The shaking intensified as Alex opened her eyes and returned to the Antarctic crater. Ice broke from the chamber's ceiling, smashed against the sphere, and slid onto the spiral path below. The red light was brighter now, the throbbing heartbeat faster. Instead of Katherine Bedford reaching from the sphere, a black tentacle extended from the fracturing surface. Alex recoiled.

Suddenly, she was on the ground. Chairman Lewis was on top of her, his eyes bloodshot dilated. His lips pulled back from his teeth. “What have you done?!” he screamed and clamped his hands around her airway. She tried to push him away but he was too heavy. Her vision grew fuzzy. She kicked at him, pried at his hands, and beat her fists against his chest, but it was useless. “You could have had anything!”

Blackness crept in against the chamber’s ruddy light. Alex found she could no longer struggle. She felt a distant pain in her neck as his fingernails pierced her skin and drew blood. She tried to beg him to stop but she couldn’t speak. Stars glimmered against Lewis’s furious and rapidly dimming features.

Lewis jerked back. His nails tore at her throat as his fingers slipped away. The tentacle from the sphere coiled his waist and dragged him upward. He screamed and seized at the appendage. The flesh of his fingers sloughed off on contact with the darkness. His muscles melted to reveal his bones, which fell apart as their ligaments dissolved. His palms were next, then his hands. He cried out while blood poured from the wounds and splattered the icy floor of the chamber.

The Committee’s members tried to flee but additional tentacles erupted from the sphere and plucked them up as well. Lewis’s face began to crumble. His skin lost its tan, turned pale white, and then became wrinkled, hard, and grey. His eyes bulged from their sockets and popped. The ruined skin melted and dripping onto his parka. His screams cut off into gurgles as his tongue and muscles and vocal cords snapped or tore apart. Alex glimpsed part of his skull before his remains vanished into the sphere.

The Anomaly’s surface. The shell shattered and turned to ash. A twisting mass resembling a nest of tangled black snakes now hovered within the chamber. The mass grew and unwound, lashed out against the ceiling, and blew apart the remains of the dome. The storm clouds above the crater spun together while red lightning leaped from the sky.

Ellzey appeared above her, grabbed beneath her arms, and hauled her to her feet. “Get up! This isn’t over! You’re going back!” He kept her upright and waved the other toward the black mass. He tried to grab one of the appendages but they were too fast and moving too chaotically to predict. “Take her! She’s right here!”

Martin slammed into Ellzey and knocked him and Alex to the ground. Ellzey recovered and kicked Martin away. Alex gaped at Martin. How did he expect to fight one of the deadliest operatives in the Directorate? Martin again closed the distance, grabbed Ellzey, and shoved him toward the spiral pathway. Ellzey punched Martin’s mask, which fell away to reveal the scarred visage. Martin’s eyes were bright, alive, and powerful.

The gunshot overpowered the thunder from the storm. Martin staggered away. Ellzey kicked him in the chest and knocked him onto his back.

“No!” Alex screamed.

Ellzey pointed his gun at her and fired. The impact was a brick slamming into her chest. The air fled from her lungs. She curled up on the ice while gagging and fighting for breath. Ellzey regarded her with disgust and then turned and sprinted up the pathway.

The pain in her chest moderated to a dull stinging. Ellzey’s bullet had torn a hole in the fabric of her ballistic vest and cratered the plate beneath. She pulled the vest’s quick-release cord, and the armor fell away from her body.

“Alexandra,” Martin groaned.

She crawled toward him and took his outstretched hand. Blood leaked from his trench coat onto the ice. His hand was cold. Above them, the entity rose from the ruined dome. The tangled bulk unfurled into hundreds of writhing black vines that began to twist together into something new. A hole opened in the thunderheads and formed a tunnel toward the clear blue above. Then Alex saw her father.

Bedford stood at the center of the chamber with his arms stretched up and out as if addressing the heavens. “You promised me! I brought her here! It was up to you to do the rest! Give me back my wife! Give Kate back to me!”

The entity was larger than anything Alex had ever seen. Man, machine, or mountain… nothing compared. The thing’s shape had gained definition: six tentacles, each dwarfing even the tallest skyscrapers, surrounded a lozenge-shaped body, which pulsed faint red beneath the creature’s black skin. Lightning arced into the entity and discharged electricity across its surface.

A glob emerged from the entity and descended toward the crater. As the protrusion lowered, it elongated and solidified into a corkscrew. Bedford reached toward it, toward the shape that first resolved into a giant skeleton before gaining black muscle around the bones and then dark skin and hair and eyes. The shape was Katherine Bedford. Her torso hung from the entity, a hideous distention that shrunk to human size as she lowered into the chamber. Her eyes were white behind flares of red. She hung above Bedford and extended her long, bony arms.

“Kate!” Bedford said.

The arms embraced him and lifted him from the ground. He smiled and closed his eyes. Then his face contorted as he screamed. Alex stood and clenched her hands. “Let him go!”

Her mother’s arm snapped off. Black blood sprayed across the cavern. Bedford collapsed to the ice. Tendrils twisted from the bleeding shoulder and formed a new limb. Katherine Bedford’s gruesome shape swung toward Alex. She gazed into the burning white eyes, at the false smile forming on its lips, and at the arms spreading to consume her in a horrible embrace.

No, Kate Bedford’s voice spoke. The word did not come from the hideous imitation but from deep in Alex’s mind.

Her mother’s smile became an expression of confusion. Her shape began to lose its form, the dark skin stretching and drooping from her bones. Alex heard another voice, which spoke a single emotionless word, Come. Her mother’s figure reformed into a black tentacle and reached for Alex. She raised her hand. The appendage came forward and touched her palm, imparting a warmth of comfort and belonging. She regarded the tentacle and took in the shape and smooth surface. She burned the form into her consciousness and closed her eyes.

“No.”

The tentacle exploded and spattered Alex with black liquid. An apocalyptic scream drove cold daggers into her ears. The crater shook. The ice beneath her feet and along the walls cracked apart. Alex felt fear from the entity, which writhed above and screamed again while its blood gushed into the crater.

Alex’s vision turned red. The entity and the chamber and the storm above all vanished. She was in orbit high above the earth. The continents were black and burning within dead oceans of blood. Something lurked behind her in the void. She turned and saw the entity with its tentacles encompassing the planet. And in the center of its form, the dead face of her mother. Her vision cleared. The entity had ascended far above the crater while collapsing in on itself to form an elongated oval pod. Before Alex could react, the entity accelerated through the hole in the clouds and vanished.

Alex ran to Bedford. His features had aged decades. His hair was white. His eyes were cloudy and distant. “Kate?” he whispered.

“No. It’s me.”

“I’m sorry, Kate. I tried. Please believe me. I tried.”

“Dad…”

“Hank!” Martin crawled toward them. A smear of blood followed. Bedford turned his head and tried to focus on his old friend.

“John?”

“I’m here.”

Bedford reached out and grasped Martin’s hand. “I always knew. I always knew you loved her,” he said softly. “Take… care of Alex.” His grip weakened and then his arm went limp. His eyes stared ahead, unblinking, his pupils fully dilated. Alex put her hand over his face and closed his eyelids. She felt like crying but there was no time. The chamber trembled. Stretches of the spiral path had begun to collapse. In a few minutes, she would have no way out of the crater.

“Hank…?” Martin lay with his hand against his bullet wound. Alex went to him, helped him sit, and put her arms around him. Martin gazed at Bedford’s body and then whispered to Alex, “I’m so sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

For a moment, he seemed not to understand but then recognition came to his eyes. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want you to think badly of your mother. Please don’t blame her.”

“I have to get you out of here.”

Martin coughed blood onto the ice. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

“No. I can get you out.” She tried to pick him up but he was too heavy. “Please. Just help me. We can make it.”

“Alexandra, you have to go.” His body was weakening as more of his blood flowed onto the ice. She did her best to hold and steady him. He coughed more blood. “I’ll stay here with your father.”

“But…”

“Don’t worry.” He craned his neck to look into her eyes. Her tears finally came as he raised his hand and touched her face. “I’ll be fine as long as I know you made it out. I… I don’t regret what happened between your mother and I. I just… I’m glad I was able to meet you again, even if it was only for a little while.”

She buried her face into his shoulder. “I should have listened to you. All of this was my fault.”

“No. It was mine… ours.” He lifted her chin and smiled. “Go, Alexandra. You have a future. It’s up to you to help rebuild what we ruined. Everything you saw inside of that thing is possible. It’s just going to take a lot of work.”

“I’ll never forget you.”

“Tell Aaron… ‘Thank you’. Will you do that for me?”

“I will.”

“And…” His voice trailed off. His eyes were wet with tears. “I love you, Alexandra.”

She could not reply. She was crying now, sobbing even as the crater fell apart around them. She held Martin until he went limp in her arms. Even as his eyes closed, his smile persisted. She set him down beside Bedford and then stood, wiped her eyes, and hurried up the pathway.

She struggled to avoid slipping on the quivering ice and plunging back into the pit. She kept close to the wall, looking back every few steps toward Martin and Bedford. If only she could go back for them, drag them from the chamber, and out of the crater to safety. But Martin was right; she had to escape.

As soon as she reached the dome’s upper walkway, she jogged for the entrance. Yet instead of leaving the chamber, she paused for a final glimpse into the pit. One of the crater’s spires broke apart and collapsed over the dome. She raised her arms to shield herself from the falling ice. Martin and Bedford had vanished beneath the debris. She fled as the remnant of the dome collapsed.

She followed the winding trail up the crater toward the basin’s rim. The path split in multiple directions as if she were in a frozen labyrinth. The quakes had wiped away the footprints from their descent but the imprint of Martin’s braced leg persisted through the snow and ice. She followed the imprints while avoiding falling debris and dodging around the chasms that broke open along her path. A column collapsed directly ahead. She leaped over it, fell on her shoulder, and then got up and kept moving. Her thighs burned as the path steepened. The frigid air threatened to freeze her lungs but she gasped for it anyway.

She was out of breath by the time she reached the ascent’s final stretch. Her body screamed at her to stop, to pause so she could catch her breath and let the pain in her legs subside. But she kept going; this wasn’t the time to stop.

The moment she crested the rim, she fell to her knees and looked back into the crater. The strange geometry, all the spires and towers and arches of ice has collapsed into frozen rubble. The storm’s winds grabbed at her uniform and flung her hair back and forth across her vision. She tried to stand but couldn’t and instead crawled toward the empty transportation vehicle. Once she reached the driver’s cabin, she seized the stepladder and pulled herself into a sitting position against the chassis. She was cold and shiver. The Antarctic air had frozen the perspiration along her brow.

Maybe you should have stayed down there. You don’t even have any idea how to get back.

Alex gazed into the sky. The black clouds were no longer a spinning eye and had begun to recede from the gap through which the entity had ascended.

She pulled herself up and began climbing toward the driver’s door. You have to at least try. Maybe—

She was back on the ground before she felt the pain of the bullet through her back. The gunshot echoed across the expanse. She tried to stand, tried to reach again for the stepladder, but she couldn’t move. Footsteps crunched through the snow. Ellzey appeared above with his handgun. The last traces of warmth in her body drained through the hole in her back.

“You shouldn’t have taken off that vest,” Ellzey said and then knelt and shook his head. “What a waste.” He placed the handgun’s muzzle between her eyes and started to pull the trigger.

The next gunshot was louder but with a sharper pitch and a deep ring accompanying the painful reverberation in her eardrums. A bullet hole appeared in the vehicle’s chassis. Ellzey raised his handgun and fired five rounds in the direction of the gunshot. Automatic fire peppered the vehicle and shattered one of the windows. Ellzey stood, pointed his gun at Alex, and fired. Then he was gone.

Alex couldn’t tell if Ellzey’s final round struck. The feeling had fled her body. The pain was gone. Only the cold remained. The ringing in her ears gave way to shouting. Several more gunshots followed but then died off as footsteps rushed toward her. She smiled as Shepherd came into view.

“This again,” she said wistfully, remembering the cold tunnel in Cheyenne Mountain and Shepherd holding her hand as the blood had welled up in her throat. She coughed a spatter of red droplets onto Shepherd’s face. He did not seem to notice.

“Does anyone have a medical kit?!” he shouted.

“Coming!” It was Wilson.

“Get a perimeter set!” Murray bellowed. “Watch for that bastard!”

Wilson slid into place beside Shepherd. He unhooked a pouch from his plate carrier and withdrew a bandage. He began to unravel it as he looked nervously from Alex to Shepherd.

“Can you hear me?” Shepherd said.

“I’m glad you’re here. But…?”

“Don’t talk,” Shepherd said. “It’ll be all right.”

“Yeah,” Wilson said. “You’ll be fine, Alex. We left about an hour after you. We decided we couldn’t let you go into that storm alone. Especially not with Ellzey.”

To her surprise, Webb appeared beside Shepherd. The firefly lights danced behind his black membrane. “It’s just like—” She coughed and gagged. A wad of blood escaped past her lips. She finished weakly, “Just like the mountain.” Except she knew this was different. She was no longer fighting to hold onto life. There was a feeling of finality like this was the end, and she suspected her intuition was correct from the bleak look on Wilson’s face as he secured the bandage around her and began to apply pressure. He raised one of his hands. His glove was slick with blood. She was strangely satisfied to see it was red instead of black.

“Colonel,” Alex said. Webb crouched at her side. It was difficult to speak. “Gen— General Martin said… He wanted me to tell you… ‘Thank you’.”

Webb’s shoulders slumped and he sat down hard in the snow. “He’s gone?”

“Ellzey—” She coughed again. More blood. “He shot him.”

“He’s… down there?” There was no anger is his voice, only sadness. She knew he wished he had been there, that he could have switched places with Martin, that Martin would be the one alive instead of him.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, her voice fading against the wind. Webb leaned forward to hear her speak. “He told me to go. There wasn’t any time.”

“Were you with him when he…?”

“Yes.”

“Sir, we need to take her back to the bird,” Wilson said to Shepherd. “I can’t do anything here.”

Shepherd pointed to the transportation vehicle. “Get that thing running! Atkins, pull a GPS from the mattrack!”

“Moving!” Atkins yelled.

“Alex, you’re going to be fine.” Shepherd took her hand and held it. He intertwined his fingers with hers but she could not feel his grip. She could not feel anything except the cold. “We’ve been through worse, right?”

She smiled. The world was darkening even as the storm clouds cleared to reveal the blue sky. Each breath took more effort. She wanted to go to sleep. She pictured herself in bed with Shepherd. She imagined his warmth and his arms around her body. “You said you loved me.”

“What?”

“Back there… Inside.”

Shepherd looked confused. “Just stay with me, all right?” He glanced up as the transportation vehicle’s engine started with a shrill scraping noise and then a loud roar. Murray climbed the rear stepladder and opened the door into the passenger compartment. He yelled and gestured at Shepherd. She could not hear Murray’s voice but heard Shepherd as he hefted her and spoke into her ear, “I do love you. Don’t die on me, Alex.”

The darkness wiped out everything except Shepherd’s deep brown eyes. She felt weightless in his arms. And for a moment, she was warm. “It’s okay. Everything will be all right.”

Alex closed her eyes.