OPERATION: THIONINE

"And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and a quart of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.'" - Revelation 6:5 - 6:6

Mid-Summer, 1984: The fishing trawler 博識 (Hakubun, or "Erudite" - an otter-type trawler) out of Hyōgo Port, Kobe (Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan) is on the South Pacific Ocean, when an object is dredged from the sea floor by its nets. It is rectangular in shape, approximately 3.5 meters in length by 1.2 meters wide by 1.7 meters high. It is perfectly black and smooth, except where there are ornate designs carved into its surface. There is an initial awe and rampant speculation among the crew as to what it was, or what it was made of. The hue of the thing was impossibly black, an unsettling darkness that none of the fishermen had ever witnessed before. It offered no reflection, and - whether by illusion or some other optical feat - it appeared as if it neutralized all the immediate light and color surrounding it. Some of the crew members who had assisted in moving it had badly shredded their thick gloves and cut their hands on the incredibly sharp lines of the inscriptions. Umetaro Yoneda, one of the netters, was cut so badly and hemorrhaged so freely that he had to be carried to the infirmary immediately before he bled to death. After the crew had placed the thing on the deck, it seemed to emit some form of resonance, a reverberation so low and flat that it was more felt than heard, but at a level so imperceptible that it went unrecognized. The Captain of the vessel, Mitsuo Hara, made his way through the crowded deck to the thing. He made a quick study of it, scrutinizing and periodically rubbing his chin, but giving no indication of the thoughts forming in his head. When one of the crewmen finally asked him his opinion, he stated that this thing was obviously a priceless and historically significant artifact, and that they would take it back to the mainland with them, where he would have his friend Oka Ishiwatari, a marine biologist, use his connections at Kobe University to unravel the history of this mysterious thing. He called it "a gift from Susanoo" (Susanoo being the ruler of the sea in Japanese mythology). Within, he was excited from finding such an obviously unusual and invaluable artifact, and thought happily ahead to a future where he could afford a more modern boat and a larger crew.
But shortly, it appeared as if some misfortune had befallen the ship, and these inconsequential events planted seeds of paranoia in the fervent imaginings of the crew members. Aside from the injury to Yoneda, it was now discovered that all of the navigational and radio equipment had gone dead sometime during the brief commotion that ensued with the discovery of the thing. Other electrical equipment had also been acting up, including the lighting, the engine and pumps. Captain Hara was informed of the malfunctions, and directed the maintenance technicians aboard the Hakubun to get the ship functioning again. For the time being, they were dead in the water.
The Hakubun was originally scheduled to return to Hyōgo Port in two days. After he had organized repairs to the electrical equipment, Captain Hara ordered the thing to be secured in the ship's hold, and placed his First Mate (and acting Skipper while Hara was off duty) Shinichi Onoda as the sentry. Shinichi and Captain Hara both served in the Japanese Navy together, and there was no one alive Hara trusted more. Most of the crew on duty had jobs, and Captain Hara made his rounds to see the progression of things. Afterwards, he sat down in his cabin and made an entry in the ship's log book.
An hour later, and with the unexpected find the nets had pulled from the sea now safely below decks, Captain Hara decided that the moment the ship was repaired, they would return to Kobe. But he decided against telling the crew just yet. By this time, it was just after midnight, and aside from the maintenance crews toiling, all other operations had come to a stand-still. The majority of the crew was brooding, irritable and anxious. Making the overall mood even more oppressive, the sea was a dead calm, and in the north, strange clouds rolled across the night sky. At approximately 3:20 in the morning, the night watch and nearly every other member of the crew was witness to an unholy scream that echoed across the tranquil sea, continuing without a pause for breath for several minutes. This was enough to push the already tense crew over the edge. He had heard murmurs of ancient legends and superstitions, but now, things were starting to look like a possible mutiny to Captain Hara. He called a ship meeting and announced that they would return to Kobe the instant the ship was repaired, and that the rest of the crew that was currently unemployed should get underway prepping the ship for the journey home. With the greater part of the crew put to work, the idle thoughts that had put them on edge receded as their hands and heads became preoccupied with more pressing tasks (not to mention the thought of being off the uncertain sea and the ship that held the accursed thing presently below deck) allowed some of the dread in their minds to diminish slightly.
Just before dawn, a storm began to break the distant horizon, so the crew began to brace for the oncoming squall. Several hours passed, and the Hakubun was battered by gale force winds. A number of crewmen again pleaded with Captain Hara to dump the object back into the sea, certain that the thing they dredged up from the bottom of the sea was bad luck, but he refused and ordered them to return to their posts. Eventually the navigational and other vital equipment was repaired - apparently some sort of power surge caused all of the fuses to burn out and had melted some of the wiring. After making the repairs, the navigator managed to get a fix on their location before the navigational equipment burned out a second time. Captain Hara said the hell with it, and reverted back to the traditional methods of navigating the seas back to their port. During the storm, one of the crewmen was swept overboard and was lost to the sea. Another had suffered several fractured ribs and a dislocated shoulder when a large crate had come unsecured and pinned him between an interior wall, but he was otherwise fine and was resting in one of the communal bunks.
They arrived at Hyōgo Port late the following morning. Captain Hara again entrusted Shinichi with the security of the object, who tasked three other men to assist him with its disembarkation. The injured crewmen were taken away in an ambulance, and Captain Hara had to report the disappearance and likely death of the crewman who was swept overboard at the police station, where he spent most of the afternoon. That evening, Captain Hara had arranged for a small delivery truck to be ready to take the special cargo to his friend Ishiwatari, who was eager to see the inexplicable relic. After a cursory investigation of the object, Ishiwatari placed a call to two of his colleagues, Ryutaro Araki and Eri Sugita, a geologist and archaeologist, respectively. After looking it over and noting several inexplicable anomalies, they ask for the Captain's permission to take it Araki's lab in order to find out something more about it. Captain Hara agrees, as long as he is allowed to be on-hand to observe their study of the thing when he has available time, and that ownership of the thing is understood to be his and his crew's. Ishiwatari is given custody of the thing, and he continues to solicit advice from his colleagues.
After they had finished processing the fish off of the boat, Jakuji Muto, the ship mechanic, had gathered a few of his ship mates to discuss the thing Captain Hara had taken away as his own. Most of the crew thought Captain Hara was a fair man, and that any compensation the Captain was given for the recovery of the thing would be put back into the boat, which would be beneficial to them all. There were others who sided with Muto, demanding compensation, and then there were those who argued that the thing was unwholesome, that they felt it be somehow evil, citing the loss of their crewmember during the storm and the injuries of two others, compounded by the failing equipment. They eventually went their own ways, all feeling an incomprehensible disquiet within their souls.
From that first night, and every night thereafter, the majority of the crew who had handled the object slept restlessly, with fevered dreams of insalubrious aquatic death stalking through their minds as they tried to slumber.
After a week, Captain Hara had the Hakubun repaired while periodically checking back with Ishiwatari and his colleagues to see if any important discoveries had been made, but they still knew very little at this point. Eventually he needed to return to the sea, harvesting fish and earning a living in the interim. When he tried to assemble his crew, he came up short of nearly a quarter of his crew, including Muto and Yoneda, so he was delayed for a few days while trying to find suitable replacements. When they finally put to sea, it had been nearly three weeks since they had brought the thing back to Kobe. (Four days later, the Hakubun and its crew were never heard from again.)
Ishiwatari, Araki, and Sugita began their initial investigation with a cursory overview of the object (size, weight, material, etc.), and researched historical archives to find any similar artifacts, but there were very few comparable relics previously discovered. And after several weeks of more meticulous scrutinization, and the opinions of numerous other experts from various fields, there was little more known about the thing than what was originally known at the start of their investigation. It was originally believed to be carved from a seamless and flawless piece of black obsidian, but it is too different molecularly. The object seemed to be at least as dense as diamond, and possibly carbon-based. Some conjectured it was comparable to the carbon nanoparticles Soviet scientists had published their findings of in 1981 (which in later years would become known as carbon nanotubes; members of the fullerene structural family, which also includes spherical buckyballs, and make some of the most structurally tough substances known to man). It is immensely black - so black that it reflects only .04 percent of light, making it the darkest material discovered on earth. (It would take scientists until 2008 to create a substance five-thousandths of a percentage darker.)
The carvings covering the thing are intricate, yet subtle designs that wrap the entire surface of the object in a sort of weaving pattern. The scientists began referring to the thing as "the monolith", after the similarly inexplicable alien device from "2001 - A Space Odyssey". These carvings have retained impossibly sharp edges, and every lip, when viewed under an electron microscope, revealed a sort of inscription (referred to as "micro-glyphs") carved into the lengths of the cuts. There are literally millions of these foreign characters covering the entire monolith, and the linguists that have had the opportunity to try to make an educated guess as to their meaning remain baffled; it was like nothing anybody had ever seen, and even the most esoteric texts failed to failed to produce anything even close to resembling this unfamiliar script by comparison in complexity or nonconformity.
One of the odd things they discovered was that the monolith appeared to be continually diffusing an incredible amount of energy, but emitted no background radiation, no heat, and no voltage. Readings were taken by all sorts of spectroscopic and other analytical measuring devices, including the relatively new (at the time) X-ray microcalorimeter, but the majority of the information gathered was regularly contradictory of itself. There were several documented instances of light bulbs and other electrically powered devices disconnected from their power sources that erratically began working in the presence of the thing. One of the physicists who had spent several days trying to make sense out of the bewildering information he was presented with conjectured that the thing could possibly be powered by some ever-present natural force - like the gravitational pull of the Earth, for instance - utilizing it in a fashion hitherto unfathomable by modern science.
Research continued, and as more and more of the scientific community were brought in, word of the peculiarities of the thing slowly leaked to the outside world, although speculation among the international press was just as wildly pitched. Two of the crewmembers had also sold their story to a local paper, exaggerating the tale of the retrieval of the thing from the sea and the misfortunes they suffered after. When news of the Hakubun and its crew being lost at sea was reported, the wild speculations were compounded by the tabloids.
The Reiss Foundation had heard reports of the thing a mere three days after Captain Hara had brought it in from the sea - the archaeologist Eri Sugita was a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and after his initial examination of the thing, he contacted Professor Albrecht Bern at the Reiss Academy of Analytical Studies, the world's foremost institute of the unexplainable. (Reiss is actually an acronym - Research and Exploration Into the Special Sciences - and is a front for one of the U.S. government's least known covert paramilitary units, tasked to safeguard the Earth against "foreign and alien" threats.) Professor Bern listened to the description of the thing Sugita had examined, and agreed that this would be something of great interest to the Reiss Foundation.
Professor Bern began to research the thing, with only a verbal description of the monolith and the approximate geophysical location it was retrieved from. Sugita sent photos and documentations through the mail, and over the next three weeks, Professor Bern had enough information at hand to form an investigative team. He hand-selected alumni from the divisions of Esoteric Research, Heterodoxical Truths, and the Study Group for Archaic Antiquities, who then utilized the extensive resources on hand at the Reiss Academy of Analytical Studies located near Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, including the Library of Historical Records, the Reiss Library (home to some of the world's most rare arcane and occult tomes - not open to the public), and the David E. Bennett Museum of Antiquities (also home to some of the world's most rare religious and occult relics - parts of which are not open to the public).
The assembled research team consisted of:

Professor Lt. Col. Albrecht Wilhelm Bern, ret. U.S. Army (current age: 87), a German-born British citizen who was one of the original commanders of the "809th Logistical Supply Battalion", Baker Team, a deceptively-titled unit who's purpose was to prevent the Schattenkräfte (German for Shadow Forces - the elite soldiers in service to Hitler's Nazi Occult Sciences branch) from reaching the ends of their diabolical schemes. Retired from the field since 1958, he is still academically sharp, and his experience is invaluable. He is the "task master" of the investigative team, but due to his age, he will not join the team when they are deployed.

Dr. Robert Eugene Lake (current age: 42), a British archaeologist that specializes in forgotten civilizations and cults, is given the task of assembling a thorough list of cultures that may have been the custodians of the monolith at any time throughout the annals of several variations of recorded history. He is also one of the Reiss Foundations active advisory field agents, and when the need arises for a task force to assemble and retrieve the thing, he will be the team leader.

Beth Rachel D'Annio (current age: 29), a Canadian precognitive theologian who is also exceptionally gifted with numbers; she will assist Dr. Lake, searching for any historical references to similar objects. Her precognitive intuition makes her an indispensable asset in research and investigation - she is also a Reiss field agent.

Gerhardt Maurer (current age: 24), an Austrian-born expert in the field of "terrestrial alien reverse-technology and interdimensional vortices, etc.", which basically means that he has a unique understanding of non-human technology (and continually points out the everyday modern conveniences people use that were developed from the discovery of said technologies). He is a graduate of MIT, and was recruited by the Reiss Foundation to work in its Heretical Technologies and Weapons Development division. He is given the scientific data collected from the monolith, and is to determine how the thing was made, and what its applications might be. Not an official agent, he will nonetheless accompany the team when they deploy, in an advisory capacity.

Professor Tomás Romero (current age: 36), an Italian-American, one of the world's leading linguists and an expert cryptologist. He is given the samples of the "crypto-glyphs" and left to complete as thorough an analysis of them as possible, additionally compiling a list of any remotely similar dead languages. He is one of the teachers at the Reiss Academy, and will also accompany the task force, despite not being an agent.

Dr. Germaine Chirac (current age: 37), a French-Canadian mineralogist and a member of the Société Française pour Recherche Physique (the French Society for Psychical Research, or SFRP) who has worked with Reiss agents in the past, and has turned down offers to teach at the Reiss Academy or to become a fully-fledged agent. It isn't standard protocol to sub-contract outsiders, but there are scant few who are as knowledgeable in their field as Dr. Chirac, and those have declined to work for the Reiss Foundation altogether. But she and Professor Bern are good friends, and she agrees to lend her technical expertise to the team. When she isn't studying mineral formations, Dr. Chirac devotes a large amount of her free time studying lesser known myths, legends, and other folklore, making considerable contributions to these scholarly fields as well.

Fatima Magray (current age: 28), a Pakistani occult historian, she utilizes the Reiss Library to find any mention of a similar relic in the occult tomes and records at hand. She has no recollection of her past or her family; she was the lone survivor discovered by Reiss field agents when they infiltrated a cult and found all of the members dead, presumably killed by the ancient god they awoke in their ceremony. At times, she has been able to channel the thoughts of the gods without any loss to her sanity; but as such, she often appears distant and peculiar to most other people.

While the investigative team begins to process the available data, Bravo Team (the redesignated and restructured descendant of the original Baker Team that the then Capt. Bern helmed) is mustered and put into a holding status until orders to deploy came down from higher. While they waited, they inventoried their gear and ran drills that had been selected in regards to the type of mission that Professor Bern speculated this could be. The investigative team had time on their side, but the need to come up with some conclusive results was still pressing, and they were given a two-week reprieve until their assessment of the situation is presented. If action was needed, then both halves of the task force would go wheels-up in a moment's notice in order to deal with it as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, at Kobe University, Ishiwatari and his colleagues were still struggling to come to any conclusions as to what the thing was or where it had originally come from. There was an increase in the amount of television and newspaper reporters trying to interview the scientists coming and going from Araki's lab in an effort to uncover any information regarding it; it was now largely speculated that the disappearance of Captain Hara and the Hakubun was not an unrelated occurrence. It was also being rumored that some of the crew who decided against returning to the sea with Captain Hara had gone missing.
Elsewhere, there was an awakening taking place deep within the genetic code of an unknowing select few people across the globe, the offspring of the long-forgotten cult that venerated the god of the thing that was taken from its aquatic place of slumber. This thing was, in fact, a crucelet - an earthly confinement created to obstruct evil. This crucelet was built to imprison the undead god Malef-G'naumm (pronounced mayl-lef nä-wem) from loosening his pestilence upon the creatures of earth.
In the early days of the race of men, before the age of Hyperborea, there existed all manner of different species of creatures. Some of these creatures were ill-suited for the hardships of terrestrial life and vanished from existence, while the more clever and adaptable of these creatures flourished, and some even created their own civilizations, primitive as they may have been. It was one of these forgotten early races, the proto-human cult of L'anh-Ch'aui (pronounced län-shü-ow) that were the custodians of the d'Ru-S'lyd'i (pronounced dar-roosh lēd-ē), the true name of the crucelet - roughly translated, it means "The Engine of Life". The L'anh-Ch'aui were not the architects of the d'Ru-S'lyd'i; the history of those who created it and how it came to belong to the tribe have been lost somewhere throughout the history of the world. But the tribe evidently grew and learned, eventually becoming a civilization sophisticated enough to understand the basic concepts of science and math, while developing their own cultural arts. There is even evidence that they understood and utilized electricity. All of the tribe's advances were accredited to the d'Ru-S'lyd'i, which they worshipped through primitive ceremonies and ritual sacrifices. Eventually, outsiders learned of the L'anh-Ch'aui and their power, so they gathered their forces and conquered the tribe, killing all of the men and male children. The d'Ru-S'lyd'i, thought to be a malignant source of evil by the interlopers, was disposed of, and the outsiders claimed the village their own and interbred with the surviving women. It was then believed that the women killed the outsiders after lulling them into a false sense of security, and traveled throughout the rest of the lands, breeding hybrid offspring to carry on the inherent lineage of the tribe. Nearly all of the physical evidence of this era of history has been erased and forgotten. Aside from the buried genetic material of their progeny, diluted by the survivor's crossbreeding with the various races of men, the only known physical evidence of their existence was a pithy mention in the Ilarnic Papyri, an ancient text of unknown authorship which few have read.
Crucelets are theoretical elements of history, since there are no legitimate detailed accounts of any civilization ever finding or possessing any. Most historians call it bunk, while others simply call it a legend, but there are others who believe in the evils of the world, and fear the day that any of the hidden crucelets are found, and the terrors they hold within are loosed upon the world.
And now, this crucelet, the d'Ru-S'lyd'i of the L'anh-Ch'aui, has resurfaced after its prolonged expulsion from the world of men. Within, Malef-G'naumm begins to awaken from it's slumber, stirred from the blood spilled upon the crucelet's surface – the blood of a descendant of the L'anh-Ch'aui, who through a cosmic act of providence had been there to assist in the handling of the d'Ru-S'lyd'i. Umetaro Yoneda, ignorant to his own destiny, had been the first human in over 10,000 years to touch the crucelet. Guided by the hands of fate through some maligned mischief, Yoneda had been placed in the wrong place at the wrong time, and by which, had his blood spilled across the d'Ru-S'lyd'i, permitting the essence of his ancestors to commence the awakening of Malef-G'naumm. And through this blood, Malef-G'naumm was able to call back into service the modern-day descendants conscripted by their first blood to serve it's need.
The first to heed it's call was Yoneda. He had gone home after being released from the hospital, where he fell asleep. In his slumber, he dreamt of terrible primordial creatures, and a pervading voice commanded him to do terrible things. When he awoke, three days had passed, and in a dehydrated and weakened state, he attempted to take himself back to the hospital, but could not. The cut on his hand had become black with infection. Unable to seek help the help he needed, he fell back asleep. When he awoke, he had lost track of all time, but he felt an unaccountable strength from within, and an urge to see the thing that he had helped bring up from the bottom of the sea. Ignoring his infected hand and his dehydrated and malnourished condition, he was compelled to the thing. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he felt a sort of beacon in a south western direction, so he began walking towards it.
At the same time across the globe, there were thousands of others who had begun to feel ill. As they slept a fevered sleep, they dreamed of dreadful horrors, and a voice commanded them in an unknown language. These unknowing progeny were compelled against their will towards the same location that Yoneda had been, but not all of them, and not just yet.
Two days later, Yoneda had arrived outside of the Araki laboratory. He felt an urge to rest and wait for night, so he hid himself among some loose trash beside a dumpster and waited. Darkness came, and Yoneda forced his way into the lab. He came upon the crucelet, and overpowered a guard that he caught by surprise. Before he knew what he was doing, Yoneda produced a large kitchen knife he vaguely remembered picking up somewhere along the way, and eviscerated the guard over the crucelet. The lights flickered and surged, and then exploded. Another security guard, hearing the commotion, found Yoneda pulling the knife out of his dead co-worker. He quickly fired three rounds from his revolver, which cleanly impacted upon Yoneda's center mass. He slumped over crucelet, exhaled once, and was dead. Another larger power surge radiated from the laboratory, acting as an electro-magnetic pulse bomb, disrupting all power within a half-mile radius, burning out transformers and fuses alike. The security guard called the emergency number (the phones were still functioning), and then contacted Dr. Araki.
It was early in the morning when Araki and Sugita arrived at the lab. The police, EMTs, and fire department were already there, and there was an electric company van on the scene as well. The police granted them access to the crime scene, where the bodies had already been taken away. As Sugita surveyed the situation, a dread understanding began to hollow out his soul. After spending several hours talking to police detectives, who tried to pry loose some information about the crucelet, Sugita managed to break free and place a call to Professor Bern. He wasn't able to speak directly to him, so he left an urgent message to contact him at his home phone, where he immediately went and waited.
Professor Bern's team had discovered scant information regarding any theoretical explanations of the object. Professor Romero found that the "crypto-glyphs" bore a vague resemblance to a language fragment discovered in the late 19th century on the island Olosega (part of the Manu'a Group of the Samoa Archipelago), chiseled onto an ancient slab. The Ashecroft Tablet was believed to pre-date the existence of early man, but there was no other useful information he could glean from his research. It was the same with the others - all avenues of approach quickly led to nothing. Beth had discovered the brief pithy mention in the Ilarnic Papyri, but there was very little information, useless or otherwise, to be divulged from that slight passage.
But then, on the night that Yoneda was killed after murdering the guard, Fatima felt the presence of an ancient mind within her own; an abysmal, primeval edict calling out to select members of the human race, calling them to it to serve its end. She immediately went to Professor Bern with this information, who mulled it over as he returned to his office, where his secretary passed along the message from Sugita to contact him immediately. He called his Japanese brother in the SPR, who told him of the tragic turn of events that had unfolded at the Araki laboratory. He instructed Sugita to make arrangements to have the thing (they were still unaware that it was a crucelet) ready for transport - a difficult task, since it was now evidence in a murder investigation - and to prepare for his team's arrival. After he got off the phone with Sugita, he contacted Dr. Lake and had him assemble his team. He briefed the team of what he knew, which he admitted was very little, and informed them that this would be a retrieval mission. They would be bringing the thing and Dr. Sugita back with them. Within four hours after the briefing, Bravo Team and the advising Reiss agents were on a Lockheed C-5A Galaxy cargo plane over the American Midwest, on their way to Kobe, Japan.
Before his departure, Professor Bern had taken Dr. Lake aside to show him something of interest; an ancient Greek scroll that had translated a fragment of a tablet written in an ancient language - a language on its way to extinction at the time the translation had been made. Dr. Lake looked to Professor Bern questioningly after reading the passage, and Professor Bern shrugged his shoulders as if this information was merely inconsequential.
After the sacrifice Yoneda had made to Malef-G'naumm, it's power had risen threefold, but it was still weak, still entombed in the accursed crucelet that had held it since the first race of earth creatures, those who had incarcerated and bound it, and then hidden it from the world. It still needed it's servants. It called them to it, requiring those who were closest first. Across the Japan mainland, several hundred people wandered away from their jobs, their families, their homes - all towards a central location; the Araki laboratory in Kobe. These were the ancestral heirs of the curse of L'anh-Ch'aui tribe, and they were returning to serve their god.
The Reiss team were able to make their way to Kobe non-stop, since they had coordinated with the U.S. Air Force for in-flight refueling, which would enable them to land in a few hours. While the task force made their way across the Pacific Ocean, the members of Bravo Team prepped for action. The mission had been designated Operation: Thionine. (Mission names were typically chosen at random, in an attempt to mislead and/or confuse anybody who might accidentally or purposefully overhear any discussion of the mission.)
The paramilitary members of Bravo Team are as follows:

Major Anthony Lynn Frears (current age: 37, call-sign: Anvil), an ex-U.S. Army Ranger (1st Ranger Battalion) who was recruited for CIA black ops, he is the current commander of the Bravo Team. He has seen action in Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, and the Falklands. It was his involvement in the Falkland War that brought him to the attention of the Reiss Foundation. Entrenched as a CIA operative, he became attached to the task force that Reiss had deployed there under Operation: Agriculture (the nature of which is classified Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information). While the true cause of the war was hidden from the press and contained by the task force, Major Frears had shown an incredible amount of fortitude throughout the conflict, and was recruited by the Foundation. This was his fourth mission out with the unit, and his first as a commanding officer.

Captain Maxwell David DeCamp (current age: 33, call-sign: Matador), a U.S. Army Green Beret (11th Special Forces Group), he was hand-selected from the initial prospective recruits when the Reiss Foundation was given full-time status as a plausibly deniable covert unit. He served two tours in Vietnam before coming aboard, and was selected for his military expertise as much as for his precognitive abilities. Since then, he has been on countless missions in several dozen countries, and has performed exemplary. He is the second-in-command of Bravo Team.

Lieutenant Commander Manuel Elias Archer (current age: 27, call-sign: Nautilus), a U.S. Navy SEAL (SEAL Team 1) who was picked up by the Reiss Foundation, he was the head of his class in the Reiss Academy of Defense. His subsequent record has been commendable, and he is well-liked by those he works with, often described as "even-keeled". He is the leader of First Squad.

Chief Warrant Officer Martin Gregory Roland (current age: 39, call-sign: Mongoose), would have been a career Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army if Reiss hadn't happened to him. He served with the 10th Mountain Division, and has an innate understanding of mechanical and electrical devices; affectionately nicknamed "Tinker" by his teammates. He is the leader of Second Squad.

Sergeant Major Franklin Michael Dobson (current age: 38, call-sign: Risingson), another U.S. Army Ranger (Company G, then 1st Ranger Battalion), an American native of Nigeria (particularly, of the Yorùbá people of Western Africa). In his youth he was an emere, but had since forsaken his ability to travel between the earthen plane and the plane of heaven. Emeres are typically impatient and self-serving, but in his early twenties, he began to reevaluate his life, and was taught about Buddhism. Shortly after, he received a vision that inspired him to enlist in the military, which then brought him to the attention of the Reiss group. He is the NCOIC of First Squad.

First Sergeant Vincent Angelo Torelli (current age: 32, call-sign: Fulcrum), served in the U.S. Marine Corps (4th Reconnaissance Battalion), he is one of the descendants of the Nephilim, gifted with a long life and extraordinary regenerative powers. He is the current NCOIC of Second Squad.

Master Sergeant Felix Agrippa Santos (current age 35, call-sign: Sentry), U.S. Marine Corps (1st Light Armor Reconnaissance Battalion), medical specialist for First Squad.

Sergeant First Class Daniel Phillip Mandrake (current age 26, call-sign: Goliath), U.S. Army Airborne (503rd Infantry), communications expert for Second Squad.

Sergeant First Class Robert Ephram Dunn (current age 29, call-sign: Evergreen), U.S. Army Special Forces (5th Special Forces Group) a third generation lycanth (excellent for tracking); sniper for Second Squad.

Sergeant First Class William Herschel Horowitz (current age 30, call-sign: Denali), U.S. Army Special Forces (10th Special Forces Group), demolition expert for First Squad.

Chief Petty Officer Michael Alexander Donovan (current age 28, call-sign: Firefly), U.S. Navy SEALs (SEAL Team 6), demolition expert for Second Squad.

Gunnery Sergeant Javier Felipe Martinez (current age 29, call-sign: Watchdog), U.S. Marine Corps (1st Reconnaissance Battalion), sniper for First Squad.

Gunnery Sergeant Peter Dennis Flaugherty (current age 25, call-sign: Banshee), U.S. Marine Corps (3rd Force Reconnaissance Battalion), mechanic attached to Second Squad.

Staff Sergeant Richard Jonathan MacMillan (current age 25, call-sign: Crucible), U.S Army Rangers (2nd Ranger Battalion), he has empath abilities that allow him to communicate with plants; medical specialist for Second Squad.

Staff Sergeant Sean Paul Denzo (current age 27, call-sign: Recoil), U.S. Army Special Forces (3rd Special Forces Group), weapons specialist attached to First Squad.

Petty Officer First Class Arthur Julius Browne (current age 31, call-sign: Poacher), U.S. Navy SEALs (SEAL Team 6), communications expert for First Squad.

After the cargo plane touched down at Yokota Air Base (approximately 650 kilometers northeast of Kobe), the unit departed on several M151A2 FAVs (Fast Assault Vehicle - a descendent of the old-style Jeeps) and an M35 "Deuce-and-a-Half" 2-1/2 Ton cargo truck. A staging area was prepared in an unused hangar in anticipation of their arrival, and they liasoned with Brigadier General John K. Mendel who presented them with false identities, a cover story, and government issue clothing and transportation – necessities, since they were an unofficially sanctioned paramilitary force and the process to legally enter the country otherwise would take days. They changed over and immediately started towards Kobe.
Since the group as a whole was large enough to draw attention, they split into three sub-groups;
Team Alpha consisted of Dr. Lake, Dr. Chirac, Beth D'Annio, Gerhardt Maurer, Major Frears, Chief Roland, MSgt. Santos, SFC Mandrake and CPO Donovan, all traveling by helicopter, and were first on-site.
Team Bravo, who arrived later by train, was made up of Cpt. DeCamp, Prof. Romero, Fatima Magray, SFC Dunn, and Gunnery Sgts. Flaugherty and MacMillan.
Team Charlie, who traveled by cargo truck, was Lt. Cmdr. Archer, SFC Horowitz, Gunnery Sgt. Martinez, SSgt. Denzo and POFC Browne.
Team Alpha's helicopter set down at a hospital near Araki's lab, where Sugita met them. After brief introductions, Sugita brought them up to speed to what had happened since their last conversation with Professor Bern. There had been several further attempts by unknown persons trying get to the thing, resulting in serious injuries and an additional death. The press had been probing for leads, and the combination of the disturbances, deaths, and electrical black outs had brought out government personnel, in addition to the massive law enforcement presence that had been slowly building. The media and the locals had all been screaming for answers, but the problem was, nobody had any idea what the hell was happening here. The property had been cordoned off by the military and police, and Araki and Ishiwatari had been at the mercy of the investigators for hours after Sugita had slipped away to contact Professor Bern. When Dr. Lake questions Sugita about the intruders, he shrugs his shoulders. He said he didn't know who they were or where they had come from. From those he had seen, they all looked normal enough - just regular men and women, mostly middle class, mostly Japanese. But they had acted with impunity, and seemed to have been drawn directly to the thing. They refused to comply with verbal orders to leave, so the police were forced to use violent measures. Somewhere around seven or eight people had somehow gained access to the labs, and they attacked the police officers who stood in their way. This had happened before the military and government officials had arrived, when the primary investigation was still ongoing. In the ensuing scuffle, one of the intruders managed to get an officer's weapon, and the other officer shot the intruder, killing him. This was all the information Sugita had been able to gather. Naturally, any attempt to prepare the thing for transport was impossible at this point.
Major Frears and Dr. Lake huddled with the other team leaders. By this time, team Bravo was still over half an hour away, while team Charlie was closer to two hours. The original plan had been to secure the area and hold for Team Charlie, who would take the thing away in their cargo truck. But with these new developments, that plan needed to be altered. The scientific team wouldn't be able to assess the threat of the thing until they had it out of Kobe and somewhere more secure. Fatima confessed to Dr. Lake that she had felt more intrusions within her mind. Dr. Lake left the paramilitary guys to formulate their own plan, while he kicked around some ideas in his own mind. Based on the information Professor Bern had shared with him prior to their departure, Dr. Lake felt certain that this thing was a crucelet. According to certain legends, crucelets were used to hold a demon (who was typically tricked into getting into the box), and then they were taken away, either to be buried, dumped in the sea, or surreptitiously discarded on the land of an enemy. There were no historical evidence that these things had ever existed outside of stories, but Dr. Lake was certain that they did. And he was willing to bet that that was precisely what was in the Araki laboratory, and was the cause of all the other disturbances.
In his research, Professor Bern had discovered a small passage hidden away, a Greek translation of a Proto-Elamite tablet fragment, which told of an island tribe of semi-humans that worshipped an evil god that resided within a chest of the blackest of earthly textile, an undead god who was physically restrained within the chest, but was still able to control the minds of his followers in their dreams. This is what Professor Bern had shown Dr. Lake minutes before his departure. Dr. Lake had been mulling it over in his mind the entire length of the journey, and the answer had finally surfaced. "Crucelet." Now that he was fairly certain he had identified it, he needed to figure out how to get rid of it; without releasing the demon inside. That was going to be the trick, he thought, as he scoped out the Araki laboratory through a pair of high-powered binoculars from the hospital roof landing pad.
Major Frears was working out a plan of his own to gain access to the crucelet, since their original plan had gone belly-up, making their falsified credentials invalid. Team Bravo was by now several minutes away from linking up with them. They would see the military and police presence at the lab, and they would fall back to the secondary rally point. Sugita (who spoke fluent English) informed Major Frears all the knowledge of the lab he could produce, in order to compile a general layout of the place. From this, he and Chief Roland started to assemble a revised plan of action. By the time team Bravo had arrived, the plan was virtually finished. Now all they had to do was wait for the final team members to catch up.
Gunnery Sgts. Flaugherty and MacMillan were casually posted near the entrance of the lab to divert team Charlie when they arrived. Chief Roland, Dr. Lake, MSgt. Santos and SFC Dunn made their way down a spillway access tunnel that led to the boiler room, very close to the room the crucelet was kept in. They had synchronized their watches, and there were several medium-range hand radios dispersed among the group (this being a time before the availability of cellular phones) to communicate with in case of an emergency. ETA for team Charlie was now down to fifteen minutes, and it would take an additional ten to divert them and have them ready.
As Flaugherty and MacMillan stood watch across the street from the lab, they noted several suspicious civilians wander through the police and military barricade. The first few went unnoticed (some of the press were trying to get through as well, and the prevention of this was where most of the perimeter sentries had their attention), but once the intruders were spotted, a violent brawl broke out. In the midst of the chaos, a small truck sped through the barricade and crashed into the glass entrance, where it exploded, and blew the face off the building.
The explosion shook the access tunnel, knocking down debris, and Chief Roland felt sure that "Plan B" had probably just gone bust.
Likewise, Major Frears feared the worst. But in the midst of the chaos, opportunity arose; team Charlie had just arrived, and picking up Flaugherty and MacMillan, they were able to effortlessly shift into "Plan C". The chaos caused by the explosion had neatly incapacitated the police and military forces by blinding them to the cargo truck driving around to the back, where the troops who had been posted, abandoned their posts and hurried to the front of the lab to help the injured.
Now inside of the building, Chief Roland's group quietly moved up a short staircase and down a hallway to the crucelet, where they secured it and quickly carried it towards the rear service entrance. As they loaded it into the cargo truck, four of the intruders, who had managed to get through the soldiers and police and debris, moved to attack the team. It was the crucelet they were after, and they attacked with a ferocity rarely seen in sane people. A minor scuffle ensued, and they were quickly subdued by the expertly trained team members.
As the cargo truck drove off, Chief Roland broke squelch on over the radio twice, signaling that they had retrieved their cargo. They all swiftly and silently escaped the lab crime scene, and made their way through traffic, arriving at the train yard, where they transferred the crucelet to a U.S. Navy freight car, where the majority of the team would travel back with it, while Major Frears, Dr. Chirac, Beth D'Annion, Captain DeCamp, SFC Horowitz and SSgt. Denzo traveled back by helicopter to prepare for its arrival and further transportation.
Upon arriving back at Yokota Air Base, General Mendel passed on a message to Dr. Lake from Professor Bern, concerning the Crucelet of L'anh-Ch'aui. Since the team had left, Professor Bern had been in contact with Cartwright Burnham, one of the Druids of the Eisteddfod Order, seeking information on crucelets; particularly, the means to destroy them. (The Druidic sects are a reclusive, elder branch of humanity, and wards of the true history of the Earth and her races - they share information with very few outsiders, and only under the agreement that those they commune with keep the Druidic sects and their undertaking secret, and protect the ideals they hold.) The information Professor Bern discovers, he thinks, is particular to this presumed crucelet that the team has been tasked with retrieving. Ancient Druidic tomes tell the history of Malef-G'naumm, of the L'anh-Ch'aui, and the d'Ru-S'lyd'i, but are unclear on the crucelet's creator. The history of Malef-G'naumm is that of an unholy, pestilential, insalubriousness. Called the Undead God in the tribe's native tongue, Malef-G'naumm was personified as a disease that killed off the majority of the first races of Earth; a disease that caused the inflicted to feast on human flesh. It was extremely virulent, spreading even more rapidly that the medieval black death, with symptoms that could be likened to modern-day myths of vampires and Hollywood zombies. Presumably, one of the Great Old Races captured and imprisoned Malef-G'naumm in the crucelet they had fashioned from some long-extinct mineral. It was disposed of in some typical way, but then it was somehow discovered by the L'anh-Ch'aui tribe, who performed blasphemous rituals that awakened the undead god within, who was able to control their minds through their sleep, and encoded its fingerprint within their genetic code, to be passed down generation to generation to generation, and so on, so that the tribe's offspring would always serve Malef-G'naumm first.
But then the second race of man arose, and intruded upon the tribe's territory, who conquered them and interbred with them and forcibly threw the crucelet into the sea, where it lay for unknown millennia until it was recently pulled from the depths of the Pacific.
All of this information Professor Bern relayed to Dr. Lake, at the bas Air Force Communications Command (AFCC) center, where a radio operator had patched a landline to Professor Bern, ciphered by the brand new LPC-10 secure telephony speech encoding standard. The cipher made the Professor sound unnatural and synthetic in a slightly comical way to Dr. Lake, but the information he received through the phone was very grave indeed. Professor Bern impressed upon him that it was of the highest importance that the crucelet did not fall into the wrong hands. After the conversation ended, Dr. Lake instructed the team to prepare for an immediate flight back to the Reiss Academy.
The C-5A Galaxy was refueled and prepped to go within an hour of the phone call's end.