Modern/Delta Green - The Beginning of the End (COMPLETED)

[talien]

Music of the Spheres: Part 14 – A Little Muzak

They clambered up the stairs to the next floor. Randy kicked open the door, pistol at the ready.

Outside one of the rooms in the hall, an older man was repeatedly slamming his shoulder into a door. He held a shotgun.

“Let me in you BITCH!” he snarled. A woman on the other side screamed something unintelligible.

"Hold it," said Randy. "This is the sheriff—"

The older man whirled on the sheriff and his deputies. “Help me! She’s trying to transmit the signal to the other stations!”

"Put the gun down," said Randy.

The man lifted the shotgun to a firing position.

Randy knew the pistol retort was Donny's. The man fell down dead, instantly. A perfect shot to the heart.

Randy swore silently. But this time he couldn't chastise Donny. There was no time. "Check him for keys Bob."

Bob tapped the dead man's nametag. DR. CARL GUEST. "Not our guy."

"Check him anyway!"

"I'll do it." Donny rifled through the corpse's pockets.

Randy rapped on the door. "Ma'am?"

A woman's shaky voice replied. “He’s going to do it!” she shouted. "I told him not to but he's going to do it!"

"Now calm down!" Randy found himself saying that a lot. "Now what is going—"

The door shuddered from a pistol shot. Blood and gray matter seeped from beneath the door.

Randy swore again. "Bob, help me with the door!"

He stepped back and Bob blew it open with the shotgun. When they tried to move it, it was blocked by something heavy. Pushing and shoving, all three men managed to get the door open.

Dr. Mancini lay on the floor, slumped forward, her brains painting the door. The .38 lay in her lifeless hand.

Donny looked down, distracted. "She must have been really upset."

Randy started dragging the corpse out of the way. The stairwell was on the other side of the room. "Well don't just stand there boys get helpin'."

"Randy," said Bob, pointing at a screen across the room.

It was a monochrome feed. A man in a rumpled suit and tie whose nametag read DR. NEAL was walking back and forth, pushing buttons and turning dials. He turned and looked at the camera.

"Oh no…" was all Randy got out.

He waggled a finger slowly. Then he reached down and turned a knob…

And the Music of the Spheres began blasting through every speaker in the room.

 

[talien]

Music of the Spheres: Part 15 – Little Green Men

Everything happened in slow motion. Randy put a pistol to his head. Bob smashed his elbow through a glass case to reach for a fire ax. And Donny just stood there.

The pistol fired. It wasn't pointing at Randy's head, but at the ceiling. He blew his eardrums out, screaming. If there was music playing, he couldn't hear it.

Bob grabbed the ax and whirled. He swung it into the intercom where the music was playing. It stopped.

And Donny continued to stand there.

The music was still playing. It was playing on the intercom system throughout the building. Randy could only guess where else it was broadcasting.

"Go!" he shouted, unable to hear himself think. "Go!"

Randy dashed up the stairwell, with Bob and finally Donny trailing behind. They kicked open the stairwell door.

Dr. Gerald Neal had just finished smashing the lock on the door to the opposite room. The computer room.

“There!” he shouted triumphantly, sweat drenching his thinning hair. “Now no one can interfere with it!”

Randy couldn't hear him. Bob stood there, gripping the ax in both hands, unsure what to do next. Donny didn't react.

Neal trailed off, staring in the direction of the fire escape door that wound around the outside of the building. It went from open to closed without a sound, despite the fact that there had been a chain holding it closed only moments before.

Standing before the now open entrance to the fire escape were three small humanoids. Their bodies were elongated, having a small chest, and lacking in muscular definition and visible skeletal structure. Their legs were shorter and jointed differently than one would expect in a human. They had unusually large heads in proportion to their bodies with very small mouths, and very large opaque black eyes with no discernible iris or pupil. They wore silvery, skin-tight suits.

"Space pajamas," whispered Donny.

“Who are you?” asked Neal. “I didn’t think--”

Before he could finish the sentence, one of the Grays opened fire with a pistol. Neal disintegrated in a flash, his clothes collapsing in the space once occupied by his body.

Donny looked up at one screen in particular. On the screen, flashed a digital rendering of a celestial body labeled NEMESIS. A vast, rust-red sphere, its surface split by faults blurred into view. Two oceans slowly oozed open while its surface quivered and splits, revealing red magma-scars beneath. It couldn't be…it almost looked like eyes?

The leader of the three Grays tossed a knobbed sphere into the center of the room. There was a flash, and the Grays were gone.

On the screen, lightning bristled over Nemesis' surface. A steady humming, throbbing sound emanated from the planet-thing. The throbbing matched the music they had heard deep within their minds, an ear-splitting crescendo. A cry. A call.

The sphere rose up into the air. Three discs elevated a few inches from the sphere's surface, and bright rays of light shone out of the seams. It began to spin in a high pitched whine oddly dissonant with Nemesis' beautiful music.

Another sound interrupted. The thrumming of helicopter blades rattled the tower. Through the open fire escape, Bob could make out an Apache. He locked eyes with the pilot, who had the helicopter close enough to the tower that they could make out each other's features.

Two Hellfire missiles shrieked towards the tower, striking the joints between the dish and the tower. The ceiling nearly gave way as the structure was torn apart.

Donny finally snapped out of it when the monitor went blank. The music stopped.

The Apache turned towards the men in the doorway. The M230 Chain Gun under the nose of the Apache spun up.

Using the ax like a golf club, Bob batted the sphere through the doorway.

It continued to spin, unimpeded by gravity. The sphere sailed through the air, whistling faster and faster. It moved in a perfectly straight line from Bob's blow, as if it were floating in space.

The sphere connected with the chopper. With a shriek it imploded, sucking the helicopter into it with a popping sound. Air rushed to fill the void, nearly sucking Bob out of the doorway. And then there was no sign of the Apache, the Grays, or the sphere.

Randy shouted something over the shrieking of metal and the snapping of cables above them. Rifling through Neal's pants, he found his keys. Then he dove onto the fire escape, with Bob and Donny close behind.

Then it tore loose from its moorings.

 

[talien]

Music of the Spheres: Part 16 – We All Fall Down

The fire escape wobbled before giving up, slowly bending downwards as the weight of the three men swung it away from the tower. It smashed over a van, which broke its rapid descent, tossing them instead of smashing them into the pavement. They were heaved onto the car roofs that gave way from the impact, cushioning their fall.

Randy, pumped with adrenaline, hit the ground running. "Judy!" he shouted, unable to hear what he was saying but hoping it was loud enough anyway. "Go!" He threw her the keys.

Judy plunged the keys into the steering column of the minivan and for once, it started immediately. She drove down the road ahead of them. At least Judy and the girls were safe…

Randy's moment of relief was replaced by panic. The ground was shaking. He knew that there were explosions, crashes, metal and cement breaking apart, but with one eardrum blown out he couldn't hear it very well. All he heard was an internal high-pitched whine.

It was Donny's face that tipped him off that something else was wrong. He ran past him, the fittest of the three men from his stint in the military. Randy pumped his legs faster when he saw the shadow.

The dish. The dish had come loose. It rolled like a giant penny, smashing through cars and the fence towards them. Towards Judy.

Randy wasn't moving fast enough. The dish wobbled on its side and turned sharply. And now it was falling, falling, falling. The shadow of the dish plunged him into darkness.

Randy was shoved, hard. It could have been a boot. Or maybe the butt of an ax, he wasn't sure. The slam of metal behind him kicked up such a shockwave that it hurled Randy off his feet.

But the shockwave was a good sign, because when Randy stood up from the dust he knew he was still alive. He was just a few feet from where the dish had landed, face down. He almost wept with joy.

Then he saw Judy's face, running up to him. She was mouthing one word. And he knew who didn't make it out from the dish in time.

She was shouting, "Bob!"

 

[talien]

Music of the Spheres: Part 17 – Checks and Balances

Judy drove along the main road, putting some distance between them and Hayden. One step closer to freedom.

"Randy? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah Donny," said Randy. "Just talk to me in my left ear."

"Randy…" Donny coughed. "I um. I ain't right, Randy."

Randy lowered his head slightly. "I know."

"I'm…I don't know how I caught it. But I caught it. Like Judy said it ain't rabies. But…that music was so beautiful…"

"Try not to think about it."

"It's all I can think about. I can't stop thinking about it, that's just it. And I'm feeling…what's the words…a lack of impulse control."

"Like back in the tower."

Donny nodded. "Like back in the tower. I just shot those folks. Truth be told I didn't know the girl had a knife. I made that up."

"I know," said Randy quietly.

"I don't want to scare the girls. But I think—"

Judy slammed on the brakes. Donny had to grab onto the seat to not pitch forward.

"What is it?" asked Randy.

"Look," she said, pointing.

Two military trucks were butted together to form a checkpoint two hundred yards down the road. Six heavily armed soldiers blocked the path in biohazard suits.

Judy stopped the minivan and pulled it over. The guards hadn't seen them, but then she doubted they could see much in their suits. She looked at the map they had taken with them. "There's a way around, through an adjoining field, but…"

"Ain't no way you and the girls could make it without them seeing you," said Donny.

Randy's jaw was set. "We'll have to smash our way through then."

Donny put one hand on Randy's shoulder. "Come on now, you know that's not the way. You've got the girls and yourself to think about. Judy needs her husband and the girls need their father."

"Donny…" interrupted Judy.

"Shh." Donny smiled at Judy, a sad little smile. "It's okay. They're government, right? I got rights. You and the girls sneak around. I'll keep them busy."

"Donny," began Randy.

"Don't try to stop me." Donny opened up the minivan door.

"I wasn't. Just…thanks." He clapped one hand on Donny's shoulder.

Donny blinked back tears. "You all better go. I'll be honest, I kind of want to kill you all right now."

That was enough motivation for them to move. Judy whisked the girls out of the minivan, with Randy in tow. They crept into the tall weeds.

Donny took out his pistol. It would get their attention for sure if he was armed.

"Hey!" he shouted, jogging down the road. "Hey! I'm a deputy of the Hayden County Sheriff's Department! I need some help!"

"Get down!" shouted the men, leveling automatic weapons at him. "Now! Put the weapon down!"

"Okay! Okay!" shouted Donny, dangling the pistol from one finger, slowly. "I'm putting it down!"

Four of the guards, seeing his pistol lowered, advanced. Two remained behind but they were glued to the events before them, weapons at the ready.

Judy led the way. She knew this part of town because it was where Randy and she had met, as kids. They'd grown up here; she left to pursue her degree, he stayed behind. But eventually they ended up in the same place and before they knew it there were weddings and kids and mortgages. They had once made love by a tree where Donny was kneeling, guards scanning him some kind of device. It beeped and blinked red.

"Go girls," she whispered, as they circumvented the checkpoint to a series of stopped cars. "Go!"

"Do you think they'll hurt Donny?" asked Alexis.

A single machine gun burst rang out. Randy didn't say anything. Alexis covered her ears, weeping silently, but soldiered on.

Judy ducked from car to car, looking for keys. She shoved a corpse with a bullet hole in its forehead out of the driver's seat of an ambulance. The keys were still in the ignition.

Randy climbed in and turned the key. The car coughed.

The girls got in the back of the ambulance. Judy slid into the passenger side.

"Dad," whispered Crystal. "Do you hear that?"

Randy couldn't hear anything. He turned the key again.

"It's…it's a buzzing."

Judy turned around to look out the back window. "Randy…get the car started."

Randy pumped the gas and tried again. He didn't have to hear her, he could tell by her body language what she meant. "I'm trying."

"Randy…we have to go. NOW."

The car whirred to life. The buzzing was audible now, loud enough to penetrate the ringing in his ear. He had heard that sound only once before, back when the farm was nearly decimated by a locust swarm.

The black cloud blanketed the sky. Machinegun fire poked tiny, useless holes in the swarm as it descended.

Randy gunned it, smashing two other vehicles out of the way. In the rear view mirror, he could make out one of the white suited soldiers being lifted up in the air, helpless in the whirlwind of the swarm. He disintegrated in a mist of red and white.

As they drove safely out of reach, Randy muttered: "That ain't normal."

 

[talien]

Music of the Spheres: Part 18 – The Final Countdown

Randy slowed the car down as they left the black cloud behind. Just like a sudden rainstorm, it settled to the ground. The locusts, which were surely no ordinary locusts, would scour everything clean. Randy suspected only bleached bones would be left of the guards and Donny.

"Radio should be safe if you want to try it," said Randy. "The Apache back there tore up whatever was transmitting that sound."

"You're sure?" asked Judy skeptically.

"Nope, but then I'm not sure about anything these days."

Judy fiddled with the emergency band on the radio. There were snippets of military communications audible through the static.

"PURGATORY strike commencing…fifty-five...fifty-four..." Static. "...fifty-one...fifty..."

"Is that a…a countdown?" asked Alexis.

"A countdown to what?" responded Crystal.

"Gun it Randy!" shouted Judy.

Randy slammed his foot hard on the accelerator. The ambulance roared ahead, barreling down the quiet country road.

"...twenty...nineteen...eighteen...seventeen...sixteen..."

The ambulance tore past frightened horses jumping back from a roadside fence. Randy barely registered them as they blew past.

"...ten...nine...eight..."

"Girls, I want you to listen to me very carefully," said Judy, her voice calm, controlled. She got up, buckling the seatbelts on each of the girls. "I want you to stay strapped in. And I want you to sit as low as possible." The seats weren't optimal in the ambulance, but there was only so much time to prepare. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, but mom…" began Alexis.

"...five... four...three..."

"No time honey. You hold on tight. And if you can't find me, you find your sister okay?" She hugged both girls in her arms, the model of motherly efficiency. Then she clambered back to the front seat and buckled herself in.

"...two...one..."

Two jets pulsed past the ambulance, nothing more than black triangles in the sky. They peeled away from their target in a perfectly orchestrated arc.

Then it hit.

The blinding white detonation of a PURGATORY strike ripped a hole in the sky. Searing white light filled the ambulance. A luminous shockwave raced across the prairie behind them, sweeping over backlit barns and houses. It walloped the ambulance like a punch from God, pitching it forward on the front axle.

Randy fought to control the ambulance, but there was little he could do.

Through the blown out windshield he could see the shockwave go shooting past down the highway, Mach One, its vacuum sucking out the window's side windows - BOOSH!
The ambulance fell back onto its rear wheels, snapping the rear axle. Randy wrestled the ambulance under control, steering it onto the shoulder, the axle grinding on pavement.

The initial blinding burst dimmed to an eerie crimson half-light. After checking that Judy and the girls were all right, he stepped out of the cab to look at Hayden.

It was a netherworld of fire and smoke and swirling ashes. A mile-wide cornfield was engulfed in flames, the posts of a wooden fence alight like a row of torches. A hellish black-orange mushroom cloud rose up from the prairie beyond.

There was no Hayden left to mourn.

 

[talien]

Music of the Spheres: Conclusion

They finally made their way on foot to a local diner in Nebraska. Judy asked to use the phone. Randy ordered the girls something to eat. They slumped down into a booth, exhausted.

On a TV above the counter, regular programming was interrupted by a SPECIAL NEWS UPDATE. Patrons looked up from their meals with the concern one feels for a neighboring community.

"Casualties continue to mount following a devastating explosion at a chemical plant in rural Nebraska. Hayden, a farming community of some four hundred families, is believed to have been leveled in the blast. Authorities continue to search for survivors, but hold out little hope. It is believed the blast was triggered by the aftershocks of an earthquake in the area. This is just the latest in a series of earthquakes that have struck all around the globe."

"Scientists believe the original quake manifested off the coast of Easter Island, precipitating severe storms and monstrous tidal waves that pounded the Gulf Coast. The effects of the quake were felt as far as Africa in Adis Abeba, where Nariobi, Djibouti, and southern Egypt all were affected by tremors registering nine points on the Richter scale."

The newscaster sighed. "End of the world, huh?" he said to his pretty brunette co-anchor. "But now for some lighter news…Nina?"

Nina straightened her papers. "Thanks Jim. It really is depressing, but we've got an exclusive here tonight that might cheer you up: scientists are sharing a recently released recording of the 'music of the spheres.' I've listened to it and it's really quite beautiful."

Jim checked his papers. He looked confused. "Breaking news…huh?"

"Yes," replied Nina with an odd grin. "And now for your listening pleasure, we present—"

 

[talien]

Chapter 56: Fear of Falling - Introduction

This story hour is from "Fear of Falling" by Steve Hatherley from Tales of Terror and "Double or Nothing" by James L. Cambias from Pyramid Magazine. You can read more about Delta Green at Delta Green. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Game Master: Michael Tresca
• Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero/Gunslinger) played by George Webster
• Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz (Jeremy Robert Ortiz)
• Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero/Acolyte) played by Joe Lalumia
• Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero/Field Scientist) played by Joseph Tresca (Free Video Training for Photoshop, 3ds Max, Flash, After Effects an more)
• Sebastian "Caprice" Creed (Fast/Charismatic/Smart Hero/Techie) played by Bill Countiss

Getting my players back in action was no simple task. I wanted them to continue playing their characters, but at least one of them had heroically blown himself up trying to stop Cthulhu. I left the fate of the others uncertain. So where to start?

I decided it was time to change the campaign style yet again. The very first version of the campaign had a G.I. Joe-style, anything-goes feel to it. Several sessions later I changed the tone to a more Men in Black feel, but the agents were getting increasingly powerful – too powerful, really, to be intimidated by very much.

So I decided to take my action horror game back to its roots and make things more like the original game from which we took our inspiration: Delta Green.

Having established in a previous scenario that there were overlapping alternate realities, I used the nuclear Cthulhu explosion as an excuse for a tear in the space-time continuum. I took the agents back to a few seconds before their fated HALO drop to begin the mission. And then let all hell break loose.

Defining Moment: Agent Hammer uses parachutes not once but twice as weapons.

Relevant Media

• Double or Nothing: by James L. Cambias.
• Fear of Falling: by Steve Hatherley.
• [ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VZUN8I?ie=UTF8&tag=michaeltresca&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000VZUN8I]Peek-a-Boo[/ame]: by Siouxsie and the Banshees.

 

[talien]

Fear of Falling: Prologue

Peek-a-boo Peek-a-boo
Golly jeepers
Where'd you get those peepers?
Peepshow, creepshow
Where did you get those eyes?​

--Peek-a-Boo by Siouxsie and the Banshees​

30,000 FEET OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN—Agent Hammer had to shout over the roar of the SPIDER plane's engines. They were all dressed in wet suits with parachutes strapped to their backs. His voice was further muffled by a breathing mask each of them wore, a necessity during the pre-breathing period where their bloodstream was flooded with oxygen to flush the nitrogen from their systems. Microphones and earpieces within the masks helped somewhat, but Hammer still sounded like Darth Vader when he spoke.

"Alulu Island is located in the west central Pacific Ocean, about a thousand miles south of Japan between the Ryukyu Islands and the Bonin Islands just north of the Tropic of Cancer. It's an independent atoll not associated with any island chain. It's less than a mile in diameter from outer shore to outer shore, and is outside the domain of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. It's under 'unofficial' protection of the British government. British missionaries maintain an outpost on the island, which also serves as a weather station. We also had an undercover agent working there who suddenly ceased all communications with home base."

"Tsao's flying halfway across the world to get to this little island? Seems like an awful long way to fly to perform a ritual," said Caprice.

"Recently, a force of mercenaries assembled from the survivors of central African and Latin American campaigns descended upon the island. Shortly after this became known, all contact with the island was cut off. It is believed that Lt. Col. Feng Ho, commonly known as Mad Merc, is the organizer of this invasion. Guppy?"

Guppy punched a few buttons on his cistron, no small feat with the gloves he was wearing. An image of Ho flashed on their cistrons.

"In the aftermath of World War II, Ho was discharged from the Chinese Army after an incident in which many innocent civilians were killed. Since that time he has kept a very low profile. Since then, he served as a mercenary in military actions around the world. We believe Cho Chu-Tsao flew to Alulu Island to rendezvous with Ho, and that Ho is responsible for silencing all communications."

"Why don't we just—" began Jim-Bean.

Hammer held up one hand. "Before you recommend bombing the place with Jericho Jets, Majestic's not willing to intervene until reliable intelligence is received from the island. The primitive native population of something more than one hundred individuals who may be under forcible detention, and their lives as well as the lives of the missionaries may be jeopardized if military action is attempted."

"What's a couple of hundred natives…" began Jim-Bean, but Hammer cut him off.

"We will be inserted via HALO drop as close as possible to the missionary outpost, where Agent Powers was last reported before he disappeared. You all remember your training, right?"

They nodded. Guppy had earned his HALO badge after the incident in Poland.

"The weather's really rough," shouted the pilot over the intercom. "I'm going to have to take the plane higher above the clouds."

The plane rears upward and began the climb. Out the window, the clouds engulfed them and then faded as the plane rose out of the cover.

"I'll have to come back around…" began the pilot. His report was cut off by a flash of bright light below.

"What was that?" asked Jim-Bean.

"It looks like…a nuclear blast—" was all Guppy got out before the lights failed. Everything stopped – watches, cistrons, nothing worked. For a split second there was no noise but the shriek of the wind outside as the engines slowed to a stop.

"That was an EMP pulse," said Guppy, voice rising.

Then the shockwave hit. The plane bucked as it was lifted and tossed, almost as if it were surfing a huge wave.

The co-pilot shouted over his shoulder. "We lost all power! Nothing's working, not even emergency power! Everyone is going to have to bail. We'll have to jump from here!"

Behind him, the sound of breaking glass signaled trouble. The pilot's eyeballs explode out of their sockets. He screeched, clutching at his face. A ghoulish tittering and giggling mingled with agonized screams. The co-pilot stared in horror as the bloody outlines of a floating bag of protoplasmic mass became visible.

The thing's body appeared much like a sickly green floating man-of-war jellyfish. It pulsed and rippled due to the tremendous amount of gas carried within it. Dangling from the floating body were a number of barbed tendrils, upon which were skewered the eyes of the pilot.

The co-pilot scrambled for the door but whipping barbed tentacles snatched his arms. There was a desperate split-second struggle where the co-pilot's manic strength held him within the frame of the doorway to the cockpit. Then he was gone, shrieking and begging the thing not to take his eyes.

"What the hell is that?" asked Guppy.

Hammer drew his pistols, backing away from the cockpit door. "I don't plan to find out. We're going to have to jump." He looked around at the other crew. "All of us. Get your parachutes."

"But we're not equipped to jump from here—" began Agent Pope.

There was a moment of weightlessness as the plane reached the apex of its trajectory.

"We're going down!" wailed Guppy.

Then gravity returned, pressing them against the bulkhead. Hammer shoved Guppy ahead of him. "We don't have a choice. Go! GO!"

Tentacles snaked through the doorway, probing. Hammer fired shots, heedless of the damage to the fuselage. The plane was going down anyway.

The bullets had an effect. The tentacles withdrew.

Clambering down to the lower deck, Hammer nearly collided with Guppy. "What's the hold up?"

"There's…a new problem."

Hammer slid down the ladder to the cargo bay. Tentacles snaked through the partially open bay door. Pope and Caprice struggled to keep it closed.

"Are there two of them?" asked Guppy. "Or does it move that fast?"

"I need a spare parachute!" shouted Hammer.

"Spare parachute?" asked Agent Pope. "Huck and Rudolph won't be using theirs, but they're up top—"

"Use mine," said Jim-Bean, shrugging his parachute off.

"But—" protested Guppy.

"No time!" Hammer grabbed hold of the handles and shoved the parachute pack towards the opening. "On my count, you open the door wide."

"Are you nuts?" asked Caprice.

"Maybe. One. Two. THREE!"

Caprice and Pope let go of the door. It whipped open from the force of the thing outside and the change in air pressure.

The eye thing was there, tittering, barbed tentacles waving. Hammer idly noted that the thing had four eyeballs on its tendrils now.

He kicked the parachute out into space and yanked hard on the pull cords at the same time. The parachute snapped open, slamming hard into the creature and billowing open. The shrieking winds tore it away.

"Go! Everyone go, NOW!"

The other agents needed no further prodding, each jumping in turn. Just Hammer and Jim-Bean were left.

Hammer turned to Jim-Bean. "You're going to have to get a parachute from up top!"

"Don't worry about me!" said Jim-Bean with a smirk. He shoved Hammer out into space.

 

[talien]

Fear of Falling: Part 1 – Free Falling

They plunged toward the Earth, the wind shrieking all around. Hammer could see the other crewmembers and agents' parachutes open, barely visible in the flickering lightning from above. Another flash, and he could distantly hear the screams of Agent Pope, the navigator. Whatever the thing was on the plane, it caught up with them.

Hammer removed his hand from the ripcord with some effort. Once he pulled the cord he would be at the mercy of the wind. He pressed his arms as his sides and dove for Pope.

As he got closer Hammer could see that Pope's head lolled to the side, his primary parachute ruined. The thing's tentacles tensed around the navigator's body. Hammer slammed into Pope's body, causing it to temporarily slacken its grip.

Hammer fumbled for the cords on Pope's emergency parachute, darting his arms through the sticky tendrils that coiled around Pope's ribcage like pythons. Safe within the pressurized containment of his HALO suit, Hammer was oddly disconnected from it all – the screaming of the wind was merely a whisper.

Then lightning flashed and Hammer was jolted back to reality. Pope was still very much alive, eye sockets bloody and crusted over from the frigid cold. He was mouthing something. Screaming. Hammer's external microphones were off, but he could guess that the agent was screaming for help.

Instead Hammer was using him as a weapon.

"Sorry," he whispered to himself.

Then, kicking off Pope and pulling as hard as he could on the emergency chute's release, he let go.

Tendrils snaked for him, but the emergency chute caught the eye thing full in its torso. It blasted it backwards, caught in the wind. Hammer wondered how many times he could keep this trick up.

The altimeter in his suit flashed a warning. He was getting too close to the ground. If he didn't pull his chute soon…

More lightning. The eye thing disengaged from the parachute, flowing like a jellyfish down through the wind, tentacles trailing lazily behind it. For all its gas-bag like qualities it darted and flowed like a squid through the maelstrom. And it was heading right for Caprice.

Caprice had pulled his chute. He was at the mercy of winds and the things from beyond.

"Caprice, look out!"

The thing, agitated now, tore right through Caprice's parachute. For a second Hammer thought it had dropped him, but then he saw a body in its tentacles, like a tiny fish trapped in a man-o-war. Hammer dove down again, arms at his sides.

He hit the thing hard, landing on a part that was away from its tentacles – Hammer wasn't sure if the thing had a back.

Tentacles flailed at him. Hammer couldn't see inside Caprice's helmet but he wasn't reacting to his mic. He hung limply in the things grip, sharp tendrils ever-probing for those delicious eyes…

It hadn't yet tightened its grip. Hammer twisted Caprice around, turning his back to the thing.

Third time's the charm, thought Hammer.

For a moment Hammer hallucinated that Jim-Bean was there next to him, floating without a parachute. He fastened something to the thing and gave Hammer the thumbs up.

Hammer pulled the release on Caprice's parachute. The remains of the parachute caught on the thing's tentacles, ensnaring it just as it had captured Caprice. It was only a seconds away when Hammer pulled Caprice's emergency chute.

Caprice was yanked upwards, out of the thing's reach. In the distance, whatever was attached to the eye thing exploded.

So I wasn't hallucinating, was Hammer's last thought as he realized he'd run out of time to pull his own chute.

 

[talien]

Fear of Falling: Part 2 – Burn Notice

Rushing at the ground at maximum velocity, Hammer didn’t have much time to think. He was so caught up in making sure Caprice was all right that by the time he realized he should probably have pulled his own chute, it was too late.

He spun around so he could face the ground. May as well stare death in the face…

Hammer’s descent slowed. He balled himself up tightly as he was swept sideways, as if he were bouncing down a water slide.

Hammer rolled and landed on his feet. The wind was all he could think of. The wind must have—

Jim-Bean landed next to him, sans parachute. “You’re welcome,” he said with a grin.

Guppy, already on the ground, released his chute and removed his breathing apparatus. “What the hell is going on? Why are we in the middle of a field?”

Archive joined them. “So?”

“We should be in an ocean, remember? This is no island. I saw lights from a city!”

“You’re good at landing in cities,” said Jim-Bean.

“Very funny.” Guppy looked around. “I’m serious, something’s very wrong here.”

“No problem, we can just use the GPS to…” Jim-Bean tapped a few keys. “SINNER? Baby? Where are we?”

The now adult CGI-rendered form of SINNER appeared on screen. “Identify,” she said tersely. The image was marred by static.

Jim-Bean blinked. “What?”

“Identifying…”

”What’s she doing?” asked Hammer.

“I don’t know, but she seems pissed off,” said Jim-Bean, brow furrowed. Falling thousands of feet out of an airplane while being pursued by an eyeball-sucking monster didn’t bother him. But SINNER’s emotional state obviously did.

All of their cistrons lit up. They pulled their cistrons out. Each flashed on the screen: IDENTIFYING…

A bright red beam flared from the base of each cistron’s camera, scanning the hand that held the cistron.

“DUPLICATE SIGNAL.” Accused each cistron. “SECURITY COMPROMISED.”

The cistrons squealed an alert in unison.

“I’ve seen this before!” shouted Guppy. “Throw it!”

“But—“ began Jim-Bean.

“Throw it!” And to demonstrate, Guppy tossed his cistron as hard as he could into the field. The other agents followed suited.

There wasn’t much time to dive to the ground. The explosion was contained but powerful – a small nuclear detonation, just like the one that had consumed Agent Blade so many years ago.

They rolled as the shockwave billowed outwards, flattening reeds and agents alike. Jim-Bean was the first to get to his feet.

“What the hell just happened?”

“We’ve just been burned,” said Hammer grimly.