Francesco Mazzotta

CELLULAR ACTIVITY

To my family

and my friends.

PROLOGUE

The heavy and wet air floats in the room like an old and bored ghost. The stench of fuel and engine oil joins that of sweat, a sick alchemy tasting like an old dusty workshop. Dirty and bony hands strongly grasp a big wrench, the knuckles whiten to further tighten a valve. A flickering fluorescent tube lights up the scene, drawing irregular sharp shadows.

A rough voice, made by years of cheap cigarettes, comes up from beneath a huge machine. “Give it a try now, Jay!”

On the other side of the plant, a stocky man, with his overalls smeared with dirt, stops working on a long welding and puts the electrode and his protective dark mask down on the counter. He pulls off his gloves and heads to a control panel. “Ready here! Tell me when I have to open it!”

“Go ahead, but very slowly. Get ready to close everything.”

The man presses a few buttons, then he opens a big red valve, keeping an eye on the needle of the pressure gauge that gradually starts raising. “More?”

The answer comes after a few moments, interspersed with a bad coughing. “Just a little bit, take it to one point two… Carefully… Carefully I said! Wait! Damn, wait!”

The sound of an air puff, followed by a series of expletives in a Texas accent, briefly covers the hum of the machinery.

The small figure of Mark Miller comes out crawling from the intricacy of pipes that he is working on. His bony and pale face is mottled by a splash of dark grease. He quickly reaches the other side of the room, where Jay Young is putting his gloves on again to go on with his welding. “It was slightly below one”, he exclaims, noticing the upset expression of the other.

Miller wipes his face with a cloth, then he throws it on the table, remaining thoughtful and drumming his fingers for some moment. “The valve has been mounted incorrectly. Some idiot has forced it even though it was not properly aligned, ruining its thread. I’ll try to put another seal but if it doesn’t work I am afraid that we have to change the whole damn block.”

“Jesus… I hope not, it would be a real pain in the ass. Okay let’s hurry, Redmond will raise hell if we stay one more day without a backup generator. Just give me a minute to finish the welding on this panel and I’ll give you a hand.”

“Where are the one-inch O-rings?” Miller’s voice sounds hoarse, while rummaging in some old and grease-stained cardboard boxes.

“Mmm… I don’t think you’ll find any more left in there. Anyway, I’m sure there should be another entire pack in stock.”

Miller starts up muttering. After walking about ten meters he is hit by the voice of his colleague: “Mark, since you’re going up there, take a look at the main generator. I heard strange creaks last night.”

The footsteps of the maintenance team technician echo through the silent corridors. A multitude of different diameter pipes runs along the ceiling. Fluorescent tubes regularly light up the space with their cold and impassible light.

Young goes on with the welding. As his electrode touches the shiny surface, a cascade of sparks breaks out like fireworks, flashing with a vivid bluish light. A long glowing strip is slowly drawn on the metal sheet.

The job takes about fifteen minutes of careful work, then the man puts his protective screen aside again, and presses a button with one foot in order to switch off the welding machine. He awaits for a while, then carefully checks the welding he just completed, finding just a slight imperfection. The man grabs a hammer and skillfully removes small smudges of charred rutile. “Hey Mark, what do you think about that mess up there?”

No reply.

Young moves to the other side of the generator, unwinding the wire of a grinder. The place where Miller was working is empty.

Not back, yet…

The man puts his eye protection mask on and connects the tool to a power outlet. A pressure on the safety switch activates the rotating disk, which produces a loud noise.

He turns around, approaching the welding to be polished but at that moment the lights go out completely.

“What the fuck…”, bursts Young, snorting bothered in total darkness. He moves groping to put the grinder down on the slab, moving carefully to avoid tripping over the wires. The abrasive wheel is still rotating by inertia, and the man has to wait a few moments for it to stop altogether. After taking care of the grinder, Young gropes for a drawer, searching inside for a flashlight.

Where the hell is it…

A noise, a few meters behind him, similar to the cracking of the ankle of someone trying and walking stealthily, makes him jerk.

“Mark, I’m here, careful not to step on me.”

After a few moments of oppressive darkness, a slender cone of light emerges in the obscurity. A thick atmospheric dust swirls nervously. Young taps a few times his flashlight, hoping the dim light is due to a slight misalignment of the batteries inside, however, the brightness doesn’t seem to improve. He turns annoyed, exploring the room and expecting to find his colleague somewhere around, but there is no one with him. Puzzled, he leaves the room by swinging the torch right and left.

The place is empty.

Annoyed by that almost surreal situation, he walks down the hall, going to the main generator.

That silence, so muffled and sudden, in addition to the pitch-black darkness all around, makes the place even more gloomy and claustrophobic.

“Miller, where are you?”

As if in answer to his question, a heavy thud coming from the upper floors shakes the walls. The tremors last a long time and seem to cross his body, echoing in its inner cavities.

What the hell are they doing up there?

“Miller! Hey Miller!”

Still no reply. Young tries to eavesdrop on signals, but all he can hear is his own breathing. The man walks on along the path leading to the generator room when, somewhere far behind him, he perceives the sound of something metallic falling to the ground.

He instinctively turns, pointing his flashlight.

There is nothing. The corridor is completely empty and fades into darkness after a few meters ahead.

Don’t get yourself scared by this shit, man…

Taking a quicker step Young reaches the main generator room, pausing at the open door. He is about to cross the threshold when a rustle to his left catches his attention. The man turns around, raising the torch. The ray barely lights up a figure.

What the hell…

“Hey you!”

Young takes a step forward, pointing the light to a man dressed in a bio-hazard protective suit. It’s dirty with grime and his face is hidden by a black gas mask.

“I’m talking to you! You can’t stay here!”

In response, the stranger slowly backs away a few steps, then turns away, swallowed up by the darkness.

Jesus…

“Hey, where are you going? Did you hear me?”

Young walks a few more meters, but there is no trace of the mysterious appearance. Not a word, not a noise. The technician hesitates for a moment, undecided what to do. Then, somewhere between puzzled and frightened, he steps back to the door of the generator room and enters it. He heads immediately for the control console, his movements fastened by his concerns. The beam of his flashlight illuminates something that leaves him speechless. The main panel appears twisted and deformed, almost melted by the effect of a powerful corrosive. The half-destroyed panel is half covered with a yellowish stuff that drips on the sides in long filaments.

What the hell is this shit?

A few moments go by, while Young checks the damage and the machine’s functionality.

“Miller, if this is some kind of a joke, be warned: I’m not enjoying it at all!”

No one answers to Young’s words. The man stoops beneath the now useless console and starts tinkering with a number of other buttons and switches, still intact.

I should bypass it all from here, and restart the system manually…

Jesus… Redmond will skin us alive…

The generator comes back to life, humming as usual, after a few minutes of unsuccessful attempts. As the power gets restored to all areas, the fluorescent tubes start to flash, until they light up completely.

Young breathes a sigh of relief and looks around, happy to see again without having to use the sick light of that half-dead torch. The rest of the room seems intact. The clumsy attempt to knock out the plant has focused on the control console. The man is about to leave when he catches a glimpse of something on the floor, slightly protruding from behind one section of the large generator. He approaches cautiously, looking at what at a first glance appears like a motor oil stain, black and dense. Getting closer to the corner, he comes in front of something that shrinks his stomach and forces him to repress a retching. It’s not oil nor grease. The stain on the floor fades to reddish strokes and, to clear any possible doubt, the sweet metallic smell in the air makes him sure that what he is seeing is something other than engine oil. It’s a blood puddle mixed with whitish mucus, the same as that on the vandalized control panel. A little further, a splash drew long and dark stripes on the wall. On the ground, about one meter away, there are the remains of a work overalls, worn and ripped to shreds.

Young moves forward, careful not to step in the little pool of blood, and pulls the garment with one foot. After looking at it, he feels a chill slipping down his back, because he realizes that it’s the suit worn by Miller just a few minutes ago.

The man steps back. His clothes seem suddenly icy and too tight. It’s hard to breathe and he’s unable to look away from that stuff on the ground.

Focused on the troubling vision, and with his mind on thousand questions about what’s going on, he is not aware of the articulated figure that slowly falls behind him without making any noise…

ANTARCTICA, 1983

A light and invisible wind, yet cold and sharp as a razor, glides on the soft soil covered in white by the recent snowfalls. Tiny ice particles accumulate on the face, fill the corners of the eyes and grow in crystals that sizzle in the beard. The sky is a deep blue, clear, limpid and crisp as a diamond, laying on a boundless landscape.

The horizon is framed with a rim of jagged cliffs. Black peaks emerge from the dazzling white ice, reaching to the sky. It’s something that not everyone is aware of, and may be hard to believe for those who have not experienced it in person, but the most dangerous desert in the world actually never heats up. The haggard animal species that inhabit it stay confined on the coast, well aware that the polar sea, even if icy, can however offer food, shelter from winds that can reach speeds of hundreds of miles per hour, and ultimately a hope of survival, compared to a merciless death and oblivion that lurks for those who dare to venture into the inner part of the continent. The endless magic of a timeless forgotten land, with its silent story, sleeping and buried under kilometers of perennial ice. A beautiful but dangerous world, that doesn’t leave the slightest margin to error and uncertainty.

A wheezing rumble goes along the sound of heavy footsteps sinking into the snow. Every breath injects liquid nitrogen straight into the lungs.

A deep voice, hoarse from the cold, speaks in Russian. “For God’s sake, we should have approached a bit further with the vehicle!”

Two men, dressed in heavy parkas to withstand the polar frost, proceed awkwardly, climbing a low ridge.

“Niet, don’t even mention it, Sergej”, snorts the other. “They’d have seen us from afar, and you never know what’s in those Americans’ mind. It’s just a reconnaissance. Let’s take a quick glimpse and leave. Come on, in a couple of hours we’ll be already back and warm, to enjoy a glass of my special reserve.”

The other lets out an inarticulate sound, halfway between a growl and a curse, when one of his legs sinks in the fresh snow up to mid-thigh.

“That’s what happens after an idle winter… Come on, a little gym will be good for you, your butt has overcome your suit by two sizes at least.”

The reply of the other fades into a sort of heavy grunt, as he pulls on one knee trying not to sink further.

* * *

The two men have reached the top of a small hill, and they huddle for shelter near a boulder half-buried by the snow. Their heavy breathing condenses into tiny clouds of steam. They watch with binoculars the environment in the small valley that lies before them. At first glance, the dark elements in the landscape may be mistaken for the black rocks that emerge irregularly from the snow.

Both men look carefully at the details of the scene, adjusting the focus. As the view becomes sharp, the truth reveals to their eyes.

“Mmm… almost nothing left here… The outpost of the Americans was right there, in that area, I’m sure.”

“They could have dismantled it, perhaps they moved to another place.”

“No… I don’t think so… I have the feeling that… Well, it’s not the kind of operations done during the cold season, especially with a winter like the last one.”

“I don’t like this, Andre, there is something strange in the air.”

“Stop it, there’s only ice and cold in the air. Don’t start up with your Baba-Yaga stories. Anyway tell me, do you think that this mess may be connected to that woman’s story?”

The other doesn’t answer immediately, slowly lowering the binoculars. Reddish blond eyebrows, with thin ice needles sprouting, cover his light brown eyes, which show a worried expression. “I really hope not. Let’s go back and report it to Ivanov.”

* * *

Although the cabin is sealed in order to protect the passengers from the killing cold, the noise of the engine of the large Mil MI-8 is deafening, and it is necessary to use of the headphones intercom to communicate. A big red star flanked by Cyrillic fonts adorns the sides of the aircraft, in whose belly, in addition to the two pilots, there are six armed soldiers and a number of large containers of various equipment. Three other passengers sit almost apart, wearing large white protective suits.

Two of them are talking, while the third, a man who has not yet turned forty with angular face and watchful eyes, focuses on reading a document. His eyes glance quickly on what seems a copy of a snow cat’s service manual, whose margins are thick with notes by an almost unintelligible handwriting.

The two figures who sit in front of him, a man and a woman, are a few years younger. She appears in her early twenties. Her chubby face is surrounded by the hood of the suit, from which a tuft of black hair bursts out. She seems serene and relaxed. The woman is talking to a man slightly older than her, a blond and fair-skinned big boy. Fractals of capillaries, broken by the contact with the cold air, stand out on his face.

The girl smiles at a joke and gives a half-push to the man beside her with a gloved hand. “Come on, I can’t believe it. This is just one of your fantasies… Look, as soon as I get back I’m going to ask Ludmila… Let’s hear her side of the story…”

“Good idea, but if she confirms everything then you’ll have to pay a cooool pledge…”

“Oh, really? Mmm… well well well… Pledge you say? Here, look at me. Noo noo, no, this way. Seriously, look at my eyes… Yuriii… A-ha, I knew, you are bluffing. All right, deal! I accept the challenge, but if I am right then it’s you that will pay a pledge, and you won’t like it…”, she laughs. “You won’t like it at all, my dear… What do you think about it? Deal?”

He feigns a worried look. “Wo… wait, wait a moment… Come on, these aren’t things to be decided like that, on one’s feet… By the way, where are we going now?”

They both laugh.

The girl moves her eyes to the figure sitting in front of her, noticing his focused expression. She leans forward, touching his knee to get his attention and raising her voice in order to be heard. “Are you reading again the notes of that woman?”

The man looks up, as if only now noticing the people and the environment around. He brings two fingers at the root of his nose and takes a deep breath, as if to collect his thoughts. Then he puts on the headphones of the internal communication system. His voice sounds in the ears of the other two, with a slight metallic hue. “Here I am. Yes, this is a copy. Just trying to grasp a sense of her writing. There are several blind spots in the transcription, and I can’t fully understand some passages. I want to make sure to minimize all errors.”

Eva Arsentiev nods, while looking down to the papers in his hands. “We all did our best, Alexander. You can see it yourself… handwriting, made in a hurry, by someone who was slowly freezing, shrunk in the margins of the pages of a Swedish snow cat’s service manual…”

“Norwegian”, he corrects. “Anyway yes, you’re right, I’m sorry”, he vaguely waves his hand. “I didn’t mean that. Your team did a great job. It’s just that this story is… fascinating. Although perhaps this isn’t the most appropriate adjective. See, freezing leads to hallucinations before death, but I don’t think that anyone has ever had the mental clearness and time to write and describe them.”

The younger man, Yuri Dmitriev, intervenes in the discourse. “That’s true, Ivanov, however, it’s also true that something has happened to the site of the Norwegians. It must have been a devastating something to reduce it to the state in which we found it.”

“And the air recognition has not detected any trace of the site where the hypothetical wreck described by the woman should be”, adds the girl.

“It’s been a whole polar winter, Eva. It has probably been covered by the snow. Without better information I fear that it will be almost impossible to find it… Assuming that there is really something to find”, is Ivanov’s reply.

A few moments of silence, then it’s Dmitriev who keeps talking. “Why this inspection to the American outpost?”

Ivanov focuses the eye on both, thoughtfully, as if to consider what to say and what to keep to himself. “During the last winter, Pyotr, our radio operator, caught a message from the American camp. The communication was mostly incomprehensible due to statics and interference, but the voice seemed troubled, and it really looked like a kind of SOS. Then nothing, complete silence. The polar winter and the storms made it impossible to communicate anymore and there was no way to investigate further. To be honest I had not thought of that episode anymore. After the discovery of the woman I remembered it, so, two days ago, I sent Andre and Sergei to take a look at the American base…”

Alexander Ivanov awaits for a while, putting his papers in a folder, aware that the eyes of the two interlocutors are on him. “It’s gone, just like the Norwegian site. We’re going there right now. We have to see what happened. If there is even the slightest possibility that the story of the woman is true, we must hasten to also inspect the remains of the US base, before their rescue team reaches it.”

The heavy helicopter touches the ground, a few dozen meters from the area that, not more than a few months ago, hosted the US research complex. The burned fragment of a small tattered sign still says “…OST # 31”.

The soldiers, bundled up in heavy white suits, haste to come out, bringing bulky backpacks and large bags containing various equipment.

The three scientists move forward, leading the column of armed soldiers into what once was the center of the outpost.

Ivanov stops the group with a wave of his hand, after walking about thirty meters. The men look at the place all around. “It’s obvious that something strange happened, perhaps an accident”, he says, pointing to the many remains of charred wood protruding from the ground. “The site has been burned to ashes and the snowstorms buried and dispersed almost everything that survived the fire.” Then he turns to one of the soldiers next to him, “Comrade Captain Pavlov, begin the inspection of the entire area. Your men should just look for any evidence, without touching anything. Let me know if they find anything strange. Call me immediately if you find corpses, and don’t let anybody approach them.”

The soldiers split up at a court order of the group leader, and they begin the inspection.

“Captain, one more thing: make sure that everyone is always in plain sight, no one must remain isolated.”

Arsentiev and Dmitriev share a questioning look. The boy shrugs then prepares to set up a small camera taken out from his briefcase. A few moments later he begins to film an overview of the site.

Eve Arsentiev’s look, the only woman in the group, is now worried. Instinctively she shrugs, while a shiver runs down her spine. She is the only one to call Ivanov by name. “Alexander, about the writing of that woman… What happened at the Swed… Norwegian camp, do you think it might be connected with this in some way?”

The man slowly shakes his head, unsure. His gaze is away, lost in thoughts. “I don’t know, Eva. I hope not, but I wouldn’t rule out any hypothesis.”

A sharp voice breaks the silence after a while. One of the soldiers shouts from somewhere behind a snowdrift. Others flock, struggling on the soft snow layer, not more than one day old. The scene before their eyes seems grotesque and improbable, as just the sudden and unexpected encounter with death can be.

Two figures emerge from the white ground, half way through. Soldiers equipped with shovels are already working to carefully remove the snow that partly covers them.

The frozen bodies of two men emerge slowly from the white. They’re sitting facing each other, one still clutching a bottle of J&B.

“It seems they are the only visible corpses in the area, sir. We can’t exclude that there are others buried in the snow.” Reports one of the soldiers. Ivanov dismisses them with a nod.

“They stood here, freezing to death…” Eve’s voice sounds full of anguish while viewing the details of one of the two corpses: a white man, bearded, with his face covered by a thin layer of tiny ice crystals, his lips blackened and his eyes half-closed as in the act of focusing a view faded out since many months. His eyes’ expression is that of one concentrated on watching carefully the man sitting across him.

Yuri Dmitriev actually points to the latter, a black man, whose head is partly covered by the hood of his parka. He also has open eyes, pointed at the other man. “That one was armed. There, can you see? It seems a flamethrower… and it’s like he was pointing it at the other.”

Ivanov crouches near the white man, removing the snow and quickly revealing his other hand that was still hidden. A revolver is in plain sight, prominently pointed at the figure who sits in front of him.

“And this one was pointing a gun…”

A few moments of silence go by, with the hum of Dmitriev’s camera and the hiss of the wind. Then Ivanov nods, very slowly, without taking his eyes off the two frozen corpses.

“Two men aiming at each other, until death by frosting occurs. What is the point?”, Eva murmurs.

Ivanov replies, his voice almost a whisper. “The camp was destroyed… they were probably the only survivors, but for some reason they couldn’t trust each other…”

The words written by the woman echo in the mind of the scientist, with her desperate attempt to leave a record of terrible events and warn who would retrieve her legacy. Her struggling calligraphy overlaps for a moment the view of the two frozen men in front of him. A flash of awareness enlightens the eyes of Ivanov for a second. He caters to the soldiers who gathered around the scene. “Yuri, Eve, let’s move away. Captain, check out that there aren’t any other remains. Contact the base and order them to bring here the dogs as soon as possible. They can sniff out for other corpses buried in the snow. Meanwhile, load these two bodies on the helicopter. We’re going back to the laboratory. When you have finished with the task, just wipe away all traces of our presence. Now hurry up, the Americans won’t be long in coming.”

The soldiers hasten to obey. Dmitriev moves away to store the camera in his bulky black plastic case. Ivanov and Arsentiev move away from the group. The questioning gaze of the woman explores the face of the scientist. His hawk-like predator gaze now seems to harbor a hint of worry.

MOSCOW – FEBRUARY 2014

Time and vicissitudes have not been lenient with the face of Alexander Ivanov. The man seems to have barely exceeded sixty. His look seems tired and worn. His stare is haunted and almost absent, as those who have experienced and continue to relive unspeakable horrors through their mind’s eyes. His blond hair now has a splash of gray on the temples, yet, despite everything, his appearance still instills a certain feeling of extremely determined authority. The scientist wears an anthracite-colored dress and sits with is back upright.

The room is lit by an anonymous fluorescent tube, the walls are gray and bare, there’s no unnecessary furniture, with the exception of one large table in the center of the room. On the other side sits a stocky man, dressed in an impeccable suit smelling of laundry. He’s almost completely bald, only a clear hint of fuzz runs around the lower part of his head, like a too wide crown. Clear eyes look at the other with the piercing stare of those accustomed to see beyond the people’s pantomime, every day.

He talks with the slowness of who’s leading the game. “So, Dr. Ivanov, let’s recap again the whole story. We must be absolutely certain that we won’t overlook anything.”

The other takes a breath in between the impatient and exasperated, and bows his head in his hands, as if to rub his temples. “Captain Leonidovich, I’ve told over and over how the events took place. We should concentrate our efforts to find that man before…”

The other raises both hands as if in a gesture of surrender, interrupting him abruptly. “Dr. Ivanov, we know who you are, and how much the nation is in debt to you for your research. You are a well-known distinguished scientist, no one doubts it, however personally… well, forgive my frankness, but I don’t like your field of study. According to the information I have, it’s since…” The man browses documents, pretending to look for information that has already been imprinted in his mind. “Here it’s. Well, since 1983 you direct a research center in Antarctica. The nature of your experiments – I read here – is “such that it’s unwise to perform them on the inhabited continent.” Your information access level is so high that you can only report to state leaders. Now… I don’t care what you do at that lost and forgotten by God place and, although I find it hard to believe it, I read in your report – “a few cells of the TH1-N6 organism can trigger an infection that can wipe out the entire animal population of the planet, in an estimated time of about three years”, what interests me is to understand how someone managed to get down there, break into an underground laboratory that is supposed to be very well protected and steal a capsule with a sample of this goddamn virus!”

The scientist’s expression is unreadable. His dark eyes fix those of the government agent in front of him for many long seconds. “The man”, Ivanov answers slowly, like recalling an unpleasant memory, “had an accomplice inside the lab, one of my most trusted assistants. I believe that…”

Leonidovich interrupts him again. “Oh yes, here he is, Yuri Dmitriev. According to the video recordings he died by a close-range gunshot in the neck, probably inflicted by his accomplice as soon as he put his hands on… the vial, or whatever it’s. Why, I ask, would one of your most trusted assistants, betray you, and the whole nation, and endanger the entire human race?”

“I have no answer for this, Leonidovich, I can only hazard a guess. Dmitriev had changed over time. He became nervous, prone to pessimism, his mood progressively darkened. I thought all this was due to stress. It’s hard to live in a continent where even just looking at the sky outdoors puts your life in danger… Months and months in an underground laboratory, not to mention the experiments and the things of which we were witnesses, as well as the implications of some discoveries… I can’t go into details with you, officer, but I assure you that even the most steadfast man might falter. There are thresholds that should never be crossed.”

“That same man – sorry for interrupting you again – I read here that he voluntarily caused an accident that resulted in the loss of two lives, although I couldn’t view any surveillance video recording….”

Leonidovich looks up to Ivanov as if to push him to go on.

“Yes, I have already told you several times how the events took place. He needed a diversion, so he tampered with the containment suits of two of my assistants, who were exposed to the infection. Fortunately, we were able to intervene immediately, to contain the spread. The laboratories were designed for this kind of drawback. The mess that ensued was planned by that man, to facilitate the theft of the sample.”

“Drawback… For Christ’s sake, are you human beings? There are people who died, Dr. Ivanov, they were not laboratory mice! ”

Leonidovich shifts in his chair, crossing his legs in a vain attempt to assume a more comfortable position. After a quick glance to the last one of the sheets of his dossier, he looks up at Ivanov, however, keeping his head down. “Among other things I understand that among the victims there is also Dr. Eva Arsentiev, one of the scientists closest to you, or rather your companion… Talk about a trusty assistant, Ivanov! What is the reason that prompted him to do all this? What’s really behind this? A kind of personal vengeance? You tell me!”

Dr. Ivanov’s gaze is as cold as ice, as he watches the agent, almost like a guinea pig ready for vivisection. “I already said I don’t know why Yuri Dmitriev did what he did. Now listen to me well: there is no time for these games, Leonidovich, there is no time for bullshit or for pain. In a few years no one will remember our feelings, our sacrifices and our points of view. Only the consequences of our actions have weight, both in the present and in the future, and it’s to these that we should pay attention. If that sample is released or put into contact with an animal, life as you know it will end forever, in no time. The last things that you and the people close to you would see – before you die – would be horrors that you can’t even imagine in your worst nightmares!”

Moments of silence, while a baffled Leonidovich observes Dr. Ivanov, apparently undecided about his judgment.

A beep breaks the tension. The agent approaches one hand to his headset. A female voice is barely audible on the other end of the table.

Leonidovich nods, while listening to the message, then imparts some instructions to the operator.

Once the communication ends he turns back to Ivanov. “Let’s pray to God that your predictions are overly pessimistic, Dr. Ivanov. By analyzing the video of the laboratory surveillance system in Antarctica, we have identified the man we seek. It’s a Chechen terrorist, linked with some cells of Islamic extremists. His name is Pyotr Dmitri Zaytsev. A bloodthirsty asshole, sought by government agencies across the world. Your virus, or what-the-hell it is, could not have come into worse hands.”

“You have to alert the other nations, Leonidovich, we can’t risk that…”

“Yes of course”, the agent interrupts him for the umpteenth time. “To tell them what? That we let a man blow a dangerous viral agent from under our nose, and now it’s in the hands of a terrorist? You are over, Ivanov, and I don’t think that you fully realize it. You have jeopardized the credibility and prestige of the entire nation!”

“There’s something else at play, Leonidovich. The prestige of a nation or any other matter relating to the human sphere is nothing compared to the risk of destroying the whole life on the entire planet. We are all in danger now, and it’s you who doesn’t realize it!”

Moments of tense silence between the two, then it’s Ivanov to go on. “Analyze the records of flights and ships in traveling from Antarctica. It’s a continent that hosts just research stations. Perhaps you might be able to find any plane or boat that has reached other continents. The man you’re seeking moves by private means, I suggest that you focus your efforts on the nearest coasts: Chile, Argentina, South Africa.”

Leonidovich pauses for a moment, watching Ivanov from above, as if observing an irresponsible schoolchild, then gets up and heads for the door behind him. Before he even reaches it, the door opens, and two armed officers enter, arranging themselves on either side. “Lead Dr. Ivanov to Section IV, and make sure that he stays there.” Then he turns to the scientist, “Dr. Ivanov, we still need you, consider yourself lucky for that.”

A bitter smile ripples for a moment on the impassive face of the scientist. “I’m more than aware of that, officer Leonidovich.”

CAPE TOWN AIRPORT

A chubby boy about seven years old and a slightly older girl run after each other, zigzagging in the bustle of people in a huge hall of the airport of Cape Town.

“Stop, just give it back!”, screams the boy, while the girl laughs and trots in front of him, just quickly enough to stay out of reach but at the same time just in front of him. They run around having fun, as the girl swerves left, narrowly avoiding running into an elderly woman.

“Watch your steps!”, shouts the boy behind her.

She laughs, looking back to make sure not to be caught by the other. After two more steps she hits someone’s legs. The girl turns around, dazed by the impact, and finds herself in front of a man. He isn’t very tall, his skin is like honey amber, only slightly darker. He has curly black hair, very thick, almost 70’s Afro style, and perhaps they are the reason why his head looks a bit too wide for the narrow shoulders. Two mild but bright eyes, hazel colored, look at the child. The man smiles and somehow even his smile seems somewhat disproportionate. He talks, saying something in an incomprehensible language and making a half curtsy. She blushes and murmurs an apology just before slipping away along with her friend who, taking advantage of her moment of confusion, finally reached her, taking firmly hold of her sleeve.

The man hesitates for a moment, looking at the two that have already forgotten him and run between the people, when he suddenly feels an iron grip on his arm. The hold is energetic, nervous but decisive. He instinctively frees the limb and turns to look. Next to him there is a taller, pale-skinned man, his long black hair gathered in thin braids and tied neatly behind his head. His two-day beard frames a goatee slightly longer. The newcomer looks around suspiciously. His nervous gaze flickers quickly, analyzing and checking the surroundings, the people, the ways out, and the surveillance cameras.

“You shouldn’t be here in plain sight, Amr, I asked for the utmost discretion.”

“Take life easy, my brother”, replies the other. “Who walks under the light of the one true God should never get too nervous.” Then he theatrically spreads his arms. “What better hiding place than in plain sight, and among the people?”

“Shut up and listen”, cuts the first, peremptorily and annoyed. “Tell me what time it is, then go and have a coffee. Come back in a dozen of minutes. Join me in the bathrooms. We’ll talk there.”

The other raises his left arm, sliding the sleeve to uncover a modern chronograph, then communicates the time to his accomplice. This one thanks him, accompanying his words with a nod, then turns to move towards the opposite side of the huge room.

The man named Amr takes a few moments, as to rearrange his dress with nonchalance, then he takes his way to the cafeteria.

* * *

“You took it too easily, I told you a dozen minutes!”

The two men are now in the bathrooms of the airport lounge. The taller of the two looks around, inspecting all the bathrooms to make sure that nobody is there. He seems apparently satisfied but always very nervous, as he speaks to Amr, who pretends to adjust his tie in front of a mirror. Before he can open his mouth, it’s Amr to take the lead, smiling warmly. “You should learn how to enjoy every second, Pyotr. You never know when it’s the last time you do something. Anyway… I’ve known you for some time now, and I understand when there is something wrong with you. Perhaps some unexpected problem?”

“Not at all”, exclaims the other. “And don’t call me by my name.”

“We’re alone, no one listens to us, just relax.”

Pyotr Dmitri Zaytsev takes a deep breath impatiently. “The object will be here shortly, but first I want to be sure that the transfer of funds has been made as we agreed.”

“Alas, we live in dark times, my friend”, says Amr raising his hands and smiling. “Nobody trusts anyone anymore. But it’s okay, brother, this is your right.”

After that, he takes a tiny tablet from a pocket inside his jacket and types his credentials in a basic and anonymous portal. After a short while he shows the screen to Zaytsev, looking up to the taller man. This one looks carefully at the screen, his eyes flowing faster on the reported alphanumeric characters. Satisfied with what he sees he nods his head. Amr, his face ever-smiling, puts the small device back in the pocket from which he took it and turns to a sink, as to wash his hands.

Zaytsev waits for a moment, then he puts an unexpected question to his accomplice. “Just tell me Amr: if you had the chance, would you sacrifice all that you have to wipe out all the infidels from the face of the earth in one stroke? Would you die for the true glory of God?”

Amr’s reflection looks back at him from the mirror. He doesn’t smile anymore. His calm and studied response is full of pride. “I don’t expect these questions from an old friend like you… Anyway… Yes, Pyotr, with all my heart. Yes.”

The pale skinned man nods, apparently satisfied by the response of his accomplice. “All right my brother. Wait here. The delivery is coming.”

The abrupt opening of a door catches the two with a start. A burly man enters the bathrooms main room. He is black, bald, very obese, and his skull oddly elongated in the forehead. He wears shorts that leave uncovered two legs as wide as pillars. In the hollow of his knees, some varicose veins are clearly visible and stand out in relief with a dark blue-green color. The newcomer is wearing an ugly yellow t-shirt with a drawing of Bart Simpson, completely naked and riding a pig. In one hand he holds a paper wrapping containing a half-eaten sandwich, overflowing with fries and ketchup. The man gives a distracted glance at the two, then he slips into one of the bathrooms, and closes the door with the clasp.

Amr turns back, pretending to rearrange his clothes in front of the mirror, sardonically smiling and shaking his head, as if to express his dismay at the sight of the newcomer’s shirt. “Pigs, who admire pigs, eat pigs, and idolize pigs…”, he murmurs in his language to his partner, who looks back at him from the mirror.

“And they will have the death reserved for pigs!”, concludes Zaytsev. Then he enters another bathroom, closing the door. Once away from prying eyes he extracts a small, dull gray metal container from a pocket. The inside is clad with a rubbery, self-modeling substance, in the center of which there is a single tiny vial. A label shows a statement in Cyrillic fonts. The flask is of thick glass and contains a transparent liquid that seems to be just simple water. With a sigh, the man pulls out a syringe from another pocket and unwraps it with a bite. Then he spits it down the toilet. Carefully he inserts the needle into the tiny rubber section of the vial’s seal and draws the content, making sure not to leave a single drop. When finished, the man throws also the vial in the toilet and flushes it, waiting to make sure everything is actually gone. Zaytsev then lifts the syringe in front of his eyes, looking at the liquid in back-light, trying to discern something microscopic inside.

Such immense power, concealed in a few milliliters…

God is truly great!

The subsequent events take place quickly.

The Chechen comes out of the bathroom and heads for Amr, who is still in front of the mirror and shows him his back.

Focused on his goal, Zaytsev doesn’t notice the man in the yellow shirt just coming out from one of the bathrooms to his right, until it collides with him.

“Hey, what the fuck! Watch your steps man!”, the black man yells at him, pushing him away with a big and greasy hand, glaring for a moment as he heads for the exit.

Amr absently looks at the scene from the mirror with half a smile on his face, then he continues to pretend to wash his hands.

Pyotr tightens his lips. His left hand whitens and contracts into a fist, as he struggles against the temptation to slay the man on the spot. Holding his breath he waits till that unwanted presence is gone, then without a word he comes close to Amr, focusing on the next move. With a quick move he grabs with his left hand the throat of his friend, pressing hard with his fingers in the neck points at the base of the jaw. Simultaneously he inserts the syringe needle into the man’s right arm and presses the plunger.

The other tries to break free, but has just enough time to take a mixed look of surprise and disbelief. It’s only an instant before his eyes flip down and his body collapses to the ground.

“It’s just a precaution, sadiqi. After all, you were right: we live in dark times”, says Zaytsev in Arab, as he watches the empty syringe whose needle is broken. Then he bends towards the lifeless body of Amr and, keeping an eye on the front door, rummages in his jacket with quick movements, pulling out a plane ticket. He reads it for a moment, then he puts it back in the pocket of his accomplice with a smile of satisfaction, and briskly heads for the exit.

MOSCOW

A tall and slender woman, short haired almost as a boy, very athletic and with beautiful deep green eyes, looks out of the door of a control room in which a feverish activity takes place. Her voice sounds almost robotic, like a prerecorded message.

“Sir, we have a report from Cape Town.”

The Russian intelligence’s heart seems to freeze for an instant, all eyes look at the woman pointing to one of the screens.

The display shows the airport entrance. The footage rewinds then stops on a frame. The image zooms, an edge outlines a face.

“Son of a bitch”, exclaims Leonidovich. “He’s our man. Anything else? Scan all airport surveillance footage, we must trace his movements.”

The man keeps giving orders, without taking off his eyes from the screen, almost to impress that face deeply in his memory and lock the man in place by the force of his will. “Morozov, who do we have in Cape Town?”

Without waiting for an answer, Leonidovich keeps giving orders. “Send all the available men. When was this footage filmed?”

“9:15 am, today sir”, replies one of the officers, a brunette woman, with a deep voice and an almost masculine face.

Leonidovich slides instinctively his sleeve to check the time: it’s just a little past 14. “I want a list of all departing flights, take into account the smallest margin for boarding operations starting from 9.15 am.”

“Sir, should we alert the local authorities?”, asks one of the agents. Leonidovich looks at him uncertainly, as if he’s checking his options, then, without answering he moves to another screen that’s showing one of the surveillance footages.

* * *

The minutes pass by slowly, while several video clips, filmed by many cameras at the airport, are being closely checked by the operators.

“Sir, we have a match!”, says one of the agents. Leonidovich, red in his face, almost flips a workstation while he rushes to look.

The footage shows Pyotr Dmitri Zaytsev approaching and talking to a man.

“Hold the picture and zoom on the face of the other man”, orders Leonidovich. The operator hastes to obey, zooming on the smiling face of Amr.

“He may be an accomplice: the two men seem to know each other. Go ahead, see what happens.”

The display shows the two talking for a while. Afterward, one of them checks the time and a second later they split, heading for different directions and going out of range of the camera.

“It seems like he just asked a passerby the time, sir.”

“That’s what they want us to believe, but no one grabs you by the arm to ask the time, and the behavior of the other man isn’t that of someone who is suddenly grabbed by a stranger. They know each other.”

Meanwhile, one of the operators traced the position of the two men inside the airport, based on the elements in the scene.

“That’s the clip of the surveillance camera B-9”, exclaims the operator, who traces an invisible path with a pen on the display, “our man headed for that direction. The bathrooms are in that zone.”

“Trace also the movements of the other man, I want to know where he’s gone. Do we have any footage of that area?”

He is another operator to answer: “Negative, sir, we have no direct view, however, there is a clip of a camera on the other side of the room. The entrance to the bathroom is far away, but…”

“Great, what are we waiting? Come on, people, we may be able to close this thing quickly.”

“I found it Sir! The other man headed to the cafeteria.”

Leonidovich approaches another workstation, where he sees a footage that shows Amr drinking from a cup, smiling and whispering with one of the girls behind the counter.

“Save a picture of that woman’s face, she may be involved too. Morozov, where the hell are our agents?”

“Galkin is already at the airport, sir. Nikitin and Ryabov will be there within minutes”, announces a voice-over.

After a short time, Amr moves out of the view-field of the camera inside the bar. At the same time he reappears in another clip.

“He seems to head for the bathrooms too, sir.”

“I was sure about it! Damn motherfuckers, it was a maneuver not to get any attention. Jump ahead with the footage, I want to see when they come out. Get me in contact with Galkin, now!”

“Sir, we have a match. I’m sending it on-screen.”

All eyes lock on one of the main display, where Zaytsev is passing the checkpoint before heading for a less crowded area of the airport.

“Where the hell is he going?”, asks Leonidovich impatiently.

“That zone is the boarding area for private flights, sir.”

“Sir, I have a match from the A-12 camera.”

“Galkin online, sir.”

Leonidovich takes a deep breath.

Come on…

“Galkin, Leonidovich here. You have been sent the pictures of two men and a woman. A few hours have passed, but they might still be there. Nikitin and Ryabov will join you shortly. Sift the airport, find the two men and bring them to a safe place where we can handle it quietly. As for the woman, she is working in the cafeteria, but she may have finished her shift. If you find her, just keep an eye on her movements. Use utmost discretion and extreme care: the targets may have biological weapons.”

A click follows the last words of Leonidovich. Galkin isn’t the kind of man who likes to get lost in conversation. He’s cold, rational, fast and with a determination as hard as obsidian. Leonidovich has thought more than once how Galkin is more akin to a robot than to a human being. He is considered one of his best agents.

Meanwhile, in one of the footages they see Zaytsev heading resolutely for the door of the bathrooms. After a few minutes, he is followed by the same man he was talking to in the hall.

“I said it, damn it!”, exclaims Leonidovich. “That man is an accomplice. Still no response from the facial analysis?”

“Negative, sir. That man isn’t registered in our database.”

“Go ahead with the footage, I want to see when they come out.”

The footage goes on at high speed. The operator slows down the reproduction as soon as they see Zaytsev out the door. No sign of Amr.

“Jump ahead, he must come out sooner or later”, says Leonidovich.

After almost ten minutes, Amr reappears on the clip, he comes out from the bathrooms, walking slowly in a different direction than Zaytsev.

“Something seems wrong, sir: the way he moves…”

“Zoom the picture as best as you can”, says Leonidovich while nearing his face to the display in order to see better, despite the pixellation caused by hard-zooming the view.

“He seems unsteady on his feet, like a drunk or someone with vertigo…”

An icy shiver runs throughout Leonidovich’s back.

“Trace his movements too, I want to know where he’s gone.”

“Here it is! The man who was with Zaytsev, sir.”

Leonidovich, visibly panting, approaches the operator, abruptly urging her to continue.

“He boarded on a scheduled flight. Heading for Paris.”

“How many people are on board?”, asks Leonidovich, while cleaning some drops of sweat from his face with a starched handkerchief. The operator types on her keyboard, then gives the answer.

“Two hundred forty two passengers, plus the crew, sir.”

Another agent reaches the group.

“Sir, we have the list of the departures of private jets and the GPS tracks of their flights.”

The eyes of Leonidovich dart on the newcomer’s face.

“Go ahead!”

“Actually there are only three jets. Two have done a relatively short trip and they have already landed. We tracked their data. They are big local entrepreneurs, whose flights occur regularly. We have their flight histories, if you want to consult them…”

“Go ahead, where’s the third plane headed to?”

“There is no information on the third plane, it’s plausible that its data have been purposely wiped off. We don’t know whom it belongs to, there is no flight plan. However, we have a satellite track. We can estimate with good accuracy where it’s going.”

The look of Leonidovich seems almost throwing flames, the agent swallows before continuing with a trembling voice.

“New York, sir. We believe with good approximation that it’s heading for New York. Right now it’s flying over the Atlantic.”

They spend moments of silence while Leonidovich feels like the entire world is crumbling under his feet.

Holy Christ, not the Americans…

The man takes a deep breath, then regains control of himself, turning to the staff. “Call the President and bring Ivanov here. Right now, damn it!”

WASHINGTON

The party

“I always wonder what you think, when I see you so focused with that faraway look…”

The eyes of John Ironside, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security of the United States, seem to light up as he turns to look at the face of his wife Taisha. “I’m sorry honey, sometimes it’s hard to blow off some steam.”

The man is tall, his physique is lean, hardened by years in the Marine Corps. His blond hair is perfectly ordered. He watches his wife with clear and limpid eyes. She is slightly shorter, but she also has an athletic body and a face that vaguely remembers that of Whitney Houston. Her hand slips on her husband’s cheek, then both turn to look at the scene before them.

The garden of their home is a small chaos of children chasing each other, streamers, bass precincts overflowing with balloons that move slowly lulled by the wind, small groups of guests, mostly mothers, who chat peacefully.

Smiling faces, peace and quiet, things that everyone wants, but that only a few people are able to enjoy when they arise, setting aside for a few minutes the anxieties and thoughts of everyday problems, large and small.

“Don’t worry about me, I am aware of how important and stressful your job is, even if I think that I’ll never get used to it…”, answers the woman “But today is a special day for our daughter. You know how much Darla cares to spend her birthday with you.”

He turns to watch her, his eyes are half-closed in a provocative look. Then he shows off a chilling smile while he girds her waist with one hand, slightly lower than how it’s convenient in public. She pretends to rebel against his unexpected gesture of affection and intimacy.

“Mr. Ironside, maybe I have to remember that your position doesn’…”

“You said position? Go on, things are getting more interesting…”, he interrupts her, further lowering his hand and pulling her closer.

Before she can react, the man adds: “Taisha, did I ever tell you how much I love you?”

Their faces almost touching, she looks at him pretending a formal expression, but the color of her cheeks seems to turn more intense, betraying her emotions. “A lot of times, Mr. Ironside, I’m afraid you have to strive a little more this time.”

Then she suddenly frees herself from his grasp, raising her hands in surrender and adding a smile. “Go and hug our daughter, you dodger. I’m really sorry but today you’re entirely hers.”

He still smiles and winks at his wife before turning around and descending a few steps toward the huge back garden of their villa, heading toward that jubilant chaos.

John Ironside has walked only a few steps when the ringing of his cellphone intrudes abruptly. He replies nonchalantly, moving on, but his pace slows down gradually. After a few moments he stops, almost frozen in place.

His wife, watching him from the back entrance area under a large canopy, feels that the air is getting colder when she sees him turning around, exchanging a few words with his interlocutor and finally nodding slowly. The man puts his phone in a pocket of his gray pants, then he heads back to his wife. It’s no longer John, but the Deputy Secretary of DHS, who comes to talk to her.

He doesn’t smile anymore.

“Thompson. I have to get ready, they’re sending a helicopter.”

The woman stays impassive, stern looking, as he kisses her forehead.

“I’ll be back ASAP, I promise ”, he whispers to her before entering the house.

“Sure! You say the same words all the times. But today…”

Taisha stops in mid-sentence, listening as for confirmation of her thoughts. At that precise moment she notices the roaring swish of a helicopter rapidly approaching.

WASHINGTON

Pentagon

Two men walk briskly through a corridor lit by fluorescent tubes. John Ironside walks beside Richard Thompson, his immediate superior. The latter is shorter than the other. His head is bald and his body is wiry, almost ascetic. His dark, penetrating eyes look at the world with the sleek look of a bird of prey. “I’m sorry I bothered you, John, I know how much Taisha cares about it, but the situation is very serious. If old Vlad has bothered to contact the President, at a time like this… he must have really good reasons.”

Ironside nods, while the other keeps talking.

“So, in summary, we have a private jet carrying no other than Pyotr Dmitri Zaytsev, a real masterpiece of shit, and his plane is heading rapidly to New York. At the same time, we have a possible accomplice aboard of an airliner with more than 240 people on board, which is flying over Africa. On one of the two aircraft, or both, there is the serious possibility of the spread of an extremely virulent pathogen, but we don’t know if it has already been released or not.”

“They said what it is?”

“According to what the Russians say, it’s a modified strain of Ebola virus, extremely contagious and laboratory modified to make it unstoppable. Jesus curse the criminals who make these monsters. Some things are already dangerous by God’s will. I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if it were to reach a populated area.”

“It seems unlikely that they got it stolen from under their very nose. On the other hand, if it was an intentional move they wouldn’t have bothered to warn us. It’s a weird scenario. Do you think we can trust them?”, asks Ironside as if thinking aloud.

“What can I say, John. Thank God they have notified us in time, even though I’m not sure I can figure out why they told us about the other plane too, the one heading for Paris.”

“Well, they don’t make a good impression in this circumstance, the reasons may be different. On that air route, many US citizens travel from South Africa going to the US, through Europe. The plane flies over Algeria, and I think the Russians are well aware of our bases in the Algerian Sahara desert. In addition, in this affair the Russians have already contacted us, they probably don’t want to bring in other nations…”

The two reached a security door, Ironside swipes his ID badge into an optical reader.

“…and lose their face with them too”, concludes Thompson, giving voice to the implicit conclusion of the discourse. “I think you’ve got the point, John.”

The door opens with a hiss, Thompson goes through with a sigh.

“Let’s get to work, my friend, let’s try to fix this thing as soon and as good as possible.”

MOSCOW

Leonidovich’s eyes are nailed in those of Ivanov. The latter has a very pale complexion, and a shocked expression. “Cape Town? Holy God, we are all lost”, says the scientist in an exasperated tone.

“Don’t cross your bridges before you come to them, Dr. Ivanov, we can still handle the situation if you cooperate lucidly.”

“You don’t understand! Zaytsev may have had contacts with who knows how many people before being tracked down by you, and even if there were only a few dozen cells in the vial, he could have reproduced them easily, to infect who knows how many people!”. The scientist stands up and bangs both hands vehemently on the table.

“Chill down, Ivanov! If the pathogen is really as dangerous as you say, we would already be aware of some cases. You said yourself that the infection dynamics is such that it can’t stay hidden for long, didn’t you?”

“You have no idea of what we are talking about, Leonidovich! If you only realized how unmanageable that monstrosity is, you would no longer sleep peacefully in your lifetime.”

“That’s why there are brainiacs like you, Dr. Ivanov”, replies Leonidovich with a hint of sarcasm on the brainiacs word. “And this is why we must send you up to the firing line.”

Ivanov’s eyes grow bigger while the other continues.

“Within less than half an hour you will board a supersonic jet. We must rely on you to save the credibility and the future of our country. Of course, you won’t say anything to the Americans about your classified research and discoveries in Antarctica. In our communication we mentioned a viral strain, a variant of Ebola, developed in the laboratory. It’s on the basis of this information that you have to handle the situation.”

“This is completely insane!” exclaims Ivanov, losing his cool. “That thing can’t be contained, you can’t handle it! We can only hope that the stolen vial is still intact or it has been destroyed. However, if the infection has spread to even just one human being… It won’t take great intelligence to realize that it’s quite another thing than Ebola. The Americans may be arrogant trigger-happy, but be sure that they aren’t stupid!”

“We have no choice Ivanov!”, exclaims Leonidovich raising his voice in an exasperated cry. “We have no choice! There is no way to stop those planes, but perhaps there is still time to do something. That vial came out of your labs, remember it. The responsibility for all this is only yours!”

Leonidovich accompanies those last words with a loud bang of his hands on the table. A few very long seconds go by, during which the government agent regains his calm and coolness. His tone is cold and threatening when he speaks again to the scientist. “Now you listen to me and open your ears all wide. I don’t know what you have in your hands and I don’t care to know why you have access to top-secret information, but I tell you one thing: you will help us solve this thing in the best possible way, or as sure as my life I assure you that you’ll spend the rest of your life watching your back. No matter in which hole you’ll hide, no matter how much time I’ll need, days, months or years. Sooner or later I will find you and I assure you that you’ll end your days in a dark place without windows. And believe me Ivanov, the things that you claim to have seen and experienced in these three decades in your laboratories will seem a sweet memory in comparison.”

Ivanov remains unmoved at that, staring Leonidovich in the eyes and shaking slightly his head.

WASHINGTON

Pentagon

Thompson and Ironside enter a huge room, the activity inside is intense and silent at the same time. The walls are lined up with displays. There are different workstations throughout the room, with operators working feverishly in front of each screen. A number of people move quickly around them, someone wearing military outfits.

Worker ants and soldier ants…

Ironside follows Thompson to one of the workstations.

“Mike, report on the situation.”

“Zaytsev’s jet has already reached our airspace”, hastens to answer a skinny guy with slightly too long hair, combed with a well-marked line that makes him look like a high school loser. “The Boeing 777 is currently flying over Mali. It will get into the Algerian airspace soon.”

A female voice emerges in the circuit of Thompson’s communications headset. “Sir, Dr. Moore in video call.”

“Please switch it to the workstation next to Mike’s, Janet, thank you.”

While Thompson and Ironside come closer to the display, the image on the screen changes, showing the face of a mature woman, who however retains a nerdy teenager appearance. Her red hair is in a showy bun from which the top of a pencil sticks out. She wears glasses with a pink plastic frame, and their lenses make her green eyes wider. A sprinkling of freckles enlivens her nose and the zone under her eyes. Her face has a massive bone structure, like one who has been overweight for a long time before a drastic diet. Nothing more about her is visible in the screen, she seems to wear a white laboratory coat. Thompson speaks first, going straight to the point. “Dr. Moore, I’m sorry to call you without any notice, but we’re in the middle of an important situation. Have you been informed already?”

“I was told that we are dealing with a variant of Ebola virus. I haven’t any other detail.”

“Actually this is what we know too. We have two planes, a small private jet and a Boeing with 250 passengers.”

“Don’t you know if the virus has already been released?”

“Negative. We don’t know this yet, but we must prepare for the worst scenario, and we must have clear ideas about what to do when these planes will land. What can we expect, Dr. Moore?”

The woman responds quickly and in an automaton-like tone. “Ebola is notoriously deadly. In the first cases, when it was still not well known, it caused a mortality rate close to 90%.”

The hushed voices inside the great hall fade slowly while the attention is drawn to the display where the scientist keeps talking. Only her voice, somewhat aseptic and impersonal as an autopsy room, is heard beyond the buzz of the devices.

“Currently this rate has decreased slightly, influenced by the capacity to provide adequate care gained by the countries in which the infection cases occur. The average stands around 53%, varying from 64% in Guinea to 39% in Sierra Leone. These rates relate to the original strain of the virus, of course. Speaking of a variant, modified in a laboratory… Well, the mortality rate could rise to absolute 100%, but having no further details I can’t guess a better estimate. I can provide you with further information about the symptoms and…”

“That’s fine, thank you Dr. Moore”, cuts Thompson. “This isn’t necessary right now. Please, be ready to leave in twenty minutes: we’ll send someone to pick you up. We are arranging a rescue team and we need you. You have free hand in the entire operation. That’s all for now.”

The picture of the woman in white coats, her expression a mixture of dismay and surprise, disappears from the screen before she can reply.

Thompson already moved back to Fred Gilmour’s workstation. His display is showing a map of the North America outlines with a flashing red dot. Two other dots, flashing green, approach it by the sides, following its route and reducing the distance at each screen update. “Where are our boys?”

“They are lining the target, sir”, replies the boy. He seems to be just over twenty years old. His prominent nose and the small and close-set eyes give him an appearance that recalls a weasel. “Two F14 took off from the Ronald Reagan. Fortunately, the aircraft carrier is now in the middle of the Atlantic. We have a total of four airplanes. Two of them are heading east, approaching the route of the Boeing.”

“That sounds great, Fred”, says Thompson. Then he moves a hand to his left ear and contacts the operator. “Janet, any chance to get into contact with the jet heading for New York?”

“Negative, sir, we tried to contact them, but they keep radio silence.”

Thompson squints while his thoughts issue a silent curse. “Janet, call the President, hand me the phone call in my office.” Then he turns to Ironside: “John, I have the President on line, give me a minute, manage the situation until I get back, we catch up later.”

Thompson turns, walking briskly toward one of the many security doors. He isn’t out yet when Janet’s voice breaks into the headset of Ironside. “Sir, I have the Russian contact on line again.”

“Okay, Janet, hand it to me on workstation 22.”

While Ironside leans on display, Leonidovich’s face appears on the screen.

The Russian agent has a look somewhere between suspicious and annoyed, and says nothing for a moment, staying so still that Ironside doubts whether it’s a static picture or a real time video call.

Maybe it’s just a feeling…

A feeling due to the knowledge that he is facing an intelligence representative of a country other than his own.

The face of Leonidovich comes to life emotionless. The man expresses himself in English but his way of speaking immediately betrays his origin. “I thought I was going to talk again with Secretary Thompson”, he says slowly.

“I am the Deputy Secretary John Ironside, Mr. Thompson is busy right now, feel free to talk with me.”

Leonidovich hesitates for a moment, considering whether or not to keep the conversation going, then he makes his decision. “All right, Mr. Ironside. The reason for this further contact is to emphasize how much our government cares that our nations work together to solve as soon as possible this unfortunate situation. One of our experts is already in flight. He will assist you to manage and contain the possible spread of the pathogen. The aircraft on which Dr. Alexander Ivanov travels is heading for the Algiers-Houari Boumediene airport. Obviously, there is no need to remind you how much our nation would appreciate the utmost discretion… This is all for now, Mr. Ironside. Do svidanja.”

The communication interrupts abruptly and the screen switches again to standby.

ALGERIAN DESERT

Berber village

Young Ahmed’s dark eyes stare at the immense sea of sand that stretches out of sight before him. Life in the small village behind him flows languidly in the eternal struggle for survival in the hostile environment of the African desert, cadenced by the slow rhythms of daily tasks. It’s a tiny cluster of huts, built mostly with earth and wood, protected by high rocky hills. The occasional sound of a donkey or a dromedary breaks the silence.

Beside the boy, one of the village dogs appears to be taken by the vision too. The half-breed doesn’t have a name, nor do the other dogs lounging in the shade of a rocky outcrop. His coat is fawn, mottled by dark patches, similar to that of a hyena. He always follows the young Ahmed and responds promptly when he whistles to call him. Sometimes they play together, the boy throws a stone or a bone and the dog runs to bring it back, standing on his hind legs to lick the boy’s face.

It’s the only dog that behaves in this way in the village.

Once Mohamed-the-Elder, one of the village oldest men, during one of the evenings spent by the fire, told him about the mysterious djinn: “ …the spirits that wander in the desert, and sometimes assume the appearance of solitary wayfarers or animals, to make fun of unwary travelers and eventually kidnap them. ”

“If I meet someone in the desert, how do I know if it’s a djinn who has taken the form of a man?”, once the boy asked.

The old man took a very long drag from a hookah and exhaled a smoky aroma, sweet and spicy, watching it dancing and getting lost in the starry sky. “You know… djinn are strange”, he finally answered. “Though they may conceal their true shape, there is always… a detail that betrays them. Something that seems out of place. Take your dog for example. In my life I have never seen one getting up on its hind legs like that, and stand straight as a man would do. It’s not natural.”

At these words the boy felt a cold shiver down his spine, but he managed to control himself without showing it. He was sitting with men, he could not show childish attitudes. “You’re saying that my dog is a djinn?”, he asked.

“Who can say? Look at the world, boy, find these answers yourself. Even though… if I were you I would be careful not to show him my back, especially when you are alone and in an isolated place…”

“Are they evil?”, the boy asked, more and more intrigued.

“Answer this question, young Ahmed: is man evil by his nature?”

The elder inhaled another puff from the hookah, then he continued, without waiting for the reply of the boy. The smoke exhaled from the mouth and nose as he spoke, and joined the wrinkles on his face framed by completely white hair and beard. It gave him a mystical and otherworldly aura. “There are evil djinn, but not necessarily. They are capricious sometimes, that’s true, but in most cases they are just sad and very, very lonely beings. Now that I’m older I can understand them well, even if my life, which appears so long to me, it’s just a blink of an eye for them. They walk about here and there since the dawn of time, they have lived longer than any man on earth, and men… huh, they have known many. I don’t blame them if they are bored and a little disappointed. It’s said that some of them can give great gifts if greeted with kindness and with good hospitality.

Keep the words of an old man well in mind.”

The boy wished to reply, to ask more questions, but the elder Mohamed raised a hand, telling everyone to stay silent. “No more talk now. Close your eyes. It’s a beautiful moonlit night, and if you listen carefully you can always hear those sounds… Al azif, the voices of the djinn who wander in the wilderness…”

The man stopped talking. An unnatural silence had fallen, and seemed also to cover the low crackling of the fire.

The boy closed his eyes, concentrating on the sounds around him. His breath… the sound of invisible insects… the cry of a newborn in the distance…

Then suddenly one of the donkeys issued a long and loud fart.

“That, boy”, the old Mohamed exclaimed. “That is certainly a nasty evil djinn that lets its voice heard.”

The men laughed, passing the hookah. Ahmed also smiled, in their wake, but with the feeling that the old man was making fun of him .

WASHINGTON

Pentagon

Ironside updates Thompson about his conversation with Leonidovich. His superior gives a slight smile, producing a snap with a corner of his mouth. His eyes remain as sharp as ever. “Your intuition was correct, John. The Russians know that we have hidden bases in the desert. They have come to our own conclusion too. It’s safer to handle this in an isolated place, surrounded by miles of sand and arid expanses without a living soul. With a little luck we might be able to land the plane, get rid of Zaytsev’s accomplice, check passengers and crew, and eventually make their trip go on as if nothing happened. We may justify the landing as a mechanical issue.”

“I hope everything goes well, Richard, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the field, it’s that luck hardly occurs in these cases.”

“I know, John, I know. This is why I ask you to join Dr. Moore as supervisor of operations on the spot.”

Ironside’s eyes don’t betray any emotion, while the other continues.

“You’re the only one I really trust. You’re a former Marine, and your experience may be a determining factor, if events were to take a different course from what we planned. We will also send a reinforcement marines team with you and I will make sure that you have full cooperation from everyone.”

Ironside nods, Thompson staring into his eyes. “Taisha and Darla won’t like this at all…”

“I realize it, but I’m sure it would be better to not make your wife aware of this operation, at least until it will be all over. I promise you that when this thing is resolved, I will ensure that you may spend more time with your family.”

Ironside smiles. “This won’t happen anytime soon, Richard. Duty is duty, we’ll have to wait for retirement for this, even though right now I wonder if we will ever get there.”

The voice of Janet, comes to life in Thompson’s headset communication system. “Sir, we have the confidential file about Alexander Ivanov. I’ve just sent it to workstation 18.”

“I love you Janet”, echoes Thompson, as he leans on the display. “Okay John, let’s see what else does the Kremlin have for us.”

The two read a series of data and a few lines of information. It’s Ironside talking while Thompson seems concentrated to reread the only page of Ivanov’s file. “I’m not convinced about it, Richard. Apparently Ivanov was the most brilliant Russian scientist in the field of research on biological weapons. This one isn’t an expert on Ebola, he could very well be the one who created it. Since 1983 we don’t know anything about him. Zero, absolute darkness. And then he reappears, right now, and the Russian government sends him straight to us? There’s something smelling bad here…”

Thompson turns, just a hint of concern on his face. “I was also in the trenches, like you, John. I recognize the smell of incoming trouble. My friend, keep your eyes open when you get there.”

“Richard”, Ironside asks. “What did the President tell you?”

Thompson’s look is that of those who have to take hard decisions. “He said that we can’t allow anyone to bring a dangerous pathogen on American soil. If the people on board won’t respond to our communications, I’m afraid that we’re left with just one option. The Russians have foreseen all this, and it’s for this reason that they sent their expert to Algeria and not here in America. Get ready now, your jet will take off soon.” Then, to the operator in the intercom, “Janet, put me into contact with the pilots of the F14 after Zaytsev.”

“Yes sir”, replies the woman. After a moment she adds: “Captain Hawking on line.”

“Captain Hawking, I’m Secretary Thompson, do you copy?”

“The signal is slightly disturbed, sir, but I hear you.”

“What’s the situation?”

“We’re after the jet, sir, waiting instructions.”

“Can you see the pilots?”

“Negative sir, the windows of the cockpit are obscured and I can’t see anyone through those of the passengers compartment.”

They spend a few seconds, while Thompson thinks of possible alternatives. Then he firmly communicates to the pilots. “Captain Hawking, you’re authorized to proceed with the target.”

The pilot’s voice is cold and faded from the background noise. “Sir, please repeat. Do you confirm the orders to shoot down the jet?”

“Yes, Hawking, kill that son of a bitch, and make sure that no traces of that plane will be left.”

“Roger”, the pilot’s answer.

A small group of technicians and soldiers has meanwhile approached the display in front of Thompson. They look at the trio of bright dots, while one of the two green lights runs in a divergent route, and the other seems to slow down, arranging itself behind the red dot. The men hold their breath for long moments, after which the red light goes off.

Thompson’s voice is the only sound that breaks the following silence. “Captain Hawking, report!”

“It’s gone down, sir, target shot down.”

“Thank you, Captain, take a couple of flybys to verify that the job is clean, then go back to your base. Janet, please get me in contact with the commander of the Boeing.”

Tension hovers in the room, while a few long seconds go by.

“He’s online, sir.”

“Commander, do you copy? This is Richard Thompson, Department of Defense of the United States.”

“This is Commander Charles Green, sir, the communication isn’t that great, but we copy.”

“Please, listen to me carefully, Commander. There is a very critical situation to manage on your plane.”

“I’m listening, sir.”

“One, or more, of your passengers may be a terrorist carrying a bacteriological weapon.”

Noises of electrostatic discharge in reply.

“Commander, can you hear me?”

Long moments of silence.

“Yes sir. Any suggestion about how to manage the situation?”

“Commander, first of all, I require the utmost discretion. Just follow my instructions and everything will work out in the best possible way. We are sending you a picture of the face of one of the alleged suspects. Warn your crew and start immediately the anti-hijacking procedures. Seal the cockpit and head the plane to the coordinates that we are sending. You’ll have to make an emergency landing on a military runway in the Algerian desert. You will wait there for our intervention team. Please, do you confirm you understand the instructions?”

“Confirmed, sir.”

“One last thing, Commander. Two of our F14 will join and escort you to your destination. Don’t be alarmed, it’s just a standard measure. Good luck!”

“Thank you sir.”

Following a gesture of Thompson, the operator turns off the contact with the Boeing.

“Janet, please do ensure that the aircraft can’t communicate with the outside world, apart from us. Then put me in contact with the F-14s after the Boeing.”

After a while, a nasal voice breaks into Thompson headphone. “Captain Clark listening.”

“Captain, this is Richard Thompson. Have you already reached the target?”

“It’s twenty-five miles in front of us, we approach from 7 o’clock.”

“Well, Captain, I want you to escort the Boeing to the base CNT222, repeat charlie nine tango two two two. Keep me aware about any alteration of the route, updates every 5 minutes.”

“Roger that, sir.”

BOEING 777

The tanned face of the Commander Green has turned almost unnaturally pale. He updates the co-pilot about the communication just received. The other man listens with a surprised and concerned expression. “Do we have any pictures of the subject?”

“We are receiving them right now. Call Camila, Luis and July. Just them for now.”

The flight takes place quietly i n the passenger deck. Someone is reading a book, two girls about thirteen years old are talking in a low voice with their faces bent over their smartphones, while showing each other the messages they received and keeping an eye on the flight-attendant. Some people takes a nap with night-blue colored mask over their eyes.

Almost no one pays attention to the voice of the co-pilot. His tone is calm and quiet, calling the staff in the cabin, as requested by Green.

The three women gather silently, converging from different directions and rapidly exchanging puzzled looks. They head toward the cockpit.

ALGERIAN DESERT

Berber village

A light gust of wind slightly stirs the fabric of Ahmed’s targui, recalling him back to the present. He is proud of his headgear, recently received as a token of his entry into the world of adult males. The boy observes the endless expanse of yellowish dunes, wondering whether the desert is really as wide as they say, and whether there are really those restless spirits called djinn. After all, those are the rumors used by the village elders to discourage young people from venturing recklessly in the desert, starting a journey from which it’s highly unlikely to come back.

But he doesn’t feel like just everyone else. He looks at the horizon, dreaming about immense cities, lush oases and places where life isn’t a constant struggle against the extreme heat of the day and the freezing cold that comes with the night. He loves his village and his people, but he’d like to see what else the world has to offer.

Ahmed feels a presence beside him. His field of view is constrained by the cumbersome headgear, that is perhaps a bit too large for his head. Even the whine of the dog tells him that they are no longer alone. There’s no need to turn around to see who’s up there.

Ahmed clears his throat, ensuring to have an authoritarian tone. “I’ve made up my decision: I’ll come with you on your next trip.”

The boy waits, hoping that his tone was enough convincing.

His brother Yidir lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. It’s considerably taller than Ahmed and he has his face covered by a black headdress. His voice is serious, deep, and he is many years older than his younger brother. He could be his father, and in many ways he has fulfilled this task. “The desert won’t forgive anyone, Ahmed. Don’t be in a hurry to deal with it. The heat, the cold, the thirst, the animals… Even the stones can kill you. Not to mention the silence.”

“I can take care of myself”, Ahmed promptly replies, immediately regretting his voice that took on a shrill tone. It’s a remnant of his childhood, still not entirely disappeared with the recent puberty.

Yidir smiles under the fabric that covers his face. “We’ll talk about this when the time has come”, he cuts sharply.

The man turns, walking back on the dusty road leading to the village. After a few steps he seems almost to change his mind and stops, turning back to his younger brother. “Come on, Ahmed, let’s talk about it in the shade. There’s no sense in challenging the sun without a good reason. There’s something I want to show you.”

Hearing these words, the disappointment in the boy vanishes, leaving rapidly its place to curiosity. By toddling, he follows quickly his older brother, tormenting him with questions all along the way, trying to guess what’s up.

BOEING 777

The three flight-attendants walk back to the passengers deck, seemingly untouched by the news. Despite being very young, all of them have dozens of flight hours experience, and they have already experienced potentially critical situations. Yet, although the current one is much more worrying, their faces are a mask of calmness.

The three girls split up, moving slowly along the rows of seats, taking care of passengers, as usual. Camila seems to have recently stepped over the threshold of thirty years. Her long dark hair, tied in a braid, sway to the rhythm of her steps. The girl isn’t tall, two thin lips show a smile on her slightly square face. She observes the passengers while moving at a leisurely pace along one of the aisles between the rows of seats.

She pauses next to the two chatting girls, catching a glimpse of one smart-phone, before one of them hastens to hide it inside her jacket. Camila moves on, pretending not to have seen anything. She moves towards a man sitting a few meters in front of her, on the right side. The man keeps his eyes closed, but his head is erect. Camila’s heart skips a beat, as she realizes that the face that she is looking at matches perfectly the photos seen on a screen in the cockpit. The flight-attendant takes instinctively a half step back, a whirlwind of thoughts flows in her head. At that precise moment the man opens his eyes, strangely fixed on hers, as if he was already staring at her through his closed eyelids. The woman regains control of her emotions with a big effort of will, and smiles slightly, exchanging a few words with an elderly woman sitting to her left. Amr replies to the kindness of the woman, pulling out a white smile framed by equally perfect lips, though the cut of his mouth is slightly too wide. Camila is surprised to feel some discomfort at the warmth transmitted by the man’s face.

Suddenly someone grabs her, just below the right elbow, startling her to get her attention. Camila instinctively withdraws the arm, turning to look at the man sitting to her right. She had already noticed this passenger earlier: a black man, much more than overweight, with a too prominent forehead, and he’s dressed in a yellow t-short of awful taste.

Amr also looks at the scene, recognizing the man glimpsed in the bathrooms of the airport of Cape Town.

Camila caters to the passenger in front of her. “May I help you, sir? Do you need anything?”

The other watches her with an almost dazed look and a hint of saliva ready to drip from the left corner of his fleshy lips. He seems to regain control after a couple of seconds, blinks a few times and swallows.

“Are you fine, sir?”

The other mumbles something. He has the look of someone who has just woken up from a too short nap, almost struggling to stay awake. “My arm”, he mutters, while he grabs heavily Camila’s arm with one hand, to put it on one of his huge biceps. “I can’t feel the skin on my arm, and I feel strange cramps in all my body.”

Camila nods, thinking that the man’s limb has simply fallen asleep, maybe because of his obesity and the seating position held for too long. The woman notices that the skin of the man’s arm is extremely hot, as if the passenger is highly feverish.

“It’s just a disorder of blood circulation that may often occur, sir. It’s due to prolonged sitting. May I get you anything?”

The man has apparently regained control of himself. His look is sharp now. He takes a deep breath, then he turns to the woman, with a quieter tone. “Please, take me something fresh to drink, thank you.”

“Any preference?”

“Do as you wish, please. I love surprises.”

Pleased to disengage, Camila hurries to the area reserved for employees, but after a few moments the man’s voice comes back to bite. “What is that?”

“Camila turns to watch, Luis approaches too. The latter is taller than Camila, and she has an amber skin perfectly smooth. Her eyes have an almost oriental shape, and she has prosperous breasts that stands out on the slender figure. Her hair is completely combed to the right side, whilst on the left it’s cut very short and leave her neck uncovered, giving her a seductive look. Luis also recognized Amr, and she is quick to disengage Camila, so that she can go and talk to the captain about having tracked down the suspect.

Luis turns to the man with the yellow t-shirt, which is pointing at one of the windows. As his gaze explore Luis from head to foot, his mouth widens into a big smile. “Heeey, you are really cute, baby”, he murmurs, giving voice to his thoughts. The stern gaze of Luis restrains the man who, mumbling vague excuses, turns back to the window, pointing to something beyond it.

“There’s an airplane flying right next to ours.”

The flight-attendant leans over to look better, pretending not to see the man’s lustful gaze which tries to sneak into her blouse. She sees one of the F14s heeling the Boeing.

“There’s another one on this side too”, exclaims another passenger who sits on the opposite side of the deck. “What do they want?”

Luis doesn’t move, the three flight-attendants have already received precise instructions by the captain, who made the rest of the staff aware of the likely presence of two aircraft. “We just entered Algerian airspace. These aircraft are escorting us for a while, since they’re having a military exercise in the area. It’s not the first time that this happens, don’t worry, everything is fine.”

“That’s a sweet bunch of bullshit!”, a man sitting nearby interrupts her. It’s an old man who, while showing a remarkable baldness on the top of the head, has long thin hair crowning the lower part of his head and two showy mustaches straight out of a portrait of a few centuries ago. The man gets up, talking so blatant. “I’ve flown this route many other times and it’s the first time I see two airplanes escorting us. Those are American F14s Tomcat! I served my country in the Marines, I know how our planes look like. This story about a military exercise is a lie, why don’t you really tell us what’s going on, sweetheart?”

Hearing those words, the man with the yellow shirt turns to the elderly former Marine. “Hey grampa, give it a cut! What’s up with you? Haven’t they taught you to respect a lady in the Marines?”

“Holy Christ”, exclaims the old man, leaning toward a woman sitting on his left. “Did you hear that walrus?” He suddenly makes to move, turning back to the passenger that provoked him: “keep cramming with sandwiches, you black muzzle. Would you yourself give me lessons? Look, I’m gonna get there, miserable tar ball. Not even three walruses of your caliber can stop the old Zeb.”

The elderly man’s face is angry red, and he looks like one who has completely lost control. He capers brightly against the legs of the old woman who sits beside him with a shocked and exasperated expression. The old man tries to step over the seat beside him to get to the middle corridor, and he has almost done, when his feet seem to twist and he loses his balance falling forward.

He’s saved by the providential intervention of Amr, who manages to hold him before he falls to the ground. The man helps the old man to stand on his feet, while he continues to curse the black man with the yellow shirt.

“Go and sit down, old man! You can’t even stand. By the way, it seems that you forgot your white cloak and white cap at home”. The black man ends his speaking by showing a middle finger to the other.

“Let me put my hands on you, and you will see who is left standing”, shouts back the old man.

“Easy, easy… Please calm down”, says Amr, while retaining the old furious man. This one struggles for a while, then he seems to subside, still red in his face.

“Please, gentlemen”, Amr continues, smiling at both litigants. “We all should be a good example to others, every day of our lives. Please, calm down now.”

The old marine frees from the embrace of Amr, regaining control of himself and adjusting his clothes. “Who asked you anything, good fucking Samaritan…”, the aged former soldier mutters to Amr. His sentence suddenly interrupted by the old lady who was sitting next to him. She grabs him by the sleeve, drawing his attention.

“Come here and sit Zeb, this so kind man is right.” Then she turns to Amr and the black man, who still looks the elder with provocative eyes and raised chin.

“Please accept my apologies, my husband sometimes believes he still is twenty years old, and he thinks that it’s still a normal thing to raise a rumble for a word out of place.”

“Shut up you, woman, and move these legs”, the old man mutters as he tries to go back and sit in his place. “I don’t need to have twenty years to knock out a fat guy like that. Anyway, those are American F14s.”

The passenger in the yellow shirt turns back to Luis, making her a wink. Her gaze flies over with icy indifference, alighting on Amr, who adjusts his jacket, smiling heedless of the looks. Then he sits with serene expression and exchanges a few words with the old woman. She is lavish with apologies and thanks. Meanwhile another flight-attendant, July, comes up and with a nod she invites Luis to follow her to the area reserved to the crew.

ALGERIAN DESERT

Berber village

The hut is small, barely large enough to contain a grown man lying down with outstretched arms. The sun filters through the cracks in the walls and the ceiling, drawing blades of light. Nobody pays any attention to small holes in a country where rain is an extremely rare event.

Both have taken off their hats, a gesture of kindness allowed only in presence of intimate and trusted people. Yidir has a tired expression, deep wrinkles run on his face. Unkempt eyebrows seem tiny claws that curl to reach the lower eyes. “The greatest threats in the desert are those that you can’t see. The sun and the cold can kill a strong and vigorous man, but also the thoughts can kill you.”

“Thoughts?”, echoes Ahmed.

“The desert is strange”, replies his brother. “It’s alive. You can hear it talking, singing, you can see it moving, and it… well, it can watch inside you too. It can see your fears and make them come true before your very eyes. I saw men, as strong as few, crying like frightened children. The desert can show your demons, and trust me, especially at night, the demons in the desert are many.”

“You want to mock me as the elder Mohamed does… You say this just to scare me, but I am not afraid, Yidir. I’m not!”

“You should, Ahmed, you should. That’s the difference between a boy and a man: a man accepts his fears and uses them. It’s the fear that saves your life most of the time. Do you think I don’t have any?”

Ahmed is about to reply, when Yidir makes a gesture with his hand as if to dismiss the subject. Then he turns around, taking something from under a pile of rags left in a corner. “I can’t prepare you for the meeting with your demons, Ahmed. Nobody can. However… There are other hazards to be aware about: scorpions, desert vipers, raiders…”

Ahmed almost no longer listens to his brother, his attention drawn by the rough envelope which Yidir is slowly unfolding. The older brother watches the other’s eyes getting bigger as the carefully stored object comes to light.

An arm knife.

While Yidir pulls the blade, Ahmed’s gaze bounces from the liner, finely woven with stripes of different skin colors, to the strings that fix it to the arm. The handle is made with dark wood such as ebony. The elongated curved blade seems to come to life under the rays of the sun filtering through the breaches in the wall and seems to shine with a light of its own, while Yidir twirls his knife with skilled mastery. “Don’t ask me about the meaning of the engravings on the blade, they belong to a language that was already too old and forgotten in our grandfather’s days. When I received this knife I was as old as you are now, and since then a lot of time has gone by. Take it, it’s yours.”

Ahmed is completely hooked. He moves his hands slowly, almost afraid to touch that object of wonderful workmanship.

He weighs it, realizing how light and thin it is, then he looks up to his older brother, watching him smiling.

“Don’t be fooled by its lightness, it’s an arm blade. It must be light and not restrain your movement. Trust me, it’s extremely durable and sharp, and in the right hands it can be really dangerous and deadly.”

Suddenly serious again, Yidir takes Ahmed’s hands in his own. “Ahmed, it isn’t like here in the village out there. The world can be ruthless in most cases. To get caught can mean death without even realizing it…

There are many things out there that can kill you.

Be awake, my brother.

Be ready.”

BOEING 777

“It’s him”, Camila says softly, reporting to the co-pilot the seat number where Amr sits.

“Keep an eye on his moves and report on anything that seems noteworthy”, he replies.

When Camila releases the intercom button, Luis is talking: “I don’t know what to think, that man doesn’t convince me. He seems calm, affable… He was kind to help that old man. If he hadn’t intervened the old man would have fallen to the ground, and I don’t even want to imagine what else would have happened if he had reached that other passenger.”

“He would have eaten him”, Camila Jokes. “That guy is a giant.”

The three girls hint to a smile through clenched teeth.

“Anyway”, says Luis, “he isn’t exactly how I imagine a terrorist.”

“Why? How many terrorists have you seen live during a flight?”, responds July, whose r betrays her French origins. The third woman called by the commander is thin, and the look in her blue eyes shows a sharp intelligence.

“Fortunately none”, answers promptly Luis, “but that’s not the point, it’s just that…”

“… he’s a handsome man, even if that hair should be readjusted”, intervenes Camila, while pouring a fizzy drink and preparing a tray for the man with the yellow shirt. “But this doesn’t make him a saint, don’t let your guard down girls.”

Camila moves back to the passengers deck, heading for the black man. “Here’s the drink you requested, sir.”

The man doesn’t answer. He looks at her, once again his expression looks dazed, almost sleepy. After a moment, still staring with a void look, he takes the glass from the tray and with a mechanical movement takes it slowly to his mouth. Meanwhile Camila exchanges a few words with the passengers seated nearby.

The man with yellow t-shirt sends the drink down all in one go, with a curious gurgle, and then puts down the empty glass on the plastic tray on top of the food trolley.

Meanwhile Camila observes Amr, with fleeting glimpses. The man has closed his eyes again, he seems resting.

“I’d better head to the bathroom”, the man with Bart Simpson on his chest exclaims suddenly, apparently awake again. “My damn arm… now it seems that I can’t feel anything from my neck down. I absolutely have to move a little.”

He gets up, and his huge bulk towers over the tiny Camila. The man moves from his seat, and he literally invades one lane between the rows of seats as he almost completely fills the narrow corridor. He heads limping towards the universal symbol that indicates the bathrooms, leaning his hands on the head restraints of the seats. Camila feels uncomfortable when he passes by, rubbing against her and giving off a smell showing how a dose of deodorant, however generous, can’t replace a good shower.

He finally toddles past her, slowly moving along. The flight-attendant looks at the man’s back, wondering how he could sit in one of the passenger seats. He walks about two meters when he suddenly freezes in the middle of the lane. One of the other passengers shots a puzzled look to the flight-attendant.

“Are you all right, sir?”

For a few moments nothing seems to happen. The man is still in the middle of the corridor.

“Sir?!? Are you okay?”

A movement, followed by a liquid noise, catches Camila’s attention. A low murmur raises from the passengers.

A dark spot expands on the back of the man’s blue shorts. A small trickle drips on one of the legs, to form a tiny smelly puddle between his feet. The liquid is dark, and the spots where heavy droplets hit the floor seem to have a lively effervescence, more akin to an acid behavior than a drink.

“Sir, please”, says Camila while moving to get closer.

Something happens.

Like a slow-motion movie, the huge mass of the man collapses to the floor, falling backwards and almost overwhelming Camila. The woman half-jumps back to avoid him but she falls to the ground, too.

She recovers quickly, rushing toward a nearby intercom to report the incident to the co-pilot.

The other women of the crew arrive at the place of the incident.

The man lies unconscious on the ground, his eyes rolled back as a whitish, foamy trickle drips from a side of his mouth. His yellow shirt has raised to the navel, revealing a swollen huge abdomen and a stretched skin.

July rushes, dragging a cart full of first aid tools. She is the first to provide assistance, giving a heart massage to the man. The woman is thin, her blows can barely move the skin of the man lying lifeless on the ground. One of the passengers comes forward, he is a man of about forty, looking strict and orderly, with a dark goatee and glasses that give him a gravedigger aura. “I’m a doctor”, he exclaims. “I can help.”

“I think it’s a heart attack”, says July, while working on the emergency tools to turn the defibrillator on.

Meanwhile, the doctor begins the CPR, alternating the insufflations with vigorous pressures on the chest area.

The doctor puts his mouth on that of the other, injecting air, before proceeding with another series of strong blows to the solar plexus.

The other passengers observe the scene murmuring softly, while the capacitors in the defibrillator get charged and the hissing intensity increases.

The doctor blows again in the mouth of the lifeless man, then he leans his ear close to his lips, trying to detect the slightest breath of life.

Luis tries to calm down the passengers that move and get up, asking them to remain sitting in their seats.

The doctor gives a knowing look to the flight-attendant who prepares the defibrillator, then he tries again to blow in the man’s body lying on the ground.

Camila looks up from the scene, looking for Amr. The man is no longer in his seat, neither among the passengers moving to see what’s happening.

At that moment, a shuffling sound comes from the body of the unconscious man, like the gurgling of a clogged sink that is suddenly released.

July emits a groan of anguish. Everything seems to take place quickly and in slow-motion at the same time. Something is happening. Camila turns to watch, following the gaze of her colleague. The doctor’s body shakes, as by effect of an electric discharge. The man tries to get up, to pull his lips from those of the passenger lying on the ground, but he can’t. Something is holding him.

Under the astonished gaze of those present, the black man’s mouth opens slowly, while the head of the doctor sinks more toward his face, dragged by something that has taken hold on his skin.

The face of the unconscious passenger deforms, his mouth gets even more wide open, emitting a very distressing and prolonged lament, and fully embeds the head of the doctor, which sinks rapidly.

The flesh of the face of the unconscious man seems to flow, covering the doctor’s head with a pink mass of blood vessels and capillaries, which crawl quickly, penetrating the ears and piercing through his skin.

The lying man’s face deforms grotesquely, almost like it’s badly modeled with melted wax. His eyes move independently of each other, as those of chameleons. One of them points to Camila, with a look that has nothing human. She is sure that an obscure awareness is watching her right now.

The flight-attendant tries instinctively to take a step back, but one of the huge man’s hands snaps at her. His arm extends beyond the possible. An iron grip grabs an ankle, knocking her backward. The woman screams desperately and struggles, for the man’s grip is like a hot burning iron, and it begins to liquefy the flesh of her leg.

Passengers are frozen in terror on that creepy vision. They look with horror and disgust at the man’s yellow t-shirt unnaturally swelling and tearing.

For a moment, the figure of Bart Simpson on the man’s chest is deformed by the pressure inside.

Then, with a liquid sound, his abdomen explodes.

WASHINGTON

Pentagon

“Commander Green, Thompson here, what’s the situation?”

“One of the passengers suffered a sudden illness, the crew is providing first aid. Actually we’re about ten miles south of the coordinates that you have provided, we will begin descent loops shortly.”

“What kind of illness, Commander?”

The sound of electrostatic discharge echoes the words of Thompson, taking away the audio for a while. After a silence that seems to last forever, a chaotic set of sounds emerges from the communication system, drowning the voices of the commander and his co-pilot and reaching Thompson and his staff.

“Commander, do you copy?”

The noise grows louder. A mixed background of screams of terror and fear, the howl of indefinable animals and a sound that resembles the hiss of a rattlesnake.

“For God’s sake, Captain, can you hear me?”

After a long moment, the voice of the commander is back to bite. His tone has changed, what emerges from the speaker is the voice of a terrified man. He shouts to drown out the chaos.

“Something is happening in the passengers deck! They are screaming and we hear weird sounds. My God!”

“Green, Green, can you hear me? Keep talking, Green!”

The hideous sounds grows in intensity. The voice of the commander of the Boeing seems uttering incomprehensible phrases.

“Someth… hitting…inst the door tha… isolates the cockpit!”

“Green, what can you see?”, Thompson screams.

“It deforms! The bulkhead…… reaking! It’s com…… nside, it’s…”

“Green, for heaven’s sake, Green!”

For some terrible moments terrifying sounds come from the speaker, like unleashed hell. Screams, guttural sounds, hissing, barking of wild animals.

Janet’s voice is barely audible above the cacophony. “Sir, Captain Clark online.”

Thompson and the staff are almost hypnotized.

“Sir!”, Janet raises his voice, and only then the man recovers.

His expression is bewildered, swallowing before speaking. “Captain, what’s going on?”

“Sir, the Boeing tilted, it’s losing altitude. It seems out of control, it’s plummeting. We await instructions, sir.”

Some moments elapse in silence. They all look the screen with two green flashing dots heeling a red one. The latter slows down and deviates slightly from its route, while the other two are overtaking it.

“Sir, we await orders!”

During some endless second, the two green dots run through a slow loop to move back again behind the red .

“Campbell, is there a way to bypass the controls of the plane and fly it remotely?”

“I’m trying, sir”, replies another operator, intent on typing alphanumeric codes on a screen that looks like an old green DOS display.

“Sir, we await orders!”, Captain Clark urges again.

“As for now, there’s nothing you can do, Captain. Stick around and control the situation. You are our eyes now.”

“Roger.”

“Campbell, what about you?”

“The control system of the plane is closed and protected, sir. I can get through, but the signal is discontinuous and it takes time. However we have no guarantees that it’s fully controllable from the outside.”

“Gilmour, check if in that plane there are surveillance cameras that we can use. Janet activate the CdC Team, you have to wipe out all flight records and plane communications from Cape Town. I want absolute fog around that flight right after its takeoff.”

Meanwhile, time flows very slowly. The green flashing dots show the F14s performing slow loops around the red one that represents the Boeing, which now appears almost stationary.

“I’m inside!”, shouts Campbell. Time is running out, while the operator works at incredible speed and his screen shows an endless sequence of numeric codes. “The motors stalled, there is no thrust. The system indicates damage to the control structures in the cockpit.”

“Is there a way to turn the autopilot on?”, Thompson asks breathlessly.

“Negative, sir, the feedback I get from the system is inconsistent and constantly changing. It’s impossible to turn the autopilot on. The plane stopped responding to any control.”

A deathly silence falls in the room, to emphasize the situation’s inevitability.

After an interminable time, a set of three beeps marks the Boeing’s disappearance from the screen.

“Sir”, Captain Clark’s agitated voice, “Sir, the Boeing crashed. I repeat, it has crashed on the ground. The plane exploded on impact.”

Thompson swallows, although his mouth is fully dry. “Captain, leave the area immediately, return to the aircraft carrier asap.”

May God have mercy for the passengers and the crew…

“Janet, contact the CdC team again, tell Crowe I want full coverage of the media for the next 24 hours.”

“Sir, before the crash I got into the plane’s internal video surveillance system”, says Gilmour. “I captured a snapshot from the internal circuit cameras in the passenger compartment. It’s just a single image before we lost contact with the airplane.”

“Send it on the screen, Fred, thank you.”

The silence falls again in the room, while all eyes stare at the screen on which a picture captured by a surveillance camera comes slowly to life. The image is blurry and of poor quality, and at first no one can understand what they are looking at.

The compartment is a chaos. Some passengers huddled, as hiding, behind the seats. The interior walls stained with dark spots, some of the sections overhanging the corridors are opened, spilling the contents all over the area. A group of people is standing, pressed against the door leading to the area only accessible to staff. Their faces appear terrified. Their eyes, wide-open with fear, are all looking in the same direction. On the opposite side of the picture, where the patches on the wall are larger and where the faces of the passengers seem to look, there is something strange and grotesque. There is a man, although just remotely looking like a human being. In the photo his head is the only visible part, and it’s suspended high up, at the height of the overhead storage compartments. The head is abnormally elongated and appears highly asymmetric. The cranium is bald and shiny, showing a long and pointed ear. His mouth is open in such an impossible way that his chin seems to have reached the arm of one of the seats. His neck is also considerably longer than a normal human neck and winds like a snake for about half a meter, up to the side edge of the image. The rest of the body is not visible.

It’s one of the staff women who breaks the oppressive silence. “For heaven’s sake, what is that?”

Only after a few seconds one of the technicians speaks again. “Unfortunately, we have no other snapshots. It might be just a bias due to poor image quality, although the rest of the elements of the picture appears correctly proportioned.”

“I don’t take it”, adds another agent. “Those dark spots on the walls seem like splashes of blood, people seem terrified beyond words, that seat seems ripped… I would say that a bomb explosion occurred in there, but there are no signs of depressurization.”

The fuck Ebola!, Thompson thinks to himself.

“Janet, get me in touch with Ironside, right now please.”

ALGERIAN DESERT

Berber village

The boy nods, almost unable to take his eyes off the hypnotic stare of his older brother.

All these stories about the desert that kills…

They want to challenge me, definitely…

I have to show them that I’m no longer a child…

Suddenly, the braying of a donkey draws their attention. They turn their head in unison, becoming aware of a sound never heard before, a noise between a resounding thunder and a whistle, whose intensity is growing, plus a hissing sound, which is also getting louder. A dog starts barking, soon echoed by the verses of donkeys, dromedaries, other dogs, and finally some women.

Yidir rushes out. Ahmed takes a few moments to sheathe the knife he has just received, then he takes his targui and follows his brother, along a tiny path that leads to a raised area in the center of the village.

The scorching sun, still high above the horizon, is blinding. Ahmed follows the gaze of other people looking up. The boy shields his eyes, until he sees it.

There is something in the sky, it’s big and he has never seen anything like that. Not so close, anyway.

Its shape resembles that of a bird, but it’s completely white, glistening. It doesn’t flap its wings, and has a row of dark eyes running along the sides. The muzzle is black and rounded but doesn’t seem to have a mouth, and the tail is split into three parts.

Ahmed hastens to join his brother, while the unusual volatile flies in the sky over their heads.

The boy has already seen airplanes before, but they were nothing more than small dots of light in the night sky. During the day they were often followed by a long white trail. “Yidir, is that a plane?”, asks Ahmed, full of unconscious excitement.

His brother doesn’t reply, his look is a mixture of surprise and fear. He realizes that something isn’t going as it should. No airplane has ever been so close to the ground or has ever flown so low, and the inclination seems to be completely wrong.

It’s plummeting…

Two smaller planes run in the sky, staying at a higher altitude than the other one and starting a long circular loop, then they come back drawing invisible circles in the blue.

“Yidir, that’s one of the planes that we always see, the ones that fly high in the sky?”

His brother nods slowly, without saying a word.

“Why is it so low? It is coming down, look!”

Only then Ahmed realizes the astonished looks of those present, the litany of sorrow sung by some of the older women that start pulling their hair in panic.

“Shut up Ahmed!”, Yidir answers abruptly.

The boy turns to look thunderstruck and he is about to reply something when his brother adds: “For God’s sake, can’t you see that it’s plummeting?!?”

Nobody speaks in the following moments. They all look at the airplane passing a few hundred meters above their heads, tilted to one side.

The huge flying monster flies over a long stretch of desert, getting lower and lower. For some moments it disappears over the crest of a high sand dune on the horizon. In the same point where, seconds later, a huge fireball rises into the sky, drawing a thick column of black smoke with swirling flames.

A sound like a distant thunder reaches the village in less than a minute, echoed by the cries of women and the noises of the terrified animals. A threatening rumble, far away.

An uncertain and oppressive feeling falls on the village.

Ahmed stares at the silent desert, so familiar until few minutes ago, as if seeing it for his first time. Then he turns to his brother, but he is no longer at his side. Yidir moved away, with two other men. They discuss with each other, while they make gestures toward the point where the plane has just fallen. One of the three men splits, moving rapidly towards the area where the dromedaries are tied, joining other people who try to restore order.

* * *

Ahmed hastens for his hut to better accommodate his targui and fixes firmly the ties that bind his new knife to his left arm. He makes sure that the blade is not visible under the sleeve of his suit before going out. The wool fabric is essential to insulate his body and to allow him to survive the heat of the sun and the cold of the icy Saharan nights.

His brother has just left with Abdel and Wahid, his most trusted friends, heading for the place where the plane crashed.

There may be injured people, survivors that needs immediate help. You won’t come, Ahmed. It’s not going to be a pretty sight…

These are the last words that his brother Yidir told him, before leaving. But Ahmed refuses to accept them, he is a man now, he must deal with his responsibilities.

Determined not to get too far back, Ahmed waits just long enough so that the group of rescuers reaches some distance from the village.

He then quickly makes a dromedary kneel so that he can climb on its back, then he makes it get up again, and starts at a steady pace out of the village.

The men who precede him, including his brother, seem like tiny dots that swing like a mirage in the warm atmosphere of the desert. Shortly thereafter they disappear over the dunes.

* * *

The three men hasten to reach the disaster area, they know that every single moment is extremely precious. In the silence of their pace they don’t seem aware to be followed. Not until a dog, the friend of Ahmed, surpasses them, running forward, to stop on top of a sand dune. The animal turns back to the group of men, barking.

Yidir turns, watching the solitary dromedary about a hundred meters behind them, ridden by the boy.

“Don’t pretend not to have seen him before… Your brother Ahmed left the village shortly after us”, exclaims the man to his right.

“I know, Wahid… I know”, is the worried reply of Yidir.

“He’s a man now, Yidir”, adds Abdel with a singsong voice. “It’s time for him to start living and acting like that.”

The face of Yidir, covered with a thick linen bandage, draws a grimace of concern, as if the idea didn’t sound good at all to him. He urges his dromedary to move faster, leaving the others a couple of meters back. “Just pretend you haven’t seen him yet, so he will stay back and we will be able to do something if we find some danger ahead. Keep your eyes and ears twice wide open.”

* * *

The light wind brings the smell of death and the bitter stench of burning things. The three realize that they are reaching their goal while making the last few meters to the top of a high sand dune.

The sun is still a bit high above the horizon, when they reach the top.

The scene before their eyes is terrible. The airplane has dug a long furrow in the sand of the desert and shattered into a myriad of pieces. One of the engines, half-buried in the sand, is still wrapped in violent flames, and large pillars of black smoke sprout everywhere.

Abdel murmurs a silent prayer in his language, gesturing slowly with his hands as if to ward off invisible dangers.

“It’s unlikely that any one survived”, Wahid whispers softly, almost afraid to talk louder.

The dromedaries are nervous, shaking their heads and letting out plaintive verses. They refuse to go further.

“The animals are scared”, exclaims Yidir. “Abdel, stay here with them, we will go down on feet and see. Be sure that my brother stays here with you when he arrives.” Then he turns to the other friend: “Let’s move, Wahid. Stay sharp, I want to leave before dark.”

The two dismount from their dromedaries and begin their slow and clumsy descent down the high dune that overlooks the scene of the disaster. The dog stays back with Abdel, growling nervously.

Ahmed reaches the top of the dune a few minutes later, moving beside the man that’s watching the scene before him. His dog is crouching, and seems to growl at an invisible enemy, waving his tail nervously. The dromedaries are very nervous too. The boy dismounts, approaching the dog. “Ssssshh, easy, easy boy. What’s wrong with you?”

However, the dog keeps barking frightened. He cowers behind Ahmed with his tail between his legs, letting out a long plaintive cry. Abdel tries to hold the dromedaries at stance. Two of them manage to escape, and flee quickly back the way they came. Busy to hold off the other dromedaries, Ahmed and Abdel can’t do anything to stop them.

* * *

Yidir and Wahid split, walking between the remains of the smoldering wreckage, always keeping an eye at Abdel and the dromedaries on top of the dune. The experience has taught them that in the desert you can get lost easily if you don’t have static reference points.

Unrecognizable wreckage lies everywhere, sometimes unidentifiable bloody shreds emerge from the sand.

“Poor people”, Yidir mutters to himself, as he watches a child’s hand, severed just after the wrist, thinking that no one could have survived that tragedy.

While walking slowly among the debris, his attention gets drawn by something with a grotesque shape. It lies on the ground, like a burned tree, planted and twisted sideways in the sand. Yidir comes nearer, and as he approaches the mysterious thing, he can notice more and more details. A sense of instinctive revulsion and fear takes over his soul.

It’s not a tree at all, even if it vaguely remembers one. Yidir can’t even understand what he is staring at. The object vaguely resembles a trunk, carved with mastery by the hand of a raving madman. Abnormal appendages like blackened and deformed human limbs sprout from a large central strain, like distorted branches. There are aberrant and impossible geometries, out of proportion, horrible to behold.

Yidir hesitates to approach, cautiously turning around that thing that seems a strange sculpture and discovering other disconcerting details. Rough caricatures of human heads emerge from the main piece that has a globular form. The faces are distorted and some of them have their mouths unnaturally open: terrifying jaws petrified in their last cry. One of them fades into something vaguely reminiscent of a reptile head not completely defined. Behind this one emerges a bulbous protuberance that opens into a mouth that has a double row of black and sharp teeth, some of which are longer than a finger of Yidir himself. Beyond those deformities, what terrifies and scares the man who’s watching is the feeling that seems infused in that twisted and distorted mass: pain, fear, and an agony as deep as a very dark abyss.

The sun begins to sink behind a distant dune, and the many fires that still burn in the area draw moving shadows all around the place. In that light, reddish and flickering, Yidir has the distinct feeling that there is still a breath of latent life in those grotesque shapes.

Wahid’s scream breaks the terrible spell in which Yidir has fallen, drawing his attention.

“Yidir, come here! There’s something moving!”

The man steps back, feeling an instinctive fear at the idea of giving the back to that nameless horror. After half a dozen steps he heads to follow the voice of his friend, happy to finally look away from that thing spitted out of hell. Wahid’s voice comes from behind a big piece of the fuselage, miraculously still intact.

With a brisk pace, and looking back to make sure that the abominable trunk is still in place, Yidir walks around the obstacle, and almost crashes into Wahid.

“Wahid, you should come and see, there is something really weird over there. I think we should leave right now, and fast too.”

The friend doesn’t reply. He squats before the remains of a row of seats. Yidir must move to see what lies on the ground ahead of him.

In one of the seats, there is a man. He is bald on top of his cranium, but his hair grew long around the lower part of his head. He has a long mustache too. The old man is pale, perhaps because of the patina of ash and dust that covers his skin. His breath is barely audible, his chest moves just as barely. One leg is bent at the knee in an impossible angle.

“I think he’s the only survivor, and it’s a miracle if he is still alive”, says Wahid, while working with a knife to cut one of the safety straps that block the body of the old man to what is left of the seat.

“Perhaps there are other survivors, but I don’t feel safe here. Wahid… I’ve seen… I don’t even know what I’ve seen, but it’s disgusting. Perhaps it’s better to come back tomorrow morning, with light.”

“Tomorrow may be too late, Yidir…”

When the last strap is cut, the man almost falls forward, and it’s the prompt intervention of Yidir and Wahid that keeps him from hitting the ground. The movement affects his broken leg, and the man lets out a moan, followed by a string of expletives.

In this moment they hear the shout of Abdel. The two quickly raise the survivor, and without another word, make their way to the dune and their mounts.

As they proceed, Yidir looks back to make sure once again.

The trunk, that horrible totem born from a crazy and unfortunate mind, is still in its place.

* * *

Ahmed walks down the dune, facing Yidir and Wahid, to help them bring the survivor atop. Abdel is holding the dromedaries at stance. The beasts are getting more and more nervous as the sky darkens. Yidir throws a stern look to his younger brother, but actually he is grateful for its presence.

“We must go, Yidir, we have seen lights, and two of the dromedaries have escaped.”

“Put the survivor on Ahmed’s mount”, exclaims Yidir, aware of the younger brother reproachful look.

The man ignores the boy, keeping talking to the group. “Ahmed is the youngest and strongest of us, he will walk first. We will alternate walking, after all the distance isn’t too big and the sun is gone altogether. One of us will give him the change later.”

The boy willingly nods without a murmur. That hint to his strength has been enough to raise his pride, wiping out the rest.

Suddenly Yidir freezes, watching the horizon over the expanse of debris. The others turn too.

They can see a glimmer in the distance. A tiny worm of lights that appears and disappears in the dunes.

“That’s why I called you”, says Abdel. “Those aren’t desert people. Those are cars and trucks.”

“They may be a rescue team”, whispers Yidir, “but also a gang of robbers. Better if we don’t let them see us. You never know what those mavericks can do. Let’s move away.”

The animals are nervous, the dog keeps growling and barking with his teeth uncovered, alternately facing the valley below them and the survivor. The dromedary chosen to transport the wounded man refuses to get closer.

“Good, good, you stupid beast! Help me getting hold of it”, shouts Wahid.

However, there is no way to calm the animal. It’s only after blindfolding it that the three can put the old man on its back, securing his body with leather straps.

“The animals are nervous, perhaps for the fire and this stench… Let’s hurry and leave. And you, Ahmed, keep that little bastard away, its growls are getting on my nerves.”

The small caravan heads for the desert, on that time of magic and restlessness when the sun has gone down and the violet sky on the horizon gets tinged with pink and orange shades.

* * *

The silence is broken only by the grunts of dromedaries, whose irritation doesn’t subside despite the group moving away from the accident site.

Wahid is talking: “Yidir, you said you’ve seen something over there…”

Yidir broods for a while before giving voice to his thoughts. “Yes, it’s true. I have no idea what it was, but whatever it was… I’ve never seen anything as absolutely disgusting as that. It looked like a piece of carved wood, a kind of statue. There were arms… legs… heads of people and beasts…”

Yidir waits, as if to find the right words, “… but they were wrong, you know? Distorted. Put together as if they were a single body. And you know what’s the worst thing? They seemed alive.”

“What do you mean by that?!? Did they move?”

“No, no, not moving, thank God, but… Whatever. Don’t talk about it anymore. I really hope I never see such a thing again in my life.”

Meanwhile, Ahmed keeps walking, even if it’s dark. The sand beneath his soles is still very hot. He has moved away from the group, because he is slower and to keep away the dog, which keeps growling nervously to the others.

“Easy”, he murmurs to the animal. “It’s just an old man, speaking an incomprehensible language that we can’t understand. He’s also badly injured, he can’t hurt us anyway.”

Suddenly, a blinding light turns on in the darkness, right in front of the group that precedes the boy a few tens of meters.

Obeying his instincts, Ahmed rushes to get down, frightened, hiding behind a small dune. The dog snaps toward the lights, he can’t do anything to stop his pet.

Voices…

Shouts…

Ahmed leans just enough to see what’s going on, but the intense lights make his vision blurred and indistinct.

There are at least two cars, maybe jeeps. He already has seen one of them in the past and once he was allowed to take a ride, along with his brother and other villagers. That was the first time he had seen men who didn’t belong to his own people. They had pale skin, blond hair… and a car! Mohamed-the-Elder told him they were crazy people, men and women who used to challenge the desert just for curiosity, to have fun watching the world with those little boxes that capture the images. His personal way of defining tourists or explorers.

“What kind of fun is there in the desert?”, asked the elder. Ahmed, however, had a different opinion when later they took him on board for a quick run up and down the dunes.

The hoarse voices he hears now have nothing in common with the kind and smiling men he had met that time. The two cars, which are now a few tens of meters in front of him, don’t seem to carry friendly people. The voices have a sense of violence, shouting orders, but Ahmed is far away and he can get only a few sentences.

Those few words, however, let him understand the situation: they are what Mohamed called mavericks with weapons.

The old man’s words resonate in the minds of Ahmed: “… they are people without understanding. They only believe to the nonsense of those who sell them weapons, and they go around killing in the name of a God they don’t know anything about. A man can kill for his land, for his family, but not for God. What kind of God may ever be the one who needs men to kill other men?”

Ahmed shakes his head, to wipe away that memory and focus on the present.

He seems to understand that the newcomers want to take away the survivor, but Wahid and Yidir refuse to deliver him. The discussion degenerates. There are some long and critical moments. Ahmed hears sudden shouts, immediately followed by the terrible sound of automatic weapons. The boy lowers his head behind the dune, torn between the will to see what is happening, concerned about the fate of his brother and his friends, and the fear and the survival instinct that makes him keep his head down.

The dog is gone, rushed forward, fading into the glare of the headlights on the cars.

The gunfire ceases as quickly as it started. Nobody screams anymore. The men talk rapidly, their voice is too low and far away to be understood by Ahmed. Hidden behind the small dune, the boy sees the light beams rotating in the air, while the noise of the jeeps begins to fade, along with the barking of the dog.

Only then, trembling and with his skin wet with cold sweat, Ahmed finds the courage to stand up and walk.

The two cars are already small light spots that move quickly away into the night.

The boy walks unsteadily at first, then his pace become quicker with every step, as a terrible feeling makes its way into his heart due to the sudden and total silence. He runs toward some dark figures that stand motionless on the lighter sand, under the light of dusk. Without him realizing it, tears begin to slip on his face, sticking to the fabric of his targui. After a seemingly endless run, short of breath and still in tears, Ahmed reaches the small group of friends on the ground.

Nobody moves, nobody speaks. The stench left by the unknown firearms, mixed with the sweet smell of blood and the sickening stench of the feces of dead humans and animals floats around in the air.

The dromedaries are on ground too, lifeless. Ahmed kneels beside the still warm body of Yidir. His wide open eyes stare at the sky. The boy shakes his older brother to awaken him, screaming, crying…

His sobs are lost in the infinite indifference of an unknown desert.

MILITARY JET XT 3015

Emily Moore looks at the endless darkness outside the window with a worried stare, without actually seeing anything. She’s nervous, everything happened too fast, like an ocean wave that catches you and scrambles you when you don’t expect it. She closes her eyes, the last events’ sequence plays in her mind as a high-speed film.

A helicopter hasted to pick her up only few hours earlier, landing on the heliport on the roof of the headquarter of the government agency where she is employed as a researcher for emergency threats where biological weapons are involved.

The section was established in the wake of the measures undertaken by the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which became operational with President H.W. Bush in May 1990. Despite her young age, she is currently directing the operating units of one entire section. She has humble origins, and she has always worked hard, since she was barely more than a child, often forgetting about sleeping, eating, or having true social relations. She graduated two years ahead of the average of her faculty mates and she has always received the highest ratings, also in the many subsequent post-graduate courses she attended.

Sometimes, in the rare moments when she tries to have a break, her thoughts take her in flights of fancy.

Meeting a man, raising a family or just hanging out with friends…

Yes, but which ones?

She simply doesn’t have any, except for some former classmates with whom she exchanges banal phone calls once a year. Job and research are everything to her and, when she’s busy in her laboratory to sequence long DNA chains, time stops flowing normally.

“It’s not really a great sight at this hour, isn’t it?”

John Ironside’s voice sneaks into her thoughts, pulling her away from fantasies that she has already forgotten, and setting her back to the present. The woman opens her eyes and turns to look, while the words of the man are assimilated, becoming awareness. Ironside smiles, nodding with a movement of his face to the window in which she was absorbed.

“Well, yes, it’s really pitch dark outside”, she answers, realizing the blush on her cheeks and turning back to the window, to prevent him from noticing. The man doesn’t insist, turning back to read a business magazine. Previous attempts to have a conversation that could alleviate the boredom of the night flight did not give the best results.

“Anyway, it won’t take any much longer, I presume…”

This time she has taken up the speech. John Ironside looks up, happy to talk to someone. The other passengers of the flight, a silent team of marines, dressed in light-colored camouflage tactic suits, are sitting in the tail of the passenger compartment that, if not for the occasional jolts due to the vagaries of air currents, might seem a modern luxury living room.

“No, not really, we should be almost there” is the affable man’s reply. He’s going to add something else, when a beep in his ear-set warns him of an incoming communication. “Sir, an incoming call, Secretary Thompson on line.”

Ironside has no time to reply, for the operator has already switched the communication, and Thompson’s voice breaks into the flight’s monotony.

Emily Moore looks at the man, sitting near one of the windows on the other side. His face hardens, his eyes take on a serious stare, while a veil of concern draws tiny wrinkles on his forehead. The man opens a small laptop, quickly typing his access credentials, then he keeps his eyes on the screen for a long time, looking at a downloading picture that appears slowly, line by line. Ironside’s face takes a veil of disgust, then he lowers the screen with a sharp gesture, putting aside the small computer.

“Roger Richard, I’m gonna update Dr. Moore, right now.”

Hearing her name, the woman has the feeling that an invisible hand is squeezing her stomach, aware that the communication has not brought good news. Her intuition is confirmed when Ironside turns to face her. The man gets up and comes near her, sitting down in the opposite seat. “I’m afraid I don’t have good news, Dr. Moore.”

The man awaits, as if to choose the right words, then continues. “There is the real possibility that Ebola isn’t the subject of our concerns.”

The woman’s look is not affected. She’s no longer a shy nerd, but Dr. Moore, the scientist, in her more congenial environment. “If it’s not Ebola, then what is it?”, she says dryly.

Ironside notices the change in his interlocutor, and this partially mitigates his concerns: in situations like the current one it’s far better to have sharp and determined people around. “We’ll know soon. The Russian government is sending an expert. His plane has already landed at Algiers airport. A helicopter is taking him to the same place where we are heading, in the Algerian Sahara. Have you ever heard the name of Alexander Ivanov?”

Reading the perplexity in the look of the woman, Ironside keeps talking, sharing with her the little information found about the Russian scientist. “In the early 80’s, Alexander Ivanov was absolutely the best Russian researcher in the field of biological warfare. According to our information, at that time he was able to create a modified versions of the smallpox virus that aroused quite a stir and concern, both in Russia and in other countries. A genius like few, a real promise in the scientific world, although his research was towards the production of lethal weapons.”

Ironside changes position in the seat, approaching Moore as to emphasize how important the information is, and he keeps saying how, about Alexander Ivanov, there are no more records since 1983.

The woman listens carefully and after Ironside ends she takes a moment before formulating the questions implied in that revelation. “A Russian biotechnological weapons expert… American intelligence services lose his tracks for about thirty years… After all that time the Russians pull him out of the hat, after someone has stolen a dangerous pathogen, bringing it into other nations. Why Ivanov, except that he is probably the one who has created this weapon? Why risking to deliver his knowledge and his creations to the nation that has always been their main antagonist?”

“Good points, Dr. Moore”, replies Ironside with a half-worried smile. “Perhaps because his creation is so dangerous to put into serious doubt the future existence of the nations themselves. Of all nations… However, I believe that we will have some answers soon. We’ve started a descending loop right now.”

Hearing those words, Moore realizes that the plane is slightly tilted, and has started to fly into a spiral descent to the runway. She turns instinctively to look out the window on her left.

Somewhere below them, there are two barely visible parallel strips of lights placed at regular intervals.

“First time in the field?”

She just nods. Her face seems concerned.

“In the incoming hours we will work together to face this threat, whatever it is. If you notice anything unusual or have just impressions, please, share them with me. Even the smallest detail may be of crucial importance. This matter… well, it’s serious, it’s damn serious. And… please call me John.”

The woman looks at the man sitting in front of her and notices the hand he’s holding out. A little surprised, she hastens to hold it, cursing inwardly the blush that she feels rising on her nerdy cheeks.

“Emily”, is her reply.

BOEING CRASH SITE

A short line of military vehicles moves quickly to the site of the disaster, raising a cloud of sand and dust in its wake. The leading vehicle is a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, JLTV, whose shape resembles an armored SUV. Its color is designed to blend in easily with the shades of the sand dunes. From the rear of the vehicle sprout two long antennae connected with the communication apparatus inside. Its headlights light up the ground for a few hundred meters.

The inner part of the vehicle is lit by rows of tiny screens. One of them displays the footage taken by an external camera placed on top of the vehicle. The soldiers on board wear bio-hazard suits, but they have their faces uncovered. Their faces look serious and concerned.

They are men hardened by the ups and downs inherent with their job, they know what to expect on the scene of the crash of a plane that was traveling with about two hundred and fifty people on board.

The driver is a muscular and broad-shouldered black. His eyes are moving rapidly to observe carefully the terrain that lies ahead of the car. “Lieutenant, why these suits?”

“I know almost as much as you, Brody. Washington warned us about the possible presence of a contaminant agent on the plane. Our orders are to scout ahead, check the possible presence of survivors and possibly help them. We must secure the area and await for further directives”. These words are spoken by the man sitting beside the driver, Lt. Samuel Bishop. This one has a lean physique and chiseled features. A deep scar furrows his face, sneaking on his left cheekbone and venturing above his ear, drawing a white line through his short black hair.

“Contaminant agent?”, echoes the soldier sitting in front of the screen, a young man with red hair that looks like the twin of one of the protagonists of the old TV series Happy Days. “What kind?”

“Ebola. Brody slow down, we should almost be there.”

The vehicle is going to circumvent a low dune, no taller than a few meters.

“Relax lieutenant, I grew up in Detroit, it’s not the first time that… Holy Chri…”

The curse dies in the man’s throat, while he stops the vehicle abruptly and steer quickly to avoid a large fuselage piece protruding from the ground near the low dune. The truck that proceeds behind it is suddenly forced to divert to avoid crashing into the JLTV. Its braking digs deep furrows in the sand.

Lieutenant Bishop looks with a glance of reproach to the driver, while someone else shouts in the intercom from the other cars.

“Damn you, Brody, wanna kill us all?!?”

Bishop unlatches the safety harness and leaves the vehicle. The man expects the temperature difference between the air inside the car and the external one, but is not ready for the nauseating smell of fuel, plastic and charred bodies. He hastens to impart guidelines to Brody, telling him to take the vehicle on top of a hill to have a good signal, and to make sure that the camera has a good view of the disaster area. Then he puts a gas mask on, adjusting its filters and checks that everything works properly. He briskly moves toward the other vehicles, imparting orders.

“Well gentlemen, let’s split and inspect the area. Take a quick check to see if there are any survivors, in which case call me immediately. If you see someone still alive, don’t touch him, just call me. Uncle Sam wants a containment perimeter all around the crash site, but we don’t have enough men to surround the area. We are in the desert, but you never know: don’t let anyone get close. Extinguish all the fires, the last thing we want is that they are sighted by any marauders gang, attracting those jackals around here. Then proceed gathering the corpses and any remains. Pack everything and load it on the trucks and the first helicopter heading to the base. I want a clean and quick job: the quicker we fix this mess the sooner we leave. Any questions?”

USA BASE CNT222

The tires of the military jet screech as they impact with the runway, raising puffs of sand and white smoke. The nose of the aircraft, with two white wings that protrudes laterally like mustaches, lowers toward the runaway. The strange mix between a plane and a rocket slows down, although it seems to take an eternity before slowing to a crawl.

A slow maneuver takes it close to a low building. Not a light, not a soul, just shadows upon shadows.

The group of soldiers awakes. They stand up before the plane has completely stopped, putting heavy backpacks on their shoulders and checking their equipment.

“Why more soldiers?”, asks Moore. Ironside loosens his seat belt, leaning forward to speak conspiratorially with her.

“These soldiers are a unit of special forces of the Marines. We are in a foreign country, and we don’t know what we’re dealing with. It’s better to be ready, just in case.”

The door opens, and the cold night air of the desert quickly enters the cockpit. Moore shivers surprised. She is aware that the desert has a remarkable temperature shift phenomenon, but the impact of cold air is still unexpected. She instinctively puts a hand to her throat, to further seal an already very tight jacket.

“Is that all?”, whispers the woman, now on top of the plane’s exit-stairs. She looks around and notices a few scattered, small buildings, almost invisible in the darkness of the night.

Nobody answers, as they descend the steps to the dusty ground.

Fantastic…

Two soldiers wait for them on the ground. Ironside recognizes the ranks of a Major and those of a lieutenant. The first one steps forward, holding out a hand to Ironside, which is the first to touch the ground. “Welcome, I am Major Albert Macready, commander of the base, and this is lieutenant Redmond. It’s a pleasure to receive you, sir, although these are not the best circumstances.”

Ironside shakes the man’s hand, feeling a decisive and firm hold.

“And you are Dr. Moore”, exclaims Macready, holding out his hand to the woman.

Concluded the presentations with the commander of the marine’s team that got off the plane, the group splits. Lieutenant Redmond remains with the new soldiers, who quickly wake several crates of equipment out of the plane.

The Major leads Dr. Moore and Ironside toward the larger building, filling in them about the situation. “My men have reached the crash site, I have ordered them to perform a reconnaissance to detect any possible survivor and to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the area. A Bell UH-1Y Venom helicopter patrols the entire zone.”

“Good job, Major. What about our guest from the Kremlin? Is he already here?”

“Yes, sir”, replies Macready. “Our helicopter has taken him from the Algiers airport. He arrived about half an hour ago. He currently is in one of the rooms that we use as temporary housing.”

“What impression did he make?”

“If you’re asking my personal opinion… Well, the whole thing doesn’t convince me at all. There is a strange madness in that man’s eyes. He refused to discuss with me the reason of his presence here. He wants… assurances.”

“I’d like to meet him immediately, Major. Please arrange a room, we will handle the situation promptly.”

In the night silence they hear the sand crack under their feet. Macready seems to guess their thoughts. “The sand here is always everywhere, we can’t do too much here, outside the base.”

The three finally enter the building through a banal and anonymous door. Their path is lit by a series of LED spotlights that light up as they go by, fading away beyond them as they walk past. The interior smells like a workshop, and in the dim light generated by the LED lights they can see some military vehicles. Trucks covered by sheets, fire trucks curiously surmounted by cannons that spray water, foam or powder, another one that looks like a rescue vehicle, a Humvee and other armored cars. No way to see the end of the hangar that seems to be much larger than its external appearance. Their footsteps echo in the silence of the night, until they stop in front of a solid wall from which protrudes a tiny white box. A black longitudinal stripe runs through it, flanked by a red LED. The Major swipe an identification badge. After a few seconds the red lights turn to green with a beep. They hear a hissing sound, then a large sliding door, almost half a meter thick, opens in the seemingly smooth and uniform wall. The interior is white and lit by LED lamps placed at regular intervals. The floor has a slight tilt and, about fifteen meters ahead there’s a guard cabin on the right. A little further, they notice the sliding doors of a huge lift.

Moore is partly relieved, for the unexpectedly modern look of the base and for the pleasant warm air that comes from some internal air-conditioning system.

Macready notices the surprised look of the woman. “I thought you were aware of the fact that this isn’t an ordinary military base.” In response to her puzzled expression, Macready goes on, illustrating some of the features of the structure. “It’s essentially a laboratory for research and experimentation. Here we operate mainly on new technologies. We regularly receive visitors, teams of special forces who carry out tests in the desert.”

“Are operations of this kind under way?”, asks Ironside.

“No, this will allow us to better focus on the current problem. On the other hand, we only have the men who work here on a permanent basis, and we aren’t many, excluding the soldiers arrived with you. The base is underground, surrounded by layers of solid rock several meters thick. This makes it able to withstand an atomic attack. It spreads over three levels. In the lower floor there are the generators, the armory, the system for air conditioning and circulation, the waste recycling system and a warehouse. In the middle floor there are staff quarters, a room for meetings, an entertainment room, a gym and other rooms. If you’re interested”, he turns to Moore, “we have also a small greenhouse.”

“A greenhouse…”, echoes her.

Macready keeps talking with a touch of pride. “The base must be self-sufficient and capable of withstanding for an indefinite time. The structure is experimental, so it may appear… atypical. As I mentioned, we aren’t many here. We deal mainly with surveillance and tracking technologies. External specialized teams come, do their tests, and go back quickly to where they came from. With the temperatures we have out there… well I can’t blame them at all.”

Moore throws a quick glance at Ironside, who shrugs. In front of the guard cabin the Major nods to the two soldiers on duty, one of which gives a badge for visitors to both Moore and Ironside.

The elevator sliding doors glide inside the walls. The interior is even larger and more spacious than it appeared at first sight. The three begin a descent that lasts a few moments, the time it takes Major Macready to conclude his introduction to the base, explaining that the first of the three underground floors, the upper one, has a laboratory, the TLC room, and some generic rooms, the use of which varies according to the needs.

“About the containment of a pathogen such as Ebola, what means and equipment do we have?”, asks Moore.

“We have a well-equipped laboratory, bio hazard suits, gas masks, basic medicines. An officer and a sergeant, both doctors, and a small infirmary. Everything is at your disposal. Please understand that having to contain a biological hazard in the desert along with a plane crash is quite a rare event.”

“That’s true, Major”, replies Ironside. “But unfortunately that event occurred. Having to operate on foreign soil limits us tremendously, but we must prepare ourselves to face the worst scenario with what we have available. Once the situation is clarified, Washington will find a way to send us all the support we need.”

The elevator door opens onto a white corridor, on whose walls are windows that overlook corresponding side rooms, plus other sliding doors.

“Let’s meet Dr. Ivanov.”

BOEING CRASH SITE

Simon Brody is on top of a high dune, and observes the expanse of debris, large and small, scattered on the sandy plain, covering a large area. The soldiers have placed light spots that partially illuminate the site, while the perimeter is indicated by trail markers mounted on poles, placed every ten meters. “Holy Jesus, it’s really a mess down there”, he exclaims looking at the JLTV behind him. He makes his voice louder, to be heard. “Greg! Come out and see!”

The reply of the other soldier is damped, from inside the vehicle. “I can see it in the camera. I have also an infrared view here. It detects just hot aircraft parts that are still burning, in addition to our own men. I don’t think there is any survivor.”

Brody turns back to observe the scene with binoculars, sliding his gaze from one scrap to another.

In the distance, as if they were Martians landed on the moon, he can see several soldiers in yellow suits, who wander with slow movements, inspecting the area.

“All those people… what a mess…”, he murmurs softly.

The man crouches, rummaging with one hand in a back pack to pull out a pack of cigarettes half crushed. With usual gestures and without thinking, he triggers the opening of his Zippo lighter. He lits the wick while approaching his hands to his face. The tip of the cigarette is about to touch the flame when suddenly he feels like having heard a noise.

Brody stands still for a moment, eavesdropping.

The desert’s silence is absolute.

No, just my imagination…

Maybe it was the noise of the lighter…

The marine lights his cigarette and takes a long puff, watching the sky and forgetting for a moment the devastation seen below. The magnificence of the starry night sky in the desert is something that one can never get used to.

The noise bites again, to his right, like a sneeze.

The man turns to look, but he can only see the undulations of small and large dunes, whose profiles fade in the dark after a few tens of meters. Brody lingers for a moment with his eyes.

Shit, I heard it well this time…

The marine looks around, but he can’t find out what’s the source of the sound, and he can’t see anything, apart from the ubiquitous sand. He is going to say something to his colleague inside the armored vehicle, when the sound repeats once again. A brief hiss, like the one issued normally when someone has a cold and sniffles.

The noise seems to come from behind a small sandy relief, about thirty meters away.

What the hell…

“Hey Greg, did you hear?”

“If this is one of your usual jokes it won’t work, Simon. We are in the middle of the desert, I can’t hear anything except your voice.”

I can’t have imagined it…

“I’m going to take a look, okay?”

“Yes, yes, all right. Don’t get lost out there.”

Brody brings a hand to his holster, while starting cautiously in the direction where the sound came from.

USA BASE CNT222

Two tall soldiers, armed and grim-looking, guard a door on the second basement floor of the base. Inside the room the atmosphere is tense. A line of screens and equipment runs along the walls. High up in a corner, the rhythmic pulsing of a red LED reveals the presence of a surveillance camera.

A large metal square table is set in the middle of the room, with a water bottle and four glasses in the center. The same number of people sit at the table. The eyes of Ironside, Moore and Macready focus on the fourth face.

Alexander Ivanov is nervous, sitting slightly away from the table, his arms folded. His gaze jumps quickly from one person to another, such as to control the slightest movement, revealing some inner turmoil. Ironside watches him, seeing in his eyes that he is scared to death, but his instinct suggests that the real cause of that state of mind is beyond the common mistrust between strangers from different countries whose relations were not always idyllic.

Concluded the ritual presentations, it’s Ironside to speak. “Dr. Ivanov, let’s go straight to the point. I suppose we all have to consider you some way involved in the events that brought us here in this room…”

“Somewhat… yes”, confirms the other. His voice is flat and toneless, as if he is describing the autopsy of a lab rat. Ivanov expresses in an impeccable English, although his way of talking has the typical inflection of the Russian language.

Macready looks at him without blinking, he doesn’t like Ivanov, and he doesn’t bother to hide it that much. Something about the man gives him a certain distrust.

“In that case, what could you advise us to better manage the situation at the crash site?”

At these words the scientist’s eyes widen dramatically, but it’s only a moment before he regains control. “Are you saying that the plane crashed?”

“Exactly. It crashed to the ground for no apparent reason, about fifteen kilometers south-east of our current position. It should have made an emergency landing at this base, but apparently something happened on board…”

Ironside blurs deliberately the phrase, as if to imply something and push the Russian to speak.

“Are there any survivors?”

The skin of Ivanov’s face, naturally very clear, is now visibly pale.

“We have a team that intervened on the spot, at the moment they are setting up a level three containment perimeter”, is Macready’s reply.

“You must get in touch with your men, immediately!”, Ivanov’s altered tone. “Warn them to not get close to any survivors or their remnants.”

“Dr. Ivanov, please, calm down”, continues Ironside, pouring water into one of the glasses, and then bringing it closer to him. “Why don’t you tell us what we have to expect?”

At the sight of the glass in front of him Ivanov retracts further, merely observing it as if it were poison and taking a few moments of reflection.

“Look”, he exclaims, “I think I can help you… but I need you to help me back.”

“Due to an error of yours almost two hundred and fifty persons have died”, exclaims Major Macready with an icy voice. “Do you really think that the United States government will make arrangements with you on that basis?”

“You’re judging me for crimes I did not commit, Major. Do you think I’m a terrorist? Well, you are wrong. You have no idea with what kind of monstrosity you are dealing with.”

After a few moments of awkward silence Ivanov goes on. “Here are the facts. It’s true, for me there is no longer a future in Russia, and we all are aware of this. I know I’m alone, however, and you’ll understand it soon, without my help there is no future for any of us. Neither in Russia nor anywhere else. All that I’m asking is to not be arrested or extradited, either now or when and if this situation gets resolved. I help you and you protect me. I don’t want to have to watch my back for the rest of my days.”

Ivanov and Ironside exchange a long look. It’s the latter who takes the initiative. “Dr. Moore, Major Macready, please, could you leave us alone for a few minutes?”

The woman gets up and leaves the room without a comment. Macready seems reluctant.

“Please, Major”, insists Ironside.

The marine slowly rises, visibly upset, and without looking away from Ivanov’s eyes. Then, without a word, he heads for the door.

BOEING CRASH SITE

“Brody! You still there?”

Greg White’s voice sounds muffled, coming from the inside of the military vehicle.

No response, the silence is broken only by the low hum of the equipment.

“Simon!” insists Greg, raising his voice.

After about a minute of additional silence, the marine moves toward the front of the vehicle and opens a side door. The air conditioning system and all the running electronic equipment makes the air inside the JLTV very warm. The impact with the cold night atmosphere outside seems to almost paralyze his sweaty face.

Greg White jumps out the vehicle, stretches his arms slightly sore from the prolonged position maintained until a few moments earlier, and arches his back. He observes the blanket of stars in the sky, and then walks a few meters towards the dune ridge overlooking the scene of the disaster. “Brody, where the hell are you?”

No answer.

The soldier adjusts the focal of his binoculars and watches the expanse of scrap, dozens of meters below. He runs through the area bouncing from one soldier to another, without dwelling on anyone in particular. He notices a group of colleagues around an object half-buried in the ground, dark and twisted like an olive tree. He can’t make out the details, but notices the interest of the other soldiers, one of which takes several photographs.

Forgetting for a moment his colleague that isn’t responding to his calls and intent on observing the scene, he doesn’t notice a dark shape that begins to stand out against the sky behind him.

For long moments the shadow grows slowly, moving silently and gradually erasing the stars in the sky.

Intrigued by the scene taking place in the plain below him, Greg leans forward, adjusting the binoculars to further optimize their focus. The marine is careful not to lose his balance, to avoid slipping on the slope of the dune.

Why the hell are they so interested in that thing?

The silhouette behind him keeps approaching slowly. No sound, and now it appears huge in comparison to the slender figure of Greg.

The silence is total, as if the world itself had stopped breathing.

Is it just an impression, or one of the branches of that weird tree has just moved?

The breath of the soldier is still, as he watches one of graceless appendages of the strange trunk, writhing slowly. Under the surprised look of White, the branch angle changes with a barely perceptible movement.

Are you fucking kidding? This can’t be… It must be a trick caused by the distance…

They are right there in front of it, they should notice…

A chill flows along his spine, shaking him like a thunderbolt.

For a moment he feels a presence behind him.

Then the world suddenly accelerates.

Two heavy hands grip the marine hip, pulling back with violence.

Greg’s heart seems to skip a beat when he goes to slam into a huge and massive body.

“Pppaaam!”, Brody shouts loudly at the same time. “Ha ha ha, my boy, that’s how we lost the war! Wow wow!”

Greg gets rid from the marine’s grasp. He feels like his heart jumped into his throat.

It’s hard to swallow and breathe, while the adrenaline causes him to feel a thousand pins throughout his skin and on top of the skull.

Simon Brody laughs loudly, amused by the joke.

“What a fun!”, more laughter, then he sniffles, accentuating the noise as of someone sniffing. “Uh uh… I bet you shit your pan…”

“Fuck the hell you Simon, what the fuck!”, is Greg’s answer, in a motion of anger he kicks the sand to throw it on the colleague, then he heads for the car.

“Come on, man, don’t take it this way”, replies Brody alternating words in an Eddie-Murphy-like laughter. “I mean, take it from behind!” Other laughs. “Forgive me, please… I could not resist. This will be reported in the annals, the guys will go crazy”, Brody keeps laughing, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.

“Are you done being an idiot? May I know where you have been? You shouldn’t get away. You saw what a slaughter is down there?”

“I thought I heard a noise, this desert is weird. I went to see and there was nothing, a fucking nothing. So I took the opportunity to give my modest contribution, manuring this godforsaken place.”

White looks at him sideways saying nothing.

“Oh yeah, true and genuine New Jersey’s shit, a real jewel.”

Brody accompanies the last words with a lip smacking. The other remains silent, while his colleague laughs again.

“I mean it, Greg, come on, let’s go, come and see, it’s really a masterpiece. I swear, it looks like the monolith of that movie, A Space Odiss…”

“Did you take off your suit?”, blurts White. “At night, in the middle of the desert, during a containment operation of a possible biological hazard?”

The other looks surprised, his mirth dampens. “Well”, he mutters. “Up here we’re pretty far from that mess. It was only for a few minutes, you know, just time to let it go and…”

“Now that will really amuse Bishop”, says White, heading inside the armored vehicle.

“Hey wait, I didn’t mean… You don’t have any sense of humor. What the fuck… Come on Greg!”

* * *

In the area circumscribed by the containment perimeter, some soldiers bundled up in the yellow bio-hazard suits look at the mysterious twisted trunk. Disgusted expressions on their faces, as they look at the chaos of distorted limbs and deformed faces.

“What the hell is this?”, exclaims one of the soldiers.

“May God strike me dead if I know”, replies another one. “At first I thought it was some kind of a sculpture, some African voodoo freaky totem, but I can’t see the remains of a village, or other signs of human presence. And even if it was a totem, who ever would have put it here, surrounded by miles and miles of desert? It makes no sense, and… If it has been here before, the plane’s explosion would have disintegrated it. No… I think this… this thing came down with the plane. Come in, look at here… Approach the light, right here, shine it on this section…”

The man crouches to collect a metal fragment, with which he presses on the surface of the trunk, on the shape of a bluish face with no eye sockets, frozen forever in a sinister grin. “See? It’s not as hard as wood, it has the consistency of leather, or rubber as well. These parts are somehow fused together. Look, point the torch here. Do you see it? These are shreds of clothing…”

“Do you think it was the heat that melted the bodies?”

“No idea, Matt. You know, I once read a report about the effects of nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At a certain distance from ground zero the bodies of human beings vaporized, all that remained were shadows of them, printed on those walls that had not collapsed on the ground. At a greater distance they found charred bodies covered with radioactive ash. In one case, the skin of the arms of two girls, who sat next to each other, had melted and cooled in an instant, pasting them as conjoined twins. To separate them they needed surgery. However, we are talking about something superficial, due to an atomic flash. But here I have the clear feeling that the merge isn’t limited to the epidermis but it also involves the structure of the underlying tissue, and possibly of bones too. The heat caused by the explosion of the plane’s fuel would have burned the bodies, making coal of them, as with most of the passengers. In this case… well, it’s as if they were dissolved and then reshaped as if they were clay.”

They keep cautiously circling the strange object.

“I don’t deny being deeply shocked, this… hell, I don’t even know how to describe it, but whatever it is, it gives me the creeps. Good Jesus, I don’t know what to think… that stuff, do you think it could be related to what happened to the plane?”

For some long moments the silence takes over, while one of the soldiers takes several pictures, framing the weird object from different angles.

“We can’t rule it out, but in my heart I hope not, Matt.”

“I hope so as well: if there’s anything in the world capable of doing this to a human being, the last thing I want is to have to deal with it.”

The medical officer’s visor hides the look of disappointment when hearing those words. “How’s the gathering of the corpses and material going?”

“There was not much to collect, most got burned to ashes with the explosion. Men are loading what is left on the CH-47.”

“Perfect.” Then, pointing to the deformed trunk: “Tell them to pack this one too, we are taking it to the base. Perhaps further deep tests will tell us what the hell it is.”

“Shouldn’t we report to Bishop first?”

“Hell, Matt, fuck Bishop! This…”, points at the deformity in front of them, “…is something that we have never seen, and I think that it has to do with the expert sent by the Kremlin. It could be a new biological weapon, and I don’t want to miss this opportunity. Tell me, Matt, do you want to spend the rest of your career in this fucking desert, forgotten by God?”

The other swallows before answering uncertainly. “No, of course not, it’s just that…”

“No excuses then, do as I told you Matt. We’ll leave ASAP. Don’t make me say it again.”

USA BASE CNT222

“I guess your flight has been stressful, would you like some coffee? I swear it’s not the usual crap.”

Macready’s voice is affable, he fills a cup from a steaming thermos.

“Thank you Major, but I’d rather not. It makes me nervous. Maybe later.”

Moore feels jittery. The last events, the climate of uncertainty with the situation that she must manage, the feeling of being in an underground structure… and all within a few hours.

Macready drinks his coffee quickly, like water.

“I understand you. Don’t worry, somehow we’ll handle the situation. Anyway, it’s a pity, believe me”, while pouring himself a second cup. “Our chef, Ugo, is an Italian guy. He uses just one particular brand of coffee. If he doesn’t have that, well it means no coffee, and we have to drink the crap out of the vending machines. Ugo is this way: just Italian coffee and the best Cuban cigars, Hobson’s choice. He does have a weird behavior, but he’s really good at his job, so I pretend to turn a blind eye on his supplies. Anyway… Still sure you won’t give it a try?”, Macready concludes with a wink.

Moore hints a smile.

“Well, your introduction has intrigued me somewhat, and I don’t want to wrong your talented chef. I’ll have just some, thank you.”

“Very wise decision, Dr. Moore, you’ll tell me how you like it.”

Macready hands her a cup, then he turns his attention to a couple of soldiers, talking in a low voice.

After a few silent minutes, the door of the room of the meeting with Ivanov opens again. The face of Ironside shows up, calling for the scientist and the Major to rejoin.

Once inside, it’s Ironside speaking: “We have clarified some aspects with Dr. Ivanov. We will assure him of some momentary immunity. Privilege that might evolve into a more fruitful collaboration, if he can prove that he can actually be of any help to us.”

Macready’s lips contract in a face of disapproval. After a few moments of silence, Ironside keeps talking. “Before I switch to Dr. Ivanov, I just want everyone to see something.”

That said, with rapid movements Ironside flips the screen of his laptop. The notebook, previously put on standby, restores the screen after a few moments. The man flips it, to allow the other three to see the photo taken on the Boeing just before the crash. Moore adjusts her glasses, leaning forward for a better look. As she watches the screen, she instinctively brings a hand to her mouth, in a face of silent awe. A row of lines is drawn on Macready’s forehead. Ivanov is the only one to stay impassive, with his sharp eyes focused on the screen, as if to pierce it through.

“Now”, proceeds Ironside, “Dr. Ivanov, I ask you again what we are dealing with, for this stuff doesn’t seem a virus to me, not even a modified one.”

Ivanov turns to look at everyone, choosing the next words that he is going to pronounce. “The one in the photo is obviously an infected human being. Order your men on the site to rapidly come back. You have to get them away from that zone. The entire team that you have sent there must be kept under high level lock down!”

“Calm down, Ivanov”, shouts Macready. “My men wear bio hazard suits, they are impenetrable to any virus.”

“No, no, no, niet! You don’t understand”, Ivanov insists. “We’re not dealing with a damn virus! If we let just a single cell of that thing flee the area, it would be the end. I’m not speaking about your squad, neither about this base, nor about mankind. It will take over all life forms as we know them!”

Moments of tense silence follow the last words of the Russian scientist.

It’s Moore talking first. “You said that a single cell can wipe out an entire species?”

“No”, he replies dryly. “I’m saying that it can wipe out all animal species. You have seen what it did to the people on that plane…”

Ivanov takes a moment before going on. His gaze seems to sink, while evoking memories from a distant past. “I trust you, Mr. Ironside, may God enlighten us all.”

Ivanov takes a deep breath, then he starts to tell his story. “It all began in the spring of 1983. At that time I was involved in research and development of biological weapons. I was the director of a secret lab in Antarctica, a structure buried in the ice, disguised as a common meteorological research station. One of our helicopters, during a reconnaissance flight, located a vehicle. It was half-buried in snow. We found a woman inside. She was American and had died by freezing during the previous winter. On her womb she was clinging a small booklet. A Norwegian maintenance booklet of the vehicle she was moving in. She had probably found it right there in the vehicle. She had written something in the free space in the borders of the pages. Her story was so implausible that we initially attributed all to the hallucinations due to her freezing to death.”

“Wait”, says Macready. “You said that the woman was American, but the vehicle you found was Norwegian?”

“Yes, it came from a Norwegian research outpost located about eighty kilometers from our base. The woman had tried to reach us, but she was lost and ran out of fuel about half way. Having no way to communicate with the outside world, her fate was sealed.”

“Have you found a document, a badge, or anything useful to identify her?”, asks Ironside.

“No, she had no documents with her. We knew her name because she herself had written it in the pages of the maintenance booklet. Later, when we inspected the Norwegian outpost, or at least what was left of it, we couldn’t find much material to let us confirm her last words. For reasons that you will soon understand, I decided to hide everything that could be tied to the story of the woman. We got rid of any additional evidence, although not much was left anyway.”

Macready’s gaze hardens, hearing his last words. His speech is cold and sharp as he turns to the Russian. “In 1982 strange disappearances occurred in Antarctica. Two entire outposts, one Norwegian and one American, got destroyed in a matter of days, perhaps even hours. The Antarctic winter did not allow sending rescue teams until next spring. When they got there, there was nothing left, absolutely nothing. Those people disappeared without leaving a trace, they couldn’t even find a corpse. The case stirred a sensation at that time.”

“One moment, Major”, intervenes Ironside, noticing how upset the military is. “Let’s focus on Dr. Ivanov’s report. Then, to the Russian: “Please, go on with what that woman had written.”

“Like I said, her story was incredible. She was an American paleontologist, gone to Antarctica with a Norwegian expedition that had come across something really exceptional.”

At this point Ivanov appears reluctant to go on, for a few seconds the Russian appears torn between choosing whether to reveal it all, freeing himself from a heavy weight, or keeping some information secret.

Ironside is aware of the dilemma in the mind of the scientist. His voice is calm and somehow reassuring, as he urges him to continue. “I understand your uncertainty, Dr. Ivanov, and your position is undoubtedly inconvenient. I ask you again to trust me, not only as a representative of the Government of the United States of America, but as a man. I don’t know what you have seen or experienced, but your eyes tell us all how it has been terrible for you. Nobody in the world has the power to change the past, but perhaps, here in this room, we have the opportunity to work to shape a better future…”

An awkward silence follows his last words. Moore leans forward on the table, resting almost involuntarily her hand on that of Ivanov. The contact has the effect of bringing the Russian back to the present.

“What have you found that is so important?”, she asks.

Ivanov withdraws his hand, slowly enough not to appear rude, then he swallows. “Okay”, he exclaims. “According to the report of the paleontologist, the Norwegian research team had found a wrecked ship… and a creature.”

All are visibly surprised hearing the affirmation of Ivanov.

“What kind of creature?”, Moore urges him.

The Russian keeps telling his story. His eyes show the tension caused by recalling those far events. “According to the woman, the wreck was an extraterrestrial aircraft, buried in a layer of ice that the Norwegian scientists had examined. Their analysis reported that it was very old, about a hundred thousand years. The ship was almost intact and the woman believed that one of the occupants had managed to go outside after the crash, only to end up frozen a few tens of meters away. Our further research in Antarctica led us to believe that the events occurred probably differently, but this is something outside our current problem. We will discuss it in due course, and when my… guarantees will be on paper. In short, the Norwegians took the creature inside their outpost with the intention of studying it. For unspecified reasons it returned to life, or rather, its metabolism – which until then had regressed to a latent state to allow it to survive in a kind of lethargy – was reactivated. It spread through the entire crew and killed all the expedition members within hours. Unfortunately, in the report of the woman there was no indication or coordinates of the wreck. The polar winter and the many storms have certainly buried the excavation. After all, the paleontologist had hinted that it was at a certain depth. In the days after the discovery of the unfortunate woman we proceeded to the exploration of the Norwegian camp, but we couldn’t find traces of their crew, except for the corpse of a man who had committed suicide. In an act of desperation he had cut his wrists and throat with a razor. We could find just a few documents. Everything was destroyed, with clear signs of struggle and collective hysteria.

Fires and devastation made it impossible to find more items, not in the short time available to us before the arrival of their rescue team. My team found an analogous scenario when we reached the American camp. But… in that case the destruction was even deeper.”

“Wait”, Macready interrupts him again. “Why did you go out to the American camp?”

“Because during the winter, one of our operators caught a message from that outpost. The quality was poor, but the voice seemed agitated, and it was clearly an SOS. The adverse conditions prevented us from intervening until the following spring. As I was saying, we found the outpost completely destroyed, much worse than the Norwegian one. However, we found two bodies. Two men frozen and half-buried in the snow. We freed them from the ice, to take them with us to our base. They were set in special isolation chambers, waiting for them to defrost, so we could proceed with the autopsies.”

“Did you find any information about the names of these men, Dr. Ivanov?”, Macready’s voice is very sharp, while his icy eyes seem to pierce the Russian on the spot.

“Unfortunately, no. We didn’t find any document on them, I can only make a brief description, according to what I remember. It’s been too many years…”

“I would be grateful”, Macready’s answer.

“One of the men was black, he was of considerable height and muscular build, an athletic body. His skull was smooth and completely bald. I remember he was still cradling a flamethrower when we found him. He was pointing it at the man in front of him. The other was a white man, long bearded and long haired. His eyes were clear, more or less like yours, Major. He was clinging to a bottle of liquor, don’t ask me the brand, and he was aiming a gun at the other man.”

Ironside notices a strange light in the look of Macready and notices his hands clenched into fists, the knuckles whitened with tension. “Let me understand”, he exclaims. “Were they threatening each other?”

“Not really, I’d rather say that they were ready for any eventuality. It may seem a bizarre behavior, but believe me, they had good reasons to act that way.”

“What about the creature?”, intervenes Dr. Moore, who is aware of the growing tension in the attitude of Major Macready.

A drop of sweat pearls the temple of Ivanov, who seems unable to find the words to reply. “In the snow cat where we found the paleontologist, there was a capsule hidden next to the seat, which probably came from the Norwegian site. I think that the woman was unaware of it, otherwise she would have destroyed it. I guess that it was put there by another member of the Norwegian expedition, probably infected. In the following years I dedicated my research to unlock the secrets of that organism. You can’t have the slightest idea about what I’ve seen in all that time. You are surprised and disgusted by that picture, but let me be very frank, you still haven’t seen anything yet, and thank God for this, because you wouldn’t sleep anymore.

Those who created this organism were – and perhaps still are – geniuses. A superhuman intelligence whose boundaries fade to the most pure madness.”

“Dr. Ivanov”, Dr. Moore is speaking, always more interested in the discourse. “Exactly… what are we dealing with?”

Ivanov lets out a bitter smile. “Believe me, perhaps no one will ever know for sure. It’s a metamorphic entity. It has the uncanny ability to assimilate any living being, mastering its DNA, and reproducing each cell and biological structure to perfection. In my laboratories I have conducted dozens of experiments and, as because of accidents that have occurred against our will, we could see how this organism is able to assimilate and perfectly replicate complex animals too. I mean very complex…”

Ivanov awaits, leaving the other three enough time to get to the same conclusion.

It’s Moore who gives voice to their thoughts: “Do you mean that this creature could replicate a person?”

“You’re perceptive, doctor, but don’t use the conditional. Unfortunately I’ve seen with my very eyes that that thing is quite capable of replicating a human being to perfection.”

“I find it hard to buy all this, Dr. Ivanov”, says Ironside with a disappointed face. “But at this point I’m curious. Were you ever able to establish some sort of communication with this… creature?”

“No. There is no way to communicate with it. Not for our species. It hides, and it does it so well that – believe me – we aren’t even sure if the imitations play a perfect performance, or rather aren’t even aware of being just imitations.”

“But how is that possible?”, asks Moore, more and more fascinated.

“Dr. Moore, think about it in those terms: you, your awareness, your actions, are mostly dictated by your own unconscious. Even when you are sure that your choice is based on what your own “I” believes, the thought that led you to that choice comes from deep inside your being. An underground world, where none of us is as we seem on the outside. Most people, in their unconscious are like children who constantly scream “me, me, me.” Others are old, cynical and disillusioned. Still others are like aliens, whose behavior is often incomprehensible to most. And sometimes… sometimes real monstrosities pop out: disturbed and perverted background consciousnesses. Read some report about serial killers investigations and you’ll have an idea. Now, try to imagine that your unconscious was replaced with an intelligent entity, ancient and evolved, able to dispose of your own memories… Would you be able to notice it? I tell you: no. You would feel strange, maybe slightly disoriented, perhaps you would have some memory lapse that you would attribute to a momentary sickness or stress. Shortly, something would distract you, and you would end up not thinking about it that much, going ahead with your life.”

“Dr. Ivanov”, intervenes Ironside. “How much time would it take to complete the replacement process?”

“I see you are using the conditional, which means you don’t believe, partly or totally, what I’ve told you so far.”

Dr. Moore starts to say something, but Ivanov stops her with a hand gesture. “Let me go on, please. After all it’s a very good question. The dynamic of the assimilation depends on the size of the organism victim compared to the aggressor’s. As I just said, only one cell would be enough to take full control of a body as big as a sperm whale. However, if the assimilation begins with a small cell cluster it takes time to overtake the whole body. Conversely, if the two masses are more or less equal – and we talk about multi-cellular organisms, such as a cat or a dog for example – the assimilation is often violent and brutal, and it’s consumed within minutes. The organism is a hunter, just as a lion, he chooses the isolated victims, since during the assimilation it’s easily identifiable, and therefore vulnerable.”

“I understand, but does this creature have its own form? For example, what can you tell us about its cellular structure? ”, again the woman.

“Its cells, in their natural look, have a star shape, which could be defined as a trademark of its creators. They use powerful enzymes to dissolve the organic structures and get to the DNA in the victim’s cell. They eat their prey this way. Then, the creature needs a more or less long period of time before being able to assimilate another organism. The step of assimilation is particularly critical. If the enzymes and digestive juices are insufficient, or if they become scarce before the process is complete, or if the creature is disturbed during the transformation, it loses control over the cloning process. The result is something that we sincerely hope to never see. It’s often an abomination, a twisted and disharmonious body, where different life forms seem to blend in a chaotic and absurd way.”

“Dr. Ivanov, one last question for now: is there a cure, a kind of vaccine or a way to eradicate this threat?”, intervenes Ironside.

Ivanov shakes his head. “Unfortunately not, I’m sorry, there is not a cure nor a vaccine. The only thing to do to prevent further infections is to completely incinerate the infected bodies.”

“If it’s so perfect, how can we distinguish a person from a copy? Moreover, you mentioned the word creators before…”, says Moore.

Ivanov looks at her, almost smugly. “The paleontologist, in her legacy, described how the creature wasn’t able to clone parts foreign to the body. It regenerates it following the rules of its DNA. Our research has confirmed this. The clones have no fillings in the teeth, earrings, bone prostheses, and the regenerated bodies also have parts that were missing in the victims, possibly because of accidents, such as a severed finger. We initially noticed the possibility of a blood serum analysis, by placing it on a heating plate. Every cell in the body is an entity in itself and it always tries to survive. When the blood was approached to the fire it tended to form tiny creatures that tried to move away from the heat. Over the years, however, the organism seems to have evolved. It learns at an incredibly rapid pace, and we are sure that there is some form of telepathic communication between creatures. Currently the best test is through a strong electrical discharge. I would recommend to equip your men with shockers, and to check the blood of all those who have been on the crash site, and of any survivors as well. If any.”

“All right Ivanov, that’s enough for now”, Ironside’s voice. “For the moment you will stay in the room that was assigned to you. We’ll call you in case we still need your advice.”

“Just a minute”, says Moore. “What about the creators?”

Ironside doesn’t let Ivanov reply. “Dr. Moore, I am sure that we will have other opportunities to discuss this. We have a real emergency to deal with, right now.”

At a gesture from Ironside, Macready calls the two guards who waited next the door. The two soldiers escort Ivanov out.

Left alone, the three exchange questioning looks.

Macready breaks the silence, turning to Ironside. “With all due respect, are we really going to buy all the crap that that man told us? Did you see the light of madness in his eyes? I think that he is completely insane and, in my humble opinion, we wouldn’t fail if we sent him back to the Kremlin with a stars and stripes footprint tattooed on his ass.”

The other man seems to evaluate what to say. “I don’t know what to think, Major. I appreciate your candor, and I must say that this story is too implausible for me too. I’m afraid that there was more to hear. But… basically he has no alternative but to cooperate. His immunity is only temporary. If he proves successful, Uncle Sam might find his expertise undoubtedly useful in the field of biological warfare. In addition, if there wasn’t at least some truth in all his story, why would the Russians haste to warn us and send him here?”

“And what if it’s just a sham? He may be a double crosser, sent here just to spy on us or distract us. After all we still don’t know for sure why that plane has crashed.”

“If we assume for a moment that the history of an organism able to clone a human being is true, we should take into account the fact that he himself may not be who he claims to be”, says the scientist. “Not at all…”

For a few silent moments the two men watch her with skeptical expressions.

“We can’t rule out any hypothesis, until proven otherwise. Personally, I don’t think the stuff he told us, but until we know more, we’d better keep our guest under close surveillance”, says Ironside, then he turns to Macready. “Major, I have a question. I think I noticed a certain… interest on your part, when Ivanov spoke of the two destroyed outposts…”

The soldier is a stone mask, and he stares firmly at John Ironside. Suddenly his expression changes, the features of his face relax. “I was just curious. I knew someone who served in the American outpost that the Russian brainiac was talking about.”

Ironside nods, although he doesn’t seem entirely convinced by that explanation.

Right at that moment a young soldier enters the room, snapping to attention. “Sir, one of the helicopters has just came back, they caught a guy who was wandering around the containment perimeter.”

“A survivor?”, asks Ironside.

“Negative, sir, he’s a native of the place, he belongs to one of the tribes living in the rocky hills around the southwestern area from the base.”

Ironside and Macready exchange a worried look.

“Just what we need”, whispers Macready. “I don’t want troubles with the local tribes. Blindfold him and escort him into one of the rooms in the first basement floor. I want two men watching the door. Call Delgado, she knows the dialects of this region, she will be our interpreter.”

The soldier hastens to follow the orders.

Ironside takes a deep breath before hinting a tired smile. “Well, Dr. Moore, you have carte blanche to better manage the medical and scientific aspect. The Major Macready will provide all the help you’ll need. Set up an analysis laboratory and, if necessary, some containment chambers. We don’t know what we’re dealing with, but it’s better to get ready for any eventuality.”

Macready knocks three times on the table, and a new soldier faces in the doorway waiting for orders.

“Vasquez, take Dr. Moore to the laboratory, and follow her instructions as if they came from me.”

The soldier looks for a moment at the small figure of the woman, as if uncertain that he understood, but Macready quickly dismisses him. “It’s all, Vasquez.”

BOEING CRASH SITE

“Dr. Waters, the uh… the object has been loaded onto the helicopter, along with most of the bags with the remains of the people from the Boeing. We are ready to take off.”

The man nods, his face concealed by a dark Plexiglas bio hazard suit. “Excellent, Matt, I’m going back to the base to run some test. You stay here and make sure that the job is done properly.”

That said, the medical officer, Nick Waters, walks towards the helicopter, instinctively lowering his head when the wind generated by the rotating blades begins to lash his suit.

Once aboard he heads to the passenger compartment, taking quick glances to the soldiers lined up on the side benches. The horrible trunk taken from the disaster scene occupies three adjacent stretchers. The soldiers covered it coarsely with a semi-transparent plastic sheet, securing it with elastic straps, similar to those used to hold the truck roof sheeting. Beyond it, there are several bags of yellow plastic fabric, piled and marked with the symbol of biological contamination hazard. They contain part of the remains of the unfortunate passengers of the Boeing.

The man puts his gloved hand on the plastic that covers the deformed mass, and further ties one of the strings. For a moment he feels like something moving, under the sheet, so he stops suddenly, waiting frozen with alert senses.

It must have been an impression…

Making sure that everything is okay, he turns and heads to the cockpit, sitting next to the pilot. “Let’s go, Jay, get us out of here.”

The pilot nods, maneuvering with extreme skill the controls of the aircraft. The blade rotation speed increases more and more, forming tiny sand tornadoes all around the helicopter, which takes off slowly from the ground raising into the black sky. The horizon is barely illuminated by the imminent dawn.

Waters and the pilot look at the scene of the disaster. The fires have been extinguished, but there are still faint pillars of gray smoke popping out from some scrap. No one talks, the two men sitting in the cockpit wear headphones that muffle the roar of the rotor, and they turn their back to the passenger compartment and the thing wrapped up a few meters behind them.

It’s impossible to hear the low moan coming from the mass of deformed flesh, and none of the military notices the plastic sheet movement, shifting down almost imperceptibly. While something inside seems to writhe, a reddish stain slowly spreads on the floor, forming a rivulet that meanders slowly and undisturbed among the military boots, heading for the cockpit.

USA BASE CNT222

Ironside, Macready and Moore look at the scene behind a thick glass window. Two armed guards watch the only entrance of the tiny room. A small figure sits motionless inside, his hands locked behind his back with zip cuffs. His head, hooded by a black canvas, stoops forward.

A soldier updates them about the circumstances of his capture: “He was hiding behind a small dune, outside the perimeter. We don’t know why he was there, neither for how long. The pilot of the helicopter patrolling the area noticed him, and some of our boys surrounded him quickly.”

“Any resistance?”, Macready.

“Affirmative, sir. Although he seemed weak, tired and visibly under-shock, he did not hesitate to fight the first men who approached him. The boys immobilized him, but he managed to bite one of the men of the support team during the scuffle, wounding him in the hand. The name of the soldier is Foster, sir.”

“Wasn’t he wearing protective gloves?”

“Yes, he was, sir, but despite this that guy has almost severed two fingers. He’s just a boy but better not to underestimate him.”

“Where is now the bitten soldier?”, asks Moore.

Ironside gives her a quick look of understanding, hearing her question.

“He’s in the infirmary. Waters and Serum are busy at the crash site but there’s another doctor in the support team.”

“We should take a sample of his blood and put the man under lock down until we can analyze it”, Moore suggests, earning an uncertain look by Macready.

“That’s right, follow Dr. Moore’s directives”, the Major agrees, before turning to a woman which has joined the group in the meantime. “We just needed this meddlesome… Constantine, you can speak the language of these people. Ask him his name, where he comes from, whether he was alone and what was he doing around the crash site.”

The soldier who just joined is tall, with dark honey-colored skin, an exotic and harmonious beauty. Her deep black eyes, almost almond-shaped, give her an oriental tinge. She speaks with the boy by intercom, translating Macready’s requests in a strange language, full of aspirations.

The boy raises his head to those words, turning around to find the source of the voice, though unable to see.

The translator repeats the same words again, to entice him to answer.

After a moment, muted phrases emerge from the intercom. The boy’s tone is clearly nervous, and his voice takes on shrill peaks sometimes, betraying his youth.

“What did he say?”, asks Ironside.

“He says his name is Ahmed. Our suppositions were right, he belongs to one of the tribes living in small valleys between the rocky hills, southwest from here.”

The boy’s voice comes back to bite. His tone is scared, he raises his voice as if to speak with someone far away.

The translator face shows an uncertain expression, as if something is missing. They keep speaking for a few minutes, before Constantine translate to the others. “He was in his village when they saw the plane falling. He, along with his brother and two other members of the tribe, went to the crash site to rescue any survivors. He says they found only one man alive, an old man with a broken leg. He was unconscious. They loaded him on the back of one of the dromedaries. Their plan was to take it to their village and care for him, but they were attacked by… he calls them mavericks with weapons , on their way back. I think he means a gang of armed robbers.”

“Damn!”, erupts Macready, aware of the implications in the boy’s words.

“Constantine, go on, ask him what happened next.”

The woman continues to exchange a few sentences with the hooded boy, his voice broken with sobs.

“He says that he stayed behind, for he was on foot and his dog was very nervous and barked both to men and dromedaries. He was fast to hide behind a low dune when they were suddenly attacked by the robbers. He heard the gunshots of the attackers. He could approach only after they left, but he found just the bodies of his brother and two companions who were with him. The robbers killed also the dromedaries. There was no further sign of the survivor and the dog. According to him, the robbers headed for the desert, where there is nothing. He was afraid to venture out on their trail, and he could not walk back to his village. So he walked back to the crash site, following the footprints left by his group. He was looking for water and a shelter when our boys captured him.”

After some moments of tense silence Moore starts talking. “We must take a sample of his blood, so we can analyze it. He was among the first to set foot on the crash site, they found someone who miraculously survived. This guy may have been exposed to any infection.”

“Good idea. Well, he’s all yours, Doctor”, replies Ironside. Then he turns to Macready. “Major, we should send some men to the place where these events took place, if we’re lucky we’ll find some traces confirming what he told us.”

* * *

The hermetic door slides sideways with a hiss. Moore and Constantine, dressed in bio hazard protective suits, enter the room, approaching the hooded guy.

Moore speaks first, hoping the tone of her words is going to calm him down. Constantine translates for her in a low voice. “I’m sorry about your brother and your friends. Don’t worry, you’re safe now, we don’t want to hurt you. We just want to check you to make sure you’re okay.”

The boy is nervous, icy sweat drops slide down his back. He winces when the gloved hands of Dr. Moore touch his skin.

She pulls up the sleeve of his left arm, an awkward task due to the thick gloves of the suit and because Ahmed is still tied with his hands behind his back. At the sight of the dagger tied to the limb of the boy, the scientist stops uncertain, turning a questioning glance at the other woman, who is watching from behind the cover of her mask.

He’s barely older than a boy…

Constantine quickly untie the knots that secure the knife to his arm, muttering something about the idiots who have not inspected him properly.

Ahmed’s body tenses when the needle of the syringe pricks his skin, but he stays motionless, holding his breath until the operation is finished.

Moore is upset by the sight of a barely fifteen years old boy tied up and hooded like a criminal, but the words of Ivanov come to her mind for a moment, and her hands leave instinctively the boy’s skin at that thought. “That’s right”, Moore tells Constantine. “Please, reassure him. Tell him that he will return to his village soon, and he will be given back his weapon. Be sure that he doesn’t leave this room and stays under constant surveillance.”

BOEING CRASH SITE

The soldiers left on the site, bundled up in their suits, are working hard completing the sad task of collecting what is left of the unfortunate passengers. They fill a number of yellow plastic containers, oblong shaped.

“Holy Jesus, Brimley, I can’t wait to go back to the base and have a shower. I think that I’ll keep seeing this shit every time I go to bed, from now on.”

“Oh, come on… I don’t think there are many more left now. Keep that bag wide open”, replies his colleague, while he uses a large forceps to raise a big piece of blackened meat, stuck to the remains of a shirt and a jacket.

The piece of corpse makes a muffled noise falling into the yellow plastic bag.

“Ugh… I feel really sorry for all these poor people, but it’s a real crap…”, murmurs one of them.

The two move down to a piece of metal sheet that protrudes inclined from a low pile of sand, in a peripheral area of the crash site.

“Did you see that thing that looked like a burnt tree trunk? Holy God, what a shit! And Waters, what an idiot… He should have set it on fire and buried it under a mountain of sand… All but loading it onto the chopper…”

“Don’t remind me that, Hawk… If I close my eyes I can still see those faces. When Bishop will see it, he’ll make him turn back and bring it back here on foot.”

The soldiers reach the piece of metal sheet and walk by.

“There’s nothing here, just as well. Let’s move to the vehicles and see what the others are doing”, says Keith Brimley.

The other marine doesn’t seem to have heard him, and slowly crouches on the ground, as if to examine something.

“What’s up, Hawk, did you find anything?”

Brimley approaches moving sideways to look at the sandy ground in front of his colleague who has suddenly become silent. The sand is slightly loose, but no matter his efforts, he can’t see anything.

But one particular has not escaped Thomas Hawk who, proud to have true Native Americans among his ancestors, has spent much of his childhood hunting and learning how to recognize the tracks of his preys.

“There is a footprint here”, he exclaims softly.

Brimley stoops to look better, but he can still see nothing but sand.

“I can’t see anything Hawk, are you sure?”

The other gets up slowly, walking a few steps toward the desert beyond the perimeter of the area, then he squats again.

Brimley joins him puffing.

“Someone was here”, murmurs Hawk in an almost inaudible whisper. “It’s not a footprint of ours, it’s a small shoe, with smooth soles. Someone came out from the crash, and headed toward the desert.”

“Are you sure? I can’t see a damn thing, man. Come on, they may be the footprints of the boy we found earlier, right?”

Hawk shakes his head slowly.

Not a boy…

“May be, but I’m not sure.”

USA BASE CNT222

The fluorescent tubes’ cold light concurs to generate a sterile, impersonal environment. Long white tables filled with advanced medical analysis tools run along the walls.

Emily Moore is bowed at work on blood samples taken from Ahmed and the wounded soldier.

Macready and Ironside are awaiting the outcome of the analysis, whispering softly a few meters behind her.

“I’ve sent a team to check south-west, at the place indicated by the boy. They found the bodies of three men and four dromedaries.”

“This means that the boy said the truth”, says Ironside.

“I had no doubt about this”, Macready goes on. “The nomads of the desert have a honor code and a very rigid behavior. Our guest had a targui, a headdress given to males when they make their official entry into the adult world. He’s just a boy, I’d bet that’s the first time he leaves his village. In short he isn’t yet corrupted by the outside world, and he is careful to behave as a wise and impeccable man. However”, Macready makes a gesture with his hand as if to dismiss that parenthesis. “Our boys identified the tracks of two jeeps, they are after them. The robbers seem to have headed to the rocky hills area.”

Macready ends up his update, and both turn their gaze watching Moore. She’s placing a slide under the lenses of a microscope. The Major looks thoughtfully and lingers for a few moments watching the scientist at work. Her red hair tied behind her back, the speckled skin with freckles.

Who knows how she may look without those nerdy glasses…

Then the soldier turns back to Ironside. “How do we handle the whole thing with the media?”

Ironside makes a face, to point out how the matter is a quite bigger fish to fry. He finished updating Thompson just a few minutes back, and his superior has been very clear on this aspect.

“Listen to me John”, he said. “Officially the plane has just disappeared. Our intelligence services broke into the radar plotting and satellite database, altering the data so it’s impossible to reconstruct its route. Actually, the only thing that the media know is that the Boeing has just disappeared after takeoff from Cape Town. This will give us valuable time to try and fix everything. When the situation settles down, we will decide how to move.”

Ironside guessed how things will go. With a good chance some scrap will reappear somewhere else, even considering the possibility that it’s necessary to impute responsibility for the disaster to someone who’s going to be a scapegoat face. The data will be altered again, they will spawn names of potential hijackers and a large group of journalists, writers, blogger and trolls on the government payroll will help direct awareness of the masses in the most appropriate manner. Alternatively, it may become another case of a missing plane. After all, Africa is a huge continent. That’s it… real truth hardly reaches the people.

“And what about the remains of the passengers or any survivors?”, Ironside asked Thompson, already knowing the answer.

“In the event they find any survivors, report it immediately. We will study what to do. However I don’t think that you will find any. As for the remains… There aren’t any, John.”

Long moments of silence had ran after Thompson’s last words. His voice had taken on a mock fatherly tone when he continued : “We can’t take chances, John. There’s too much at stake. Handle it on the site, that’s why you’re there. I have full confidence in you.”

Macready clears his throat, recalling Ironside from his thoughts and bringing him back to the present. The soldier looks at him quizzically.

“Major, your men must clear everything from the area of the crash. Retrieve the black box, place it in a container able to block its signal and make sure that no one can find it or get his hands on it until further orders. Be sure to gather the remains of the bodies of the passengers and their luggage, as well as the crew, and burn them to ashes. There will be no media side, at least for the moment. May God understand and forgive us all.”

* * *

After about thirty long minutes, Emily Moore takes off her gloves and glasses, laying them on a nearby white table. She spends some moments with her eyes closed.

When did I sleep the last time?

Macready approaches behind her, handing her a cup of hot coffee poured from a thermos. “Any news about the analysis?”

“Nothing, apart from a slight dehydration in the boy’s blood, there is absolutely nothing. The same for the wounded soldier. At first glance, both fit as a fiddle.”

“So in your opinion they don’t show any contamination?”

“I did not say that”, she replies, amazed by her own abrupt voice, then her face relaxes. “I’d say there is nothing apparently wrong. However, if you don’t mind, I’d rather hear Dr. Ivanov’s opinion.”

Macready just nods, and leaves the lab without another word, when a young soldier arrives in a hurry, almost slamming against him.

“What happened?”, exclaims the Major, noticing the short breath of the soldier. Moore and Ironside join them.

“Sir, we have lost contact with one of the helicopters!”

Macready doesn’t seem perturbed by the news. His voice is unnaturally calm. “Try and localize its GPS signal. Take standard fire-fighting measures in advance. I will be right there on the surface.”

Then the base commander takes a left hand to his ear, activating a headset intercom. “Vasquez, take Ivanov to the main lab. Stay there at the disposal of Dr. Moore, and do not lose sight of that man for a single moment.”

ALGERIAN DESERT

On the trail of the raiders

Sergeant Seagull observes the yellow and vast expanse of sand that stretches endless in front of him, fading in the warm horizon. His clear green eyes explore the desert looking for strange elements. He holds a cigar between his teeth, a gift from the chef Ugo, a still intact El Rey do Mundo.

The sun is already high in the sky and the dunes seem to tremble, roasting in the scorching heat.

The team, consisting of eight men, moves on two Humvee traveling side by side, leaving a small swirl of dust and sand behind them.

Suddenly the man next to him, visibly a body builder with Latin facial features, points at something in the distance on their right.

A slender dark thread of smoke hovers in the heat.

“Christer, two o’clock”, says Seagull to the driver of the other vehicle.

Acting in sync the two trucks slow to a stop. From the roof of one of them a trap door opens.

A soldier dressed in a camouflage suit pops out to peer into the distance with binoculars.

At the same time another soldier pops out from the other vehicle’s roof, staring in the same direction through the lens of a Barrett M82 sniper rifle. His viewfinder moves, overlapping the sight with a numbered grid, while the marine checks the noteworthy items.

“It looks like a makeshift camp, I see broken wooden boxes and the ruins of a shack. There is something a few meters ahead… It’s the carcass of a jeep. I can see no hostile, the site seems an abandoned camp, but those assholes may have seen us and hidden somewhere nearby to ambush us.”

The two soldiers drop inside their respective vehicles, which resume their pace. They shortly reach their target.

The soldiers stop at about thirty meters from the rough shelter. The shaft is just a half-rusty metal-sheet, supported by three piles of stones that seem to defy physics, standing up for some miracle. Behind it, not far away, a half-charred jeep lies on its side. One of the rear tires is burning feebly. Other tire tracks fade out in the distance.

“Jennings, take a look around here”, orders Seagull to the crew of the other vehicle. “We are going after their tracks, join us as soon as you finish the inspection here.”

The Humvee with Seagull and three other soldiers moves on, quickly moving away toward the low rocky hills that pierce through the sea of dunes in the distance.

The other team exits the vehicle, the soldiers fan out moving cautiously.

They quickly notice a series of dark spots on the ground and a large number of bullet shells.

Christer Black is the most minute of the four soldiers exploring the scene. He’s a clean-face, good boy. Despite his surname, his impeccably combed blond hair, so light to be almost white and his ice-colored eyes, have earned him the nickname of Ghost. The man bends down to pick up one of the shells, sensing its weigh in his fingers and sniffing it. “It’s from a machine gun. There was a firefight here, not more than one or two hours ago”, he communicates to his colleagues who meanwhile have moved in a fan-like fashion and are about a dozen meters ahead of him.

One of them notices a video camera, still fixed on a tripod with its legs sprawled on the ground.

Black walks toward the group, when a familiar sound catches his attention.

He turns around, raising his weapon instinctively.

The boy observes the creature just a few meters away from him with a surprised face, then he smiles, lowering his rifle.

A dog watches him, whining and wagging his tail. The animal appears uncertain. Almost as he wanted to approach but hesitates for fear.

“Hey, come here”, says Christer, crouching on the ground to appear smaller and reassure the dog.

“Black, what have you said?”, one of the other marines shouts promptly. He’s a black with a massive body, whose face is swollen on one side by a clump of chewing tobacco. The Humvee stands between them, and from where he is, he can’t see the dog.

“There’s a dog, Ralph.”

“A dog here in the desert?”, replies the other, while getting closer. “Be careful, that beast might be rabid.”

“More than you?”, the boy jokes. “Relax man, I was born in the Mississippi’s fields, my father used to bring home every stray dog he met. I grew up with them, and I can recognize the rabies symptoms. It’s likely that he was with the men who were here, he must be dead thirsty, poooor boy.”

The dog lets out a yelp as the other soldier approaches, snuggling with his tail between his legs.

“Easy, easy… You are scaring him… Go ahead, Ralph, I’m coming soon.”

The other lets out a grunt in response, then walks away spitting a long dark stripe on the sand.

Black tries to get close to the dog, who meanwhile rolls on his back in a sign of submission, still wagging his tail. The boy crouches to pat the dog’s belly, while the animal licks his gloves letting out delighted whinings.

“Good boy”, says Black with a smiling face. At these words the dog stands, pricking his ears and staring at him. Then, confirming that he has understood what the soldier has just said, straightens to raise on his two back legs, giving a remarkable proof of balance. Black also stands up, more and more intrigued by his new friend.

“That’s a good boy”, he whispers as he takes the two front legs of the animal, who licks his hands in that improbable ballet.

Then the dog walks suddenly away with a jerk and stops to sniff at the ground about twenty meters away. He starts digging in the dusty desert sand.

What’s up now?

The boy looks at the animal raising a small cloud of sand while digging. Ralph’s hoarse tone bites behind him. “Hey Ghost, forget that little bastard, we have a job to do!”

“Cooomiiing”, is Black’s reluctant reply. The boy starts heading for the other.

Anyway, after a few steps he feels a tap on his left calf, accompanied by a familiar moan.

The dog is just behind him, and seems to have found something that he settles at his feet. The boy is surprised about the behavior of that dog that he has just met. He crouches down to pick up the object, shiny with saliva. It’s an oddly shaped stone.

The dog gets up on his hind legs, barking at the boy, then steps back on all fours and takes off, stopping after about three meters. He looks at the soldier again, barking.

“Ah, you wanna play… That’s fine boy. Just a few drills, okay?”

The soldier throws the stone away, while the dog rushes to take it back.

On the other side of the camp the others go on with the inspection.

“Seems they took to their heels in a hurry”, says one of the soldiers, crouching to inspect a rifle, an old AK-47. “They left here their magazines… bags of supplies… plus their weapons…” Then pointing at the camera: “…and that one.”

“Stu, check if there’s something saved in its memory. If we are lucky we might understand what happened here”, says Jennings, the team leader. “Ralph, where’s Black?”, he shouts out to the soldier that is twenty meters away, busy checking the half-burned jeep lying on its side.

“He stood back guarding the car, Gold. I’m checking this area.”

Meanwhile, Stu fiddles with the camera. “It won’t turn on, maybe the battery is dead.”

“Check it, maybe there is still a memory card inside.”

“Yeah, just doing it… Well well well, here it is, eight gigabyte.”

The marine plugs the card into a tiny tablet that he pulled out from his backpack, and he browses the menus, finding several recordings. “There are a number of movie files, minor stuff… Wait! Ooh this is quite interesting…”

Others turn their eyes towards the soldier who examines the recording with an insane grin on his face.

“Ralph, come and see!”

“What’s up?”

The other seems not to have heard him. He keeps his eyes on the screen, in a demented laugh.

“Holy Mother of God, look at those boobs…”, he starts suddenly. “You may hang your rifle at those nipples!”

“Come on, Stu! Stop clowning!”, echoes Jennings. “Check the other files. See if you can find out what happened here!”

The soldier obeys with a grimace, scrolling through the various recordings. After a long moment he launches the playback of the second-last recording.

Stu observes the footage on the tablet’s screen, recognizing the makeshift camp where his team is right now. With some differences: the jeeps, which are visible in the background, are two. In the foreground a scene already seen other times fills with dismay the heart of the man. “Fuck! Oh fuck! Jennings! Jennings come and see!”

“If this is still some bullshit I swear that you are going back to the base walking, Stu”, replies Jennings while joining the other soldier. However, his expression changes when he sees what happened in that place less than an hour before.

“Damn it, Stu, set the volume up to the max!”

There’s an old man, his face is emaciated, with sunken eyes and long white hair, despite the top of his head being bald. His mustache is exceptionally long, he is kneeling a few meters in front of the camera.

Behind him, two armed men, one with his face concealed by a black cloth wrapped around the head which lets out only his eyes. The boy whose face is visible has an assault rifle on his back and reads a sheet of paper like it was a parchment. He speaks Arabic and sometimes tries to express himself in a broken English. The other man wears dark clothes, he’s just behind the prisoner, and holds the collar of his jacket from behind. In the background they hear a dog barking and showing up briefly on the screen. The animal barks and growls furiously, about one meter before the hostage. One of the men shouts something and moves as to kick the animal, which dodges nimbly and keeps barking loudly. The footage shows a third man, who grabs the dog and walks away taking him out of the scene. The movie goes on for a few minutes, while one of the two robbers goes on with his ranting. The elder prisoner responds occasionally, addressing the men with a series of insults.

“The audio is a shit, damn… Can you understand what he’s saying?”, asks Stu to Jennings.

“Not entirely. From what I see they wanted to shoot a footage to ask for a ransom, but something is not convincing me. The dog’s barking covers their voices. I think these are merely a band of jackals. Look at the face of that one, he is barely twenty years old. These assholes have put their hands on the survivor and want to gain something, but they don’t even know what they are doing. They’re improvising.”

After about five minutes, the man ends his speech and steps away from the other robber and the kneeling hostage. He stops at the edge of the view of the camera.

“Oh, that’s good”, says the old man. “That bitches’ raving was a real pain in my ass. Now go! Fuck that bitch you call mother, unless she is sandwiched in a camels’ gang-bang!”. His words vanish into a heavy cough, before he spits to the robbers. At that gesture, the man behind him raises his rifle gun, hitting the elder’s skull with its butt. The noise of the hit sounds too high. The old man looses consciousness, falling heavily to ground.

A heated debate fires up between the raiders, arguing loudly and pointing to the man lying motionless on the ground. One of the bandits stoops to check him on its neck, then he turns back to the others, raising even more the tone of his voice.

“What are they saying?”

“I believe the hostage is dead. That idiot has beaten him too hard, he must have broken through his skull. Now they’re arguing about what to do next.”

The three robbers in the footage seem to disagree. One of them, the one with the face covered by the black cloth, speaks with a hoarse guttural voice that covers those of the others. He makes eloquent gestures with his AK-47, pointing at the hostage and the camera. The others seem to give up, as if frightened, and they haste to obey him, although unwillingly.

“That son of a bitch is their leader”, murmurs Jennings tight-lipped.

One of the robbers leaves the group, walking towards the camera, while another moves to the left of the screen. The video stops here.

“Is that all?”, asks Jennings.

In response Stu moves through the tablet’s file-explorer, selecting the next movie, the last one. After the playback starts, the scene seen before seems to repeat. The man who was reading the paper now wields an assault rifle, he has his head down, and he’s singing a monotonous litany.

The group’s leader, who hit the hostage earlier, is in the center of the camera view, with the old man on his knees before him. He is holding up his head by his hair, but this time the old man doesn’t react. His eyes are closed and he seems stiff and white as a corpse. The man behind him, pulls a long knife from a liner hanging on his chest, then he bends placing one knee on the old man’s back, raising his head by pulling it back by his hair. With his left hand he quickly moves the blade, rapidly severing the man’s throat.

“Damn sons of bitches!”, bursts Stu, while the man dressed in black works fast, trying to completely sever the man’s neck.

“These idiots are cutting the throat to a corpse. It must have been a while since the first recording was shot, the light is different and… look well, there is very little blood. If he was alive, with blood pressure and heart beat running with fear, you would see a real fountain and a lake of blood.”

The two men watch the video with the hostage victim starting to shake like having a seizure. Trickles of blood come from the corners of his mouth and from his nostrils, and start to drip…

Upward.

“What the hell…”, murmurs Jennings, as something starts to happen and the scene, already too grotesque, begins to turn into a real nightmare.

The man’s hand that’s holding the knife slows down. The blade sinks in the neck of the dead man, as embroiled in the blood which, as by its own life, starts flowing upward, along the limb of the robber. At first this one gives no sign of being aware of what is happening. Then… as soon as he realizes that something is wrong he tries tugging to pull his hand free, without any result.

The man looks up towards the companion to his right, who is looking at the scene with a weird fac e. Long reddish tendrils, as thin as a finger, sprout from the bald head of the man who survived the plane crash. These stretch quickly, snaking upwards and forming rudimentary thorny limbs.

The robbe r shouts and tries to push away the body of the unfortunate prisoner with his right hand, frantically struggling to ward off the monstrous appendages. These, regardless of his efforts and his shouts, dig deep into his chest, while others manage to reach his neck and pierce his face through the fabric that’s wrapping it.

The man on t he left of the screen lets out a scream and then, shouting something in Arabic, he points his assault rifle at his friend, whose head is soon hidden by the mass of tentacles that keep popping up from the skull of what, just a few moments earlier, had the appearance a normal old man. This one is now unrecognizable, his face distorted as if it’s melting, while his mouth unnaturally wide open emits a wailing on different tones that reach the marines who stare at the scene on the screen. The eyes of the hostage victim move independently of each other, aiming at the same time at the man at the side of the screen and at the camera up front. The tiny speaker of the tablet emits a hissing sound, like that of a multitude of rattlesnakes.

Chaos breaks loose.

The robber armed with a rifle shoots at the creature. Other voice-overs shout something unintelligible. The blows of multiple rifles echo in the speaker. Suddenly the old man’s body stands up and other tentacular appendages protrude from his belly, almost as if his guts had taken an independent life and had turned into a brood of snakes writhing on themselves. With a thud, a mass of bloody flesh is thrown at the man that’s firing at the creature with his gun, hitting him on his thigh and firmly sticking on the limb.

The teeming being spits splashes of a whitish liquid that covers the face of the robber with a gelatinous coating. His shouts fade out in a gurgling gasp. His leg is yanked, knocking him down on his side. A burst of shots hits one of the jeeps, destroying the front window and one of the spotlights. The bullets open a row of holes in the side panel, till one of them hits the fuel tank, and the car explodes: the jeep jumps upward, falling back on one side, at the edge of the camera’s view.

New tentacles and other splashes of mucilaginous material are thrown swiftly towards the camera from the abomination in the center of the screen. More screams follow. Then the scene tilts. The two marines stare petrified at the third robber dragged by one foot toward the seething mass, from w hich misdeed and deformed limbs emerge, while on the surface dozens of eyes come to life and just as quickly get reab sorbed.

The man shouts and kicks, trying to break free. In the excitement the camera’s tripod is pushed aside by a tentacle, and the creature ends up out of range. The cries of despair of other men, accompanied by many guttural sounds, go on for about thirty long seconds.

Long tentacles dart in the air like a whip. The last man, crying desperately, is suddenly silenced.

Finally, the angry barking of the dog turns into yelps of pain.

The footage goes on in an unnatural strange stillness, the soldiers can hear just gurgles and liquid sounds, like wet rags that flap and glide in a hallway.

For never-ending seconds the two marines, soaked in a cold sweat, are unable to look away from the screen of the tablet.

“Jump forward, maybe there’s more”, exclaims Jennings at one time, with a dry mouth. The other obeys, with a trembling hand. The video starts running thrice as fast.

Then there’s a flicker.

“Wait, go back!”

After some second the footage resumes, and the heartbeat of the soldiers freezes as they see the raiders heading silently toward the remaining jeep, strangely unharmed, albeit with tattered clothes.

Thoughts flow quickly and messy in the minds of the two witnesses, while they see a fifth person, accompanied by the dog tha t follows him wagging his tail until the man takes place on the jeep: the old survivor, unscathed and with both legs healthy. The jeep is set in motion, and with a quick maneuver it moves out of sight. The only living being left on the screen is just the dog, who crouches on the ground, motionless, with his eyes set on the c amera, almost as to look at Stu and Jennings through the lens. The footage cuts off after a short while.

“You gotta be fucking kiddin’…” says Stu in a trembling voice. “Please tell me, is this a fucking joke?”

Despite the shock, Jennings’ reaction is immediate.

“Stu, take care of the memory card. Upload the video to a safe place and send a backup to the base ASAP. Call Seagull immediately and get him in contact with me. Ralph, where the hell is Black?”

The other is unaware of what they have just seen, but he notices the urgency and concern in Jennings’ voice.

“I left him near the vehicle, he has found a dog.”

A dog…

“Jesus Christ!”, shouts Jennings, as he rushes towards the Humvee, followed by Stu first and then Ralph too.

Meanwhile Black got distracted, playing with that mischievous dog that always gives back the stone a few meters away from him, thus making him gradually walk away from the car and his friends, without him noticing.

“That’s enough, boy, this is absolutely the last launch, okay?”

The soldier crouches down to take the long stone from the mouth of the dog, but he seems reluctant to let it go.

“What’s up now? Come on boy, what’s wrong?”

Only then he hears the excited loud shouts of his friends who call him from afar. The soldier turns, seeing his colleagues running in his direction, their shapes distorted by the heat of the desert.

In that, he realizes that the dog is not putting up resistance anymore.

A-ha, you’ve given up then…

Black turns to the animal.

At a first glance, he doesn’t understand what he is looking at.

The stone in his hand still has the narrow dog fangs holding firmly on the other end. The gums, however, fade into a kind of reddish bowel, corrugated on its surface, which snakes for about half a meter, before disappearing deep into the animal’s mouth, wide open in a weird diagonal angle. The disgusted boy lets the stone go, leaping to his feet. The stone floats in the air, waved by the snaking tentacle. A sound reminiscent of the wings of a multitude of insects, and the crunching sound of bent fingers starts raising from the dog’s body. Black is a salt statue, as he watches petrified the beast standing on his hind legs. Reddish appendages sprout out of the brown fur on its chest, they seem like earthworms which burst out from the animal’s skin.

Jennings is about ten meters from Black who, overcome by terror, watches helplessly at the metamorphosis of the creature.

“Black, for God’s sake, Black! Come away, get away!”, shouts Jennings while pointing his gun at the animal, quickly opening fire. The shots hit the beast in the chest, but new tentacles pop out of the holes, and they start whipping the air with a whistling sound. With a hideous noise of fabric that tears apart, the dog’s chest rips in two lengthwise. White ribs protrude from the reddish meat and spread out like the leaves of a giant carnivorous plant. Something stirs inside, an amorphous mass that is constantly changing, vaguely resembling a human head with horrific proportions. That twisted mouth emits a long and terrifying whine. Black seems to rouse for a moment, and he hints a half-step back, but the creature is faster than him and it jumps on the soldier. The ribs of what was formerly a dog lock on themselves, trapping the top half of the man in a deadly embrace that knocks him to the ground.

Stu and Ralph join Jennings, who stretches his arms as if to keep them at bay.

“Stay back, stay back, damn it!”

“Black!”, shouts Ralph while loading the bullet in the chamber of his assault rifle. “Black!”

“What the fuck is that thing?”, the voice of Stu is keen with terror.

Black’s legs flap like shaken by electric current, a hoarse gurgle emerges from the writhing obscene mass. Awful eyes open on its surface to stare at the three survivors.

Aware of the ineluctable fate of their mate, the party opens fire, targeting the abomination with their weapons.

The monstrosity shakes, letting out chilling verses from the many mouths and cavities that appear continuously on its back, out of which the head of a dog starts to form. It takes shape like a plant growing in real time.

A yellowish liquid stream hits the ground a few centimeters in front of Jennings’ boots, which pushes the other two soldiers back.

“Get away, these weapons won’t work! They won’t fucking work!”

The three men step back while keeping shooting at the monstrosity that is constantly changing in front of their astonished eyes.

“Let’s see how you like this, you bastard!”, shouts Stu while throwing an incendiary grenade to the creature. The bomb bounces on the monster’s back and falls close to the only still visible leg of Black. The limb of the soldier keeps struggling on the ground, stretching and twisting like a snake, raising puffs of sand.

The soldiers dive to the ground, just before the grenade explodes into a flaming cloud that ravages the body of the beast, enveloping it in a deadly embrace. The screams issued by the shapeless burning mass are chilling.

The creature stirs for long moments, violently writhing in the sand. Then its movements become slowly less frantic, until it collapses and stays motionless.

Suddenly, just silence is left, broken by the nervous crackle of the flames that devour the remains.

The three look at the scene as if hypnotized.

Jennings is the first to rouse, turning to the others. “Stu, get in contact with Seagull, now! Ralph, see if you can contact the base, let’s hurry to join the others!”

USA BASE CNT222

Emily Moore has just finished updating Alexander Ivanov on the results of her analysis of the blood of the young Ahmed and of the wounded soldier. “I think that’s all”, she concludes.

Ivanov just nods, staying silent and watching her with a faraway look. After a while the silence between them starts to become awkward, so she turns to store the vials containing the liquid sample in a freezer. At that moment he seems to wake up from his cogitations. “You’re very smart, Dr. Moore, you made a good job. However due to this particular situation, your analysis may not be… enough.”

Ivanov goes on before she can answer. “I would take another test which, although not orthodox, is nevertheless effective enough, given the nature of the being with which we are probably dealing with. Let’s start with the boy, since he entered the crash site’s area first. If his blood is positive to the infection – God forbid – we have two big problems to handle.”

That said, the man puts on a pair of protective gloves, then he moves his hand towards the scientist, taking the vial containing the blood taken from Ahmed. He takes out a tiny quantity with a syringe, then he pours immediately the liquid into a glass Petri dish. “Stay sharp now.”

Using a long metal forceps, Ivanov puts the capsule over the flame of a Bunsen burner. The blood heats up, begins to smoke, then sizzles, turning into a brownish coal lump. A sickening stench, typical of burnt flesh, spreads in the laboratory.

“So you think this proves that the boy isn’t infected?” asks Moore with a hint of sarcasm.

“Well, this test worked for some time, in the first period of our research. Nonetheless, as I already mentioned, the creature evolves, it learned to… sacrifice – so to say – a part of itself, just to ensure that the most of its body has a chance to survive. For greater certainty, we will take another test. Tell me doctor, do we have something like a taser or some device that generates a violent electrical discharge?”

“Not that I know…”, replies the woman. Her gaze meets for a moment that of Juan Vasquez. The soldier left by Macready to attend to the woman’s orders stays a few meters away, his arms are folded and he is leaning with his shoulder against the wall. As his eyes meet those of the woman he makes an imperceptible negative sign with his head. She goes on. “…anyway I’m afraid that, given the circumstances, this is out of the question, Dr. Ivanov.”

The man raises his eyebrows, a look that is a mixture of exasperation and disapproval. “I understand. In this case I guess we’ll have to improvise with what is available here. At the present state of my knowledge, the best test is to subject a tissue sample to a non-lethal electrical discharge, but still strong and prolonged. This – so to say – jams something in that remote and unfathomable part of the organism that dictates its behavioral syntax. Its mind, although I believe that the meaning that we usually give to this term is overly simplistic in this case.

However there’s another way, though personally I think it’s another barbaric solution against a being endowed with a certain intelligence. You see, the fire acts violently, burning a large number of cells at the same time because the high heat also kills the deep layers of tissue. Death is relatively quick.”

Seeing the puzzled look of Moore, Ivanov clarifies his thoughts: “How to say… One thing is to withstand extreme pain that lasts a few seconds and kills you. Another is to resist such an intense and prolonged pain that wears you down without destroying you quickly. The creatures are somehow connected between them, and I believe th at this is what also provides their ability to retain DNA information gathered from so many different species. The mother organism, that is, the one from which the sample was drawn, perceives everything. In the three decades spent studying the creature, we conducted an incredible number of tests to be absolutely certain of this. Increased heart rate, sweating, dilated pupils… It, however, evolved quickly, and learned how to resist and keep control of itself, although this depends very much on the size, animal species, and finally on the character and nature of the treated and replicated subject.”

“Character and nature?”, intervenes Moore. “Do you mean that you made tests on human beings?”

The man sighs, as if to suppress a painful memory. “Not willingly. After seeing what the creature is able to do with simple laboratory animals, and how dangerous and difficult their containment is, no one would ever want to deal with a mass greater than that of an infected lab-mice, believe me. Let alone a human being. Anyway, fate decided otherwise…”

Ivanov doesn’t wait for an answer, he begins to work with several bottles of chemicals. Moore however is not inclined to miss the chance to learn more. “What happened?”

He raises an eyebrow, looking up from the containers with which he is working. Their eyes meet. “We made an error. The same one that claimed the life of the men and women of the Norwegian camp… The one that sealed the fate of the American expedition, thirty years ago, and the same you all will make today as well… We underestimated it.”

The man turns to mix different reagents, as if to imply that the conversation is over. However, there are several things on which Moore has been brooding since their last meeting.

“Is there any way to prepare a vaccine or a cure?”

The scientist shakes his head, unsure. “I don’t know yet, Dr. Moore. I can tell you that there is a kind of treatment that has initially yielded some encouraging results. But like I said, the creature learns quickly and I can’t rule o ut that it will resist also this new procedure.”

The man notes her questioning look , a silent encouragement to continue. “Ever since I realized the real power of the creature, I started to regularly take a quantity of a modified molecule of potassium cyanide developed in our laboratories. In small doses, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be here talking about it. Over time, by increasing the amount taken periodically I developed some resistance, up to levels that would kill instantly another human being. I know that the creature can perfectly replicate the DN A. This however isn’t altered by the procedure, and my DNA doesn’t include natural resistance to high doses of poison, the same way that in the DNA of a child there isn’t any information about calluses or scars that he may develop if, when adult, he was to be a blacksmith, or the muscles that he will build taking anabolic steroids and doing body-building, although the underlying DNA is still mostly uncharted territory. The individual cells of the creature are sensitive to this venom. Experimenting with laboratory animals we saw that, in the presence of this substance, the creature immediately cease assimilation, however it needs just a single cell to have the whole DNA information of its prey and if necessary it’ll be able to replicate it. In any case, this treatment won’t ensure immunity from the most violent dynamics of the assimilation process.”

Ivanov notices the suspicious gaze of the woman.

Understandably, no one believes until he sees it with his very eyes…

“I know, it’s a desperate solution, but believe me, Dr. Moore, if only you had seen at least one small part of what I have seen in all those years… I’d rather be unaware of all this. There’s not a single day in which I wished the Norwegians had never found the specimen.”

“The last time we talked you mentioned something about the origins of the organism of which we’re speaking, I remember you used the word creators. What did you mean by that?”

The man lets out a half-smile, as he looks at the petite woman beside him. His hawk eyes take a mild look for a moment or two. He feels empathy for what could be his perfect daughter, and he sees in her spirit his own thirst for knowledge. “You don’t miss anything… I wouldn’t share this information, normally. At least not with someone who hasn’t an access level beyond top secret. You see… society, economy, power, are based on some main structures, first of all the history of mankind and of the planet that hosts us. You are different from most of the people I have met. I can see that you are a pure soul, devoted to science.”

The shy nerd dormant in the heart of Emily Moore takes the upper hand for a moment, and the woman perceives the hated feeling that precedes the blush on her cheeks, so she looks away, focusing on arranging the glassware on the bench in front of them. Ivanov pushes a switch that turns on a fume hood, then he proceeds to mix substances in a two-liter flask, a few drops at a time, causing a slight effervescence. After some seconds, the Russian resumes talking to her. “The implications of what I am about to say may undermine the very foundations of the world that you know… But I am getting old, and some weights are too big to carry on your shoulders alone.”

“Please, go a head”, she says.

The man sighs, but seems convinced. “Well, I have already made you aware that the paleontologist we found died of hypothermia. She mentioned the wreckage of an alien ship found in the ice. In the following years we tried to find it, but our attempts were fruitless. Previously, however – I mean a few years before finding the body of the paleontologist – we made another important discovery. Something far beyond imagination. At that time one of our expeditions was set in a very cold and remote area in Antarctica. It was a mountainous plateau at about 4000 meters: the Dome Argus. In some places the ice sheet covering the continent was thinner, so our men managed to dig tunnels to reach the underlying rocky layer, to collect samples. During one of the perforations, a big piece of ice gave way suddenly, causing a landslide and the death of two men who were never found. There, however, we found that a large section of the underlying rocky surface had been freed, and at that point there was a cave. At first the explorers thought that the shape of the opening, an almost perfect triangle, was an oddity of nature, but when they reached it, they found that it had an artificial origin. I was immediately contacted and sent to verify the eventual presence of traces of life forms dating back to very ancient times. I won’t bore you with the details of the perfectly smooth structure or the spectacular dimensions. I’ll tell you that we went inside the cave. It was a triangular shaped corridor that went deep into the heart of the mountains. As we proceeded we had to remove odd ice obstructions, each time older. After a distance that we estimated at about six miles, the tunnel opened into what at first sight looked like a huge underground cave. Later we found that it was not a natural cavity, but a cuboid room. The size was colossal and its sides in perfect proportion to the first three square numbers.”

A break follows Ivanov’s last words, while he checks the acidity of the liquid that he is mixing, using a pH meter.

“An artificial structure in the heart of Antarctica? How is such a thing possible?”, asks Moore, somewhat doubtful whether Ivanov is making fun of her or not.

He keeps describing the room buried deep in Antarctic mountains, apparently ignoring her question. “From our analysis, the ice crystallization found in the chamber had an approximate age of not less than five hundred million years, although I personally think that it was older, almost double that.”

For a moment, Moore’s eyes seem to become enormous, to emphasize that huge time interval.

Ivanov smiles at her stupor. “Wait to wonder, I haven’t even told you the best. The walls of that huge room were entirely carved in exquisite bas-reliefs. They described the history of a race, highly developed creatures coming from outer space, who had visited this planet in an extremely remote age. They mastered bio-engineering, and created complex life forms on this planet. At the center of the room, there was a kind of low stone fence, perfectly circular.”

Ivanov’s gaze moves inside again, while describing memories and feelings of the extraordinary discovery. “I remember that day like it’s yesterday. I was the first to cross the threshold of that stone fence, shortly followed by my dear and unfortunate friend, Yuri. It was like stepping into an area where the atmosphere was almost as dense as being liquid. I could feel a sort of clicking on my skin, as if the clothes were charged with tiny electrostatics. I perceived a distinctly sour taste in my mouth, like when you touch the poles of a battery with the tip of your tongue, to check whether it’s fully charged o r not. The air before my eyes quickly began to take a slight bluish glow and an ozone smell. The strang e phenomenon grew up in intensity till it turned the place around me in a completely white world. After the first terrible moments of disorientation, a new universe took shape. Scenes came to life, and they were not just holograms. I could feel the wind, the smells, the warmth of the sun on my face. At first my point of view was from the upper atmosphere, as if I came from space. I remember that I recognized our planet, and I realized that the morphology of oceans and land surfaces was quite different than today. I cried as I realized I was staring at a still virgin Earth, ancient and unspoiled. Time didn’t flow in the usual way, the visions – or should I say the memories – flowed in me like high-speed transmitted packets. I saw the arrival of strange creatures on this planet. Their appearance was monstrous, and the way they manifested themselves was always in some way infused with the same feature. Everywhere, in architectural structures, in ships, in the furnishings, there was a radial starry geometry. The creatures communicated with what people would call a form of telepathy, or distance communication without the help of any visible machine. I personally think they were using very low frequency sounds to communicate, because I remember well that I experienced the feeling of strong vibrations that shook my body to the core. While scrolling through time at amazing speed, I saw those beings create immense cities in the deep sea bottom and on the land surface. They mastered genetic engineering and were capable to instill the spirit of life into inanimate organic material. They created the first plant and animal life forms on the planet, populating the continent they had chosen and launching entire ecosystems, aimed at the production of food and raw materials. They used specially designed creatures to build their immense megalithic constructions. These creatures were amorphous protoplasmic masses, which could be molded to shape limbs and new weird life forms, following the directives imposed by the influences of their creators. It was a magnificent world, clean, but at the same time terrifying. In my journey I saw beings that don’t appear in the history books or in museums, some of them were created for utility, others for purposes that we may define funny. I saw whole forests of trees with colossal proportions, far bigger than today’s giant sequoia.

Then, in that sort of alien golden age, something happened that deeply marked the history of the planet itself. Apparently some kind of accident happened in one of the facilities where the protean organisms were genetically designed and created. Something escaped the control of the genetic engineers and the protoplasmic creatures underwent an uncontrolled evolution, soon gaining their own awareness and intelligence. Very quickly they became unmanageable. There was a kind of rebellion, followed by a war between both races. It lasted for thousands of years, with terrible losses on both fronts. The mucilaginous beings were fin ally exterminated, and only few of them managed to escape hiding in the volcanic caves of the underground and into the deep of the mountains. In a desperate attempt to resolve the war once and for all, the creators drew upon them their most fearsome technology. Through the use of this technology, far beyond our actual knowledge, they altered the Earth’s axis, causing the lush land that had once been their first home to become the actual Antarctica. This caused enormous upheavals in the earth’s crust, a global catastrophe that caused the extinction of many animal species that they themselves had created.

The creators themselves lost much of their knowledge and they risked extinction.

Think about it… in geographic and star maps carved by the creators along the walls, this planet was depicted with not one, but three moons, and the orbit of that area of the solar system that we call “asteroid belt” was occupied by fewer asteroids than today, but almost as big as planetoids.

In my journey through millions of years of the planet’s history, I saw as the creators had calculated that a swarm of comets would have traveled through the asteroids belt that stood between Mars and Jupiter. The percentage of hitting the bigger planetoids was extremely high. The following chain reaction would have caused strong upheavals in the inner solar system. Scientists of that magnificent race calculated that many debris would hit the Earth, causing a new planetary catastrophe. They didn’t have the possibility to avoid this occurrence, so they prepared to depart, leaving this region of space. Most of them went toward the constellation we later identified as that of the Pleiades. Just small detachments remained on Earth. If they survived to the looming disaster, they would make sure that life on the planet would keep existing, waiting to start over and re-create the conditions for the return of their people. Their last vestiges were concealed in huge cities carved deep into the earth’s crust, in the bottom of the ocean abyssal plains and on top of the highest and remote mountains. Some of them survived, and I think it’s plausible that they can still be alive today.

I felt like having traveled and lived for an unbelievable long time, and when I saw one of our moons hitting the planet, looking at the devastation that followed, it was too much for my mind, and I lost consciousness.

Later on I woke up in a bed in the infirmary of our base. Yuri and I were in a sorry state. The icy cold of the continent seemed to have penetrated to our bones. Shooting pains in the joints prevented the slightest movement. It took months of grueling rehabilitation sessions to even stand up and walk. Then I learned that our men dragged Yuri and me out of the stone fence. I believe that there was still some kind of an active force field within it, a form of energy that projected in our minds the testimony left for us by the beings from the outer space. My friend had also the same experience, and he was never the same from that day on. We realized that, of the eight members who made up our group, just me and Dmitriev had experienced that kind of hallucination. The phenomenon did not repeat when we or somebody else entered the stone fence. We were never able to determine what was the technology that had caused it. Whatever it was, it performed its job and turned itself off. In spite of our perceptions, we stood inside the area subject to the force field for no longer than a few seconds.

This is, briefly, what happened. Of course I’m omitting all the details that we could learn later from the engravings that adorned the walls of that time-capsule.

Now, let’s come back to our subject. I can only hazard a hypothesis about how things went, because as I already told you we could not find the alien ship described by the paleontologist. However, the creature that I had the opportunity to study for all this time is all too similar to the engineered creatures that I’ve seen thanks to the technology of the creators. My idea is that the plummeting alien ship penetrated deep into the ice, triggering a small earthquake in the area and reaching, perhaps, the rocky substrate. This disruption may have attracted to the surface one or more of those monstrous beings which adapted to survive in the bowels of the continent, harboring an ancestral hatred and developing a kind of xenophobia towards all beings from outer space… or at least from the surface. Millions of years had passed since their creation, and although isolated in the bowels of a desert continent, they might have undergone further evolution, sharpening their ability to take any shape or, as in our case, to replicate that of another living things. The evidence I have seen with my own eyes forces me to think that they have developed a form of intelligence and a deep awareness, far superior to those of humans.

When you have the time, if you like it, read something by Lovecraft. That man has somehow managed to access diaries of old expeditions, or who knows… maybe he came in contact with something like that stone fence we found, and his mind reached ancient truths. The fact is that, in one of his stories, he described something very similar to what we have perceived and somehow lived in our skin.

Those immense cities, their incomprehensible technology, millions of years of world history, the answers to many of our questions… Everything is still there, hidden in the darkness of the eternal ice, waiting for someone to bring them back to light again.

Now let’s go on with our visitor. Our solvent is ready.”

Totally enraptured by the words of Ivanov, Moore has almost forgotten where they are and what they’re doing. The woman shakes her head, as if to recover from a period of absence.

“It’s an interesting story Dr. Ivanov…”

“It’s much more than that, Doctor. It’s the plain truth, believe me. Although I myself, even tough I lived it personally, struggle to believe it sometimes. I wish I had doubts… I could take refuge in the belief that it was a hallucination caused by hypothermia. But the sculptures in the room were there to confirm that everything was real. Anyway, please consider this an extremely confidential and dangerous information. In the world there are some who are well aware of these truths, and they will always make sure that these secrets remain such. At any cost. But let’s go on. Please tell me, have you identified the compound that I’ve just made?”

Recovering, the woman adjusts her glasses, back to focus on the instruments before them. “I’ve seen that you used concentrated hydrochloric acid, and fuming nitric acid, in a ratio of three to one”, she says. It’s what ancient alchemists called Aqua Regia, a powerful corrosive that can dissolve even gold, which is notoriously resistant to common acids. You also used a salt, the ammonium chloride, which is composed of the same elements of the solvent, probably to absorb the aqueous fraction in excess and make the solution even sharper.”

“Ten out of ten doctor. Now, please, give me the test tube with the boy’s blood, stay back and watch carefully.”

The woman takes the vial, surprised by the slight trembling of her hand, and delivers it to Ivanov. She feels anxious for the story she just heard, and for the man as well, who is looking haunted again.

The Russian turns a knob at the bottom of the Bunsen burner, setting the flame to the maximum. The gas burning produces a roaring noise, like a miniature jet, and the light emitted by the flame creates grotesque shadows on Ivanov’s face, giving him an even more disturbing and bizarre appearance.

The scientist pours half of the corrosive solution in a tall glass beaker, then removes the cap of the vial with the blood of Ahmed and without even pouring the content, he puts the vial in the acid solution. “Be careful now”, says the Russian in a low voice while holding the Bunsen burner.

He pushes down the tube with a tiny glass rod, to make it sink in the acid, leaving a red trail. For a while nothing happens, and the woman is just starting to think that the scientist has really got a screw loose when the tube has a start. Attacked by the acid, the blood begins to sizzle and throws itself outside the vial, thereby forming a roughly spherical lump. The woman looks in amazement as the mass of blood takes a spiral shape, squirms like a worm, and moves in the acid toward the glass container wall , then it rises to the surface, emerges and crawls over the edge. At the top, the tiny creature that vaguely resembles a leech, shrinks, again taking a spherical shape that slides down on the outside of the glass to reach the table. The tiny dark clump grows, swelling up to take on a rounded shape, about the size of a walnut. The acid on its surface keeps sizzling for a while, letting out a stream of reddish and acrid smoke.

Nothing more seems to happen, and Moore turns a quizzical look to Ivanov, who doesn’t take his eyes away from the tiny lump, which has now taken a dry appearance.

“Don’t get distracted”, whispers the man. “It sacrificed a part of its own flesh to create an outer shell capable to stop the acid. It’s something that I saw it doing dozens of times. Look carefully no w.”

After a half minute during which nothing happens, suddenly the little dark walnut has a start. With a sharp crackling, an irregular line appears on the surface, which slowly ex pands into a crack, while slender antennas as thin as hair emerge, moving slowly in the air and probing the white surface of the table. After a few moments they retract inside, then a trickle of reddish flesh leaks out, slipping on the shelf and collecting in an amorphous roughly spheroidal mass.

A cry dies in Moore’s throat, while she looks at a tiny mouth equipped with fangs that is opening longitudinally and is giving a shrill sound. At the same time, rough and slender appendages as tiny as toothpicks burst from everywhere, bending with small pops to produce rough joints and hardening in segmented legs with which the little creature moves uncertainly on the table surface. A blackish compound eye emerges from a pseudo-pod that sprouted sideways, and it seems to look at the scene around it like a periscope. Then, with a flick, the creature moves, running on asymmetric limbs, progressing awkwardly toward the woman, who backs away terrified when…

With a quick gesture Ivanov heads the beak of the Bunsen burner on the little monster, setting it on fire. The tiny being shakes, trying to avoid the flame while its flesh sizzles and gets smaller in size. Like a balloon that collapses, it shortly becomes a small patch of burnt organic matter.

The soldier Vasquez, who kept staying in the background until then, merely casually monitoring the two scientists, observed the scene. An incredulous and bewildered look is stamped on his face.

Moore and Ivanov look each other, the woman terrified by the knowledge that the story of the Russian might really not be the lie that she secretly hoped it was.

“My God”, she stammers. “This means that…”

“The boy isn’t human anymore, and we can say the same thing for the wounded soldier”, replies the man, while collecting the charred remains of the creature with tweezers, and dropping them into the container with the corrosive solution.

Vasquez approaches the two with suspicion, his face is pale as he tries to get into contact with the two soldiers guarding Ahmed’s cell. “They don’t respond, dammit! Neither Major Macready!”

“Let’s hurry”, says Moore. “Take us to the room where you hold the boy!”

The soldier won’t be asked twice. The three walk out of the soundproof lab and run through the two long corridors that separate them from the room where they hope to find Ahmed.

When they reach the door they notice the absence of the two guards. They turn the corner of the corridor to look inside the room through the side window.

Their bewilderment is equal to the anguish and terror they feel when, turned the corner, they face a gruesome scene. The observation window is broken from the inside. On the ground and on the walls are large splashes of blood and whitish mucus. There is no trace of the guards that were standing there.

HELICOPTER CRASH SITE

Men in bio-hazard suits work frantically around the carcass of the CH-47. The flames swirl violently, producing a thick dark pillar of smoke.

The nervous voices of the men mix with the noise of the CO_2 fire-extinguishers’ jets struggling against the roaring flames.

The aircraft crashed for no apparent reason, about two thirds of the distance between the location of the plane disaster and the US base. No messages, no requests for assistance. The military found it quickly by the smoke rising from the burning wreckage.

They take a good dozen minutes to extinguish the fire. Once done, the soldiers must wait until the temperature drops down to tolerable limits. The area is fogg y because of the haze generated by the fire extinguishers, which disappears slowly despite the heat of the daylight.

The helicopter has broken into two main pieces, which had dug deep furrows in the sand. One of the big propeller blades pops out from the side of a low dune, distant one hundred meters.

The aircraft’s tail appears emptied; the crates with the equipment and other objects are strewn on the ground, scattered over a wide radius.

The shape of the cabin is practically intact. A few sharp blades along the edge are the remnant of the windshield, now crumbled. Everything is charred.

The spectacle before the rescuers, as the fog clears, leaves no doubt about the causes that led to this new tragedy. The interior looks like it came from a grotesque version of a painting by Salvador Dali. The plastic parts are melted and deformed, making a sort of caricature of their original appearance. However, this is not what fills the witnesses of the scene with a silent dismay.

They can clearly see the bodies of two men at the controls. From the face of one of them it is still possible to recognize the pilot of the aircraft. The man’s mouth is frozen in an expression of anguish and pain. His chest is raised as a careened sternum, and a gash in the suit shows the snarling face of a creature that should not exist. The other body is unrecognizable and disfigured. It has three arms, one of which pops out from the right side of the basin and is horribly distorted. The neck is bent backward and stretched, to fade into a huge amorphous and bulbous mass, that holds together both the unfortunate passengers. Bizarre shapes appear on its surface… Distorted faces, human clumsy-looking limbs, aberrant appendages that resemble parts of an insect and unrecognizable structures that seem to blend the kingdoms of nature.

“…Matt Serum, medical unit, said the helicopter was carrying part of the recovered remains, and six of our soldiers, including Waters, the medical officer”, says one of the soldiers, holding back the urge to vomit. “No communication, no SOS.”

His words, however, don’t reach the conscious sphere of Macready. Thoughtful and absent, he looks at the scene through the visor of his bio-hazard suit.

Ironside is next to him, a mixture of conflicting emotions stirring on his face. “What is the current situation at the site of the crash of the Boeing?”, he asks the soldier.

“Men have almost finished loading the remains on one of the trucks, they should…”

“NO!”, Ironside interrupts him abruptly. “Contact them immediately, order them to incinerate anything that can burn. Make sure that no trace is left of the bodies, then make sure that the soldiers haste to go back to the base as soon as possible. No one must be left alone, tell them to move in groups of three people.”

The soldier seems to falter, throwing quick glances at Major Macready, as if awaiting confirmation of the newly received orders.

“This is an order, for Christ’s sake!”, adds Ironside raising his voice. The soldier moves away, when another marine, coming from the vehicle with TLC instrumentation, approaches running, turning to Macready.

“Sir, sergeant Jennings is on line. He asked to speak to you, he says it’s urgent.”

No reply.

“Sir!”, the marine raises his voice, to call to mind the Major. This one turns slowly towards him, his eyes have a faraway look, as if staring at another portion of the universe from an infinite distance.

Without a word, Macready walks towards the military communications vehicle that is about thirty meters ahead, shortly followed by Ironside.

USA BASE CNT222

The door leading to the cafeteria and the recreational area on the second level of the base slide to its side, revealing a back-lit curvy figure.

“A-ha, that’s a good one!”

Constantine Delgado steps out, smiling to an exchange of jokes with the cleaners who are working near two vending machines. The woman crosses the threshold holding a big plastic cup of dark and fragrant coffee, she heads to the left, toward the elevator.

The base is strangely silent. Almost all the military personnel is at work somewhere on the desert surface. The only people left inside are those busy in the warehouse, the cleaners, those guarding the armory, the plants technicians and a few others. The empty and lifeless corridors seem almost surreal.

A cigarette on the surface is what it takes… She thinks while walking toward the elevator.

The cabin is open and there’s a man inside, fiddling with the controls. He wears a bio-hazard protective suit, his face is hidden by a mask with a dark visor. The woman is just a couple of meters from the opening and hints a hello to the figure inside, which ignores her and keeps pressing the buttons repeatedly. Delgado doesn’t have time to make another step because the sliding doors close, leaving her at the floor.

What an asshole…

Delgado presses a couple of times the button to call back the elevator, watching the red LED display switching from two to three. Whoever it was, he headed to the third floor, the deeper one.

Why such a hurry?

The harmonious silhouette of the woman contrasts with the white surface of the sliding doors while waiting for the cabin to come back to her floor. After a moment a hissing sound tells her that the elevator is moving again. Anyway, it doesn’t stop at her floor, the cabin proceeds upwards, keeping moving in front of her eyes. Constantine feels impatient, and presses the call button again, wondering what criteria they used to program the elevator’s stopping priorities.

How was that old saying: the other queue always goes faster…

A distant rustling, mixed with the sound of several quick steps, makes her turn around.

A group of soldiers pops out of the curve of the corridor. Everyone is wearing bio-hazard suits, like the man who was in the elevator a few seconds earlier, although these ones carry assault rifles.

It must be the team that arrived with the jet along with the two civilians…

The woman turns to the elevator, which is slow in coming, as the footsteps of the soldiers behind her get closer, finally stopping just behind her.

She already had a chance to take a glimpse of the newcomers. Taciturn individuals, with dark and gloomy looks. People who lived in hellish situations, losing each time a part of their humanity. They are only five now, and Constantine doesn’t remember having seen the others around, after their arrival.

They may be somewhere else in the area…

Or maybe the others are in the armory, on the third basement, where that other has just gone…

They probably split into two teams that operate in shifts…

Even if… they don’t have the look of people used to things like working hours…

How long does it take to get here?

She doesn’t like too much the idea of having those G.I. Joe behind her. Not a gesture, not a greeting, and she is aware of their eyes x-raying her from head to toes behind their darkened visors. She takes a sip of coffee, to dampen the waiting, focusing on its taste.

A beep signals the arrival at the floor. The elevator opens slowly and, with relief, Constantine steps forward to enter.

The woman has just made a step when a figure comes out of the cabin, bumping violently on her and making her spill the coffee on the ground.

What the fuck?!?

The man clings with one hand to her shoulder, leaning with his weight and pushing her off balance. Delgado reacts instinctively, putting her feet down and balancing her legs to support the weight of the man.

She looks at him, recognizing him as Desmond Majo, a black giant from Detroit, one of the two soldiers that were guarding the Berber boy found near the crash site.

“Help me Delgado!”, he whispers, almost gasping, turning to the woman he has clung with one hand. He tightens his abdomen.

She supports him, experiencing a feeling of moist heat on one hand. Delgado turns to the soldiers behind her. These have taken a step back, raising their guns. “What the hell are you looking at? Give me a hand!”

The soldiers don’t move, merely pointing assault rifles at the woman and the man who exited the elevator.

“He is wounded! Shit, what’s up with you?!?” She blurts.

At a gesture from one of the soldiers, two of them drop their guns and approach to help the man. Delgado steps away, looking at her bloody hands. She feels a persisting heat. Her palms burn, as if she has just touched something very hot for too long. “Let’s get him to the infirmary”, she exclaims, leading the soldiers to a door, just past the corner of the corridor.

The soldiers carry the wounded man. They quickly follow Delgado and put down the soldier on a stretcher, then hurry to leave the infirmary stepping outside with their weapons ready. Inside there is only one of them left: their leader.

Meanwhile the woman tries to clean her hands as best as she can on a big roll of paper towels. Disappointed by the inexplicable behavior of the team of soldiers, she promises herself to report to Redmond about this. Then she turns to provide assistance to the injured man.

“Desmond, what happened?”, asks the woman, while rummaging in a locker to retrieve a first aid kit.

“I don’t know, I don’t fucking know. Aah!”

“Hold still, here… Rest your head here. Leave it to me now, I got it.”

The man tells what happened with delirious voice interrupted occasionally by strained verses.

“That little bastard broke the handcuffs and stood up. He pulled off his hood and approached the observation glass. He was standing there, motionless staring at us for I don’t know how long. No eyelid beating and it seemed he was not breathing either. Then… suddenly he started to shiver… to slam… Something…”, says the injured soldier in one breath, while grimacing in pain. “Something popped out of that guy… It broke through the glass grabbing Syd.”

Man coughs, spitting a lump of bloody mucus. His voice sounds hoarse as he goes on. “I tried to help him, but that… that…”. Another coughing, while the man crouches moaning, seized by violent spasms. “I don’t know what the hell it was but it was weird and pissed off! It hit me! That son of a bitch hit me!”

Hearing those words, the soldier leading the squad of military in bio-hazard suits turns and walks out to join the team. The group of soldiers walks away, heading quickly toward the elevator.

Delgado stays with Majo. The man rests on the stretcher and seems to have lost consciousness.

She takes a sharp scissors, and quickly cuts the uniform of the wounded man to access his skin.

Disgust draws on her face, while looking at a deep laceration with jagged edges that pierces the abdomen of the man just on the left of his navel, going up to the right side of the chest.

Trying to ignore the burning feeling that still grips her hands, Delgado takes a bottle of disinfectant, pouring enough on the wound. The man’s skin contracts when the liquid touches it. A soft gurgling sounds inside.

Without noticing it, the woman hastes to prepare the necessary to suture the wound. Her fingers have lost all feeling.

After a number of unsuccessful attempts, everything is ready to fix Majo’s abdomen. Using a sterile gauze, the woman tries to lift one of the edges of the wound, to align them before suturing.

However, a movement catches her eye.

Something pale stirs for a moment inside the wound, like a muscle that contracts due to a spasm.

The woman slowly and gently rests her hands on the wound’s edges, enlarging them just enough to expose the underlying tissue. Stifling her disgust she observes what looks like a tiny whitish sphere, no bigger than a golf ball. The surface is clear and translucent, and she can see something moving fluttering inside.

Under the astonished gaze of Delgado, thin capillaries draw on the bulbous surface, while a darker area seems to move up, surfacing from the inside and taking shape on the top. The wonder quickly gives way to horror when she realizes that the strange globular mass is rapidly taking the shape of a human eye.

Unable to formulate a thought, Constantine observes the appearance of an iris pigmentation with a greenish color gradient. Shortly thereafter a pupil emerges, small at first, then quickly expanding to fill almost the entire iris. Then it narrows as disturbed by the light. Then the body of the eye is complete and comes to life, moving quickly as if to scan at the environment around it.

The woman lets out a cry of anguish, realizing that she has completely lost the sensitivity of the hands and arms up to the elbow. Despite her efforts she is unable to look away from the mutation in the flesh of the wounded colleague.

The eye formed in the abdomen of the unconscious soldier quickly darts in different directions, finally staring at her. It watches her for a long moment, during which she realizes that behind that eye something superhuman has just become aware of her presence. The man’s body begins to shake with violent convulsions.

In a panic, she takes a few steps backward until her back hits the infirmary door. She turns, raising her right hand to press the internal release control, but at the sight of her own hand she is petrified.

The limb is swollen and distorted. The fingers seem to have come to a life of their own and they are moving, surging and bending in such absurd angles as to tear deep into her palm.

At that moment the lights in the base go off completely, plunging the entire floor in total darkness.

A hoarse moan comes from the man lying on the stretcher behind her…

ALGERIAN DESERT

On the trail of the raiders

Sergeant Kain Seagull looks at the desert through binoculars, focusing the instrument on a tiny dot in the distance between the dunes. He is the first to sight the white jeep used by the raiders. “Eleven o’clock, Jeff”, he communicates to the driver, who promptly steers, heading to that direction.

Their vehicle slows to a stop about three hundred meters from the other car. Seagull inspects it through his binoculars, while on the roof of the military vehicle, Will Bailey watches the same scene through the viewfinder of his inseparable M82. The vision is shaky, due to the extreme heat of the blazing sun.

“Will, can you see anything?”

“Negative, the car seems abandoned in place. No suspicious movement around.”

“Keep your eyes wide open. Jeff, let’s move carefully, it may be an ambush.”

At that moment, electrostatic discharges emerge from their intercom. For some seconds they hear voices, but the signal is disturbed and makes them incomprehensible.

“Roger, what the hell was that?”, Seagull asks to the fourth marine, a lanky guy with traces of juvenile acne, the communications officer.

“I have a poor radio signal. I think it was the voice of Jennings, but I can neither contact him nor the base.”

“Holy shit!”, says Seagull annoyed. “Keep trying, it may be important.”

* * *

Meanwhile, the Humvee carrying the team led by Jennings jumps, while Ralph tries desperately a compromise between speed and safety, driving on a very bumpy ground made from sand and rocks.

Jennings lets out a series of expletives, while trying to establish contact with Seagull’s team.

The horrible death of Christer Black has had a profound effect on their mental state. They have experience in the field, they have witnessed previously the death of many others. However, the brutal, grotesque and horrifying unexpected episode they have just experienced brought them into a new territory. An unexplored elsewhere where the only certainty is that they are no longer on top of the food chain. A new universe of fear and uncertainty with which they have to live hoping to bring back home their skin.

The encounter with the creature was something that none of them could ever be ready for.

Sergeant Gold Jennings hoped that Major Macready could somehow have some reassuring answers.

But this was unlikely. On the contrary, while he spoke, describing what happened to Black, he had the feeling that the man on the other side of the communication system was as shocked as he was.

“Report to Seagull immediately”, Macready replied. “You have to reach the jeep driven by those men – or what the hell they have become – before they can reach inhabited areas with human beings or animals. Don’t try to catch them in any way. It’s imperative to exterminate them. Use fire, you have to incinerate all trace of them. I will send a support team with the other helicopter as soon as possible. I want updates every 5 minutes.”

Since then, Jennings team is trying to contact the other car, without success.

USA BASE CNT222

“They can’t have vanished into thin air, and they have not gone very far either. I can’t see any traces to the elevator. They are still on this floor”, says Vasquez, watching the two scientists as seeking confirmation.

Moore and Ivanov exchange a meaningful look. Both came to the same conclusion. It’s the Russian speaking, addressing the soldier and giving voice to the thoughts of both. “The tiny being that we have seen in the lab was just a fragment of the body of the boy that you held in this room. It’s not human, and it’s able to replicate the shape of his victims.” Vasquez seems suspicious and uncertain, as if talking to a fool. The eyes of the young soldier bounces between the woman’s and the doctor’s face, looking for a reflection of his own thoughts, but the face of the doctor seems to confirm that the Russian is telling the truth. The latter continues, ignoring the disbelief of the soldier. “The guards are gone, there are splashes of blood. It’s reasonable to think that it has attacked and assimilated both of them.”

“Are you saying that my colleagues, my friends, are dead, that that being has eaten them and now it’s free in the base?”, says Vasquez, pale again.

“That’s right, now it has access to all floors of the structure. We don’t know when it happened, the rooms are soundproofed and we remained in the laboratory for long enough. They could still be on this level, or they could have moved to the other floors. This means that your two colleagues are no longer human and that anyone we will meet from now on is potentially one of those creatures.”

“We need weapons, and we must act now”, the Russian scientist goes on. “Contact Major Macready. Tell him to hold and quarantine anyone who comes out of the elevator on the surface. We will have to test the blood of all. Fire is the only way to kill the creatures, are there any flamethrowers in the base?”

After a moment of hesitation, the soldier shakes his head. “No, not that I know. We are in the Sahara, there is already the sun to burn everything, what good would a flamethrower be in this place? However, there is a supply of grenades, incendiary too. They are in the armory, the deepest floor.”

“We can’t go down there, it’s a suicide”, Moore intervenes. “We must try to get out of here ASAP.”

Ivanov seems to consider various alternatives for a moment, then he nods. “She’s right. The base got compromised. There are at least three of those creatures on the loose: in a few minutes they will have infected the entire staff.”

“We must leave”, Moore adds. “We must reach the surface and seal the base, then we’ll think what to do next.”

Vasquez appears not to believe the words of the woman. “There are a lot of people down here, I know them all, they are all my friends, we can’t leave them behind!”

“Put it this way: your friends are probably dead. They will soon be chasing us, and we are unarmed.” The sharp response of Ivanov earns him a resentful look from the soldier in front of him. Vasquez leads instinctively a hand to his holster.

“That gun will be useless”, Ivanov goes on, pointing with his chin to the gun of the soldier. “You can’t kill by mechanical means something that is able to regenerate itself in real time. You require complete destruction of the cellular activity, and right now only fire can do that.”

At that moment a jingle attracts their attention; the three turn around in unison aiming their frightened looks at the elevator down the corridor. After two long seconds, a beep signals its arrival to their floor, while the red light on the side turns green.

The three are petrified by fear, while the sliding doors start to move, slipping sideways.

ALGERIAN DESERT

On the trail of the raiders

The Humvee carrying Seagull’s team approaches with studied slowness, stopping at twenty meters from the white jeep. The soldiers watch the scene, cautious and almost without breathing. No noise interferes with the slight blow of the hot Saharan wind.

There is no trace of the enemy, their car seems abandoned.

“You stay here, it may be a trap. I’m going to check. Will, cover me.”

With that, Seagull steps down from the military vehicle, walking slowly toward the jeep. The car is apparently intact. It’s been abandoned with the keys still in place. A quick inspection reveals the cause: in the back, next to the reservoir, a large metal fragment protrudes from the twisted metal.

Beyond the jeep a series of footprints proceeds towards the sand sea.

Seagull makes a gesture to the team, signaling them that they can approach.

Bailey yells something, leaning half out of the car and waving to point at a tiny spot behind him, just darker than the sand of the desert.

The three marines quickly head to their vehicle, while the voice of Jennings finally emerges from the forest of electrostatic discharges.

* * *

Ralph directs the vehicle, quickly closing the few hundred meters that separate his team from Seagull’s squad. With consummate skill, the man stops the vehicle about two meters away from the other.

The interrogative faces of Seagull and of the other men under his command turn into masks of disbelief and disgust while Jennings updates them about what happened to their mate.

“Shit, nothing about Ebola… Motherfucking Russians!”, Will Bailey spits in the sand.

“Have you reported to Major Macready?”, Seagull asks.

“He ordered to seek the creatures before they further spread the infection. We must destroy them and burn their bodies to ashes.”

“They won’t be far away, they proceeded on foot. They were left without fuel. A metal fragment pierced the fuel tank of their jeep. It must have happened when the other car exploded.”

“How long can a man walk in the Sahara in broad daylight?”, Stu wanders.

“Those aren’t men anymore”, Jennings echoes.

“Let’s follow them before the wind raises to hide their tracks”, Seagull’s conclusion. “We must find them and kill them before dark.”

At the thought of facing the creatures by night in the desert, an icy shiver runs on their backs. Once back to the vehicles, the soldiers proceed immediately on the trail left by the fugitives.

In the full light of the early afternoon, the footprints of the five men are clearly visible. The soldiers follow them along a straight path leading away from the direction of the rocky areas where there is the Berber village, initially believed to be their goal.

“It makes no sense”, says Jennings, while scanning the horizon to see any signs of their presence. “These tracks are heading to the middle of nowhere…”

After a good half hour, Seagull nods to Jeff, stopping the vehicle: he noticed something on the ground.

The tracks interrupt abruptly in an area where the sand has a darker color and the ground seems loose and uneven.

“What the hell could have happened here?”, Seagull whispers softly, then he adds in the intercom: “Ralph, with me, let’s go and check.”

The two men head with careful step toward the area where the sand appears stirred. The soldiers explore the scene when Ralph sees something. The man emits a snap with his lips, drawing Seagull’s attention, then he bends and he uses the barrel of his assault rifle to pull up something from the ground. Torn rags emerge from the sand. They have dark spots on which the dust has adhered.

“Goddammit…” Ralph bursts, while Seagull watches him pulling other clothing torn to shreds.

Jennings approaches in the meantime. The horrified man recognizing the clothes worn by the robbers and the prisoner.

“Those are their clothes”, it’s all I can say. With his mind’s eyes he keeps seeing the footage retrieved from the camera.

The three men turn to look over the area in which the sand appears loose and come close to its limit.

Like a river flowing from a lake, a clear track departs from the dark sandy spot, into the wilderness.

The track is flanked on both sides by starry prints.

Seagull and Ralph have a bewildered and worried look. It’s the low tone of Jennings that gives voice to their suspicions. “Those monsters… they have turned into something else. Something that can withstand the heat of this desert climate…”

“And it seems pretty damn big”, Seagull adds.

“Son of a bitch…”, Ralph’s conclusion, before spitting another lump of yellowish saliva and partly liquefied tobacco.

USA BASE CNT222

The elevator doors slide sideways; four soldiers in bio-hazard suits armed with assault rifles come out. At the sight of Moore, Vasquez and Ivanov, they arrange themselves on either side of the corridor. With synchronized gestures they kneel and point their guns forward. A fifth soldier follows close behind them, watching the three people that the soldiers hold at gunpoint. Their faces are terrified and surprised, as the soldiers order them to kneel, slowly and with their hands up.

An unknown voice reaches them, made slightly metallic and amplified by a loudspeaker. “Dr. Moore, Dr. Ivanov, I suggest you to cooperate. It’s for your own sake.”

The scientist doesn’t believe her ears.

This can’t be happening to me…

She takes instinctively a step toward the military group, which in reply make a quick gesture with their guns, loading the round in the chamber.

She freezes, uncertain and afraid. “We have a good test!”, her voice cracking with tension. “The three of us are human, we can prove it.”

No reply. The scientist launches a questioning look to Ivanov.

The Russian nods a negative sign with his head. “These men were alerted by someone, or something. We don’t know what information they have, or what they may have seen. They found us here…”, pointing with a gesture of his head to the traces of blood and broken glass window. “…they have good reasons to act this way. We are now a potential threat to their eyes.”

The man is the first to kneel with his hands in plain sight, shortly followed by the woman and Vasquez.

From their position they can’t see the shaded faces behind the visors of the soldiers.

Long moments go by in an oppressive silence, while the soldiers keep them at gunpoint, apparently awaiting orders. The trio of kneeling people can’t listen to any conversations over the intercom of the suits, all they can see is a team of armed soldiers. The black muzzles of their assault rifles pointing menacingly toward them.

Suddenly, without any notice, the lights go out of the base.

“Don’t move or we will open fire!” One of the soldiers shouts, while the lights placed under the barrels of their assault rifles turn on one by one.

Four cones of light projected by the torches dart in the darkness, illuminating the crouching trio on the floor.

Then everything happens quickly.

Another side window, to the right of the soldiers, explodes. A dark shadow falls on one of the men. In the heat of the moment, he lets out a shot, who slays an arm of Vasquez.

Moore’s frightened scream echoes the cry of pain of the soldier.

The chaos breaks free.

In the stroboscopic effect caused by the convulsive movement of the torches and gunfire in the darkness, she sees a knee of Vasquez breaking to pieces, while a red splash draws on the wall to her left. Ivanov’s reaction is lightning fast. The scientist grabs the woman by her wrist and drags her without delay beyond the angle of the corridor. She stumbles as she tries to get up again and almost ends lying down, narrowly avoiding a blast that draws a series of blacks holes in the wall behind her. The mind of Moore is able to express only one single concept.

Run!

Then she in turn grabs strongly Ivanov’s hand, running hunched into the darkness in front of her, trying to head into the laboratory and leaving behind the desperate cries of Vasquez, the unknown animal noises of the creature, and the sound of gunfire.

HELICOPTER CRASH SITE

Macready seems to have recovered from his momentary lapse of presence. Jennings updated him on what happened to Black, and on what they saw in the footage taken from the camera found in the camp of the marauders. Under normal circumstances he would order a rest for the marine, evidently prey to hallucinations caused perhaps by sunstroke. Not this time though. The breathless tale of the soldier and the horribly deformed bodies in the helicopter crash are a sad confirmation of the statements of Ivanov.

At that thought a twinge of anger tightens his heart in a red-hot vise.

He had to split from Ironside. He would have rather kept him nearby so he could personally ensure his safety. After all it’s his base, and the responsibility for all who work there, as well as for the guests, is only his. Having a senior government official who wanders around in a situation like that, it’s an outright mange. The dirty laundry is washed at home. Anyway, he needed someone trustworthy, someone who knew… and this is why Ironside went on the site of the crash of the Boeing to better coordinate the cover-up operations. Ironside was with him all the time, it’s certain that he is human, for now, or rather, it’s certain that both are human as much as they were when they arrived.

At least until they parted.

This story will drive me crazy…

A soldier approaches to update him.

“Sir, we finished incinerating what remained of the helicopter… and bodies. We’re ready to move on”. The marine speaks with a sad disappointment tone. After all those bodies were colleagues with whom he had eaten and slept until a few hours before.

Macready nods, looking at the blackened carcass of the aircraft. “We go on site, where the plane crashed.”

“There’s more sir”, the boy adds. “We have lost contact with the base, we can’t communicate with anyone inside.”

Shit…

“Change of plans then, Mooseay and Leoni will come with me to the base, you gather together and go and give a hand to the others at the crash site. Let’s move.”

ALGERIAN DESERT

On the trail of the raiders

“What the hell of a beast can leave a track like that?”, wonders Seagull, while the Humvee follows the long and snaking trail, almost half a meter wide, traced by the creature on the sand.

“Almost four kilometers since we started following it, and we still haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Indeed… We should already have sighted it, the beast can’t be so damn fast”, is Jeff’s reply.

“At least we know it can’t fly, and this is already an advantage”, adds Will. “Although we haven’t seen anything but sand so far… And what Jennings has told us is too absurd to be true.”

Hearing that Seagull stares at him with a look of reproach. “Why don’t you shut up? Black is dead.”

“Are you sure? Have you seen his corpse?”

“Give it a cut”, shouts Jeff. “I’m not in the mood to hear this shit.”

The other replies puffing, then opens the hatch on the roof of the vehicle and looks out on the outside.

“Dear God, I can’t stand him sometimes. What a punk!”, whispers Seagull, facing Jeff Michigan.

This one has a focused look, as staring at an unspecified point in front of them.

Noticing his expression, the sergeant turns quickly to look in the same direction. Sparse ruins are barely visible in the distance.

Seagull shouts immediately at the sniper: “Will, two o’clock!”

“Got it!”

As they approach, the ruins take the shape of a wall of earth, half crumbled. A little further the miserable remains of a gutted hut struggle to survive and stand. On the right, about twenty meters ahead, there’s a small pile of stones surmounted by the remnants of a rusty crooked arc.

Seagull orders the teams to slow down and stop at a safe distance.

Observing the scene it’s quite clear that the tracks of the creature point straight toward the small well.

After being sure that, apart from the trail on the ground, there is no trace of the men nor of the creature in the area, the group of soldiers stops.

“Jeff, stay here with Bailey and keep the engine running, I will move with the other team. Roger, you’re coming with me”, orders Seagull, making sure that the Humvee stays at about two hundred meters from the meager ruins. Then he turns to Bailey. “Will, keep your eyes on the area and cover us. But you must not take any risks. If the situation turns bad you must flee the hell away from here. There’s no radio signal, and we must ensure to report to Macready, am I clear?”

Jeff and Will nod, relieved for not having to get any closer to the place where the menace is hiding.

“Roger, take all the incendiary grenades that you can carry.” Seagull takes with him a number of explosives too, fixing them to his belt. Then, without saying a word, the two step out of the vehicle and approach the other team.

Four marines move into the ruins in a fan-like formation, closely followed by the second Humvee.

USA BASE CNT222

Emily Moore and Alexander Ivanov move crouched to escape the chaos unleashed on the other end of the corridor, in the elevator zone. It’s the Russian leading the woman, orienting himself by heart in the dark, trying to remember the layout of the rooms and using his touch.

The palm of his left hand burns. While fingering the ground, during the desperate flight to escape the blasts exploded by the soldiers, his hand touched something sharp. There’s no need to look to recognize the sensations caused by a stab wound. The two go on quickly, heading to the laboratory where, just a few minutes earlier, they were testing Ahmed’s blood.

Reached the lab, they have a sad confirmation of their fears. The door is sealed, just like the others. The access system with badges is useless without electricity, and the backup system didn’t fire up.

“What do we do now?”, the woman asks. Her voice is barely a whisper cracked by fear.

“We must hide without making a sound, and think of how to find a way out of this base. Our senses are limited in the dark, but the creature may have ways of perception that we can’t even imagine. I fear it won’t be easy. I’ve already experienced a similar situation, trust me.”

Ivanov’s voice is barely audible, then both stay silent, eavesdropping.

The assault rifles shots go on for a while, then they stop suddenly. The screaming of Vasquez takes on a hoarse shrill tone, like that of a dying animal. For a moment it’s the only sound they hear, then it also dampens suddenly, making somehow the world darker.

The awareness of being in total obscurity, in an underground and isolated base, in which a deadly danger lurks is overwhelming. Every sound is magnified and appears to assume a menacing aura. Her heavy breathing, the rhythmic drumming of her heart, a faint gasp coming from her own stomach. Moore has the feeling that the air is lacking, almost suffocating her. The atmosphere of terror and imminent danger is palpable and pressing on her chest and temples, giving her the feeling that her own thoughts are caught up in something black, murky, poisonous and alien.

Sometimes the lights have a start, on for brief moments, shining a glimmer of hope in their hearts, then the darkness comes back to dominate the scene. In the play of light and shadows a foreign thought seems to come alive in the conscious mind of Moore: the arrhythmic duel between the fluorescent tubes and the total obscurity is a mirror of a clash of wills. There is someone, or rather something, behind the black-out of the base. A dark, chaotic and perverse mind that is playing with all of them. An intelligence that is able to scan the deepness of their hearts as a scientist analyzes a guinea pig wandering through a maze looking for an exit.

The thought about the laboratory mice leaves her dismayed, because she realizes that she has suddenly moved to the other side of the cage. The reaction is immediate and surprises even herself. It’s something that goes beyond fear, beyond the instinct of individual preservation and beyond the unknown. Her existence, the years spent bent studying on books and microscopes, her parents, their sacrifices, the hopes for a better future, her world and life itself… They are strains that fuel a devastating fire, which glows red in the most remote areas of her soul. A sense of furious rage takes life in her, Emily Moore, while clenching her fists so strongly to injure herself with her own nails.

Anger and frustration turn into cold and calculated determination.

I won’t surrender to fear…

I will make it through…

I will get out of here alive!

Almost echoing those thoughts, a vibration reaches the two scientists huddled at the foot of the laboratory door. An ultra-low frequency, an inaudible crude sound that the two perceive as vibrations in the walls and inside their own bodies. A series of waves that resonate in their cavities.

“That’s not good”, whispers Ivanov, while the two instinctively huddle tighter. “This is a kind of ELF sonar. It’s scanning the entire base…”

As soon as Ivanov ends his sentence, the vibrations cease. Almost simultaneously, the fluorescent tubes come back to life, illuminating the world with an intermittent buzzing, like undecided whether to stay on or not. The woman murmurs a thank you to a vague God, with whom she has stopped talking since she was a child.

“Let’s move”, urges Ivanov, pulling her up to slide her badge in the optical reader on the side of the door. “Now it knows exactly where every one of us is. And it will come soon.”

The panel slides softly, as if the electric current that feeds it is too low, slowing its movement. Driven by the fear of what is happening after the curve in the corridor from which they have just come, the two don’t wait for the door to open completely. They push aside the still sliding doors, finally managing to sneak inside the lab.

ALGERIAN DESERT

On the trail of the raiders

Seagull leads the team reaching the ruins. The soldiers walk lowered, holding their weapons, expecting an attack every step they take. A quick inspection confirms their first impressions: it’s a small abandoned camp. They can see what is left of a ramshackle hut, and just a low wall of pressed earth and sand is still standing. What is left of the perimeter of other small buildings fades into the sand.

“This place was probably a kind of oasis a very long time ago”, Jennings speaks low into the intercom. “That old well means water, and those ruins were probably raw huts…”

The five men team converges slowly to the small pile of stones. The tracks on the ground stop abruptly next to it. One of the rocks seems freshly rolled away, and it has dug a small trail in the sand.

From his post on top of the vehicle, Will Bailey watches the scene through the viewfinder of the sniper rifle. The marine sees Seagull slowly approaching the mouth of the well, aiming his assault rifle in front of him and looking inside.

The duct diameter is slightly less than a meter. Its walls are made with earth bricks for some meter down, then they fade into the solid rock. The bottom is clearly visible about twenty meters below.

There’s no trace of water, nor any sign of the creature.

“This well has dried centuries ago…”, says the leader. “But that beast might have sensed the presence of water somewhere down. I can’t figure out any other reason for it to came straight here.”

“I don’t like this shit… I don’t like it at all”, Ralph spits an almost dissolved tobacco down the well. The gush goes down, drawing a sort of brownish star on the ground.

“Roger, can you send a drone down?”, Seagull to the expert in telecommunications and video surveillance.

The soldier hastes to the rear of their vehicle, without answering.

* * *

“What’s going on out there?”, Jeff asks to the sniper perched on top of the vehicle.

“It seems that Roger is pulling out one of his toys. Yes, it’s a drone. All quiet for now. Even too quiet.”

“Don’t be a jinx”, is the other’s reply. “There is something absurd in this. I have a feeling that everything does nothing but worsen.”

“Who’s the jinx now?”

“Mmm… I confess I can’t wait to get my ass at home and to leave all this shit behind. I want to forget this fucking sand that sticks everywhere, and sit for at least twenty-four hours in a row with my balls soaked in a pool. Just a few perfect days… and I mean beer… oh yeah bro… perfectly roasted bacon with the smoke of apple tree branches… the velvet legs of my Cindy… Jesus, I’d be a new man! That’s right, that’s what it takes! My God those things seems so far away…”

Will stay silent, as he watches the tiny drone rises to about two meters in height and heading towards the well.

“Tell me, Will, is there someone waiting for you?”

“Do you mean a woman?”, Bailey lights up a crumpled cigarette. “Of course I do. Man, you should see her… She has two legs that when you caress them you feel like they’ll go on forever, and two so big boobs that you can get lost in this fucking desert without suffering thirst.”

The other smiles. “Hmm… what a sentimentalist soul indeed! Come on, you serious?”

“Of course I am”. Bailey takes a long puff, then he lets out the smoke in a theatrical fashion, as acting for an invisible audience. “Well… she’s a girl with a very sad story. She opens up to me, you know. She always says that her husband has a very very very little bird. It’s so tiny that it may be mistaken for a button. The poor girl can’t wait for me to come back so she can have some serious gymnastics, as she should.”

“What strange stories around… A button…” Jeff laughs inside the vehicle. “Damn, poor guy…”

“Who knows, maybe you know her too. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, just like you.”

“That can’t be…”, says the other. “What’s her name?”

“Oh no, my friend, don’t ask me that. If something were to escape your mouth all would be screwed up, you know how these stories go, don’t you?”

“Come on, who should I say it to? It’s just out of curiosity.”

The friend has taken the bait, and Bailey smiles sardonically, as he pulls on the fishing line.

“All right buddy, but keep it for yourself, especially with Stu, okay? Well… she lives in a lovely little house, at the corner between Ruxton Road and the 3th… Her name is Cindy… Cindy Braxton, or Cindy Michigan when she uses her husband’s name.”

Will takes another puff on his cigarette, while mentally counting the time it takes for Jeff to realize he is talking exactly about his wife. Shortly before the fourth second, his answer reaches him from the inside of the vehicle.

“Screw you man, what a huge asshole!”

* * *

Roger Mason controls the flight of the tiny quad-copter, being careful not to hit the rock walls. The small drone makes a faint hum, slightly amplified by the tubular shape of the well.

Jennings rotates a small knob on another control console and, along with Seagull and Stu, has his eyes glued on a tiny screen, which shows the images taken by the miniature camera mounted on the bottom of the device.

Roger moves the drone with expert touch, controlling its vertical descent, until the walls of the well open in a cave.

Jennings presses a button, and a group of LEDs next to the drone’s camera comes to life, emitting a light beam. A sharp cone of light moves, revealing a myriad of microscopic particles of dust stirring in the air due to the propellers of the device.

“There’s a cave down there”, Seagull speaks, while Jennings makes the camera turn around to get a panoramic view.

Something catches the leader’s attention. “Wait, come back, that way… Roger, that way.”

The view of one of the rock walls at the bottom of the cave becomes sharper, slowly revealing a rift that seems to lead deeper.

The drone approaches further toward the small opening, illuminating the ground just beyond the rift.

“Maybe there’s another cave beyond that fissure. Roger, try to lower it…”

The image on the screen disappears suddenly. It’s replaced by a black screen with a no-signal message. Roger breaks into a low expletive.

“What happened?”, asks Seagull.

“We lost the signal. The rock layer must have weakened or blocked the transmission. In this case the drone keeps standing-by a meter above the ground, as long as the battery lasts.”

The leader contracts his lips in disappointment, then he turns to the other. “We’re going down.”

Ralph shakes his head. “I say to fill this hole with incendiary grenades and bring our ass far away from here. This well doesn’t convince me at all, it’s all too quiet, and that creature awaits us somewhere down there. Shit, it’s a fucking trap, Kain!”

“We don’t know what’s down there. It seems a cavity, a sort of cave. There may be a system of underground caves, we can’t risk that the creature gets out. We are marines, not chickenshit. Always remember that.” This said, he turns to one of the men: “Roger, put away the drone’s stuff. Secure the ropes, we are going down.”

“Jesus Christ!”, Ralph spits another gush of brown saliva, as dense as oil.

* * *

“Any news, playboy?”, Michigan asks after a few minutes. Bailey, the sniper, sits hunched, on top of the vehicle. Monitoring the movements of the team.

“Waters’ drone didn’t work. It did not come back out of the well, and it seems they want to go down. Stu has fixed the ropes, I think Seagull is going down first. Ralph may enter the Guinness Book of Records for his pissed off face, he is looking straight here.”

“Jesus, getting down in that hole… I don’t think that it’s a good idea at all. Kain has guts to sell.”

Bailey doesn’t answer, his eyes stick to the viewfinder of his rifle. He watches the leader climbing on the wall that delimits the well, and slowly disappearing inside.

* * *

Ralph and Roger arms are stretched in the effort. Their sweaty muscles stand out while they take Seagull down to the bottom of the well. The leader can’t use his hands, busy in strongly keeping his assault rifle pointed down.

The passage is claustrophobic, the walls give him the feeling that they are coming closer and closer, as if they’re going to crush him.

After an apparently endless time, the man’s boots touch the sand at the bottom of the well.

The little light that filters from the opening above draws a golden circle on the ground, the rest is wrapped in gloom. Seagull kneels instinctively, and he announces that it has reached the bottom to the other team members. Then he inspects the cave around him, taking advantage of the weak cone of light projected by the torch of his assault rifle.

No sign of the creature’s presence. The sand on the ground seems untouched.

He heads slowly in the direction where the drone had revealed the presence of a crack in the rock. The dusty ground produces low squeaks with every step.

Meanwhile Ralph sets the safety snap-hooks, preparing to go down. His massive, muscular body touches the walls at the mouth of the well. With every move comes along a mumbling.

Seagull comes close to the slit, his flashlight illuminates the drone. The marine stops, watching the device lying on ground. It’s twisted and destroyed.

After a few long seconds, Ralph reaches the bottom too. His boots make a heavy thud as they touch the ground.

“You okay Kain?”

In the silence that follows, a shiver runs down the back of Ralph, a sort of sixth sense, developed over the years in high-risk missions.

The marine crouches, pointing the machine gun and looking around quickly.

There is no trace of Seagull.

Holding back the urge to call out loud, Ralph waits patiently with his senses on high alert, until Stu and then Jennings arrive. This is the last one to descend, having ordered Roger Mason to wait at the top of the well, to help them if an emergency ascent becomes necessary.

“Where the hell is Seagull?”, Jennings asks speaking softly. Ralph hints a sign of silence with a wave of his hand, he shakes his head in a negative answer.

The bottom of the shaft opens into a small cave, barely over ten meters wide. Jennings moves forward, taking the lead and gesturing to the far wall. They clearly see a crack in the rock that reveals another cave, shrouded in darkness. Stu brings instinctively a hand to one of the incendiary grenades attached to a belt around his belly, while the trio moves towards the opening in the rock wall. The light beam of Jennings’ rifle illuminates the remains of the drone. The three men exchange quick glances.

Jennings lights a flare and throws it with a quick movement through the darkness of the cave beyond the crack. The noise resonates over the top, in the deathly silence of the cave. The flare lands a few meters ahead, illuminating the environment around it with a red pulsating light.

Jennings goes on, shortly followed by the massive body of Ralph, who almost can’t go through the narrow opening. Finally it’s the turn of Stu, who, before entering into the rock, turns for a moment to look at the light coming from the opening of the well, on the other side of the cave.

The new space, barely lit by the flickering light of the flare, has roughly the shape of a large tunnel. A rocky trail winds in the darkness beyond the halo of red light projected by the flare, along a small depression full of turbid and yellowish muddy water. The air has a strong smell of rotten eggs.

“Urgh… someone just shit his soul down here”, Ralph murmurs, disgusted by the nauseating stench which seems to become more intense as they go on.

“This is the typical smell of hydrogen sulfide”, Stu responds. “There must be gas leaking from the underground.”

Ralph stops one meter from the edge. He moves the light beam of his rifle over the underground lake, illuminating the muddy surface. “Jennings, do you think that the beast may also breathe underwater?”

Stu steps back hearing those words. He checks the water surface with his flashlight too.

No movement, not even the slightest ripple. The water is murky and it’s impossible to see anything below the surface.

“I don’t know, Ralph, I haven’t the faintest idea about what that thing can do. I guess that if it was hidden in the water we should notice some movement. Let’s go ahead and keep our eyes wide open.”

“I am more and more convinced that this place is a fucking trap”, Ralph grumbles. His strained jaw emphasizes the muscles close to the temples. “There is no trace of Seagull. He can’t be vanished in such a way…”

Jennings throws another flare on the path ahead of them, lighting up another stretch of the gallery. The three go ahead stacked, because the path is too narrow to allow passage of two persons side by side. Stu looks at the placid waters on one side of the passage, careful to note the slightest ripple.

Nothing at all, the group keeps walking.

Further away the path fades out into the darkness, splitting from the small pond underground and proceeding with a slight slope. The silence is total, just broken by the rustle of the uniforms and the sound of their footsteps muffled by the sand.

“Holy shit, where the hell has Seagull gone?”, Stu asks in a whisper.

No one answers.

Jennings lights a third flare, and throws it forward.

The soldier freezes instantly, pointing his weapon and crouching forward.

The three men glimpse a silhouette, a barely visible ghost at the edge of the halo produced by the flickering light of the flare.

Jennings is quick to light another flare, tossing it with more strength. This time the burning tube lands far away, better illuminating the area.

A man is now clearly visible in the red flickering light.

He is completely naked, showing his back to them.

Ralph and Jennings aim their weapons and torches moving a few steps. Stu follows them keeping an eye in the direction from which they came.

The three stop a dozen meters from the man. Now that the distance is shorter they can see more details and realize that this is an elderly. The long white hair reach down to touch his back, between his shoulder blades. The skin is shiny with sweat and, in the dancing light of the flare, it seems to show a glimpse of the underlying muscles.

Jennings swallows, even though his mouth is completely dry. He has recognized without any doubt the hostage seen in the video found earlier.

Almost as if sensing his thoughts, the man turns around, very slowly.

The survivor of the crash of the Boeing has a bewildered appearance and looks in amazement at the sight of the three soldiers. His gaze appears confused, lost, and his body trembles visibly. He raises a hand pointing to the trio of marines. “You are…”

The man sees only now his shaky arm. He bows slowly his head as if realizing only now that his whole body is completely naked. The old looks again at the marines, moving an uncertain step toward them. “Please help me… What am I doing here? I was on a plane… There was my wife too and… Something happened… I can’t…”

The survivor brings his hands to his temples, lowering his head. His voice is uncertain. “I… I can’t remember… So much confusion… What am I doing here?”

The man looks back at the three soldiers a few meters in front of him. “Who are you? Where are we? Help me… I’m cold…”

The three look at him stunned, motionless, doubters. Jennings and Stu have seen that old man collapsing to the ground with the skull smashed with a rifle, and then transforming into a monstrous being. Along with Ralph they have seen with their very eyes something similar happening to their unfortunate fellow Black, and yet…

Yet in front of them there is an old man, an old man who trembles, is uncertain and talks like any human being would do in his situation.

A stream of thoughts run through the mind of Jennings.

Just an old man…

Stay sharp and focused, there is something wrong…

Defenseless…

Shit, where’s Seagull?

The survivor moves one more step toward them. His skin now appears normal, and seems to have lost the translucency of a moment before.

There’s no need being afraid…

Where is the creature that has meandered in the desert to lead us down here?

Relax, everything is fine…

What has destroyed the drone?

Jennings makes an effort of will to escape the flood of extraneous thoughts that seem to distract him by trying to overlap his own thoughts. While keeping an eye on the man in front of him, he shakes his head to wake up from a numbness that is making its way into him. It has the feeling that the atmosphere is becoming overwhelming and somewhat hypnotic as the man approaches.

That’s not a man!

“Stop right there!”, he shouts to the figure before him. “Or I’m gonna open a hole right in your forehead.”

The man doesn’t stop. He brings his hands in front of his chest, palms facing the three soldiers, as if to say to take it easy, and he takes another small step.

With an almost automatic gesture, Jennings unlocks his rifle, again pointing his gun at the man, that is now less than ten meters away.

Stu takes a step back and casts a nervous glance behind him, where he thinks he has just heard a noise, a kind of lapping. The fingers of his left hand whiten in the grip with which he holds the incendiary grenade.

Oblivious to the threat, the old man takes another step toward the three marines. He doesn’t tremble anymore, and his tone of voice is different, letting out a growing anger. “Would you open fire against a naked and unarmed American citizen? Holy Christ, I served in the Marine Corps when your mother still used to wipe your ass. Show me respect, what the fuck!”

The shots exploded by Jennings, amplified by the underground cavities, make a roar. The three bullets raise little puffs of dust in front of the man’s feet. This one, however, doesn’t seem to notice them, and he doesn’t stop. With a single gesture he stretches his arms forward, snarling with rage, as if ready to pounce on the three men.

The next burst, fired by Ralph, draws three crimson stars in the man’s chest, which seems to lose his balance for a moment, then he recovers in place, standing.

The three look at the scene with growing terror. The elder’s gaze is still fixed on them, but despite having the appearances, it no longer has anything human. In that instant the foggy torpor that was pressing on their minds seems to dissipate, and the soldiers become fully aware that the being in front of them has just the shape of an old man, but somewhere, hidden in the recesses of that blank look, the endless depths of a dark and alien mind are hiding.

The blood stops flowing almost immediately from the wounds on the man’s chest, while with a sound like sucking, two of the bullets come out from the holes, falling to the ground.

Then the events begin to worsen.

A creepy sound comes out of the man. It’s something that the three have already heard. The noise of thousands of insect wings, united to that of crushed bones and other sounds on very low tones. Ralph and Jennings open fire against the man, digging dark red gashes on his chest, arms and legs.

The body in front of them is shaken by blows, it has spasms, but it doesn’t fall. With a crack of breaking branches, its joints dislocate. The man’s legs begin to lengthen, shortly turning his figure into that of a kind of clumsy wading bird.

“Retreat, retreat!”, Jennings shouts, while a sense of helplessness begins to undermine his audacity, seeing that the creature keeps coming in wider leaps. New deformed and monstrous appendages burst out of its trunk. The face of the man seems made of clay, while it deforms, until it ceases to exist, replaced by the aberrant shape of an unknown being, not of this world. A globular star-shaped head, sprawling, covered at the top by a thick forest of needle-like appendages, iridescent, swaying like following an invisible tide and lighting up rhythmically, emitting its own light.

A multicolored plasma, like the skin of some cephalopod species. At the ends of the five tentacles that make up the starry head, an even number of eyes open to look at the soldiers. Red eyes, shining with a glow like burning embers. Strong low-frequency vibrations come from the creature’s body, shaking the internal organs of the three soldiers. Sonic waves pass through them like radiation, exerting physical pressure on their bodies as well as on their minds. From the mass of flesh that is constantly changing, which was a man’s chest just a few moments before, an elongated shape bursts out. An obscene tubular appendix protrudes, opening with a suction on the bulbous end. A splash of a yellowish liquid is projected towards the three.

Ralph and Jennings jump sideways to avoid it, but the movements are made difficult by the vibrant sound that shakes their bodies, and in moving Jennings stumbles, ending up flat on his back. Ralph, who is behind him, grabs him promptly by his suit, pulling him back, while the other is quick to change magazine and to shoot towards the monstrosity.

A second splash coming from the being hits Jennings on his legs and on the right arm. In the points where the bare skin gets touched, it starts to burn, while his flesh sinks to the bone as if carved by an invisible hand.

Jennings screams but keeps firing desperately against the creature, hitting it on one of its long legs. It breaks with a sharp snap, collapsing the monstrosity to the ground, less than two meters away from the soldier’s legs. One of the appendices of the starry structure, formed on top of the creature, stretches twisting and shaping its ends in the awkward shape of a deformed hand. Three fingers culminate in as many claws, as black and shiny as volcanic glass, out of which a greenish and dense fluid starts dripping down. Upon contact with the ground, it sizzles producing an acrid steam. Before Ralph manages to pull back his friend, the creature has a sprint, and the hand tightens on him. The claws grab Jennings just below his left knee. The man screams in pain.

“Go away! Run!” He shouts to the soldiers with him. With his still intact left arm, he grabs an incendiary grenade peeling away its safety with a bite. Ralph doesn’t have time to think, a squirt of whitish matter coming from the creature hits him on the right boot.

Cursing the swarming horror that’s crawling and reducing the distance, Ralph turns and starts running. Stu has already moved away from the scene and walks a little further. He has just passed the stretch of path that runs along the underground pond when the explosion of Jennings’ grenade seems to demolish the bowels of the Earth. Ralph runs, thinking he will never make it to reach the exit in time before the wave of the explosion overtakes him.

The heavy steps of the soldier resound on the sandy ground. He looks forward toward the cleft in the rock wall. He doesn’t notice the subtle ripples shaking the yellowish surface of the underground pond.

He is just at half of the section along the tiny lake, when the water explodes.

With the momentum of an avalanche, something comes out of the muddy puddle, jumping against the soldier. Ralph has just enough time to issue a muffled shout before the monstrous being comes out from the muddy water and overwhelms him, crushing him against the rocky wall.

Meanwhile, Stu arrived at the crack in the wall that separates the two caves, and he turns instinctively to the shout of his friend. The view is terrible. The bottom of the cave is filled by a cloud of advancing flames, but it isn’t the only reason of his terror. For a few long moments he watches a monstrous being, the body like a giant centipede which emerged from the water, grabbing Ralph and smashing him against the rock.

The man struggles for his life, he shouts and squirms while splashes of organic matter invest him and one after the other, large pointy appendages as long as an arm, black and smooth as curved daggers, stick into his body dragging him towards a terrifying mouth. A kind of raw cavity, lined with fangs and from which comes a terrible hiss.

Stu is about to run away and take the opening separating the two caves, when a voice shouts to him. “Help me! Stu Help me!”

A familiar voice, which seems to come from somewhere within the huge beast that is tearing Ralph’s body. The flames advancing further illuminate the scene with a vivid glow, and Stu can see for a moment the torso of Seagull half emerging from the twisted mass on the side of the creature. His skull and the right side of his body blend deep within the monster. Only the left arm of his friend is quite visible, and it’s pointing desperately to him. “Help meeeeeehhhh!”

His voice fades into a scream in multiple tonalities. Other appendages wrap his arm, twisting it and breaking it with a chilling snap, then they lure him deep into the mass of flesh that is constantly changing.

Stu stands still, paralyzed by the sight, when suddenly the creature has a start, as if it was seeing the approaching flames just now. His body contorts heavily, turning to face the only remaining soldier.

Overwhelmed by terror Stu throws an incendiary grenade to the creature. When the bomb reaches the muddy waters he is already running across the opening in the rock and trampling the remains of the drone. Behind him he can hear the repeated thuds of something heavy moving rapidly toward his location.

The man reaches the ropes used for the descent. He shouts terrified as he begins to tinker with the hook of one of the straps, which slips between his sweaty hands and falls on the ground at his feet. At the same time he feels the sound of something huge impacting violently against the rock wall with the crack that they went through earlier.

“Roger, Roger, damn, get me out!”

Stu works frantically trying to fast the snap hooks at the ropes. Meanwhile the soldier on top of the pit starts a desperate battle to bring him up.

The soldier starts moving and rising, while he is hit by the sound of mangled bones and liquid splashing coming from the opening in the wall a few meters away from him. It’s like if something is making its way at all costs, forcing itself through a narrow passage. Stu tries to climb faster but his movements are jerky, and his efforts have the sole effect to tug on the rope, making his friend’s task even harder.

Doubling his efforts, Roger watches the man down in the well. The friend is about half way up when his terrified screams seem to grow in intensity.

Since the body of Stu fills the view almost completely, Roger has no way to see what is going on beneath him. He breathes heavily in the effort to lift him out of that deathtrap. Suddenly the marine suspended in the air begins to squirm and to swing more, so Roger can have a fleeting view of the horror beneath him. A monstrous head, gigantic and deformed, is facing from the bottom of the well, and it’s looking at the two men with eyes full of hatred and a fury that has nothing of human.

The adrenaline rush in the soldier on top of the pit increases his forces tenfold. The skin of his hands is whitened by the effort to desperately pull the rope that holds the colleague. The desperate cries of Stu ring in his ears. The soldier shakes frantically hanging in the well.

He is terrified beyond human comprehension and the pit exit appears distant. He kicks to drive away the creature that is gaining ground in the tunnel beneath him.

Aware of the imminent end, in a glimmer of lucidity he grabs another of the many incendiary grenades that he brought with him and pulls off the safety catch. Horror multiplies when he feels something violently shoving his foot.

Roger aims his feet, grinding his teeth with the effort, then something happens. The rope in his hands is pulled down so violently as to dig deep cuts in the palms of his hands. The marine screams and lets it go, clinging desperately to the sides of the well to stop his inertia and not to slip inside. The terrified cries of Stu have now degenerated into the death-rattle of a slaughtered animal. Roger quickly recovers his balance and, from the top of the well, can barely see his friend disappear into a mass of reddish protoplasm and tentacles that occupy the entire tunnel.

The man looks at the scene for an endless moment, when the world seems to freeze.

A series of strong detonations underground transforms quickly into a small earthquake.

The marine hastes to step aside, before a tall column of organic matter and flames, whose heat burns his face, erupts from the top of the well. Roger falls on his back, feeling the earth move under his body, but he doesn’t even have time to get up.

Hell opens under him, while high flames erupt from the fissures that cracked the ground.

USA BASE CNT222

Dr. Emily Moore and Alexander Ivanov crouch behind a flipped workbench in the laboratory where they have taken refuge. The man moves quickly with consummate skills, working with vials containing chemical components. Moore helps him, peeking over the edge of their hideout to watch the window that runs along the wall. She knows that death can show at any time, either in human form or who knows as what abomination.

Ivanov mixes different acrid-smelling substances, causing reactions that sizzle and generate intense reddish vapors. The woman notices a deep cut on the man’s right palm, and her heart seems to freeze when she sees that his blood has a dark color, almost bluish. Her hands tremble and a flask falls to the ground between them without breaking.

“Don’t make any noise!”, Ivanov whispers softly, as he sees the many emotions in the distraught expression of the woman. He shows the palm of his injured hand. His voice is barely above a whisper. “I got cut while we fled, probably with a piece of the broken window of the room where that boy was locked up. My blood has this color because of the poisonous chemical that I absorbed during all these years. If I was one of those creatures I would have assimilated you earlier, when we were alone and in the dark, don’t you agree?”

The woman seems about to get up and run away, her eyes bounce quickly between the hand and the face of the Russian. After a few seconds she seems to calm down. She nods slowly, though her expression tells that she’s not entirely convinced. Moore feels clearly that something is wrong. A worrying feeling about a missing particular on which she can’t focus right now.

“Please”, says the man, pointing at something with a movement of his face. “I need you to be sharp and focused now, okay? Take that box with the test tubes. I need their polystyrene case.”

Moore obeys, wondering about his intentions. Almost sensing her thoughts, he hastens to explain, always whispering. “By combining ammonia and iodine crystals you can create a powerful explosive. It’s harmless when it’s wet, but if it’s dry it can detonate on impact. Believe me, just a tiny amount – one that can fit on the tip of a knife – can wipe an arm away. I added something else to mitigate its excessive reactivity, so it won’t explode in our hands or pockets as we move. Furthermore, polystyrene will be helpful to prepare an incendiary mixture. By dissolving it in a flammable solvent we can make a viscous and sticking gel, making a sort of rudimentary napalm.”

“Do you want to make bombs?”

“Vyacheslav Molotov”, the Russian whispers with a hint of pride, while he covers the cap of some large vials with lumps of a brownish material.

You have modeled the detonating substance by wrapping it on the stopper of those tubes, now that it’s still wet… So you got an impact-trigger, and you won’t need any fire to ignite them…”, says Moore.

“Exactly”, he whispers. “This system is the best when you fight in the dark, because no fire is needed to trigger it and you can strike without being noticed. Let’s hope to be lucky enough to find the right balance between responsiveness and safeness. Anyway, I’ll keep a few of those vials aside, to trigger them with the traditional system.”

In the wake of his last words, Ivanov tears a flap of tissue from his white coat, attaching it under the cap of one of the vials containing the flammable liquid.

They go on with their job, quickly assembling other incendiary bombs. The air in the room is permeated by the stench generated by the chemical reactions. It burns in their noses and their throats, and they have to restrain themselves more than once not to cough.

“You, in your spirit, remind me very much of someone I care about, Dr. Moore”, Ivanov whispers, giving voice to his thoughts without intention. The former tense atmosphere between the two scientists has partly faded away.

The woman is about to say something, but then she notices that something has changed in Ivanov’s expression, and this makes her silent and keep listening.

For a few tense moments, the silence is pierced by the beating of their hearts.

“We have company”, he whispers, hurrying to seal the last explosive vial.

The woman feels like a void in her chest, as if her heart had stopped beating. She holds her breath, while eavesdropping in search for the smallest clue.

Nothing…

She pops a questioning look to Ivanov, but it only lasts a moment.

She hears it.

A liquid shuffling sound…

There’s something…

Dragging on the floor…

In the hallway…

The noise is clearly increasing…

It’s approaching!

ALGERIAN DESERT

On the trail of the raiders

“Shit! Shit!”, the only words that come out from the mouth of a shocked Will Bailey. He can see the scene from a safe distance, from the roof of the Humvee. Everything happened too fast, even just to think about doing anything. In few seconds the marine has seen the attempts of Roger Mason to retrieve someone out from the well.

Before Bailey could realize what was happening, he has seen a column of fire erupting violently from the well and has heard the explosions. In the brief moments that have followed, the entire place opened like the hell’s mouth, swallowing everything that was in the ruins’ area, including the other Humvee. All disappeared in a pit of flames that seem to come straight out the fiery bowels of the planet.

More explosions have further shaken the area when the fire has reached the explosives packed on the vehicle and its fuel tank. Dense black clouds have risen through the sky, intense flames swirl violently within them.

Will Bailey and Jeff Michigan, the only two survivors, have moved away at a safe distance, obeying to Seagull’s orders. Later on, they have moved again, taking the Humvee on top of a high dune. Once there, they had a better view of the scene. Now they can peek inside the enormous crater that formed in the middle of the desert. Its bottom is hidden by flames and smoke. Even from a distance they can perceive the intense heat.

“My God… they are all dead…”, murmurs Michigan.

After several minutes of silent dismay, Bailey shakes him to bring him back to reality. “May Lord have mercy of their souls. We must leave immediately. Did you hear me? Jeff! Let’s go back to the base. Nothing and no one could have survived that hell.”

USA BASE CNT222

Moore and Ivanov are frozen motionless, hidden behind the flipped workbench.

How much time elapsed?

The seconds seem like hours, meanwhile the noise of something crawling in the hallway in front of the lab room reaches again their ears at random intervals, each time increasing in intensity.

Something is slowly approaching…

The pumping adrenaline in their hearts turns their chests to a cold fire. The Russian gently squeezes her arm. She startles for a moment at the touch. It’s a gentle and soft gesture, and those feelings infuse her with a glimmer of comfort. Then, like a flash, the memory of the bluish wound on the man’s hand flashes before her eyes and she instinctively makes a move away from him.

Moore leans slightly to the side to peek at the door to the laboratory and one of the long windows that flank the corridor running along the wall to her right. On the glass she can see the dark blood stains left by Ivanov during the former escape.

She can’t see anything else, yet the creeping sound says that there is something.

Right there, behind the low wall…

The sound echoes again, this time followed by a low moan and another noise that resembles a fabric ripping apart. The woman tightens her trembling hand on one of the incendiary vials made by Ivanov.

There is a movement, barely perceptible, right at the base of the long window.

What was that?

For a few moments nothing happens, but her heart is beating like a jackrabbit in her temples.

Maybe it’s just my imagination…

Then, as her breath dies in her throat, something emerges crawling slowly on the glass.

It’s a sprawling form, pulsing like an earthworm, red and shiny like a tongue. It moves slowly, snaking and twisting on the smooth surface, leaving a trail of whitish slime. The obscene appendix seems to move indecisively, swaying and slowly approaching the strip of dark blood left by Ivanov. Alerted by the touch of the woman, the Russian raises his head to watch the scene. The long tongue approaches the bluish spot, touching it for a moment. Then, after a few seconds, it suddenly gets away with a hiss, as if it had just touched something burning. A slurred sound comes from behind the door of the laboratory, and it fades into a long, agonizing groan.

Something on my shoulder blade…

The startled woman turns around. Ivanov makes a gesture for her to stay silent, then he leans in to whisper in her ear.

“The creature attacked five men, plus the soldier who was with us. I don’t think it had enough enzymes to overtake and digest them all. The abomination just outside that door has not yet completed the assimilation.”

She looks at him questioningly. Moore has the feeling that the thoughts in her head are engulfed with mud. Ivanov is crumpling a brown lump, the size of a fist, with the residual material used to create the triggers of his Molotov cocktails. “This isn’t the same creature that caused the blackout and that scanned the base not long ago. The thing in the hallway has not a coherent physiology and is not well-formed yet. It’s slow and vulnerable. It’s crawling and sniffing our tracks, maybe we can trick it…”

“…before it has time to complete the replication”, she concludes.

The man winks, hinting a smile, then works to fix the explosive to one of the improvised incendiary bombs, shaping it all around the stopper. The woman turns to the flipped table, rising her head just enough to peek at the door and the windows along the corridor. She can no longer see the sprawling tongue and the only trace of the presence of the creature is the mucus splash scattered on the glass.

Moore can’t hear any sound, except for the rhythmic drumming of her own heart and the occasional muted sound made by Ivanov, as he sneaks up to the Bunsen burner and lights the flame by adjusting it to a minimum.

A cold shiver runs down her spine like, branching out like lightning.

May it still be there?

Focused on keeping an eye on the window made opaque by the fluids released by the creature, she expects to see it reappear at any moment. Moore doesn’t see the silent form which slowly climbs a few meters to their left, beyond the portion of window that runs along the corridor beside the door through which they entered. At that point, the path is shady, since one of the fluorescent tubes has not lit up after the previous blackout.

The woman lingers for too long looking at the door, trying to make order in the whirlwind of thoughts stirring in her mind. Something between a sixth sense and a fleeting glimpse of a movement makes her turn to her left.

At first it’s not clear what she is seeing. Then, with a sudden flash, something moves, sticking to the window and emerging into the light.

The hideously deformed face of Vasquez presses against the glass. The grotesque caricature stares at her with a malevolent look that seems to express a concentrate of everything that is bestial and totally foreign to the human dimension.

A prolonged growl comes out of its mouth that’s absurdly wide open. Everywhere on its surface, tentacular appendages start sprouting and dart in the air like crazed snakes.

The two scientists, aware that they have been discovered, stand up and retreat slowly. Ivanov quickly sets fire to the wick of one of the bombs. In the meantime something grows out of what was formerly the mouth of Vasquez. A whitish shape, covered by a translucent membrane that surrounds it as an amniotic sac. With a ripping sound the fabric tears apart, revealing a bulbous ivory protuberance, like the head of a femur, but as big as a basketball.

The monstrosity twists and then throws itself against the window. The impact is violent and produces a loud thud.

“My God!”, Moore shouts as she takes a step backward. “It has generated a bone formation, to use it like a battering ram and break through the glass!”

With a feral violence, the creature impacts against the glass wall another time. The sound is incredibly strong and a fractal of cracks, reminiscent of a snow crystal, appears on the smooth surface.

“Stand back, and be ready to run!”, shouts the Russian scientist.

The window gives in to the fourth hit of the creature.

Before the glass fragments touch the ground, a cacophony of sound bursts into the lab, reaching the two scientists.

A part of the huge mass of the abomination falls within the room, dragging down a large section of the window. A long cord, like a pulsing gut, connects it to the rest of the shapeless mass lying on the floor in the corridor, hidden by the low wall. The creature that has broken through the glass writhes on the ground for a few moments. It’s shaken by tremors as big appendages burst out from its main trunk. They throb and swell, stretching with aberrant geometries, and then harden to shape rudimentary deformed limbs. At the same time, the pulsation in the umbilical cord that connects to the outside mass fades away and goes limp. A wound opens on its surface, such as a vertical cut that rips the creature in two distinct beings.

Now independent, the monstrosity inside the lab quickly generates new tentacles at whose ends weird shapes sprout. Some of them resemble human eyes, others are dark and multifaceted as insects’ compound eyes. The sounds coming from the being in the laboratory, and those from the corridor, are terrifying. Their multiple tones shake the two scientists to the core.

Ivanov throws a bomb, but his wounded hand betrays him with a stab of pain. The vial doesn’t reach the target and ends up shattering about a meter away. It explodes and generates instantly a flaming puddle.

Only part of the flammable liquid splashes hit the creature, which moves away letting out an angry roar. The fire prevention system activates almost immediately. While an alarm sounds loud in the base, sprinklers on the ceiling start to spread a drizzle that sizzles on the flaming ground, causing a vapor that floats like a low mist.

Walking quickly and awkwardly on unsteady legs, the deformed mass moves sideways, in order to get around the fire and reach the two scientists. A second bomb thrown by Moore centers it fully, going to pieces. The explosive on the cap doesn’t detonate, and for a moment it seems that the raw bomb won’t have any effect but, as soon as the liquid reaches the flames on the ground, a bloodcurdling scream echoes in the base. The creature gets engulfed with flames.

“Run, now!”, Ivanov shouts, after another bomb feeds further the flames that devour the monster a few meters ahead of them. The man rushes to the lab door and pushes the open button on its side. While the panel slide aside, Ivanov turns to the woman, who’s staying behind. He urges her to move.

“Come on!”, he shouts, but an icy terror freezes him, when he notices the distraught look of the woman’s face. She isn’t looking at him. She stares at the giant humanoid figure which stands immediately beyond the threshold.

Before he can turn around, Ivanov feels an iron grip grabbing his throat and lifting him from the floor.

Moore screams terrified.

We are doomed…

The being steps slowly over the threshold, lit by the flames in the left section of the lab. The raging fire is devouring the other creature’s body that keeps writhing. The human shape, crudely sketched, holds with one hand the body of Ivanov, who kicks and struggle to break free. The grip on his neck burns like fire, and it takes an immense effort for Ivanov to turn his head to look at the assailant. It’s just the shape of its silhouette that resembles a human being. The creature has no face, no details. Under the clear and translucent skin, the scientist can see a net of capillaries coming to life, expanding rapidly as a fractal. The flat surface of the head seems to sink in some places, while other parts emerge in relief to form the outline of a face that vaguely resembles his own.

“Run!”, cries Ivanov. His hoarse voice sounds more like a snarl due to the pressure exerted by the monster. The Russian scientist raises his arm. In his hand he is holding the bomb on which he stuck the biggest lump of explosive. In a desperate gesture he throws the vial to the window at the right of the door. The explosion is deafening and the window crumbles throwing glass shrapnel into the corridor. The shock wave devastates the rest of the lab, prompting Moore to the ground, along with the creature and Ivanov.

“Get away!”, the Russian yells. He kicks himself free of the grip on his neck. The being imitating a human body begins to get convulsed, a sign that the creature has lost control of the transformation process and is about to become an abomination out of control.

Moore doesn’t need to be repeated a third time. With her strength tripled by terror and despair, she rushes towards the just smashed window. She runs to the side that has not yet been reached by the flames, and she pushes one of the workbenches toward the wall. With a quick flick she grabs the backpack in which the Russian has stored the polystyrene container with some of the bombs. After having taken one, she throws the bag to the man, who stays beyond the mutating creature. Dreadful sounds come to life in the mass of translucent flesh, while the woman climbs awkwardly over the workbench and jumps over the opening, landing in the corridor.

A long trail of blood and gelatinous fluid runs on the floor. Moore has only a glimpse of something on her left, near the point where the creature broke the observation window. An amorphous mass of protoplasm lies in the corridor. Human limbs pop out, still wearing part of their protective suit. One leg is still shaken by rhythmic spasms. Moore leaves that nightmare behind and runs desperately back on the path previously taken.

Her only hope is the elevator.

Behind her, another explosion echoes loudly, followed by bestial screams that have nothing human.

The woman sprints in the hallway, silently praying that the way is clear.

Scattered on ground are the weapons left by the men attacked just a few minutes earlier, along with shreds of bio-hazard suits, dirty with blood and protoplasmic slime. The lift is just a few meters in front of her and fortunately it’s still open.

The woman runs towards the only possible escape way, and she is about halfway through when the doors begin to slide.

No, please, no!

Howls and terrifying sounds, like smashed walls, come from the lab that she has left behind. With a desperate leap she plunges into the cabin, just before the doors close. Her perception is somehow altered and, as she falls badly inside, she has the feeling that everything takes place too slowly.

Impact…

The feeling of the rough and hard floor, scratching her face…

Bones breaking…

Moore tries to get up again, grateful to heaven that the bomb that she’s holding with her right hand has not touched the floor, breaking on impact. She tries to ignore the pain sensations.

Where are the control buttons?

She sees them, and anguish come back to grab her.

The device is damaged and sunken into the wall. The button to reach the surface has been torn away, leaving a recess in its place, partially covered with bloody mucus. Someone or something has blocked the only exit to the outside.

A searing pain in her left hand, crushed under the chest…

The elevator is moving, and a terrible feeling sizes her when she looks up to the display at the top.

Fear…

Cold…

Pain…

The elevator has just started its descent towards the lower floors of the base.

Then everything becomes dark.

BOEING CRASH SITE

“…The remains were relatively few, considering the large number of passengers. Most of the bodies have been incinerated by the explosion when the plane crashed. We have loaded a portion onto the helicopter. For the rest we followed your orders: men have dug deep pits in which we have put the pieces, and what we found of their luggage. We burned everything to ashes, even if it was not too much. When the job was done, we covered the pit and leveled everything.”

Philip Redmond appears tired and somewhat far, while updating Ironside.

More than understandable…

Managing a situation like this in no time, working hard under the sun, in the Sahara Desert, would make anyone a rag…

“Good job, lieutenant. What about the remains of the airplane?”

“The same as above, we buried the smaller fragments, although… Excuse me, sir, but here the sand is like the sea water, the dunes are constantly moving. We can’t rule out that in the future they may come back to the surface. We removed and burned markings, but consider that it’s the job of a single day, and done quickly. I hope you understands if…”

Ironside nods, placing a hand on the shoulder of the young lieutenant. “Let’s hope that this won’t happen any time soon. It’s okay, for now. This is only a temporary measure. We will figure out how to manage the situation better when the waters have calmed down and when we receive the right support.”

The two men are close to one of three military trucks. A trio of soldiers are setting two ramps on the back, moving a small excavator on the truck’s bed.

Ironside looks at the scene, then turns back to lieutenant Redmond. “Did you notice anything strange in the men, lieutenant? Someone who looks… different? Or behaving in an unusual way?”

The other seems to think it over for a while, looking at Ironside quizzically. “No, I don’t think, sir. The day was not one of our best. I mean for all of us, of course. I wouldn’t wonder if someone feels nervous after he has shoveled sand and collected pieces of corpses all day long.”

Meanwhile the soldiers finish loading the excavator onto the truck. One of them closes the tailgate, fixing it with its hooks.

“Quite right, lieutenant”, Ironside agrees, turning a tired smile to the soldier. “Anyway, if you notice anything unusual, let me know immediately. When we go back to the base we all must take medical tests. We must be sure that no one is contaminated.”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

Then Redmond turns to Ironside, looking him straight in the eye. “Sir, the men who came here from the helicopter crash site reported something strange. Major Macready isn’t here, and we can’t communicate with the base. What’s going on?”

Ironside seems to think for a moment, then he decides that that good guy doesn’t deserve a lie. “We’re dealing with something terribly dangerous, lieutenant. As for the base… I don’t know much more than you. At what point are the soldiers with the remaining preparations? The sooner we go back, the sooner we will have some answers.”

“The boys have almost finished with their job. We’ll be ready soon.”

USA BASE CNT222

The world comes slowly back to life, from the lethargy and darkness in which it faded out.

Where am I?

The woman struggles to retrieve some piece of lucidity and she begins slowly to remember the most recent events. She’s on the ground, curled up in a fetal position in a corner of the big elevator. Twinges of pain afflict her head, intermittently lightening up like a tribal drum with each beat of her heart.

Fleeting images flash in front of her mind’s eyes.

The laboratory tests…

Ivanov…

Vasquez!

The elevator stops, with an almost imperceptible shake. Moore gets up, while staying squatting. She’s still keeping tightly one of the bombs in her right hand and holds her breath, as the doors slide laterally at a rate that seems incredibly slow.

How long have I been unconscious?

She’s confused, like recovering from anesthesia. One of the two halves of the door is blocked at a third of the opening, with a crackling noise. The exterior of the cabin is dim, barely lit by the flickering light of a fluorescent tube that dangles from the ceiling. The feeling that something isn’t as it should be permeates the environment, infusing an unhealthy aura. A faint ticking is barely perceptible in the reigning silence.

Moore takes a step into the hall where the elevator opens, which was originally a replica of the one on the upper floor.

The signs of the devastation are clear. One of the walls is completely smashed, letting a glimpse of the adjoining room. On the walls are traces of blood and organic indistinct material. The scientist leans slowly close to the hole in the wall to look at what remains of the entertainment room beyond it. An old pinball lies sprawled on its side and on its broken glass the remains of a Flash Gordon sticker are still visible. One of its lights is still flashing intermittently, causing the ticking heard by the woman. A cyclone seems to have been unleashed in the room. Everything lies sprawled on the ground. The outer coating of one of the walls has been partially torn, as if something exploded inside. Large white pipes are visible, rudely exposed and split. Drops of water drip down into a small puddle that widens slowly on the floor.

No sign of life, no bodies.

The woman tries to recall Macready’s words.

What was on the middle floor, in addition to the entertainment room?

With a now sadly familiar hiss, the doors of the elevator close again, locking her on the floor.

A multitude of thoughts stir in the mind of the scientist. She must make a considerable effort to stay focused and keep a cool head.

She leans forward, moving slowly down the hall, being very careful not to make any noise and not to step on the glass fragments scattered on the ground.

The atmosphere is oppressive.

Shades, unnatural silence, dark corners in which she imagines all sorts of lurking monstrosities. And, most of all, the awareness that only a few minutes earlier, something terrifying was unleashed in that place.

Something that may still be there, seeking its preys, waiting for her somewhere in the dark.

With her senses alert, Moore moves down the hall, bent and careful not to lift her head too much, avoiding to show herself over the edge of the windows, fearing that something can notice her presence from the adjoining rooms.

Focused on the arduous task of moving slowly and bowing silently, she inadvertently leans her left hand on a wall. A throbbing dense pain draws her attention, and she bites her tongue not to scream.

The woman leans against the wall with her shoulder while watching her hand. It’s swollen, dirty, scratched and stained with dried blood. Three fingers look really bad. Two are obviously broken, and the first phalanx of the middle finger seems out of the articulation, bending the finger in an unnatural angle. The thumb-nail is torn up to half, sticking outside of the nail groove. She grits her teeth while with her right hand she presses on the finger, to flatten the nail on the translucent underlying skin, rich in nerve endings. After several painful attempts, the woman gives up, merely trying to keep the thumb folded in her palm.

Struggling to ignore the pain and forcing herself to forget the sense of disgust, Moore approaches a door that faces the corridor, just after the first corner. It’s in correspondence with the room where Ahmed was held upstairs. Moore reads the label next to the door, which shows the “Infirmary” words However, the window in the sliding door is mottled on the inside with splashes of blood. Gritting her teeth, the woman moves along the corridor to the next door. She remembers she has already been there. It’s the room in which, along with Ironside and Macready, she has met Ivanov. Only a few hours have gone by, but it seems almost another life. The scientist is about to get up to swipe her badge into the slot of the door lock when a gurgling sound comes from within, like a liquid suction, followed by the noise of a chair moving and something heavy falling on the floor.

There’s something in here…

The scientist freezes instantly, instinctively crouching. With an exasperated slowness she moves away again, crawling along the corridor. A little further the path turns right, as its upstairs twin.

She leans slowly over the corner, to make sure that the way is clear. Unlike other areas, this one is still intact.

Large windows run along the wall to her left. The inside of the walls are tarnished with condensation, and the room is barely lit by lines of red and blue LED lamps, whose light filters through a thick foliage.

The greenhouse…

Moore moves on, wondering if the creature may also assimilate and clone vegetable life forms.

A quick flicker of a shadow catches her attention. Moore looks up at the window along the long greenhouse room. There seems to be something that shakes on the ceiling. The misted glass doesn’t let her distinguish the details, but whatever it is, it gives the impression of having a large number of legs.

Get away from here…

Eager to get far away from the disaster area, from the room in which she felt the presence of something just moments earlier, and now also from the greenhouse, the scientist moves along the corridor heading to the section of the staff’s private rooms.

Maybe I’ll find some communication device…

She reaches the door at the end, eavesdropping and holding her breath as she listens. She can’t hear anything but the accelerated beating of her heart. No sound seems to come from within.

Holding in her right hand the explosive tube and the badge, Moore stretches her arm, sliding the key card in the reader. Nothing happens, while somewhere beyond the bend of the corridor she just walked through she hears a dull sound, like something banging against one of the doors from the inside.

God, no!

With a quick gesture, the scientist wipes the magnetic badge to a cleaner part of her lab coat, then she tries again to unlock the door.

More powerful thuds, more violent, come from somewhere in the elevator area.

On the third try, the door slides sideways, revealing a new section of corridor. Many doors are on its sides at regular intervals. Each of them is flanked by plates showing the name of the occupants and other card readers.

Moore enters quickly, then she immediately pushes the lock button to close the door behind her. This one however doesn’t close completely, leaving a slender ray of a few centimeters.

Damn!

Walking in the corridor, with a heavier apprehension at each step, Moore approaches the first door, hoping for a miracle.

Nothing, as expected, her badge doesn’t work.

She goes on down the corridor, reading the names of soldiers staying at the base in a permanent service. Bishop Samuel, Brody Simon… Her stomach shrinks, when reading the name of Juan Vasquez.

After a bend to the right, the corridor proceeds with other rooms, to finally end with a big and massive door on the far wall.

Going on, Moore approaches the second-to-last door, bearing a single name: Philip Redmond. A look at the wall beside the door freezes her.

* * *

Macready curses through clenched teeth to the entire series of events. He walks at a brisk pace along the main hangar of the base, followed by two marines. All of them wear bio-hazard suits. The worsening situation, and the radio silence of the base – his base – has deeply shaken the Major, turning his initial bewilderment into a lucid fury.

On board of a jeep, the three soldiers have traveled at breakneck speed the few kilometers between the helicopter crash site and the base, and they almost rolled over on the dunes a couple of times.

After reaching the destination, they found the guard post empty. A number of attempts to call the elevator to the floor didn’t have any success.

Using the video surveillance system, Macready has accessed some of the internal cameras of the base, those still in operation, and has seen the state of things in the underground levels. The devastation is almost complete, and the absence of traces of soldiers still alive is a reality that is hard to assimilate.

Giving up the idea of forcing somehow the elevator to operate, the commander guides the two soldiers to a seemingly small service room used as storage. This is located on another side of the huge hangar. Before entering it, Macready takes off his protective suit remaining in tactical pants and a khaki t-shirt.

“That Russian brainiac was right. We’re not dealing with a virus. And these suits just slow us down. I have made my choice guys, you are free to decide for yourself.”

After about a minute, three protective overalls are lying on the thin layer of sand that covers the ground.

Going into the tiny room, they find an environment barely lit by a dusty spotlight. Macready moves towards the opposite wall, on which some old wooden boards, yellowed plastic panels and other junk are piled up. “Quick, help me move this stuff.”

The three quickly free up the wall, revealing an aluminum box also covered with dust. With a quick gesture Macready removes it, revealing a white plastic plate with a hole and a red LED. The Major removes a crumpled plastic tarp on the floor, just to the right of the safety device.

The torches mounted on the assault rifles of the two soldiers illuminate a square metal plate, about a meter in size.

“Stand back and be ready for anything”, commands the Major. After rummaging with one hand inside his t-shirt, he pulls out a chain with a kind of a pendant looking like a tiny box. He inserts it into the hole on the plate in the wall, then takes a step back pointing his weapon to the metal panel. After a moment this one seems to sink a few centimeters and then it slides sideways revealing a staircase that goes down deep. Macready peeks slowly, staring at the inside for a few seconds and smelling the stale air coming from below. Then, apparently satisfied, he begins to descend, ordering the two men to follow him.

The three descend through a short section, proceeding on the rungs of a metal ladder. Then they reach a rough concrete floor. The place is narrow, lit by the cold light of LED spotlights mounted at regular intervals along the walls. The shape of the room is essentially cubical, about ten meters per side. A little further on, an opening in the floor reveals a stair, also in concrete, going down to the lower levels. Pointing their guns and their torches in front of them, the men go quickly down a few flights of stairs, coming soon to a different level. On one of the walls they can see a heavy armored door. It carries the number 1 painted in a bright color. Lit by spotlights, it seems to shine with its own light. A retinal scanner is beside it, with the case for the emergency button.

“You two stay back. Howe, get ready with incendiary grenades.” Macready approaches the eye to the scanner, then takes a few steps back.

The three men wait nervously for a few long moments, until the door slides sideways.

A damp breeze invests them, bringing to their nostrils a mixture of nauseating odors.

The door opens onto a small hall, a little wider than the door itself. The room is empty, except for a smaller door on the other side, whose glass has been broken through. It’s flanked by an unlocking button lit by a red LED. The soldiers approach and Macready pushes the release button, turning the led green. The door slides aside quickly. Macready starts to hate those automatic sliding doors, which don’t allow half measures and make it impossible to sneak inside in a stealthier way.

The opening faces a long corridor. There are clear signs that something terrible must have happened, not long ago. The floor is wet, the air smells of burning mixed with a rotten stench and chemical effluvia. Down the corridor, a flickering glow reveals a fire not yet extinguished by the sprinkler system. Many doors face the hallway. Some of them are smashed, one is torn from its hinges. The walls are stained with dark blood splashes and organic material that looks mucilaginous.

The soldiers move on cautiously, fearing an ambush at any moment. Through the gashes in the doors and in the walls, they can see inside the rooms.

They find nothing but occasional dark puddles and stains on the walls. This side of the base holds generic rooms, possibly used during the external staff’s visits. Macready moves on. The soldiers come down the hall beyond the first bend. About twenty meters down the path, it turns left again. The men reach the corridor section that runs along the laboratory perimeter. The windows are completely destroyed, the interior is dark, barely lit by a small fire, still burning. The cones of light projected by the soldiers illuminate the devastated environment, and stop on a deformed and dark mass, motionless on the floor. The soldiers look at the remains of a charred creature, briefly dwelling on the monstrous forms visible in the mist generated by the fire sprinklers. Deformed limbs, wide open jaws, traces of human faces grotesquely distorted that scream pain and anguish.

“Jesus help us! It’s like that shit on the helicopter…”, one of the soldiers whispers.

A little further on, the path ends up on a barrier of debris of a collapsed wall and ceiling and a laboratory workbench flipped sideways and partially burned. There is no way to go further.

Macready steps back without a word, the two soldiers with him move along with him. With the senses alert and careful not to make a sound, the three walk back to a corner in the hallway, near the section facing the laboratory.

“Howe”, the Major whispers. “Set here a C4 charge. Half an hour.”

“Range of the explosion, sir?”, the soldier asks.

Macready’s gaze is more than eloquent. Howe takes quickly the material from his backpack.

Leoni, the other soldier – a dark and short boy, boxy skull and with a heavy Latin accent – seems uncertain. His eyes bounce from his colleague who prepares the charges, to the Major. “Sir, what about the men and women inside the base? We can’t blow them up too!”

“Look around. There are no survivors, and right now our main goal is to contain the infection and prevent the creature from reaching the outside. I’ll take my responsibilities. Howe, regulate the amount of explosives taking into account that we will place two other charges on the lower floors, one for each floor. If we find someone we will take him out, that’s all. We can’t risk that tomorrow this hell will break free in a town.”

Howe acts quickly, setting the C4 bomb. Finally he synchronizes its clock, setting the timer for the delay ordered by Macready. Leoni doesn’t seem entirely convinced and he is about to object something, but his sentence is interrupted in the bud by a noise that catches their attention.

The three men turn around in unison. Howe finishes placing the explosive, then gets up quickly and takes an incendiary grenade. The sound has come from their back, from a room facing the corridor they just walked through. Just next to the door, on the wall, there is a fissure about half a meter high and half as large.

“I could swear that it was empty until a minute ago”, Leoni whispers.

Macready signals to stay quiet, then with a nod of the head he points to one of the doors. The two soldiers move silently to the sides, while holding their weapons ready. The Major waits a moment, then he swipes his badge in the reader slot. The door slides to one side, revealing the inside of the room.

It’s empty, except for a desk flipped on one side, as to hide a corner. Something white is visible behind it for a few moments, then it drops with a quick movement, hiding behind the flipped desk.

Macready points the beam of the flashlight in that direction, signaling to Howe to be ready with the firebomb. “Okay, let’s keep it simple: I don’t know who or what you are, but believe me, better for you to come out and show yourself. Do it now, or I’m going to blow up your ass right now!”

The Major is about to order the soldier to throw the grenade into the room, when a voice, with a deep Russian accent, comes from behind the desk.

“Please, don’t shoot!”

After a few moments of tense silence Macready speaks: “Get up, slowly, and keep your hands in plain sight.”

Two bony and trembling hands sprout from the shady area behind the desk, while the lights of the spotlights under the military weapons illuminate a white silhouette that gets up slowly.

It’s Ivanov, pale as the gown he wears. His eyes are terrified and somewhat haunted.

Son of a bitch…

“Come on”, Macready hisses. “Slowly. No sudden movements.”

The scientist pushes the desk just enough to go by, then he reaches the center of the room.

“Kneel!”

The man obeys, his eyes bouncing from one soldier to another.

“What happened?”, Macready asks. “Where’s Dr. Moore?”

The Russian hesitates at first, then he sums up what happened, telling how he and the scientist were attacked by the creature. “After the explosions I haven’t seen her, she fled to the elevator. I was stuck on this floor. I walked through that opening in the wall and I hid here until you came.”

Macready stares at him. He doesn’t trust that man, much less now that he may be one of those creatures.

The scientist seems to realize the doubts in the soldiers mind. “Please, you must believe me. We have to get out of here. I… I know I’m human, and I’m the only one who can help you kill the creature. With Dr. Moore we have found a test that will work for sure.”

“What kind of tests?”

The scientist swallows. “A blood test, but I need chemical reagents, and the lab is destroyed.”

Macready appears undecided whether to believe or not to the Russian, time goes by slowly.

“Twenty-five minutes, sir”, Howe’s clearly nervous voice.

The Major lingers still for a moment, then takes his decision. “Howe, Tony, let’s bring Dr. Ivanov with us. Keep him at a safe distance and don’t take your eyes off him for no reason whatsoever.”

The four men make their way into the corridor, to the room with the armored door, when somewhere behind them resonates an indefinable verse.

A low and prolonged moan, issued by something inhuman.

BOEING CRASH SITE

The roaring of the main rotor of the Bell UH-1Y Venom gets louder while the propeller increases its speed, rising a circular sand wave all around the helicopter. Its powerful headlights illuminate the area below, drawing an oval, which widens and blurs on the ground as the chopper takes off.

Redmond sits in the pilot’s seat, Ironside occupies the co-pilot’s place. Behind them, lined up on two benches that run parallel to the sides of the cabin, there are some of the soldiers who were at the site of the Boeing crash, including one of the doctors, Matt Serum, and Lieutenant Samuel Bishop.

The helicopter rotates slowly on its axis, illuminating a small line of military vehicles which starts a slow procession to return to the base.

Ironside’s voice can be barely heard over the roar generated by the motor. “Still no contact with the others?”

“Negative, sir, we have tried repeatedly to communicate with them, but no answer so far.”

Ironside is tense and nervous. He has the clear feeling that the situation is worsening, and an imminent danger is hanging over them like a Damocles’ sword. The man closes his eyes for a moment, rubbing his temples and eyelids in a vain attempt to find a glimmer of inner stillness. A feeling of anguish and nausea makes its way into his subconscious, like a trickle of rotten and smelly mud that’s overlaying his thoughts.

He has seen what happened to the other helicopter. The remains of the pilots and passengers are still before his mind’s eyes. He can still see the chilling vision of the twisted creature, the deformed inharmonious limbs born out of a nightmare.

He turns back, looking at the interior of the cabin, and at the men that sit on the two side benches. He knows that inside one of them, or even more than one, one of those monstrous beings may be hiding.

The men sit silent, they’re exhausted.

Ironside turns back, taking a deep breath. He closes his eyes again for some moments, recalling to his mind the face of his wife, Taisha, and of their infant daughter, Darla. His world seems light years away. The man hesitates for a moment on the thought of those two, on that feeling of warmth, on the smell of home, of hearth, and shivers like a lizard craving a ray of sunshine on a gray and cold morning.

The feeling of unease pops out again in his soul, as if an invisible syringe is injecting a foreign element. For a moment he’s touched by the idea that the creature may reach a town…

With his mind’s eyes Ironside sees again the party in his garden: women chatting… children chasing each other while shouting out loudly… laughs, streamers and colorful balloons…

He’s watching the scene from the place where, in what seems another life, he hugged the stunning body of his wife Taisha, thoroughly savoring her scent.

His gaze falls on one of the guests, intent on chatting amiably with a group of people.

That face is familiar, but he can’t remember who he is. He’s certain he has already seen him, but where? He stops to look at the man, his expressions, his gestures, his dress, the way he stands.

Where have I seen you already?

Almost like feeling of being watched, the man turns to look back at him, straight in the eyes, smiling and raising a glass in his direction, as if to toast.

Who is this man?

The answer to the question posed by the Ironside’s thoughts isn’t long in coming.

The guest freezes, his smile fades slowly away, but he still has his eyes fixed on him. A feeling of primal fear begins to make inroads into John Ironside as he watches the man, whose hand lets the glass fall and shatter at his feet. The stranger starts trembling, slowly at first, but soon those shakes turn into heavy muscle spasms. Bystanders withdraw from the man who, now shaken by violent convulsions, arches his back backwards and lets a yellow-greenish drool bursts out of his mouth, like a wicked fountain.

Ironside wants to intervene, he shouts to the people to get away, to escape. He starts to move, but his body responds slowly. His limbs are stiff, as entangled in mud. No sound comes from his mouth but a hoarse and faint moan.

He can only look with increasing dismay…

The unknown guest moves awkwardly like a drunk, stumbling and struggling to stay upright. His head deforms, stretching into a grotesque mask while red tentacles tear his skin and clothing, whirling in the air like angry snakes in search of their prey.

People shout and run in a panic. A woman stumbles and hits the ground. Her face contracts in pain and terror.

Ironside looks at his daughter Darla. The child stays still, paralyzed with fear, crying only a few meters from a mass of flesh and malformed limbs that has nothing of human.

Alien howls, in addition to roars and other sounds made by throats that are not of this earth.

Taisha, the faithful companion of his life, sprints to get the child and get her away from that crawling chaos…

Some of the tentacles reach the woman, grabbing her legs.

My God, no!

Other deformed appendices reach the slender body of the child.

Ironside can only look at his dearest people being dragged by that monstrosity while he is crushed by the sense of helplessness.

The sound of their shattered bones reaches him like a hammer straight into his stomach.

Their eyes show that mixture of terror and amazement of those that are suddenly torn to pieces, while he is there and can barely breathe.

Their screams tear apart his terrified soul, like ice blades that slash through a canvas…

USA BASE CNT222

Emily Moore looks at one side of the corridor, right after the door of Philip Redmond. The wall is broken through. The woman swallows, holding her breath. Her senses stay alert while she tries to find the courage to approach and check. Somewhere beneath her, the noise of collapsing walls echoes suddenly, along with vibrations that seem like small earthquakes. After a little while, the silence comes back again.

She approaches slowly to the breach. No noise seems to come from within, and the only audible sounds are her anxious breathing accompanied by the beating of her heart. She bends down to enter the room, firmly holding the last Molotov bomb in her hand.

There are no traces of blood or other fluids inside Redmond’s apartment, but everything there is messed up upside down. The place is devastated as if a gang of thieves had searched everywhere looking for something. In the flickering light of the fluorescent tubes, Moore can see another deep gash in one of the side walls. It’s the side that borders to the last room: Macready’s.

A terrible thought starts making its way into her mind. With the slowness of a sloth, the scientist approaches the fissure, through which she can see the other room.

Inside it, the chaos is even worse. Here too, no trace of blood nor other traces that reveal the presence of the creature and a possible assimilation. Everything is messed up. The mattress presents deep parallel lacerations, as if a clawed hand had dug in its interior. Lockers are empty, various stuff and papers are scattered on the floor.

The scientist moves cautiously toward a door at the end. The noise of a falling drop is amplified by the unnatural silence that reigns supreme. She reaches the threshold and operates slowly the white plastic handle, feeling it cold to the touch. There is a small bathroom inside. Clear signs of violence are visible here too. A wall cabinet balances on the sink, kept in place by a single nail.

The initial doubt becomes certain: someone or something has been here in search of who knows what.

A small dark rectangle, half-buried by the chaos of objects that lie scattered on the floor, draws her attention. Moore picks it up. It’s an old leather briefcase, with worn edges. The woman opens it in search of a badge, but all that it contains is a picture.

It’s an old Polaroid, with yellowed edges and faded colors. Two men are in the photo. The first is barely more than a boy, in whose features she recognizes a youth version of the same Albert Macready. The second is taller, has long hair and a full beard. With his right hand he’s holding a Texan cowboy hat on the boy’s head and his left hand holds aloft a bottle of J&B as a toast to the photographer.

Something makes its way into her heart, as she watches the old photo which seems to emanate a sense of humanity and family warmth, which seem far away now. The smile of the two, the soft and yellowed colors, the grasslands behind them, the sky that appears without clouds. Many little things that paint a world and an inner state that are light years away from the despair of her current situation.

The image seems to fade slowly from her sight as tears veil her eyes. The woman brings instinctively the old picture to her chest, as if to put those feelings in her soul.

She stands still for a moment, breathing deeply as in an attempt to find a basis of quiet on which to develop coherent thoughts.

Suddenly she hears a noise that makes her blood freeze, recalling her to the tremendous reality.

The unmistakable beep of electronic locks.

Somewhere in the corridor, a door has just opened.

ALGERIAN DESERT

Military convoy

“Sir!”

“You okay, sir?”

“Sir!”

The voice of Lieutenant Philip Redmond, and the firm grip on one arm, recall Ironside to reality, pulling him out of the murky mists of his vision.

The soldier looks at him with a worried face.

John Ironside tries to swallow, but his mouth is completely dry and kneaded. He nods, turning a tarnished look behind him, toward the men crammed in the helicopter. One of the soldiers is looking straight at him, but it only lasts a moment, and after giving a nod he turns his gaze elsewhere.

Multiple perceptions alternate in Ironside’s mind. The sounds and scenes lived a few moments earlier are still vivid into his heart. A too realistic vision, a sick lucid dream, even though the host’s identity is the only detail that he can’t focus on. A man with dark, bushy hair, with an affable smile over a face slightly too big for his narrow and sagging shoulders.

Who the hell is that man?

It’s as if someone, or something, was projecting a movie into his mind, purposely missing that so important particular. Halfway between a threat and a kind of induced nightmare. A hideous vision of a possible future.

“Excuse me, sir, you seemed to have dozed off. I didn’t want to bother you, but you almost immediately began to moan in your sleep.”

“How much time did I…?”

“Not much, sir, not even three minutes, as I said, I’m sorry…”

“No problem, lieutenant, thank you. The last forty-eight hours have been hard to everybody. What about the troops on the ground?”

“That’s also why I allowed myself to bother you, sir. We have received a communication from the boys who were with Major Macready, where the helicopter crashed. They split. The Major has returned to the base with two men to investigate the radio silence. Others converge in our direction to join us along the way, we will meet them soon.”

“Radio silence?”

“Affirmative sir, we can no longer communicate with the base…”

Redmond’s words fade into a worried silence, while the soldier points to the line of military vehicles on the ground, in the headlights of the helicopter.

Ironside turns his gaze to watch the scene below them, and a warning bell lights up in his chest, causing a rush of adrenaline.

“I think there is something wrong, sir. The vehicle that leads the line has slowed down, I can’t understand why. It’s moving very slowly and swerves over again.”

“Who’s in that vehicle?”

“Brody…”, says Redmond in the intercom, partly responding to the question for Ironside, “…what the hell are you doing?”

No reply.

“White, Brody, can you hear me?”

The lead vehicle swerves sharply, raising a cloud of sand, then it keeps going on, zigzagging between low dunes.

“We can’t communicate with them, sir.”

Shit…

“Who’s driving the trucks behind them?”

“The first is led by Terry McKinnock, the following truck is driven by Vince Seemore. Keith Brimley drives the last one, that with the mechanical shovel and other tools.

“Can you get in touch with the three of them, excluding the leading truck?”

After a few moments the voice of Ironside sounds in the internal communication system. “John Ironside here, can you hear me?”

The affirmative answers arrive almost in unison.

“McKinnock here, sir, I get you loud and clear. What’s wrong with those two over there? Are they having a party while driving?”

“McKinnock, Seemore, slow down and cover its sides, I want you to place your trucks on the two sides of the lead truck. Tell me if you see something inside. Brimley, stay a few meters back, we try to close it on three sides.”

From the helicopter cockpit, Redmond and Ironside see the maneuver of the two vehicles, which head to the sides of the truck that drives the column. Something isn’t right: now it seems accelerating, in order to outdistance its pursuers by a few meters.

“Brody is always joking, that asshole is accelerating”, the deep voice of Seemore.

Shit…

“Follow it, guys, try to get its sides. Stay sharp!”

The engines of the two trucks roar and speed, getting quickly next to the suspect vehicle. The third truck, much heavier due to the load of equipment, remains behind.

The voices of the drivers and other soldiers sitting next to them sound in the helicopter’s intercom.

“I can’t see anything inside, it’s too dark.”

“I’m gonna try to get close! Wilford, see if you can lean. Approach it more. Use a flashlight!”

Ironside and Redmond are looking at the scene from inside the cockpit.

The truck, which runs parallel to the left, approaches the side of the vehicle. A soldier leans out the window, pointing a spotlight toward the other car.

“I can’t see anything…”, the voice of the marine comes muffled over the intercom in the helicopter cabin.

“Wait, there’s something… Jesus Christ! What the fuck… Go, go, go! Terry get away!”

Before Redmond and Ironside realize what they just heard, they get a glimpse of something breaking off the window of the vehicle, projecting out and firmly grasping the marine. His body is drawn into the cockpit. For a moment the soldier’s body stays suspended between the two vehicles, then it finally disappears inside the truck.

The voice of McKinnock shouts in the headphones of Ironside and Redmond.

“Shit! Wilford Wilford!”

In the heat of the moment no one notices the truck that is coming from the opposite direction, a few hundred meters further down the track traveled by the convoy.

The roof of the vehicle opens, the figure of Samuel Brody emerges halfway, holding a heavy machine gun of large caliber, with which he begins to target the other vehicles.

The newcomer truck moves towards the convoy, carrying soldiers from the place where the helicopter crashed. As it climbs over the edge of a sand dune, it swerves abruptly, realizing that the other vehicles are moving in his own direction at high speed. Nobody warned the driver about the occurring situation, and the internal communication system, switched from Redmond to contact the three vehicles tracking the truck, made it impossible to hear the conversation between the other drivers.

Everything happens too quickly for the men on board of the aircraft to do anything.

One of the barrage of blows fired by Brody centers the side of the truck driven by Seemore. More bullets hit the fuel tank, just behind the cabin, on the left side, causing an explosion that transforms the vehicle into a fire ball launched in the desert, swerving dangerously to the right.

The driver of the truck coming from the opposite direction tries desperately to divert from the path of the other vehicle, but he is barely able to move a little, just enough to offer the left flank. The vehicle engulfed in flames crashes at full speed into the other, impacting violently on the exposed side, that of the fuel tank. For a moment it seems that nothing is going to happen, then a new explosion shakes both the vehicles. The truck coming from the opposite direction is tipped on its side, in an eruption of violent flames, while the other goes on a rickety running for a few tens of meters before stopping.

Their flames stand out in the dark of night and grow tall.

“Son of a bitch!”, the desperate shout of McKinnock, which steers to get away from the vehicle. This one, however, almost foreseeing its move, steers abruptly remaining flanked at a distance of a couple of meters. From the window opening, where Wilford was grabbed, big tentacles pop out. Some of them huddle around the right mirror of McKinnock’s truck, others burst through the window, gripping and uprooting the entire door and then throwing it up towards the helicopter.

Redmond reacts promptly, drifting the chopper to the left and avoiding the impact by a whisker.

Meanwhile, other monstrous tentacular appendages grow out towards the cabin of the truck running at the left of Brody’s vehicle, while he keeps opening fire undaunted.

McKinnock’s voice sounds loud in a scream in the intercom, then Redmond and Ironside see him jump out of the racing truck and roll in the sand for a few meters before stopping.

“My God! Brimley, can you hear me?”, says Redmond.

“Affirmative, sir!”

“McKinnock is down. He may still be alive. He’s about two hundred meters at 11 o’clock, take him aboard and head right to the base. Got it?”

“Roger that.”

“Redmond do we have weapons on board?”, Ironside.

“There should be explosive crates in the rea…”

The phrase goes off in the throat of Redmond, along with his life. A burst fired by Brody strikes right in the cabin, opening a vertical row of holes in the windshield, followed by a red splash. The head of the marine slumps forward as the helicopter starts to turn on itself, out of control.

USA BASE CNT222

The howling echoes in the base, lasting an incredibly long time. The group of soldiers led by Macready, along with Dr. Ivanov, drop every stealth precaution. The men rush into the gate area. Ivanov is the first to cross the threshold, tailed by the two soldiers. Macready lingers for a while, intent on breaking the optical sensor on each side of the opening with his rifle’s butt. Once sure that the devices can no longer function he presses quickly the emergency closure button.

The gate slides quickly, sealing the first level of the base.

Nothing and no one will ever get out of here…

The group rushes down the stairs, which sink down toward the other basements.

Macready goes first, followed by the Russian, always well guarded by the two soldiers.

“Stay sharp!”, the words of the leader as he unlocks the gate that allows access to the second basement floor.

The sliding wall reveals the corridor of the private rooms area. A little further from their position, on their left, they can see the door of Macready’s room.

The group moves cautiously, focused on the breach in the wall near the door of the room of Redmond’s, a few meters ahead. Macready leads the team with flicks of the hand, getting closer to the opening. The corridor seems fine, apparently intact. At a nod of the Major, Howe moves on, walking for about fifteen meters, then he stops to place a second explosive charge. The man works quickly to set the timer synchronized with the bomb left upstairs.

Macready waits for the soldier to come back and rejoin the group, then he uses his special badge on the lock control, unlocking the door to his room.

The four men step inside the room. The Major’s face hardens in an upset grimace at the sight of the devastation in his room. Someone, indeed probably something, was here looking for him. Or for something in his possession as well.

Perhaps my badge…

Or rather my eyes…

At that thought he experiences the uneasy feeling that something is twisting his guts.

A movement on the right, down the room, where it’s less lit, alerts the men. Three light beams point in the same direction.

A human figure is lying squatting on the ground, curled up in a corner, with her hands up.

The spotlights shine right into the face of Emily Moore. The woman looks back at them with a face of despair. Her wide open mouth doesn’t let out a single moan.

“Hold your fire! Don’t shoot!”, Macready shouts, while the soldiers move to the room, to better illuminate the scene. “Major, her hand!”, one of the soldiers moves his spotlight on the upper limbs of the woman, raised in surrender. Her left hand is swollen and deformed, the fingers twisted and bent in unnatural angles.

Macready steps in, moving his light up to the woman’s hands and seeing the vial in her right hand.

He moves slowly his rifle, pointing it at the woman’s head.

“Major, please…”, it’s all she can say, her voice broken by sobs.

“Kill it! Look at her hand, she’s one of those creatures!”

Hearing the voice of the Russian, the woman’s eyes open wide in terror. She withdraws instinctively. Then she seems to find a glimmer of lucidity. “I’ve seen him dying… The creature got him… He couldn’t have survived!”

Moore turns to Macready. “You must believe me, Major! Ivanov saved my life, I ran away when that being grabbed him.”

Hearing these words the soldiers step slightly away from Ivanov.

“The creature lies”, he exclaims, strangely calm. “To deceive humans is what it does best. Look at her hand, it has not yet completed the cloning process.”

“No!”, the desperate cry of the woman. “This isn’t true. I fell when I fled. I got several fractures to the bones of the hand. I am not one of those creatures, Major, you must believe me!”

Macready alternates quick glances between the woman and the Russian, looking for details that may betray the creature.

The tension creates an oppressive atmosphere.

Both apparently human, both so real, and yet one of them might not be what they say.

The skin of the woman’s hand is swollen, covered in blood, glossy, deformed…

The Major takes a step back, moving slowly away from the woman and raising again his assault rifle to take aim at her.

He made his decision.

Her heart seems to stop to the awareness of imminent death.

No, this can’t be true…

She closes her eyes awaiting for this nightmare to come to an end.

The seconds seem like hours…

“майор, нет!”

Three rays of light move in unison to the breach in the wall, which opens on Redmond’s room. The voice that comes from the opening immediately reveals the identity of the one who spoke.

From the shadow of the opening emerges a perfect copy of Alexander Ivanov.

Moore lets out a cry of terror seeing the Russian, which enters the room with slow and calculated movements. He stands straight with his hands up.

“Major, don’t do that!”, the newcomer hastens to reiterate, this time using a language understood by all the soldiers.

The atmosphere is very tense, the soldiers move slowly while the beams of the spotlights bounce between the two Ivanov and Moore, who looks at the scene astonished. A few minutes ago they could still have some doubts, but now they are aware that here with them, in the room, there is a creature that has perfectly replicated a human being in every detail.

“Don’t move, keep your hands in plain sight!”, Macready shouts aiming from one to the other of the two Russian scientists.

It can’t be…

There must be some difference, a detail that can betray it…

They are stalled.

“Fifteen minutes, sir.”

Howe’s voice urging to move.

It’s the woman speaking, addressing to Macready, but without taking her eyes off the first Ivanov, the one that came with the group of soldiers. Her voice is shaky and uncertain.

“During the first attack, the lights went out, we ran away in the dark. Ivanov has saved my life, and as we ran he wounded his hand with a sharp glass. The cut can’t have healed already, this should prove that it’s human, but I myself have seen him grabbed by one of the creatures who attacked us after a while!”

Macready’s spotlight lights up the hands up of the second Ivanov, the one just arrived. On the palm of one of them a dark cut is clearly visible. The man looks at Macready, but he speaks to the woman.

“The creature grabbed me, it’s true… but even if its touch burned the skin on my neck, it could not assimilate me, because of the poison of which I spoke. The explosion that broke the glass and which enabled you to escape caused it to lose its grip on me. Then I ran after you, but I could only see you plunge into the elevator. I had to use the explosives I had left to block the passage to the creature. Then I hid, waiting, until the cabin came back to the floor. Perhaps the mechanism has failed, or perhaps something has taken control of it. The elevator brought me to the third level, where I discovered that the way was blocked by rubble. I could see through a small breach a team of men in bio-hazard suits, like the one we met on the first floor. They were fighting against one of the creatures. Only two of them were still alive. I could not do anything, I was stuck. I stood in the elevator cabin until it moved up, allowing me to reach the second floor. Those beings are everywhere now, and…”, he nods at the other Ivanov, “…this is one of them.”

He catches his breath after speaking in a rush, telling his latest adventures, and meanwhile he shows the military his wounded palm. A dark cut, crescent-shaped, is clearly visible.

Macready turns the spotlight on the first Ivanov, the one they found on the top floor. “Put your hands in plain view, I want to see.”

The man obeys, and a moan escapes Moore’s throat when the light shine on the palms showing intact hands.

“The creatures communicate telepathically with each other”, the first Ivanov bursts nervously. “They can weave the stories they want, supporting each other in order to appear more convincing. Don’t be fooled, Major, destroy them both before they jump on us.”

Macready turns to him, the eyes of the scientist lit by the spotlights under the soldiers’ rifles. He is strangely calm, his face shows no trace of the despair shown when they found him, only a few minutes before.

“If I was one of those things, why would I have showed up to keep you from shooting at her?”. The second Ivanov speaks, nodding to the woman. “I would’ve remained in the shadows, waiting for the best time to kill you one by one”.

“These are just lies! Don’t let your guard down!”, the other Ivanov interrupts him. “It’s clear that he and the woman are acting together to fool you. If you kill me, there will be one fewer human, and you’ll only be three against two of those things. Burn them now that you have a chance.”

The soldiers don’t seem to believe any of their versions. Their guns aim with uncertainty to both versions of Ivanov.

“I can prove my humanity”. The words of the second Ivanov break the long lasting tense moments.

The looks are for him.

“I told you how the creature isn’t able to replicate parts that don’t belong to the body, such as dentures or missing limbs…”

The scientist that came from Redmond’s room fixes his gaze on that of his clone, watching it impassively. “In 1991 I lost half a leg, due to the explosion of a pressurized gas container… That’s why I have a bio-mechanical implant.”

That said, Ivanov makes as to crouch, squatting on the ground to lift slowly the fabric of his pants.

Right at that moment, a muffled sound, followed by a low hissing, resonates in the room. Macready turns towards the source of the noise, pointing the rifle.

The body of the first Ivanov is shaken by an unnatural tremor, and one of his arms is stretched out sideways. Where his left hand should be, a long reddish tentacle sprouts out and pierces Leoni just at the base of his throat. The marine struggles for breath, his fingers sink into the mutating meat that begins to wind on his neck, merging with it like molten wax. Macready and Howe raise their weapons at the creature, but this, with a sudden gesture of its sprawling arm, throws the body of the pierced soldier in their direction, centering Howe, who is knocked to the floor.

Macready manages to step aside, then he opens fire with short bursts addressed to the creature, whose head elongates, stretching in a second tentacle swirling with violence and raising chaos in the room.

Terrifying sounds come from the monstrosity, not attributable to anything known. The bullets don’t seem to have any effect other than to shake the body of the monster, opening wounds from where new tentacles sprout out. Its clothes are torn off under the push of the internal pressure, while the legs split longitudinally, turning into a multitude of appendices that crawl quickly on the ground.

“Come with me! Quick!”

Alexander Ivanov, the one who emerged from the breach in the wall just in time to save the life of Moore, approaches the woman, holding out his hand to pull her to him and making her raise from her squatting position. Then he heads toward the opening in the wall.

Macready lingers, continuing to empty another magazine on the creature, in a futile attempt to save the life of Howe. The soldier is on the ground, one of his legs is clearly broken at the knee. The marine shouts desperately, as he tries to ignore the pain and reach his gun, fallen slightly over. The body of Leoni, whose skull has disappeared into the mass of reddish tentacles attached to the creature, is shaken, while his limbs stretch and bend like being broken, shaping in no time in the appearance of monstrous paws. The being that until recently looked like Alexander Ivanov moves like a hideous octopus, crawling on the floor and ignoring the blows of Macready’s rifle who dig deep wounds in its body. The beast moves to the soldier lying on the ground. Howe manages to reach the gun, finally getting hold of it, and then he turns around, but the creature is now too close. The last thing he can see is a mass of red tentacles that literally submerge him. Then the excruciating burning, as he perceives the feeling of a myriad of hot needles that burrow into his flesh.

“Come on, there’s nothing you can do to help him!”

Only then, when the woman’s voice reaches him, Macready realizes that someone is tugging him from behind, pulling him towards the opening of the wall.

Following Moore, the Major crouches to cross the breach, just in time to avoid a whitish mucus splash spit by the monster.

Ivanov, Moore and Macready come out of Redmond’s room, rushing to the gate. Something violently impacts on the door of Macready’s room, when they step by, the door seems to bend, deformed by internal pressure.

Quickly the three reach the safety gate. Here Macready breaks the retinal scanner too, then he rushes outside to push the button for the emergency closure.

The Major checks the timer on his watch: 10 minutes.

ALGERIAN DESERT

Military convoy

The two military trucks still proceed side by side in their mad rush among the sand dunes. A soldier, in the truck formerly driven by McKinnock, tries to climb over the tailgate to jump out of the vehicle. The man stands for a few seconds astride on the gate, turning several times to look behind him, to the inside of the truck. When he seems to make his decision he jumps out of the vehicle but, before he touches the ground, several tentacles sprawl lightning fast in the air, bolting around his neck and one arm. The soldier remains intertwined in a death grip and is dragged on the ground. The man kicks and squirms. He struggles desperately to save his life against the fleshy mass that is choking him. Soon also his free hand is enveloped by the creature. The truck keeps running on and the man is dragged on the ground, which quickly deprives him of the protection afforded by the suit and the boots. In a short time the work of the creature and the friction on the ground starts to wreak havoc to his body, spreading a red trail that winds like a snake in the desert dust.

On board of the helicopter it’s unleashed chaos. Ironside tries everything possible to regain control of the aircraft. He is a former soldier who knows how to pilot that model but it’s been a long time since his last ride. In addition, the lifeless body of Redmond blocks the cloche. The intercom spreads the terrifying sounds coming from the driver of the only truck still running, mixed with the desperate shouts of the soldiers trapped inside.

McKinnock’s truck, now at the mercy of the creature, steers right, ramming the other vehicle. Pushed away by the hit, another burst exploded by Brody misses the helicopter by a whisker.

The two vehicles run side by side for a few dozen meters when they impact violently against a squat dune. The vehicles shoot up into the sky for a few moments, then they ruin precipitously on the other side.

The clash is tremendous, and they overturn several times.

Meanwhile, the helicopter is spinning on itself and in the cabin the alarm signal resonates accompanied by the light flashes of a red emergency lamp.

“We’re going down!”, yells Matt Serum from one of the benches in the belly of the aircraft.

One of the marines comes forward unsteadily, he open his arms to steady himself on the bulkheads.

Giving proof of determination, poise and uncommon strength, he manages to stay up and at the same time he releases the body of Redmond from the safety straps. He lifts the corpse and moves it on the floor behind him. He nimbly climbs over the pilot’s seat and takes his place, holding the cloche and quickly changing some switches.

The helicopter stabilizes quickly; the man seems to know what he does. Ironside gives him a look of understanding and gratitude.

He is the man who was watching him earlier.

USA BASE CNT222

Macready, Moore and Ivanov rush quickly through the last flight of stairs to get to the gate marked with number 3. The sequence of gestures to open the passage repeats, while the two scientists stay a few meters back. Moore is holding the explosive vial in her right hand, ready to throw it.

“What’s that?”, Macready asks, nodding to the vial.

“It’s a raw incendiary bomb. There was not enough space to use it, it would have burned one of us.”

The last words of the woman muffle while the gate opens to a hallway similar to the one upstairs. Here too, obvious signs of destruction. Along one wall three deep gashes run along the surface, they run parallel and fade after a few meters into a large splash of dark blood.

“I must get to the armory. You stay here. If I won’t be back within five minutes… run! There is an opening at the top of the stairs. It will take you outside.”

“No way!”, the firm response of the woman. There is something that doesn’t convince her at all in what just happened. A detail that she seems to miss, but she knows it’s important. “If we split we make things easier for the creature. Alone we are an easy prey. I’m coming with you.”

There is no time to discuss, Macready throws a quick glance to the woman and to the silent Russian behind her. “Okay, but stay sharp and keep your eyes wide open”. Then he turns to face the corridor.

Their footsteps echo in the deathly silence that reigns in the base. However, they know they are not alone. There is something in the air, like an indistinct feeling. Almost a kind of pressure on their minds. A sense of threat, of danger, as a degenerate situation beyond the point of no return. It’s as if a force field is permeating the environment, instilling a sense of repulsion, and everything seems to want to transmit to the three the same message.

Danger…

Death…

Escape now…

Get away…

The long corridor stops after a few dozen meters, blocked by debris. A section of the ceiling has collapsed, giving way to a deep breach. From the darkness inside comes a light mist that smells of rotten something.

“The way to the generator is cut out”, Macready exclaims while he slides his badge in the reader to one of the side doors. The red light turns green but the door moves just a few millimeters, then it latches with a strangled noise. The Major makes a gesture of annoyance when trying unsuccessfully to put his hands to apply force.

“What’s in that room?”, Moore whispers.

Macready heads for a nearby door, across the hall. “These are the armory rooms. There…”, pointing with a nod at the locked door, “we have the heavy weapons. They could be useful right now.”

“Weapons such as guns, even large caliber, would have no effect on it”, says Moore. “The only valid way is to destroy the creature at the cellular level.”

Macready slides his badge in the reader of another door. “Well, then here we’ll find what we need. Stand back.”

The door slides sideways with a hissing. For a moment the soldier is hit by a gust of stinking air, hot and humid, which seems to insinuate insistently in their nose. “Mmmph”, the man puts instinctively a hand to his mouth, rejecting a retching.

Straining to hold his breath, the soldier looks over the doorway, checking the inside. The room is dimly lit by a red light. Macready directs the spotlight of his assault rifle, revealing some details. The walls of the room, and what lies inside, are covered by a tangle of reddish pulsating growths. A thin membrane crisscrossed by dark veins covers the fluorescent tubes, causing the flickering colored light.

The Major looks out warily, expecting an attack at any moment. He walks slowly, stepping on the tiny still free part of the floor, heading for a side wall of still free shelving.

Weird sounds come from that kind of blood mucilage. Gurgles, liquid and crawling noises. In a corner at the bottom there are still recognizable silhouettes of human bodies piled up, also covered by the same pulp. A feeling of anger and sorrow comes to life in the soldier, when he barely recognizes the face of one of the boys who served in the refectory.

Perhaps the creature has killed and piled them here, waiting to assimilate them…

Macready feels like being inside the stomach of a huge living organism. The heat is suffocating.

Shit! Its food reserves…

After a time that seems infinite he reaches a wall. With the delicacy of a cat he is able to extract a first box, putting it on the floor. Inside are stocked some hand phosphor-incendiary grenades. The man takes as many as he can, filling a small backpack.

Without bothering to put the box back in its place, Macready stands up and raises his arms to get another one from a higher shelf. This is considerably heavier and offers some resistance. With an effort the Major manages to pull it out. At the same time the organic mass that covers the walls is shaken by a tremor.

While laying the box on the other one, Macready realizes that some reddish filaments adhere to its back and connect it to the rest of the mucilage.

The tremor that goes through the walls increases. The creature, which was dormant, seems to awake, perhaps disturbed by the man that tore part of its tissue.

Knowing that there is no time, Macready acts quickly and opens the box, whose lid tilts heavily hitting a shelf.

A gurgling sound, louder than the others, catches the attention of the marine, intent on retrieving a timed bomb. A little to his right, one of the growths begins to have a pulsating motion, as if something is pumping rhythmically material inside. The tip of the protrusion takes quickly a spheroidal shape.

By rapidly alternating glances to the mutating creature to his right and the device in his hands, Macready sets the timer of the bomb.

The rounded shape trembles visibly, getting larger and larger, reaching the size of a basketball. A vertical diametrical line draws on its surface, opening a bloody wound that reveals a shiny, dark surface, with metallic reflections. A huge compound eye, similar to that of an insect, stares at him for a few seconds.

The vibration that affects the entire organic tissue that covers a good part of the room increases in intensity, while somewhere in the depths of the base sounds a chilling roar. Other fleshy growths come alive along the walls starting to form limbs and tentacles snaking in the air in search of their prey. New structures come to life on the creature’s surface. Eyes that look human, and others that have absolutely nothing of human. Maybe they aren’t even eyes but other sensory organs, belonging to animal species assimilated during the millions of years of existence of that timeless and nameless being.

A new roar, louder than before, shakes the walls, followed by a heavy thud, which shakes the very foundations of the base.

“For God’s sake, hurry!”, Moore shouts somewhere in the corridor outside.

Macready finishes to set the bomb’s timer and while he gets up he shows the middle finger to the eye that still stares at him. “Fuck you, asshole!”

The man runs crouched, dodging the tentacles that floats in midair and deals a blow with the butt of his rifle to an indefinable shape that tries to grab him in the face. He flees the room into the corridor, just in time before a mucus spray almost hits him in the back. Moore is already fleeting, about ten meters ahead. Ivanov has moved away towards the gate.

A kind of roar reaches them.

Somewhere a wall collapsed…

Another heavy thud accompanied by a chorus of bestial growls and voices echoes in the hallway.

Getting stronger.

Getting closer.

They run to the gate at the end of the corridor, Ivanov has already reached it, he’s pale and waits for them on the threshold, ready to push the close button.

Suddenly the door of the room with heavy weapons, the one that was stuck and didn’t open up, explodes. The door is smashed and bulkhead fragments are thrown towards the opposite wall.

Moore reaches the gate before Macready and turns to look, immediately regretting having done so. An indescribable something has broken through one of the doors and the wall. A creature vomited from hell whose mass is a swarm of strange life forms, ungainly and misshapen. A crawling chaos of monstrous and ferocious tentacular appendices.

The entire section of the corridor is quickly filled.

“Seal the gate!”, Macready shouts.

Moore is frozen with horror, the Russian watches the scene with an impassive face.

“Close it now, damn it!”

Ivanov seems frozen too.

Moore come forward, pushing the Russian aside then firmly pushing the close button.

The time seems to freeze.

The door starts to close.

The monster is quickly approaching.

Macready runs, aiming with the assault rifle at the retinal scanner.

The gate is half closed.

A long tentacle darts toward the Major, barely missing his ankle.

The man open fire, a first set of three shots miss the target.

Shit…

A second burst, whose noise is almost covered by the cacophony of sounds of the abomination behind him, hits the retinal reader, smashing it to pieces.

The tailgate is three quarters closed when Macready plunges, landing hard on the ground over the threshold.

Ivanov seems to awaken and he supports Moore, trying to push the movement of the gate to accelerate its closure. However, the mechanism proceeds with its usual slow pace, unmindful of their efforts.

The bulk of the creature is huge and now incumbent upon them, with only a couple of centimeters missing to the complete closure of the door.

The sickening stench becomes more intense and hits them with a heavy wind, since the body completely fills the hallway and acts as a piston. A tentacle darts for a moment over the threshold before withdrawing, the creature is now very close. Hell itself is ready to fall on the three survivors when the passage finally closes with a metallic thud. Less than a second later the creature hits the other side, making a loud crash followed by a furious and brutal growl.

Macready has already stood up. “Let’s go, there’s not even a second to waste!”

The three rush quickly up the concrete stairways. The sound of their steps, amplified in the closed environment, is echoed by heavy blows against the three armored doors.

“Will they resist?”, the woman asks out of breath.

“I don’t know, but it’s enough for me if they resist for a few minutes. We set the charges to create a gap between the basements. The latest detonation will trigger the supply of explosives in the armory. The fire will spread everywhere. That son of a bitch will burn in the hell where it came from.”

ALGERIAN DESERT

Military convoy

“Lieutenant Samuel Bishop, sir, I have a license as a helicopter pilot.”

“God bless you, soldier. Make sure you keep flying this thing, we all have a score to settle.”

Once the helicopter has stabilized, Ironside frees himself from the slings and headphones and heads toward the back of the aircraft, poking rapidly among the crammed boxes at the bottom. Some are scattered and have opened.

An excited voice emerges from the intercom. “Brimley here. I recovered McKinnock. He’s heavily wounded. I’m rushing to the base.”

Ironside, helped by one of the marines on board of the helicopter, reaches the right-side door. The two men scroll it sideways. The impact with the cold night air accelerated by the blades of the main rotor is one shock, but nothing compared to the sight of what is happening about thirty meters below, on the ground under the helicopter.

The two vehicles are lying sprawled on a side. Brody was thrown out a few meters away. Only the top half of his body is visible. At the waist it fades into a long stump sprawling that snakes deep into the roof of the truck. From the left door of the vehicle they can see a bloody pulp, vaguely reminiscent a sea anemone. Long tentacles explore the environment around in search of organic parts to assimilate.

Ironside watches helplessly a shapeless mass that crawls out from what remains of the truck driven by McKinnock. In the bloody structure are visible the soldiers who were in the truck. Some of them are still conscious and their desperate shouts, muffled by the noise of the helicopter rotor, reach the ears of John Ironside.

The creature escaping from the truck crawls on the ground towards the huge anemone which occupies the remains of the other truck. Long tentacles emerge from the two bodies, clutching each other and binding, so that the creatures begin to join into one. One of the soldiers, partially entangled in the tentacles, struggles in vain. His hysterical shouts seem the verses of an animal, as he is pushed into the beating heart of the huge abomination.

“Bishop, take the helicopter on the perpendicular and keep it in position”, Ironside shouts trying to overwhelm the noise of the engine. Meanwhile, the soldiers have dragged a heavy fuel barrel towards the opening.

The pilot responds promptly, taking the helicopter right above the creature.

Ironside holds himself with the left hand to a safety bar. The sight is terrifying. The creature seems to have doubled its size in a short time. The main body of what appears as a monstrous anemone now has a diameter of over five meters. A monstrous mouth opens at its core, a dark red hole, covered with white and curved tusks. A gurgling roar, louder than the noise of the helicopter engine, reaches the survivors.

Ironside pushes the can to the edge, when the aircraft is shaken. He strengthens his grip on the safety bar, knuckles whitened by the effort.

“Bishop, hold the position!”

USA BASE CNT222

With a final sprint, the three survivors climb the final ladder, finally emerging on the surface inside the hangar.

Without further ado, Macready seals the last opening, then they rush through the hangar. The Major walks to the gate that gives access to the short tunnel that ends with the elevator.

Moore and Ivanov follow him closely, shivering, and not only from the impact of the cold desert air.

The gate is open.

Macready is the first to reach it and to take a look in the tunnel lit by the cold light of fluorescent tubes.

Voices.

“Why the hell no one answers? And where is the sentry? This whole fucking thing starts to get on my nerves…”

Jeff Michigan and Will Bailey are standing in front of the elevator door. A blink signals the arrival at the floor.

“Get away from there! Now!”, Macready shouts.

The scream takes the two marines off guard. They turn in unison towards him as the elevator doors slide sideways.

A noise like that of a whole brood of rattlesnakes emerges from the opening.

Bailey reacts instinctively and jumps aside, narrowly avoiding a dark tentacle whipping the air just above his head. Jeff is not that lucky. Another tentacle wraps on his left leg, tugging him back with such violence that the soldier falls back, violently hitting the ground with his face and getting a deep laceration on his right cheekbone.

Jeff is rapidly pulled toward the interior of the elevator, from which come chaotic sounds. Distressing laments and unidentifiable noises that express a feeling of savage brutality.

The man shouts as one of his legs is quickly sucked into the protoplasmic mass. The marine kicks desperately with the other leg but new tentacles sprout from the mucilaginous body that occupies a corner of the cabin, trapping him.

“Shit! Help me, Will! Help me!”, Jeff shouts, with voice made acute by terror and pain.

Bailey rushes to grab his friend’s arms, pulling him back with all his strength. In the general chaos he can’t hear the voice of Macready, who tries to call him back, aware that there is nothing they can do to help Michigan. This one keeps screaming as the creature makes its way into his flesh, breaking bones and tearing tissue and muscle fibers, tearing him literally to pieces. His voice takes on tones even more acute and guttural, then tentacles as thick as a finger sprout out of his chest, tearing his suit.

Under the desperate look of Will Bailey, Jeff Michigan neck inflates like a balloon and his voice fades into a gurgle. A shapeless mass comes out from his mouth and nostrils. Eyes pop out of their sockets, driven by organic matter that immediately takes on consistency and coagulates into new repugnant tentacles.

Only then Will lets him go, finally realizing that there is nothing to do for his friend. He starts to turn and run desperately towards Macready and out over the gate. The man can take just two steps when some appendages burst out of the creature and dart at him, stabbing him in the back and emerging from his chest. The soldier remains frozen and incredulous, looking as one of the tentacles bends backwards towards his face and opens up lengthwise, revealing a row of dark and shiny thorns. Jaws of another world move quickly on his face while inside his body he perceives the creature growing and expanding as a liquid fire. Other tentacles are wrapped around his chest lifting him from the ground floor. Aware of the imminent end Will turns his head, crossing for a moment the eyes of Macready. There is a silent plea in his bewildered look.

“Forgive me, boy”, the Major whispers, aiming at him. Will gets hit between the eyes, just a moment before the monstrous jaws pounce on his face.

Then Moore pushes the close button inside the door, which slowly begins to close.

Meanwhile Macready throws his backpack containing explosives inside the elevator cab, followed shortly by a triggered incendiary grenade.

“Run!”, Macready shouts to the two scientists.

The three survivors flee, running away from the door that closes without a noise and cuts away the cacophony of sounds coming from inside.

“Keep running! The underground structure is surrounded by meters of concrete and solid rock, and it’s sealed by steel doors over a meter thick, but we can’t rule out that the force of the explosions will reach the surface!”

The three come out of the hangar, rushing in the cold of the inclement desert’s night. They run through a few tens of meters before collapsing to the ground, exhausted and panting.

3…

2…

1…

A distant rumble is barely perceptible, accompanied by a ground tremor that seems to never end.

It takes about ten seconds, then the stillness.

Nobody talks.

In the silence of the night they can hear only their own breathing, which condense into puffs of vapor in the cold indifferent atmosphere.

ALGERIAN DESERT

Military convoy

“One of the blows must have damaged the control system, sir, the helicopter doesn’t respond well to commands!”

Ironside calculates the time, trying to predict the right moment. “Now!”, he shouts to two soldiers with him. With a last effort they push the can over the edge.

The heavy container falls rapidly, hitting the monstrous anemone on the edge of the gaping jaws, digging a deep tear in the tissue and falling beside the creature.

Almost sensing the imminent danger, the tentacles lash the air and the ground trying to surround the object.

Ironside doesn’t waste even a second. He arms a grenade and he waits a while mentally counting, then he throws it straight into the huge mouth bristling with fangs.

“Bishop, let’s get out of here, take us to a safe distance.”

As the helicopter takes off, moving back, the bomb explodes in the air, about a couple of meters from the monstrous body, which is hit by a shower of fire.

The lament that follows, issued by the creature engulfed in flames, has something infernal.

The survivors hold their breath while in their souls echoes a silent exhortation, as if to incite the flames to reach the fuel barrel soon.

When this happens a thunderous roar echoes rumbling in the night. A huge fireball expands on the ground, quickly enveloping everything within more than twenty meters.

The helicopter has a jolt when it’s reached by the shock wave, and then stabilizes. At an order of Ironside then it completes a quick lap around the scene.

What remains of the creature and vehicles is burning, and will continue to do so for much longer.

“Bishop, take us back to the base.”

USA BASE CNT222

Outside

The three survivors catch their breath after the run to escape from the base. Emily Moore is crouching on the sand trying to collect her thoughts. Ivanov sits with his face turned to the starry sky.

Something is still not convincing her, she’s still feeling the worrying sensation of having left out an important detail. A shiver runs down her spine and she brings instinctively her right hand to the side pocket of her lab coat, checking the remaining explosive vial. It seems intact to the touch, but she soon realizes that the cap is now smooth, whereas earlier the explosive formed a rough crust.

It must have crumbled without my noticing…

I’m lucky it didn’t explode…

Ivanov is silent, looking up to heaven, where billions of indifferent stars look back at them, with their alien and distant light.

However, the man’s attention isn’t targeting the stars.

Macready also looks up, he can now distinctly hear a low hum, which slowly turns into the sound of an approaching helicopter.

All the while Moore keeps an eye on the Russian sitting on the ground with his knees to his chest.

An important detail…

The collar of the scientist’s lab coat has slipped to the side, exposing his neck. The signs left by the creature when it had grabbed him are clearly visible. The throat is speckled with red bruising.

Red…

The details start to fall into place like the pieces of a mosaic, while the woman experiences rapid flashbacks, reliving of the past events.

The attack of the creature, the escape, the hand cut, the blood of Ivanov… a bluish color because of the poison.

Was that story true after all?

The man seemed sincere and had not attacked her, although they were alone and in the dark.

The scene with the two Ivanov begins to play before the eyes of her mind, and the voice of the Russian echoes in her ears.

The creature lies…

She, while crying in Macready’s room… Ivanov – the one sitting on the sand ahead, and not its replication – kneeling with his hands raised.

To deceive is what it does, look at his hand…

His hand… His hand…

Of course! The cut was no longer purple, it had turned red, like the bruises on his neck!

The creatures communicate telepathically with each other, they can weave the stories they want, supporting each other in order to appear more convincing…

Both men staging that pantomime…

The creature evolves, it learned to sacrifice a part of itself, in order to ensure that the bulk of the body has a chance to survive…

At least one of the two survived…

I have a bio mechanical implants…

Ivanov had actually said that, but he had not had time to show it, because at that time his replication had come out in the open…

To save it and unlock the deadlock situation and suspicions!

Moore’s gaze glides over the human figure sitting a few meters from her. Macready is standing, not far away, intent on looking at the sky toward the helicopter noise.

A tiny blinking dot in the dark sky.

The woman stands up, slowly. “It’s over…”, she murmurs, turning a tired smile to the Russian, and walking toward Macready.

Ivanov’s gaze follows her. “I’m afraid that this will never end, Dr. Moore. Sooner or later someone will dig down there…”, nodding toward the hangar, “…or in Antarctica as well. The creature can wait, it has all the time it needs. The control that it exerts on each individual cell allows it to slow down its metabolism almost to a stop, and this for an indefinite time. It’s true, the base below us was destroyed, but it’s sealed and there isn’t enough oxygen to burn everything. If we consider that only a single cell… well, draw your own conclusions.”

Moore approaches Macready. Without thinking she takes down her glasses and moves a lock of unruly hair that falls on her face.

The soldier turns to look at her, reading the concern in her face. With a twinkle in her eyes, the woman nods to the Russian, showing the soldier the small explosive vial in her hand.

Macready gets it and turns to face Ivanov. The Major move the spotlight of his assault rifle on the Russian and takes a few steps toward him. Moore follows him, staying a step behind him.

The Russian raises one arm up to cover his face, bothered by the light.

It’s Moore to speak: “Dr. Ivanov, when we were in the base you said to have a bio mechanical implant. Can you show it to us?”

The man doesn’t answer, he raises slowly to his feet, watching her with a surprised look. “There isn’t any prosthesis. It was a bluff to push the creature to come out into the open. I thought you understood that.”

A few tense moments follow the last words. The helicopter is approaching.

“I helped you to escape the creature when my clone attacked the soldiers, why would I have done that if I was one of those beings? Moreover… you have been alone for a long time in the base”, the Russian keeps speaking. “And your hand isn’t at all as it should be…”

Those last words rekindle doubts in the mind of Macready, who appears indecisive and distances himself from the woman too. His gaze alternates between the two scientists.

“The blood of the true Ivanov had a bluish tint, due to a poisonous chemical compound that he used to absorb regularly. Look at the bruising on his neck. It’s red, as the cut on his hand. Nobody survives a direct contact with the creature.”

The Russian stay silent. His gaze is distant, as though he’s watching the scene from a very remote place.

“Wait”, says Macready. “What poison?”

“Lies, nothing but lies to confuse and trick you. Don’t let yourself be deceived!”, Ivanov’s voice gets louder.

“How could it make a perfect copy of Ivanov if had not assimilated him first?”, Moore insists. Those words seem to convince Macready, who turns to point the rifle at the man.

The Russian faces the Major. “It’s true, it may have assimilated some of my cells when it grabbed me, or it may have taken them from the traces of blood when I had a cut on my hand, or from my toothbrush, and who knows how many other ways. Just one cell can give complete access to the DNA of a living being, and she knows these things well. This however doesn’t mean that I am one of those creatures. Come on… Moreover, if I was one of those beings… Well, you know very well that your gun would be completely useless…”

“Kneel down, you jerk!”, Macready’s answer. The soldier raises his left arm as to hold Moore back. She is ready with the last firebomb.

The Russian doesn’t bat an eyelid, he takes a step toward the two.

His face is shaken by facial tics.

“You don’t understand what we’re talking about, Major. Secretary Ironside himself promised me guarantees. We have a deal.”

Before he finishes saying these last words, the pupils in the eyes of the Russian seem to enlarge.

Within a few moments his eyeballs turn into two black spheres crossed by a network of purple capillaries. His mouth opens wide, as if to scream, but no sound emerges from the darkness of his jaws. His chin keeps sliding down, beyond the extent possible for a normal human being. Ivanov’s skull begins to lengthen, while an alien hissing comes to life, and it seems to come from the remote corners of the mutating creature.

Moore won’t lose heart this time. She launches her last bomb. The vial hits the creature in the chest, but the impact isn’t enough to detonate the tiny explosive left on its cap. It falls to the ground, untouched. With a ripping noise Ivanov’s body separates longitudinally in half, as to divide into two separate beings.

Macready opens fire, while new offshoots emerge, sprawling limbs of uncertain shape from the two beings.

The first barrage of blows, exploded by the Major, misses the vial, raising puffs of sand.

“Damn, stand back!”, he shouts at the woman next to him, who looks terrified by the extraordinary mutation that is starting to split the creature into two symmetrical parts.

The Major illuminates the dual creature with the spotlight of his rifle. The time seems to slow down, as he holds his breath while taking aim, trying not to look at the transforming monstrosity a few meters ahead of him.

“Shoot at that bomb, for God’s sake!”, Moore shouts.

A yellowish mucus regurgitation bursts from the creature, but Macready is quick to step aside and takes good aim on the incendiary vial.

“This is for my brother, asshole!”

The sound of the shot is lost in the desert, bouncing through the dunes. The vial gets shattered, and a blaze of fire envelops the creature, roasting it.

The monster squirms in flames, it shakes its many tentacles in the air, letting out screams and inhuman sounds. It quickly falls to the ground, writhing and keeping crawling towards Macready, who steps back a few meters. Slowly, however, the creature seems to lose vitality. Within seconds the being collapse to the ground, almost like a balloon deflating. The remains keep burning.

The helicopter noise is very strong now, and after a while the scene is lit by an oval of light.

* * *

Ironside has witnessed the evolution of the last events from the helicopter cockpit. Albert Macready and Emily Moore have just set fire to one of the creatures.

Why aren’t they in the base?

The helicopter lands with some jerk. Bishop does his best, although the machine seems to want to rebel to commands.

Ironside is the first to jump out, quickly followed by the other survivors.

Bishop remains on board for a few moments, watching the other soldiers on their way towards Macready and Moore. The pilot seems undecided on what to do, when his eyes fall on the aircraft’s control panel: the fuel is almost finished. With a grimace of disappointment he commutes a series of switches, slowly stopping the rotor.

Meanwhile Ironside, walking bowed to leave the area swept by the blades of the helicopter, walks briskly the thirty meters that separate him from Moore and Macready.

The man suddenly stops, as soon as he sees the woman’s hand, deformed by swelling and the broken bones.

“She’s okay”, Macready exclaims, noticing the suspect in the eyes of Ironside. “If she had not thrown a bomb at that thing…”, he nods at what remains of the creature that burns at about ten meters from them, “…we wouldn’t be here talking now.”

“And the Major has shoot it to blow it up”, the woman adds.

Meanwhile, the other surviving soldiers join them.

“Where’s the rest of my men?”, Macready asks, feeling that he won’t like the answer to that question.

“Lieutenant Bishop is on the chopper, and the only truck left, carrying Brimley and McKinnock, is on the way”, Ironside’s answer. He and Macready update each other rapidly about the events of the last hours. Meanwhile Matt Serum takes care of the woman’s hand.

The man hands her a rolled bandage. “You have several fractures, I have to arrange the bones before securing them to a stick and wrapping your fingers. I have a vial of morphine in the first aid kit, but it may not be enough. I suggest you bite this.”

The woman refuses resolutely both. She has no way to know if the doctor is human or not, and the idea that one is touching her uncovered skin puts her already in turmoil.

No injections, nothing in my mouth.

Let’s do it as quickly as possible and in the meantime think about a reliable test that can be done with the available resources…

The doctor calls one of the surviving soldiers, a tall, muscular man. “Hawk, please keep her arm still.”

The woman, however, seems reluctant to cooperate, she retracts instinctively.

Meanwhile a bright spot appears on the dark horizon, it moves up for a while, then descends and disappears again.

“It must be Brimley”, says Ironside. “But better to be ready. How many weapons do we have?”

“Three assault rifles, in the hangar there is an armored vehicle that mounts a turret with a heavy machine gun. Inside it there should be some explosive and ammunition. There’s nothing else”, Macready answers.

“The fuel, ouch!”, says Moore. Her voice cracks with a stab of pain, as the doctor touches her hand trying to understand how to proceed to fix the fractures.

Macready approaches, crouching down next to the woman, Ironside is behind him.

“Fuel”, she says in an exasperated tone. “Try to find some polystyrene and dissolve it in the fuel, you will get a kind of rough napalm.”

“Polystyrene…”, says the Major. “I don’t think there is any in the hangar, nor in the outside cabins.”

“Listen”, Moore keeps saying. “Polystyrene or polyurethane foam panels are used as thermal and acoustic insulation in the walls of prefabricated buildings and in some cars. Check it, there should be some.”

“I’ll handle this”, replies Ironside. He calls a couple of soldiers to follow him.

Macready greets him with a nod, before consulting the doctor. “What’s the situation here?”

“Not good, sir. It’s not easy to set the bones in place without x-raying, especially a long time after the trauma. Now that the hand is swollen it becomes downright painful, even more so if you don’t stay still. She refused morphine.”

“Winners don’t use drugs”, Macready echoes in a low voice, as he turns to Moore, watching her with his ice-colored eyes. “Do you trust me?”, he asks.

She looks back at him, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I don’t know who I can trust”, her answer followed by a disheartened half-smile.

He smiles too. “How could I blame you… All right”, continues the man, taking her wounded arm gently, and making sure to touch the fabric and not the skin. “Calm down, take a deep breath. You’ll be fine soon.”

She stiffens at his touch, then she perceives the flush raising to her face. She nods.

Macready glances an eloquent look at the doctor.

“Bite the bullet, Dr. Moore. On three, OK? One…”

The sound of cracking bones arrives before the two, followed by a flash of unexpectedly sharp burning pain.

Moore lets out a strangled cry, trying instinctively to pull her arm away. But the hand of Macready is an iron grip and, in the following seconds, other twinges of pain follow the doctor’s work.

Suddenly Macready feels the woman’s arm relax. He looks on her face, alarmed.

“She fainted. Luckily”, the doctor comments.

The Major gently encircles her back with one arm, drawing her to keep her steady.

“Matt, take advantage of it now, fix the bones of her hand and take a look at that nail before she wakes up. Hurry!”

The doctor works rapidly, finishing the series of traction and manipulations to align the bones and straighten her fingers. “I have no way to intervene as I should with this broken nail. It should be removed, but I don’t have the proper surgical instruments.”

“Don’t waste time Matt, pull it off, we have more urgent things to think about.”

The sergeant doctor operates in a hurry using a small knife to remove the nail from the underlying skin. Finally, using his teeth, he rips the nail from its root and then he spits it off. After he has cleaned and disinfected the zone, he splints and bandages the wounded limb.

“Well, I can’t do any better for now. Not with a meager first-aid kit.”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with this, at least for now.”

That said, Macready raises the woman in his arms, carrying her toward the armored vehicle that one of the marines brought out of the hangar. The interior is air-conditioned. The Major gently rests the body of the scientist on one of the interior seats, putting her hands on her womb.

“That’s it, this is the safest place right now.”

Macready’s voice is barely a whisper.

“Thanks”, she murmurs.

The man realizes only now that she is awaken and is watching him, and can’t help but wonder if she was conscious earlier too.

“Just doing my duty”, he lies, doing as to turn around and get out of the armored vehicle. She stops him, holding it with her other hand.

“Wait… Listen, we have to take a test. Now anyone could be one of those creatures, and we need to know who’s who, before the rescue team gets here. The more time we waste, the more opportunities it will have to kill us one by one.”

* * *

Meanwhile Ironside and the small team of survivors has retrieved some explosives. The soldiers broke through a bulkhead in one of the outside cabins, finding the insulation panels, light yellow stuff four centimeters thick. Following the instructions of the scientist they have dissolved the material in the fuel taken from the cars, getting a thick and dense mixture, with which they have filled several one gallon tanks.

Ironside gives orders to the soldiers, who set the incendiary canisters on the ground at regular intervals to create a kind of barrier.

The truck driven by Brimley slowly approaches while the soldiers take place to keep aim at the explosives. Ironside’s plan is simple. If anything goes wrong, the soldiers will shoot at the nearest canister to the threat, limiting the danger immediately.

The vehicle arrives slowly, almost on the alert. Albeit from afar, Brimley has seen what happened to the other cars on the way back from the site of the Boeing crash and even he isn’t sure of who or what awaits him at the base.

The truck stops about two meters from one of the canisters, casting long shadows with the high beam headlights.

One of the marines, with his assault rifle raised, approaches the truck, while staying at a safe distance.

“Brimley, I’m Hawk, come down, slowly and with your hands in plain view.”

A few moments of silence go by.

“Brimley, can you hear me?”

The truck door opens slowly. A figure comes out, dropping to the ground. Its shape is indistinct, overshadowed by the truck’s high beams.

“Come here slowly, move aside, where we can see you well.”

No response, the man simply stands there, hidden in the shadow zone.

Hawk raises his gun, but the cone of light projected from the lamp under the barrel can’t scratch the darkness around the soldier, it seems to be absorbed.

“Brimley don’t be a moron, come on, now!”

“I didn’t do anything!” The voice of the soldier sounds frightened and uncertain. “What the hell is going on?”

“Don’t worry, Keith, is just a precaution”, Macready intervenes. “We just want to be sure we have no surprises.”

The man doesn’t move, the atmosphere is tense.

“How is McKinnock?”, the Major asks, to keep the dialogue going and to defuse the growing tension.

Hearing the words of their leader, Brimley seems to be convinced and takes a few steps toward Hawk. The spotlight of his weapon illuminates him in the face, then it moves down to scroll over his trunk and limbs.

“McKinnock’s not fine at all, Major. He has not regained consciousness since the accident. He’s heavily wounded, a lot of cuts and abrasions, caused by the fall.”

“He seems okay, Major”, Hawk speaking.

The other soldiers approach slowly, but all stay at a distance from each other, and they look around suspiciously.

Nobody trusts anybody anymore now, and they are all very tired.

* * *

Cold on the skin and through the bones…

Silence, suspect…

Fear.

The sky clears faintly on the horizon, while the monotonous shapes of the great sea of sand come alive from the darkness of the night.

The survivors are standing arranged in a circle. Emily Moore is between Macready and Ironside. The only absentee is McKinnock, still unconscious. The marines have taken him out from the cab of the truck driven by Brimley and they put him in the back of the armored vehicle, where Matt Serum medicated his multiple wounds.

“Listen well”, exclaims Macready addressing the group. “We all want to end this thing once and for all. Some of us are injured, needing urgent care. But we can’t allow anyone to leave this place. Not until we are absolutely certain that he isn’t infected. Same thing with regard to the rescue teams. Before their arrival, we need to know if any of us is one of those creatures.”

Silence, while the looks of the men flit from face to face. The tension is palpable, anyone of them could be a dangerous bloodthirsty predator.

“Dr. Moore and Dr. Ivanov had the opportunity to study the creature, devising a test.”

That said, with a gesture of the hand, Macready asks Moore to take the floor. The woman steps forward, clearing her throat.

“The test developed in the laboratories involved the use of chemicals and equipment that unfortunately we don’t have anymore. However, Dr. Ivanov has mentioned the possibility of using electricity to conduct an alternative test.”

Moore waits for a moment, choosing her words before going on. “A strong electric discharge should destabilize the creature, urging her to come out.”

A murmur rises from the survivors.

“Are you saying we should electrocute ourselves, to see if one of us is one of those monsters?”

Matt Serum, the only surviving doctor, has a nervous voice.

“We don’t need a deadly discharge, but it must be strong. We have no valid alternatives.”

“Of course we have”, the doctor insists. “We take the helicopter, we go to the nearest hospital and, once there, they will do all the necessary tests.”

The man looks around, looking for confirmation and support from other soldiers. However his reticence only adds to the suspicion towards him. More than one moves away from him. Ironside and one of the soldiers raises his assault rifle, pointing it in his direction.

“Let’s try to stay calm, drop your weapons. Down the weapons, I said!”, Macready intervenes, lowering Ironside’s rifle with his hand.

“Let me put it this way: those who don’t want to take the test, will be bound and put in preventive quarantine.”

The doctor is going to say something, but the thought of ending up tied together with potential creatures terrifies him.

“Well”, Macready goes on. “Brimley and Hawk, take the batteries of the cars in the hangar, so no one will try to slip away. There should also be others in reserve. Take them out and connect them in the way that Dr. Moore will tell you. Make sure that the two poles are connected to long enough cables.”

The soldiers haste to their job, while Macready, Ironside and two other men predispose an area for testing.

* * *

“This is the best we could arrange, given the limited resources that we have today. Here are two electrical cables connected to these metal bars. And these…” the muscles of Macready’s arms are shiny with sweat, while he puts on the ground two big plastic containers. The other survivors have taken out their bio-hazard suits, preferring more freedom of movement to the dubious value of those suits against the creature. “… are ten gallons of our beloved napalm. The test is simple: those who agree to deal with it will have to take the two steel bars, one in each hand. When everything is ready, we will close the circuit from a safe distance. Your body will be crossed by an electric discharge. If all goes well, as I hope, after a while we will open the circuit again, and you can hold you lucky to come home with a couple of brand new blisters on the hands. If something else happens… we will shoot the canisters full of napalm. If there are no questions we can proceed. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can relax and think how to handle the situation.”

“This is madness”, bursts Matt Serum. “Who tells us that we won’t die electrocuted?”

“I’ll go first”, Macready echoes him, walking toward the cables that lye on the ground within fifteen meters. “So all of you will be assured of what I already know. If anything happens to me, Mr. Ironside and Dr. Moore will take command, and you will obey them as you would me.”

Ironside comes forward, reaching Macready briskly. “I better go, Albert. It’s necessary that you keep control of your men.”

Moore approaches too.

The Major lets a bitter smile. “With all due respect, sir…”

“John”, Ironside corrects him, “it’s John.”

The Major raises an eyebrow at that unexpected gesture of confidence, then he steps closer to what he thought was a desk politician, and has instead proved to be more badass and smarter than many soldiers he has known in his career. Macready’s voice is low, while resting a hand on the shoulder of Ironside. “Do you have a family, John?”

The marine gives a pair of pats on the shoulder of Ironside, without waiting for an answer. “Yes you have it. I know that you have someone waiting for you at home, in America. My God, how this word looks sweet. America… Well, put it this way: I have no one left since at least thirty years, John. This makes things a lot easier. The men will follow you, they have seen what you’re capable of. You have their respect, and mine as well.”

The two spend a moment looking into each other eyes, then Macready turns around, crossing for a moment Moore’s gaze. Her eyes shine with deep sadness. She follows him with her gaze as he turns, walking toward the electrodes lying on the ground.

His interest in the fate of the American men of the outpost wiped out in Antarctica…

The yellowed photo in his room…

This is for my brother…

I have no one left since at least thirty years…

Moore realizes the truth behind the mild look of those ice-colored eyes. She would like to tell him something, but there are no suitable words. Sometimes one glance is enough to share thoughts and deep feelings, without the need to express them verbally.

Macready reaches the position, ready for testing. He slips a folded piece of cloth between his teeth, then he bends down, picking up the two electrodes from the ground. The man opens his arms in a cross, nodding to the group of men about twenty meters away.

Thomas Hawk, wearing heavy gloves, closes the circuit contacts. The switch emits a loud pop and sparks.

The body of Macready is shaken, while the electric current passes through it. The voltage, elevated by a circuit with a spare ignition coil, is high and the amperage is substantial. The man’s eyes are closed, the seconds count down damn slowly.

“7… 8… 9…” John Ironside counts mentally. At ten he nods to Hawk, which opens the circuit again. Macready is still standing and still holding the electrodes. Moore and Ironside join him. The man’s eyes are closed, and he breathes deeply. After a while he spits away the piece of cloth with the marks of the bite and he opens his hands. The heavy metal rods fall on the ground, while the man opens his eyes and takes a deep breath, watching the woman.

“I hope it was worth it.”

Then it’s Ironside’s turn. He also passes the test without complaint, standing.

Hawk follows, then Brimley and two other soldiers, the last of which shouts and faints during testing.

“Damn you, this is downright torture, and doesn’t prove anything!”, Matt Serum shouts while taking care of the unconscious soldier.

“You are free to abstain, Matt”, Macready’s answer.

“Now it’s my turn”, Moore.

“It’s not necessary”, replies the Major. “I’ll guarantee for you. I know you’re human.”

The woman looks puzzled for a few moments with an unreadable expression.

“Thank you Major”, she says flatly. “But I want to be sure. There has been some time when I fainted while fleeing from the first basement. Moreover, Ivanov took me by the hand, while escaping from your room. There was a physical contact with one of the creatures.”

Hearing those words other soldiers step back from the woman, whose gaze moves back, as to observe the horizon. Only Macready stays in place, in front of her. Few tense seconds go by in the silence. They can only hear the slight wind noise.

Macready starts to say something, when Moore closes her eyes and swallows, raising her good hand. Her voice is barely a whisper.

“If I abstain from the test, despite the respect that your men have for you, they would never trust me one hundred percent.”

Macready’s lips contract in a grimace, then he goes away without saying a word and heading to Hawk, who is ready to close the contacts.

The woman bends, she collects one of the electrodes with the good hand, and pushes it in contact with the skin next to the bandage that wraps around her left arm just below the elbow. Then she bites the right lapel of her lab coat, clutching it strongly between her teeth. She takes the other electrode, stretching her arms sideways.

The woman glances at Macready, nodding her head, before closing her eyes.

“Do it.”

Hawk obeys, and Moore’s body is crossed by the electric current. A moan reaches the ears of the soldiers. The Major focuses in the mental count. At ten the woman faints, and the electrode slips from hands as she collapses to the ground.

Macready shouts to Hawk to open the contact, and he rushes to the rescue of the scientist lying lifeless on the ground.

He leans toward her.

Not breathing.

“Matt, bring your ass here”, Macready shouts.

“Stand back Major, for God’s sake!”, it’s the response of the terrified doctor.

The Major doesn’t answer, cursing mentally and thinking to send the doctor to meet God in person at the first opportunity.

Macready checks the pulse of the woman, her eyes open showing white: no beat.

Heedless of the fact that the scientist may have been infected by the creature, he bends down to give her artificial respiration, alternating with series of vigorous pressures on her chest.

Wake up…

He has seen many men die, he has lost the base, his brother, that little bit of serenity that he tried to put together over the years…

Please, breathe…

He doesn’t want to loose anybody else. Not after seeing that unnamed horror making a massacre and an almost total devastation in a matter of hours.

Live!…

While working frantically to revive the woman, Macready clings with all the forces of his spirit to every little piece of something for which it’s worth to exist: positive mind, innocence to the brutal side of the world and to the war, to deal with big and small problems with a smile and good will, despite of their own faults, and also their fears. The hope that the best is yet to come.

“Christ!”, the Major shouts, after having felt the pulse of the woman for a second.

On the third attempt to blow air into the woman’s body, her chest rises and her back is arched backwards giving the impression that the entire body is peeling off from the ground.

“Be careful, Major!”, one soldier shouts nervous.

After the spasm, Moore’s body relaxes again on the ground. The man gets away, just enough to look at the face of the scientist. She coughs, then opens her eyes, looking at him for a few moments with a bewildered air. Suddenly the awareness flashes in her eyes and her skin turns red. With a quick movement of her right hand she gives a loud slap to the soldier.

Macready looks surprised for a moment, pretending to fix his jaw, purposely exaggerating his movements.

“Anyway, it was worth it”, he concludes squeezing one eye. She is about to reply, but her mouth opens in a contagious smile that turns quickly in a short laugh release.

He smiles too.

“Come on, let’s finish this thing once and for all.”

* * *

It’s the turn of Samuel Bishop.

The soldier is strangely shy and quiet, apparently in a bad mood. Macready has noticed immediately.

Understandable…

Nobody reacts the same way, and each of us has been through a lot…

The Major congratulated him for having saved the life to the surviving team, succeeding in piloting the helicopter. The man replied with a nod, keeping his eyes down and retreating to the sidelines.

Now Bishop approaches the two electrodes, taking them from the ground. He stands up silently, spreading his arms like the others before him.

At a command by Macready, Hawk closes the circuit.

The man’s body shakes violently. Eyes open, his jaw clenched with the effort. The time seems to run very slowly. At ten seconds, the current is stopped. Bishop is still standing, although at first glance he doesn’t seem to be breathing.

Macready approaches him.

“You all right Sam?”

The other looks at him by three-quarters, nervous. Bishop takes a deep breath and finally seems to relax, moving his head to loosen the neck muscles. His vertebrae crack while rotating the head.

“It’s all right sir”, he says, snapping his tongue. “But I’d rather have another kind of shake, or at least one of Ugo’s coffee cups.”

Bishop walks, moving away with his head bowed. His joke draws a bitter smile on Macready’s face, who turns to look toward the deserted and silent hangar. It seems impossible that Ugo, the eccentric Italian cook, the boys in the cafeteria service, always smiling and ready for a tug of war challenge, the other people who worked at the base and many of his soldiers, colleagues and friends don’t exist anymore.

The only remaining thing is an inhuman silence, so indifferent to our pain…

Suddenly the cries of Matt Serum draw Macready’s attention, distracting him from his sad thoughts.

“It’s useless, can’t you see? This test doesn’t prove a fucking thing.”

“Come on Matt”, Hawk’s answer. “You are a marine, you can’t act this way!”

“The woman doesn’t have our training, but she passed the test without a blinking”, Brimley intervenes.

“Keith is right”, Hawk continues, “that woman has two balls way bigger than yours.”

The doctor is going to reply, when his gaze locks in one direction.

The others turn to look, noticing that someone appeared on the threshold of the side door of the armored vehicle.

McKinnock observes the scene for a few seconds, then jumps to the ground, walking toward the group. The soldier is pale, his skin glistening with sweat. His face is full of scratches and abrasions, and so are his hands.

The soldier reaches the group, stopping a few meters away.

Macready is the first to approach.

“How are you feeling, Terry?”

The voice of the soldier sounds hoarse and slurred.

“Apart from the feeling of having been trampled by a herd of horses I would say well, sir.”

Macready in a few words updates the man on the latest events after his jumping out of the truck.

“That beast grabbed Wilford and pulled him away with such a force that his uniform was torn as I tried to hold him back. There was something monstrous in the car in which there had to be Brody and White. The last thing I remember is the sight of tentacles that plucked off the door and invaded the cockpit. The rest is confusing and foggy, but I think I fled away. I had no choice.”

The man tells Macready his experience with haunted eyes, as if in his mind he is constantly reviewing those scenes.

“You are hurt, Terry, and in poor condition. We have prepared a test that… well it isn’t a walk in a park. If you don’t want to do it, no one will blame you”, Macready exclaims. “But I’ll have to tie you anyway. We are only a few left now, we can’t allow ourselves to be complacent, whatever the cost. I’m sorry.”

“No problem. I’ll do it, sir.”

Macready looks at him for a few moments without saying anything, uncertain.

“I can do that, I’m fine”, the soldier reiterates.

The Major nods. “That’s right, man, OK.”

“Hey Matt, you who are a doctor, you should know how to do these things. You should make yourself a balls transfusion from Terry”, Hawk shouts at the doctor, who answers by showing his stubby medium finger.

Macready meanwhile, explains to McKinnock the dynamic of the test. The man nods.

“Let’s hurry”, he murmurs, as he starts wobbling towards the electrodes.

The soldier pauses, contemplating for a moment the canister with the incendiary mixture, then he shakes his head and bends with a sigh, taking the two electrodes in his hands.

At a sign from Macready, Hawk closes the contacts, and a discharge of electricity runs through the body of the soldier.

Ironside takes time, and for a moment it seems that the test will end as the previous ones.

Then something starts to happen.

The body of McKinnock is arched backward, slowly but steadily.

A surge of nervousness crosses the group of soldiers. Some raise their weapons, aiming at the white plastic canister.

“Wait! don’t shoot!”, Macready shouts.

McKinnock gives a terrifying scream, while his body bends backward, shaping an unnatural arc. The soldier’s chest swells, while the clothes are torn by the pressure of the body. For a few moments the soldiers look at the skin of his abdomen, tense up in agony…

Then a red line draws a deep horizontal laceration at the navel. The wound grows, opening into a mouth bristling with sharp teeth. The creature roars while the man’s arms are detached from the trunk. They fall to the ground and shake like lizards tails. The suit swells on the arched shoulders of what had been McKinnock, tearing with a slow noise. Fleshy protuberances grow on his shoulder blades, stretching to form two huge limbs that bend on the ground, and on which the creature stands trembling. Insects’ like eyes sprout around the mouth that has opened in the place of the abdomen.

“What are you waiting for? Burn it!”, Moore shouts.

Her voice has the effect of awakening the men, almost hypnotized by the terrifying vision.

The new limbs developed by the creature unfold at several joints, assuming the geometry of gigantic canine paws, whose skin, shiny and chitinous, somewhat resembles that of insects.

Quick blows reach the incendiary canister, causing an explosion and generating a wave of flames that engulfs the creature, stretching for some meters.

The screams are terrible, the monster stirs, rushing toward the soldiers.

Macready grabs the woman, pulling her out of the way of the screaming monstrosity. The other marines dodge.

All but one.

Blocked by terror, Matt Serum is invested in full by the creature on fire. With a quick movement the being leans on him, grabbing his head and torso between the enormous jaws and lifting it off the ground.

The man doesn’t even have time to scream. The soldiers look impotent at the scene, as the creature keeps burning, and to move randomly, with Serum’s body and the legs of McKinnock dangling like barbs from his monstrous torso.

“Get away!”, Ironside shouts.

The man has recovered one of the one gallons cans containing the incendiary mixture, removing the cap. He throws it at the creature on fire, hitting its side.

The men run to a safe distance when the napalm in the canister catches fire, engulfing the creature in violent flames.

The horror struggles for several long moments, its many appendages flailing in the air, then falls to the ground, its body burns with a violent crackling.

* * *

The sun is already high in the sky, the scorching heat starts to wrap the desolate sandy wastes.

Macready, Moore and Ironside are near the last armored vehicle, out of which comes a slight flow of fresh air.

“There’s no way to contact the outside world.” Ironside’s voice betrays how much everyone is tired. “At the Pentagon they will be wondering what’s going on here, they will send rescue teams to see what happened, actually they are probably already on the way.”

“They’ll have a big fish to fry with the diplomacy. We are surrounded by miles of desert, but we can’t rule out that some Bedouin has heard the explosions, or seen the smoke of the Boeing crash. Someone might draw conclusions”, Macready looks at the worried gaze of Moore.

The woman isn’t quiet, the situation is apparently under control, but…

“Something wrong?”, the Major asks.

“I don’t know”, she says, taking time before going on. “McKinnock… the creature, it could have fled and hidden, taking advantage of our distraction with the tests. Or it could have pretended to be still unconscious, to have fallen into a coma, until an opportune time. Instead…”

“It woke up and despite its conditions it agreed immediately to take the test, without blinking”, Ironside concludes.

“Exactly”, the woman goes on. “It could have attacked the Major when he approached…”

“And it may had assimilated Brimley when he rescued it as well, on the way to get here”, Macready adds.

“There is a possible reason for the failure of Brimley’s assimilation”, again Ironside. “I have personally seen McKinnock jump away from the truck a while after the creature had thrown its tentacles into the cockpit. He had probably been grazed, and it took some time for it to complete the assimilation. Unless it was infected earlier, at the crash site, as the two men who were driving the leading vehicle.”

“As soon as we have the support from the government we should organize a sterilization of the entire area”, says Macready. “Brody and White have spent most of their time on high ground, outside the containment perimeter. We don’t know when, how and by whom or what they have been infected. After what we saw I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

“About McKinnock”, Moore, “I think it has been a slow assimilation, during the hours in which he was unconscious. Dr. Ivanov said that the rate of assimilation is directly proportional to the difference between the mass of the creature and that of its victim. Few cells take a considerable time to digest and clone an entire human body.”

Ironside is puzzled. “The fact remains that, however, it could have come out and attacked us, and this before agreeing to take the test, but it did not…”

“Wait”, Macready interrupts him. “We must focus exactly on a point: when did McKinnock come out of the armored vehicle, agreeing immediately to take the test?”

In front of the questioning gaze of the other two he goes on: “when Serum began to protest loudly stating that the test was useless and it wouldn’t have worked.”

Suddenly the air seems to get colder, and a chill runs down the spine of the three survivors, who draw the same conclusion in unison.

It’s the woman to give voice to their thoughts, almost whispering: “It did it to lead us to believe that the test was valid and make us lower our guard, sure that we had finally solved the problem. This means that…”

The words die in her mouth.

Macready concludes: “the creature may still be among us and it may have learned how to withstand the test with electricity. Ivanov, that son of a bitch… Thirty years of experiments… He was sure that he was studying the creature, but indeed the opposite happened. They used who knows how many animal species for testing, with the only result of enriching its genetic heritage and make that monster even more dangerous than it already was.”

Long moments of silence follow. No one talks anymore, aware that everyone may be hiding a nameless abomination.

“What do we do now? Is there another way to distinguish who is human from an imitation?”, Ironside asks.

“Maybe there’s another way”, Moore’s reply, as thinking aloud. “Earlier, in the lab, Ivanov carried out a test on a blood sample of the boy who had been captured by soldiers. He used a powerful acid to induce the creature to show up in an attempt to survive.”

“An acid…”, Ironside echoes. “Where do we find an acid?”

“In the vehicles’ batteries”, Macready answers.

“Mmm… Yes, it’s sulfuric acid”, Moore continues. “In concentration between thirty and forty percent. It’s not as strong as the one prepared by Ivanov, but it might work.”

Slowly, a hiss becomes perceptible to the ears of the three people. Macready is the first to hear it and to jump up in alarm. “Can you use a sub-machine gun?”, he asks turning to Ironside.

“Yes, of course…”, he replies, looking alarmed.

“I ordered the boys to make an aerial survey of the scene of the crash of the Boeing”, Macready explains quickly. “And the point where the convoy got smashed, to check that there was nothing suspicious. We can’t get them off the ground, some of them might be the creature.”

Shit…

“You stay with him, Emily, I’m going to the helicopter, I have to stop them before they take off. If things worsen, use the machine gun to shoot it down.”

Macready turns to the helicopter and is about to set off, when it perceives a light touch on his arm.

“Albert…”

The man turns his gaze, crossing that of the scientist. “Watch out.”

He nods, resting for a moment his hand on that of the woman, then he heads running towards the aircraft. The helicopter is about sixty meters away, the propellers rotate slowly, increasing speed.

* * *

Hawk is in seat of the co-pilot, Bishop is at his side, activating a series of switches. Behind them, on the benches, there are Brimley and other soldiers.

“What’s up with Macready?”

Hearing the words of the man sitting next to him, Bishop looks up, noticing the Major running and waving his arms toward the helicopter. His gaze remains unmoved.

Macready reaches the helicopter, approaching hunched over on the pilot’s side.

He shouts in order to be heard, while the motor keeps roaring. The Major orders the pilot to abort the mission. However, this one seems to ignore it, merely staring at him expressionless.

“Sam, turn off the engine, the reconnaissance is canceled! Canceled! Do you understand me?”

“Bishop, the Major says to turn off the engines and abort the mission”, says Hawk.

Macready keeps beating on the helicopter windshield, on the side closest to Bishop, when he notices something that makes his heart freeze in his chest.

Bishop’s face. He knows him well, they have spent years working together. He remembers the long scar that disfigures his face on the left side.

Macready can’t believe his eyes.

The scar is gone.

In the throes of growing agitation, the Major moves to the other side, waving at Hawk to come out.

From the inside, he can’t hear the voice of Macready, but there’s no need for words to understand what he’s saying.

“He’s telling us to get out, turn off the engine, Bishop, what the hell is going on?”, Hawk shouts alarmed.

The helicopter lifts a few centimeters from the ground, the pilot seems indifferent to what is happening around him. Hawk on the other hand realizes well the situation and in a desperate move he deals a direct blow to the pilot’s face. Then he tries to grab his right arm and block it to regain control of the helicopter.

The head of Bishop rotates unnaturally following the received blow. From his neck comes a sharp noise, like a branch that is broken, and his skull remains in that position. Almost instantly his body begins to shake, as though in an epileptic fit. His right arm manages to escape Hawk’s grip and moves trembling. His open hand starts to grow in size, the fingers weld in pairs and deform, taking the shape of a sort of claws bristling with thorns with metallic reflections.

The horrific limb tightens firmly on Hawk’s neck. Filaments and stalks as thin as capillaries emerge from the creature, penetrating into the skin of the soldier, beginning to dig into his body in order to assimilate it. Hawk tries to escape, he struggles, hitting the controls.

The soldiers inside the helicopter are powerless and try desperately to hurl themselves toward the side door. However, Keith Brimley is faster, and stands between them and that slim hope of salvation. His eyes are not human anymore… they’re black, opaque, aliens. A low and prolonged lament comes from his mouth. It grows in intensity, until it overcomes the noise of the helicopter engine.

The number of the propeller’s revolutions begins to decrease, while the helicopter lands back to rest on the ground. Macready rushes to open the side door, but despite his efforts it won’t move a millimeter.

As the noise of the helicopter turbine fades, the sounds coming from inside take over.

Human shouts and bestial roars mingle with the heavy thuds of something that clashes violently against internal bulkheads.

No, damn it, no!

Getting closer to the cabin, Macready has a brief sight of what is happening inside. Something monstrous and terrifying shakes, and in that constantly changing chaos he catches a glimpse of the bodies of the men, being torn to pieces.

They are only a few seconds, but they seem endless. The Major hesitates looking at a bloody tentacle that ends with a huge compound eye and sets against the glass, watching him. Other blows sound against the bulkheads, which begins to deform.

When a splash of a greenish material hits the glass in front of his face Macready steps back instinctively. Realizing that there is no way to save the men inside the aircraft, the Major turns to flee. After a few meters he hears the sound of something breaking behind him, a thump and the sound of tortured bulkheads, followed by a roar of another world.

The man turns to watch, and the sight is terrifying.

* * *

Ironside is on the roof of the armored vehicle. He witnessed the sequence of events through binoculars. The helicopter was about to take off, then it touched down again to the ground. He couldn’t see in detail the interior of the cabin due to a reflection of the sun, but he has been able to note rapid movements.

When Macready suddenly started running, Ironside wasted no time. In a few moments he unlocked the assault machine gun mounted on the roof of the vehicle, getting ready for the worst.

Moore is next to the side door of the vehicle. She has been watching Macready, shielding the sun with one hand. The Major has suddenly turned, fleeing from the helicopter.

The man only runs a few meters, when something breaks through the glass of the cockpit. Monstrous tentacular appendages pop outside and flex laterally, developing bones, tendons and muscles. Within seconds they take the form of monstrous paws, asymmetrical and misshapen.

The structure trembles, with a lament of torn and bent sheet-metal. It deforms, while the two impossible limbs open the cockpit like a tuna can. Something protrudes between them. Ironside feels his legs wobble as he watches a creature that seems to come straight from hell. A horrible and gigantic merging of two heads that are vaguely reminiscent of those of tyrannosaurs. The gaping and deformed jaws drip mucus from the numerous sharp and curved teeth lines. The monstrosity is strongly asymmetric and the two heads appear melted on a diagonal axis, sharing one eye.

The infernal being throws a primal roar that reaches Moore and Ironside despite the distance, by vibrating their bodies.

The creature then jumps ungracefully out of the aircraft, falling heavily to the ground.

Macready turns to take a quick glimpse of the hideous monster, while rushing desperately toward the armored vehicle which is at about fifty meters away. The creature hesitates for a moment. Distorted forelegs sprout out, while the torso pumps organic matter in them, strengthening their structure. The back of the monster, where the limbs of the soldiers who were in the helicopter still flap frantically, throws out new appendices, which grow in a few moments, forming grotesque caricatures of animal limbs.

The creature takes its first tentative steps, then gets more confident, picking up speed as it starts hunting Macready.

“My God, open fire!”, Moore shouts.

Ironside doesn’t need any extra encouragement: framing the creature in the circular scope and opening fire is one action.

The being is ungainly and moves erratically, although quickly. The shots miss it by good measure.

“Damn, I may hit him!”, Ironside shouts.

Macready seems to have heard, and crouches slightly, trying not to lose speed. Behind him erupts a cacophony of barking, combined with heavy thuds on the ground.

Getting closer.

A second burst of Ironside hits the creature on one of its two heads and opens large holes in the flesh and in the underlying bone structure. However, this fails to slow it down. Instead, the blows have the effect to upset it even further.

“Go away! Run away!”, Macready shouts, aware of the imminent end.

Ironside and Moore don’t listen to him. The man keeps shooting at the creature, with the only result to open momentary gashes in his flesh and further unleash his rage.

Come on…

I can do it…

Moore suddenly starts running, moving rapidly toward Macready.

For a moment Ironside thinks that the woman is crazy, unsure why she runs to her death in that way.

“No! Run!”, Macready screams, seeing the woman rushing towards him awkwardly, clutching something bulky to her chest. The creature is coming at a gallop, a little more than a dozen meters behind him.

The woman goes on and runs another few meters. Then she leaves the object that she brought with her on the ground, immediately turning to flee back to the armored vehicle.

Only then, looking at what Moore has laid on the ground, Ironside understands her plan.

One of the plastic canisters with incendiary mixture.

Moore isn’t physically trained and, despite the adrenaline, she feels fatigue and her limbs become heavy. The short rush, with a one-gallon full can in her lap, has put her to the test.

Macready joins her, grabbing her by her right hand and yanking on.

Behind them other thuds of the creature make the terrain tremble, accompanied by shots fired from Ironside.

The abomination has almost reached the incendiary canister, when machine-gun fire centers the articulation of one of the legs. The sound of shattered bones is loud, and the monstrosity stumbles, crumbling to the ground. While keeping firing, Ironside lowers his aim, directing another burst onto the explosive, which detonates with a loud roar.

The creature swoops down in a devastating fire barrier that completely surrounds it. The surrogate of napalm sticks like a gel on its body, burning violently.

A hellish roar echoes in the desert, as the monster burns.

This is not enough to stop the creature. Its broken leg recovers soon part of its functionality, and the burning monster takes on a ramshackle march towards the armored vehicle, now at less than twenty meters.

Macready and Moore reach the vehicle. With some agility despite her bandaged left hand, she gets inside and quickly hands to the soldier two incendiary canisters taken from the interior. Macready grabs them on the fly, moving to the front of the vehicle to throw them to the abomination that keeps approaching. From the chest of the flaming creature emerge new tentacular appendages, which detach from the main mass and fall writhing to the ground. The newly formed creatures then develop crude insect limbs, with which they begin to move snaking on the ground, heading for the vehicle with the three survivors.

Ironside fires a barrage at the main body, hitting one of its big forelimbs. This one breaks, collapsing the entire creature to the ground. The mass of screaming flesh stirs in the flames for some long moments, then it stands still, keeping burning.

The two yellow plastic containers launched by Macready fall a few meters in front of the vehicle, but the soldier is already back in the car, attempting to start it.

After a few moments that seem eternal, the armored vehicle has a start and begins to move backward.

Creatures like giant centipedes move zigzagging on the ground, getting near the two canisters.

Almost sensing the danger, the monstrosities stop their run, then move sideways.

Suddenly the machine gun jams.

“Shoot the cans!”, Macready shouts, stopping the vehicle.

“The machine-gun is jammed. I think it has overheated,” Ironside answers from outside.

“Holy Christ,” Macready curses between his clenched teeth.

Ironside looks at the movements of the creatures. They have stopped their run a few meters from the cans with the incendiary mixture.

Those that appear as horrific centipedes, but as big as a large boa, approach each other. A pattern of protoplasmic offshoots protrudes from the surface of each of them, intertwining to form new tissue.

The creatures begins a rapid melting process.

“Something’s happening!”, Ironside exclaims. “They have stopped a few steps from the cans. I think they’re turning into something else.”

Macready mutters an obscenity, then he shoulders his assault rifle and checks the magazine, leaving the vehicle.

“Where are you going?”, Moore shouts after him.

“It’s a personal matter”, his answer. The Major takes another canister and walks toward the mass of transforming flesh.

The being takes on the appearance of a shapeless lump. Macready looks while readying himself to shoot.

As the marine approaches, the ungainly plasma slowly forms the shape of a squatting human silhouette.

A figure with its head down, bowed on itself to the ground.

What the hell…

The creature rises slowly. Macready is a dozen meters and he can now make out more details.

The monstrosity evolves quickly. Its shapeless mass takes new details. New muscles, blood vessels and bones are formed. A strange feeling sneaks into the soldier, as he sees a face modeling right before his eyes. Fingers sprout like mushrooms out of rough shaped hands. A sense of hypnotic stupor and family warmth makes its way into him.

“What is he doing?”, Moore asking to Ironside. “Why doesn’t he shoot?”

The man doesn’t reply, intent on watching the scene with binoculars.

While a person’s body forms before the eyes of Macready, more nuances continue to emerge, as drawn by an invisible artist. Dark hair grows on its head, as quickly as a full beard on its face.

The heart of the Major seems to become heavier, while the creature’s chest rises, taking a deep breath.

The transformation is completed, the being opens its eyes, looking around. Then it focuses its gaze on him, staring at him intently.

“You can’t…”, murmurs Macready. “R.J…”

Mesmerized by the figure materialized in front of his eyes, and pervaded by a sense of numbness that flows tempting in his veins, the Major doesn’t notice the small movements of the sand in front of the creature. The sand bumps, as if something is making its way into the ground, snaking slowly toward him.

The being moves its head, as if to stretch the neck muscles. The features of its face, just meters from Macready, relax. Its mouth opens in a friendly smile, its eyes watching him with a mild stare.

“You look really messy, Albie…”

The sense of loss of the Major leaves space to a profound sense of sadness. Meanwhile the thing crawling in the sand is now two meters from him.

Hearing those words, many thoughts stir in Macready’s mind. Memories come to the surface, almost violently, as driven by an external source.

Scenes of his childhood with his older brother. The moments lived when he came back from Vietnam, so changed and restless. The difficulties when he started drinking, until that day when he decided to take the job in Antarctica in a desperate attempt to escape his demons.

Suddenly, that moment of stasis gives way to a high-speed movie, taking Macready back to the present.

The machine gun on the armored vehicle unlocks, and Ironside doesn’t waste any time. A burst centers in full one of the canisters launched earlier by Macready.

At the same time a tentacle squirts out of the sand, darting towards the Major’s face.

The man has lowered his guard in those fractions of a second when his mind was a jungle of thoughts. He looks at the tip of one tentacle opening in a vertical mouth bristling with fangs of a metallic black.

The fireball and shock wave caused by the explosion of the incendiary mixture hits the creature, wrapping and throwing it to the ground a few meters away. At the same moment the tentacle that has almost reached Macready’s face retracts, pulled away by the rapid movement of the creature on whose foot it is attached.

Macready keeps watching the thing that for a few moments had taken on the appearance of his brother, writhing in the flames. The monster lets out a terrifying roar that seems to resonate in a cavity of the earth, while the Major moves away running.

Other tentacles burst out from the sand, leaning in his direction, but they are short-lived. Another burst of Ironside hits the canister abandoned by Macready few moments before. The explosion forms a second burning cloud, which expands quickly reaching the first. The sand is burning, seething, while other tentacles struggle in the flames, whipping the air.

The horrendous groans issued by the flaming creature slowly become silent.

It stops squirming, almost simultaneously.

* * *

Slender black smoke plumes mark the places where the creatures are burning.

Macready, Moore and Ironside are under an open hangar. The massive roof of the structure protects them from the sun nearing the zenith.

The three people take stock of the situation, preparing for the arrival of rescue teams.

Macready thanks the other two for saving his life. Ironside barely nods.

“Why did you hesitate?”, Moore asks. The woman watched from a distance the last transformation of the creature. She could not see the details, but the imitation seemed to resemble the older man in the picture she had found in the Major’s room.

Macready’s gaze moves back, as if to look at his own memories with his mind’s eye. “I had a brother. He was a very tough guy. One of the few to come back in one piece from Vietnam, at least physically. He raised me, and I must thank his stubbornness if I wear this uniform now. He was on duty at that damn American outpost in Antarctica, 1982.”

The man remains silent for a moment, then he goes on: “It was right before my eyes, I saw it forming, I knew it was one of those monsters, and yet… When he opened his eyes and looked at me… His look, the way he spoke and smiled… It was him, he was my brother. I felt his presence, it was not a simple imitation.”

“Ivanov said something about…”, Ironside intervenes after a few moments of silence.

“Yes”, Moore goes on. “He said that despite years and years of studies, they had not been able to determine whether the imitations were completely unaware of being so, or it was just a perfect acting by the creature.”

“I’m afraid we’ll never know”, Ironside adds.

“Not necessarily”, Moore.

The two men raise their eyes, watching her uncertain.

“The test with the electricity has failed…”, she continues the scientist, “…and the three of us have not been in sight of each other for all the time. We can’t be entirely sure that all the three of us are humans.”

The woman waits, allowing time for the two to assimilate her words. The two men take one step backwards.

“We know that the creature is treacherous and clever at hiding. It has withstood the test with fire and with electricity and it has proved its capacity to sacrifice a part of itself to survive. The three of us fought to destroy it, but we can’t rule out that one of us is pretending.”

“If we were all three of the creatures we wouldn’t cooperate to eliminate it, and if two of us were of those beings, they would have already attacked the third. This means that one thing is certain: two of us are definitely human”, Ironside exclaims.

“We can’t be sure of anything”, replies the woman. “Not until I can do sure testing of our blood in a proper laboratory.”

“We could use battery acid, as you said before”, proposes Macready.

“The creature has learned to resist fire and electricity, it can’t be ruled out for certain whether it has learned to resist the attack of acids or not”, she says.

“Wait”, Macready intervenes. “If you were one of those monsters, you could have infected me earlier when I’ve practiced artificial respiration, but I am sure of being human, so you have to be too.”

“And if you two were replicas, you would have attacked me”, Ironside’s conclusion. “I think we can rule out the possibility that one of us is playing, right?”

“Unfortunately it isn’t so simple”, Moore adds. “If imitations aren’t aware of being such, none of us can be certain to be human, no matter how sure about that. The only thing we can do is to stay in sight of each other and tell the truth to the rescue team. Hopefully they will handle the situation better than we did.”

The three stay silent for long moments, each lost in their own thoughts. Moore speaks first, giving voice to their thoughts. “There are things of which Ivanov spoke to me. At first I thought he had invented it all, but you have also seen that in the end he was not lying when he talked about the metamorphic organism. We must think about it, work on it, but right now I wouldn’t rule out that the rest of his story might be true.”

“Why? What else did he say?”, Ironside asks curiously. Macready just contracts his lips in a grimace.

“He talked about expeditions to Antarctica, the discovery of vestiges of civilization so remote that make you dizzy. Maybe we’ll talk about this. What now matters is another aspect. According to him the creature was not from outer space, or at least not from the extraterrestrial aircraft mentioned in the story of the woman who was found frozen to death. Ivanov was convinced that these beings dwelled deep underground in Antarctica, under the blanket of ice.”

“Are you saying that there may be other creatures like that?”, Macready asks.

“It’s a possibility”, she replies. “According to Ivanov, the genesis of these beings dates back to very distant times, when our planet was young and today’s Antarctica was a continent with a mild and lush climate. If that were the case – and I speak in the conditional because everything is yet to be proven – if they wanted to, they could infect the entire planet and any animal species would no longer exist.”

“Why didn’t they do this then?”, Ironside asks.

“Who knows. Ivanov was convinced that these creatures had developed intelligence and knowledge far superior than those of humans. Maybe they realized that the total destruction of all forms of animal life could also mark their end. You know… if you eat everything you just remain with nothing, and eventually you die of starvation. However, now that I think about it, when I was studying at the university I read of an inexplicable phenomenon. At different times and in different parts of the world there are stories or other types of recordings – also relatively recent – of mysterious mass disappearances. In some cases entire villages have disappeared, or the human and animal populations of remote islands vanished without leaving traces. Sometimes the fish suddenly disappeared in a large area of ocean. Some pre-Columbian civilizations disappeared suddenly without a trace.”

“Are you suggesting that all these disappearances might have been caused by occasional visits on the surface by those beings?”, says Macready.

“I’m saying that what we know about this creature could be the tip of a much larger iceberg than what we imagine. It’s impossible to understand what goes through the mind of something that has existed for hundreds of millions of years. The questions of the Norwegian and American camp in Antarctica and what happened here in the desert, for us are shocking tragedies but for those creatures could only be the equivalent of an old woman looking out of the window to see what happens in the street, and then going back to sleep by the fireplace. We don’t know if they have a mind or common intelligence. We know they can communicate in ways that we can’t even imagine. Ivanov believed that they are telepathic and can share information between them about the genetic makeup of similar species, along with memories and experiences of their preys.”

“If this is true”, Ironside says, “then we should take into account the possibility that these creatures aren’t exclusively confined to the depths of the Antarctic continent. There may be other, around the world.”

“Yes, indeed. And now all of them are aware that on the surface there is an evolved race able to kill them”, Macready’s conclusion.

“It’s a hypothesis yet to be confirmed”, Moore, “but we can’t rule it out. According to what Ivanov told me, these beings have already faced in the past species far more evolved than ours, and they have survived. No, they don’t currently believe that we represent a danger but a potential opportunity.”

“Opportunity for what?”, he asks Macready.

“Who can say? Further evolution, new scientific achievements. Perhaps they await the development of a technology capable of traveling between the stars, so that they can infiltrate other planets and close still open issues with their creators. After all, time isn’t a problem for them, they can wait.”

“These are the questions about which we’ll talk again, Emily”, Ironside. “Now about us, what should we do now?”

Moore shrugs, hinting a sign of denial with her head.

“I know what we have to do”. Macready stands up with a deep sigh, heading toward the armored vehicle located a few meters away.

Moore and Ironside exchange a questioning look. The Major rummages in the interior, coming back after a while with three incendiary canisters, and as many rifles.

“What do you want to do?”, Ironside asks alarmed.

Macready is silent, his eyes are tired but show a conspiratorial half smile. He puts the three canisters on the ground, at the corners of an imaginary triangle, distance a dozen meters, each with one of the assault rifles next to it and ready with a bullet in the chamber. Then he takes a seat next to one of them nodding to the others to imitate him.

Ironside and Moore squat on the ground, sensing the Major’s plan. The scientist takes her rifle as one who picks up a baby for the first time.

“Rescue teams shouldn’t delay”, the Major exclaims. “When they arrive – if the sun won’t roast us before – we’ll tell them what happened, and we’ll tell them also to put each of us in armored quarantine until you find a safe way to prove that we are human beings. I just hope not to become a guinea pig… or one of those things.”

Ironside nods, then without speaking anymore he approaches one of the two canisters prepared by Macready. With a sigh he sits on the ground, placing the container on its side, on which to lean his head.

“These ghost bases should have an emergency pub outside”, Ironside crosses his legs to get more comfortable. “I hope that the rescue teams won’t delay in coming.”

“I hope they have a beer!”, Macready adds.

Moore doesn’t seem to listen to them, she’s deep in thoughts.

“When Ivanov told us about the American outpost… The two men found frozen to death, aiming their weapons at each other…”

“Because neither of them could be sure that the other was human or not”, Macready’s voice sounds tired.

“This brings us back to us. Until the help arrives, we will stay together, although at a distance, but on sight. And everyone will always bring with them their weapons and incendiary mixture. For now we can’t do anything but wait… See what happens…”

.

..

..

..

THE END

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SOME THOUGHTS AND CREDITS

First of all, I wish to thank my wife, who has had the patience to read and correct this story despite the genre was not among her favorites.

Thanks also to my good friend Andrea, who has helped me a lot with the translation.

I love At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft. I read that story many times since I was a child, and I’d really love to see a movie adaptation. I liked the novel Who Goes There, by J. W. Campbell Jr. and The Thing from Another World. Those b&w science fiction movies have a timeless appeal for those who, like me, grew up dreaming about Flash Gordon and Doctor Who.

Then we have John Carpenter’s The Thing, a masterpiece of the early ’80s that still has much to teach to the modern filmmakers and to those who believe that computer graphics can compete with real practical special effects. I love the movie, and I’ve always wanted to see a sequel that could convey the same feelings.

So, a bit for fun, and partly as a kind of personal challenge, I wanted to try to write a story in which all these stories could converge, even if it was not possible to keep it always homogeneous and consistent.

The ending leaves a degree of uncertainty, and my Italian readers know well the reason. Actually, I’m working to translate the two sequels of this first chapter.

Last but not least, thanks to those who have read and enjoyed this story.

Anyone who wants to contact me for advice, criticism, or suggestions for future chapters, may write at info@ermetica.net

There is a web site dedicated to the trilogy. Take a look at cellularactivity.it You’ll find a section Curiosity with a few extra considerations on the characters and other things.

Obviously this is a work of fiction and any resemblance to facts or really existing characters is to be considered purely fictional.

And now… keep reading for the final chapter…

AHMED’S VILLAGE

The djinn

“Why have you to bark so much?”

Mohamed-the-Elder approaches with the slowness of those who no longer have any hurry. His jaw muscles are contracted while he straightens his aching back. With his wooden stick he tries to ward off a dog barking in the direction of the desert.

“May I know what’s wrong with you? You dumb beast, go away!”

The dog doesn’t seem to pay any attention.

The man looks up, shading his eyes with one hand. At first he can’t see anything unusual. His tired eyes scan the blurry expanse of dunes trembling under the scorching Sahara sun.

From those lands of ruthless nothing, something dark emerges slowly, swaying in the heat.

Slowly, as it approaches, the shape takes more distinct outlines.

It’s a man.

He wears strange clothes, dirty and torn in several places. His step is uncertain and unsteady.

You know… djinns are strange…

The elder quickly takes a small wine-skin full of water, heading towards the man.

The dog stays behind, alternating between a furious barking and yelps of fear.

The Berber reaches the unfortunate traveler, holding him up and handing him the bottle of drink. The man’s skin is blistered and cracked by sunburn. His thick black hair makes his head appear too big. They are burned here and there. He drinks eagerly the water brought by the old man.

“Easy, boy, easy. Otherwise it will do more harm than good,” exclaims the elder.

The man lowers slowly the wine skin, lingering for a moment with his eyes closed, then he drinks again long sips.

Once his thirst is quenched, he turns to the old man that rescued him, showing a friendly and very wide, almost caricatural smile.

Though they may conceal their true shape, there is always a detail that betrays them…

The traveler moves his head, turning towards Mohamed with a nod of thanks.

“May God bless your home, father.”

“Where are you from?”

The other looks up at the sky, lingering for a moment before answering.

“Well… a lot of different places…”

The old man looks at him uncertainly.

It’s said that some of them can give great gifts if greeted with kindness and with good hospitality…

“We’ll talk later. Now come, follow me. It’s not wise to sit here in the open during these hours. My village isn’t far away. What’s your name?”

The man takes a deep breath, stretching his arms. Then he looks around, before addressing a broad smile to the elder. He adjusts his crumpled, dusty and scorched dress.

Finally, satisfied, he lays his eyes on the old man’s face.

“Amr. My name is Amr.”

THE END

Content

Francesco Mazzotta
CELLULAR ACTIVITY

PROLOGUE

ANTARCTICA, 1983

MOSCOW – FEBRUARY 2014

CAPE TOWN AIRPORT

MOSCOW

WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON

MOSCOW

WASHINGTON

ALGERIAN DESERT

WASHINGTON

BOEING 777

ALGERIAN DESERT

BOEING 777

ALGERIAN DESERT

BOEING 777

WASHINGTON

ALGERIAN DESERT

MILITARY JET XT 3015

BOEING CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

BOEING CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

BOEING CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

BOEING CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

BOEING CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

HELICOPTER CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

HELICOPTER CRASH SITE

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

BOEING CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

BOEING CRASH SITE

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

ALGERIAN DESERT

USA BASE CNT222

SOME THOUGHTS AND CREDITS

AHMED’S VILLAGE