it through a portal into a parallel universe and witness as the larva hatches into a towering infernal monstrosity that changes the idyllic world into a hellish dystopia: retroactively, so that it has always been that way. They rush to stop "Maggie" larva from doing the same, but Ted Knoll and his ex-military friends storm the NON facility and rescue his wife and "daughter". Ted sends his family to Marconi, while he and his military group join John, Dave and Amy to blow up the pond mine shaft, believing it to be the nest of BATMANTIS??? creature responsible for the kidnappings. Arriving on the site, Dave and John see that the pond is actually an orifice of the giant creature, but are unable to prevent a group of divers from rescuing ten more "children" from it and reuniting them with their biker "parents". They plant the sulfur bomb provided by NON, but Marconi arrives and urges them to remove and disarm it: the known vulnerability was another implanted memory, and the burning sulfur is actually required for the larvae to hatch. Unaware of this, NON arrives on the site and tries to shoot "children" with sulfur pellets. Ted Knoll's armed group joins the bikers in protecting the "children", and a three-way chase occurs, ending at a collapsed bridge. The BATMANTIS??? creature shows up and distracts NON, and Ted Knoll sacrifices himself to kill it, while the bikers take their "children" away. Several days pass, and Marconi theorizes that, unable to go through metamorphosis, the larvae will eventually die just like unhatched eggs. With this new information, NON continues to keep track on all 11 "children" and seals the "pond" to prevent any more from being spewed forth. Detective Bowman visits the group, demanding to know the truth of what really happened, and Dave, Amy and John tell him the story. Bowman notices that Marconi's version of events make much more sense and accuses them of covering something up, before claiming to have video evidence of David turning into BATMANTIS???. With Amy and John in stunned silence, Dave claims that the video is a fake, and Bowman notes that Dave didn't even ask to see it or dismiss the idea that it could exist. Bowman then drives away, having learned everything he needed to know. Characters David Wong: Author surrogate who narrates his segments from the first-person perspective. Several times during