning into this angry looking green atmospheric fume á la ring could cause more than a wee problemo... who was that?”

“One of our faceless red shirts delivering a report. Hmm, it seems from an extensive analysis of air and soil samples that this green’n’red stuff is terrestrial in origin.”

“I think we bloody well know that Marty. What else does it say? For instance, a small piece of detail.”

“Okey dokey... the speckies say it’s primordial. Their guess is that the stuff has been locked deep beneath the earth’s crust since long before life as we know it evolved, possibly three billion years and now it’s started leaking out. It could be the Earth’s first microbial lifeform, evolving during the Archean eon. It’s a strange chemical relationship between an as-yet unidentified gas and microorganisms of a biologic nature our speckies don’t understand. All they think they know is that if introduced to a human body it will mutate, causing traumatic physical changes. If ignited they estimate it would generate heat of around 25,000 centigrade and create a shock front they’re calling a gigawave.”

“Well, that’d bake a cake. Okay, reading between the lines of what they don’t know, what our dear microscope jockeys are really saying is that it’s a living air-borne orgasm that can burn the hell out of anything.”

“Didn’t you mean organism? Anyway, according to the notes, yes they don’t want to say that out loud but they think that’s kind of what they mean without being labelled loonies.”

“Yes organism, that’s what I said. Sooooo... we are dealing with an unknown highly explosive lifeform way older than our unfortunate saurian predecessors and quite possibly as old as the Earth. Makes sense when I take the piddling bits of info we have about what happened to this vapourised military base and wed it to this new theory. Now we can create a working hypothesis and, gor blimey Martin, we might not have to lie as usual!”

“Not sure I can carry the truth off boss. I’m so used to writing a report with hundreds of pages of lies.”

“Not to worry Marty, you can lie if you want to. It’s only the British government and they’re all wankers. The PM, or Butch Cassidy as the general insists on calling him, will absorb whatever we insert into his orbit.”

“I don’t want to worry you but inserting anything into the PM’s orbit is not top of my list of excitements. Look over there, your conspiracy theory storm is inserting itself into this area and there’s lightning! We don’t need a weather forecast, we can bloody see it!”

“Yesss... Martin, gather up everything you can carry and get your speckies to pack their gear in the Land Rovers right away. My gut instinct is to run.”

“My guts are running already Bob – ”

BANG

“– shit, lightning! We’re too late! Look, a massive ring of green fire rolling up the crater sides! Everybody in the trucks now!”

“Marty, Marty, my dear lad I fear it’s far too late, that gigawave must be doing 700 miles an hour. We can’t outrun it. We’re cooked.”

“Balls.”

“Hold my hand, Martin.”

“Yes Bob. You know I’ve always loved you.”

“I know Martin, I know – ”

WHOOSH

Later that epoch around 1,000 years o’clock in the future, on board the Meths’urgh starship W’itheredt’its:

“Well Vargh, what’s happened here? You sure we’ve arrived at the right planet, it’s a funny tint of green. Looks more like a mouldy lump of cosmic coal smothered in diseased cock juice.”

“Dunno why it looks like this captain, but it’s definitely the human planet Earth. I recognise some of the features from our last trip out here. Wonder where the oceans went?”

“Log in to that spy gizmo we placed on their moon on our previous visit and run a planetary diagnostic, Vargh. Let’s find out what did this. I rather liked the humans last time we were here, especially that Isaac Newton fellow. A bit bonkers but on the right track. He tasted weird, although he seemed to enjoy being tasted.”

“Sensor report coming in now captain... scans reveal evidence that the entire surface was blasted with immense heat within one planetary revolution approximately 1,000 years ago as the locals count – I mean used to count – time. A gigantic, atmosphere-deep halo of green fire rolled across the planet. Immense heat, off the scale. The oceans boiled off more or less instantly as the planet was fried. No life forms at all above microbial, which followed the burnt air round the surface. The atmosphere is now one big filthy soup. The entire human race and support structure was extinguished in one revolution!”

“Well shit, Vargh. Was it some twit with a doomsday weapon who thought armageddon wasn’t arriving quickly enough?”

“No captain, according to the scans it was a natural disaster... the origin looks to be in the northern hemisphere, a place that used to be called Scotland.”

“Scotland? Oh yes, Oh I remember Scotland. People who always seemed permanently angry about everything. Put the place on screen... well chop one of my tentacles off and call me a fifth sex, look at the size of that crater! And a big pucker in the middle belching steamy green and red poogoo.”

“It’s like a wound, captain. This planet’s no stranger to extinction events, but this one was a doozy. The atmosphere is an unbreathable soup of microbiotics which accounts for the green tint. Constant storms are firing up pools of the gas in explosions the size of cities. Won’t be anything here for another couple of hundred million years.”

“I’m not waiting that long Vargh, I’ve got a slap’n’plunge ritual with a thirty-six flanged prostitute lined up at home. You know, some folk might say the red mottling effect in the atmosphere would actually be quite attractive as a work of modern art. A bit like gorthugh skin, but different colours. Anyway, let’s deploy a research station in orbit and set it to planetary time, programme it for a hundred million years’ study records then pop over to the red planet, Mars I believe the locals called it. Be good to amuse ourselves waving a few tentacles at those weird biomechanical inhabitants there, if they can stop fighting each other long enough for a chat that is. What’s their race called again? The Hasbeens?”

“They call themselves The Hazbro, captain.”

“Right then, Vargh – swing us in the right direction, shove your tentacles in the drive shaft, crank up the steam and – engage.”