“Those…those are the things that built the city, aren’t they, sir?” Javonivic said, something like raw terror breaking beneath her words. “Those are living representations of the mummies Gates found. The things that the crew at this station were killed by five years ago.”

Orr just said, “Yes. Yes, they are.”

He explained that there were no more images because when those creatures crowded the hydrobot, transmission ceased. It was assumed they had destroyed it or at least rendered it inoperative.

Nobody said anything for a time. It was a lot to absorb. An awful lot. The sight of those creatures filling the screen had almost been too much. The city was bad enough, but those things…they were like razors scraped over your brain, peeling back some protective layer and cutting into moist pink meat, exposing all the creeping, dark racial memories of humankind and making you know, dear God, know that these creatures had inspired just about every one of them. Every nightmare myth and twisted scrap of folklore.

“The Old Ones,” Hubbs said in a weak, scratching voice.

The very sound of that name made something curdle and go sour inside of Bell. The Old Ones, the Old Ones, the Old Ones, a voice kept saying in his head. And maybe the voice did not need to tell him that, because part of him that had been submerged for what seemed millennia knew those creatures. Somehow. Some way. What they were and possibly what it was they wanted.

Orr sighed. “Yes. Old Ones, Elder Things, Crinoids. But from here on in, they are not to be referred to by any comic book nerd bullshit. They have been designated by the Office of Naval Intelligence as bogies. Understood? Good. ONI says bogies, then bogies they are. Okay, these photos are five years old. During the past several months, a DSU engineering team has spent a lot of time below. They have assembled a Neptune-class diver’s habitat and platform for us on a plateau some three-quarters of a mile from the outskirts of the city. It was quite a job. The drill team opened up the shaft and widened it. We lowered an ROV and spent ten days finding a suitable location for the habitat. And then, well, our headaches began. Regardless, the Neptune-class structure is down there and it’s fully operational.”

Orr discussed how the Neptune habitat was put together.

Bell didn’t pay much attention to any of that. He knew what kind of job it was. The Neptunes were pre-fab structures. Once the platform was secured, then the sections could be ferried down by submersibles and assembled into a whole like a puzzle. Generally, such an undertaking took two to three weeks, but Lake Vordog had no doubt presented special challenges.