AWAKE
"How could he be sure he would not land... in the spiral black vortices of that ultimate void of Chaos wherein reigns the mindless daemon-sultan Azathoth?" - H.P. Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House"
Elliot Gate watched intently from Echo 15's observation deck as the unmarked, black aero-shuttle touched down outside, kicking up a whirlwind of red dust that sprayed the Martian landscape. The deck's floor vibrated slightly as the catwalk two stories below extended out to the landing pad and latched to the shuttle with a pneumatic hiss. The catwalk was dotted with skylights, and from his position Gate could see a figure emerge from the hatch of the aero-shuttle. He was a short, balding man draped in dark utilitarian lab clothes. His eyes were hidden behind of a pair of spectacles, which appeared to display holographic messages being relayed to the man from his employer.
Carter was his name.
Gate touched a control panel to his right and a dark screen slid down over the glass wall in front of him, dimming the Martian sunlight. As he walked towards the elevator behind him, Gate's mind raced with a hundred questions and a thousand fears.
Gate was a sturdy man for an astrophysicist. Despite the academic nature of his profession, Gate's body was well toned with muscle and slightly tanned from his outdoors lifestyle back on Earth. When he wasn't working to create new forms of zero-point energy travel or study the physics of black holes from information gathered during the Haloran expedition, he was jogging through the remaining forests and hills of New England. Nothing got to Gate. The first time he saw a bear was on a hunting trip in Vermont. It charged at him, bearing its teeth. He had shot it without breaking a sweat.
But something about Carter did get to him. Something about Carter did make Gate sweat, and he could feel cold perspiration gliding down his brow as the elevator neared the ground floor of Echo 15.
He figured it was the secrecy. Carter belonged to a consortium of sorts. An international cartel of respected scientists, businessmen, and philanthropists who had given patronage to a number of hallmark scientific projects. Carter's group had been responsible for funding the zero-point tech that originally brought humanity to Mars and the rest of the solar system and galaxy at large. They weren't just eccentric billionaires carelessly throwing money at any project that had the word "quantum" attached to it. They were very much the sculptors of human history, and totally reclusive.
Gate had only talked to the group twice, and both times he found himself staring at the blank screen of a Long Range Communicator, hearing nothing but the accented voices of anonymous benefactors. He had never seen any of their faces. And now this man was here. This Carter. Who was he? And what did he represent to the consortium? Gate didn't like it one bit. It was hard to trust men who hid behind masks. Carter was just another mask, one that could walk and talk and ask you how your day was going.
The elevator stopped. Gate shuffled out and into the expansive lobby of Echo 15. Red light streamed in from the shuttered windows, casting a crimson paint over the slick chrome desks and leather chairs that occupied its lobby.
As if on cue, the door leading into the lobby from the catwalk split apart and Carter moved in.
He was even more repulsive now that Gate was eye to eye with him. Carter was squat figure, likely only 5'5'' in height. Since exiting the aero-shuttle he had put on a dark leather trench coat that went down to his knees. His skin was a sickly shade of white and yellow, and gave off the impression that Carter had spent near every moment of his life in the protected environment of an archology or exohabitat. The Martian light gleamed and reflected off his head. His eyes were completely obscured, hidden behind a wall of endless holographic messages from the consortium. The harsh blue light of his spectacles made him seem inhumanly soulless, as if he was just a digital representation of one of Echo 15's AI. The only thing vaguely human about him was the sweat which grotesquely glistened off his pudgy body. It clung to his skin and lab suit like a film of accumulated secrets and struggles. It was a barrier between him and Gate, one that said "I have things I'm keeping from you". Gate didn't trust Carter one bit. Not one bit.
"You must be Dr. Gate, I presume?" said Carter as he extended a misshapen claw from the bulge of his coat and groped for Gate. His voice was nasal and metallic, almost as metallic as the titanium rims of his spectacles.
"Yes, Mr. Carter, that would be me." Gate reluctantly took Carter's hand and then retracted, brushing off the film of sweat on his lab suit.
"It is an honor to meet you, doctor. I am a great admirer of your work." Carter's lips pursed into a cruel, thin smile. His teeth were pearly daggers that gleamed unnaturally. "Your work on the Haloran expedition is simply astounding."
Gate managed a polite chuckle. "Yes well it's not every day you get to talk to somebody who's actually seen a black hole. Do your clients have an interest in that project as well?"
Gate gestured towards the elevator, and Carter stepped ahead of him towards the shaft.
"Well I'm afraid I'm too much acquainted with them to call them my clients. They're more like my people. We're a species, them and I. Our interests match to very acute degrees." Thick as thieves, Gate thought to himself. "But to answer your question yes, they are. We're all keen on following your work."
Gate touched the holopanel and summoned the elevator. The vehicle rumbled up from below them, from the heart of Echo 15.
"I'm glad I have fans," said Gate amusingly. His comment stung. If his suspicions about the consortium were correct, he sure as hell didn't want them as fans.
"Indeed, Dr. Gate, indeed. We will all benefit from your work on the Echo 15 project."
"I hope so, Mr. Carter."
The elevator arrived at the lobby and the two entered. Gate used the holopanel to set the elevator on course for level 10, the bottom-most level of Echo 15 and the location of the project. As the doors closed, Carter moved close to Gate, closer than he'd like. He spoke into his left ear, nearly quiet as a whisper. "I'm very excited to see the project Dr. Gate." His mouth contorted into that uncanny grin again.
"I think you'll see we're putting your investments to good use," Gate replied.
The elevator descended into the dark.
#
Echo 15 was situated one hundred kilometers from the base of Olympus Mons. From the outside, it appeared as a simple rectangular structure, three stories high and equipped with a small landing pad for the colony's aero-shuttles. One would be forgiven for grouping it together with the dozens of other weather monitoring stations and geological survey outposts stationed around the elder Mons. But if one were to peer into the ancient layers of the Martian soil, one would find a complex of mammoth proportions below that unassuming building.
Over six hundred billion credits had been literally sunk into Echo 15's subterranean levels, not a small amount even for the billionaires who ran the consortium. The center of the Echo 15 complex was a ten-story high cylinder, around which an exponential spiral of labs, personnel quarters, recreational facilities, and simulators spun down in an elegant dance of cutting-edge tech. Zero-point engines, particle accelerators, spectroscopy labs, and AI mainframes all worked towards the same goal, the heart of Echo 15.
The thing itself was called Project: Witch-House. It appeared almost like an eldritch, metallic spider of giant proportions, forever hung in a web of tubes and gears that attached to various points in the main cylinder. At the center of the spidery form was a massive ring that pulsated and hummed at a low, insidious level. Five zero-point engines clung to the sides of the ring in a pentagram-like shape, piping a constant flow of quantum energy into the soft, blue glow of the portal.
It was a doorway, after all.
Witch-House began with the discovery of the Gilman project of 1932. The papers Walter Gilman had written regarding the fourth-dimension rewrote the book that his contemporary Einstein had laid out. They were discovered by a grad-student from Miskatonic University while doing a volunteer sweep of Old Arkham before the dilapidated town was bulldozed and merged into the NMS Archology. The papers were promptly brought to the attention of Dr. Gate, who at the time was visiting Miskatonic from MIT on a seminar circuit. Ten years later, and Gilman's discoveries were being presented before the consortium. Elaborate mathematical diagrams that painted a literal portrait of Witch-House were sent to the group's headquarters in Tokyo, and Gate had his funding in six months.
The elevator descended slowly in the underground vault. Carter let out a sharp gasp and once again grinned his wretched smile as the vehicle reached the ground floor. The synthetic voice of Echo 15's AI announced over the elevator's PA that they had arrived at "LEVEL 10: PROJECT WITCH-HOUSE".
"It's even more beautiful than I expected," said Carter. To Gate's horror, he believed he could see evil tears flowing out the bottom of Carter's holographic spectacles, digitizing in their dull blue light. He put a hand on Gate's left shoulder with dark respect.
"It is quite impressive, Mr. Carter. I remember seeing it completed the first time myself. Witch-House is going to revolutionize humanity's ability to traverse the universe."
"Of course, of course," said Carter as he backed out the elevator. He brushed off Gate's philanthropic hopes nonchalantly, and took once again to gazing at the elegant spectacle of Witch-House. Gate's fears appeared to be confirmed. The consortium must have had a much grander agenda than mere scientific advancement. What's a technological singularity compared to corporate profits? Gate really was becoming a cynic.
Was it just profits they were interested in though? Six hundred billion is a significant investment.
Gate shrugged the thought off and joined Carter at the edge of the catwalk, which looped around Witch-House in a appropriate spiral.
Around them, hundreds of engineers and technicians ran to and fro wearing near identical lab suits, all emblazoned with the "E15" arm-patch. Computers buzzed in the metallic hut to Carter's right. That was the mainframe room. A conference room stood abandoned directly across from Carter and Gate on the opposite side of the massive cylinder. Gate had held many logistical meetings in there, using the holographic interface of the room's LRC to make presentations on the progress of Echo 15 and Witch-House. Hovering vehicles which resembled golf carts darted around the perimeter of the cylinder, picking up engineers and cargo to be taken to dozens of incalculable destinations. To their left, a large metallic shack connected to the catwalk and hung over the floor of level 10. Mission control. A holographic display hung over the mainframe room, projecting a countdown outwards. It announced Witch-House would be ready for zero-transversal in t-minus five hours and thirty-eight minutes. A side projector announced the intended destination: a sister facility somewhere in Tokyo, also credited to the consortium. A small leap indeed, but it was the wider application of Witch-House's technology that interested, or rather terrified, Gate.
The two stood there taking it all in for what seemed like an eternity. The seconds on the holographic clock ticked on laboriously. Gate felt he could stay in this moment forever, proud of what he had created, but not scared of the results. He had been having doubts about Witch-House as of late. The universe held secrets and truths that humanity was not ready for, nor could ever face. In astrophysics, a paradox presented itself. The more you learn about the cosmology of the natural world, the less you understood. It was obvious humanity existed in a pocket of familiarity in a universe a thousand fold more alien than the crimson surface of Mars. Perhaps it was best just to speculate and not experiment. Gate had first seen the ghostly face of Oppenheimer in a MIT particle physics course. Oppenheimer's guilt-ridden gaze had haunted his mind since. His infamous quote from the Bhagavad Gita was etched painfully into Gate's memory. "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Except Gate wasn't destroying worlds, he was opening doors to unknown lands, to an unknown fourth-dimension. But what was on the other side may be a destroyer of worlds alright. Strangelets, antimatter, dark energy. No telling what was beyond the soft hum of Witch-House's pulsating door.
Six hundred billion dollars latter, and Gate was still doubting himself.
"Are you ready for this?" asked Gate. Carter wasn't the only target of his question.
"Dr. Gate, you have no idea how ready I am."
#
Lt. Jack Hawley stood erect in the small chapel on level 7 as the military chaplain read off the last words of the Lord's Prayer. The words echoed eerily in the church, drifting through the pews in a strange holy march. Simulated sunlight streamed into the room through faux-stained glass windows depicting the symbols of the various faiths worshipped at Echo 15's chapel. The holy cross of Christianity stood behind the chaplain as he read from a seemingly ancient edition of the Bible. All books seemed ancient now. Printed literature had been largely replaced by holos a few decades ago.
The ceremony was strange for Jack. He had been a nonbeliever his entire life. Most people were these days. Hard to think of anthropocentric cosmogony when the universe was anything but. Yet here he was, accepting the Lord's Prayer from an ordained priest. There were no atheists in foxholes after all.
"…and lead us not us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," finished the chaplain. Jack repeated, his voice quivering with fear. Sweat dripped from his brow and onto the faux-wood floor of the chapel.
"God be with you, my son"
Jack thanked the priest and turned to walk down the aisle. He bowed his head to avoid eye contact with the other faithful of Echo 15 who had come to give their blessing. A female lab assistant in the front row began to break out into sobs and undulations of emotion. Jack thought he could hear some of the male worshippers weeping as well. The scene made Jack feel like he had something to lose, and that made him feel uncomfortable.
The lieutenant had been flying prototype fighters and aero-shuttles for the military for the better half of his life. His career up to this point had been an intoxicating mixture of blood, adrenaline, and stupidity. Jack was a daredevil, and not just the type who climbed the Mons once every ten years either. He had made a life out of routinely and uncaringly putting his ass on a million different lines for his next paycheck. He was only here now because corporate paid a lot better than military.
But something about this latest project had finally broken him. The once exiled emotions of fear and self-preservation flooded back to him in a smothering deluge. The way the universe itself seemed to bend around Witch-House was highly disturbing. There were things on the other side of that doorway that man was not meant to know. Living, squirming things that seemed to breathe cold air down Jack's neck, even now as he coasted down to level 10 in the elevator. It was beyond the lieutenant to explain how he knew such things. At best he chalked it up to primal instinct, a sensation not dissimilar to the way one may break out in goose flesh when an unseen predator lurks by. Jack's inner animal had been kicked into overload, and it could feel the unimaginable embrace of the things on the other side of Witch-House.
Jack put a hand to his brow and shook his head violently, loosening the sensations that were slowly creeping up his spine. The AI's voice came on over the elevator's PA, calm, soothing, synthetic. The doors slid open and Witch-House was in front of him. In that instant, he wished he could become one with the endless ocean of techies that scuttled about the floor of level 10. They could all watch the spectacle of Witch-House from the safety of their observations decks and safety barriers. It would be thrilling, but distant. A live vid, if nothing else. But for Jack, he was going in. He was the star of Echo 15's penultimate light show, and there were no safety harnesses attached. He would go into Witch-House, and either come out in a Tokyo laboratory, being groped and prodded by dozens of doctors and scientists and undergoing contamination, or he would go into the fourth-dimension and… and well maybe it was better to leave well enough alone.
In front of him, Echo 15's project head Dr. Gate – Eliot to Jack - was standing with a man Jack didn't recognize. He disliked him immediately however, especially the sinister gaze – or lack thereof – from his holo-spectacles. If Eliot's grimacing expression was any indication, the feeling was mutual.
"…how ready I am," the second man finished as Jack approached from behind. Eliot caught him out of the corner of his eye and turned his companion around to greet the lieutenant.
"Mr. Carter, this is Lt. Jack Hawley," said Gate as Carter and Jack shook hands. "He's on loan to us from the military. He's widely considered to be the best test pilot in the colonies. I think he'll make us proud."
Gate beamed at Jack, an expression that was a mixture of pride of relief, relief in making contact with another human being other than Carter.
"Honor to meet you, lieutenant. You're a brave man and we'll see that your courage does not go… unrewarded."
"You better believe that Mr., um, Carter," said Jack. "The only reason I'm here is because the check has more than six zeroes in it."
Carter let out a laugh. It was fake and disquieting. Jack tensed, and the sweat continued to pour from his brow.
"Indeed, Lt. Hawley," said Carter.
Jack turned his gaze from Carter. He slightly shrugged his eyebrow, as if to say who's the creep? Gate reciprocated, telling Jack that Carter was here as a liaison from the consortium. Like it or not, Jack had to warm up to him then. The creep was the one actually dangling those zeroes over his head now, after all.
After exchanging a few superficially kind words with Carter, Jack turned to Gate once again, glad to be done with the required formalities.
"Where are we at doc?"
Gate's eyes darted briefly to the holographic clock behind Jack and Carter before replying. "Five hours and thirty minutes. You'll want to report to the prep-squad at t-minus three, Jack. Until then, just enjoy being a big goddamn hero."
Jack let out a laugh. Gate was a good sport, he really was. The two had become close friends throughout the course of their involvement in Witch-House. Just another thing to lose, Jack thought to himself, wincing at the thought. Carter chuckled along with him, making him wince even more.
"I'll follow your advice Eliot. I could sure as shit use a stiff drink right now, but the docs say I've gotta have all the fluids outta my system or something."
"Well I'll tell Tokyo to roll out the scotch," finished Eliot.
"I'll catch up with you later, Lt. Hawley," said Carter as – to Gate's amazement – he removed his spectacles, revealing the beady orbs hidden behind them for the first time. In an instant, Gate regretted every looking into them. If eyes were the windows to the soul, then Carter's opened onto a blank wall. There was nothing in his eyes besides a curious, malicious glare. Gate studied them, carefully scanning their angles and contours. A dark fascination overtook him as he tried to place the inexplicable emotion that existed behind those eyes, deep within Carter's brewing mind. The analysis became a thought, an idea that grew and came to overtake Gate's mind. Carter was an enigma of a man. A web, a maze, a labyrinth of lies and deception, all revealed to Gate in that one glare.
"…business to attend to before launch." Gate realized he had missed the better half of Carter's statement. He got the gist thought. Carter needed to do some snooping around Echo 15 before zero-transversal, no doubt a last-minute check to make sure all those credits were being spent in the right places. Yes, that was definitely it.
Carter shook Jack's hand, exchanged a terse goodbye with Gate, and wandered off into the cacophony of level 10.
"That guy give you the creeps, Eliot? Please say yes so I don't feel like an asshole," exclaimed Jack. Gate nodded silently in reply. His mind was too occupied with Carter's glare to say anything otherwise.
"Well, that's a comforting thought. Anyway, I'm going to split. Lot to do before we activate Witch-House. I'll see ya around Eliot."
Gate gave Eliot an affectionate slap on his shoulder and headed for mission control to begin his first set of pre-transversal diagnostics. As wandered off down the catwalk towards the large, glass structure, it finally dawned upon Gate where he had seen Carter's peculiar glare before.
Back on Earth, when he scoped down that bear in Vermont, he had seen that exact same look in its eyes right before it charged him.
#
The countdown now registered five minutes and seven seconds to transversal. Gate was standing on the upper-most row in mission control, one strong arm leaning on the desk in front of him, the other clutching a piss-poor cup of coffee as if for dear life. The AI came in over the PA system when the countdown reached the five-zero-zero mark, calmly announcing that all non-essential personnel should clear level 10 and that all authorized technicians should assume their positions for transversal.
In front of mission control, below the circular catwalk, Jack Hawley was outfitted in a protective exosuit, hiding his fleshy body behind several layers of nano-fibered titanium. Inside his helmet, his face was completely obscured from sight. A protective layer of reflective gold coated his Plexiglas visor to protect the lieutenant, from… from what? The sun? Yeah right asshole, Gate thought to himself. He was sending Jack, a good friend, into Hell for all he knew. In which case, nano-fibers and Plexiglas wouldn't count for shit.
Gate activated the comm unit on the desk in front of him. A blue and white hologram of Jack's face appeared in front of him. The image was a cartoonish wide angle, enlarged to due to the claustrophobic quarters of his exosuit. Jack's eyes bulged like saucers, leaking sweat and, yes, tears. Pixelated perspiration poured from every pore on Jack's holographic face. Gate squeezed his coffee a bit harder.
"Hey Jack, you doing okay?" asked Gate concernedly.
"Well, I'm more scared than a kid playin' with hisself for the first time, but I'm ready." Jack flinched slightly as a technician administered a hypodermic shot of indeterminate substance into the medical seal on Jack's neck. Gate could hear the whir of gears as brought one of the exosuit's arms up to clutch his neck. "Damn needles, hate the stupid things."
"Old fears, eh?" said Gate as he chuckled. "Forget about the whole fourth-dimension thing right?"
"Screw you asshole," replied Jack.
#
Three minutes and twenty-eight seconds. Jack was positioned on the ramp leading to the shimmering doorway at the center of Witch-House. Gate activated the hologram again, watching silently as Jack mumbled some kind of prayer to himself. The AI's voice came on. Three minutes left to transversal.
#
At two minutes and thirty-nine seconds, Dr. Laurie Goldstein, a scientist working in Echo 15's applied mathematics unit, burst into mission control. She ran with great urgency up the chrome stairs and to Dr. Gate, who stood poised over a hologram of the test pilot she had passed by in the elevator earlier. Her high heels clomped loudly as she stomped over to Gate, her ebony ponytail bouncing back and forth. Heads turned to face her as she ran towards Gate like a charging bull in Pamplona.
"DR. GATE!" she screamed, her Luna colony accent intonating her words heavily. "Dr. Gate! You need to initiate emergency shutdown of Witch-House immediately! The coordinates are off, Lt. Hawley isn't going to land in Tokyo, he's going to-"
Gate turned the hologram off and silenced Goldstein with a raise of his hand. "Hold on, take a breath. Who are you and what's the situation?"
"Dr. Laurie Goldstein, applied mathematics. We came up with the quantum computations to put Hawley in Tokyo when he enters Witch-House, but that isn't where he's going now. Security is trying to enter Witch-House control now, but-"
"Security?!" said Gate, now seriously alarmed. "Who the hell called security?"
"It's that man you brought here today, Carver or something."
"Carter?! What is that bastard doing, Goldstein?"
Goldstein took a breath and flicked her ponytail. "He locked himself in Witch-House control a minute ago. Just came in and knocked my assistant out cold. He had something with him, looked like a pistol. We evacuated and called security, and now he's in there, doing god knows what with the coordinates!"
Behind her, two armed guards came running up. Obviously the good Dr. Goldstein was much faster, even in her high heels.
"As project head," she continued, "you have sole authorization to commence emergency shutdown. So do it!"
Without hesitation, Gate turned from Dr. Goldstein and the guards and took a magnetic keycard from his pocket. He inserted it into a box next to the comm terminal. It sprang open, revealing a glossy red button, with the words "SHUTDOWN" printed in large font across the stand. Gate hit the button, waited. After a few seconds, nothing happened. The shimmering doorway of Witch-House still glowed in front of Jack, who was beginning to panic and charge away down the ramp.
"Goddamn it why isn't this working," said Gate. He turned to the comm officer to his left, shouting at him with passionate emphasis. "You, get the AI on the comm terminal. I want to know what the hell is going on."
The officer punched a few keys and the synthetic voice of the AI came on over the comm terminal.
"Please make your inquiry," it commanded.
"Shut down Witch-House!". Gate didn't know if AIs could judge human stress levels based upon voice intonation, but if this one could it must be lighting up all the bells and whistles. "We have a security breach. I repeat, shut down Witch-House!"
A few seconds of silence, then the AI roared to life.
"ERROR. OVERLORD PROTOCOL ENGAGED. REQUEST CANNOT BE PROCESSED. ERROR. OVERLORD PROTOCOL ENGAGED. REQUEST CANNO-"
Gate punched the terminal off, panic lashing at his mind with hot, little whips.
"Why isn't it working," shouted Goldstein. "Did Carter hack the AI?"
"No," replied Gate. "It's a failsafe. The consortium, goddamn it!". He slammed his fist into the desk. It all made sense now. His benefactors obviously had a secret agenda from the start, and it had nothing to do with sending Lt. Jack Hawley to Tokyo. That was merely a smokescreen, an illusion meant to draw Gate in. Carter was here just to make sure the consortium's plans went over smoothly. He probably activated Overlord Protocol the moment he touched down, the son of a bitch. How many other systems in Echo 15 were now under Carter's control? Too many, Gate knew that all right.
"Connect me to Hawley," he ordered the comm officer. The wide-angled hologram of Jack's face came to life on the comm terminal. Screams of panic burst forth over the intercom.
"WHADDHA FUCK IS GONNA ON ELIOT! I CAN'T BREATHE I CAN'T-"
"Jack, calm down. We're getting you out of there. Head towards pre-ops and we'll get you out of the suit."
"Okay, I'm headed there now."
Outside mission control, Gate could see Jack making a laborious dash towards pre-ops on the south side of the cylinder. A group of technicians prepared to strip the suit off him.
Suddenly, Jack stopped dead in his tracks. The lower half of his body became completely rigid, while his torso still flailed helplessly, as if against some kind of unseen force.
"Eliot, I can't move. The suit, my fuckin' legs, what the fuck is going on man?". Jack began to openly weep.
"It's Overlord," said Goldstein. "Carter must have overridden the suit. He's just a damn puppet now."
Made sense, Gate thought grimly. A man stood no chance against an 800-pound piece of metal. Jack was just an unwilling passenger now. Jack still struggled violently with the exosuit. His right hand drifted down to the seal on his back.
In a flash, the right arm of the exosuit twisted in the opposite direction of Jack's shoulder joint, splitting his arm in two. A mad cacophony of agonized screams rose from the comm terminal as Jack's holographic face contorted into an inhuman grimace of pain.
"OH LORD JESUS GET ME OUT OF THIS THING ELIOT!"
A group of lab technicians from pre-ops rain over to restrain the suit. It attacked them in one fell swoop, splitting a crew-cut techie's arm in half with a hydraulic chop. The other two techies were spared such a fate, their necks merely being broken in a series of swift, ultimately painless motions.
"GOD IT'S KILLING 'EM ELIOT. OH LORD GET ME OUT OF HERE!". Jack's words trailed off into an incoherent babble of sobs and screams. The exosuit began to move towards Witch-House again, dragging its hostage along with it, arm broken and bleeding over the floor of level 10.
Gate watched in horror as the suit edged closer and closer towards the shimmering doorway. Goldstein was breaking into hysterics, but he paid her no attention, no more than he paid attention to Jack's desperate calls for mercy. Gate was overwhelmed, and in response his body merely resigned itself to the chaos as Jack edged ever forward to his inevitable, unimaginable demise.
Gate only snapped to his senses again when the grotesque voice of Carter suddenly came in over the PA system. His bespectacled face replaced Jack's on the hologram, his muscles contorting in odd angles as he spoke the words of the final sacrament in words no human ears could fathom. Gate felt his sanity begin to slip just hearing the insane vocabulary over the PA system. His mind could not even begin to comprehend what the hell Carter was saying, but there was one word repeated over and over again that brought primal fear to Gate and all those who heard. Through the PA system, the doomed denizens of Echo 15 heard it. It was the name of the unspeakable. The blind idiot. It rolled off Carter's tongue in horrid undulations.
"AZATHOTH," he spoke.
#
The next thirty seconds would be Gate's last.
The exosuit dragged Jack – mad, rambling Jack – helplessly into the shimmering gateway of Witch-House. Jack's screams pierced the air even as he was swallowed feet first by the portal. Gate didn't see Jack succumb to his fate. He was too busy running around in mission control, bashing his head into walls trying to block out the name which Carter spoke through the PA system. That mad, unknowable name.
When Jack disappeared into Witch-House, the shimmering gateway turned from a dull blue color to a painful red as it became an insane vortex, swallowing the contents of level 10 whole. The technician who had broken his arm attempting to save Lt. Hawley was first to be sucked into the portal, his body violently splitting in two as it greedily ate him up. His blood sprayed over level 10's floor in a crimson fan.
Then the sounds started.
In many ways, Gate's death was a relief. If he had somehow survived the sounds, he would be forever wracked by the mental torment of their memory in his head. They would tear his memories apart, leaving his a blubbering idiot in the face of the horrors at the center of infinity. They were flutes. The flutes of the daemon-sultan Azathoth, which lulled him into an as of yet unbroken sleep. The very nature of the piping madness destroyed the eardrums of every mortal soul in Echo 15. Carter was sure to broadcast the sounds over the PA system, even as he hemorrhaged from his ears and his mind split in two. It was an honor after all. It was honor to hear the great flutes of Azathoth.
After thirty seconds of the flute-piping, Witch-House exploded outward, peppering the deaf survivors with red-hot metallic shrapnel. Where the spidery portal once stood, a new doorway emerged. One that had no artificial or anthropomorphic edges. One that had angles of impossible, Cyclopean geometry. It was a black void of and into infinity, from which a mass of pinkish, pulpy tentacles emerged, striking blindly at all in their path. In one fell swoop, one of the massive appendages destroyed mission control, killing all trapped inside. Within seconds, every living soul in level 10 had been ground into oblivion by the searching tentacles.
They spread ever upward as more and more of Azathoth emerged from the Cyclopean gateway in the heart of Echo 15. They pierced the Martian topsoil and destroyed the rectangular façade that guarded Witch-House. The aero-shuttle that the servant rode in on was grasped and crushed.
The mountain of flesh grew and grew, soon overshadowing the cosmic peaks of Olympus Mons. It spread ever outward through Mars like varicose veins, soon swallowing the Mons whole. The chaos at the center of infinity had entered mortal planes, and was stretching eternally forward, consuming all in its path.
Overhead, the sky darkened as the sun itself seemed to quake in fear. The tentacles reached upward towards the Martian sky, groping for endless worlds and stars to conquer and consume.
Their master would start with the pale blue dot in the distance.