More than twice the height of the Space Needle, the LocUS Tower is the tallest structure in the elongated Seattle/Sound ganglia.
The office of the LocUS Chief Executive, Pruitt’s office, is perched at the Tower’s apex. Its window to the outer world is centered in the arcane rune seen upon approach.
The sigil’s nacreous glow is not apparent from within. Instead, a panoramic view northward and west presents terrain bulwarked against the encroachment of Puget Sound and smothered beneath layers of clustered civilization.
At the center of the curved inner wall, a flush double doorway parts to admit Pruitt and H’seven. Pruitt, scanning the space for the man assuming Remert’s position, observes instead, an unfamiliar addition to his office decor.
An angular pillar has been placed near a corner of the window-glyph, totem-like. It presents a slender, towering silhouette of unfamiliar design.
It turns without haste to regard them.
Bruce Newton Pruitt is a practical individual with many years of exposure to circumstances that would be considered by most, unconventional, possibly even bizarre, and by them he’s been hardened.
He would characterize himself, if pressed to do so, as a man not easily surprised or frightened. There is, however, a particular sensation one encounters when confronted with a reality so dramatically beyond one’s previous experience, so strange and startling in its aspect, size, and proximity that reason gives way to primal response.
Mr. Gray is shockingly inhuman. This is all the more obvious as it moves forward to stand over them, nearly twice Pruitt’s height.
A clenching thrill begins in the muscles of Pruitt’s perineum and races up his spine like an electric shock into his skull. His scalp prickles and the sensation elicits an unconscious shudder he wishes he could rescind.
A quick glance to H’seven for some sign of how to react offers no purchase in this encounter. He appears unfazed, his tone uncharacteristically formal.
“Bruce, this is the D’nal Kudlac. The D’nal will be taking over Directorship of all LocUS and ACMe operations, although D’kin Remert will continue in his current capacity at the desert facility for the time being.”
If intended to lessen the gut-level impact of this initial introduction, it falls short.
Maybe three meters tall, at a guess, Kudlac’s spindle-thin physique is clad in what appears a close-fitting black body suit, and draped in intricate black and tan vestments. Their symbolism is unrecognizable.
Long, oddly-jointed limbs loosely attached to a sinewy, bi-pedal frame give it a hominid appearance. There is, in that at least, some degree of familiarity, but there all similarity ends.
Its flesh is slate gray. It looks hard, perhaps metallic or chitinous.
At first Pruitt imagines its face might be some kind of mask, but that prospect flees as its real nature becomes obvious. Its face has an inverted triangular shape with an enlarged cranium and a pointed chin—a face like a splitting maul—Pruitt’s racing mind makes a connection.
Kudlac’s broad, hairless dome, flattened on top and elongated toward the rear, sports a high, wide forehead. A conspicuous lack of external ears reinforces the thing’s freakish symmetry.
A triangular arrangement of tiny, lidless eyes, alight with a faint reddish glow like embers, reside above what might be a nose, a low, thin spline bisecting that long face. Set wide apart to either side of this ridge, bulbous lidded eyes appear to be fixed upon him with a penetrating urgency.
At the inverted base of this alien visage, a trio of slit nostrils, each fitted with what might be a filtering medium, crowd together just above a small, lipless mouth. Lips part, producing a sound like a brass instrument with an open spit-valve, shaping itself at the last into syllables.
“I am Mr. Black’s designated Minister of the Change,” the thing says. Its voice is as distressing as its appearance.
“I am honored to be in your presence, D’nal Ku…”
“You were not invited to speak. Be silent.”
A hot flush threatens to further perturb Pruitt’s already precarious composure.
Kudlac breathes. “I have already spoken remotely with D’kin Remert. He has provided specific points of current reference, preliminary to your own formal, detailed narrative.”
The bellows works beneath the D’nal’s raiment.
“Our presence is required at the facility you refer to as ‘The Reservation’. There I will confer further with D’kin Remert, after which I will hear your summary.”
Another inhalation, less strenuous.
“Our transportation is arriving momentarily.”
“Your gracious consideration, D’nal?” Pruitt is unwilling to remain dismissed.
Kudlac’s silent deliberation is long and inscrutable.
“Speak, then,” it says.
“At our best speed, D’nal, the facility is almost two hours away. With your permission, I will provide what information you require dur…”
A visceral turbulence seems to center itself in Pruitt’s lower intestine. He winces.
“… during our…”
Darkness flows from every direction, from beneath furnishings and every shadowed corner, drawn into a nebulous blackness only a few meters away from where Pruitt’s shoes now seem bolted to the floor.
A wave of pressure bears outward from a blunted pyramidal shape maybe four meters high and wide, a daunting triangular mass shrouded in pebbly, iridescent flesh. A few sheared-away scraps of furniture, arranged too near the thing’s point of emergence, fall away from its flanks in pieces.
The long curve of the room that seemed capacious moments before appears considerably less so now.
Pruitt’s face is a snapshot of naked astonishment, taking in the arrival’s enormity and the simple, unarguable fact of its existence.
Another sigh from Mr. Gray ends in enunciation. “Our transit will be a matter of moments, Mr. Pruitt. Prepare yourself.”
The weird, but essentially humanoid Kudlac presents one barely supportable mental gymnastic to overcome, but this… thing; he can almost feel the ponderous gravity of its presence.
And something else. Beyond the inexplicable nature of its entrance, there is a truth Pruitt knows with absolute certainty and without the least cognizance of how that knowledge has revealed itself to him.
This thing is alive. A being of unfathomable capability and purpose.
Kudlac’s voice from somewhere above him speaks directly to the Chief Executive’s incredulity. “Mr. Black has allowed us the employment of his emissary’s unique means until our mandate has been realized.”
Kudlac utters something unintelligible and the pyramid alters, a change so improbable that Pruitt fears he has begun, or perhaps continues, to hallucinate.
Where the thing had claimed a broad footprint within the chamber just a moment before, in its stead resides an impossibility. A two-dimensional triangular shape dominates the space before them.
Blackness fills its intangible envelope. Kudlac’s odd, swaying gait carries him past the two humans to stand at the verge of that ambiguous depth and he turns to summon them forward with an altogether familiar gesture.
“It is a doorway,” he pronounces, “bridging the interval between this space and the remote facility. Step forward and into it as I do.”
With another lurching motion, the D’nal disappears into the portal. Pruitt turns his face to H’seven, but that one is unmoved, glaring into the equilateral emptiness.
Pruitt’s feet carry him with their own shuffling volition to the aperture. Nothingness beckons. His rational mind cringing in apprehension, he steps through. The membrane engulfs him and he is gone.
H’seven’s approach to the portal stalls at its threshold.
From out the blackness, Pruitt’s voice calls to him. It has a breathless, bewildered quality. “Jacob, it’s… this is astounding! We are here. Just like… it’s just like a doorway; just as the D’nal said. Perfectly safe. Come ahead.”
H’seven steps back away from the gateway. “I think not. I’ll see you there in two hours.”
“Are you serious? Why don’t you…”
A huffing sound emanates from the opaque distance. A curt string of unrecognizable syllables ensues and the portal dissolves into empty air.
H’seven aims a vicious scowl at the space vacated by Mr. Black’s monstrous emissary. His glower sweeps the room seeking a focal point for his enmity, finding none.
He opens a comm channel. “Mrs. Stafford!” Almost a shout.
The response is prompt. “I’m here, sir.”
“A jump-craft should already be prepped for travel in the east bay. Verify its readiness and obtain clearance for departure with best speed to the Reservation. I will meet you there.”
Her crisp acknowledgement is curtailed as he refreshes the call-out mode and barks, “Desk!”
“Desk. Yes, Mr. Hergenrather.” A matter-of-fact female voice. “How may I…?”
“Shut up and send a maintenance person to the loft. The new Director had a god-awful bout of explosive diarrhea in the washroom and there’s drizzling shit floor to ceiling.”
The operator’s professional equanimity requires but a moment to reconcile itself to the Deputy Director’s colorful description. “Yes, sir. I’ll send a crew up right away.”
“Just one will do.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“What’re you, fucking deaf, Betty? I said just one. Send the big, leggy brunette with the lazy eye. What’s her name? Margret. I like her. Send Margret up.”
There is a brief hesitation from the Desk.
“You got a problem, Betty?”
“It’s Jane, Mr. Hergenrather. No, sir. I’m alerting her now.”
“Well, chop chop, Betty! Tempus fugits like a motherfucker! Can’t you feel it?”
“Yes, sir. I… I believe I can.”