(For the best experience possible, I'd suggest listening to David Bowie's song of the same name on a loop. That's actually what I did as I wrote it. Or whatever's apocalyptic, to be honest. But it really does help. Sick, jolly, hopping, whatever you want to call it.)

Begin with a drum beat. 3/4 with a bit of a swing or hop, looping every four measures. David wanted something that encapsulates hopelessness, and you can hear it echoing in your skull, never stopping. It'll stalk your background thoughts, and once you hear it you're haunted. You can see city streets and people falling to their deaths in slow motion, and oscillating white lights that dance flowers on your eyes. Focus enough and you'll feel cold, and dark, and alone.

Focus a bit more. You might see smoggy clouds, and impossibly tall towers that move with the motion of their world. Fire. Throngs of the screaming and the bereaved, the decadent and those getting there. Emotions without feeling. Newfound gluttony and greed with the intent of forgetting one's cares. People shouting themselves to tears, and proclaiming the end is nigh. That's what happened in the years before the end.

...

The year was estimated 1978, although some say it only really began in '83. Either way, it doesn't matter, because five years means much in a megaannum, does it? Nope.

The month is June, a 30-day month and the sixth of twelve. Summer is warming up to be lively, and in all time zones heat was rising.

And the place is Japan, that little island east of the greater Asia. Busy, crowded cities and people going about their lives; poor, rich, young, old, tall, short, fat, skinny, nobodies, somebodies. All living in the world they knew was true, and most without concern for the greater concern beyond their little worlds. Let the aliens come to them.

And, oh, they were happy to oblige.

The first one came in this year, or at least the first to be seen. A massive fireball that hurled across the planet, flashy and bold, and landed in some unnamed city. Surprisingly, its crater was not the massive dimple of death and wreckage, but a rather simple few cars crushed and a handful of flames. There was only one injury: shrapnel cuts sustained by an unsuspecting commuter who hadn't seen the monster from the heavens. Swamped with onlookers clamoring to see what the sky and space beyond had gifted them, the smoke cleared and its contents revealed: a strange-looking car, appearing to have...

...arms?...

...and a...head?...?

And anyone who knew what to look for would see it suddenly going slack in the slightest. It was dead now, no danger left in it. That part's up to you now.

One of the onlookers, the curious and somewhat eccentric Boto Bouken, observed quietly as others gawked or fell over their feet running for anywhere. Instead she studied it carefully, and with an intensity she thought impossible, smiling all the while. Two arms and a head fell together at a torso, all mangled but far from unrecognizable. The bottom half seemed to be the front end of a car she'd seen somewhere before, and decided that anyone would call it some new and hideous work of hellish art. Her first thought was of some toy she'd seen in some store, or perhaps an authentic alien unlike the scaly insect wraiths depicted in most fictions, or the gigantic Kaiju. She saw the head drop to one side, perhaps facing her, perhaps away, and saw what looked like two yellow spikes jutting from a square silver skull.

Later that afternoon she would be interviewed by policemen and some more anonymous interrogators in radiation gear. Judging by the broadness of their questions, they knew as little as her if not less. They told her she was able to return home, and she did, to the relief of a worried husband and infant daughter. They'd also told her to contact them if she could remember anything else, and that the press would be ordered to stay away from them.

Later that night, ravenous news broadcasters all over the world were getting their scoops. In America, some broad-shouldered anchorman was delivering the news that a yellow 1977 Lamborghini Countach with arms and rocket-shaped eyes (yes, those were been eyes) had made its home on the streets of urban Japan. Some scientist was also being interviewed as to the possible origins of the thing. Judging by his speech, he had no clue either. In fact, any casual viewer could say he was much more likely arguing that what happened was simply impossible. In the UK, another reporter was giving the thing a name: Cosmo Countach. It was quite catchy, and eventually other reporters followed suit.

Time passed. Bouken would return to visit the crash site the next morning to find it exactly as it had been twenty-four hours prior. She'd return there in the future, and while she knew her friends and relatives could never understand that excitement she'd felt, she figured they'd at least act inquisitively. And they did. Her uncle scoffed and told her it was a bit silly to ponder this. For all he knew, she was going crazy, and so was everyone else.

The news around the world suddenly cried BREAKTHROUGH! A top-secret project to dissect the icon found inside it authentic car parts integrated with absurdly advanced servomotors, decades ahead of the world's specialists in ever-sharpening the cutting edge. This thing was not of this world, but it knew it wanted to blend in. Until further notice, NO application of their findings were to be made, and the agreement of mutual silence between the witnesses and the press was to be honored. No interviews.

Beyond the privilege of the civilians of any nation to know, the Cold War was beginning to lose steam. An enemy disguised as an everyday thing used by everyone was a new and frightening idea, and both sides knew better than not to be transparent. Imagine a nuke that could disguise itself as a toaster, and you'd call off a pretty feud. "Hey, we're not alone, so make yourselves presentable for the visitors and stop fighting amongst yourselves." The alien idealism of communism felt like the comforts of the American home when standing next to a true extraterrestrial threat, and the Second World found themselves singing the same tune to their capitalist rivals. But more to the public's viewing were the crazies on every corner, waving cardboard signs of cars sprouting arms and legs. "They drive among us," and "Aliens are wheel," were sure to be written somewhere in menacing red font.

Within days, the Cold War was officially put on hold, and the world breathed a shaky sigh. Now the crazies were getting religious, proclaiming the Antichrist was coming, or whatever other malignant deity. New religions were calling this Cosmo Countach character a sign of their valid beliefs, and lifted the Biblical idea of the end being near. Even in the countries of the more Eastern beliefs, the sign-wavers were already making themselves known and at home. Bouken's uncle came to her door in the dead of night, drenched in sweat and carrying his own sign. He began crying hysterically, saying he was sorry to have ever doubted her, although even she wasn't sure what he was trying to say.

That night she had a nightmare of getting into the backseat of a car, and it took off without a driver. She tried to take control, but the wheel kept smacking her hand back. Inside the car some unseen light somewhere was flashing the color of pure alarm. Duddenly its orientation did a literal 180 as it charged head-on into the wall that was supposed to be the street. Not her strangest or most vivid dream, but it rankled her.

And it seems this pandemonium would die down within two years or so. There would always be someone crying the apocalypse, but the trend of fearing the fallen robot had folded on itself like some origami toy. Or perhaps one of the many figures depicting some sort of full metamorphosis with a cry of "Henshin!"

...

The year is now 1982. Lamborghini sales have long since skyrocketed, and by popular demand that year's model was made with a theme in mind: the 1982 Cosmic Countach, available in yellow, red, blue and white. Much served to Bouken's memory, Cosmo Countach also became a toy, manufactured by a company that packed a short animated film into every toy. Both the car and the toy were international hits. And as for the cartoon, it was rife with animation errors and self-contradicting continuity, but there was talk that a movie was already in the works. Critics of all kinds were calling the visitor's story "the next epic to rival Homer, to be passed through generations and retold each time'. Such a unique storytelling opportunity was hard to come by.

There was a sort of degradation that Bouken saw that year. Tourists were now loitering in the streets, wearing T-shirts with the ever-unescapable car-man. Soviet, American, British, no longer coming to proclaim the fall and penalties of man, but waving cameras and declaring their obnoxious obsessions. She felt a bit like they were missing the point of being interested at all, although no words could ever describe why. Aika, now five, was proving herself stubborn, only now really talking to others. She was also playing with one of Cosmo Countach's friends, Rocket Robo, her personal favorite. Bouken felt uncomfortable whenever the thing was in the room, and fundamentally wrong, although she appeared to have some fun with it. My child too. Will she grow up to be another mindless tourist? She'd keep worrying about that for the rest of her life.

She'd never forgotten the incident, either, nor her uncle's fear; he was one of the true believers, even now proclaiming that punishment was to be handed out a hundredfold for our abuse of our neighbors and our beloved little blue planet. As with the Apollo program some twenty years prior, statisticians would see a spike in environmental activism. That American president Ronald Reagan was beginning to "look forward", recognizing that interaction with extraterrestrials would require its own rules and regulations, and gathered with Yuri Andropov, Margaret Thatcher and others to formulate the Earth Interplanetary Accords. The signing of the event was televised and told later to be watched by a measly 300 million viewers. Among them was Bouken and her husband, and some budding conspiracy theorists she was aware of having some familial relation to. At this point the car from the clouds was old news, and this political move at least six months behind the curve. There were more pressing matters demanding immediate attention. Again, let's see the aliens before readying ourselves for their arrival. Let's worry about illegal border crossings, murder statistics, the price of gas.

Now she started seeing a change in her husband. The poor man was beginning to act more cautious and concerned, not just as a parent but in general. He was reading more nonfiction than was the norm, and his fiction was from those authors foreseeing some shocking Armageddon. He worked as a radio operator, and at home he'd spend time tinkering with his equipment. He'd sometimes get Aika to join him, which was a good sign for him as a father, but there was a sense of futility as it seemed to never be enough. No matter what, it'd never be enough... and she'd catch and scold herself for thinking like this.

The nightmare became recurrent, and varying each time. The car would change colors, and she listed each one. The road was last night an icy silver plate going through a wash of blanketing rain, tonight a fiery and torn bridge viewed in the most visceral shades of crimson and purple imaginable. Sometimes she'd wake with one last-laugh imagine dancing in her head: a pair of red eyes, with it an accompanying horns. The Devil, come to reap the world. She was spending far too much time listening to her uncle.

But what if it meant something? She'd heard of clairvoyants who could see and interpret dreams, and of course the much milder cases of deja vu. Some of the things seen in dreams may never be interpreted and become lost, but you could also look in a certain general direction the next day and mutter "that looks familiar, where have I seen you before?" If these dreams really were of something that would come to pass, she should probably be afraid, and not just afraid but totally terrified.

The world was much more unified and "together" as they'd say, but there was always some outlier being condemned or some crisis beyond their control. International news daily declared droughts, or some scandal, or some dictator quelling an uprising. The Cold War was doing its warm-ups again, and all those nuclear warheads were getting bored. Maybe the aliens' plan had been to let them destroy themselves. That was seeming to be easy enough to do.

Her uncle suffered a mental breakdown, and a dramatic one. He ran into the street wearing only his thick spectacles, screaming incoherently and occasionally saying at normal volume that Gojira drove on the wrong side of the road. A car narrowly avoided hitting him as he laid down and began screaming and bawling in the streets, naked and probably feeling very alone. As police arrived he suffered a heart attack for the history books, and an arrhythmia took him within five minutes of stepping out his door. The car that nearly rushed his death by four minutes was a new blue Lamborghini. Good thing he missed, because cleaning out blood would've been a nightmare, even if the colors were quite complimentary. Bouken often found herself wondering about other things, such as how sick a human being could be without being called 'psychotic'. Was turning a possible world-ending threat into a children's toy considered 'psychotic', or was it just some surreal comedy she couldn't grasp? How about her uncle evolving into his polar opposite and dying a broken, crazed mess?

In the midst of all this, something else just had to go and happen.

There was another one. This one was what was sure to set things off. Another one of them, this time with a more prolific entry and harsher landing, orbited the Earth four times before crash-landing in the Pacific with the force necessary for an audible boom from the nearby Japan. Water spouted for miles in all directions, but was harmless. No tsunamies allowed due to foreign objects! It came to rest in the water and was picked up by the exploratory crew. Another, newer Countach, made from the Lamborghini Cosmic model. It was yellow, and had definitive legs this time too.

At the time of its landing, Bouken was sleeping peacefully, and dreaming of falling over. Her legs were crushed and locked in that useless form, and she wasn't long for this world. But her eyes still worked, although she thought they felt cold. She looked upward towards the sky and saw smoke striping the clear blue sky. Her neck lost all strength and lolled to one side. She saw people running, and they seemed small. But not the one who stayed.

Not Boto Bouken.

...

Some say it only really began here, but you can see that's a lie worthy of the world. Now the year has turned to 1983, and already the world is anxious and scared. This second visitor wasn't as unanimous in its naming. To some it kept the surname and became Crash Countach; to others its flashy, fiery orbit earned it the name Sunstreaker; most people agreed on Sunstreaker in time, but the news preferred Crash Countach for association purposes.

Now all those toys, and that continuity-less fiction? Recalled, censored, even fully outlawed in America of all places. So much for the biggest storytelling phenomenon since The Odyssey. The tourists didn't come anymore, but a few familiar faces hung around and proclaimed once again that God had given them His last chance, and it hadn't been enough. Graffiti and vandalism were beginning to claim what once were the clean city streets.

President Reagan gave an address for the world, completely devoid of any of his signature jokes. The cameraman escorted out for wearing a T-shirt depicting a four-legged car became something of an incident, but still the Commander in Chief continued. The gist was simple, and unlike the signing of the Earth Interplanetary Accords, this was considered to be of importance. Its basic premise was as follows: "Twice now we have been subject to unannounced guests, and now they are a serious threat. We have no information on either one, except they are capable of more than we can imagine, and we must move forward as one or face the possibility of extinction." Bouken observed her husband as he watched, and she could see that something was off in him. Something was close to snapping, if not snipped already. Even little Aika could likely feel the newfound tension. Once she'd heard the girl sobbing in her room, but no matter how cold it may have seemed she figured it was better not to try comforting her for it, especially as she could barely comfort herself.

Bouken doubted anyone had any idea how to 'move forward to avoid extinction'. They're aliens beyond our wildest conceptions, and these two space cars, be they vehicles or bodies or something else entirely, are only proof. They might be able to perform herculean feats of defeat, catching and harmlessly detonating nuclear warheads in their hands, or melting any bullets that approached them with a mere thought. She again realized she was right whenever she met someone in passing. She may have been no judge of character, but they didn't care anymore, not one. First they began caring more than ever before, and the second time everything would spring back in a wave of fatal apathy. Eventually she'd see it in the city itself. Meaningless graffiti, litter, filthy loiterers, and probably worse in other parts of the world. The crazies weren't being shy anymore, and whenever she passed to and from her apartment anyone holding a sign and sometimes those without would begin yelling. She didn't want to get used to it.

The nightmare wasn't even a nightmare anymore. Now she would sit calmly in a stationary car, safe from the fire and brimstone as everyone outside frolicked madly. Then she realized she was alone in the car, and was screaming to get out. She was trying to kick the passenger door open when she saw another car materialize to accelerate and ram her. The implication was blatantly obvious to her, and she would prove herself a hypocrite by wishing it wasn't. That morning she went straight to where Aika slept and hugged her madly, freely admitting that she was crying and that she didn't want to stop.

There was some superficial relief when the newly-organized Earth Alliance announced that examination of the two cars from outer space had begun in a joint project between the biggest nations in the world. Actually, it had been underway for weeks now, but "so far," President Reagan declared, "I will not lie, the examination hasn't yielded much." Bouken's husband was spending more time with her, not reading or tinkering, but just wanting to be around she and Aika. He asked about her feelings more often, which was not only startling but a bit annoying. Scarier still was what the future would hold for Aika. She often wondered if they'd ever live to see her grow up, or if she'd ever even get the chance. This didn't warrant tears, but it was just another thing to scold herself for thinking about too much.

Plenty incidents in the news. In Mexico City, one of those aforementioned crazies had formed a terrorist group and started riots in the streets, and it was spreading to the US border states. In Italy, a Cosmic Countach driver mowed down a parade before throwing herself onto its yellow hood, legs folded up and arms sprawled out in imitation, ready to be detained. A pair of horns had been scratched onto the driver-side door. The news said this was likely connected to Satanism, but even someone who'd never heard of the Devil would see this was a stretch in a scramble for answers.

Aika was now learning evacuation points for various disasters, from the highest point of land to the lowest point of land, the airport, the ocean. Sirens were installed on every street corner, and various audio tests were done exactly every one-hundred minutes, drowning out all other noise for anywhere between the spans of ten seconds and ten minutes. Pamphlets were also handed out to the adults, and they detailed what the children would not know: women and children first, and only once those were accounted for would the men be allowed to board. It made no sense, but should disaster arise preparations should be made in advance. The elderly and disabled were the lowest priority. Bouken thought about how likely it was to happen, and found herself laughing. They'd likely all be dead before any of these contingencies were activated. And she might've been the only one in Japan who read it.

She started playing a game with herself, imaging scenarios of what the crashed cars were and how they would besiege the planet. They could be near-dead lumps of flesh in shapeshifting suits of armor, or perhaps remote-controlled weapons which laid bare whole universes in full force and moved on within some impossibly infinitesimal span of time. Some unsuspecting universe reduced to smolder and rubble within a blink of an eye. Some new form of life impossible to comprehend, not alive on its own nor part of a symbiosis, merely some entity unassociable to anything humans knew. Or perhaps, simply some grand government conspiracy to force society to fold in on itself in fear, reducing the population to a less worrisome number. Simple, just drop some lumps of metal and let the world tear itself to bits!

Now her husband abandoned his radio work at home, and he was back to reading science fiction religiously. She'd stopped reading it entirely. Once she'd walked in on him reading aloud with Aika, and followed along. It was War of the Worlds, the classic story of Martians invading Earth. She wondered if that would be illegal now. The Martians walked around in tripods, not cars, but sometimes it seemed there would be no difference.

Finally, he took her aside one day before bed, to ask her what she thought about all of this, an extension of his behavior before but now more express. She was shocked, not only because he'd asked, but because she suddenly found herself without any thought beyond "Why does it matter?" It frustrated her, and in response she decided to ask him what he thought about it all. Obviously a bit prepared, he said he was afraid for her and Aika, and that he was scared for society as a whole. There would be no going back to the way things were before, and humanity might forever watch the skies for nothing. They didn't say anything more that night. She had another nightmare, but this time she had no reaction at all. No fear, no wonder, no curiosity, just a sickening calm. Dead?

The very next day, on a hot and few-clouded June day, things came full-circle. And the power went out.

...

There was an astounding unity to it. One big, lonely hum, descending in pitch exactly as everyone imagined it never would as every light and TV and radio suddenly suffocated. Across the entire island of Japan, which none would know until later. This wasn't a problem. Backup generators would restore essential electricity, and no one minded using handheld light sources. But even stranger was the fact that all motorized vehicles had stopped too. Not that anything was damaged, they simply refused to do anything, and came to rest where it seemed they might rest forever. The backup generators were malfunctioning too, and all those sirens and lights? Useless! No radios, telephones, transport beyond bikes and feet, electric refrigeration, lightbulbs, nothing. With some fiddling they would return in time, but Earth's five years' waiting were up.

The people took it in stride, and managed to stroll about carefree in the streets, gathering outside for no real reason at all. Some people were probably daring the aliens or gods of all that is to strike them down where they stood.

It remained like this until nightfall and beyond, and it seemed no one knew or cared that the sky - now blackened grey - was beginning to take on hues. Bouken had felt the urge to step outside, not for fresh air or a chance to stretch her legs, but perhaps merely to see the world without light, as the poets would say for years to come. Both her husband and child joined her, and together they became part of the patient mob awaiting the end.

First there was something resembling lightning, but perhaps afraid of touch, never reaching any point. A man sitting on the hood of his car had offered they join him, and Aika gave a little jump as the dry sky became turbulent. It wasn't a typical flash of white light, but a reddish-orange. And unlike a thunderclap, which shook the oxygen in the air and the lungs in your chest, this was more... distant. Not by any definite length that would arrive with delay, but something that would never fully arrive. It was a thin, metallic sound. No one panicked, just gawked.

There was something gathering up there, it seemed. A deep mass that no one could fully discern but everyone knew for what it was. They knew they needed to run, yet it was with the same sick fascination that paralyzed Bouken before the car with arms, that everyone found themselves steadfast. Aika told Bouken she was scared, and her husband told her that it was okay, and they should leave right now. He muttered something about checking the radio one final time and disappeared into the apartment complex. Overhead, the mass was growing, and everyone would say they found themselves unable to move, as if it held them there. Hysteria, placebo effect, mind over matter, call it what you will or say it wasn't exactly that, but the force shared between them was stubborn and had its way. It was starting to swirl now, and anyone who focused on what they heard instead of saw would've heard some sort of roaring, not of a living creature, but of a machine.

The sirens had a sense of humor and rhythm, and came to life in full force. Now their ears were open and that animal instinct to survive decided what choice to make: Flight, plain and simple. The sirens were stupid and all that sophisticated system of messages conveyed at 110 Decibels each - MUCH more between every siren in what seemed to be all existence - became a single message that was much easier to understand: run or die. Her husband came out to get her and Aika, but Bouken didn't want to move. At the moment, she wanted to see what it was, not run from it, or let it hide and fester like it had for this half decade. She wanted to see this, these things that had terrified her unlike anything had terrified or fascinated her before or since.

And oh, they were still happy to oblige.

They came to the outer coast, the harbor, the streets, moving inward in numbers that seemed to fluctuate, and stood up where they were. They would batter their chests and gather their momentum, consequences be damned. These were not the elegant sports cars and stealthy masters of disguise. Her dreams had told her exactly that, yet each needs their own validation. Her husband and young child yanked her back to reality across the hood of an old van. She fell to the ground, her own decision realized, and she saw her husband, that great and selfless man she wanted by her side till the end, scoop his daughter Aika up and begin to run with her in his arms. She was crying. Aika joined them in the pursuit of whatever form of safety was available. Some voice more conscious than pure instinct yet more clairvoyant than rational thought told her to take cover in the sweets shop some blocks away, and neither her proclaimed skeptic husband nor her fearfully imaginative child questioned her. There weren't many others left, and during the blackout few people had been driving, so they made decent time. They would awake the next afternoon to find the shop had mostly survived and everything around had burned.

But before they collapsed from exhaustion as one, before they ever saw the shop that was their rock, Bouken heard and saw her answers. A boom unlike anything she had ever heard, whirring, crunching metal. Off the chrome of another car hood, against some harsh white light somewhere, she saw a band of murderous crimson.

She thought she heard someone yelling, in fluent Japanese, "How does 'Hook' sound to you, brother?"

The year is 1983, where some say it all started, and the world is changed forever.

...

Continuity notes:

So, here's the real-life story. We start with the company that would be called "Takara" (which in English means "treasure"). They released Cosmo Countach, the first transforming toy from their company, in 1978 as part of the Microman toyline. This would spin off into the Diaclone toyline, which consisted of combining and transforming mecha. The Car Robots subline would release several toys, which included what would become Sunstreaker, and a kind of extension of Cosmo Countach's design. Hasbro would find the Car Robots at a Japanese toy fair in 1983, and re-released them in America as part of the Transformers line, among other toys from Takara and other sources.

Takara's MicroChange toyline featured ultra-realistic 1:1-scaled objects, including real-world pistols. One example is Megatron, who Transformed into a Walther PPK. New gun laws (especially in the US) prohibited the realistic gun as an Alternate Mode, and ever since "submarine modes" and Nerf-colored figures have turned the concept into a joke.

2000's Japan's "Car Robots" was released. In 2001, the English dub was distributed to Western audiences as "Robots in Diguise." And considering the time (9/11 had recently taken place), much of the cartoon's content was edited. Unfortunately, it had a number of extremely timely references to terrorism. Dialogue was rewritten, and one whole episode was completely omitted, although this was probably for different reasons.

But more on that later, perhaps!

Personal notes:

This was very erratic. First I posted a whole story, then I decided that it'd work better as two separate stories. But that didn't go over too well, and so I decided "scrap it, let's just repost it again." This also gave me the chance to fix some little errors and trim up some details. Trivial stuff, mind ya. I

(P.S.: This is shaping up to be the start of a series. "Adapto Sapiens" is the name I've given it, in reference to the Transformers' growing humanity with time spent on Earth and all that. Also, the world really is gonna end. This is just the start of it.)

Enjoy!

- The Toa of Science Fiction :-{ )