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Our Paranormal Chernobyl
Scene 54: 900 Miles to New Orleans
Tuesday, 9:15 pm, Chicago

"Okay, Q-Ball, Goo, here's the plan," Maggie radioed once she was safely on the ground near the address Goran had given. "I'm going to go pick up Goran. You stay out of sight, but be ready to come down quick if I'm going to need a lift or some backup. I'm worried that this might be a trap or that someone might be tailing Goran and react when I show up."

"We'll be standing by, high in the sky," DuFord sent back. The ball was somewhere hundreds of yards above her in the dark.

Maggie nodded, and walked down the alley. Her armor was very distinctive, but consulting Q-Ball's onboard maps she had determined a path that would let her travel through little-frequented alleys before she broke out in the main street near Goran's position, where she would undoubtedly be recognized on sight. Hopefully this would give potential ambushers or shadowers too little time to react to her arrival.

She came out between a luggage store and the Hardees Goran had mentioned. There were few cars on the street, and fewer people. The sidewalk was empty except for two white teenagers in Hardees uniforms, huddling over cigarettes. Except the restaurant and a bar at the end of the block, the storefronts were barred and dark.

Goran was nowhere to be seen.

Maggie frowned and called in the radio. "Q, Goo, be alert. I don't see Goran, it could be a trap. He mentioned the Hardees, so I'll go check it out." Suiting action to words she headed to her left towards the restaurant.

The smokers stared at her for a long moment, then turned back to their cigarettes.

Maggie reached the door, and saw someone waving at her from inside. It was Goran. The man got out of the booth and walked briskly toward her. He looked harried, but relieved.

"Thank God you're here," he said.

"Thank God you're here," Maggie retorted. "Come on, let's leave this place. We'll talk on the way back." She went on the radio. "Q-Ball, I've found Goran and we're ready for pick-up. We're at the Hardees."

"Roger!" Q-Ball radioed back. "We'll be on the street in five… four…" The white sphere materialized out of the darkness, glowing in the wash of the streetlights.

"Oh my God!" Goran said, and grabbed Maggie's arm.

The sphere bobbed to a halt fifteen feet of the ground. The main door slid open, and the metal walkway extruded to the pavement.

"Don't worry—that's our lift," Maggie said. She paused and, making sure the radio was offline, added, "unless you're telling me you recognize it from somewhere."

Goran shook his head. "That's a new one for me."

"Okay, let's go," Maggie said. "There's a lot we need to discuss."

Goran followed Maggie up the ramp and inside—and stopped short when he caught sight of The Amorphous Goo. "Hi… there," Goran said. "Uh, Maggie?"

"Yes?" Maggie asked curiously. "Oh, Goo? Don't mind him." She grinned inwardly at Goran's discomfort. "He's with us."

"Go-o-o-o-d guy," Goo confirmed. "Or ga-a-al."

Goo shook itself. "Never mind ge-e-ender. Go-o-o-o-d, is the point."

"Closing hatch," DuFord said over the PA. "And heading back to the hospital." Maggie felt her knees flex as the ball accelerated upward.

Goran steadied himself against a curved wall and looked around for the man's voice, and finally spotted the tiny figure on his perch. "Are all of you… new metas from the accident?"

"I a-a-am," Goo said, performing an action that was probably a nod.

Maggie nodded toward the tiny pilot. "And I'll let Q explain his own…" Her tone took an amused note. "...'origin story', as it were. But first things first, Goran—you need to fill us in so we can finally solve this sucker. So much is happening, I feel like this whole story is going in all directions while I'm trying to keep the pieces together. I'm dying to hear exactly what happened since I left you in the Sontag building, but first things first—you said something about a potential new victim? Female and distinctive? Anything more on that?"

"The victims, the new metas—" Goran looked at Goo, then DuFord. "Everyone who's shown up so far, has been transformed. In a lot of cases, those transformations killed them. But these robots aren't looking for metas, they're looking for the ones that aren't transformed. Maggie, they're testing my suppressor."

"Yes," Maggie said, unsurprised by this 'revelation'. "They use time-released pellets to release the mutagen—Roya's, I figure—and the suppressor at different intervals, using fat molecules that the body will slowly dissolve. I didn't know they were testing your suppressor, per se, though I did strongly suspect it." She pulled out a bit of bubblegum from a pouch at the armor's belt, unwrapped it and tossed it in her mouth. "Right now, however, I would say the robots aren't looking for non-transformed people, they're looking for very good lawyers. Or at least, their pilots are."

"They're caught then?" Goran said. "Thank God." He sat down in one of the bolted-down seats.

"The robots are," Maggie said, "but I don't think that was the entire organization. That's why I still need you to tell me what you know about this distinctive victim you mention—there's still a chance we'll need to rescue her quickly."

"I've told you all I overheard. They were heading off to find this woman—they didn't say a name. If you stopped the robots on their way to get her, then she had to be close by. We should search there. Since you know about the suppressors and the mutagen, you've figured out how she's distinctive. You and I should examine her to make sure."

"I still don't understand," DuFord announced over the PA. "Distinctive how?"

"Distinctive," Maggie said, "in that the suppressor worked—and that the 'victim', so to speak, is actually stable, maybe even normal, despite having received the pellet treatment. That's why they were so keen on recovering her—she's the 'success story.' DuFord, if you could grab that tracker and figure out who it is, it would be very helpful. There's a chance we can analyze a blood sample, figure out the suppressor, and administer it to the other victims. But I'll bet American money against Canadian that it's the new mother."

"We're almost over the hospital now," DuFord said. "The woman's signal is still here."

Maggie blew a bubble until it popped. "Now Goran, excuse the phrasing, but—where the hell have you been and what the hell have you been doing? We've had no news from you since you left the building." She quite purposely didn't mention the security camera video that was taken from Goran leaving the building. Let's see what he'll volunteer. "Let me say you've made a lot of people very suspicious."

"Ye-ea-ah," Goo added.

Goran glanced at Goo, then ran a hand through his thinning hair. "At first I just wandered. I was in shock. Finally I ended up at the park and watched the fountain, trying to get a grip on myself. Eventually I drove home. That's when I ran across the robots going through my house." He looked at Thorin. "I've messed up, Maggie. Some people approached me, wanting to buy some of of the samples for their own research. I thought they were good people. It wouldn't hurt our research with Roya, and it may have even sped it up. I never thought they'd do anything like... like this."

Maggie frowned at Goran. "You should definitely have known better, Goran. You should have investigated further, checked their credentials, something. At the very least you should have discussed it with Ms. Sontag instead of stealing the mutagenic from the lab! This is seriously dangerous stuff we're talking about."

"Credentials?" Goran slowly shook his head. "Maggie, they have the best credentials in the world." He looked at Goo, then up to DuFord at his elevated console. "I sold it to PRIMUS."

Maggie shook her head and sighed. "They aren't a biogenics company, Goran. Not officially, at least. And they aren't a government agency, though sometimes they act like they're part of the alphabet soup." She looked the scientist in the eye. "You might not know this, but PRIMUS isn't monolithic and it isn't all nice. Lots of factions in there, and some that work with biogenetics when they shouldn't. Even then, though, you definitely should have discussed it with Ms. Sontag."

Goran dropped his head into his hands. "You're right, you're right. I worked with good people at Stronghold, but that's no excuse. It was stupid to go behind Freya."

"Sad to say, Goran," Maggie said softly, "but I'm afraid you're right." Then figuring there was no reason to twist the knife further, she felt silent.

The sphere seemed to dip, and DuFord announced that they'd arrived.

"This woman," Goran said, looking up. "She could save Freya's daughter, too. Perhaps... perhaps that will make up for some of what I've done."

"Probably," Maggie said, "but the cost was high."

The portal slid open to reveal the now-familiar parking lot and hospital. "Cook County General," DuFord said.

Ed screamed and instinctively jumped, his mind providing as much of a push as it could to his legs. He catapulted through the air in a shower of copper-colored light.

"What the?" Stranger said with a start.

Ed hit the ground, rolled, and scrambled to his feet. He'd gotten a dozen yards away with one leap, terror he thought he'd become numb to fueling his flight. But now his back was to bare rock, and there was no exit.

He needed space, had to put more distance between himself and the nightmare thing he'd brought with him.

"No fucking way! No fucking way you son-of-a-bitch! You can't be real!"

"That bastard is doing something to Ed," Stranger said, and he closed on the injured Mapes.

He stopped almost as soon as he started, remembering what had happened to Ed during their encounter with Jigsaw.

He turned towards Ed.

"Easy, man. I think you just mind-fucked yourself again. Careful, Iggy. Whenever Ed uses his power he gets all screwed up. He hacked a lady up the last time this happened. I'm not sure how long it takes to wear off."

"Oh," the giant intoned. He sounded infinitely sad. "I thought the PRIMUS men were lying."

The big man, only his head and shoulders protruding, waded toward the teenager.

"Easy, Ed. Nobody's gonna harm you here."

He was thinking clearer now. He hadn't brought the monster out with him, the monster had been here the whole time. And now the monster wanted to kill him in this fucking tomb, and nobody would know.

There were two things that really irritated him, now that the fear had started to recede: Why was Iggy co-operating, and what the hell was he supposed to do to stop it?

Theo was stalking towards him, acting all concerned. For that matter, so was Iggy. And there was absolutely nowhere to run… and Ed knew that there was no way he could hurt Theo August. At least with Jigsaw he'd been able to toast the guys brain… but something in August's mind blunted Eds' talent… weakened it.

And he'd be damned to hell twice and back before he'd ever use his knives on another living being ever again. Even a monster like Theo. So that left… what?

The boxes.

He sent his talent out, wrapping mental hands around the nearest box and (hoping to hell it wasn't too heavy) he attempted to put it between himself and Theo.

"Goddammit, Iggy, why are you helping this psycho? Can't you see he's trying to kill me like he tries to kill everything? He's crazy!"

The box was too heavy. It tilted sideways, and crashed onto its side.

"He's not trying to kill you, Ed," the giant said. He moved to fill Ed's vision. "Get ahold of yourself."

Ed's heart hammered as Iggy's shadow fell upon him. JESUS but the guy was huge! Ed tried to press back further into the wall, heels scrabbling at the rock in a vain attempt to get away, sweat pouring down his face as he saw himself dimly reflected in eyes that were impossibly large.

"You don't understand, you haven't seen what I've seen!" Ed whispered fiercely. The tower and the doctor and that little kid screaming "Cherry belly, cherry belly!" The burning man. How could anyone understand that?

Stranger wasn't sure if this was was all just some kind of mental backlash. Ed had always seemed nervous around ever since he had tried to do his mental trick on Stranger. He wasn't sure if he could trust Ed in a pinch but he at least needed rational. 

Stranger stepped into the shadows at the edge of the cavern. Maybe if he can't see me he'll calm down.

Ed kept screaming. "You have to save me from him! You have to! I don't want to die down here in the dark. Not like this…"

"Calm down," Iggy said. The giant was trying to speak quietly in the cavern, but his voice made the air tremble. He turned his head slightly. "Stranger, how long does... Stranger?" His eyes searched the room, found nothing.

He turned back to Ed, frowning slightly, but the man's emotions were clear to the empath. Iggy was alarmed, and trying to cover it. "Ed, just breathe deep. Relax. I'm not going let anything happen to you." And that was true, too—Iggy meant it.

Finally, at long last, and for the first fucking time all day (and if this wasn't a day right out of Hell itself, he didn't know what was) there was somebody who wanted to make sure ED was okay.

The young telepath latched onto that like a drowning man grabbing at a rope and pulled it in deep, using that emotion to block out what he now realized was Mapes' own terror of Theo August. It hadn't helped that Ed was also scared to death of the man.

"Yeah, yeah, okay… All right just… just give me a minute okay?" Ed asked, sliding down the wall, his head coming to rest between his knees. He wrapped his hands around his neck and just sat there, eyes closed, trying to lock it all away until he could deal with it at some other time.

"It's what was in Mapes," Ed said quietly, his voice almost lost in dark. "He's scared of Theo, and I am to and it just kept getting bigger and bigger the longer I was inside. It happens, I'm sorry." He was surprised to find that he was at least able to keep his voice mostly calm. 'cause he sure as shit was falling apart inside.

He looked up into Iggy's concerned face and managed a weak smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." The giant glanced behind him again, but didn't move from his spot. "What did you learn from the man?"

"I know where he keeps the shells. That's what he calls the robots. Shells." Ed pondered the last thing he'd heard Mapes say. "Veil", then the lid had closed on the robot. Did that mean he was inside it again? Or maybe he'd linked up to another one? Fuck.

But he'd needed all that stuff in the box to run the B robot.

"He called them, they know he fucked up," Ed said. "Sontag's people I mean…" He concentrated on the floor as he sorted through the memories. Concentrated on just breathing. "It wasn't about the one's that got powers, it was about the ones that didn't. They were supposed to take the ones that didn't to a warehouse. South Avenue 0 and East 90th." He looked up at the huge face. "Do you know where that is?"

"I know it," Iggy said. 

"I also got a phone number," Ed said slowly. Breathe in, breath out… "The one he called. 312 555-2410."

Stranger jumped out from the shadows shouting.

"I knew it! I knew it! That was the number I got from Diamante. I've been trying to get someone to look it up since we all met."

The giant half turned. "Stay back, Stranger."

Stranger kept coming, shaking his head in amazement. "Shit! Now I'm wondering if they haven't looked it up at all."

"Get that psycho away from me!" yelled Ed.

"I said, get back," Iggy said.

"Oh come on!" Stranger said. "Leave cracker boy here—we gotta get going!"

Iggy frowned. Then a hand as big as a dump truck came out of the earth under Stranger's feet and scooped him up.

The Q-Ball hovered over the parking lot, and there seemed to be even more police cars than when they'd left. Scores of blue and red lights strobed. Police officers milled around the overturned cars in the lot, picking up shards of titanium bands and empty smoke canisters. Another group of officers surrounded the television van that had been Reinhardt-Mapes mobile command center, and the female robot body still lay sprawled by the front bumper where Stranger had dumped it. The male robot stood frozen in the ambulance bay, guarded by a handful of cops and the tall, unmistakeable form of Detective Waters.

Some of the patients and staff had gone back inside the hospital, but a crowd still milled on the grassy berm between the parking lot and the emergency room. They'd been watching a tow truck try to haul an overturned Suburban onto its wheels, but when Q-Ball approached they'd all turned their attention to the sky.

Maggie was the first to spot Pender. The PRIMUS agent was still dressed in scrubs, the Brick-Breaker over her shoulder, standing just inside the hole that Stranger had torn in the hospital wall. She was in the middle of an odd assortment of people: a hospital security guard; Crossfire, head bandanged and evidently unconscious, slumped into a wheelchair; the woman, Lily, that Goran was convinced held the key to saving Freya's daughter; the nurse, Mavis; and in Mavis' arms, the baby that Pender and Thorin believed to be the most important person of all. The tableau resembled nothing so much as a family portrait.

At Maggie's direction, the Q-Ball swung about and extended its ramp toward the group. "ALL ABOARD," DuFord announced over the external speakers.

Pender motioned the security guard back, and pushed Crossfire up the ramp herself. The PRIMUS agent looked remarkably energetic for someone who'd almost been killed several times today.

Lily, Mavis, and the baby filed on board, and DuFord directed them to the bolted-down chairs. As the sphere door closed, the security guard waved forlornly. Pender ignored him.

"Where'd you go?" she said to Maggie as the ship lifted into the sky. "Somebody need a pack of Camels?"

"We went to pick up Dr. Vrlick here," Maggie said. "Another piece in the puzzle. Are we still a go for New Orleans? Between Dr. Vrlick and I, we may be able to come up with the working suppressant, and possibly the cure, for our little problem."

Goran crossed the deck and extended a hand. "Call me Goran," he said.

Pender took his hand, and frowned. Goran dropped the handshake, and stepped back. Pender's palm glowed with a faint white light. Only Maggie, Pender, and Goran were in a position to see it. The PRIMUS agent closed her fist. "Pleasure to meet you, Doctor." She glanced up at DuFord on his tiny control station. "The Crescent City, DuFord, and floor it, please." She crouched and set the brake on Crossfire's wheelchair.

Mavis, who was handing over the sleeping child to Lily, looked up. "What? You can't be serious!" Lily looked shocked.

"Warp speed, Cap'n," DuFord announced. "And it's good to see you up and about, Agent Pender. Back there, with Ed…"

She nodded. "The ambulance service was appreciated—we'll talk later. Mavis, PRIMUS will be happy to compensate you for overtime. If the baby is fine for now, perhaps you could look after our unconscious archer friend here—that jaw has probably taken its share of right hooks, but it would be better to have him awake. Lend me your notepad, too, would you? And pen."

Mavis shook her head and handed over the items.

"Now Maggie," Pender said, "I want you to sketch me the security arrangements at your lab. You'll excuse us a second, doctor?"

"Sure, sure," Goran said. He walked to the table and stood next to Lily. "I want to introduce myself to you as well," he said to her. "You may be everything I've worked for—everything Freya's worked for."

Lily shook her head. "I don't understand what you're all talking about. What tests? Who is Freya?"

"Freya Sontag—I work for her. Well, did work for her. She's a mother, like you. Her child, Roya, is a shapeshifter—but she's unable to control the changes. At any time the girl may assume a shape that can kill her—she's come close to death many times. She's taken on forms that breathe only water, become things that don't even have lungs."

Goran put a hand on Lily's shoulder. "Freya's been looking for some way to suppress the girl's powers, at least until she's old enough to control them. The robot people may have inadvertently given us exactly what we need. They injected maybe twenty people with a suppressing agent and then the mutagen. And you, you alone of anyone that's been found, were unaffected. We have to take a blood sample, of course, to make sure, but it just may be that the chemical your body carries may save a little girl's life."

Lily pushed the hair out of her eyes, then looked down at her own child. "Oh."

"Here's what I need," Pender said. She turned so that her back was to the room and began to write on the pad. Over the agent's shoulder, Maggie could see Goran talking to the nurse and Lily, and behind him, against the far wall, the squat, translucent form of Goo. Goo had taken pains to be unobtrusive since the women had entered, staying quiet and shrunk into a low, rounded shape. So far the ladies hadn't noticed it, perhaps taking the creature for a bubble chair.

Pender had finished writing. Maggie started to speak, then read the pad.

Goran is a meta. You knew?

Maggie shook her head. Taking a pen and a notepad from a pouch at her belt, she put the paper down on the table. "It'll be easier if I make a diagram." She started drawing the outline of the Thorin labs building, then she wrote in the margins, How do you know?

"We'll need guards at each door," Pender said. Then she looked Maggie in the eye. "Trust me. I know what I'm talking about."

Taking up the pen again, Maggie wrote, Is he really Goran, then, you think?

Pender studied the paper. "Ah—that's tricky. Well, if that's the case, I think you're the best judge."

Maggie nodded. "It was just a thought. Long shot of that actually happening." She frowned thoughtfully. "I'm just not sure what to do about this, though. Finding people I can trust with something so precious is difficult."

"I know what you mean," she replied, and was wondering if she'd ever been in such a triply-ironic conversation in her life when a thought occurred to her, depressing in its desperation. "I may know some people."

"Maybe our best bet is to keep this as a basic plan and figure out the details once we get to New Orleans. Everyone involved is safely in here right now, so as long as we don't lower our guard we should be okay. There might be some things in my lab I can use to help us figure out a course of action."

Pender thought about that. Given what little she knew of Q-Ball, New Orleans would only be a short trip away, but in the meantime, if "Goran" were determined to be a problem, a short trip might be all he needed. On the other hand, there was a small chance he might actually be the real Goran, and there was a small chance the real Goran might coincidentally be a Roswell, but putting those two small chances together made that scenario rather unlikely. Her sense of self-preservation was pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

"I suppose you're right," she answered after a brief pause. "Nothing to do about it until we get there."

Maggie sighed. "We still haven't located the robots' base or any accomplices they might have. I can't help but feel we're leaving a tangled skein of loose ends behind—we can't spend too much time in New Orleans."

"DuFord," Pender said, and then again when she'd gotten his attention. "You have a wireless Internet connection through this thing, I imagine? I need to send some email."

"You wound me by even asking, Agent Pender," DuFord said over the PA. "The Q-Ball can do everything from shortwave to semaphore. You'll find a keyboard and screen opening up behind you."

Goran looked up from his conversation with Lily. "Excuse me," he said to Pender. "You aren't contacting PRIMUS, are you?"

She almost chuckled. "No. I don't think I'll be contacting PRIMUS anytime soon, although I'm sure they'll do their best to contact me."

Pender turned around to find the keyboard and monitor DuFord had mentioned. She kept a rarely-used web-based email account for just this purpose. Her WebMail.com Inbox was full of all manner of spam ranging from the pleas of deposed Nigerian politicians to offers to "enhance" body parts she didn't even have. Every now and then there was a piece of genuine correspondence dating back for months with subject lines like "Tunnels in Fargo" and "New Flyer in New Brunswick?", all from a mailing list called "Fanboy."

She opened a window for a new message, typed in a question she never thought she'd ask:

"Umbrella needed in New Orleans—any help?"

And sent it off, hoping something would turn up before they reached Louisiana.

When was the last time she'd eaten? "DuFord, any food in here?"

"I have some bubblegum," Maggie chimed in, "if it'd help."

"And I had a nice selection of snacks before Stranger went through my cabinets," DuFord said. Pender was too far away to read the expression on the man's dime-sized face. "But I think there are some bagels left in the cabinets next to Goo. Or, we can go through a drive-thru."

Maggie snorted trying to suppress laughter and failed. "Oh, I'd love to see that. And the face on the attendant...."

The baby suddenly began to bawl, and Lily looked down at it helplessly. "What's the matter, little one?" She looked at Mavis, who was standing beside the still-unconscious Crossfire, rewrapping the bandages on his head. "What should I do?"

"I think he's hungry, too, dear." Mavis helped the woman arrange her shirt, and after almost five minutes of coaching, false starts, and repositioning, the baby was sucking eagerly.

"I have something I have to tell you," Lily said softly. She looked up at Goran, then at Maggie. "You're wrong about me. I'm not..." She exhaled slowly. "I was changed by the robots."

Maggie rubbed her chin. "But you did get better, didn't you?"

"Yes. I got much better." She kissed the crown of the baby's head.

"Before they injected me," she said, her voice small, "I wasn't pregnant. I've never even had... you know." She looked up. "But this morning, the baby—he just grew inside me. Even while I was surrounded by blood, in that schoolhouse, the baby just grew."

"All my life, I've had problems, mental problems. I heard voices, I saw things. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was sixteen. I've been on the street since I was nineteen. Sometimes, men came after me, but Franklin always stopped them. Franklin was crazy, but he loved me. Last night, the robots got us both, and a few hours later, Franklin was changed, inside and out. He came for me. He cut out my tongue to stop me from screaming."

Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she kept her voice level. "When the baby was born—Agent Pender was there, she knows how beautiful he looked -- I just wanted to be a regular girl. So I could take care of him, you know? He didn't deserve a crazy mama. A crazy mama who couldn't even say his name." She laughed, and wiped at her nose. "And when I brought him to my face, and kissed the blood from his lips, it happened. The voices in my head stopped. I got clear, you know? The pain went away. And I could talk again."

"You see? I'm normal now. Absolutely normal."

"I think I understand," Maggie said, nodding. "You didn't necessarily get the suppressant… but somehow you got lucky and your abilities—or your child's—" Maggie noted, glancing at the baby, "included the ability to cure yourself entirely." She smiled. "This might be annoying for the robots, but for our purposes it's probably just as good, if not better. We've got the potential to do a lot of good here. If you'll allow, I'd like to examine both you and your child once we get in my laboratory."

"Exactly what B and K wanted," Pender noted. She opened a cabinet DuFord had indicated and found the bagels Stranger had left behind. "You and your baby passed the test. Like you said, Goran, everyone else they injected suffered adverse side effects from the mutagen, but Lily, you survived intact without being turned into a giant or a dragon or stone or anything else. Something about your blood has changed; ingesting it accelerates and enhances the natural regenerative process. There's no other explanation for your tongue or my wounds healing so quickly. By all rights, I should've died a few times over in the last twenty-four hours, and you shouldn't even be able to speak."

She held a bagel in one hand, still not eating, all thoughts of hunger shoved aside by the matter suddenly at hand. "B and K were obviously connected with Sontag, and she is just as obviously responsible for this mess as well what I investigated—and DuFord survived—in Utah.

"She had the motive, means, and opportunity to plunge Chicago into utter chaos to satisfy her own agenda," Pender continued, her tone growing increasingly edgy and intense, "and as soon as Lily and her child are secure in New Orleans, I intend to make Freya Sontag pay, in some small measure, for what she's done to my home. Certainly her daughter should be cured, but even ends that noble do not justify her horrific means."

"Get 'em," a voice said, and everyone in the ship turned to regard the translucent creature in the corner.

The huge fingers opened, and Stranger dropped to the ground. It was absolutely dark.

"What's the big idea, big man?" Stranger shouted. He knew Iggy was still there, he practically feel his presence. He leaped forward, hands scrabbling to get a grip on the man, and banged against a wall of rock. Jesus H., he thought. He was getting jerked around by a four-hundred foot naked black man who couldn't even breathe on his own this morning.

"Neither one of you is stable, and I don't have time to baby-sit," the giant intoned from the darkness behind him.

"This cavern has no exit. You're a mile below the surface. I'll come back for you after I've found Sontag, and the warehouse."

"And what if something happens to you?" Theo said, spinning around. "What the fuck am I supposed to do then?"

There was no answer. Just the silence, and the dark, and a mile of rock above his head.

Then: 

A vibration, a single sound, moving through the rock from some point already far away, rattling the small bones of his ears.

It sounded like... "Dig."

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