Chapter 1

March 17, 2009 - 72 miles south of Chernobyl, Ukraine

"Jesus H. Christ. Could they find anywhere more in the middle of bumfuck nowhere to locate this place." Stepping out of the insulated Russian army truck, Special Operative Janice Kershaw watched her breath steam in the frigid air. The new bio-isolation suits provided pretty decent insulation, but you could not wear too much clothing on top while in action, due to the risk of contaminants being trapped in the outer layers beyond the capacity of the suit to filter. As well the wearer would not notice any gaps in the materials. She was not looking forward to removing the heavy parka she was still wearing over top of the black rubberlike material. The team back at headquarters was working on developing outerwear, but none had been issued yet.

She waited as close to the warmth of the truck as possible while the rest of her team disembarked. The four of them were one of three specially assigned teams tasked with cleaning up the mess that Trask had left behind. As analysts identified locations from his records where Trask may have worked, a team was dispatched to survey, seal, and if necessary destroy the location. Janice herself was a specialist in Pharmapsychology, so when the teams were formed, she was a natural fit. The rest of her team was made up of Agents Donald Simms and Chandra Moyer, both of whom dealt with security, and Gary Leggett, electronics specialist.

Once the two security officers had checked their weapons and taken point, Janice reluctantly shed her outer coat and immediately started to shiver while she put on goggles and a respirator. This new suit model was based on the one rushed into production a few months ago, but was more effective and included a hood and gloves. Only part of the face and the ears were uncovered in order to allow heat to escape. They were just as form fitting as the originals now, but the team had worked together long enough now that no one even noticed anymore. Getting collectively sprayed in a decon tent had that effect on people. Ignoring the catcalls of the Russian soldiers was just a sad necessity. Besides, orders had come in from HQ that every precaution was to be taken at this site, something about an encrypted file.

This was the teams first overseas operation, in fact the first one period. The Russian Army special forces unit that had transported them out here had been led to believe they were US Navy Seals, tracking down something left over from the cold war. So far, out of 5 sites they had visited, two were benign, while the other three provided some interesting discoveries, including snakes that were able to blend in with their background, like chameleons and whose bite delivered a paralytic narcotic venom, and a genetically engineered version of the flu that increased the infected persons libido by a factor of hundreds. That tally didn't include the items they could not identify and which were sent back to the special headquarters that was handling the overall cleanup operation. Trask had apparently been well funded.

The heavy boots that had been the only concession allowed to the weather made deep imprints into the snow as they trudged about 50 yards to what looked like a small metal shed with a rusting roof. Wind whistling in her ears, Janice hurried as much as possible; she wanted to get this done before darkness fell.

Chandra and Donald flanked the door of the shack as Gary examined the old fashioned and weather beaten locking system holding it closed. After a long moment, he shook his head and stepped back, it may have been old but would take too long to crack. With practiced efficiency, Chandra pulled a small device from a pouch on a belt and affixed it to the lock. She pressed three buttons on the front in a specific order, then all 4 of them stepped back. 45 seconds later, there was a muted thump and a puff of smoke rose from the shattered mechanism. Chandra covered Donald as he pulled the door open and stepped inside. The suits didn't work well with communications gear, so the team used hand signals if quiet was called for. Donald's shout of 'come ahead' indicated that was not the case in this instance.

Inside, the shed was warmer, but only marginally. A ladder descended into a darkened hole in the middle of the floor, shining a light down there indicated there was nothing obvious below. Chandra took point, Donald the rear as the team descended, looking carefully for trip wires or other sensors.

Despite their precautions, they found nothing. The ladder emptied into a large room, about 50 feet square, filled with boxes. Cautious searching of the boxes revealed nothing but basic supplies. It appeared, despite the heavy encryption that protected the location of this facility, that it apparently was just some form of storage or supply area. The heavy metal walls prompted Gary to posit it was an old Russian military shelter from the Cold War, and wouldn't it be ironic if their cover mission turned out to be the truth. Finding a sealed emergency heating pack, very old military issue, they activated it to take some of the chill out of the room.

There were openings set into two opposite walls of the room. One contained a bathroom, the other a smaller room with what appeared to be three large steel containers with Cyrillic lettering, lending credence to the cold war theory. The cases were sealed beyond the ability of crowbars to penetrate, and since a handheld scanner did not detect anything ominous, they elected to forgo the use of explosives. Examination of the floors, walls and even ceiling of all three rooms revealed nothing of any interest, and after 2 hours of fruitless searching, the team met in the middle of the room. It was decided that Chandra and Gary would go back upstairs and inform HQ of their findings, requesting guidance if they should extract any materials, seal the base, or just leave it alone, perhaps bring a Russian officer in to translate some markings. Janice and Donald would do one more quick check to make sure they had not missed anything.

Donald was checking out the bathroom and Janice one of the containers in the far room when it began.

Kneeling down to examine the faded writing on one of the crates, Janice noticed a small movement on the wall above it. Rising, she noticed that there was a small thermometer on the wall and the needle had twitched. The numbers were the same as used in America, but the notations were in Russian. She did notice that the next unit on the dial had a red dot above it. Instinct warned her that the red dot was bad, and she turned to leave the room, shouting for Donald. Her action shifted the air in the room, enough to move the pointer again. As it hit the red indicator, an alert siren started to sound throughout the chambers. Rushing out, she met Donald in the middle of the room just in time to watch a heavy steel door slide across the only exit.

A female voice sounded over a speaker. "??????????????!?????????????????????????????????????.??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????."

Donald turned to Janice. "I have no idea what that said, but I doubt it's good." The chemical heat pack could not be deactivated, but they pulled it as far as possible across from the sensor to try to remove the heat source. The thermometer ticked up another notch, but then seemed to settle. Nothing else seemed to be happening, except the incomprehensible announcement quietly repeating every few moments.

Once the situation seemed secure, the two of them sat down, occasionally testing their radios, which were ineffective due to the mass of earth and steel between them and the surface. Assuming the heat source triggered the alarm, when it finally exhausted itself in about 8 more hours hopefully the system would reset, or the folks above would be able to open the door (although it was strangely quiet).

4 hours later, the temperature had risen another 4 notches on the dial, and the recorded message suddenly changed. "?????????!??????????????????????????? hibernation.???????????????????????????????."

The tone had definitely gotten more strident, and the two agents checked the area again. This time, Janice noticed a thin green slime seeping from one seam on the rightmost container in the far room. Without any tools for exhaustive chemical analysis there was not much they could do other than to verify it was not radioactive or innately toxic. As the flow increased a little, they decided the wisest course of action was to get as far away from it as possible.

2 hours later, the temperature had risen noticeably, as had the flow of green material, a puddle of which was now clearly visible from across the larger room. The two agents were on edge, Donald had his rifle drawn and both of them were fully suited up. Suddenly, there was a loud pop from the seeping crate and green fluid spilled heavily out of a broken upper seam. The center crate appeared to be leaking as well.

Donald handed a pistol to Janice then took up a position behind a supply crate, his rifle pointed at the crate storage area. Janice set up similarly across the room to his right, positioning herself behind an overturned table. The top of the rightmost crate was groaning as the slime inside pressed up against it, then finally popped open. What looked at first like a bubble of the green goo oozing out of the top continued to extend, then slid over the side. Landing on the ground; it took the form of what looked like a giant slug, with several tiny tentacles waving in the air.