"Good evening. Please have a seat. You will find wine, water, bread, and salt at the back of the room, if you require refreshment. Also coffee and donuts and all the rest of that stuff. And go easy on the wine. I have rarely met a PHYSICS operative who could maintain decorum around free alcohol.
"While you get your refreshments and get seated, let me talk a little bit about rituals.
"Bread and salt is a traditional means of greeting distinguished guests in Eastern Europe. Unsurprising, after all: bread being considered the staff of life, salt being an expensive but necessary supplement in those days. It was traditional for the guest to tear a piece of bread off the loaf, dip it in the salt, and consume it. Does this ritual sound similar to anything else you may have encountered? Ah. I see that the Protestants in the room understand immediately. Yes, it is similar to the communion method known as intinction, where the bread is taken from a loaf, dipped in a common chalice, and the elements taken together. I see that some of the Catholics in the room are a bit confused. As are those of you who grew up in an environment where Holy Communion was taken in a different manner. In both cases, the ritual is a symbol not only of welcoming, but of fellowship. It is for that reason that we consider it an act of fellowship to 'break bread' together; why so many dates begin with or include a meal.
"Also, water. When Saladin captured the Crusader leaders at Hattin, there was a man among them named Reynald de Chatillon who he hated over all else. Chatillon, in Saladin's opinion, was a cruel and untrustworthy man who broke his vows and acted with great perfidy towards the faithful of Allah. When the nobles of the Crusaders were brought to his tent, Saladin provided water for the Crusader King: Guy de Lusignan. The King, of course, passed the water to his friend, Reynald de Chatillon… at which point, Saladin pointed out, very curtly, that it was Guy who had given water to his hated enemy without his permission. Providing water to guests in such an arid region was considered a promise that no harm would come to them. Saladin, intending to kill Reynald, was very intent that his actions not be seen as breaking a sacred vow.
"Nowadays, we provide donuts and coffee as a courtesy to guests who may miss their breakfasts by coming to these seminars, and as a means of making sure that you do not need to leave to eat or drink, should you require refreshment. But it is not difficult to see a common line between this seemingly mundane courtesy and the sacred rituals of our past. All of which is a long and convoluted way for me to say, as all of you get to your seats: welcome.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is ████████████. You may call me Professor. I am a Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts campus of the International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology: ICSUT. My specialty is in Constructed Intelligence. The cat is my companion, Midnight. This lecture is intended to give you new PHYSICS operatives a working understanding of the basic principles behind Unified Thaumatology. Don't think that after this, that you can perform a working or summon an Outside Intelligence. But I hope that this short lecture will give you some understanding of what it is that we Type Blues do, and how we do it.
"We begin with first principles. Thaumatology is the study of magical principles as a practical science. In many ways, it is similar to Physics, except that it is born from very different principles. For instance, modern physics may be said to begin with the principles of Newton's three laws of motion. Thaumatology begins with a very different set of basic laws, called the Law of Contagion and the Law of Similarity. They may be summed up thusly: 'The part affects the whole,' and 'Like produces like.'
"You can already see where this runs into a problem. Physics already teaches us that these two principles are invalid: if I break a piece off of this loaf of bread and burn the piece, it doesn't cause the rest of the loaf to char. Neither does powdered rhinoceros horn cure male impotence, no matter how similar that appendage might look to a male penis. Which leads us to the third basic principle of magic, originally stated as: 'Magic requires a talented practitioner.' Only certain types of people can perform magic. How and why was never established. And this was the state of practical thaumatology for hundreds of years… up until the early 20th century.
"You see, up until that point, thaumatology… or magic, as it was still known back then… was in a crisis. Advances in science and physics were beginning to crowd out the grey areas that they had relied on. Practitioners were beginning to lose effectiveness. Theories were brought up ranging from human expansion changing the flow of mana in the world, to the very progress of science changing reality into a more stable state. Practitioners even went so far as to deliberately isolate themselves from modern society in order to avoid having their minds contaminated by scientific discoveries… up until a man named Heisenberg proposed a stunning proposition in 1927.
"Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that when dealing with a particle, the more precisely its momentum is known, the less precisely its location is known, and vice-versa. It was not this theory itself that galvanized the thaumatological world, but its correlating principle: observation changes the world. That is when the third principle of magic was revised from 'Magic requires a talented practitioner,' to 'Observation changes Reality.' Or, more simply put… certain minds can change the way the world works.
"Incidentally, it is now believed that Type Green reality benders may be persons with unusual talents in this area, hence the alternate name 'Outside Observer' proposed by some. There is, in fact, a movement to reclassify both Type Green reality benders and Type Blue thaumaturges within a single category. I don't know what we'll call it: Type Teal? Type Aqua? We shall see.
"As time went on, and new theories about quantum mechanics arose, the magical community came to realize that their world had more grey areas than they had anticipated. Nearly overnight, the magician changed from the reclusive hermit hiding from the world, into the young scientist, eagerly exploring it. Even the name of the field changed from the staid and superstitious 'magic' to the much more scientific 'thaumatology.'
"… then the Seventh Occult War broke out… and we faced the consequences of this new science, just as the world faced the sobering consequences of the nuclear age, leading to the formation of the Global Occult Coalition. But that is a lecture for a different time.

"So. What can an old wizard like me tell you about thaumatology?
"First of all… remember those three basic principles: Like Produces Like. The Part Affects the Whole. Observation Changes Reality. It is that third principle that is the main focus of modern thaumatology: the isolation of the EVE quantum, the fundamental unit of living energy, has taught us how observation changes reality. It is the guiding principle behind the COLLICULUS imaging system. And it has led to new technologies that would have been unimaginable just one hundred years prior.
"For instance: all of you have had a colloidal silver pattern tattooed somewhere discreet on your body. This is a vital defense against thaumatological attack: All of us shed bits of ourselves wherever we go, ranging from skin cells to hair cells. Were you not protected, a single hair from your body could be used to do you great harm. The wards break the quantum linkages between your living body and the unliving parts that it sheds, helping to protect you from your enemies with voodoo dolls. On the other hand, we can use those same principles to our advantage: getting a hair or DNA sample from a target could allow a GOC thaumatologist to track the person where our technological means cannot. Something to consider prioritizing when you're in the field.
"Let's go to something a bit more spectacular. This is an Apportation circle. It's basically one big magical quantum teleporter: it basically convinces every particle in your body that it should take the infintesimal chance that it's somewhere far away, rather than where it should be. It requires incredible amounts of energy… and the process of forcing the universe to express such an improbable state causes many other improbable things to occur. We call it backlash, and it's the reason why we don't use Apportation as much as we could: every time we do, something weird happens, and we're generally in the business of stopping weird things from happening, not causing them.
"Yes, hands down, I know this sounds like a bad Douglas Adams story. Did you know he was inspired by quantum physics? Food for thought.
"Here's one more practical application to consider. Say hi to Midnight. Midnight here is what we called a 'familiar,' now better known as a Construct Intelligence. Think of her as a piece of pure intelligence given feline form. Where did that intelligence come from? Ah. These are the questions, aren't they? The ones we're trying to answer.
"Because thaumatology is a new science. It's been studied for years, but as mythology and superstition. It's only in the past fifty years or so that a real study of it has been made. And we've got a lot of things left to learn.
"In any case, I hope that I've helped to break some of the misconceptions around thaumatology, and illustrated a few places in which laypersons like yourselves can utilize it for your benefit. I'll be taking questions now.

Thaumatology Seminar Series
« START | Return to GOC Hub | Aspect Radiation »


The vomit flew over Specialist Jane Weiss' head and splattered messily onto Trooper Smithson.
"Christ on a bike, Weiss, watch where you're puking!"
"Sorry," Weiss gasped out between coughs. "It's not ex— " A pause; more choking. "Not exactly obvious where it's gonna go. And this place is—" Weiss doubled up again.
"Yeah, no shit." Smithson shrugged, sending some partially-digested food spiraling away from him. "That's why you shoulda taken anti-emetics, like you were told. Crow," he added as an afterthought, while scanning Direction Four.
Specialist Zheng cut in. "Facility Two is nothing, Probationary, so if you can't even deal with this, you better just quit now."
Weiss retched again. The cautions from the bottle of anti-memetics rose unbidden into the mush of her forebrain:
Potential Operational Hazards:
- May decrease comprehension of rapid operational changes.
- May cause mild to moderate vertigo and/or dizziness.
- May cause moderate to severe nausea.
Between heaves, Weiss heard MTF Theta-90's commander in her earpiece.
"Formation One? Dimaccio. Smithson, shut up and concentrate on your job. And you, Zheng. I remember what a puke fountain you used to be." A moment of dead air. "Weiss. You're not the first to confuse anti-emetics with anti-memetics, and you probably won't be the last. But you only have one chamber to go, and someone who just sits there puking like a two-year-old is useless to an MTF. So get your shit together. Dimaccio out."
Weiss wiped her mouth with the back of her glove and straightened up. Or, at least, straightened in a direction that locally resembled 'up.'

Most of Mobile Task Force Theta-90's training took place in a complex known as the Anomalous Geometry Training Center — or, to its regular visitors, "Escherville."
AGTC Facility Two, for example, was described by the General Training Manual as

An area designed to induce medium-scale distortions of the perception of direction and orientation

and, perhaps more accurately, by Trooper Jason Smithson as

That gaff where they all reverse gravity and turn it, sort of like, sideways, and you walk down some stairs and come out, except then it's the wall and that.

Even so, Facility Two was relatively mild by Theta-90 standards. As such, it was usually where a rookie's first practical training exercise took place. And a rookie's first PTX was a significant milestone in their MTF career.
So when Task Force Commander Paul Dimaccio had briefed Specialist Weiss that she was to join a couple other Task Force members for PTX: MORNING STROLL, she had nodded, said "Yes, sir," the appropriate number of times, signed the necessary paperwork, and then giddily made her way back to her quarters.
Giddiness, she later considered, was something she could have used less of.

"Oi! Weiss!"
"Smithson."
"Did you scan that feature dead center, Delta-Five?"
Weiss mentally scrabbled for the correct direction scheme. "Remind me which direction's Delta-Five?"
Smithson snorted. "Piece of piss, Weiss. It's the one that isn't One, Two, Three, Four, or Six." Weiss was really getting to know the Task Force's token Brit. Chiefly, she was getting to know how contemptuous he was of her.
Weiss' earpiece clicked. "Weiss? Dimaccio. Delta-Five is to the rear."
"Dimaccio, this is Weiss. Thanks for the reminder, sir, over."
"Ooh, get you with your voice procedure!" Smithson again. "Are you a secret super special soldier, Weiss?"
"Smithson, Dimaccio. Shut the fuck up during instruction." Click. "Weiss. That being said, you don't need to use full VP unless specifically briefed to do so. Now tell me what I meant by 'the rear' just now."
Weiss took a breath, let it out, and answered. "It's relative to the formation's designated direction of advance, sir."
"Designated how?"
"By the formation commander."
Zheng cut in. "Dimaccio, One Actual. May I?"
Weiss groaned inwardly.
"One Actual, go for it. Dimaccio out."
Zheng glanced over her shoulder, addressing Weiss directly. "You don't get off that easily, Probationary. Why do we use this system?"
"Because, uh, in a lot of the environments we have to deploy into, normal direction schemes don't make any sense."
"Do we always use this system? If not, when do we use it?"
"We, uh," — Weiss paused, turning slightly — "we only use it for broadly Euclidean spaces, where it makes sense to use it."
"Keep your eyes on Delta-Five, Probationary." Zheng never referred to Weiss as 'Specialist'. "Tell me two other environments where we'd use different schemes. Specify the—"
Smithson didn't let her finish. "Contact, contact, contact! Hostiles inbound, Delta-Four!"
Weiss glanced to her right as she dropped down — no, she corrected herself, towards Delta-One — to see several training drones appearing from various crevices in the Direction Four walls (floors? Ceilings?). Weiss knew, from the kind of experience she'd rather forget, that just because their weapons were non-lethal didn't mean they were non-painful.
As Zheng and Weiss scrambled into what cover they could find on their local surfaces, Smithson dropped to a kneeling position, bringing his weapon up from ready.
"Fuckin' hell! Fast little buggers, ain't they?" Smithson shifted position slightly, bracing the rifle against a metal bar. "Gonna have to cheat, then…" CRACK-CRACK-CRACK. "Shit!" CRACK. "Fuckin' hell! Come on, you little bastard…" CRACK. "Get in!"
And, just like that, it was over. Weiss saw the last of the drones fall towards Delta-Six, obviously their designated 'down' direction. Smithson had to duck to avoid drone fragments falling past him. The entire incident had taken no more than a few seconds.
"You beauty!" Smithson grinned. "Alright, you lot, drama's over. Super Smithson saves the day again."
"Is that so," said Zheng, unfolding herself from makeshift cover.
"Fuckin' right it is, Zhengie! They didn't even get a taze off."
"Yes." Zheng indicated the remains of one of the drones. "Probably because they weren't even armed."
"Yeah, well. I don't remember your arse bein' able to hit the broad side of a barn, neither, Zhengie, so I'd shut it if I was you."
Zheng colored slightly, but said nothing in response.
The radio clicked again. "Smithson? Dimaccio. I'd like to remind you that Specialist Zheng is the designated formation commander."
"Yessir. Even though she's just a specialist," added Smithson, not quite quietly enough.
"That so, Trooper? I guess you're too good to work under a Specialist. Well, when you're done there, report to the Watch Commander for four nights' fire watch. Because only Super Smithson can protect the Angle Grinders from things what go bump in the night."
"…Sir."
"You're the hero Theta-90 needs, Smithson. Dimaccio out."
Weiss was trying her best not to smirk. Zheng's mouth curled up, ever so subtly, at the very edge.
"Now that's over with, I think it's time we pressed on. There's a doorway here. Weiss, take point and lead us towards the doorway — which is in what direction?"
This time, Weiss' response was immediate. "Delta-Three, Specialist. Because it's designated forward relative to us."
"Correct." Zheng nodded slightly. "When you're ready, Probationary. No need for a tactical approach for the next phase. Just open the door and walk through."
"Will do." Weiss cautiously approached the door, grasped the handle, turned it, pushed, and walked through.
Onto what all her senses told her was a ceiling.
"Oh, Christ—"
There was a short pause.
Very slowly, Zheng looked down at herself. Equally slowly, she looked back up at Weiss.
And then, abruptly and with a sudden smile, towards Trooper Smithson.
"Super Smithson! A man of many talents. I hope your many talents extend to being good at doing my laundry!"
"You— the fuck— " Smithson swallowed and decided not to push his luck. "Fine. Whatever."
"You truly are our greatest hero, Trooper." Zheng beamed at him. "Probationary? When you're ready."
Weiss allowed herself a small smile as she wiped her mouth again. "Yes, Specialist."
And Formation One moved toward the exit.

« Wednesday, 3pm, The Office of Paul Dimaccio | Hub | Friday, 2200, Paul Dimaccio's Personal Quarters »


"You nervous?" Jericho asked.
"A bit," Callahan admitted. "After all, this is gonna be a long trip."
"Don't worry about it so much," Jericho said. "It's going to be a lonely, exhausting, and stressful job, but you'll be saving the world. Besides, it's only seven billion klicks. Practically next door."
"Yeah, well. I'll miss ya, buddy. Watch the fort."
"Keep safe."
The two PHYSICS Division operatives gave each other a high five which became a handshake which became a bro-hug which became a real hug, because no matter how big of a badass manly PHYSICS Division Strike Team operative you were, having one of your best friends leave for a ten year shift on the other side of the solar system was a bit of an emotional moment. No homo and all that, but Callahan admitted that he was going to miss this asshole. Even if he did steal all the beers out of the fridge.
"Operative Callahan?" the man in the white coat said. "I have your final mission briefing ready for you."
"Doc, I've been training for this mission for the past year. I think I know what's going to happen," Callahan said.
"Nonetheless, regulations are that I need to read you these briefings before you're allowed onto the apportation pad," Doctor Benjamin Flaherty (Ph.Th.D) said.
"All right, hit me," Callahan sighed.
"I'll make it fast," Doc Flaherty reassured the agent. "Here goes. In a few minutes, you will be transferred from this ship onto a barge located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That barge will then be apported by thaumatological working to Farpoint Forward Operating Base. The barge will carry supplies and replacement personnel for Farpoint Station. You recognize, by so volunteering for this mission, that apportation is a difficult, dangerous, and unpredictable process, and that your safe arrival at Farpoint is not guaranteed. You also recognize that the process of apportation carries with it the possibility that your mind may become affected by a cognitohazardous entity. You finally recognize that Farpoint Station is located in a dangerous operating area, and that you may suffer death, dismemberment, or injury due to the hazardous nature of the duty. Finally, you recognize that this assignment is for no less than ten years, and that rescue or evacuation from Farpoint Station is next to impossible, even by apportation, due to the distances and lack of thaumatological personnel at the destination. Do you so acknowledge these statements as made to you?"
"I acknowledge," Callahan said.
"Please sign here."
Then there were another twelve statements to be made, another series of documents to sign, one last health checkup, and a final reckoning of all of his earthly assets, should he not return from where he was going. Finally, Doc Flaherty put all of the papers into a manila folder and passed Callahan a portable hard drive.
"What's this, Doc?"
"It's got every movie that came out this year on it, plus the full runs of a bunch of TV shows, and a bunch of porn," Doc said. "Those guys at Farpoint need some distractions."
"Sounds like I'm going to be the one needing this," Callahan laughed.
"You're more right than you know. Good luck, Cal."
Callahan gave the Doc one more handshake, then turned to walk down the ramp and onto the LCAC.
He stepped aside for a bit as a rather large cylinder was loaded onto the hovercraft by handtruck. The tech secured the cylinder to the cargo compartment wall, then took a seat in the chair opposite. A few minutes later, the hovercraft emerged from the cruiser's well deck into the morning light, heading towards the pair of barges that were floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

"Everything fitting well?" the technician asked, his voice sounding dull and tinny through the helmet faceplate.
Callahan nodded and gave the man a thumbs up. The technician nodded and gave Callahan a handshake, then closed the hatch of the capsule, leaving Callahan alone with his thoughts, the sound of the air slowly circulating inside his suit his only companion.
Through the capsule window, he could see the bright blue Pacific Ocean stretching to the horizon. Two small ships, (two of the seven that formed a circle around the barges) floated in the distance, the thaumatological resonators on their decks softly glowing in a dim bluish-purple light. Somewhere out there, a literal army of thaumatologists were shaping and working the flow of EVE through the resonators, forming a working circle around the floating barges.
"All right," he heard a voice say over his comms loop. "We're at T-Minus five minutes. I need a go/no go for launch. Node 1?"
"Go, sir."
"Node 2?"
"Go."
"Node 3?"
"We're Go, sir."
"Node 4?"
"We're Go."
"Node 5?"
"Go."
"Node 6?"
"That's Go, sir."
"Node 7?"
"All's good. Go."
"Payload?"
"Go," Callahan said into his mic.
"Targeting?"
"Go," said another voice over the loop.
"Enviro?"
"We're Go."
"Computers?"
"Go."
"I have all stations reporting Go for Launch. Resuming the clock at T-Minus five minutes and counting."
"Node One, Energizing."
"Node Two, Energizing…"
The next few minutes were a flurry of activity as the thaumatologists did their thing. Technical jargon and status reports flowed back and forth in a smooth exchange of information. Complications arose and were swiftly dealt with. And throughout all of it, the steady, periodic calls of, "T-Minus four minutes…" "T-Minus three minutes…"
And then it was "T minus ten… nine… eight…"
"Arcing."
The window of the canopy suddenly darkened as white-hot arcs of energy erupted from the resonator's thirty-foot tall antennae, forming a giant, glowing star of energy in the middle of the ocean (with the barges and Callahan in the center). Callahan felt his hair stand on end, saw EVE sparking off of the glass and metal of the capsule walls…
"Seven… six… nodes at one hundred percent…"
… the air around him roared and screamed as tremendous amounts of magical energy were channeled into the structure of the working…
"… three… two… one, cast—"
The announcer's voice was suddenly cut off, just as the world went black, and Callahan suddenly found himself 6.7 light-hours away from the rest of his comms loop.
It was as if someone had turned off the lights on the world. The sunny, bright, Pacific Ocean had vanished, leaving Callahan in utter darkness, just before a sudden loud thunderclap rocked the capsule.

Back on Earth, there was a loud, crashing thunderclap as the air rushed in to fill the void left by the disappearing barges. All seven ships rocked violently as the powerful waves pushed them back and forth. The thaumatological backlash was almost worse: a good portion of the ocean water turned into blood, staining the ocean deep red. Halfway around the world, a volcano that had not existed until then suddenly erupted for the ninth time in one hundred years, and just as quickly vanished from reality.
And somewhere on Pluto, two barges appeared in the center of a carefully drawn apportation circle, covered in the frost and snow that had once been a few hundred cubic meters of air and seawater that surrounded the two vessels.
And then, as Callahan's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the most beautiful stars he'd ever seen in his life.

"… and transfer complete," Davis said. "We've got our reinforcements."
"What does VERITAS say?" Ricci asked.
"… scanning now. I've got parathreat signatures in Barge 2… as expected. Looks like it held."
"And our newcomer?" the base commander asked.
"He checks out clean. Stressed and terrified as hell, but no hitch-hikers."
"All right. Send out Richards and Carter," Ricci said. "And let's see what Santa and his elves sent us this year."

The rapping on the windowpane startled Callahan out of his awed inspection of the gorgeous night sky. He turned his head to see a man in a spacesuit (gold-tinted visor raised to reveal his face), waving cheerfully at him. As Callahan watched, the stranger plugged an audio cord into a port on the surface of the capsule. "Test, test, test, test," a voice rang in his ears. "This is Richards, to capsule passenger. How do you read?"
"Loud and clear, Richards," Callahan replied. "I'm Callahan."
"Cool. Nice to meet ya, dude," the man said. "Just hang tight for another moment. We'll get you out of there."
Callahan waved back, and the space-suited man moved on, continuing his inspection of the two barges for unexpected complications.
It was a half hour later when the man returned, with a second agent in tow. Callahan felt a couple of thuds as something was attached to his capsule, then the world tilted upward slightly, and he felt himself move. Glancing out the side window, he could see that some sort of forklift, with its entire structure covered in insulating panels, had lifted up his capsule and was carrying it across the surface of the ice-covered rock. The man inside the vehicle (a broad-faced man with a big orange beard), waved cheerfully to him, then went back to the delicate procedure of moving the crew capsule to its destination.
A few moments later, Callahan saw his new home come into view: a low series of structures, most of them in the shape of cylinders resting on their sides, illuminated with pale, bluish lighting. The logo of the Global Occult Coalition was inscribed on the side of each one. To one side, a bunch of open-topped crates held what appeared to be garbage bags or some other refuse.
Some wag, he saw, had put up a sign outside the biggest building.
"Welcome to Farpoint Station," it read. "Population 12."
There was a figure in a space suit standing next to it. As Callahan passed by, he took down the plate that read "2" and put up one that read "3" in its place.

The first impression that Callahan got when the airlock doors opened was one of claustrophobia. Everything was cramped and tight-looking, and every single wall, floor, and ceiling surface was covered in instrumentation, equipment, supplies, or lockers.
The second impression that he got was the smiling woman standing in the middle of the room, wearing a loosely fitting set of grey trousers, jacket, gloves, as well as a full coverage face mask.
"WELCOME TO FARPOINT!" she shouted, her voice muffled and tinny through the suit helmet. "I'M A.D. RICCI. HANG TIGHT, GONNA CHECK THE INSIDE OF THE CAPSULE FIRST."
Callahan nodded, then waited for a few minutes as the woman pulled herself into the capsule in a slow, languid motion, like she was underwater. It took her a few minutes to run the scanner all along the walls, floor, and ceiling of the capsule, checking for dust or hazardous chemicals. She then raised a bulky, older-model VERITAS unit up and did a scan of his EVE signature, checking for any parathreat hitchhikers. Finally satisfied, she then put the scanner away on a holster at her hip and leaned her head in close to Callahan's helmet.
"YOU CAN OPEN UP YOUR SUIT NOW!" she shouted.
Callahan nodded and reached up to undo the collar of his helmet. The air hissed slightly, and he breathed in his first breath of air in his new home.
It smelled kinda like armpits.
Ricci laughed as Callahan's nose wrinkled. "Yeah," she admitted. "It doesn't smell so great in here… but we've got a dozen… a baker's dozen now… anyway, we've got thirteen guys living in an enclosed environment, breathing in each other's body odor. You get used to it after a bit."
"That explains the crate of air fresheners?" he asked, gesturing to a small, sealed box in the corner.
"Yeah," Ricci admitted. "They don't last, and after a while you get sick of the pine tree smell, but… it helps." She helped Callahan to undo the harness of his capsule, then pulled him to his feet. In the low gravity of Pluto, they rose up nearly all the way to the ceiling before coming back down to ground.
"Wow," Callahan breathed.
"Yeah," Ricci laughed. "That's another thing you'll take a while to get used to. Anyway, welcome to Icetown… the GOC's most 'forward' Forward Operating Base."

"Your job is mostly going to be blue-collar," Ricci explained. "Expanding the base, now that you've brought the new module. Maintaining the systems. Watching over the Depot. And, of course, taking readings and doing analysis of the Deep Space Warning System."
"Do the probes ever pick up anything?" Callahan asked.
"Sometimes. I'll explain later. "She looped her arm into a handle next to a low doorway and slid it open. "So this is your room for now," she said, gesturing to the interior of a storage cabinet filled with insulated bags of water. "We'll put down a sleeping bag for you. It'll only be until we finish installing the new habitation modules you brought up. Then we're all moving in to our nice, new quarters."
"What will you do with the old ones?"
"We didn't have any," Ricci admitted. "We've just been sleeping wherever we can find space. I usually do it in the commander's chair up in C and C."
"That… sounds rough."
"You've got no idea," Ricci sighed. "At least I wasn't here when they were doing initial installation. Those guys had to live in their suits for a solid week before they could get the core modules set up. Not a fun time."
"I met one of them, during training," Callahan admitted. "Agent Xiphos."
"Oh? Swordy? How is that old fart? Haven't seen him since he shunted home."
"He twitches a lot. And still walks with a cane."
"Course he does. Tough bastard like that wouldn't stay in a wheelchair for long." Ricci grimaced and shook her head. "Full gravity's a bitch. Anyway, leave your stuff here. I'll show you the bathroom and galley."

"… and here we are," Richards said, grinning broadly "The Depot. The Coalition's solution for things they can't kill or negotiate with."
The structure was massive: about the size of an aircraft hangar. All throughout the structure were cages, crates, and other containers, all of them open to the vacuum and freezing cold of deep space, each one labeled and numbered and marked with the seal of the Global Occult Coalition.
"Where do you want this one, Richie?" Carter asked, as he maneuvered the small forklift into the building.
"Let's see… Section Three," Richards said, consulting his ruggedized tablet computer. "Next to the Heat-Eater."
Carter deftly maneuvered the device into the back of the building and laid the cylinder down next to a big crate with a temperature gauge that hovered somewhere around absolute zero.
"So, Callahan," Richards asked. "What's in that thing, anyway?"
"The container?" Callahan asked. "Type Red. Expanding Regenerator. Fire didn't work, so they tried ice. That worked, but when it thawed out, it kept coming back to life. So they kept it suspended in liquid nitrogen until it could come out here."
"Makes sense," Richards said. "Hey, want to see our UFO?"
"You mean the actual Zeta Reticulan scout ship? It's here?"
"Yup," Richards said, grinning. "And if you're real nice, I'll even let you sit in the pilot's seat."
"Sounds like a deal."

"You have no idea how good it is to taste actual chocolate again," Ricci crooned, as she took a bite of the Milky Way bar. "Oh God, it's like tasting heaven."
"Hey, boss," Vandenberg said, grinning, "You give me your orange and I'll give you my candy bar."
"Screw that, Van," Ricci laughed. "I'm going to savor every bite of this orange. It's the first time I've had one in a year."
"I thought you guys had an aeroponics garden?" Callahan asked.
"It doesn't have oranges," Ricci pointed out. "Kinda hard to grow an orange tree aeroponically. It does okay for tomatoes and onions, though."
"Ding ding ding!" Carter shouted. He tossed a silvery drinks bag to Callahan, who caught it. "All right, guys. A toast to our new crew member. To Callahan! And may he find his place with us among the ice and the dark!"
"Hear hear."
"Cheers."
"I'll drink to that."
Callahan nodded gratefully to Carter, then took a big swig of his drink, only to gag and gasp when, instead of the expected water, something closer to pure ethanol hit the back of his throat.
Everyone laughed and cheered and clapped him on the back.
"Jesus Christ!" Callahan groaned. "Where the hell did you find this stuff?"
"We distill some of the leftover carbs into alcohol," Carter grinned. "I've got a still."
"And High Command allows this?" he gasped incredulously.
"High Command knows that we're out here for the long haul, our bones slowly turning into mush, surrounded by helium lakes and hydrogen snow, watching and waiting over the biggest depository of frozen parathreats in the solar system short of the Foundation's own stockpiles, and looking out for alien invaders. We do our job… they forgive us our indulgences."
"Then in that case," Callahan sighed, "I'm glad that part of what I brought along were a bunch of crates of orange juice powder. Screwdriver, anyone?"

"… and contact," Carter said, as the two structures met up.
"Hard dock," Vandenberg announced, as the locking latches hooked into place.
"Expanding the structure now."
In the monitor, Callahan could see the first of the four new habitation modules for the base slowly accordioning open, sliding and locking into place like the world's most complicated and high-tech pop-up book. On another monitor, he could see Carter slowly backing his forklift out of the cylindrical micrometeorite shield that the operatives had constructed from flat-pack parts over the course of the past week. When it had finished deploying, the habitation module would be separated from the hard outer shell by a gap of about three inches of vacuum: good insulation, and good micrometeorite shielding as well.
"… and that's deployment complete," Carter said. "Let's put the end cap on, and check out our new digs."
"Base Commander gets first dibs!" Ricci declared.
"Sorry, Boss," Carter laughed. "We agreed to draw straws, right?"
"This seems remarkably unfair," Ricci complained.
"You're the one who suggested it, Boss," Carter pointed out. "You can't complain if you lose at your own game."
"Whatever. You're all a bunch of assholes," Ricci pouted.

Callahan yawned as he bounced slowly down the corridor towards the galley. It was "night" shift, around the time when most of the station's inhabitants chose to take their sleep cycle, and he needed a warm drink.
He filled up a hot chocolate pouch with hot water from the galley, logged the requisition on the galley computer, and started to head back to the storage closet that was still his quarters until the second hab module finished construction. As he did so, he noticed a low, soft light coming from CIC.
He lifted his way up the ladder and into the base command center, which was located on an elevated module overlooking the rest of the base. The entire upper half of CIC was a giant observation dome made up of thirteen windows in three concentric circles, and it had some of the best views of the entire base.
Ricci was there, sitting in the commander's chair. She had a blanket wrapped around her, and she was staring intently into the night sky, at the endless expanse of untwinkling stars. She turned to look at Callahan, then smiled at him as she snuggled up in the blanket and stared out into the universe.
"Ever think about why we're out here?" she asked softly.
"… to protect humanity?" Callahan replied. It was the Strike Team answer to that question. "To watch for extraterrestrial threats. To guard the Depot…"
"No," Ricci said, shaking her head. "We could have put the Depot on Antarctica. Or the Moon, for that matter. And we could watch for extraterrestrial threats just as well using ground-based radar installations."
Oh. "Then why?" Callahan wondered. "Why go through all this trouble to build a base out here on Pluto?"
"… if you can answer that question," Ricci said, smiling wistfully, "You'd make thirteen people very happy… but I think I have an answer." She turned in her couch to face him, resting her head on the crook of her elbow. "Why did you volunteer for this assignment?" she asked.
Callahan grimaced. He knew this was going to come up sooner or later. "I was in Strike," he said softly. "… I killed a lot of things… a lot of people. And then I couldn't keep killing. I was done shooting things." He took the seat next to her at the operations center, and played idly with a frayed bit of upholstery on the left armrest. "And when I heard about this assignment… I figured it would be a good chance to do something else. To help the GOC in a way that didn't involve killing people any more."
"For me, it was Assessment," Ricci said softly. "There was a school in Newark. A Katie took out an entire third grade classroom. I had to watch and monitor it happening. We didn't have the assets to take it down. By the time Strike arrived…" She shuddered inwardly at the memory.
"So that's why Farpoint exists?" Callahan asked, bitterly. "So the GOC can stash away its broken agents somewhere far away from the normal people?"
"… I don't think that's it either," Ricci said. She sat up and took a moment to wrap the blanket around her shoulders. "I think it's simpler than that. I think… we might be an emergency backup supply for humans, in case Earth gets destroyed. Or maybe we're meant to be a bunch of canaries in the coal mine against alien invasion. Or maybe we're just here to prove that humanity could do this… even if we had to do it in secret from the rest of the world. Maybe we're here so that when humanity finally reaches this far… they'll be able to see that we've already been here all along… and we're waiting to help them reach even further."
She got up from her chair and let the blanket fall. She was wearing a tank top and shorts, Callahan saw, and he felt his heart race as the low gravity did charming things to her bustline…
"… maybe we're out here just to be humans," she whispered, as she slid into the chair next to him and kissed him.

Afterwards, he laughed at the absurdity of it all, as they cuddled together under the blanket under the starlight.
"I have to admit, this is a new one for me," Callahan chuckled.
"There's a first time for everything," Ricci giggled. "Just think, though… if only we could tell the world. We could answer so many questions for them about sex in space…"
"I'm ready to keep experimenting if you are." Callahan grinned.
"We've got another hour until night shift ends," Ricci pointed out.
"Plenty of time."
Up above them, the stars slowly turned in their unending dance.

"Sequence"
« "Special Observer" | Return to GOC Hub | "AWTOK"»


"It's the same old story that it's always been," Dr. Elaine Wicks said. "The farmers and ranchers keep slashing and burning their way into the forest. When they encounter the local tribes, they drive them off, sometimes by force. There are supposed to be laws in place to protect them, but the local governments are less than eager to enforce them. If you could put a word in with your superiors…"
"I'll pass your concerns on to them," the man known as Joseph Knight said, "but I can't guarantee that they'll take action. I'm only here to assess the historical significance of the find."
"Of course. That's what UNESCO needs to be concerned with," Dr. Wicks said bitterly. "Protecting the ruins. Those have world significance, don't they?"
"The United Nations is, of course, concerned with the human rights of the indigenous inhabitants," Knight replied. "But that doesn't fall under my jurisdiction. I can promise, however, that your concerns will be passed on to the relevant authorities."
"That's all I ask," Dr. Wicks said. "The Yashiwa are a fascinating tribe, and it would be a crime if their culture and heritage were destroyed so that Americans can get fat on hamburgers…"
"I prefer tacos," Knight said. "If you'd excuse me, ma'am?"
He nodded respectfully to the doctor and walked out of his trailer into the stifling heat of the Amazon rainforest. His thin shirt clung to his body, and the chirruping sounds of insects and brightly colored birds surrounded him like a kaleidoscope of sound. The camp was a small one: several tents, a latrine, and a trailer with computers, satellite uplink, and a gasoline-powered generator augmented by solar panels. The structures were arranged in a loose semi-circle at the base of a massive temple: hundreds of meters tall, made of hand-cut stone, covered in crumbling reliefs and tangled masses of vines. Thirteen archaeologists and anthropologists had come to this place to study the so called "Yashiwa Pyramid," already being hailed as one of the biggest archeological finds of the century.
Mister Knight, and a few other members of the team, were here for a different reason.
He saw James Zhao wave to him, and nodded to the young Chinese-American man, before jogging over next to his colleague. "Can you confirm?" he asked.
"Not yet," Zhao said grimly, "I'm still trying to figure out what's going on here."
"Damn," Knight sighed. "Have you managed to slow down the progress?"
"I've convinced the teams that we need to catalog and study the exterior in-depth before we even think about entering the structure," Zhao said, "but it's only a matter of time before one of them slips their leash and tries to open up one of those doors. I can't exactly tell them not to open up King Tut's tomb, can I?"
"Do your best," Knight said. "Seriously. Try hard. The Council was adamant on this point: whatever's inside here, it caused half of their oracles to have a foaming fit when the discovery was announced. We cannot let this place get opened until we figure out what's inside. If someone does, and something bad happens… well, the last thing I want to do is to have to blame the Yashiwa for the massacre of a bunch of students. The 'murderous marauding savages,' thing doesn't really go over well, these days. Besides, they seem like nice people."
"Speak of the Devil," Zhao sighed. On the other side of the camp, a slight, rangy man with leathery, caramel-colored skin was walking towards them. He carried an ornately decorated blowgun-cum-spear-cum-walking stick in one hand, and his shirtless body was covered in ornate, interlocking tattoos. Out of respect for the newcomers, the man had traded in his traditional garments of woven plant fibers for a pair of brightly colored shorts. He had also traded in his traditional hand-woven sandals for a pair of leather Birkenstocks: that had less to do with respect, and more to do with comfort. Yashiwa shoes were notoriously uncomfortable.
"Mister Tashika," Knight said, inclining his head respectfully. "It is good to see you again."
"And you, Mister Knight," the man said. His English was tinged with a low, guttural accent: the Yashiwa language was largely glottal. "Your studies go well?"
"They do indeed. We've been studying the bas-reliefs on the walls of the pyramid," Knight said. "They're fascinating. Do you know anything about them?"
Tashika laughed out loud and shook his head. "I wish I could tell you that this was an ancient holy site to my people, and maybe even quote you some ancient story passed down from mother to daughter for countless generations… but the truth is, I don't know shit. The Yashiwa never came here often. There's no river here, the soil is bad, and the hunting poor."
"Which is the interesting thing, to me," Knight mused. "People don't often build huge buildings out in the middle of nowhere. Buildings this big usually get built where there's some kind of natural resource to draw upon. A river for trade or fishing. Fertile ground for farming. High ground, for defense and isolation. Not to mention that you don't often find temples without ancillary buildings around them…"
"Ancillary?"
"Secondary," Knight clarified. "Things like homes for the priests, or farms to feed them, or to house craftsmen or merchants. Those almost always pop up around religious centers like temples. It's not often that you see a single building like this out in the middle of the jungle."
"Then maybe this isn't a temple?" Tashika suggested.
Knight paused for a moment, carefully choosing his next words before going on: "There's really nothing else it can be," he said, trying to keep his voice calm: Tashika was treading dangerously close to the truth here. "A building this big, what can it be?"
"I do not know," Tashika said. "But…" he laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head. "Shit. This is going to make me sound like some ignorant tribal…"
"You're anything but ignorant, Tashika. Just go on and tell me."
"All right," the Yashiwa man said, sighing. "Look. Our village has this… this old woman. Crazy old crone. We call her the Great Mother. They say that she can see the future. It's all ancient legends and myths, but it's part of our culture, you understand?"
"Yeah," Knight said. "Shamans and wise women are universal." He vaguely remembered meeting the old woman when he and the UNESCO team had made their introductions to the local Yashiwa tribes. He remembered a withered old woman with one arm, leaning heavily on a stick, glaring angrily at the interlopers into her village. He also remembered Zhao telling him that the woman's EVE signature was showing distinct tendencies towards extrasensory perceptive abilities…
"It's all bullshit, but… well, the Great Mother's insisting that we move to our winter grounds early this year. That's a thirty mile journey through the jungle. We usually don't make that journey until a few months later in the year, but… she's insisting that disaster's going to befall us if we remain here, and she's got my father so riled up that he's agreed to move the tribe early this year." Tashika laughed nervously, hiding his teeth with one hand. "It's all tribalist bullshit, but the older folks are taking it seriously. So it looks like I won't be able to help you guys out any more."
"That's a shame," Knight said, and meant it. Tashika had been a treasure: a Yashiwa man, raised in the culture of the tribes, but raised in the city, and college educated, to boot. He had been invaluable in smoothing out negotiations between the UNESCO team and the Yashiwa, and Knight was certain that he was going to miss the young man. "Maybe when you come back to your summer grounds, you and I can meet up again."
"If you are still here," Tashika agreed. "It may be that you find out all you need to know about this place before then, and you will go home."
"Perhaps," Knight agreed.
"I'll go let the others know," Tashika said. "Thank you for your help… and for your respect, Mister Knight. Good day. Mister Zhao."
"Tashika," Zhao said, extending his hand in friendship. "Good luck. I'm going to miss you."
"And I you, Mister Zhao."
The young man inclined his head respectfully to Knight, then walked away to say his goodbyes to his friends on the rest of the UNESCO research team. Knight shook his head, brow furrowed in worry. "Jimmy? Why does an old proverb about rats and sinking ships come to mind?"
"I was thinking the exact same thing," Zhao admitted.

"Mister Knight?"
Knight awoke slowly, to find Zhao leaning over his cot. The young man's face was drawn with worry.
"Mister Knight," Zhao said. "I think it's happened."
"What's going on?" Knight asked, suddenly alert.
"Timothy and Jonas are missing. And one of the temple doors is open."
"Damn," Knight growled. "I thought I had at least another week before one of those kids tried something stupid…"
"I don't think it's their fault. You'd better come see."
Knight understood the moment that he came out of his tent. It wasn't hard to miss the knocked-over tent on the edge of the camp, guylines snapped, steel poles bent in two. One of the nylon walls had been shredded, as if by some massive claw. There was a dark blotch on the ground that looked a lot like blood.
"Who else knows?" Knight asked.
"Two other researchers. Lin and Tamaki. I think that's it."
"All right," Knight said coldly. "You talk to them. Get them to keep quiet. Tell them it's a bear or something, and we're going after them. I'll get the gear."
Knight strode quickly across the camp to the equipment tent, where he unlocked a box of gear that he had kept sealed since arriving in South America. Inside, there were two headsets, a pair of M-4 carbines, ammunition, and a satellite phone.
He took out the rifles first, checked to make sure that the chambers were empty, and put them aside. Knight then picked up the satellite phone and dialed a number that didn't exist in any phone directory on Earth.
"Central," a soft, feminine voice said. "Report."
"Central, this is Tasker One," Knight said. "Authentication Code Victor Assegai Nine Two Two."
"Tasker One, Central confirms. Bringing up your casefile now… transferring you to your appropriate controller. Wait one, please."
Knight picked up one of the two headsets, checking the OCULUS rigs' batteries and doing a quick diagnostic, while Journey's "Wheel in the Sky" played over the phone. The phone picked up before the song had a chance to repeat once.
"Tasker One, this is Central Authority. Report, over."
"Central, Tasker One. I've got two missing civilians, and the temple doors have opened. I'm about to enter the structure with Tasker Two. Third Mission Priority. I am escalating to Response Level 3. If you don't hear back from us within three hours, consider it a Response Level 4 emergency. Please confirm. Over."
"Tasker One, Central confirms two missing civilians, temple doors open. Central confirms your escalation to Response Level 3. Central will escalate to Response Level Four at 0600 hours, local time. Over."
"Thank you, Central. Tasker One out." Knight hung up the satellite phone and hung the unit from his belt buckle. He picked up an empty day pack and packed in food, water, medical supplies, and a laptop computer. Zhao joined him in the tent shortly after, and Knight helped him to pack a day pack of his own.
The two men emerged from the tent, carrying their assault rifles and wearing their night vision goggles. He could see two of the researchers from the UNESCO archeology team standing by the tents. Lin raised her eyebrow in alarm, at seeing the two men dressed like special operations soldiers.
"All right," Knight said shortly. "We've got two missing personnel, possibly kidnapped. Zhao and I are going to see if we can get them back. Lin, if you don't hear back from us by 0600… sorry, 6 'o clock… take everyone, pack them into the vehicles, and drive towards town. Find the nearest American Embassy and tell them what happened."
"What did happen?" the hapless Lin exclaimed. "I don't get this at all!"
"Terrorists," Knight said grimly. "I think they kidnapped Tim and Jonas. I'm going to see if we can't find them."
"But…"
"Lin," Zhao said softly. "If we don't come back, the terrorists could come after the rest of you. You need to make sure the team gets to safety. You're in charge here."
Lin hesitated to say more, then, finally, just nodded. "Be safe," she said.
"Terrorists, huh?" Zhao whispered, as the two men started jogging towards the temple.
"The catch-all explanation for all weirdass activity," Knight agreed.

Through VERITAS, the interior of the abandoned temple seemed to glow with a sickly greenish light, the patterns vaguely resembling those of blood splatters or nails being raked across stone. Greenish mist seemed to swirl around the two men, raising goosebumps on their bare arms. The image of a flayed skull raced towards Knight, lipless mouth open in a wordless scream, then vanished into the darkness.
"Bad things happened in here," Zhao whispered.
"Very bad," Knight agreed. It took a lot of emotional and spiritual violence for EVE signals to linger as deeply as these did. There had been murder done in this place… and worse.
"Knight," Zhao said softly. He gestured to a spot on the ground that had a brighter VERITAS signature than the others. Knight dropped to one knee and ran his hand over the pool of brightly shining white light. His fingertips came away sticky.
He put his fingertips to his nose and smelled blood.
"It's fresh," he said. "Couldn't have been shed more than a few minutes ago. I think we're catching up to them."
It was then that Knight heard the moaning.
It was very soft, and very low, no louder than a kitten's cry, but it was low and guttural, and tinged with a nasty wet sound. It was coming from deeper into the temple. Further into the darkness.
"… you know." Zhao quipped. "It's at this point in all the horror movies that I always started yelling at the girl not to go into the dark scary temple. Just go home. Who cares what's in there…"
"Yeah," Knight agreed. "But…"
He raised the rifle to his shoulder and continued to walk down the dark, mildewy hallways. Closer to the sound.

The light was dim. It was the color of fireflies. Thousands of them. It flickered and glowed dimly, up ahead in the dark.
Knight stepped into the central chamber, and he felt his gorge rise. The thing in the center was a mass of… matter… about knee high. It was spongy, laced with tiny holes about the width of a pencil. Thousands of small, glowing maggots writhed and burrowed their way through the mass, their tiny bodies inching forward bit by bit, slowly but surely.
The thing on the top of the mass wasn't Jonas. Not any more. Its eyes were frozen open in terror, its mouth wide open in shock. One of the maggots was eating its way out of his lower lip, as three more burrowed their way into his left eye. His hand was outstretched towards Knight. The skin was slowly dripping off it, like a melting candle.
Knight reached out with his weapon and gently poked at Jonas's hand. It indented slightly under the touch, leaving behind an impression of his rifle's muzzle. Like wax.
"Soap," Zhao whispered. "They're turning into soap…"
"Goddamn," Knight whispered. He studied the mass a little closer. There, huddled up next to Jonas, his arm and torso melting into the other man's was Timothy.
"All right," Knight said. "We're out of here. Seal the door, get the UNESCO team out of here. Call in STRIKE. This is way above our…"
"Sir?" a soft, female voice said behind them. "Mister Knight?"
Knight spun around, rifle raised, to find Lin standing behind him. "Mister Knight," Lin said. "I left Tamaki in charge. He's getting everyone ready to move, but I thought you could use the help— OH MY G—"
Zhao grabbed the young Chinese woman before she could scream, slapped his gloved hand over her mouth and held her down while she struggled. Something moved inside the glowing chamber, and Knight spun around to see…
Maggots. Glowing ones. Thousands of them, bursting from the mass of soapy-waxy material that had once been Jonas and Tim. They crawled over the damp stone, across the ancient bas-reliefs and over the mold and slime, and they were racing towards him in a glowing tide, terrifyingly fast, and Knight turned to Lin and Zhao and screamed for them to run even as his feet turned towards the exit and he bolted for his life…
He heard Zhao scream as the things caught up to him and Lin, heard Lin start to shriek a moment later. Then he felt his ankles give way, and he collapsed to the floor, banging his chin hard against the stone and seeing stars.
Knight spun around, rifle raised. The glowing green tide was wrapped around his ankles, dragging him towards that mass of soap and wax and horror in the center of the chamber. Lin and Zhao were already in it, already starting to melt, already starting to have those horrid green maggots crawl in and out of what had once been flesh and was now closer to soft cheese.
His left arm was already crawling with the maggots. He had to drop his rifle to pull off his daypack and unzip it. He grabbed the laptop computer and held it to his chest tightly. His eyes were gone, already eaten by those crawling worms. He had to find the power switch by feel. Hold it down for five seconds with the computer's screen closed.
He was already dead when the bomb exploded.

"… holy shit," Fox said softly. "Holy fucking shit."
What had once been an ornate stone temple was now a crater in the ground. Three hours had passed since Central had awoken Strike Team Broken Dagger and apportated them into the South American jungle. Now, as the twelve members of the Strike Team advanced towards what should have been an ancient archeological site, all they could see was a wide crater, filled with glassy rubble, in the middle of the rainforest.
"Ever seen something like this before, Jackal?" she asked her XO, as the rest of the team split up to search for survivors.
"Once," Jackal admitted. "In Cornwall."
"Fucking Cornwall," Fox agreed.
"Ma'am?" Arsegike said, over the comms. "I think I found something."
"On my way," Fox said. She got back to her feet and jogged over to where the other soldier was looking down at something in the tall grass.
It was a pair of OCULUS headsets, glowing softly, their visual components and visors melted and burned, but their recorders intact. The two items were laying on a patch of grass, in which a complex geometric form had been burned, reducing the plantlife to white ash.
"Emergency Dump," Jackal said. "Someone hit the panic button."
"Bag it," Fox said. "I'll report this in."
Arsegike pulled an evidence bag from his thigh pocket and gingerly picked up the two black boxes, dropping them into the mylar container and sealing it with double-sided tape. His OCULUS visor would record the location and the time of discovery, but he jotted down a quick note on the outside of the bag in permanent marker nonetheless.
"So what was this?" Jackal asked. "A failed mission… or a successful one?"
Fox didn't have an answer for him. She still couldn't decide how to answer that twelve hours later, when the helicopters came to take them home.

"Sequence"
« "Strike" | Return to GOC Hub | "Farpoint" »


"Heads up, Bull," Skunkboy whispered into his comms. "They're back."
Agent Bullfrog of Assessment Team 735 "Sparkplug" lifted his head to look through his binoculars at the Chaos Insurgency camp below. Team Sparkplug had been camped out on the ridge overlooking the Insurgency facility for the past week. He was itchy, tired, cramped, and stank to high heaven. He was pretty sure that the inside of his greysuit could be considered a biohazard area at this point.
The most frustrating part of it, he decided, was that nothing was happening. In the past week, the Insurgency had done exactly jack shit. They had trained a few new soldiers, yes, and had done a lot of running through obstacle courses and firing guns and blowing up IEDs, but nothing that he hadn't seen in a dozen third-world training camps over the past few decades. As odd as it might sound to an outsider, this mission deep behind enemy lines was… boring.
Until now.
"That's a really fancy car," Bullfrog murmured. "Are those chrome-plated alloy wheels?"
"Spinners." Skunkboy grimaced. "Ten thousand fucking bucks a pop. Shit, that guy's got more bling on his wheels than I'll ever make in a year."
"Classy," Bullfrog agreed. He raised an eyebrow at a flurry of activity down below, and let out a low, surprised whistle. "Skunkboy. Look at that."
"Fuck," Skunkboy whispered. "Yeah, that looks serious. Think we should call it in?"
"I'll do it."

"Tell me what I need to know."
Assistant Director Tariq Ahmed Khalid, head of PHYSICS Division's Kabul branch, sat at the head of the rosewood-inlaid conference table, tapping the end of his fountain pen against his thigh, his stern Semitic countenance frozen in a perpetual frown. On the broad screen before him, a satellite image displayed approximately ten square miles of the Hindu Kush: steep, cafe-au-lait mountains capped with snow, leading to a broad, verdant plain. And, in the center, a small, but distinctive terrorist training camp in a hidden defile.
The young adjutant at the laptop computer furiously tapped away at his keyboard for a few moments, before finally bringing up a different image of the training camp, overlaying it over the satellite view. "All right, sir," he said, nervously. "Here it is. We've known about this Chaos Insurgency facility for the past three weeks. One week ago, we managed to get a PHYSICS Division Assessment team into the area…"
"I'm familiar with the operation," Khalid said firmly. "Tell me what they found."
"… yes, sir," the young man gulped. "Well, sir… they found evidence of use of weapons… illegal weapons stockpiles… training camps and indoctrination… and thirty minutes ago, they reported in with this image." A second photograph was brought up on the screen, next to the first. It showed a large, expensive black luxury car pulled up to the gate of the training camp. Two men in combat vests, carrying AK-model assault rifles, were dragging a third man out of the back of the car, while a third guard carried away some kind of small cubical item. In the background, two other prisoners were being led away with their hands cuffed in front of them.
"PHYSICS ran a search on their faces and VERITAS profiles. We have a match," the adjutant continued. He brought up another image of a middle-aged man in a grey suit sitting in a coffee shop somewhere in France. "Philip Anderson. Manna Charitable Foundation. They're running a humanitarian operation in the region… if it weren't for their blatant disregard of Second Mission concerns, we'd have invited them to join the Coalition—"
"I'm also very familiar with MCF's policies and operations," Khalid interrupted again. "Tell me why it matters to us."
"… well, sir. A high-ranking member of another paranormal organization has been captured by the Chaos Insurgency. I thought…"
"You can do better than that, David," Khalid insisted. "Tell me why we should care."
The young man took a deep breath before forging on. "Because, sir, rescuing a high-ranking member of Manna Charitable Foundation would give us leverage in the next round of negotiations with them. It could give us a chance to bring them into the fold… have them agree to Second Mission concerns and join up with the Coalition. They have resources—"
"I know about their resources," Khalid said. "Who is on deck?"
"Um. According to my information, sir, the next available Rapid Response Team is Broken Dagger. Based out of Ireland."
"Better get them on the horn right away. It's the middle of the night over there."

The alarm blared in "Fox's" ear like the shrieking of some tortured beast. The slight redheaded woman slammed her palm down over the button, silencing the chorus of "The Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin. She groaned as she turned to her nightstand, trying to focus her bleary eyes on the text scrolling by.
One phrase in large red text immediately got her attention: "PRIORITY ALERT." She came awake immediately, sitting up on the edge of the bed and reading through the report twice through, to make sure she'd gotten everything. Only then did she slap the button on the wall of her quarters to sound the alarm in the general barracks.
It took her sixty seconds to walk down the hall to the barracks in which Strike Team Broken Dagger slept. She was pleased to see that, by the time she arrived, the entire team was already out of bed and dressed (although a couple of them were pulling on t-shirts and sweat pants as she opened the door.) "All right, this one's urgent," she said grimly, tossing copies of the report to her three squad leaders. "A bunch of CI goons just kidnapped an MCF bigshot. We're going to get him back."
"Greysuits, ma'am?" "Jackal" asked. Fox's XO was a tall, lanky guy who looked like a professional basketball player, with ebony skin and close-cropped hair. He looked even more striking standing next to his diminutive commander.
"White," Fox said. "We're going in all-out on this one. Full Plus-Two Gen tech. Get suited up."
"Whew," Jackal hissed. "They're serious, aren't they?"
"Yeah. This one's for real. Let's go."
As team leader, Fox claimed first dibs on the shower, stripping out of her tank-top and underwear with careless ease, before stepping into the drying room, where powerful blasts of heated air dried her skin off within a few moments. She ran her ID card (kept on the same chain as her dog tags) through the security scanner. The lights on the heavy steel door blinked green for a moment before opening up to the Whitesuit morgue.
Whitesuits weren't white, any more than blacksuits were black (greysuits, coincidentally, did default to a grey tone). The term was, instead, supposed to designate the visibility level of its advanced technology. Blacksuits looked like ordinary, every day clothing that just happened to be bulletproof (for a certain level of "proof.") Whitesuits looked like science-fiction super soldiers from a video game.
The bottom layer of the whitesuit was a one-piece garment, similar to a racing swimsuit, that fit snugly against her skin. She took a moment to make sure that the relief tubes were properly aligned (something that could become very important during a long mission), and adjusted the fit around her shoulders and hips, to prevent the garment from pinching under the close-fitting armor. After that, it wasn't difficult to climb into the unfolded whitesuit itself. She closed the torso plates manually, shifting her shoulders around to get a good, solid fit, then slipped her hands into the gloves and chinned the "close" button in her helmet.
The suit tightened around her with a loud electric whir, followed by the high metallic pings of hundreds of tiny clamps locking in place. She closed her eyes and waited the thirty seconds it took for the on-board computer systems to power up, then opened her eyes to find herself viewing the world in bright, false colors, as the suit's OCULUS system activated.
A scrolling column of text along the left hand side of her screen let her know that her suit was working properly: everything read green. She gingerly took her first step out of the chamber. The suit didn't fold up and snap every bone in her body, neither did it freeze up and entrap her in a quarter-ton of steel and composites.
So far, so good.
"Everything all right, Iron Man?" Jackal asked, as his own suit finished its power-up sequence.
Fox grinned. "Tony Stark wishes he had one of these."

"This is the part that I really really hate," Agent Arsegike grumbled, as the twelve members of Strike Team Broken Dagger assembled in the silver circle painted on the floor of what had once been an aircraft hangar. There were several men and women in white coats milling around, checking the equipment and runes that powered the transfer circle: mages from the Center for Unified Thaumatology.
"Just close your eyes and think of England," Ferret said, grinning. "It'll be over before you know it."
"That's what I told your Mom last night," Arsegike grumbled.
"All right, team!" Fox shouted, as she strode into the hangar. "Last chance to go back for anything you forgot. Weapons. Ammo. Rations. Power. Make sure you've got everything you need, because coming back is a hell of a lot harder than getting out there. Alpha Squad?"
"Looks good, chief."
"Bravo?"
"Everything checks out."
"Charlie?"
"We're good."
"All right," Fox said, taking a deep breath. "Visors down. From now on, no faces, no voices. We ready to go, Ops?"
"Ready to apportate on your mark, ma'am," said the lead magister.
"Take a knee, team."
The twelve members of Strike Team Broken Dagger all dropped to one knee in the center of the circle: a dozen superhero robots carrying massive sci-fi rifles, kneeling like knights before an altar.
Fox closed the visor of her helmet, waited to confirm that her internal air supply had kicked in, then said "Execute," and clenched her gut as hard as she could.
There was a flash of bright purple light, the sickening sensation of being turned inside out and shunted through a ten-dimensional manifold. Somewhere in England, a cornfield rippled and swayed, as the backlash from the teleport caused a ten-meter wide circular patch of it to be stomped flat. Somewhere in Scotland, a confused plesiosaur poked its head above water and realized that it wasn't in the Jurassic Period any more.
The ground dropped away, and Fox found herself plummeting to earth from ten thousand meters above an Afghanistani mountain range.
Working just as planned.

"There they are. I've got eyes on the team," Skunkboy reported. "Looks good. I count twelve agents, no aborts or partials."
Through the VERITAS sensors, the twelve members of the strike team glowed brightly, like shooting stars against the night sky. They formed up into three tight diamonds before banking, slowly, and turning to approach the target area.
"Why don't they just teleport them onto the ground?" the sniper wondered. "Would save them the HALO jump."
"Margin of error," Spider explained. "Despite our best efforts, we can still be up to ten meters off target. If those ten meters put you underground …"
"… gotcha." Skunkboy shuddered. "So, ever seen a Strike team in full whitesuits take down a target?"
"Can't say that I ever have, no," Spider admitted.
"Then get up here and spot for me. You're not going to want to miss this."

James Krantz wasn't a terrorist. At least, he didn't think he was. After all, terrorists were brown, and they did things like wear towels on their head and blow themselves up with bombs and worship Allah. James was a white guy from a suburban Chicago neighborhood who just happened to be recruited by a man in a dark suit who told him, in no uncertain terms, that he could either come along with them and help to save the world, or he could die. James was an atheist. Sure, he was in Afghanistan learning how to make bombs and shoot people, but he wasn't going to do that to Americans. Terrorists did things like that. James was no terrorist.
Still, there were moments when he wondered. Like tonight, walking around the perimeter of the camp (someone had to stand guard) carrying an AK-47 (good assault rifle, nothing more), wearing a scarf around his nose and mouth (just to keep the sand and dust out). That felt like a very terroristy thing to do. But James loved America. Terrorists hated America. Didn't they?
He was still mulling over this conundrum when the man in the powered armor descended from the sky with a pistol in one hand and shot him three times.

"Show-off," Fox murmured, as she hit the ground a few yards away from Jackal.
"It worked, didn't it?"
"You were still showing off." Fox grabbed her parachute shroud and began gathering up the billowing cloth. "Status report."
"Everyone's on the ground. One misdrop: Cartman's ten klicks too far south. He'll catch up with us in time for exfil," Jackal replied. He took Fox's parachute from her and stowed it, along with his, behind a nearby rock.
"All right. I'll take his slot in the security element. Team leaders?"
"Alpha, ready," Jackal said.
"Bravo, ready."
"Charlie. Wait one… all right. We're good."
"Go," Fox ordered.
Jackal took off at a dead sprint, legs pumping furiously, with the other three members of the assault element close behind. He smashed down the chain-link fence, raced straight through three exploding claymore mines (steel ball bearings bouncing off his armor like marbles off a concrete floor) and slammed through the cinderblock wall shoulder-first, smashing concrete and rebar like tissue paper. He ran straight into three surprised men sitting around a table playing cards. They started reaching for assault rifles, but there were three other members of the assault element who could take them down, so Jackal ignored them and kept running.
His momentum carried him straight through the room and through the far wall, smashing through the drywall with a loud, papery crunch. He slid across the tile floor on his hip, like a baseball player sliding into second base, and slapped a shaped charge onto the ground, as the three men in the room he'd just vacated went down with rifle rounds in their heads and torsos. The other members of his team joined him in the kitchen, taking up security positions looking up and down the hallway.
He took a few moments to make sure that the charge was properly placed, aiming it away from the life-auras that he could see through the VERITAS imager. "On three," he said. "I've got the target. One… two… three."
He sent the detonation code and braced for impact. The bomb exploded, cutting a round hole in the floor, revealing a darkened basement room illuminated by a single crazily swinging lightbulb. Three men were gathered around a fourth, who was tied to a chair with electrodes strapped to his face. One of the interrogators was holding up a printout of a brightly colored fractal, and Jackal's vision immediately blurred as his visor detected a possible visual cognitohazard and switched out of visible light mode.
"STAND CLEAR!" Jackal shouted. He dropped into the room, grabbed the target, and pinned him to the ground, covering him with his body, then triggered the anti-personnel charge strapped to his back. Ten thousand tiny (but fast) tungsten darts exploded from his armor in a hemispherical pattern, penetrating flesh, bone, and concrete with equal ease, riddling the Chaos Insurgency personnel.
Things were very quiet in the room after that. Only the sound of muffled gunfire let Jackal know that the battle was technically still raging.
Two minutes later, even that ceased.

"Wow," Spider whispered. "That was… something."
"Fast, aren't they?" Skunkboy agreed.
"Did that guy really have to do that thing with the window?"
"No, but it worked."
"All right, guys, enough chatting." Bullfrog said. "In a couple of hours, we're going to have twelve Strike Team members coming up our way, needing an exfil. Spider?"
"Central's got a helicopter incoming," the mage said. "Can you help me clear an LZ?"
"Can do. Skunkboy, Kitten, keep an eye on the compound. Let me know if anything comes up."
"Can do, Boss. Who Dares Wins and all that shit."

"All right!" Fox shouted. "We've got thirty minutes! Grab what you can and clear the fuck out. Jackal? How's our damsel?"
"He's still unconscious," Jackal said, a bit sheepishly. "I think I burst his eardrums. Sorry, Fox."
"He's alive, right? Don't worry about it." She stepped over the groaning body of a Chaos Insurgency operative laying on the concrete and casually shot him in the back of the head. "Ferret? Arsegike?"
"We've got the other two prisoners," came the reply. "But one of them keeps babbling something that makes no sense. Something about an aquarium."
"I'm heading your way," Fox said. "Anyone else?"
"Shatner's suit took a hit and froze up. He's fine, but I don't think I can fix it. Maybe if we had two guys supporting him from either side . ."
"With the Chaos Insurgency breathing down our necks? Fuck that. Pop his suit and set scuttling charges. Everyone else, keep grabbing any intel you can find. Fox, out."

"All right, here they come," Skunkboy said. "And not a moment too soon, either. Sun's about to come up."
As the sun rose, eleven agents in black powered armor (carrying three rescued prisoners and one sheepish-looking half-naked man wearing what looked like a cross between a speedo and a wrestling singlet) finally emerged from the smoking buildings of the training camp and came jogging up the hill towards the Assessment Team. At least, it looked like they were jogging, until you realized that the easy, graceful lope was actually traveling at around fifty miles per hour.
They leaped up the cliff face one by one and wordlessly nodded to the members of Team Sparkplug. The last to arrive was a slight, feminine figure wearing red commander's stripes on her helmet and shoulder.
"We ready to go?" Bullfrog asked.
"One moment," Fox said. "Central, this is Dagger Six Actual. I'm sanitizing the site now."
"Dagger Six, Central. Go ahead."
She tapped a control on her left gauntlet. Down below, a flash of bright blue light, followed by a loud crack like that of thunder, indicated that the unfortunate Agent Shatner's whitesuit was now destroyed… as well as the building it had been left in, which collapsed in a cloud of white-hot, incandescent dust.
"All right," Fox said. "Now we can call in our ride home."

"Team Broken Dagger reported in at 0548 hours. They're in the barracks right now, repairing, regrouping, and preparing for their trip back to Ireland," David explained. "All in all, a successful oper—"
"So it was a successful op. Big deal. Anything interesting or unusual I should know about?" Khalid asked.
"Uhh… oh, there was one thing. Kind of funny, actually. The team was delayed for ten minutes trying to find one of the prisoner's pets. A sea slug of some kind. Apparently, he wouldn't leave without it. He claims it can talk," the young man chuckled.
"Really?" Khalid asked calmly, taking a sip of his coffee. "What's it's name?"

"Very ungentlemanly of them," Lord Blackwood said, waving his feathery gills about. "Absolutely no way to treat a civilized human being. I was reminded of T.S. Lawrence in the hands of the Turks, although thankfully, I managed to escape without suffering any of the outrages endured by that illustrious gentleman." The colorful nudibranch lowered its head into the teacup that had been placed into its tank, staining the water a pale brown. "All in all, this was not the summer holiday I would have chosen."
"I'm just glad to see that you came through it in one piece," Khalid said. "You always did have a knack for getting into trouble."
"Balderdash. I was never in any true danger, except perhaps running low on rum and tea. Speaking of which, how is that Anderson fellow? Good chap that, but not exactly the adventuring type."
"Philip Anderson will recover, although he may have some hearing loss," Khalid reported. "He'll be fine."
"That's good, that's good. By Jove, this really has been an odd week, hasn't it?"
"That it has, that it has," Khalid agreed. "I don't suppose I can convince you to stay a bit longer? There's no reason for you to go back to the Foundation."
"Rubbish. I gave them my parole. A gentleman's word is as binding as oak. Besides, my housekeeper will be worried about me. She does get into such terrible fits when I'm away for too long."
"If you must," Khalid said, inclining his head politely. "I'll have a courier take you back in the morning."
"Nonsense. I may be getting a bit on in years, but there's still life in these old bones. If I couldn't enjoy an invigorating afternoon sabbatical like a little walk back home, I'd be ashamed to call myself a Blackwood."
"In that case, I'll be seeing you around, old friend," Khalid said, getting to his feet.
"And you as well, my Arab friend. Inshallah, and may Allah smile upon you, peace be on his name," Lord Blackwood said.
Khalid got to his feet and walked out of the small interrogation chamber, closing the door behind him. His aide, David, cleared his throat nervously.
"I didn't know you were Mus—"
"I'm not," Khalid interrupted. "And I'm not an Arab either. But Theodore is a bit set in his ways. Comes from the era in which he was raised. He means well."
"Ah. And um. How do you know this sea slu—"
Khalid fixed his aide with a martinet's glare, before turning crisply away and walking down the hallway.
"That's above your security clearance," he said.

"You know," Bullfrog said thoughtfully. "These guys should stop building their camps in known terrorist strongholds. I mean, when someone blows up a mysterious camp in the Hindu Kush, no one gives a crap. But if it it happened in, say, Montana? Someone would ask questions."
"Yeah, but then they'd have to deal with nosy neighbors… IRS property taxes… deer shitting on their lawn…" Fox pointed out. "Besides, we could still blow them up. We'd just have to claim it was a meth lab or something."
"I guess that's true," Bullfrog said. "To the Chaos Insurgency."
"And may their ammo ever run low," Fox agreed.
She picked up her beer and took a sip. Not as good as the real thing, but then again, it was impossible to find a real Guinness anywhere outside of Dublin.
"So," she asked. "How's the new girl working out?"
"Spider? Not bad. She's got a lot to learn, but she learns quickly. Probably one of the best mages I've had the pleasure of working with."
"Really? Think she'd consider a career in Strike?"
"Hey, I didn't drag you out of that cave in Argentina so that you could headhunt my wizard away from me."
"As I recall, it was me dragging you out of that cave, not the other way around."
"More like we were dragging each other," Bullfrog chuckled.
"True, true." Fox finished off the rest of her beer and stood up, stretching her arms over her head. "We've got to catch an early flight back to Ireland at 0600. Want to join me in my room for a nightcap?"
"Our flight's at 0400," Bullfrog pointed out. "I should probably get some sleep too."
"C'mon, Bull. It's been months since we last saw each other. We've got a lot of catching up to do." The petite redhead smirked at the larger man as she ran a finger gently across his shoulderblades.
Bullfrog smiled. "All right," he said, with a sly, knowing smile. "One drink."

"Sequence"
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