CTHULHU REMORSELESS

The Collected Harrison Peel Stories

Volume 3

David Conyers

“Conyers is like some impossibly perfect distillation of Lovecraft, Fleming, Barker and Ludlum. There’s an awful logic to his terror and action.” — PETER CLINES

“David Conyers, I have to say, is my favorite mythos author. He does what would have made Lovecraft weep with joy.” — CJ HENDERSON

“Every bit as disquieting as anything found in the oeuvre of Lovecraft.” — BLACK STATIC

“I started reading a few pages… and it grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. A fast-paced read with a great plot and some DAMN scary Shoggoths!” — LOVECRAFT EZINE

“When it comes to eldritch espionage action, nobody does it better.” — CODY GOODFELLOW

“The versatile David Conyers greatly impresses. He is gifted with much imagination, the knack for intriguing plot, suspenseful pacing, and compelling characters. I suspect the man can do it all, and will.” — JEFFREY THOMAS

“David Conyers is like the physicist who is all too happy to remind us that the solid world is only an illusion. Time and again, Conyers rips open the universe for us, to show us how empty it is, and how dark.” — D.L. SNELL

“There are a very few authors still living today that I can point to and honestly say that they have inspired me. David Conyers has.” — BRIAN M. SAMMONS, editor of WORLD WAR CTHULHU

“David Conyers is the reigning king of the Cthulhu Mythos Down Under. With Conyers at the helm, you won’t be disappointed by your journey.” — HORRORSCOPE

“David Conyers is a rising star... So good are the scenarios he dreams up that I'm beginning to wonder if he is really a time traveler from the future.” — SF CROWSNEST

“David Conyers spawns with frightening ability scenes that could fuel the most terrifying of nightmares.” — DARK WOLF FANTASY REVIEWS

Cthulhu Remorseless © 2021 David Conyers

First published worldwide 2021.

All Rights Reserved

All characters, events, companies and organizations portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or companies or organizations, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express permission of the author.

“The Masked Messenger” (2011) with John Goodrich, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #52 , Australia, © 2011 David Conyers and John Goodrich.

“War Gods of Men” (2014) with David Kernot, Lovecraft eZine #31 , © 2014 David Conyers and David Kernot.

“Invisible Demons” (2021) with Brian M. Sammons, Cthulhu Remorseless , USA, © 2021 David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons.

“The Bullet and the Flesh” (2014) with David Kernot, World War Cthulhu , Dark Regions Press, © 2014 David Conyers and David Kernot.

“Stomach Acid” (2006) with Brian M. Sammons, Lovecraft's Disciples #5 , Rainfall Books, UK, © 2006 David Conyers and Brian M Sammons.

“The R’lyeh Singularity” (2012) with Brian M. Sammons, Cthulhu Unbound 3 , Permuted Press, USA, © 20012 David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons.

“Mouth of Jupiter” (2021), Cthulhu Remorseless , USA, © 2021 David Conyers.

“Supersymmetry Blues” (2021), Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 3 , IFWG Publishing, Australia, © 2021, David Conyers.

The character Harrison Peel, © 2005, 2021 David Conyers. The character John Dixon, © 2007 John Sunseri. The character Emerson Ash, © 2014, David Kernot. The character Jordan, © 2006 Brian M Sammons. The character Joan de Molina © 2015 CJ Henderson. The character Rudolph Pearson © 2005 William Jones.

Special thanks to Dori Barrett, Brian M. Sammons, David Kernot, William Jones, C.J. Henderson, John Goodrich, Shane Jiraiya Cummings, Angela Challis, Mike Davis, Glynn Owen Barrass, Jeffrey Thomas, Paul Mudie, Cody Goodfellow, David Anderson, George Anderson, Frank Ludlow, Bob Neilson, John Kenny, Konstantine Paradis, Peter Rawlik and Peter Clines.

All reprinted stories revised and expanded in this edition.

Cover Image © 2016 Can Stock Photo / grandfailure

CONTENTS

The Masked Messenger | with John Goodrich

Stomach Acid | with Brian M Sammons

War Gods of Men | with David Kernot

Invisible Demons | with Brian M Sammons

The Bullet and the Flesh | with David Kernot

The R’lyeh Singularity | with Brian M Sammons

Mouth of Jupiter

Supersymmetry Blues  

Copyright

About the Author

The Masked Messenger

With John Goodrich

Harrison Peel counted the dead as more covered corpses rolled into the Marrakech morgue. They weren’t really humans, rather the dissected remains of their flesh, stuffed into leaking body bags. The sharp, coppery smell of blood filled the room, reminding Peel of an abattoir.

Lounging next to Peel was Fabien Chemal, a spook with Morocco’s DST intelligence agency. Chemal mumbled something in Arabic about being inconvenienced by the gory spectacle. While he watched junior spooks and morgue attendants catalogue the grim remains, he offered Peel a cigarette. Peel refused, wishing instead for a good strong coffee.

“How many dead?” Peel wiped his sweaty hands on his cotton pants. It should have been cold in this place. That’s how they would have done it back in the NSA. Cold to keep the body parts preserved for proper forensic analysis.

Chemal shrugged, lit his cigarette. “We don’t know yet. At least eighteen dead: five Americans, two Germans, one Spaniard. The rest were my people, but I guess your people won’t care about that.”

“I care.” Peel said as he stood. The smell of death and smoke felt constricting from his seat in a corner. “The NSA care, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

Chemal raised an eyebrow. “I get the impression, Mr. Peel, that you were a little eager to come in person, rather than send a subordinate?”

Peel didn’t know precisely what Chemal’s rank was in the murky hierarchy of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. He knew that any time he didn’t spend with Chemal, he would spend being tailed. They were controlling him, and this would make his job here more difficult than it needed to be.

The morgue was in the basement of Marrakech DST offices. At least one more level existed beneath their feet, reserved for DST’s prisoners and interrogation cells. In this building, the dead warranted more respect than detainees.

“Some personal reason perhaps, Mr. Peel?”

Peel ignored Chemal’s question. The Moroccan’s tone sounded too inquisitive, as if Peel were under interrogation himself. “You said you don’t know how many died in the blast? How’s that? And second, I’m not sure it really was a blast. To me, the bodies look sliced to pieces. Thousands of pieces.”

“They were… They still will be.”

Peel’s stomach felt empty. His mind confused. But then everything about yesterday’s terrorist bombing in Jemaa el-Fna square lacked any resemblance to sense. The blast had been invisible, soundless. People shredded where they stood in the Marrakech market. Yet their clothes, wallets, purses, souvenirs and the pavement beneath them remained untouched. It was as if invisible demons had mutilated their victims with razor-sharp teeth and claws.

“Do you know that some victims died before the blast occurred, hours, even days before?”

“I don’t understand?”

Chemal shrugged. “Neither do we… really.” His burned-down cigarette hung precariously from his lip as he reached for another. Perhaps his need to smoke was only a need not to smell death. “Of the eighteen dead, two were market vendors who would have been in the square at the time of the blast, had the authorities not found them shredded three days earlier. The German pair were in their homes two mornings ago in the same mutilated state.”

Feeling anxious, Peel rubbed the back of his head where it itched. He saw a pattern now and wished he didn’t. Yet he’d been right to come so far, these people needed to know what he knew, if only they would let him help. “There’s more, isn’t there Mr. Chemal?”

“Yes.” The Moroccan lit a new cigarette from the embers of the last one. “Three more have died in the twenty-four hours since. Same cause of death: spontaneous shredding.”

“And none were in the square at the time?”

“They were when the blast went off.” He caught Peel’s stare with a sardonic grin. “You came all this way Mr. Peel, all the way from Maryland, U.S.A. Can you tell me what’s happened here?”

Peel wouldn’t catch his eye. “You said the bomber is still alive? I need to speak to her before I can give you definite answers… If I can do even that.”

The DST agent glared. “Be my guest,” he snorted, and waved to show that they should now leave.

He escorted Peel downstairs, past two Royal Moroccan Army privates, their Steyr AUG assault rifles and unblinking stares guarding the only entrance. Deeper in the smell was of shit and perspiration.

“What do we know about her?” Peel asked as the corridor grew dark and confining. He didn’t look in any of the cell’s peep holes, afraid of what he’d see. Even the air felt more constrained down here.

“Her name is Souad Benhammou. She’s not talking, but we suspect she is a member of Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group. MICG, a terrorist organization as Wikipedia likes to label them. Our information suggests that someone from the West funds them, likely someone in the United States.”

“You have evidence of this?”

“Nothing substantial. We suspect she’s related to the wealthy Benhammou family, although they are denying it.”

“And who are they, exactly?”

Chemal laughed throatily. “The Benhammous? They’re ‘Arabized’ Berbers who made their fortunes long ago in phosphate mining. A rare breed — wealthy Berbers, I mean.”

“Interesting?”

“Perhaps.” He stopped outside a cell, took a large metal key from his pocket. “You really want to talk to her? She hasn’t responded to any of our interrogation methods, any of them, and it’s been over twenty-four hours.”

Despite his misgivings, Peel nodded.

“Well, good luck then.” Chemal’s tone was flat, like he wanted to be somewhere else. He opened the door slowly, betraying its weight when Chemal had to push his body into it to move it.

Hesitantly, Peel stepped inside.

In the tiny cell, a thin woman sat against a wall stained with trickles of dark water. Dressed in a black jellaba, only her face and cuffed hands showed. Dark eyes stared through Peel and the wall behind him. She looked like she’d been staring at nothing for a very long time. When Peel stepped closer, he saw that her hands betrayed the usual third-world interrogation techniques: bruises and several circular cigarette burns. It was Chemal’s crushed filters that littered the concrete floor. Peel cringed, wondered who the enemy was here.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Chemal locked Peel in.

Peel sat opposite the young woman on the only other chair, where she had to stare through him unless she wanted to break her gaze. She didn’t.

He spoke slowly in his disjointed Arabic. “My name is Harrison Peel. Once upon a time I used to be a Major with the Australian Army, fighting terrorists like you. Now, however, I work for America’s National Security Agency as a consultant. I still work in counter-terrorism, but these days we’re against a different breed of insurgent. Men and women who’ve made deals with dark gods, alien gods … You know what I’m talking about: the real gods.”

There was the briefest flicker of her eyes. Slight enough that if Peel hadn’t been paying attention, he would have missed it.

“I’m here because you have a weapon, an explosive device that works outside our perceptions of space and time. A weapon beyond the limitations that you and I and everyone on this world remains trapped inside, called cause and effect.”

Her concentration broken, she looked at him through tired eyes. When she answered, it was in English. “What would you know of these things?”

“A lot more than you could imagine,” Peel too switched to his native tongue because it was easier for him. “Perhaps, or perhaps not?”

“The weapon was a gift, a gift from the Masked Messenger.”

Peel raised a questioning eyebrow. “Nyarlathotep?”

Her blood-shot eyes grew large, and she trembled. With that single word, Peel had finally rattled her.

She whispered now, but there was no mistaking the venom in her tone. “It seems you understand the shadowed world.”

Peel gave a tiny smile, remembering his own haunted past, and where he’d read the name Nyarlathotep before, words that had left him cold. “Yes, unfortunately.” He leaned forward, whispering. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I know you’re not from the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, as you’d like everyone here to believe. From some reading I did in an ancient book, I can see that you’re really a member of a secret sect which calls themselves the Sisterhood of the Masked Messenger.”

She returned to saying nothing again. Chemal was right, she would be difficult to break. He wasn’t sure he had the will to break her, or if he really should.

“What I don’t understand, Souad Benhammou, is how you triggered the bomb without being killed.”

She permitted him one more flicker of her eyes, one more acknowledgment that he existed. “Who said I survived?”

It took Peel several seconds to notice his entire body had gone cold. He toppled out of his chair, stumbled backwards against the cell door, to smash his fists against its coarse metal.

“Chemal!” he cried. “Chemal!” he screamed.

He looked back to her.

She smiled for him, briefly. Then her face lined with a dozen crimson lacerations. Her shape seemed to fold, crumpled into her falling jellaba. Her heart, before it collapsed into a dozen slices with the rest of her meat, pumped one final time, spraying Peel with the last of her living blood.

—— 

A fist slammed into Udad Benhammou’s mouth with a meaty thunk, nearly knocking him out of his chair. Only the handcuffs that fastened him to the steel table saved him from a fall. Fabian Chemal looked around the small, dingy cell, as if seeking answers from anywhere but his silent prisoner.

“Your sister is a terrorist, Udad, and so are you. When is the next planned attack? Who is the target?”

Udad looked down at the American football Chemal had placed in his lap. Earlier, the interrogator had put on gloves and rubbed the unclean pigskin over Udad’s bloody face. The man was a disgrace to everything holy, nothing but a Western puppet. Udad did not let his hatred show. He did not speak, allowing the interrogator to read what he wanted from Udad’s silence.

There would be a reckoning, and this dog would receive his reward.

Chemal lit another foul cigarette and waved the cherry-red tip threateningly close to Udad’s eye.

“In the old days, we would have sewn filth like you into a pigskin and dropped you in the river. You are nothing but an Al-Qaeda puppet, a fool who wants to murder women and children for some ignorant interpretation of Al-Qur’an.”

Udad did not react. He merely stared into a corner of the room. The red glow of the cigarette moved away from his eye.

“Unfortunately, we have a squeamish Westerner who seems to think he can walk into another country’s affairs. Typical cowboy.” He punctuated his annoyance by putting out his cigarette on Udad’s forearm. Udad heard the sizzle of his burning flesh, but the pain was less to him than the itch of a mosquito bite.

Vaguely, Udad heard a scream, and then another. Chemal took no notice of it until a thickset man came through the cell door to whisper something in Chemal’s ear. With a look of annoyance, they both left, and Udad was alone in the dirty concrete cell.

He’d barely had time to think before Chemal was back. He placed a boot on Udad’s chest and shoved. The chair would have tipped over but for the cuffs that locked Udad’s wrists to the steel table. Chemal leaned his weight onto his prisoner, and the joints in the Udad’s arms protested.

“Seems our American got a little excited. I hope you weren’t too attached to your sister.”

“Souad?” Udad had thought himself immune to pain. Chemal’s face became a mask of triumph, and Udad realized he had spoken aloud.

“She’s a bit of a mess. You probably wouldn’t recognize her anymore.” He searched Udad’s face before continuing. “I don’t know what he did, but the blood he got on the lightbulb makes the whole place stink.”

Udad closed his eyes and tried not to imagine what the cursed mongrel had done to Souad, but the reek of burned flesh suggested too many things. She was in Paradise with the martyrs, but the assurance only brought him a scrap of comfort.

Chemal gave Udad a spiteful shove that nearly dislocated his shoulders.

“Unfortunately, our enthusiastic but careless American has managed to break what could have been a valuable source of information.” He shrugged, then moved his weight. “You are, therefore, free to go.” Chemal kicked the chair out from under Udad, slamming his face against the sharp edge of the table. Udad could feel blood slowly oozing down his forehead and wondered how badly the impact had cut him.

Chemal stalked out of the cell. Some time passed before a hard-faced officer unlocked Udad’s cuffed wrists. Less than five minutes later, the prisoner found himself outside police headquarters, back among the familiar busy streets of Marrakesh.

Udad stumbled down the road, his mind in turmoil, his body aching. He could not risk contacting the Group. Not even through one of the anonymous mail-drops at an Internet cafe. Chemal must have thought him truly stupid if he believed that Udad would lead the DST to his comrades.

—— 

Through tired eyes, Peel watched the red sunrise over the High Atlas range. He muffled a yawn behind his hand, yet felt invigorated by the clean air outside the ramparts of Marrakech, so different to the stifling medinas. “Where are we going?” he asked Fabien Chemal, who lit another cigarette from his perpetually full packet. He too was red-eyed.

“Tamegroute, near Algeria.”

Peel nodded, recalling that the town was on the edge of the Sahara, close to the Algerian border. Its location was about as remote as one could get in Morocco.

“Why there?”

“We’ve captured another Combat Group terrorist.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t expected news like this and wasn’t certain if he should feel positive or cautious. He wondered why he hesitated, he’d heard the name Tamegroute before, but couldn’t remember where.

He looked at the truck that was to be their transport, hired from a production company shooting a film in Ouarzazate. In the enclosed back were stage lights, power boards, and other electrical goods that Peel couldn’t identify.

“The truck belongs to a cousin,” was all that Chemal offered in explanation. “He needs it in Ouarzazate, and we need to be there too. From there we can arrange further transport to Tamegroute.”

When the two spooks sat inside the back, the truck set off east into the High Atlas. Chemal was soon snoring. With no windows to enjoy the scenery, Peel opened his copy of The Masked Messenger to jog his memory concerning Tamegroute. He felt certain that the answer lay in the book.

Peel had discovered this English edition in Marrakech during a mission many years ago. Later, he’d used it to aid him with another similarly peculiar investigation in the Congo. Then, another contact from this country, Jamal Alhazred, had informed Peel this was a rare edition. Printed by Colombia University Press in 1930, it had been translated by the Professor Samuel Colbridge and then edited and compiled by Professor Rudolph Pearson. If the signature and bookplate were authentic, this had been Pearson’s personal copy.

As Peel flipped through the pages, he unconsciously removed his bookmark, a photograph of Nicola Mulvany and himself relaxing on a pristine beach in tropical Queensland. They looked happy, and this brought a tear to his eye. Not a day went by that Peel didn’t yearn to have Nicola again, to share more moments, like the moment in the photo, for the rest of their lives together.

“She’s beautiful.”

Peel snapped the book shut, hiding the picture within the yellowed pages. It was a woman who had spoken to him, from the shadows towards the back. When Peel saw her clearly, he saw that she had long dark hair, deep gray eyes, and a smile that was seemingly both sardonic and understanding. Peel couldn’t guess her age, but there was no doubt she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon. And yet he could not find it in him to feel attracted to her, as if there was an element in her chemistry that he recoiled from.

“I’m sorry I gave you a start, Mr. Peel. I thought you were aware I was here.”

“Who are you?” He blinked at her.

“My name is Ms. Rope.” Her English was perfect. Her accent he couldn’t place. “But most people know me by my first name, Lathanty. I work with Fabien Chemal in the DST. Didn’t he tell you about me?”

Peel felt stunned, like he’d just walked away from a major road accident. “I…?”

“What, Mr. Peel?”

“I didn’t know you were there. You just startled me — that’s all.”

She smiled thinly.

“What do you do, Ms. Rope, I mean with the DST?”

“Let’s just say I’m an intelligence analyst.”

“Specifically?”

“Specifically, I advise on the obscurities in human relationships that are too subtle or too arcane for the average DST operative.” She nodded to Chemal, who still snored. “When dealing with suicidal terrorists, often they prove to be fanatical experts on their religious texts. Understanding them and their sources becomes an important tool in determining their motives, and to find them before they strike.”

Peel nodded in agreement, even though he didn’t believe her. Women in Morocco fared better than in most Islamic countries, and the Moroccan Government employed a few women in their secret service. Yet Chemal must have known about her, because from where he sat he could not have failed to notice her before he drifted off.

“That photograph, is that your wife?”

“My fiancée,” Peel explained. He slipped the picture from the book so Lathanty could look at it. Then he took the engagement ring from his pocket where he could touch it whenever he felt alone and lost. He showed her the ring, but didn’t let it go.

“Beautiful.”

“She died before I could give it to her, just over a year ago, so she’s not really my fiancée.” Peel explained, not wanting the unasked question to linger. “It was my fault. I got her messed up in this world of secrets and deceit, and it cost her.” He didn’t add that an alien monster born in another dimension had torn Nicola to shreds. A death all too similar to Souad Benhammou’s passing. His trip to Morocco was stirring old feelings.

“You must miss her?” She handed back the photograph.

“Every day.”

“What would you do to bring her back?”

“Anything,” blurted Peel. Then he looked to Lathanty, intrigued by her peculiar question. “But she’s dead. I just have to accept that, don’t I? Move on. She’d want me to do that, not wallow in self-pity.”

Lathanty looked to The Masked Messenger, held tight in Peel’s sweating hands, as he slipped the photograph back inside. “That’s an interesting book you’re reading, Mr. Peel.”

“You’ve read it?”

“Let’s just say I’m well acquainted with its content.”

Peel didn’t want to ask, but suspected she was implying knowledge of the original, written in Arabic in the early Eighteenth Century by a woman called Sharinza, the same woman who supposedly founded the Sisterhood of the Masked Messenger. A more chilling thought, Lathanty might have even read the even more ancient tome that had influenced the original Masked Messenger , a tome known in obscure academic circles as Al-Azif . That book would later inspire many translations and become famous as the most comprehensive and terrifying guide to cosmic horrors this world had ever seen, the Necronomicon . Not that Peel had ever laid eyes on any of these manuscripts. He knew them only by their fearsome reputation.

“It’s an interesting book, Mr. Peel. Five hundred fables, most of them concerning a dark god called the Masked Messenger, Nyarlathotep, and how she offers power and salvation to those who ask for it. There is, of course, always a price.”

“I thought most of the protagonists died horrible deaths.”

That thin, almost nonexistent smile again. “That’s because most of them bargained poorly. Did you ever read the tale of Sharinza herself, how she walked into the deep Algerian desert in search of the Temple of the Masked Messenger, forgotten for eons, buried under the Saharan sands?”

Peel remembered. It was the very story that mentioned Tamegroute, the town which had been playing on his mind since their departure. It was also the first story in the book, a prologue of sorts. Sharinza had found the temple, met with a god, then returned to her homelands. She brought untold horrors back with her, horrors that unfolded into four-hundred-and-ninety-nine more tales of death, madness and destruction. Some of those horrors were not too dissimilar to the weapon Souad had used in Marrakech.

“You should read it again. Sharinza bargained for the life of her lover.”

Peel felt his heart flutter. “And did she get him back?”

Lathanty looked away. “Read it again, Mr. Peel, find out for yourself.”

—— 

Udad wandered the streets of Marrakech, seeking some surcease of his pain, finding none. He considered assaulting the Westerner, gunning him down like a dog in the street. But the police retaliation would be swift and certain. He would be a martyr, all his sins forgiven, but how would he know for certain that the man was dead? It occurred to him he didn’t even know the name of the butcher who had laid hands on Souad. Frustration welled up in him. What could he do?

Defeated, he returned to his small, sparsely furnished apartment.

On his small cot was a cardboard box. There was no address, no note, simply the box held closed with tape. Listless and sore from a day of volatile emotions and physical abuse, Udad opened the box without interest.

The book inside was old and beautiful. He ran his fingers over the raised, flowing script on the leather cover. The Masked Messenger . He had never heard of it. A small scrap of paper stuck out of the thick sheaf of pages. Udad opened to it. It was a note, unsigned, but in Souad’s careful, well-practiced hand.

If you have the courage to avenge my dishonor at the hands of the Westerner, this is the key.

A cold thrill moved through him. She had known. She had known what would happen to her. Emotions warred in him. He had never been more proud of her, and yet his anger quickly resurfaced. He could not tell her how brave she had been.

He spent a sleepless night reading, starting with the page Souad had marked. Udad quickly realized that the book contained the forces of Hell. The Masked Messenger was clearly the work of the Great Deceiver, but clever and righteous men could use the resources of the enemy against him. Udad’s comrades at the Combat Group viewed him as useful because of his money, but Udad knew his destiny was for more than just providing funds for the revolution.

It was nearly dawn when Udad, his head spinning from the things he had read, collapsed on his cot and fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

He was awakened sometime later by a sense of motion in his room. Instantly, Udad was out of his cot, a machete in his hand.

It was not a police officer that stood before him, but a woman. She held no weapon.

“Who are you?” He demanded with a strong, harsh voice.

“I cannot tell you who I am, but our aims are similar. We both knew Souad, and we both seek justice.” Her voice was soft and mellifluous, like honey on the tongue.

He lowered his weapon, but did not put it away. In his small, dull room, he could make out that a white film covered one of her eyes. She was properly and modestly veiled, even though it was inappropriate for her to be in the company of a strange man unescorted.

“I don’t trust you. You are probably a spy.”

“I knew your sister, and I helped fulfill her last wish by getting you that book.” She gestured toward the tome lost somewhere in the shadows.

Udad felt torn. He’d heard strange rumors of a sisterhood of devil-worshipers, but he refused to believe that Souad would have done anything so blasphemous. Whoever this woman was, he would have to be on his guard. If he kept his head about him, he should be able to use this woman even as she attempted to use him.

“I doubt that you ever knew Souad. I should kill you simply for sullying her name with your tongue.” He made a half-hearted gesture with his machete.

“Souad spoke many times of her younger brother Udad, the brave boy who stood up to his father when he was only fourteen. How she used to chase you round the yard after you snatched the book she was reading. And how you became serious and studious after a chance meeting with an Afghan mujahid .”

“Enough.” There was nothing unmanly about tears, but now was not the time. “Say what you have to say, then leave.”

“Come with me.” She beckoned him to the doorway. “And we will talk.”

——

Naked and bloody, bathed in cubes of sunlight dissected by the windows of wrought-iron grills, Peel screamed from the highest tower in the Tamegroute Kasbah. Every muscle in his body flexed and burned as another jolt from the car battery sizzled his flesh. In his time in the Australian Army, his training had included techniques to resist interrogation, but not torture. Fabien Chemal wanted information Peel didn’t have, and he would use any extreme method to gain it.

Peel’s pain had hardly begun. To remind him that his current torture was nothing, a bucket of petrol wafted its acrid odors just out of reach, but within eyesight. And Chemal liked to smoke cigarettes.

“Please, I told you,” Peel sweated, gritting his teeth. “I know nothing about the Combat Group.”

Rope sat quietly next to Chemal, a delicate finger poised at her mouth as if she were watching nothing more than an engrossing film. Chemal wouldn’t look at her, but Peel had little choice. She asked the questions while he administered the pain. Together they were formidable interrogators, and Peel was afraid he was near to breaking, telling them all the lies they wanted to hear. And when he had branded himself a traitor, they would wipe their hands of him, a cheap and nasty death as his reward. They would abandon his body to the Sahara, never to be seen again.

“You were talking to me in the truck yesterday,” she asked firmly, “discussing the terrorist organization, the Sisterhood of the Masked Messenger?”

“You were there, that is what we did.”

Her eyes looked to Chemal, who was hot and bothered, then to Peel again. Her mouth hinted a smile, as if she knew a secret that neither man did. “You’ve heard of the Temple of the Masked Messenger, haven’t you, Peel?”

“Yes,” he tensed, hoping that his answer would not bring him another electric shock. Thankfully, it did not. “You know this, so why do you keep asking me?”

“Do you know where this Temple of the Masked Messenger is? Is that where the Sisterhood hides?”

“I don’t know exactly,” his voice sounded hysterical even to his own ears. With every second he was expecting the next burning jolt of electricity. “All I know is that the temple is located somewhere in the Algerian Sahara, somewhere south of Tamegroute. Please, that’s where you’ll find the people you’re after.”

In a hurry to get to his feet, Chemal toppled over his chair. He punched Peel in the gut, hard, and then again, harder still. Despite his bindings, Peel doubled over, grunting as air was forced from his lungs.

When he could breathe again, he sobbed. He didn’t want to die, not like this, not because of a misunderstanding. “Why are you doing this to me?” He looked to Lathanty, hoping that she might offer some compassion, but all she would do was smile thinly. He hated that smile now. “Please?”

“You bastard!” Chemal lifted Peel by his bloody chin. “You’ve confessed. There is no salvation for you. All I can do is put a stop to the pain, but only if you first tell me what I want to know.”

“But I’ve answered all her questions.”

“Her questions?” Chemal's eyebrows crunched into a frown. “What are you talking about, Peel? It’s just you and me.” The DST agent looked about the darkened stone room. He looked right through Lathanty Rope.

Peel felt confused. Rope was standing right next to Chemal. Couldn’t he see her?

“I’ve confessed to nothing. I’ve done nothing wrong, and I’m trying to help you both!”

“Both?” Chemal stepped from Peel, took three deep breaths as he wiped his sweaty brow. He lifted the tape recorder still spinning on the cell’s only desk, rewound it for a few seconds, and then pressed play.

Peel listened through bloody ears, and couldn’t believe what he heard.

CHEMAL: When you thought I was sleeping in the movie truck, you risked a telephone call to your contact with the Combat Group? Don’t lie now, Peel, I heard every word.

PEEL: You were there, that is what we did.

CHEMAL: You’re the western spy who’s funding the Combat Group. You sold them the weapon.

PEEL: Yes. You know this, so why do you keep asking me?

CHEMAL: So how do you fund them exactly? I want names, places, accounts, and dates. Especially places.

PEEL: I don’t know exactly. All I know is that the temple is located somewhere in the Algerian Sahara, somewhere south of Tamegroute. Please, that’s where you’ll find the people you’re after.

Chemal stopped the tape. Wiping sweat from his face, he drew a cigarette from his pack. His first smoke since the interrogation begun. “That a confession Peel, if I’ve ever heard one.”

Peel felt his gut tighten and knot. It was Chemal on the tape, not Lathanty Rope. How could they both be asking him questions, but he could only hear one of them?

Then Peel understood.

Lathanty Rope.

An anagram of Nyarlathotep.

When he caught her eye, the smile she gave had grown large, and was nothing less than evil.

“You don’t exist, do you?”

She said nothing.

“You don’t exist outside of my mind, do you … Nyarlathotep?”

“I exist, Mr. Peel, even if only you can see me. But that’s how I wanted it. That’s how I always wanted it.”

“Who are you talking to?” Chemal’s eyes glanced to the room’s dark corners, his eyes frantic.

Peel ignored him. “What do you want with me, Masked Messenger?”

“What do I want? What do you want, Major Harrison Peel?”

Peel didn’t see Chemal splash him with the bucket of petrol. The combustible fluids burned his eyes, clawed at his nostrils and lips. His body convulsed. Fabien had his cigarette in his mouth. He lit it, drew upon its smoke. Now he had it in his hands, ready to flick it away. “Names, Peel. I want names.”

Peel screamed.

Lathanty slid close to him, whispered in his ear. “You want to escape this place, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Peel sobbed.

“Give me the names,” roared the DST agent.

“You’ll agree to do something for me,” Lathanty spoke over Chemal, “just like the Sisterhood promised to deliver something to me after I gave them that weapon. In return, I’ll save your life, and perhaps I’ll bring your fiancée back.”

“Anything,” Peel sobbed again, “anything.”

He didn’t want to die like this, not burned alive in some forgotten North African town in a country where no one would miss him, where no one would even acknowledge his passing. And the pain, he couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like, to wail as his skin and flesh melted from his bones.

Chemal puffed his cigarette, allowed the flaming embers to grow. “I won’t ask again Peel.”

“Please?”

Lathanty’s face lost all its beauty, ran with streams of acid, burning away her coarse gray flesh and dark hair. Her clothes smoldered. When her eyes widened, they reflected the entire cosmos itself. With a flick of her hand, acid splashed across the Moroccan’s face.

Chemal screamed, held his hands to his melting eyes only to have his fingers dissolve to the bone. Sockets without lids smoked upon a skull without skin. Blood and caustic fluids mixed and boiled, and Fabien Chemal screamed louder than Peel ever had.

His lit cigarette fell from his boney fingertips as he crumpled to his knees and fell towards Peel.

Nyarlathotep caught the red ember mere centimeters from ignition.

In the shadows, Chemal’s skull cracked and dissolved, exposing his brain, and finally the DST agent died.

All the while, the dark god held the captured cigarette close to Peel’s face. “We have a deal Harrison Peel.” It wasn’t a question.

Peel looked into the gray face, burning with the same acid that had killed Chemal, but had caused her no pain. “We have a deal,” he sobbed. In the shadow’s Chemal’s corpse was nothing more than black smoldering bones and bubbling corruption. It could have just as easily been him.

The Masked Messenger extinguished the cigarette between her index finger and thumb. Then she touched the ropes binding Peel’s hands and feet, dissolving them effortlessly. Too weak to stand, Peel collapsed on the floor.

She threw a bucket of water over him, invigorating him with its cold. “Get dressed,” she pointed to his clothes in a heap in the corner. “The desert awaits.”

—— 

Udad found the mysteries contained within The Masked Messenger profound and difficult. For all that they appeared simple, the book’s stories unfolded before the educated man, revealing disturbing possibilities. The power of it made Udad’s head spin. Surely he had lost his job by now. He had not left his apartment for days, and could not tell if his lightheadedness came from the dizzying insights of the book, or because he could not remember the last time he had eaten. But just as prayer was better than sleep, The Masked Messenger was more nourishing than food.

He stood, and the floor spun treacherously under his feet. He understood the dangerous and unreliable nature of reality now, the fundamental betrayal with which Shaitan had deceived nearly all of creation. Udad had mastered those esoteric truths, understood that the web of lies had holes in it, and knew that acts which were supposed to be impossible could be accomplished if one perceived both the deceit and the truth.

He ran a rough hand through his sweat-soaked hair. His apartment was stuffy, smothering. In the days since his interrogation, the pain in his shoulders had eased, but the burn-scars on his forearms still bothered him.

“Udad?”

The call was a harsh whisper, and he looked around, unable to locate the voice. Had he imagined it?

“Udad, are you there?” Her voice drifted faintly through the door.

He jerked the door open to find the same women who had given him the book. She looked at him with a boldness that was unbecoming to her sex. He moved aside and allowed her into his small, shabby apartment.

She looked him up and down, her good, brown eye seeing merely him, but the milky orb was piercing. “You have read the book. And now you see the world with fresh eyes.”

Udad could only grunt in response, his voice dry and cracked from disuse. Again, he wondered at her temerity, not only willing to speak with him alone, but to address him as if he were her student. She stood, her back to him, looking over his barren apartment, betraying no signs of apprehension. She was unlike any other woman Udad had ever known, with the possible exception of Souad.

The memory of his sister was still a hot dagger in his heart.

“You do not know the risk I have taken in giving you that book.” The woman — whose name he did not know — was looking at him now. “Souad said that you were trustworthy, that you were the sort of man who could get things done.”

“Get them done, yes,” he echoed her distantly. His mind felt disconnected, jumbled, as if it were stone that had been ground to sand. “Is it true what the book says about the temple near Tamegroute, the one that Sharinza visited?”

“No.” She said it in a gasp, and fear glimmered in her functional eye before she turned away from him. So she was a woman after all. “You do not want to go to that temple. We… we need you. We did not give you that book for your own—”

He cut her off with a glare. The weariness, the uncertainty, and the feeling of distance all faded, replaced with a sense of purpose. A plan, half-formed and cloudy until now, roared through him.

“You said Souad was a valuable member of your… organization.” He almost said ‘cult.’ “This will be my trial, then. If I can reach the temple, then both Souad and I will return to you, and you will be stronger for having both of us. If I fail, then this book is only lies and blasphemy.”

She looked at the floor, understanding his threat. “The book does not tell everything. We left some secrets only with trusted servants of our order, so that no one who only has the book would know the whole truth.” She glanced up at him, only to flinch away from his hard stare. “The temple of the Masked Messenger is much as the book says it is. But Sharinza’s story does not mention that there must be an offering to access the power of the temple.”

“And what does the djinn of the temple prefer? I expect it is not exotic incense.”

“No. You must offer a soul.”

Udad nodded, turning this profane act over in his mind.

“What else?”

She tried to look at him and again flinched away. “Harrison Peel, the Westerner who murdered your sister. He has a copy of The Masked Messenger , and could be headed toward Tamegroute even now.”

“He is an ignorant American who doesn’t know what we must offer, even if he can understand the book.” Udad felt the heady rush of power course through him. Even if Peel didn’t head for the temple, it would not be difficult to kidnap him. “Still, it would be best not to make him wait for his destiny.”

Udad could see no greater justice than to burn the soul of the Western unbeliever who had murdered his sister in order to light her way back from death. And if the temple did not work as the book claimed, he would at least have revenge. “Is there anything else?”

“Just being near the Temple is dangerous, Udad.” Her small hands plucked at the air. “Time and space distort, and can drive a weak-minded man mad. You could see your past or future.”

Udad was unimpressed.

“I don’t fear the future. Is this why you need a man to go? Someone without womanish fear?”

She dropped her gaze to the floor.

“Then you should leave me now,” he said. “I need to prepare.”

Clearly cowed, she left. When the door shut behind her, Udad pulled the clothing out of a chest, revealing the AK-47 hidden beneath.

It was nothing for him to steal a pickup truck and turn it south. It was a long drive that took him across the Atlas Mountains and into the burning, trackless Sahara, but his desire for vengeance burned hotter than the pitiless desert sun.

—— 

Peel sped into the mighty Sahara. He’d crammed Chemal’s Land Rover with bottled water, canned food, and petrol drums in the back. He needed to be prepared as he drove out of Tamogroute and to the south, where a vast lifeless world awaited him.

When he made an illegal crossing into Algeria, nobody noticed. When he reached the Bechar to Tindouf road, he crossed it without thought and drove into the mighty sea of sand dunes.

It was then that the Masked Messenger appeared.

She sat next to Peel in the passenger’s seat. She wore only a dirty white robe. Acid perspired from her pores, dissolving the fabric of her robes and the car seat, but never enough to destroy either. She smelled like drain cleaner.

Peel ignored her for three days.

Only when he became lost, when convinced that he’d been driving in circles for the last forty-eight hours, did he deign to talk to her. “What exactly do you want of me?”

That thin smile again, but no answer.

Later they stood together outside the stationary Land Rover, on the rise of a dune. Peel peered into the vast expanse of still yellow waves, searching for a landmark to drive towards. He guzzled another water bottle until it was empty. It was so hot he felt that he sweated out most of the water before it reached his stomach.

His unwanted companion required no sustenance. Outside the hot wind gathered, swirled her robe about her slender form as if it were a living entity. She continued to drip acid, an endless supply carving canals in her flesh. Where the acid fell upon the sand, glass formed.

“Are you going to speak to me … Nyarlathotep?”

She pointed south. “There’s a sandstorm coming.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re about to lose your vehicle.”

Bottling his anger, Peel fashioned a makeshift turban to protect against the encroaching winds of coarse sands. When the storm hit, he worked hard, dug through the rest of the day and the night. But the sands were too fast, too persistent. Without really remembering when it happened, the dunes swallowed the four-wheel drive. He’d only saved an AK-47 assault rifle, a knife, his map, five liters of water, and his copy of The Masked Messenger .

“Fuck you!” he yelled into the night, for Nyarlathotep had long abandoned him. “I said fuck you!”

Exhausted, he wrapped a shawl about him, sat with his back to the violent winds, and waited out the storm.

In the morning when the storm had died, Peel marched. He held off from drinking the last of his water for as long as he could. He trudged south only because his map said that a water pumping station lay somewhere in that direction. But in the desert there were no landmarks to keep his bearings, and when his mind was rational, he knew he was lost.

Time passed and eventually his water was completely gone. The sky swam, blistered with gusts of heat like invisible demons sent to torment him. Eventually he tumbled down the side of the dune. When he crashed at the base, his mouth and eyes stung with the sand that filled them.

“I’ll do it!” he called. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

The ground rumbled. Huge layers of sand slid down the dunes, forcing Peel to climb upwards. Just beyond the next crest, a gigantic cloud of sand billowed into the sky. He spied enormous stone blocks rising in its chaotic fury.

Peel clambered up a shifting dune. A grand temple rose from the Sahara, greater than any structure built by humanity. Sand ran off its mighty roof like waterfalls. Hollow reverberations like the echoes inside an enormous cavern rang to announce its materialization. Peel could only wonder at its size, for it was at least three hundred meters in height, with four sides a kilometer and a half long.

Upon its square roof were gigantic statues of faceless winged demons. In mighty alcoves arranged around its base were impossibly large statues of octopus-bat hybrids, each carved from a single piece of stone.

In a daze Peel walked up to its base, stood at its mighty steps. He could not be sure he wasn’t hallucinating until he clambered up on the first mighty stone block. When he reached the lower balcony, exhausted and sun-burned, a single stone entrance awaited him. In his heart, he knew that an infinite darkness lay beyond, and that he must enter if he was to find answers and salvation.

Peel staggered into the temple, his weapon slung under his arm, his sheathed knife within easy reach in his belt.

The portal was more than a doorway, for he found himself transplanted across the gulfs of space and time, and perhaps into another universe altogether. This was no longer the Sahara, but a vast alien city of buildings and towers carved from single pieces of rock. A web of passageways, balconies, tunnels and bridges connected each structure, joined at conflicting angles that only Escher could have imagined. The sky was a brilliant green tapestry of stars and galaxies. A tremendous gas giant, its swirling atmosphere of browns, oranges and whites dominated half the horizon. Peel could make out six satellites of varying colors, populated with oceans, mountains, volcanoes and … writhing tentacles.

In a stupor, Peel walked to the edge of one balcony and peered over its lip. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of kilometers beneath him was the surface of a purple world decorated with pink clouds and pasty-gray mountains, and a sea which frothed like bubbling acid. This city reached heights so great Peel could see the curvature of the moon upon which it was built.

Feeling vertigo, Peel stepped back.

Now the Masked Messenger waited for him. She wore an elongated mask of bronze, with two dark eye-slits and no mouthpiece, so slim that it should have been impossible for her face to hide behind it, but it did.

Beyond the Masked Messenger lingered two muscular naked humans, a man and a woman. Their faces were blank stretches of featureless skin. They waited motionless like bodyguards.

“I’m insane, aren’t I?” Peel asked.

The Messenger approached, removed her mask revealing the normal face of Lathanty Rope, now hairless and disfigured by her caustic blood.

“So where am I then? Am I to be another one of your tales?”

“You’re in my home. This is Sharnoth, the Court of Nyarlathotep beyond the universe. You can learn all things in my abode, for a price.” Her mask had transformed as she handed him a bronze jug lapping with clean water.

Peel didn’t hesitate as he guzzled its entire contents. “Including the knowledge on how to bring Nicola back?”

“All things are possible.”

His eyes caught movement, not from the faceless watchers, but from a distant man running between passages, darting across bridges, and peering into windows. He too carried an AK-47. Peel could see the man more than once, as if he could glimpse the man in his past, his present and his future all at the same time. Like Souad’s weapon, in this world time and space were unaligned with cause and effect.

“Who is that?”

“The man I want you to murder.”

Peel lifted his Russian-made weapon, firm in his hand now that he was no longer delirious with dehydration. The Masked Messenger in her infinite planning had arranged for everything.

“Who is he?”

“He is Udad Benhammou, brother of Souad. He is here to kill you.”

Because of the water in his gut, Peel felt alive again, more clear-headed. But that was exactly how Nyarlathotep wanted Peel to feel, because she had a job for him to complete.

Peel had killed enough times in his life, and he regretted every one of them. The faces of the dead kept him awake at night. His only solace was that each killing had been in self-defense, or to protect against alien intrusion. But to kill in cold-blood for a selfless purpose, Peel wasn’t certain that he had it in him, or if Nicola would even want him to.

“Why, what do you get out of it?”

Again, Nyarlathotep gave Peel that sardonic, all-knowing, omnipotent line-thin smile. “Nothing that you could ever possibly hope to understand.”

—— 

Udad clenched his AK-47. It was his closest link to the human world. Most of the time, the gun’s steel kept some heat from the desert outside. Sometimes, however, it was cold beneath his fingers. Udad clenched his teeth until the warmth returned. He did not like this palace of the ifrits . The sky was unnatural, frightening, and made Udad nauseous just looking at it. The surrounding temple was no relief either.

His other anchor to reality was his hatred of Peel. Udad had seen tracks leading to the mighty temple, and they could not have belonged to anyone but his sister’s murderer. There was a symmetry to all this, the poetry of fate.

Udad crept across the strange interior, keeping his head down. He tried to ignore the grotesque, ungodly statues. The carved abominations mocked everything that was sacred and decent, and their imagery preyed on his mind. Two days of driving in the hot desert night and sleeping during the worst of the Sahara’s blistering heat had left him exhausted and parched, but still determined.

He crept through the dark interior of the temple, searching, unsure how long he had been doing so. Time seemed elastic and strange, wrapped around itself. Several times, he found himself in places with no memory of having arrived. Experimentally, he made a single pass with his hand in front of his face. His hand appeared to flicker randomly before coming to rest where he had intended. On the second pass, he tried to change where his hand would stop, but somehow, it ended up somewhere else.

Fate, it appeared, was strong here. All the better for him.

After an immeasurable period of stealth and waiting, Udad saw Peel and a bald woman standing together on a raised dais. Anger surged through him. If the Sisterhood had betrayed him, he would hunt them all down. Then he would be the sole master of the temple and its power. Peel had a reliable AK-47 slung off his shoulder, like the one Udad held.

He found a dark corner, next to one of the immense carved blasphemies. As quietly as he could, Udad worked the action of the AK-47, chambering a bullet. Neither Peel nor the woman seemed to notice. As Udad watched, she gave him an urn, and Peel drank. It was too much to hope it was poison.

As he brought his sights to bear on Peel, the figures on the dais flickered and vanished. Udad cursed under his breath. He should have been faster. His sister’s spirit cried out for vengeance, and he had been too slow. What evil magic was this?

Even as he remonstrated with himself, someone — Peel — was back on the dais, alone. Udad could not make out his features, silhouetted against the nauseous green light from outside, but the distinctive assault rifle with the curling magazine slung off one shoulder was all the confirmation he needed.

Peel turned. He appeared to hear the shot just before Udad squeezed the trigger. The strange geometry of the temple immediately swallowed the weapon’s chest-thumping retort. There was a chunky spray as the bullet caught Peel in the head, and he collapsed like a sack of grain.

In his triumph, Udad did not rush his pleasure. He walked casually up the stairs, slinging his weapon over his shoulder. He had avenged his sister, and he had made the sacrifice. The powers of the temple were now his to command. But first, he wanted to see the face of the man who had murdered Souad.

He reached the top of the dais, but no corpse and no blood awaited him. The polished gray-yellow stone of the dais was dust-free, as if polished.

He glanced back to where he had come from and saw himself, weapon aimed. The retort of the shot reached him a split second after his own bullet smashed through his skull.

——

The offices of the French oil prospecting company, although still deep within the Algerian Sahara, were a welcome sight for Harrison Peel. He drank their water, ate their food, and used their amenities until he felt refreshed and human again. Then he commandeered their telephone to call the United States.

“We all thought you were dead, Peel,” said the distant voice of Jack Dixon, Peel’s NSA contact back in Maryland.

“I should have been, mate. I should have been.”

“Well, glad to hear that you’re not.”

“A geological survey team found me in the middle of nowhere, brought me here. Unbelievable really, the chances of them finding me were astronomically low, but they did.”

The open office plan was pristine and clean, with desktop computers and notice boards. A young woman sat at one computer, her keystrokes even and unbroken, otherwise Peel was alone. From where he stood, he couldn’t see her face. She didn’t seem to eavesdrop, so he let her be.

“Get yourself to In Salah. We’ll have a passport and a flight out waiting for you.”

“Thanks Jack, I owe you one.”

“You always do.” He laughed and then hung up.

Peel sighed, feeling as if he could actually relax for the first time in weeks. He made himself coffee in the minuscule kitchenette. Instant was all that was on offer, but it tasted good regardless.

The silent woman continued to tap away. Only her fingers moved.

Peel’s mind again reimagined the horrors he had experienced inside the temple, and its bizarre and terrifying secrets. He’d told the Messenger that he would not kill Udad for her. As simple as that, he had walked away, out into the Sahara, expecting to die.

Even now he wasn’t certain he hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Was the Masked Messenger really a cosmic god that made all the decisions on when and how the universe evolved? Or was she entirely a fabrication of his fevered mind?

His copy of The Masked Messenger was all that had survived with him. The sands had consumed his knife, the gun, the water, even his photograph of Nicola and their engagement ring. Why had the book survived?

The tapping ceased without him even noticing it.

“Harrison Peel.” She wasn’t asking.

He turned and faced the young woman staring at him. She was pretty until he spied her milky white eye.

“Yes?”

“I have something for you.” She handed him a vial with a metal stopper. Inside swished a pristine transparent liquid that turned turquoise and amber depending upon the angle of the light.

Reluctantly Peel took the vial. “What is this?”

“The Messenger keeps her promises.”

Peel did a double-take as he stared back at the woman. Was she one of the Sisters? Was their organization real? Did the Masked Messenger actually exist?

“Drink it,” she explained. “And it will take you back in time and space, to be with your lover once again. But only some experiences of your past will change. You’ll still return to Morocco. You’ll still become lost in the Sahara and find the temple where you will fulfill the Messenger’s plans.”

“But I…” he stumbled. He wasn’t sure whether he should dismiss her or interrogate her. “What? I didn’t kill Benhammou.”

“We never expected you to.”

“Then what did I do, to deserve this?”

“You’ve read the book, Mr. Peel, the first story? After her servant sacrificed himself in the temple — a fact not recorded in the book — Sharinza returned to her home, and in doing so bridged the dimensions between our world and that of Nyarlathotep, and then …”

“… and then four-hundred-and-ninety-nine tales of destruction and madness plagued the world,” Peel finished.

He put his head in his hands. He’d been little more than a pawn in a game he barely understood, and couldn’t have affected the outcome any more than a grain of sand could have stopped the sandstorm that had engulfed his truck.

“This world, and others like it, are about to change and merge in ways you could never imagine. You started that, Harrison Peel.”

All he had to show for it was the vial. He looked at it, wondering if it was everything the woman had said. Was he ready to go through the past year again, face all those horrors and watch so many of his friends die? Only he’d have Nicola by his side, and what a life she would make for him again, or would Nicola become a hollow reflection of her former self? Perhaps he could even defeat Nyarlathotep, by refusing to walk into the desert to find her temple, and save the world from whatever horrors awaited. Perhaps he could do any of these things… or could he? Would he even remember that he was to live that last year all over again?

He looked up to ask the woman that very question, but she had vanished.

—— 

On the long bus trip to In Salah, Peel threw the vial into the uncaring sands. Quickly it disappeared from his sight, and more importantly, from his reach.

Stomach Acid

With Brian M Sammons

Harrison Peel woke awkwardly, worried as he sensed ripples of déjà vu. The dirty hotel room with giant bugs scampering on the ceiling remained familiar, and the air sweating like an exerted fat man in this tropical heat was as oppressive as the moment before he drifted into sleep. His worry was his body clock. He felt as if it were late afternoon, even though his watch said early morning. Had his watch failed? Had he slept all day and not noticed?

Sitting up brought stomach acid to his throat. Then he gagged. The nausea so bad he hoped only to vomit. Several moments of retching brought up nothing, and still the nausea would not abate. To counter the acid, he drank sterile water from his canteen. He choked on that too, vomited it up as he did.

Out of bed, peering into the broken mirror, Peel glanced at a haggard man. He saw himself as if he were a terminally ill cancer patient. Not the self-image he had witnessed in the same mirror yesterday when he had felt good and fighting fit. What had happened to him? It terrified him that he did not know.

Then glancing over his shoulder, he noticed the tall, gangly man.

Without hesitation Peel spun his body, pinned the intruder against a wall. One hand locked an arm so it would be a painful exercise to resist, the other pressed against the windpipe so he could kill without effort.

“If I die, Major,” the stranger gasped, “so do you.”

Without speaking, Peel released the tiniest amount of pressure from his death grip. He frisked the intruder, finding nothing that could constitute a weapon, then forced the man into the room’s only chair. “Sit on your hands,” Peel commanded while he searched for his own gun, an old .45 automatic purchased on the black market on his first day in this backwater Amazonian town. He found the weapon under his pillow where he’d left it, all the bullets still in the magazine. Loading a round into the chamber, he asked, “Who are you?”

“My name is not important. However, I realize that it is easier for your kind to use names, so McFour will serve that purpose.”

In the half-light Peel studied the man called McFour. Strange name for a strange face. He didn’t believe it was real. The man’s Latin features were almost waxen, and his perfect upper-class English delivered in a strong French accent. The juxtaposition was like eating ice cream yet tasting burrito.

“I’m here to offer you a deal, Mr. Peel. We know you’re about to visit U.S. Camp McBride. In a few hours, to be precise. When you do, we have a minor job for you to do there.”

McFour obviously knew all about Peel, but this didn’t surprise Peel as much as it should. Peel was already guessing this was a scam, that the man named McFour had drugged him and now thought he had leverage over him. Obviously, he was some kind of government man, probably from one of the world’s many secret services. Which one — Peel couldn’t even guess.

“We?” Peel asked, raising the gun. He could shoot the man and nothing or no one could stop him from doing so. But the intruder had not once flinched away from death, nor did he look to be the slightest bit concerned that he might die purely on Peel’s whim. Considering the stranger’s reaction, Peel felt worried, although he tried not to show it. To make matters worse, Peel thought that he might have a fever. His head pounded that hard. “You obviously think you’ve got something over me if you think I’m going to help you?”

McFour’s face remained expressionless as he laid his cards on the table. “Yes we do, Mr. Peel. We know that the NSA flew you into Venezuela to offer your expertise on the extraterrestrial sentient being that the U.S. Marines recently captured in the jungle. However, my masters don’t want that to happen. We want you to set it free.”

Peel laughed. He’d seen his fair share of ESBs in his day, so he wasn’t about to dispute this part of the claim as any normal rational person would. Hell, that was why he was here in the first place, because some official in Washington DC thought he was ‘expert’ enough to offer a valid opinion on the matter. Before he’d agreed to head south of the border, Peel explained that all his previously encountered ESBs had acted in an extremely hostile manner towards any and every human being on this planet. ‘McFour’ fit the profile perfectly by threatening him. But how would McFour blackmail Peel? Perhaps a slow acting poison injected into Peel while he slept. This made sense, considering how sick Peel felt, because the nausea refused to go away.

He raised the gun, pressed it into the man’s temple. “What makes you think I’m going to help you?”

“That’s simple, Mr. Peel. We’ve removed your stomach. You get it back when you complete the extraction.”

—— 

Mangy dogs loitered in the refuge. Boys kicked a football in the broken streets or watched from behind banana trees with curious eyes. Above, the sky rumbled, threatening rain again.

Whenever Jordan took one of his frequent trips into this abandoned former oil town, he always felt that he was being scrutinized by locals whom he was sure resented him. After all, he was white. He was from the north. He was obviously part of the exclusive ‘first world’ club that existed only to oppress and misuse almost everything south of the equator. If his falsified passport didn’t list him as Canadian, Jordan knew that the hatred would multiply by a factor of ten just for being an American. But that was the way of the world these days. Now that the Cold War had ended and there was only one big boy on the block and not two competing super-powered bullies, everyone everywhere felt safe criticizing and condemning America, if not outright hating its ‘empire expanding tendencies.’

Jordan lit a cigarette, leaned against a rusting Coca-Cola machine that stood outside of a tiny store. He used his dark sunglasses to hide his eyes as he scanned the surrounding people. Didn’t the bastards know the Marines were here to protect them from the drug lords, the communist guerrillas, and god only knows what else? Especially from the ‘god only knows what else.’ Of course these people would never see it like that, because they had the luxury of being ignorant. They didn’t have the nightmares of those misshapen things advancing towards them through a withering hail of gunfire. They didn’t have the screams of Marines, just young boys looking to do their duty, still echoing in their head as they tore apart the boys, disintegrated them, or worse.

Jordan stamped out his cigarette. The air felt too hot to smoke, so he instead glared at the locals around him behind the safety of his tinted lenses. He hated them all. Not because they despised him in return, but because the ingrates didn’t know the truth. They knew nothing about the ten young Marines that died capturing that ESB in the jungle. Once again, ‘evil America’ had sacrificed its own sons to save these mistrusting locals from further abductions and god knows what else. If his superiors ever spoke out, told the truth — and if believed — then these Indians just might understand.

But that would never happen, so the locals never would. They didn’t understand that the aliens were beyond borders, beyond human desires for power and control. They were everywhere. And they acted as if every human was a viable target, these kids and their mangy dogs as much as Jordan and the Marines.

He slid his satellite phone from his coat pocket, tuned it to the only secure communication band that transmitted this deep in the jungle, and dialed. “Security clearance seven, eight five, nine three zero.”

In less than a minute, higher authorities patched through his words, bounced them between satellites that hung high and remote and unseen in the overcast sky.

“All secure, give me the sitrep, Jordan.”

Jordan looked to his left. The small river port was little more than a jetty, populated with some warehouses and surrounded by many canoes. The smell of freshly netted fish in buckets for sale at the market was heavy in the air. Just beyond, children swam in the water despite the occasional piranha. He was the only white face, the only one who looked worried.

“Sir, he didn’t show.”

“Again?” Colonel Bennett’s voice seemed to echo, delayed by the invisible beams racing up and down through the overcast atmosphere. “You sure he arrived.”

“He checked into a hotel at approximately oh-one-hundred local. He should have called at ten-hundred and didn’t. At eleven-hundred I checked out his room. His bags were there. He slept there too, but now he’s gone. The hotel staff didn’t see him leave and I have yet to hear from him.”

Another delay, this time satellite lag had nothing to do with. “You sure Peel is worth all this effort?”

“Yes, sir, he’s got the extensive ESB experience we need. A former military intelligence officer with the Australian Army, he comes highly recommended from our people too.”

“Well then, you better find him. Be discrete, but increase the ante because things have changed here, Jordan.” It was anger or nervousness that Jordan detected in his superior’s voice, but whatever it was, he didn’t like it.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“What I mean is the ESB has talked. And I don’t like what it’s saying.”

—— 

At the dilapidated post office that looked more like a crumbling ruin than a government funded institution, Peel mentally readied himself for his only phone call. It surprised him that McFour allowed this, but then McFour had the upper hand, and he would have to release Peel at some point, and then he’d be able to telephone home, anyway. Besides, what was Peel going to say? McFour had made it very clear if he didn’t do this, his life was over. Every attempt to drink fluid had proved that. The place where his stomach had been was now nothing more than sealed valves.

With the telephone in his hand, Peel didn’t know who to call. Too many years fighting ESBs had taken its toll on his nerves and his relationships. The one woman who had loved him and understood him had died at their hands, and he still missed her dreadfully. There were his parents, a sister, but he hadn’t spoken to any of them in years. Tracing the very obvious c-shaped scar disfiguring his abdomen, he knew that his chances were extremely slim. Now more than ever, when Peel was afraid of dying alone, there was no one to turn to.

Without thinking, he replaced the headset, pressed his head against the booth and sighed. Then he laughed hysterically, knowing that he could ill afford to waste the water, especially considering how much he was sweating.

Three minutes later he returned to the rendezvous. McFour waited for him in a café, drinking a cold can of cola. He reached down under the table and produced a syringe, seemingly from nowhere.

“What’s that for?”

“Hydration. It’s a special solution to keep you going. Have you finished what you needed to do?”

Peel took the syringe. It looked sterile enough.

“Into a blood vessel, not muscle.”

Five minutes later Peel returned from the baños, the bathroom, feeling refreshed despite the continual nausea and thirst. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? I mean you look human, but you’re not.”

McFour said nothing. Peel didn’t need an answer. He knew he was right.

“So, what if I don’t do this? I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? I die? All things considered, that’s a small price to pay to ensure you don’t win.”

As if to taunt, McFour sipped at his cola. “I am human, Mr. Peel, although this is not my original body. My masters are very adept at surgery and other forms of biological modifications, human and their own kind alike.”

“And one of your masters we caught, trapped in a brain jar when the Camp McBride Marines paid you a visit?”

McFour’s smile seemed strained. “Crude, but your point is essentially correct.”

“Getting back to my point, what if I refuse? Sure, I die, but they get to keep one of you hostage. And considering how slim my chances are anyway, that almost seems worth it.” Peel wasn’t sure if he had the courage to give up his own life just yet, but then McFour didn’t know that for certain. He would bluff, was willing to try anything.

“Perhaps,” McFour sipped more of his refreshing drink while Peel sweated. “My masters were willing to sacrifice their brother, but I convinced them that there was a way to get him back unharmed. If you refuse, they just return to the original plan and you and I become superfluous. It’s that simple.”

Curious, Peel sat. McFour or his masters had obviously thought this through carefully. “How so?”

“We will obliterate Camp McBride and the nearly two hundred soldiers stationed there. Not just kill, but vaporize. You want that on your conscious, Peel? If you give up now, it’s not only your own life that you’re throwing away.”

Peel looked out through the open terrace, across the decaying town, over the muddy river waters and into the thick jungle. They both knew his threat had been idle. If Peel was going to go down anytime soon, then he’d go down the same way he’d always responded to the past threats with their impossible odds: fighting.

“All right, McFour, how do I pull this off?”

—— 

The motorboat chopped at the fast-flowing waters. On the banks of the river immense trees lurked like angry sentinels, warning that the jungle hid more horrors than Jordan would ever know, more than he’d already uncovered. At the back of the boat Peel rested, dabbed his face with his shirt, which he dipped in the cool water. Strangely, he was not drinking, and for some time Jordan considered that Peel might have malaria. If he did, that would just be Jordan’s luck. It had been him who had done the research and recommended the man, after all.

“You want anything?” Jordan asked, offering a standard Marine issue water bottle doped with enough iodine tablets to kill anything.

Peel smiled weakly, shook his head.

“Give it to me straight; are you okay? I mean, you look really sick.”

The Australian ‘consultant’ rubbed his stomach. “Something I ate, disagreed with me that’s all.”

Jordan nodded. Eyes back on the river, hand back on the wheel, he took them through another turn in this never-ending maze of dirty-colored rivers. They were heading upstream, into virgin rainforest territory where only headhunting natives, drug smugglers, and U.S. soldiers dared venture. That was if he didn’t count the ESBs. Realistically, headhunters and smugglers were thin on the ground out here, which was not at all surprising. Not with what thrived out there now.

As if someone had thrown a cold bucket of water over him, waking him from a nightmare, Jordan recalled again his experiences in the stifling alien complex. The claustrophobia, the spores, the gunfire that killed more of their own than the ESBs they were trying to capture. For a long time, he thought he would never get out... Still; they came home with their prize. They had captured one of the bastards... Well, half of one at least. Hell, not even half of one, but at least it was alive.

After it was over and the shakes had come and gone, Jordan had time to think and he didn’t like the conclusion he came to. He realized, based on the age of the complex they had raided, that these aliens had been intruding on this planet for thousands, if not millions of years. Such thoughts were worse than the horrors he had just faced, and Jordan wondered if perhaps things weren’t the opposite of how he’d always thought them to be. What if it was humanity that was the intruder on this Earth, that until recently the Earth had belonged to other species far more intelligent than humankind?

When Peel seemed to drift into a restless sleep, Jordan called back to base. It didn’t take long for Bennett to respond.

“I hope you don’t have any bad news for me, Jordan?”

“Sir, he looks very sick.”

“Can he talk?”

“Yes, he’s lucid. If I was to hazard a guess, I’d say malaria.”

“We’ll fix him up with some drugs when he gets here. How long will that be?”

“Not long, sir. ETA twenty minutes.” Jordan deliberated, let the silence hang.

“That’s not all, is it?”

“No, sir. I’m worried he’s compromised us.”

“What, by whom?”

“I don’t know sir, but I know one thing, and that is to trust my gut when things go wrong. Peel missed our first two meetings, and now that he’s finally showed, he’s very sick.”

“Perhaps he’s just got dysentery. Hell, that’d slow me down.”

“I just think we’ve got to be careful.”

Another delay while Bennett mulled over this turn of events. “So what is it you’re asking for?”

Jordan was reluctant to answer, even though he knew he must. Sure, Harrison Peel was an Australian, a former member of a foreign military intelligence, but in his more recent past, his role was consultant to the NSA. Peel also hailed from an allied nation, and he’d put his life on the line several times, not just in the interest of his own country, but for the United States as well. He had proven he was no friend of the ESBs either. So why was Jordan so worried?

“A full security check, sir, that’s what I want. If he’s armed, I don’t want him anywhere near the ESB.”

“Is that all?” Bennett snorted. “You should have said so.”

The line went dead.

But the thought still lingered; Jordan was as sure as hell that wasn’t all. Someone had compromised Peel. He just wasn’t sure how.

—— 

Camp McBride looked out of place in this backwater Amazonian province of Venezuela. The barracks and other compound buildings were all brand new and clean, the helicopter landing pad with two Apaches was clear of weeds and debris, and the communications equipment fixed everywhere was state-of-the-art. The high razor wire and cyclone fences were imposing, and the sentry towers fitted with M249 SAW machineguns and Striker40 automatic grenade launchers which seemed like overkill. For Peel, the facility seemed like paradise after the hotel room from the night before.

Once Jordan moored the boat to the camo-painted jetty, he frisked and body-searched Peel while another soldier checked and double-checked the Australian’s identification. Jordan stood behind Peel and to his left, his right hand behind his back, touching the H&K SOCOM .45 that his civilian clothes hid.

The base medics then gave Peel a quick once over, took a blood sample and said the results would be back in an hour. Peel explained away the scar on his abdomen as a wound sustained while tortured by terrorists during a recent operation in Morocco, which wasn’t far from the truth.

Once the examination was over, and Jordan was only slightly more comfortable with the former Australian army officer, he pulled his hand away from his pistol and walked up to Peel. “You need a moment to freshen up? Take a piss?”

Peel shook his head. He should at least pretend, but he didn’t have the strength to even begin trying. “I want to sleep, mate, but not until we’ve done with the preliminaries.” Truth was that Peel worried what the blood tests would show, so he couldn’t really afford any delays. “You want me to look at it? Try to talk to it?”

The man called Jordan smiled. “ESB induction first. We want to tell you where it came from, so there are no mistakes.”

The two men locked eyes, and Peel could see suspicion in Jordan’s glare now that he had removed his dark sunglasses. This didn’t surprise Peel, considering how he himself had been behaving since their first meeting. If they turned the tables, Peel would have given himself a much harder time, probably even a full-blown interrogation.

“I want to know what to be careful of,” Peel added as an afterthought.

Jordan showed Peel into another stand-alone building. Fashioned from both wood and metal sheets, the structure would have looked haphazard if it didn’t appear to be a simple to erect kit design. Inside, overhead fans and wall-mounted air-conditioning units kept the humidity out and the temperatures down. This room was a conference center, with a digital projector and plastic seats for several dozen participants. Jordan indicated that Peel should sit down.

“Water? Cola? How about a beer?” Jordan asked, squinting.

“No, thanks.” But he was thirsty, literally dying for a drink. It wasn’t just their suspicions that forced him to speed up their agenda. If only they would show him the ESB, then he might get another drink, one more time in his life. “I’m going to watch a slide show, right?”

Jordan nodded. He turned the lights down until it was dark enough, then switched on the digital projector, a laptop attached via video cable. After a few moments, Peel watched a series of digital and satellite photographs of the jungle. Some were of close detail, others showed mountainous jungle terrain. All of them focused on the same sheer cliff face.

“That’s the entrance,” Jordan used a light pen. The slides changed again, gray-scale, as if taken by an infrared camera at night. They were of tunnels, pentagon-shaped rooms, panels without screens but with knobs shaped like toadstools, and what seemed to be hydroponic farms catering to fungal growths. Some later pictures seemed taken in haste, and most seemed to miss something important which Peel couldn’t place. “You’re curious about these shots?” Jordan asked, as if he expected him to be.

Peel took a moment to think. “These are pictures of the ESBs, aren’t they, only they didn’t develop?”

Jordan nodded and smiled.

“The camera didn’t capture them, even though your eyes saw them.”

Jordan’s smile vanished just as quickly, and he turned a shade paler with the memory. “Yeah, you catch on quick. They killed eight of our men, while two are missing in action and god knows what happened to those poor bastards. I don’t mind telling you the place scared the shit out of me, and I was one of the few who got out unscathed.”

“What happened to the rest?”

“You mean apart from the Marines not assigned to a psych ward back in Texas?”

Peel nodded.

“Dead. Those things had this weapon, like an invisible laser that just caused organic material to disintegrate on the spot. Clothing and gear were left behind, but nothing else. We couldn’t even see where it was coming from.”

Wanting to gulp, Peel said nothing. So these ESBs were hostile and efficient combatants. But then, after his experiences in the town, he knew that much already. “What else do you know about them?”

“We don’t know what they’re called, although we know that, apart from their outposts on Earth, they have two major outposts in our solar system. One is on the Moon and the other on Pluto, the latter which they call Yuggoth. We know that they definitely don’t originate from our solar system, perhaps not even our galaxy.” Jordan stopped and took a moment to study Peel and to catch his reaction to the next question. “So, have you heard of these things or dealt with them before?”

Peel shook his head. Despite his history in dealing with strange beings, these aliens were completely new entities to him. He’d met one only this morning, a Yuggothian in human clothing. “What’s their intention?”

Jordan was positive that the other man was hiding something, but he only shrugged. “Unconfirmed, but we suspect abductions for experimentation, such as human and other terrestrial genetic engineering, mining of our planet’s resources, surgery, brainwashing and memory alteration, and general interference in our way of life.”

“Sounds like it. You said you caught one?”

Jordan grinned cruelly. “Yeah, we had to get some justice against these sons of bitches one day. And as I said, they’re into surgery. A particular favorite of theirs is placing brains in self-contained life-support cylinders. We’ve found more than enough cylinders with human brains in them over the years. But we got lucky this time. We secured one of these cylinders with one of their own inside.”

“And it’s talking to you.”

He shrugged again, playing it casual. “Yeah, but we think it’s stalling, waiting for a rescue we sure as hell ain’t going to allow to happen. Trouble is, we think we can get something out of it. Something that will benefit us and not the other way around, that is, if ...” his voice trailed away.

“If you ask the right questions?”

Jordan nodded.

“And you think I can do just that?”

Jordan gave a half-hearted grin. “Well, that’s what I told my boss, so I hope you don’t disappoint.”

Peel wanted to say that in his experience the best thing to do was just destroy it. He’d never encountered an alien or one of their artifacts that had been helpful in the slightest, and most were downright fatal. But of course if he said that, he wouldn’t be the only dead man here today. Besides, he was too thirsty to care about much else.

“Well, let’s get started then.”

—— 

Jordan led Peel down the brightly lit hall. With fifty feet of concrete and earth above their heads, it was the most heavily fortified building in Camp McBride. It was a testament to how quickly Navy Seabees could throw something together when properly motivated.

The two men approached a lone Marine MP standing guard next to an unmarked stainless-steel door. One man armed with just a side arm was all that guarded one of the most amazing discoveries in humankind’s history. But when there was also an entire company of Marines surrounding the lonely guard, it seemed enough.

The MP didn’t even flinch as Jordan walked up. “Open it up, Davis, we’ve got a visitor to see the can.”

The Marine spun around on one heel to face Jordan. “Yes sir, Lieutenant.” Then he spun again to punch in the security code to open the door. The young MP was gung-ho to the core.

“Thanks, Davis. Right this way, Peel.” Jordan held the door open for the Australian consultant, then followed him into the room, locking the door behind them.

“Lieutenant, is it?” Peel asked, one eyebrow raised.

Jordan offered a slight smile. “No, not really, but it will do. I know for a fact that you were a Major with the Australian Army.”

“Jordan isn’t your actual name either, is it?”

Jordan refused to respond. He then walked over to a table on which the can sat. “Here it is, Peel.”

Calling the alien artefact a can seemed appropriate. It was a cylinder over two feet tall and at least a foot across. Constructed out of a golden-bronze metal, it featured a series of alien glyphs etched into its surface and several small nozzles and obvious connection ports scattered across it. Into two of these ports, someone had connected spliced electrical cords and ran them to a normal looking desktop computer. The computer fed data into a monitor and a set of speakers.

Jordan rapped upon the top of the cylinder, “Hey ugly, you awake in there?”

<Do Not Do That>, came the instant reply. This message displayed upon the computer’s screen also blared from the speakers.

“Take it easy, I brought you someone new to talk to. His name is Harrison Peel, and he came all the way from Australia to talk with you. Isn’t that nice?”

Peel studied the mysterious American while he taunted the ESB. He could almost feel the hatred Jordan had for the thing in the cylinder, and he knew getting it past the Yank and out of the base would be that much harder to do because of it.

<We Know Of This Peel. We Will Converse With It.>

Jordan turned to Peel. “Well, it looks like I’m not the only member of your fan club, Peel. You’re on.”

Peel stepped forward to address the ESB, wondering just how the alien intelligence inside the cylinder knew about him. “Where do you come from?”

<This Already Stated. We Come From An Outer Planetoid Of Your Star. Yuggoth.>

“Is this your home world?”

<No.>

“Where is your home?”

<Beyond You.>

“‘Beyond us?’ What does that mean?”

<Beyond Your Understanding.>

There was a pause as Peel thought about that and about what to ask next, but before he could say anything the ESB spoke.

<Peel Are You Not Here To Retrieve Us? You Here To Return Us To Others? Why The Questions?>

A moment of stunned silence hung heavy in the brightly lit room.

“What was that?” Jordan asked. He turned sideways to both Peel and the cylinder, to present a smaller target of himself should something happen. This also concealed his hand as it quickly pulled his gun from the holster at his back.

Peel’s eyes went wide. He quickly raised a hand, palm out, towards Jordan. “Wait, wait just a second. I’m unarmed. You know this, so just wait.” He turned back to the cylinder quickly. “How do you know about me? About ... why I came here?”

“Son of a bitch,” Jordan whispered as he brought up his .45 into a two-handed shooter’s stance.

“Wait just a second, Jordan, please. I will not hurt you or anyone else here—”

“Damn right you won’t,” Jordan hissed.

“But let me talk to the thing in this can, okay? How could that hurt? That is why you brought me here in the first place, isn’t it?”

Jordan debated what to do next as he applied one pound of pressure to the pistol’s trigger. After four long, silent seconds, he said. “Okay, Peel, but this had better be good.” Jordan didn’t lower his aim from Peel’s head a fraction of an inch.

Peel spoke to the ESB again. “I asked, how do you know about me and the reason I’m here?”

<Conduit Still Open Between Us And Others. Your Part In Retrieval Communicated To Us.>

“So you’re in contact with others of your kind right now?”

<Yes The Conduit Between Us Is Never Closed. We Are Never Alone.>

“Jesus,” Peel heard Jordan whisper, and he knew he had to think of something fast. “So that is why you haven’t self-destructed yet?” Peel asked and hoped against hope that the alien brain would guess what he was trying to do and play along. It was a long shot, but right then it was the only option the weary, dehydrated man could think of.

<Yes We Did Not Operate The Nexus Device Once We Gained Awareness Of Your Involvement In Retrieving Us. Is This Retrieval Still Progressing Or Shall I Operate The Nexus Device Now?>

“What the hell is it talking about, Peel?” Jordan asked, but Peel only partially heard him. He was too busy wondering the same thing. Could it be that Peel’s desperate ploy wasn’t a ploy at all?

“Explain nexus device?” Peel asked the ESB.

<Nexus Device Is Variant On Transdimensional Gate Technology. Nexus Device Is Stored Within Capsule With Us. When Operated The Resulting Dimensional Feedback Causes Vaporization At Subatomic Level Of All Matter In A Radius Of Two Of Your Miles.>

“Why would you do such a thing? Wouldn’t you die, too?”

<Yes But We Are Archive Brood. We Can Not Allow Our Knowledge To Fall Into The Hands Of Subminds. Best Outcome: Returned to Others. Acceptable Alternative Outcome: Total Vaporization Of Us To Ensure Knowledge Kept Safe. Beneficial Side Effect Of Alternative Outcome: Total Vaporization Of All Enemies In A Radius Of Two Of Your Miles.>

“Damn it Peel, talk to me, is this shit for real?” Jordan’s gun stayed on Peel’s head, but his grip was trembling slightly.

“I’m afraid so. That’s the real reason I came here. My sources told me about the device inside this brain jar and that the alien inside was all too willing to detonate it.”

“Wait, who are these sources of yours? It ain’t us because we sure as hell didn’t know about any bomb inside that thing.”

“There’s no time to go into that right now,” Peel insisted. “You heard the ESB. If it’s not returned to his mates, then it will vaporize Camp McBride, all the Marines in it and everything else for two miles around.”

“Come on...” Jordan hesitated, his finger lifting off of the .45’s trigger and its barrel dipping slightly. “Do you really believe that there’s a bomb that powerful inside that can with that brain?”

Peel grimaced. God, did he need a drink of water. “Before you and your men raided the alien complex, would you have believed that there would be an ESB in this can?”

Seconds ticked by. Jordan thought about duty and the repercussions of helping the Australian carry out his insane rescue attempt, and weighed that against the hundred-plus lives that were in Camp McBride. When the tally was reached, Jordan knew he didn’t have any choice in the matter.

“Shit,” Jordan whispered to himself as he lowered his weapon and put it back into its holster. Then to the cylinder he snarled, “Okay, you ugly little fucker, we’ll get you out of here. Don’t trigger your damned device or anything.”

Jordan walked over to the door and shouted. “Corporal Davis, I need you to come in here.”

Electronic beeps sounded as the MP entered the door code. A second later, the door swung inward. The corporal had only taken a single step into the room when Jordan spun around on his left heel and struck. In the movies, one well-placed punch always knocks someone out, but reality is a different story. It took Jordan two lightning quick jabs to render the Marine unconscious.

After dragging Davis into the room, Jordan took his sidearm, a standard issue 9mm Beretta. Jordan looked at the weapon, then at Peel, and then muttered another curse before rising and holding the gun out to the consultant. “If this is some kind of trick, if you make me regret this, I’ll kill you,” Jordan said, his blue eyes locked with Peel’s brown ones.

Peel took the pistol and tucked it into this waistband. “Naturally,” he agreed. “Now how do we get this thing out of here without killing anyone?” 

“That’s going to be tough. This place is buttoned up pretty tight.” Jordan checked his watch. “At this time, the mess hall is always empty. I’m going to plant some fireworks in it to draw attention while we make our move. You stay here until I get back. Also tie and gag Davis in case he wakes up sooner than we want.”

Peel slumped against the table on which the alien brain cylinder rested. “Gladly,” was all he croaked out of his trembling, far-too-dry lips.

“And for the love of God, Peel, get something to drink before we make a run for it. You look like shit.” Jordan said and pointed to a water cooler in one of the room’s corners. He then left, closed the door behind him and locked it.

Peel smiled despite the discomfort and whispered, “Wish I could, mate, wish I could.” He then turned back to the ESB. “Do you really have a ‘nexus device’ in there with you?”

<Yes Why Would I Say So If It Was Not So?>

“Never mind,” Peel said, then looked about the room for something to tie up Corporal Davis with.

—— 

Exhausted, Peel gave up running and collapsed into the brown leafy slush that was the jungle floor. Light dappled down through the canopy, fifty odd meters above him. He heard light rain, but the foliage was so thick none of it reached the earth except as trickles down the sides of hanging vines or on the trunks of trees.

Not far behind him, Jordan panted like a horse. He too collapsed after they’d lost their pursuers, and they could afford a moment or two to catch their breath. “Bastards!” Jordan exclaimed loudly. “And you too, Peel! You better be right about that goddamn thing in there, otherwise I’ve compromised everything that I’ve worked for all these years, and for nothing!”

Peel did not respond, finding a strange comfort in the mud, as if he could just crawl into it, hide, and forget everything. But then he was so thirsty he could barely think about anything else, at least not until he sorted all this out. In the meantime, his head pounded, despite the cooling earth that sapped his body heat away. He knew that in a few hours his condition would deteriorate rapidly, especially after such an exertion.

There was no surprise in Peel when McFour walked out of the jungle, dressed in camouflage fatigues with a knapsack draped over his shoulder. Humans had satellites that could read the writing off a Coke can, so who was to say the ESBs couldn’t see so much more with their far more highly advanced gadgets?

Surprised that this man discovered them so easily, so deep in the undergrowth, Jordan drew his handgun and pointed it at the intruder’s head. “Who the fuck is this?” He watched McFour, but the question was directed at Peel.

“Don’t harm him,” the Major raised a warning hand and staggered to his feet. “He’s their agent.”

“You have the ESB unharmed, I presume?” asked McFour casually in his strange French accent.

“And you’re going to keep your promise not to harm anyone in the base?” Peel countered as much for Jordan’s benefit as his own. The American appeared on edge, perhaps even unstable after their escape. If not, he should be, because that’s exactly how Peel felt right then, ready to collapse from physical and mental fatigue.

The man who called himself McFour nodded. “Lying and deceit is not part of the Fungi from Yuggoth directives, unless it suits them to be so.”

“That’s no fucking answer,” Jordan hissed. He clenched his teeth hard and with the whites of his eyes showing, he had made his soul hard so he could kill if he had to.

“It’s over, Jordan. You saved your men.”

“Listen to your friend,” McFour spoke calmly. “He is correct.”

With his gun arm still raised high, Jordan seemed to take a moment to consider his options. He’d just turned against his own people, recklessly endangering lives because he’d believed the mad Australian’s story. If all was lost, then the damage was already done. Peel sighed with relief when Jordan finally lowered his weapon.

“Thank you,” Peel said, feeling ready to faint. McFour gave the Australian a syringe. Without hesitation Peel plunged it into a vein, allowing the solution to do its work. Almost immediately his headache and dizziness subsided.

Jordan frowned. “They got you on a slow acting poison or something, Peel? No wonder you’ve been acting so crazy.”

Overhead they heard an Apache helicopter circling. It wouldn’t be long before the Marines found them, that was obvious. They had to complete the deal before anyone else showed up.

Peel gave a weak smile, handed over the container with the alien’s brain. No longer attached to its communications devices, none of the three men would understand what state the creature was in right then. If it was dead, perhaps there was nothing for Peel to bargain with. So when McFour took the cylinder from Peel, the Major grabbed his arm and pulled him close. “What about the last part of the deal? You were never planning to renege on that part either, I hope?” Peel felt prepared, sure he would hand back the alien, but if he didn’t get his stomach back as well, he was more than willing to murder McFour. The automatic tucked into his pants still pressed hard against his back, reminding him why it was there.

McFour smiled coldly. “Of course not.” Placing the brain cylinder gentle on the muddy ground, he removed a long, elongated milky-white shape reminiscent of a German sausage bloated in the middle. Peel and Jordan each noticed that its ends included valves that reminded Peel of anuses. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, McFour passed the artificial stomach to Peel, behaving as if his work here was complete.

“Wait,” Peel called as McFour lifted the cylinder to begin his trek back into the green undergrowth. His voice became frantic, mimicking exactly how he felt. “My stomach is no good to me on the outside. And this isn’t even my stomach.”

Jordan laughed hysterically. “You mean that’s how they conned you, Peel? And I thought I was having a bad day.”

Peel gave another weak smile, knowing that he wouldn’t last much longer. In negotiating with these aliens, he never thought that he’d need to bargain the specification that they place his stomach back inside him when he completed his side of the deal. He had it back, but it was useless.

He felt his face drain of color.

“Don’t look so glum, Mr. Peel.” McFour gave an actual smile for the first time. “It’s not as bad as all that.” He lifted his shirt, revealing not one but many C-shaped scars, which almost identically matched the scar on Peel’s own abdomen. But it was what he did next that made both Peel and Jordan gag with revulsion.

McFour peeled away the skin, turning it into a flap, a pocket revealing a chamber within where his own stomach and upper intestines should have been. There were no organs, just a wall of internal skin behind a network of artificial tubing and an alien-designed stomach identical to the one Peel held in his own hands. With a quick change, McFour undid one valve in demonstration, and then hooked it back again.

Without thinking Peel touched his own scar, felt the edge of it peeling away as if he were removing the lid from a Tupperware container. Jordan next to him looked too shocked to do or say anything. Neither man had expected this.

McFour didn’t wait. The deal was concluded as promised and all parties satisfied. It was time for him to make his leave.

He vanished into the hidden depths with the alien brain tucked safely under his arm. Peel and Jordan shared the same thought at that moment, that they’d never see him again.

Then Peel remembered where he had encountered Jordan before, and not just once, but many, many times.

War Gods of Men

with David Kernot

The Royal Australian Air Force C-17 Globemaster III shook through the mountainous Afghan winds as it descended into a remote military airfield in the Nimruz Province. Dust clouds blanketed the landscape, and from the rear cockpit seat Harrison Peel’s stomach tightened. He had no idea how close they were to the runway. He closed his eyes until he felt the landing wheels touch and the military transport jolt to a stop.

Dressed in an Aussie multi-cam uniform again, after a dishonorable discharged years earlier from the Australian Army, Peel wasn’t sure what to expect when they disembarked.

“Put this on,” Warrant Officer First Class Gary Kudjic shouted over the whine of the jet engines. The stocky soldier pushed a standard issue combat helmet, tiered body armor, and an F88 Austeyr assault rifle into Peel’s waiting arms. “Once a soldier, always a soldier… Major.”

“We’re expecting trouble?”

The cocky, red-headed warrant officer shrugged. “No one outside is responding, sir. We might need your skills.”

Peel quickly kitted and followed the squad of Australian Army infantrymen beyond the confines of the C-17. The orange-red dust cloud reduced visibility to five meters in any direction: a death trap if they weren’t smart about their deployment. Despite the limited visibility, the soldiers moved as a practiced unit, rifles ready as if expecting contact with enemy combatants.

Human shapes emerged as silhouettes in the thick dust clouds. Peel prepped to double-tap anyone who raised a weapon, but none did. The Aussie infantrymen ordered the enemy onto the ground, hands behind their heads. The slow-moving men obeyed without complaint.

Despite the thick dust, Peel noticed their confused and delayed responses. Peel cuffed one of the enemy with a zip-lock tie, and he turned the prone man over.

The man wore the same Australian Army uniform as Peel, only it crumbled apart, as did his standard issue combat helmet and body armor. If he had once held a Steyr assault rifle, the weapon was long gone.

The man didn’t look like an insurgent, and his appearance startled Peel. From the man’s wrinkled skin and shrunken complexion, he looked ninety-years-old.

—— 

Rust. It was all about rust.

Ex-Australian Army sergeant Emerson James Ash grabbed the toothpick in his mouth and twirled it between the fingers of his right hand. He stared at his left arm to where the military had replaced his chipped, sophisticated prosthetic arm with a cybernetic upgrade. A stupid accident in central South Australia, and before that a small secret war in the Horn of Africa, had led him down a disastrous path. The deformity was one thing, but the arm was also a symbol of his denied right to a peaceful life with Amye. An accident, a death, and a reassignment to the reserve list — the artificial arm would always remind him of all that he had lost.

All of that was behind him now, or so he liked to tell himself, and yet here he was again at the military’s beck-and-call. He understood how a prostitute felt when faced with the alternatives their pimp would offer. It sickened Emerson.

To distract himself, he contemplated the intelligence report and shook his head. Emerson had spent the entire day analyzing a series of Special Operations Task Group photo images of rust and wondered why.

The disintegrated contraption in the digital image was a U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle. The multi-role fighter jet, gutted from nose tip to engine exhaust, was a victim of severe corrosion. According to the accompanying reports, the Strike Eagle had lifted off from Bagram Airfield at 06:40 hours yesterday, local Afghan time, and flown southwest into Afghanistan’s Nimruz Province, a most remote and inhospitable area, to bomb a recently identified Taliban stronghold.

It never made it.

The F-15E had fallen from the sky, crashed into the desert, and disintegrated into five large pieces and a thousand smaller shrapnel fragments. Some kind of weapon had flayed the two pilots of their skin, flesh, organs, and muscle, and were now nothing more than dried bones, disintegrated flight uniforms, and G-suit remains. Emerson’s task was analyzing, and then prepping, an accurate assessment of what had caused the destruction, using his ‘special threat’ experience he had gained in Somalia.

He had nothing.

He stared out his window. There was so much going on in the world, some of it so bizarre, and yet he felt so disconnected from it. The new intelligence job wasn’t quite what he’d hoped, but it provided a steady income, and Canberra was about as boring a place as you could find in mainland Australia. At least what the job lacked the local Irish pub in town, The King, or ‘O’Malley’s’, made up for after work. Canberra really came alive after dark, and the pub, frequented by ex-military guys like himself, had a constant turnover of fresh Australian National University short-haired, sophisticated women with their superior ‘I’m-so-clever-and-wearing-librarian’s glasses stare’. But the ANU locals were more than willing to hear a story or two.

“You look bored, Emerson.”

The analyst looked up at his supervisor and smiled. Distracted again, Emerson realized that he couldn’t keep his mind on his assigned task.

“Not bored,” he said, “just… I don’t know… I’m a cyber-analyst and these Intelligence reports are fine, but…”

The senior civilian intelligence analyst, named Peter Morrissey, who insisted on being referred by his last name only, even amongst friends, laughed. “I understand.” He waved Emerson’s comments aside and smiled. “That implant of yours still works?” Morrissey stared at Emerson’s left arm.

Emerson frowned at the reference to his implant and nodded, unsure why the man would bring up his disability.

“I wanted you to know I’ve put your name forward for Afghanistan.”

Emerson’s throat tightened. He swallowed hard. “Me?”

“Don’t you want to get involved in an Information Security survey of Afghanistan?”

Emerson straightened in his chair and struggled to hide the enthusiastic smile. With his disability, he’d thought fieldwork an impossibility. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope.”

Emerson grinned. Information Security meant Cyber! Now that was his specialization! Not rust, but something he understood without thought. “When?”

“Tomorrow morning. The civvy who was supposed to go pulled out because of wife issues. We’ve made some allowances, given your military currency…” The man laughed again. “And your obvious skills.”

Emerson wanted to laugh. Instead, he shifted uncomfortably at the mention of ‘wife issues’ after what had happened to Amye. “Say the word and I’m there,” he said.

“It’s related,” Morrissey pointed to the corroded wreck of the F-15E on Emerson’s flat screen. “You don’t think we wasted your time today, by having you go over that report as a time-filler?”

And suddenly Emerson didn’t think that they had.

——

In a closed wing of the Heathe N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital, well within the secure confines of Bagram Airfield, Peel and Warrant Officer Kudjic watched as the old, confused soldiers wriggled in their beds. The few survivors had saline drips in their arms now. DNA and fingerprint analysis confirmed the men were Royal Australian Regiment soldiers on a routine patrol. The men should have been in their twenties, thirties at most. None could recall the weapon that had hit them.

“Do you know what caused this, Major?” asked Kudjic.

Peel looked at the man’s solid Bagram-supplement-fed frame and wished he had guns half as massive as the warrant officer. “It’s Harrison Peel, remember, I’m here as a civilian consultant.”

“You’re Mitchell Peel’s nephew, right? You’re just like him now.”

Peel nodded, and remembered his uncle, the civil servant who’d dedicated a career to the Department of Defence, and his dogged steadfastness had inspired Peel to enlist for patriotic duty when he was a young man.

“I worked with your uncle years ago, He was a legend.”

“You speak of Mitch like he’s dead.”

Kudjic looked surprised. “Is he, sir?”

“No, retired.”

“Yes, sir. Glad to hear.” His face shone with admiration. “Can I ask? I’ve heard stories about what you did in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.”

Peel ignored the warrant officer’s blatant probe into a previous covert operation and looked back to the dying old men. They had years at most, not the decades or half centuries promised to soldiers who survived the theater of war. “Something aged them artificially,” said Peel.

“Chemical or biological weapons, or something else?” Kudjic raised an eyebrow and hinted to something.

“Something else… it also aged their clothes and equipment.”

Kudjic seemed angry and shook his head. “It makes no sense.” He thrust a report at Peel. “I was told to give you this and inform you I’m Code-89 cleared.”

Peel smiled at the man. Code-89 meant that Kudjic also had the security clearance to discuss alien threats and other dimensional anomalies that sometimes plagued the various corners of the Earth. It was Peel’s specialty, putting down such ‘specific threats.’ A means to age people artificially fit the mandate. No wonder higher authorities had paired them up.

“Did you know your uncle was Code-89 cleared?”

Surprised, Peel raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t known but had suspected this to be the case, and suddenly so much made sense. Not getting married, the unhappiness and keeping himself distant from those he supposedly cared about, and that bizarre meeting in the souks of Cairo all those years ago. That doggedness to fight back was Peel all over too, doubly so ever since his first ‘special threat’ experience against a horror that made no rational sense in the human world. No wonder Uncle Mitch had been reluctant for Peel to enlist. He hadn’t wanted his nephew to end up like him.

Peel felt a tang of regret. He was angry that the Army had discarded him so easily after he had saved Sydney from a Code-89 threat known as a Shoggoth, admittedly by using a nuclear weapon to do so. Casualties had been high, and he’d paid for that. He’d told himself later he didn’t need the military anymore, that he’d moved on, but now he was back, he had to acknowledge how much he missed this life.

Peel scrolled the daily Code-89 Intelligence Summary and noted the mention of a super-weapon in the daily theater reporting from Afghanistan. The word karez, or ancient underground aqueducts, stood out and he sighed: the local U.S. Marine detachment, or the Brits, would jump on it because karez were the supply tunnels that allowed insurgents to move around the countryside unseen. Coalition forces would scour the road from Kajaki to Musa Qala, checking as many of the aqueducts in use by local insurgents to transport people or equipment until satisfied that no super-weapons were down there. Peel wondered if this was the same device that artificially aged the soldiers.

“I heard you were in Rawalpindi looking for WMDs that might have fallen into the hands of the Taliban.”

Kudjic wouldn’t give up, and again Peel ignored him. He handed back the report.

“Did you find any, sir? WMDs?”

“Weapons of mass destruction? Of course.” Peel nodded, answering his own question from a mission so long ago now. “Now drop it, Warrant Officer. I can’t talk about what I did, and it’s not related.”

“Well, I think you’ve just found another one.”

Footsteps echoed down the hospital corridor. Peel turned and faced four U.S. Marines. They halted next to him and Kudjic. Peel stood tall and tried to not look surprised by the unusual visit.

“Major Peel, we’ve spoken to the Australian Liaison Officer posted to Camp Bastion. He’s obtained permission through your NSA seniors for your involvement on a specific mission against a credible threat. It’s related to what happened to those poor soldiers.”

Peel smiled at the use of his military title again, and his ears pricked up at the mention of a ‘specific threat’. It was another NSA/Five Eyes code for a special compartmented mission outside of normal channels.

He looked at the full Colonel’s bird on the lead Marine’s shoulder and erred on the side of caution and not be so bold. In the past, his flippant Australian attitude to rank had cost him. “Colonel Patterson?” he read the name off the officer’s pocket stitch.

Patterson grinned. “I take it the Warrant Officer has briefed you?” His nod indicted Gary Kudjic.

“We’ve covered the basics, sir.”

“I was told that as an Aussie, and a certain major with your ‘contacts’ you’d be interested in this mission to Kajaki. It has all the artifacts of your specialization. Fourteen-hundred hours in the main briefing room for a combined J2, J3, J5 brief, and then a separate compartmented J25X briefing before you fly out. It’s a joint USMC-SOTG operation, and we want you to lead it.”

Peel closed his eyes and smiled. That meant he was back in uniform, at least until the mission concluded. He couldn’t be sure if this was a good or bad outcome: an acknowledgement they shouldn’t have discharged him in the first place, or an exercise to rub what he had lost in his face again. Either way, they had laid his future out before him.

“Thank you, Colonel.”

——

The Transit Center at Manas was not in Afghanistan, but as far as Emerson Ash was concerned, it might as well be. Kyrgyzstan Republic was land-locked in the heart of Central Asia and featured nothing that would pass as modern infrastructure. He couldn’t walk the local streets and presume to be safe, or expect the modern conveniences found back home.

Emerson figured that until he shipped out to Bagram Airfield, he would lose himself in his work, and spent the day on a secure login to the Five Eyes nations’ shared Intelpedia. He scoured Taliban websites for any clues to their latest activities and downloaded pertinent information into his implant. Search words including ‘rust’, ‘corrosion’ and ‘skin flaying’ brought up nothing in English or Arabic. His frustration doubled because he only had one biological arm, and despite its electronic componentry, his prosthetic couldn’t touch-type as fast as real fingers could. He cursed. Every search took longer than it needed.

It was only when he slowly typed in the word ‘time’ he got a hit from a cell operating from Zaranj, the capital of Afghanistan’s Nimruz Province.

The senior insurgent who led the cell boldly pronounced himself online as Ahmad Komdani and boasted he had recently recovered a weapon from an unspecified location referred to as the Holy Temple of Yog-Sothoth. Komdani bragged he could accelerate time, and that time was his to command. When Emerson read that the priest claimed to have shot down a U.S. fighter jet with his holy weapon, he knew he had a match.

Back on Intelpedia, Emerson searched on ‘Yog-Sothoth’. He received a thousand-plus hits, all classified above his security clearance. So high that if he kept probing, he’d soon find himself detained for questioning. He considered the risks: would interrogation for a couple of days be so bad if he also uncovered a dangerous Taliban-funded insurgent cell and then put it down?

Undeterred, and because he was a cyber-analyst, and because he expected these things of himself, he executed a few stored programs from his implant, and electronically probed a few back doors until he discovered why he couldn’t access the information. Code-89 clearance flashed up, which he didn’t have. He didn’t know what that meant.

“Emerson Ash?”

Emerson faced the Marine who’d just entered the office Emerson had commandeered for the day and nodded. He wondered if he’d already set off virtual alarm bells, and this soldier was his interrogator.

“You’re the cyber civvy?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“The transport is ready to take you out to Camp Bastion.”

Emerson sighed with relief over avoiding detection and frowned. He looked at his watch. They were five hours early, and the destination was wrong. “Helmand Province? What have the Brits got to do with this? I thought—”

“Do as you’re told. Can you do that? Or have you forgotten what it was like to follow military orders, Sergeant?”

“No,” said Emerson.

“You’re military,” said the Marine sergeant with more force this time. “You can’t just take your uniform off and be someone else, hide behind civilian clothes!”

“I can, and I’m not hiding,” said Emerson. Anger forced him to his feet. “I’m ex-military now.” He stated it clearly as if for official recordkeeping and considered he might have overreacted because he was afraid they had caught him looking into secrets he shouldn’t have.

“You’re military from where we stand, son.”

“But I finished my tour. I changed my life.”

“Sure. Good for you. When did this miracle happen?”

Emerson closed his eyes, fighting the darkness that seemed to envelop him from nowhere. “Months ago.”

A Marine corporal entered the office, Suleiman by his patch. He stepped forward and interrupted. “Sergeant Ash was here during the last rotation in place, Sergeant.” Suleiman stared at Emerson. “I remember you, Sergeant: you’ve got the implanted arm.”

Emerson raised his left arm. The prosthetic had served him well unless it came to typing, or cooking, or gardening, or any other fine motor skills task. “Yeah, that’s me, so what?”

“This should be fun during your force prep briefings.” The sergeant laughed. “Civvy and an ex-sergeant.”

——

In a secure briefing room in Camp Bastion, with the muffled sounds of insurgent artillery shells pounding their outer defenses, Peel looked out across the expanse of a half-dozen Australian Army Special Operations Task Group soldiers. An equal number of U.S. Marine Corps stood nearby, and Peel prepared to brief the joint USMC-SOTG operation.

Colonel Chester Patterson stood toward the back, and although Peel had said nothing yet, he was assessing Peel. Worse, perhaps because Peel was again in his major’s uniform. They were turning him into a soldier after they’d simultaneously disowned him. He understood they called him back because of his expertise. Publicly they would retract the rank after the mission, because Peel was the soldier who had detonated a nuke in Sydney Harbour to destroy an alien monster about to raze the city. He had saved the day, but he became the scapegoat. He wondered what his Uncle Mitchell would have said if he’d known Peel’s history for the last few years. Would he feel disappointed, or proud? It was hard to know in the shadow world of Code-89 black ops, where good and evil were blurred concepts.

Peel ran the PowerPoint presentation and showed the maps of Nimruz Province, known and suspected routes of the local karez , scant details on the cell leader Ahmad Komdani, photographs of the aged soldiers, and new intelligence of a rusted Strike Eagle that had literally aged hundreds of years in flight.

“What caused that kind of destruction,” asked a lance corporal from the Marine contingent. “Sir?”

Peel took a deep breath and silently thanked fate that all these men were Code-89 cleared, all except one, but that was only a formality which they would soon rectify. “We think it’s some kind of ESB super-weapon, one that accelerates time.”

“ESB?” asked the only other civilian in the room, a former Australian Army sergeant turned cyber-analyst who had prepared much of the report Peel was now delivering. “I’m not familiar with the terminology, sir?”

“Extra-terrestrial sentient being, Sergeant Ash.”

The man nodded and scratched his chin with his prosthetic arm.

Later, after the briefing concluded, and the men were prepping final mission checks on the two Humvees, Peel sought Ash.

“That was some detailed report you put together, Sergeant?”

“I’m no longer a sergeant, sir.”

“And I’m no longer a major, but here we are.”

Ash looked away. “The world always seems to be complicated.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’ either, at least not outside the confines of this mission.”

Ash was about to say ‘yes sir’ but nodded instead.

Peel sensed something troubled the man, but he couldn’t guess and probed. “You lost that arm in Somalia?”

Ash laughed without humor. “Nothing so grand, an accident back home in Stirling North. You know where that is? Up near Port Augusta in South Australia?”

“Never been there,” said Peel.

“I was showing off to a girl, on a tractor, and fell under the towed harvester. The army became my life.”

“Did you impress the girl?” Peel asked.

The man half-laughed, half-frowned. “Not for long enough.”

Peel nodded, convinced there was more than Ash let on. “You ready for this mission?”

The cyber-analyst shrugged. “As ready as you can be. I mean, we don’t really know what we’re up against.”

“No, we don’t,” reflected Peel. “But that’s why we’re along for the ride. We’re the Intel boys. Of everyone on the mission, when the shit hits the fan, we’re the ones they’ll turn to for answers.”

“I guess so.”

Peel turned to prep himself, then paused. “Ash, for the record, you are Code-89 cleared now. Those files you wanted to access yesterday? Well, now you can.”

Ash hesitated. “You knew about that? And how I lost my arm?”

“Yes. I wanted to see what you’d tell me.”

Peel didn’t say he’d known Ash’s girlfriend, Amye, was only a short-lived relationship because she had died under unusual and horrific circumstances. Even in the civilian world, Code-89 events happened.

As Peel walked away from the former sergeant, he hoped Ash could hold it together long enough to see this mission through. If he did, he might find some closure.

——

The Humvees rumbled south. Beyond the confines of the base and demilitarized zones it started to rain and Emerson spotted opium crops mixed with farming plots, donkeys and camels in and around the fields. It was not at all how he imagined Afghanistan would be. Lush and with few trees.

The terrain became mountainous until they were close to their target karez entry point. They approached farmers with donkeys. But the farmers pulled assault rifles and hand-held rocket launchers from behind their cloaks and beasts of burden. They engaged the first Humvee, but none hit.

In automatic response, the Marine gunners let loose with their M134 Miniguns, hundreds of 7.62mm rounds expelled from the six-barreled machine guns in under a minute, and made quick work of the enemy. The insurgents’ dance of death was disturbing and short-lived, and painted with the red splashes of their last blood.

The lead Humvee seemed to melt into a brown discoloration and then disintegrated into rust. Bones of soldiers and fragmented uniforms fell with the crumbling chassis. Half their team lost to a single attack.

“Out of the vehicle!” Peel commanded. “Spread out, defensive positions and return fire.”

The Marines and Aussie soldiers moved quickly as ordered. On his feet and moving fast, Emerson couldn’t see the weapon that had hit the other truck, and he half expected to age suddenly and die an old man. Instead, he found himself disorientated in a field of three-meter-high grass. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. He couldn’t see more than a couple of meters in any direction.

He heard gunfire, the high-pitched calls of the insurgents, and then… grunting ?

Emerson raised his Steyr and advanced cautiously. He stumbled into a clearing. In its midst were three men, a woman and a couple of children, each with a hairy body, sloping skull, and muscles over a dense body frame. He’d never seen their physiology. They had a fire lit and were cooking a large slab of meat. They grunted wildly at him, raised primitive spears at him. He was about to shoot, but changed his mind. They appeared terrified and confused, and protective of their infants. These weren’t insurgents.

Emerson disappeared back into the grass.

“This is Ash.” He spoke quickly into his comms piece. “Civvies in the grass, repeat, civvies in the grass.” He gave numbers and coordinates.

“Copy that,” echoed Peel. “All teams move backward along these coordinates.” He provided a compass bearing. “The insurgents can’t see us. We have cover.”

“Copy that,” said Warrant Officer Gary Kudjic over the comms. “Where did the grass come from, sir?”

“Don’t know, but it’s just saved our lives.”

Emerson moved quickly along the path Peel had provided. Within a few hundred meters, he stepped out into open rocky ground. The line between grass and rock was abrupt, and not at all natural. Three Marines and two SOTG soldiers were congregating with Peel, moving to higher ground to secure cover behind the higher rocky outcroppings.

An insurgent emerged from the grass and fired his AK-47 wide. Warrant Officer Kudjic stepped out and returned fire. He hit an insurgent who rolled down the slope toward Ash, and lay, still conscious, in a pool of his own blood. He tried to raise his Russian assault rifle and fire it again.

“Put him out of his misery, Ash.”

“I can’t.” He didn’t know why, but since his accident, and losing Amye, the reminder of what he’d lost overwhelmed him. “I’m a civilian,” he offered as explanation.

Kudjic aimed his rifle and put a bullet into the insurgent’s head. He leaned close.

Ash could smell his foul breath and see the man needed his eyebrows plucked.

“Want to die, Mister Ash?”

“No, sir.”

“Then use your weapon when commanded. I know you’re still current with a Steyr.”

Ash nodded. He’d fired the weapon recently before he’d left the military. “I’m a non-combatant.”

“Yep, right you are, Mister Ash, but when the insurgents come down this valley, I don’t think they’ll care what you are. You on the inactive reserve list?”

Ash nodded. He had three more years to give them.

“Then consider yourself back in the military, and we might still get out of this alive.”

Ash readied his weapon, as if he’d never left the military. He checked the weapon’s safety, cocked it, locked the working parts, and twisted the barrel assembly off.

The man picked up the expelled round and brushed off the sand on his uniform. “No need for a safety check, Mister Ash, but well done. You’ll want a round in the chamber at all times.”

Ash closed his eyes and nodded for a moment, but when he opened them the Australian and Marine troops were striding forward up the hill with their weapons aimed.

They were about fifty meters above the valley, protected by a rocky outcropping, and Emerson looked down into the ambush site they’d left. It resembled a dollar coin. A large circular patch of tall grass perhaps half a kilometer across had materialized from nowhere around the Humvees. The insurgents were in the thick of it and had discovered the good Humvee. They wasted no time and destroyed it with homemade bombs.

“Take them out, Corporal Riker,” Peel commanded their Marine sniper.

Riker lined up his USMC Designated Marksman Rifle on the rock, and one by one put a bullet in all the insurgents. In less than thirty seconds, the enemy was dead.

Emerson noticed a confused group of men, women and children, emerging from the grasslands on the far side, fifteen hairy individuals not including half a dozen toddlers. All wore animal skins, were stocky and hardy-looking. They brandished spears and appeared lost and bewildered. They didn’t move like normal humans would.

“Ten o’clock, sir,” Riker reported the group to Peel. “Do I take them out too?”

“Wait!” yelled Emerson. “They aren’t our enemy.”

Peel lifted binoculars and looked closer. “Maybe not, Ash, but I have no idea who they might be.”

“I do,” said Emerson. He felt odd disclosing the impossibility. “They’re Neanderthals.”

——

The USMC-SOTG descended again into the valley and the grass and the Neanderthals vanished without noticing the transition. It was as if they had never been.

They were more exposed now, but so too would any insurgents be. Peel saw no signs of survivors, but he ordered a quick recon of the immediate area.

Ash stepped forward. “Sir, what’s going on?”

Peel shrugged, suspecting far more than he would share. “Some kind of time weapon. Whoever used it, the output, was to project a moment of history from tens of thousands of years ago. But it didn’t stick.”

“The same weapon that took down the Strike Eagle? It has more capabilities than I thought.”

Peel grinned, but he didn’t feel good about the situation. “That’s the problem with ‘special threats’, they never make sense.”

Corporal Riker returned, snapped off a salute. “Sir, we found an entry into the aqueduct. We think that is where the insurgents disappear into.”

“Excellent work, Corporal. Prep the men to enter.”

“Sir, what about potential insurgents still up here?” asked Riker.

“You’re right. You and your team form a perimeter around this aqueduct. Nobody goes in or out until we return. You deal with the insurgents, but this is too important.”

“The super-weapon—”

“—will have returned with its operator into the underground,” Peel finished Riker’s sentence for him, then glanced at Emerson. “Sergeant Ash, you’re with me. You too, Warrant Officer Kudjic and Corporal Suleiman.” He turned and strode toward the dark aqueduct, stooped, and then marched in with his Steyr ready.

The tunnel was dark and long, shaped like an inverted V and cut from the rock by hand. He switched on his maglite, a small LED torch, and proceeded cautiously. Within a hundred meters they were knee-deep in chilly water, and the tunnels were very narrow, making it near impossible to move past each other should they need to. There was no option but to proceed.

Hundreds of meters in, and trying not to be obvious, Peel glanced back to ensure Ash, Kudjic and Suleiman were still with him. The thought of being down here alone was not a comforting one.

A flash-charged stream of iridescent bubbles sped along the tunnel right at them. It moved just slow enough for Peel to duck, but behind him, Ash caught the beam weapon straight in the face.

——

“Morning, Emerson, my love, beautiful day out.”

Emerson frowned. “Amye?” He sat up in the warm bed and admired her short, racy red negligee. “What are you doing here?”

She frowned back at him and then laughed. “Forgotten already? It’s the day after our wedding.” She held up her hand and admired the diamond ring next to her wedding band. “Mrs. Amye Ash, at last,” she said. “Will you ever stop teasing me?”

He glanced down at the wedding band on his finger and his heart leaped — the ring was on the finger of his left hand. He held it up, clenched his hand into a fist. How was his hand and arm normal again? He frowned at her. “This is a dream.”

She laughed again. “Sorry, you’re stuck with me!”

“But you died … the Chthonians …”

She pouted and walked over to the bed. “No, I’m here. Touch me again, I’m real enough.”

Emerson closed his eyes with joy. Had the other thoughts been PTSD? Had there ever been an Afghanistan, a crippled arm, and a fight at the Horn? Or had he never raced Damien on the tractor and fallen? Hearing Amye laugh, he opened his eyes to ask her.

But instead she faded from view—

—Drenched in the dark, smothered by cold water splashing on his face and filling his mouth. Someone wrenched him upward, and he felt disorientated. Beams of light spilled everywhere, turning in circles repeatedly. He heard gunfire, the controlled burst from a Steyr. The noise was deafening in this confined space.

Suleiman had him in his arms and lifted him up.

“What happened?” he finally blurted.

“Someone attacked us,” said Corporal Suleiman. “The Major and Warrant Officer are returning fire.”

On his feet, steady again, Ash readied his weapon, certain he would use it any moment now.

He realized how easily he gripped his weapon, and how seeing Amye again had given him renewed confidence.

The arm, the cybernetic attachment, had changed. Fused with his flesh, it had more moving parts. Like someone had forged it from metallic muscle. He flexed his fingers, opened and closed his fist. The arm was metal. Chrome and circuits ran along his skin like electronic veins. Metal and flesh merged, and the interface screen was as flexible as the rest of his new attachment. It looked made from liquid mercury, but upon touching it, he realized the artificial arm was solid enough.

Ash had no idea how this had happened.

Words flashed up on the screen. Time weapon accelerated your arm into a future version of itself.

An upgrade? Ash mentally asked.

Yes. An upgrade , replied the screen.

The gunfire ceased. Ash looked up to see Kudjic pounding down the tunnel toward them, back from where Peel had disappeared. “All clear,” he reported through panting breath. “The Major is waiting for us, in a cave opening.”

“What’s he found?” asked Suleiman.

“You won’t fucking believe it, and I can’t find the words to describe it.”

—— 

They discovered a vast chamber cut square from ancient stone. Disfigured and decapitated icons of Buddha lined many alcoves on the western and eastern walls, their faces replaced with new stone blocks of roughly carved animalistic gods. One was an eyeless, tentacled head resembling an octopus. Another was nothing more than a vast tongue. The next, a wriggling mass of tentacles and teeth arranged chaotically. Peel knew where he was, Emerson Ash’s Temple of Yog-Sothoth. These effigies were the war gods of men, found in the alien dimensions that intersected the human universe, and as real as he was.

The ground too was unsettling, a quilt work mosaic of corpses, the legacy of the temporal weapon abuse from a bygone era. A bloody battle had occurred here perhaps a thousand years ago, during the Crusades. Templar knights and their horses lay butchered and bloody in equal number amongst fallen Oriental foot soldiers with their broken spears and split round shields. All were dead and freshly killed. It seemed they had only finished their battle minutes before Peel had arrived.

But the statues and the medieval corpses were the least of Peel’s problems. He switched over a fresh magazine into his Steyr and advanced upon the one living man in the temple, Ahmad Komdani. The insurgent had suffered a bullet wound in his leg that was slowly bleeding out, but that was not his most alarming feature. He appeared splashed with paint, but one colored with old age. Like zebra stripes, half his face was thirty-something, the other ninety-something.

Around Komdani’s left forearm a conglomerate of bubbles had coalesced, colored like oil on water. They rose and popped, all of different sizes, but they never burst fast enough to reveal the arm beneath, if an arm remained. Some bubbles floated away, but not very far before they vanished.

“Beware, infidel,” the man spoke in Arabic, “for I am the High Priest of Yog-Sothoth, the Keeper and Renderer of the Gate between time and…”

He raised his arm like a weapon toward Peel.

Peel immediately applied the Mozambique drill, a double-tap in the chest followed by a single bullet to the head, and Komdani went down as his blood sprayed everywhere.

Peel half-expected the insurgent to stand again, with the temporal weapon still alive and functional on his arm. But he never moved.

He realized his men entered the temple behind him.

“What the fuck happened here?” raged Suleiman. One crusader twitched, so the soldier put a bullet into him.

“We found the weapon.” Peel pointed to the oozing bubbles affixed to the dead insurgent’s arm.

“What do we do with it?” asked Ash beside Peel.

Peel smiled because Ash’s face was filled with awe and wonder. He looked like he had finally found his confidence.

“Look what it did to my arm!” he shouted in an elated tone. “And it took me back to Amye. If we can work out how to use it, well, who knows what is possible?”

Furious, Peel gripped Ash and dragged him closer to Komdani. “But see what it did to him. He couldn’t control it. Never, even when he was taking down our Strike Eagle and Humvees.”

Ash shuddered. “Sorry sir, you’re right. It’s just…”

“You saw a way to go back, right? And you wanted it?”

Emerson Ash nodded. He had turned pale again. Relief was only ever short-lived.

“It’s a false hope, Emerson. Now that you are one of us, Code-89, I can give you one piece of advice if you want to survive for the long haul. Don’t embrace any of this. It will consume you, control you, even end your life.”

“I saw Amye, and the life we could have had.”

Peel gripped Ash by the arm, shaking him so he would focus on what Peel was about to say. “I want to go back too. This week, I realized how much I missed being in the Army, and how betrayed I felt when they dishonorably discharged me. I’m going to regret going home, knowing that I’m likely never to put on this uniform again. But I can’t change any of that. I just have to accept it and move on.”

Emerson massaged his temple. He looked distraught, which was not surprising for a man who had held in so much hurt for so long.

“You’re right, Peel, and I’m sorry. I lost it there for a moment.”

“We all do, from time to time. We just have to remember who we are, and what we’re fighting.”

Ash released himself from Peel’s grip. “It won’t happen again, sir.”

“Good to hear.” Peel turned to Kudjic and Suleiman. “I want charges laid at all the structural points. I want to bring this temple down, bury it forever. Set them for five minutes.”

“Yes sir,” they responded in unison, and got to work.

—— 

Above ground, they identified the sinkhole where there had once been a cave, a temple, and an alien weapon of mass destruction. Peel hoped that it would remain buried for his lifetime at least.

The USMC-SOTG reassembled, and Riker reported he had taken out a further dozen insurgents that had approached, but there were no casualties or wounded on their side, and the surviving insurgents had fled. The fight, it seemed, had left them now that their leader and his super-weapon were gone.

A U.S. Air Force C130 Hercules flew low over their position, before it dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb into the sinkhole. Peel had called in the airstrike, deliberately lying to his superiors by stating that they had destroyed the super-weapon already and thus it was unrecoverable. The MOAB hit the sinkhole, and the devastation was impressive. The fire cloud seemed to fill the horizon and the deafening noise sounded like a volcano had erupted nearby. Any insurgents still in the tunnels would face death by incineration.

Their job done, it was now merely a matter of waiting for the U.S. Marine Blackhawks to find them and fly them back to Camp Bastion.

“Do you think we destroyed the weapon?” Ash asked Peel, who was guzzling from his canteen and biting into an MRE. Beef teriyaki. The come-down from an operation left a lot of soldiers hungry who had been starving themselves until then, and the Major was no exception.

Peel shook his head. “I doubt it, but we’ll bury it for a good long time.”

“I’ve heard there is a department in the Pentagon, researching and developing new weapons based on ESB artifacts recovered in the field. If they find out we were deliberate…”

“They won’t find out,” countered Peel forcefully. “Would you want that thing fused to your arm?”

Emerson shook his head. “We destroyed the weapon, sir, during enemy engagement.”

Peel grinned. “Speaking of arms, how is that new one of yours?”

Emerson made a fist, twisted and flexed the muscles. “I think it’s from the future. I think it’s advanced human tech.”

“Well, I hope it sticks.”

“I hope so too.”

The two men looked at the devastation, a dark cloud of black smoke that filled the sky. It would linger for many days to come.

“What’s next for you, Peel?” Ash said, reverting to civvy nomenclature.

“Back to the States and a new assignment with the NSA. What about you? Staying?”

Emerson nodded. “I’ve still got a cyber-survey to complete.”

“Good for you.”

Peel wandered away to the rest of his men, prepping them for their extraction.

Kudjic saw Peel approach, stood and saluted.

“Kudjic thank you for your help today.”

“A pleasure, sir.”

“We need investigators in the NSA, for ‘special threat’ kind of work if you are interested?”

The cocky warrant officer grinned. “I’d like that, sir.”

“You can stop calling me sir, too. This is the last day I wear this uniform.”

Kudjic grinned. “You remember, how I mentioned your Uncle Mitchell, when all this started?”

“I do,” Peel responded cautiously.

“You know he saved you after your Sydney disaster? Without him, your punishment would have been much worse.”

Peel didn’t know what to say and digested Kudjic’s words.

“You should go see him, when you get the chance, sir. And this is the last time I’ll refer to you by your military rank now you’re a civvy again too. But never forget, once in the forces, we always look after our own.”

Invisible Demons

With Brian M Sammons

Peel stood on the crumbling road, on the edge of the Thar Desert, covered in sand and dust. The sun burned, warming his shaved scalp. The temperature had to be pushing forty degrees Celsius. Hotter than a human body. Mirages played off the rocky desert, and in the far distance, the almost Arabesque city of Jodhpur simmered, with its well-stocked Indian Army and Air Force bases, the Mehrangarh Fort dominating the outline of the city, and thousands of buildings painted blue.

A Land Rover Defender pulled up fast, creating its own cloud of dust and sand. The passenger door flung open and Peel looked in. The American Peel knew only as Jordan grinned from behind his aviator sunglasses. A worn baseball cap shaded his face. “Get in, bud.”

Peel nodded and buckled into the passenger seat.

Jordan’s foot was already on the accelerator, and they sped onwards, back towards Jodhpur. “Anyone follow you?” Jordan asked.

“No,” Peel looked to the back seat. “Mind if I help myself?”

Jordan laughed. “That’s what they’re there for.”

A minute later, Peel armed himself with a 9mm caliber Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, pocketed three spare magazines and slipped on body armor under his pale blue collared long sleeve shirt. The pistol he slotted into a holster he fit at his back, concealed by the shirt, while he strapped a five-inch-blade fighting knife to his left thigh. The assault carbines and sniper rifle, he didn’t touch, but it was a comfort to know they were there.

Jordan bounced the Defender along the decrepit road, more dirt track than asphalt. “This time, Peel, the threat is real.”

Peel laughed. For the last six months, Jordan and he had scoured the world, hunting a secretive and ancient cult, who called themselves the Black Brotherhood. Fanatics determined to raise from the dead alien gods that existed in the darkest recesses of the earth. Those gods had names like Cthulhu, Hastur, Y’Glonac, Cthugtha, Daoloth, and others. Some names Peel knew, and others he hoped he never would. “So not like Mexico City, or Berlin, or Istanbul?”

“Istanbul paid off. Lead to some very credible intel.”

“I heard you lost an entire Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta in Iraq, based on that intelligence?”

Peel had never seen Jordan grit his teeth nor his knuckles turn white the way they did in that moment. “It wasn’t fucking related after all that. But you saw the terrorist’s room in Istanbul. Details on you, and me. Photos, military files, surveillance tapes, a truck load of intel tracking both our movements across the world over these last few years. That’s highly classified information straight from the CIA archives. I tell you Peel, and I’ll keep telling you, the Black Brotherhood are real, and they have marked us both for death.”

Peel shrugged. “Why? After all this time, I still don’t understand why they want us?”

“Whoever controls them, he or she is fucking good. Always outguessing us, like they know our tactics better than we do.”

“Maybe.”

“That’s why we’ve never found any worthwhile intelligence, because they hide it too well. You probably don’t know this, Peel, but the insurgents you encountered in Antarctica last time you were there, they were Black Brotherhood.”

Peel sat straighter. “News to me. But none of them came back alive. They can’t have reported that op to this mysterious ‘top guy’ who runs them all.”

Jordan turned the steering wheel suddenly to avoid a large pothole in the road. He didn’t turn fast enough and they bounced through the undulation. Both men narrowly avoided cracking their heads against the roof of the cabin.

“We in a hurry?” Peel asked.

“Yes. And it’s not what we ‘did’ that has us both targeted. It’s what we will ‘do’, in the future.”

“What?”

“Yes. The Brotherhood want to ensure neither of us live long enough to fulfil our ‘destiny’.”

“Some kind of prophecy they follow?”

Jordan laughed. “I don’t believe in any of this destiny or prophecy shit. But the Black Brotherhood does. And they have proof they might be right.” Jordan took a photo from his pocket, and handed it to Peel. “From a contact in Pakistan.”

He examined the image. It was Jordan’s corpse, saturated in a wetsuit and gripping in his dead hands a Russian AN-94 assault rifle. The wounds suggested someone bludgeoned Jordan to death.

“I’m not dead yet, Peel. And judging by how old my corpse is in that photo, I don’t want to die any time soon.”

Peel handed it back. “Would it surprise you, if I said I had an answer for you?”

—— 

Sardar Chandra kneeled in the dark cell, of ancient stone lit only by candles, and tightened his fists until his fingernails pierced his palms causing them to bleed. Then he held out his open hands, and allowed the blood to drip onto the idol of Old Man Cthulhu, carved into the ancient obsidian and bulbous green rock. The god’s head was like a watermelon, ripe and ready to crack open. The face was eyeless, and its mouth a mass of tentacles. Bat-like wings shrouded the Great Old One like a cloak. The idol seemed not so much carved, but had flowed as bubbling molten rock into its current shape.

“ Ph’nglui mglw-nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. ”

In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming .

The blood dripped onto the stone. Chandra watched as the porous surface absorbed his life fluids, then vanished altogether. For a second, Chandra imagined that the idol had moved, shifted into a more comfortable resting position. He’d been told this statue was a relic from R’lyeh itself, the sunken corpse city where Cthulhu had slumbered for eons. Fallen here from the sky thousands, if not, millions of years ago.

“Very good, brother,” spoke the Prophet from the shadows. The muscular man was dressed in a long dark cloak. The few times the light from the candles lit up his weathered skin, Chandra saw the mark of the Masked Messenger upon his skin. A handprint, burned by the Messenger’s touch that dripped acid while it was held to the Prophet’s face.

Only the highest echelon of their cult wore this proud scar, or those chosen for the most dangerous and important missions where their own death was likely required to achieve their mission objective. Perhaps Chandra would be blessed with such a marking in his future, particularly if he did well today, proving himself.

“You are ready, young brother.”

Chandra nodded, then drew his blade of obsidian glass with its handle forged from jade colored stone. A sacred blade of the Star Spawn, forged from the relics of R’lyeh itself. The ritual weapon of the Black Brotherhood assassins.

“Soon, brother, Cthulhu will no longer dream, and he shall return to rule over us all. Those of us who have been marked by the Messenger, shall stand at his side and serve him for eternity.”

“ Cthulhu fhtagn! ”

“ Cthulhu fhtagn! Only two men prevent us from reaching our goal.”

“Then they shall die,” said Chandra, knowing that his words were like prophecy, and that the future was certain. He would ritually kill this day, and feed the blood of the non-believers to Cthulhu.

“Except,” said the Prophet, “this time we won’t leave today’s outcome to fate, or the sacred blade. You will kill the infidels and their contact with these. The source of invisible demons, that long ago murdered the First Prophet, Abdul Alhazred.”

He handed Chandra a pair of round-rimmed glasses with lenses that didn’t look right.

—— 

On the outskirts of Jodhpur, Jordan found a gas station where they stopped to fill the tank and for cold drinks and food. Peel marveled at the crowds of people, in their colorful clothes, thin complexions and saris, and shop fronts promoting all kinds of merchandise from silks to spices, knock-off brand shoes, and footballs, while henna artists painted intricate lacy patterns on the hands of several women. Peel had passed through New Delhi and Mumbai a few times in his career, but never stopped to explore the country. Rajasthan in the northeast of India, was exotic and wild.

Jordan returned with two bottles of coke and two plates of barbequed meat mixed with a melon-type fruit, chickpea and yogurt soup, and naan bread. “I’m sick of drinking the bottle water here. Tastes like plastic.”

Peel undid the lid of his coke and clinked necks. “Cheers, mate.”

“Cheers.”

They ate and drank, watching the crowds to see if they were under observation. They saw nothing unusual.

“Okay, bud, the suspense is killing me. What do you know about that photo?”

Peel finished his mouthful of the tasty food. “When we first met, Jordan, in the Venezuelan jungles, I’d already met you, many times before. At the time I was too sick to tell you, and you were already suspicious enough of me, so if I started blabbering about strange encounters in the past…”

Jordan raised a questioning eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Well… How do I explain this? You seem to pop in and out of reality, many times. Only for a few seconds, or minutes. Always saturated in cold seawater, in a wetsuit, with a Russian AN-94. Sometimes you are alive, and sometimes dead.”

“Like the photograph?”

“Like the photograph. But the weird thing is, sometimes there are many of you, hundreds all at once, all the same but with different wounds, and often all of you are dead.”

Jordan leaned back and stared at nothing for a long moment. “I’ve seen plenty of weird shit in my time, Peel, but that’s the first time someone has managed to send a shiver up my spine. Come to think of it, I once encountered a doppelganger of myself in Cameroon. That version of me blinked out of existence too… I thought I’d imaged it…”

Peel dug into his meal, catching up with Jordan who ate ravenously. “Recently I discovered something new. Secrets told to me by one of these entities we are at war with — don’t ask how or what — but this entity described how humans exist in multiple timelines but separated by dimensional sheets, or parallel universes if you like. However, some of the monsters we fight, they exist across all these timelines, or dimensions, simultaneously. Their minds flow between all alternative versions of themselves.”

“What?”

“Yeah, mate, I still can’t get my head around it.”

Jordan drank more of his coke. His eyes were hidden behind his aviator sunglasses and concealed any emotions he might feel in this moment. They also prevented Peel from getting a read on the American. “Are you saying, this photo of my corpse, it’s not me, me, but me from another dimension?”

Peel shrugged. “Something like that. Maybe this corpse is a leakage between dimensions, and some of those ‘Jordans’, they stick to the universes they materialize in.”

“This is too weird, bud.”

Peel laughed. “What hasn’t been weird these last decades?”

“You got me there. Oh, how come you look so much younger than me? It’s been on my mind some time. I checked, you and I are almost the same age.”

Peel finished his meal. “Fell into a wormhole a while back. Catapulted me seven years into the future.”

“Fuck!”

“I feel old, if that’s any consolation?”

“Not really.”

Peel clinked Jordan’s coke bottle again. “Here’s to a simple life.”

“Damn straight. Anyway. I haven’t told you why we are here. Why this mission is priority alpha uno.”

“Go on.”

“There’s this professor, an expert in Sanskrit and Rajasthani history, here at the Jai Narain Vyas University. Her name is Arshi Singh and she happens to be an expert on the Black Brotherhood, particularly their thousands of years of history in Central Asia. Plus, she knows about their association with the global Cthulhu cults. Professor Singh is a Code-89 asset, so aware of the ‘alienness’ of what we do.”

“What can she tell us, that required us to travel all the way to India to meet her?”

Jordan grinned. “Not ‘us’, Peel, just ‘me’. She wouldn’t say, would only tell me in person. Alone.”

“So why am I here?”

“To keep me, and her, alive. How good are you with a sniper rifle?”

—— 

Sardar Chandra wandered the grounds of the university and tried not to stand out. He was young, and dressed in nice clothes, so he fit in with the wealthy and privileged of India’s higher castes, while his black outfit gave him an air of mystery and sophistication that he’d always desired.

Chandra was once a slum boy, who joined criminal gangs at the age of ten and fought his way out of poverty, by proving himself a proficient fighter and killer. When the Brotherhood found and recruited him, Chandra discovered his true callings. The Black Lotus drugs, and the poisons from the Garden of Death sourced from the Eternal Chinese hidden in their temple sanctuaries in the high Himalayas, opened his mind to the truth. The dreams of slumbering Old Man Cthulhu were more real than reality itself. Human existence was a frailty. A lie. Only the Great Old Ones held any meaning for him.

Nobody in this university deserved their fake lives, existing with the pretense that the world was only as they saw it, unable to fathom the hidden dimensions and monstrous alien gods that lurked just below meat and blood levels of perception.

Now it was time to test his glasses.

Chandra secured himself behind a café, where thin dogs sniffed at rubbish deposited from the rear entrance to the kitchen, searching for scraps of food. They would growl if he got too close, but the assassin didn’t need to.

He slipped on the glasses and the higher dimensions opened up to him. A vast plane of purple-red rock and a sky of bright, furious stars hung in clouds of swirling darkness. He also saw the dogs, and the garbage, and the alleyway behind the café. Then a creature appeared, a festering shambler with long, spindly legs like a spider joined to a grey, pulsating body of corrupt matter chattering with a dozen mouths of various sizes and positioned at random. It ran straight at the first dog Chandra had watched, snatched it up with three of its spindly limbs, and as it whimpered, tore it to pieces. The head and front legs disappeared inside one of the shambler’s dribbling mouths.

Shuddering and sweating, Chandra removed the glasses.

In the alleyway, the dismembered remains of the dog lay scattered in a bloody display of carnage. Red splashes of blood decorated the many walls.

There was no sign of the monster.

Several students stood at the end of the alley, asking what happened.

“Dogs fighting,” Chandra explained. “Rabies.”

Had left as one of the students vomited up her lunch.

He was ready.

—— 

Mingling amongst students transitioning from one class to the next, Jordan watched the Humanities Building. His meet with Professor Arshi Singh was only minutes away, but Jordan had been in the vicinity for close to an hour. So had Peel, concealed on a nearby roof with a Heckler & Koch HK PSG-1 semi-automatic sniper rifle pressed up against his shoulder, and his eyes watching through the scope.

“See anything,” Jordan spoke into the mic fixed to his collar. He didn’t lean down and his lips barely moved. His cover was a man reading a newspaper on a park bench.

“Negative,” Peel spoke through the earpiece in Jordan’s left ear. “Absolutely nothing.”

“They’ll be here,” Jordan responded, keeping the annoyance out of his voice. “The Brotherhood, I just know it.”

“How do you know it? I see nothing.”

“Because if it were me running this op, this is the moment I’d move in for the kill. Keep watching.”

“Roger that.”

Jordan took in a deep breathe. He worried about Peel. The man had changed since they had last meet, and Jordan knew why. Subconsciously, the former Australian Army intelligence officer turned NSA consultant, was giving up. Jordan didn’t blame him, Peel had endured more than any man or woman should, and by rights he should be dead by now or banished in some weird alien dimension where he would never be found. But somehow, Peel was alive and physically and mentally intact, but that came with a cost. Jordan knew, because he felt the weight of their ‘War against Horror’ bear down on him every day. Battles they could win, but in the end, the alien gods would return, the war would be lost, and humanity would become nothing more than dust and their civilization reduced to buried relics.

But today, he needed Peel. Jordan’s gut told him this meet would not go well. He needed a man he could trust to watch his back and keep him alive. The old Peel would, but what about the new Peel?

Too late to back out now, Jordan put the newspaper in the bin and walked into the Humanities Building. Professor Singh surprised him by stepping outside. The middle-aged woman was round in stature and of average height. Her dark hair was kept in a bun and her sari was of a dull purple. “Mr. Fisher, we finally meet.” She used the alias she knew him by, an analyst with America’s Department of Defense.

She put out her hand for him to shake. He obliged.

“Sorry for the change of plans,” she said as they walked amongst the students. “I feel like my office is being watched.”

“Understandable,” said Jordan, his senses alert. He’d slowed his pace because she didn’t move with any speed. “We should make this quick then.”

“Agreed.”

Peel chirped in Jordan’s ear. “You’re being followed. Six o’clock. Walk fifty meters, then stop.”

Jordan tapped his mic twice to acknowledge Peel’s request. “So, Professor, what is it we had to meet in person to discuss?”

“The location…” She paused and shuddered.

“Location of what?”

“The Brotherhood’s temple, here in Jodhpur.”

Jordan felt his heart rate increase. This was a breakthrough indeed, if the intel was reliable, for no Brotherhood temple had been discovered in the past. The Brotherhood considered all their temples sacred, not places they would readily abandon or scrub clean in a hurry. Their locations were closely guarded secrets, so it would be well hidden, and would likely contain a motherlode of quality and actionable intelligence. This temple might even lead Jordan to the mastermind behind the assassins hunting Peel and himself. His nemesis.

“How can you be certain? Have you seen it?”

She laughed. “No, but there are records. Historical documents.”

The hairs on the back of Jordan’s neck tingled, so he stopped walking and in response, Singh stopped too.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Peel spoke in Jordan’s ear. “Young man dressed in black, coming up on your left.”

Jordan chirped twice to acknowledge.

A man in dark clothes soon passed Jordan and kept walking. Peel had been right to identify him. The man sweated, fidgeted, and he was the only individual Jordan had seen since his arrival in India to dress exclusively in the dark color.

“Mr. Fisher?”

“It’s nothing, Professor,” Jordan said watching the man walk away. “Just wait here with me a minute.”

“Is something wrong?”

Twenty seconds passed before Jordan felt satisfied the target was no longer a threat. Then he turned to the Professor. “No, we are good. The temple, where is it?”

“Supposedly inside a stepwell, about five hundred meters west of here.”

Jordan nodded. Stepwells were essentially water wells cut deep into the earth until they reached groundwater. The steps referred to the design of these particular wells, forged with stone walls and stairs that crisscrossed in an inverted pyramid design in order reach the bottom. Some were dozens of meters deep, and common in western India where the environment was arid and rains might not come for months or years between them.

“When you reach the waterline, there is a passage leading east. That will take you to the Brotherhood temple. Or at least that’s what my research says.”

“How do you know this, Professor?” Jordan asked, trying to keep his voice steady. His gut told him something was about to go down, any second now. Standing outside in such an exposed location left him feeling vulnerable.

“Research, Mr. Fisher. Lots of research, which is a skill of all university lecturers if you didn’t know that already. A legend here, a fable there, many threads that come together all related to the god the Brotherhood Worship. Cthulhu. You heard of him?”

Jordan nodded. It was a name that came up more than any other in the global wars against Code-89 threats.

“The legends tell a tale that Cthulhu and his Star Spawn were once at war with another mystical race, the Mi-go, of the Himalayas. The Mi-go apparently called down a comet from space, some fifty or sixty million years ago, that destroyed much of Cthulhu’s citadel. Relics of that city were blasted into space and came crashing down across the Earth, everywhere, and when humans discovered them millions of years later, many revered these fragments and statues and built temples around them. One of the reasons, I believe, why the Cthulhu cult is so prevalent.”

Jordan scanned the crowds. Apart from the man in black, still walking away from them, no threats presented themselves. “Sixty million odd years ago was when a meteor wiped out all dinosaurs and most life on Earth.”

“Yes. Not a coincidence then?”

“And one of those fragments, it landed here, in Jodhpur?”

“Exactly!” Singh scanned the crowd with him. “One more piece of information that might interest you. The top leaders of the Brotherhood, they are ‘blessed’ with ritual scarification.”

“What, exactly?”

“A messenger of Cthulhu, called Nyarlathotep in her guise as the Masked Messenger, touches their faces and the acid on her skin burns a hand mark into their Brother’s face. I say this, in case—”

Professor Arshi Singh had no opportunity to say more, as a gash opened up across her face and chest, as if an invisible claw had swiped at her.

An instant later, blood sprayed over Jordan, and for a moment he could only watch, in shock, before his special forces training kicked in and he pulled his H&K SOCOM .45 automatic pistol. But there were no targets to engage, and Singh was already dead.

People around him screamed and fled.

Jordan listened for Peel to take a shoot, but the former Australian soldier didn’t fire. Jordan could only watch as unseen forces held the Professor suspended in mid-air, and took large bites from her already mutilated body, and then the morsels vanished.

Only then did Peel fire.

Instincts turned Jordan’s attention to the youth in black. The man stood back, watching the carnage and didn’t flee like others. He was looking to his arm, where blood now seeped.

Then he tore off his glasses, and ran with everyone else.

In the same moment, Singh’s mutilated body dropped, and lay still.

Peel said in Jordan’s ear, “Man in black. Didn’t know he was the assassin, so I gave him a flesh wound. My instincts—”

“He’s the assassin, all right,” Jordan spoke through gritted teeth. “Engaging.”

—— 

From his roof vantagepoint, Peel tracked the man in black, but couldn’t get a clean shot because of the crowds of panicked students around him. Within seconds the man vanished around the corner of a lecture hall and beyond sniper range. Peel then tracked Jordan through the scope, his friend on the trail of the killer.

“I’m coming to you,” Peel spoke in the mic as he dropped the HK PSG-1 sniper rifle into the roof’s water tank, then slipped off the latex gloves and pushed them into his pocket so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints. Then Peel sprinted, not yet drawing his Glock so not to attract unwanted attention by the police who must already be on their way, and went after Jordan.

“Target in range,” Jordan spoke inside Peel’s ear canal. “He’s seen me, and he’s running scared.”

“Be careful. He might want you to follow.”

“Either way, he’s mine.”

“I’m coming, ETA two minutes, then we can take him together.”

“No time.”

“Are you sure?”

No answer.

Was that rage Peel detected in Jordan’s tone? The Brotherhood had certainly rattled Jordan these last months, with efficiencies in their operations and missions, more sophisticated than anything either man had seen in fanatics or cults before. The enemy was adapting. They were getting better training and operating with smarts in the field, and Jordan fumed that he wasn’t keeping up.

Peel also pondered Professor Arshi Singh’s last comments, about the handprint scars on the faces of the top Brotherhood assassins. The same scarring as he’d witnessed on the assassins who had chased him in Antarctica. It seemed the Brotherhood had been after them for far longer than Peel had realized.

Deciding conversation was useless, Peel raced after his friend and their target, descending three flights of stairs and crossing several hundred meters of campus ground just to reach the last point he’d seen Jordan.

But the American was long gone.

—— 

The man in black fled the university grounds and sprinted into the blue painted streets of Jodhpur. Narrow alleys with mopeds and bicycles, people dressed in all manner of bright colors meandering between closely packed buildings with Arabesque facades. The heat soon had Jordan sweating, but he’d endured worse, and pushed past the men, women and children who seemed to always be in his way, whichever way he turned.

He rushed around a corner, to find the assassin standing and watching. The young man slipped on his glasses and stared at Jordan.

A pedestrian stepped between them, and as he did, invisible claws tore the interloper into several bloody pieces, and flung muscle, bone and organs in multiple directions.

A claw from nowhere tore at Jordan’s body armor, shredding it and his shirt. Pain wracked his body as an invisible foe tried to rip his body apart.

Jordan ducked into an alcove, and as soon as he did the attack ceased. He tore off the remains of his armor and t-shirt, and with a shallow but long bloody cut across his bare chest, he turned and fired at his foe.

The assassin was where Jordan had last seen him, and still wore the glasses. Jordan fired and missed both times before he ducked back behind cover.

The glasses, were they his weapon? Did the glasses direct the invisible demon? But how did the assassin know where the demon was to direct it?

A portion of the wall disintegrated next to Jordan as some unseen force tore into it.

Jordan spotted a spice sellers stall, the proprietor long gone escaping the shooting. Jordan dived for it and flung a tray of paprika over the assassin, covering him in dark red spice and obscuring the glasses.

Jordan rushed the man, pummeled him several times with his powerful fists, almost breaking him, before he knocked the glasses from the assassin’s head, and sent them scattering across the concrete pavement.

The man drew a knife forged from obsidian with a jade-colored handle, and slashed at Jordan.

The American operator stumbled backwards to avoid a fatal gash through his gut, then tripped and tumbled over.

The assassin used this opportunity to flee.

As Jordan raced to his feet, he spotted the fallen glasses. He scooped them up and pursued the assassin.

He turned a corner, and there was the assassin, fleeing down a long alley.

Jordan slipped on the glasses.

The world transformed. A magma wasteland interspersed with vast black field of rock and boulders. Lighting forked in the sky every few seconds. Then Jordan identified hundreds of spider-like entities the size of cars, with skin the texture of rotten meat and chaotically shaped bodies covered in salivating mouths. They raced towards the center of Jordan’s vision…

Where the assassin now ran from him.

In an instant, the creatures were upon the Black Brotherhood killer, tearing him to shreds and flinging severed meat parts in all directions. Then the creatures feasted…

Jordan tore off the glasses, dropped them then crushed the lens under his desert boots until they were nothing more than fine particles.

As for the assassin’s corpse, little remained of him, although the blue walls were now painted red.

“Jordan?”

The American operator turned to find Peel behind him. The Australian had his Glock 9mm out in front, checking all corners, but the two men were alone.

“Mate, you okay?” he asked.

Jordan nodded. His hands shook. Sweat poured off his face. Why was this operation getting to him, and always beyond his control?

Peel holstered his weapon. “We need to go. Police will be upon us in seconds.”

—— 

Peel drove their Land Rover, reaching the park with trees and a patchy lawn. A rarity in a desert city like Jodhpur. They parked some distance from the few people out and about in the heat of the day, then rummaged through their weapons inventory. Jordan washed out his wound with a bottle of vodka to sterlize it while Peel applied bandages. Then Jordan slipped on new body armor and a fresh shirt over the top. Peel grabbed two sports bags each with an AK-47 assault rifle inside and plenty of banana-shaped magazines to support prolonged firepower. Both men checked their pistols and spare magazines, while Peel grabbed them both a pair of light intensifier goggles and threw them into the respective sports bags.

“The stepwell?” Peel said, motioning to the inverted pyramid shaped pit in the center of the garden. “That is where we go?”

“Agreed. He’s here, whoever it is that masterminded all this.”

“How do you know?”

Jordan shrugged. “After a while, you get a sense of these things.” He didn’t say, because this was how he would do it if he were running the Brotherhood’s operations.

Peel nodded but said nothing. Both men walked purposefully towards the stepwell and looked down twelve, maybe fifteen meters to the base where a square pool of dirty water covered in lily pads awaited. A few women in saris with their young children collected water in buckets. Peel was reminded of an Escher painting, where the same pattern repeated over and over, in this instance, the pattern was the crisscross stairs leading down.

Jordan nodded. “See those doors, at the base. We take the east one.”

The two men descended the steps. Not yet weapon-ready, because of the civilians watching, they quickly reached the bottom. Four passages disappeared into the rock, one for each point of the compass.

They followed the eastern passage, slipping on their light intensifier goggles once it was too dark to see, slipped out the AK-47s and then abandoned their sports bags. About fifty meters in, they reached a dead end.

“Illuminating,” said Peel.

They flipped up their LIGs as Peel shone a torch on the wall ahead. Many symbols covered the stone surface. Peel recognized fish, suns, moons, doors, eyes, ears, elephants, monkeys, and lines of text in Sanskrit. The stone looked old, possibly laid down here hundreds of years ago.

“That symbol,” Jordan said, pointing to stylized representation of an octopus.

Peel pressed it, but nothing happened. Then he noticed a symbol of a hand, and touched that. When he did, the stone made a grinding noise, then dust fell from the cracks around it, as the stone door slid open.

“How did you know?” Jordan asked.

“I thought about what you said, the Brotherhood tracking me in Antarctica. Those cultists had burn marks on their faces, in the symbol of a hand.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Handy to know.”

Peel switched off his torch as thy donned their LIGs again. Jordan in front and Peel behind, they soon entered a vast chamber of columns and geometric walls that didn’t make any sense architecturally or ergonomically. The entire chamber seemed to be on a slight incline, but the stone passages and steps seemed a later addition and laid down by human hands. The walls themselves were a dark sea-green texture, and smooth and wet like the surface of a stalactite. Peel touched a wall, but his hand came away dry.

“This place is creepy,” he whispered over their comms.

“Keep your eyes alert.”

“Roger that.”

The two soldiers advanced further into the chamber. So far, Peel had not been able to ascertain how large this subterranean temple extended. Soft light seemed to ooze from the rock itself, but not enough to abandon their light intensifier goggles.

The Peel heard a twinge noise, like a high-tension wire snapping.

“Oh, fuck!” Jordan exclaimed.

Peel had only seconds to register Jordan had snared a trip wire. Then a column exploded, and the five-meter-high monolith came crashing down on top of them.

—— 

Jordan dove and rolled as a hundred tons of rock or more crashed down around him. He’d barely avoided a crushing death, when he noticed the fallen column now rolled on the angled floor, and it was coming right towards him.

Dropping his AK-47, Jordan stumbled to his feet and sprinted. He found himself in a collection of dark statues of alien gods, decorated with tentacles, multiple eyes, multiple mouths, unnatural limbs and chaotically arranged faces. As he sprinted through them, the statues crashed underneath the column still rolling towards him. Dust and noise dulled his senses to other threats. Then he spotted a rise in the wall, not so much steps but an undulating protrusion of rounded rock. Symbols carved into the rock gave Jordan his finger and footholds, and before he’d consciously registered what he was doing, he’d scrambled three meters up the wall before the column crashed on the rock beneath him, and stopped moving.

He heard gunfire, then spotted the muzzle flash from a weapon some distance off. Jordan recognized the firing pattern of an AK-47, and hoped it was Peel engaging the enemy, and not the enemy engaging Jordan.

The special forces soldier dropped onto the fallen column, and looked back fast enough to see a cloaked man struggling to his feet. He tore off the flowing garment, then body armor where he had taken a bullet, and Jordan realized Peel must have hit the foe but not killed him.

Suddenly the man was on his feet, an obsidian-bladed knife in his hand which he thrust at Jordan. The killer only failed in opening Jordan’s throat because Jordan ducked back in time.

The killer struck again, this time distracting Jordan with the knife blade while his left hand tore away the LIGs.

Momentarily blinded, Jordan stepped back as he drew his own carbon-steel bladed fighting knife, ready to engage.

A flare sailed through the air, landed nearby and lit up both men in an illuminated green glow. Jordan saw his foe clearly now. They were the same build and height, and the assassin moved with the same fluid motions and practiced techniques that Jordan had mastered. The acid-induced handprint scar on his head disfigured the man horribly. Then Jordan recognized that he was looking at him…

Himself…

The assassin lunged, blade forward.

Jordan anticipated the strike and blocked the arm, then struck with his own blade.

The assassin anticipated this, and moved to kick Jordan’s legs out from under him.

Jordan was ready, and had already moved his legs.

They thrust and parried for several minutes, both balanced on the fallen column that wobbled under their feet because it hadn’t properly stabilized.

Then the Brotherhood assassin had Jordan’s arm in his grip, and twisted it forcing Jordan to turn away from his foe.

Jordan knew he was defenseless in this second, and the obsidian blade would sink into his back any second now.

More gunfire pinged off the roof around them. Just in time, Peel had caused another distraction.

Jordan used that moment to impale his blade in the assassin’s thigh. Blood poured over both of them, as Jordan guessed he’d perforated his foe’s femoral artery. The assassin had minutes at most before he bled out and died.

Jordan released himself from the restraining grip around his arm, for the assassin was losing his strength with the blood loss. Unbalanced, and standing alone, the man fell off the column and landed three meters down on his back. Jordan heard bones breaking. The man didn’t move, but there was still life in his eyes, and he looked up at Jordan.

“Recognize yourself?” the doppelganger said through bleeding lips.

Jordan jumped down next to his twin. “How is this possible?”

The dying Brotherhood assassin laughed. “Cthulhu wills it. The Masked Messenger made it so…”

“That’s not an answer.”

Jordan stepped closer, ready to inflict pain to obtain the answers he required. But when they were close, the other Jordan was already dead.

—— 

“Peel?”

The Australia heard Jordan call out through the darkness. He couldn’t see his friend because a rock had fallen and pinned his leg. The pain was excruciating, and Peel suspected his tibia and femur were broken. “Over here?” he yelled back. He found a second flare, then lit it so Jordan could find him.

A minute later, Jordan was by his side.

“Did you kill the assassin?” Peel said through gritted teeth and the sweat pouring off his brow. “I saw him come after you, shot him in the back once, but after that you were beyond my line of sight.”

Jordan’s eyes quickly assessed the situation. “You saved my life, bud. Now I’ll save yours.”

A few minutes later, Jordan had lifted the rock high enough for Peel to drag himself free, but not after a lot of screaming and grunting against the pain. Jordan checked the wound, and while the leg was broken the skin was not punctured. Peel took a shot of morphine while Jordan splinted and bandaged Peel’s leg. “Time to get you to a hospital, bud.”

“No argument there,” said Peel, still clenching his teeth against the pain.

With Peel’s arm over Jordan’s shoulder, and Jordan supporting him, the two men hobbled from the temple and back up the side of the stepwell. People watched, a few men offered assistance and soon Peel was in the back of the Land Rover. Peel thought the worst of his pain was over, but the roads were uneven, and every rut in the road caused the vehicle to bounce prompting more pain signals firing through his nerves.

“We in a hurry?” Peel asked.

“Yes… I mean, no!”

“You’ve been quiet,” Peel said between moments of flared agony. Perhaps the broken bones had pinched a nerve in his leg, and that was why it hurt so much. Or perhaps broken limbs always hurt like this, because he’d never fractured a limb before today. “Who was the assassin?”

Jordan grumbled.

Peel detected anger in the American. “You know who he was? Don’t you?”

Jordan breathed deeply “Yes, Peel, I do. And I know now why I could never anticipate his plans, because he was me.”

“You?”

“Yes, another Jordan from another dimension, like you said.”

They entered a major road crowded with mopeds, trucks, buses, cars, pedestrians and a few camels. Peel spotted a sign directing them to the local hospital, but Jordan had already seen it and had turned in that direction. Medical attention for both of them was not far away.

Forgetting his pain for the moment, Peel contemplated what he had just learned. “This revelation asks far more questions than it answers.”

The American slipped on his aviator sunglasses and sped up. “Yes, Peel, it certainly does.”

The Bullet and the Flesh

With David Kernot

Camouflaged in military issue fatigues overlaid with body armor, Harrison Peel sprinted with stealth along the savanna rise. Ahead, a Zimbabwean farmstead burned like a pagan bonfire in the reds and oranges of a pre-morning light. Dark columns of smoke twisted skywards. Flames licked like mad tongues from square holes where there had once been windows.

Up close, Peel crouched and gazed along the cocked M4A1 assault rifle’s sights set on full automatic fire. He could smell blood, the aftermath of a killing almost unbearable in its obviousness. The scent of scorched petroleum was stronger.

Advancing, Peel discovered the first body. The well-dressed man in civilian clothes cut down by a volley of bullets, but the empty gun holster highlighted the victim had known a life of violence. The wounds in his chest were close together, suggesting the work of professional soldiers.

Peel marched on, suspecting an ambush at any moment. Instead, he counted further bodies, two, three, four… all put down by precision gunplay. He identified a shiny shard of glass clutched in the hand of the fourth dead man, recognized it as a diamond of significant size. Not sure what to do with it, Peel pocketed it. Diamonds were the currency of a war-torn Africa, and this one had to be worth a hundred thousand U.S. dollars or more.

Frantic movement and thrashing from under a pile of corrugated iron sheets startled him, unnatural sounds as if something wet and long flipped on the earth under it. He imagined a survivor rolling in their own blood, but the noise was all wrong.

Cautious, terrified, Peel stepped toward the discarded metal.

In a bizarre circle, around the shaking iron were more corpses. Unlike the other bodies there were no bullet wounds, rather death had been by dismemberment, flesh ripped from their bodies and scattered near and far. An arm here, a leg there, Peel identified a Zimbabwean National Army corporal chewed from the waist down, the lower part of him missing. It was as if something had eaten him.

None of the body parts moved. The only sound came from a under the corrugated iron sheet. Whatever it was, it rattled its cover and tried to remain hidden. It was too small to be a man. Perhaps a young child?

Peel raised his rifle when he heard another man run toward him from behind. He pivoted, weapon leveled, and relaxed when he spied his field partner, Emerson Ash, who had approached the carnage from the opposite direction as Peel.

“All clear,” Ash stated for the record. “I count three down, two ZNA soldiers and Abdul Farzi.”

“Shit!” Peel nodded. The man they planned to extract was now a corpse. “Farzi you say?”

Ash nodded. “Afraid so.”

This was bad news, but in this moment, Peel focused on securing their position. He trained his weapon back in the general direction of the iron that continued to rattle.

“Something still alive?” Ash pointed his M4A1 assault rifle on the iron and took a cautious step forward. He too wore dapple-green camouflage fatigues and body armor. Both men were former Australian Army soldiers — they knew how to run military ops by the books and could plan the basics of any tactical military operation in their sleep — but their roles in the current geopolitical environment were as covert operatives, field officers employed by global intelligence organizations. Different sides of the same coin, thought Peel.

The flopping wet shape wouldn’t let up thrashing. It sounded increasingly to Peel like the death-throws of a snake with its head cut off. The entity tapped randomly against the curved iron shell covering it. It was too big to be a snake, too small to be a man. He didn’t want to go near it, but he had to.

“Cover me,” Peel said to Ash and edged forward cautiously, weapon raised and his eyes fixed on the view through the weapon’s advanced combat optical gunsight. The sweat on his shaved head was almost unbearable as it rolled along his face and hung precariously off his nose and chin in an irritating way.

“Roger that,” said Ash.

At the sheet, Peel kicked it over.

The shape was like a headless snake, but it was no snake. Now exposed, the thing’s thrashing became violent and aggressive. It resembled a branch or a vine, a moss-covered tentacle tapered at one end, shredded by bullets at the other, and lined with a dozen snapping, salivating mouths in place of branches. It thrashed like a whip at Peel, narrowly missing him, unable to gain purchase because whatever it had attached to was long gone, but this component was still very much alive and threatening.

Peel and Ash didn’t hesitate. They released volley after volley of 5.56mm rounds into the mass, cutting it to pieces. Now it thrashed as smaller, less effective parts.

Yet the mouths still snapped and salivated.

Ash took an incendiary grenade from his webbing and looked to Peel. “Fire in the hole?”

Peel nodded, and they both moved backward from the threat. Ash lobbed the grenade and the two men sprinted. The galvanized iron and the creature detonated in a flash of heat, flames and debris, incinerating whatever it was they had discovered until it was no more.

“Did you smell petroleum?” Ash asked after the flames had died down.

Peel nodded and reloaded his weapon.

“I reckon the ZNA took out that farmstead with portable flamethrowers,” said Ash. “I reckon that’s what the petroleum smell is from.”

“Maybe they used flamethrowers to put down the rest of this creature.”

“Maybe.”

They strode from the destroyed remnants of the farmstead and Peel admired the striking contrast as the sun rose above the distant rolling hills dappling the African savanna, the granite kopjes, and the wooded landscape in vibrant earthy colors. The landscape was pristine and unspoiled compared to what they had just witnessed.

Peel stopped at the top of the hill. “We were too late,” he said, his voice a low, barely audible growl. “I wanted Abdul Farzi in custody… before he gave up whatever weapon he was selling to the ZNA.”

“We will have to find another way, Major,” said Ash.

“I’m no longer a Major,” said Peel.

“And I’m no longer Sergeant Ash, and yet here we are, sir.”

Peel nodded, recognizing Ash’s desire to revert to military protocol. This was a military field op and it was how they did things. “The weapon, did you see it?”

The former sergeant shrugged. “Nothing I recognized.”

Peel paced. His frustration grew with each second they did nothing. “Intel said Farzi was selling a weapon of the ESB kind, an Extra-terrestrial Sentient Being. An alien horror like we just saw.”

“Yes,” Ash’s eyes lit catching Peel’s meaning. “You think we just found part of it?”

“Seems likely. So the buyer, Colonel Nambutu, has it? The rest of it?”

“I’m guessing so.”

“And the blood is fresh.”

“Also correct, sir.”

Peel took in another quick scan of their surroundings. The landscape of undulating savanna woodlands, and low rolling hills and granite outcrops would be perfect for an ambush. And yet... Peel had an idea.

“Ready the Jeep, I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Roger that.” Ash took off in a double march down the hill to where they had hidden their vehicle. Peel didn’t wait and sprinted up a granite rise. He clambered onto the suspended layered boulders that were like pinnacles, and scared away the baboons who used the rocks for the same purpose he wanted, as a lookout.

High on a rock, Peel scanned the savanna. It didn’t take long to spot the dust trail of three Zimbabwean National Army troop trucks. He noted their position and general direction, and scrambled back down to where Ash gunned their vehicle.

Peel clambered into the passenger seat and set his assault rifle down. “I’ve got him.” He gave Ash the coordinates of Colonel Nambutu and the trucks, and they took off at breakneck speed along a dirt road.

Peel wiped the sweat from his head and remembered why they were here. It had started with an unexpected telephone conversation in London, then a National Security Agency briefing in Cyprus where Peel had met up with Ash, followed by a military flight to Francistown Airport in Botswana. After that the two had crossed into Zimbabwe illegally, because time was against them and their presence had to be deniable.

“Ash, tell me. The Cambodians develop a covert biological weapons program involving extracted alien matter from hell knows where. The Saudis buy it. They sell it to the Zimbabweans via Abdul Farzi. But why the ZNA, they have no money?”

Ash shrugged. Pell knew he was concentrating on the road because they were driving fast and the deep potholes threatened to flip the vehicle.

Peel massaged his forehead. He didn’t need a headache today. “I’m sick to death of fucking governments playing with alien horrors they can never control.”

“Perhaps it’s not what the Zimbabwean’s have now, but what they might offer in the future. This is a potential diamond producing region, right?”

Peel nodded. He touched the stone in his pocket and liked how Ash could put incomplete puzzle pieces together and see a discernible picture. “This region is rife with resistance fighters, backed by Botswana diamond mining companies.”

“And Colonel Nambutu wants to eliminate them,” said Ash. “So the Zimbabwean State mining companies can come in and set up instead—”

“—and so Nambutu decides he’ll finish the resistance the easy way… with Farzi’s weapon.” Peel completed his field partner’s sentence.

Ash grinned. “There are two RPG-7s in the back. Should you prep one, sir?”

Peel grinned with Ash, and they sped on. Peel respected the sergeant, finding the man quick to assess any situation, and he always had Peel’s back. They also shared a similar sense of humor.

Not far in the distance, dust trails from the three trucks ahead swirled skyward. Despite the gunned down ZNA soldiers at the farmstead who’d been a part of this group, Peel and Ash could still expect at least a couple of dozen more ZNA soldiers to contend with. Not great odds, but the end results if they didn’t at least try to stop Nambutu were too hideous to consider. Nambutu might think an ESB weapon could solve his problems, but reality was he would soon create a bigger mess than anyone could conceivably control, anywhere. Peel had an inkling of what kind of weapon the Cambodian’s had placed on the market, xenobiological because Peel had stolen samples of something similar from that country long ago. He’d thought the NSA had resolved that threat, twice, but maybe not.

The former Major turned NSA consultant reached in the back for a rocket launcher, loaded a HEAT, or high explosive anti-tank warhead and then stood precariously in the roof top hatch, balancing the seven-kilogram weapon on his shoulder while they bounced along the rickety road to catch the convoy.

Until now Nambutu and his men had failed to spot them, but Peel soon realized this might not be so for much longer. Then, to answer his fear, automatic gunfire peppered the front of the vehicle. The windscreen fractured, headlight glass shattered, and lead penetrated the radiator, but Ash maintained speed and course.

With the last truck in the convoy in his sights, Peel fired the weapon. The rocket launched and light gray-blue smoke erupted around him. He felt no recoil and watched the HEAT warhead speed away at three hundred meters per second.

Whoomp!

The missile struck the last truck low. It shattered with a sound that hurt Peel’s ears, and the truck spun in the air, sending ZNA troops into the sky with it as flapping body pieces.

Then the truck thudded onto the earth, rolled, and kept rolling toward Peel and Ash at an alarming speed.

Ash overcompensated, hit an obstacle, a pothole maybe, or perhaps he panicked in response to the fiery, gutted hull of a heavy military truck bowling toward them.

In that instant the Jeep rolled, throwing Peel from the vehicle. He instinctively curled into a ball before thick scrub broke his fall, and hundreds of the African bush thorns cut his skin.

Peel sat, momentarily stunned, and pain nodules erupted all over his body from the thorny cuts and bruising. He forced himself onto his feet and checked for broken bones. Thankfully, there were none.

He half ran, half limped to the wreckage of the Jeep, finding his M4A1 in the dirt nearby. He smiled, something had to go right today.

The Jeep had rolled, doing a complete flip but ending upright when it had come to a rest. Emerson Ash remained buckled into his seat, bloody and bruised when Peel reached him. His wounds didn’t seem too serious, but one could never tell just by looking.

“What happened?” Ash asked groggily.

“Stupid private mistake, I fired too close. Are you okay?”

Ash checked himself over. “I’m good, Major.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

Ash climbed from the wreckage of the Jeep, readied his M4A1 and grabbed a case of incendiary grenades which he divided between them. “I think we are going to have to be generous in giving today.”

“I think you’re right.” Peel smiled.

“I’m also thinking about that tentacle, Peel.”

“Roger that. We can’t assume it was the only one.”

They took to the road, covering each other in turns as they advanced upon the wreckage of the decimated ZNA truck. The other two trucks had stopped a hundred meters down the road and soldiers were disembarking, ready for gun battle. What at first appeared to be men were smaller, lighter people. They readied Uzi submachine guns and AK-47 assault rifles.

“Child soldiers.” Peel hissed through his teeth like it hurt to join those two words together. “Nambutu’s more of an asshole than I thought.”

“I’ll let you kill him then, sir, if we get that chance,” Ash responded sarcastically, which made Peel chuckle. “I don’t care what Nambutu’s bought, I’m not killing children.”

“Well then, we’re agreed,” said Peel through gritted teeth. They had likely already murdered children when they destroyed the first truck. That was enough innocent blood on his hands for one day. Peel wanted no more.

One child fired his assault rifle wildly, more to scare them than to do any actual damage. In response, Peel and Ash ducked behind the wrecked truck. It was instinctive to return fire, but they couldn’t, not if they were to keep their word.

“Fucking, fucked up Zimbabwe,” Ash exclaimed.

“You can blame President Mugabe for this country falling behind the rest of Africa,” Peel countered as he glanced toward their advancing foes. The young boys had covered half the distance already between Nambutu’s forces and the wrecked truck. Their only option was to disappear into the scrub and run for it. But that left Nambutu with his ESB weapon. That would be a lot worse.

More gunfire, shots that sounded concentrated on a specific target that wasn’t them. Peel snuck a look when the bursts silenced momentarily. Between the children, and the truck wreckage, was an oil drum he had not noticed earlier. It had rolled from the truck wreckage. Metal coils encased it with a strapped-on battery. It looked to be generating a magnetic field.

The tallest boy in the group was close to the drum now and fired his Uzi. He didn’t miss and the drum split open. Peel half expected it to explode as the oil inside ignited, but that wasn’t what the drum contained.

A tentacle, moss covered and overrun with snapping mouths, tore out of the split drum casing, then another, and another until dozens of the slimy, vegetative limbs thrashed widely. The pseudopods were too large to have fitted inside the drum, and Peel wondered if it was some kind of dimensional folding contraption that had contained the creature. He had witnessed similar abominations in Pakistan on a previous mission.

The monster finally broke free, and the drum exploded around it, sending metal shards flying in all directions as blast shrapnel. Peel crouched low and hit the dirt, as did Ash.

Thud!

A sheet of the drum embedded into the truck right next to them, saving Peel from instant decapitation. It reminded Peel of the corrugated iron at the farmstead.

The gunfire had ceased, and Peel looked up again. Child soldiers were running everywhere, probably terrified of the creature from their darkest nightmares that they had released. The monstrosity was fully free now, standing over fifteen meters high upon three legs that resembled fern stems but ended in hooves. At the top of its body were branches of tentacles, some thirty or forty meters above its central mass, and covered in snapping mouths. It had no eyes that Peel could see and probably didn’t need them.

Several of the children were already dead, crushed or swiped by the angry creature. Peel watched as the monster stomped another boy under its goat-like foot, and there was nothing he could do to save him. The surviving children dropped their weapons in fear and fled into the thick savanna woodlands.

“Oh, fuck!” exclaimed Ash when he took in the enormity of the alien horror before them. He fired his weapon at it, emptying the clip. It did nothing.

What they had seen before in the homestead was tiny in comparison.

“What the fuck is that?” Ash exclaimed again, looking pale and shaken.

“I don’t know, but the classified Code-89 files that cross my desk suggest it could be a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath.”

“And what the fuck is that?”

“Something fucking scary, not of this Earth, and probably the weapon Nambutu just bought himself.”

“He’s got more?”

Peel shrugged. “He needed three trucks.”

Ash nodded, but he seemed wary of Peel. Although he and Peel were friends and colleagues, they worked for different masters. Ash was an intel cyber-analyst with the Australian Department of Defence, while Peel was an intelligence consultant with the U.S. National Security Agency. Both worked to put down extraterrestrial sentient beings wherever they appeared across the globe, but with different databases to draw their knowledge from. There was no knowing that each other knew outside of their shared bilateral arrangements.

“I encountered something similar in Cambodia a long time ago,” Peel said, and wondered what they should do now.

A tentacle thrashed toward them, collided with the truck and sent it rolling away. Peel and Ash stood exposed.

“Run!” Peel yelled and bolted, following the path of the child soldiers. He didn’t have time to look back to see if Ash followed.

Under the cover of the scrub Peel kept sprinting, but he could hear the creature behind them, crushing trees and foliage as it plowed through the semi-tropical forest.

He saw a terrified boy in front of him, only ten and dressed in camouflage. Peel lifted the boy under one arm without a second thought and kept sprinting.

“Let me go, Mabono!”

The boy struggled, but Peel ignored him. He then bit Peel, forcing the Australia soldier to drop his human cargo. Peel tripped on a root and fell with the boy.

“Musudhu! Pamhata! Dambe!” He leaped onto Peel, punched and kicked him.

“Stop it!” Peel yelled, and protected himself with counter blocks, yet reluctant to hit or restrain the boy into submission, even though it would have been simple enough to do.

The boy stopped, pale and looked up over Peel’s shoulder.

Peel turned. He realized he had dropped his weapon somewhere. But he wasn’t really looking for the M4A1, but staring up, struck dumb by the huge, hideous monster that had followed them, with blood and sap-like goo dribbling from its many mouths. Its tentacles still thrashed wildly, while fifty or more nostrils huffed and snorted, fouling the air. He could smell it too, an odor like a fern forest gone moldy.

Peel knew he was a dead man.

Then it moved off, crashed through the undergrowth on its huge, fern-like legs, and Peel couldn’t understand why.

The boy tried to run and Peel had just enough sense of mind to grab him, hold him in a lock until the boy gave up the will to resist. When his captive’s breathing slowed, Peel talked to him in calm tones. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to save you, from that monster, and Colonel Nambutu. He took you from your family, right?”

The boy gave up fighting Peel’s grip, so Peel released him. The boy stood alone and Peel half expected him to run, but he didn’t.

Peel scanned the bush for any signs of the sergeant, but there were none, and he resisted calling out while the monster was so close. He’d tried Ash on their radio mic to no avail, and he hoped Emerson Ash was alive. Ash was smart and could take care of himself.

“Nambutu sent you to release that monster, knowing you’d die when you did.”

“How do you know that, Mabono?”

Peel tensed. His instincts screamed at him to flee this place before the monster returned, but he also wanted to save this boy, and as many of the boy’s friends as he could. “I know what men like Nambutu are like.”

“You wear a uniform like the Colonel. You are no different.”

“I am different. There is a UNHCR refugee camp in Botswana, just across the border where, once they process you, they can hopefully reunite you with your parents. I can take you and your friends there.”

The boy hesitated, wanting to believe Peel, but afraid.

Peel noticed his M4A1 lying in the dirt. He desperately wanted to pick it up, to give him some level of comfort that he could protect himself, but he knew if he did, he’d scare the boy.

“My name is Harrison. I’m from Australia. You heard of Australia?”

The boy shook his head. Chances were he’d never seen the Internet, or a computer, or any form of technology that could put him in contact with the rest of the world, or understand what he did not have in his dictatorship destroyed country.

“My name is General Velempni!” the boy exclaimed proudly.

“Velempni?” Peel asked. “That’s a fine name.” He didn’t want to imagine what tortures Nambutu’s men had subjected the boy to. A favored trick of despot warlords like Nambutu was to have children practice firing assault weapons while blindfolded, not realizing that they were killing bound and blindfold men, women and children in the target range. The shock of what they did numbed them, terrified them, and so they became indoctrinated through the allocation of powerful names that made them feel like powerful soldiers. That was likely where the title ‘General’ came from.

Peel would not use that title.

He heard screaming, more gunfire, and in the distance, the monster flung a body far and high across the sky.

Peel lifted his assault rifle, readied it, and he took Velempni’s hand. “We have to find your friends. Get us all out of here.”

Velempni didn’t resist as they took off in a brisk pace. Peel found a trail where a dozen light-footed individuals had trampled through the undergrowth ahead of them. No doubt more of the young boys forced into soldiering.

They passed acacia, ziziphus and mopane trees. When they crossed over bare granite rock, tiny lizards with rainbow-colored reflective skins darted for cover. The trail was simple enough to follow, with bare footprint and boot prints in the dirt to lead the way, and occasional drips of blood. All the time they could hear the monster never far away, tearing through the undergrowth, searching for more victims to trample and consume. They heard stampedes, kudu antelope or zebra most likely, fleeing the creature.

Ahead, Peel could see the trail led to a rise of domed granite and balancing rock formations. Someone in the group ahead was smart enough to realize they might find cover there. Peel wondered again what had happened to Ash and tried the radio again with no luck. The sergeant still wasn’t responding.

At a corner in the thick scrub, a volley of bullets ripped the air above Peel. He ducked instinctively, readied his weapon and crept forward to find a dozen boys ranging from ten to maybe sixteen huddled together. The eldest was the only one with a weapon, an AK-47, and he had just depleted the clip. When he saw Peel with Velempni, his eyes grew wide with surprise.

“Sizabantu!” Velempni yelled loudly, calling his friend’s name. “The Mabono helped me.”

“I can help you all,” Peel spoke loudly, hopefully winning their ‘hearts and minds’ as the Americans liked to phrase it. “I can get you away from here, all of you.” He pointed at the eldest boy. “You, Sizabantu your name?” Despite almost being shot, Peel kept his voice calm and authoritative. “Are you in charge?”

The eldest boy nodded. Although he was trying to be brave, he let his guard down for a moment and expressed relief that an individual other than himself was taking charge. Peel didn’t doubt for a moment that in the back of all their minds, all these children expected him to transform into a tyrant at any moment, like every other corrupt soldier in this destitute land. He had to treat them with respect and caution. He was also thankful he was the only one with a weapon that worked.

“Any of you hurt?”

Sizabantu pointed to one of the smallest boys, who had a deep wound on his leg, the source of the blood they had been following. “Ngqobile got cut by the exploding drum.”

Peel moved forward and checked the laceration. It was deep and bleeding fast. He took his first aid kit, wiped down the cut with iodine and used strip bandages to hold the wound in place. Peel took a tube of skin glue he always carried for emergencies and sealed the wound.

“Can you walk, Ngqobile?”

The boy shook his head.

“I’m going to carry you, okay?”

He nodded, so Peel lifted him. The boy was lighter than he expected, malnourished most likely. That would make his work easier and his hatred for Nambutu stronger.

“We head for that granite dome. We should find cover there.”

They took off at a brisk pace, and Peel felt relief when everyone kept up. He counted their number at eleven. If he could save these eleven children, then he would have done some good this day.

Peel heard the Mil Mi-24 helicopter gunship before he saw it, flying low from the northeast, from Bulawayo. He could just make out the Air Force of Zimbabwe's insignia. It cut through the air fast in their general direction.

Up on the rise now, scrambling through the granite rocks, Peel could see down into the valley from where they had fled. The creature was also easily visible, rising above the tree line with its head of thrashing tentacles about a kilometer from them now. It moved with alarming speed, faster than their Jeep could drive, and the undergrowth did nothing to slow it. It still hunted.

The gunship flew low towards the monster. It fired a high explosive anti-tank missile — not at the creature as Peel had hoped — but near it, sending the scrub into a torrent of energetic flames. The creature moved away from the heat, toward Peel’s direction.

Colonel Nambutu was herding it toward them.

Peel readjusted his grip on the uncomplaining Ngqobile, and picked up the pace. The rise they headed to was sharp and wide. If they could get over the rocks, perhaps the creature would be too cumbersome to follow them, and they could escape.

Meanwhile, the gunship fired another missile, closer this time to inform the creature they meant business. It had the desired effect, forcing the Dark Young to move toward Peel and his group.

What the gunship didn’t expect was the range of its tentacles, and one whipped out faster than Peel could register. It smashed the Mi-24 with enough force to crumble the cabin.

The gunship fell like a rock out of the sky. The overhead blades, still spinning, sliced at the offending tentacle, severing it, and the monster screamed with many mouths in unison. Peel had never heard a sound so chilling.

Neither the crew nor the gunship would survive the incineration on impact with the savanna forest. The creature, however, did.

Peel’s gut went cold. A wall of fire and a monster on one side, a high-rise rocky peak on the other. Then the creature trotted toward them. It had nowhere else to go, and the scent of their flesh had caught its attention.

“Run!” Peel bellowed with all the volume he could muster.

The group split, scrambled up the rounded granite rocks. The closer they reached the peak, the steeper the track climbed. Peel lost his M4A1 without remembering when, and Ngqobile seemed heavier with each step. He checked his holster, finding the 9mm Glock handgun ready should he need it. He checked for incendiary grenades, and found three.

Then Peel had an idea.

“Run!” he yelled again to the last of the boys he could see, who were ahead of him now. “Get over the rise, head southeast, and I’ll come after you.”

He sat Ngqobile on a rock and caught his breath. His chest hurt with the exhaustion of constant, rapid breathing to oxygenate his complaining muscles, and he wondered again where the hell Ash was right now.

Peel turned to the small boy. They were alone now. “You should follow your friends.”

The young boy shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Your leg still hurt?”

He nodded.

Peel nodded too. “Okay, we’ll go together.”

The sounds of sizable trees being crushed underfoot grew loud as the monster advanced upon them. It could probably smell them, human flesh. Peel appreciated the fear that grazing antelopes faced upon the African savanna; the horror of knowing that their death would be one of being eaten alive. He didn’t want to go out like that.

Peel took the three grenades, primed them and threw them one by one in a fan pattern. Each detonation created a wall of flames, deterrent enough, he hoped, to send the creature in a different direction.

“You ready to go again?”

Ngqobile nodded. He even managed the slightest of smiles. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for saving us.”

Overcome with emotion, Peel didn’t know what to say. So he lifted the boy with both hands now and strode up the steep path. If they could just get over the hill, he kept telling himself, they would survive this.

All too soon the flames behind them burned out, and the creature advanced again to hunt them.

Peel wanted to demand that the boy run, but he couldn’t ask that of him. So he pushed harder, until all the muscles in his legs and back screamed for him to rest, and he ignored them.

He couldn’t find a simple path that led upward, and soon Peel found he was cornered in a granite ravine where the walls were too steep and too smooth to climb.

“Fuck!”

He was going to die. They were both going to die.

He put Ngqobile down.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked.

“We’ll be fine,” Peel lied. “The monster didn’t see us head this way.”

Then they saw the tentacles, rising above the forest, only fifty meters from them. There was a boulder in its way, several dozen meters wide. The creature rolled it out of the way with a single pseudopod, as if it was nothing more than a silk curtain blocking its path.

Peel’s entire body felt like jelly. Normally he had some kind of plan, even a crazy plan, but right now he had nothing, and only seconds to find one if he were to see this day through to its end.

Ngqobile wrapped himself tight around Peel, gripped for a life that wasn’t there. “I don’t want to die like this, taken by the devil.”

The Dark Young advanced. Its hundred nostrils snorting as it sensed them and moved in slowly for a precision kill. The rest of the creature was stationary while the head of tentacles thrashed with the same madness of when it was first released.

Ngqobile helped Peel take his handgun from the holster until Peel held the muzzle directly over the young boy’s heart.

Peel hesitated. He had always promised himself, if he had a choice, he would rather take his own life than let an abomination like this one claim him. But never had he expected to have to make this decision for another, and a child at that.

“DO IT!” the boy screamed and tore Peel from his melancholy to the horrors about to transpire. The monster was close now, only a dozen meters separated them. Peel felt the creature’s furious breath on him, like the stench of a lion after a feast.

The boy grabbed Peel’s trigger finger, and the weapon went off. Ngqobile fell lifeless at Peel’s feet as a mist of red sprayed him.

Shocked, the Australian spy turned toward the monster, placed the hot muzzle against his forehead, and willed himself to pull the trigger.

But he couldn’t do it.

He closed his eyes and tried again. There had to be a way out, and suicide was a path open to him.

And he still couldn’t pull the trigger.

A blast of heat from an explosion shocked Peel. He opened his eyes and saw the Dark Young on fire, burning from its central mass outwards. The tentacles above still thrashed, but with anger and pain now, and a dozen mouths poured out that horrific scream. In that instance, Peel was sure his ear drums shattered.

He watched Emerson Ash stand from the undergrowth. The sergeant dropped the shell of a second RPG-7 and lobbed several grenades into the central, burning mass of the creature. He was killing it, slowly, when no one else had been able or willing to do so.

In a state that felt like slow motion, Peel lifted his Glock 9mm and fired every bullet into the creature. He didn’t know if he did any good, but he didn’t want any bullets left over. The bullet and the flesh. He still might do it, kill himself, after the atrocities he had caused. With his weapon depleted, the choice would not be his to make today.

The creature fell, burning like a pyre and twitched now rather than thrashed. Ash walked up beside Peel and handed him the M4A1 he had dropped earlier. “You’ll need this, mate.”

Peel nodded, went through the motions of checking then loading a round into the chamber. Peel couldn’t talk. He couldn’t respond. He was going into shock, and even though this realization was clear to him, he couldn’t stop himself from embracing that dark place.

“Major!” Ash exclaimed. The cyber-analyst looked to the dead boy, then back to Peel again. “You did what you had to do Major, now let’s get out of here.”

Peel couldn’t move. His legs wouldn’t respond.

And then he was sick, dry retching only because he hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours. Being sick was all he could do to remind himself he was human, so he took his time.

—— 

Peel and Ash returned to the trucks and discovered a savanna littered with the fleshy remains of human and animal corpses, Zimbabwe National Army soldiers and zebras being the highest amongst the body count. The Dark Young of Shub-Nigguarath had been thorough, hunting down all that moved on two or four legs. The ZNA soldiers left protecting the two surviving trucks had not stood a chance, and the monster had decimated them quickly and cleanly.

Peel had never seen so much blood.

More uncanny, perhaps, were the two trucks themselves. Nothing had touched them. Neither had a scratch on them.

They advanced with their assault rifles ready, unsure what to expect. Then Ash raised a hand and showed that Peel should slow. He pointed under the closer of the two trucks, to where a man hid.

“Come out or I’ll shoot,” Ash commanded.

“The m-monster?” the man exclaimed.

“Gone,” Ash answered sharply. “Now move.”

When the soldier refused to comply, Peel fired a bullet into the chassis of the truck, just above the enemy soldier. The man moved quickly then, clambered to his feet with his hands raised high. He was as scuffed, bruised and bloody as Peel and Ash, and just as terrified.

Peel noticed the insignia on the man’s shoulders. “Colonel Nambutu?” he asked.

The despot nodded.

Peel didn’t hesitate and put three bullets into the man’s chest, dropping Nambutu into a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood.

Ash faced Peel and raised an eyebrow. “That was unexpected!”

“Do you have a problem with it?” Peel asked in all seriousness.

“I promised you could have him,” said Ash.

Peel stepped forward over the twitching corpse. Just to make sure, he put three bullets into the man’s head and shattered the skull and the brains inside until it became a pulpy mess of meat.

Peel had hoped to feel better, killing Colonel Nambutu, but he felt nothing. He couldn’t remove the image of Ngqobile’s last pained expression as he pulled Peel’s finger on the trigger. He couldn’t stop analyzing that he was more willing to let one of those monsters take his life than take his own. Killing the Colonel had done nothing to silence the darkness within him. Revenge was a hollow promise.

“Major, we should check the trucks,” said Ash quietly. “Find out why they were untouched.”

The former Australian Army officer nodded and the two men peered cautiously into the back of the first, and then the second of the trucks. There were six oil drums in each, each coupled with magnetic field generating batteries.

“We should destroy these,” said Ash.

Peel nodded through the dark fog that clouded his mind.

“I guessed that creature sensed more of its own, either afraid to hurt them or wary of more predators taking over its territory.”

Unsure how to respond, Peel searched the trucks’ inventories and the corpses, gathering grenades and explosives, enough to set up a large detonation in each truck. In the vehicle they had toppled earlier, they discovered an additional four barrels. Together, he and Ash packed the explosives into three clumps around each truck’s fuel tank.

Hours passed before they completed their work, and they stood far back, ready to run should they need to. The goal was to destroy, not release the creatures, but they would only know when they executed their plan.

“Ready?” Ash asked.

Peel nodded.

Ash lifted his weapon, stared down the sights and shot the first petrol tank. The explosion was loud, hot, and it sent the second nearby truck into an all-consuming fireball. Ash fired one more shot, incinerating the first truck they had toppled earlier that morning.

Peel and Ash stared down their scopes, ready for more of the horrors to materialize from the flames, but none did. They had caught them early.

They marched from the scene of carnage. Their work was done.

—— 

After consuming some rations, rehydrating, pulling forgotten thorns from their flesh, and cleaning their wounds, Peel and Ash marched again. They picked up the trail of the former child soldiers, followed them across the granite dome rise, and headed southwest towards Botswana.

Upon the peak, with the sun setting ahead of them, the two Australians stared down at the carnage they had been a party to. Peel couldn’t believe they had survived and wondered if he had deserved to.

He shook his head at the thought, hating it. He couldn’t let negative chatter get the better of him, because that was the path of madness. But he needed an action to undertake to appease his soul because revenge was not the answer. Otherwise, he wasn’t certain he would survive this day with his mental health intact.

“Africa’s beautiful.” Ash stated it as if it were a matter of official record. “If you don’t count the corpses, and those flames, and that blast site… oh and the corpse of the creature…and…”

Peel could see Ash tried hard not to laugh, and the man was right, because all they could see before them was the carnage and aftermath of battle. Nothing majestic about it at all.

“Mate, shut the fuck up,” Peel quipped.

“Is that an order, sir?” Ash almost chuckled.

Peel sensed the man’s relief that Peel was finally talking again.

Peel wanted to laugh too. He really did. He wanted the world to go back to the way it was before today, when he didn’t have the blood of children on his hands.

“Damn straight it’s an order.”

He felt a sharp object rub against his leg, and he remembered the diamond he’d recovered earlier. He’d forgotten that he had a hundred thousand dollars in his pocket.

“Sergeant?”

“Yes, Major?”

“You think we can catch those boys before the border?”

Ash grinned. “Sure.”

Peel smiled, an action he thought he’d never be capable of again, but he was wrong. Redemption came not from spilled blood, but in offering possibility to deserving others.

“Let’s get moving, then. I have something very important I need to give those boys, to help them on their way.”

The R’lyeh Singularity

With Brian M Sammons

1. Baghdad

Jordan’s first thought was that his drowning had to be a dream. When he realized seawater drenched him and he shivered from near zero temperatures, he thought otherwise.

He could smell salt. His eyes stung. A man splashed and flailed in the rough water next to him, perhaps a ghost, and shook from the cold. He wore black fatigues typical for a covert operation. He kept saying in an Australian accent through chattering teeth: “I’ve told you before, Jordan.”

“Told me what?”

“We’re inside a naked singularity. Anything is possible.”

Like a reflection lost in a rippling pool, the man simply vanished, and Jordan stood alone, barely supported on shaking legs, and saturated. His eyes had never closed.

There was seaweed on the floor of his Baghdad apartment. His feet sloshed within an expanding puddle on the concrete floor. It was one hundred and ten in the midday Middle Eastern heat, yet he was freezing.

Eager to do something, Jordan stripped, showered, toweled off and dressed in a fresh set of clothes. Then he was hot again.

Despite forcing himself to perform normal routines, the vision still disturbed him. The seaweed remained on the floor where he had left it, which gave him a shudder. At least the water was evaporating, even if the lingering smell was of brine.

Strangely, this was not the most bizarre experience in Jordan’s most peculiar profession. He’d had plenty of weirder phenomena to interfere in his life, and as many more that had almost killed him. Years ago he once met himself in a rough bar in Douala, Cameroon. Jordan had spotted his twin easily, being the only other white face in the African dive, but before either could start a conversation his other self had simply vanished. Jordan had forgotten about that, dismissing it as a moment of psychosis, but now that experience hit him hard with a profound sense of déjà vu . That other Jordan had appeared saturated in that moment, too.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. At least he had come to no physical harm today or that time in Cameroon, many years ago.

He stared again into the cracked mirror of his sparse bathroom. He wasn’t shaking. His pupils weren’t dilating. He was in control again, and this was good.

The dye in his hair and the artificial tan of his skin were at least unaffected. He might have been born a typical white boy in Midwest America, but the face staring back at him now looked Middle Eastern, to the point he barely recognized himself, which was the intention. Then again, he almost never recognized himself. There was nothing distinguishing about Jordan, he was the perfect mimic. For a moment he tried to remember his real self, but couldn’t.

He knew why he was in Iraq. The last three months he had lived and breathed the cover of an Iraqi business manager. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to survive in a sector of the ruined city overrun with Shiite militias. He could hear the distant spray of gunfire even now, and the cries of a woman in a neighboring apartment abusing someone in Arabic.

Peering through his window, he saw dogs on the street lapping at a pool of blood. He dismissed the sight with a shrug. That scene at least was normal.

Checking his watch with its inbuilt GPS tracker, it was time to move. Opening the failed air-conditioning grill in the wall of his apartment, he selected key items from his concealed field kit. After he strapped on his flak vest, holstered his H&K SOCOM .45 and checked that the commando knives sheathed on his right leg and left arm were secure, he walked three blocks avoiding eye contact with everyone he passed. Day time streets were busy with men wearing traditional long white loose galabiyyas , smoking hookhah pipes or sitting cross-legged in coffee shops. Few looked at him, not even the twenty militia soldiers peering through the alcove of a mosque shelled during the 2003 invasion. Jordan could have stayed in, but it was not worth the risk of meeting his contacts in his apartment. No one knew where he lived, not even his CIA handlers, and Jordan operated so his situation would remain unchanged.

Jordan allowed himself one tiny luxury: a simple smile. Today he could put the weirdness that plagued most of his life behind him, and focus on his profession, a covert operative whose specialty was in eliminating enemy targets.

At eleven hundred sharp, as arranged, Jordan reached the main road at the end of his block. A black, armor-plated Mercedes SUV covered in dust pulled up in front of him. As the vehicle slowed, its door opened and Jordan climbed in. The driver didn’t wait for him to fasten his seatbelt before accelerating again into the traffic.

While Baghdad might experience a civil war, its six and a half million citizens still needed to get to work every day, clogging the streets with diesel guzzling automobiles in a city where infrastructure was at best a work in progress.

Two Caucasian men sat in the front. Another sat opposite Jordan in the back and he had a silenced Berretta pointed at Jordan’s head. All three wore expensive sunglasses, western business shirts and slacks. Other than their flak vests, they stood out like the American corporate middle-management that they were.

“You’re Michael Talcott?” demanded the man with the weapon. “You look like a towel head.” There was a quiver in his voice which Jordan recognized as nerves. The man held the weapon like an amateur.

Jordan shrugged. “Today I am.” If he wanted to, he could subdue the man in seconds and take command of the Berretta. He might have to soon enough.

“What’s with the cocky attitude?” said the driver, spinning the wheel fast as he overtook several wrecks of functional cars while simultaneously honking the horn at young boys trying to dart between the busy traffic.

Jordan wasn’t in the mood for chest beating, so he blurted, “I take it you’re Reddy, right? The man waving the piece around who’s about to wet himself must be Lawrence. That leaves Shaw sitting in front of me.” When the three men looked questioningly at each other, Jordan knew that he’d read them correctly. The files provided to him were light on detail, but enough to tell each man apart.

While the men deliberated, Jordan snatched Lawrence’s pistol with one hand as he punched the man in the gut with the other. Lawrence quickly doubled over, gasping for air. Jordan then stripped the pistol into its component pieces, allowing them to fall to the floor.

A startled Reddy glanced back to see what Jordan was doing. Shaw did his best to strangle a yelp of fear concerning oncoming traffic, yet sounding desperate enough to draw Reddy’s focus where it should be. In a panic, Reddy swerved hard, narrowly missing a truck decorated with bullet holes transporting mangy goats. The driver of the truck swore at Reddy, but whatever he said Jordan didn’t hear, muffled by the four-wheel drive’s sound-proofed glass.

“What the fuck are you doing, Talcott?” snapped Shaw when he had control of his composure and the vehicle again.

Jordan kept his expression as cold as his feelings for these men. “Are we going to talk like civilized people now?”

The two men in the front exchanged glances. Lawrence, who was still struggling to breathe without wheezing, hadn’t moved from his doubled-over position.

“This is Baghdad, Talcott,” said a bitter Reddy. “We had to check. You could have been anyone. And that disguise…”

Jordan nodded, agreeing. So they had some sense about them after all. Every day, insurgents shot people, ran them over, incinerated or blew them up with improvised explosive devices in this excuse for a city. “Well, I’m who I say I am. You guys seem to know your way around the city. What do you need me for?”

“Someone we know in the CIA said you were good at providing protection.”

Jordan allowed himself to relax slightly. The chest-beating dispensed with, they were finally getting down to business. “This is a babysitting job?”

Reddy nodded. “But not for us, we can handle ourselves in this shit hole. We’re about to take delivery of a package.”

“A package?”

“Yes, and it’s your job to make sure we get it to Baghdad International Airport in one piece.”

Jordan nodded. Reddy and his two underlings were expecting trouble, a foe who wanted this package at any cost. If this mission was simple and safe, they would not have involved Jordan.

With Shaw and Reddy focused on the road ahead, Jordan reached into Lawrence’s pockets and slipped the man’s wallet into his palm. Lawrence was still gasping and didn’t notice. Jordan found U.S. dollars, credit cards, travel vaccination certificates and a company ID for Rick Lawrence who worked for Centaurus Pharmaceuticals.

Jordan pocketed the ID, figuring it might come in handy later. He then put everything else back into the wallet and slipped it into the man’s pants.

A bus sped past. Someone threw a rock at their window, which despite clanging loudly, didn’t leave a scratch.

Jordan looked to the front of the SUV. There was a CB radio and a satellite navigation system, as he expected. That was good. He might need them later.

“I take it this is a black op.”

“Black, what?” Shaw spoke for the first time with a strong Texan accent.

“The package, it has to be deniable right, otherwise you’d have a Marine escort?”

Both Shaw and Reddy nodded.

“I guess, Talcott, you don’t get to meet many honest people in your line of work,” Shaw laughed.

No one joined him.

Lawrence, who was the youngest of the three men, finally sat upright. His eyes were watering, and he was still in agony. Spit dribbled from his mouth. With groaning effort from a man unaccustomed to pain, he said, “Why did you punch me?”

“You were pointing a gun at me.” Jordan said in a matter-of-fact way. For him, this kind of job felt normal. He liked normal. He didn’t enjoy shifting through dimensions and being saturated and cold for no reason that he could explain. Guns in his face were simple issues in comparison. “I want to live a long time, and you weren’t helping.”

Lawrence sneered. Before he could say more, guards waved their vehicle down at a Provincial Police checkpoint overseen by U.S. Marines. Reddy had their papers ready. He asked for Jordan’s passport, so Jordan handed over the one that identified him as Michael Talcott.

After a few minutes of delay, the Provincial Police waved them through, but not before they received the nod from the overseeing Marine officer. Someone expected them.

Once on the other side of the checkpoint, the infrastructure transformed. Jordan knew he lived in a decaying utilities-poor sector of Baghdad, but it was a luxury to what they saw next. After a few minutes of furious driving through potholed streets and past the decaying corpses of donkeys, the buildings resembled piles of rubble rather than engineered structures. Children with missing limbs threw stones and Molotov cocktails. Fires burned in rusted gas drums. Old men wilted under crumbling balconies and watched without comment or expression as the expensive German automobile powered past.

“Do you know where we are?” Jordan asked.

“Yep,” said Reddy, too sure of himself to give Jordan any confidence in their capabilities to handle themselves in this place.

“I hope you boys know what you’re doing. Shiite and Sunni insurgents each control a half of this sector and I’m guessing we’re driving through the middle of no-man's-land here.”

“So?” quipped Shaw.

“So when they’re not killing each other, they make it their purpose to kill westerners. Oh, and next time, try to drive a less conspicuous car.”

Reddy sneered. “Well that’s what you’re here for buddy, to keep us safe, so earn your money.”

A few minutes later they arrived at a crumbling building with a fallen sign in Arabic that stated this was once an orphanage, and perhaps still was.

Jordan felt sick in his gut. Centaurus Pharmaceuticals was a drug company, and like most drug companies, they liked to test newly developed products on third world subjects. But an orphanage, even for Centaurus, that was going too far.

The three men checked their flak vests, then strapped on riot helmets. Reddy and Shaw chambered the first rounds into their automatic pistols. The three men displayed prior military or police experience, otherwise no one would have selected them for an Iraqi assignment in a sector as dangerous as this one, but they were still amateurs when compared to Jordan’s special forces training. It was the subtleties in what they did not do that gave them away. Their scans of potential sniper points were too quick. Their assessment of escape routes should they need them was too flippant.

When Shaw handcuffed a bullet proof briefcase to his left arm and then gave the key to Reddy, Jordan knew in his gut that he wasn’t ever going to like any of them. Drug companies and orphanages in the heart of violent Baghdad couldn’t add up to anything pleasant. 

Before they stepped out, Reddy turned to Jordan. “Mr. Talcott, I’ve been told you’ve had prior experience with ESBs?”

Jordan laughed. He’d been hoping for a normal day. Still, he had to be careful with what he said next, because this was a touchy subject that if handled incorrectly would leave him looking like a fool. “You’re joking, right? Extraterrestrial sentient beings?” 

Reddy’s expression said that he wasn’t joking in the slightest.

“Yes, I have.”

“Good, because what you are about to experience would drive most people mad trying to comprehend what it is they were seeing. That’s why we they gave us you, because of your prior ESB experience.”

Jordan nodded that he understood. An orphanage, a drug company and now ESBs. This was getting worse by the second. Weirdness was seeping back into his life again.

The doors of their armored car opened, and the men stepped outside. They moved as pairs towards the building, while the other pair provided cover, scanning rooftops and windows.

Once inside, it was a world of gray and shadows.

The first warning that something was wrong was the smell, a noxious odor Jordan couldn’t quite describe but that left him queasy.

Beyond the foyer was a large open room. The three Centaurus middle-managers slipped on face masks and surgical gloves. Shaw offered the same protection to Jordan, and he obliged. The smell however didn’t worsen with the miniscule protection.

“Got any Vicks Vapor Rub?” Jordan asked.

“What?”

“Never mind, old coroner’s trick for the smell.”

“The insurgents don’t attack this place, Talcott,” explained a smug Shaw, “because they think the devil lives here.”

“And does he?” asked Jordan.

Shaw was silent.

Stepping into the next room, Jordan’s vision filled with rows upon rows of beds with overhanging sheets covering the patients so that no one could see any of the others. The floors were wet with mixtures of sticky fluids that gripped like glue to his boots. Everywhere tiny mounds of fibrous wet material grew. Three Iraqi men, one wearing a lab coat, checked in on the hidden shapes in sequence, spending a couple of minutes with each. Some of those shapes flailed, others gave the impression that they had grown into large mounds of flesh. A few languished as serpent-like growths slid in and out of the semi-human silhouettes that had birthed them.

Jordan wanted to be sick. Only his steel nerves developed through many years of standing against horrors like this stopped him from fleeing, screaming into the heart of a Baghdad war zone. He couldn't believe he felt more unsafe here than being shot at by swarms of Al Qaeda terrorists.

He knew why his superiors recommended him for the job. To do this kind of work, one had to accept that a scene like the one before him was normalcy. That didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Mr. Talcott,” Reddy had brought forth an Iraqi wearing the lab coat. “This is Dr. Aziz. He runs our little research operation here.”

“Research, I thought this was an orphanage?”

“That would be correct, in the days previous,” said Aziz in his clipped English. “Now you find none here are, well, human.”

Including you , Jordan thought.

A child’s voice screamed from somewhere toward the back. The five men looked up to see blood splatter across the sheet that covered him. Then the scream fell silent.

“So once upon a time these children were, how you say, human?” Jordan did not try to hide his bitterness.

The four men pretended that he had said nothing.

“That is subject 674,” Aziz’s yellow tainted eyes motioned to the blood-stained sheet. “Nothing to get concerned over. He does that often.”

Jordan swallowed, wondered what he’d gotten himself into. When first offered this assignment, it had struck him as odd that a pharmaceutical company was doing business in Baghdad. But Centaurus wasn’t here to sell; they were here to test new drugs. Where those drugs had come from, Jordan feared to guess.

Reddy unlocked the briefcase handcuffed to Shaw’s arm. Inside were several syringes marked with biohazard symbols and the Centaurus company logo. Reddy withdrew an empty syringe, held it high, ready to put to use. “What are we waiting for? Show us your most promising subjects, Dr. Aziz.”

“Ah, this one you’ll like, I am sure.” He led them to a bed close to the middle and pulled back the sheet.

When they saw what the soiled linen hid, all four men shuddered. Lawrence bent over and puked, but the smell of his bile was hardly noticeable over the already putrid odor that permeated everything. None of the staff bothered to clean it either.

Jordan stared back towards the shape he had recoiled against. Once the ‘thing’ had been an Iraqi boy of only ten years. Parts of the boy, like half a face, an elbow and most of a foot, still resembled the human being he had once been. Most of the poor creature was now a massive tangled knot of oversized muscles the size of truck tires, red raw flesh pulsing with blue and crimson blood veins. Those alien muscles inflated and deflated again and again without reason or cause, so that one moment a muscle looked normal if not skinless, and the next had become large enough to smoother the rest of the body.

Jordan suddenly thought of Madison, his nineteen-year-old daughter he had not known to have existed until a few months ago. He wondered how he would have felt if it were her in the bed. Would he feel even more disgusted than he did right now? He knew he felt something, just that he couldn’t yet identify what that feeling was. He was trained not to feel anything and had lived his life that way for so long that emotions were slow to reawaken in him, but he was sure it would come to him.

“Subject 356 has accelerated muscle growth. This is very good. Perfect genetic sample for you to make new weapons with, correct?”

Reddy nodded, grinned with half his mouth. “I think we will take some of this one’s blood, yes.”

Detached and numb, Jordan watched without comment as the corporate types examined four further child monstrosities, then sampled for their genetic abnormalities. One resembled a fleshy serpent with phenomenal regenerative properties. Another had eyes growing all over his skin, which, Aziz assured, could see in the dark. The last two had developed hardened flesh that closely resembled scaly armor. All carried characteristics of young children, but they weren’t children anymore.

It hadn’t escaped Jordan’s notice that the selected child-monsters had characteristics that, if properly controlled, tested and perfected, would be ideal for breeding the perfect genetically engineered soldier.

“What happened to these children?” Jordan asked when Shaw locked the last blood sample inside the briefcase. “How did they end up this way?”

Again the four men were conspicuously silent.

“Is this one of Saddam Hussain’s old biological weapons testing programs?”

Now the four men laughed at him.

“Hussain was never this sophisticated Talcott,” explained Reddy.

“You mean your company made these children into test subjects?”

“They’re not children, Talcott,” Reddy sneered. “They haven’t been children for a long time.”

Jordan could see he was losing his patience with this conversation. It had been one of Jordan’s CIA handlers who had assigned him to this job and that could only mean one thing; whatever Centaurus was up to here, the US government was getting some kind of kick-back, otherwise the CIA wouldn’t get involved. He couldn’t help considering that there was a connection between this orphanage and the secret Pentagon biological weapons research and development programs that he shouldn’t have known to exist, but did.

“Well, whatever they are, how did they get that way?”

Reddy grinned. “You don’t need to know that information.”

Jordan nodded, accepting that answer for now. He was still attempting to understand his feelings if one of the test subjects was Madison. He wished he’d known his daughter better, or at all. Because she had always been unknown to him, he found it difficult to understand his confused feelings towards her, even though she was a part of him.

The four men returned to the vehicle, leaving Aziz to his dirty work. Jordan checked their GPS location on his watch, memorized the coordinates.

“I think I should drive,” he said.

“Why?” asked Reddy, suspicious.

“It’s been an hour since we arrived, Reddy. That means every fanatic in the area knows we are here. That means they’ll attempt to take us out when we leave. I need to drive because I know the shortcuts and how to deal with fanatics if they try to trap us.”

Lawrence looked worried. Shaw shrugged. After a moment of deliberation, Reddy threw the keys at Jordan. “Don’t mess this up.”

When they had driven two blocks, Jordan yelled out, “RPG, three o’clock!” and pointed toward the passenger’s window just before slamming on the brakes. With the three men distracted, looking out the windows for nonexistent attackers, he drew his SOCOM from his shoulder holster with his right hand and used his left to hit the button that rolled down all the Mercedes’ widows at once.

Before the bullet resistant widows had completely descended, Reddy turned to Jordan and froze when he looked straight into the barrel of the man’s .45. Jordan made a simple gesture he had done thousands of times before and with a flash and a bang most of Reddy’s head dissolved in a red mist. Twisting, Jordan then shot Shaw and Lawrence while buckled into their seatbelts in the back of the SUV. Each man got one bullet in the head.

After a few seconds of observation, Jordan put another bullet into the ruins of Lawrence’s face when he wouldn’t stop twitching.

Thumbing the tiny button on the door, the vehicle’s windows slowly slid up while Jordan holstered his gun and grimaced in pain. Opening the widows had saved him from permanent hearing loss, but he was sure his ears would ring for days. 

He took their Centaurus IDs, their passports and their credit cards. He found airline tickets on an American airliner to Washington DC. When he secured the keys to the briefcase and handcuffs, he unclipped it from Shaw’s limp corpse. Then he dumped the bodies in the street and drove off quickly. In the rearview mirror, he already saw a small group of children running towards the corpses to strip them of what little he had left them with.

After Jordan covered another two blocks, he stopped again. He adjusted the two-way radio’s frequency to one the CIA’s Baghdad office used.

“This is Jordan Eight Delta. Code in as alpha, foxtrot, omega, seven, seven, nine, two, zero. Shiite stronghold identified at these coordinates—”, he gave the GPS location of the orphanage, “—numbers estimated at sixty individuals armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. This is a Code Red. They look to be wiring up several vans with high explosives, ready to roll within the hour.”

He repeated the message several times until someone radioed back, told him his message was received and understood, and that a ‘package’ was on the way. At least that’s what he hoped the break in the radio’s static hiss had meant. He still couldn’t hear a thing.

Ten minutes later, a US F-22 Raptor powered through the blistering Baghdad haze. Two seconds after the fighter jet vanished, the orphanage disintegrated in a fiery cloud. The child-monstrosities, if any of them still had anything left in them that could feel a human emotion, had finally found peace in oblivion.

Jordan wanted to smile, but he couldn’t. Justice was a dish that was always served cold in the supernatural world he lived in, and harder still to swallow.

It would ’t end here either. He had a peculiar feeling that the Australian he had seen in his apartment, a former army officer turned NSA consultant who went by the name of Harrison Peel, had a connection to what he had just seen.

He sped down the dusty street. It was time to go dark again and disappear for a while.

——

2. Maryland

Harrison Peel sat uncomfortably in a dark conference room deep inside NSA Headquarters. He’d never enjoyed being on the business end of an interrogation, even if he was supposedly here of his own free will. He looked again at the photograph passed across the table for him to examine. Zoe Isles, who sat opposite Peel, had told him she was a senior CIA case officer and that she expected his full cooperation.

Her thin finger pressed itself into the gray-scale image. There were no rings, which suggested she didn’t enjoy a serious relationship. This didn’t surprise Peel.

“You know this man.”

It wasn’t a question, and Peel knew the man in the picture. The two had worked together frequently on black ops in several of the world’s worst war zones against enemies that didn’t belong to any human side.

“Perhaps.”

Peel knew nothing about Zoe Isles. She’d sprung this meeting on him without warning and he’d had no time to do a background check on her, and until he did, he wasn’t ready to share. More troubling perhaps was that he found her attractive, and that might cloud his judgment if feelings became involved. In her mid-thirties, Ms. Isles had freckles, a perfectly symmetrical face and full lips, a shapely figure and wild strawberry red hair. She was exactly the woman Peel had always found himself drawn to. Finally, Peel recognized in himself that he was ready to move on from the brutal death of his fiancée, that he now found another woman attractive and stirred feelings in him.

But Peel wasn’t planning on flirting. Isles was CIA case officer, and she was about to drag him into what could only be unpleasant business. She wasn’t even going to pretend to be nice about it either.

“I know you know who he is, Mr. Peel, or is that Major Peel?”

Peel grinned. “Sorry, I haven’t been with the Australian Army for a long time now.”

“You were with their Intelligence Corps. Did you know this man then?”

Peel shook his head. “I was undercover in Africa for most of my time, before that in Somalia during the UN intervention. These days, however, I’m an intelligence consultant to the NSA, the Puzzle Palace, and have been for years. Mr. Peel is fine, or Harrison if you prefer.” He immediately regretted offering her the use of his first name. To his own ears, he already sounded like he was flirting when he had promised himself that he would not.

“Are you going to tell me who this man is?”

“You already know who he is.”

She sighed, frustrated. “Very well, Harrison. I know you know, so let’s cut the bullshit. This is a CIA contract player who goes most often by the code name Jordan, but you knew that too. Perhaps you didn’t know he was Green Beret and Navy SEAL trained? No? How about this, he’s spent time with the British SAS and Germany’s GSG9 if I believe everything his file tells me. Speaks Spanish, Russian and Arabic fluently, and a half dozen other languages badly.”

Peel shrugged. “Sounds like the perfect operator for you.”

“Not anymore.” Isles clenched her teeth, leaned forward in her chair. “You’ve worked with Jordan before, Peel. You first met in the Venezuelan jungles where the two of you caused quite a lot of trouble.”

“Maybe. Even if this is true, what makes you think I could even talk about it?”

She stood, paced. “Enough of this, I’ve seen the Venezuelan files. I have clearance. You suffered a stomach wound, if I remember correctly. And you were operating against a Code-89 threat, an ESB.”

“Ah,” Peel shuddered. Code-89 was an U.S. interagency term to designate a threat that was extra-terrestrial which ranged from unnatural alien mutation in the local flora to massive dimensional tears in the fabric of space-time that released a gigantic tentacled-horror hell-bent on consuming the Earth. He witnessed enough of both ends of the spectrum, so the Code was firmly burned into his mind, and the same was true for Jordan. Separately, they had both seen enough to drive most men and women to desperation and suicide. Zoe Isles knew what a Code-89 threat implied and what the acronym ESB meant, which meant she must have experienced at least one encounter first hand. He had respect for her now. Talking to her was going to be so much easier.

“A sentient alien removed my stomach, then replaced it with one of its own design. It still works okay, or I should say it hasn’t given me any problems yet.”

It was Isles’ turn to shudder. “Yes, well, I didn’t realize your injury was that severe.”

“It wasn’t really an injury, in the purest sense of the word, more like… a modification.”

She gave a quizzical stare. “Then why did the aliens give you a new stomach?”

“Long story Ms. Isles. You want to talk about my past operations, or would you like to know more about Jordan?”

She leaned towards him, perhaps sensing that they were getting somewhere. “So you’re ready to talk?”

“You keep asking the questions. I’ll tell you if I can answer them.”

“I’ll accept that for now. Do you have any idea why Jordan went rogue one month ago?”

Peel raised an eyebrow. “Why are you telling me this? You think because Jordan and I worked together in the past I can help reign in your rotten apple?”

“He seems to respect you.”

Peel laughed, wondering how she had drawn that conclusion. “If he does, you’ll have to ask him.”

“I think he does.”

“Well, I can tell you this for free, he doesn’t trust anyone, me included.”

“I think you can tell me his current whereabouts.”

“I haven’t talked to him in months, Ms. Isles. Jordan’s not the guy you ask round to the family barbeque, or even have a beer with after work. He’s the guy who phones you in the middle of the night and tells you to bring some file to some sleazy bar in Beirut or Osaka. You give it to him, he thanks you, says that he owes you one, and then he vanishes again.”

“Harrison, you’ve never been to Beirut or Osaka.”

“No,” said Peel, realizing that Isles had done her homework. He had to assume she knew as much about him as it was possible to know.

“So Jordan has a means of contacting you?”

She had trapped him. He’d as good as admitted to what she had just suggested. If he didn’t give her a lead, as soon as this meeting ended she would have him under surveillance, waiting and watching until Jordan contacted him again. Considering the subject of this meeting, she probably would anyway.

Peel’s and Jordan’s means of communication was simple, an obscure website that both could logon to from anywhere in the world to leave messages for the other. Mostly they were requests for information. Occasional requests for help against Code-89 threats, tasks they were each individually assigned by their respective masters every second week, or more frequently as had been the case of late.

Peel had not been lying when he said he hadn’t heard from Jordan in months. He was thinking his friend was dead, killed in the line of duty. It was a relief and a worry that he was alive and well, and on the run from his own people.

“Okay, you’ve got me there, Ms. Isles.”

She smiled. “Zoe.”

He smiled too. He found her attractive. “You got me there, Zoe. Yes, I have a means of contacting him, but I’m not about to disclose what that means is.”

“Can you access that means anywhere in the world?”

Peel stared at her. “Maybe.”

“Well, we’ll order you to do so, and soon. You and I are on an overnight CIA chartered flight to Lima. And before you argue, I have already cleared it with your superiors.”

It had been indicated as much just minutes before this meeting that Peel was to cooperate with Isles to the fullest extent of the definition.

“Peru?”

“Yes. We caught Jordan on security tape detonating high explosives inside a container ship in Callao three days ago. With any luck, he’s still there, despite us being three days behind his last known whereabouts. We’re counting on you leading us straight to him.”

Peel chewed on his lips, licked his teeth. He didn’t want to ask, but knew he had to, just so everything was clear between him and Isles. “Is this a kill or capture mission?”

Isles closed Jordan’s file, scooped it into her arms. Her expression cold and calculating. “What do you think?”

——

3. Lima

Jordan hated breaking tradecraft. He was alive today only because he always did everything by the book. He never stayed in any one locale for more than a few days, even when on vacation, and he went nowhere old friends might recognize him. Jordan also wiped away his fingerprints in every place he stayed, and he used public internet cafes for research and disposable cellular phones for communication. He’d built a career on being able to contact other people, never on anyone ever being able to contact him. Jordan was so good at being invisible that the CIA loved him, as did MI6, ASIS, FSB, GRU and a half dozen other intelligence agencies who had him listed as a reliable asset.

So when Jordan telephoned his daughter, he knew he was taking a terrible risk.

It was well after sunset, and Jordan sat on a pew towards the back of a darkly lit Catholic Church near central Lima. He watched the mostly older Peruvian men and woman pray to Christ and the obscenely gold-plated iconography and altars that dominated the stone walled interior. Crowds had flocked to the church, for the news of the day had not been good. The entire populations of three Pacific Islands separated by many thousands of miles had all vanished overnight. Satellite imagery the next day had identified communities devastated by unprecedented flooding, and yet there was no evidence of tidal waves originating anywhere on the planet which would have caused such destruction. 

Jordan took the cellular phone he had bought only minutes before from a convenience store and dialed.

“Hello, Grand River Movie Rentals,” came the distant voice on the other end. “Madison speaking.”

Jordan caught his breath. This was his daughter’s voice. Madison had just spoken to him for the first time.

“Hello?” she said again. “Hello?”

Realizing that he hadn’t spoken, he did so quickly. “Hi, Madison, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Can I help you?”

“Hi, yes, I’m after a DVD.”

She laughed lightly. Not at him, but with him, and he liked that. “Well, that’s what we’re here for Mister, DVDs, we have them all. After anything in particular?”

Jordan felt awkward, which was an unusual feeling for him, but this was his daughter he was talking to after all. He couldn’t tell her over the telephone who he was, not like this. But he didn’t want to stop talking to her either.

“Actually, there is this movie I’m looking for, I can’t remember the title. It’s about a father,” he cringed, knowing what he was about to say, “who was trying to reconcile with his daughter. Do you know it?”

Madison ‘umed’ for a moment. While she did, Jordan tried to imagine what she looked like. Probably dressed in a cheap shapeless uniform, and yet she would be sophisticated and attractive. The only photograph he’d found of her on the Internet was from her high school website from three years ago. It wasn’t a great photograph, but she was the prettiest girl in the world.

“We have Dan in Real Life , Steve Carell? Is that what you are thinking of?”

“Don’t know it.” Jordan never watched movies. He never had the time. Never found them realistic. “Is it any good?”

“It’s great. It’s one of my favorites, actually. Steve Carell plays a dad whose trying to cope, raising three daughters after their mum dies, and then he meets Juliette Binoche, and they fall in love, and then…” she was getting carried away with the romance of the story. “Is that the film you are thinking of?” she said in a more business-like tone.

“I think so,” All Jordan heard was that Dan in Real Life was one of Madison’s favorites.

“I can hold it for you.”

“Um, that would be great. No, wait, it won’t be necessary. I’ll pop in later, to pick it up.” He checked his watch. He’d been on the telephone for at least thirty seconds, long enough to make a trace.

“Sure, well let me know, if you come in, and I’ll find it for you.”

“Thanks.”

Jordan disconnected quickly. He couldn’t believe how hard he was breathing, how red his face must be. Still, he’d just survived his first conversation with his estranged daughter.

Pity he had no intention of meeting her. With the number of contracts out on him, and the bizarre supernatural elements always invading his life, he wouldn’t bring his hell into her world. She deserved better than that.

Jordan turned off the phone, took out the SIM card and crushed it, wiped down the cellular and left it in the donation box, then vanished into the night.

——

It wasn’t just a couple of seats on a chartered airplane, Isles had secured her own CIA Learjet, which immediately told Peel that she was very senior and very well connected within the Company. He hadn’t had time to check her credentials on the NSA file servers before they had left Washington DC, but a quick discussion with his boss told him she worked on some high-profile projects in the Code-89 arena including some which Peel had worked on: Grey Nebula , Infinite Eye and Resolution Zero . All three were career making or breaking covert operations that dealt directly with alien intrusion. They’d obviously made hers.

Peel stared out the window for a long time, but because it was night, there was nothing to see. When boredom overcame his self-reflective mood, he looked instead at the team he would work with over the coming weeks. They were a dozen underlings, a mixture of security types (plain clothed muscles with bulging guns under their jackets), and analysts (nerdy computer loving history experts who could tell Peel anything and everything he would ever need to know about South America). Any assassins on the team would travel separately.

Peel couldn’t help noticing that more than half of Isles’ team members were women, which went way against the grain of their profession. He admired Isles’ gusto to have risen so high, so young, and yet making her own mark on the Company.

When the Learjet was airborne Peel had asked for and received a laptop which he used to source the Internet and the few files on Jordan that Isles would grant him access to. There was a wordy file on Peel and Jordan and their time in Venezuela, which he expected, but it was scant on details on what really had happened in the Amazon jungle and the true capabilities of his new stomach, and details on Peel’s recent mission in India.

There were plenty of files on Jordan himself, but most of the interesting information — where he was born, his education, his family, clubs and societies he joined, political ideologies, old lovers, even his actual name — was absent. Jordan had worked hard to keep his past secret, which would make it even more complicated for Isles to find him.

Several of Jordan’s files had a delta-like green triangle stamped on them, and no sign of what it meant. He’d seen this symbol many times in his career, including on his own files. One day, he promised himself, he would further investigate its meaning. Peel glanced over these files only briefly. He already knew most of what he was reading. It was Jordan’s recent activities since Iraq that interested him.

Something Jordan had seen or done in Baghdad had deeply affected him. One moment he was working a simple ‘real world’ case against fanatical insurgents, the next he was a global crusader assassinating people he had never met and destroying facilities that he had never seen before. He had shot four men dead with a silenced weapon on a golf course outside Berlin. Then Jordan destroyed a pharmaceutical factory using C-4 explosives in Guangzhou. Another man he had thrown off a cliff into the North Sea in Scotland, where hypothermia had killed him.

Assets in Peru had spotted Jordan four days ago when he snuck onto a container ship in the port in Callao. Peru was where he made his first mistake, by using a CIA issued passport to enter the country rather than one secured through criminal means that his employers could not trace. Jordan had also allowed security cameras to identify him at the port. Peel studied the photograph again. There was no mistake. It was Jordan, staring right into the lens.

Jordan however was a professional. He never made simple tradecraft mistakes. And the name on the passport, Carson Colgate, was the same name on the passport Peel had glimpsed Jordan use when they were flying out of Caracas to Miami after their first covert operation together. It seemed likely he had orchestrated that glimpse. Jordan had to be sending Peel a message.

Peel wished he could logon to their shared secure website to see if Jordan had posted a less cryptic message. It might explain what was really going on here. But he couldn’t risk looking while logged onto a CIA laptop. Isles would watch every keystroke he made from her own machine, waiting for him to slip.

He checked the news sites, CNN, BBC, ABC, SBS and a dozen others. They were all running the same story. The populations of five Pacific Islands wiped out by freak, localized tidal wave events. Now container ships were also disappearing, and wild storms were raging across the Pacific Ocean. Peel couldn’t help feeling these events were all connected.

When he looked up, Isles was sitting opposite him, watching him.

“You didn’t notice me here?” She smiled. “Losing your edge Harrison?”

He grimaced.

“You should get some shut-eye. We land in a few hours and you haven’t slept since we left.”

“You know, Zoe, there is a glaring omission in these files you gave me.”

“Of course there is. You’re not CIA. You’re not even an American citizen. I will deny you most files pertaining to this case, especially those with sensitive operational material.” Her smile grew large, as if to challenge Peel to question her authority.

“That’s not what I mean,” Peel rubbed his hand across the millimeter thick hair on his scalp, realizing that he needed to shave his head again soon. “A petrochemical factory in Guangzhou, China; several men killed in Berlin and Scotland; and the container ship in Callao. They all have a common connection that you’ve failed to mention in any of your reports, anywhere. In fact, I’d even say you’ve gone to some effort to hide that connection from me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Go on?”

“Centaurus Holdings Limited.”

She held Peel’s stare for a very long time. “Centaurus, you mean the corporation Centaurus?”

“Centaurus, Zoe, is a global corporation with a multi-billion dollar portfolio in petroleum, pharmaceuticals, construction, the production of nuclear and conventional power plants, and defense. Surely you are aware of them. They are one of the Pentagon’s top defense contractors.”

She tucked a strand of her strawberry hair behind an ear. “So explain to me, what is the connection to Jordan?”

“I try to keep up to date with intelligence that crosses my desk, Zoe, even the boring reports. First, the petrochemical factory that Jordan destroyed manufactures products for CHL, although through several dummy companies, so the connection isn’t at first obvious. Second, one executive that Jordan shot on the golf course was a silent board member, and I suspect the others might be too. The man in Scotland, he works for a security company that specializes in protecting corporate operations in Africa and the Middle East, and they list Centaurus amongst their clients. The container ship in Callao I don’t know about, but I suspect if we dig deep enough there is a Centaurus connection.”

“That’s very interesting.” Zoe forced a smile this time as she stepped from her chair, grabbed Peel by the arm and led him to the jet’s private conference room. With the door closed behind them, she said through gritted teeth, “How the hell did you gain access to the Centaurus files?”

Peel grinned. “I didn’t. I just read between the lines of the reports you gave me. You telling me none of your people know about the Centaurus angle?”

She looked away, fixed her hair. “The senior members of the team do, and I have warned them to say nothing. The Centaurus connection remains on a ‘need to know’ basis.” She gripped Peel’s shirt tightly. “You discuss this with no one except me, you understand?”

Peel unlatched her tense fingers, realizing that this was the first time he had touched her, and that her skin was soft. She was so close her breath was on his cheek. He wanted their physical closeness to last longer than a moment. “So you’ve also concluded Jordan is trying to infiltrate Centaurus.”

“No Harrison, it’s far worse than that, he’s trying to take them down. We’re trying to take him out before he does any more damage.”

“We’re fighting wars for corporations now?”

She bared her teeth. “This reflects badly on the CIA. He’s our man, and he’s gone rogue. The U.S. Government has hundreds of billions in national defense projects invested with Centaurus Holdings. It’s of national interest that Jordan doesn’t crash their stock price. If he does, he will put our military stratagems five years behind the Chinese. You want the Chinese to rule the world, Harrison?”

He said nothing, knowing that any response he gave would trap him.

“This information is not to get out, Peel. You understand me?”

Peel took a moment to study the woman who was as good as pressed up against him. Despite his infatuation, something about her warned him away, but he couldn’t quiet place his finger on what that was. Yes, they were flirting, but was this genuine emotion they were sharing, or just the application of tradecraft techniques to get what they each wanted from the other?

He finally asked, “Is Centaurus involved in any Code-89 projects?”

“What do you think? Yes, one sizable project, okay.”

“Well then, you can have this one for free: Jordan’s trying to shut it down. If he thinks Centaurus is a risk to national security, or whatever you want to call it, he’ll be working against them, particularly when he thinks no one in authority is doing anything about it. What’s the project, by the way? Something big in the Pacific?” he asked, remembering the news articles he had just read.

“How the hell did you know that?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Jordan has to be terminated before he unleashes something he shouldn’t, an alien biological weapon that could kill billions.”

Peel sighed. He’d been down this path before. Whenever people, corporations or governments played with cosmic horrors that they could not understand, hoping to use it for their own benefit, it never ended well. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, often died because of the games people played with powers they didn’t understand.

“What kind of weapon, and where is it?”

“You don’t need to know that. What I need to know is that you’re committed, Harrison. If I give you the order to kill Jordan, I need to know you won’t hesitate?”

She was staring him in the eye, refusing to look away. She was so close their noses, more importantly, their lips were almost touching.

“Harrison?”

He took a deep breath and said, “You can count on me.” He wondered if he was as good a liar as she was, and if she had noticed.

As he left the conference room, she slammed the door behind her for privacy. He noticed her dialing rapidly on her cellular phone.

Peel covertly watched her punch in the numbers and memorized them. He had a suspicion what the subject matter of that call would be.

——

Lima was cold and gray, despite their proximity to the equator. The mist seeping off the Pacific was like a fog, leaching moisture from the air as it had done for millions of years, the creator of the desert that surrounded the city of eight million inhabitants.

Despite the mist, Peel stared out across the wealthy suburb of Miraflores from the third story balcony of his hotel. He’d wanted to go for a walk just to clear his head, but Isles’ security detail was watching him like he was their target of interest. When it got dark he telephoned room service, ordered a beer with his meal and ate it in front of the television. He watched a soccer match between Argentina and Brazil to refresh his Spanish. When he unfolded his napkin, he found a postcard waiting for him.

The postmark was Cancun. The picture was of a tropical beach scene with a palm and white sands. Dated one week ago, it simply said: Hi Jack, Having the time of our lives, love Jenny .

Peel separated the two sides of the postcard glued together to form a single sheet. Written in Arabic on the inside sheet were the words: Mercado Central, 8am tomorrow .

Peel spoke and read Arabic. So did Jordan.

He took a match to both sides of the card and watched them burn into cinders.

Suddenly he was drowning, smoothed by water crashing down on him as a huge spout rushing from gray, lightning-thick clouds. Drenched and chilled, all he could see was Jordan next to him, similarly smothered with salty water.

“What do you mean quantum entanglement?” Jordan said with urgency. “You’re the one who reads the science magazines, Peel. You tell me.”

There was a knock on his door.

In a daze, Peel answered without thought. He found Zoe Isles outside. She was wearing a bright summer dress and heels, a combination that highlighted the slimness and shape of her figure.

“Hi… What happened to you?”

Peel touched his shirt. Drenched to the skin, he shivered uncontrollably. “Um, just give me a minute.”

He let Zoe in, went to the bathroom, stripped and toweled off. When he realized he smelled of salt, he showered.

“Anything wrong in there?”

The door was slightly ajar. He hadn’t remembered leaving it that way.

“Um, no. Just give me a minute.”

When he was dry, Peel came out wearing only a towel. He gave Isles the briefest smile before he selected a fresh set of clothes and returned to the bathroom. This time he made sure the door shut behind him.

“What’s going on?” she asked from behind the door.

“Oh, nothing. A bad dream.”

But it wasn’t a dream like any he’d ever had before. It was like he was really there, and the wetness and salty taste proved that. And it wasn’t the first time he’d had these dreams. The first had been a dozen years ago, in Australia long before Jordan and Peel knew each other.

Dressed, he found Isle waiting patiently. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” he rubbed the back of his head. “I think I’m just a little haggard, run down.”

“Then do you feel like dancing Harrison, to liven you up? They have a bar downstairs, and the Latin vibes are on.”

“I’m not much of a dancer.”

She held out her hand. “Neither am I.”

He took it.

Downstairs in the hotel bar there was indeed dancing. Peel recognized the beat as a Salsa. He watched several Peruvians and a few international guests twist their bodies in rhythm as men spun women around the dance floor. Peel ordered a beer, asked Isles what she wanted, and she said the same. They carefully watched the bartender open their bottles before them. In their profession, there was always the risk someone could drug their drinks.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so tough on you.”

Peel laughed. “I’ve had worse bosses, but thanks anyway. I’m sorry that I’ve been complicating your mission.”

“Can we try to put all this behind us, start again?”

Peel took a sip of his beer, not sure where this conversation was really going. “Sure.”

“That’s great. Let’s start by you telling me about the Harrison Peel who isn’t a spook.”

“You really want to know about me? I’m not that interesting.”

“I doubt that.” She half-laughed before she said, “Go on, surprise me. Tell me something unusual about you, that isn’t job related.”

Peel couldn’t get the image out of his mind of Jordan and the wall of water falling on them. Talking about normal life seemed like a good idea to ground himself again.

“Well, let’s see. I was born and raised in Sydney, near the beach. I enjoy watching and playing soccer. Oh, and I drink too much coffee, but only good coffee, and coffee from Ethiopia when I can get it. I have a knack for languages. Sorry, that’s a job thing, isn’t it?”

She turned from him, rested her elbows on the bar and looked into her beer. “You know, if you asked me the same question, I’d have given similar answers. Responses that tell nothing and are difficult to verify, fluffy anecdotes that don’t really mean anything.”

He took her hand and she let him hold it, and he wondered again who was playing who. “Zoe, we’re spies. It’s our career to be obscure. Being bland nobodies is second nature to us.”

Her chuckle was sad. “Are you saying I’m bland?”

“Of course not. You are anything but.”

She turned to him, ran a finger across his shirt and down his stomach where the C-shaped scar lived. “You know what happened to me? That got me into this game in the first place? My first Code-89?”

Peel said nothing. There were no words that he could offer that would give justice to what she was about to tell him.

“It was before I joined the CIA. It was my brother, Daniel. When we were kids, he found this book. An old book that the previous owners of the house we had moved into had left behind. Daniel read something in it, and then his body just folded, and folded again, and again taking the book with him, until he was impossibly small—”

She was no longer talking, and neither was Peel. She was leaning her head against his chest, her eyes moist.

Suddenly he was kissing her, and she was kissing him. He didn’t care about anything that had to do with their jobs, the horrors they had faced. Their wounds, their losses, or even how truthful they were being with each other, he didn’t care about anything. He only wanted to focus on her, her physicality, her scent, anything about her that could separate them from the rest of the world that terrified them both.

His hands were all over her. Her hands were all over him.

They raced to his room, tore at each other’s clothes until they fell onto Peel’s bed, half-laughing, half-sobbing as they made love with an energy and passion Peel had thought had been dead in him for a very long time.

——

Peel stirred when Isle’s cell phone rang. Grey morning sunlight streamed in through the window. He’d slept late. She jumped out of bed, ran naked to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Her tone was urgent when she answered, then became muffled.

Peel dressed. A moment later Isles returned. She left her cellular on the bed as she dressed. While distracted, Peel covertly checked her call log, recognized the telephone number from the private conversation she’d had on the flight south.

“Stay here,” she ordered, again the hard-nosed CIA case officer she had apologized about being last night.

“What’s going on, Zoe?”

“Nothing important. Well, nothing important you need to know about.”

Then she disappeared.

Peel followed her into the corridor, only to find one of her security detail waiting. “Company business, sir,” was all the man would say as he pointed inside Peel’s hotel room.

Peel didn’t argue. Alone again, he turned up the TV so that another soccer match played. Then he went out onto the balcony.

His room was on the third floor with the balconies spaced evenly, close enough so it was little effort to swing down from one to the next. Five minutes of simple acrobatics and he was on the hotel grounds and out on the streets.

He walked with purpose, tightened his jacket against the morning chill. He’d studied enough maps of Lima on the flight, so he felt orientated in a city he’d never previously visited. After hailing a taxi and negotiating a fare because there was no meter, he was off, taking an inconspicuous route into the heart of Lima and the Mercado Central .

Once amongst its crowds Peel hovered next to a stall selling pirated CDs and DVDs, acted like he was interested in them. He checked his watch from time to time while he debated over music he would never buy, waiting for the minute hand of his watch to sweep around to 8am.

“ Hola, Senor Peel .”

Peel looked up. The man who had been examining the CDs next to him for the last five minutes, who he had mistaken as a Peruvian man, was in fact Jordan. He wore a fedora and had a large alpaca bag slung over his shoulder.

“Jordan.”

“I caused a little smoke in a CIA listening station you Aussies know nothing about. It will keep Isles and her team distracted while we talk.”

“You know they’re here to kill you.”

“Good luck to them.”

“I found you.”

“No Peel, I found you. I always find you. That’s the nature of our working relationship.”

Peel turned to the ex-special forces soldier who’d lived too long pretending to be people other than himself, he’d probably forgotten who he really was. Peel liked Jordan, but they had never been close friends, not when everything about the man was a pretense. “You want to get a cerveza ? Normally I don’t drink this early in the morning, but I’ve had a long journey to get here and I suspect you did too, and we have a lot to talk about.”

Jordan’s nod was slight while he watched the crowds to ensure no one had followed Peel.

They found a café, ordered lagers and dishes of chopped steak served with onions, tomatoes, potatoes and rice. Once eating, Peel realized how hungry he was.

“I’m not surprised the CIA roped you in to find me, Peel. In fact, I counted on it.”

The Australian looked away from the crowds and at Jordan. “You had a dream about me, and we were both drowning.” Then Peel saw something in Jordan he had never seen before, surprise.

“You’ve had the dreams too?” Jordan shook his head. “But I don’t think they are dreams.”

“I don’t think so either. In fact, I’ve met you many times in the past, way back before I knew anything about extraterrestrial sentient beings.”

“Peel, what is a naked singularity?”

“What?”

“You talk about it, many times when I see you.”

Since his first encounter with an alien intrusion, Peel had been doing a lot of reading on quantum mechanics, astrophysics, cosmology and higher dimensional mathematics. He found this information helped him to understand them. “A naked singularity, you say?”

“Are you going to explain yourself? Your boss, Zoe Isles, is no fool. She’ll find us soon enough if we wait here too long.”

“Okay. Normally the terminology singularity applies to the center of a stellar object called a black hole. Its single central point has no dimension and is infinity dense. It is a point where the laws of the universe break down. We can’t see singularities because an event horizon encloses them, thus protecting the rest of the universe from their unpredictability. However, a naked singularity doesn’t have an event horizon. Anything is possible. In theory, naked singularities don’t exist, otherwise the entire universe would take on unexplained phenomena on a massive scale.”

“That doesn’t happen now?”

“Not on the scale I’m talking about. At least we see no evidence of that. But with all these alien gods and monsters we’ve encountered during our career, who really knows what is possible?”

“And quantum entanglement?”

“You heard that one too? So did I. That’s a term normally applied to subatomic particles, where two particles that have interacted at some point in their lives then influence each other’s behavior in both the past and future for the rest of their existence.”

“That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Peel couldn’t understand why it would mean anything to a man like Jordan, who liked only to deal in hard facts, not bizarre theories, even if a hard fact was a salivating multi-mouthed tentacled horror trying to eat him.

Jordan swigged his beer. “In the future, you and I are going to end up inside a naked singularity where we are going to get soaked and frozen.”

Peel shuddered. He understood now.

“Do these coordinates mean anything to you Peel: South Latitude 47 o 9’, West Longitude 126 o 43’?”

Peel did a quick calculation in his head. “That’s somewhere in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean.”

“Somewhere soaked and frozen.”

Peel went to finish his beer, only to realize that his glass was empty. He wanted another one, but that would be a mistake. “What’s going on, Jordan? What’s with this vendetta you’ve got against Centaurus?”

Jordan smiled for the first time since their meeting. “Those coordinates I gave you, well Centaurus has a floating oil-drilling platform out there, been there for close to a year now. They’re extracting something out of the ocean and it’s not oil, a sample of which I first uncovered in Baghdad. It’s something biological but not terrestrial, and nothing related to life as we know it.”

“Oh…”

“They’ve been shipping this substance around the world to various testing and manufacturing facilities. They are trying to make marketable products out of it, mostly in the fields of biological and chemical weapons where they’ve been successful, and pharmaceuticals and medical research where they haven’t.”

“Are you saying—?”

“Yeah Peel, Centaurus is yet another company fucking up the world by messing with something they can’t ever understand.”

Peel shuddered. He looked down at his half-eaten meal. He’d been hungry only moments ago, but not now. “You obviously wanted to meet. What do you think we — I can do?”

Jordan pushed his empty plate forward, then stood. “You finished eating?”

Peel nodded.

“Then let’s move.”

They headed into the heart of the markets, mixing with the crowds at the fruit and vegetable stalls.

“You can do a couple of things. First, Ben Henbest, CEO of Centaurus, is staying in Lima right now, and will do so for a few days. He’s here investigating the explosion on one of his ships that moves the Pacific product. Which, incidentally, I hoped he would do.”

“The one you destroyed?”

“Of course. He has the penthouse suite in the hotel you are staying at, actually.”

Peel stopped dead in his tracks. “What the hell’s going on Jordan?”

“Someone is playing you, and that someone is Isles. Did you know that Henbest and Isles are friends, have been for many years? She’s working for him.”

Peel didn’t want to believe Jordan and was about to say so until he realized that his emotional investment in Isles could cloud his judgment. If what Jordan said was true, it was disappointing. He’d wanted to get to know Zoe Isles a lot better, but that didn’t seem like a safe option any more.

“I want you to visit Henbest, because I can’t, and find out what exactly he’s up to.”

“No one is running you, Jordan, are they?”

“Not this time.”

“I hoped someone was. Don’t you know how insanely you’re behaving? How close you are to getting yourself killed?”

Jordan ignored him. “I need you to find out everything you can about the Pacific drilling operation, because that’s where I’m going next and I can do with all the intel I can get.”

“How?” Peel asked, aware Jordan was dragging Peel into his vendetta. Then Peel mentally kicked himself, he’d acted exactly the same way in the past when he passionately disagreed with the questionable actions of his supervisors. His friend needed him. “How are you getting out there?”

“The Russians. I know the Russians very well, Peel. I’ll convince them that the Americans are testing a new weapon down there, or something. But I’m still working out the details.”

“Are you trying to start a war?”

“I hope so, against Henbest and Centaurus definitely, and whatever it is the hell they are drilling the substance out of.”

“You said you wanted two things?”

“Yes.” He handed Peel his black satchel, which Peel accepted. “I want you to tell the American’s my plans, particularly your boss back at NSA, and anyone who is super-senior in the Pentagon who will listen to you. They won’t listen to me. With any luck, someone will send the fleet to the same coordinates looking for the Russians if nothing else. Now open the bag Peel and look inside.”

Peel went to reach inside, but Jordan’s grip on his arm was fast and strong. “I said look, but take nothing out.”

Peel did what he was told. Inside there were two handguns, a Browning GP35 automatic and a smaller Walther PPK, old but reliable weapons.

“Put one of those weapons where we know no one will find it,” said Jordan when he saw the weapon Peel had his eye on.

Peel kept searching finding lock picks, a GPS tracker, a small headset CB radio, and several other items that together made up a modest field kit.

“You’re not looking Peel.”

The last item Peel saw was a transparent jar with biohazard symbols plastered all over it. There was a milky substance inside that looked a little like clotted cream, until a pseudopod formed and leaped towards Peel, a mouth of teeth opening at its bulbous end, until the glass stopped it from advancing further.

Peel shuddered.

“That’s what Centaurus is drilling out of the Pacific.”

Peel nodded, not sure what he should do with the caged creature. He could try burning it, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to kill it permanently.

“Peel, That’s your evidence.”

“Great, Jordan.”

“There are rumblings down south. Get to Henbest and then get to that drilling platform. Whatever’s happening down there, we need to stop it.”

Peel felt transfixed by the thing, now transforming into the shape of spoiled cream. He forced himself to look up, but by then it was too late, for Jordan had already vanished into the crowd.

He moved quickly, found an internet café where he logged on and dialed the number that he had memorized from Isles’ cellular telephone. Peel had been in the spying game too long to feel surprised about Henbest’s proximity to a CIA operation, but he wanted to be certain before giving up on Isles for good.

When the line answered, Peel confirmed his fears.

“Hello, Amy speaking. This is the office of Benjamin Henbest of Centaurus Holdings. May I ask who is calling?”

Peel disconnected. Someday, somewhere, something good had to happen to him, but not today.

——

On his return to his hotel, Peel ran over his limited options for securing an audience with Benjamin Henbest. Because time was of the essence, and his CIA overseers were sure to keep him on a tight leash, Peel knew he could be swift or he could be subtle, but he couldn’t be both. The ex-army major always tried to do things subtly when he could. It took longer, but the lack of fuss, not to mention walking away with his skin intact when it was over, was well worth the extra effort. But with so many unknown variables in play — Jordan, the mysterious oil platform in the Pacific, the secret deals Centaurus was making with the Americans, and his mixed feelings about Zoe — told him he had to act fast.

Peel entered the hotel through a service door at its rear and made it to an elevator without incident. He was counting on Centaurus’ need for a low profile, so security would be minimal, at least where the public could see. The penthouse would be a whole other story.

Pressing the button for the top floor, Peel took a moment to run down a mental checklist. First, he had stashed the Walther PPK on him where he was sure no one would find it, but if he had to pull it, he knew he’d be in trouble. The rest of the gear that Jordan had given him was still in its bag. In a locker in a bank he had paid a small fortune to secure, less anyone on the CIA team found him with it and asked questions. Patting himself down, Peel pulled out a set of keys from his pocket, thought for a moment, and smiled. As the elevator doors opened, he twirled the keys on their ring on his finger. It was better than nothing.

Stepping into the hall, Peel saw two American operatives instantly turning towards him. Each man had a hand already in their jackets, and the senior looking operative was raising his free hand out to tell him to stop.

“Hello gentlemen, Ms. Isles still with the boss?” Peel asked as he briskly, but not hurriedly, walked past them. He was the very image of someone that belonged here and that gave the guards pause.

“Um, Mr. Peel, Sir, we didn’t know—” the younger operative started, his head swiveling from the Australian, to his partner, and back again. 

The other operative was more decisive. He started after Peel, one hand reaching for Peel’s arm to stop him, and said, “Wait, Peel, Ms. Isles told us you can’t be up here. I had better call her.”

Without a word, Peel spun around, grabbed the guard’s outstretched arm by the wrist, and used the man’s own momentum to pull him to the ground. A second later, he tossed the keys to the other man and shouted, “Catch.”

The operative’s natural instincts overrode his training and instead of going for his gun, he caught the keys flying towards his face. His actions gave Peel enough time to close the distance between them where he brought a knee up into the surprised man’s groin. Simultaneously, he deftly pulled the agent’s automatic out of his shoulder holster.

As the young man crumpled with a whimper, Peel spun around and pointed the automatic. The other man was rising and going for his own gun. “Stop now.” Peel said in a calm, but commanding voice, as he chambered the first round.

The CIA veteran stopped immediately. Peel could tell by the man’s eyes that he was weighing his options.

“Remember, all heroes get is an unnamed star on a wall back in Langley,” Peel told him.

“You’re a dead man, Peel.”

Peel smiled, quickly checked the man stirring at his feet, before nodding to a nearby room. “Empty, I take it?” he asked.

After the operative said it was, Peel hustled both of the men into the room, but not before checking it. Six minutes later he had bound and gagged them, and the clock was officially running.

Back in the hall, Peel checked the wallets he had taken from the men and collected their hotel keycards. Both operatives had one for their own room on the lower floors and one for a penthouse suite. Taking that card, Peel sprinted down the hall, found the room, used the card to open the door and stepped inside, with his hands already up.

“Look, before anyone gets excited, I’m not here to start trouble.” Peel said as several CIA operatives advanced towards him. This time he didn’t resist. Rough hands grabbed him, spun him around, and slammed his chest up against the wall.

Another operative appeared, his weapon drawn but not pointing directly at him, as the first one started patting him down. By the time the operative finished and had announced that Peel was clean, a surprised Zoe Isles stepped into the hall.

“What the hell, Harrison?”

“I thought we should stop playing games. There isn’t time for that. So since I’m already here, let me speak to Benjamin Henbest.”

Zoe huffed, making no effort to mask her frustration. “Alright, you men can let him in. This way, Mr. Peel.”

Peel pushed himself off the wall and started after the woman, saying over his shoulder, “Oh, I left the two of your men by the elevator bound and gagged in the room next to it. You should send someone to get them when you can.”

Zoe coughed to hide a smile before turning and saying in a whisper, “Okay, you’re here, and you could have gotten yourself killed. Now you tell me why?”

“I need to see your boss.”

The woman stiffened, and Peel knew at once that he had chosen his words poorly. “He is not my boss.”

“I know, Zoe, but he is in charge, yes? And he has information that I’ll need if you want me to help you find Jordan before he does any more damage.”

“So why not ask me?”

“Come on Zoe, would you have admitted that you were working with Henbest if I asked? Or that he was here? Besides, he might not have told you everything.”

Zoe thought about that for a moment before nodding. “Okay, Harrison, you can meet with him, but watch yourself. Centaurus has a lot of clout and Henbest is at the head of that beast. Don’t think for a moment that his influence doesn’t extend to your own country like it does mine.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise.” Peel said and smiled.

“It was sloppy,” she mumbled.

“What was sloppy?” Peel could think of a dozen things she might refer to.

“Having Henbest in the same hotel. He insisted, thought he knew better.”

Minutes later the two entered a small office room, in which there was a podium with an old book, a desk, a couple of chairs, and Benjamin Henbest, one of the richest, most powerful men in the world.

He wasn’t much to look at.

In fact, Mr. Henbest was so common looking he could have been a spook. Average height and build, brown eyes, brown hair now graying, he didn’t even dress the part of a billionaire. He wore a striped polo shirt, nondescript tan slacks, and only moderately pricy shoes. And when he spoke, Peel’s surprise was complete.

“Ms. Isles, what is all the commotion about?” the CEO said with a soft, southern drawl.

“Mr. Henbest, this is Harrison Peel, the Australian special consultant I told you about, working for the Puzzle Palace.” Zoe paused briefly before adding, “I thought it was time for the two of you to meet, since Mr. Peel will assist us in finding the rogue agent before he can do any more damage to your company.”

Henbest studied the woman briefly and Peel could almost see in his eyes the calculations going on inside his head. But then, like someone flipping a switch, all that vanished and the rich man beamed a million-dollar smile. “That sounds fine. Mr. Peel, was it?” he said and offered his hand.

Like Zoe, Henbest would already know everything there was to know about Peel, making him a sly bastard. “Yes, and thank you for meeting with me.” Peel considered that Henbest might have been an intelligence operative or ex-military in his early days, which might explain his deep government connections.

The three walked over to his desk. Henbest sat behind it and Zoe and Peel in chairs in front of it. After the formality of offered coffee, which Peel declined, he began with a tactical strike. “What is one of your oil platforms drilling for in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean? It isn’t oil. And how deep is the ocean there? Three, four kilometers?”

Peel watched them both to gauge their reactions. The question surprised Zoe, although she hid it well. Henbest showed no emotion.

“We have many oil platforms in the Pacific, can you be more specific?”

“I have longitude and latitude if you wish, but we both know which platform I’m talking about so please, let’s not waste each other’s time.” 

The rich man’s eyes narrowed slightly, the first real response to show through his highly polished persona. “Where did you get this information?”

“Jordan met with a contact while he was here. I met with that same man today.”

“Who is it?” Zoe asked, reaching for a pen and pad of paper from the desk.

“I won’t tell you. I’m not ready to burn that bridge just yet, but I will tell you I know the contact’s reliable.”

“If he’s Jordan’s contact, how did you get in touch with him?” Zoe asked.

“You should know Zoe, the spy game is essentially tiny. There are only so many reliable sources of intel in any location. The further removed from the big players, the fewer the sources. Suffice it to say that when you’re in Lima, there are perhaps three people worth contacting. I got lucky with number two on my list.”

“Then how come I didn’t know of this person?” she challenged.

“You haven’t played the game as long as Jordan or me.” Peel said and he saw that he had stung Zoe, but he had to sell the lie.

“You’ve never been to Peru before?”

“Not officially,” he lied.

“Well okay then,” Henbest interjected, “What did your source have to say about Jordan?”

Peel felt relief. Given time, Zoe would have uncovered his deceit, but for the moment he was in control here. “That he was scarier than usual and determined to burn Centaurus and anyone connected to it. Now, I’ve got to ask, why is that?”

“How should I know?”

“Because Jordan is many things, but stupid and crazy are not two words I’d use to describe him. What did he find out about your company that got him so royally pissed off at you?”

Henbest glanced at the old book resting on the podium. A gesture that did not escape Peel’s, nor Zoe’s, attention.

Zoe spoke up. “I told you Harrison, Jordan has gone off the reservation. We have no idea what set him off, but he’s causing trouble for one of my nation’s most important—”

Peel cut her off. “No offense, Zoe, but you haven’t told me anything. You’ve kept me in the dark, and I can understand that, I really can, but now I need to know more if I’m going to help you find Jordan.”

Peel turned from the upset woman back towards the CEO that seemed to analyze him as he spoke. “Now Mr. Henbest, no more games, just tell me the truth.”

Peel stood, walked over to the book on the podium, feeling that it held an important connection to everything unfolding in this farce of a manhunt. It was an old book, probably pre-Twentieth Century judging by its binding and discolored pages, and open to a page towards the back. On the right was a script in Latin with the occasional Chinese characters, neither of which Peel could read. On the left was an illustration of a pre-industrial Chinese man walking into what looked to be a box, made up of puzzle pieces. The man looked oddly familiar, but Peel couldn’t place him. Below the man, a procession of many replications of the same man walked from that box.

Henbest joined Peel, stared lovingly at the book. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

“What is it?”

“That is a rare Eighteenth Century translation of the R’lyeh Text , an ancient book penned in China. If you believe such things, the original was from a time before recorded history.”

“Perhaps.” Peel stared at the picture more closely. “And this is?”

“The book refers to the puzzle box that is the gateway to a thousand, thousand replications. An Infinite Replicator, one could call it.”

Peel couldn’t help noticing that Henbest was excited about the illustration, like a stamp collector noticing a rare and valuable addition just out of reach which would complete his collection. “What has Centaurus gotten involved with that would set a very dangerous man like Jordan off on an unsanctioned killing spree?” Peel asked, getting the conversation back to where he wanted it.

Henbest thought about it for a moment, then answered with a smile, “What else? Weapons, of course. Ms. Isles said you were an expert on Code-89s, or ESBs, or whatever you Company people want to call them. Well, there’s something down there, deep in the ocean, and we want to use it for national defense. And it’s not three or four kilometers under the water either.”

“You know, whenever humans try to meddle with things from beyond our world, no good comes from it.”

Henbest smiled, “We could have said the same about the Manhattan Project, but just as a lot of people now realize that what it gave to us was a necessary evil. And yes, while there have been dangers associated with nuclear weapons, the threat of mutually assured destruction has been one of the biggest deterrents to war for the last sixty-odd years.”

“Surly, you can’t compare the two. Splitting the atom was a scientific property that once understood, we could replicate with relative safety and predictable results. The ESBs are things beyond our comprehension. Living, thinking things, with alien minds we can’t possibly hope to understand. By their very nature, they are unpredictable and to think that you can control those forces is ludicrous.”

“So is the United States to be the only nation not investigating the weapon potential of that alien technology? Do you think China, Russia, North Korea, or even our allies like Britain, France, and yes, even your own country hasn’t invested in similar research for years?”

“But we’re not talking about other countries right now; we’re talking about what you’re doing. And you’re doing so not out of national pride or security, no matter how much you would like to think that you are, but out of the eternal quest for higher profits for your company.” Peel knew he was getting angry, but he just couldn’t help himself. The CEO’s naivety was dangerous. The Australian had seen it all before, and it always ended in misery. “What about those Pacific island nations wiped off the surface of the Earth by freak tidal waves?”

Henbest had become red-faced and trembling. “You’re clutching at straws now, Peel. No way is that related to any operation Centaurus is conducting.” At last his careful mask had slipped the tiniest bit. Then the CEO took a moment to collect himself before continuing. “Mr. Peel, I realize this upsets you, and with good reason. You are correct, the work we are doing is dangerous, but it is under control. It is however being made more dangerous by Jordan attacking my company, not less so. Also, I believe you are a realist, so you must know that once we made this discovery, if not us, someone would explore it.”

Henbest walked close to Peel. “Please allow me to show you firsthand what we are doing out on the oil platform. That Centaurus has the best people in the world to deal with it safely and that we are taking every precaution to do just that.”

The offer surprised Peel, and he felt instantly wary. “What?” he asked, trying to give himself time to think.

“It’s very simple, I’ll fly you and Ms. Isles out to the platform, have my people there show you everything, and then you can decide if you would want to help us safeguard it from a misguided man bent on attacking us.”

Peel stood in silence for a long moment, weighing his options. He could be close to getting some actual answers, or he could be walking into a trap. If it was a trap, considering the number of operators around him, could he even avoid it now?

“We fly out to Easter Island, then by seaplane the rest of the way.”

Feeling that something was terribly wrong, he looked to Zoe. She nodded, mouthed that everything would be okay.

Immediately Peel said yes to the offer because he didn’t think he had a choice and soon after came the smiles and handshakes. He did his best to play along. They then showed him to the office door, told to pack and get ready to leave first thing in the morning.

Henbest asked Zoe to stay behind for a moment just to make some ‘last-minute arrangements’ which caused the hairs on Peel’s neck to rise. It was too late now, he’d do what he always did, he would play the cards dealt to him and wish for the best, for whatever that was worth.

——

The KGB died in 1991, but like the monster it was, it didn’t stay dead. Officially disbanded after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin had renamed and reorganized it several times, but at its heart it had remained the same. They divided the duties of the old KGB between two organizations. Internal affairs became the FSB, or the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. Those that spied on Mother Russia’s external enemies belonged to the SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service. Different names, but many of the same people and most of the old tricks were still being used. Thankfully for Jordan, the old safe houses, regardless of who now claimed them, were still intact as well.

He had gone to the KGB safe house in Lima and found it locked up, unmanned, and practically mothballed. But just in case any of the new generation of Russian agents needed help, it was still partially stocked. Once inside, he had ignored the various weapons and explosives. He already had all that he needed, and such things were easy enough to come by in South America. Instead, he picked up a small metal suitcase and nothing more.

Returning to his new apartment overlooking the Jorge Chávez International Airport, Jordan kept an eye out the window where he could see a private jet getting ready for flight, and an ear towards the suitcase at his feet. He waited for the satellite phone inside it to ring.

He had first tried the phone four hours ago, but got no signal at all. Hoping that the relay satellites were simply out of sync, or on a different rotation schedule since the last time he had to call Mother Russia, and not just floating space junk like so much of the USSR’s old equipment, Jordan tried the phone every twenty minutes. After five attempts he got a ring tone, but no answer. On his next call, someone picked up. The voice on the other end was male, older, sounded exhausted, and spoke Russian with a slight Ukrainian accent. Jordan in kind switched to Russian and told him that his name was Yegor and recited a code number that was probably years out of date.

Jordan wasn’t happy about that, but with all the work he’d been doing in the Middle East and South America over the last few years, it had been some time since he’d updated his Russian cover. Luckily, the ‘Yegor’ persona was much like Jordan himself, a freelance agent that would disappear for long periods of time on some assignment or another. Jordan hoped that whoever he was talking to recognized that the first three numbers of the code he had given was an old KGB prefix for just such an agent. After he had given the code, the man on the line asked him to repeat it, and after Jordan did so the line had gone dead.

Jordan hadn’t called back since. He knew he wasn’t supposed to. Now he just had to wait and hope that someone over there still remembered Yegor and would talk to him. That meant waiting.

With nothing to do, he killed time by looking out the window. His boredom paid off when he saw the unmarked CIA Learjet come rolling out of the hanger some four hundred yards away from his ramshackle room.

That had been almost an hour ago, and since then Jordan had used binoculars to study the plane, those that prepped it for flight, and what equipment was being loaded inside. While the information he was gathering was mundane, he couldn’t help himself from doing it. Old habits die hard, and besides, it helped him keep his mind off the phone.

As if on cue, the Soviet sat phone rang. Jordan snapped it up without looking and immediately spoke flawless Russian.

“Yes?”

“Yegor?” a man asked. The voice was recognizable to Jordan, but he couldn’t place the name.

“Yes.”

“June, nineteen-ninety, where were you?”

Jordan had to think for a second and then remembered the bitterly cold mountains and all the blood. “Afghanistan,” he answered.

“No, the Afghan War was over in eighty-nine.”

“Not for us,” Jordan said and smiled for the first time in a long time. “Matvei, is that you?”

“Yes, my friend, it is good to hear from you. I had heard you were dead.”

Jordan could hear the smile in the other man’s voice and knew it was genuine. The two were old Spetsnaz comrades. Of course Matvei was a real one and Jordan was simply trained to behave like one, but their friendship had seemed genuine enough. So much so that Jordan had always dreaded the possibility that he would one day have to kill the man. Happily, that day had never come.

“No, not dead,” Jordan had to think of a cover fast, “Just in Chechnya, which is worse.”

“Ah yes, I heard that one about you too. I’ve heard so many things about you, Yegor.”

Was that a hint of something in his voice? Jordan thought to himself. Hoping that he hadn’t heard what he thought he had, he pressed on quickly.

“So how come you call me? You were the last person I expected to be on this phone. When did you join up with the SVR?”

“Well, you know what they say,” Matvei then spoke the rest in perfect English, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

They shared a laugh that seemed authentic enough.

“So, why do you call now? No one has heard from you in so long.” Matvei asked.

“I know things and I need to speak to others that know more.”

“But where have you been, really?”

Once again, Jordan could hear doubt in the voice of his old drinking buddy. He had to play his part out perfectly.

“I was making rent.”

“Ah…” was all that Matvei said and then left a bulging, nine-month-long pregnant pause hanging between them.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russians had fallen on hard times, including the men and women of its bankrupt military and intelligence services. More than a few expatriates of the Motherland had taken outside jobs to make ends meet. Weapons dealing, organized crime, mercenary work, these were the top three choices for men like Matvei and Yegor. Their superiors actually expected such things of them. As long as they did nothing to harm Russia, or if they did, as long as they hid it well, such freelancers could still find work if Mother Russia needed them, or if they had something to offer her.

“Yes, we all have to make rent now and then.” Matvei broke the long silence at last. “So, what do you know?”

“Something that the Americans are doing in the Pacific, something I’m sure that others would want to know about, and probably stop.”

“How good is your info?”

“ Dovgan ,” Jordan answered with the name of a vodka the two had always loved.

Matvei softly chucked before replying, “Well, I’ll pass it along. Can’t say when, or if you’ll get an answer, but keep the phone with you just in case.”

“I will, and Matvei, thanks for calling back.”

There was a soft sigh then, “What are old comrades for?” before the line went dead.

Jordan closed the case, placed it on the floor, and was about to get up from the window to make himself something to eat when he spied someone familiar down by the plane that caused him to grin again.

It was Harrison Peel, walking and talking briskly with Ms. Isles of the CIA. Jordan picked up the binoculars to study them.

“Well Peel, where are you off to? Not after me, I have done nothing yet.” Jordan whispered to himself.

He then noticed the casual way the American woman placed a hand on the Australian’s arm.

Peel, what have you gotten yourself into? He thought as he watched the two board the jet.

Fast, dark movement on the airfield then caught his eye. A black sedan sped up to the plane, out of which a serious-looking man came striding towards the jet. Jordan also recognized this man, and that caused him to take his eyes away from the binoculars to glace at the sniper rifle he had sitting in the corner of this room.

Jordan’s first thought was to grab the Dragunov rifle and give the latecomer a 7.62 lobotomy. At just over four hundred yards he was confident that he could bull’s-eye the target, but doing so would undoubtedly set off a chain event of terrible things. First it would tell his hunters not only that he was still in Lima, but his general distance and direction. If that man was there to do what Jordan feared he was there for, then shooting him would erase any lingering doubts the CIA might have had about Peel’s and Jordan’s loyalty to each other. In which case, taking out an immediate threat would do nothing to save the Aussie.

Jordan went over his options as he watched the man get onto the jet, the boarding stairs rise, and the door close. He could leave Peel a message on the website they used to communicate, but there was no telling when Harrison would check it. Direct computer to computer or phone contact was out of the question because Jordan was sure the CIA was monitoring everything coming in to or out of that jet. Besides, if they even got a hint that Jordan and Peel were working together, say by him getting an unexpected call from someone in Lima, then it would have the same consequences as if Jordan had used the sniper rifle. 

Jordan looked down at the Russian satellite phone. He could use that, and any trace the CIA would run would show that the call came from a Russian satellite and not from Peru. Doing so would mean having to lose the sat phone or risk having the Langley whiz kids being able to track him with it. Jordan couldn’t risk that right now, the phone was his only link to the Russians.

Then it came to him, Jordan had a contact in the NSA that owed him. If he could get in touch with her, she could bounce his call to any location he wished. Australia, for example, so perhaps Big Brother might believe it was a family emergency call or some such thing. If they bought that just for a little while, it might be enough.

With no other options, Jordan picked up his cell phone and dialed the United States.

_____

Once the seat-belt lights went off, Harrison’s phone rang. Retrieving it from his pocket and checking the Caller ID, he saw an unfamiliar number from Sydney, Australia. Flipping the phone open, Peel said hello with no trace of surprise. Hiding his feelings was second nature in his profession, especially when being scrutinized by someone he didn’t trust completely, as was sadly now the case with Zoe Isles who sat across from him. 

“I’m someone you know, this is an emergency call. You have to take it.” A voice recognizable as Jordan’s said on the other end.

“Ok, just a second,” Peel said into the phone before turning to Zoe, “Family call. There’s been some sort of problem and I have to take this real quick.”

The CIA agent sat motionless for a second, doing her best statue impression before pointing towards the back of the jet. “Sure, you can take the call in the conference room if you’d like.”

Peel offered a quick smile as he rose to his feet. Once he was moving down the jet’s aisle, he said back into the phone, “Okay, I’m back. What’s the trouble?”

“Can you talk freely?” Jordan asked.

“Almost,” Harrison said as he stepped into the conference room and closed its door behind him. “So what is this about?”

“Did you notice a new face on the jet with you now, someone you haven’t seen around before?”

Peel thought about it, running through a checklist of everyone he had noted when the jet had taken off.

“About one hundred and ninety centimeters, early forties, thinning blond hair, right-handed, wearing a nice gray suit, well-tailored to hide the gun under his left arm.” Peel said as much to himself as he did to Jordan as he plucked the man from his memory.

“That’s him.” Jordan confirmed. “Now listen, he’s black ops, like me. Very black. I’ve run into him on occasion. Name’s Carter. My kind always travels alone, never with the company. It helps with the whole plausible deniability thing. If he’s on your plane now, there’s a reason for it. Now Peel, did you give anyone cause to make you that reason?”

“I confronted Henbest, it was the only way I could think of to get information quickly. Tell me, do you know anything about a book called The R’lyeh Text ?”

“No. But R’lyeh, as in the Cthulhu Cult?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll check it out. You should also follow up on this with your contact in North Africa. If anyone knows anything about it, I suspect he will.”

Peel knew to whom Jordan referred to immediately, although neither would say his name over a potentially compromised line. “Good point. I’ll contact him when I can.”

“Getting back to our current situation, did you tip your hand about us?” Jordan asked.

“No. Henbest offered to show me what his company is doing out on the oil platform. I was hoping he was sizing me up for a job offer, to pay for my silence, you know what these corporate types are like.” 

“Well, the kind of specialty man Carter is, he’s not there for extra security or muscle. He’s there to eliminate someone and you’re the prime target. I would guess that Henbest decided your assistance wasn’t worth the extra liability.”

Peel looked over his shoulder, half expecting the assassin to be sneaking up on him already. “I agree. How will this likely go down?”

“If you land in an area they control, it’ll happen there or soon after. Or if they want to get creative, they can do you in the plane and drop you in the ocean. That way you just vanish.”

“Jordan, you can’t open the doors of a jet while it’s in flight.”

“Yes, you can if the plane comes down low enough and the crew depressurize the cabin. Afterwards you close everything up, pressurize the plane again, and climb back up to cruising altitude.”

“Why would anyone go to all that trouble?” Peel asked and felt the first pangs of nerves hitting him. ”Okay, maybe I’m getting it now. Sloppy tradecraft on my behalf.”

“Let’s say there was once a Brit on loan to us from MI6. He was an expert on the cults that worshiped the things from the other side. He was also working for the Chinese, not for money, but to gain access to their Code-89-type projects. I guess the old guy became obsessed with chasing monsters, it seems. Anyway, the powers that be, decided he knew too many of our secrets to allow him to share any more with anyone else. Problem was, he was a foreign national, not to mention MI6’s property, and we try to play nice with them when we can. So on a CIA controlled flight from New York to London he just vanished, and as you know, in our world if something can’t be verified then nothing ever happened.”

“And you know this how?”

“I made him vanish,” Jordan said frankly. “Now I just wanted to impress on you the very real and immediate danger you could be in. Have I made that impression?”

“Quite.”

“Good, are you packing any of the guns I gave you?”

Peel patted his abdomen, feeling the slightly uncomfortable bulge. “One, I’ve got the Walther.”

“Is it too much to hope for that it’s loaded with hollow points?”

“No, it’s not. I didn’t have time to secure specialized ammo, and not in Peru, where I have no contacts. South America is your backyard, not mine.”

“Okay. Keep it close and if something goes down, aim for center mass and chose your shots carefully. If a round goes through a target, or if you miss you could put a hole in the fuselage and if you’re still high up—”

“Yes, I was just thinking about that.” Harrison interrupted him as he looked out of one of the jet’s windows. The clouds were far beneath them, so they were very high up indeed. That meant a pressurized cabin and chaos would ensue with a sudden leak.

Peel waited for Jordan to say something more, but after a long moment of silence he looked at his phone and saw that he was no longer connected. He had zero signal. He wondered if his phone had just dropped the call, or had the CIA techs cut the call short. In this game, technical faults were rarely random occurrences.

Placing the phone back in his pocket, he unbuttoned his shirt. Beneath it was a long, puckered scar where some time back extra-dimensional beings had removed his stomach to force him to do their bidding. When everything was over, he received a new alien made stomach and an extra, disgusting bonus. The scar that held Peel’s guts together he could open if squeezed in just the right way. Once opened, it allowed easy access to his re-attached stomach, and a meaty pouch off to the side that he could store small objects. Whatever the aliens had done to him it had been neat and clean, with a transparent and impenetrable skin over his other organs so the wound never bled when opened and he never got an infection. While his belly pouch was admittedly repulsive, it allowed Peel to smuggle items in a way that no one could find, except by x-raying him.

Peel reached into that abdomen cavity and felt two foreign objects. He grabbed the larger of the two and pulled out the Walther PPK that Jordan had given him. As he checked the weapon, he remembered Jordan making several kangaroo jokes at his expense during their long hike out of the jungles of Venezuela. He had said that of all the people in the world to get a pouch in their belly, it just had to be an Aussie.

Smiling despite the situation, Harrison pocketed the pistol, closed up his stomach flap, buttoned up his shirt, and left the conference room to go back to his seat.

What happened next happened fast.

The man called Carter was every bit as lethal as Jordan suggested. He came from behind and off to Peel’s left as quiet and quick as a panther and before Harrison could react; the man was behind him. The killer’s left arm snaked around Peel’s neck while his right waited to hook it up and apply pressure.

Peel recognized the move as a chokehold called ‘the sleeper’ because it could knock a man unconscious in seconds. His instincts told him to tuck his chin down fast, and he did so, but this was a well-trained assassin. He locked up the hold and instantly started trying to worm his forearm under Peel’s chin to complete the move that would cut the flow of blood to the brain and cause a blackout in moments.

“Keep Isles with the techs until I’m done with him.” Carter said to a CIA agent that stood in the aisle watching the struggle. The agent nodded and quickly made his way to the front of the jet as the assassin walked backwards, back into the open conference room, dragging Peel along with him.

Peel kept his chin down. He didn’t bother to claw at his attacker’s arm; he knew it would do no good. Instead, he tried for the automatic in his front pocket, but because the killer had him from behind and was now lifting him nearly off his feet, Peel’s pants had stretched tight so that he could only get a few fingertips into the pocket’s opening. He knew that with time he could probably pull the gun, but he didn’t have time to spare.

He did, however, have one more desperate option.

Harrison tore at his shirt and then at the scar on his belly beneath it. In doing so, he scratched himself bad enough to bleed, but after a few frantic moments the alien pouch opened. Shoving his hand inside, he felt his stomach, slick and bulging, and then what he was after; the other foreign object he had smuggled away inside himself. Pulling it out, Peel smashed it against the face of his attacker.

Carter muttered a curse the first time Peel hit him with the slimy, hard thing in his hand. He tucked his own head down as best he could to shield his face from further blows, but his constrictor-like arms never let up.

It had been only moments since the attack began, but Peel’s vision was already going fuzzy and he could hear the trapped blood boom like thunder in his ears with the echo of his racing heart. He had no delusions of what Carter would do to him once he blacked out, so with a snarl he brought his hand back up with all his remaining strength. He felt the object in his hand strike solidly against Carter’s face, then it shattered and his palm was suddenly in pain.

The man behind him screamed. Instantly he released his arm from around Harrison’s throat and Peel crumpled, nearly unconscious, to the floor.

As for the American killer, he clawed at his face with both hands. He took several unsteady steps in various directions and never stopped screaming, even after the blood flowed like a running faucet from between his fingers and over his expensive suit. Even after Cater dropped to his knees and his cries of pain were reduced to gurgling, wet sounds, he continued to do his best to scream.

Peel used that time to get up on one knee and with a shaky hand he rubbed his swollen throat. His face was bright red and his left eye had blood in it due to burst blood vessels from the chokehold. His tongue felt thick and dry, and he could still hear the thunderous beating of his pulse in his ears.

Standing now, he drew the Walther from his pocket, chambered a round, and turned to look at Carter.

The man was a mess, sprawled out on his back, one leg kicked out, the other tucked underneath him, and he was quiet at last. But he wasn’t yet completely still. His arms and legs jittered and twitched despite the four-inch hole that bore through the center of the man’s face. He was obviously dead, just not all parts of his body had yet to receive the memo.

Harrison looked at his wounded and bleeding hand. Small shards of glass embedded in his palm from the vial that Jordan had given him in Lima. That vial had once housed a tiny, shapeless creature of white goo inside it. Peel had been attempting to transport the alien thing without the CIA watchdogs finding it. That meant using his secret abdomen pouch, even if the idea of smuggling a hostile life form inside his body had been a frightening one. He had wanted to bring the creature with him in case he needed to show proof to his superiors of how dangerous Centarus’ operations were. Using the jar and the thing inside it as a weapon was the act of a desperate man. The small, now obviously highly corrosive, slime beast could have just as easily attacked Peel’s hand as it had Carter’s face.

Harrison once again looked down at the ruined mushy pulp that had been Carter’s face, and a small pang of guilt rose within him. Killing a man was one thing, letting something like that monstrosity bore its way into someone was quite another. Still, the phrase ‘better you than me’ came to Peel’s mind as he turned towards the conference room’s door. He had to figure out some way he could leave this jet alive, and right now that wasn’t looking very good.

As if waiting for the most ironic moment to happen, horrible bubbling and tearing sounds erupted from the corpse behind him. Peel’s realized that his odds, however poor before, had just gotten a lot worse.

Not wanting to, but unable to help himself, Harrison Peel turned around. He had a good guess of what he’d see before he did, but he had to see it with his own eyes if he had any chance of escaping it.

Sure enough, the once tiny creature of slime had devoured most of Carter’s insides, turning the man into a hollowed-out shell it had just burst out of. Now the thing had the mass equivalent of a large man, and Peel knew from previous experiences that such things were always hungry for more.

The pulsating thing formed dripping tentacles out from its center mass. Each ropy appendage soon sprouted one or more gnashing mouths along their surface. At first the tentacles flailed around wildly. The beast was essentially a newborn, and it had to become accustomed to the world. Soon enough it sent two tentacles to wrap around the legs of the nearby conference table, perhaps to pull itself along. It never got the chance. The wooden legs smoked and sizzled at the creature’s touch and quickly snapped in half. The whole of the beast seemed coated in an incredibly powerful acid that was fast dissolving anything it came in contact with.

Peel knew it was time to leave.

He opened the conference room’s door, quickly went through it, and then slammed it behind him, hoping that it would buy him a few moments. Turning, he saw Zoe Isles and two male CIA agents moving down the aisle towards him. Both of the men had their guns drawn, and Zoe wore a grim mask of determination on her face. He felt the jet lurch, realized that it was descending, perhaps in response to whatever the creature was doing to the jet’s systems.

Peel’s first instincts were to shoot both the men, their ready weapons made them immediate threats. But something inside him stayed his hand, and instead all he could think to do was to ask a question. “Tell me, Zoe, did you know why Carter was here?”

Zoe stopped in her tracks, gave Peel a pained look. Harrison’s emotions had muddled his usually accurate ability to size someone up. He simply didn’t want to believe what he saw in the woman’s eyes before him. Yes, she had known, and maybe she didn’t approve of it, but she had allowed it to happen.

Peel’s gun hand rose on its own. His question was answered and a calm clarity filled him. He would do what he always did; whatever it took to survive. Yet, with Zoe’s forehead in his line of sight, he still couldn’t squeeze the trigger.

Before he, or the CIA agents in front of him, could fire, the door at Peel’s back burst open and a bubbling nightmare surged forth. The creature had quickly learned how to move without the aid of grasping the fragile objects in the human world. It rolled forth like a large snowball from hell, using its bulk and a changing center of gravity to pull it along.

The three Americans unaccustomed to staring down cosmic-spawned abominations, as Peel was, now paused in their fear. So while he quickly dove to one side of the rolling mass, the others stood frozen in terror. It took the thing running into the lead CIA agent and quickly engulfing him to spur Zoe and her remaining subordinate into action.

As the screams of the dissolving CIA man filled the plane, Zoe stepped back, reaching for the automatic pistol at her side, and putting the other man between the shapeless monstrosity and herself. That other agent also snapped out of his stupor and began dutifully firing round after round into the creature, all to no effect.

Peel could have told the brave but foolish man that guns would do little good against the beast. After several firsthand experiences with such monsters, he knew that amorphous creatures such as it simply didn’t have any internal organs to burst with bullets, bones to break, or muscles to tear. Shooting at a huge, sentient pile of pudding would have had the same effect.

Yes, Peel could have told the man that, but he knew the gesture would be useless. The agent was doomed, as was everyone on the plane. No weapon any of them had would stop the beast, so if it didn’t just eat everyone on board, the acid that covered it would eventually breach the fuselage and cause explosive depressurization that would most likely bring the jet crashing down into the Pacific. So with that in mind, Peel stepped up from where he had dove out of the way of the creature and looked towards the front of the plane.

“What the hell have you done, Harrison?” Zoe screamed at him.

He grabbed her arm, dragged her towards the front of the airplane.

“Peel?”

“We’re getting out of here.”

The creature was wrapping sizzling tentacles around the head of the CIA man. That man continued to pull the trigger on his empty weapon as his face dissolved and his eyes melted away.

“Where are we, Zoe?”

“Probably about to cross over into the Pacific, any moment now.”

“That’s not good.”

The lights dimmed as the engine spluttered. The creature’s acid was already decimating the airplane’s systems.

“Well, it’s just gotten a lot worse.” Zoe screamed at him. It seemed they had forgotten the moment where they were about to kill each.

Peel had seen an emergency closet towards the front door. Still holding onto Zoe, they ran towards it despite the lurching interior. Inside he saw a first aid kit, a flare gun, and life vests, a quick-inflating raft, and parachutes. He slipped on a parachute and passed one to Zoe.

Before she could take it, the plane lurched suddenly and violently, throwing them both off their feet. Peel and Zoe barely held onto chairs as the rear of the Learjet fell away, dragging the acidic white blob with it. They might have mercifully escaped the creature, but unfortunately that also meant they only had half a plane left to them.

Air rushed around them. Everything in the emergency closet vanished with the howling winds.

“Harrison!” Suddenly Zoe vanished, sucked out into the cold thin air.

Peel let go of the chair, allowed himself to fall through the wreckage of the Learjet. He’d jumped just in time. The airplane had lost its upward momentum and was falling with Peel.

Strapping the parachute to him so it was secure, Peel shaped himself like an arrow so he would fall faster. Zoe was below him, a dozen meters closer to the earth, screaming. Further below, kilometers earthwards, the border between the desert coast and the frigid Pacific Ocean awaited.

The air was thin; it was hard to breathe. Peel dived and screamed at Zoe to increase her surface area to slow her decent, but the howling winds drowned out his words. Yet somehow he was gaining on her. As their gap decreased Zoe hadn’t seemed to have notice him, or was too distressed to respond.

“Zoe!” he screamed. He didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t lose her, despite everything.

Somehow, she heard him.

The ground was rushing up at them at an incredible speed.

She caught his eye. “Harrison!” she screamed, reaching out a hand.

Peel caught her, held her tight.

“Don’t you let me die! Don’t you let me die!”

“I won’t. I promise.”

A torrential wave of cold, salty water swept Peel away. Hundreds of corpses were washing over him, threatening to drown him. Every single corpse was Jordan, thousands upon thousands of them, falling upon him as the dead weights that they were. They were tangling and smothering him.

Peel remembered where he really was.

He pulled the ripcord, tore himself away from the corpses and returned to the cold, high altitude air.

Zoe was falling still, but hundreds of meters beyond him now.

_____

4. Moscow

It had been twenty-three days since Jordan had last spoken to Peel and tried to warn him about the assassin on his jet. Twenty-three days, and nothing but silence since. The chances were high that the Australian was dead and that upset Jordan more than he would have thought possible. Losing brothers in arms was a given in his profession, but as much as he’d never admit it, Harrison Peel was one of the few people Jordan had marked down under the friend column in the mental Rolodex he kept in his mind. If he was no longer counted amongst the living, that left only three names on that list without big red lines drawn through them.

Currently, that third name was sitting across from him field stripping and cleaning his AN-94 rifle. Not that he needed to, but simply out of boredom. Sixteen days cooped up on a submarine waiting to kill something will do that to you. Jordan just hoped that Matvei wasn’t on this boat waiting to kill him.

Jordan wasn’t a betting man but if he had to place the odds that he would soon feel the business end of Matvei’s keepsake Khyber knife, a prize he claimed from a dead tribal chief in Afghanistan, he’d have to say it was even money. It was only little things. A look, a strained silence, and nothing more, but Jordan lived and died by his ability to read people and what he was reading from the Russian wasn’t good. 

It had started when Jordan arrived in Vladivostok, after bouncing from Peru to Mexico City, then to Honolulu and finally one last layover in Tokyo. As soon as his Aeroflot flight landed, Matvei was there with a big grin on his face, a bear hug to welcome him. Two tickets to Moscow, a bottle of Dovgan vodka, and questions, lots and lots of questions. The Russian asked them over drinks, with a smile or a laugh, but he would ask the same questions four different ways spread over their eight-hour flight. Jordan knew interrogation techniques enough to know when he was on the receiving end of one. Popular myth says that interrogations involved rubber hoses, bright lights in the eyes, or the most recent favorite; waterboarding. It was more productive to obtain reliable information simply by asking the same questions, phrased differently, over a period of time and comparing the answers. Plying the jetlagged interrogated party with premium Russian Vodka only made it harder for him to remember his lies.

Luckily for Jordan, lying was as easy as breathing.

Once in Moscow, and going on thirty-eight hours since he last slept, Matvei whisked Jordan away in a waiting car with two serious, and seriously large men to Yasenevo and the SVR headquarters to answer even more questions.

“Old school?” Jordan asked his friend.

Matvei was sardonic when he said, “Does a bear shit in the forest?”

Jordan shrugged.

“It has to be this way, my friend. You’ve been gone too long. There are gaps in your story.”

The two men muscled Jordan inside. They took him downstairs, where it was dark and the cold tiled walls would ensure that no screams or begs for mercy ever reached the streets above, where ordinary Russians went about their ordinary business of just living.

They made Jordan strip. When he was naked and his body probed and examined, and his clothes torn to shreds, he could dress in overalls. He was then told to sit, and the questions began.

There were no smiles, laughs, or vodka this time, just grim looks and implied threats. The crux of the matter was that Jordan, as ex-Spetsnaz freelance agent ‘Yegor’, had been out of touch for an uncomfortably long time. His sudden return to the fold had raised questions.

Once again, Jordan used lies like Michelangelo used paints. He first started off strong, but knowing that the questions wouldn’t stop until he gave them something, he purposely showed signs of exhaustion and let slip a few conflicting stories. After two more hours of what the SVR men jokingly called ‘debriefing’, Jordan hinted that there might be things he was hiding to whet their appetites. Then to throw the hounds off the actual scent, he admitting that he had done a few jobs for the Russian mafia in the United States which was a good start, but the SVR spooks wanted more. So Jordan made a desperation call that he knew would either end with a Makarov being put to the back of his head, or it would satisfy the interrogators that they had found the dirt they were looking for. He played the part of the broken man and told them he had sold some small arms to Chechen terrorists while he was there killing the same people for Mother Russia. Afterwards he waited to see what would happen next.

The SVR men believed the lie. Considering that Jordan didn’t get his brains blown out, they seemed to take his confession in stride. They actually thanked him for his honesty, said they would let their superiors know everything, and finally let him get some sleep. It was a cold dark cell with only a stained woolen blanket to keep him warm, but it was enough.

The next day they gave him proper clothes, Russian cut. The men took him upstairs, into an office where the big shots from the SVR, Russian Military Intelligence, and GRU awaited him. There was also one old man amongst the mix that Yegor wasn’t supposed to know, but Jordan did. His name was General Alexey Nikonov, and he headed up a secretive branch of the GRU called SV-8, Special Department Eight.

“Hello Yegor. You’ve been keeping yourself busy, I see,” Nikonov’s raspy voice sounded like his tongue was scraping across sand paper. “So busy, I’d say, that coming back to the homeland now would not have suited your interests.”

Jordan said nothing. He knew who GRU SV-8 really was, the Soviet era flip-side to the unnamed organization that Jordan unofficially worked for now. In short, they were the Kremlin’s monster hunters. Jordan did not know why Nikonov, a relic of the coldest of wars, was at the meeting, as Jordan had purposely kept otherworldly details out of his story. It also surprised him to see that GRU SV-8 was still active, as most Washington think-tankers had written them off when the Soviet Union imploded. He would have to report to someone that they were still around, if he lived that long.

Once more, Jordan fed the Russians lies and half-truths. He had to get them interested in what Centaurus was doing out on the oil rig in the middle of the Pacific, but he didn’t want to confuse them, or entice General Nikonov with tales of extraterrestrial bio-weapons. So instead he used the threat of human-made bio-weapons in the form of an experimental virus based on a newly discovered sea cucumber. Jordan was proud of the sea cucumber angle. It sounded just crazy enough to be plausible.

“I don’t believe you,” Nikonov kept saying. “What is it, Jordan, that you are not telling us.”

For a second Jordan thought he heard Nikonov use his American code name. It took every effort not to react to a word he wasn’t even sure he had imagined.

“I’m telling you everything.”

Nikonov stared at Jordan, waited. When Jordan did not react, he said, “But why are you telling us this? Why is it important?”

“I came across some intel about the bioweapons while working as a mercenary for a private military company, you know, a PMC. They were providing security for Centaurus operations in Iraq.” Jordan told them an abridged version of the actual events. He even spun his own bombing of the orphanage as the Americans doing; a scorched earth response to a viral outbreak in one of their top secret test laboratories.

Jordan, as Yegor, next said that when he discovered this, he knew Russia would want to know about it. Also, he was willing to oversee the investigation to its conclusion, provided they compensated him well, and forgave his past transgressions against the Motherland. All that he would need would be a submarine and a crew to get him to the oil platform.

“I see,” said Nikonov, stroking his chin.

They left him alone for a while after that. An hour later, maybe two, only Nikonov returned. “Some of your story checks out, Yegor.”

“Of course it would.”

“What does check out is of very much interest to SV-8.”

Nikonov left him again, told Jordan to wait while senior intelligence directors discussed the matter. Another three hours later they called him into a conference room. He was unnerved to see Matvei had joined the proceedings.

Nikonov smiled at Jordan. “We have good news, my friend. We believe your story. Therefore, we are going to secure you on board one of our 877 Paltus submarines.”

Jordan knew the type Nikonov referred to, the 877 Paltus, was what the U.S. Navy calls the Kilo Class , and required a minimal crew to man it.

“Your old friend Matvei will accompany you. Who knows you better, hey Yegor?”

Jordan had to admit he wasn’t too happy about that last bit, but he knew Yegor would be, so he played the part. “That is very warming news indeed, sir.”

It was indicated that Jordan was to leave now. Matvei would take him to a GRU safe house until morning, when they would fly out. But before Jordan could take a single step, Nikonov had his wrinkled yet powerful grip around Jordan’s muscular bicep, halting him.

“Yegor,” Nikonov licked his dried lips, “this expedition you would have us fund, would it have anything to do with all those Pacific cities that have suffered devastation of late?”

“Cities, sir?”

“Petropavlovsk, Guayaquil, Auckland, Suva, Kushiro, Honolulu, and a dozen other cities rimming the Pacific. Millions are dead, or missing.”

Jordan swallowed hard. “Millions?” The situation was escalating into a disaster he couldn’t even comprehend.

“In the last few days, since we picked you up, something like six million people have died. The strangest thing of all; there have been no tidal waves. There have been no earthquakes.”

The singularity , Jordan thought. It was happening as Harrison Peel said it would. The laws of physics and time and space itself were breaking down, and this was probably only the tip of the iceberg.

“Yegor?”

“I didn’t know General.” He felt too stunned to say anything but how he really felt. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“It’s probably going to get worse too.” Then the SV-8 General disappeared without further explanation.

And so Jordan found himself trapped inside an 877 Paltus submarines with Matvei, bound for the heart of the Pacific Ocean, wondering who would kill who first.

_____

5. Marrakech

Peel stood under the shade of the villa roof of his friend’s house, Jamal Al Hazard, enjoying a beer. The view through his sunglasses against the midday glare began with the dense white-washed buildings of the medina, then the ramparts of Marrakech surrounding the old city, date palms and in the far distance the snow-capped peaks of the High Atlas. The scene was so peaceful and relaxing, Peel thought it unreal. After everything he had experienced, he felt he didn’t belong.

Mentally, he slapped himself. These kinds of thoughts must mean he was becoming too used to a world of hunting monsters.

Al Hazard’s villa was a home to hundreds of relaxed and playful cats. They followed Peel everywhere. At this moment, two tabbies rubbed against his legs. Another was curled up on Peel’s cane chair. He nuzzled it away so he could sit next to Jamal.

Peel had been living in Jamal’s guest room for a week, hiding from his superiors and the world, and didn’t want to leave. Although he felt guilty relaxing while the planet was falling apart, over the last seven days he came to appreciate that he needed to relax.

Jamal looked up and smiled kindly. Since Peel’s arrival, Jamal had been busy translating Henbest’s copy of The R’lyeh Text . Peel had stolen the old book from Henbest’s penthouse apartment a few days after his near fatal fall from the Learjet.

After several moments of peaceful silence, Peel asked, “Jamal, how old did you say you were?”

The man looked over his moon-shaped reading glasses. “I didn’t, my friend.”

Peel looked away. “I knew that.”

Jamal appeared to be in his late thirties, slightly younger than Peel. Yet he read the Latin text that was indecipherable to Peel as easily as he decoded the Chinese characters intermingled in the many bizarre and complex drawings, also known to him. Jamal knew too many languages to be that young.

“How are you feeling today?” Jamal asked, lowering his spectacles and the book to engage with his guest.

“You know me,” Peel jested, “always focused on the mission, so I can ignore my personal feelings.”

“At least you recognized this behavior.”

Peel coughed out a laugh. “I came for a translation, not a therapy session.”

“Yet you’ve stayed for a week and relaxed as I suggested you should.”

Peel shrugged, he had no worthy response. “Can you tell me, Jamal, what this Infinite Replicator is? That is what Ben Henbest was so keen to discover. I’m certain he thinks it’s in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, of all places.”

Jamal sipped his mint tea, took a long moment to savor its taste, enjoying it as if he’d never tasted it before. “You cared about Zoe.”

At the mention of Zoe, Peel felt overcome with anger, yet he contained his frustration. Jamal and he went back many years. The man was a mentor, a spiritual guide, even though Peel didn’t believe in the human notion of greater divine powers. Jamal was the one man on the planet who could help Peel see through the murkiness of his own character flaws and help him clarify his thoughts. With Jamal, Peel found he could see the world, and himself, as they really were.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Jamal seemed to know more about the history and mythology of the outer dimensional monsters than anyone else Peel had ever met. Yet here they were talking about a woman Peel had barely known and whom he had become emotionally attached to.

“Yeah, I cared about Zoe, I guess. I hardly knew her. She was going to have me killed. Did I tell you that?”

The Arabic scholar nodded. “It doesn’t change the fact that you cared about her.”

Peel couldn’t get the image out of his mind. Of her falling into the desert, always out of reach. He remembered her flailing, her screaming until the ground rushed up so fast, it silenced her wails abruptly. He remembered the Learjet crashing nearby and being incineratied. Strangely, perhaps thankfully, there had been no sign of the white amorphous creature.

“People I care about keep dying around me.”

“And now you worry that your friend, Jordan, who you also care about is also dead, or soon will be if you don’t help him.”

The former army major stood and paced. “I get it. I want to save everyone, and I can’t handle it when I can’t help everyone.” Jamal did not respond, so Peel kept talking. “Can you help me, find out what I need to do before me or Jordan drowns in one of these…‘singularity breakdowns’ that seem to plague us?”

The image of thousands of dead corpses, each and everyone one of them Jordan, still haunted him regularly. The reality breakdowns hurtling him to that cold, wet place were becoming more frequent. He kept looking for Zoe amongst the faces, perhaps as a distraction or as hope, but she was always absent. It was only Jordan, dying again and again, and again.

“Your friend is not your responsibility. He chose this path, as much as you chose yours.”

Several cats meowed, rubbed Peel’s legs. He couldn’t stand their attention, so he returned to the cane chair, slumped into it. “But I can still do my best to help him.”

“That is all one can ever do, Harrison. But don’t forget, it is also important, and human, to take time out for yourself.”

“I thank you for your advice, Jamal, but please, tell me something, anything, that might help me understand what is going on here?”

Jamal smiled, turned the old book so that the illegible text faced Peel. “This is a description of an island — well it is more of a continent, actually.”

“Called R’lyeh? I have heard of it. Jordan had the two of us tracking a cult across the globe that collected ancient relics from this supposed buried city, which you now say is a continent.”

“Yes, a continent hidden under the Pacific Ocean for a very long time, locked between the folds of time and space and dark energy. Inside this island is a tomb, as some ancient prophets might have called it, and there sleeps an alien entity of immense power. My distant ancestor, Abdul Al Ahazard, called him Cthulhu.”

“Cthulhu?”

“You’ve heard the name?”

Peel nodded, “Occasionally in my career. There was the Black Brotherhood whom I encountered across the world. And a strange group of running men in Sierra Leone who stank of fish. I’ve encountered Taliban terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan who muttered allegiance to him.”

“You heard correctly. Cthulhu’s worship is global, and ancient. The depraved and the deranged want him released from his prison, hence that mantra. What few understand is that Cthulhu is not really a god, so to speak, but a force of nature. A destructive force of nature.”

“You mean like a gravitational force of nature, or a distortion in space-time?”

“Yes, and that is why you and Jordan keep having these time-space slips. You and he have become entangled with Cthulhu.”

Peel thought about those poor vanished Pacific island nations in the news headlines of late, and the many coastal cities destroyed without cause and the millions dead already. Time and space were breaking down, and so too was the relationship between cause and effect. A tidal wave was coming, one of unprecedented magnitude, even though the cities that it destroyed were already devastated.

“Jamal, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to fight. I really don’t.”

Jamal said nothing for a very long time, prompting Peel to speak again.

“New Zealand sounds great, you know, the South Island. Nothing bad has ever happened there, as far as I can tell. I’ll vanish there. You would be the only one who would know.”

Again, Jamal said nothing.

“What you’re trying to tell me is that Jordan and I have to see this to the end?”

The scholar’s smile was sympathetic. “I’m afraid so. Look at the evidence.”

“Do we survive? Can we survive?” Peel thought again of all the dead Jordans he had seen, thousands of them, and how he had seen them so many times over the last decade or so. Now their cause was catching up to him in the present. He realized then that he should not have been looking for Zoe, but himself. Thankfully, his corpse had not been present in any of his displacements.

“I don’t know, my friend. But I know this, I believe that this Infinite Replicator which you came to see me about, which I can now tell you exists inside R’lyeh somewhere, holds much importance to both your and Jordan’s destinies.”

Jamal Al Hazard’s finger flipped over a single page in the R’lyeh Text , pointed to an illustration of the Chinese man walking into the box, and then the same man stepping out over and over again.

“I’ve seen this picture,” Peel fought to keep frustration from his tone because they were back on the subject of him continuing with his mission. “Henbest had this page open on the podium when I met him. It’s why I came to you, so you could tell me what it means.”

“You may have seen the picture, Harrison, but have you really looked at it.” Jamal’s finger rested just above the face of the man walking into the box. “Someone traveled far enough back in time, probably only for a moment, so he could to tell an important story. Look again.”

Peel looked again. Jamal was pointing to the man’s face.

Then Peel realized who he was looking at.

_____

6. R’lyeh

It was boredom that was for Matvei and Jordan the hardest emotion to overcome on their ten-thousand-mile journey, trapped together within the belly of the 877 Paltus submarine. Reaching their destination brought some relief, yet with just eight-hundred yards separating them from Centaurus’ mysterious oil platform, fear became their biggest enemy. They investigated passively, yet despite their efforts, so far they had learned next to nothing, so they again waited, and became bored again.

Many hours after their arrival, Jordan spotted one of the computer techs entering the submarine’s mess where Matvei and he re-checked their guns because there was nothing else to do. Jordan asked the tech, “Any luck with the decryption yet?”

The tech looked at him and blinked repeatedly for about thirty seconds without answering. He, and the other two cyberspace cowboys Moscow had sent on this operation, were wired to the point of vibrating on Red Bulls and coffee. Drugs allowed them to crunch numbers all night long, but in between shifts babysitting monitors, they were practically zombies.

The kid finally said, “No. Centaurus is still sending and receiving massive amounts of info, but they are using a random generating matrix that’s proving to be a real bitch. Military level encryption. But don’t worry, we’ll get it.”

Jordan smiled, nodded, and let the kid go. He knew the cowboys could hack into the Centaurus communications. He just hoped they’d do it fast.

While the submarine they were in had seen better days, it featured the latest computer and surveillance gear. Even almost half a mile away and under sixty feet of water, the Russian whiz kids had no problem war driving the multi-billion dollar company’s satellite uplinks. Also, contrary to the myth many in the west had about Russia being technologically backwards, they actually had some of the best computer jockeys in the world. So much so that when the Soviet Union crumbled, the NSA raced into Russia to entice the former Red Menace hackers by digging into Uncle Sam’s deep pockets. While many Russians jumped ship, enough had stayed to build the new Russia a state-of-the-art cyber division.

“So tell me again, why are we here?” Matvei said as he put his reassembled assault rifle back into its soft case.

“You know why.”

“Ah yes, sea cucumbers.”

“Yes, sea cucumbers.” Jordan said, rising to get a fresh cup of awful tasting coffee.

“That sure is one big, strange sea cucumber they are drilling into.”

Matvei was referring to the sonar pictures of what the Centaurus’ drill was burrowing into, or more precisely the lack of pictures. Something big was down there, continent size, but that’s all they knew about it. Whatever it was, it played hell with the sonar, so much so that every time they tried to get an idea as to its shape or size they always got vastly different images. It was as if something down there was absorbing, or distorting the sound waves, like stealth fighters did with radar waves. Jordan was aware of a theoretical acoustic cloak the U.S. Navy was working on to make submarines invisible to sonar, but as far as he knew it was still just that, a theory.

“Well, if Moscow didn’t think it was important, they wouldn’t have sent us.”

Matvei snorted, “ They didn’t. The old man did.”

“Old man?”

“The fossil from that special branch, department eight or something.”

General Nikonov , Jordan thought and then said, “What do you mean he sent us?”

“He’s interested in this place, very interested. But it wasn’t any story you spun to him, the entire time you were being interrogated. It was something else that whetted his taste buds.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow.

“It was the coordinates you gave him — that was the only time his eyes ever lit up. That’s what sold GRU and put them into action.”

“You’re making a joke?”

“No, my friend, he was very clear to me when he said we had to find out what it was down here that Centaurus is trying to drill into. It was like he was afraid. I’ve never seen him like that.”

Before Jordan could ask more, a second rank seaman walked up to him, snapped a salute, and handed him a slip of paper. Jordan dismissed the sailor, read the brief message, and experienced conflicting emotions. The message meant his job was about to get a lot tougher, but it also meant that Peel had gotten his message to someone back home and that likely meant that Peel was still breathing.

“What does it say?” Matvei asked.

“The Americas are sending some boats here.” Jordan replied as he handed the paper to his comrade.

Matvei read the report gathered from low-orbit spy satellites. “Some boats? Shit, they’re sending an entire carrier strike group.”

“It changes nothing.”

“The fuck it doesn’t. I’ll not take on the pride of the U.S. Navy with a single, leaky, twenty-year-old submarine, no matter what the old man says. We’re leaving.”

“No, we’re not,” Jordan said firmly, but this caused Matvei only to smile sadly.

“Yes, I’m afraid we are. I have authority here, not you. The skipper of this boat knows it, as does his second. Now, you know it too.”

Jordan didn’t like the sound of that.

“Come now, Yegor, did you really think the SVR wouldn’t be wary of you? They went along with this operation just in case it bore fruit, but no one trusts you.”

“How about you, old friend , do you still trust me?”

Matvei sighed, “There are simply too many strange things about you. Too many things that, how do you say,” and then Matvei switched to English, “do not add up?”

“What do you mean by that?” Jordan asked, still speaking in Russian as he did his best to lock eyes with the larger man in front of him while using his peripheral vision to spot anything close by he could use as a weapon, should the need arise.

“I’ve heard things about you over the years, bizarre stories, that you’ve done many strange things, for many strange people. Tell me, were you really in Pakistan last year with the U.S. Seal Team 2?”

So quickly did a lie come to Jordan’s lips that it amazed him, but he was also so damn tired of always pretending to be someone other than himself. If this was going to happen, if another friend’s name was about to be crossed out, then he would at least tell him the truth before he raised the red pen.

“Yeah, we found a local celebrity and made sure he wouldn’t become a martyr. I’m surprised you heard about that.”

“You are a hard man to keep track of, but not impossible, despite your best efforts. After hearing enough weird tales about my good friend Yegor, I looked into you. That was four years ago, and since then you’ve had a pretty colorful career.”

“If you knew that from the start, why take my call? Why bring me here?” Jordan hesitated, but asked anyway, “Why am I still alive?”

Again, Matvei let out a long, pained sigh. “I had to be sure about you.”

“And are you now?”

“Yes.”

“And the old men in Moscow, are they sure?”

“I don’t know about them, but they seem to believe you know something about this whole mess that no one else does. If they didn’t believe that, well, I don’t think you would still be with us.”

Jordan thought of Madison and confronted the depressing thought that he might never live long enough to meet her. Life took on a profound importance it had never held for Jordan until this moment. He had to survive this, whatever this singularity event he was about to confront would throw at him.

“So what happens now, Matvei?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about for the last few days. I don’t know. I don’t like any of the solutions I’ve come up with.”

Jordan took a single step towards the Russian bear, “I’ve done nothing against you, the Spetsnaz, or Russia. Hell, I’ve even shed blood for all three, or did you forget about Afghanistan?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten,” Matvei said and subconsciously glanced down at his left leg, a leg he wouldn’t be standing on today if it wasn’t for the mysterious man in front of him. 

Before the conversation could continue, the spoon inside Jordan’s coffee cup rattled. Then the vibrations increased, causing Matvei’s gun case to fall from the mess table. Next the submarine lurched violently from one side to the other. Both men had to grab hold of the bolted-down tables to avoid falling. This went on for over three minutes before slowly subsiding.

“Depth charges?” Matvei asked Jordan when it was over.

“No explosions.” Jordan said, then walked over to an intercom to speak with the captain of the submarine.

“What was that?” he asked when the old Russian seaman answered the hail.

“As near as we can tell, it was seismic activity from the gigantic mass the Americans are drilling into. But it appears to have been localized. Something big down there… moved .”

Matvei walked up next to Jordan and pressed the intercom button. “Captain, prepare to get us out of here and back to Vladivostok with all haste.”

The Submarine commander confirmed the order, but Jordan wouldn’t have it.

“No, we can’t go Matvei, something big is happening here. Something we have to stop.”

“Yes, big enough to cause an earthquake and I’m getting us the hell out of here because of it. The Americans can deal with it.”

“Wait,” Jordan said, but knowing that Matvei had made up his mind, he quickly settled on the only course of action available to him, no matter how crazy it sounded. “Let me get off the sub. I’ll use the torpedo tubes and swim to the oil platform.”

Matvei smiled, “You’re mad. The water is near freezing. Why would you do that?”

“Because millions of people have already died, and millions more will probably share the same fate. Because something terrible is going to happen here, and I may be able to stop it. This is not just bad for any one country, but bad for everyone.”

Matvei said nothing, as if at some level he knew Jordan spoke the truth. His smile vanished, and he just stared at Jordan.

“Please, if you’ve ever trusted me, trust me now.”

When that didn’t seem to work, Jordan added firmly, “One way or the other, I’m going for the torpedo tubes. Please let’s not end things between us like this.”

The large Russian thought about it for a moment, then said wearily, “For past services rendered to the Motherland and to me, I’ll do this. But you can’t ever come back to Russia, and you must never call again. You are now dead to everyone. You are dead to me.”

Regretfully Jordan nodded. The two made for his bunk so that he could gather weapons and gear. He crossed another name off of the friend list in his head. 

The submarine lurched, turned over and over, sending Jordan and Matvei crashing against the ceiling, then floor, then ceiling and floor again. Within a few seconds it was all over, with the submarine floor now on a steep angle to the horizontal.

Jordan quickly checked his body. He was sore, bleeding in a few places, but otherwise unharmed.

“Matvei, are you okay?”

The Russian groaned. “Yeah, I think so, you?”

“Yes, shaken a little. What the hell happened?”

“Let’s call the sub commander.”

Within a few minutes, they had a report. Matvei didn’t believe it, but Jordan knew the truth of it. If their sensors were correct, they had just passed through a bubble of vacuum half a mile wide.

Luckily for them, thought Jordan, they must have passed into the vacuum close to lower curve of the rapidly collapsing sphere, otherwise the fall would have killed them all.

_____

Gigantic spheres of water hung above the ocean, each hundreds of meters across, suspended in the air by invisible forces that were impossible to see or understand. Below, the ocean churned, rolled in crests and troughs that followed no reason or logic. Lightning flashed between the water and dark brooding clouds so thick they looked to be liquid water. Somewhere in the heart of primordial chaos a Centaurus oil rig still drilled into something alien, buried deep beneath the tumultuous waves.

Peel had seen many unnatural phenomena in his life. None had scared him as much as this scene did.

He braced himself on the bridge of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington with a dozen or more naval officers and aides. None of them believed the scene either, a scene that just rolled up out of a tranquil ocean like it belonged. All men and women held onto something, fearful that the rocking waves would throw them to the floor, or into the raging waters.

“Report.” Admiral Alderson shouted over the noise of the storm.

Chief Petty Officer Cerra answered him. “Sir, that was the third underwater tremor in an hour originating from beneath the target. All three have increased in magnitude; the computer says that last one was a 4.6 on the Richter scale. But…”

“But, what Chief Petty Officer?”

“Sir, it also says there are pockets of vacuum under the water directly beneath us.”

The admiral raised an eyebrow. “That’s impossible! Are you sure?”

“If he says it’s so, Admiral,” interrupted Peel, “it’s the truth.”

Out of respect, Alderson gave the slightest nod to Peel, then turned to his men. “Jones, you still cracking their comms traffic?”

“Aye, sir. Centaurus HQ is still updating the rig team on our coordinates and ordering them to increase drilling and pumping. They say they have a tanker coming, ETA two days.”

“Well, that’s mighty optimistic of them if they think they can get past us, or this… storm. Keep me apprised if any of the chatter changes or if they get wise to us and change their decryption.”

“Aye. aye sir, but that shouldn’t be a problem. The codes the Aussie gave us are golden.”

The Admiral turned to Peel. “Yes, I guess it was a good idea to bring you along after all, Major Peel.”

Peel smiled, not that he had much to be glad about with the scene before him. “Centaurus ‘acquired’ their decryption software from the NSA. Luckily, I have better friends there than they do.”

Admiral Alderson returned to the business at hand, leaving Peel to his thoughts as he stood in an out of the way corner on the bridge of the massive aircraft carrier.

He felt apprehension towards what lay ahead. His extra-dimensional trips into the cold and the dark were becoming more frequent, and in them he was always wet. The last trip had been less than thirty minutes ago, and twenty minutes before that. Saturated and cold, it didn’t seem worth changing again.

His instantaneous trips in and out of reality had their advantages. On one trip he returned with a corpse of Jordan, which remained in an NSA conference room long enough before vanishing for several senior NSA directors to see, convincing them to send the fleet to the South Pacific coordinates Jordan had provided.

After returning to Fort Meade, Maryland, Peel had planned on using his governmental clout to speak to a physics professor at a college or think tank for more clarity on the situation. But his superiors had put him on a plane before he knew it, bound for Yokosuka, Japan. Home of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet and its flagship, the USS George Washington , the only American aircraft carrier with a home port outside of the States.

His warnings were being taken seriously, especially when Peel gave his superiors the longitude and latitude that Jordan had provided — that and the fact that something drastic was occurring in the South Pacific. Watching the city size bubbles of water materializing from nowhere, then collapsing back into the ocean, would have convinced anyone the world was in danger.

Eighteen other support vessels of various kinds accompanied the floating city that was the USS George Washington , but even their sheer numbers seemed insignificant now. Reports were coming in that two ships had broken apart and sunk with the uncanny and violent weather, and another had simply vanished. No one said it, but everyone was in a somber mood, hiding their fear as best as they could.

“Sir, we have visual on the platform.” One of the Navy men called out, interrupting Peel’s thoughts. The carrier group had been sending out recon flights for hours, and their images were being broadcast on monitors in the bridge. Now the tumultuous skies opened up again, and the large floating oilrig appeared as a dark spot on the horizon.

“Excellent. Mr. Kernot, what’s the status of the—” Admiral Alderson began but was interrupted when the massive ship he commanded shook violently.

Chief Petty Officer Cerra called out, “Another quake, this one at least a seven-and-a-half.”

“All hands brace for rough weather. Mr. Cummings, wave off all birds. Tell them to stay airborne until we ride this out.” The Admiral ordered.

As sailors sprang into nervous action, Harrison Peel looked out a window to his left that overlooked the flight deck. He saw an F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighter just meters from touching down when the huge carrier lurched wildly. The fighter pilot must have yanked back on the stick with everything he had because he was just able to pull up and abort the landing without slamming into the deck.

“Admiral, I’ve got a sonar report from the Curtis Wilbur . It’s… kind of strange.” A sailor called out from the carrier’s Action Information Center. The USS Curtis Wilbur was a fast moving destroyer that was leading the way of the carrier group. As such, it was closest to the Centaurus platform and relayed sonar and seismic readings to the George Washington .

“Spit it out son, what’s ‘strange’ about it, compared to what we are already seeing?”

“Sir, something underneath the oil platform is… rising up. Something huge.”

“How big is big?” the captain barked.

“Hard to tell, sir. The Wilbur’s readings are… well again; strange. They can’t seem to get an accurate reading of the object, but at the very least its many miles in diameter. Dubrowski said over the comms that it looked as big as an island. Like ‘a sunken island’ is what he said exactly, sir.”

For a moment, all the chatter on the bridge ceased as that last shouted statement hit everyone at once.

“What?” Admiral Alderson said. “Get Dubrowski back on the horn and find out—”

“Sir, I’ve been trying, but I’ve lost contact.”

The Admiral turned, still holding onto a nearby railing in order to stay on his feet, motioned towards the nearest sailor manning the radar and asked, “Is the Curtis Wilbur sill afloat?”

“Aye sir,” said the navy woman watching the screen intensely. “I still have it, but sir, I’m reading something else—”

“Admiral, dead ahead!” a voice called out, louder and more panicked than the rest.

Alderson looked forward across the prow of his mighty warship. Peel looked with him. What they saw now left them both speechless.

Seen through binoculars, the Centaurus oil platform was no longer a large dot riding the waves, but a crumpled structure of bent steel resting awkwardly on its side on a huge mass of muddy earth that continued to rise from the waves as everyone watched in awe. It was an island for sure, and odd only began to describe it. The surrounding clouds now spun like a whirlpool, the eye of the storm creating an eerie calm where the putrid green-colored rock appeared.

What first appeared to be a mountain range was soon recognizable as anything but solid rock. The jagged, twisting peaks were too uniform, yet simultaneously too chaotic to be anything formed by nature.

What Peel at first took to be a large, muddy hill underneath the oil platform, turned out to be a monumental structure as more of the building steadily rose out of the ocean. Staring at the bizarre architecture, he could not understand its true size or shape. There were too many odd angles and impossible shadows dancing over its surface. To look at the thing for too long caused the eyes to water, lose focus, and hurt. It took Peel’s every effort not to be sick.

Still the island rose, sloughing off water, muck and slime. Now the Admiral could see the destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur resting on its starboard side on what would be considered the island’s rocky beach. A thin trail of smoke was rising from the vessel.

“Holy Mother of Jesus, Major Peel, what exactly have you gotten us into?” Admiral Alderson turned from the magnificent sight before him, to stare at Peel as if it was his fault that the world seemed about to end.

“You’ve got to get me out there?”

“Are you insane?”

“Probably.” Peel did not know what he needed to do when he reached the heart of R’lyeh, but he knew his fate, and the fate of the world, rested on what they could achieve in the next few hours. “I need every Navy SEAL you can spare, and every helicopter you’ve got.”

“And what do you think you are going to achieve?”

“I don’t know, but a hell of a lot more than what I’ll achieve standing here.”

Admiral Alderson hesitated, but only for the briefest moment.

“Okay Major, whatever we can spare.”

_____

Matvei and Jordan stood on the deck of the Russian 877 Paltus submarine, bracing against the impossible swells. Jordan wore a heated wetsuit, and lugged his AN-94, Makarov automatic pistol, and a web of hand grenades to the dingy he had just inflated. If he could avoid getting into the frigid water for as long as possible, then he would do so. Matvei meanwhile in his saturated military uniform caused from the swells and the rain, shivered violently. On the near horizon they both saw the rising island, or corpse city, or whatever it was, and it scared them both.

“You need to get inside, Matvei. Do you want your epitaph to read that such a brave soldier died from a common cold?”

“I have to tell you something, Yegor.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been holding out on me?”

“The General, Nikonov, said I was to pass on key information at the appropriate time. I asked him when, but he would only say I would know when the time was right. Seeing that,” he pointed towards R’lyeh, “the time is right now.”

Jordan was ready to leave. He only had to clamber into the dingy and start the motor, and he would be away. Time was against him, yet he would wait to hear what his old friend had to say. “Go on?”

“General Nikonov said he knew what Henbest was looking for. A place called Ral-lie.”

“R’lyeh.”

“Whatever. That’s R’lyeh right? He said in the heart of that place is a device called the Infinite Replicator. Nikonov said if you recover it, and bring it back to him, all will be forgiven.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and he made special mention that all the things you think he doesn’t know about would be forgiven too.”

Jordan shuddered. Had his cover been blown long ago? Had GRU SV-8 being using Jordan as much, if not more, than how he had been using the Russians for all these years? Did Nikonov have an intimate understanding of the actual nature of Jordan’s work and used it to his advantage? Or was the old bastard just bluffing. Trouble was, Jordan would probably never know.

“Tell the sly dog if he’s too afraid to meet me in hell, then he doesn’t deserve it.”

“Hell!” Matvei yelled through chattering teeth.

Jordan pointed questioningly to the corpse city, but Matvei’s gaze didn’t follow. Instead, his eyes traced an object racing across the sky, and then he was sick onto the submarine deck.

Instinctively, Jordan looked skyward. What he thought was an American aircraft carrier was shooting into the sky, and it wasn’t coming down again. It was just getting smaller and smaller.

“What the hell was that?”

Matvei didn’t answer Jordan. He stumbled, tripped several times before he was into the airlock back inside the submarine.

Shivering, and not from the cold this time, Jordan accepted his fate, whatever that was to be. He clambered aboard the dingy, started the motor and made a beeline straight to the one place on earth in which none of his enemies would ever be brave enough to hunt him.

_____

Peel abseiled into the bulbous puck-green buildings covered in seaweed, crabs and fish dying by the thousands, and other creatures he didn’t recognize as being of this earth. Navy SEALs dropped with him, armed and ready for anything, or so they thought.

As Peel unlatched his clasp from the drop rope, the SEAL beside him was too slow as his rope caught, propelling him skyward at rocket speed. There was an explosion overhead as the Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter disintegrated in a fireball. A large arm-like appendage, the thickness of the aircraft carrier they had just left, had materialized out of a swirling mass of darkness and punched the helicopter out of existence, dragging the drop cables in its wake.

The SEAL lieutenant next to Peel looked to him for reassurance, perhaps hoping that he had just imagined what they saw.

“I saw it too, Lieutenant,” Peel said, clutching his M4 assault rifle, re-checking that his favored handgun, the Glock 9mm, remained secure in its holster.

The Navy SEAL had no chance to respond. The top half of him turned inside out, spattering flesh and blood everywhere, including across Peel. There was no reason for his demise that made sense.

The ground underfoot became unstable. Although gravity said otherwise, the ocean seemed to be on a forty-five degree angle to where it should be.

Another SEAL fired at a target Peel could not see, only to have the bullets bend through space and time, and carve holes through his own chest. Another soldier walked into a wall without seeing that it was there, then fell into a dozen perfectly sliced slabs of meat. A third became stuck in a time loop, calling for help as the meat in his leg boiled, then healed and he yelled for help again as he boiled and healed over and over.

Everything was happening too fast, like watching a movie sped up.

A massive wave crashed into Peel, knocking the air out of him and smothering him with crushing forces. The wall of water rapidly dragged through a channel of rock, or stone buildings, or shapes of things he could not describe. He lost his assault rifle, not that it seemed to matter when the entire structure of the universe itself seemed to fall apart around him.

The icy water still crushed him. When he thought he was about to drown, when he was ready to give up and let the salty fluids into his lungs, the water vanished, and he sprawled, battered and bruised, on a balcony.

He looked up, unbelieving of what had just happened. Yet he remained within the singularity, where surreal was commonplace. Navy SEALs fell past him, not from above but from left to right and other random directions, crushed like pancakes as they hit the cold stone walls of tall towers. Some were crushed as they fell. Others landed unharmed, only to be flattened a few seconds later.

Between the cyclopean towers, Peel’s eyes turned to a shape coalescing from writhing shadows in the spray and mist. From some angles it looked like an octopus, from others a bat. Sometimes it resembled nothing at all, or nothing that his human mind could describe.

It was at least half a kilometer in height, and it moved like a living entity.

Peel crawled, afraid to trust his legs or what his eyes saw. The gigantic shape moved through the water, creating enormous waves as it did. Something attached to it that might have been a fist punched the water. Seconds later, huge metal shards the size of cars ripped through the air like missiles. Some passed straight through the buildings as if they did not exist. Others flattened like dropped dough, or became like liquid metal and flowed away. Then an F/A-18 Hornet pierced through the hull tumbled through the air over the top of him before it disintegrated into millions of tiny marble sized pieces and vanished. Somewhere, out where the world was still rational, another ship in the U.S. disintegrated.

Peel covered his head with his arms. He was mad to have thought that he could have descended into R’lyeh and survive for more than a few minutes. Nothing made sense. Anything could kill him. He was only alive because of blind luck.

He had no idea about anything, or where or when he was, because when he thought he saw a pre-World War Two yacht called the Alert floating in a surreal, calm patch of water, he thought he might be time traveling too.

The gravity on the island suddenly shifted. What had seconds before been a floor was now a wall. Then he was falling, and next his military fatigues seemed to drag him across the rock until he smashed onto a new floor.

Peel groaned, then alternated his wails of pain between whimpers and rages of frustration, because of his battered, bruised and lacerated body.

Through swelling bloodshot eyes, he saw another wave of tidal water gathering on the horizon, only it was black and flashing with thousands of tiny lights. Skyscraper sized, it would be upon him in minutes at the most.

Hadn’t millions died around the world already? Was this the tidal wave that had killed so many? Cause without effect? Effect without cause? Nothing made sense.

Peel unclipped his Glock, held it tight in his bleeding hands so he wouldn’t lose it like he had the M4. This was R’lyeh, the heart of a naked singularity. This was Cthulhu Unbound. Nothing would ever make sense. Everything was only going to get worse, and then worse again, and again.

He wanted death on his own terms.

Trembling, bleeding, he pressed the weapon to his temple.

Peel tried to pull the trigger, but couldn’t. He wanted to. He wanted to be brave, to save himself now before things became unbearable. And they would get much, much worse than this. He might not even die here. The horror he was experiencing now might last forever if he didn’t do something about it soon.

Then he remembered the thousands of Jordan corpses he had been seeing for weeks leading up to this moment. Perhaps he was shifting in and out of those displacements right now without even noticing it, or perhaps these were events still to be. If that was his future, he still had time, and hope, to make a difference.

Peel struggled to stand, despite the pain that wracked every major muscle in his body. Something thick and wet flowed in his eye, so he touched his forehead to brush it away, realizing that it was blood from a deep cut. Probably one of many, but of immaterial concern right now.

He growled in frustration, wiped away the blood. Once again the world shifted. Walls, ceilings and pillars folded, rolled and changed shape. He had to jump, roll, and sidestep continuously not to fall a dozen meters into what moments before had been upwards or allow shifting walls to crush him.

From his left a curtain of water passed through the area, chasing him. Peel tried to outrun it, but again he was too slow, smothered and drowning again. The water was so cold, like ice on his skin.

He swam hard, where he didn’t care because any direction was better than nothing. Each time he hit a wall, that was all he hit. There were no exits. There was no escape.

Make it quick , he begged.

He choked on the salty water. He was dying, finally. At least he only faced oblivion now.

The water rushed away, and he was being lifted. A hand had him and dragged him onto a stone podium. Fingers were in his mouth, opening an airway, and then Peel was choking, puking. He coughed up water, some seaweed, the salty taste horrific and unbearable in his throat and mouth.

“Saved your life again, Peel.”

Peel rolled over. No longer did he have the energy to sit up. Jordan leaned over him. He wore a Russian military wetsuit. He had an AN-94 rifle gripped so tightly in his hands it was like Jordan and the weapon had become a single organism.

Seeing Jordan’s bruises and cuts that matched his own, and the water that drenched him as thoroughly as it had drenched them both through these flashbacks into the future, Peel laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

Peel couldn’t answer him. At least something was going right. They were together again, as their time travels had said they would be.

“Do you see anything?” Peel sputtered his words.

“Like what? This place is insane.” Jordan looked to be in shock. Peel had never seen his friend so afraid.

Peel finally found the strength to sit. “Like a portal, or a door? Better still, multiple doors.”

Jordan looked over Peel’s shoulder. The surprised expression on the black ops assassin’s face told Peel that he had found something of interest.

Peel turned. There was indeed a portal, nothing more than a thin ropy tentacle shaped rock forming a hollow rectangle. It was easy to see through it, but the space inside oozed a wrongness Peel could never explain.

“Unbelievable.” Peel cackled again.

“I’m going to leave you here Peel, if you don’t start acting like a sane person. I can’t keep saving your ass.”

Peel laughed again. “No Jordan, or whatever your name really is, this time, I’m going to save you.”

The world lurked, gravity and shape changing again. Peel was ready this time, and used the moment of confusion to tackle Jordan, roll with him as gravity shifted, and fling him inside the Infinite Replicator.

_____

Jordan ran from a portal, found himself on a high stone rampart far above the ocean. Sunlight streamed through the tiniest gap in the churning clouds. A shadow passed over him.

He looked up in time to see a green bulbous fist the size of a mountain crush him, as the tower he had appeared in collapsed into a mountain of rubble. 

_____

Jordan ran from a portal, stood in what should have been a road, but was instead a mighty river waist deep. Corpses of Navy SEALs washed past, their blood mixing with the saltwater. Some corpses floated a meter or more above the water, suspended in thin air.

Cylinders of flesh shot out of Jordan. He was alive long enough to see three holes appear, before his head opened as a tunnel made of skull, brain and blood.

_____

Jordan ran from a portal and fell upon a mountain of bodies. There were hundreds, thousands, millions of Jordans riding a tidal wave.

They were the tidal wave.

Those not crushed by the weight of others screamed their battle cries. They fired their AN-94s and they threw their grenades. They were a wall of black water.

Ahead was their target, huge, a mile high. Its skin was a gangrenous green, the texture of rotten fruit. When an eyelid opened, and the yellow infected eye with blood streams the size of rivers stared back at the million or more Jordans, each realized that he had not been looking at the totality of the thing, but only an eye. The rest of Cthulhu lurked elsewhere, deep in the ocean or folded within unseen dimensions.

Before Cthulhu crushed Jordan again, before he fell a mile into the sea or upon the stone of the corpse city of R’lyeh, he emptied his clip of bullets into the eye, and then threw grenades.

_____

Jordan ran from a portal, saw hundreds of himself in a line. “Join us,” said one Jordan. “Help us save Peel.”

They were a conveyor belt of flesh, manhandling the unconscious body of Harrison Peel towards the ocean and the waiting dingy.

“There is only one of him?”

“He didn’t pass through the portal.”

Jordan joined the line and took his place as he helped pass Peel to safety. Then their corner of the universe collapsed, as thousands of Jordans vanished into a black hole, alive for only the barest of seconds.

_____

Jordan ran from a portal, found himself in an army. Thousands of him fought to stand in the shifting gravity, brace against the rain and torrential walls of water falling from a multitude of directions. Every Jordan fired their weapons, threw grenades. They were all him, every single one of them. There were more Jordans than all the people who had ever lived. Their target was the Centaurus oil rig.

It had beached upon a putrid field of washed stone, where creatures that should have been fish but weren’t, and corals infected with mouths, barbed tongues and vomiting orifices, were dying now they had been exposed to the air and the sky. 

Storage tanks, once filled to the brim with the white sticky fluid that Jordan had first seen in the Baghdad orphanage, now flowed across the field and took shape. These shapes were being mowed down by suppressing fire from the seemingly unlimited army replicated from one man.

Jordan noticed the drill head. It had breached an indescribable shape, with the gangrenous green texture of rotten fruit.

It was the skin of Cthulhu.

Jordan screamed and ordered his army of clones to concentrate their fire. They must mend the breach. 

_____

Jordan ran from a portal, and died, again, and again, and again.

_____

Peel woke with a jolt, from dreams where he was being smothered and torn apart by wild animals, crushed by the weight of stone monoliths falling upon him from gigantic mountains.

He sat up, rocking the dingy he shared with eight other men. Every single one of them wore Jordan’s face.

“What the hell happened?”

One Jordan pointed to the horizon. R’lyeh was sinking, the highest peaks churning in the ocean as they dropped back into whatever dimension they had come from. Peel looked behind them. A U.S. frigate rolled in the stilling waters, welcoming them.

“It’s over,” said another Jordan. “We stopped it, whatever was causing R’lyeh to rise.”

“How?”

Another Jordan shrugged. “You ever heard that expression, Peel, concerning an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters?”

“Yes. Douglas Adams if I remember, about one monkey eventually coming up with a script for Hamlet ?”

“One of us worked out how to stop all this. One of us saved us all. Probably one chance in a billion, but there were a billion of us.”

A Jordan interrupted. He looked mad. “But I don’t think that the one of us who worked it out is ever coming back to tell the tale.”

“No,” said another, an edge to his voice Peel didn’t like, “one Jordan is enough for this world.”

All the Jordan’s fell silent. Each stared the others down. They all became twitchy.

Peel felt uneasy as one Jordan rapidly drew his Makarov and shot another.

Another did the same.

Bullets exploded. Blood everywhere, corpses fell into the dingy and out into the frigid waters. Peel ducked, afraid for the bullet that would find him, but none did.

When there were only two Jordans left, their handguns clicked while the muzzles rested on opposite foreheads.

One raced to reload his empty weapon.

“Wait,” shouted the other.

The other Jordan clicked in a fresh magazine and had his weapon on the other survivor’s forehead, but he had not yet pulled the trigger.

“You and I are all that remain. I think I know how we can work this out.”

_____

7. Tibet

Peel lowered his binoculars, tightened his parka against the cold high-altitude wind. The sight of the USS George Washington was like no ship wreck he had ever seen, sprawled across a snow-capped mountain range five thousand meters above sea level.

Peel mused he should be used to sights like this, because this one made sense in a twisted way. For a start, it was harmless and stable, unlike his experiences in the heart of a naked singularity. The R’lyeh Singularity.

“In time it will become a tourist attraction,” said Jordan, who stood next to Peel similarly layered in clothing against the cold. After their experiences in the frigid oceans of the South Pacific, both men had sworn never to be cold again, and yet here they were a fortnight later on the roof of the world. They were both still experiencing time and space shifts back into R’lyeh, transitions that probably would plague them for the rest of their lives, yet hopefully with lessening frequency. “You think Yanks and Aussies would pay money to see this?”

Peel nodded. “I don’t think we can hide any of this from the world anymore.”

“The carrier?”

“Everything. I mean, horrors from beyond, Code-89 threats, ESBs. Ten million dead, hundreds of millions of refugees, a global economy on the brink of collapse, and—”

“And all eyes firmly on the hole we left in the Pacific. No, you’re right, my friend, the world is about to change forever.”

A hundred meters ahead of them, down the hill and in a procession across the sparse plains of the Tibetan Plateau, thousands of monks with their liturgical chanting, drumming and trumpeting, were in prayer to dismiss malevolent spirits that had fallen from the sky with the aircraft carrier. Prayer flags to purify the air and pacify the gods were everywhere, strung on cords like litter.

“The locals don’t seem to like it,” jested Jordan.

“The carrier should have burned up on re-entry.”

“Yes, but can you explain anything that’s happen to us while we were in R’lyeh?”

Peel said nothing. His body still ached everywhere. His muscles were stiff and his skin bruised. The last thing he needed was a three-day trek into the wilderness to see a ship he had spent two weeks onboard before it had become a high-altitude wreckage.

“We only succeeded because we got lucky. We had no plan. Now we’re losing our edge.”

It took Jordan a long moment to answer, because he obviously thought otherwise. “You think so?”

“What are we doing here, Jordan?”

A helicopter sped overhead. Peel looked up just in time to see the Centaurus logo on its sides. It was on a direct path towards the George Washington .

“Don’t tell me, Ben Henbest is on that helicopter.”

Jordan nodded. “He’s about to get a special tour of the Washington . Once inside, he is about to have a serious ‘accident’, which unfortunately, he will not survive, at least not as far as it concerns the world’s press.” Jordan made quotation marks with his gloved fingers. “His ‘body’ will vanish.”

Peel knew the Americans were all over the George Washington , stripping it of anything a foreign power could salvage and use against them. Detonations to follow would clear anything that they could not recover. One team of a hundred or more specialists was similarly busy deactivating its nuclear power plant and ballistic weaponry as a priority.

“You can’t almost destroy the world and then expect its citizen’s to believe you had nothing to do with it.”

“Even when you bring billions of dollars into the economy?” asked Peel.

“Don’t worry about that Harrison, Centaurus will go on. The corporation going to get a lot of new defense contracts to pacify shareholders.”

“They have brought you back into the fold, haven’t they?”

Jordan smiled again. “With an anonymous star on the wall somewhere in Langley, I’m told, because I died so many times.”

“But just one star?”

“One star is enough.”

“Is that what you want? To return to the fold.”

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I know nothing else.”

Peel nodded in agreement. He wasn’t sure what life he could go back to now either. He looked to the monks and wondered if their style of living would offer the simplicity he desired. Probably not.

“It still makes little sense. Why should Henbest disappear now? I don’t think Uncle Sam’s stock markets could endure another shock in the current climate if an important CEO vanishes too, one connected to the disaster.”

Jordan said nothing. He was smirking.

“It’s not the Americans who are going to snatch him, is it?”

“I’ll deny this if you ever say this to anyone, and then I’ll have you killed. I made good with my Russian contacts. They didn’t get the Infinite Replicator, but I told them when and where to find Henbest. In a few hours, GRU SV-8 is going to snatch him. Then he’s going to be spending the rest of his probably very short life in an undisclosed camp in Siberia, spilling every Code-89 secret that has ever been on Centaurus’ books.”

“You’re still on your vendetta?”

Jordan picked up a stone, threw it far into the flat empty plain. Jordan’s target, a herd of grazing yaks, was too far for Jordan’s stone to even come close to reaching them. Did he think he was some alien god, able to throw stones for many, many miles?

“You and I are the same, Harrison. We’re not like the Henbests of this world, or your boss, or my boss. We are not political animals.”

“Then what are we?”

“We are simple men.”

Peel chuckled.

“Laugh if you will, but you know I am right. We only have one objective in life, and that is to stop these horrors, wherever and whenever they occur. We’ll do whatever it takes to make it so.”

Jordan took another rock and threw it much further than the last one. One yak grunted in disapproval, or seemed to as it landed nearby, and Jordan appeared glad. “I know you want to rest, Harrison. I know you’ve had enough. But I don’t think you will. I don’t think it is in you to stop.”

Peel wanted to argue with Jordan, but there was no point. His mind made up already. He was going to disappear soon, somewhere remote and comfortable. If nothing else, he had the funds saved to do so comfortably, and New Zealand’s South Island was looking more and more promising every day. Nothing bad had ever happened to him there.

“I know you want to stop these threats too, Jordan. But there will always be others, who’ll fight the good fight after us. We don’t have to die first, before it is someone else’s turn to step up.”

“Who are we talking about?” He held his arms out wide to embrace all the people absent in this scene. “The monks? They only pray. Like I said, we are men of action. Simple men.”

“Do you regret the choice that you made Jordan? Do you wish it was the other you standing here now, and not the other way around?” Peel remembered the simple game of paper rock scissors in an icy ocean in a dingy that had sent the same man down two completely different paths.

“You are the only person alive on the planet, Peel, who knows there are two living Jordans. One needs to stay active in the field, so that his enemies don’t decide to go look for the other if they think he is not around anymore, doing their endless dirty work.”

Peel shook his head. “Don’t I get that choice too?”

Jordan stared at Peel with serious eyes. “You do, but I’m asking you not to. I need you out there buddy, watching my back. I really don’t think I can keep doing this if I don’t have any friends left, and you’re my last living friend.”

“I was thinking, the Jordan you killed in Jodhpur, probably came from the Infinite Replicator and somehow ended up permanently propelled into the past.”

“Possibly.”

“There could be more Jordans, in the future, also antagonistic to us. So I guess, we need to stay in the game.”

“Also, quite possible.”

Peel had been to this place many times before, wondering when he should step down, disappear and retire into obscurity. Maybe this day, like so many before it, would not be that day. Besides, what he really wanted was someone he cared about to disappear with, someone he could love, whom he felt attracted to, like Zoe Isles, but she was gone forever.

“Okay, I’ll stick around, but not forever, and only on one condition.”

“What condition is that, Peel?”

“That you finally tell me what your real name is.”

_____

8. Detroit

It was a chilly night in Michigan. It was snowing, and the temperature had dropped to twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Jordan pulled up the collar on his overcoat, dug his gloved hands deep into his pockets, and stepped inside the shop front of Grand River Movie Rentals.

It felt weird not to be carrying a gun, or even a knife. It was even weirder to have bought an apartment and slept inside it every night for more than a month. Jordan was changing; but he needed to know if this new life was to work out as he hoped. He also had to stop thinking of himself by that name anymore. He was not that man. That man was somewhere else, out there in the world maintaining the old life for both their sakes.

There was a young lady behind the counter. Her back was to him, so hadn’t noticed him. Seeing her, Jordan felt anxious. A man who killed cold-blooded killers and monsters without compunction every other week felt scared by a nineteen-year-old girl. Of course she was his daughter.

He didn’t want to approach her at first, so he browsed. Eventually he found what he had come for, Dan in Real Life . He read the promotion blurb. It sounded like a movie a father and daughter would enjoy together. Not today, though. He wanted to become her friend first, before he told Madison the truth.

To get past his fear, he took the DVD to the counter. When she saw him, she smiled. She was so pretty and happy, and he was glad.

“Hello,” she said in a friendly voice. “What have you got there?”

He held up the DVD. “Is this any good?”

“It’s great. It’s one of my favorite movies.”

“Well, in that case I must take it.”

“Are you a member?”

“No, just moved into town.”

“Nice. Come from far away?”

“You could say that. I lived in Michigan once, but that was a long time ago. It’s nice to come home again.”

“Well, welcome back. To sign you up, I’ll just need some ID with a current address.”

“Sure,” Jordan reached into his pocket, took out his wallet with his single identity; credit cards, driver’s license, health care card, social security card, and so forth. He was one man, one identity forever more. He handed her his license.

“Thank you,” Madison read his name. “Welcome to Detroit, Jacob Horner. I hope you like it here.”

“I like it already,” he smiled at her. “And I’m not going anywhere, not anymore. Not ever.”

Mouth of Jupiter

Part I. Yucatan

Pablo Carrillo stepped from the whorehouse, barely standing and poised on the edge of the jungle. He tightened the buckle on his belt one more notch, then fumbled for a cigarette from the pack crushed in his back pocket.

The air outside felt sticky. So too did his skin. But that never changed in the tropics of southern Mexico. With the lit cigarette in his mouth, Carrillo leaned against the cattle rustler fence, and rated the young prostitute he had just fucked. He gave her a seven out of ten, because of her pert breasts and how she moaned. She would have scored higher if she’d shown some interest in fucking him. Then he noticed the human skin hung over the fence railing.

Discarded like an old blanket, there was no blood, and the inside texture was smooth like plastic sheeting. Carrillo imagined the owner taking it off like a layer of clothes. He felt unnerved by how lifelike the skin was. Many bullet holes had broken it.

Deciding it was a clever fake, he turned to lean his back against the fence, only to find a skinless man standing no less than a meter from him.

An arm, constructed of milky-white, soft bubble-shaped bladders overlaying a mechanical concoction of pipes and pistons, also white, shot forward and smothered Carrillo’s mouth. The face was the same fusion of organic and mechanical matter, except for the eyes and teeth. They were human.

But Carrillo couldn’t think about any of that. The hand morphed, and he squirmed as tubes unfurled into his mouth and crawled down the back of his throat.

Carrillo thought he was about to die until he realized he was breathing. The creature had forced an air-tube down his throat that kept him alive.

Before he could react, the second hand grabbed Carrillo by the front of his shirt and lifted him effortlessly off his feet. Unperturbed, the alien approximation of a man effortlessly carried Carrillo into the jungle. The Mexican resisted, but the creature was too powerful for him to escape its grip, and the growing number of tubes in his throat prevented him from screaming.

Soon the thick flat undergrowth hid them both. Carrillo hoped the creature would release him here, but it didn’t. He noticed blood pumping through the translucent tube, coming out of his mouth then passing through the monster’s body before it sprayed as jets of blood from where its spine should be.

Simultaneously, the white soft-bladders across the monster’s body deflated, and Carrillo watched a second translucent tube carry the alien’s milky-white mass into his body!

Again, Carrillo tried to scream, flail, anything, but nothing in his body responded to the signals his mind tried to send it. He watched, helplessly, as the replacement process continued for several agonizing minutes. He wanted to scream, or die, but he could do neither.

Then the blood flow ceased. It saturated the jungle behind the creature in red. Carrillo wondered if there was any blood left in him.

Now bite-sized cubes of white stone flowed up through the tubes and fired out of the monster’s back like bullets. Carrillo couldn’t imagine what those bits were, until he realized the monster was removing Carrillo’s bones, and had already cut them to regular sized pieces inside his body.

While the creature took Carrillo apart from the inside out, the monster became little more than wispy pipes and pistons, for most of its mass was now inside Carrillo!

Then the tiny fragments collapsed, and the tube that had filled Carrillo slid out of his throat, and lay like a skinned snake on the jungle floor, wet and repulsive.

Carrillo tried to move, but he had no control over his body, not even his eyes.

The occupier was in control and held up Carrillo’s hands and looked down at them. His own hands. Nothing on the outside had changed.

Carrillo’s mind remembered the plastic human skin hung over the fence. He tried to scream again, but his mouth was not his to control.

You command men, trucks and guns?

A question, inside his head, was not from his mind. The voice sounded artificial, like a computer simulation of human speech.

An electric shock surged through the Mexican’s mind. Every nerve in his now imaginary body felt like it was on fire. It lasted only a second, but the pain was like nothing he had imagined possible.

Questions, you answer immediately.

Yes , Carrillo spoke without using his mouth. I command men, trucks and guns.

Show me.

——

No one had ever shot Harrison Peel before, and now that someone, or something, had, the pain was excruciating.

He pulled his battered Land Cruiser off the dirt track and parked out of sight. The jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula was thick here, and remote, so no one would see him from the road if they drove past. The frosted windscreen where the bullets had hit, and had penetrated the glass, was a red flag for his unlawful activities, but legalities were the least of his problems right now. He had a hole in his right shoulder and it was bleeding.

Peel turned his head and examined his wound. Blood soaked his shirt, but the hole didn’t seem to bleed too badly. If the bullet had hit a major artery, Peel mused, he would be dead already from shock and blood loss.

Gritting his teeth, he tore off the shirt sleeve and grunted, or perhaps screamed, from the pain, despite his best efforts not to. He felt around, discovering two holes, one at the front where the bullet had entered and one in the back where it exited. Sweating, trying to ignore the pain, he flexed the fingers in his wounded right hand, then moved his wrist and elbow, and finally the shoulder. Despite the agony he endured, there was no nerve damage, and no bones seemed shattered.

Remembering his training from so long ago with the Australian Army, and his tours of duty in Somalia and other parts of Africa patching wounded servicemen and women, Peel knew how to treat his injury, but he’d never before had to treat himself.

Then, deciding that melancholy wouldn’t serve him, Peel climbed out of the Land Cruiser and felt around in the back seat until he found his military-grade trauma kit, brought with him specifically to treat a wound like his.

The kit included antiseptic sprays and swabs, but Peel decided for a more direct method. He slipped off his belt, placed it in his mouth and bit down on it. Then he popped the lid on the tequila bottle he’d left in the back seat, splashed it over his hands and the wound, cleansing them. Now was the difficult bit…

Before his mind talked him out of it, Peel’s finger reached inside the wound, felt around for bullet or bone fragments. The pain was worse than being shot, but he had to check. After a minute of frantic testing and prodding, he felt nothing so removed his finger. He splashed more of the tequila over the injury.

Now to seal the intrusion. He could either sew it back together with needle and thread, which would be impossible for him because of the angle of the exit wound, or he could sear the holes shut.

Before Peel proceeded, he swallowed several pain killers and in minutes his firing nerves dulled. He cleaned his fighting knife with the rest of the tequila and set it aside. Then the belt went back in his mouth.

Then he took the belt out of his mouth and drained the last drops of tequila, knowing that the alcohol would take the edge off what he was about to do. The belt then went back in his mouth.

Lighting a flare, he held his knife over the blade for a minute until it radiated heat.

Hyperventilating for a moment, he overcame his natural instincts not to self-harm and pressed the blade first against the exit wound, sealing it, and then the entrance wound doing the same. The pain was worse than when his fingers had explored the inside of his flesh. But he had sealed the wound, and that was all that that mattered.

A minute later, Peel climbed into the cabin of the four-wheel drive and sat, exhausted. He covered the wounds with iodine to keep them clean of infection.

The moment turned into minutes. Then ten. Then half an hour.

When he felt able, Peel found his water canteen and drank it all. The heat and the field surgery had drained his body fluids via the sweat gushing off his body.

While the pain killers kept him lucid, Peel bandaged his shoulder, engaged the ignition and slammed the gears into first. Soon he was back on the Mexican highway, driving south.

Peel had emptied an entire magazine of thirty rounds from his AK-47 into the alien fucker. An entity known only to Peel as McFour had come back for him. The bullets had ruined McFour’s human skin suit, but had done little else to slow or stop the automation within. Somehow, Peel hadn’t expected McFour to retaliate with a pistol, but he had, shooting Peel once in the shoulder before making his escape.

The wound had cost Peel an hour in pursuit time and caused him a great deal of pain. But the delay now caused Peel to focus. Next time he engaged the enemy, Peel would ensure he destroyed his foe thoroughly and with prejudice.

But how?

——

Initially, Pablo Carrillo refused to accept that he was a prisoner of his own body. He fought to speak, activate his arms and legs, or even move his eyes to look where he wanted to look.

None of that was possible.

The Occupier — the name Carrillo had given to the alien — had taken Carrillo’s two trucks and seven men, and instructed them to drive south. These were Carrillo’s band of thieves and guns for hire who specialized in the theft of Mayan artifacts, then sold them on the black market. ‘ Huecheros ’ who cut holes into the sides of step pyramids or burial mounds to loot their ancient pottery, obsidian and jade artifacts, and stone-carved bas reliefs of Mesoamerican deities, heroes and blood sports. When the Huecheros encountered police, local peasants, tourists or archaeologists, they slaughtered them with guns and knives, both to protect their identity and to build a reputation of fear.

Carrillo’s Huecheros weren’t much to look at, dirty and unshaven men in ill-fitting clothes with permanent scowls of anger. They armed themselves with shotguns, machetes, revolvers and a few with M16 and AK-47 assault rifles. Watching them now with eyes that something else controlled, Carrillo realized they cared so little for Carrillo they hadn’t noticed the change in him.

“Boss, where are we headed?” asked Juan, his second-in-charge and a former Sicario with the Juarez Cartel up near the Texas border. Juan was tall and wiry, and his close-cropped beard was wild like an out-of-control weed in an unloved garden. His favored .357 Magnum revolver hung from a holster on his left hip. A weapon with which he’d claimed to have killed over fifty men, women and children during his time with the cocaine lords. Juan had never divulged why he’d run from the cartels. Carrillo suspected if Juan ever returned, the cartels would torture then murder him, and leave his burning body in a gasoline drum as a warning to others who might think to cross them, for that is what Juan must have done.

“South,” spoke the Occupier using Carrillo’s mouth. “To where an archaeological team recovers Mayan artifacts from a cenote. Sacrificial site to Cizin.”

Juan grinned. “Ah, Cizin, the Striking One. The Mayan god of earthquakes and the dead, and ruler of the underworld.”

Mesoamerica mythology was sticking in Juan’s vocabulary, and he perhaps thought Carrillo would be proud. Carrillo was, but his only response was a silent scream followed by a mouthless sob. He then considered this change might be a permanent state of existence.

“We are almost there, Juan. Security is light. A few armed farmers. Nothing more.” The Occupier relayed information Carrillo had provided it with earlier, during a lengthy interrogation session involving its brand of electric mind torture. “Kill them quickly, including the scientists. Then we get out.”

“Kill them?” Juan asked. Carrillo’s team did have some standards, and that was only to kill if necessary.

“Yes,” the Occupier answered without emotion. “Mexican Army are performing exercises nearby. We want to be away, quickly. They might come looking.”

“What about Mayan artifacts?”

“Collections are stored in several sorting tents. They’ve done the work for us.”

Juan spun the barrel on his .357 Magnum revolver, then locked it back into place, ready for shooting. Carrillo knew Juan liked it when others ordered him to kill, for it gave him purpose. But he was a stupid fuck, and couldn’t see that Carrillo wasn’t his normal self.

“You’re the boss.”

——

All roads in this corner of Mexico cut through thick jungle. When Peel passed a gas station, he almost missed it because of the obscuring undergrowth. He pressed hard on the brakes, coming to a sudden stop. Checking that his Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol remained tucked into the belt at his back, he winced as he climbed from the cabin because of the throbbing pain in his arm. Despite the pain killers, gunshot wounds hurt like a mule kick.

Peel approached the half-dozen children he had seen out of the corner of his eye, aged between eight and ten, playing soccer using four sticks and a ball. It was the ball that had made him stop. The boys had wrapped it in human skin.

The macabre circular object reminded Peel of how the Mayans once sacrificed people during ball games before the Spanish invaded and destroyed their civilization half a millennium ago.

When Peel approached, the children turned their attention from their sport and looked at him suspiciously. They mostly stared at his shoulder.

Peel looked with them. Despite changing into a fresh t-shirt, blood had seeped through the bandages and stained it red.

“You a narco?” one boy asked in Spanish.

“A Sicario?” asked another.

Peel shook his head. “Neither, but I’d like to know what you’ve wrapped around your football.”

The children looked at each other and bit their lower lips. The first boy said, “It’s not real. It’s a fake suit.”

“Where did you find it?”

They pointed across the road, to a building that Peel knew from his earlier investigations to be a brothel. He took six fifty-peso notes from his pocket and showed them to the boys. “Enough for all of you to buy a football each, if I can have the fake skin?”

Two minutes later and back in his Land Cruiser, Peel unwrapped the human suit. It was the shell of McFour, abandoned after Peel destroyed it with his AK-47.

Ten minutes after that, following a strong-arm altercation with the brothel’s pimp, Peel had a name and a direction of travel. McFour had switched skins, and now masqueraded as Pablo Carrillo, illegal antiquities smuggler and tomb robber.

The pimp, with his arm still twisted behind his back, told Peel he’d overheard the ‘ Huecheros ’ discussing an archaeological dig at a nearby cenote, some ten kilometers down the road in the opposite direction Peel had come from.

He drove again.

——

Zoe Arriaga emerged from the watery cenote, barely creating a wave. The warm midday sun shone down through the cave walls that stretch ten vertical meters above, with jungle vines reaching down to her like fragile ropes, and the branches of evergreen trees dappling the light. The rope ladder, her only route to the surface because of the sheer limestone edges that encircled her, swayed in the almost still, humid air.

Climbing onto the only exposed rocky embankment, Zoe slipped off her mouthpiece, turned off the air supply from her SCUBA tanks, tore off the goggles and then slipped from her wetsuit.

Wearing only a one-piece black bathing suit, she stood and pulled her hands through her long dark hair, draining out the water that ran down her muscular back and legs. One advantage that came from diving all day searching for Mayan artefacts in the dark depths of these limestone caves was how it made her look, fitter and more attractive than she had in years. Zoe slipped on her sandshoes so she wouldn’t cut her feet on the rock and let the sun dry the rest of her.

Her diving partner, Miguel, had come down with a stomach bug yesterday, so today she dived alone. Zoe felt unconcerned about the risks. She was an expert diver, so she wouldn’t risk exploring alone the latest underwater cave they had discovered only yesterday. But she had expected Miguel to wait for her here, on the chance there was a problem so he could be nearby to offer help. Where was he?

Shrugging off his absence, she pulled the latest netted assortment of Mayan artifacts collected from the floor of the cenote. For more than a thousand years before the Spanish Conquistadors destroyed their culture. The Mayan had revered this, and many other cenotes across the Yucatan Peninsula, as religious sites. Many of their cultural artifacts, from obsidian knives to pottery fragments, stone statues of Mesoamerican deities, were sacrificial offerings to this pool. So were the many humans, adults and child corpses, and their bone fragments were as frequent as any other find down here. So rich in ancient relics was this cenote, Zoe immediately identified examples of each snared in her net.

Then she noticed an unusual object.

A statue, no larger than a paperback book. Carved of jade, the greenstone was more precious to the Mayans than gold, and the style of the carving matched their Classical Period art. It was the subject that confused her.

The statue represented an animal, but Zoe couldn’t pick which species. At first, she imagined a wasp, but the longer she looked, the more it resembled a crab. Its head resembled a sea anemone. It seemed to carry a weapon in one of its pincer-like hands, and in the other a barrel-sized cylinder. Then she noticed the representation of a human head inside the cylinder.

She remembered a paper she’d read in the American Journal of Archaeology from a few years back, of bas-reliefs in both Central American and the Peruvian Pre-Colombian sites, illustrating what the authors referred to as ‘Insect Astronauts’, and how the writings from both cultures talked of these insects as being visitors from the stars. Was that what she was looking at now?

Before she could contemplate the puzzle any further, she heard gunfire.

Lots of gunfire.

And then she heard screaming, and people running.

Paralyzed, Zoe stood rigid as her mind refused to take action. Smugglers, drug runners or a paramilitary group had overrun the camp. Soon, one of them would look down…

And see her!

Trembling, her skin clammy and cold despite the heat, Zoe slipped back into the water and swam to where roots of a tree provided cover just above the waterline. She could have taken the SCUBA tanks to dive beyond reach, but there wasn’t enough air left to sustain a lengthy dive. And it was too late anyway to go back to them now.

She stifled a scream when a dead man, a local digger, fell into the cenote and splashed in the water. Blood surfaced first, then his body bobbing face down.

Soon the shooting stopped.

Then someone cut the rope ladder, and it too fell into the cenote, trapping Zoe.

After a minute, the shooting started again.

——

Harrison Peel heard gunfire long before he reached the archaeological dig site. He knew he was already too late to save anyone. Blood and butchered bodies everywhere confirmed this, but he might still catch his enemy.

Emerging from the jungle, with his AK-47 pressed into his left shoulder, knowing his right could not absorb the recoil, Peel counted off the bodies. The dead were a mixture of well-dressed archaeologists and their students, local farmers, and a group of what looked to be Sicario hit men based on their flashy clothes and ornate pistols. Other weapons included dropped M16 and AK-47 rifles. Every corpse seemed murdered by bullet or machete wounds.

There were tents, 4x4s and trucks, but most of those now lit up with raging fires. Hundreds of Mayan artifacts lay scattered across the damp earth. Further beyond, Peel noticed the edge of a cenote. He saw no temples, mounds or dig sites, so presumed the excavation was inside the cenote itself, and the kilometers of limestone caves stretching in every direction under his feet.

Then he saw McFour.

Only it wasn’t McFour, for he wore a new skin of a Mexican in his forties with a permanent scowl on his face. Peel knew it was the alien automation because of the multiple bullet holes that peppered his shirt and artificial skin, and the torn flap of fake skin hanging off his face revealing human teeth and a muscle-texture of milky-white bladders and pistons.

“Harrison Peel,” spoke the creature. “Your weapon didn’t kill me before. You think you can do so again?”

Peel forced a grin. “That’s because I upgraded.”

He pulled a high-explosive fragmentation grenade from his combat webbing, and with his left arm flung it at the creature he knew only as McFour.

The alien watched the weapon land at his feet. A second later, the grenade detonated and McFour vanished in a blast of dirt, fire and smoke.

When the smoke cleared, Peel saw the creature standing in the same position. The human skin had vaporized and so had the clothes. A few of the milky sacks leaked viscous fluids and a couple of pistons had popped out of place. McFour looked up at him with its now skeletal face, and said, “I don’t think so.”

Gritting his teeth, Peel pulled the AK back from where he slung it over his shoulder, and emptied the entire clip into the monster. The creature, propelled backwards by the force of the high speed projectiles, edged closer to the lip of the cenote.

In the space of a few seconds, Peel ejected the empty banana-shaped magazine and loaded another. In the same fluid motion, he fired a second burst into the creature, forcing it backwards again, until it tripped and fell into the natural sink hole.

Hearing a splash some meters down, Peel raced to the edge and looked down. The water in the cenote was clear, inviting like a tropical beach lagoon. A bloody human body floated unmoving in the water, but he couldn’t see McFour anywhere.

Then he heard a popping noise behind him.

And another.

And then several more of the same sound.

Peel turned, identifying melon-sized fungal spores growing out of the earth too fast to be anything natural, then exploding with puffy clouds of yellowy-green vapors. Soon carpets of the fungal vapors spread across the massacre site, and where it touched vegetation or human remains, the vapors latched onto their leaves and flesh, and seemed to eat them, transforming them into desiccated husks in seconds. Soon mushroom-like growths grew out of the consumed terrestrial life, and waved in the air as seeking, probing tentacles.

“Oh, shit…”

Peel backed towards the lip of the cenote and noticed that the spore clouds covered all escape routes. The only space where the vapors weren’t eating human corpses was where one man had fallen face first into a puddle. The vapors didn’t seem to like water in its purest state.

Knowing that Peel had no other choice, he ran fast off the edge of the cenote and dropped ten meters into the watery cave below.

——

Zoe stifled a scream as a third man jumped into the water. The first man had been a corpse before he hit the surface, and the second wore some kind of weird white bubbly suit that then failed to surface once he hit the water. The third man… In comparison, he at least looked normal and alive.

He emerged a few seconds after hitting the center, with a panicked expression on his face. The man appeared to be in his forties, handsome with a shaved scalp and face. He looked around, taking in his surroundings, first noticing Zoe’s SCUBA gear and then her archaeological finds.

He swam to her equipment, surfaced onto the rocky outcrop and checked the tanks. She knew he would find them both to be empty.

“Bloody hell!” he said, speaking in an accent that wasn’t quite American, but definitely not Mexican. He wasn’t a Latin man, and his clothes looked to be north of the border.

Zoe took a chance and swam from the cover of the tree roots, figuring that without the rope ladder they had become trapped down here anyway, and he might have a means to get them out. “Hi,” she said, speaking English.

The man turned, surprised to see her. “Who are you?”

“Zoe Arriaga!”

The man nodded, then looked up and pointed. “See that spore cloud?”

She turned and saw a yellow-green mist slowly dropping over the edge of the cenote.

“It’s a poisonous gas, and will kill us if we breathe it. Do you know a way out, a cave we can swim into?”

Zoe’s chest tightened, and her rate of breathing increased. Could this situation get any worse? She knew of a cave, but she had never swum that distance without her SCUBA gear. “Yes, follow me, but you’ll need to take a deep breath before you do.”

“Better than dying.”

“If you get lost, follow the blue flagged line.”

“Roger that!”

They both hyperventilated for several seconds, increasing the oxygen content of their lungs. The mist was only a few meters above them now.

She dived and swam. There was a cave approximately fifty meters distant before it opened into a secondary cave discovered only a few days ago. She and Miguel had laid a rope to the air pocket only yesterday and left some lights, but had done little exploring beyond that. The ropes they had colored-coded with blue flags, and she swam quickly, following that line and holding onto it.

Soon the cave grew dark, so she gripped the rope tighter and swam faster, and resisted the urge to take a breath. She tried to remember if any of the lights were on in the next cave, but she doubted it because they would need to conserve batteries.

Zoe felt an animal touch her feet. She recoiled and almost panic-breathed, until she remembered this was likely the man swimming behind her, presumably swimming faster than her.

Her lungs seemed to scream at her, and her head felt dizzy. Then she surfaced, and came up inside a dark cave, and breathed fast and deep for many seconds.

The man emerged next to her and sucked in liters of air. Then she heard him laugh. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you! You just saved both our lives.”

She heard a noise like a match striking, then the cave illuminated in red. He’d lit a flare, and now they could see where they were.

The cave was about thirty-five meters across and with a gentle slope emerging from the water. Together they walked in that direction until the ground turned solid and they both collapsed on the rock. They just lay there for a moment, regaining their strength and processing the violence and bloodshed they had just escaped.

As the flare died, Zoe found a single lamp she and Miguel had left here yesterday, and switched it on. Now the limestone cave illuminated in yellow.

Zoe checked out the muscular but lean man in his forties and found him to be rather handsome. He carried an old Soviet assault rifle and a semi-automatic pistol holstered on what appeared to be a military chest rig. He removed the rig, then tore off his already shredded shirt, and she noticed again his well-defined muscles. Then she spotted the bandage across his right shoulder, and how the wound had opened and bled again.

“What happened to you?”

“Took a bullet in the shoulder. It’s nothing serious.”

“You’re joking, right?”

He laughed again. “Talk to any soldier who knows, they say a bullet wound is better than a knife wound, so I guess I’m lucky.”

She edged closer to him. “It looks to be bleeding.”

The man expressed surprise and glanced at his wound. “Shit.”

“It will get infected down here. We need to go back.”

He shook his head. “No, not yet.” He turned and looked at her properly. “Zoe, right? You with the archaeological dig?”

She nodded. “They’re…”

“All dead? I’m afraid so.”

Zoe wiped the tears running from her eyes. “I think I already knew that.”

“The name’s Harrison. Harrison Peel.”

“Harrison? You an American?”

He winced because of his pain. “Australian… Well, it’s complicated. Zoe, can you help me, I need to check my wound.”

She gently removed the blood-soaked bandages while he held the light so she could see. Two welting burn marks looked red and infected. The burn at the front had opened again and trickled blood. Not enough that Harrison would bleed out, but the wound would soon become septic if they didn’t treat it.

“I have some iodine,” he said, and passed her a bottle.

She splashed the brown liquid over both wounds until she used it all. “We have nothing to bandage it with.”

Harrison nodded and looked at them both. He wore cargo pants and hiking boots. She wore only her black single piece swimsuit and sandshoes. Blood soaked his torn and dirty shirt. Mud and dirt covered his pants.

Zoe slipped out of her swimsuit to use as a bandage, but his good hand stopped her. “I’ll be fine, Zoe. Thank you, but you don’t have to do that.”

She nodded and looked away as she readjusted the straps of her one-piece. “Who are you with? Why are you here?”

“The American Government, chasing a terrorist.”

“I thought you said you were Australian.”

He laughed again. “That’s why it’s complicated.” Then pain twisted his face again as the injury seemed to flare up.

Without hesitation, she slipped off her bathing suit and used it to tie a makeshift bandage around the bleeding wound. It seemed to do the trick and stem the flow of blood. “I’m presuming, Harrison, you won’t try anything?”

She looked down at her naked body, and so did he. Zoe was of medium height, and slim, with small breasts and feet that she felt were too large for her legs. She wondered if he noticed any of this, or if he cared. Then she wondered if he felt attraction to her, because she felt a sudden, animalist attraction to this man. She wanted him to see her naked, which was not at all like her with a stranger, or for any woman to behave in this way. What had made her do this?

“I won’t try anything. I promise.” He stood and took the lamp in his good hand, and she liked that he seemed good to his word. She had no clothes, and this hadn’t become an invitation to him to take her, nor did he seem bothered by her unclad form. Her attraction to him grew because he didn’t make any advances. He looked at her again. “I don’t fancy swimming back the way we came, Zoe, not with those spores. I understand these caves extend for kilometers around here, so there might be another way out?”

She nodded and stood with him. Then, self-conscious, covered her breasts with her arms. “Yes, they do. This is the crater boundary, where the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs hit the Earth sixty-six million years ago. The impact formed these limestone rocks. The cave networks are extensive.” Zoe recognized that she was babbling, but this was not a situation she ever imagined herself being in.

“Is that right?” Harrison said, raising an eyebrow. He handed her the light while he collected up the assault rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

“You planning on shooting anyone?”

“Maybe. Depends on what we discover down here.”

She looked away. “Another man jumped into the cenote just before you did. White skinned, and unnatural looking.”

He nodded. “I wondered what happened to him.”

She hugged her arms tight across her bare chest. “He…”

“Didn’t look human?”

She nodded. “He didn’t emerge from the water, so I presumed he drowned.”

Harrison shook his head. “I wish he had, but no, he didn’t. I know him only as McFour, and he’s down here with us, somewhere. When we find him, I want to be… prepared.”

“Prepared for what?”

He didn’t say, but she knew what he meant; prepared to kill him.

——

Peel’s shoulder felt like it was on fire, and every time he moved it surged with an electric agony that left him in a hot sweat. He was grateful to the young woman, Zoe, who had given up her last stich of clothing to seal his wound, and realized without her help he would likely be dead already. He tried to hide his pain while they explored. Their goal was to find another passage out, but he guessed she was well aware of the pain he endured, and that his injury would hinder them.

It seemed pointless to carry the AK-47 when he knew he didn’t have the strength to fire the weapon. Yet despite learning McFour’s invulnerability to bullets, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the weapon. The assault rifle could slow the alien, even if it wouldn’t stop it. He cursed due to the loss of the last of his incendiary grenades during the swim from the cenote.

Several minutes of exploring identified many relics of the Mayans who had once lived here, from pottery and obsidian fragments, to stone carvings and a child-sized human skull. Peel noticed a perfectly circular hole in the cranium.

Zoe said, “It’s trepanation. An ancient form of surgery.”

“Why?” Peel asked.

She shrugged. “No one really knows, Harrison. There are theories, and people practiced trepanation all over the ancient world. But no explanation seems sufficient to describe the practice.”

Peel imagined that this was the doing of McFour’s kind but didn’t say so.

 “Look at that?” she said, shuddering and shining a light onto a glob of milky white goo. The same goo that had flowed through McFour.

Peel had wounded the creature. This gave him hope. “If it was down here, and it’s not here, there must be another way out.”

“‘It?’” she asked.

They spoke in Spanish because Peel was fluent in the Latin tongue and hadn’t realized he’d not referred to McFour in the masculine. “Yes, I mean ‘him’.”

They moved deeper into the cave, soon discovering stone steps that led upwards. More milky-white globs covered the path ahead, so Peel kept the AK ready, and insisted he led the way. Then, as they climbed, the walls grew smoother and soon featured the geometric design and stylized artwork of the Mayan culture.

“Wow!” said Zoe. “I’ve seen nothing like this!”

“You can read this? Understand it?”

She touched the bare rock with her delicate fingers. “I’ll have to come back, if I can. There is so much to learn here.”

“Does it tell a story?”

“Yes.” She pointed to a depiction of an alien-appearing entity with bat wings, crab claws and a head resembling a field of mushrooms. “These are what many archaeologists refer to as the ‘Insect Astronauts’, mythical beings that came down to Earth long before humans appeared, and built pyramid cities and taught us how to do the same. It’s the second time I’ve seen a reference to them today.”

She burst into tears.

Peel resisted the urge to comfort her with physical touch, because of her state of undress and because he didn’t know her at all.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a minute of sobbing, and wiping away the tears. “Miguel. Professor Sanderson. The others. They all died without knowing how close they were to making this amazing discovery.”

“Perhaps you will, in their memory.”

“Why did those men come, to kill all of us?”

Peel was about to answer, when he realized he didn’t really know. The throbbing pain in his arm distracted him, so he put aside the assault rifle and massaged the muscle around the wound.

“Would you like me to carry that? The weapon, I mean. I don’t know how to use it, but I could hand it to you when it is important?”

Peel nodded, then flinched again.

Zoe frowned, then pointed to his stomach. “Yikes, what is that?”

The Australian spy glanced down and saw the flap of a much older wound open on his stomach. Some time back, an alien creature had taken Peel’s human stomach and replaced it with an alien equivalent, built of the same milky white material that existed inside McFour. The stomach he could take out and fit back in again, and the sealed cavity in his body protected his other natural organs — other than the alien inlet and outlet valves. Despite its disturbing nature, it hadn’t given him any problems.

He quickly resealed his artificial stomach pouch and grinned to mask his embarrassment. There was so much he could tell Zoe about what he actually knew about the Insect Astronauts, and how McFour was one of them, and that they also went by the name Mi-go, or the Fungi from Yuggoth. But he’d save that information for when they encountered something that defied rational explanation and was beyond human understanding. Then she wouldn’t have any problem understanding.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “An old wound. It’s fine.”

She shuddered, and he saw an expression suggesting she might now have doubts whether pairing with him was such a good idea. She was probably right, considering what they would soon encounter. But Peel knew there had been no point of return for either of them. They would just have to see this adventure out together, and hope that they both survived, physically and mentally.

Zoe shuddered again. “What is THAT!”

Peel looked, discovering a sphere that seemed to float in the air ahead of them, with a mirrored surface that did not reflect the cave walls and the carvings of Insect Astronauts, but showed a vast chamber with windows looking out upon a cold, lifeless city of spires.

“It’s a wormhole,” said Peel, realizing that they had now reached the point where rationality went out the window. “It’s a gateway to another time, place or dimension, or all three at once.”

——

Part II. Yuggoth

His was a nightmare from which he could not wake.

Pablo Carrillo had watched helplessly as the Occupier first massacred the archaeologists, then Carrillo’s tomb robbers, and finally fought off the American intruder who shot away the remains of Carrillo’s body, before the Occupier jumped into the cenote.

Carrillo had expected the Occupier to swim back to the surface, but it had dived deeper, pushed their body into a dark network of caves where there was no light. Carrillo presumed the creature could see better than he could because once it emerged from the dark waters, it marched hurriedly through a network of almost pitch-black caves until it reached a swirling tunnel that took them not back to the surface, but into a nightmarish city of tall, dark basaltic towers cast in dull lights. Where creatures the size of humans but shaped like dragonflies flew between the towers and flashed all colors of the rainbow from their pinkish bodies and club-like heads.

In their fused body, the Occupier and Carrillo stepped through an airlock and out onto a frozen landscape with a sky full of stars and another reddish-white moon floating close in the heavens above them. Somehow, Carrillo sensed there was no air on the surface of this crater strewn landscape. They marched across the rocky landscape towards another of the near lightless, basaltic towers.

Where are you taking me?

His answer was an electric shock that surged through all the imaginary muscles he once possessed.

They weren’t the only occupier, Carrillo noticed. He spotted other lumbering creatures of milky-white bubbles who fired white pistons and turned gears in their robotic bodies. Some held human shapes, others were like gorillas. Then he recognized horses, camels, dogs and cats. They seemed to march at random, ignored each other, and never stopped.

After many minutes of quickened pace, they reached the second basaltic tower, and stepped through another airlock. The interior of this chamber seemed to contain air and light. He noticed an obsidian table top with a perfect replication of a dark city, circa World War Two, being packaged inside a black cylinder with odd geometric designs on its surface not unlike those of the many Mayan ruins Carrillo had plundered in his time. The Occupier looked down on the scene, and to Carrillo’s horror, he noticed tiny people, no larger than ants, wandering around this strange replication of a human world.

The Occupier moved on, took another cylinder from a wall of many hundreds of the same, and opened it. He then connected it to tubes fed from the wall that pumped into it a bubbling green fluid while he connected various other tubes that passed in air and electricity.

Carrillo thought his new existence couldn’t become anymore bizarre until the Occupier opened a cavity in its chest and removed a lump of gray matter that resembled a brain. He placed the brain in the jar, fixed many wires to it, and then closed the lid.

Then the Occupier disconnected a wire linking its white pulsating body with the black cylinder holding the brain, and the lights went out. Carrillo saw, heard, smelled and sensed nothing.

Except that he understood he was still alive.

——

The wormhole, as Harrison had called it, blew Zoe Arriaga’s mind. They didn’t so much step into it, but flowed through it like water disappearing down a drain. One moment they were on one side, the next on the other. The transition was like remembering her entire life’s history in a single moment, and the views seemed to be of a thousand galaxies and universes.

Then it was over seemingly before it began, and they stood in a dark but vast chamber. The walls were of glass bubble windows ranging in size from a dinner plate to a basketball court, and offered views out across a dark, white and red moonscape dotted with hundreds of blackened stone towers that vaguely resembled Mayan pyramids. In the starlit skies, thousands of the actual Insect Astronauts flew from one tower to the next, or disappeared into the vast expanse of an infinite universe. On the planetary surface, strange automations of a white milky-texture marched in all directions like ants seeking food.

Suddenly Zoe felt unsteady on her feet and dropped Harrison’s weapon before he caught her in his good arm.

Zoe reached out and wrapped her arms around him.

He held her tight as she sobbed into him. She buried her face into his bare chest, and remembered she was naked, but that didn’t seem important right now. Her mind had trouble comprehending what she had just seen.

Then she recognized Harrison didn’t tremble or cower as she did.

Zoe pulled away. “You knew about this place?”

He brushed a strand of wet hair from her eyes. “Not this place, exactly, but alien dimensions like it.”

A hole opened in the high ceiling above and four of the Insect Astronauts flew fast to land near them. The creatures were of pinkish skin, with three-pronged crab-like claws, and smaller limbs like those of centipedes. Their heads resembled Christmas lights flashing a multitude of colors as a means of communication, not unlike a squid changing skin color. The bodies mimicked lobster shells, and across their skin grew a multitude of funguses.

Zoe glanced around her and noticed fungus of many alien varieties and of multiple colors and shapes ranging from seaweed-like to fence-like and coral-like, and propagating everywhere. She imagined the spores they were breathing in, and the spores getting into Harrison’s wounds.

One of the alien insects approached and held up an appendage with a human eye and a human mouth surgically inserted into it. The eye watched them, and the mouth said, “Harrison Peel, you came as I said you would.”

Zoe trembled and held Harrison’s hand tightly. “Who… what… are you?”

“I am the creature he knows as McFour.”

Peel shuddered, and he pulled her close again. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.

She didn’t do as he asked, and instead glanced back at the monster which raised a second appendage shaped like the barrel of a gun, that shot darts at them.

Her head felt like water, and soon she slipped into unconsciousness.

——

Part III. Io

Peel woke floating.

And awash with tranquility.

But he was not adrift and instead was emerging from a blob of purplish material with a texture similar to bakers’ dough, but without its sticky texture. He popped out into air and breathed, not realizing that he had held his breath until now.

What surprised Peel more was his body. He no longer experienced pain, and he felt strong again.

Zoe emerged next to him and flowed from of the purple dough blobs as he had, as if were birthing them. Her face appeared serene. She spied Peel and rolled his way, embracing him. They were both naked and unblemished.

“What… happened?”

“I don’t know.”

The purplish mass, with vein-like channels running across its surface, resembled an organ, but one bloated to fill the pentagon-shaped cylinder that trapped them. The purple mass swelled and grew in height from beneath them and was no longer a surface they could sink into. They rose with it out of the chamber into a larger room shrouded in darkness. When the purple mass leveled with the new floor, its growth halted.

Peel and Zoe clambered to their feet, then looked at each other. Her slim body was now devoid of cuts and bruises, and her muscles seemed firmer and her breasts perkier.

“Look at you!” She pointed to his shoulder, “No bullet wound.”

Peel touched his skin and discovered Zoe was correct. It was like McFour had never shot him. He touched his stomach, discovering that the flap of skin that hid his alien stomach was no longer there.

“It’s like they have remade us.” Her hand shot to her mouth, covering it. “You don’t think… We aren’t… us, anymore?”

Peel shook his head as he took Zoe’s hand in his. Her fingernails were long as he hoped. “Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

He used her fingernail to cut his skin. It bled red. He looked to her, and she nodded, so he cut her too. She too bled like a normal human.

“What’s going on?” she asked, then ran to him, hugging him tightly.

He held her close, despite the weirdness of being naked together but not being lovers. He couldn’t understand the calmness that enveloped his emotions, and Zoe too seemed to accept their predicament without experiencing terror. “I don’t know, Zoe. Let’s explore and see what we can learn.”

Their chamber was of dark obsidian rock similar to the previous alien city they had discovered at the wormhole endpoint. Fungus tendrils lit up only when they passed close by. Sponge-like structures forged from mushroom-like matter ballooned into furniture. A bed, a chair, a table, a bath with water, as if trying to guess what Peel and Zoe needed in this moment.

Zoe squeezed his hand. He felt the sweat on her palms. “What is this place?”

“I think it’s our new home.”

“Or cell.”

They explored together, never separating, discovering their cage was a single circular room about fifty meters across and domed-shape. Light never lit up more than a half dozen meters from any point they stood in, so it was not possible to see the full extent of the room all at once.

The edges were more of the circular windows of varying dimensions and positions that looked out across a dark landscape and only lost their opaqueness when they stood close to them. At one large window, Peel let his eyes adjust, until he identified a nighttime sky of stars with familiar constellations as seen from Earth, but half the Milky Way remained hidden from view behind a dark orb filing half the sky.

He noticed they were high above a planetary surface, with volcanoes spewing noxious jets of gases into the silent atmosphere, or lack thereof. Peel spotted other buildings, shaped like tentacles with circular tips, and those tips were rooms similar to the ones that contained them. It was too dark to see how the tips attached to the planet’s surface. 

Peel shuddered.

Zoe hugged him tight. “I’m scared, Harrison.”

He squeezed her close, but he didn’t feel scared. He had never felt this relaxed or content in his entire life.

“Me too.”

——

After exhausting themselves with exploration, Harrison and Zoe decided that the water in the sponge basins that kept offering themselves as they passed by, must be for their sustenance. They drank their fill, not recognizing their dehydrated states until they did.

Peel said, “I don’t see any sources of food?”

“I guess not, but…”

“Are you hungry?”

“Strangely… no… and no toilet facilities either.”

He didn’t feel the need to urinate, and neither did she.

They lay together on a sponge bed, cuddling. Peel had endured plenty of surreal environments in his time, but nothing he’d experienced previously was both terrifying and comforting at the same time. He stared at the dark ceiling, shrouded in darkness, and wondered what was wrong with his mind. 

Within seconds of laying down together, his hands gentle traced a shape along her naked back, and she curled her fingers through the hair on his chest. Vapor clouds puffed from the spongy surface, and soon Peel felt overcome with desire.

He couldn’t help himself, and he was kissing Zoe, and she was kissing him. Their hands were alive, exploring each other’s skin and exciting their respective erogenous zones. Soon he was inside her, and she pulled at his buttocks, holding his hips against hers. She moaned with the building orgasm as they thrust together, and soon they both came.

They collapsed on each other, and Peel thought the lovemaking had exhausted him, until seconds later he desired her again, and they made love a second, and third, and fourth time.

They only abandoned their lovemaking when they rolled off the sponge onto the cool, obsidian floor, and lay together still entangled, but exhausted.

The minutes passed, then perhaps an hour, before he found the strength to speak again. “I’m sorry, Zoe, I don’t know what overcame me.”

She turned over and lay her head on his chest. “Don’t be. I wanted you long before we reached this place.”

Peel had once read that Earth was a world dominated by microbes. It wasn’t his taste buds that dictated what foods he like, or his morals that considered what was dirty and unhygienic, but the microbes inside him. Was that the purpose of the fungus in the room, to overwhelm their bodies with biologically induced emotions of contentment and attraction? Rationally Peel knew he should experience terror because of their predicament, but he just couldn’t feel it. This place seemed a combination of being a zoo exhibit and a patient on pain killers immobilized in an intensive care unit.

Instead of engaging in feverish love-making, they kissed instead. Then they sought a second sponge bed, and one grew from the fungus before they’d walked a couple of meters. They tried it out. Its surface was warm and firm and contoured to their bodies. They lay for several minutes, waiting for the aphrodisiac spores, but they never came.

Zoe, resting her head on his chest and her legs wrapped around his, burst into tears. Peel held her and didn’t speak.

Later, she laughed.

“I’m sorry, Harrison. I lost so many friends… And this place. It should scare me to death. It doesn’t, but it should.” She made the sign of the cross over her chest.

Not believing in any human-manufactured god for a long time now, Peel hadn’t considered Zoe was likely Catholic and had a different belief system than him. Should she feel guilt for sleeping with him?

“Harrison, what about you?”

“I understand. I think…”

She looked up at him. “You do understand, don’t you? You know so much more about these aliens than I do.”

Peel frowned. Memories came back to him of horrors he’d faced and the many times alien manifestations of unnatural life had almost torn him to pieces. And how he had died, several times, but the paradoxical non-intuitive actual laws of the universe had bent and twisted spacetime, and had brought him back to life again and again to experience the same terrors more than once. But now, those memories weren’t his, or didn’t feel that way. He didn’t ‘feel’ anything.

“Zoe, do you remember the Pacific incident, last month when several island nations disappeared, and many US Navy warships also vanished?”

She tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “Yes. Millions of dead fish and squid washed up on the Mexican beaches for weeks afterwards. You were there?”

He nodded, remembering his nightmare trapped in a world where gravity, light, space and time all broke down, and a behemoth of an alien monster emerged from the cold Pacific waves, ready to destroy the world. Somehow, he and a friend had returned the creature to its watery crypt, sealing it in its prison, but the world had never been the same since.

“Yes, I was there.”

“Were they the same monsters, the Astronaut Insects?”

“No, it was something different. It’s hard to explain…”

“Try me?”

So Peel told his story, went right back to the beginning with his first alien encounter in the jungles of Cambodia, and laid it all out for her.

His words should have terrified her, as they did him. But when his story reached its end, Zoe seemed content, and drifted into a deep slumber, and Peel quickly followed.

——

Peel woke without an understanding of how long he had slept. He felt suddenly alert, like a noise had wakened him. But there had been no noise.

Untangling his body from Zoe’s sleeping form, he stood and stretched. He drank water but experienced no sensations of hunger or a need to pee or empty his bowels. Needing time by himself, and with Zoe sleeping soundly, he wandered around their prison.

When he approached a collection of the circular windows, they again transformed from black to transparent. Daylight now, Peel stared out across the planetary landscape, observing that the large shape that had obscured half the stars was the gas giant Jupiter. The sight was wondrous, and the detail in the swirling reds, browns and whites of the many gas clouds decorating its vast surface left him stunned. He suspected Zoe and he were not the first humans imprisoned here, nor would they be the last, but he felt certain only a few people had ever witnessed the Solar System’s largest planet from such a glorious vantage-point. Sometimes, his chosen path in life did present him with the most wondrous sights to behold.

His eyes moved to the moon’s surface, for this must be where they were. Io perhaps, the innermost of Jupiter’s largest satellites. When he spotted the many enormous volcanoes firing jets of super-heated gas and molten rock into the vacuum, Peel knew he’d guessed correctly.

Then he noticed other Mi-go structures, spherical prisons of the Astronaut Insects as Zoe called them, covered in thousands of circular windows, mostly black but of many sizes randomly arranged. He suspected other victims like Zoe and he were captive in these artificial life support systems. Each prison swayed from waving stems several hundred meters in height and attached to pinkish, crab-like monsters scuttling below. Each beast was about fifty meters long and wandered like an oversized termite on the sulfur-encrusted landscape. Fungal varieties in their thousands grew everywhere on their exposed shells. Spores and vapors rolled off their carapaces and settled on the rock behind them.

Peel stumbled backwards, and recognized that behind the haze of the emotion-suppressing drugs, he experienced terror and horror worse than anything he had encountered before.

Except, perhaps… R’lyeh.

He focused on his rational mind. His military and intelligence services training instilled a duty to escape any incarceration, but this situation seemed impossible. Naked, he had no possessions to use to his advantage. The prison itself was a mobile beast wandering an airless moon orbiting a planet hundreds of millions of kilometers from Earth. Outside, the radiation emitted from Jupiter would kill him in minutes, along with the vacuum and freezing temperatures. These obstacles were of course amongst thousands of other insurmountable difficulties he and Zoe would face should they wish to leave under their own terms.

He scratched his head, and recognized that he did so not from an itch, but from habit.

Examining his arms and chest, Peel saw no scars, moles or blotches on his skin. Had the Mi-go remade Zoe and him? Or were these new bodies? He remembered his former artificial stomach and wondered what devices or alien organs now filled their insides.

Peel contemplated the sequence of events that led him to finding McFour again, after such a long period since their last encounter. Were circumstances perhaps not luck but a calculated sting operation to bring him to this place?

But why?

They needed him alive for a mission, perhaps? Was Zoe part of the honey trap to ensnare him. She was certainly beautiful, and like most men he enjoyed watching her naked and she had obliged, early on when the choice to display her body was hers, when under normally stressful circumstances, she would cover up in fear. Were the fungal spores affecting their minds also present in the Mexican jungles and taking hold even then?

Peel knew all these thoughts should have left him catatonic and curled in a ball cowering in a corner, but he just couldn’t feel it. His prison was more than physical, it was mental too, working against him.

Suddenly overcome with exhaustion, Peel returned to their bed.

When the darkness unfolded, sensing a presence, Peel recoiled.

An automation of milky white muscles, pistons and gears in the shape of a woman stood over the unconscious form of Zoe Arriaga. Tubes from the mechanical monster protruding from where it should have a face and disappeared into Zoe’s mouth, anus and pubic region. Fluids flowed in and out.

It took Peel only seconds to understand it was both feeding her and removing her bodily waste.

Only now did Peel’s fight-or-flight instincts kick in, as did the nightmare of what he saw permeate the fog of his mind, smothering him with intense emotions of fear and anger. He must have let out a cry, for the automation noticed, and several tendrils flew from its face to Peel’s mouth and crawled down his throat.

He tried to fight it, but the world turned dark.

——

Peel woke in darkness, and he couldn’t sense anything.

For the longest period — hours, days, weeks — he noticed and felt nothing. He knew he remained alive, but the Mi-go had cut his awareness off from his body.

Later, a pentagon-shaped screen appeared in the nothingness.

Through the screen, he spied a room of dark rock, fungal growths that resembled organic versions of factory machinery, and two figures. One was a woman, who from the waist down was naked and normal looking, but the rest of her revealed her true identity as a milky-white Mi-go automation. The other was a man with patchwork layers of human skin over his milky-white approximation of human anatomy. Half a face, a muscle on his bicep, a penis, a foot. 

The two creatures stood between a black cylinder with geometric designs and various attachments. The half-woman attached a new device to a fixture on the cylinder. Then Peel heard noises, like a television set suddenly being turned on. A buzzing similar to a swarm of angry bees filled his senses. He also heard dripping water, and gears and pistons turning and pumping.

“Harrison Peel?” asks the half-woman. She had blue eyes and perfect teeth, but they were the only aspects of her face that he could relate to.

“Yes?”

His voice wasn’t his. It sounds like a computer-generated approximation of human speech. He sounded like Stephen Hawking.

She held up her white piston-powered hand and displayed three fingers. “How many?”

He told her. “Three.”

The half-humans stepped backwards and the angry buzzing sounded louder. A pink, lobster-like creature Peel knew as a Mi-go crawled into his line of vision. The head, like a sea sponge, flashed in all the colors of the rainbow. Reddish spores floated around it like a cloud. Between its two crab-like arms were smaller arms. Human arms. One ended in two hands pushed together like they were clapping. The other was a cluster of five human eyes with a mouth in its center.

“I take it you are McFour?” Peel asked.

“Yes,” said the mouth. “We’ve dissected your mind. All of it. We know everything there is to know about you.”

“Then why am I still alive?”

“It’s not what you know, Harrison Peel, but what you can do. Will do.”

Peel wanted to move, stretch his body, but he’d seen these cylinders before and read about them in classified NSA files. The Mi-go used these devices to transport living human brains. The realization of his fate caused him to moan like a man trapped in a nightmare from which he could not wake.

“If you cooperate, Harrison Peel, we’ll return you to your body.”

Peel forced himself to recover. This was his worst nightmare, not death, but incarceration in a nightmarish alien scenario that would last an eternity. “What do I need to do?”

“The R’lyeh Singularity. You were there, when Cthulhu unfolded and reality collapsed in this corner of the universe.”

“I was.”

“You halted Cthulhu. Closed off his influence. How did you do that?”

Peel paused. He didn’t know the answer. He remembered his terror trapped inside a geometric confusion of shifting gravity, light and directions, where nothing made sense and nothing could make sense. Then he remembered pushing another man through a portal, and that man replicating an infinite number of times.

“I don’t know. You’re asking the wrong person.”

“You refer to the man you know as Jordan?”

“Yes.”

The five eyes seem to stare straight into Peel, like seeing him through a camera lens. “We can’t find him. We found you.”

Peel considered what the monster had told him. “I can’t help you.”

“Are you aware, of the parallel universe conundrum?”

Peel was about to say ‘no’ but remembered learning about this insight into the universe from another alien monster than had once held him hostage, under not so dissimilar circumstances. “I have some idea, yes.”

“The R’yleh Singularity broke down those connections.”

“What do you mean?”

“Leakages, from other parallel dimensions. You stopped R’lyeh rising once, but now the barriers between the dimensions have broken. R’lyeh will happen again and again.”

Peel had a sense of where this conversation would lead. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stop it, again and again.”

He almost cried, or would have if he had eyes to produce tears. “I can’t.”

“Not forever. Only long enough for us to complete our collection…”

“Collection?”

“And to stretch space-time, causality separating R’lyeh from the rest of the universe. Will you cooperate?”

Peel was about to say ‘yes’. He didn’t know what other options were available to him, and stopping R’lyeh, no matter how much he dreaded entering that nightmarish landscape again, was better than an eternity trapped without a body. Besides, if R’lyeh returned, brining Cthulhu with it, there was no point to anything. In the end, his needs proved more basic and personal, and led him to his next response. “I have questions?”

“You want to ask me a question?”

“Yes.”

“Ask.”

“Zoe Arriaga. Why is she here?”

The alien crustacean crawled in a half circle. The buzzing picked up in intensity and the lights on its head flashed in blues and purples. “She is your sexual partner. Humans don’t cope with isolation.”

“She comes with me. You release her when you release me, and we go together. Then I’ll do what you ask.”

The screen turned blank and the sound vanished, and Peel was alone with his senseless mind again.

——

Peel woke laid out on the sponge bed, embracing Zoe. She stirred, then drifted back to sleep as he lay still, the fog lifting from his mind as he treasured this moment of intimacy, gifted to them in this otherwise surreal and hopeless incarceration.

Then he remembered the automation, probing Zoe while she lay unconscious. It must have probed him as well.

He sat and felt the sweat gather on his skin. Untangling his limbs from hers, he climbed to his feet and stretched his body. Checking his mouth and other parts of his body, he found no sign of bruising or other injuries. He noticed Zoe was the same. No wonder they never felt hungry or needed to expel body waste, the Mi-go performed those functions for them.

Peel found a basin with water and splashed it over his face. The water wasn’t cool, proving ineffective in rousing him from his malaise. He tried to work himself into a frenzy, or feel his fear, but he couldn’t achieve either. All he desired was to climb back into the sponge bed with Zoe and make love with her.

His rational mind screamed at him to find a means of escape.

Then Zoe screamed.

Peel ran to her.

She lay on the floor, stared at her hands like they were raw and flayed. Bloodshot eyes expressed a fear Peel had not witnessed in another human in a long time, and her face and skin became ashen. She looked up at him, and seeing him, screamed again.

“What’s happened?”

He approached, but she recoiled. “It’s all over me!”

“What is?”

She moaned and scooted along the floor, away from Peel. “Stay away!” she screamed. “Can’t you see? Can’t you see… I’m infected?”

Peel concentrated, and for an instant, his mind shifted and the tricks induced by the drugs in his system failed. Zoe’s skin had pockmarked with fungal growths by the hundreds and continued to grow from her. Red and purple extrusions, and scaly moss as a replacement of her skin.

Then a cloud of spores flew into Peel’s face, and he sneezed and coughed for several seconds.

When he recovered, the grotesque image vanished. Zoe lay on the ground, panting hard like she had just run a marathon but her nakedness was ack to normal, and she stared at nothing. “Why?” she asked.

Peel tried to offer comfort, but she screamed when he did, then fell into a dazed and lethargic state.

He sat next to her for several minutes.

Eventually she closed her eyes, and either fell asleep or drifted off into an unnatural state of unconsciousness.

Peel didn’t risk touching her, realizing now that alien spores might infect her and he couldn’t see them because of the alien drugs in his system. Touching her might infect him. He couldn’t administer first aid, for there were no tools or medicines here, and no one to call for help.

Half an hour later, Zoe ceased breathing.

Then her body collapsed and crumpled into a puff of spores and dust. Her component forms and the debris left behind seem to bubble as if some unseen force cooked it, and she faded away into black dust.

A few minutes passed it felt as if she had never existed, Peel crawled into the darkness and sobbed.

——

Time passed, but how much time Peel couldn’t know.

Hours?

Days?

Weeks?

Eventually he climbed to his feet and walked to the windows. They lost their opaqueness, and he saw again the daylight surface of a volcanic moon. Jupiter hung high in the sky, in the same position Peel had seen it last. He recalled that Io, being close to the gas giant, remained tidally locked so the same side always faced the Jovian planet. He also remembered the immense gravitational pull Jupiter exerted on Io which compressed and stretched the moon’s core, causing it to heat and produce its multitude of volcanoes.

Their beetles had scampered from their last position, but remained with the herd of prison pods. On the horizon, Peel identified a tall black tower similar to those he and Zoe had seen when they first stepped through the wormhole. The herd seemed to shuffle in that direction.

Peel then identified the red spot of Jupiter and wished he hadn’t.

The giant red storm which had raged for centuries was large enough to swallow several Earths, but what shocked Peel were the many tentacles around its edge, each tens of thousands of kilometers long, and how the spot more resembled a throat than a cloud of hydrogen gas. The tentacles reached into the Mouth of Jupiter, dived into the gooey liquid substance in the red center, and pulled out what appeared to be large rocky crusts.

Then Peel recognized the tip of South America.

No ocean, and no vegetation, but mountains and ocean trenches. The tentacles carried the jigsaw building block representation of Earth’s geological history into the vacuum, then placed it on the gas surface of Jupiter, just outside the Red Spot.

It didn’t sink as Peel expected. It should have broken apart from gravitational forces exerted on its non-circular shape. Instead, it floated, and drifted off like a broken piece of timber lost in an ocean current.

The tip of South America wasn’t the only continental component sailing in the gaseous seas of the solar system’s largest planet. Peel saw hundreds, no thousands, of land pieces cruising across the strange landscape. He recognized Tasmania, and the boot of Italy. Then he noticed a second boot of Italy. What were the Mi-go building here?

Peel felt overcome with an urge to vomit. He soon retched, but nothing came up but spit and gave him a raw throat for his efforts.

He crawled from the window, let it become dark again, and found his sponge bed.

Alone, he drifted into a dream state that was neither pleasant nor restful.

——

Days passed in isolation. With Zoe by his side, imprisonment had been bearable. Now Peel harbored thoughts of suicide, but there were no means by which to end his life, and if he did, he knew he had to destroy his brain in the process. Otherwise, the Mi-go might bring him back to life.

During what he imagined being the seventh or eighth day, he returned to the windows and stared out across Io.

Jupiter still filled half the sky. The Mouth of the gas giant continued to build new continents, and some of those rocky elements had drifted together, building larger, completed jigsaws of Earths, but also other planetary surfaces. Some might have been Earth in its deep geological past, while others were alien planets. He recognized a reconstruction of Mars. So much landmass built in such a brief period.

On Io, the Mi-go city now loomed close. Tall black towers with clouds of pinkish dust encircling the tallest peaks. Then Peel realized these were the Mi-go themselves, flitting from one building to the next. Radiation, volcanic poisons and the vacuum did not affect them. These creatures held many advantages over human frailty.

The walking prisons still moved as a herd. One came close to Peel, and he could see inside. A naked woman stood in the window, with long dark hair and muscular arms and legs. It was Zoe.

He waved at her, excited that she was alive again, but his heart fluttered, recognizing the Mi-go had separated them.

Zoe did not return the gesture.

A naked man joined her, tall and lean, with a shaved scalp and also muscular. He took the woman’s hand in his, then she hugged him.

Peel recognized he looked upon another version of himself.

He stepped back as he drew in a deep breath, far enough for the windows to go opaque again. This was all a cruel joke. He had never considered the possibility there were more Peels and Zoes in the other walking prisons. There were at least fifty more of the crawling prisons in their herd.

Peel wondered again if he was real. With his unblemished body and restored human organic stomach, he probably wasn’t the original Harrison Peel. That made him a clone or an automation.

He crawled into a corner and sobbed again. He asked himself how long it would be before he lost his mind.

Then his crawling prison separated from the herd.

——

His giant beetle walked his circular home into the Mi-go city. A pseudopod grew out of the black obsidian tower and slurped onto one of the larger opaque windows. The window dissolved, and Peel recognized the equivalent of an alien airlock. With nothing for him here, he walked through the soft, squishy contraption to the dark, obsidian stone room on the other side. The interior vaguely resembled a Mayan or Aztec tomb, all angular and geometric. Portions of the walls lit up with light displays on spongy surfaces in a multitude of colors. The Mi-go equivalent of a computer screen or television set.

A sponge burped in one wall, and a human-appearing woman appeared from its gel-like texture. She featured muscular arms and legs, and long dark hair.

“Zoe!” Peel raced to her, but she held out a hand, stopping him.

Two more nude Zoes emerged from similar sponge contraptions. Each walked with purpose until the three stood at an equal distance, forming a half circle around Peel. They didn’t blink, and no expression filled their faces.

Peel felt a chill run the length of his spine. “None of you are Zoe, are you?”

The first Zoe said, “I am McFour.” The creature momentarily peeled back the realistic skin from its face, revealing milky-white bladders, pistons and gears, before resealing the deformity to the point where Peel couldn’t tell it was an automation.

“We are all McFour,” said the other two in unison.

Peel made a snorting noise. “This is just great.” Once more, he felt as if he were the butt of some awful cosmic joke. “Why am I here?”

One Zoe pointed to what was probably the Mi-go equivalent of a raised pedestal. Arranged neatly on top was a set of clothes. Jeans, a t-shirt, a belt, desert boots, socks and underwear. Peel dressed quickly and knew that the newfound confidence he felt being dressed again was likely illusionary. But clothes might mean he was about to return to Earth.

When he finished tying his laces, one McFour gestured he should take a passage to their left. He followed. Two McFours in front, one following up behind to ensure his cooperation.

The next room was comprised many slabs, each with a naked body, men and women, with milky-white tubes running in and out of their mouths, noses, urinary tracks and anuses. The bodies numbered in the hundreds and were alternatively Harrison Peel and Zoe Arriaga. Peel noticed the rise and fall of chests. Alive but unconscious, they breathed.

On the edges of the room were shelves with metal canisters, just large enough to contain a human brain. Pentagon-shaped windows looked into enormous tanks embedded in the wall, bubbling with lime green liquids. Detached brains, eyes, ears and mouths floated inside, all connected to more of the white tubes. Peel thought the sight should make him vomit, but he felt nothing.

Then he noticed two bodies on slabs without tubes, one of him and one of Zoe, both with their skulls removed and their brains and spinal cords missing. There was no blood, except on the bullet wound in Peel’s shoulder.

His alien stomach too they had laid open, and Peel could see further into his original body’s insides. More of his organs had ‘transformed’ into the same milky-white components that powered the Zoe-mimicking automations. Peel finally felt enough to shudder and wonder how long his old self would have survived before it too became another automation, like the three abominations leading him around.

“What is going on?” Peel said through gritted teeth.

The McFours in the Zoe skins looked to each other, then him. “You serve a purpose.” They all spoke at the same time.

Peel pointed to one, disturbed that he stared at a monster impersonating a woman he had been intimate with. “Only one of you needs to talk. You! You speak for the others.”

McFour stared through Peel. “Another R’lyeh Singularity event is imminent. Not just one, but many. Not just in this dimension, but in many. Impacts on multiple dimensions now conjoined because of the first R’lyeh Singularity event.”

Peel shook his head. “I don’t understand!”

And then perhaps he did, remembering the continent-building exercises he’d witnessed on the surface of Jupiter.

They led him to another room with a large circular window looking out across the surface of the Jovian gas giant, dominating the horizon with its pinkish-red, fat earthworm-like tentacles pulling rock from the goo that was now the mouth of the planet.

“That is Aarthu M’thu. What some humans call a Great Old One. It exists in reverse time and reverse entropy. It builds rather than destroys, but only from a human perspective of time.”

Two sponge-like blobs grew out of the floor and formed floating representations of Earth and Jupiter. Accurate models, they included their floating moons, but were not to scale to each other.

The McFour standing to Peel’s right said, “This is Earth as you know it now.” A slither shot out of her hand and disappeared into the simulation. Ice caps retreated and formed over and over, then disappeared completely. North and South America separated, and Australia and Antarctica drifted away from Asia. Then a violent storm of lava and noxious gases covered the planet, before a meteorite shot out of Mexico and disappeared from the simulation. “This is your Earth during the dinosaur extinction period. It was when the Mi-go last tried to destroy Cthulhu with a weapon strike. We didn’t cause a R’lyeh Singularity event, but came close to doing so. Cthulhu did not merge with reality to the degree it did this time.”

Peel shuddered. The monster he had fought in the frigid seas of the South Pacific had roamed free upon the Earth in the exact spot where Zoe and Peel had first met.

“Whatever you did,” said another McFour, speaking through Zoe’s mouth but not using her voice, “you stopped Cthulhu in this epoch. No species has ever succeeded like that before.”

The McFour controlling the simulation fast forwarded to the modern era, and Peel watched as the corpse continent of R’lyeh rose out of the ocean. He remembered being trapped there, as reality broke down around him. That experience had been his most terrifying, far worse than what he was experiencing now.

Then the simulation fast forwarded again, years or decades at most, and R’lyeh rose and dived in and out of the Pacific Ocean, repeatedly.

“I know you cannot understand, but in each instance, you are there, Harrison Peel. You prevent the event from escalating into something no intelligence could control.”

Peel shrugged. “Why does it matter to you? Earth is not your planet!”

The McFour controlling the simulation flicked its milky-white tendrils to the Jupiter simulation. Peel watched as the Mouth of Jupiter sped up, building a new surface over the gas giant, creating multiple replications of Earth stretched out from the South Pole, as well as life-sized representations of other alien worlds. He also identified Earth’s Moon and Mars. He estimated there to be between fifty and a hundred planets floating on the surface.

The simulation skipped forward, and soon oceans filled the gaps between continents and worlds. Suns the size of small moons orbited the new Jupiter, bringing night and day cycles of varying periods. The Mouth of Jupiter didn’t go away. Instead its tentacles fell dormant even though the magma-like mouth continued to bubble and squirm.

Then, when Peel felt he couldn’t comprehend any further weirdness, he observed the surface slip off his original Earth and stretch across space like a long tube of spaghetti. Then the tubular Earth lay upon a replica Earth on Jupiter, like the planet had just received a new skin.

The original Earth, meanwhile, in its spherical original format, seemed to dissolve into chaos as the multiple R’lyeh Singularity events merged and consumed the planet, erasing it from reality like an evaporating black hole.

One of the McFour’s touched Peel on the shoulder, and for a second, he believed he saw emotion in the stare, and that Zoe was back. But he had imagined it, and the face remained passive and cold. It was always McFour speaking. “Harrison Peel, a universe cannot exist where Cthulhu is free. It destroys causality. It merges parallel dimensions. The rest of the universe will isolate itself from us soon. We Mi-go, we need to establish our zoo so we can continue our experimentation into the distant future.”

“Zoo?”

“Yes, Peel. Planet Earth has always been a zoo.”

——

Peel soon saw himself as the betrayed and the betrayer. The Mi-go had used him, and not for altruistic motives. Now he would let himself be used to survive and escape this hell. The alternative was a fate he knew he could not endure. But he still asked for time alone, to process everything he had learned today.

Somehow, inside R’lyeh, he had achieved an outcome the Mi-go never had, banished Cthulhu back to the realm he originated from. But Peel was no one special. He had survived only through sheer luck. Trapped inside the dysfunctional reality bubble and a corpse city risen from the frigid oceans, Peel had pushed another man into a device known only as the Infinite Replicator. That other man, an American black ops government assassin whom Peel knew only as Jordan, also scoured the world daily, taking down alien threats wherever they appeared. Peel and Jordan’s chances of defeating Cthulhu had been infinitely small that day, but when Jordan had replicated an infinite number of times, one had found a solution, and the dimensional disruption had repaired. Peel felt the Mi-go really needed Jordan to understand why they had succeeded where the Insect Astronauts had not. But the Jordans who’d survived were not the individuals who had solved the problem. That individual had died amongst billions of other Jordans slaughtered that day.

As Peel stared out across the Io Mi-go city, and beyond to the Mouth of Jupiter, almost complete with its construction of the Americas circa current era, Peel tried to imagine existence on a world with a surface area at least a hundred times that of a single Earth. Somehow the Mi-go would alter gravity there, because gravitational pull had to be several times stronger on the Jovian surface than on Earth, and the radiation that Jupiter emitted would also prove lethal. Then Peel figured, if the Mi-go could undertake a construction project of this magnitude, the problems he imagined them facing would be simplistic side notes for them. Their challenges would be concepts he couldn’t begin to fathom.

But why so many Earths and replications of other planets and eras in Earth’s history?

Then he remembered what McFour had said, about the merging of dimensions. These must be worlds from parallel universes also impacted by R’lyeh Singularity events. No wonder the events kept repeating, as one occurred in a conjoined dimension, it impacted all the others.

So many clones of himself, all preparing for a return to the nightmarish landscape, to repeat the process. Give the Mi-go enough time to move the humans and their natural environment to a new zoo. Jupiter.

After an hour of contemplation, Peel returned to the McFours. Only one remained, dressed in the skin of Zoe Arriaga. Seeing her shell, he realized how much he missed her, and how much he needed companionship in this fucked-up universe in which he existed.

“You decided?” McFour asked.

“Question first. Am I human, or is all or some of me composed of your alien technology?”

“You are one hundred percent human. Biologically, you have the physiology of a young adult male.”

Peel nodded. “You have plenty of my clones to do your dirty work. This clone, he wants the simple life, away from all this end of the world — and universe — shit. I want you give me Zoe, lots of money, and you leave us alone.”

McFour stared through him. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Five Harrison Peels before you made the same request. We granted this request to three of them. That is enough.”

Peel clenched his teeth and tightened his fists. “Fuck!”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Then why ask?”

“We insert you back into your world. Our agents, human and others, will manipulate circumstances so that you will aid us.”

Pacing, Peel had figured as much, but he still needed to negotiate. “I need funds, lots of money.”

“Yes. We do that.”

“And a new identity. Passport, credit cards, birth certificate and driver’s license.”

“We have human agents that can prepare all that.”

“Good. Then we agree.”

Peel drew his eyes from the beast that was the Mouth of Jupiter and took a long, hard look at the naked skin wrapped up in Mi-go automation. He wondered what life would have been like, if Zoe and he had been a couple. Were they more than an impassioned embrace brought on by aphrodisiac spores? He might never know.

“You made more Zoes. I’ve seen them. I one one, to take with me,” he said, recognizing that he made the offer not so much for companionship, but to free at least one of her from this nightmare.

“No,” said McFour with surprising affirmation. “The two of you, in your version, were not compatible. That is why we disposed of her.”

——

Part IV. Sonora

Peel woke with a jolt.

He sat behind the wheel of an old pickup truck, parked in a desert with cactus and the peaks of mountains along the horizon, but didn’t know how he came to be here. He wore the same clothes, and in his pockets, he discovered car keys and a wallet with his identity cards and passport. His name was Nathan Corby. He was American from Washington State, and his birth year was 1981, a full ten years after his actual date of birth.

Corby suited him just fine.

His driver’s license photo looked young. Peel looked at himself in the rearview mirror, and noticed that he looked early thirties, despite the forty plus years he’d lived.

A second set of keys carried a room number. Sifting through the wallet, he discovered a business card for a motel in the town of Nogales, on the Mexican border with Arizona in the US.

Peel checked the glove box finding a .45 Colt revolver and a metallic device shaped like a beetle that lit up with multiple flashing colors when he touched it. A communications device linking him to the Mi-go? He’d work out what to do with that contraption later.

Pocketing the Colt, Peel checked over the pickup, discovering nothing suspicious, like drugs, caches of weapons or dead bodies. Then he drove, reaching the outskirts of Nogales by sunset and finding his motel.

The room wasn’t much. The walls were water stained, the sheets on the bed were moth eaten and the tiles in the bathroom had cracked open long ago. After a shower and a thorough check to ensure his body appeared wound and alien organ free, Peel dressed and headed out.

He found a liquor store and bought himself several bottles of tequila and vodka. At the ATM he discovered $1.7 million in his bank account, and that brought a smile to his face. After grabbing a thousand in cash and purchasing a meal of tacos, he returned to the motel and sat outside to eat and drink.

The night air was warm and filled with the distant noises of a city’s outskirts, such as car and truck noises. Far away someone played Latin pop tunes on an old radio. Mosquitos buzzed in the air.

Without warning, Peel burst into tears and found he couldn’t stop crying.

He started with the tequila.

Three shots later, his emotional outpouring ended.

It was then he noticed a dog sitting only a few meters from him, staring at him with bashful eyes that hinted he was a neglected animal.

“You hungry?” Peel asked.

The dog just looked at him. Peel recognized it as a Mexican hairless dog, about twenty-five kilos, black and thin. It wore a collar.

“You should go home, mate. Someone is missing you.”

The dog didn’t look away.

Peel threw it half a taco.

The dog approached cautiously, then quickly ate while remaining alert to dangers.

After finishing another shot of tequila, Peel stood and saluted his canine companion. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, my friend.”

——

In the morning Peel woke to a hangover. He hated that drinking to excess had allowed him to sleep without dreams, but the forced intoxication had worked. Removed from the Mi-go emotion-inhibiting drugs, his mental state now felt like a washing machine jumping around with an unbalanced load. Yet downwards spiraling emotions filled him with an odd sense of relief, a proof that he was all human, as McFour had said. Bu his emotions were too much to bear on a day-to-day basis.

He showered, dressed and stepped out.

The dog sat waiting for him.

Peel laughed. “You don’t want to hang around me, mate.”

He drove to a diner, ordered and ate breakfast, drank coffee and smiled at the server every time she gave him a refill. She only smiled back at him the first time.

After purchasing a few supplies at a local store, Peel returned to the motel discovering again, the dog waiting for him. Peel threw the animal raw meat he’d bought. The hairless dog devoured it, then hung around.

“You’ve got no one in your life?”

The dog stared at him.

“Neither do I, mate.”

——

Peel’s days bled into weeks, and then a month. Every day was the same routine. Rise when he felt like it. Head out for breakfast, come back and feed the dog, then sit on the porch of his motel room while the dog sat next to him. Sometimes he’d read a book, other times he stared at the road traffic shooting by. Many of those trucks, cars and motorcycles, Peel knew, smuggled cocaine and amphetamines into the United States. He’d seen the drug dealers too. Low level operators of the cartel that ran this city with their expensive but uncultured clothes and pistols worn openly. Peel avoided them and they ignored him.

The dog, however, stayed. Peel fed him every morning and mixed the canine’s diet with raw steak and canned dog food. The dog slept on the porch next to Peel during the day, or followed him when Peel went for a walk. At night, Peel drank anywhere up to half a dozen shots of either tequila or vodka, enough to take the edge off so he could sleep without dreams. He grew a full-face beard but cared enough about his appearance to keep his thinned scalp trimmed to a few millimeters.

About a fortnight into his routine, Peel knew he was turning alcoholic, or was one already. He didn’t care. He wasn’t hurting anyone, and he was always sober enough in the morning to drive. The dog didn’t care either. They were both lonely, except for each other.

“So, what’s your story?”

The dog said nothing.

“I could tell you my story, but it’s not interesting.”

The dog turned in a circle, then lay at Peel’s feet.

He patted the dog, and it didn’t complain. “I suppose I should give you a name. Got any suggestions?”

The dog didn’t respond.

“Taco?”

He sat up, his ears and eyes alert.

Peel laughed. “I know you associate that word with food, but it suits you. Taco it is.”

Afterwards Peel washed his dog in the shower, then let Taco sleep in his motel room with him each night. The motel owner complained, so Peel paid extra. There were no complaints after that.

——

A week later, Peel sat in a bar drinking. He’d felt the need to be around people. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but the murmured conversations and light laughter provided him with a connection to the world of people that he had been missing. Mostly they were Mexicans and a few Sicarios from the drug dealers Peel had seen around town. American students down from Arizona gathered in small groups, laughed and drank as young people did. They were mixed company, guys and gals. Everyone seemed happy but him.

It took Peel awhile to notice that tonight he didn’t drink alone. Alcohol had numbed his senses, as he’d intended, but this had its drawbacks such as dulled awareness, as he discovered in this moment.

A young woman sat on the corner of the bar, dark hair cut short and brown eyes that were misty. Attractive in her mid-thirties, he noticed the dark circles around her eyes and pallid skin like a Goth.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded and returned to her drink. It looked like lemonade but was likely mixed with strong liquor. She drank alone as he did.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

Again, she shook her head. “I might know you though.”

Suddenly Peel’s senses were alert. He checked the bar on the lookout for anyone watching. He detected nothing unusual, but he’d drunk a few and his observational skills weren’t sharp.

She took a pocketknife from her jacket, then cut a thin line on her forearm until it bled. “I’m not one of them.”

Peel said nothing.

“I’m not one of the Mi-go.”

He ordered a strong black coffee. He needed to sober up. “But you know about them?” Standing, Peel nodded to an empty out-of-the-way table. “Mind if we sit there?”

She looked away and nodded. “Sure.”

“What do you know?” he asked when they were beyond casual earshot.

The woman with dark circles around her eyes shuddered. “Prisons riding on the top of giant beetles. A moon overlooking Jupiter. A construction project of surreal proportions…” She shuddered again, and this gave Peel confidence that she was okay. Like him, she was a victim.

“How do you know I was there?”

The woman shrugged. “I work for them. I manage their warehouse on the outskirts of town. They keep bodies there, in suspended animation, until they need to bring them back to life. I’m like the office manager. Not that I do much, I’m just a front. But to answer your question, several of those bodies in storage, in fact most of them… are you .”

Peel nodded and drank his coffee, appreciating that this was nowhere close to the most bizarre conversation he’d ever had. “They let you go, but you are never free.”

“Yes,” she said, sipping more of her lemonade drink. “I thought it would be a relief, talking about my predicament when for so long I’ve been silent.”

“Is it?” Peel asked. “A relief?”

She shook her head. “It will never change.”

——

They talked little. But sitting together seemed to bring them both comfort. Eventually she suggested they go back to her place. They made love in her dingy apartment, and it was feverish and needy. Passion did not rush or drive their coupling, but slow exploration and tenderness catered to their need for comfort.

Afterward, they lay entwined, and Peel didn’t know what to say. She climbed out of bed and he watched her skinny arms fumble through her handbag. Bruises covered her body. When she found cigarettes she said, “Do you mind?”

Peel laughed, realizing for a moment he worried about lung cancer, but he wasn’t planning on being a part of the living for too long. Anything, even death, was better than returning to R’lyeh. “Not at all.”

She offered him one, and he took it. She lit his, then hers, then sat cross-legged on the bed across from him. Her nude body carried a grayish tinge. He thought he knew her, but her face was unfamiliar. Taco, from his corner where he slept on the room’s lounge chair, watched her too. Sometimes he barked at worrisome strangers he didn’t like, but this woman he’d accepted immediately.

Peel said, “What happened to you?”

“The bruises, you mean?”

He nodded.

“I failed in my duties. Their enforcers… let me know it was a mistake I was not to repeat.”

Peel nodded and recognized that if he were his old self, this revelation would have infuriated him and propelled him into action. But he couldn’t feel, not anymore. The nightmares would destroy him if he let in his emotions. “Want me to do something about it?”

She shuddered and drew in smoke. He sensed she knew his heart wasn’t in his offer. “No. Please don’t, it will only make it worse.”

Later, after finishing her cigarette, she showered and dressed. “It was nice, thank you.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Don’t come looking for me, but if we meet again… by chance…”

He watched her leave without saying another word.

Taco looked at him accusingly.

“What, mate?”

The hairless Mexican dog said nothing.

He pulled himself out of bed and showered. What kind of man had he become? Why hadn’t he stood up for what was right and protected her? Had the world of alien gods and monstrous dimensions finally beaten him?

He realized it had.

——

The next morning, Peel and Taco sat outside his motel room and watched the traffic speed by. Peel’s thoughts turned not to the Vodka bottle in his hand, but the woman he’d spent the night with, whose name he never learned. She played on his mind. He had to sober up. He had to rescue her. That goal alone had stopped him intoxicating himself to where emotions didn’t matter anymore.

A cat slinked into view.

Taco saw it. His ears pricked up and his eyes became alert.

“Don’t worry about it,” Peel said, giving the dog a pat.

Taco didn’t listen and was off chasing the cat.

The cat raced across the highway, barely avoided becoming a roadkill as it sprinted to the other side.

Taco wasn’t so lucky.

A double-decker truck went straight over the top of him. The first set of wheels stunned the animal. The rest crushed him into pulp.

Peel raced to his dog, discovered not blood, but white-milky insides, pistons and gears.

The head, miraculously, was not crushed and looked up at him? It felt nothing. Just watched him. “The R’lyeh Singularity is here. We will come for you soo—”

A second truck powered over the top of the automation’s head, killing it.

——

Zoe Arriaga stopped killing herself after her third body.

Her first two ‘skins’ were old people, the second an old man. Both had disgusted her. This body, at least, was a woman, and attractive in a skinny Gothic model kind of way. Buy the Mi-go only took bodies from people who no one would miss, and the woman’s skin was once a crack addict and the body brought all the cravings which came with the habit. Zoe would have killed herself again, but she couldn’t guarantee the next corpse she lived in would be any better.

Then she’d met the body’s boyfriend. A drug dealer who convinced himself Zoe was his girlfriend, that he owned her, and she would pay for running from him. He’d beaten her badly until McFour turned up and dismantled the dealer in the most gruesome process imaginable while leaving his outer skin intact and removing all his bones in tiny block shaped pieces.

As she recovered from the shock, Zoe asked for her old body back, knowing that they had cloned her many times. McFour explained that Zoe’s biological processes couldn’t handle the fungal spores required to build her body. The best they could do was place a cloned brain inside another human being that had never traveled to Yuggoth or Io.

Zoe cried, and no one had cared.

The role they assigned her was simple enough, and it kept her from the alien prison. Maintain the warehouse which held fifteen Harrison Peel clones, all in tanks of bubbling lime green fluids. She changed out the feeding and waste tubes daily, and topped up the liquids in each tank. Other tasks included paying the bills and keeping the warehouse and office clean. The rest of the time she had to herself.

Too much time spent with her fears and worries.

Then she’d discovered another Peel in a bar and was jealous but also saddened by both their fates.

Sleeping with him had been a mistake. Afterwards, she’d felt she’d lost more of herself doing so than through any previous experience since the massacre in the Yucatan.

When McFour arrived that night, he did so in his natural form. A fungal pinkish crustacean with bat-like wings and lobster-like claws, and a cranium of knobs that lit up like an arcade gaming console. She heard it long before she saw it, buzzing like an angry nest of wasps.

“What do you want?” she asked, realizing that the creature no longer scared her, because she no longer felt she had anything to live for.

“You spoke to Peel. You slept with him.”

“You put us in the same town.”

“Does he know, that if he destroys his body, we will swap it out with a new one?”

She shook her head and laughed manically. “You’re all fucked up. But I guess you just can’t comprehend that you are.”

McFour buzzed around her. “It was a mistake, making contact.”

During a long moment where neither spoke, Zoe feared this wouldn’t be her last body, and her torment would just go on and on and on. There had to be a way to kill herself with an ending.

“We won’t make that mistake again.”

McFour’s pincer reached out and throttled her around the neck.

While her throat was slowly crushed, the Mi-go fixed a metallic contraption to her head, that cut precisely to remove the top of her skull.

——

Part V. New Mexico

Peel crossed the US-Mexican border without complication. As Nathan Corby, a white American, he was beyond suspicion. If the border guards had stopped him, they would have reassessed their assumptions, and discovered a trunk loaded with assault rifles, plastic explosives and other weapons, and a naked body of another Harrison Peel, packed with ice to keep it fresh.

Long ago, in a report that had crossed Peel’s desk when he worked for the NSA, it had detailed how the US Government had directly engaged with the Mi-go from 1948 onwards, and the flying saucer that supposedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, was actually a cover for a clandestine meeting with Pentagon officials and the pinkish crustacean Insect Astronauts. Peel figured it was as good as any place to make second contact, die again, and then disappear forever. The irony suited his morbid state of mind.

Two days earlier, he’d found the warehouse, and the woman he’d known only briefly with the top of her skull detached and her brain missing. There had been no blood, which was more disturbing than if her life fluids had splattered everywhere.

He took one Harrison Peel corpse, then burned the others and the warehouse to the ground.

With a shaved head once more, the beard gone, and not a drop of alcohol in his bloodstream, Peel felt he was once more filled with purpose. He hadn’t been able to save the woman whom he felt an odd affinity to, but he could still save others, and do so on his own terms. Plus, he had to act now, before the Mi-go sent another ‘Taco’ to spy on him.

Roswell was a typical rural American town, with roadside diners, flat open plains, big cars and big people, and all the trappings of cowboy country. Signs and statues of little green men were prominent, as were the tourist attractions related to UFO sightings and alien abductions.

In the deserts on the outskirts of Roswell, Peel got to work. He dressed the corpse in his clothes and set him in the driver’s seat of Peel’s pickup. The plastic explosives went under the seats and totaled several kilograms of deadly destruction.

He waited for nightfall, when the stars came out, and the Milky Way looked normal and clear. He activated the Mi-go device and slipped it into the corpse’s hands. Then, with a cellphone set on speaker mode and resting on the dashboard, Peel raced two hundred meters and hid behind an abandoned barn. Then he waited.

It took an hour, but the Mi-go eventually showed. Five of them, with organic metallic weapons that spewed forth streams of chilled air, freezing and killing any grass or weeds that the gas passed over.

Speaking through his cell phone to the one active in the car, Peel said, “McFour?”

“I’m here,” said one with a human mouth surgically fixed to one of its limbs. “What do you want, Peel?”

“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. And I don’t want to come back.”

“We’ll keep bringing you back. You know that’s what we do—”

Peel remote detonated the explosives and watched the car and the five Mi-go vanish in a fireball of heat and car shrapnel.

He waited several minutes to see if any of the Mi-go had survived.

None had.

With a smile on his face, Peel walked alone into the desert.

——

Peace didn’t last. The news channels kept reporting disasters. Islands vanishing, volcanoes exploding, earthquakes swallowing entire cities and tidal waves killing millions. Weather patterns grew more violent and extreme, and New Mexico experienced a series of tornadoes.

Cthulhu had returned.

And not just one, but multiple Cthulhu’s from multiple intersected dimensions.

Out there, in the many worlds and this one, Harrison Peel was back inside the singularities, trying to stop the Great Old One once again.

Good luck to them.

With a portion of his cash he’d drawn from his bank account, Peel purchased a sedan and hit the road. He drove north, with no destination in mind. Occasionally he thought about befriending another dog to keep him company, but that would be cruel if the Mi-go found him again, and switched the dog out with another spy. He’d just have to get used to being alone.

He was always alone. Always would be.

When he passed through Albuquerque, he kept driving and aimed for Colorado. From there…? Who knew?

With sunset and the cool desert air blowing through the open window, a cell phone rang.

Peel hadn’t traveled with a phone. He didn’t want to be tracked by any means. He opened the glove box and pulled out the device someone must have placed there when he last stopped for gas.

Peel answered, but he didn’t speak.

“Hello Peel.”

He recognized the voice.

Jordan.

The man who had accompanied him to R’lyeh, and came out the other side alive. Peel asked himself, if this was the same Jordan he knew, or another Jordan from another parallel dimension entangled with his?

“Come on bud, speak to me. I know it’s you.”

“It’s me,” said Peel.

“I told you, bud, you don’t find me. I find you.”

Peel frowned and concentrated on the wide-open road before him. It was so peaceful out here, alone in the desert, with no one and nothing bothering him.

“I was enjoying death.”

“It will have to wait. One last mission, bud. For old time’s sake?”

“Let me think about it.”

Peel ended the call, threw the phone out his window, and kept driving.

The end of the world could wait one more day.

Supersymmetry Blues

Amdo, Tibet

“This is how the world ends,” shouted the muscular CIA field agent over the drone of the U.S. Marine V-22 Osprey, flying low and fast over the icy tundra of the Tibetan Plateau. The cold air churned fast in the turbulent, propeller-driven winds, chilling exposed skin between gloved hands and shirt cuffs, between collared necks and scarves. Conversation was near impossible.

Only it wasn’t just snow, rock, grass and icy-rivers below — which would have been a normal scene in Central Asia — it was a sight far worse. NSA Agent Harrison Peel stared with disbelief at the blood-splattered landscape of butchered cows, elephants, whales, camels, fish, and now octopi. The dead were scattered randomly, like they had just fallen out of the sky by the millions and broken open like rotten pumpkins. Decaying despite the sub-zero temperatures, the corpses wafted a stench the likes of which Peel had not imagined possible for this world to produce.

“This is how it begins.”

Peel nodded, stared through his sunglasses at his CIA companion. Both men were dressed in thick leather coats, laced boots, jumpers, beanies and thermals under their shirts and pants. They slung weighty M16A2 rifles and wore flak vests and combat webbing with extra ammo clips and frag grenades. Cables kept them secure as they leaned outwards from the lowered loading ramp, allowing them a wide view to study the landscape passing underneath the tiltrotor aircraft. Three hours of non-stop flying since lift-off from the U.S. Marine base hastily erected on this outlying province now that the Chinese Government had collapsed into a state of civil war, and nowhere was free of dead animals.

“It’s not just here that is turning weird, buddy,” shouted the American. “You wouldn’t believe half of what I could tell you.”

“I believe you, but what is it you think I can do?” Peel shouted back, even though less than a meter separated them. He remembered the weirdness of the last few months in Peru, and later the South Pacific and Mexico, and wondered if events then were connected to events now. He had a horrible feeling his instincts were on the mark.

The CIA operative went by the alias of Jordan, the only meaningful name Peel knew him by and the only consistent cover he used. Today he was Colonel Jerimiah Isaacs of MCIA, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity. But that cover was as false as any, and they couldn’t make sense of the scene witnessed below.

“You have a knack, Peel.”

“A knack for what?”

“Interpreting.”

Peel looked away, not liking where this conversation was headed. On the horizon, a storm was brewing. Dark clouds were composed not of water vapor, but sand and rock, and probably more dead or dying animals ready to be dumped on this unforgiving landscape.

“I’m not doing it.”

“The hell you’re not, Peel! You’re the only man on the face of the earth I know who has any chance of working out what all this means.”

Peel wanted to tell Jordan to go fuck himself, but held his tongue. There was no point arguing, not against the flood of unexplained phenomena gripping the world everywhere. It was inevitable that he would accept this assignment, because there were no more options left.

“You brought me all the way from Washington, DC to fly me around this graveyard? Why?”

“I wanted you understand how big this is. This isn’t like Venezuela or Peru, or even Mexico,” Jordan listed the various locales of their past operations together. “This has kicked up to a whole new level. Look at that.” He pointed to the approaching field of whales, split open to reveal their red meat and white blubber like prime cuts in a butcher’s shop. Between the scent of blood and rot, there lingered the salty odor of the ocean.

“What about it?”

“What about it? Can’t you see?”

“No, Jordan!” Peel shouted, although he had his suspicions as to what Jordan referred.

“The science boys are telling me there are more dead whales down there than can possibly live in all the oceans, ever!”

Peel wanted to argue. He wanted to go home, watch soccer and drink beer, and forget that the world had problems. But the world was about to fall apart. Hiding away wouldn’t save him or anyone.

“Peel, I need you to compile an intelligence report for good ol’ U.S. of A. You have carte blanche . Uncle Sam is paying, and you can travel anywhere in the world to document whatever you want—”

“Why?”

“Why? Because if there is a pattern, you’ll see it. You’ll be able to tell us — me — what’s going down here. What’s going down everywhere!”

Peel said nothing.

“Okay, you stubborn Aussie bastard, let me show you something worse.” He spoke into his headset, instructed the Marine pilot to head to a location called ‘Site 18F’. “You’re going to like this,” he grinned.

The Osprey turned on its axis and flew north, deeper into the tundra and further from the remnants of civilization. Peel spied snow-capped mountains on the horizon looking uncannily like they had given up their solidity and were ready to crumble into dust and powdery snow. Perhaps they were the source of the dust storms.

Soon the landscape changed, from still and silent dead to the recently resurrected. He wasn’t certain what was more bizarre; the scene before him or his ready acceptance of what his eyes witnessed. Here dead monks, yaks, shepherds, camels, sheep, horses and herders ran, rolled, lumbered or crawled depending on the state of their gaping wounds or missing limbs. The smell was worse here, like fecal material had been poured into his nostrils. The screams were like fingernails on a blackboard and amplified by a rock-concert sound system. There were hundreds of thousands of living corpses below.

“Jordan. You got it wrong. I don’t like this at all.”

“What do you see?”

“What I’ve already seen: enough — you bastard.”

“And what is that? Tell me, and we can leave.”

“The butchered cows, camels and horses were the same. They were all male.”

Jordan grinned. “See. I knew you were the right man for the job.” He fired a short burst from M16A2, which took down a couple of the shambling, half-decayed monks. They fell, but they didn’t die. Now they crawled, and they kept screaming. “What does it mean?”

“Mate, I have no idea. Not yet.”

“See, I knew you’d come ‘round.”

They took off before the noise and stench and visual parody of life made them do something stupid, like letting go of their straps and falling into the chaos. Peel had thought about ending it all. It was only Jordan’s instructions to the pilot that stopped him from performing a stupid act. No words had ever been as sweet to Peel’s ears. In response the tiltrotor turned again, rose high into the sky and headed south.

“Are we doing this together?” Peel shouted through short, sharp breaths. The man reflected in Jordan’s sunglasses looked pale and gaunt, like he had given up on life and, well, just about everything else too.

“No, Peel.” Jordan wiped sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand. “As much as it would be fun to reminisce on old times, I unfortunately have my own date with the end of the world.”

“I guess I’ll see you on the other side then.”

“I guess you will.”

——

CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

One hundred meters underground, Peel walked the circular concrete tunnel only a few meters in diameter but much, much longer. It seemed to stretch forever, but that was an illusion. Still, twenty-seven kilometers was a hefty hike and like Möbius the tunnel would serve only to return them to where they started should they walk for long enough.

In the center of the tunnel ran the metal tube of the Large Hadron Collider, the poster child of the prestigious CERN research facility. It seemed to wobble and pulsate, but Peel was certain he was imagining that. He did know that inside the tube, subatomic particles accelerated to near light-speed smashed into each other, annihilating their structure to produce a flurry of tinier particles, micro black holes and energy quanta in hope of recreating the first moments of the Big Bang.

While he walked, Peel sensed a humming in the ground beneath his feet. He hoped he imagined the more distant sounds, similar to the guttural chants of the monks he had left behind in Tibet, but these noises suggested vocalization from mouths of far more primordial creatures.

The scientist who accompanied Peel had said very little, but she stared often. Dr. Tsukino Chizuko was tall for a Japanese woman, slim, with a fine mouth that never properly closed, and large eyes making her look much younger than the mid-thirties Peel guessed her to be. She walked daintily like a crane, with her hands constantly behind her back and fingers interlaced.

“What is bothering you?” Her gaze barely left his. She rarely blinked.

“What’s bothering me?” he replied, wondering if she too heard the near subliminal chanting, but afraid to ask in case she did not. “CERN is the one with the anomaly. What’s bothering you?”

Her smile was like a line. Her head turned slightly on her long, thin neck. “We always have anomalies. This is theoretical physics we are talking about, Mr. Peel. We’re trying to unlock the secrets of how the universe works.”

Peel nodded, grinned. “So why is Pi suddenly a problem?”

She twisted her head. Her eyes grew larger. “You know what Pi is?”

“Of course. It’s basic mathematics.” He looked at her wondering why she was asking such questions. “Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It’s one of the universe’s physical constants.”

“A fundamental one at that. So it shouldn’t be increasing.”

“Increasing?” So that was what all the chatter at CERN was about. He sensed a breeze, but when he looked to Chizuko her hair wasn’t moving and neither were her clothes. There was no movement in the air at all. His senses were all out of alignment with reality. “I remember Pi from high school, it’s 3.14159, from memory.”

“A good estimate. Pi is an irrational number so its decimal places go on forever. Did you know we’ve calculated Pi to thirteen point three trillion digits?”

“Impressive. But it’s changing, you say?”

Flushed now, she rushed her next words. “It shouldn’t be changing at all—”

“But it is…” Peel paused to gather his thoughts. “That’s why I’m here, Chizuko. I want to understand.”

“For your intelligence report?”

“Yes, for my report.”

She wouldn’t look away. Her eyes stared into his, like she could see what kind of man he was and hadn’t yet made up her mind if she liked or detested what she saw. He found her moments of silence unsettling, and so willed her to talk again.

“If it keeps changing won’t that affect everything?” he eventually said, to fill in the silence. “I mean everything: geometry, engineering, biological processes, relativity, planetary orbits and quantum mechanics. Don’t all have some kind of basis in Pi being a constant number?”

“The change is small right now. The margin of error is insignificant for day-to-day activities, but it’s getting bigger and the mathematics we are testing it with are becoming nonsensical. Also, the increase rate is variable, depending on your location. Beyond the Solar System, it’s not changing at all. The epicenter seems to be somewhere on the surface of the South Pacific.” She saw his interest pique at that last reference. “Is that odd to you?”

He shrugged. He knew recent truths concerning the South Pacific he never wanted to relive ever again, and that the rest of the world should know nothing about. So it did not surprise him that Pi had altered the most amongst the weirdly dimensioned ruins he’d encountered in the cold, churning oceans of the Pacific.

“Do you know anything about the square root of two, Mr. Peel?”

He turned to her, remembering where he was, that she was real and the subliminal chanting was his imagination. “Yes, again from high school.”

“It is another irrational number. It is 1.414213. It should be irrational.”

The humming, or chanting, Peel was certain he could hear it now. He was certain that it was real. Chizuko didn’t seem to notice.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, Mr. Peel, is that the square root of two is decreasing at the same rate as pi is increasing. What do you make of that?”

Now it was his turn to stare, as he finally understood why she bothered him. Her long moments of reflection; the terror that lurked just beneath the skin, crawling to get free but held under control nonetheless, because to lose one’s mind was to lose all options. No one else at CERN had made the connection relating Pi and the square root of two, but she had. Dr. Tsukino Chizuko made uncanny connections the same way he did.

She was just like him.

“You want to help me?” he asked.

“Help you to do what, Mr. Peel?”

“I’ve got a sizeable operational budget to compile this report. I’ve even got a government aircraft at my disposal, to take me anywhere in the world I need to go.”

“Are you asking me on a date?”

He nodded. His tongue licked the inside of his teeth, sensing the tension in his jaw. He wished for a moment’s peace he hadn’t had in years. “Perhaps this is a date, Chizuko; you and me at the end of the world. Do you want to understand why it’s going to end the way it is?”

She said nothing. Her mind was processing again, seeking answers, just like he would.

He considered if he was trying to convince her, or himself, that there was any point to what they were doing. “If you do want to team up, I might be able to offer you front row seats.”

——

Mauna Kea, Hawaii, United States of America

The air at 4,200 meters was crisp, dry and cool. The winds were harsh, though, blown in from the gathering clouds alive with lightning and the crackle of thunder. Everywhere in the world, the weather was getting wilder. The terrain here was rocky and desolate, like a desert, but was on a peak. Peel waited for rain, but none came.

From atop Mauna Kea, four kilometers above the ocean and ten kilometers above the ocean floor, Peel could see the vast Pacific stretching out to the horizon in all directions. In contradiction to the skies, the seas were calm like they had been transformed into glass.

Peel closed the door to the Mazda sedan he and Chizuko had hired at Kona International Airport. It had been chaotic in the terminal. People rushing about trying to enter the state or get away from it permanently, as if sensing there was something unnatural about being on an island in a vast ocean. Many travelers were arrested for anti-social behavior, a contradiction to customs who rushed arrivals through with barely a glance at their luggage or passports.

Chizuko had said little on their flight from Europe to continental United States and onwards into the Pacific. Most of their time together was spent digesting the numerous news reports from around the world, trying to make sense of them. It had been her suggestion that they come to Hawaii.

Now at their destination, she glided from the passenger side and smiled at Peel across the roof of the car. He sensed relief now that there were no crowds to bother her.

“This is the Gemini Observatory,” Chizuko pointed to the large, metallic, domed building on the peak of the mountain, the distant lightning reflecting as flashes off its shiny walls. She walked with speed towards the complex and Peel followed. “It consists of two 8.19-meter telescopes, this one here and another in Chile. Together they provide almost complete coverage of both the northern and southern skies, the largest and most advanced optical infrared telescopes in the world.”

“You think they might bring us answers?”

“They already have. I have a colleague here who can help.”

They were quickly welcomed inside, taken into a room lined with computer monitors and server stacks processing the large arrays of data pouring out of the skies. Chizuko introduced Peel to Professor Jasvinder Sharma, an elderly Indian woman with a pronounced mid-western American accent. She wore a traditional sari yet the music she had been listening to when they first entered was David Bowie from his Trent Reznor-influenced days; industrial with heavy beats. Sharma was as contradictory as the world outside was becoming.

“Professor Sharma was my lecturer during my University of Arizona days.”

“Namaste.” The short, plump woman pressed her hands together and gave a slight bow.

“Namaste, Professor.” Peel reciprocated the gesture.

“Please call me Jasvinder. Titles are for published papers.”

A sharp lightning flash interrupted the conversation. The interior lights dimmed and for a moment they were shrouded in darkness. Then the lights flickered on again.

“I’m sorry to drag you all the way to Mauna Kea, Major Peel?”

He raised an eyebrow at the use of his former military title. “You’ve done your homework.”

“You were with the Australian Army. The internet is a wonderful research tool. I’m sure you’ve done all you can to research me, too.”

He nodded, smiling.

“You’ve found nothing startling, I hope.”

“Impressive is the word I’d use,” he said, noting that Professor Sharma had published several journal articles on dark matter, galactic super-mergers, and postulations on how the singularities of super-massive black holes could affect the supersymmetry of fundamental particles.

“Come with me. I would have emailed you the files, but they refuse to.”

Peel raised an eyebrow. “Refuse to…what?”

“Refuse to, Major, as I said.”

Peel and Chizuko followed the professor to a computer console. She offered them chairs. They sat in a half circle around the monitor and watched the video files she was loading. Static lines ran across the screen and occasionally flickered with white noise. “Hopefully we’ll get a long enough viewing to see the detail before the servers go down again.”

The video played. The scene was of Jupiter, the huge gas giant seen up close with its ochre and earth-colored bands, the gigantic red storm-eye prominent, which Peel knew to be large enough to fit the Earth in several times over. He didn’t look too closely remembering the last time he’d witnessed Jupiter.

“This image was captured from the Juno orbiter. One of the last images we received before it went off line. But the anomaly I’m about to show you was first picked up by an astronaut on the International Space Station, Anatoly Bogdanov.”

The bands of clouds and swirling storms moved at a discernible rate, suggesting that the video had been sped up considerably. “What are we looking at?” Peel asked. “What do we have to thank Mr. Bogdanov for?”

“There.” Chizuko’s thin, bony fingers pointed to a moon in orbit around the gas giant. “That’s Europa, right? But…”

“Very good, Chizuko,” beamed Sharma. “I always said you should have been an astrophysicist, studying the super-large instead of the incredibly small.”

Peel gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. The storm outside was gathering in intensity and he couldn’t remember when he had last seen the sun. It began to rain, but the rain sounded more like tiny rocks pelleting against the metal dome.

He looked again at the video. He knew some details of the peculiarities of Jupiter from a previous mission in Mexico. Europa was one of the Solar System’s largest moons, covered in a thick layer of ice supposedly hidden in an ocean two hundred kilometers deep. It was speculated that the brown crisscross markings on the surface were indicators of microbial life beneath the icy shell.

“What about it?” Peel asked.

“It’s leaving the Solar System, isn’t it?” Chizuko asked.

“What?” Peel grimaced.

She pointed to the tiny dot. “You can see it in motion.”

“It just took off,” said Sharma with a shudder, “broke orbit a week ago. It’s accelerating into deep space towards the Pleiades Star Cluster.”

“How?” Chizuko said loudly.

“I sense you are shocked, my dear. But you are looking for anomalies and that is why you came to me. I think this is the mother of all anomalies. Europa is way beyond the orbit of Neptune by now. It will be far beyond the Oort Cloud by the week’s end if it maintains its acceleration.”

Peel nodded. He didn’t want to think about the implications of this development. It was like whoever lived there — and he was certain something did, and had done so for millions, if not billions of years —was now running. They knew about Pi, the storms, the living dead and the naked singularity phenomena rising in the heart of the South Pacific. A dark, rotten catacomb Peel knew only as R’lyeh was the catalyst here. He had been there, and had barely survived. He had seen only a glimpse, and that was enough. But now R’lyeh was rising again. Everyone and everything in the Solar System, it seemed, was afraid of it.

“The energy alone,” Chizuko spoke fast, taking shallow breaths with each word. “The energy required to move that fast, to accelerate… It’s impossible.”

Jasvinder Sharma nodded, took Chizuko’s hands gently in her own. “I’m sorry, my dear, but there is more.”

“And what is that?” Peel asked, trying to keep up with two scientists who understood cosmology and quantum-ology in far more detail than he ever could.

“Io, the closest of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, is disintegrating.” Sharma played another video, this one of the orange-yellowish, mountainous satellite pocked with sulfur-spewing volcanoes. Soon the video revealed that the volcanoes were gone and so were the mountains. The surface became smooth, black rock. Sharma sped up the video. Io seemed to be shrinking. “It’s giving up its mass. I’ve done the calculations, Chizuko. At the rate Io is shrinking, converting that mass into pure energy, well, it equals the energy Europa is requiring to accelerate away.”

Subconsciously, Peel whispered his thoughts: “One is sacrificed so the other can live.”

“What was that?” asked Chizuko, unblinking, staring at him, through him like the layers of his soul were shedding off and folding away into nothingness. Jasvinder stared too, just as lost as her former pupil.

“Nothing!” said Peel.

“Nothing?” Jasvinder asked with a raised eyebrow, mimicking him from earlier outside.

“Nothing,” said Peel again, adamantly. “I’ve got nothing.”

——

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Peel, in his crisp, new military fatigues, watched from the front passenger seat of the Army Bushmaster. The driver, Sergeant Emerson Ash, crawled through the outer suburbs of Australia’s capital. Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances parked everywhere in random locations and had their warning lights flashing. Uniformed first responder personnel and civilians wandered the streets, some to gawk, some just to get away and some to get in the way. Peel knew many would be searching for lost loved ones that were missing.

Chizuko in the closest of the back passenger seats was shivering from the cold and had crossed her arms against her body. She couldn’t take her eyes off the scene before them.

Every now and then they passed perfect half spheres of earth, rock and tree roots, transplanted as random piles in gardens, bushland, through power lines and in houses.

“What do you make of all this, Major?” asked Ash, carefully navigating stunned men, women and children staggering and shambling on the road ahead.

Peel respected and trusted Ash, and so when the Sergeant called Peel with a problem that he couldn’t fix, Peel and Chizuko had flown direct to Australia’s capital. Although both men were former Australian Army, they had not met until their post-military careers during a special operations assignment in Afghanistan. They’d worked together many times since, mostly on operations like this one, trying to understand the weird when the weird just couldn’t be understood. At least they understood each other.

“I don’t know.” Peel turned to the scientist in their midst. “Let’s ask our scientific expert. Do you have any idea, Chizuko?”

She shook her head.

Peel could guess what she was thinking, though, that these were spheres perfectly cut from the earth; or were they perfect? How much had Pi’s corruption affected everything here?

Up ahead a crowd of several hundred civilians had gathered. More ambulances, fire trucks and police cars had gathered in a maelstrom of red and blue flashing lights. Peel’s, Ash’s and Chizuko’s arrival now signaled military involvement.

“I’d suggest handguns, Major. Nothing more. Don’t want to scare the civvies more than we already have.”

“Sure.” Peel returned the Steyr rifle he had been about to take. He checked that he had at least a few spare clips for his Glock 9mm.

The three climbed out of the Bushmaster. Sergeant Ash cleared a path through to whatever it was the crowd had gathered to see with a few authoritative commands. Peel noticed a middle-aged woman with her eyes wide, hand over her mouth. Another man next to her shed tears. Many young children watched with morbid curiosity.

At the epicenter of the crowd they found not another perfect half sphere, but a perfectly flat circle. Where there had been a house, several of the rooms and a significant portion of the roof had vanished. Fire officers were checking the interior in search of survivors. A woman in her mid-thirties wearing a dressing gown and slippers, being comforted by two paramedics, asked after her children and husband.

“The cut,” Chizuko whispered in Peel’s ear, “through the house. It’s spherical too.”

“Thanks,” he whispered back, noticing now what she meant.

They approached the police patrol officers erecting temporary barriers around the circle. Introductions were made.

“We’ve got Department of Defence clearance. We’re here to prepare an assessment of the situation,” explained Ash. “What can you tell us?”

“Sir, these strange domes appeared overnight in the suburbs of Watson, Kenny and here in Hackett. We also have reports of more domes in the adjacent Majura Nature Reserve, but since no civilians have disappeared there, we’re not really investigating that location. Not enough resources.”

“And the flat circles, what are they?” asked Chizuko.

The officer looked to Ash and Peel, and both men nodded that she was one of them.

“About equal number, ma’am. In the same places. Perfectly level too, I might add.”

“Mind if I have a look?” she asked.

Peel, Ash and Chizuko moved into the circle. Much of the circular ground was smooth, flat whitish material not unlike stone. Peel noticed that the lines met at a perfect right angle.

He crouched down, touched the stone. It was smooth, like glass. He noticed holes in the stone, circular rings with white… plastic? Up close there was a smell, like a drain or sewage.

“Oh, fuck!” he exclaimed as he got to his feet. “You!” he pointed to a fire officer. “Bring that sledgehammer.”

The fire officer leapt into action, “Yes, Sir!”

“Break that concrete for me, will you?” Peel pointed to the smooth, whitish surface.

The tall muscular fireman acted as instructed. One crack, two, three, and then the concrete gave way. A few more solid cracks and a sizable hole opened up.

“Stand back, please.”

Peel leaned in, looked down into the hole and turned on his Maglite. He stared into a bathroom, only it was upside down. Towels, toilet rolls and brushes had fallen on a heap on the ground. A little girl, no more than six or seven was curled up in a corner, holding a teddy bear. Her wide eyes reflected in Peel’s probing light.

“We’re coming to get you,” he told her, “you’re safe now.” He turned to Ash. “Give me a hand?”

“Certainly.”

Peel climbed into the hole, went to the girl. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. The poor girl looked dehydrated, terrified and in a state of shock.

“Are you hurt?”

She shook her head.

“I reckon your mum is waiting for you up there. You want me to lift you up?”

She nodded, put out an arm indicating that he come and get her. She held onto her teddy bear as Peel lifted her up and out of the hole, into Chizuko’s arms.

“Gabby?” Peel heard a hysterical woman, possibly the mother in the dressing gown he had seen earlier. “Oh, Gabby, it is you!”

Peel searched the remainder of the inverted house. He found a boy of about nine huddled with his father in a bedroom. The boy had broken his leg during the inversion. The father was unconscious with a bloody head wound. Within half an hour they were both lifted to safety, and received medical assistance.

Out of the hole, Peel saw that he was covered in dust. Everything down there had been shaken up pretty badly.

An Australian Federal Police Commander approached Peel asking for details.

“The mounds, they are inversions in the landscape,” explained Peel. “The house down there was flipped. I’d suggest you get everyone you can to check all the circular mounds and circles, dig through them and see who else is trapped in there.”

“How did you know?” asked the police woman.

Peel looked to the Commander. He shrugged, not willing to explain again why he knew so much. Instead, he wished to be like everyone else in the world who was blind to these weird phenomena. Ignorance was easier on the soul. “Experience,” he said by way of explanation.

Near nightfall, after Peel, Ash and Chizuko assisted in the rescue of trapped residents wherever they could be found, he discovered Chizuko standing motionless across the road from him. There was movement all around them; people attending the wounded, some digging, some directing and many running from one locale to the next, but Peel and Chizuko were motionless. She was taking the time to really look at him, and he found it difficult to hold her stare.

Eventually she came to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him gently on the lips.

“What was that for?” He found that he liked her kiss, but her stand-offish attitude had confused him.

“I saw what you did today.”

He looked away. “It was nothing. You did as much as I did.”

“We all helped, sure, but that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“You’re the only one. The only one I’ve met since the world turned strange who I believe might really see a path through this and find a way out to the other side. You saw what was wrong here.”

She kissed him again. This time, Peel reciprocated.

——

Mataveri International Airport, Isla de Pascua, Chile

The rain cascading from the early morning skies drenched Peel and Chizuko. The raging winds forced them to constantly adjust their posture, leaning against the variable gusts. To the southwest, huge dark clouds rumbled and tore through the skies. Waves four or five meters high pounded off the coast. They all originated from the same location: R’lyeh.

“Jordan, this is Peel. Can you hear me?”

“Nn… Fzz… Ch…”

The encrypted satellite phone the CIA operative had provided to Peel just before the two went their separate ways claimed a connection, and it sounded like Jordan’s voice on the end of the line, but words were impossible to guess, let alone hear properly.

“Can you reach him?” asked a drenched Chizuko looking like a poodle after a bath. “You’ve been trying for hours.”

The air temperature was over thirty and tropically humid so they weren’t cold, but they were both wet enough that they might as well have had buckets of water thrown over their heads. The dampness left her summer skirt clinging to her body, and Peel could see her slim shape. The curve of her breasts and legs reminded Peel that their relationship had not progressed beyond kissing and holding each other, and that he wanted to know her in a far more intimate way.

“No, I guess you’re right. I can’t reach him. I can’t reach anyone anymore.”

The line was as good as dead. Peel wondered where in the world, or in time and space Jordan was right now, and if they would ever meet again.

“What were you going to tell him anyway? It’s not like we’ve achieved anything here. Or anywhere else.”

“I don’t know. Report in, I guess. He wanted me to find something, anything that might explain all this.”

“He was a friend?”

Peel nodded.

The sky lit up. Thunder echoed across the airfield. Within seconds there were further flashes, streaks of lightning clipping the tops of the rocky hills at the center of the island. The rain kept falling, unperturbed by nature’s luminous and warped sideshow.

“I tried my parents earlier, from the airport. Harrison, I couldn’t reach them.”

Peel nodded, blinked away the raindrops splashing in his eyes. “Do you want to see if we can find them? I mean, really go and find them?”

She looked up, caught his stare and held it, hopeful for the first time since Canberra. “We could do that?”

He looked away. “Why not? We can’t fly into that,” he pointed to the storm of thick dark clouds alive with tiny distant flashes of lightning, edging noticeably closer to Easter Island with each passing minute. “I know that’s the source of all that is wrong, but…”

“But we can’t reach it?”

He nodded. Peel didn’t like admitting defeat, but that was exactly what he was doing. “There is no way in hell Jamison will fly into that,” he said referring to the pilot of their U.S. Army variant Gulfstream IV jetliner that had already taken them to one side of the world and back again. A crazy, deranged side of his personality wished to see what was really occurring nearer the pole of inaccessibility, determined to know one way or another if the alien island of R’lyeh really was rising again.

He remembered a quote from an ancient book he had owned once, long ago, called The Masked Messenger .

“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu lies dreaming…”

He mouthed those words.

Was the naked singularity that was Cthulhu awake again? It had only been months since Peel and Jordan had thought they’d closed the unstable wormhole that was R’lyeh. But had they? Time was skewed. Space was skewed. Could a gateway to multiple, infinite other dimensions ever really be closed?

He looked out across the ocean. Even if they could make it, who could they report it to, and what could be done to stop it?

He knew the answers to those questions: No-one and nothing.

“Chizuko, we can fly to your home if you want. We’ve got nowhere else to go and Easter Island really isn’t where I wanted to see out the last of my days on planet Earth.”

She came up to him, snuggled into him so their wet bodies pressed against each other.

The satellite phone rang. Quickly Peel answered it. “Peel,” he introduced himself.

“Harrison.” It was Emerson Ash. “We’re…late. They’ve…the…pole.”

“The what? You’re breaking up. Ash?”

“Sorry, Sir…? Breaking up…Where…you?

Peel tried for a different frequency. Soon the static lessened. “Is that better?”

“Yes, except for the wind.”

“I’m sitting out a storm at Easter Island.”

They kept their conversation brief because it could cut off at any time. Ash was now in Antarctica. They discussed Ash’s findings down there. They talked briefly on what he should do next.

“You take care down there, Emerson. I’m not sure how we’ll go up here. There’s something weird going on out here too, but; it’s been a pleasure.”

“Likewise, Sir. It was good to catch up and have that beer. I’ll see you on the other side.”

Harrison laughed and that was it. Emerson Ash, like Jordan had been cut off from Peel forever.

Lieutenant Rick Jamison stumbled across the runway, struggling against the rain and wind. When he reached Peel and Chizuko he saluted. “Sir,” he spoke rapidly. “We have no time. That storm will be on us in half an hour. If you want to get somewhere else, this is your last chance.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Think you can make it to Okinawa Island?”

“Yes, Sir, with the extra fuel tanks, that won’t be a problem. I’ll make arrangements with MCAS Futenma. But we need to leave now.”

“Sure.”

The three jogged to the Gulfstream, climbed on board and strapped in. Within two minutes they were taxiing, dripping in their seats. Within fifteen minutes they were in the air. The rain had not relented and the lightning lit up everything. When they were a couple of hundred meters above ground level, Jamison took them east along the southern coast of the triangular island. As they banked, Peel looked down. He had never seen the enigmatic statues of Easter Island, and hoped to see one now. He would never get this chance again.

Then he saw them, the fifteen standing Moai at Ahu Tongariki, stone eyes staring out across the ocean, towards R’lyeh. But there weren’t fifteen. There were hundreds. Living, breathing, bellowing Moai.

The aliens were gigantic, semi-humanoid shapes, lumbering like all the bones in their bodies had been broken multiple times, then put back together in a haphazard, messy fashion. Their feet and hands were large, and were composed of neither fingers nor claws nor tentacles, but a combination of the three. Their mouths and eyes were disproportionally huge for their heads, which also supported scaly fins. These amphibious monsters were six or more meters tall. They were coming up out of the ground as if they had been buried there for a very long time, like lungfish, and were now shambling towards the ocean. About half dived in, swam southwest. The other half split open when they reached the water, gushed with biological geysers of their own internal organs, which the survivors fed upon.

The waves came up faster, rushed several hundred meters inland, consuming the monstrous entities, vanishing them from the surface world.

“What is it?” Chizuko asked, as she absentmindedly played with her seatbelt. She was on the wrong side of the aircraft to have witnessed what Peel had seen. The plane was shuddering continuously with the strong winds and violent weather. If she got out of her seat now to come across to Peel’s side, she might be thrown across the cabin. “Harrison?”

“You don’t want to know.”

She forced a smile. “We got away just in time?”

He nodded.

He reached out across the aisle and took her hand, squeezed it tight.

He just hoped they could climb high enough, get out of the storm for smooth flying to what would likely be his last destination on planet Earth.

——

Okinawa Island, Japan

The southern islands of Japan were devoid of all people. Kettles had boiled out in houses. Irons were left on. Cars idled on the roads. Spotty fires burned in many houses. Road crashes and rolled cars were all too numerous, but no bodies. No birds in the sky. No cats or dogs. Piles of clothes lay everywhere accompanied by watches, mobile phones, wallets, purses, glasses, shoes and jewelry. The semi-tropical islands were left pristine and untouched. There were even the occasional moments of blue sky, and it didn’t rain all that often here.

Peel released Jamison and the rest of the crew, sent them on their way to the United States so they could be with their families at the end, if they could reach them in time or reach them at all.

There was no news anymore. The internet, television stations, radio, they were all gone. No one was reporting on the end of the world anymore. When the Gulfstream was little more than a dot in the sky, Chizuko and Peel were left with only silence.

Chizuko cried for hours while they ate in a sushi restaurant where they were the only patrons. They drank Sake and Japanese beer. He lit candles for light and for comfort. They said very little. Peel knew Chizuko’s parents had vanished with the rest of the island’s inhabitants.

Later they walked down to a beach. She stripped off her dress and underwear and wandered into the ocean.

Peel watched, not sure what to do. He suspected that she would keep swimming, far out into the Pacific Ocean until she drowned. Instead, she seemed to frolic, and eventually called him into the water.

He stripped and followed her.

They swam together, embraced, cuddled and kissed often. It began to rain.

“I want to feel real. I want to feel you,” she whispered in his ear when they were close. So they headed for the surf where they made love in the breaking waters. She cried and so did he.

There was a large ocean villa overlooking the ocean a few hundred meters distant. After their coupling, Chizuko walked towards it. Peel gathered up their clothes and followed her.

The villa was deserted like the rest of Okinawa. Peel hung out their rain-soaked clothes to dry, then followed her as they explored the house. The interior was modern, open with large windows, a spacious kitchen with lots of seating and a substantial pantry. There was a luxury bedroom with a spa and large shower. Peel cooked a meal of rice, chicken and vegetables with a spicy Asian sauce. Chizuko lay on the lounge, still unclothed, as she talked of mundane and normal topics. They had discovered a bubble of stability while the rest of the world decayed and disintegrated around them. They didn’t want to spoil it just yet, but eventually the conversation had to turn to the end of the world.

“You regret anything?” she asked while they ate, outside on the balcony.

Peel finished his beer, opened another. “I regret everything.”

“Everything?”

He shrugged. “Well, not everything. Not today. I’m glad I had today. It was like Lou Reed said: a ‘Perfect Day’.”

“Me too. One last perfect day.”

Peel looked up, distracted by a shooting star. The skies were empty of clouds. The Milky Way was brilliant, easy to see when the only light to dampen the celestial glow came from the candles in their commandeered villa.

Then, one by one, the stars blinked out of existence, and within a few minutes they too had vanished. The only celestial lights were the quarter moon and a couple of planets.

“What…?”

He felt her fingers slip into his, holding him. “It’s dark energy, Harrison. It’s accelerating space around us, faster than the speed of light. Much, much faster.”

“What, you mean…?”

“I’d say we’re being quarantined from the rest of the universe.”

He thought of the Europeans; wondered if they had gotten away in time.

“I don’t know how long this bubble we found will last.” She kissed him. “You deserve this. This moment.”

“ We deserve this.”

“No, Harrison. You do. I heard about you from Emerson. I know what you’ve done, in your career. How many lives you have saved. How many terrors you have halted, like in Canberra. You deserve better than this.”

“I want you,” he said staring into her eyes, finally able to match her intensity. “That would be enough for me.”

“You can have me, for as long as it lasts.”

He followed her into the bedroom, where they made love over and over again, until exhaustion finally drove them to sleep, because nothing else would.

——

In the morning Chizuko rolled over in the bed to snuggle into the powerful arms of Harrison Peel, but he was gone.

She searched the house. There was no sign of him. There was no sign that he had ever been there, not even his clothes. He existed only in her memories.

Outside, the weather was turning. The perfect bubble had popped.

She walked out onto the beach, stared at the gathering storm, felt the cold winds blowing in from the southeast on her arms and face. Far away, near the horizon, she saw what she suspected to be icebergs falling out of the sky, like meteorites.

A tsunami, the length of the ocean, was gathering on the horizon. It seemed to be kilometers high.

She thought of Peel as the ocean on the beach receded. She looked down, into the rocks where there had once been seawater hundreds of meters deep. The undersea was crawling, alive and festering with mouths and teeth and spines and claws and tentacles, a thousand or more monsters no human could ever possibly describe or imagine, as real and tangible as anything else in life.

She closed her eyes and felt the sand on her bare feet. She felt the breeze on her bare skin and hugged herself, imagining it was Harrison who held her now.

She hoped these sensations would be her last memories before the tsunami hit.

——

In the morning, Harrison rolled over in the bed to snuggle into the tender embrace of Tsukino Chizuko, but she was gone.

He searched the house. There was no sign of her. There was no sign that she had ever been there, not even her clothes on the drying rack. She existed only in his memories. He didn’t know where the idea came from, but he felt certain they had slipped into different time streams. Hers was now an alternative version of the Earth to this one, and never again would their paths meet. Supersymmetry blues, indeed.

He dressed. Found his gun and the field kit he had taken with him from the Gulfstream before its departure from the island. The world outside seemed calm, normal. The blue skies hid whether the stars were still gone when space around the Solar System had accelerated apart, separating them from the rest of the universe by billions of light years in a single evening.

The universe had protected itself from the naked singularity that was Cthulhu in R’lyeh, but in doing so had abandoned humanity to face the consequences of his return alone.

Peel walked out onto the beach. Although the world was serene, it had changed significantly. The sand now stretched for tens of kilometers before it reached the ocean, which he could see easily enough because the Earth was flatter than it had been yesterday. Much flatter. Beyond the sands the sea seemed to stretch on for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. R’lyeh was further away now than the Moon had been yesterday.

Returning to the villa, Peel found the previous occupants’ car. He drove out, saw that the neighboring house, which had only been a few dozen meters away the night before, was now a half dozen kilometers up the road.

“Fucking Cthulhu,” he growled into the silent skies.

No one answered because he was alone. He always had been alone, so nothing had changed there.

He got behind the wheel and drove.

—— 

Here ends Cthulhu Remorseless

Harrison Peel will return…

Read more stories in the same shared universe of the Cthulhu Mythos, featuring characters from the Harrison Peel series, and learn more about the Masked Messenger in: Cthulhu Unmasked

THANK YOU

Thank you for reading Cthulhu Remorseless . If you enjoyed this book, would you please consider leaving an honest review on Amazon ? Reviews are critical for helping independent authors bring their books to the attention of readers who might enjoy them. I would truly appreciate it, and it can be as short as you like.

Thank you very much.

David Conyers

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Conyers is a science fiction author and editor living in Adelaide, South Australia. He completed a degree in engineering from the University of Melbourne, and today works as a tender writer in the construction industry. 

David has published over fifty science fiction and horror short stories, won several awards for his writing, and edited five anthologies including one of the first fiction collections to explore the concepts of exoplanets, Extreme Planets . For over a decade he was the Arts and General Editor and reviewer for Albedo One magazine where he interviewed many top science fiction writers including Iain M. Banks, Greg Egan and Will McIntosh. 

His extensive portfolio of Cthulhu Mythos fiction includes his popular Harrison Peel espionage versus the Elder Gods series, contributed to The Last Door video game, and for more than a decade he was a prolific contributor to the Call of Cthulhu tabletop role-playing game. 

Today David writes contemporary thriller fiction novels under a pseudonym.

www.david-conyers.com