“That’s enough,” Decker said softly. The image froze behind him, and the room sat in silence for several seconds.”

“The National Guard took this monstrosity out…eventually. Had to blow it to pieces and burn what was left. Like the Shoggoths, it is – was – we believe, a primitive form of life, but not mindless. These bastards are moving to a plan…under orders. They’re feeding, yes, but they’re also stopping us from entering the sinkholes.”

“Where the fuck are these things coming from? Are you saying they’ve been under our feet the whole time?” asked another granite-faced military man, chin jutting. Matt saw he had enough bars to cover most of his left breast, and sat with folded arms across a button-popping frame. Matt had been introduced previously – he was Fort Benning’s Commanding General, James McAllister. To date, he had seemed most pissed off because Decker, of equal rank, had been given mission seniority.

Decker shook his head. “I don’t know where they were, or where they’re from. Our seismology teams are getting readings from across the globe of activity about a mile down that are not related to anything geological. We’re also getting data in now, on the planet’s crust starting to warm. Probably related.” He shrugged. “The issue for today is, these things are here, now, today.”

“Whose orders? You said they were under orders?” McAllister asked.

Decker nodded to the man. “We believe there are two distinct forces at work against us.” He nodded again and once more images appeared behind him. The smiling tanned face of Charles Drummond filled the screen.

Decker’s mouth turned down as if he had just smelled something bad. “Charles Sheldon Drummond – movie production, publishing, media consulting – in the field of entertainment or communications, you name it, the guy had his thumb in it. Seems he’s been financing some sort of global cult that intends to aid and abet whatever is occurring right now. Drummond has also shown aggressive intent to slow down our efforts to even understand what is going on. My team was attacked in Egypt – people were tortured and killed. More worrying is that it showed us we have been infiltrated. One of our own people was a sleeper agent for Mr Drummond. This group has now gone to ground. Whatever is occurring is at point of culmination.”

McAllister shifted in his seat. “The sinkholes, the quakes, the weird creatures, the people attacked, and also disappearing – I can see the effects; they’re as plain as the nose on my face. But that doesn’t tell us what this culmination point is, or what’s about to occur.”

Decker sat back for a moment. “We had an interesting conversation with some of our observatories yesterday. Seems the celestial convergence that is occurring now is producing some physical manifestations – abnormal gravity effects causing crustal friction resulting in a rise in ground temperature. Also, the sinkholes have begun to outgas nitrogen – by itself nothing serious. But in combination with other phenomena, it starts to build a picture.” He turned to Abrams. “Joshua, do you want to take it from here?”