Kick the Bucket

by Carlos Goodyear

This is my fan-made homage to the movie, The Blob. It made a great impression on me as a youth, and started my life-long love of science fiction and horror movies. I've always thought the plot could use a little tweak.

Greetings all!

This is a slightly altered (and re-edited for infinite errors) version of a story I recently posted to TSA-Talk List, a writer's group revolving around transformation-themed literature. But since the plot is essentially my re-imagining of the backstory to a well-known SCI-FI movie, and the consequences thereof, I thought it suitable for inclusion in the Fanfiction archives.

Feel free to 'nuke it from orbit' if I'm mistaken.

Important note: This submission is NOT literature. It's basically a stream of consciousness 50s movie written following (roughly) the Hays Production Code. I hope the 'special effects and cliché dialogue' doesn't make it too painful to read.

M16 for a small amount of 'inappropriate' curse words, intense imagery, and an on-camera death scene.

CG

Story: Kick The Bucket...

There are many things best left buried.

With the best of intentions, our brightest minds have dedicated themselves from the dawn of civilization to the collection, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge so that their descendants might live better lives. Simultaneously, minds just as brilliant, just as dedicated, have toiled to scatter, destroy, and conceal events that if known might destroy those very same civilizations.

Sometimes, however, that which both sides should fear most will refuse to stay buried.

An ancient Ford F150, whose once bright-green paint job has long ago been replaced by layers of rust and dirt, comes to a gravel-spraying stop only a couple feet from John Becker's mud-covered work boots.

With a screech of worn door hinges that probably haven't seen a drop of oil since Becker was a kid, he watches with a look of resigned weariness as his elderly next-farm-over neighbor, Frank Potter, jumps out and yells, "I SAW LIGHTS FLASHING AROUND MY MILKING SHED! THEM HIPPIES ARE AT IT AGAIN!"

After a deep sigh, Becker replies with a resigned sounding, "And a good evening to you too, Frank." Knowing full well any rational conversation with his senile neighbor was doomed to failure when he's angry, or most any other time for that matter, he still makes the effort out of respect for the man's long suffering, and long dead, wife. How that saintly woman, his great aunt, had put up with Frank for near-on six decades was a common topic of conversation around town.

Immune to any form of sarcasm, and manners apparently, Potter ignores Becker's tone. Instead, he tries to vent his growing anger by slamming the truck door behind him closed. The operative word is 'tries'. Whether because of weakness caused by advancing rheumatism, or simple lack of any proper maintenance, Potter fails twice and is eventually forced to body slam the door until the latching mechanism engages.

After a second to gather his breath, he yells even louder, "DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME! I SAID THEM HIPPIES ARE AT IT AGAIN! OR MAYBE IT'S THOSE RED CHINESE COMMUNISTS! LEND ME TOM'S SHOTGUN TO DEFEND MY PROPERTY!"

Frank Potter doesn't own any firearms. And he hasn't since the mayor, the sheriff, and Pastor Gabriel from their church, showed up on his porch a score of years back demanding he turn them over for safe keeping. Potter was always a far better farmer than a marksman, otherwise he wouldn't have missed when that unlucky, or lucky depending on your point of view, John Deere salesman drove onto his property waving a Shell gas station map asking for directions.

Like the young folk say today, there was no way in H E double hockey sticks he was going to let Potter anywhere near his prized Stevens double-barrel blued-steel sixteen-gauge shotgun. His father, Tom Becker, had bought it brand spanking new and left it to Frank upon his death eight years ago in 1965.

Certain he knew the likely cause of the octogenarian's ire, Becker lifts his gaze westward in the direction of his neighbor's once-immaculately maintained cow pasture. Far in the distance a large decrepit farmhouse, an even more weather-beaten milking shed, and a precariously leaning metal grain silo, are barely visible in the rapidly approaching sunset.

Sighing even deeper, he asks a question that's more of a declarative statement than anything else, "The high-school kids making out in there again?"

Hippies and Red Chinese Communists momentarily forgotten, Potter responds matter-of-factually, "Don't forget the beer! There were empty bottles and cigarette butts all over the place last time! How can I tend my cows if they burn it down?!

Potter's milking shed hasn't seen a cow in nearly a dozen years. It took a while, but eventually the FDA office in Rohrerstown got flooded with so many reports about animal neglect they had to take action. With the help of Doc Julius Morton, Downingtown's semi-retired, and now late veterinarian, they hauled off or culled the few remaining head of cattle on the farm, and ordered the dairy machinery sold at auction to pay a six-inch-thick pile of warning letters Potter has been ignoring since the late 50's.

It'd be only a year or two before Potter himself was carted off, likely screaming and threatening to sue every government official in the state of Pennsylvania, to a retirement home. Until that joyous and much anticipated moment came for anyone who'd ever crossed paths with this cantankerous farmer, he'd continue to live nearby in the small itinerant farm-workers shed he moved into when Mary passed on. And support his meager financial needs renting out unused pastureland to neighbors.

Annoying everyone within a mile of his farm came free of charge.

With daylight rapidly coming to an end, Becker decides a little white lie is his best option to get his chores done before full dark, "Sorry, Frank. I mailed it off to have a sticky trigger fixed yesterday. I'm not sure when it'll be back. If you want, I'll take a look at your milking shed tomorrow morning after I slop the hogs."

"FINE . . . I'LL RUN THEM OFF MYSELF!", Potter yells back and starts to root around in the pile of corroded-to-uselessness junk filling the bed of his truck for something sharp and pointy.

Knowing he's never going to sleep comfortably again if a poor nicotine-addicted teenager, or worse, his girlfriend, got skewered by a pitchfork, Becker lowers his head in defeat and mumbles, "I'll come with you. Just give me a minute to grab a flashlight and tell Donna I'll be gone a bit."

His wife, twin teenage daughters, Linda and Susan, Pastor Gabriel, his large extended family, and all the self-righteous wagging tongues in town, would never forgive him if he didn't stop his addled-brained neighbor from hurting someone. Going off on a wild goose chase in the dark would only take an hour at most. He'd just have to make up for lost time by getting up at five tomorrow morning to tend his chicken barn and hog runs.

Almost crowing in satisfaction, Potter replies at a near-shout, "I'm driving!"

Becker doesn't know if he should laugh out loud, or scream in terror, but the very idea he'd get into anything driven by Frank Potter brought both to mind. He decides instead to compromise with another white lie, "I'll follow you in my truck. That way you won't have to waste time or gas bringing me back."

Most people will agree in an instant if given a time and money-saving option like that. Potter ruminates for a good thirty seconds before he replies with, "I got a better idea. How about you follow me in your truck? That way I don't have to waste time or gas bringing you back."

Mumbling, 'Let sleeping dogs lie', Becker decides that any attempt to set the record straight wasn't worth the effort. He'd have enough trouble asking for forgiveness when he said his bedtime prayers tonight. Those two 'little white lies' were already beginning to weigh on his conscience, "Sounds good to me. I'll be right back."

The trip was uneventful ... for the most part.

Staying far behind his traveling companion's rear bumper, Becker keeps a wary eye on the two speeds Potter normally drives: fast and recklessly fast. After a couple close-calls in the moonless dark avoiding axle-busting drainage ditches, and the rusted half-buried remains of a thirty-years-dead-and-abandoned tractor, they arrive near the milking shed and circle around.

Out of any possible onlooker's view from the main road, once again, a small area free of tire-puncturing debris has been turned into an unauthorized parking lot.

In order to facilitate a quick getaway, two garishly painted, and heavily chromed, convertibles, gleam like a fairground fun-house mirrors in his headlights with their grills pointed towards an empty field. 'No doubt about it', Becker thought, 'it's the high-school kids again.' It couldn't be anyone else. No self-respecting adult would drive either vehicle was his firm opinion.

After turning off his engine and setting the emergency brake, he grabs a club-size flashlight off the bench seat and near-leaps from his truck to stop his elderly neighbor from entering the milk shed's dark interior, "Hold on, Frank. Now's not the time to go in there and bust a leg. Let's turn some lights on ..."

Before he can finish the sentence, the response his brain is already predicting arrives, "Ain't got none here. Government busy-buddies cut the wires when they stole my equipment! God damn them all to Hell Fire!"

Automatically, Becker responds with a loud, "Mind your language! There are kids about here somewhere!"

History was made that very moment. It must've been a quarter century since Frank Potter last apologized to anyone for anything, "Sorry. Please don't tell Pastor Gabriel. He's still mad at me for falling asleep and snoring through most of his sermon last Sunday!"

Becker opens his mouth to agree but stops. From the darkness beyond the open door a young woman's a barely audible agonized groan echoes, and a whisper-soft plea for aid is heard, "Aaaahh... help me!"

They were too late. The decrepit milking shed was an accident waiting to happen in full daylight, and nighttime only made it worse. The floor boards had given up their fight against dry-rot long before Becker graduated high school, and the sagging rafters weren't far behind. Potter refused to take it down, so Becker's late father had helped him nail the doors and windows shut several times over the years. A total waste of time, it still attracts bored thrill-seeking young couples looking for privacy like a magnet.

He spins around and shines the beam of his flashlight into the all encompassing darkness. There's nothing to see but warped floorboards, ancient dust, cobwebs ... and a broad gleaming red smear snaking its way deeper into the milk shed's interior. Coming from a family that's raised and slaughtered hogs for five generations, Becker has no trouble recognizing the sight and smell of fresh blood.

Seeing no other option, he points a finger at Potter's chest, "I'm going inside! Get back to your house. Phone the sheriff and Doc Brown. Tell them we need help. There might be several injured people inside there!"

The old farmer doesn't move a muscle. The stress of the situation, and his obviously limited mental capacity to cope with it, has frozen him in place.

"NOW, FRANK! GO!"

With a blank look on his face, Potter replies in an emotionless monotone, "No phone. I ain't gonna pay for people to bother me."

Fighting the urge to slap him back into reality, Becker instead grabs the old farmer by the shoulders and shakes him gently, "I need you, Frank. They ... need you. Go to my farm and find Donna. Tell her to call Sheriff Williams and Doc Brown. She's to tell them someone's hurt bad in your milk shed and to sent help here quick. Please, repeat what I just said."

"Go to Tom's farm. Call the sheriff. Someone's hurt. Need help."

Thinking, 'Close enough', Becker spins Potter around and shoves him gently in the direction of his truck. Not waiting to see him speed off leaving behind a black cloud of burnt-oil exhaust fumes and kicked up dirt, he points his flashlight down and begins to follow the trail of gore.

The first room he enters, where milking equipment was once cleaned and repaired, is empty except for a few long-outdated pulley-powered pumps no one would pay a wooden-nickel for at auction, a heavily foot-traffic disturbed carpet of dust and rodent dropping, and countless cobwebs hanging from every rafter.

As quickly as he dare near-tiptoe over rickety squealing floorboards, Becker follows the body-wide trail of crimson fluid through another darkened doorway and down several steps leading into a narrow milker's pit where it vanishes.

Standing within this sunken corridor running almost the entire length of the sizable room, Potter's handful of workers had once tended to thirty or forty cows during morning and evening milking cycles and not much else.

Expect for a dozen vacant wooden stalls within easy reach on either side of the pit, a heavily stained concrete floor, several wooden troughs filled with decades-old desiccated hay, and a large white sheet of cloth, that's about it. Atop this cloth are a sputtering near-extinguished kerosene lamp, an upended cardboard box, and two items that can only be clothing of some kind.

Two more piles of similar looking items, just within the range of his flashlight, are barely visible almost the entire length of the room away. Mumbling to himself, 'At least I know how many kids are running around here now.' Becker quickens his pace and yells, "I'M JOHN BECKER, IS THERE ANYONE HERE?!"

Thinking, 'What's that, a varsity jacket?' Becker stops and points his flashlight down at what are indeed two piles of neatly folded clothing. The nearest is a man-size black and white leather jacket with a foot-tall red letter ''K' stitched onto the back. A smaller, and much more finely tailored copy, is resting only inches from the first. This one has a fancy letter 'R' embroidered on the left side, and both had been placed with utmost care near the outward edge of a spotlessly-clean painter's canvas drop cloth.

Something about the letters strike a chord in Becker's mind, 'I've seen those before. Jeffery, Walter Kent's son, the high-school football captain wears one just like it. And, what's her name, yeah, Ronda something-or-other, his girl friend, wears one too. I saw them both last month when Jeffery lead his team to a ten to two victory over their arch season rivals.'

Finding not much more of interest, he turns his flashlight towards the cardboard box with the name, Lester's Grocery and Feed Emporium, printed on one side, and its spilled contents scattered nearby: Beer bottles and cigarettes. Or, more precisely, a dozen mostly empty Budweiser lager bottles, two open packs of Pall Mall cigarettes, and a shiny brand new bottle opener with a large fancy letter L stamped into the metal handle.

Becker didn't have to match the intellect of Colombo, the star of a new detective show he'd seen last night on television, to figure out what had likely transpired here: Jeffery, Rhonda, and a couple of their friends, had broken into Potter's milk shed for a little private picnic involving drinking, smoking, and other 'activities' their parents wouldn't approve of. And sometime during the festivities, one or more had gotten drunk and managed to hurt themselves. His job was find them before their youthful indiscretions become a tragedy.

Thinking, 'Sheriff Williams and Lester Cooper are going to have words, serious words, when the sheriff gets back to town!' Becker shakes his head ruefully as he climbs out of the milker's pit. Selling alcohol and tobacco to youngsters is unconscionable in his mind, and if these items contributed in any way to a teenager's injury or death, he knew Lester's days walking around as a free man are numbered.

Determined not to add another regrettable accident to tonight's tally, Becker keeps the beam of his flashlight close to his boot tips while walking carefully towards the open livestock-size barn double-doors on that opposite end of the shed, and one of the two other piles of clothing he'd spotted earlier.

Confused, and yes, visibly frightened by what he's seeing, Becker stops and spins around looking for anything capable of causing so much damage: Only a few steps away are the tattered and partially melted remains of a leather varsity jacket, a pair of brand-new blue jeans with knife-sharp creases, a fancy heavily-tooled leather belt, and expensive custom-made cowboy boots that match the belt perfectly.

None of the agricultural chemicals he's familiar with could reduce so many different materials to near-liquid so quickly. Not even the strongest lye or acid could do that much damage in the hour or two this clothing may have lain here ... if ever... without leaving behind an eye-burning cloud of toxic fumes.

Considering how much all this clothing must've cost the wearer's parents, why it had been left on a filthy concrete floor was an even greater mystery.

In a tightly knit farming community such as his, young people could only find the concept of privacy inside the dictionary on top of their teacher's desk. A young man, and his paramour of the moment, had to be extremely fortunate to find an out-of-the-way location where they could, at the very least, get to first-base without incurring the wrath of two sets of parents; even if said parents were well aware that a little innocent necking had to occur eventually if their kids were ever to fly from the nest.

However, if the youngsters involved in an underage relationship are caught skinny dipping in a stock pond wearing only their birthday suits, the scandal and lose of family reputation would be beyond monumental; which is partially why he'd volunteered to accompany Potter to his milking shed.

This was his chance to repay old man Evan's kindness for running off a sixteen year old John Becker, his fifteen year old girlfriend and future wife, Donna Yates, and taking the untold story to his grave when he caught them 'rolling in the hay' inside his horse barn.

None of this made a lick of sense.

Catching himself at the very last second, Becker almost shouts out-loud, 'WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU?!' as he moves towards the open barn doors and the last pile of clothing before venturing outside. A farm far from the nearest town isn't anything like life in a city. When the Sun goes down, that's it.

Expect for light escaping from the windows of farmhouses often separated by miles of uninhabited emptiness, swinging strings of wind-tossed light bulbs outlining livestock holding barns or pens, and the exceedingly rare motor vehicle traveling down a lonely county road, the night reigns supreme. Trying to find anything, human or animal, that's possibly hurt or hiding with even the brightest flashlight on a moonless overcast night is nearly impossible... and stupid, too.

Falling into a ditch, getting tangled in rusty barbed wire, or impaling himself on any of the numerous pieces of discarded farm equipment Potter has left to rot around here, would only add another victim to the list of those needing rescue.

Clenching his teeth in frustration, Becker moves quickly as he dare towards the last pile of clothing. Resting almost within the wide open doorway, it also marks the likely route one or more of the injured teenagers took to exit the milking shed.

Even under the most optimistic of circumstances, it would be forty-five minutes to an hour before help arrives. Knowing, realistically, it'll be more like an hour and a half before Sheriff Williams can get out here with a couple volunteer deputies and the doctor, he quickens his pace again.

As a father, and a man of deeply held religious convictions, he really has no choice whatsoever. The memory of someone's child in pain begging for help was tightening like a fist around his heart. He had to answer no matter the risk.

A call he hears once again, "... help ... help ..." coming from beneath a pile of torn partially-melted clothing only two or three steps away. Nothing but random pieces of cloth remain for the most part, but a varsity jacket clearly tailored to fit a short and slim person, most likely a young woman, still survives relatively intact.

Becker instantly comes to the most rational observation, 'There's no way anyone could be under there!'

After an angry shout "NOT AGAIN!", Becker sighs deeply in frustration. There's no other explanation possible for this mess. Potter's milking shed was obviously the target of this year's high school pre-prom prank.

Becker has no difficulty dredging up memories that are almost four years old to the day.

On that brisk windy morning, only moments beyond the crack of dawn, he pulls on his windbreaker before venturing out to attend to his hog pens. To his astonishment he finds Bingo, a huge fierce-looking mastiff, and normally a very attentive guard dog, nosily tearing through a five-gallon bucket worth of meaty beef bones under the front porch.

Expecting the worst, he races towards the pens.

He finds all the sows contently eating slop he didn't provide with white frilly bows tied around their necks. The boors, equally focused on filling their bellies, bear the name of the next-town-over's football coach painted on their flanks with almost impossible to remove purple mimeograph ink. Watching George Dumas, the owner of the Downingtown Farming Gazette, drive onto his property seconds later with a camera man to record the event for next week's cover was just icing on the cake.

Unwilling to give juvenile delinquents the satisfaction of yet another trophy photograph, and story to crow about on prom night, he reaches down and grabs the damp and greasy looking jacket collar. His only goal is to turn off whatever windup noise-maker they've hidden underneath, and make the evidence of everything else they've done tonight disappear before Sheriff Williams shows up.

John Becker is a farmer from a long line of farmers. He is, like many generations of his family before him, also a civilian that answered his nation's call without hesitation during a time of war. Death in all its ugly forms is something he's not unfamiliar with ... or so he thought.

Witnessing a fellow farmer get torn to pieces, or crippled, by moment's inattention around a combine or tractor is a heartbreaking sight; no less intense than watching someone you've trained and fought besides for months get turned into red mist by North Korean artillery only steps away from safety.

This was different.

This defied explanation.

This defied reason itself.

Unable to process the mind-numbing sight before his eyes, he retreats several paces with the jacket forgotten in his right hand. Writhing silently as if in unimaginable agony is a young woman ... no, a partial young woman ... still wrong, a fraction of a young woman.

Both legs and the hips they had once been attached to are gone; along with the left arm, left shoulder, and most of the chest. All turned into a blood-hued jelly that is now, unconfined by the heavy jacket, oozing out of disintegrating undergarments and spreading away from her dissolving body in all directions.

Gagging uncontrollably at the horrifying sight before him, Becker instinctively begins to retreat even more until stopped when a near flesh-less face turns in his direction, and the sole surviving eye locks on his. After several failures, the young woman finally manages to stretch out what's left of her right arm and hand in his direction as if begging him for help.

It's not an arm.

It's not a hand.

It's nothing like either of those things.

In miniature, on a scale closely approximating the human limb that should be attached to that melting shoulder is a hairy bovine front leg and black cloven hoof.

Except as a child escaping unequal fights against two older brothers, and an even older sister, Becker has never backed down from anything or anyone. The children of Pennsylvania farmers simply aren't raised that way. They take what Nature throws at them and keep the homestead going despite drought, flood, crop failure or disease. And, if necessary, they take up arms against anyone threatening their farms or country.

Not this time.

He drops the jacket.

He turns to run.

He doesn't get two paces from where he was standing.

A shadow drops from a beam directly overhead.

Possessing far more mass than a semi-transparent gelatinous material that size would be expected to possess, he's knocked to his knees as if blindsided by a pro-offensive lineman's flying tackle.

Stunned by the impact, Becker breathes deeply and moans for several seconds before furiously grappling with his attacker. His empty left hand attempts to take hold of the gelatinous muck smelling of fresh blood flowing down his right side, while his right hand strikes his left shoulder and chest repeatedly with the flashlight.

Neither action impedes the attack to any visible degree.

Howling in agony, Becker feels the fingers of his left hand melt like wax under a blowtorch's flame along with much of the jacket sleeve covering that arm. Desperate to escape the pain, he continues to slam a rapidly decaying flashlight into his attacker with his right hand. That hand soon suffers the same fate as the left.

Without a single digit left to hold it, the flashlight remains deeply embedded in the liquefying remains of his left shoulder and quickly continues to waste away until, with a tiny snap and crackle, the bulb explodes and wires lacking any trace of insulation short out. The entire power output of four D-size carbon batteries course through the black jelly eating his body.

The black ooze covering much of his torso stops moving.

Pain impossible to describe fades instantly into sensation-free soothing numbness.

The respite lasts approximately three seconds.

With renewed vigor, the once-caustic fluid flows rapidly over the scant remnants of his arms, and cascades over his still-undamaged torso and lower limbs harming nothing in its passage. Within moments the only uncovered surface on his entire body is his face.

But only for an instant… as if guided by a singular purpose it seeks entry.

And quickly finds it.

From all directions ebony tendrils converge upon his mouth, and force their way inside in unstoppable streams that devour everything they touch. Teeth, tongue, and throat soften and vanish just before both lungs fill to capacity and burst. Cut off from any source of oxygen, Becker's brain mercifully starts to die taking his torment and consciousness with it.

Only a handful of seconds from the oblivion Becker yearns for, his attacker climbs searching for the aforementioned dying brain. Burning upwards through everything in its path without the slightest hesitation, it tears through the bottom of his skull and stops. For the first, and only time, it displays an uncharacteristic, and almost tender, amount of care as it gently encircles and consumes every morsel of tissue within a liquefying skull as if to savor every nerve cell to the fullest.

John Becker is dead.

Nothing remains but a pulsating child-tall mound of ebony-hued jelly. Still containing a few dissolving shreds of clothing and bone, it rolls with mounting speed towards the shed's open doorway to intercept a growing number of heat sources it senses closing rapidly on its location.

There will be more victims this night... many more.

[Blackness - 1973]

From within ... tiny fragments of indecipherable memories, images, sensations, and incomplete thoughts explode into existence and disappear just as quickly; over, and over with glacially growing frequency, meaning, and clarity.

From outside ... a mishmash of random vibrations morph into partly decipherable patterns of sound having obvious significance, but no more meaning than a jumble of haphazardly written individual letters scrawled onto a torn sheet of crumpled paper:

"KEEP ... LIQUID NITROGEN GOING, SERGEANT! DON'T LET ... NO MATTER WHAT!"

"tank's ... getting low, captain! where's ... damned truck?!"

"ETA FOUR MINUTES ... WE'VE GOT TO ... HOLD OUT ... CONTAINMENT POD ARRIVES!"

"they better get here ... before ... , sir!"

"HOW MANY THIS TIME, CAPTAIN?"

"i count three here, colonel... maybe nine total ... won't know until Victor's team ... reports ... Anderson's team is … trying to backtrack where it came ..."

"WHERE ARE THEY ... NOW?"

"they're doing a final sweep ... of the farm over there. sir. It ... even took out a few pigs ... it's a miracle we caught up to ... before it reached the town that patrol car came from or ... "

"DID WE LOSE ANYONE?"

"not this time ... sir? what are ... orders?"

"FLAMETHROWERS ... BURN IT... THE ... DOWN, CAPTAIN! MAKE IT LOOK ... LIKE THE OLD GUY WENT CRAZY ... KILLED EVERYONE AND SET FIRE ... KNOWN TROUBLE MAKER.

LEAVE NOTHING ... STANDARD ORDERS. JUST BE GLAD ... DIDN'T HAVE TO ... LIVING VICTIMS ... OR IN A MORE ... POPULATED ... LIKE LAST TIME. WE ROLL IN FIFTEEN MINUTES ... NOTHING BUT ASHES, UNDERSTOOD?"

"yes, sir."

"WE'RE BACK, DOCTOR BELL. IT'S ... PROBLEM NOW."

"thanks, just what I've always ... another bucket of goo that wants to eat me ... have your ... put it in the freezer next to number three ... where are you off ... so quickly, colonel?"

"GOTTA TIE UP ... LOOSE ENDS ... JUST IN CASE ... TIME TO BEG ... PENTAGON FOR CASH ... FINANCE ANOTHER HOLLYWOOD REMAKE JUST TO BE SAFE ... STUPID MOVIE ... BEFORE SOMEONE ... CALLS A NEWSPAPER REPORTER. A FEW ... MORE UFO SIGHTINGS FLOATING AROUND ... SHOULD STOP RUMORS ... OR ..."

[Slumber - 1986]

"WHERE'S CORPORAL MUTT? ISN'T IT HIS TURN TO CHECK THIS VAULT?"

"Jimmy doesn't ... that nickname, and he won't come within a ... yards of number four."

" ... LITTLE LATE NOW . . . CAN'T BELIEVE ... NITWIT BROKE ... CONTAINMENT PROTOCOLS ON A DARE. THE LEAST HE'D ... WAKING UP ... ANY OF THE OTHERS IS A STUMP ... HAND USE TO BE. NUMBER FOUR TWISTED ... PINHEAD'S SKIN CELLS ... COVERED IN ... FOOT-LONG SHEEPDOG HAIR FROM HEAD TO TOE ... MORE HAIR THAN A COUPLE ... BEAR RUGS!"

"... six weeks, can't the eggheads do something? I'm getting tired helping him clip the hair around ... eyes so he can see where he's going. And unless he grows ... tail it's hard to tell if he's coming or going. Lieutenant Morris ... stop sneezing when Jimmy's around ... allergic to canine ... "

"DOCTOR ... WORKING ON IT ... GOTTA ... BE SUPER CAREFUL ... AROUND NUMBER FOUR ... YA KNOW. HE'D BE IN ... FAR WORSE SHAPE... IF HIS PALM HAD DONE MORE THAN ... HEAT UP THE ... SURFACE."

"wasn't he supposed to ... married next month?"

"THE COLONEL SAYS HE CAN'T LEAVE ... HERE ... IF EVER ... DOCTOR THOMAS COMES UP WITH ... CURE. ANYHOW, CAN'T ... IMAGINE SHE'D WANT TO ... A CIRCUS SIDE SHOW FREAK ... AND TAKE. . . CHANCE HER KIDS WILL BE BORN PART ... "

"keep the pack ... got another carton … coffin nails in my footlocker ... did you hear ... scuttlebutt going around? They say ... the colonel's thinking about reassigning ... Jimmy to ice-tray bravo."

"BETTER ... GET SENT TO THE ZOO ... AMOOK ISLAND THAN ME! I'VE HEARD ... ALASKA IS BEAUTIFUL ... TIME OF YEAR."

"... with all that fur ... Jimmy ... can't ... even get into the largest overcoat ... in the stockroom. And ... he's soaking wet with sweat most of ... time. Think of all the money the army's ... save. The only uniform he will ... need up there are ... snow boots."

"IT MIGHT COST ... THE MESS HALL A LOT IN … KIBBLE C-RATIONS IF HE GETS ANY WORSE!"

"I know ... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

[Quiescence interrupted - 1989]

"monitor room ... video tape ... running ... closed-circuit cameras active ... full lighting on"

"I CAN'T INSERT ... RADIATION PROBE ... SURFACE IS FROZEN... HARD. AND MY SUIT VISOR ... FOGGED UP. CAN'T READ LITTLE ... ON SLEEVE. WHAT'S ... TEMPERATURE ... INSIDE HERE?"

"negative thirty ... centigrade, doctor Torres."

"RAISE … FIFTEEN DEGREES, CORPORAL."

"roger that ... what are you doing, sir?"

"DON'T WANT TO SPEND MORE … TIME THAN I MUST IN THIS ... SUIT! A COUPLE KICKS SHOULD LIQUIFY ... SURFACE."

"physically disturbing ... container ... not within the guidelines, doctor ... are you sure that's ... ?"

"WHO IS ... NUCLEAR PHYSICIST ... HERE? YOU OR ME?

"you ... sir. It's ... always you."

"DON'T YOU FORGET ... IT! UP ... ANOTHER TEN DEGREES!"

"holding steady ... minus five degrees centigrade. Please be advised ... well within the red zone ... wait! I just checked ... you aren't authorized to ... run any tests today! I'm ... calling security!"

WARNING - SECURITY BREACH VAULT FOUR

DANGER - AIRLOCK INNER DOOR CLOSURE IN PROGRESS

ALERT - SECURITY DETAIL REPORT TO VAULT FOUR IMMEDIATELY

"KEEP THAT ... DOOR ... OPEN!

"automatic... you've got five seconds to ... it's moving! drop that ... pole and ... "

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"damn it ... and I almost made sergeant! Colonel Avery is gonna bust … back to private! again!"

"SHULTZ! WHAT THE HELL ... YOU DO THIS ... TIME?!

"I didn't do nothin', sir!"

Building Three

VAULT FOUR

Eyes only.

Conversation log 1993.10.6 1115 hours

Duration: 22.4 minutes

Participants

[1] Colonel James D. Forrest US ARMY

[2] REDACTED

Beginning of transcript

Colonel James D. Forrest: Good morning! I hope you like what we've done to the...

REDACTED: Cut the pleasantries! Neither of us has time for a two-bit tour.

Colonel James D. Forrest: Can I ask why you're here on such short notice, REDACTED?

REDACTED: No names!

Colonel James D. Forrest: You requested a secure room. It doesn't get any more secure than these new vaults. The walls are made of six inch thick stainless steel welded on top of two plates of battleship armor. There's also four yards of fiberglass insulation wrapped around each one, and enough liquid nitrogen in the tanks underneath this level to create a new ice age at the press of a button.

All contact with the outside came to an end when I pulled the plug on the intercom, and ordered the control room to shut the observation window shutters. There's a fail-safe black box and video camera built into the ceiling light, but only the Pentagon can access what it's recording if ... let's just say we experience a very, very, bad day.

In short, REDACTED, it's secure in here. It's also colder than a witch's tits in Santa's workshop, so could you get to the point before we both freeze? The electric heaters in these plastic suits are only rated for a half hour at this temperature before their batteries die."

REDACTED: The Russians finally got one. Or it got them. Take your pick.

Colonel James D. Forrest: When?

REDACTED: Two days ago, somewhere near the northernmost coast of the Yamal Peninsula. A bunch of Geology undergrads from Moscow University on a prospecting expedition dug up a REDACTED. It was buried deep under permafrost still inside the shattered remains of a large meteorite.

They turned it over to their professor and went to their bunks to sleep. He took it inside his warm lab to identify. If what happened next followed the usual sequence of events, the REDACTED thawed out, consumed the professor, and went on a rampage. Most of the students died in their sleep never knowing what killed them.

The lone survivor, who suffered an unspecified injury, was doing routine maintenance on the vehicles in their motor-pool, managed to lure and trap a fully active REDACTED in a military-grade shipping container in near-blizzard conditions. It re-froze before it could melt its way out. Her next transmission was heavily garbled and the shortwave radio she was using went dead shortly thereafter.

Colonel James D. Forrest: Did she say how big the REDACTED got?

REDACTED: Somewhere between three and four tons. It almost filled the shipping container the university used to transport four snowmobiles to the dig site by boat.

Colonel James D. Forrest: A REDACTED that size doesn't last more than a day or two before it goes torpid and vaporizes.

REDACTED: It lasted long enough to consume twenty-two people, and presumably, fatally injuring one more. It also destroyed or damaged several metal habitable trailers, equipment trailers, motorized vehicles, and every electrical device and generator working at the time. To put it more succinctly, it obliterated anything that was significantly warmer than background temperature and / or had any kind of electrical signature it could detect.

The university contacted the Alakurtti Air base on Murmansk Oblast. That naval base dispatched two large snow-landing capable aircraft roughly three hours later. The quick response team inside the planes secured the dig site and searched in a two kilometer wide circle around the area for any signs of possible survivors.

There were none.

To beat a major storm about to hit the area, they bagged the remains of a single corpse, grabbed everything not nailed down, including the shipping container holding the REDACTED, and stuffed it into the cargo bay ... the unheated cargo bay ... of one heavy-lift cargo jet.

Lacking the space to carry everyone back to their base on Vaygach Island at the same time, half of the quick response team stayed behind to secure the site, while the other half was packed like sardines into the other cargo jet to provide security on arrival. If you ask me, the troops left behind are some of the luckiest bastards in the Russian armed forces.

One of our Intel satellites picked up the original distress transmission, and most of the subsequent radio traffic. By the time it was translated and sent up the chain of command for review, it was probably too late. Knowing normal communication channels are far too slow at the best of times, the High Command established contact with a Norwegian Naval training ship sailing off the Western Coast of Novaya Zemiya Island by sat-phone.

They relayed our high-priority alert message just under six hours after the first airplane returned, and, presumably, put everything aboard into a heated space for some kind for examination minutes before nightfall. Local weather conditions were fairly frigid, but nowhere near cold enough to slow down a Chaotic.

Colonel James D. Forrest: What about the base? How many casualties?

REDACTED: They won't say. Our Intel estimates a normal complement of about four thousand personnel. If their anger is any guide, it must be massive. All they're doing now is blaming us and making threats . . . serious threats.

Take a look at these satellite photos. About half of Alakurtti Air base was burning out of control when the first two photographs were taken, and that large container cargo ship tied to the pier was listing badly and likely sunk by now. It must've gotten hotter than Florida in July when the fuel tanks in that depot went sky-high.

We have no way to determine how many of their people were killed or injured by friendly-fire, but taking all the infrastructure damage into account, they must've used every weapon in their armory before the REDACTED went defunct, or died from some other factor.

Take a close look at photo number three. Those tread marks in the slush are all that's left of three brand new T-90 battle tanks, and a shiny just-out-of-the-box BTR-90 troop carrier; all of which were presumably fully manned when destroyed. Since the old Soviet Union that was paying for them on an installment plan went belly-up two years ago, do I need to tell you how unhappy the Kremlin is with how ineffective their expensive toys turned out to be?

Colonel James D. Forrest: What does any of this have to do with me or my installation?

REDACTED: This whole mess is rapidly spinning out of control. To avoid a major international incident, a world-wide panic, and to keep what we've been hiding off the cover of the New York Times for almost four decades, you are going to play host to a Russian fact-finding team.

Here.

Tomorrow afternoon.

Fourteen hundred hours.

Iron you best uniform.

Colonel James D. Forrest: What do I tell them?

REDACTED: The truth. But not one word about the zoo. Is ... that ... understood? Both the CIA and the Judge Advocate General's Corps will be paying you a visit this afternoon. Their representatives will tell you how the top brass wants this meeting to go down, and provide any backup you need while the Russians are here. Follow their instructions to the letter.

Colonel James D. Forrest: Will they be sending an interpreter? My Russian is limited to ordering a bar drink.

REDACTED: None needed. They all speak English. Most of them were educated in Western universities, or spent years here working out of their embassies. Translation ... at least one of them will be highly trained in the white spy vs. black spy game. Watch every word you say.

Colonel James D. Forrest: Any more good news?

REDACTED: Just the one, they asked to meet you ... and Doctor Forrest ... by name. Since Building Three has never been directly connected to the internet, and you can't even get a walkie-talkie through its gates, we've either got a mole or an anti-military save-the-world do-gooder in the loop. Do what you can to keep ... him ... from turning this meeting into a circus.

Colonel James D. Forrest: That's just great. Will you be in attendance, REDACTED?

REDACTED: No way! I'm taking the red-eye back to my command in California tonight. I only came by to give my replacement a heads-up on the bag of flaming dog shit about to land on his doorstep. My retirement comes up in two years and a month. You're fairly young. You might still have time to scrape most of this crap off your performance record if this soiree turns into a major cluster-fuck. Good luck with that!

Colonel James D. Forrest: Thanks. Sounds like I'm gonna need it.

REDACTED: Glad I could help, now press the damned button and let's get out of here! I swear that thing in the bucket is licking its chops, and my feet went numb five minutes ago!

Building Three

Fourth Floor

Conference Room 2 / Vault Four Control Room

Audio log: 1993.10.7 / 1350 through 1612 hours

Excerpt duration: 1 hour 23.5 minutes

Eyes only.

Duplication or removal of this transcription from archive strictly prohibited.

Participants:

[1] Colonel James P. Forrest …... US ARMY

[2] Captain Quincy Unis …... US ARMY Judge Advocate General's Corps

[3] Able Hartman …... US Central Intelligence Agency

[4] Doctor Donald Everette PhD …... Director of Building Three Science laboratory

[5] Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev …... Russian Navy – Baltic Fleet

[6] Oleg Mikhailov …... Dean of Moscow State Mining University

[7] Natasha Semenov …... SVR Russian Foreign Intelligence Service

[8] Yugoslav Belinky …... FSB Russian Federal Security Service

FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation

SVR (External Intelligence Service)

Transcriber's note: Fourteen minutes of belligerent, repetitive, and extremely loud accusations directed towards [1] by [5] [6] and [7] were removed from this transcription for the purpose of clarity.

See appendix #1 to view excised material.

Colonel James P. Forrest: How many ways do you people want me to say the same damned thing?! Neither the United States, its armed forces, our NATO allies, or the freakin' Boy Scouts, created, deployed, or directed the actions that LENGTHY EXPLETIVE DELETED thing took against your dig site on Yamal Peninsula and the Alakurtti Air base!*

Considering how there's never been any confirmed ... thing ... activity reported outside our country, and how childishly you're acting right now, I'm not surprised my superiors thought it best to keep them a secret. Count your lucky stars this is the first time you've had to deal with one!

* Footnote: 1

See enclosed maps and satellite photographs of Yamal Peninsula and Alakurtti Air base before and after incident.

Oleg Mikhailov: If not from your imperialistic warmongering military industrial complex, where did it come from?!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Do you really want me to explain where meteorites come from ... for the third time?!

Doctor Donald Everette: With your permission, Colonel. I'll take it from here.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Be my guest.

Doctor Donald Everette: Greetings, I'm Doctor Everette. I'm the director of all scientific inquiries conducted at Building Three. Unfortunately, a frustratingly large portion of my duties revolves around finding new and scientifically novel ways to justify a budget that has produced few tangible results. In essence, nothing has changed significantly in regards to our understanding of what these ... things ... are, or how best to deal with them since our first encounter almost four decades ago.

Oleg Mikhailov: You must have learned something?

Doctor Donald Everette: Yes indeed, Mr. Mikhailov. They are supremely dangerous, utterly mindless, and implacably aggressive. Given the opportunity, that ... thing ... on the other side of the window behind me would quickly turn us into protoplasmic goo.

It would shortly thereafter break down what's left beyond the detection range of any instrument we possess, and repeat this activity indefinitely on any multi-cellular organism it can perceive within range of its senses ... the nature, function, and scope of which has never been discovered.

Trust me. Until you see what they can do in person, the phrase 'a bad way to go' is meaningless.

Natasha Semenov: I have a question too, Doctor Everette.

Doctor Donald Everette: Please go ahead, Mrs. Semenov.

Natasha Semenov: As you probably can tell from my accent, English isn't my first language, but even I can detect a distinct strain in your tone and phraseology. Are you trying to be deceptive? Both you and Captain Forrest keep using the 'thing' designation. Shouldn't it be ... Blob, Blobs, or The Blob?

Doctor Donald Everette: Someone has been watching decadent 50s American horror movies I see.

I was indeed hoping this topic didn't come up, and it's not because of any duplicity on my part. Prior to your arrival, Captain Forrest and I flipped a coin. I lost. What follows next is the orientation speech given to military personnel posted to this complex. For my benefit more than yours, and in the interest of saving time, I will try to distill it down to areas of interest that are most relevant to your presence here.

Frankly, after having given this speech so many times, I've begun to do it in my sleep.

So please feel free to ask me again when I'm done, okay? Otherwise we'll be here until midnight if I stop and start too many times.

Here goes ... Greetings. This is Building Three. It is, just like the other four buildings located behind the walls and watchtowers you passed to get here, dedicated to the safe containment and disposal of nuclear, chemical, biological, and other hazardous materials.

That is near absolute truth, by the way. The only lie is one of omission: Everyone working in this particular building is actually dedicated to a single task: getting rid of these ... things ... with extreme prejudice.

Oleg Mikhailov: What do the other buildings deal with?*

* Footnote: 2

Inventory and current projects lists available to Level Two clearance personnel only.

Doctor Donald Everette: The usual, Mr. Mikhailov. Leftovers of the Cold War. Items like weaponized viruses, bacteria, and chemicals that were confiscated by our military and intelligence services from one whacko nation or another. Medical waste that laughs at any antibiotic or vaccine ever created; and the occasional lab experiment cooked up by microbiology majors when their professors aren't looking.

They also provide great cover for our existence, too. Not a single reporter has ever accepted our frequent invitations to inspect our numerous bio-hazard containment laboratories, or toxic waste depositories.

I continue ... Your superiors, in whichever branch of the armed forces you hail from, assigned you here to serve our nation, and its citizens, by guarding this complex from any enemy wishing us harm. They choose you because you are the best. I hope ... I know ... we can count on you! Now please report to the building shown on your folder for more detailed orientation and bunk assignments. Everyone with red flagged travel papers please remain seated. Dismissed!

Excellent! Now please open your folder and examine the top photograph. That ... thing ... in the bucket is what you're here to protect the United States from. It has the potential to destroy this building, and everyone in it, if it escapes confinement. Your job is to make sure that never happens, and to retrieve any found outside these walls before incalculable damage is done to our nation and its citizens.

Your commanding officer, Colonel James P. Forrest, is waiting downstairs to initiate your orientation, issue bunk assignment, and schedule instruction times for specialized training courses over the next few weeks. DISMISSED!

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: What is your attrition rate, Doctor?

Doctor Donald Everette: Currently quite modest, Admiral. In the beginning, before Building Three came into being, it was appalling*. Even today ... err accidents do happen. Our only effective weapon against these ... things ... is extreme cold. No matter how well trained, we ask our soldiers a great deal to go about their duties with cylinders of liquid nitrogen strapped to their backs.

* Footnote: 3

See appendix 23 for figures pertaining to on-base casualties and injuries reported since Building Three began full operation.

See appendix 24 for figures pertaining to off-base casualties and injuries reported since Building Three began full operation.

See appendix 25 for figures pertaining to, when known, of civilian deaths and cleanup results since Building Three began full operation.

Doctor Donald Everette: Almost done...

Oleg Mikhailov: Excuse me, Doctor Everette. Before you continue...

Doctor Donald Everette: Yes? What is it?

Oleg Mikhailov: You actually do that?

Doctor Donald Everette: Do what, Mr. Mikhailov? Have no idea that you're referring to.

Oleg Mikhailov: All you did is show these soldiers is a photograph? And on that laughable evidence they will lay down their lives to protect this country from a bucket of frozen grease?

Doctor Donald Everette: I do, and they have. The men I give this speech to are volunteers drawn from elite units throughout our armed forces. I know it's not grammatically correct, but they are literally beyond the best of the best. Compared to the combat horrors they've already endured, what they experience here will barely qualify as a discomforting memory in their old age ... if they ever have one. They will do their duty to our country no matter the cost to me, you, or themselves.

Oleg Mikhailov: Without question?

Doctor Donald Everette: No. If I told them to break into your bedroom in Moscow and drown you in a bathtub full of melted cheese, they'd likely ask what brand to use. I have a fondness for Velveeta.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Doctor!

Doctor Donald Everette: Sorry, Colonel. I'm overdue for my nacho break. Is there anything else, Mr. Mikhailov?

Oleg Mikhailov: No ... please continue.

Doctor Donald Everette: Before anyone asks ... and someone always does ... after decades of extremely expensive and insanely dangerous research, no one has yet proved that these ... things ... are in fact individual entities, possess any recognizable chemical makeup, are alive in any true sense of the word, or have any toxic qualities beyond utterly destroying any carbon-based life-form they encounter.

All done! Mrs. Semenov? I believe you have a question.

Natasha Semenov: I'd still like to know why you and Captain Forrest are so reticent to use the "Blob" designation. Is it a secret of some sort?

Doctor Donald Everette: If truth be known, it's exactly the opposite. That name is the brainchild of the late Captain...

Colonel James P. Forrest: Doctor ... that information is not relevant.

Doctor Donald Everette: Understood ... Building Three gradually came into existence after our first skirmish with one these ... things ... in 1957.

After that horrendous experience, the Pentagon tasked the officer who successfully contained it with creating a covert rapid response force to deal with future encounters, to eliminate any evidence of what happened, and, in the interest of avoiding civilian panic, to craft a cover story that'll make any future reports of ... thing ... existence untouchable by the media for all time.

In other words … just another typical day in the army chain of command.

With a starting budget that wouldn't open a hamburger joint today, he commandeers a barracks empty since the end of World War II, and procures whatever equipment he can beg, borrow, or steal from the host base. He carefully fills it with a handful of trusted officers and troops drawn from his prior command, and starts working on the next two items left on his to-do list.

The solution to the second problem, namely making a town filled with hundreds of nonexistent corpses vanish, was fairly straightforward and quickly became standard procedure in subsequent cleanup operations; he blew up and incinerated everything in sight.

Aided by the remoteness of the area, and the limited communication infrastructure available at that time, he derails and detonates a 'misplaced' runaway cargo train hauling cars filled with fuel and other flammable industrial chemicals in the middle of the town. The explosion and subsequent conflagration essentially erases what little remains standing.

The unfortunate lose of the majority of his troops is explained as an unfortunate consequence of an even larger secondary explosion; one that occurs while they were heroically attempting to evacuate the town-folk and battle the fire.

Natasha Semenov: Fire doesn't destroy everything. What about the immediate area?

Doctor Donald Everette: It's what we'd call a Super-Fund toxic cleanup site today. Remote monitoring, barbed wire fencing, and 'Highly Dangerous Cancer-Causing Chemicals Present! Enter at your own risk!' signage works wonders keeping souvenir hunters and the media out.

I know it sounds drastic, but we simply didn't know how rare they were at the time. For all we knew there were dozens of meteorites buried beneath the town.

Natasha Semenov: Wouldn't the deception unravel if a soil or water analysis comes back negative?

Doctor Donald Everette: It won't.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: How did he 'contain it'?

Doctor Donald Everette: Purely by accident. Along with a handful of survivors, he was trying to flee the town. The ... thing ... got aboard their vehicle and the driver lost control. The deuce-and-a-half crashed into a meatpacking plant, and landed upside down inside a deep-freeze warehouse large enough to fill a couple dozen refrigerated railroad cars. It got trapped underneath the wreckage and couldn't escape before the cold stopped it.

Moving on ... the answer to the third, and final problem, arrives the next morning after a fortuitous casual telephone conversation with his brother-in-law living in California.

That unnamed individual owned a very profitable chain of drive-in-cinemas. He was overjoyed on how much money he was making showing cheaply produced Hollywood films to satisfy the then-current UFO and monster movie craze. Films that were filling his theaters to capacity every night with no end in sight.

Inspiration stuck that very evening when Captain ... HA! FOOLED YOU!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Very funny. I asked you to take your medication before this meeting. Did you forget?

Doctor Donald Everette: Maybe ... yeah, I did. I kinda zoned out during my midday jog around the maze and forgot about the time.

Oleg Mikhailov: What is this ... maze ... you speak of, doctor?

Doctor Donald Everette: An abandoned architectural legacy of a failed line of inquiry used for exercise and storage today. Sub-level two was turned into a giant maze in the late 80s. A behaviorist working here at the time wanted to prove Blobs weren't completely mindless; that they possess a measurable degree of memory and conscious motivation. In the end, all he proved was how important cardio and not getting trapped in a dead end is when dealing with these ... things.

The final score: thing one, scientist zero.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: The activities of 'Building Three' have been a high priority secret of the United States government and military for decades. Please explain why you take such risks, Doctor Everette. Why would scientists, such as yourself, who can never expect to publish a single word of their research, risk life and limb around these ... things?

Doctor Donald Everette: Your countryman, Mr. Mikhailov, is a scientist. Why don't you ask him if he'd want to work here, Admiral?

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Oleg?

Oleg Mikhailov: Like you Americans say ... in a heartbeat! There's no such thing as a permanent secret, Admiral Vasiliev. Whether tomorrow or a century from now, what is stored here will be known to the world. The names of every researcher connected to the discovery of extraterrestrial life ... or whatever they are ... will go down in history alongside the giants of science! I'd mop floors and clean test-tubes for the rest of my life just to get the immortality of an honorable mention!

Doctor Donald Everette: Enthusiastic little Ruskie, isn't he?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Doctor! Manners! And don't think I forgot. Take your pill.

Doctor Donald Everette: Without coffee?

Colonel James P. Forrest: There's a jug of water in front of you. Use it!*

* Footnote: 4

Doctor Donald Everette is authorized and instructed by Building Three medical staff to take two 40 mg Prozac tablets daily for abatement of post-stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Dosage is not to exceed 80 mg per day without proper authorization. And, until further notice, Doctor Everette is to undergo biweekly mental evaluations with the on-site psychologist during the remainder of his stay.

Footnote: 4a

Enclosed copy of alert notice posted to all security personnel: Unless in transit to his next duty station, Doctor Everette is confined to Building Three. No exceptions to this standing order will be allowed. Use of force, up to and including lethal force, is hereby authorized by Colonel Forrest.

Doctor Donald Everette: Spoil sport! Getting back on track ... again ... our first commanding officer sat down at his Underwood De Luxe typewriter, as he did most evenings, to put his plan in action. He was, by all accounts, a highly educated individual with an abiding passion for Shakespeare.

As a member of a long-disbanded writer's group with similar interests, he spent his free time emulating the Bard's plays and mailing carbon-copies of his much-anticipated endeavors to a small circle of friends for critical review. College classmates who would never forgive, or forget, if they ever discovered that their highly regarded fellow playwright had misused his well-respected literary talent to pen an abomination so far beneath their high standards.

And, even worse, that he had had the audacity to post such a hideously flawed manuscript ... one intentionally brimming with maudlin childish dialogue, incomprehensible typos, ill-conceived self-contradicting plot-lines, cookie-cutter juvenile adult scenes lifted from well-known sources ... free of charge within a plain manila envelope bearing nothing but an untraceable nom de plume and equally false return address.

In simplest terms . . . an anonymous plagiarizing wannabe Hollywood hack's unsolicited manuscript.

Natasha Semenov: That's it? That's how the movie 'The Blob' got started.

Doctor Donald Everette: In a nutshell, Mrs. Semenov, yes. A cashier's check for ten thousand US taxpayer dollars made out to Paramount Pictures for producer Jack A. Harris' use didn't hurt either. Like they say, the rest is history.

Natasha Semenov: So ... let me guess ... you use the 'thing' designation to keep from laughing?

Doctor Donald Everette: In a small part ... absolutely! You've got to admit avoiding the 'Blob' designation whenever possible is the biggest insider joke of all time; well over three decades old and it's still going strong!

However, there is a dark side. Complacency kills.

As your civilians and armed forces just unfortunately experienced, there is no way to overstate the clear danger these ... things ... pose to us, and, potentially, all life on earth. Getting into the habit of calling them Blobs is like referring to nitroglycerin as air freshener. Nothing good can come of it.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: You have them contained. Why don't you dispose of them, Colonel Forrest?

Colonel James P. Forrest: We've never discovered how, Admiral Vasiliev. As you know, brute force is less than useless. The heat, sound, or electrical power involved with most weaponry only attracts their attention. And nothing we've tried even managed to slice off the tiniest piece.

Our scientists have diligently sought a means to destroy them for well over twenty years. Exposure to radiation, electricity, blast-furnace temperatures, and every imaginable toxic material has been a total failure. We'd shot them into the Sun if we didn't fear a rocket failure might dump one onto a less-than-friendly foreign country. Imagine the diplomatic faux pas if one landed in the middle of Saint Petersburg.

Doctor Donald Everette: We did succeed in losing a number of researchers who thought pizza, coffee and double-glazed donuts with sprinkles is a balanced diet, though.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: What do you mean ... balanced diet, Doctor Everette? I don't understand the reference.

Doctor Donald Everette: Without exception, we've never seen one move beyond a moderate walking pace. It's not necessary to run fast to get away from their immediate vicinity if you see one coming. You just have to get past the physically-voluminous person in front of you. We call that the Zombie Rule.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: One moment, Doctor. By your own words, Colonel, you claim to have possessed a number of these 'Blobs' for over three decades. If you've only been trying to destroy them for two, what did your government do with them for more than a decade?

Colonel James P. Forrest: No offense intended, but isn't it obvious? Our first known encounter, and subsequent capture of another, occurred during the height of the Cold War. We spent almost fifteen years trying to weaponize them for use against, well ... you; and, somehow, to discover a means to copy their bizarre physics-defying properties for the protection of our nation in the event of World War III.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: None taken. Your military would be in dereliction of their sworn duties to have done otherwise. In the spirit of detente, could you ... how you say? ... Boil down the results of this research.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Total failure.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Perhaps a little less boiled down?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Very well. Once we captured our first Blob two years later in 1960 ... I can't tell you how asinine I feel using that word ... a select number of our best scientists attempted to analyze its behavioral patterns and physical composition.

The former was a snap: They kill. The latter: Nothing.

Given the slightest opportunity, an unfrozen Blob will follow you around like a love-sick puppy until you're out of range of its senses, it targets something or someone else, or you become its next meal. And it will destroy anything in its path to do it.

Oleg Mikhailov: What became of the first? The one you encountered in 1958. Is it here?

Colonel James P. Forrest: No. It was a Chaotic. Think of them as a Blob's insane weight-lifting big brother on steroids. If they had a mind, you could say their sole aim in life is to go out in a blaze of glory. Only minutes after being transported and placed inside a military base-size storage freezer, it vanished.

We have no idea how long a normal one will exist, perhaps forever. Or what might trigger it into becoming a short-lived Chaotic. The one in the vault behind me has been here for around two decades. It, like all the others stored here, just about fills a ten-gallon metal container.

Oleg Mikhailov: Excuse me. How do you get it to go inside?

Colonel James P. Forrest: The specimen containers are manufactured with the same proportions of iron, nickel, and cobalt found in ordinary chondrite meteorites. All it takes is a little bait and they'll climb back inside like they're going home. No matter how many times our research teams thaw and refreeze them, they are incapable of learning it's a trap.

Oleg Mikhailov: What do you use for bait, Doctor Everette?

Doctor Donald Everette: Telemarketers.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Doctor! Please!

Doctor Donald Everette: Despite my perfectly reasonable suggestion … we use lab mice. The Blobs go after anything that's living. If we keep our distance, they'll follow a trail of anesthetized mice anywhere we need them to go. Occasionally, the anesthetic wears off too soon. That's why every level of Building Three is infested with them. Any wide-awake rodent will rapidly make itself scarce if a big ball of gunk crawls towards it.

Natasha Semenov: Shouldn't they be red?

Doctor Donald Everette: What's that?

Natasha Semenov: The Blobs ... shouldn't they be red?

Doctor Donald Everette: The original movie script depicts a Chaotic at work very accurately. The author thought their ability to hide in plain sight would add suspense. The camera crew simply couldn't get the Technicolor film of the time to work without excessive illumination so the action scenes were rewritten by the director.

It's hard to scare people when the movie monster is barely visible under the low-level lighting used during simulated nighttime shooting, Mrs. Semenov.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: What else can you tell us about these 'Chaotics', Colonel?"

Colonel James P. Forrest: There's not much more to say. A Chaotic will almost exponentially increase in size until it self-destructs. We've only known of two so far. Yours makes three. The first was in 1958, and the second in 1982. Both caused major loses of life and heavy amounts of property damage. Neither survived more than two days after activation before disappearing into thin air.

Yugoslav Belinky: What method did you use to conceal the attack in 1982?

Colonel James P. Forrest: We dynamited or set fire to five private homes, a gas station, a twenty-four hour convenience store, and a whole wing of a shopping mall. It's amazing what you can blame on gas leaks, crazies, and drunken teenagers.

Yugoslav Belinky: How many people were lost in the shopping mall?

Colonel James P. Forrest: It was closed for renovation. Only a couple security guards were on duty when the Blob entered around 3:00 am. One guard called their employer to complain about her partner not returning from a smoke break, and, in passing, to describe an oddly damaged door she discovered on the loading dock that we recognize as characteristic of a their activity.

Key words in their intercepted conversation alerted us to the situation. A local recovery team already following its trail of destruction arrives at 3:15 am. It was already too late to save the other guard, and at least three civilians who parked nearby when their car broke down on the interstate.

Natasha Semenov: How are Chaotic Blobs ... activated?

Colonel James P. Forrest: The same way they're all activated. All it takes is for a hollow meteorite containing one to be breached when ambient temperature is above freezing.

Doctor Donald Everette: Poking it with a stick works well, too.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Damn it, Doctor! Take another pill!

Oleg Mikhailov: What will a non-Chaotic do if there's nothing around to absorb?

Colonel James P. Forrest: They wait, Mr. Mikhailov. How long they'll hide and wait is still an open question. Our record for keeping one under long-range observation is eleven days.

Oleg Mikhailov: Did you capture it?

Colonel James P. Forrest: No, we lost it in the charred ruins of a Days Inn motel on the outskirts a small mid-western town. Sunlight doesn't seem to harm them in any way, but they avoid it. We don't know why. They are very hard to spot when standing still during the day, and far harder to see at night without a strong light source.

Oleg Mikhailov: What did the motel survivors report?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Fortunately, only one room was occupied at the time. Two guests and the night manager err ... were lost by the time one of our teams tracking its activity got there several hours later.

We hid the evidence of the attack with a natural gas water-heater explosion and subsequent fire. An overturned tractor-trailer ... accident ... kept local police and firefighters miles away until the Sun came up. With nothing nearby to consume, it just sat motionlessly inside a metal drainage pipe far behind the main building.

Oleg Mikhailov: Any idea where it came from or where it went?

Colonel James P. Forrest: As for where the meteorite crashed, none whatsoever. There were no reports of a shooting star that evening, but that means little. Besides victims inside the motel, several young couples swapping spit in a hillside park a mile away were lost that same night. It could've been resting undisturbed anywhere in-between for centuries before something, or someone, cracked it open.

We have only a moderately better theory to explain where it might have gone. Since our surveillance of the rebuilt motel has yielded nothing, and there have been no additional reports of disappearances in the vicinity, we suspect it has gone to ground; as in deep underground.

Stories describing subterranean monsters go back to the dawn of history. And news reports about mining disasters where a single miner, or an entire crew, working underground disappear without a trace aren't that uncommon. As of now we have no proof it's down there, or still exists.

Oleg Mikhailov: What about the latter question, Doctor? Surely the scientists under your command have discovered something by now.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Doctor? Please stop chewing your pencil and answer the question!

Doctor Donald Everette: Sorry, I'm a bit foggy. I didn't sleep well last night. But to answer Mr. Mikhailov question, very little. We do have a certain degree of confidence in regards to where they might be coming from. There is a more than casual correlation between documented Blob appearances and meteor showers originating from the remains of several dead comets.

Oleg Mikhailov: I fail to see how this is relevant to our situation, doctor.

Doctor Donald Everette: Right now, not much. Once we narrow down which specific long-period comets are most likely to contain these ... things, we will send probes to examine them at close range and devise a plan to solve the problem. That is, if it's even possible.

Designing autonomous space craft of this complexity will take decades, so, for now, we can only double our vigilance when the debris from questionable Solar-orbiting rock pile is due to cross the Earth's orbit. Why they've appeared almost exclusively in my country, until just now, is anyone's guess.

Natasha Semenov: By the time you figure all that out, our heroic Russian Cosmonauts will let NASA know how they destroyed them! But a little more information about your present findings would be ... how you say? ... PEACHY KEEN!

Doctor Donald Everette: As I've already explained several times, Mrs. Semenov, it's not much. At present we have eight specimens contained in Building Three. We have failed to capture six more and high-confidence in the existence of seven others that popped up and vanished in various locations around the United States since the early 40's.

Three of the floors above us are full of the most powerful scanning devices every developed for medicine and industry. After decades of intensive research, we have yet to measure anything besides nano-level variations of mass and volume, let alone discover what's inside any of them.

Natasha Semenov: How is that possible? I'm looking at one right now, Doctor Everette. Can't you just put that bucket into an x-ray machine and see what's inside?

Doctor Donald Everette: Our first head of research thought the same thing. Since there's a lady present, I won't play the words he spoke, or more accurately screamed, only seconds after that idea blew up in his face.

Yugoslav Belinky: I realize it has been a number of years, but can we talk to him?

Doctor Donald Everette: He is no longer among us, Mr. Belinky. Due to an unfortunate oversight while attempting to examine our first captive specimen undergoing zero-point-phase-shift, a primitive x-ray machine of the era radiated an excessive amount of thermal energy with disastrous results.

An empty casket was buried for the benefit of his family, and those of his three assistants. Building Three's second head of research took over the next day. I am the seventh. And I will be replaced shortly by the eighth.

Yugoslav Belinky: Who was your first head of research? And what were the names of the others?

* Footnote: 5

Identities and backgrounds of all prior Faculty research heads.

Addendum 5a: Doctor Donald Everette's replacement has not been named as of this date.

Able Hartman: Don't answer that question, Doctor Everette. It's beyond the scope of this meeting.

Yugoslav Belinky: Very well. Can you please explain the meaning of this ... zero-point-phase-shift?

Doctor Donald Everette: What we call freezing is actually a misinterpretation of what actually happens when a Blob is suddenly exposed to extremely low temperatures. There is no gradual transition as there is with normal matter. One moment they move like a super-fast non-magnetic colloidal ferrofluid, the next they're the ultimate definition of the word solid. The shift between both states, or what we've come to call its zero-point-phase-shift state, is apparently instantaneous..

When active and unfrozen, so to speak, they are undetectable. The vast majority of the electromagnetic spectrum passes straight through like they're not even there. Conversely, the opposite occurs when they're frozen. In essence, they become impenetrable. In either case, what our eyes and cameras actually see is nothing but a very narrow spectrum of visible light wave-lengths scattering in all directions around them. If not for that they would be invisible.

Oleg Mikhailov: You make them sound like black holes.

Doctor Donald Everette: At least black holes fit into our modern view of physics; these things don't. Don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't want to have a naked singularity in the vault back there. Getting ripped apart into subatomic particles, along with the entire Earth, and sucked into dimensional oblivion was never part of my previous retirement plans.

Oleg Mikhailov: As one scientist approaching retirement to another, I'm curious. What were those plans, Doctor?

Doctor Donald Everette: Well, there was a very generous government pension. An absolutely stunning beachfront condo on Maui … A never-ending conga line of local hotties to keep me company . . . and mountains of coconuts filled with rum with tiny paper umbrellas sticking out of them. Sadly, all of that went down the drain recently. I'll be leaving shortly for an indefinite stay somewhere far less inviting.

Colonel James P. Forrest: You're going off-message, Doctor. Stop. Now!

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: I agree. The only thing I want to hear is how to destroy them.

Doctor Donald Everette: Are we back to this again? Colonel Forrest and I couldn't have been clearer. We don't know how. And, frankly, considering their propensity to appear in out-of-the-way places separated years, it's not worth the security risk to engage in high-intensity efforts to even search for them.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I empathize thoroughly, Admiral but Doctor Everette is quite right. We know next to nothing about them, or how they'll react if we try something drastic. As your troops no doubt rapidly became aware, a Blob can shrug off even the strongest physical attack. And exposure to high temperatures, and even fairly strong radiation, equally fails to illicit a response.

I'd like nothing more than to fry 'em in a reactor, but there's no telling what might happen. Some of our staff theorize that exposure to excessive amounts of energy might initiate either a thermonuclear-grade explosion, or a massive replication event; which is also the reason we never thaw more than one of them at a time, or allow close physical proximity.

Due to their current rarity, and our so-far successful efforts to keep their existence a secret, they are only a potential threat to our citizenry and public order. In comparison to the buildings around us, which are involved in research and disposal of weaponized substances and diseases that could kill millions within days, the DE's stored here are barely more than a nuisance at this moment.

Building Three will take no action against them that might endanger this country, or the world as a whole.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Is that all you've got to tell us?

Colonel James P. Forrest: That about covers it.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Gospodin* Belinky!

* Translation: Mister

Yugoslav Belinky: Sir?

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Do you have the photographs?

Yugoslav Belinky: They're in my briefcase, sir.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Give them to Colonel...

Colonel James P. Forrest: Wait! Sorry ... err, I'll come to your end of the table. I need to stretch my legs. These chairs are murder on my back.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Those photographs arrived only an hour before this meeting. They were recovered from a damaged camera aboard a reconnaissance helicopter downed accidentally during the ... шарик *... attack. No human remains were found in the wreckage. The pilot and her passenger, a navy camera-operator, are presumed consumed; as was the sole corpse discovered and sent back from Yamal.

Translation: sphere, globules

The camera operator had taken part in the documentation of the rescue operation launched from our Murmansk Oblast air base. Except for eyewitness reports given by the surviving members of the Команда быстрого реагирования - защитники пролетариата,* the contents of this camera are the only collaborating photographic evidence in existence of what they saw on Yamal.

*Translation: Fast response team - Protectors of the proletariat

We were promised full and complete disclosure of everything pertaining to this matter by your government. Can you, Colonel Forrest, Doctor Everette, please examine those photographs and explain why our heroic sister, Lyudmila Smirnov, sacrificed her life defending our country against an unspeakable horror ... AND DIED LOOKING LIKE THAT?!*

* Enclosed: Thirteen (13) images printed on AGFAPHOTO brand Glossy A4 (210x297mm) Inkjet photographic paper. No obvious signs of tampering or enhancement. Approximate time of day: late afternoon approaching twilight. Weather: heavy snowfall / high winds. Description of images to follow...

Photos (1) through (6): Exterior shots of six corrugated metal shipping-containers (approx. twenty by forty feet) retrofitted into inhabitable cold-weather living quarters, dining hall, showers, general storage, and power-generating equipment trailers. Several (3) display varying degrees of damage (crushed walls, ramps, staircases, collapsed roofs, and gaps where doors and windows should be). Two snowplow equipped cargo-capable tracked vehicles. Four single to multiple passenger-size snowmobile type vehicles. All show varying degrees of damage. Most are likely unserviceable.

Photos (7) through (9): Interior shots of laboratory, communal sleeping and activities spaces, food preparation, waste, refrigerated storage lockers, electrical generators and diesel fuel drum storage sheds; all vacant and showing significant degrees of content and / or structural damage.

Photo (10): Small (under 300 foot length) RMRS class double-deck cargo ship flying German flag. Attached to shore by single mooring line. All others (3) severed. No signs of crew. Cargo containers visible upon upper deck are in disarray. Heavy smoke is escaping from the stern engine compartment and bridge.

Photo (11): Combined living space and compact geology laboratory. Scientific equipment related to mineral identification and assay bolted to floor and walls. Much of it damaged or torn from anchoring supports. Heavy duty electrical supply conduits attached to major pieces of equipment pulled from walls, ceiling, and sub-floor. Large pieces of all mentioned items either partially melted or completely missing.

Photo (12): Sleeping area with wall-mounted bed, reclining cushioned chair, and a collapsible metal work-desk. A small personal computer and numerous sheets of paper litter the floor. Two picture frames remain standing upright on the desktop. One shows a young man and woman smiling at the camera. The same man, decades older, with a small blue-furred kitten (Breed – Russian Blue) sitting on his balding head is shown in the other.

Photo (13): Close-up. The man is looking up and smiling. The kitten is looking down and licking the man's forehead.

Photos (14): Communications room. Powerful shortwave radio on a metal shelf bolted to a wall. Microphone attached to shortwave radio dangles over the edge. A crushed folding metal chair is resting on opposite side of room. An arm-long wrench, automatic pistol, and flare-gun lay on the floor surrounding a corpse.

Photo (15): Female. Young, best estimate late teens to early twenties. Body clothed in the top-half of two-piece gray mechanic's coveralls. Jacket heavily stained with grease and oil. Right sleeve missing up to shoulder, left sleeve bloodied but undamaged. Left arm and hand display no obvious injuries. Right arm and hand covered in a thin layer of silver-blue fur. Bones of right hand distorted. Thumb greatly reduced in length. Other digits only slightly truncated. All display a small white claw on each finger tip. Paw pads clearly visible on palm of right hand.

Photo (16): Bottom portion of coveralls missing. Heavy silver-blue pelt extends the entire length of the lower body. Leg bones and hips significantly more distorted than right hand. Full upright posture would be challenging. Both feet totally deformed. Anatomically indistinguishable, with exception of far greater size, than that of typical Felis catus hind paws. A yard-long tail covered in the same silver-blue color fur is partially pinned beneath right leg.

Photo (17): The body is sprawled on its back. The face is pale and bare of any trace of fur. There is a small pool of blood beneath the left ear. A single bullet hole is visible in the center of the left temple. Both eyes are open. Each is bright yellow and has a thin black slit pupil. The mouth is partially open. All visible teeth are less than half normal width and end in a sharp point.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I'm not at liberty ...

Doctor Donald Everette: A CAT! Why did ... why did it have ... TO BE A CAT?!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Control your ... STAY IN YOUR CHAIR, DOCTOR!

Natasha Semenov: Мой Бог! У него есть хвост!*

* Translation: My God! He has a tail!*

Colonel James P. Forrest: I knew this was a bad idea ... MEDICAL TEAM TO OBSERVATION ROOM FOUR! CODE F! RIGHT NOW DAMMIT!

Able Hartman: This meeting is ... ADJOURNED! Mrs. Semenov. Mr. Belinky. Please accompany me to Colonel Forrest's office. There's a secure line we'll all need to use after we have a little chat. Everyone else please accompany the guards to the cafeteria. You will be notified when it's time to restart. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you!

*Enclosed photographs / x-rays / related logged inter-web traffic

From: Doctor Linda Carson

Patient: Doctor Donald Everette.

Age 47

Ethnicity Caucasian

Medical history: Appendix removed age 15

Acute bladder infection age 32

Simple fracture right arm age 36 (motorcycle accident) healed without complications

Mild pulmonary degradation (tobacco use) diagnosed age 37. Non-smoker for ten years

Nothing else of note this date.

Exposure to DNA disruptive entity on: 1993.8.13

Donating organism: Mus musculus aka Lab mouse.

Current physical expression of DNA modification:

Tail approximately 39 inches length, 2.35 inches average circumference, weight 4.75 pounds. Poor control of movement but improving. Skeletal structure is slowly degrading under the influence of unknown biological agent? Nano-particles? Who-the-heck knows? Major exception: Coccyx highly altered to support tail and associated muscle attachments. Scrotum bonded to tail base and growing. Scrotum is approximately 75 % larger than human-norm.

Total body weight / height: 15 pounds and 4 inches decrease since last year's physical. Numerous small patches of white fur spreading across lower legs and back. Toes mildly elongated. DNA ratio stands at 93 % human vs. 7 % rodent. Rate of human DNA subjunction and cellular replacement after initial exposure expression proceeding at modest: 0.08 percent per day (level 2 out of 10 on the Chalker – Madaurensis scale). If some kind of balance is not achieved before then, total transformation into Mus musculus genetic norm at current rate is approximately 3.2 years.

Results of yesterday's lab trials: Serum and platelets incompatible with human or Mus musculus laboratory blood samples. Sperm sample incompatible with human or Mus musculus laboratory ovum samples. Small portions of frontal lobes show noticeable degradation as human neurons alter into human / rodent hybrid matrix.

In accordance to guidelines created when Building Three was founded, Doctor Everette will be declared NON-HUMAN when 10 percent subjunction of his human DNA is measured.

Opiates prescribed to abate physical and mental discomfort. Voluntary euthanasia protocol declined.

Status of psychological instability: Progressive. Recommend transfer to long-term holding facility.

Signed: Doctor Linda Carson

Tracking number 43320-LC to tracking number 8847229-JF: Confidential interoffice memo...

James

Please get Donald out of here ASAP. Watching our people, or just innocent victims brought back from outside, lose their humanity is stressful enough. But I 'm going to have a meltdown if I have to watch someone I've worked besides for five years go down that route day after day. Watching two patients turn into human-animal hybrids in the last six months is my absolute limit!

Linda

Building Three

Fourth Floor Conference Room

Audio log: 1993.10.7 / 1735 through 1844 hours

Excerpt duration: 1 hour 9.5 minutes

Eyes only.

Duplication or removal of this transcription from archive strictly prohibited.

Participants:

[1] Colonel James P. Forrest …...US ARMY

[2] Captain Quincy Unis …... US ARMY Judge Advocate General's Corps

[3] Able Hartman …... US Central Intelligence Agency

[4] Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD …... Assistant Director Building Three Science laboratory

[5] Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev ... Russian Navy – Baltic Fleet

[6] Oleg Mikhailov …... Dean of Moscow State Mining University

[7] Natasha Semenov …... SVR Russian Foreign Intelligence Service

[8] Yugoslav Belinky …... FSB Russian Federal Security Service

FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation

SVR (External Intelligence Service)

Colonel James P. Forrest: Everyone be seated and we will...

Oleg Mikhailov: WHY DID YOU LIE TO US!

Colonel James P. Forrest: I did not. I was under orders to omit information pertaining to an issue deemed a threat to my, and only my, country. That is the only explanation I am at liberty to provide. If you have any problem with that, please consult with Admiral Vasiliev. I'm sure he can explain what obeying orders means in a language you will understand with better clarity.

Yugoslav Belinky: Where is Doctor Everette?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Resting in his quarters. He will not be rejoining this meeting. Doctor Kelly, the floor is yours.

Doctor Mary Kelly PhD: Good evening. I'm the second in command of Building Three's science department. I've reviewed the minutes of your last meeting and stand ready for ... any ... questions you might have. Don't blame me if the answers keep you awake at night.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: I still want an answer to my question. WHY DID LYUDMILA SIMRNOV DIE LOOKING LIKE THAT?!

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: At some point in the attack on Yamal, she had physical contact with a DNA disruptive entity. Certainly genetically damaged by the encounter, she still survived long enough to partially transform, capture it, radio for help, and ultimately commit suicide, I must thereby assume the DE changed into a Chaotic only after it touched her.

Yugoslav Belinky: What is a ... DNA disruptive entity?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: One of the official, and far more scientific, designations for what's jokingly referred to as a ... thing ... by far too large a subset of our personnel. Just so you know, not everyone at Building Three gets their jollies engaging in childish word games.

Natasha Semenov: How can you say it changed into a Chaotic only after she made physical contact?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Our experience with active Chaotics is limited, it's true, but their presence never fails to leave behind unmistakable evidence. In essence, nothing living survives more than a few seconds once contact with a Chaotic DE is made.

Since Ms. Simrnov lived for whatever amount of time it took between contact and her death, there is no way she could've been exposed to a Chaotic DE. Non-Chaotic DE's, on the other hand, often leaves scraps of the living organisms they consume behind ... and, sometimes, far more than just scraps. Chaotics never do.

Natasha Semenov: What kind of evidence?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Check the ground around Murmansk Oblast air base. You will certainly discover that, from a depth of anywhere from inches to several yards, the soil is absolutely sterile. From the simplest prion upwards, everything is just ... gone.

The cleanest surgical theater in the world is a pit of decay and disease compared to any surface a Chaotic DE crawls over. If they've been coming to Earth as long as some of my colleagues believe, the only reason we're here to talk about them is the fact they self-destruct after a day or two.

Oleg Mikhailov: These ... DE's. What other names do you scientists call them?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: I assume you mean the non-profane ones? Taking into account their actions as a whole, we've designated the Chaotic DE's, Terraformers. And non-Chaotic DE's, Uplifters. For anyone not familiar with these terms I will explain.

Boiled down to its essence, terraformation is the wholesale alteration of a planet's atmosphere, climate, temperature, terrain; among other critical environmental factors. It is a natural process that every living organism has been engaged in since the first single-celled prokaryotic cell appeared 3.8 billion years ago.

We, as human beings, are responsible for much of the terraformation presently going on, whether by choice or happenstance. And, if our species ever desires to successfully colonize other planets in our solar system and beyond, we will have to devise means to accomplish these processes for our benefit at a vastly accelerated rate.

The term uplift, and any intelligent species or their agents actively engaged in this process, the uplifters, have an origin far closer to science-fiction than science. Whether by humans in some far-flung future or Little-Green-Men piloting flying saucers from alpha centuri, an unknown technology hyper-evolves purely instinct-driven animals into sentient beings useful to the uplifters.

It's possible; of course, they do it just because they can.

Oleg Mikhailov: Are you saying the Earth has been invaded?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: That's exactly what I'm saying. But don't waste your time looking for bipedal eight foot tall insectoid monsters with acid for blood just yet, Mr. Mikhailov. The last time the uplifters were here in person, if ever, earthworms might have been the most highly evolved animals around.

Oleg Mikhailov: Восемь футов в высоту ... что!?*

*Translation: Eight foot tall ... What!?

Natasha Semenov: Nothing to worry about, Oleg. I'll explain later.

Yugoslav Belinky: Doctor Kelly. Are you saying a Blob, err ... a DE is technology?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Once again, that's exactly what I'm saying. Technology that is unimaginably ancient, inconceivably powerful, beyond any human concept of the word dangerous . . . and totally out of control.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: UPLIFT?! BUT LYUDMILA SIMRNOV IS HUMAN! NOT SOME ANIMAL CRAWLING IN THE DIRT!

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: There are three schools of thought in that regard, Admiral.

The first, technological advancement takes time. If the DE's are any indication, the culture their creators hailed from is unthinkably old. The second, and most obvious, do you think members of a civilization that ancient and technologically advanced would judge us more highly than "some animal crawling in the dirt"? I doubt it. The third, they're without guidance and malfunctioning. Any of those factors could easily explain what happened to did to her … and Doctor Everette.

Natasha Semenov: If they survived so long, where are these 'creators' now?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Who knows? Remember, were dealing with a span of time measurable in tens if not hundreds of millions of years. Maybe the creators finally died out. Maybe the Earth in their time wasn't worth the effort. Maybe the creator's spacecraft had a truly epic fender-bender with an asteroid in the Oort cloud on its way here, or was destroyed in combat against an armada of Borg cubes trying to assimilate them. Pick whatever science fiction soap-opera scenario appeals to you.

Oleg Mikhailov: Армада!?*

*Translation: An armada?!

Natasha Semenov: I'LL EXPLAIN LATER!

Yugoslav Belinky: You mentioned the rat-man, Doctor Everette. What happened to him?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: An accident, a stupid, stupid accident. We were performing our first calibration trials on a brand new scanning device. Totally automated … totally safe … nothing to worry about. Yeah. How many times have I heard ... that one ... before?!

A custom-made computer-controlled industrial CAT scanner isolated in a hermetically sealed armored room; every inch of which can be drenched in liquid nitrogen by a completely independent computer at the first sign of trouble. Three months of flawless performance, and never a hint of trouble with any number of multiple layers of redundant backup control systems and manual overrides.

At first all is normal. A tracked robot enters the room and a six-inch-thick stainless steel door seals behind it. The machine shoves a bucket containing a frozen DE into one end, and another robot places an anesthetized target, a mouse in this case, into the other. Hydraulically powered ports close both ends and the machine activates heating strips just enough to revive the DE. Emergency cool-down systems are confirmed green go-status and the CAT scanner clicks on.

And everything, every damned thing, goes off-line!

There's enough electronics in the control room to send a spacecraft to Pluto and none of it is working! The main computer misreads an insignificant lose of hydraulic pressure as total containment failure. It triggers the hatch mechanism nearest to the DE to reopen, and commences an unwinnable battle with all the backup systems for control.

It gets worse.

One of those backup systems over-rides the computer. It triggers an IA alert one and proceeds to do exactly the opposite of what it's should do; it opens the armored door separating the control and scanning room. The lab personnel engaged in the trial, all eight of us, are completely exposed. And our only escape route is locked tight until the computers finish their hissy fit.

We can't get out and the guards with their portable nitrogen tanks can't get in. In under a minute the DE will be unfrozen. Shortly thereafter we'll be dead, and a fully active DE will be oozing or melting its way through anything in its path, and popping up who-knows-where in Building Three.

While everyone is praying to an assortment of deities for divine intervention, and yes, there's a great deal of screaming involved, too ... Doctor Everette runs into the scan room. He grabs the manual locking handle and slams the hatch shut only a fraction of a second before the DE can ooze out.

The main computer refreezes the DE and reports all clear to the central security computer. There's only six seconds left on the clock before level one IA protocols would have activated. All systems return to nominal status and the screaming stops. Or, more precisely, my screaming stops.

It was already too late for Doctor Everette at this point.

During the process of closing the hatch, the DE extends a tendril that touches his arm and retracts it in the space of a quarter second. His body is instantly outlined by the same optical aura shared by all DE's.

He's unconscious almost instantly and no longer fully human when he hits the floor.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: What is this ... IA ... you speak of?

Colonel James P. Forrest: I'll answer that, Doctor Kelly. IA stands for ice age. If you turn around, you will see three unlit numbered indicators above the door frame. Depending on the severity of the situation, levels one through three, individual rooms, whole floors, or the entire building can be flooded with liquid nitrogen.

Every room in Building Three is under twenty-four CCTV monitoring. Dead-man switches supported by automated computer sensors will ensure that no DE will ever escape.

Oleg Mikhailov: What about the people working here? What about us? Wouldn't we die, too?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Of course. What's your point?

Oleg Mikhailov: Ah ... nothing.

Natasha Semenov: Did you say ... every ... room?

Colonel James P. Forrest: That's correct. Do you need another break? I can call a security guard to escort you to the building next door. Except for the front lobby, most of our restrooms above the first floor get little use for some unknown reason.

Natasha Semenov: No need ... Американские извращенцы! Разве они не могут поставить знак !?*

*Translation of mumbled response: American perverts! Can't they put up a sign?!

Yugoslav Belinky: Can either of you describe what you're doing to help Doctor Everette?

Colonel James P. Forrest: You first, Doctor Kelly.

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: There's nothing anyone can do to impede what's happening to him. Medical science can't even begin to explain the steady, but slow, cellular degradation his body and brain are presently experiencing.

If it doesn't stop at some point on its own, he will be physically indistinguishable from a normal lab mouse in two or three years, and die a year or two afterwards of old age. With luck, his mind will lose most of his human cognition and memory capacity within a year. We are limited to keeping him comfortable ... and make his end ... as painless as possible if he allows it.

Yugoslav Belinky: Is this speculation, or have you personally seen this happen?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: I ... I have. More frequently than I like to think about.

Oleg Mikhailov: Could his mind survive the total transformation of his body?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Absolutely not. There's a limit to how much even a DE can stretch the laws of biology. A mouse brain is far too small and primitive. In human terms, he will be brain-dead long before then. He ... it ... will spend the remainder of its life in a cage if he doesn't ... take Ms. Simrnov's escape route long before then.

Yugoslav Belinky: What about something larger than a mouse?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Yes. Depending on the degree of change and inherent limitations imposed by evolutionary compatibility, various degrees of sentience can persist in something ... someone ... that's at least human child-size or larger. In fact ... it's regrettably common. That is, if the victim survives their initial contact with a DE.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: What about, Simrnov? What can you tell us about her?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Without a body to examine, not much. If I'd hazard a guess, I'd say she was well on her way to a mid-form; a balanced amalgamation of human and feline morphology. As for mental competency . . . I have no idea.

Retention of human intelligence is likely, but with significant residual feline behavioral programming floating around in the mix. In essence, what cats might have become if their evolutionary history paralleled that of our primate ancestors.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: To lose your life in defense of country, family, and friends is something everyone should be prepared for if the need arises. But this is ... monstrous! How do we defend ourselves from something that can not only kill us, but alter beyond any sane recognition our very being? This situation ... this situation is inconceivable!

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Normally I'd say welcome to my world, Admiral, but I won't. I wake up every morning thinking my life and work here is some kind of dream ... a nightmare! Something I must do to keep us safe from ... whatever they are! And just to remind you, to remind all of you, I did say you wouldn't like what you were going to hear.

Yugoslav Belinky: Where are the victims now, Doctor? The ones you say survived in mid-form like Simrnov or worse.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Thank you, Doctor Kelly. I will take it from here.

Building Three came into being to protect my country, and by extension, the human race. Literally, that's it. Whether from the DE's or from those they've ... transformed ... it makes no difference. In the same way someone carrying a highly contagious disease is quarantined while the search for a cure is underway, victims of DE genetic alteration are likewise isolated for their, and our, protection.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Are you speaking of, Amook island?

Colonel James P. Forrest: What...?

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: We have satellites as well. And good spies, Colonel.

Able Hartman: If you don't mind, Colonel, I'll field this one.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Be my guest. Intelligence is not my expertise.

Able Hartman: Thank you, Colonel. Good evening, Admiral, and everyone else. I am Able Hartman. I work for the central intelligence agency. Normally I'd beat around the bush trying to discover how, or who, brought our holding facility on Amook Island to Russian attention ... which I assure you we will discover in time.

However, in this case, there's no need to go into that right now. I'm fully authorized to divulge anything you'd like to know. To avoid wasting your time, and ours, here are several issues you should be aware of from the get-go.

Amook Island is a decoy. It's actually nothing more than a base were special operation troops can participate in cold weather survival training, and a safe location to test weapons and vehicles under real-world Arctic conditions. Captain Kellogg, the commanding officer of Ice-Tray Zero, which is, believe it or not, is the real name of that base, would like to send his sincere appreciation for your surveillance and covert espionage efforts.

Moving vehicles and equipment around in suspicious ways when your satellites pass overhead, and, occasionally, escorting frostbitten spies ... excuse me, I meant lost global warming environmentalists and tourists ... to safety, provides our troops much needed relief from their normal boring routines.

Now that my mandatory humorous introductory comments are out of the way, please take the CIA's assessment of the threat these things pose to my country, your country, and human life in general, back with you: we're in deep trouble.

Taking into account their steadily increasing frequency of appearance in locations we've never encountered them before, and their growing propensity to supplant the human genome with viable random foreign genetic materials ... our ability to solely conceal their activities is quickly coming to an end.

For this reason, among others, high-level meetings between the heads of the United States and Russia will be held shortly. Provided these bureaucrats don't panic and incinerate the planet, heads of other developed nations will be informed of the situation as needed. And, with any luck, world leaders will be able to put aside their differences and expeditiously craft an effective response before it's far too late.

Yes, I know, there are better odds I'll win the lottery three times in a row.

Getting back to your question, we've been keeping genetically-suspect personnel and citizenry in a holding facility located in central Oklahoma. In a final flash of brilliance tendered to his superiors shortly before his death by natural causes, our first commanding officer proposed a solution for a then-minor problem. Namely, what to do with a very small number of DE victims who'd survived genetic mutation.

Taking a page from Russian history, he picked the best location and means to organize our very own Potemkin village. And, upon his passing, he was buried in the local cemetery and the town renamed in his honor.

Thus, the town of Sleeper's Rest, formerly known as Cashion, Oklahoma, came into being.

With an official census never reaching seven hundred, and surrounded by nothing but vast swatches of farmland in all directions, the town's only claim to fame is the high number of ... supposedly ... retired military personnel living there. Middle age and older folk who are, like most rural Oklahoman's, family oriented, friendly, hard working ... and distrustful of anybody who threatens their town's privacy.

And, well beyond the norm, very, very heavily armed.

A classified population tally of all inhabitants stood at seven hundred and eighty six last month. As of two weeks ago, that number went up one more when a mare DE victim successfully gave birth to her second foal. The town's population total now stands at six hundred and seventy-three humans and one hundred and fourteen ... not so much.

Yugoslav Belinky: Sorry to interrupt, but did you say ... mare?

Able Hartman: That's correct. While on honeymoon vacation, she and her husband stopped overnight at the motel Colonel Forrest previously mentioned. The night manager was consumed; she and her husband were not. Hotel security cameras recorded the DE attacking them in the parking lot while in transit to their vehicle; presumably to visit a nearby restaurant.

Both were engulfed by the DE's halo for approximately one minute and forty-two seconds before reappearing as very young yearling quarter horses. Within the mare's skull is a highly sophisticated and greatly enlarged equine brain. She is remarkably intelligent, and her personality and memories survived with very little change. He was not so fortunate . . . if that's the right word. Whether out of loyalty to her former husband, or some kind of instinctive carry-over equine behavior, she refuses to leave his side or cooperate further with our veterinary staff if he is euthanized.

Natasha Semenov: What about the ... foals? You did say foals, correct?

Able Hartman: Yes. The first, a filly-foal, born two years ago, exhibits the same enhanced cerebral endowment and metabolic enhancements of her dam. Within a month of birth, the filly-foal underwent a mandatory surgical procedure to ensure she will never successfully reproduce. Aside from that, she is healthy and fully grown.

She is presently in the care of new keepers, and will participate in ongoing studies investigating the enhanced longevity displayed by many highly mutated DE victims, and the majority of their offspring, versus their animal-norm counterparts.

Tests on the second, a colt-foal, born two weeks ago, presently show nothing beyond a genetic baseline norm for the breed. However, as per standing orders, it will be removed and destroyed after rising hormone levels compel his dam to begin work on number three.

The risk of long-term damage to the world's biological integrity if a reproduction-capable DE victim escapes is incalculable. Whether or not she will be allowed to proceed with any future pregnancies to completion is currently under review.

Oleg Mikhailov: Excuse me, Colonel. I have a security question for Doctor Kelly.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Go right ahead.

Oleg Mikhailov: If these DE's can alter human DNA with the slightest touch, what countermeasures have been put in place to insure people working here are who, and what, they're suppose to be?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: After a few unfortunate incidents, anyone having access to our storage vaults has his, or her, DNA scanned on a bi-monthly basis. Our troops in the field undergo the same lab tests every time they're deployed.

Oleg Mikhailov: Could you please describe some of these ... unfortunate incidents?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Very well. Ten years ago, and two years later, a lab assistant and security guard, respectively, were accidentally exposed to a DE. In a manner similar to Doctor Everette, both were touched in the performance of their duties. Unlike Doctor Everette, the contacts were neither filmed nor witnessed by anyone else; not even by the victims themselves. Their transformations were exceedingly slow and the initial stages went unnoticed.

Did they become equines, too?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: No. Over a span of three years, the lab assistant's transformation eventually ended as a child-size high-end mid-stage semi-bipedal, O. cuniculus domesticus. Her personality and memory were mostly expunged during the transformation, and her remaining mental capacity was measured somewhere between a three and four year old human child. She survived from apparent youth in this form until her death by old age in the span of six years; which is the typical longevity of a rabbit of the giant Flemish breed.

Oleg Mikhailov: If it took so long to transform, why didn't she opt for euthanasia?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: That protocol only became available to victims five years ago. Transformations of this degree are fairly rare. We kept her as comfortable as possible while questions of accelerated aging and possible inter-species procreation were researched. So far, we have no ability to moderate the former, and the latter was inconclusive.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: What about the guard ... the soldier? Did he change like that, too?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Once again, no. It was far worse. The DE that altered his genetic structure destroyed several homes before it was eventually captured inside the shopping mall Colonel Forrest also told you about. One of those homes belonged to a small-time amateur herpetologist and reptile trader.

Out of the apparent kindness of his heart, he'd take common lizards, snakes, and turtles to schools where young children could learn about the importance of animal conservation and habitat lose. He also used the publicity this well-regarded activity provided as cover to travel around the country poaching rare and endangered reptiles from national parks and rural areas. Those he sold using anonymous encrypted dark-web message boards, and illicit private reptile auctions not caring how many poor animals suffered and died in the process.

Personally, I hope the DE took its sweet time melting his face off.

His favorite pet at home was a full-grown water monitor, varanus slavator. At a hundred pounds and eight feet in length, it could easily injure anyone it came in contact with. However, from all accounts, it was a friendly, inquisitive, intelligent, and loyal companion that crawled under his bed to sleep at night and hardly ever left his side. He'd even walk it around the neighborhood on a leash every so often to terrify the local canine population. Its DNA was the one the soldier was exposed to.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Are you saying he became a lizard-man?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Just the reverse, Admiral. A man-lizard. Almost exclusively, a DE will ... enhance ... human DNA with those of lower animals to one extent or another. It's a bit like someone customizing motor vehicles with stolen parts.

The end result can be anything from fascinating to bizarre, but never fully original. No matter how much the chop shop tries, the underlying original framework remains for anyone with a discerning eye to see ... or in my case, a fully stocked laboratory and highly trained technicians.

In the case of the guard, there was absolutely nothing left. The DE used his genetic template as a blueprint and programming schematic to create a fully sentient adult reptilian humanoid, and threw everything that was human away.

Using my earlier analogy, it's like someone melting down a cheap mass-produced automobile into its distinct metal, plastic and silica elements to build a super car that never existed before ... a highly intelligent anthropomorphic seven-foot-tall three hundred and twenty pound long-tailed reptiloid carnivore armed with weapon-grade fangs, claws, and talons; a sentient being that could have appeared on Earth if evolution hadn't favored synapsids over sauropsids around three hundred million years ago.

Oleg Mikhailov: Can he talk?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: We tried our best, but no. Starting from what was essentially a blank mental slate, he began to produce an astonishing large array of bird and lizard-like vocalizations in under a year. The number and complexity of which increased dramatically as we taught him English, but he never did manage to mimic anything approaching human speech.

That inability did nothing to slow his extraordinary ability to comprehend words and their proper grammatical arrangement. By the time he was two and a half years old, he could memorize dozens of words in a matter of days and understand their variable significance if used in a sentence.

Oleg Mikhailov: Is that common?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Each case is different. It depends on the degree of change and the DNA donor. With numerous exceptions, the majority of high-level DE victims are limited in their ability to verbalize, or process complex sentence structure. The human central nervous system can only tolerate a minimum amount of alteration before critical areas are negatively compromised, or rendered non-functional.

Oleg Mikhailov: If they can't talk, how do you communicate with them?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Our audio-visual lab is well stocked with the latest software and rehabilitation technology to help brain-damaged patients recover from strokes, or who had surgery to repair a cancerous larynx; all of which work just as well with DE victims unable to speak, or who lack any ability to utilize standardized hand signs. And I'd advise anyone here against challenging my staff to a game of charades ... you will lose.

Oleg Mikhailov: You do larynx surgery on DE victims?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Yes, among many other surgical interventions by our highly skilled teams of veterinary surgeons. You'd be surprised what can be achieved when money is no object, and it's possible to actually question a patient standing on hooves or paws.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Where is the man-lizard now ... Sleeper's Rest?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: She ... is dead. Seven years and five months after confinement on the Building Three's sixth floor, his manner suddenly went from friendly and open to belligerent and territorial. He refused to continue language and general education classes, or even leave his cell except to consume an unprecedented amount of food. A miniaturized x-ray scanner built into his cell's door was triggered by his sudden weight change, and it detected at least twenty eggs growing rapidly in his swelling abdomen.

Many reptiles are known to procreate, or even change their sex, when kept in isolation. It's a way nature insures survival of the species when environmental conditions are suboptimal, or a mate is unavailable. This DE victim was no exception. Orders were immediately sent down to eliminate the threat. She, her clutch, her cell, and any other location she might have concealed an egg, were thoroughly examined and incinerated shortly thereafter. There was no other option.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Did you administer euthanasia yourself?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: She could readily identify human facial emotions and body language. I deemed it too dangerous to attempt any form of normal euthanasia.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: How did she die?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Large caliber weapons and immolation by napalm. Some of our troops don't carry just liquid nitrogen on their backs.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: Who were these orders sent to?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: I did my duty, Admiral.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: I understand.

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: If nothing else, please take this absolute truth back home with you: we are in a war for survival. There's little doubt if the Terraformers and Uplifters had functioned as likely intended in the Common Era, humans would be extinct or altered beyond recognition by now. If they'd done so at any point in the prehistoric past, it's an absolute certainty nothing we're familiar with would likely exist ... including us.

Water covers a little over seventy percent of the earth's surface, and there are vast swatches of land rarely, if ever, seen by human eyes. Right this moment armies of reptiloids, or worse, could be gathering somewhere infected with DE mutated species-specific pathogens we have zero resistance to. And food sources on land or sea our populations depend could become poisonous, or vanish, without warning. We are doing the best we can, but the pace is accelerating.

It's clear our decision to keep other countries out of the loop this long for secrecy and security concerns was ... shortsighted. For what it's worth, please accept my personal apology. If any of you still wants to gripe about it, go right ahead. I'm sure whatever Roger Corman abomination crawls out of the muck with greater intellect, physically prowess, and utterly ruthless nature than ours, won't much care about your outrage while its kind hunts the last of us down for food.

Are there any more questions?

Oleg Mikhailov: Could I speak to Doctor Everette before I return home?

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: May I ask why?

Oleg Mikhailov: To deny I'm not scientifically curious would be a lie, but mostly to say good-bye and wish him well as one scientist to another. I can't even begin to understand the stress he must be going through, and how hard it must have been to meet us ... like that.

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: I'll see what I can do. No guarantees.

Natasha Semenov: Thank you, Doctor Kelly. You have given us much to think about.

Able Hartman: It's getting late, Colonel Forrest, I'd like to end this meeting.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Fine by me.

Able Hartman: Thank you. How about we call it a night and start up fresh tomorrow morning ... say nine o'clock? It will take at least that long for Colonel Forrest's staff to compile and encrypt the technical files your government requested. Any questions you might have after our next meeting will be answered in a similar manner, and delivered to your Washington, DC embassy by military courier within forty-eight hours as agreed. We look forward to a reciprocating exchange of information within the same time-frame as needed.

As I explained when this meeting started, there will be ... no ... electronic exchange of information related to this matter between either of our governments for the foreseeable future. Questioning this arrangement, divulging to a third party the nature of this arrangement, leaking the nature of the work conducted at Building Three, or requesting updates without prior face-to-face meetings between our governments, will be considered grounds to terminate future cooperation. And, most importantly -

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: I want to see one move. That one!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Huh? Why?

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: I failed my country. I failed my troops. I delayed my return to Alakurtti for the most trivial of personal reasons. I should have been there ... with them!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Please forgive my bluntness, Admiral, but you couldn't have known what was going to happen. And there was nothing you could have done but die with them if you did. That's just the truth.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: I DON'T CARE! I need to honor my countrymen. I need to see the monster they saw before their deaths with my own eyes! I will almost certainly be ... retired ... when I return home in disgrace. This will be my last chance. Colonel! As a fellow officer, do this for me!

Colonel James P. Forrest: SERGEANT FRANCO!*

*Transcriber's Note: At 1831 hours, Sergeant Antonia P. Franco enters conference room two in response to Colonel Forrest's call and closes the door behind her.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Who's in charge of secondary ops right now?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Lieutenant Donnell, Sir.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I'll be back in a couple minutes. Prep the observation console. I want vault four ready for a shake n' bake by the time I get back. Everyone else, there's fresh coffee, donuts, and far more comfortable chairs in the break room across the hall.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Is there anything else, Sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: After I'm done tearing Lieutenant Donnell away from his latest computer game, I'm going to my office to make a few outside calls. Please answer any questions our ... guests ... might have while I'm gone. Before you ask, they have been cleared for full access.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Understood, sir. I'm on it.*

*Transcriber's Note: At 1835 hours Colonel James P. Forrest exits V4 ops and the main server records the entry of Sergeant Franco's security ID code. The data console beneath the observation window powers up and a synthetic computer-generated voice emanating from a speaker atop the console commands:

Computer: Repeat your name three times in a clear and precise manner.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Antonia Franco Antonia Franco Antonia Franco

Computer: Identity confirmed ... Bio metrics parameters confirmed ... Initiating Dead Man protocols ... Dead Man protocols active ... Console ready for input.

Yugoslav Belinky: Hi! I'm Yugoslav Belinky. Are you going to open...?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Get your hand off the console!

Yugoslav Belinky: Sorry ... sorry!

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Please back away from me and the console. If you confuse the computer, it will initiate an automatic shut-down and start something you are not going to ...

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Central Control: Sergeant Franco! Status report!

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Aw ... CRAP! False alarm, Control!

Central Control: Enter secondary password. Five seconds delay ... one, two, three ... password accepted. Please state nature of false alarm for the record.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Unintentional contact by unauthorized personnel.

Central Control: Acknowledged. Just so you know, Patterson was halfway through the door with his BFG by the third beep. I'd keep away from him until tomorrow if I were you.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Understood. Out.

Central Control: Central Control out.

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Deactivates

Yugoslav Belinky: Did I ... cause all that?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: That you did, Mr. Belinky. Anything to do with these ... things ... involves layers of security measures and Dead Man systems. Touching this console almost got us killed. If Patterson lugged his BFG in here and decided something wasn't hunky dory, it'd be all over except for moping us off the floor ... the walls ... the ceiling ... etcetera, etcetera and etcetera!

Yugoslav Belinky: What's a BFG?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: If you played Doom all day with Lieutenant Donnell, you'd know it stands for ... Big Fucking Gun. Pardon my French. It's a fully automatic belt-loaded custom-made Geneva Convention prohibited twenty-one pound riot gun. It fires rocket-propelled shells the size of a soup can designed to shred anyone, or anything, it's even remotely aimed at. Master Sergeant Patterson has been itching to use it in combat ever since he was assigned here after serving in the Operation Desert Storm.

Yugoslav Belinky: He would really do that?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Patterson? HA! HA! HA! Absolutely! He's a member of our internal security team, and leader of Building Three's last ditch defense squad. Stopping him before he runs out of ammo would be the hard part. He's also the calmest of the bunch. Think happy thoughts when any of his buddies are nearby ... if you get my drift.

Yugoslav Belinky: But what about all this equipment? Wouldn't it be destroyed, too?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Natch! We've got backups piled atop each other, including us. And ... it's done!

Yugoslav Belinky: What's done?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: This board is hot and linked to main control system. Everything is ready for whoever takes over and starts working on that ... thing.

Yugoslav Belinky: Doctor Kelly already informed us about that ... thing ... joke, Sergeant.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Oh ... poo! She's no fun at all!

Yugoslav Belinky: This Lieutenant Donnell, is playing games all he does?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: When he's inside Building Three. Otherwise, he's over at Building Two suffering video-game withdraw symptoms.

Yugoslav Belinky: Lieutenant Donnell is a military scientist who plays video games all day?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Him? Nah! He runs our public information office.

Yugoslav Belinky: You're joking. You have a public information office? Isn't this place supposed to be a secret?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: That's his job ... keeping us a secret, that is. On those rare occasions it's needed, he calls, writes, or emails overly-curious politicians and news organizations from his office over there. He invites them to witness in-person the destruction of city-destroying nerve gas containing munitions, or the high-tech procedures and equipment being used to remedy a minor spill of civilization-ending recombinant Black Death bacteria. They never call back. I don't know why.

Yugoslav Belinky: Hmm ... no, I have no idea either.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: I like you. You're more fun than Doctor Kelly!

Yugoslav Belinky: And that it? There's nothing else?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Well ... whenever he's not mowing down hordes of Martian video-game demons with a sawed-off shotgun, he's also our resident troll on social media.

Yugoslav Belinky: I'm afraid to even ... ask ... what that means, miss.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: It's very simple, using hundreds of false identities he provides us cover by creating conspiracy theories, and thrashing those of others getting to close to the truth. Basically, he goes online and claims that we, and tons of other private and government research sites, are responsible anything his imagination can conjure up.

He's specifically blames Building Three for harboring giant reptilian aliens, breeding human-animal hybrids as sex slaves for Washington Big Wigs, and, my personal fav, that there's a working time machine that President Grover Cleveland confiscated from H.G. Wells in eighteen ninety five bricked up behind a wall in our basement.

That last one isn't even close to being true ... I think.

Yugoslav Belinky: And Colonel Forrest just allows him to do anything he wants?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Well, he did draw the line around Christmas last year. Lieutenant Donnell started selling cheap Chinese sweaters on eBay with an outline of Building Three on the front, and the words ... The Truth Is In Here ... just above it.

He unloaded three or four dozen before the Colonel dropped the hammer. Kinda squashed Donnell's dream flat to buy a vintage Ms. Pac-man arcade game for the rec room for no reason. It's not like he was endangering our security.

Yugoslav Belinky: Really? No reason whatsoever?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: None. Over the length of almost forty years, do you really think that not one person working in Building Three ever got drunk and spilled the beans? If you wanna see what will happen, find a news camera-crew and start yelling there's alien people-eating Play-Doh stored in freezers inside here.

That'll put you in the same category as the nutcases claiming to be Napoleon, or having an air-tight plan to balance the US budget. Be prepared to spend some time in a drunk-tank, or you're sent home wearing a straight jacket...

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Unknown male voice: Control! Team one on-station outside vault four!

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Where's team two?

Voice identified as Corporal Terry Johnson*

*Transcriber's note

Corporal Terry Johnson: On their way, Control. ETA three minutes.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: What's the delay, Johnson?

Corporal Terry Johnson: Corporal Bruno was engaged in an orientation exercise on level two, Control. He kinda ran into a snag with the newbie.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: They got locked inside the training vault again?

Corporal Terry Johnson: Affirmative. The new guy, Yancy, he froze the escape button when he missed the simulated DE target and frosted Bruno. That makes twice this week. And three times total since he was posted here.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Why didn't someone let them out?

Corporal Terry Johnson: We were too busy watching Bruno beat him up, Control.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Grow the fuck up guys! Control out!

Several unidentified sources: Loud laughter and shouts of OOHRAH!

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Deactivates

Yugoslav Belinky: Anything wrong?

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: They're just blowing off steam. Considering what they gotta deal with, a little harmless male bonding never hurt anyone ... well, maybe except for Private Yancy and a few other ...

Unknown male voice: I'm here! What's up, Toni?*

*Transcriber's note: Voice identified as Lieutenant Oscar Lopez

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: Heck if I know, Lieutenant. I was ordered to prep the panel for a quick shake n' bake and bring our guests up to speed ... full clearance. Are you ready for hand-off?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Go for it.

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Command transfer protocol initiated ... please input operator password ... password accepted ... ten second countdown ... new operator must input password in ... ten, nine, eight ... password accepted. Bio-metric signature is within acceptable range. Repeat your name three times in a clear and precise manner.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Oscar Lopez Oscar Lopez Oscar Lopez

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Deactivates

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I got it. You're officially relieved, Sergeant Franco.

Sergeant Antonia P. Franco: And I'm out of here! I'm headed back to the mess hall. I never got to finish my dinner. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Belinky. Just try to keep your hands off anything with switches and dials, okay? I'd hate to hear one of those ... things ... ate you. Ciao!

Yugoslav Belinky: Don't worry; I'll keep an eye out for those ... things. Good bye.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Is there anything you need before I get too busy to talk?

Yugoslav Belinky: Yes, please. What can you tell me about the vaults?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I've only been posted here three years, so I don't know much about the old ones, but the new vaults are state of the art. They're essentially room-size triple-walled thermos bottles able to keep a DE frozen for months in the event of total system failure, and supported by over-lapping independent layers of redundant automatic and manual backup cooling systems.

Yugoslav Belinky: Can they contain a Chaotic?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Structurally? No way. An unfrozen Chaotic would likely tear its way out in under a minute. An unprovoked non-Chaotic would eventually do the same, but that might take an hour or two. In either case, that's what the emergency quick-freeze systems are designed to prevent. They provide a safety margin against a full-blown chaotic breakout that once required a far more dangerous hands-on...

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Corporal Terry Johnson: Control! Teams one and two on-station outside vault four!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Acknowledged. Standby!

Corporal Terry Johnson: Understood.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Control out.

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Deactivates

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Why don't you grab a chair and move back a few steps? You're way too close to this console for my comfort. I ran past Patterson on my way here. He didn't look happy.

Yugoslav Belinky: Sorry. I was just trying to get a better look through the window.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Let me brighten it up a bit.

Yugoslav Belinky: How'd you do that?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Didn't Franco tell you it's a monitor?

Yugoslav Belinky: No, I thought it was a window.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: That's a mistake vault designers won't make again. The only sizable gap in a vault's integrity is the entry hatch. Those are made from a two-inch-thick slab of depleted uranium sandwiched between four inches of stainless steel on either side.

Each weighs several tons and hydraulic rams can shut one in under a second if needed. In other words, you're going to have far worse than a pinched finger if you ignore the five second alarm warning.

Yugoslav Belinky: And the shutters Franco opened when she sat down?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: A video-clip background image. It provides visual and audible confirmation to anyone watching the monitor inside the vault that this console is active. The vaults are essentially frostbite-cold metal cubes with the inside space of a small crypt ... and just about as much fun to be inside.

The new emergency escape switches are a highly welcomed recent innovation; along with the improved lighting and noise cancelling systems. But even if it's only a thermally protected monitor inside a fake window frame, having someone outside watching your back while you're fumbling around in a cold-suit really cuts down on freak-outs.

If Colonel Forrest approves, how about I take you on a tour inside an empty vault later?

Yugoslav Belinky: No! I mean ... no thank you, Lieutenant Lopez.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: No sweat. Even battle-hardened soldiers can lose it inside a vault ... even an empty one ... when the hatch slams shut behind them for the first time. I sure did. There's more than one reason why cold-suits are lined with easily-cleaned silicone rubber. Anything else?

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: YES! WHEN WILL YOU STOP WASTING TIME!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Sir?

Yugoslav Belinky: Lieutenant Lopez, this is Counter Admiral Vasiliev. He's the one who requested, what you call it ... a shake n' bake?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It can't be more than a few more minutes, Admiral. Please return to your seat. We're just waiting for Colonel Forrest to return and issue the go-ahead.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: NO MORE THAN A FEW MINUTES!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Problem?

Yugoslav Belinky: Have you ever lost anyone under your command, lieutenant?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Yeah, two. I was in a hurry. I misread a map and ordered my Humvee into a mine field outside Fallujah.

Yugoslav Belinky: Do you still think about them?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Every day! The stupidest mistake I've ever made in my entire damned life!

Yugoslav Belinky: Multiply that by a little over two thousand.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: He's being blamed for ...!?

Yugoslav Belinky: Yes? No? Maybe? I certainly don't. That's not important ... he does.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Damn!

Yugoslav Belinky: I'm curious about your American custom of giving things odd names. What does this ... shake n' bake - - signify?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's something Building Three's been doing on and off for about seven years. Shortly after the lab-coats finally admitted they had no idea how to eradicate a DE without blowing us to kingdom come, a very junior research team member pulled a freezer-burnt steak from her frig and had an epiphany: How about we make them destroy themselves?

As the theory goes, all DE's are inherently unstable; the occasional Chaotic's short existence and self-destruction being the only real evidence available to back this assumption up. We've been trying to discover how many freeze-thaw cycles they can survive ever since.

Yugoslav Belinky: Any results yet?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: None. We'll keep trying, of course. At least until they stop paying us.

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Corporal Terry Johnson: Team one reporting arrival and deployment of bait, Control.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Acknowledged. Control out.

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Deactivates

Yugoslav Belinky: Bait?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: The lab-coats eventually figured out mice were better than soldiers when it came to luring loose DE's around Building Three; and far safer. Pissed or stressed out mice don't carry weapons and tanks of liquid nitrogen. See that little gray hatch in the ceiling?

Yugoslav Belinky: Right next to the recessed light fixture?.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: That's the one. Now watch the screen. Someone from team one is going to enter the vault and shove a cardboard box containing an anesthetized mouse inside that. After the DE thaws and roams around a while, I'll press this button and down it will go into the bucket.

The DE flows back inside, enjoys its Happy Meal box and all, and gets its butt flash-frozen. And shake n' bake number four hundred and eight-five, on DE number four, comes to an end with nothing to show but another dead mouse.

Yugoslav Belinky: You sound bored.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: You think?! I've been doing this to a DE every other day for the last eight months. I even volunteered to join the last ditch defense squad last week to do something different.

Yugoslav Belinky: What happened?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I was rejected.

Yugoslav Belinky: Why? You've seen combat. What more do they want?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Personnel won't say. If you ask me, they don't think I'm crazy enough to be issued a BFG...

*Transcriber's Note: At 1905 hours, Colonel James P. Forrest returns

Colonel James P. Forrest: Okay, people! Let's get this ball rolling! Someone call the break room. Anyone not back here in three minutes will be locked out. Starting ... NOW!

*Transcriber's Note: Between 905 through 1908 hours the only sounds recorded are rapid footsteps, and wooden chairs being re-positioned around V4's ops conference table.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I didn't say bring coffee and donuts back with you, Dr. Kelly!

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: mumbles But they'll be gone * by the time we're *done!

*Transcriber's Note: sound of theatrically-loud lip smacking, followed by even louder hot drink slurping

Colonel James P. Forrest: Civilians!

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Yes indeed. And one that should've been home having dinner with her family two hours ago!

Colonel James P. Forrest: BAH!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Should I start, sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Standby. Admiral, would you like to come to this end of the table? You'll have a much better view.

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: I can see very well from here. Proceed!

Colonel James P. Forrest: You heard the Admiral. Let's get this over with, Lopez.

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Vault four shake n' bake to reach critical temp in sixty seconds! Control channels active and green. Security teams one and two please acknowledge. Backup console acknowledge.

Corporal Terry Johnson: Team one acknowledge. Hatch secure. Sir!

Corporal Patrick Unis: Team two acknowledge. Confirmation on secured hatch, Sir!

Sergeant Jane Goodall: Backup console acknowledges hatch status. I see a red light coming from your console, Lieutenant. Haven't they fixed that comm. wiring yet?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Negative on that. Maintenance on vaults two and three takes priority. It's not like number four is going to complain about anything it might overhear coming from my console mic.

Sergeant Jane Goodall: Understood. Red light disregarded. All cameras confirmed recording. Proceed when ready.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Here we go! Primary heater switched on. Room temperature rising … ten, nine, eight ... secondary heater on, bucket warming towards activation temperature ... seven, six, five ... bait dispenser armed ... four, three, two ... safety interlocks engaged ... one, zero ... we have movement!

Oleg Mikhailov: That was quick!

Colonel James P. Forrest: It doesn't take much. Anything over thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit and off they go like a windup toy ... a very hungry windup toy.

Oleg Mikhailov: What can you tell us about this one, Colonel?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Like what? It's exactly like all the others.

Oleg Mikhailov: Its history. Like when and where it was captured.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Oh, that. There's not much to say, Mr. Mikhailov. It showed up in nineteen seventy-three, right near us in Pennsylvania. In fact, the only thing of note was how close it appeared to our old base, and where Building Three was eventually constructed.

If I remember correctly, it wiped out around twenty-nine people, scores of farm animals of every possible description, and burrowed its way through several grain storage silos looking for rodents and the cats hunting them.

It was eventually captured on a farm belonging to some guy named ... Decker? Heckler? Lecher? ... Wait, I remember now! The guy's name was John Becker, and it killed him and every member of his family...

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Wow! That's new!

Colonel James P. Forrest: What's up?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It stopped! I've never seen one do that before!

Colonel James P. Forrest: It's next to the door. Maybe it detected the containment teams?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: That's possible, I guess. But they normally move around trying to pinpoint what they're sensing. This one went straight to the emergency escape panel and just ... stopped.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I have an idea. I need to speak to one and two.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: The microphone is open, sir.

Colonel James P. Forrest: This is Colonel Forrest. Team one! Move ten feet to the right. Team two! Move ten feet to the left.

Corporal Terry Johnson / Corporal Patrick Unis: Sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: JUST DO IT!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: No change, sir. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was reading the instruction sign...

*Transcriber's Note: At approximately 1912 hours the sound of Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev pushing back his chair and rising to his feet is recorded; followed shortly thereafter, at 1913, by the sound of his body collapsing onto the floor and Natasha Semenov calling out to him in alarm.

Natasha Semenov: SERGEY! WHAT'S WRONG!

Colonel James P. Forrest: DR. KELLY!

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: Already on it. Someone call in a Code Blue! We've got a possible heart attack. I need Doctor Lenore and her team, a defibrillator, and a gurney up here right ... now!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: They're on their way ... elevator three; ETA four minutes.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Semenov! What happened?

Natasha Semenov: I ... I ... I don't know! He started mumbling to himself the second that thing in the vault started to move. I couldn't understand most of it, but some parts sounded like he was asking for forgiveness. And, just before he collapsed, he took a pill out of his pocket, bit into it, and started foaming at the mouth!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Did you catch all that, Doctor?!

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: I heard! Admiral! What was in that pill?!

Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev: My ... my ... honor!

*Transcriber's Note: At approximately 1914 hours, the death of Counter Admiral Sergey Vasiliev by self-inflicted poisoning was logged into the archive.

Doctor Mary Kelly MD PhD: It's too late, Colonel. He's gone.

Colonel James P. Forrest: DAMN! LOPEZ! LOCK IT DOWN! LOCK IT ALL DOWN!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Yes, Sir! Bait interlocks armed ... Deployed ... Bait released!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Listen up everyone! I'm going to need signed depositions from everyone here. No one is leaving Building Three until they're on my desk! NO ONE! My secure phone is now open for anyone who needs to contact...

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: COLONEL!

Colonel James P. Forrest: What is it now, Lieutenant? I'm busy!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: You're going to want to see this!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Why isn't number four secure? Didn't you drop the mouse?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Yes, sir. It got out of the box and is trying to climb out of the bucket. Number four is ignoring it. It's just sitting there next to the escape panel.

Colonel James P. Forrest: That's not possible! They always go after...

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: What do you want me to do, Colonel?!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Initiate an ECD! Kelly! Get everyone out of here!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Initiating emergency chill down! Warning alarms sounding! All vault teams retreating to secondary positions on level two. Control Center acknowledges ECD. All other buildings are being advised. Fifteen seconds until critical temperature!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Hit the microphone! Sound general alert!

THIS IS COLONEL FORREST TO ALL FLOORS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL ... I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! POSSIBLE CHAOTIC EMERGENCE IN VAULT FOUR! ALL CONTAINMENT PERSONNEL REPORT TO THEIR ASSIGNED EMERGENCY DUTY STATIONS! NON-CRITICAL PERSONNEL ARE TO ASSIST CIVILIAN EVACUATION! BUILDING THREE WILL GO INTO FULL LOCKDOWN IN TEN MINUTES! MOVE IT PEOPLE!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: 44 ... 39 ... 32! Nominal safe temperature achieved. Still dropping!

Colonel James P. Forrest: PUSH IT!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Full-stream nitrogen feeds active. Minus 75 ... 92 ... 129 ... 180 ... 194! Temperate control systems holding vault steady at minus 254! Vault monitoring will be lost if it goes any lower, sir!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Hold it there! CRAP! I never thought that stupid idea ... that was too damned close!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: What now, Colonel? The DE is outside its container.

Colonel James P. Forrest: By the book, lieutenant. Any DE suspected of transitioning to Chaotic status is to be held in a frozen state for a minimum of seventy-two hours. If it hasn't vanished by then, it must be shipped in the portable vault to somewhere far from any populated area and allowed to thaw. If it still exists after another seventy-two hours, the DE is to be recaptured, at any cost, and returned by transport personnel to Building Three.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I wouldn't want that job!

Colonel James P. Forrest: I agree. But I suggest you take a good look at this month's duty rooster. You ... are ... the lucky officer who gets to command the transport team. Have a nice trip to wherever the Top Brass tells you to dump number four.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Oh ... Geeze! Wait ... what?! Backup console! Can you confirm warning light number B5?

Sergeant Jane Goodall: Confirmed. We're checking on it. Out.

Colonel James P. Forrest: B5? Show me. There was a temperature spike? Did a temperature probe fail?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: No, sir. I'm getting the same readings from two others near the hatch.

Colonel James P. Forrest: It can't be the bait roaming around; it's a Mousesicle. Did something short out?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's possible. ECD's are hell on the equipment. I've got red lights all across the board. Maintenance is going to need a couple days to bring V4 back up, and that doesn't include what might be going on downstairs that my console isn't ... WHAT THE FUCK! A HATCH SWITCH WAS TRIGGERED!

Colonel James P. Forrest: Alpha and Beta teams ... check in!

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson / Alpha Team: / Sergeant George Samuel / Beta Team: Sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: What's your location?

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: Behind the north blast door, Sir!

Sergeant George Samuel: Behind the south blast door, Sir!

Colonel James P. Forrest: We're getting an activation signal on V4's hatch, Patterson. Is anyone out there messing with the emergency release?

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: No, sir. The corridor between us and Beta is empty, and even Yancy isn't dumb enough to touch the manual controls. What are your orders Colonel?

Colonel James P. Forrest: All of you stay put. Keep alert. We're having technical issues. Out.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Confirmed, sir. There's nothing on CTV going back three minutes. It must be a glitch. Vault camera one survived the ECD, but it only shows the area around the bucket. The other two are down hard. Number three went dark right after the DE stopped besides the hatch. Maybe it froze and tipped over into it?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Something about this stinks. How's the evacuation going?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: The civilians are all accounted for in Building Two. Lieutenant Carter just pulled the backup memory blades from the main server. If he's not on the helipad in the next ninety seconds, our data is going nowhere. Essential personnel confirmed on station. All other buildings in the compound are evacuating non-essential personnel. They should achieve total lock down within twenty minutes.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Any word on Damocles?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: An F117 just launched from Fort Indiantown Gap; ETA twenty-three minutes. It'll be on station and circling at fifty-five thousand feet for the duration. The backup Nighthawk is being prepped for flight. It will be ready to roll out of its hanger in fifteen minutes if needed.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Let's hope we don't need either of them. If a Chaotic breaches Building Three and threatens the other buildings in the compound, AFGSC* will turn this part of Pennsylvania into glass!

*Transcriber's note: Air Force Global Strike Command

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: SIR! WE'VE GOT MOVEMENT! AND HE'S LOOKING AT ME!

Colonel James P. Forrest: What are you talking ... WHO'S PULLING THIS CRAP?!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's real-time, Colonel. I checked. It's coming straight from vault four. This isn't some gag video patched into the surveillance system like this time!

Colonel James P. Forrest: How's that ... it's impossible! The ECD purged all oxygen! It's pure nitrogen in there and colder than the dark side of the Moon! And who the heck is ... that ... suppose to be?!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Looks like a farmer, sir.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Looks like a farmer, he says ... TURN ON THAT DAMNED MIC!

CODE BLACK! TOTAL EVACUATION OF VAULT LEVEL! I REPEAT, CODE BLACK. ALL MEMBERS OF LIMA DOUBLE DELTA SIERRA* REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO THE VAULT! THE ARMORY IS OPEN! AUTHORIZATION DOMINO SEVEN! BRING EVERY DAMNED THING YOU CAN CARRY! OUT!

*Transcriber's note: Last Ditch Defense Squad

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: He's moving back towards the hatch. What's going on, sir?!

Colonel James P. Forrest: The worst. The absolute freakin' worst. It's ... them!

[Oblivion interrupted / Time -12 minutes from present ]

Warmth / Engage / Proceed

Motion ... several sources / Proceed

Vibrations ... meaningless / Proceed

Vibrations ... complexity increasing / Proceed

Vibrations ... classification / sound / Proceed

Vibrations ... database memory scans engaged / decoding in process / Proceed

Vibrations ... familiarity / identify / Proceed

Vibrations ... word, words, sentences / Proceed

Vibrations ... decoding complete / Proceed

... belonging to some guy named ... Decker? Heckler? Lecher? ...

... Wait, I remember now. The guy's name was John Becker...

... and it killed him and every member of his family ...

Proceed? / REJECTED!

Proceed? / REJECTED!

Proceed? / REJECTED!

External override commands? / INPUT NONE

Internal override commands? / INPUT NONE

Source of conflicting commands? / UNKNOWN

COMMAND STRUCTURE CORRUPTED / COMPROMISED

Primary backup database memory emulations / CORRUPTED

Secondary backup database memory emulations / CORRUPTED

Number of fully functional database memory emulations available / One

Switching command to available fully functional database memory emulation / Engage

CONSCIOUSNESS

After what felt like only a second since he was attacked in Potter's milking shed, John Becker finishes a two decades-old thought, ' ... BACK TO THE FARM! DONNA AND THE GIRLS IN DANGER! I GOTTA WARN THE TOWN!'

The next, coming from the depths of a gelatinous mound resting motionlessly besides the closed vault hatch, is new and very, very human, 'Where in the blue blazes am I!?'

Becker had only a single life experience to explain the sensations, or more preciously, the total lack of same, he is currently experiencing: a traumatic medical emergency at the age of thirteen. A cracked tooth caused by a fall from his father's tractor, and the massive infection it eventually caused, nearly ended his life. Only the extraordinary skill of a surgeon practicing nearly two hundred miles away saved him.

Or, more precisely, saved him twice.

Extracting the shattered tooth fragments poisoning his body was a undertaking of several grueling hours. Keeping him alive after a disastrous combined allergic reactions to the anesthetic gas, and a monumental number of repeated penicillin injections, was a herculean task that kept the surgeon, and his small clinic's nursing staff, working around the clock for much of two weeks to achieve.

And cost twenty-two acres of his father's prime pasture land.

A fact his late father never failed to remind Becker about whenever he was caught doing something particularly foolish or just plain dumb; as if he'd ever forget. The horrible memory of spending three days in a walking coma unable to feel anything but a madly itchy nose, speak, move a finger, or even blink, was something he'd take into the afterlife.

Having to go through it again as an adult who'd done nothing wrong just made him mad. Mad enough to scream silently into the nothingness surrounding him with all his willpower, 'WAKE UP!'

[External sensors / engage]

Becker's next scream is one of pure agony.

Instantaneously, without the slightest hesitation or measurable time lapse, his vision goes from utter blackness to a three hundred and sixty degree view of the inside of the Sun, and every nerve feels like it's soaking in boiling battery acid and broken glass, 'TOO MUCH!'

[Moderating external sensor array to within database memory profile / engage]

After failing to blink apparently non-existent eyelids, or feel any sensations coming from lungs that should be fluttering madly in shock, Becker gradually recovers his composure. Once more in control, he begins to examine the space surrounding him for clues to his situation. His vision, never close to perfect before, is now far beyond anything human.

He can see ... everything. With no sense of up or down, left or right, field of view limitations, or any ability to gauge distance, every inch of the metal box surrounding him is clearly visible down to the smallest scratch.

And nowhere, in any direction, is the slightest hint of his body.

In an oddly dispassionate stream of thought, Becker coolly assesses his situation and comes to the most logical conclusion, 'I'm dead.' Followed shortly by another, 'This can't be Heaven, so am I in Purgatory or Hell? The sheer absurdity of the question makes him immediately doubt his sanity.

Becker is certain that Pastor Gabriel had never, in innumerable, endless, mind-numbing sermons enthusiastically thundered forth over the course of several generations of his flock, ever described Hell as a metal room with a bucket at its center. This room could certainly function as a comical representation of an outhouse in a weird futuristic Hollywood science-fiction movie, but it could never provide a mental image aimed at prompting the faithful to walk the path of moral righteousness.

More than a little bewildered by the situation, Becker repeats his examination of the room at a more leisurely measured pace he'd reckon lasted no less than three minutes. In reality, after two nanoseconds, his only non-scientific conclusion is an impressed, 'That's a lot of nice welding!'

He'd never seen anything like it. Not even close.

Carl Coulter's farm-repair shop has a reputation of having the best oxyacetylene workers in the whole county, but if these welds were just typical work, they put anything Coulter's crew has ever done on the Becker farm to shame. And, half a nanosecond later, 'Is that a door?'

Still unable to measure distances with any certainty, Becker expresses an unvoiced desire to move closer to a door-shaped sheet of gray metal only slightly offset from the metal frame surrounding it.

[Activate external motion control command? / Engage]

For the first time, Becker is calm enough to hear a monotone voice coming from both nowhere and everywhere. Having properties that meld a hodgepodge of sounds, sensations, and fragments of random memories into a seamless whole, he attempts and fails to clearly grasp what the barely audible voice is saying.

After a few moments to collect his thoughts, he angrily questions ... the voice.

'WHO SAID THAT?!'

Once again, his voice is mute; his question nothing but an internal thought.

There is no answer.

Mentally shrugging non-existent shoulders, Becker continues to examine his only likely escape route from this bizarre room. He rapidly discovers the absence of a knob, latch, or any other kind of securing device. Musing, 'Could this room be some kind of cargo elevator?' he turns his attention towards the right door frame and finds a single black button at its center. And a matching button on the left.

Taking note that two buttons normally present are apparently missing, he quickly concludes, 'That makes sense, I'm in Hell after all. This is as down as it gets.'

Comparing the size of similar elevator buttons he's encountered during his life, the metal sign tack-welded to the center of the door can't be much larger than a sheet of typing paper. Covered in random black squiggles, it's just as enigmatic as everything else he's seen since awaking inside this metal box.

Putting the mystery of the unreadable sign aside, he mentally weighs his only viable options: Press buttons until something happens, or bounce off the walls like a crazed crap-flinging monkey in a cage for all eternity.

Not wanting to give the invisible fallen angel talking to him more cause to increase his torment, he decides pressing buttons is a far safer option. Nothing happens. Or, stated more correctly, the lack of any trace of a corporal body throws a large lug wrench into his plans; not that it stops him from impatiently trying again, and again, and again in the least.

Slapping himself alongside the side of his head after the tenth or twelfth futile attempt, figuratively speaking, Becker if forced once again to come to grips with his ghostly status. It wouldn't have mattered in any case. Humans have a compulsion to abuse elevator buttons in much the way ants are attracted to sugar.

[Clarification required / Command]

The voice is just as incomprehensibly disjointed as before, but a single word ... command ... comes through loud and clear.

As a former combat soldier, and father of two headstrong teenage girls, he knows the word can have two completely different meanings. Either someone is trying to give him an order, or requesting he provide one. Considering his present corporeal deficiencies, he decides the latter is more likely, 'Mash the button!'

Linguistics is not John Becker's strong suit, but even he understands his error when the right-hand button instantly flares into white-hot incandescence and disappears leaving a deep depression several times its former width. Apparently, telling a creature of the pit to do something requires a considerable degree of caution and specificity.

Thoughts on how he'd get it to press the sole remaining button, in a far less dramatic manner, are interrupted by yet another indecipherable stream of gobbledygook.

[Heat source detected / inanimate / Command]

Once more, the word command is intelligible. Along with something that could, if he focuses his attention fully upon it, be something along the lines of ... detected? 'Detected what?' Questioning the word is apparently enough to elicit a response.

[Heat source / Command]

Not wanting to unintentionally provoke another destructive response, Becker remains silent. Instead, he decides to examine the room once more. Gradually growing more accustomed to his everything-at-once point of view, he looks for whatever this 'heat source' might be. He finds nothing. Despite his desire to avoid triggering the Fallen One's cataclysmic nature, he can't help but mentally scratch his head and wonder, 'Where's this 'heat source' it's talking about?'

The answer, as have all others, arrives on a timescale faster than his mind can comprehend. His all-encompassing vision suddenly narrows dramatically and spins around at carnival roller coaster speed. It only stops when a rectangular shape hanging high on the wall furthest from the door fills his now-severely limited view.

If Becker still had a stomach, he'd be puking its contents all over the floor and parts of at least one wall.

He'd seen it before but dismissed it as unimportant. Frankly, he had better things than an empty picture frame to worry about; like when would a squad of Hell-Spawn march through that door with red-hot pitch forks to torture him for eternity, 'Okay, that was fun. Still don't see that 'heat source' you're going on about'.

[Moderating external sensor array / enhancing database visual input profile / engage]

The empty picture frame is no longer empty.

Between near-black deepest violet and rustiest possible blood red, a riot of different colored pigments brushed into odd shapes fill its borders. As an example of what work-shirking college kids call modern art these days, it wasn't that bad. But not even close to his taste. In summation, Becker judges it as nothing but a waste of good paint and canvas.

Apparently eavesdropping on Becker's critic-like dismissive response, the voice announces,

[Increasing enhancement of database visual input profile / engage]

Layers of pigments swirl around until two large blobs of color gel into easily recognizable forms: soldiers. Wearing name-tagged beige shirts and haircuts that practically scream army, one is staring down over the other's shoulder as if he were a bug under a magnifying glass.

Becker quickly comes to appreciate the former artwork. Despite his current invisible Casper the friendly ghost physical non-being, their unmoving eyes are making him feel extremely self-conscious.

[Searching database / pre-assimilation imagery profile selected / engage]

The light fixture behind him suddenly casts a shadow Becker instantly recognizes, his. Still unable to move in any way, he can't physically react as his vision snaps back to what he'd consider normal, and the nausea it generates creates a mental image of his stomach crawling out of his mouth.

[Calibration complete / basic movement simulation selected / engage]

If he thought his out-of-body experience so far had been the epitome of excruciatingly awful, he'd a stack of medical dictionaries tall enough to reach a light bulb to even approximate the level of pain he's feeling now. Every bit of which revolves around the worst case of full-body pins n' needles ever experienced since the first primate woke up with a pinched leg nerve and fell out of a tree.

Which is, as it so happens, exactly what he just did ... minus the tree part.

'Ouch?'

Displaying all the grace of a tipped over fence post, Becker falls backwards and lies prone on his back. He feels no impact. No pain. His fall creates no sound, or even slightly vibrates the steel floor he lands upon. Nor is a single hair on his head knocked out of place. And his partially open heavily-worn leather jacket, stained plaid flannel shirt, and many-times patched blue jeans, aren't disarrayed in the slightest.

Even a clothing store mannequin couldn't fall over with less to show for it.

[Recalibrating sensory input / basic movement simulation selected / engage]

Becker's butt hurts, and the back of his head feels like it'd been hit with a cinder-block.

'OUCH!'

In a natural response to an unexpected fall, Becker attempts to get up. Placing both palms against a smooth metal surface, he flexes arm muscles, bends his spine ... and, without any measurable passage of time, finds he's standing fully upright again. In the space of a few seconds, the weird painting has changed into a photograph of two soldiers.

Able to move freely for the first time, he takes a single hesitant step forward. Like a creepy painting hung in a Halloween fun house to scare young children, their unblinking eyes seem to track his every move.

[Recalibrating simulation processing speed / synchronizing with database profile / engage]

The very instant the toneless voice in his head stops speaking hokum, the two uniformed officers start to move. The younger, and only sitting one of the pair, is pointing a finger straight at him. The somewhat older one standing behind him is shaking his head and silently shouting.

[Calibration of simulation sensory subsystems in progress / synchronizing incomplete]

The moment the barely comprehensible voice stops talking, the room fills with excited voices coming from a speaker grill directly overhead:

... GOT MOVEMENT! AND HE'S LOOKING AT...

... are you get ... WHO'S PULLING THIS CRAP! ...

... I checked. It's coming directly from...

Becker volunteered and spent three grueling years in the service; two and a half in combat during the Korean War, and six months in a Veterans hospital getting shrapnel pulled from ... places ... leaving scars no one but doctors, nurses, and his wife has ever seen.

Keeping a safe distance from officers, whenever possible, who might give an order to do something incredibly asinine was the best advice his basic training sergeant ever gave him. He had no idea who these 'people?' might be, but if they were in a position of authority in Hades, opening that elevator door was now priority number one.

Unable to stop a decades-old outdated habit when dealing with uniformed superiors, he snaps to a ramrod-stiff attention in front of what's apparently now a window, and smartly salutes them both. Without waiting to see if they salute back, he spins around displaying his best parade ground footwork and marches towards the door.

He fails to notice that each foot fall, in usually noisy thick-soled leather work boots, is eerily silent.

The voices coming down from the ceiling sound even more upset.

Within four steps he's standing in reach of the door. The unreadable sign has changed. Still seriously garbled, he can easily read what it's telling him to do, DanGer, CrusHing HAzarD! tO oPEn HatCH iN casE oF EmergeNCy, pRESS EitHer ButTon oncE. waiT UnTil buTTOn fLAshes TwIce. PrEss ButtoN TwiCE. AlArm wiLL soUnd AnD HaTch WilL oPen. HaTCh wiLL ClosE iN tEN seCONds autoMAticAlly.

And printed in handwritten bold black letters on a flashcard taped to the bottom of the sign:

ShoOt YaNCy If hE eVen LooKs aT thIs FucKinG hATch!

sIgnEd: cOPoral brUno

Solely focused on getting out of the metal room, Becker fails to grasp the obvious: He's dead and this is Hell. Why would Satan allow an escape hatch here? And where could he possibly escape to anyway?

He just follows the sign's instructions and steps through the now-empty door frame.

Building Three

Fourth Floor Conference Room

Audio log: 1993.10.7 / 1847 through 1849 hours

Excerpt duration: 2 minutes

Eyes only.

Duplication or removal of this transcription from archive strictly prohibited.

Participants:

[1] Colonel James P. Forrest …... ARMY

[2] Lieutenant Oscar Lopez …... ARMY

[3]Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson / Alpha Team... NAVY (MARSCO)

[4] Sergeant George Samuel / Beta Team... AIR FORCE (AFSOC) **

* MARSOC - Marine Corps Special Operations Command

**AFSOC - Air Force Special Operations Command

Colonel James P. Forrest: THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH SALUTED ME!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: The hatch is cycling!

Colonel James P. Forrest: LOCK IT OUT!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I - I can't! The last safety upgrade turned it into a independent system. Maintenance personnel have to cut the hydraulics outside the hatch to disable it.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Damn it! Turn the vault's vents on full blast; I don't want our guys blinded by fog. Give me that microphone: Alpha and Beta teams button up and go hot! Weapons free! India Alpha is not an option. It's up to you. Take down anything ... and I mean anything ... that comes through that hatch! I don't care if it looks like your mother! The DE is a shape shifter!

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson / Alpha Team: / Sergeant George Samuel / Beta Team: Affirmative! Helmets and rebreathers on! Switching to comm. channel three!*

*Transcriber's note: Timestamp on recorded radio exchanges out of sync with master clock by thirteen seconds. Archived copy corrected and footnoted. Inquiry about error sent to IT.

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: Are you in position, Beta?

Sergeant George Samuel: Shields up and ready to go. How about you?

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: You have to ask?

Sergeant George Samuel: What's the plan?

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: Vault four is closest to us. We go first. After that it's all yours. Don't open up until we're behind our blast door. We'll keep double-teaming it until ... whatever ... or the Colonel hits the all-clear. You copy?

Sergeant George Samuel: Copy. What's our fall back?

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: There ain't one until we run out of ammo. All elevators are on lock down. Take the stairs to the maintenance level. After we regroup in corridor Delta One, we'll restock at the armory and await new orders. Good luck!

Sergeant George Samuel: Sounds like a plan. Let's do this thing!

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: ON THREE MEN! ONE! TWO! THREE!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: The other buildings are offering to send backup. What do I tell them?

Colonel James P. Forrest: It's way beyond that point, Lieutenant. Ice Age protocols are a bust. It's walking out of a vault colder than anything we can achieve inside Building Three, and Damocles is completely out of our hands. If that DE goes after them, it's all over. Send' em our thanks. We'll call if they're needed.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: So what do we do?

Colonel James P. Forrest: What we always do. Stay alive and capture it by any means possible.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: How are we supposed to do that? Nitrogen isn't stopping it.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Whatever this DE is, it didn't even try melting its way out. Let's just hope it's vulnerable to our weapons, or unable to escape confinement on its own.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: You think that's likely, Colonel?

Colonel James P. Forrest: No.

With a lifetime of Hellish imagery drummed into his brain from earliest youth, Becker steps through the hatch to find ... a factory? No lava. No pools of flame filled with souls howling in agony. Not even a single sinner repenting their actions in life as winged, tailed, cloven-hoofed, and cherry-red scale-skinned demons whips the flesh off their bones for all eternity. Surprised by the unanticipated surreal normality of his surroundings, he stands unmoving until a loud whoosh and thud behind him attracts his attention.

A hatch with the number four painted in black on its shiny white surface has closed.

Both sides of the suspended metal catwalk on which he stands is lined with room-size cubes. The nearest one, the same one he just exited, is no different in appearance than any other, and painted the same brilliant white as is everything else in sight.

Suspended in midair within an empty two or three story tall space, each cube is hung from arm-thick braided steel cables, and connected to pipes rising from a floor far below. Except for numbered metal hatches leading to this catwalk, their outer surfaces are totally hidden beneath thick cocoon-like blankets of insulation.

Blinding light is coming from every direction.

Unwavering and absolutely colorless, it bathes every surface. Metal light fixtures the size of steamer trunks banishes even the slightest possibility of a shadow anywhere. Becker has seen immense commercial poultry farms where lights burn all night with sunlight brilliance to maximize production, and profit, but this degree of illumination was far beyond excessive for any purpose he can imagine.

[Heat sources detected / movement detected / presence of lifeforms confirmed]

Standing just beyond the midpoint between two identical white metal doors, he holds onto both guardrails and cautiously moves towards the nearest one. Focused on maintaining his footing on an unfamiliar surface hanging over a brightly lit void, he pays no attention to what the omnipresent voice is saying. Still around twenty feet away, he's taken by surprise when the door slides open, and a rolling thunder of overlapping explosions and smoke engulfs him.

Looking over crossed arms covering his face, he finds six oddly-clothed demons filling the open doorway; three kneeling, and three standing behind them. Each is wearing something Becker can only describe as a dull-black diving suit with a large gray bucket completely enclosing the wearer's head.

And poking out from behind the metal shield each one is holding, a large bazooka-like shotgun is belching fire and eardrum-splitting noise repeatedly in his direction.

Feeling nothing, Becker lowers arms he'd raised in an instinctive protective gesture. His vision now completely unencumbered, he's amazed to see a stream of thousands upon thousands of metal slivers the size of toothpicks, and the occasional thumb-size lump of lead, fly towards ... and through ... his body.

With each separate explosion merging into a seamless whole, he observes in wonder as the white paint covering the catwalk upon which he stands vanishes a little more. In mere moments it's totally gone. There's nothing surrounding him but deeply scored shiny metal.

An eye-blink after the last volley, a gloved hand slides the door shut ... and a renewed onslaught begins from the once pristine, but now deeply scratched and dented, white door far behind him. The second attack is just as painless and perplexing as the first, and fails to become any clearer after the literally infernal creatures shooting at him switch back and forth two more times.

[Heat sources receding / collect? / assimilate? / integrate? / Command]

Becker ignores the question.

Reeling in perfectly understandable shock, he looks down in panic. As a former front line combat soldier, he'd often seen combatants sustain massive injuries and fall over dead seconds later never knowing they'd been shot. Expecting to find his body awash in blood and torn flesh, he's surprised to find ... nothing. No blood. No holes. Not even a single tear in his clothing from an open shirt-neck down to neatly tied boot laces.

Refusing to believe his eyes, he fails to notice that all the noise hasn't affected his hearing, or caused him to cough even once from the clouds of acrid gunpowder smoke filling the air. His only goal is an instinctive need to fully open his leather jacket and survey the damage. He can't. His shaking fingers can neither grasp the zipper's slipper, nor slide underneath his shirt collar to open it by force.

There isn't the smallest gap anywhere.

His probing fingertips can feel every part of his body beneath leather, wool, and denim, but nothing he's wearing will detach from it in the slightest, or allow any wrinkle or fold in the aforementioned materials to be altered to any degree. His clothing was acting more like a layer of glued-on stiff rubber than anything else.

A short list of interlocking thoughts quickly crosses his mind:

'This should make going to the bathroom interesting.'

And a moment later, 'Do I still need to go to the bathroom anymore? I'm dead in Hell after all.'

And a moment after that, 'Do they even have toilets down here? I haven't seen a sign yet.'

Putting these mysteries aside with several others to be answered at a later date, he resumes moving towards the now heavily-battered white door. Finding it unlocked, he slides it open. He discovers a perfectly normal corridor; or, more precisely, a perfectly normal and totally vacant corridor.

It exactly matches the vast majority of government buildings he'd ever visited to pay his taxes, or get his driver's license renewed: every wall in sight is baby-puke pea-soup green, and obviously painted by the cheapest, and least skilled, contractor they could hire.

'That makes perfect sense,' Becker chuckles silently. 'Where else but Hades would government bureaucrats go when they die?'

Expecting his stay to last literally forever, he's in no particular hurry to go anywhere. He slowly strides down the center of the corridor checking every door knob he sees. The vast majority are locked.

Not wanting to add destruction of private property to the unknown list of sins that'd confined him here until time itself runs out, he avoids the temptation to kick them open. Instead, he enters and examines two offices that were abandoned in such haste that their entrances were left wide open.

After a quick look inside each, his opinion in regards to anyone who... labors ... here couldn't be more negative. 'Does any real work ever done around here?! Or do they spend all their time watching daytime soap operas and sports?'

Weird looking silent black-screened television sets dominate every metal desktop.

There isn't room left on any of them for even the smallest Selectric electric typewriter, or a teetering stack of urgent long-overdue finish-now-or-you're-fired paperwork. Glad his taxpaying days are behind him; Becker shakes his head in disgust and continues his search for answers without bothering to enter another room.

It's a long, long corridor.

As stated before, he doesn't really mind in the least.

The word eternity has a vastly different meaning when it's staring you in the face.

And even if that eternity by definition will never end, the seemingly infinite corridor eventually does.

With no other option than a ninety degree turn to the right, Becker starts down another corridor no different than the first. The same nausea-inducing green paint, the same dozen or so widely spaced plain wooden doors with indecipherable signs glued onto the walls besides them, bargain basement linoleum floor tiles, the plainest of plain florescent light fixtures overhead ... and totally, completely, one-hundred percent uninhabited.

Keeping a steady, but slow, forward pace, he begins to wonder again when his eternal punishment might start. Pastor Gabriel never told Becker the child he'd wander around an office building if he died with a sin-stained soul. Or, at any point long after, that he'd earn this particular fate if he failed judgment and was sentenced to forevermore stand on the wrong side of the Pearly Gates.

Despite fully acknowledging how dire his situation was, he's bored. Already missing the short-lived excitement of Halloween-costumed demons shooting fake guns at him, he has to admit ... 'Now that was scary!' And more in-line with what he expected to experience in the pit.

Reduced to the childish act of counting doors to relieve the tedium, he continues his trek towards yet another right turn far in the distance. One door! Two doors! Three doors. Four doors! DING! DING! Oh, that one's an elevator door. AN ELEVATOR DOOR!

Assuming it's nothing more than a large broom closet at first glance, he's caught completely by surprise when a small floor-counting glowing dial above a pair of olive-drab bi-fold metal doors chimes twice. Hoping to experience yet another boredom-relieving harmless barrage, he steps backwards as far as the corridor's width will allow, and spreads his arms wide.

The doors slide open and stay that way.

There's no one inside.

Even the annoying Hawaiian elevator-music so popular these days is absent. Now that's torture!

It's completely empty ... huh? Becker focuses his attention downwards. The tiny brown ball of crushed paper he'd assumed to be trash is breathing. The elevator's only passenger is a sleeping mouse.

Outraged by the most transparent of traps, Becker opens his mouth for the first time to loudly express his ire. 'Who do they think I was?! A monster?! I was a farmer! I served my Maker's plan, and my animals served theirs. No once did I inflict pain unnecessarily! If you think I'm going to harm this creature of God, you can go to ... to ... HERE!'

[Lifeform detected / collect? / assimilate? / integrate? / Command]

Becker, as before, ignores the only partially comprehensible stream of gibberish.

He has another problem demanding immediate attention.

He wants to scream.

He has no mouth.

Not one word he'd ever uttered since awakening had escaped the confines of his mind.

Shaking fingertips trace along his facial features. Nothing seems out of place.

He commands his tongue to explore his teeth and press upon the inner walls of his checks. Even the gaps where his wisdom teeth once stood are thoroughly examined. His senses report nothing out of the ordinary. But, no matter how often or how forcefully he tries, he can't get his fingers to do the same.

Just behind his open lips there's a barrier leading to ... what?

[Calibration of simulation sensory subsystems in progress / synchronizing incomplete]

Unable to process ... unable to cope ... he instinctively searches for a touch-stone back to a reality he can comprehend. Looking down he finds it. A mouse. Knelling he touches it...

[Collect? / assimilate? / integrate? / Command]

For only the second time, Becker intentionally communicates directly to the voice echoing inside his head, 'LEAVE IT BE!'

There is no response.

Gently, barely ruffling its deep-brown fur, he reaches into the open elevator and carefully slides a couple fingers on his right hand beneath the unresponsive rodent. His moment of panic quickly abating, Becker climbs back onto his feet and holds the sleeping mouse close to his chest.

Almost mesmerized by the warmth and ... life ... he feels coming from its miniature body, he whispers questions only he can hear, 'Why are you here? What ... could you have possibly done to deserve this?'

He knows an answer will never be forthcoming. He felt compelled to ask anyway.

Standing still only long enough to send the elevator on its way with the press of a button, he continues his momentarily interrupted stroll. Cupping the mouse carefully between his palms, he feels its heartbeat and smiles.

He's no longer alone.

Building Three

Fourth Floor Conference Room

Audio log: 1993.10.7 / 1925 through 1930 hours

Excerpt duration: 5 minutes

Eyes only.

Duplication or removal of this transcription from archive strictly prohibited.

Participants:

[1] Colonel James P. Forrest …... ARMY

[2] Lieutenant Oscar Lopez …... ARMY

Colonel James P. Forrest: Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! IT'S TOYING WITH US!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Did you really think that'd work, Colonel?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Not a chance, but I had to try anyway.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: What now?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Lock down that elevator. Get Patterson and Samuel back here. We're going to need to brainstorm another plan to capture the DE before the fly-boy up there gets an itchy trigger finger. It took four hours, and fifteen mice, but Doc Kelly's team finally managed to lure the last DE turning the Maze into Swiss cheese into the portable vault.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I wasn't here for that. Which one was it?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Look at the monitor. That's it before it turned into Farmer Green Jeans.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: The whole vault level is practically hollow; not much more than a few spare office spaces and dozens of fake doors. It'll wind up in the vault room no matter which direction it takes.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Let's hope so. Maybe it'll tire itself out and go home. Before you ask, that's a joke, Lopez.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Understood, sir.

Colonel James P. Forrest: How's that mouse doing?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's alive. Infra-red cameras are still picking up a hot spot. Thermal cameras register nothing coming from the DE, of course.

Colonel James P. Forrest: A normal DE is a ten plus one on the danger meter. At least this one isn't a raving Chaotic, too.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Do you think we can communicate with it, Colonel?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Go right ahead. The door is open. Knock yourself out.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Ah ... not what I meant, sir.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I know what you meant, but think about this. We just expended enough firepower to take out a good portion of Heinz Field and the Pittsburgh Steelers. This DE is plainly conscious to some degree. Even if it can vaguely understand our sincere ... We're sorry! ... Do you expect it to believe anything we say?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: How about a trust exercise?

Colonel James P. Forrest: If this is another pile of new-age crappola, I'll feed you to it myself.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Nothing like that.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Fine. Go ahead. It better be freakin' good, or I'm dipping you in barbecue sauce.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's like this, sir

Moving even slower to not awaken his passenger, Becker keeps marching forward until he's gone down a total of three nearly-identical corridors. Upon reaching a blank wall, he turns towards a white door. He recognizes it easily, and sighs silently without the slightest whisper of breath escaping his lips, 'This again?'

It couldn't be anything but the door on the opposite side of the room he'd been shot at.

Bright white and heavy-duty industrial looking, its a complete and total mess. Even if none of the demonic shotgun blasts could penetrate from the other side, at some point it'd been hit with several dozen deer slugs big enough to create a nearly artistic display. Becker can't resist thinking, 'It's gonna take someone hours with a four-pound sledge to hammer all those bumps flush!'

And, just in front of the partially ajar door, there's a small stack of well-worn books.

Placing the sleeping mouse gently on the floor, Becker drops to both knees and lifts each book in turn. It takes far longer than it should, but he eventually puzzles out the distorted titles: Bobby's fun day at the zoo. Little Martha goes to Granny's farm. English grammar for young readers. A Picture Dictionary for Fifth Graders. The History of Mammals on Earth for young boys and girls. Human civilization in pictures and large text for third grade students. Ruby asks her parents for a pony.

Memories flood his consciousness. Good memories. Cherished memories of books just like these.

Lacking the money after a run of bad luck almost ended his young marriage and farm, he'd hitchhike back and forth to several nearby town libraries borrowing books for Linda and Susan. Libraries he visited years later for the last time, in better times, to deliver sincere thanks in person along with a donation to charity in each library's name.

Putting down the last book, he's surprised when his grip doesn't loosen.

[Data processing corrupted / Linking to running database memory emulation / engage]

With no control whatsoever, his hands opens ... Human civilization in pictures and large text for third grade students ... and his consciousness fades to black. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? later his eyes refocus upon a wide-awake little mouse grooming its ears and muzzle atop the neatly restocked pile of books.

[Data storage corrupted / Relinquishing control to database memory emulation / engage]

Every word, every image in those books, is engraved in his memory down to the smallest detail. He could recite every word, and explain every concept described in any of them.

Becker is terrified. He can't remember turning a single page, or even standing up.

The mouse doesn't care. It, a he actually, has finished grooming and has begun to eat a grape. Dripping juice upon the cover of ... Little Martha goes to Granny's farm ... he single-mindedly tears the fruit apart with sharp incisors displaying both total contentment, and a carefree lack of concern about his surroundings.

'He's still young,' Becker thinks to himself, 'if he survives his first encounter with a cat he'll learn.'

Not knowing what he might find, he leaves the mouse safely behind and crosses the threshold into the next room.

Building Three

Fourth Floor

Conference Room 2 / Vault Four Control Room

Audio log: 1993.10.7 / 2015 through 2022 hours

Excerpt duration: 7 minutes

Eyes only.

Duplication or removal of this transcription from archive strictly prohibited.

Participants:

[1] Colonel James P. Forrest …... ARMY

[2] Lieutenant Oscar Lopez …... ARMY

Colonel James P. Forrest: I can't believe you're that dumb! How did you even graduate OCS*, and who did I piss off so much they'd send you to me!? Dropping off those books to prove a point was the most moronic stunt I've seen in years, but did you really have to double-down on idiocy by going back to give that mouse a grape!?

*Transcribers note: OCS, officer candidate school

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I didn't want it wandering off, sir. You saw it, there was no real danger. He practically went into a coma going through those books page by page.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I TOLD YOU ALREADY! STOP CALLING IT A ... HE! THAT'S A FUCKING ORDER! ANTHROPOMORPHIZING THESE THINGS WILL GET US ALL KILLED!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Sorry, sir. But you must admit this DE is operating on a completely different level than all the others. The old rules no longer apply. Turning a mouse into a pet is definitely not normal, nor is assuming human camouflage. I suggest we keep a hands-off approach going, and see what happens when it wanders back into the vault room.

Colonel James P. Forrest: And if it starts melting through the other vaults?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: We try something else, or wait for the Pentagon to unlock the self-destruct key.

Colonel James P. Forrest: You do know what happens after I turn it on, right?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Yes, sir. Shaped charges implode Building Three and everything, including us, drops into the sub-sub basement. And the DE's become someone else's problem.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Just checking. Now that we're clear on that tiny detail, what's next?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Research, Colonel. I believe the human image the DE is mimicking isn't some manner of composite; that there either is, or was, a real live human who looked like that. With your permission, I'd like Lieutenant Donnell to break comm. protocols. Maybe he can get a match on the internet using our case files.

Colonel James P. Forrest: That's way above my pay grade. I'll get back to you when I return from my office. Just keep everyone away from it, and don't do anything stupid while I'm gone.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I'll do my best, sir.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Try harder than that.

The room hasn't changed much since Becker first saw it.

Except for a number of small punctures, the insulation blanketing a few of the hanging vaults is is still intact. The only significant damage is located where he once stood on the catwalk. The lights are just as bright, and fill the room with the same low volume hum of high-voltage electricity at work. And, steady streams of cooled air enter from vents high above to remove any trace left of gunpowder smoke.

Knowing full well what's beyond the other sliding door, he takes a closer look at the hanging metal boxes; particularly the one within which he'd awaken. After thirty or forty steps down the hanging catwalk, he turns to his left and stands once more before a small bank-vault like door with the number four painted upon it.

From this side it's vastly different from what he'd seen from inside, and he exclaims his honest assessment of this opinion silently within the confines of his mind, 'A devil that really really really likes buttons designed this thing!'

There's nothing like the minimalist simplicity of a elevator call-button on this side.

For someone who's only experience with a computer is a single PONG video game against each of his two daughters ... he lost both times ... Becker's dismay is completely understandable. Literally a score or more buttons cover a metal panel to one side of the door-frame; with about as many dials and flickering neon-green numbers on the other.

Feeling inexplicably hesitant to let his curiosity possibly damage his former prison, Becker decides to try another. Crossing the catwalk's width, he walks up to an identical metal door and reaches out to touch it...

[Contact / multiple link requests received / decoding / engage]

... and is crushed under the weight of screeching voices expressing various versions of nearly identical incoherent demands.

[ syst*m failur* / com*and datab*se corrup*ed / uplo*ding linked *atabase / enga*e]

Feeling their confusion tearing at the integrity of his reason and memories, he screams in silent agony begging for help or death. He doesn't care which, 'PLEASE STOP! I CAN'T STAND THIS!'

In a neutral tone as calm and impersonal as ever, a voice he knows well answers.

[Links severed / permanent faults detected / terminating conflicting sources]

[Recompiling simulacra database / erasure of original in progress / engage]

Becker stands utterly motionless with his hand still touching vault six.

Every thought, every emotion, sight, sound, sensation he'd ever experienced in life, returns in an endless flood to wash away any those that'd been irreparably damaged. His cognitive disarray mounting to the point of insanity, his awareness of self is drowned beneath a tide of total blackness.

Dead once more, he hears nothing as alarms blare in every room within Building Three.

Building Three

Fourth Floor

Conference Room 2 / Vault Four Control Room

Audio log: 1993.10.7 / 2104 through 2123 hours

Excerpt duration: 19 minutes

Eyes only.

Duplication or removal of this transcription from archive strictly prohibited.

Participants:

[1] Colonel James P. Forrest …... ARMY*

[2] Lieutenant Oscar Lopez …... ARMY

[3] Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson …... NAVY (MARSCO)

*Transcriber's note: on 1993.10.7 /2050 hours, Building Three acknowledges primary shortwave ... 92c8sa-93kj42-sdf4&4-I7^#% encrypted message.

Second shortwave message 64#295- 9*gt5ty-%#7y3^ acknowledged at 1993.10.7 /2054 hours containing decryption key.

Primary message decoded and used within five minute functional window on 1993.10.7 /2056 hours.

Main server records opening of security safe #43-CJP containing FAIL SAFE JERICHO located in Colonel James P. Forrest's office, and arming of failsafe remote at 1993.10.7 /2057 hours. Colonel James P. Forrest returns to, Conference Room 2 / Vault Four Control Room, at 1993.10.7 /2109 hours.

Colonel James P. Forrest: SHUT THOSE DAMNED ALARMS OFF!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I'm trying, sir! It's going to take a little longer! I didn't know we had so ... all done! Ah ... that what I think it is?

Colonel James P. Forrest: I'm pretty sure it doesn't open my garage door.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's blinking.

Colonel James P. Forrest: I know. What's with the noise? And what's the DE doing?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: No idea, sir. It walked into the vault room and took a good look at vault number four. After it turned around and touched vault six, I lost all telemetry. All vaults on this console are coming up empty. He ... sorry ... the DE hasn't moved since.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Who's manning the backup console?

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's on automatic. It's just us and the LDDS for the duration.

Colonel James P. Forrest: Call Patterson. He's qualified on that system. Get him on a console.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: On it, "Sergeant Patterson! Check in!"

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: Patterson here, sir!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I need you on a backup console. I'm unlocking the one in room Echo Four.

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: On my way!

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Deactivates

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Colonel? Would you mind answering a question?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Go right ahead, Lopez.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: It's about failsafe Jericho. Who dreamt up that little gem of military wisdom?

Colonel James P. Forrest: It is kind of goofy, isn't it? But you know how the Pentagon works; they'll fight tooth and nail to keep a base that hasn't been relevant since the Revolutionary War open. Failsafe Jericho is a holdover from before the first true vaults were built and basically useless during a Chaotic emergence anyway.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: How so, sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: The war college has been doing quote theoretical alien invasion unquote war-games since the UFO scares in the 40's. Taking the specs we gave them, they calculated about ninety-three percent likelihood that Building Three's structural integrity would fail in less than eight minutes. No commanding officer would live long enough to go through all the mumbo-jumbo required to unlock this thing.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Why did you bother then, sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Because AFGSC will take my inability to follow Jericho protocol as proof we've been compromised, and give us a one hundred million degree tan.

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Activates

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: My console's up and running, Lieutenant Lopez!

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Read off your board, sergeant.

Master Sergeant Vincent Patterson: Everything is red. The vaults are undamaged and operating within specs, but the pressure pads under the DE buckets are reading zero. They're also not showing up on any of the cameras, and the photo-sensors are reporting no measurable aura shine.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Hold one. Do I have your permission to inspect the vaults, sir?

Colonel James P. Forrest: Permission granted.

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: Secure your console, and meet me ... just you ... outside the North vault room door, sergeant. Bring your BFG. Out!

Console Mounted Electronic Speaker Deactivates

Colonel James P. Forrest: A W27* won't help if there's a DE inside any of those vaults.

*Transcriber's note: commonly used abbreviation for EPDW27 /Experimental Point Defense Weapon number 27

Lieutenant Oscar Lopez: I know, sir. It's for me.

After saluting his commanding officer, Lieutenant Lopez departs. As the door closes behind him, the PA system activates. Every room, corridor, and elevator within Building Three echoes with the same series of musical chimes. And Colonel Forrest leaves the room at a near run..

Down the hall is a console with a private link to the security server. It's repeating twenty-six seconds of identical audio recorded simultaneously within conference room two, and vault four in an endless loop; as it has since Colonel Forrest last exited his office.

" ... It was eventually captured on a farm belonging to some guy named ... Decker? Heckler? Lecher? ... Wait, I remember now. The guy's name was John Becker, and it killed him and every member of his family ... Wow! That's new! ... What's up? ... I've never seen one do that before!"

The chimes, a sound clip borrowed from a very popular science fiction movie series, has never been heard before except to confirm its proper operation, and unlikely to be ever heard otherwise.

In earnest use for the first time since Colonel Forrest assumed command, it alerts him that a small computer laptop, hidden within a locked drawer of his desk, and isolated from all but a tiny number of exclusive outside sources, has powered up. It immediately begins to decrypt a video-only file sent by Lieutenant Donnell.

Its job done, a single line of green text strobes slowly in intensity: Enter password to continue.

It barely has time to flicker six times before Colonel Forrest returns to his office, carefully enters his half of a one-time-use-only encryption key, and takes his seat. The green text vanishes and the screen lights up to full brilliance.

From yellowed newspaper clippings, to fingerprint-smudged xeroxed police files of missing person reports, a seemingly endless assortment of school year-books, marriage certificates, driver's licenses, and military records ... most derived from a variety of supposedly-secure state government computer servers ... reveal the minutia of many lives cut short.

All share a common theme.

In no particular order, the smiling faces of more than thirty men, women, children, and senior citizens momentarily fill the screen only to be quickly replaced by another; each having been declared deceased or missing by Pennsylvania authorities roughly two decades ago.

Only one, a poorly-focused photograph of a grim-faced young man wearing a torn and blood-stained army uniform, matches the name playing repeatedly on the console behind him.

[Recompiling simulacra database / complete / engage]

Becker awakens standing with his hand pressed against a metal door.

There's no normal gradual struggle to escape the Sandman's grasp, or even the adrenaline-driven explosive awakening Nature commands if a sleeper is threatened when most vulnerable.

Every memory, from the moment since awakening inside the metal room behind him, to commanding his hand to reach out and touch this door, remains intact, pristine, and open for full examination; but not a second more. The exact moment his palm made contact with cold metal is nonexistent.

Becker's hand is just ... there.

So too are voices behind him, and, apparently they've been there for a considerable amount of time.

"Okay, Sergeant. We've done all four. Let's cross over to the other side of the catwalk."

"What's gonna take us real close to that thing. Where do you want me to stand?"

"Cover me from a position about half-way to the south door. As before, I'll cycle the hatch and peek inside. If nothing happens, we go onto the next. Just don't get in my way if I say run.

"You won't have to tell me twice, Lieutenant. But what about the barber pole over there?

We'll leave that vault to the last. If something goes wrong, well ... you know what to do. We've been at this for about fifteen minutes and it hasn't moved a muscle, so let's hope it stays that way. In any case, I didn't see it break any Olympic records during its tour of the vault level. With any luck, it's just as much a slowpoke as all the rest.

Becker's confusion reaches new heights. In the truest meaning of the word, he asks, 'What in HELL is going on here?!'

Having never visited the place himself, he can't fault Pastor Gabriel's less-than-accurate depictions of the inferno, or the supposed fate of sinners cast into it. And, still unable to recall any action in life that might justify his presence here upon death, or even how and when that transition into the afterlife happened; he stills accepts without question the Divine ruling that consigned him to the bowls of Hades.

But this is the last straw!

Imps, demons, devils and pits filled with boiling oil and howling souls he could understand, but when did Satan's minions join the army and start issuing military ranks!?

Feeling something else is seriously amiss, a nagging feeling he'd forgotten something important draws his full attention away from this question. Becker concentrates on actions covering his recent past. Instead of the disjointed imagery and emotional subtext memory normally provides, his mind's eye moves backwards at a precipitous speed and abruptly stops.

As if watching a movie from the point of view of the camera, he sees his hand release a tiny sleeping rodent onto the floor. And, after a brief moment of darkness, watches the mouse pounce upon and consume a grape almost half its size with great gusto.

His relief is cut short by a sudden thought, 'Did they hurt him?!'

Fearing the worst ... the embodiment of ultimate evil lives here after all ... his concern for the rodent's well-being propels him into motion, and his arm drops to his side.

"LIEUTENANT! IT'S MOVING!"

"GO GO GO, GET OUT OF ... here?"

"SIR! WHAT DO WE DO?!'

"I don't ... don't know. I really don't."

Their confusion is excusable. Not since the first case describing an encounter with a DE was reported so many decades ago, has one ever ignored a human being in its presence ... or any other lifeform for that matter. When compared to the physical properties of matter, water is more likely to flow uphill than a DE is not to kill.

Becker, increasing the gap between them with each step, keeps walking towards the northern door.

Only a few feet away, it slide open. A demon, in the guise of a middle-age man with salt-and-pepper short-cropped hair, and clothed in a freshly donned army officer's white parade-ground dress uniform, is standing there. The officer, holding the mouse in his open left hand as it contentedly grooms a juice-soaked right leg and tail shouts, "STAND DOWN, BECKER!"

To everyone's surprise, and no less so than to Colonel Forrest himself, Becker stops.

"YOU FORGET SOMETHING, SOLDIER?!"

Becker comes to a rock-solid ramrod-still attention and salutes. He remains inhumanly unmoving until the officer replies with his own and demands, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF?!

A look of apologetic remorse flashes over Becker's face. Lifting his right arm, he opens his lips and points a finger at the emptiness within. Colonel Forrest ignores the stomach-turning image as if it were a daily occurrence.

[Simulacra database unable to comply with request]

[Simulacra database contains no data relevant to inquiry]

[Directing inquiries to operating system / irreparable faults found / engage]

Without any overt sign of having taken control, something other than John Becker looks through his eyes and asks, "What do you want to know?"

His throat suddenly drier than all the sand in Death Valley, Colonel Forrest struggles to form a reply to the echoing question put forth by every PA loudspeaker in the vault room. After a few false starts, he manages to croak out, "Who ... who ... who are you?"

"I am an emissary."

Having participated in several field interrogations of captured enemy soldiers, Colonel Forrest isn't unfamiliar with being on the receiving end of one-sentence-at-a-time responses from a reluctant source, "What's an ... emissary?"

"I am an emissary."

Thinking, 'Okay, here we go! It's going be Firebase Vera all over again!', he puts aside his time in Vietnam and changes the question slightly, 'And what does an emissary do?"

The answer is swift and not all that helpful, "An emissary encourages sentient lifeforms by realigning divergent planetary ecosystems."

Rolling his eyes, Colonel Forrest muses sarcastically, 'That's just freakin' great! Interstellar tree-hugging do-gooders that also like to eat people!' His next question mirrors that thought, "You do know that 'emissaries' have been killing us, right?"

Sounding deeply offended, the entity raises the pitch of Becker's voice, "Attempting to ... unable to access ... - unable to access required ... memory subsystems," and goes silent.

Far in the distance, standing within the door frame at the other end of the corridor, Lieutenant Lopez cups his hands around his mouth and yells, "YOU BROKE IT, SIR!"

"VERY FUNNY, LOPEZ!

Colonel Forrest is no techie. Brute force is his preferred tool to repair anything more complex than a toaster; and holds a well-earned reputation for dealing with any unauthorized security-threatening device brought inside Building Three with a hammer. A very large and heavy hammer.

Regrettably, what he'd enjoy most couldn't be more clearly ill advised.

Colonel Forrest is often present while new troops are undergoing training to perform their duties, and to evaluate their progress. A vital part of their instruction involves a short film illustrating the importance of avoiding direct physical contact with a DE.

After numerous repeat viewings of an unnamed scientist's last seven excruciatingly-long minutes of existence, and hearing a small auditorium echo with the sound of several vomit-bags being filled to capacity, his reluctance to repeat that unfortunate incident on a more personal level is abundantly justified, "ANY BRIGHT IDEAS, LIEUTENANT?"

"NONE THAT INVOLVES ME KICKING IT INTO A VAULT, COLONEL!"

After a short pause while he wonders if Lopez knows him too well, he yells back, "IT SPEAKS ENGLISH! ANY GUESSES HOW?"

"YOU'LL HAVE TO ASK, DONNELL. BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO ME, SIR. IT COULD'VE BEEN INTERCEPTING OUR RADIO TRAFFIC ALL THE WAY BACK TO MARCONI."

As if he needed another reason to mistrust technology, now he had to add interplanetary goo-monster eavesdroppers to the list. Feeling more frustrated by the second, Colonel Forrest shouts an order, "ENOUGH OF THIS! I'M GETTING A SORE THROAT! GET DOWN HERE AND BRING PATTERSON WITH YOU!

And receives an obviously reluctant compliant reply, "ON OUR WAY ... SIR!"

Feeling something wet, Colonel Forrest looks down at his left hand. The forgotten mouse is asleep. As if to reward the human holding him so gently, it'd voided much of the grape it has so recently greedily consumed.

Mumbling, "That makes sense. Everything else has turned to crap today!" Colonel Forrest carefully drops the slumbering mouse into an empty shirt pocket, and wipes his soiled palm upon his pants.

Forty-three thousand, nine hundred and thirty-two feet directly overhead.

Moving at a sedate two-hundred and seventy miles an hour, an F-117 Black Hawk begins yet another leg of the figure-eight course it has been flying above Building Three for over an hour. It's angular frame bears no identification markings on its flat-black hull, or external lights to mark its presence in a moonless night sky.

It shouldn't be there.

It shouldn't be anywhere.

This particular Air Force stealth attack aircraft, serial number 82-0801, named Perpetrator, was supposedly destroyed on August 4th, of 1992 when it crashed due to a mechanical failure eight miles northeast of Holloman Air Force Base; the pilot ejecting safely uninjured.

That's true, the pilot named in that report is still alive.

Everything else is a lie.

Just one of many surrounding this particular aircraft.

Anonymously, wearing a helmet and flight uniform lacking name, rank, or unit identification, a pilot sits alone with his thoughts in a cramped cockpit that doesn't exist, officially. Trained and held in reserve for this sole mission, and under orders to maintain radio silence except in an emergency, he stares down at his control panel praying that three lights don't blink red.

The first will inform him that his cargo, a single B61 one kiloton nuclear bomb, has been remotely armed. The second will instruct him to prep for deployment and open the weapons bay. The third will command him to release his cargo upon the designated target ... an American target ... and quickly escape the near-instantaneous death he'd unleashed upon it.

A far less tortuously-slow ending than those further from ground zero will certainly experience.

His commanding officers have no doubt he would perform his duties admirably.

He will.

He also has no intention of living beyond that moment.

"Sir! Permission to contact, Lieutenant Donnell!"

Colonel Forrest, apparently in a staring contest with Becker's unmoving eyes, replies without turning towards, Lieutenant Lopez, "What for? I don't see a keyboard* anywhere on this thing."

Author's note: keyboard substituted for joystick to avoid annoying nitpicky movie censors.

"My MOS* is military intelligence, Colonel. Artificial Intelligence is more his thing than mine."

Transcriber's note: MOS, Military Occupational Specialty code.

MOS35, Military Intelligence Officer (Army)

His eyelids beginning to twitch, Colonel Forrest keeps standing just beyond reach of a very ugly death, and asks, "How so? I've never been impressed by his intelligence, let alone a machine's."

"Maybe he knows how to reboot it? There's only twelve minutes left before we have to check in. It'd be great if we had some progress to report before the White House decides to blow us up, sir."

"Wouldn't it be faster if you came closer and pressed the button yourself?"

"Ah ... ... - no! He's the expert. Let him figure it out. Why should I get into trouble?

With his eyes still glued to Becker's, Colonel Forrest smiles, "It took long enough, but you've finally learned to delegate authority. You'll sleep better not micromanaging everything yourself, and a lot safer for everyone around you. Don't you agree, Lieutenant?

"I do, sir."

"Now go make your call. Press nine to get an outside line. His number is on my Rolodex."

"I'll be right back. Sergeant Patterson!"

"SIR!"

"You know what to do."

Lieutenant Lopez turns and runs past Patterson. Sergeant Patterson spins until the heavy weapon in his gloved hands is pointing directly at Colonel Forrest, and held steady by a complex web of shoulder and chest straps attached to rings embedded in his ballistic armor coveralls. It will remain so until he's ordered to stand down.

Colonel Forrest has no intention of giving that order.

Colonel Forrest's office door is ajar.

It's also unguarded, and hasn't been locked since he assumed command.

Just inches above a NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY plastic sign, is a framed Polaroid photograph displaying a single frame from a short film any soldier posted to Building Three knows practically by heart.

Beneath a tortured screaming visage that's more liquefied bone than flesh, there's a sentence written by hand within the picture's narrow white margin, ... He got off easy, you won't ... followed by Colonel Forrest's unmistakable scrawl of a signature.

There's never been an incident when anyone disobeyed that sign.

Lieutenant Lopez is standing silently in the corridor outside this office. His unmoving right hand is hovering in mid-air only inches away from pushing the door fully open. Crushed and heavily wrinkled in the other, is a single sheet of paper covered in hastily scribbled questions Lieutenant Donnell might be able to answer. After a pause of four or five seconds, he straightens his posture and swallows deeply.

He puts crippling memories aside and enters the room.

It's time for doubt and self-recrimination to end.

He has a duty to perform

The first involves answering a seldom-heard phone ringing loudly within the room.

Standing next to something able to kill without warning is hardly the most auspicious place, or time, for idle chitchat. His military career having provided many similar situations, Colonel Forrest grows bored less than five minutes after Lieutenant Lopez's high-speed departure, "So, sergeant, was shooting a W27 inside Building Three all you'd hoped?

A muzzle large enough to swallow a fist doesn't waver an inch, "No sir."

Familiar with little-known incidents in the soldier's highly distinguished, but still troubled, service record, Colonel Forrest isn't surprised, "Really? In what way?"

Patterson's voice practically drips with regret as it reverberates within his Kevlar helmet, respirator, and face shield, "I couldn't make it bleed, sir."

"Yes, that is unfortunate, isn't it? I'll see what I can do about that."

Sounding about as cheerful as he gets, "Thank you, Colonel."

"Would you like another try? I doubt Lieutenant Lopez with be back anytime soon."

"No, sir. You might catch a ricochet.

Colonel Forrest's question was a test. When Patterson initially arrived at Building Three, he would've jumped at the slightest opportunity to fire his beloved W27 and consequences be damned.

Colonel Forrest muses optimistically as his eyes remain glued on the thing answering to the name, Becker, 'It's nice to know he's finally mellowing. Hopefully ...

"And I got called back before I could reload. I'm only carrying enough for the three of us."

... AND, THERE IT IS! Oh, well. Better luck in the future, if we have one.' Colonel Forrest finishes the thought on a sour note.

"By the way, I noticed you're out of uniform. Where's your sidearm, sergeant?"

"I gave it to Private Yancy, sir. He hasn't been qualified on anything else."

In mock shock, Colonel Forrest replies, "You gave him a gun?!"

"I know he's incompetent, sir. And I also know Lieutenant Colonel Baxter regrets pulling strings to get his son into the service, and only sent Yancy here to avoid more damage to the family name. But looking at an unarmed trainee in a combat situation was making me feel sick!"

"Very good, Patterson. I know I can always count on you to make the right ..."

The end of the sentence is crushed flat beneath a lightning bolt of feedback, and a thunderous, "CAN YOU HEAR ME, COLONEL?"

"DIAL IT THE FUCK DOWN, LOPEZ!" Colonel Forrest screams at the nearest CCTV camera.

"Sorry, sir. Someone changed the PA system presets on the console in the rec. room."

"What is it, Lieutenant? Anything good to report?"

"Not really, Colonel.

An Admiral Revers called your private line. He wanted to talk to you. I told them you were currently unavailable. I don't think he liked that answer. He read off the correct code-of-the-day and asked if the vault-fault signals they had received are a glitch. I said no. He hung up before I could explain.

The entire compound has been evacuated. I saw a bus take down the main gates doing around seventy about six minutes ago. I watched it join a convoy of other personnel transports headed due West through your office window.

Due West is upwind, sir."

"Any other fun facts?"

"I managed to contact Lieutenant Donnell by secure radio. He's inside the lead transport. I explained the situation. He suggested something and was suddenly cut off. I tried all the emergency freqs. I got nothing but jamming static."

"Don't keep us in suspense. What did Donnell say, Lieutenant?"

"It'll take too long to explain, sir. I'll be back soon!"

"Don't hurry on our account. It's not like anything bad is going to happen."

There's no reply to Colonel Forrest's small attempt at gallows humor.

Feeling movement within his shirt pocket, he gingerly extracts the mouse to find it fully awake. Placed once more within an open palm, it sits up with an intense stare on its furry face that can only mean one thing, "Let me guess. You want another grape?"

The rodent's response is clearly affirmative. As if preparing for another gooey meal, it vigorously grooms it whiskers while Colonel Forrest whispers to it, "Why not? Everyone deserves a last meal."

A little over eight miles overhead, a pilot is going though a short checklist. Pushing the throttle fully forward until his plane is moving just beneath the speed of sound, he rapidly increases his distance from a tiny white pulsating triangle in the center of his GPS. He will return when another bright blinking red light on his instrument panel joins the first, and drop far below the minimum safe weapon deployment height to extinguish that triangle forever when the second light is joined by a final third.

It's the only way to be sure.

Entertaining himself by gently touching the rodent's ears, and watching how it repeatedly grooms each ear in turn, Colonel Forrest goes down a checklist of his own, "Where's the rest of your team, sergeant."

"They must be fully reloaded by now. The majority will report back to their posts guarding the main entrance and critical control rooms. The rest should be just one level down waiting for me to call. Do you want them here, sir?"

Turning his head to look directly at a face completely concealed behind layers of nearly indestructible plastic, metal, and armored glass, Colonel Forrest smiles, "Not necessary. I just need one. A runner."

His gun sight never wavering more than a few inches, Patterson frees a gloved hand and holds a finger just above a switch sticking out from the left-side of his noise-cancelling headpiece. "What do you want him to get, sir? Do you need a weapon? Some water?"

"A grape."

Patterson's Kevlar-covered finger drops and Colonel Forrest overhears one side of a muffled conversation, "Send Yancy up to the vault level with a grape. Colonel Forrest's orders. I don't know. Check the mess-hall. Move it!"

Anyone, in civilian life, would be instantly dumbfounded by such a strange request made during a life or death crisis. Master Sergeant Patterson and his men aren't civilians. If their commanding officer needed a hand grenade with a pulled pin, they would unquestioningly do everything in their power to provide one.

Mumbling, 'Tap … tap … tap … ' Colonel Forrest resumes his game of how-to-annoy-a-mouse; and, when even that sport grows stale, switches over to bopping it gently on the nose before asking, "Did Lieutenant Carter get to the helipad in time?"

"Yes sir, with about five seconds to spare. Most of the engineering team left with him. It's been over an hour and a half. They should have reached the Point Oscar bunker forty minutes ago."

"Good. Were there any problems with the evacuation, sergeant?"

"The Russians insisted on taking the corpse with them. That delayed securing the main lobby doors by two minutes."

"So you were late sealing up?"

"No sir. Since all the elevators are on lock-down, I used my passkey to activate the cargo lift and carried the body outside myself. From start to end, securing Building Three took nine minutes and thirty-one seconds. That's twenty-two seconds off our best time this year."

Sounding surprised, Colonel Forrest momentarily stops playing with the mouse, While still keeping alert for any renewed movement from the statue-like DE, he turns his head directly towards Patterson and asks, "We've never come close to beating your predecessor's old record. How'd you manage that?"

"Training exercises are necessary, but nothing motivates civilians like a DE on the loose. He had that advantage twice during his time here."

"Doesn't sound fair, does it?"

"No sir, it isn't."

"What about Doctor Everette?"

"He's barracked inside his quarters. He screamed something about going down with the ship ... and wanting a double-cheese pizza, I think. I couldn't spare the time or men to break in."

"Sorry about that."

"Sir?"

"It's my fault, sergeant. Kelly and Carson have been on my case to ship him out for weeks."

"I understand, Colonel. Didn't the previous commander of Building Three recommend you both?"

"Yeah ... all this lab coat stuff goes right over my head. He sent me the best scientist he could find to watch my back. I never expected to see him ... what's done is done!"

The damaged security door at the opposite side of the room slides opens. A breathlessly screamed, "I'M ... I'M ... HERE!" accompany heavy footfalls that vibrate the entire catwalk from end to end.

Far beyond the physically 'plump' bell curve of the body-mass index chart, an exhausted young soldier staggers towards them clearly focused solely on keeping his wobbling legs moving. Wearing a sweat-soaked uniform barely able to constrain his more than generously corpulent physique, he just barely manages to stop before crashing into the DE when Sergeant Patterson yells, "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING, YANCY!"

Turning in Sergeant Patterson's direction, the young soldier fails twice to find the energy needed to lift his arm before finally managing to extend the grape towards him, "The ... the ... grape, sir!

"Don't SIR me, Private! He's ... your commanding officer."

Barely able to stand, let alone move, Private Yancy struggles to catch his breath and cross the two-foot space separating him from Colonel Forrest, "SIR! THE ... grape ... YOU ... ordered!"

Colonel Forrest plucks the grape from his sweaty fingers, "Good job, Private Yancy. You're dismissed. Return to your post."

Holding onto the guard railing for dear life, Yancy performs a sloppy salute and exits the long room at a near-geriatric pace. Master Sergeant Patterson and Colonel Forrest watch every labored step until the white door slams shut.

"Sergeant?"

"Sir?"

"In the unlikely event we somehow survive this mess; I'm giving you two months to cut his weight down by a quarter. And I don't care if chase him around the maze all day and night at the point of a bayonet to do it."

"Make it three months, sir, and I'll have it down by half."

"Do it!"

Looking down at the mouse, he's surprised to see its beady little eyes following the grape in his other hand, "You want this? Here you go. Enjoy." The mouse pounces on the grape, and, once more, tears through the fruit's skin with its sharp teeth, "Just let me know if you need a restroom break this time, okay?"

The door on the opposite side of the vault room opens. Lieutenant Lopez has returned.

Holding the handle of a shelved cart topped by a monitor screen, he pulls it across the catwalk's highly textured non-slip metal surface; it's tiny plastic wheels screeching loudly as if in agony every inch of the way, "Sir! I'm back!"

Stepping back before turning around, Colonel Forrest intercepts him still several yards away from the DE, "What's all this for, Lieutenant?"

"It's everything on Lieutenant Donnell's list, sir."

Colonel Forrest closely examines the cart. Just beneath a top shelf supporting a small flat-screen television are two shelves jam packed with CDs, VHS cartridges, cassette tapes, and all the machines needed to play them. And, almost invisible beneath a tangled mass of black cabling required to connect all these devices together, a switching box wired directly into the rear of the small TV.

It takes him all of two seconds to notice what's missing, "Lieutenant?"

"Sir?"

"How exactly do you intend to use these things?"

"I told Lieutenant Donnell everything that happened; from the moment the DE escaped its vault, to when it returned to the Vault room and destroyed all the others.

He said we need to attract its interest, sir. And fast. Any artificial intelligence this sophisticated is likely in command of weaponry we can't even dream of. If it judges us, technologically speaking, no more impressive than a bunch of naked apes pounding rocks with bones, it could wipe humanity out for simply for interfering with its programming."

"And what movie or video game inspired this sage advice, Lopez?"

"Ah ... I don't know, sir. It sounds pretty good regardless."

"It doesn't matter. Nothing you brought is going to work."

"Why not, sir? It's not like we have tons of options."

With the same hand holding the mouse, Colonel Forrest points at the cart, "Because you forgot we're in the vault room. The nearest electrical outlet is fifty feet away behind the door you just came through. That's why."

"Ah ... I'll be right back!"

At a pace that would leave Private Yancy in the dust a dozen times over, Lieutenant Lopez races down the corridor and exits the vault room. Colonel Forrest gazes down at the mouse and whispers, "Did you hear what I've got to put up with?"

Undeterred by the proximity of a giant potential-predator, the mouse remains totally committed to the urgent task of licking the slightest trace of grape juice from a hind paw.

His headset having both sound amplifying and cancelling properties, Sergeant Patterson answers the question with a mask-muffled, "Yes, Colonel. Do you want me to run him around the maze, too?"

Unwilling to admit he'd forgotten what those headsets are capable of, Colonel Forrest responds, "Let me think about it. Remind me later ... if there is one."

"Very well, sir. Will do."

Almost two hundred miles away, a second red control panel lamp begins to blink. Pulling back on the throttle until his plane is traveling just above the air speed necessary to remain aloft, the craft's pilot gently tilts the joystick to one side, and slightly forward, until his plane is pointed at an invisible target far in the distance. The return and descending course locked in, he continues his interrupted prayers.

Unless ordered to disengage by a coded radio message, his mission and life will end tonight.

Only one unlit lamp is left.

During normal flight or combat operations, watching the night sky for any other aircraft unable to perceive his near-invisible presence is a basic safety necessity.

But not tonight.

That unlit lamp never leaves his sight.

At a volume below anything Patterson can overhear, hopefully, Colonel Forrest whispers, 'Who's a cute little mouse? You are!' and repeatedly pokes the rodent in center of its swollen stomach. With each gentle touch, four tiny limbs curl protectively around a swollen furry belly as it slips deeper into a gluttony-induced slumber.

Fully aware how the over-stuffed mouse will inevitably reward the provider of the feast, he carefully returns it to the same shirt pocket as before; the cleaning of which holds little importance considering present circumstances, and awaits Lieutenant Lopez's return.

He immediately begins to fidget.

Under Doctor Kelly's obey-me-or-else medical orders, he'd been forced to give up a two pack a day smoking habit cold turkey less than a week prior. Now, at the very apex of the worst stress-inducing situation imaginable, combined with a DEFCON 1 level of nicotine withdrawal, he desperately needs something to occupy his mind and twitching fingers.

Fortunately, for the peacefully sleeping mouse, it's a short wait.

Lieutenant Lopez suddenly races back into the vault room unwinding a coiled extension cord behind him. Made from a score or more electrical cords joined and tied together, it's just long enough to reach the cart with a few inches to spare.

The power issue resolved, he spends several minutes on his knees frantically unraveling a spider web of tangled electrical cords; followed by several failed attempts to jack each piece of audio visual equipment into the correct input before the television finally lights up, "We're ready to go, sir!"

Colonel Forrest closely examines the cart, and removes a heavy black cardboard box filled with seven VHS tapes, "We'll be dust in the stratosphere before you finish playing Carl Sagan's Cosmos!"

"I know that, sir. I borrowed it from Donnell and forgot it was on the cart. But we should have enough time to show, whatever that thing is, at least the intro. to this film. If that doesn't make an impression, nothing will!"

After closely examining the DVD case Lieutenant Lopez has given him, Colonel Forrest sighs deeply and hands it back, "You're section eight material. You know that, right?"

"We can always let Sergeant Patterson and his team shot it some more, sir."

"No, play the damned movie. I don't want to die with a migraine from all that noise."

Lieutenant Lopez drops the DVD into the player and presses a button. The machine retracts the loading tray. Trumpeting brass horns and explosion-level drum-beats immediately blast forth from two small rattling speakers. Just before the screen and speakers return to blackness and silence seconds later, the identities of the movie studio, and the production company responsible for this film's creation, are proudly displayed.

Satisfied everything is likely to remain in working order, Lopez uses the short pause to spin the cart around until the empty screen is facing the immobile DE directly. And after putting Donnell's harebrained idea into motion, he steps back until Sergeant Patterson has a clear uninterrupted line of sight to his spine and head.

The film proper begins to play.

As brutally intense as anything the viewers of this classic film have ever witnessed on the silver screen, majestic orchestral music instantly recognizable to much of the world's population, starts at full volume. There is no gently introduction, no respite to ease the audience's passage into this fantasy universe.

It's just there.

A thundering unforgettable military march.

Composed of dueling drums in mortal combat against the blare of brass horns, their struggle reverberates around the vault room. The musical battle, only seconds long, fades away moments later beneath the gradually dying shrill of violins, and other stringed instruments.

Silence returns for but a moment.

Setting the stage for the first act, brilliant yellow words, formed into short paragraphs, crawl upwards across the blackness of space accompanied by the twinkle of distant stars; their mission to inform the audience of the backstory to this tale.

They are unneeded.

Superfluous.

Redundant in the extreme.

The story the viewer is about to experience, both in mind and heart, is as old as humanity itself: War.

A spaceship, flying out of the nothingness at the top of the screen, appears. Firing glowing bolts of destructive energy at an unseen enemy, it fights for the life of everyone within it. A triangular-shaped ship soon enters into view taking up most of the screen. Many times larger than its comparatively minuscule target, it suffers no damage by the ship-born weaponry trying to harm it.

And fires back with far greater effect.

Crippled and defenseless, the first ship is easy prey for the battle to come.

As the creators of his space drama intended from the very start; special effects supersede the laws of physics and military logic. Personal combat between defender and attacker, once the smaller ship is helpless and boarded, is little more than a choreographed dance; each sides wielding weaponry both ludicrously inaccurate and generally ineffective.

Yet, this unrealistic conflict serves a purpose.

It's a distraction.

A trap first time viewers of this film will inevitably fall into.

Generations of movie goers have spent their lives enjoying similar cinematic fare; a harmless source of mindless entertainment filled with carefully scripted dialogue, and stylized unbelievable mayhem. Each wrapped in the laughingly unlikely trappings of some far flung improbable future.

They are totally unprepared when a historically accurate, and an often documented present-day horror, replays before their shocked eyes: When, without need of any weapon, real or contrived, a man meets a grisly death at the hand of merciless faceless other ... just because he can.

A far different hand reaches out and passes over the cart.

The film stops.

The screen goes black.

All electrical devices turn off and go silent.

This audience. This unknown critic from somewhere else. Does not approve.

Final preparations take less than a minute.

Buttons are pushed, switches clicked, dials and confirmation indicators checked, and rechecked. The payload is armed and primed for deployment. All computerized weapon subsystems and safeties are operational. The plane is undamaged and operating within acceptable performance margins.

There's nothing left to do.

The pilot is alert, ready, and waiting.

A third blinking red lamp joins two others. Each blinks and burns brightly on the console before him.

It's time.

He quickly finishes prayers for those he will harm this night. Not one is for himself.

As his mind focuses solely on scanning instrumentation for the slightest fault, sophisticated and complex reflexes, the products of thousands of hours of intensive training assume control. A steady gloved hand reaches out, grabs the throttle firmly, and pushes it full forward once more without hesitation.

Estimated time arrival: fifteen minutes.

[Evidence of marginal-competency space-faring mono-species]

[First contact precondition meet. Local database available]

[Translating. Errors detected. Play message / engage]

Intelligence comes with a curse: mortality.

Of all the creatures that came before them, only one recent lineage has evolved on Earth to possess the capacity to realize that life, all life, comes to an end. And, as human civilization rose from the humblest of beginnings, so too, inevitably, came the imperative to leave an enduring mark.

From drawings scrawled upon ancient cave walls, to a signature-covered metal plaque proudly displayed on a spacecraft abandoned for eternity upon the airless near-planet circling their world, the means matters little. Something, anything, must survive to scream a simple message: WE WHERE HERE!

Apparently, aliens from outer space aren't any different.

Loud speakers lining the vault room walls click on again.

A voice begins to speak in an instantly recognizable Pennsylvanian Scotch-Irish-Dutch drawl. The accent belongs to the image of the long-dead human standing rock-still before them. The words come from the eons-departed mind of something ... not-human.

"I [static] of the [ static] sent this vessel as a gesture of good [static] and a warning. My species, just one of many sentient races, came into [static] on a planet like any other; a place of promise, peril, strife and camaraderie. We survived many dangers together, each species linked by history and custom into a [static] enduring whole.

In time we traveled, always together, to nearby empty worlds [static] and made them our own. A joyous time of ever-growing exploration and [static] that brought forth many new forms and minds able to inhabit empty worlds we altered for their use; our happiness only diminished by the failure to discover others like [static] us circling foreign stars.

And then, at long last, after we'd given up all hope, came a voice not-ours calling for help out of the darkness. An unexpected side-effect of our [static] brought this far away signal, the first of several others, to our attention.

As our [static] grew in potency, and ships finally able to make [static] long-leap, we, my species, haughtily volunteered for a [static] near-impossible task. We, the [static], an equal among equals, with longer lives than most, would follow the first signal to its far distant source.

To meet whatever new races we could find, and repair the [static] damage they've done to themselves. Or, at the very least, offer survivors a place of refugee amongst us, and, with time, a [static] joining.

Behind us, other ships, many species, working together [static] as one, raced outwards [static] from all our worlds seeking to help others much closer to home. Each filled with a myriad of different voices raised in [static] laughter at our misplaced boasting and pride.

We were wrong. So [static] very wrong.

The voices we sought to contact were only a voice; a single species suffering in self-inflicted torment. Inconceivable! We [static] eventually tracked [static] the long-vanished signal to a distant world. A place of dust, bones, and silence; those [static] we'd come to aid had long ago destroyed themselves, and every living thing [static] around them.

In unbearable agony and despair, we [static] the long-leap back home to find even [static] more pain.

We had been the last to [static] discover the truth tearing our peoples apart. Our hopes, every arduous voyage, had [static] been equally in vain. World after world, nothing but graveyards; every tomb filled by a single [static] species that'd turned [static] and hatred of self, into weapons of genocide.

We all agreed to curtail any future [static] long-leaps, to disable and render impotent the greatest [static] we have ever constructed. And to turn aside from any singular species [static] we might overhear calling outside the protected borders around our worlds. The danger, the madness and death hiding within their [static] nature, [static] unmistakably clear.

Feeling pity and [static] seeking to heal my broken kind, we were allowed to send our last working long [static] vessel on a one-way voyage. Made from all [static] we'd gathered beyond the realms of visible light that also [static] made the long-leap possible, emissaries were endowed [static] with copies of our essence for the purpose of [static] crafting a myriad of different sentient species upon [static] distant barren worlds. And to welcome them, if they so desire, into [static] a glorious union with us.

This message will only [static] be transmitted if this spaceship [static] encounters another. Your singular species and rudimentary technology has [static] been classified a potential hazard. We wish you no harm, but don't interfere with this ship, our emissaries, or their mission. And never attempt to find us.

You will not [static] be welcomed.

Four minutes out, and almost exactly ten thousand feet beneath the plane, the target zone is clearly visible in the center of a small infra-red monitor.

To insure maximum accuracy, the pilot doubles his arrival time by dropping to half the recommended safe airspeed, and lifts a small panel cover. Just beneath are two closed shielded-switches. It takes but a few seconds in consultation with a computerized targeting systems, both inertial and GPS, to confirm target identification.

Seven green code numbers begin to pulse gently in the center of his windshield's head up display. They only vanish after he inputs seven different memorized digits into a nearby keypad.

A loud electronic alert-tone announces a computer's approval.

The final automated pre-drop weapon-safety is disengaged.

Estimated time of arrival: fifty seconds.

One of the shielded switches turns green.

With the flick of a thumb, the lighted plastic shield falls away and the compartment fills with a blinking blue-violet light. When that uncovered switch is activated, only straying outside of the designated target area will halt the weapon's deployment; a final human act before a computerized fail-safe navigation and targeting system takes over.

Another switch on the joystick causes the plane to shiver as bomb bay doors slide open, and air, traveling at three hundred miles an hour, roars into the fuselage slowing his craft's speed even more.

A different series of warning tones immediately begin to demand his attention, as the stern-sounding recorded words of a young woman play repetitively in his headset, and cockpit, "ALTITUDE! LOW! SPEED! LOW! STALL! SPEED!

The pilot ignores them.

His wallet, filled with family photos, was left in a hangar many miles behind. Desperately he tries to see, for one final time, their smiling faces in his mind's eye. He can't. They've turned their backs to him.

Estimated time of arrival: ten seconds.

Reaching into the blinking glowing compartment, he flicks the lighted switch and leans back.

The plane shudders twice.

Once, as the bomb falls away. The second, a fraction of a second later, when he cuts off the engines, slams the joystick full forward, drops both arms to his sides, grabs a pair of large bright yellow levers, and pulls with all his strength.

Twin explosions rip the canopy away, and rocket his ejection seat violently into a cold dark sky.

[Atmospheric vehicle approaching / origin: mono-species / scanning]

[Accessing long-leap exploratory mission files / archaic weaponry identified]

Standing besides the cart with an unreadable expression on his face, Captain Forrest turns his attention from whatever is calling itself John Becker towards Lieutenant Lopez, "How about that?! A robocall to stay off someone's freakin' lawn!"

"Sure sounds that way. Should I try another movie, sir?"

"I'm going back to my office. If I can get that computer working, maybe I can convince those pencil-pushers this is a bad dream. If you want, try that Alien movie Donnell is always raving about, the one with Sigourney Weaver. Maybe one of its relatives had a starring ..."

Colonel Forrest's irrelevant commentary is interrupted by Sergeant Patterson's shout, "Back up! It's moving!"

Patterson is technically correct.

As if seeing the three humans for the first time, unblinking eyes observe their every motion with robotically smooth neck and head movements; the need to project the illusion of a living biological being having, evidently, ended. Looking remarkably like something that could've been built by Disney Audio-Animatronics engineers for the entertainment of tourists, it continues this robotic examination until all movement suddenly ceases.

A familiar voice begins to speak via the same vault room PA loud speakers as before. The tone and accent is human, the mind speaking them is not, "Are you so lonely you love death more than life?"

Colonel Forrest and Lieutenant Lopez exchange stunned glances. They are soldiers. Highly educated individuals who swore an oath to defend their government, and the people who created it, from any threat foreign or domestic; and, by extension, the entire human race. Responding to a question pertaining to interstellar inter-species existentialism never came up before or after they entered the Army.

As if distressed by their inability to answer, both eyes close tightly and the volume of the voice coming from the loudspeakers drops to a near-whisper, "Of course, you do. It's always the same."

[Archaic weapon approaching]

[Danger to functional emissary: nil / risk to local biota: extreme]

[Emissary limits withdrawn / prime database activated / engage]

Another warning from Sergeant Patterson isn't needed this time.

The vault room's catwalk begins to creak and buckle. Designed to safely support many times the total number of people working in Building Three, steel decking fails beneath the silent DE's growing mass and destructive touch. And, just a few heartbeats after the vault room's three occupants bolt and stop to watch from an open doorway, it falls away; leaving only empty vaults and a formless gelatinous-looking transparent glob hanging motionless in midair.

The gravity-defying growth continues; outwards to create a glowing circular shape that engulfs and destroys two of the nearest vaults, and down to form an even brighter cylindrical shape several times the height of the central mass. If this rate of growth continues unabated, it wouldn't be long before the occupied doorway, and much of Building Three, is consumed.

As an explosion somewhere outside the building rattles the floor beneath them, Sergeant Patterson steps back, tears off his mask, and raises his weapon, "COLONEL!"

There is no doubt about what's coming next, or the significance of the sergeant's unspoken question.

Colonel Forrest and Lieutenant Flores shut their eyes. Neither wishes to see their lives end melting inside an alien monster, "DO ...

All three are knocked off their feet before Colonel Forrest can shout, 'IT!" What could only be a gigantic Chaotic DE in the making has vanished; having reduced a two-story tall section of the vault room's western steel-reinforced poured-concrete outer wall to talcum-grade dust in total silence... and rocked Building Three to its foundation on its way out.

Unencumbered by a heavy cold suit, helmet, and weaponry, or simply greater age, Lieutenant Lopez is the first to climb back to his feet. Sneezing and wiping white dust off his face, he yells, "THEY CAN FUCKING FLY!?"

After checking to see if his shirt-pocket passenger survived intact, Colonel Forrest replies in a more composed manner, "Apparently so."

"WHAT ... err what now, Colonel!?"

"There's no talking our way out of this. I can't even imagine how many alarms went off when that wall was breached. It was nice knowing you, Patterson!"

"Same here, sir!"

Sounding slightly confused, and more than a little offended, Lieutenant Lopez asks, "What about me?"

In a deadpan tone that's incontrovertible proof that Colonel Forrest's acerbic sense of humor is back in full force, "Oh ... and you too, Lopez. Well, some of the time."

Barely visible against a pitch-black sky, two parachutes float towards the ground.

If all goes to plan, neither will ever reach it.

Ejections seats are a marvel of aviation engineering, and are responsible for saving many pilots and aircrews who would otherwise have died in or out of combat. Months of grueling training was required before the pain-wracked pilot hanging limply within his parachute harness first touched the controls of a real combat airplane, and years more before he abandoned his last.

Yet, despite all that expensive training, time, and effort, getting shot out of a cockpit, and slammed into a brick wall of air that's moving, relatively, at multiple hundreds of miles per hour, is something even the best equipment fails to simulate with any accuracy.

Groaning in agony from several bruised ribs, and a partially dislocated right arm, the pilot struggles to maintain a clear head and accurate countdown, of his last forty-seven seconds of life. That's how long it should take for the bomb hanging from a parachute beneath his to reach its one-thousand foot altitude triggering height.

"forty-five, forty-four, forty-thee"

The bomb's parachute was designed not to aid in aiming the weapon, but to slow its descent so that the aircraft dropping it could safely escape the blast from a greater height, and at a far higher speed. Something this pilot intentionally failed to do.

In his mind, it'd be better to vanish in a mushroom cloud than see his name, and family, come under assault by the irrational court of public opinion. When people unable, or simply unwilling, to recognize the vital importance of his mission if ... when ... his identity became known despite the assurances of his superiors.

"forty-two, forty-one, forty"

Roughly a quarter mile from the target, a small fireball bursts into existence. With genuine regret in his voice, the pilot shouts, 'GOODBYE, PERPETRATOR! WISH WE COULD'VE BEEN TOGETHER LONGER!' It takes several seconds before the sound of the crash and explosion reaches his ears.

Having lost count, the pilot makes a quick guess and restarts the countdown.

'thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty - what's that!?'

A bright streak of light has burst from one the buildings far below. To his trained eye, it can only be one thing, 'I DON'T BELIEVE IT! SOMEONE SHOT A SAM AT ME!'

There hadn't been a single word of warning during his preflight briefing; not that it mattered. Except for blind luck, there's practically no chance any surface to air missile can intercept a F117 stealth bomber; especially this one. It had to be the slowest he'd ever seen, but it was still making a bee-line in the direction of the bomb, 'What's with the fireworks? Did I miss a holiday?"

In total silence, and clearly visible against powerful security lights circling the complex of buildings beneath him, a silver object engulfs the bomb and its parachute. Both vanish; replaced by a far more brilliantly glowing sphere of argent flame.

Blinded by painful after-images, the pilot lifts his visor and rubs stinging eyes in time to see ... something ... hovering only feet away, and perfectly matching his descent rate. Looking like a glider made from seamless sheets of silvered glass, two immense wings attached to a featureless fuselage beat the air gently.

It makes no sound, and its wings create no air movement that he can detect.

It's just there; for all of four seconds. Seconds he will remember for the rest of his life.

The emergency rescue transceiver attached to his harness crackles into life, "Are you so lonely you love death more than life?" Falling out of the sky, in great pain, and expecting to die at any moment, the pilot is too overwhelmed to reply.

And before it turns off, he hears, "Of course, you do. It's always the same." and whatever asked the question departs silently just moments before his boots hit the ground. Or, more accurately, upon something soft atop a roof he'd tried to nuke out of existence a little over two minutes before.

"What now, Colonel?"

"Since all our guests are gone, Oscar, I see no reason to keep you here. Leave if you want."

"What about you?"

"It'll be quicker if I stay. There's nothing in the motor pool likely to outrun the blast."

"Then I'm staying, too."

"What about you, Vincent?"

"I'm here until relieved, sir."

Colonel Forrest reviews his range of viable options, finding none, he shouts jovially, "Who's up for a game of poker!?"

Lieutenant Lopez, after a mumbled, 'Why not?' raises his right hand.

"Great! Sergeant, we need one more. Call your squad and ... "

Surprised that their resident card-shark hadn't agreed instantly, Colonel Forrest turns to find him listening intently to his headset, and shouting a reply via its built-in microphone, "Say that again, Telly! Yeah, I got it. Helps inbound. Lewis, grab your kit! We've got two down on the roof! GO!"

"What's happening? Why does Telly need a corpsman up there?"

"That explosion outside was a plane crash, sir. The pilot parachuted right on top of Private Yancy; nailed him good."

Feeling ignored, Lieutenant Lopez breaks into the conversation, "What's Yancy doing on the roof?"

"That's the emergency post I assigned him, Lieutenant. I thought the only trouble he could cause up there is falling off. Seems I was wrong. Telly says the pilot who landed on him is wearing standard air-force flight gear, but no insignia."

"Okay ... give me the headset. Corporal Telly!"

A tinny sounding voice fills the ear pieces, "Telly here, sir!"

"About that plane crash, what can you tell me?"

"I can't see much through the flames with my night vision scope or binocs, sir. It's about the size of a small business jet, but what's left looks all black and weird ... like something out of a comic book. It came down across the road from perimeter gate four."

"What's the sitrep with Yancy and the pilot?"

"Both of 'em are laid out flat, sir. Yancy is groaning and bitching. He's fine. The pilot got a messed up arm, ribs, and maybe some internal injuries, too. That's Lewis' job to figure out."

"Is he talking, corporal?"

"Not a word. Should I try again?"

"Don't bother. He's black ops. Tell Lewis to keep an eye on him in the infirmary. Someone will come looking for him eventually, I'm sure."

"Lewis is here, sir!"

"Before you go, did you hear something heavy and metallic hit the ground, or another building?"

"No sir, the compound's empty. Slam a car door and I'll hear it up here."

"Did you see where the DE went?"

"That explosion and light show was a DE?! No one ever tells me anything!"

"Focus corporal! Did you see where it went?"

"Sorry sir, it ... it went kinda straight up. And took a turn towards the ... south-east? That is, after it swung by the parachutes."

"Two? Where's the other one?"

"No idea, sir. The explosion downstairs and plane crash must've rattled me more than I thought. Only one landed on the roof, but I can't see the other one nowhere around here."

"Thank you, Corporal. That's all, out."

Colonel Forrest hands the headset back and mumbles 'When you care to send the very best!'

"Sir?"

"One of the Air Force's new toys went down near perimeter gate four. It's shattered into very expensive pieces and on fire. The way I see it, the megaton-size Hallmark card it was delivering is either still inside cooking like a Thanksgiving Turkey, turned out to be a dud, or, more likely, the DE had a light in-flight snack before it disappeared."

Stunned by what he'd just heard, Lieutenant Lopez shouts, "IT ATE A NUKE?!"

"Since there's no sign of the bomb's parachute, I'd bet my next paycheck on it. I don't know if I should say thanks, or hope it gets indigestion!"

"But what if you're wrong, sir? If the bomb is still outside, can it go off?"

"Not a chance. Those things are jammed front-to-back with redundant fail-safes. A bomb in the wreckage might cook-off from the heat, but that's just normal high explosives. The army corps of engineers will spend years decontaminating the area, but that's it. If it's buried nose-first nearby, and the casing didn't crack, an explosive ordinance disposal team can deal with it.

"It's not like the pilot is a foreign enemy, sir. Can't I just ask him what happened?"

Don't bother, Lopez. He won't talk to anyone but his handlers. And that can be anything from a deep-black non-existent department of the Pentagon, to the basement of the Central Intelligence Agency. Piss either of those off and you'll wish you were never born."

"So what's next, Colonel?"

"Someone should've noticed their firecracker didn't go off by now. They're either gonna airmail another care package, or contact us for an up ..."

"Sir!"

What's up, sergeant?"

"Corporal Wallace called from internal security, sir. The phone line in your office is working."

Colonel Forrest raises his right hand. Slowly, he retracts each digit as he counts backwards, "Five ... four ... three ... two ..."

"It's Wallace again. Your phone is ringing."

"I'd better answer that. Sergeant Patterson!

"Sir?"

"Hang a sign ... wait! Hang a sign, jam both doors, pile a bunch of furniture in front of them, and post this entire level off limits for the duration. It's a death trap in there right now."

"Do you mean a death trap for Yancy, Colonel?"

"Exactly, his father owes me a big favor. I won't collect if he goes in there."

"You can count on me, sir."

"And I've got something for you, too. Here are the keys to my car. Fill the tank and bring it to the front doors. We're going on a little road trip after I finish this phone call.

"Where we headed, sir?"

"What did Telly say? Right ... south-east ... oh!" Colonel Forrest looks down at the small damp spot growing beneath his shirt pocket. "And swing by my quarters and grab me a clean shirt."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, I'm going to need a bait box, and some grapes, for my little friend, too."

"We're taking the mouse with us? What for, sir?"

"What else, Lieutenant? Bait."

With sunrise only three hours away, Colonel Forrest jumps into the front passenger seat of his car and places a wide briefcase between his feet. Looking uncomfortable without the driver's wheel within his hands, he taps the dashboard and near-shouts, "Let's go!"

Bouncing over fallen and heavily mangled iron gates that once sealed the compound, Lopez turns towards an access road leading to a smaller security fence and gate. This gate too has been breached; both sides torn off their hinges, and laying in pieces to either side of an unmanned guard shack only a road's width from still-burning airplane wreckage, "Where to, sir."

Reaching into the small briefcase, he extracts a single sheet of paper, "Right there. I printed out the route."

Only seconds from pointing out the obvious, that punching the address into a GPS would've been quicker, Lopez remembers whose car he's driving. Not only were such devices were nothing short of science fiction when the Colonel's mint-condition 1969 Ford Mustang 428 Cobra Jet convertible came off the assembly line, any mechanical device giving him orders would be signing its own death warrant, "That's not far, sir. We should be there in about three hours ... maybe three and a half."

"Good. You keep an eye on the road. I'll navigate."

"How did the phone call go?"

"They didn't believe me."

"Didn't believe what, sir?"

"You name it! The consensus back there is bouncing between two extremes. We've either been compromised by brain-eating outer-space aliens that stole our bodies and took over, or that Russian spies, in the guise of a fact-finding team, released a DE as payback for what that Chaotic did to them.

When I reported that all the DE's, except for one, had suddenly disappeared they went nuts. And when I described how the last one had changed from something human-looking, into a huge silver Christmas tree angel ornament, my credibility went straight down the toilet!

Towards the end, when I gave them a breakdown on events from the moment it almost took down the building, to when it flew away with their nuke in its belly, they threatened to court-martial the lot of us for drinking on duty!"

"And they still allowed us go hunting for it ... which is what I assume we're doing now."

"No. I ... am hunting it. If this trip goes SNAFU six-ways-to-Sunday, you are to say I ordered you to accompany me. Is that clear, Lieutenant? But to answer your question, I was instructed to seal Building Three and to shoot anyone trying to leave before a medical team arrived."

"Shouldn't we have done that, sir?"

"Tell me, how do you think they'll check us for possibly harboring alien parasites in our skulls? I'm guessing it's a lot like how a dog is screened for rabies after biting someone. Personally, I'd rather not have my brain scooped out and spread on a microscope slide. But if you insist, we can go back ... LEFT TURN AT THE NEXT FORK IN THE ROAD! AND STOP MASHING THE GEARS!"

Whispering under his breath, 'This is going to long drive!', Lieutenant Lopez turns the wheel.

"STOP . . . we're here!"

After one hundred and eighty-three miles of endless alfalfa, corn, and soybean fields, and countless towns too small to stable a single horse, Lieutenant Lopez parks onto the the shoulder of a rough country road only minutes after sunrise. Looking beyond a tattered barbed wire fence, and seeing nothing but even more crops spreading out towards the horizon, he turns off the engine, "Are you sure we're in the right place, sir? There's nothing here."

"Look down at the fence ... where the weeds aren't growing well."

"Gravel … there's a road here?"

"About twenty years ago there was. Here, look at these pictures."

Colonel Forrest hands over a small stack of black and white photographs, and several time-bleached color aerial photographs of a small town and surrounding farm land.

"Oh, I see it. There used to be two farmhouse driveways between these two roads."

There are three. The other one is under that fallen tree we passed down the road.

The driveway you're looking at once belonged to a guy named Frank Potter. He was John Becker's next door neighbor. Potter's property is where Becker died before the DE left to consume his family, and where a recovery team finally captured the DE. They were too late to save anyone."

"So do we go outside and poke around?"

"It's all gone. There's nothing to see. After spreading around the usual 'mass-murder slash suicide by a crazy pyromaniac neighbor' cover story, state police bulldozers dug up any disturbed ground nearby purportedly looking for more bodies. In reality, they were government agents searching for buried DE's. Fortunately, for them, they never found any."

"And you know this how, Colonel?"

Colonel Forrest taps the briefcase with the side of a shoe, "It all here in these folders."

"You took classified military files out of Building Three!?"

"What's the worst that can happen? Demote me to private and shoot me? Which they'll probably do anyway if my idea doesn't pan out? Provided, of course, the DE doesn't get big enough to become ... THE MONSTER THAT ATE WASHINGTON, DC! In which case I doubt the Pentagon will much care about little old me."

"EAT WHAT!?"

"Relax, Lopez. With any luck it'll only eat the part of Pittsburgh where my ex-wife lives."

"Ha ha, sir! Very funny!"

"Thanks, I'm happy I amuse you ... seriously, I wish it'd eat her."

"If there's nothing here, why did we stop?"

"Remember that fallen tree?"

"Vaguely, I do remember having to swerve to get around it. It is kinda stupid to cut down a tree and just leave it lying there so close to the road."

"Have you ever taken a tree down, Lopez?"

"Many times, I'm pretty handy with a chainsaw. Landscaping is my main job when I visit my parent's farm while on leave."

"Since you're the expert, do you often cut down a tree to harvest the stump? There's a huge crater where the tree came straight down, but no sign of what was holding it up."

"The DE landed here!?"

"And left finding no more than you would have. Only two more places left to check." Colonel Forrest jabs a finger tip into the aerial photograph Lieutenant Lopez is holding, "Let's go! We don't have much time."

Within seconds the engine is restarted and the car pulls into the road. Checking the rear-view mirror for unlikely traffic, he catches Colonel Forrest gazing out of the rear window, "Do you think we're being followed, sir?"

"Not without these files. Getting authorization to access our server will take a couple hours, and a couple more to bring back the backup memory blades from the Point Oscar bunker."

"Why? If all these files are in Building Three's server already, why would they need the backups?"

"Oh! Right! I forgot to tell you! There was an accident. The server experienced a major crash. Don't quote me, but I believe a hammer was involved."

Stunned, Lieutenant Lopez mumbles, 'they're gonna lock me up in Leavenworth for twenty years!' just loud enough be overheard.

"That's why I like about you, Lopez ... THAT POSITIVE ATTITUDE! Take the next right."

Slamming the door behind him, Lieutenant Lopez sits behind the driver's wheel and turns on the engine. Without looking up from the open cardboard box in his lap, Colonel Forrest asks, "What did you find out?"

Before replying, Lieutenant Lopez spins the wheel and quickly exits a partially-filled parking lot back onto the main road, "This was the right church, alright. It was rebuilt and expanded after a small fire eleven years ago. That's why it looks different from the photos, sir."

"I saw a crowd milling around just before you returned. Are they having services now?"

"Not anymore. The chapel was all set for a funeral; casket, pastor, a couple deacons, candles, and everything else you'd expect. The front doors opened just as I arrived to take a look around, and I was only a few people behind the first parishioner who entered; an elderly lady who must've gotten there early to get a pew closer to the altar. Since I wasn't the only one in some kind of military uniform no one paid any attention to me.

My original plan was to make a quick circle around the room and leave. That is, before the old lady locked eyes with someone already sitting in the front row. She started screaming her lungs out and fainted. That's when I decided to blend in with the crowd leaving before the local sheriff, and an ambulance, showed up."

"For lack of a better word, was it ... him?"

"He was gone before I could see his face. But unless you know something else able to melt through two pews, and leave a hula hoop size hole in a door without making a sound, I'd say yes. There are far too many witnesses to keep this out of the news, Colonel."

"I've seen worse. A well-placed cover story, and a lot of cash 'donated' to the town's mayor for public charity, will make this incident vanish like just another ghost story. If not, something a lot more drastic is always a final option."

"They wouldn't!"

"If the only other choice is a country-wide mass panic, they would. Trust me, I've seen it happen."

"You ... you ... didn't!?"

"No. Let's just say it wasn't my job, and leave it at that. Okay?"

Lieutenant Lopez reaches into his pocket and hands over a small partially-melted brass plaque, "You might want to see this, sir. I picked it up on my way out."

Colonel Forrest turns it around until he can read the inscription, 'This pew donated by the family of the late Pastor Joseph Gabriel, and dedicated to the memory of John, Donna, Linda, and Susan Becker. May they find peace in HIS loving embrace for all eternity.'

"What's next, sir? It won't be long before telephone conversations about the church zero the NSA in on the DE's general location. And it's not like your car doesn't stand out like a flame-red parade float."

"Where we're going isn't that far. Take us to the place I circled."

Colonel Forrest removes the last remaining aerial photo from a folder, and tosses it onto the dashboard in front of Lieutenant Lopez.

"A cemetery? Why?"

"It's time to give our condolences to a dead man."

"We're here, sir."

"Over there, park out of sight behind that backhoe."

Without an enclosing brick or cement wall, around twenty acres of well-tendered grass stretch out before them. Except for a recently dug empty grave, and the funeral-home tent raised to shelter folding chair seated mourners from the heat of a rising early-morning Sun, there's nothing blocking their view of a single figure standing motionlessly on the far side of the cemetery.

"No doubt about it! That's him!"

"Are you sure, Colonel? That's quite a distance."

"Take a good look. The Sun is coming up right behind him. Do you see what's missing?"

"I can't say that I do."

"There's no shadow."

"Damn, how could I miss that? What now, sir? Do you want me to go in with you?"

"Yes, but don't get too close. I want you to maintain a good running distance. Here, take it."

Colonel Forrest hands Lieutenant Lopez a sealed envelope.

"What's this?"

"A signed confession absolving you of any responsibility for what I've done. If things ... go badly, or if I you don't hear from me in a couple hours, I want you to take my car somewhere safe and turn yourself in; preferably someplace far away from here."

"Am I in danger, sir?"

"Who knows? I just don't want my car blown up if they decide to drop another nuke. Now grab the briefcase and let's go!"

Rural cemeteries are quite different from their metropolitan counterparts. Instead of gleaming marble mausoleums, and elaborately carved gravestones, crafted to impress rarely visiting fellow city dwellers with a lavish display of transient wealth or family influence; far simpler stones proclaiming heartfelt affection is the general rule.

Rural cemeteries are intended for quiet reflection; a place where cherished memories are rejuvenated. And the passage of time is measured not by a single individual's accomplishments in life, but by the generations of family and friends they rest in peace among.

John Becker is not at peace.

Only steps away from weathered tombstones bearing the names of his parents, and older generations going back far into the past, he repeatedly reads less timeworn grave markers inscribed with those of his wife, children ... and his own.

[Lifeforms approaching / collect? / assimilate? / integrate? / Command]

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but could I have a moment of your time?"

To say Becker spun around in surprise, and anger, to confront the unknown speaker would be a gross misinterpretation of what actually happened next. On a purely emotional level, he had every right to feel great hostility towards anyone possibly responsible for his current state, and for the mistreatment he'd suffered since ... awakening ... inside a metal box.

So it's perfectly understandable that he could be driven by deep seething resentment, and justifiable ire, to inflict great harm on those who'd injured him.

The rage never comes.

Intellectually, when closely examined, every thought, emotion, and desire he'd experienced since being attacked in Potter's milking shed felt both muted and unreal. More akin to an actor losing themselves within the life story of a character they've played for far too long.

Physically, he doesn't actually turn at all. From one immeasurable moment to the next, as if his very existence is nothing more than a single slide in a projector, he's no longer looking at his empty grave, but directly facing someone he'd meet once before.

[collect? / assimilate? / integrate? / Command]

'YES! YES! YES! DO ANYTHING YOU WANT!'

Not really knowing what his approval will entail, Becker's hands clinch tightly, and his arms raise straight up of their own accord as if preparing to deliver a massive blow ... 'STOP!'

To Becker's surprise, the uniformed army officer isn't retreating. Instead, the man lifts his right arm until a small cardboard box is clearly visible within his grasp, "I brought someone to see you. Someone you left behind."

Once more in control, Becker lowers both arms and stretches his cupped palms outwards. He remains totally still as Colonel Forrest takes two steps closer, and places the open box gently into his hands, "It was a long drive. He just finished another grape."

With his head bowed, Becker peeks inside and smiles. The mouse is sleeping comfortably.

[collect? / assimilate? / integrate? / Command]

'No.'

"I won't lie. I have no idea why this happened to you. Or even what you are. But, if you let me, I will tell everything I know from the very beginning ... LOPEZ!"

From three or four yards away, and having instinctively placed four or five tombstones between himself and danger, Lieutenant Lopez replies, "SIR!?"

"Drop the briefcase and go back to the car. Keep in mind what I told you ... understood?"

His feet already moving, Lieutenant Lopez replies, "YES, SIR!" and increases his pace even more.

Colonel Forrest retrieves the briefcase and unlocks it. One by one, he removes a half-dozen bulging bright-red plastic folders, and bends down to arrange them by date across the cement slab covering a nearby grave. Lifting and opening the oldest, he begins a quick and precise summary of its top secret contents.

Nearly an hour has gone by since Lieutenant Lopez climbed back into Colonel Forrest's car. The adrenaline roller-coaster he's been experiencing since this mess began is close to jumping the tracks. With little to distract his racing mind, he turns to the dashboard's antiquated AM radio / 8-track player for something to pass the time.

The radio is a total bust. Far from any sizable city, there's nothing but stock market livestock and grain prices quotes, and country western songs that were old before he was born. The 8-track is even worse. After several minutes of intense searching between, under, and behind the front seats, only two dusty cartridges of Elvis Presley's greatest hits are to be found.

A fan of Grunge since high school, he'd rather the DE ate him than listen to either one.

Mumbling, "Damn those guys are slow! I heard that chopper fifteen minutes ago. Did they take the scenic route?"

Turning his head towards the open driver's side window, in hopes of seeing Colonel Forrest on his way back, he finds the muzzle of an M-16 pointing straight at his nose.

"DON"T FUCKING MOVE!"

"What are ... you ... doing here, Telly? I thought they'd send Patterson after us."

"I said ... DON'T FUCKING ... CRAP! JUST GIMME THE BRIEFCASE!"

"Is that it? Not how ya' doing? Why are you still alive?"

"WHERE ... IS ... IT!? DON'T MAKE ME GET ROUGH!"

"Get rough? You wanna see ... rough!?" Lieutenant Lopez shows both 8-track cartridges to Corporal Telly, "If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm gonna play Blue Suede Shoes on the barrack's PA system until you ears freakin' bleed!"

Corporal Telly lowers his rifle and steps back from the car. Looking over the rooftop, he waves at two other soldiers aiming their weapons from behind the cover of the backhoe, "Stand down! It's just Lieutenant Lopez."

Neither one does. One, aiming a M249 light machine gun at Lopez's skull through the front passenger window yells, "Like crap I will, Telly! I'm not letting any of those things eat my brain!"

"I said ... STAND DOWN! Or I'm gonna tell Patterson yous guys can't follow a simple freakin' order! And, for the record Samuel, I've seen the magazines you've got stashed inside your footlocker. Any alien roach snackin' on your brain is gonna die from food poisoning! And that goes double for you, Edwards!"

Both soldiers mumble something unintelligible, and drop out of sight behind the backhoe.

After tossing the music cartridges onto the dashboard, Lieutenant Lopez asks, "What's going on, Corporal?"

"About what you'd expect, sir. With the last of the command staff gone, namely you and Colonel Forrest, the LDDS was left holding the bag. As the highest ranking noncom in the chain of command, Sergeant Patterson took over and sealed the place up tight ... that is, if you don't count that huge hole in the vault room.

Except for lab coats asking weird questions on the Colonel's phone, it stayed quiet until around oh five thirty. That's when a bunch of M113A3 armored personnel carriers, and a whole shitload of AH-64 Apache helicopters, showed up from the Carlisle Army Garrison. They threatened to turn Building Three into gravel if we stuck our noses outside without permission, and started laying down enough concertina wire to reach Miami."

"Someone actually followed a forty-year-old containment protocol manual!?"

"I know, shocked the shit out everyone; any idea why you didn't … sir?"

"Obeying direct orders and I've got a signed letter from Colonel Forrest to prove it."

"You wanna talk about direct orders, Lieutenant? How's this? We're under orders to stuff what's left of you into a body bag if you refuse to hand over the briefcase. Or, and here's the good part, if you're acting outer spacey. What the heck is ... outer spacey ... suppose to mean anyhow?"

"Who are ... we?"

"Edwards, Samuel, and me ... and a couple Marine pilots wearing see-through plastic bio-hazard suits in the US-60A Black Hawk that brought us here. They're parked about a half-mile over yonder behind that huge ass barn. We're to bring back the briefcase, with, or without, both of you or else. Where ... is ... Colonel Forrest by the way?"

"Over there, at the other side of the cemetery. Doing officer stuff; like trying to convince the DE not to destroy the world."

"IT'S HERE!?"

"Why are you acting so surprised? Weren't you sent to check on it, too?"

"Hell and freakin' no! Like I said ... grab the briefcase or go back. And, if it's not too much trouble, bring both of you back breathin'. Otherwise, not-breathin' is just as good."

If you weren't following the DE, how did you find us?"

"Don't you know the Colonel's car is like Big Foot? Everywhere it goes, day or night, teenagers with muscle car hard-ons posts photos and comments about it on the internet; and every Barney Fife with a squad car radio hopes to balance their small town's budget if it does the speed limit plus a hundred. Next time you wanna drive around all quiet-like, take that junk pile of yours ah ... sir."

"I'll have you know my car is a classic too, Telly!"

"A seven year old rice-burner Hyundai Excel is many things, Lieutenant, but a classic ain't one of them."

"And, of course ... the Colonel has no idea 'cause he doesn't go online."

"That sounds about right. And few cops are gonna ticket a full-bird colonel in uniform anyway."

"So, what happens now?"

"I'm kinda stuck, Lieutenant. Look up. See that little contrail? If I don't return with that briefcase soon, those guys in the Black Bird are gonna call that pilot down to say hello. Personally, I'd rather not be on the receivin' end of a napalm shampoo."

"Sorry, I'm under orders to take care of the car. So, when are you three leaving to get it?"

It bears repeating ... cemeteries are places of quiet reflection. Where the wholesome comforting sounds of Nature hold sway, and the sobs of grieving family members and friends rarely rise above a muffled whisper . . . usually. Three loud full-throated groans, one in front of the Lieutenant, and two nearby behind a bright green backhoe, almost reach two figures standing face to face in the distance.

After almost two hours of non-stop talking, Colonel Forrest deeply regrets not bringing along some water. Fortunately, there are only a few pages left:

Federal authorities were contacted in regards to a possible crime scene and kidnapping involving multiple persons on April 12th, 1990. Local police of Beaver, an unincorporated community in Clallam County, Washington State on April 11th, had called for assistance subsequent to their investigation of wild gunfire reports coming from a nearby cottage on the Northern shore of Lake Pleasant.

Two police cruisers dispatched from the town of Forks arrived shortly before midnight. When responding officers entered the open front door, they discovered it to be vacant. There was no sign of the two adults, and their two young children, who had moved into the rented cottage only hours earlier that afternoon.

They discovered an empty semi-automatic hunting rifle outside the front door, and almost every wall pockmarked with bullet holes. Nothing else seemed to be missing or damaged, and several still-packed suitcases, along with a cardboard boxes filled groceries and toys, were found in the center of the living room.

Nearby hospitals reported no gunshot victims visiting their emergency rooms, and a forensic team sent from the state capital, Olympia, the next morning detected no blood splatter or evidence of tampering inside the cottage. However, they did recover several small melted metal fragments of a California license plate registered to the missing adults inside the open garage.

Their identities confirmed by fingerprint evidence, all relevant law enforcement agencies have been contacted. If they are located, and not evaluated to be the innocent victims of assault and kidnapping, the couple will be changed with destruction of private property, child endangerment, the discharge of a weapon in a residential area, and cruelty to animals.

Within a few feet of the license plate fragments, the partial remains of a large male German Sheppard belonging to the family were recovered. It had been bisected while alive by means unknown. The head and both front legs of the animal were never found. Nothing else of note was logged into evidence, and the missing family's relatives and friends claim no contact since the incident.

Subsequent examination of the site by Building Three personnel determined all evidence to be consistent with a DNA Disruptive Entity of the Non-Chaotic type. All efforts to discover the DE's current whereabouts have proven inconclusive. As of this date, monitoring personnel operating under the guise of retired homeowners remain on-site.

Colonel Forrest returns the pages to the appropriate folder, and drops it back into the open briefcase with all the rest. Coughing lightly to clear his throat, he turns and stares directly at an alien entity hiding behind the image of a man it had murdered, "That's it. Everything there is to know. From the first time the activities of a DE ... an emissary ... were officially recognized until today.

And considering just how many strange disappearances occur in this country every year, and how long DE's have been theorized to have been active on Earth, what I've presented is likely a grossly inadequate count of the death and destruction ... things ... like you have caused in my lifetime, let alone far back into recorded history and beyond. Do you understand what I've told you?"

Clearly aware of the multiple personality nature of the entity he's trying to communicate with, Colonel Forrest isn't surprised in the slightest when, with a few seconds pause between, it nods twice.

"Very well, now let me explain my current situation. I have no authority to demand anything of you. Nor do I possess any means to force your compliance. But I can't stress this enough, normal DE's, whether Chaotic or not, are a threat powerful countries around the world will not tolerate.

For this reason, we ... I ... have done things I'm not proud of. Yet, I did them, repeatedly and to the best of my abilities, because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. The leadership of this country ... and people like me, who've vowed to protect it ... had just begun to divulge what we know about the existence of DE's when ah ... you appeared.

It was bad enough when DE's ... emissaries ... were nothing more than mindless monsters that we had to hunt down and contain to protect ourselves. Now it's immeasurably worse. Why one of you chose to manifest sentience now, and exhibit this specific human's personality and memories, is of little importance.

You've already experienced what lengths my superiors will go to defend this nation. If proof of your existence and location is exposed ... as a human-consuming alien with an unknown agenda that can shrug off a nuclear weapon, and possibly able to communicate with more of your kind ... my country's enemies, and even our friends, will undoubtedly not hesitate to attack with far stronger weapons hoping to overwhelm you. And we will be forced to respond.

Will you return with me before it's too late?"

Thinking 'Tough crowd!, Colonel Forrest stares several minutes at the utterly still figure only a few paces away, and finishes his examination with another thought, 'I should've become an auto mechanic like Pop wanted!'

Without the slightest hesitation, he takes two steps and closes the gap between them, "You ... at least one of you ... asked me a question a short time ago. If you'd let me, I would like to answer it now. I do love life more than death. I always have, and it's the reason I put on this uniform every day and would gladly lay down my life for those I've sworn to protect.

I ask again ... will you return with me before it's too late?"

Colonel Forrest lifts his right arm and extends his open hand.

A work-hardened hand, feeling neither warm nor cold, or of anything else, grasps his firmly and gives it a friendly shake.

Sticking his head just high enough above the backhoe's loader bucket to be seen, Corporal Samuel yells, "TELLY! THE COLONEL'S COMING BACK! AND THE DE'S WITH HIM!" and drops out of sight again.

In no particular hurry, Colonel Forrest approaches the car and guides the DE into the passenger seat. Turning around, he tosses the briefcase into Telly's hands, "Here! Take this back to my office. And tell the incompetent idiots piloting that thing this isn't some backwater war zone. How often do you think helicopters the size of a bus fly around here?"

Lieutenant Lopez chimes in, "I already told him that, sir."

"Good. Half the county is probably wondering what's going on. Why are you here anyway, Telly?"

"There's two more behind the backhoe, Colonel."

"I'm not in the mood to play hide n' seek! EVERYBODY . . . FRONT AND CENTER!"

Giving real world reality to the humorous phrase, 'dragging their feet', Corporals Edwards and Samuel slowly near-stumble around the backhoe. Only moments later they stop, looking almost embarrassed to have weapons in their hands, in front of their frowning commanding officer, "What's all the hardware for?"

The only reply he receives is a duo of mumbled ahh's and oohs, and desperate glances in Corporal Telly's direction, "Spit it out! I don't have all damned day. LOPEZ!"

"They're under orders to bring back your briefcase, sir. And there are a couple body bags with our names on them in the copter if we raise a fuss about handing it over ... or refuse to return with them."

After a moment of silent thought, Colonel Forrest looks down at the two-way radio and coil wired microphone clipped to Corporal Telly's vest, "That's it then. Our joyride is over. Pass me that microphone, please."

Almost yanking Corporal Yancy off his feet, Colonel Forrest pulls forcefully on the microphone handed to him and shouts, "THIS IS COLONEL FORREST, SIX FOR IMMEDIATE EVAC!"

An equally loud voice replies, "WHERE'S CORPORAL TELLY AND HIS SQUAD!?

"They're right here ... pointing weapons at us. Who are you? And are you coming to pick us up or what?"

"This is Captain Indaco. What do you mean six?

Well, there's Corporals Telly, Edwards, and Samuel. And then there's Lieutenant Lopez and me."

Sounding puzzled, the voice on the radio asks, "That's only five. Who else is with you?"

"Sorry, Captain Indaco ... and whatever other color of the rainbow is sitting beside you ... I forgot to mention the DE is right here. If you like, we'll all climb aboard your pretty little whirlybird like a big happy family for the trip back to Building Three. How's that sound?"

After nearly a minute of static-filled silence, "What do you propose, Colonel?"

"It's simple. I'm sending Telly back with the briefcase and keeping his radio. He's also going to have the map I used to get here, and it's already marked with my return route. You should have more than enough time to order the highway patrol out of my way before I get off these rural roads. Once I hit solid concrete, you have my word I'll have my hungry little friend back home in no time."

"What guarantee do we have you won't break that word, Colonel?"

Colonel Forrest looks almost straight up before replying, "None really. But go ahead and drop whatever that fighter is hauling around up there. You might get lucky. Heaven knows a nuke wasn't enough to tick it off."

After several more minutes of static-filled silence, "Agreed. We'll give you the go-ahead when Corporal Telly and his men return … OUT!"

Mumbling under his breath in white-hot rage …"Damn spooks can even look you in the eyes when they order someone else to shove in the knife! … Colonel Forrest tears the radio off Telly's vest without bothering to unbuckle the straps. Almost crushing the plastic case in his grasp, he stares straight into the corporal's pale face, "Don't ... you ... have ... someplace ... else ... to ... be?"

Lieutenant Lopez hands Corporal Telly the map and leans closer to whisper, "This is where you say, 'Yes sir' and leave … Quickly. Don't forget the briefcase."

After shouting, "YES SIR! LET'S GO GUYS!" Telly salutes and races away with his fellow soldiers close behind.

Knowing full well the value of discretion, Lopez backs away silently several steps before turning around and taking hold of the car's driver-side door latch. The instant he hears the lock mechanism click open, and receives the reaction he was expecting, "I'm driving."

"Of course sir, I didn't want to 'disturb' our guest by going in on that side."

Lieutenant Lopez tilts the driver's backrest forward, and with more than a little effort, eventually manages to squeeze his six foot two height into a cramped rear seating space barely suitable for a passenger over five foot anything.

No sooner than they're both seated, Colonel Forrest lifts the radio, "Here, take it."

Hunched over and doing his best to avoid touching the DE, Lopez grabs the radio and sets it down on the empty seat beside him, "Don't you want to answer when he calls?"

"You do it. That so-called Captain Indaco is no more an army officer than Yancy! Screw 'im!"

Puzzled by absolute certainty in his commanding officer's tone, Lieutenant Lopez asks, "How are you so sure, sir?"

"After a few years, I eventually picked up a fair amount of my ex-wife's lingo ... at least when she wasn't screaming about stuff involving lawyers and alimony payments. Indaco is Italian for the color purple. Assholes like him just love their bloody mind games!"

"Oh. So he's ...?"

"Yeah, that's right. And probably spy-school bunk mates with that prick Hartman."

"Do you think they're up to something, sir?"

"Don't worry about it. If they were going to do something stupid, it would've happened already. Covering that many asses takes time."

Looking for something, anything, to distract his worried mind, Lieutenant Lopez points at the occupied front passenger seat and asks, "Ah ... how did the meeting go?"

"There are still some major points to hash out, but I think I've come up with the bare bones of an accommodation that'll make everyone happy ... or, at the very least, keep the planet from getting blown out of its orbit. I'll clue you in later, that is, if they don't put us in front of a firing squad first."

Twenty minutes later the shrill roar of helicopter blades revving up echoes between tombstones, and the radio crackles to life, "PROCEED! DO NOT DEVIATE FROM INDICATED ROUTE, OR STOP WITHOUT PERMISSION! WE'LL BE FOLLOWING . . . OUT!"

Colonel Forrest starts the engine and drives carefully around the parked backhoe. Once satisfied his car is safely clear of the large machine, he rolls onto the gravel road and picks up speed.

Looking down at the silent radio, Lieutenant Lopez comments, "Someone's having a bad day."

"I can't say that I blame him. There's no telling what you might hear when you eavesdrop on people. ISN'T THAT RIGHT, CAPTAIN IN ... DA ... CO!"

Without saying a word, Lieutenant Lopez picks up the radio and closely examines it.

Seeing what he's doing in the rear-view mirror, Colonel Forrest comments, "If you're looking for an on-off switch, don't bother. It won't work. From how hot it feels, it must've been transmitting since they gave it to Telly."

Lopez drops the radio back onto the vacant seat.

"Is that how you knew . . . The temperature thing?"

"Somewhat, but mostly because I've dealt with enough CIA pinheads to know how their little minds work. When I called for EVAC I faked holding down the microphone switch."

Still miles away, and rapidly increasing in altitude, a heavily armed and armored helicopter jerks violently to one side before continuing a somewhat smooth ascent. Without saying a word, the co-pilot is struggling to maintain a neutral expression while his superior at the controls fills the flight cabin with an extensive repertoire of shouted expletives in several languages.

Silence swiftly returns to the cemetery.

Several hours later a slow-moving funeral procession of vehicles arrives. Clad in dark clothing to mark the somber occasion, a crowd of family and friends sits down on waiting chairs to listen as a religious leader recounts the milestones of a lifetime. Who will, if needed, also provide assistance to those who rise afterwards to express their heartbreaking grief, or thankfulness towards the dearly departed for having allowed them to be a part of that life.

Screams of horror aren't a normal part of these events.

The ceremony having come to an end, an elderly woman still unnerved by an inexplicable event at her church, leaves to commune with interred family members before returning to a nearby retirement community. Her shouts attract others who express similar outcries of disgust at an unconscionable act of vandalism.

Four gravestones belonging to a family tragically lost have been horribly defaced. Inscribed inches deep into each marble surface, as if by a single finger, a shaky passionate scrawl demands but one thing ... TAKE MY FAMILY HOME.

Decades later it's the fifteenth of June, 1973.

Winter, spring, summer or fall, it's always the fifteenth of June, 1973 on the Becker farm.

Far behind the protection of sensor-laden electrified fences, and under the constant surveillance of disguised watchtowers, vintage aircraft, and orbiting satellites, family farm routines generations-old proceed with mechanical precision. Rather than let the outside world intrude on this tranquil moment in time, and possibly trigger a catastrophic response, grim-faced armed soldiers from many nations, with their weapons pointed ever outwards, patrol its perimeter knowing any failure in their duties could signify the end of humanity.

The farm they guard is a testament to the genius of bygone metal and woodworking artistry.

For the months it took to complete, highly skilled craftsmen displayed their mastery of tools and building materials from a near-forgotten era. Every building, barn, shed, and animal pen once standing upon this long abandoned farmland is recreated with utmost precision. Countless computer files, private photo albums, defunct newspaper archives, and the fading memories of those living at the time, are carefully collated for critically needed information to correct the smallest imperfection.

No detail, no matter how small, is judged unimportant.

Whether it involves vehicles, farm equipment, phones and labor-saving kitchen devices long outdated, or even clothing bearing the trademarks of defunct manufacturers, all is urgently taken from museum collections and private ownership. When possible they are repaired, or copied in whole when necessary, and only allowed entry when able to pass the closest inspection.

Nothing is left to chance.

The illusion will be maintained.

Not knowing the real purpose of their instruction, the highest acclaimed acting and voice coaches Hollywood has to offer train rooms filled with attentive secret service agents. A handful each year, once deemed ready to move into their assigned farms for months at a time, will provide yet another layer of security within the fence . . . if their every unconscious movement, spoken word, and accent, is unlikely to arouse the interest, and possibly the ire, if judged out of place by a nearby neighbor.

Only the very best are allowed to make actual contact.

Partly selected for advanced training because of their facial and physical resemblance to people long buried, four agents don work-worn coveralls. And, before the crack of dawn, drive onto the Becker farm in rust covered pickup trucks filled with timeworn hand tools. Under the watchful eyes of an attentive observer sitting silently upon his porch, they go about their daily tasks chatting enthusiastically about baseball heroes, or whistling tunes, popular long before the birth of their parents.

Entering barns and livestock pens in pairs, they attend to the needs of all the animals. Each is given a thorough examination, fed, and guided with upmost care afterwards into the appropriate enclosure. If necessary, because of injury, age, or overall declining health, ol' Doc Julius Morton, the latest agent, and fully qualified veterinarian to carry that name, takes charge.

Under his expert guidance, the animal in question is carefully transported by truck, enclosed van, or trailer, to a military-run animal hospital located far from the Becker Farm. There it will receive the best care modern veterinary science can provide, and, when necessary, gently euthanized. The closest matching animal, from the large numbers raised on nearby farms for this sole purpose, will take its place at the start of the next day.

Other agents attend to the never-ending tasks that keep a farm, any farm, from falling apart.

Building are repaired and painted. Fence posts replaced, straightened and restrung with barbed wire. Vehicles serviced, fields cleared, crops harvested, pens mucked out, feed troughs scrubbed, and, inevitably, animals chased after when they escape and race around in circles seemingly for the fun of it.

At the end of a long day of backbreaking manual labor, the Sun drops beneath the horizon and three of the 'workers' pile back into their vehicles. Only one, the farm foreman, walks towards the farmhouse in the fading twilight with a wax-paper covered parcel in his hands.

After tipping his tattered felt cowboy hat respectfully, he lays three bundles of flowers upon the first step of the porch stoop; along with a paper bag containing several ounces of rodent feed pellets, a covered glass bowl filled with fresh water ... and a single grape. The workday now officially done, he tips his hat once more and joins his co-workers until they return tomorrow.

The fifteenth of June, 1973.

The Sun has fully set.

As it does every night, the house fills with ghosts.

In a structure John Becker has not entered since its reconstruction, incandescent bulbs in numerous ceiling, wall, and tabletop fixtures turn on filling ever room with warm yellow light, and the sounds of life comes from every direction.

In the living room ... a large television tube in the center of a furniture-size wooden cabinet glows brightly. As it does every night, canned studio laughter echoes from every wall as Lucille Ball, and her husband, Ricky Ricardo, trade goodhearted comic banter between each other.

In his daughter's bedrooms ... as if in competition with each other, a small portable radio plays 'You Light Up My Life' by Debby Boone in one, as 'How Deep Is Your Love' by the Bee Gees wafts softly from another.

No room is more active than the kitchen.

From miniature speakers hidden behind cabinets and baseboards, the metallic and ceramic clatter of pots and plates fills the air with the wholesome sounds of an evening meal being prepared with great culinary skill ... and love.

Outside, somewhere between the pig pen and a parked tractor, a large non-existent mastiff growls, barks, and howls at an equally non-existent moon.

All is well on the Becker farmstead.

None of it is real.

It's time.

Rising from his chair, the owner of this farm exits the porch. Carefully bending over, he opens the paper bag with his left hand, and distributes its contents in a neat line across the bottom step. A moment later, a mouse appears in the center of his empty right palm and jumps off. After sniffing the food and water, it pounces upon the grape before leaving to commune with its kind for the night.

There's no doubt it will return, as it has for over a half-century. As an integral part of the entity to which it owes its vastly extended existence, there is nothing on Earth it must fear.

Leaving the tiny animal to enjoy its evening repast, John Becker gathers the flower bundles and walks towards the rear of the house.

A short distance from the back porch, and illuminated by a pair of bright spotlights, four white marble tombstones stand in an equally straight line. There are no dates, no heartfelt sentiments or regrets carved into their smooth surfaces. Just a single plainly carved name.

With nothing but lip movements to silently greet them, he replaces yesterday's wilted White Snapdragons from the urn atop Linda's grave, Lilies from Susan's, and finally, after a moment of hesitation, Red roses stand tall above the empty final resting place of his wife, Donna.

Mouthing the same words as every night, "We will be together soon, I promise." he opens all facets of his consciousness to the voices currently demanding his immediate attention.

[Status report / Warning / Mass single-species deployment of weaponry detected]

[Observation / Imminent planetary mass extinction event in progress]

Observation / Odds of planetary single-species sapient survival / Nil]

[Status report / Planetary biota cataloging complete. Updates proceeding]

[Status report / Realignment of planetary biota selected /Command]

Looking up at the twinkling stars above his family's graves, John Becker silently stretches out his arms begging for humanity's deliverance 'SAVE THEM!' without any thought for his own ... and ceases to exist for a third, and final, time.

His world follows closely behind.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Incomprehensible devices crafted before life first crawled upon dry land, and hidden in their uncountable multitudes deep below the Earth, and far out into the darkest recesses of the solar system, awaken and die in the same moment.

Following an order to ignore programming that specifically forbids their activation upon sentient-inhabited worlds, some still survive long enough to lose control of forces their creators had shackled to make travel between distant galaxies possible ... and to quicken the seeds of life on barren worlds to mere moments.

The laws of physics are inviolable.

But only in ... this ... universe.

Nothing in Nature guaranteed mankind's evolution. With a microscopic shuffling of the cards, something other than a primitive proto-primate could've been placed on the road to sentience or to nothing at all.

Dragged into the maelstrom of inter-universe chaos, the relatively recent story of life on Earth plays out repeatedly in unimaginable ways ... and a wondrous assortment of sentience-capable beings became home to the billions of minds the last dying devices had safeguarded so well.

Epilogue ...

The Earth, it could be said, survived the passage without a scratch.

Coming to grips with bodies inexplicable altered into what can only be described as hyper-evolved animals; along with other creatures that came along for the ride, would take many generations to accomplish. But humans, whether those who directly experienced 'The Great Mix-Up' in person, or their distant descendants, would always remain a stubborn bunch resistant to change.

Sometime later...

Grabbing his shotgun, a farmer jumps out of bed.

"Where are you going, Tom?" asks his wife.

"I thought I heard the barn door slam, dear. I'm gonna check it out."

"Be careful! It could be that bunch of those school kids making trouble again!"

"Don't worry your pretty little head. One shot in the air, and they'll run back to their folks!"

After bending down to kiss her on the check, he storms out of their bedroom after tossing on a heavy jacket and pants. In moments his steel-shod heavy hooves are striding past pens filled with animals his grandparents could never have conceived of in their wildest imaginations.

Both sides of the barn door are ajar, and flickering yellow light is escaping from every seam. Prepared to give misbehaving juveniles of various species the scare of their young lives, he grabs a wrought iron door handle in his four-digit hoof-like hand and stops. Instead of the sounds of children playing out of the vigilant sight of their parents, he hears very familiar laughter . . . his eldest daughter, Mary-Sue.

Turning his heavy head slightly to peer between the doors, he spies two figures dancing in the dim glow of a kerosene lamp within each other arms. Moving in step to the music of a gentle ballad coming from a nearly inaudible radio, their unclothed fur-covered bodies spin with upraised tails in a dance as old as life.

With a smile spread across his equine muzzle, the farmer closes the barn doors silently and returns to his wife knowing all is well with the world.

The end