In the security booth, the senior guard was removing bullets from a magazine and lining them up on the counter. Then he reloaded the magazine and slapped it into place. Then removed and unloaded it again. Over and over again.
In the largest of the Quonset huts used for the team’s work, the machine crouched on its reinforced table. There were six staff members in the hut. A bottle of champagne lay smashed where it had fallen. Each of them had taken a swig to celebrate the completion of the machine. They had followed every instruction to the letter, making sure that all of the settings on the device were at their lowest. No one wanted another earthquake. No one wanted another explosion. The thing was barely even on.
Two of the lab techs copulated with brutal frenzy on the floor. The woman was on top, and with each buck of the man’s hips she punched him in the chest, or stomach, or face. Which made him thrust harder. Both of them were bleeding. If their eyes saw anything, it was nothing in that room.
Three other techs were on the floor, crawling toward the wall, which was smeared with blood and bits of scalp. None was able to run headlong into the wall anymore. All they could do now was crawl toward it over and over again. Strike their foreheads. Fall back. Reorient themselves. Repeat.
The last of the techs stood by the table and stared at the glowing crystal machine, his face bathed in the green light. He did not see the machine at all. Or anything in that room. Instead he saw a vast creature that only vaguely looked like a human. It had arms, legs, and a torso, but all other similarities failed into obscenity. Its head was as bulbous as an octopus’s, and dozens of small tentacles hung like a beard from its gash of a mouth. The thing stood on a mountain slope that ran down to a beach that ran for miles and against which lapped the waters of a nameless ocean. Smaller creatures writhed and squirmed in the froth, and scuttling things ran along the gray sands. The tentacled monster dominated them all, rising impossibly high, immeasurably vast and powerful. Wings, stunted and leathery and ugly, spread out from its back, but were too small to lift the ponderous bulk. The monster turned toward the tech, as if able to see from its world to this one. It threw back its head and laughed. If laughter it was. The sound was like thunder and instantly all thought, all interior sound in the tech’s head was blasted to utter silence. Not even the whisper of a thought remained; only the awareness of their total absence. The room around him went equally silent. As did the world; and that silence was bottomless.
The technician screamed — a sound even he could not hear.
The other five in the room could not hear it either.
If anyone could, the scream would have sounded unlike any scream but rather a prayer shouted in a language never spoken by a people living on our world. The words were utterly meaningless on this side of the wall separating the machine and the monster.
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!” he shrieked.
And although the technicians in the lab could not hear him with their ears, they nevertheless responded, screaming out in one unified voice.
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Secret Service Agent Marilyn Kang was assigned the task of liaising with the local police who were investigating the death of the Speaker of the House. She was tasked with observing everything, documenting the scene, and taking notes so that the Service could provide their own information to the administration and the senior members of Congress. It was a tedious job, and there were other investigative bodies involved in doing essentially the same thing.
Kang did not mind the tedium, though. She had been on shore patrol in the navy and had accompanied investigators on dozens of crime scenes. She’d also helped with gathering details following suicides of active military. That experience was what helped her get hired by the Service and be picked for this assignment. She was patient, alert, intuitive, and thorough. Several times she made useful suggestions to the police, which were accepted with varying degrees of good or bad grace.
When it came time to process all of the evidence, she took photos of every item placed into the sterile bags, and kept a copy of her own evidence log. Later her bosses would want to match it against the one kept by the police.
The fountain pen that the Speaker had used to stab himself in the eye lay on the floor in a pool of blood. After stabbing himself with it, the Speaker had been clutching the instrument in his hand, and it was torn free when he fell. It landed on the floor, shattering the green crystal into a dozen little chunks. The forensic evidence collectors had taken the pen and the larger chunks, but there were still some left, standing like tiny islands in small lakes of drying blood. An orange evidence marker cone stood beside the blood and the green chips. The number on that cone was nine.
Kang looked at the cone and kept hearing the Beatles song “Revolution 9.” John Lennon’s voice droned “Number nine, number nine, number nine,” and it echoed through her head.
The pieces of crystal were small, and most were completely covered by blood, but the bits that weren’t seemed to glow with an inner light. Had that been the case all along? she wondered. Or was it a reflection from the panel of ultrabright LEDs the police had erected to help the forensics team? She wasn’t sure, but she began to have the impression that it was the stones themselves. Lit from within.
Suddenly one of the chips, the largest piece, seemed to move all by itself. And the small pool of blood around it rippled. Kang flinched.
Number nine, number nine, number nine .
That kept playing in her mind despite what was happening on the floor.
Someone somewhere off to one side said, “Holy shit.”
It surprised her because no one else was close enough to see the chip. Well, chips, because now they were all trembling. Shivering. And there were tidy, sluggish ripples in the viscous blood.
Then another voice, equally distant, said, “What the hell’s going on?”
Kang didn’t look at them. They were far away. At the other end of the room, or down a hall, or maybe up in the air. She didn’t know and didn’t care.
Number nine, number nine, number nine .
The chips were all moving, turning in place like the hands of tiny clocks. Not fast. But turning. They seemed to vibrate, to dance.
Number nine, number nine, number nine.
“Everyone get out,” yelled a voice. “Get into the doorways. That’s where it’s safe.”
Something fell over and broke. Someone screamed. Kang did not look. She was absolutely fascinated by the chips. The green crystal fragments were so pretty and they seemed to want her to bend closer, to listen, to know something.
“Agent Kang,” yelled a voice. “Come on — move! We have to get—”
She stopped listening as surely as if there was a mute switch in her mind that she was able to locate and flip.
Number nine, number nine, number nine .
She began reaching for the closest chip.
“What the hell are you doing?” yelled another voice. Or maybe the same voice. Kang neither knew nor cared. “Don’t bother with that stuff. We need to get out of here.”
Number nine, number nine, number nine.
The words were muted and made no real sense to her. It was as if whoever was speaking was underwater.