Sovereign

Entry 34: 2nd Pine Street Resurgence (C/R A) - 03/17

(Page 4)
Esoteric Division

Containment Mission Report (A)

Containment Unit: Emergency Team

Date: Sunday, 31st October 2010.

Time of connection: 6:03PM

Annexing Medium: Jesse

Annexed Unit Member: Fritz Plange

Unit Head: Raphael Heath

Transcribed by: Claudia Stryer.

"We have no idea what will be in there this time, but three of you are essentially the first wave."

I scowled at Raphael. "You mean we’re the sacrificial lambs?"

"Hard to sacrifice something that cannot die."

"Fair enough. I get me and Trotter being on the team, but Heitsi-Eibib? Does he even work here?"

"Yes and no," Raphael replied. "He’s an affiliate. Think of him as outsourcing. And like you, he has a reputation for being…physically persistent."

Heitsi-Eibib just stared at him and gave an assenting nod. That’s one thing I needed to get used to with him. He never spoke, but somehow managed to communicate. I was in the middle of wondering what his voice sounded like when Raphael cleared his throat. I raised my eyebrow at him and he looked towards Henry, who was seated between Crystal and Landsteiner.

"Team B is our main extermination unit. Your task is to find the core of this thing and destroy it."

Crystal lolled her head sideways. "Haven’t we already tried twice?"

"Permanently," he added coldly.

"Sheesh, so much pressure."

"I am leading Team C, which is for both external containment and back up. If we’re going to make sure this…thing never returns, we have to make sure nothing escapes while the rest of you are in there. Rosenkreutz refused to attend this containment operation-"

Crystal scoffed. "For obvious reasons."

"-so we have to play their role. Any questions?"

"Yeah," I said. "Why is she here?"

Emma gave me her best version of a glare. Which, for someone whose general mood is borderline catatonia, is not very impressive.

"We considered her to be a necessity."

"For what? Eating team mates?"

"Let’s not dredge old issues when we have bigger problems on our hands. Because there are so many of us, I’ve increased the expected time of completion to one hour. Everyone out."

We left the van and arranged ourselves in teams. As my teammates were a robot and a silent African god, there was no room for pep talk. Still, I felt something needed to be said.

"Ready guys?"

"Ready," Trotter replied.

Heitsi-Eibib nodded.

I walked towards the building, the biting cold winds of the coming winter nipping at my skin. I felt an uncomfortable déjà vu as the memory Gazel complaining about the cold came to mind. As I reached for the door, someone caught me by the shoulder. I turned. Heitsi-Eibib was staring at the door intensely. He raised a finger and did some circular motions and there was flicker of blue and something pulsed away from the entire building. Trotter hummed mechanically.

"Psionic Diffraction frequency isolated, currently reading parabolic delta-wave pattern ranging 27 to 32 hertz."

"Is that bad?"