Plastic Seal Alternate Intro

This is the alternate beginning to the story. Mostly taken from the unfinished original draft of Plastic Seal, but edited somewhat for continuity with the rest of the story...

PLASTIC SEAL STUCK UNDER YOUR FINGERNAIL
by Matthew Pacey

"Hey, Bjorn, check this out!" exclaimed the figure sitting behind the east-facing tracking station in the Central African Air Control Center. The indicator lights around his console were flashing rythmically and a fast beeping sound could be heard in the background.
"What is it this time? Another weather baloon?" replied the man sitting across the room.
"Do weather balloons glow red hot and travel at speeds exceeding 5,200 miles per hour?" the other voice inquired.
"No."
"Then I'm pretty wure it's not a weather balloon."
Bjorn wheeled his chair over to the other guy's station, to see the screen filled by the image of a gigantic ball of flaming rock speeding through the earth's atmosphere, at very high velocities.
"That's heading right towards us, isn't it?" asked Bjorn.
"Yup," replied his counterpart.
"Damn."

****

Dr. Microwave Oven awakened suddenly, with a high-pitched drone sounding in his ear. He moved his index finger around behind his ear until he felt something 'click', and the tone stopped. His sheets pulled him out of bed, and the noise started again. He grabbed his morning pod of coffee from the wall where it grew. The emergency signal was only used in cases of extreme emergency, and this must have been one of them.
"Wake up, Doctor Oven!" screamed the voice of an extremely masculine female.
"I'm awake! Shut your pie hole," replied Mike politely. He jabbed his finger in his ear and re-adjusted the volume on his ear implant.
"Jersey Love says you gotta get back into the lab. We's gots sumptin' you gotta get checked out right away, okey dokey?"
"All right, just a few minutes," said Mike, switching his implant over to the classic rock AM station. Something by Dylan was plaing; one of his early protest songs. It was hard for Mike o remember all the titles, since Dylan had at least 170 official albums out by this point. Mike grabbed some clothes from the "not too dirty" pile, pulled them on, grabbed a coffee, and entered the Muscular Transport to the pentagon's central research lab. The linings of the transport tube contracted rythmically, propelling his capsule downwards, until he reached the entrance to the highly-restricted lab.
Jersey H. Love, president of the United States, was waiting for him.
"Hey," said Mike.

"You know this ain't no social call, Microwave!" exclaimed President Love, adjusting his wide cowboy hat. "This is serious business!"
"Last night a meteor slammed into a research station on the plains of Africa, leaving the surrounding area reletavely undamaged, except for a charred elephant or two."
"You called me here for charred ellephants?" Mike interrupted.
"No you fool! Although charred elephants can be quite tasty with honey garilc sauce, I brought you here for more important matters than food. It's the meteor we're interested in."
President Love's face suddenly hardened into a deeply serious expression. "And we're also interested in the life forms on the asteroid!"
"Life forms, you say?"
"Yes. Life forms... like these!"
With those last two words, Jersey pressed a button which slid the protective bulletproof sheilding away from a large glass specimen tank. Floating withing was some sort of a gnome, with a pointy red hat, beady red eyes, and long purple tentacles which protruded from its shoulderblades. It was unlike any alien Mike had ever seen!
"Mr Oven," said Jersey, "this corpse was obtained when I sent the US Armoured Freedom Force to investigate the crash. This thing looked kinda freaky-lookin', so we blowed it up!"
"Soooo..." replied Microwave.

But, before he could complete the thought, a screaming noise filled the air, and sections of the large steel hangar doors to the outside world began to melt. Several strange creatures, like the one in the tank but living, burst through the holes they melted through the metal with their handheld beam weapons.
"Holey moley! Everybody get outta here!" screamed Jersey H. Love. Jersey and his assistants ran to the nearest escape pod. Mike tripped, and didn't make it before the doors to the pod closed tightly, and the pod was sucked through a muscular sphincter set in the wall, heading for a deep underground destination unknown.
The gnomes were blasting their rays at the heads and limbs of white-coated scientists all around, incapacitating or killing them, but leaving the trunk of the body intact. Some gnomes knelt over the fallen scientists, and began to suck the blood from their veins.
"Oh no!" yelled Mike, looking for escape options. He saw a door, and raced for it, outrunning slower, less physically-active members of the research community. He raced down the corridors, towards the front of the building. Up ahead were the mind-erasers, structures resembling 20th-century highschool metal detectors, but which would cleanse the mind of all classified government secrets of those who pass without first obtaining authorization.
"Damnit!" Mike yelled, stuck in a dilly of a pickle. Turning around, he saw the gnomes were hot on his heels, liquifying the faces of scientists not 20 yards behind him. He made his decision, and ran headlong through the mind-erasers, out the main entrance of the bulding, the sign on which read "Ebineezer's Old Fashion Cracker Company", and ran home, his memories of his government position drifting away, leaving only images of his civilian life.