The briefing room dwarfed the other more compact facilities in Cheyenne Mountain save for the Directorate’s primary command center at the heart of the complex and the ever-busy Granite Inn mess hall on the third floor of Building One. The space resembled a theater with long metal desks along the aisles of three elevated tiers. A short pathway split the room from the entrance on the upmost tier to the presentation space at the front. Two projector screens hung to the left and right of a wooden podium and an adjacent computer terminal facing the audience. The projectors themselves clung to the ceiling, and those sitting underneath could hear the muffled whirring from the devices’ cooling fans. The Directorate’s emblem, a black and yellow shield emblazoned with four stars and a white arrow trailed by three lines of red extending out from a brilliant blue and white globe, emblazoned the wall behind the screens.

As Lunde had explained to her once, the briefing room had once served as the nation’s missile warning center, a hub of information from numerous radars and satellites, all keeping watch of the skies for incoming ballistic missiles. Now, those radars had fallen into disrepair, and the satellites had either reached the ends of their lifespans or ceased communicating with the earth. With the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China having vanished just like the old United States, no one worried much about hostile ICBMs anymore.

Alex sat alone at the end of the second tier, furthest from the path to the entrance. Wilson, Murray, and Ziegler were below her near the center of the room. Shepherd stood behind the podium, glancing at his watch, a nervous gesture although he appeared otherwise composed and confident. Technical Sergeant Raymond Paul, the most computer literate member of the team, sat at the control terminal where he could operate the projectors. The remaining five junior members of the team were absent but she guessed their thoughts were on the debriefing session.

She had woken up early in the morning, refreshed by her long nap. After showering and putting on her formal uniform, she went to the mess hall for breakfast. Her father rarely visited the mess hall, but she glanced nervously at the doors whenever someone entered. She ate quickly and returned to her room to attempt to arrange the tangle of memories from New York.

She was the first to arrive at the briefing room, sitting in a position that made her feel physically and emotionally isolated. Shepherd came in next and smiled after she waved at him. She wanted to talk, perhaps about the mission or her father, but there was nothing to say. Shepherd was right: she would have to confront him eventually. She only hoped it would be less awkward in the depersonalized setting of the briefing room.

“Sir?” Murray said, breaking the nervous silence.

Shepherd looked up from the podium and shuffled his small pile of notes – again a nervous habit she alone seemed to notice.

“Any word yet on what we’re doing for Hensley and Neill?”

“We’ll be having a service at Peterson. That’s all I’ve heard.”

“We should nuke those bastards,” Murray grumbled.

Paul smirked. “That would be bad for our PR.”

“Screw our PR,” Murray say.

“Let’s keep focused.” Shepherd’s voice resonated in the almost-empty room. “Remember, this debriefing will influence how command decides to respond to the NEA.”

Murray snorted but did not reply.

Shepherd glanced up with a sharp look.

“Sorry,” Murray said in a sullen tone.

Ziegler glanced at the clock on the wall. “Speaking of higher, where the—” His voice cut off as the door in the back of the room opened.

Alex recognized one set of footsteps as her father. She forced herself not to look.

“The Directorate Commander!” Shepherd said.

As everyone stood from their seats, Bedford, Lunde, and three other officers passed down the center lane and assembled in the empty left front tier.

“Take your seats,” Bedford said.

The five men arranged files and folders on the table in front of them. There was a moment of silence before Bedford cleared his throat and said, “Go ahead, Captain.” His voice was soft but clear in the small amphitheater.

“Thank you, sir,” Shepherd said.

The lights dimmed. An overhead image of what had once been the George Washington Bridge appeared on the left projector screen. On the right, a paused video recording from Sergeant Wilson’s helmet camera showed an image of the four lanes leading into New York City.

“At 0634,” Shepherd began, “my team, minus Sergeant Ziegler and Sergeant Paul who remained with the command vehicle, dismounted and set off on foot across the George Washington Bridge towards our planned meeting point with the NEA. At 0648, a large explosion cut the bridge in two. Several minutes later, Specialist Park reported the appearance of two NEA soldiers moving up the bridge toward our position. Alexandra and I approached the soldiers, and when they showed hostile intent, I shot both of them. We then proceeded off the bridge and took shelter in a bus terminal to get our bearings and report our situation.”

“What do you mean by ‘hostile intent,’ Captain?” Colonel Alan Harrison asked. He was the Directorate’s operations officer and had been in charge of overseeing the team’s training and the planning for the mission to New York.

“They brought their rifles up to shoot.”

“Any confirmation from the cameras?”

“No views from the helmet cams, sir,” Paul said cheerfully.

The left screen displayed the tiny figures of the team crossing the bridge. The image stopped and then zoomed in as the bridge exploded. The detonation seemed to originate somewhere in the middle of the span.

“Those look like pre-planted explosives on the bridge,” Lunde said.

“Yes, sir,” Shepherd said. “It had to be a remote detonation. We didn’t hear or see anything to indicate a missile or rocket.”

“Thank you,” Lunde said.

Shepherd continued, “After our arrival in the bus terminal, we took up security positions and attempted to find an exfiltration route from the city. At that point, I judged we could no longer accomplish our mission of establishing relations with the NEA and decided we had to operate as if in a hostile environment. During my radio communications with Sergeant Ziegler and Sergeant Paul, an assailant of unknown origin attacked Alexandra in the lower concourse of the bus terminal. We heard her call for help, but Alexandra had already disarmed the assailant by the time we arrived. Attempts to communicate with this individual failed. He committed suicide by slicing his throat with a knife.”

“Captain Shepherd,” Bedford said, “was this assailant a member of the NEA?”

“Sir, he was dressed and armed in a manner similar to the NEA’s irregulars. However, some of the things he said didn’t make sense.”

“What things, exactly, Captain?”

“Sergeant Paul, if you’d pull up the audio…”

“Yes, sir.”

The young man’s voice played over the room’s speaker system, “We had no idea that it would be this soon… If we’d been ready, there would have been thousands waiting for you. Thousands. I’m sorry. Once they find out, they’ll work faster. We just didn’t know. We— I can make it up to you. I’ll be the first.” The audio continued. Alex heard Murray’s voice and then the young man again. On the recording, she could barely hear him whisper his last words: “I’m sorry.” Then there was the sickening slice of a knife through flesh and blood.

“Good God,” Murray said on the sound track.

A brief murmur went around the room.

“Is it possible, that this man decided to commit suicide rather than submit to capture?” Bedford said. “The NEA may have indoctrinated them to expect torture or death as POWs. He said something about ‘thousands waiting for you.’ Only the NEA could deploy that many people to Manhattan.”

The room was silent. Bedford’s words seemed more like an assertion than a question.

“I…” Shepherd said and then hesitated. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Bedford said. “Let’s contin—”

“I don’t think he was with the NEA,” Alex said, surprising everyone including her; she had wanted to keep silent unless questioned.

The men twisted back in their chairs. Shepherd raised his eyebrows while the sergeants gave questioning glances.

Bedford gave Alex a long, searching look and then leaned back in his chair. The other three officers were glaring at her but Lunde remained facing forward, his hands clasped in front of him on the desk.

When her father broke the silence, his tone was dry and controlled. “What makes you say that?”

You’re in it now, she thought as she felt her face go warm. Got to finish what you started!

“After I got captured outside the bus terminal, Colonel Webb sent some of his men inside. One of them came out and told him they found three bodies. Two of the bodies were ours: Hensley and Neill. But they didn’t know who the third body belonged to. I guess he was mostly… decomposed by then so it would be hard to identify him, but still, they should have known if one of their people was in the building.”

“I see,” Bedford said.

“It’s clear that the man who attacked you was unstable,” Colonel Harrison said. “It’s quite likely he was operating without the knowledge of his superiors. However, I’m more concerned you wandered off in a hostile environment. After all your training—”

“That’s enough,” Bedford growled. The expression on Harrison’s face before he turned away suggested he knew he had overstepped his bounds.

After a brief but uncomfortable silence, during which the other two officers sitting next to Lunde shifted their attentions toward safer corners of the room, Bedford turned back to her and said, “Thank you for your input. It’s clear this matter needs to be investigated further, but in the meantime, it would be best if we moved on.”

I guess I’m still Daddy’s little girl, she thought ironically. When her focus returned, Shepherd was describing the firefight outside the bus terminal.

“…at that point, I told Alexandra to destroy the building with the sniper. The two of us made it across the street to Sergeant Murray and Corporal Williams’ position, and we provided suppressing fire while Alexandra demolished the structure. We then returned to the terminal to reassess the situation.”

While Alexandra demolished the structure. As easy as that!

As if reading her thoughts, Lunde said, “How hard was it for you to topple the building.”

“It… wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would have been, either. It was kind of strange when I was focusing on the building, but—”

“Strange how?” Bedford said.

“I don’t know… It was like I was hearing voices. I had trouble seeing, too. My eyes kept getting blurry, and I think my nose started bleeding.”

Bedford exchanged a brief glance with Lunde. “Voices?”

“They were whispers,” Alex said. “I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I guess it might have just been Captain Shepherd or Sergeant Murray and Corporal Williams.”

“The only time I said anything was when you ripped my rifle out of my hands,” Shepherd said.

“I didn’t say anything until after the building fell,” Murray added.

“You ripped Captain Shepherd’s rifle away?” Lunde asked.

“It was a reflex. A shell casing hit my face while I was concentrating on the building. I didn’t mean to do it. It just happened.”

“I see,” Bedford said. “And you couldn’t make out anything the voices said?”

“No. I felt sick for a while after the building went down, so I don’t remember much.”

“It could have been ambient noise during the battle,” Lunde said, turning toward Bedford.

“I agree,” Bedford said quickly. “It’s often difficult to make out individual noises… or voices during a firefight.”

Colonel Dawes, the Directorate’s lead intelligence officer, said, “Captain Shepherd, in your report, you wrote that the body of the man who attacked Alexandra underwent significant decay while you and your team dealt with the sniper.”

“Yes, sir,” Shepherd said. “We discovered the state of the body shortly after we reestablished security.”

“Could you tell us what exactly happened to the body?” Dawes asked.

“Unfortunately, sir, I don’t have many details. As soon as we noticed the body, Sergeant Ziegler radioed from the CV that we were picking up comms intercepts indicating that a company-sized element of NEA troops was converging on our position. The firefight started a few minutes later. We only had a brief look, nothing more.”

“It didn’t concern you that a fresh corpse turned into a skeleton in under half an hour?” Harrison said.

“I felt there were more pressing concerns,” Shepherd said.

Dawes turned in his seat. “Alexandra, did Colonel Webb or General Martin say anything about the body’s condition?”

She shook her head. “Webb seemed more worried about finding Captain Shepherd and the rest of the team.”

“And General Martin?”

“We never talked about it.”

“What did you talk about?” Dawes said.

She looked down at her father, unsure of whether she should answer the question. By now, Lunde must be aware of what Martin had told her, but were the others privy to the same knowledge? At the very least, Shepherd was the only other member of the team aware of her father’s past association with Martin, and she suspected her father wanted that association kept a secret.

Without turning, Bedford said, “My daughter’s conversation with General Martin is not on the agenda. Captain, I’d like to skip ahead to the footage you recorded in the subway.”

Dawes froze and then slumped back into his chair. The backs of the three officers looked dejected and deflated.

Shepherd glanced at Sergeant Paul, who turned back to the computer terminal. The left projector screen switched from an overhead view of the George Washington Bus Terminal to a green-tinted, grainy image of a subway tunnel. In the upper left corner of the picture, a time stamp and an adjacent line of text identified the source of the video as Corporal Williams’ helmet camera. Ahead of Williams, Sergeant Wilson and Specialist Park blocked most of the view down the tunnel. Both men held their rifles at the ready, and the attached weapons lights provided just enough illumination for Alex to see what looked like sacks of garbage on the tracks.

Sergeant Paul started the video. Park’s voice came over the room’s speaker system, “I’ve got something up ahead.”

On the screen, Sergeant Wilson held up a fist. “Everyone hold. What is it?”

“Looks like bodies. A lot of them.”

“Williams, go with Park and check it out.”

The picture shook and blurred with static as Williams jogged past Wilson. As soon as Williams arrived at Park’s side, he slowed and approached what Alex realized was a body, not a garbage sack.

Park said, “It stinks in here, like someone died.”

“You got that right,” O’Brian said in the background.

As the picture from the helmet camera came into focus, Alex jerked back in her seat. Williams pushed the body over with his rifle and his boot. The man’s eyes were open and seemed to stare directly at her through the projector screen. Rigor mortis held his features frozen, and the body moved like a block of wood. A deep gash ran across his throat from ear to ear.

“He’s dead all right,” Williams said. “Christ, how many of them are there?”

The image panned up from the body and blurred as the focus of the camera adapted. Lines of corpses lay sprawled on both sides of the tracks. Most lay face down in dried pools of blood, but those on their backs all had incisions across their necks.

“Holy shit!” It was Murray.

Alex remembered the young man from the bus terminal, his pale blue eyes dilated with excitement, his incomprehensible babble, and the horrifying slash through his neck. She wondered if the people in the tunnels had killed themselves in a similar fashion. Shepherd thought the NEA was responsible for the slaughter. However, there were no bullet wounds, and she was unsure how anyone could sneak up on so many people and slit their throats.

It’s like a mass suicide. But why?

“What happened here?” Park said a moment before he stepped into the frame.

“Hell if I know,” Williams said. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

Alex looked toward a section of the tunnel wall just over Park’s shoulder. A series of odd-shaped symbols decorated the wall, each barely visible in the darkness.

“What’s that on the wall?” Alex said.

Sergeant Paul paused the video as Shepherd said, “Where?”

“Right behind Specialist Park. Just above his left shoulder.”

Wilson looked back. “There were a bunch of things painted on the walls. We figured it was graffiti.”

“Is there a spot on the recording we can get a better look at those symbols?” Lunde said.

“I’ll check, sir,” Paul said.

The footage sped forward to an unobstructed view of the tunnel wall. Paul stopped the video and then zoomed in on a string of symbols painted above the body of a young woman. The symbols reminded Alex of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics she had seen in the encyclopedias in Cheyenne’s database. However, instead of simplified ideograms representing plants, animals, and other ideas familiar ideas, the symbols on the subway tunnel wall looked like a strange, nightmare alphabet. They were grotesque and distorted, decorated with spiky and claw-like protrusions.

As Alex studied the symbols, her peripheral vision began to fade into a dark red curtain. She blinked and then closed her eyes. The curtain showed even with her eyes closed, and a dull rumbling started in her ears. She felt nauseated and weak and broke into a cold sweat. What’s happening? What is this? What’s going on?

The rumbling grew louder, like static in her ears. A hammer beat at her temples. She could no longer hear anything else. The color darkened from red to deep purple and then to black. She opened her eyes and saw only the symbols, outlined in blinding white light against a shadowy background. But now she understood them. They were as legible to her as words written in English.

“I can…” she said.

She heard Shepherd’s voice but could not make out his words.

“I can read it.”

“Well, it looks like chicken doodle to me.” The voice belonged to Sergeant Murray, sitting below her on the first tier, but again the words seemed distant. The bright symbols on the dark background continued to block out her vision, leaving only dim traces of the briefing room on her periphery.

“It’s… It says ‘The herald th—”

“We’re done here,” Bedford said. “All files and reports related to this mission are now top secret and compartmentalized on my release authority only. We will conclude this debriefing at a later date.”

“Sir?” Shepherd said.

“Instruct the members of your team not to speak about anything that happened in New York or about anything you saw or heard here. I want everyone out except General Lunde and… Alexandra.”