Jazz's shot blasted Sandman's glassified body into pieces.
For Charlie's family, wiping out the attackers was no more significant than a trivial chore. They went back into their tents and resumed what they had been doing before.
Charlie was actually quite looking forward to having a son. There was nothing he could do about it—the family had too many women! He felt that if he had a son, at least he would not be quite so "lonely."
But just as he had finally started getting in the mood, he had no choice but to crawl back out of the tent.
Bella was wearing a waist drum and dancing for Little Elsa and Natasha.
Her dancing could only be described as beautiful. In the moonlight, scattered silver light fell across Bella's body, blending light and shadow, motion and stillness to perfection. Charlie could hardly believe this was his own daughter. She looked like some kind of fairy!
Charlie knew nothing about dance, much less the deeper meaning hidden within it. Never mind anything else—turn the clock back eight hundred years, and even the great shamans of those tribes could not have danced with Bella's particular charm.
He wanted to offer a few words of praise but had no idea where to begin. In the end, all he could manage was, "Beautiful. Really beautiful!"
When Bella's whole family turned to look at him, Charlie finally asked with an embarrassed expression, "Um, well... you can dance if you want, but could you maybe not dance something so... so quiet?"
The dance was wonderful, but it was simply too calm and serene. The moment Bella started dancing and beating the waist drum, all Charlie's desire instantly vanished. How was he supposed to make a baby like this?!
Bella froze for a moment. In the middle of the night, of course she was not performing some spirit-summoning ritual dance. She only wanted to make Little Elsa happy, so she had performed a blessing dance somewhat like a spirit-awakening rite.
Now, seeing the look on her dad's face, she clicked her tongue repeatedly. Fine, then!
Might as well stop dancing and go back to the tent to keep dumping money into the game!
The next day, Charlie's family continued traveling east. This was Nevada, not his home state of California, but once the charge of attacking a senator was attached to the case, getting the local National Guard to investigate and wipe out the irradiated mutants' nest posed no difficulty at all.
To put it in even more rigid legalistic terms, these irradiated mutants were not U.S. residents in the first place. They had no birth certificates, no identification of any kind, and had never paid taxes. Now they had attacked a senator on American soil. How could this possibly end well for them?
Nevada moved quickly. No matter how vicious or savage a group of wild men armed with melee weapons might be, they still had to go down before bullets.
The National Guard found large quantities of human remains inside the mine tunnels where the irradiated mutants lived. This proved that the group had killed at least a hundred travelers passing through the area. Their crimes were heinous enough that shooting them on the spot settled the matter.
That same afternoon, after the irradiated-mutant nest was destroyed, several iron cages were secretly transported to the Pentagon.
The three strongest irradiated mutants with the least severe deformities had been secretly kept alive by the military and brought there.
Several powerful figures inside the Department of Defense held a secret meeting, keeping both the White House and Congress in the dark.
"Perhaps nuclear radiation could be used to mass-produce super-soldiers? These irradiated mutants still have plenty of room for improvement, in my opinion. General Ross, what do you think?"
The Chief of Staff of the Air Force asked the elderly man beside him, who also wore the rank of a four-star Air Force general.
But one four-star general was not necessarily equal to another. The Air Force Chief of Staff was a four-star general because the law capped the position there; unless he took off the uniform, he had reached the end of the road. General Ross, on the other hand, had only been promoted to four-star rank the previous year. Their authority and seniority were on completely different levels.
There were forty-three active-duty four-star generals in the United States, twelve of them in the Air Force alone. The Chief of Staff clearly wielded far more real authority than the Air Force general named Ross sitting beside him.
The other powerful figures present also looked over. The United States had the highest military spending in the world, and the Pentagon had enormous amounts of money at its disposal.
They had money and resources, but neither was unlimited.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was preparing to establish a superhero alliance, while the White House wanted to obtain the manufacturing technology for Iron Man's armor. Both moves would weaken the military's power to some extent, and once their authority declined, their budget would naturally shrink as well. They needed to produce some achievements of their own.
In the generals' eyes, using nuclear radiation to enhance the human body was an extremely economical and simple method of enhancement, far cheaper than some superhero alliance or Iron Man armor. They already had plenty of rank-and-file soldiers, and nuclear material was even less of a problem. This line of research based on the irradiated mutants was highly suitable for the military.
As long as they could reduce the extent of the deformities and prove that this method of enhancement worked, they could keep asking the government for more money and more power.
The gray-haired General Ross immediately stood. "I'll have the laboratory under my command begin research in this area immediately."
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a deep voice, "You don't have much time. The outside world won't give us much time. You need to launch the relevant project immediately."
General Ross answered loudly, "Yes, sir! I'll begin the research within three days and strive to produce results within one month."
The firm pledge he made pleased the senior officials above him. Several of them nodded and said they would support him within the limits of their own authority.
General Ross treasured this opportunity. That very day, he led a group of military scientists to the irradiated mutants' former nest. They wanted to collect on-site data and reconstruct the mutants' living environment and mutation conditions as closely as possible.
"Dr. Banner, what are you doing?" General Ross asked a young scientist named Bruce Banner.
Banner happened to be standing at the spot where Ironhide had melted Sandman.
Bruce Banner smiled shyly. "I took a look just now. The radiation level is highest here. As for why, I'll need to investigate further..."
General Ross's gaze was as sharp as an eagle's. "If you find anything, remember—tell me immediately!"
Charlie's family had a wonderful trip. They traveled from west to east, stopping whenever they felt like it, and spent an entire month on the road.
By the time they turned their attention back to school and work, it was already February 2006.
Starscream spent twenty-five days reconstructing the AllSpark. Even he admitted that it was inferior to the original: it contained more impurities, and the energy inside was nearly one-third lower than before.
Bella thought it was pretty good. Her main interest was studying the relationship between the AllSpark and the Transformers. The AllSpark granted Transformers their sparks, and those sparks contained their life and souls. If she could fully understand that relationship, her mastery of souls would take a major step forward.
Starscream was soon sent to Weyland's secret laboratory again. If the future was not going to be quite so miserable, and if humanity was going to reach space, then even if it meant losing money just to get the project noticed, Bella still had to build Earth's first proper spacecraft.
Starscream used a holographic projection to disguise himself as an Earthling and worked with Weyland's scientists. He was viciously sharp-tongued. More than one Assassin came to Bella to complain and ask permission to poison the bastard, but she suppressed all of those requests.