“I am afraid so, my dear.”

“Well, that’s too bad…Dr. Blish, scientist from Decision Week, who worked on the Mark Thirteen project at Los Alamos and who knows our monster personally. You would’ve been a young man back then. I should probably point that out in case he doesn’t recognize you, Dr. Blish.”

“Stop! Are you mad? If he hears, he’ll kill you as well!”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Holly raised her voice. “Did you get that? Blish. It’s spelled B-l-i-s-h.” Suddenly she reached down, grasped the arms of his chair, and jerked him around. She bent over and stared him square in the eye. “Man of principles, my ass. Quit wasting my time. Tell me what you know or I swear that I will get on the intercom and call this son of a bitch down on top of us. Talk!”

“Please, stop.” The doctor quavered. “I’ll tell you everything.”

The ancient scientist seemed like he might begin crying. Mosh had never helped abuse a senior citizen before. “Damn, Holly. You don’t screw around.”

“Sure I do, just not when my people are in danger. Spill it, Doc.”

Blish’s lower lip was quivering so badly that for a second Mosh thought the old man was having a seizure. “We never intended for the project to end this way. We were the best and brightest, the superior scientific minds of our day. I was the youngest member of the team, but my theories on disembodied entities were considered revolutionary. Our goals were noble. We were trying to end the war with the smallest loss of life possible. The host subjects were all volunteers. They knew the risks going in. We simply never could have imagined this outcome. We would never have sacrificed those men. Only he doesn’t know that. He thought that I lied to him. I swear that I didn’t.”

Mosh was confused. “Host subjects?”

Blish wiped his nose with his sleeve. “You don’t even know about them?”

“Enlighten us. Back up a little.”

“The being that is terrorizing your friends is only half the issue. The destruction is merely the manifestation of one man’s anger over his betrayal. However hopelessly they are entwined, we are facing two separate foes, a human test subject and the disembodied creature which was bonded to him. The creature that is farming nightmares is merely an alp.”

“Bull,” Holly said. “There’s no way. Alps are pathetic.”

The only thing Mosh knew with that name was a mountain range. The skiing was awesome, and the nights were cold, but the women were beautiful…But he was fairly certain that wasn’t what they were talking about. “What’s an alp?” Mosh asked.

“They’re parasites. Little floaty ghost bastards. We only spend like thirty minutes on them in Newbie training. They’re the monster under the bed that gives little kids nightmares and then feeds on their terror. A really strong one can give an adult bad dreams, maybe. That’s it. Ignore them long enough and they get hungry and go away. They’re not even PUFF applicable because they don’t have a corpse to turn in. You’re telling me this thing that’s killing professional Hunters and sucking giant buildings into other dimensions is an alp?”