Chapter XXVIII:

THE WARRIOR

Café La Pucelle Volant,
Champs-Élysées, Paris,
Île-de-France, French Republic.

"...although our homeland has thus far been spared, the same cannot be said of our neighbors. To this end, I have ordered all our Armed Forces to full wartime alert," declared the solemn face of President François Mitterrand, dominating the screen. A silence had fallen over the crowd at La Pucelle, indeed, over all of the City Of Lights, as every pair of eyes and ears turned towards the television.

Mitterrand continued: "As I speak at this very moment, hunter escadrons and air infantry regiments are all en route to England, ready to coordinate with our English allies for the defense of London. But these are only the tip of the spear, for more will join them in the coming hours and days. We know not the exact nature of these invaders or their purposes. But around the world, untold millions have cried out in terror and agony for help, and we shall answer. Forty years ago, all of our fathers stood side-by-side and delivered this world from the grip of fascist tyranny. Today, once more will we have the great honor to stand side-by-side with our allies, and fight to preserve liberté, égalité, et fraternité. Vive la France!"

"VIVE LA FRANCE!" shouted several restaurant patrons. But the rest remained silent, staring in utter disbelief at what they were watching. Still, many others had already left, gone home to be with their families and loved ones in what certainly felt like the end of days.

But right at that moment, Min Jae-Kyung wasn't paying attention to any of this going on around her. As far as she knew, she was in her own little world - just her and that miserable little telephone handset she now had pressed to her ear as if her life depended on it.

Jae-Kyung, or "Jackie" as her co-workers called her, was one of several dozen people Samsung had brought to Paris to staff their office there - she had studied French back in high school and scored top of the class, which helped her greatly in landing this job. The Korean community in France was small, and largely kept to themselves, but Jackie did not mind that at all. Indeed, it gave her all the more reason to try and break out from their little bubble as often as she could, to go out and explore all that the City Of Lights had to offer. To roam the streets and cafes at night, make new friends, go to concerts and to the movies - and she had been doing just that when the news had dropped.

She had spent the better part of the last hour rushing from place to place, looking for anywhere with a telephone she could use, but it seemed nearly everywhere was backed up. In retrospect, she should have gone straight home. Well, no time to dwell on that now, only to focus on what she needed to do.

"Please... c'mon..." begged Jackie, under her breath, "Ji-Seok... please pick up..."

Ji-Seok still lived at the little apartment they had shared in Goyang, just outside of Seoul. The two of them had been married now for thirteen years, and separated for the last three of them - divorce was something that, while a little more common these days, was still heavily frowned upon by stern traditionalists (like the rest of both her family and his were). They had tried to work things out, but in the end, there were some things between them that just could not be reconciled (and Ji-Seok's drinking certainly didn't help at all). And so when she saw a job opening to go and work abroad, she of course had jumped at the chance.

It was a little hard at first, having to get used to living in a foreign country - whether it was in the big items like the food or the language, or in little items, like all the tiny little things that French people did differently from Koreans. Getting over that first month had been the most difficult. But with time, she had grown to enjoy it living here in Paris, found it liberating even. She was in a foreign land, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, and so she found it easier to just be herself and do whatever she wanted. And she wished one day that their little Soonae would join her too.

Soonae. The only good thing to come out of her and Ji-Seok's marriage. She had pushed him for years now to let their daughter come and visit her here in Paris, something he had stubbornly held off on until she was old enough to handle flying halfway around the world by herself.

And so when the news had dropped this evening of the horrific events that were transpiring around the globe, Jackie's first thought had immediately raced to Soonae. She had seen her just last night, which meant she should have been back on the ground by now, landed safely in Seoul, but she needed to know for sure.

First she had tried to call Korean Airlines' office in Paris to see if there was any news on the whereabouts of Flight 069, only to find that they were closed at this hour. So now she turned to the only other person she could think of.

The phone on the other end continued to ring.

Please, thought Jackie, a tear streaming down her cheek. Please, oh please Ji-Seok, pick up. Please tell me our daughter is safe...

Civil Defense Outpost, Goyang,
Seoul Capital Area, Republic Of Korea.

"C'mon, c'mon," growled Ahn Ji-Seok, clutching the receiver tightly to his face, "pick up, damn it!"

He looked around. The office was empty, though it would not be for long; its occupant, some pencil-pusher for the local military precinct, was probably out running some errand or taking stock of supplies or something. They must have left in a hurry, because the door was unlocked, which suited Ji-Seok just fine... provided, of course, that what he was about to do worked at all.

Within the first hour of the invasion, phone lines everywhere had gotten swamped with caller traffic, and the government had quickly stepped in and ordered that only priority traffic be allowed through. As such, military bases, civil defense outposts, and other emergency services were the only places still connected. So when an opportunity availed itself, Ji-Seok absconded from the rallying point where the rest of his unit were supposed to be assembling, and ran to look for the nearest available telephone. Desertion? Maybe. Not that any of that mattered to him right now. The bastards had taken his little Soonae from him; now he didn't care what became of him. The only thing left was to try to contact Jae-Kyung. To hear her voice one last time, to tell her what happened before he marched off to the frontlines, and possible death...

He glanced at his watch. It was now 5 A.M. here in Goyang, which would mean 9 P.M. over in Paris. Surely she must be home by now?

The phone on the other end continued to ring; no answer was forthcoming.

There was a pounding on the door. He looked up.

"Hey!" warned Park Su-jin, who was standing guard right outside. "Ji-Seok, hurry up in there, will ya? I can see Byeongjang out there! I think he's looking for us!"

Ji-Seok ignored him. Su-jin was a good friend to try and help him sneak off and find a phone, but right now he was not being helpful. Ji-Seok ignored him. "C'mon," he muttered, "please, answer the bloody phone!"

"Shit," warned Su-jin, "too late. He's coming. I'm outta here."

There was another banging on the door, more furiously this time.

"AHN!" roared a different voice. "What the hell are you doing?"

Before Ji-Seok could do or say anything else, the door to the office burst open. Standing there, dominating the doorframe, stood Sergeant Geun, red and sullen in the face.

"Ahn, you good-for-nothing ssang-nom!" bellowed the sarge. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"I... I..." blubbered Ji-Seok, feeling tiny and helpless in the shadow of Geun. "Please... sir, my family..."

"Do you think you're the only one with a family?" shouted Geun. He stomped up to Ji-Seok and grabbed him by the ear and pulled. "Get your sorry ass down to the ready line, on the double, before I have you charged with desertion! And put on your helmet, soldier!" He picked up Ji-Seok's helmet from the table where he'd left it, and practically threw it at him.

The phone continued to ring, no reply forthcoming. Ji-Seok looked at it, forlornly, as Geun grabbed it and hung up. He then let himself be dragged right out of the office, down the hallway, and out into the cold early morning air.

The field outside the office had become a flurry of activity, flood-lights illuminating the area as if it were midday. At the far end, a couple dozen K511 6x6 cargo trucks were parked, hundreds of men already lining up behind them, ready to board. When Ji-Seok looked up, he could see a helicopter hovering over the area, patrolling the base and the surrounding neighborhoods.

"Well?" muttered Su-jin, who was already at the rallying point. "Anything? Please tell me it was worth it."

Ji-Seok said nothing.

When it was their turn, Sergeant Geun gave the order, and Ji-Seok, Su-jin, and the rest of their unit piled into the back of the nearest truck. It was a tight squeeze, and several men had to remain standing up.

"Alright, you know the drill!" shouted Geun, who was the last to board. "It might not be the Pukhan Shekkis, apparently, but we'll treat them no differently. They are a threat, and they must be destroyed. Give 'em hell, boys! Daehanminguk mansae!"

"DAEHANMINGUK MANSAE!" cheered the rest of the men.

The horizon to the east was already beginning to glow with the early morning light as, one by one, the trucks rumbled out through the gates and along the road north, in single file. That was when Ji-Seok heard a rumbling in the distance, like an intense thunderstorm brewing on the horizon, even though he could see out through the back of the truck that the morning sky was mostly clear but for a few clouds.

"Hear that? That's artillery," muttered Su-jin. "Jesus Christ! That sounds like every damn gun the Pukhan Shekkis have got pointed at Seoul! I wonder what they're shooting at?"

Ji-Seok said nothing; all he could think of was Soonae, his Soonae... and how he was going to make these bastards, every last one of them, pay for what they did.

Kijong-dong Village, Demilitarized Zone,
North Hwanghae Province, DPRK.

Lieutenant Buk was still shaking when the mud- and blood-stained UAZ-469 command car came screeching to a stop. He had to be practically pulled out of the car and carried by his men, over to the village hall they had converted to serve as their forward command post. By the time they had sat him down inside, he could already hear the clattering away of assault rifles and machine guns outside, accompanied by the dull boom-boom-boom of the enemy guns, and the cries of any men who were struck; they were close now.

"Sir," saluted the radio operator, handing him the handset, "it's Corps command, Colonel Chin on the line."

Buk's hands were shaking so badly that he could hardly hold the handset.

"This is Colonel Chin, IV Army Corps," spoke the radio, "to whom am I speaking? Over."

"Ch-Ch-Chungwi Buk, r-r-reporting," stammered Buk, "I, I am... in command. O-over."

"What is your current situation?"

Buk did not immediately answer; he was too distracted by the sounds he could now hear erupting outside.

"I repeat: what is your current situation?" pressed the Colonel. "Are your forces regrouped in Kijong-dong?"

"AAAAARRRRGGGHHH!"

Right outside, Buk heard a blood-curdling scream, followed by a small explosion, and saw blood splattering all over the windows. His eyes widened.

"Are the hostiles within the vicinity of the village?" continued the radio. "Chungwi, for the love of the Fatherly Leader, I need you to stay focused. Are the hostile forces within the vicinity of the village?"

Outside, Buk heard the mechanical roar of what could only be described as a gigantic chainsaw, accompanied by even more screaming, both from men and from the clattering of metal blade on metal.

"YES!" blurted Buk. "YES! AFFIRMATIVE! WE ARE BEING OVERRUN! WE NEED REINFORCEMENTS!"

"Thank you for your service to the Fatherly Leader and to the Korean People. I salute you." And then, the radio went silent.

"Uh... hello?" asked Buk, confused. "SIR! HELLO! Is anyone there?!"

Just then, there was a whistling sound in the air. An artillery shell. The entire village hall shook and the windows rattled and shattered as a large explosion broke out, just a few blocks away.

And then, immediately after, this was followed by another whistling sound... no, a dozen more whistling sounds. There was another explosion, closer this time; the last thing Buk could feel was his eardrums being blown out, before the entire building collapsed around him.

Somewhere(?).

Ahn Soonae did not know where she was. Her blurred vision was filled with all manner of bizarre colors and delirious patterns, though she could hear voices too, and little snippets here and there that she could understand. It was in Korean, not in any accent she was familiar with, though still she understood.

"...no other explanation for it. An aircraft of that size could never have performed that landing without..."

"...cranial examination shows that Subject has an..."

"...autopsy of the brain..."

"...was seated right next to Subject..."

"...are you certain? None of the passengers seated nearby seem to be displaying any..."

"...there's only one way to verify the..."

"...appears to be reacting to external stimuli..."

As her vision cleared somewhat, Soonae tried to get a grip on her surroundings. At first, it looked like she was in an ordinary hospital room. That is, ordinary except for the large framed portrait that hung on the wall near her. She shivered as she recognized the man in the portrait. She was in the North.

The memories began to come back to her, a little more clearly than before. She could recall the soldiers who had come onto the plane, how everyone had been made to stand up and go outside; she remembered sliding down that giant inflatable slide and feeling the wet sand under her feet, and then being shepherded along with the others onto a waiting helicopter and then... that was all she could remember. What happened after that?

She slowly turned her head to look around her. The room was filled with a dozen men standing around, all in white lab-coats, except for an armed soldier guarding the door; the lab-coats were all standing around, talking with each other, looking at clipboards or at little machines and blinking lights. There was the rustling of papers and the scratching of pens, beeps and blinks and other mechanical noises.

There was one other person in the room, lying prone on a bed opposite her. She tried to take a closer look at this person; it was a child, like her, except bald, their head completely shaven, now covered not with hair but with dozens of little wires taped onto their little scalp. The child... was it a boy or a girl? Soonae tried to raise her head a little to get a better look, and was surprised to see the other child doing the same. Her face looked familiar.

And then it hit her: the other child was her. She was looking at a mirror.

"Look, Subject is awake!" spoke one of the scientists. Everyone else turned to look straight at her.

"...h...help. Me," moaned Soonae. Her voice was weak, her throat parched and her lips cracked. "Please. H-h-help. Me."

"Heart rate is rising."

"We're not ready for testing yet. Sedate the Subject."

"Yes sir."

"H-h-help. Me!" cried Soonae again, feebly.

The scientist nearest to her towered above her, and pulled out a syringe. Soonae shuddered; she didn't like needles. She struggled, cried out (or tried to, but it came out as more a whimper) as the needle was stabbed right into her right arm. And then, stinging pain gave way to cold numbness, and her mind went blank once more.

Orang Air Force Base,
North Hamgyong Province, DPRK.

The two guards saluted him as he strode past them, but Major Gwak had more pressing matters on his mind.

It had taken several hours and a dozen transport helicopters to ferry them back and forth, but by now most of the hostages had been settled down in Hangar 12. They'd had bedding provided, food and hot drinks, and a couple doctors too from the base infirmary. A quick roll call however confirmed that two of them had disappeared. Gwak had checked the transports again, checked with the crews, and then scoured the whole base. Not a sign. And then, for whatever reason, Hangar 18, all the way out here at the edge of the base, had gone dark. Something was afoot here, and Gwak didn't like it at all.

The first thing to greet his eyes as he pushed his way through the side-door was a large group of people standing, around - scientists and doctors, soldiers too. They were all at work, performing various tasks, hardly noticing Gwak strode in. In front of the group stood a pair, speaking to each other; one was Captain Dongbang, the other, a person Gwak had never seen before - he wore no rank insignia whatsoever, only a plain black suit and white shirt.

"It shall be done, for the Fatherly Leader!" declared Dongbang, saluting the stranger, before turning to see Gwak approaching them.

"What's going on here?" demanded Gwak, stepping forward, "Tawei! Why aren't you at your post?" He turned towards the stranger. "And who are you?"

"You dare question his authority?!" growled Dongbang. "Do you know to whom you speak?!"

"Tawei, please," said the stranger, calmly, raising his left hand. Dongbang fell silent. He looked to Gwak and extended his right hand. "Director Ryuk Song-thaek, and I am with the State Security Department."

The State Security Department. Gwak nearly froze in a mix of shock, confusion, and embarrassment. He did not return the handshake, but instead immediately bowed his head and begged. "Please accept my humble apologies, Taejwa. I was... not aware of your presence here."

"A minor and forgivable transgression," said Ryuk, brushing it off, "I see you run a tight and disciplined operation here. Good. The Fatherly Leader would be pleased by your commitment to your station."

"Forgivable?" spat Dongbang, "honorable Taejwa, this man questioned your authority! He deserves demotion!"

"That will not be necessary. For now," remarked Ryuk, "though I would like to inquire as your presence here."

"Yes, Sir. And please do forgive me again for my impertinence," replied Gwak, "but I was acting under pressure from High Command. Pyongyang radioed us requesting a detailed list of all the hostages and their current situation - I believe they are in negotiations with the Southern... traitor government right now as we speak. I checked over the passenger manifest again, and found that two were unaccounted for. One, an elderly man, killed during the landing - presumably a heart attack. The other, a young girl of 12 years of age. I've searched everywhere else for them."

"Ah yes, I know," spoke Ryuk. "Sadly, the girl too is dying. It turns out she is suffering from some disease we have yet to verify. It could be a new biological agent being developed by the capitalists. I have therefore placed her here, under quarantine, for further investigation."

Disease? What disease?, thought Gwak to himself. He remembered seeing several little boys and girls among the passengers, and certainly none of them that he could recall looked in any way sickly. But if it was indeed some unknown illness, then this was troubling. As commander of this base, it was his duty to get to the bottom of this. "Honorable Taejwa," he began, "may I see the patient for myself?"

"No, you may not," said Ryuk, firmly.

"May I see the other victim then? The old man?" asked Gwak. "I would like to verify the cause of death. If he was seated right next to the girl, he too might be infected."

"There will be no need for that," spoke Ryuk, "we examined the healthcare records and doctor's letters that he was carrying in his luggage. It appears he has a history of neuro-degenerative ailments. No doubt due to the intense trauma and stress he experienced during the flight, he suffered a stroke and died. Simple as that. Nothing more, nothing less. Is there anything else?"

Gwak looked at Ryuk's impassive face for a second. "No, sir. That will be all."

"Good. Now kindly leave us," demanded Ryuk, "I am sure the other guests have needs to be attended to."

Gwak saluted, turned, and left the hangar, hanging his head in shame, and with even more questions than before. What exactly was going on here? Was it true, that this little girl was harboring some deadly new capitalist disease? Or was there something else? State Sec had shown up out of nowhere and gotten themselves involved for a very good reason, which meant whatever it was that was going on, it was a most serious one indeed. Regardless of State Sec's involvement, this was still his airbase, and he was still determined to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

Deep beneath Cheyenne Mountain,
Near Colorado Springs, State Of Colorado.

"Of course, I hope I need not remind you that you work for the government now," began Dr. Bremer as the elevator came to a stop, "and that everything you see and hear is subject to the strictest Non-Disclosure protocols."

Dr. Yuri Gellar reluctantly grunted his agreement. Not that he had much of a choice anyhow. Latest he had heard was that the FBI had now tracked down and, ahem, "voluntarily enlisted" the rest of his team in New York (along with all the sensitive data they had stored on disk and everything) and would be flying them out to join him here as soon as they could. Well, at least working for the government meant they'd be having three squares a day again, and perhaps all the funding they needed, instead of having to scrounge day to day. It also meant that they would be learning about just what was going on behind closed doors - even if they could never tell anyone else about it, at least it might be useful in guiding their private research in future.

"What exactly are we seeing here?" asked Gellar as they stepped out of the elevator. The door in front of them was marked "BIOLOGICAL SPECIMENS" and a biohazard symbol.

"The key to everything," replied Bremer as he flashed his keycard on the door in front of them. "Well, one of them at least." With that, he opened the door and beckoned Gellar in.

Gellar felt a shiver and his throat went dry, and it wasn't just from the fact that the room was climate-controlled to maximize preservation. "What the...?" he remarked as his eyes rested on the body laying prone on the operating table in the middle of the lab.

It was that of a man... or, if it was indeed a man, it was unlike any other man Gellar had ever seen. It was tall, over six feet, and quite well built - not muscular in the same way that a Human would be, but still exuded an air of having been quite a bit stronger in life than its lithe and lean frame would otherwise have suggested. And that was just the beginning.

It was completely hairless, though Gellar wondered if that was because any hair it might have had before had now been shaved off. What he could tell was that the proportions of its head and neck were all wrong - too elongated, far too narrow. Its ears were long and pointed at the top, like something out of some damn Tolkien novel. Its arms and legs were long and spindly, with elbows and knees at wrong angles. And as for its genitals... well, that was how Gellar could tell this specimen was a male (and thankfully, at least, these looked somewhat normal, though not enough to offset the peculiarity of the rest of the creature to which it was attached). The whole being stank strongly of chemicals, though these were probably whatever preservatives the Arrowhead team were using to keep this thing looking this good even after 37 years.

"And now I am become Death, the Destroyer Of Worlds," mused Bremer, grinning as he read the look on Gellar's face.

Gellar was stunned, but still lucid enough to recognize the reference. "The Bhagavad Gita," he remarked. "Verse 32, Chapter 11. When God, reincarnated in the form of Krishna, reveals his true form to the reluctant prince Arjuna in order to motivate him to perform his duties."

"You know your classics," observed Bremer. "You know who else used to read it?"

"Heinrich Himmler," replied Gellar, glumly.

"True. Though I was actually thinking more along the lines of Robert Oppenheimer," said Bremer. "Like our fathers did 40 years ago, we too are now standing on the edge of a new scientific frontier."

"So this is the Roswell alien?"

"One of them, yes."

"Where are the others?" asked Gellar.

"Other secure facilities," explained Bremer, "the exact locations of which are not important right now."

Gellar frowned. He had studied the paranormal now for a while, had practically read every book he could find on the matter. He had suspected that we weren't alone in the universe, or that our universe wasn't alone among many others. And he had always suspected that these "other" beings out there, whoever they were, had indeed been coming to Earth for quite some time. Unlike how the Hollywood movies often showed them, Gellar was not of the mindset that these "others", whoever or whatever they were, were necessarily "evil" per se - after all, they had come to this world before, had interacted with early Humans long ago in the distant past (hell, perhaps even mated with them), had even helped them build Stonehenge and the Pyramids, had inspired all the great religions and mythologies of the world. But now, to be staring at one of these "others", face to face... and to see just how much like us they were, and yet so radically different at the same time... it was a chilling experience.

Gellar forced himself to take his eyes off from the body, and instead looked at photographs mounted on the walls around him. There were several old black-and-white photos, showing what must have been the crash-site - a vast expanse of desert, broken bodies and twisted pieces of wreckage strewn across blackened and burning sand dunes. Men in Air Force uniforms posed next to the bodies in some of the pictures. Another one showed an excavator scooping pieces of wreckage into the back of a dump truck. Another photo was taken inside an aircraft hangar, showing a heap of spacecraft parts being stored inside, each piece labeled with a tag or a sign taped onto it.

Gellar paused at another photo, showing scientists in smocks, gloves and masks, dissecting one of the specimens. But what really drew Gellar's attention in that picture was a man sitting in the background, in a wheelchair and wearing a plain black suit and tie instead of the protective gear like the others. He had a suspicion he knew just who that man was.

More photos, with the later ones now in color. One showed a blueprint schematic of what the spaceship might have looked like prior to the crash; a beautiful but deadly shape, like a gnarly dagger with wings. Others showed pictures of the various personal effects and items that had been recovered and meticulously catalogued - all manner of clothing and apparel, jewelry, pieces of body armor, furniture, swords, some weird-looking firearms that looked straight out of a Flash Gordon serial - and all of them were certainly very beautiful too, elegantly crafted and artfully shaped, sometimes with large rubies or sapphires set into them. Yet another photo showed an unusual body that was unlike the others, what looked to be some bizarre catlike creature, like a green tiger with yellow stripes, long pointed ears, and a bushy fluffy tail.

Gellar turned back to look at the body, trying to imagine what it would have looked like alive - with hair and fully clothed, perhaps sitting in the command chair of that ship, giving orders to its crew in its alien tongue. Perhaps they wore jewelry as a status symbol? Perhaps that catlike creature was some kind of shipboard mascot, like how they used to keep cats on ships in the old days? Perhaps they came to Earth looking for something? But then, if so, why did they crash? So many questions. Too many questions.

Now that he was looking at the body a little more closely, he could see that it was covered in several places with what looked like crystalline crusts, as if diamonds or shards of glass were just embedded in their skin.

"What are those?" asked Gellar.

"Their blood tends to harden and crystallize quickly upon exposure to air," answered Bremer. "A biological defense against blood-loss."

"So how are you able to open up the body when performing a dissection?"

"A number of methods," said Bremer. "They used to use hydrochloric acid as an anti-clotting agent; acidity slows down the rate of crystallization. Generally, the stronger and more concentrated the acid, the longer it takes the blood to clot." He strode over to the far end of the room, where a carousel projector had been set up; he clicked it on, and a bright image flashed onto the white wall opposite him. He continued: "nowadays, we like to use less messy and intrusive techniques. Ultrasound, CT scanning, and magnetic resonance imaging mainly. Now, we only open up the bodies when there is an absolute need."

Gellar looked up at the images being projected onto the wall. More photos taken from various dissections performed over the years - you could tell from the changes in hairstyles and clothing of some of the scientists. And yet he noticed in several of them that same wheelchair-bound scientist, growing older but still in always the same garb.

Interspersed among these photos were various diagrams, X-rays, ultrasound images... one such slide illustrated a strand of DNA, except that it consisted of a quintuple, not double, helix, with up to twenty base chemical pairs listed. Another slide showcased a full body skeleton, which looked only vaguely like a Human's, for the bones were made out of some crystalline substance, fused in several places where there should have been joints, and apparently hollow. The next slide after that focused on just the skull alone, a crystalline skull - elongated and fused in several places, with the teeth jutting right out of the jawbone rather than separate.

Gellar shivered; it looked eerily similar to his own research into crystal skulls in Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica. He had always suspected that aliens might have visited Earth many times before in the distant past, might have explained, for example, why stepped pyramids could be found in both Central America and in Egypt, built by civilizations that hadn't even invented the wheel yet. But in spite of all the years he'd devoted to studying these phenomena, it just wasn't anything to compare to actually being there, right next to it, in person. It was like being a paleontologist who had studied dinosaurs his entire life now finally getting to see one alive and up close - exciting and wondrous and terrifying too all at the same time.

"So... uh, just to make sure we're on the same page here," began Gellar, "these aren't the same species as the aliens attacking us right now. But they still employ a similar means of inter-dimensional travel via psychic chrono-spatial warping?"

"That would be correct," said Bremer, "their technology is so vastly superior and complex compared to anything we have today, that it requires another powerful psychic to be able to truly understand and comprehend any of it. We've been studying their physiology and technology for nearly forty years now and we're still only scratching the surface. But at least now that we know just what is possible, it's been giving us a useful direction to steer our research towards."

"And after all that... you still forgot the realspace containment modulator," shot Gellar.

Bremer glared. "No, we did not. I told you, it was a work in progress. We were initially planning to use the one salvaged from the spacecraft, only to find it completely unusable for a Human, so we had to start from square one designing our own and..." He paused and frowned. "What is it, Freeman?"

Gellar turned around to see one of the other Arrowhead scientists entering through the door, a baffled look on his face. "Bremer, urgent call. From Washington. I think it's... uh, you're gonna have to hear it yourself."

Kowloon Walled City,
British Territory Of Hong Kong.

He did not know how long he was out, but when He finally came to, His head was throbbing, feeling like His heart had traded places with His brain, and His mind still burned from His brief connection to that unspeakable future. Ugh, who knew genetic memory could be such a bad trip.

Through blurry and bloodshot eyes, He glimpsed the sky above Him, a hellish deep crimson; around Him, the high-rise buildings of the Walled City and of the rest of the Kowloon rose to meet the sky, a sea of jagged edges and spires protruding up from the cracked and desolate Earth.

Karl was dizzy; He had seen things He could not have ever imagined before. Visions from the past - of mechanical dragon gods from beyond the stars and golden knights, poisoned hellscapes and concentration camps and so forth - they were one thing. And then there were these visions from the future. The far future. His future. Visions of the Dark Gods and their servants, slithering out from the blackest reaches of the universe to wreak havoc, against which all of the other horrible things He had once foretold would happen in the next century looked mild by comparison.

And even these paled next to that... Thing on the Throne... oh, He could still feel Its mind, Its thoughts and emotions - Its anger and pain, joy and sorrow, triumph and regret. A maelstrom of feelings suddenly dumped into Karl's head like an ocean being poured into a cup. Oddly, He noted, the only thing It did not feel was fear, though He had plenty of His own to substitute in Its place. He should have gone mad from everything He had seen and heard and felt (of course He now knew and understood why He hadn't, even if He did not wish to acknowledge and accept this reason right now).

He looked up again at the apocalyptic sky. How was He so sure that He had not simply died and gone to Hell? Oh, of course. He knew very well He could not die, and certainly not for lack of trying (He recalled having tried to take His or Her own life numerous times in many a past life, only to be reborn again). No, He knew quite well He was still alive and conscious.

As His vision cleared a little more, He noticed two figures standing over him, looking down upon where He lay. At first, He thought they looked like... mother and father? Father was wearing his blue coveralls and hard-hat, stamped with the logo of the shipyard where he worked as a welder - that was how Karl always remembered him best. Mother wore that flowery skirt and blouse, and that necklace with the dangling amulet; cheap, yes, and a little cheesy, but something He missed dreadfully. Both of them looked just as radiant as they had been on the day they had died. A tear welled in His eye.

And then, before His eyes, mom and dad morphed into a different man and woman standing above Him - darker, dressed in primitive linen garments, hands and skin showing the wear and tear from years of toiling out in the fields. Karl had never seen this couple before but He knew who they were: they too were His parents, but His parents from another life, a different time. His first parents, from that little village somewhere in Anatolia, their names and identities now forever lost to the sands of time.

The vision shifted shape again. This time, it looked like Uncle Guo and Xiuying. Old Man Guo was still shaken from how Shady Shang and his thugs had roughed him up, while Xiuying, tearful, looked the exact same as the last time He had seen her, begging for Him to stay, worried for His safety.

And then, "Xiuying" turned on the spot and shouted: "We have a survivor here!" It was loud and clear but it was clearly a man's voice, and not Xiuying's.

Karl squeezed His eyes shut again for a moment and shook His head. When He looked again, now He beheld a pair of police officers, both men, shining a flashlight at Him and staring in astonishment.

"You. Are. Hurt?" asked the nearest cop, in broken English.

Karl did not answer, but instead pulled Himself up to His feet. The second cop bent down, took hold of His arm, and helped Him up. "No injuries; he seems perfectly alright," observed the officer, speaking in Cantonese, "not even any cuts or bruises!"

"Damn. How could anyone survive... that?" remarked the first cop, and Karl could sense his mixed awe, confusion, apprehension, and disgust as he stared at the motionless hulk of that... Dreadnought that lay right near to them. The eviscerated remains of Honored Brother Henrik Shlakt still hung there, still attached to that techno-coffin with strands of wire and tubing. The stench of rot and death, from Brother Shlakt and from all the other deceased surrounding them, must have been overpowering.

Karl wearily looked around Himself. The area looked almost exactly the same as when He had passed out, still strewn with the debris of collapsed buildings and the bodies of Humans, Terran and Imperial alike. Fires were burning all over. But now where once only death had reigned supreme, signs of life were slowing filtering back in.

There were teams of policemen and firemen scurrying over the ruins and piles of rubble. There were armed soldiers in British uniforms, from the garrison stationed in Hong Kong. There were even ordinary citizens too who had joined them. They must have come now that the shooting had stopped (for the most part that is, as He could still hear some distant gunfire; these Templars, the main threat, had all been wiped out down to the last man, but some of the smaller ones, the Guardsmen, must have managed to retreat to other parts).

Here, a Fire Service paramedic was setting about the grim task of checking each body he came across, to see who was alive and who wasn't. There, firemen were fighting to douse the flames of a burning apartment block. Elsewhere, He could see through the Warp an elderly man being carried, piggyback across the shoulders of a strong volunteer, down from his home on the seventh floor of another building, which looked dangerously close to collapsing from whatever structural damage it had taken from the Templars. Sometimes it took the absolute worst of places, surrounded by naught but gloom and doom, to bring out the best in people.

As the two cops helped Him wearily take a few steps, Karl looked up, despondent, to the clouds above glowing red reflecting the city lights, and then further, to the endless and uncaring universe beyond. To have suddenly felt the anguish and plight of a trillion tortured souls had dulled His Warp senses somewhat, much as shining a bright light might cause one's pupils to contract and dull one's eyesight. But still He could feel enough to know a little more of what was going on around Him. Thousands had been slain, but many thousands more remained alive, trapped or wounded. Nothing within His abilities could restore breathe to the deceased, but there was still hope for the living - the living here and in a thousand other places around this world, now and, perhaps, across a thousand lifetimes into the future too...

"Shall the judge of all of the world not do what is right?" He quietly muttered to Himself.

"Excuse me?" asked one of the policemen, confused.

Karl recognized the line, it was a quote from the Bible; Genesis 18:25. He knew it well - after all, it was He who had written it in the first place (in a previous life, that is).

"Actually, uh, I'm alright, thank you," spoke Karl, in fluent Cantonese, to the surprise of both cops. "I think there are others who need your help more than me." He politely shrugged off their assistance, straightened up, and walked off by Himself - there was much He needed to do.

Deep beneath the Pentagon,
Arlington, Commonwealth Of Virginia.

Starting...

Starting...

Running diagnostics...

Neural interface display... check.

Control surfaces... check.

Power output... stable.

Environmental sensors... calibrated

All systems... operating at 80% functionality. Standby for detailed diagnosis.

Identity... confirmed. Welcome back, Lady Adorcha Maeterys, Heiress To The Noble House Of Ke'airden.

Lady Ke'airden... now that was a name she had not heard anyone else call her for a long time.

It had been nearly three hundred of the Mon'Keigh's years since she had fled her ancestral home on Druidia; thirty-seven since she had become trapped on this miserable little rock of a planet in the middle of nowhere, all alone, all of her crew and even Kringer taken away from her. And so right now, to be reunited with her old wargear, for the first time in a long time, it felt... good. It felt - not much but a little - like she had finally returned home.

She closed her eyes - only for what any dull-minded Mon'Keigh would perceive to be a mere microsecond, but it was enough. Enough for her to stretch her legs and get a feel for the armor that now clung to her seamlessly and weightlessly like a second skin.

Even with her eyes closed, she could still see and feel clearly the enormous object burning in her hands. Margaithann. The enormous Warp Sword glowed fiercely, appearing to shift between white and gold and deep crimson in both reality and in the Warp, surging with raw power and the weight of untold myriads of souls it had claimed throughout its long and dignified service. In spite of its great size and mass, it felt light as a feather in the hands of whoever was worthy enough to wield it. And it could shift its size and shape as well, able to mold itself to suit the needs of whatever circumstances were at hand (though that part required a level of effort on her part that she was just far too exhausted right now to expend).

Some ten thousand generations of House Ke'airden had wielded that great blade across countless worlds and throughout innumerable battles, going all the way back to the days of the War In Heaven against the dreaded Yngir themselves and their vile Necron'tyr servants. Sixty-five million years and still Margaithann shined and gleamed, sharp and deadly as the day it was first forged in the heart of a dying star. It was the only thing she took with her, other than the clothes on her back, when she was forced to flee Druidia, never to see her beloved homeworld ever again. And throughout all the years that she had spent on the run - finding and training Kringer, joining the Guardians, raiding, fighting back, hiding, and dreaming of the day she vengeance would be hers... it was all she had carried with her to remind her of the life she had left behind, the family she had turned her back on.

She turned her weary eyes, blurred with confused tears of mixed sorrow and joy, to look back at her opponent; the Assassin had landed on her feet, some several dozen feet away from her. Her grip on Margaithann's hilt tightened. Oh, how she was going to... to... to fuck that bitch up SO royally.

(And yes, please pardon her Mon'Keigh; one does not live among these primitives for years and not pick up a few of their mannerisms. Lowly as they are, there were at least some qualities of their essence that were endearing, infectious even...).

Adora boldly took a step forward.

Squelch.

Ugh!

By Khaine!, thought Adora, as she winced from the stinging pain. It took every bit of effort for her not to break her composure, lest she betray this weakness to the deadly opponent right in front of her.

Almost at once, her helmet display flashed with a psychic warning. In a matter of micro-seconds, her suit had conducted a full body scan and had diagnosed the problem: foreign object lodged in her mesentery, right between the layers of muscle and the abdominal cavity. *Sigh*. Of course, it was the Sharpie. Her armor was tight around the midsection, crafted and shaped specifically to fit her frame and no one else's; and when she had donned it, it had pushed that pathetic piece of plastic even deeper inside.

That was not the only problem. A second warning alerted her to an even more insidious complication: there were still tiny traces of the poison in her blood. She had managed, thanks to that little technique Amalthea had taught her back in the Rebellion, to flush most of it out of her system. However, tiny residual traces of it remained. Easy to overlook, but if left unchecked...

Activate medical protocols!, thought Adora quickly, expecting her suit to comply. Initiate foreign object removal and blood contaminant filtration...

Nothing.

I said... activate medical protocols!, she repeated, this time mouthing the words as well. Again, nothing. Adora was confused for a moment, before she realized what must have been going on.

Thirty-seven years had this suit of armor been in the possession of the Mon'Keigh; thirty seven years had they been studying it, handling it, taking it apart to examine it, and then boxing it up and storing it away down here in this depository like it were some cheap trinket to add to their hoard. Somewhere along the way, the Mon'Keigh, in their infinite clumsiness, must have damaged it - not much but just enough to disable the medical capsule and a few other processes. No wonder she had been warned that her suit was operating at only 80% combat functionality.

There was no time to dwell on any of these. She turned her attention towards her assailant (all of this having transpired in the space of what would appear to any outside observer to have only been a few seconds).

"You poisoned me," she spoke, accusingly, as she took several strides forward, trying her bloody damnedest not to betray any sign of falter in her step, or self-doubt in her words - even if she knew her helmet's audio-system would automatically filter her voice for any hints of these, it was as much for the purpose of reassuring herself too.

Sure enough, she could hear her commanding voice reverberate out from her helm's mouthpiece, both in reality, and in the Warp too, and sounding more mildly annoyed than desperate. She looked to try and gauge her opponent's reaction; the Assassin's skull-like mask was, as always, unmoving and unreactive, though Adora could sense the aura of pure hatred and contempt burning in her general direction. "Bring it on, Xenos whore!" came the her enemy's reply, and then, she charged.

Get ready for this...

Faster than the blink of an eye, her helmet sensors performed a quick scan and analysis of the figure rushing at her. Adora knew enough about the formidable assassins of the Callidus Temple, based on whatever knowledge she had pried away from the mind of that "Ordo Chronos" agent she'd encountered back in Rome last year. She knew about the Officio Assassinorum and their different schools, their methods and ideologies; and she knew of how they were routinely used to hunt down what few surviving members of her species remained in that dark future from whence they came. All this and much, much more about the Imperium had been revealed to her during that little "close encounter" almost a year ago, and yet now to be facing up against one of these dreaded harridans was no less a chilling experience.

Her eyes and sensors in particular focused on that sickly green blade that shimmered and glowed in the Assassin's hands. C'Tan Phase Sword - an ancient artifact from the dreaded Yngir themselves. Adora shivered. Aeons ago, her legendary ancestors had fought seemingly endless hordes of the Yngir's followers, wielding similar weapons. Arcane armaments forged out of eldritch metals, able to phase in and out of realspace to bypass most defenses; it took no less than the able hand of Vaul himself to devise a sufficient counter. And though she gripped one such counter in her hands, her mind could not help but ponder for a moment just how many of the ancient heroes of House Ke'airden had been felled upon these accursed blades.

Her belly seemed to concur, as she felt a slight stinging from where she had been stabbed earlier. But she bit the bullet and steeled herself; her legs bent, her muscles tightened, her eyes narrowed.

In a flash, the Assassin was upon her; darkness rose, and light in turn rose to meet it, head on. Sparks cascaded out like little arcs of lightning, and a piercing wail echoed through the cavernous reaches of the Vault, as the dreaded phase metal of the C'Tan clashed against the finest artisanship of Vaul.

The Assassin pressed the attack, thrusting, stabbing, slashing, blocking, all in such rapid succession so as to appear a blur to normal eyes; she was unrelenting. And so too was Adora.

Adora was quick on her feet, her speed and reflexes greatly amplified by the living armor she had clothed herself in. She leapt to the side, and pulled Margaithann out of its lock with the Phase blade; she swung the ancient Warpsword in a great circle, and brought it around to strike the Assassin's head.

But the Assassin was quick too, able to turn on the spot and bring her own sword up in time to block Margaithann. Once more, the blades clanged and locked against each other, but this time, something was off. For her maneuver, Adora had compromised her footing; her opponent noticed and made her pay dearly for it, delivering a strong kick to her own legs while their arms and blades were locked together above.

Adora groaned and fell backwards onto the ground, though she was able to roll out of the way just as the Phase Sword plunged into the ground where she had been just milliseconds earlier, cracking the cement floor and throwing up a plume of dust. Part of her cape too was caught in the way of the blade, and was sliced clean off, but Adora paid no heed to this. In a split second she was back on her feet, and had brought Margaithann up in time to block her attacker's next assault.

Most of her attention was on her opponent, but Adora also tried to quickly scan the her surroundings, desperately looking for any way to leverage the environment around her to her favor... the Vault was sprawling and cavernous, rows upon rows of steel shelving reaching up to the cycling, stacks of cardboard boxes, wooden crates, and shipping containers. Her mind, through the Warp, could catch glimpses here and there of their contents. Some of these deceptively plain-looking vessels concealed within them powerful items - talismans and other trinkets that resonated strongly with the Warp. She reckoned some of those artifacts must have belonged to... HIM...

The Assassin crouched and then leapt with such force that she went sailing through the air, spinning several times in midair with her blade outstretched, like a whirring buzzsaw. To any normal Mon'Keigh who might have been watching their battle, the two gladiators danced and ducked and dived with such ferocity so as to appear a blur of limbs and blades. The shrieks and crackles that echoed out every time the two swords connected seemed to coalesce into one long, continuous piercing wail, drowning out all other sounds - the swoosh of blades cutting through air, the cries and grunts as both warriors exerted themselves to the max, and, at least to Adora's ears, the background rumbling of the Warp...

...there was no telling how some of the artifacts stored here might react if she tried to interface with them. Especially if some of these did indeed belong to Him. She looked away from these and tried to examine the more mundane items stored alongside them. As far as she could tell, there were all manner of weapons and other machine pieces to be found here - jet engines, a prototype jet pack, whole missiles albeit with the warheads removed, and even the components for what looked like some failed and ill-advised Mon'Keigh attempt to build a working battlefield robot. But apart from that, not much else - no fuel, no live ammunition, no propellants, no liquid oxygen, nothing she could improvise a secondary weapon or even just a distraction out of on the fly...

The Assassin leapt and spun and twirled in a manner perhaps better suited to a Druidian ballet dancer than any Mon'Keigh Adora had ever seen before - that "close encounter" from last year could not compare, not even close. Adora was struggling just to keep up, unable to find any opening to land even a glancing blow. There might have been a time she could fight psychomatrons head-on back in the Rebellion, but those years were behind her; right now, she was tired, exhausted, years out of practice, and still in pain. She could see why, in that grim and hopeless future many thousands of years from now, operatives like this one were so lethally adept at exterminating her kind, like they were less the superior and beautiful beings they truly were, and more like mere vermin to be squashed underfoot.

...even a few shards of wraithbone stripped off from the hull of the Druhk Eshaiir would have been useful for her to have right now - something she could have quickly shaped into something useful with minimal effort - but there were none to be found here. The Mon'Keigh must have been storing those pieces at their other facilities around the country, like the one they called Area 51...

With each swing, her sword seemed to shift color, the ancient runes etched flashed and glowed, and the great soulgem delicately inlaid into its hilt flushed with color, but now all of these with greater intensity than before; it was as if Margaithann itself were speaking to her, trying to warn her. Something did not feel right. Well, many things did not feel right - the abdominal pain, the throbbing in her head, the numerous warnings her helmet display now flashed before her eyes, and then there was...

...Area 51... that name made her mind conjure unpleasant images. She could see, in black and white, Amalthea lain down flat, her eyes still wide open, but now so too was her chest, spilling all of her insides out onto the table. Mon'Keigh in white labcoats and masks swarmed around her like mangy scavengers, poking and prodding away with little regard for the dead. More images now, of the rest of her crew, all in similar states of dismemberment - Tygra, the Twins, Taarna, Jenn, even Kringer. No. Not Kringer! They were chopping him open like he was little more than cattle butchered for meat...

"Argh!" cried Adora as she felt another sharp sting. Her mind was clouded, and she had let her guard down; only for a split second, but her opponent did not forgive her for it. She managed to recover, twist her body out of the way, and block, but for one brief opening. There was a slash in her left arm, just below the elbow; blood began to gurgle and gush, dripping down her hand.

That was it. Adora did not know whether it was the agony in her belly, or her arm, or the vision reminding her the fate of her true companions. Margaithann lit up, a channel for the raw power of the Warp, and of the lord she served. Her bloody left hand clenched into a fist and crackled with lightning.

The Assassin had fought psychic foes before and knew how to recognize and dodge their attacks, and she did just that, but there was one part of her that did not get out of the way in time: her hair. Filled with fire and fury, Adora reached out through the Warp, grabbed onto that single long braid protruding from the back of her head, and pulled. Pulled with such force that the Assassin was lifted swiftly and bodily into the air, and flew off to the side.

Her enemy's body was slammed into the nearest row of shelves, smashing into a crate with such force that the box shattered. Pieces of wood, dust, circuitry, and metallic machine parts scattered everywhere - probably the parts for yet another pointless expenditure of the American taxpayer's dollars, but Adora cared nothing of it. Effortlessly, she picked up another crate full of maybe another few million of dollars worth of R&D, and hurled it at her opponent. It crashed and broke apart, though the Assassin had managed to roll out of the way in time to avoid being crushed.

"YOU. BITCH!" she roared, like a woman possessed, "I WILL FUCKING END YOU!"

"You hear that?" asked Officer Hightower, "what's that noise?"

Officer Powell didn't reply, but kept his grenade launcher trained forward. God, who knew the Pentagon would turn out to be like some damn iceberg, with most of it underground? Up ahead was a narrow steel door, like the entrance to some bunker, "101" stenciled across its front. It was wide open, and the sounds, like some freaky Star Wars lightsaber duel from hell, were emanating from within.