The Debriefing of Agent codename: SERAPH


"Look, you can ask me all the questions you want and probe me until I'm blue, but I can't explain it any better than I have. We all know that we don't understand this 'fifth dimensional' energy enough to really quantify it, so don't ask me to explain how I did what I did."

"Alright, but lets make this quick- I've got a date with a curvy bottle of aged scotch. Right. So I told you that the team and I were trying to escape from the jungle valley in Antarcti... What? Jeezus Christ, that's a whole different story, and we've already gone over it! I'm not gonna go into that for the third time. Let's just stick to one question at a time..."

"So, there we were, everything was exploding all around us, including the damn volcanic mountains, and we were doing all we could to get out of there. We nabbed a Nazi Junker, and were readying it for take-off when we realized there were a lot of civilians in danger. Yes, they were German, but they were also women and children. We weren't going to leave anyone behind. ... yeah, right, except Fuller. Thanks."

"Anyway, as we were loading people on board, Kessel got this crazy idea to ditch his suit to try and fit a few more civilians in- I said no way in hell we were leaving that suit behind, we'd saved way to many lives with it and done too much good to abandon it. But he wouldn't listen, so I decided to try and haul it out myself. They closed up the plane and took off in a damn hurry, 'cause that stone freak... what did they call him? 'Steinmann'? He was still hot for Una's blood. So they took off and so did I, headed out of the valley."

"Problem was I was beat. I'd been pushing the limit all day long, and the energy was eating me up. I'd long since run short of the drugs- hell, we barely had food- and I could feel the changes tearing at me. I moved in short spurts, hauling the suit a kilometer or so at a time, up into the mountains, before having to stop and puke my guts out. I saw the junker clear the ridge, and was glad of it. If the krauts really did have an atomic weapon, I'd hate to think what would've happened if it went off. Fortunately it didn't, and we all made it out of the valley. Yeah, yeah, except Jetblack. Look why don't you get off my back about that? Do you want to hear this or not?"

"So for the next hour or so I fought to get the suit and myself down the mountains and into the open stretch down to the ocean. I knew there was a ship out there waiting for us, I just had to get there. But I was spent, and freezing by now. I thought about stopping and trying to rest for a bit inside the armor, but I knew I wouldn't fit. As it was I felt I couldn't move another foot. Laying on top of the suit, half-buried in snow, I thought about all those poor bastards who didn't make it out of the valley- even the uber-nazis, the SKVS gang. It looked like we'd all die here. And that's when I felt it..."

"It was kind of like being around Eldridge when he's got the eye going full tilt. I can feel it, feel the ripples in my own field. It was faint, as I wasn't generating much energy myself, but it was enough to make my blood run cold. The snow, the icy waste, that sensation... it was all too familiar. It brought back the old memories, the stuff the shrinks tried to help us forget.

(O God O God O God please help me)

I sat upright on top of the suit and looked around. I was starting to panic, I knew it, but I couldn't help it. There was something in the air, in the ice...

(can't breathe here all is liquid drowning dying)

I was breathing fast, and trying to summon up whatever energy I could. As the faintest field started to develop, I noticed... distortions in the ice around me. Yeah, distortions... like mine.

(no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no)

I think I pulled my pistol out, but I don't really remember that. Not that it would've helped. The distortions grew in size, ringing me and the suit like.. kind of like Stonehenge, actually- tall walls of energy, taking on a silvery glow, flattening out. The memories were coming out so fast... I think I started to black out.

(so cruel so cruel blind help me can't hold up what do they want from me God please help me)

And then I saw them- the same creatures that had held us in Greenland... the same ones I've seen in my nightmares ever since. They... drifted out of those fields of energy, out of their world... and into ours...

(how can they be so white)

And that's all I remember of it. I blacked out at that point, from exhaustion or fear, or both. I honestly can't tell you how I got aboard the Salute. You know what I know- they just found me on board, half-dead, in a crater where part of the deck should've been. That's it. Are we done now?