[center][b]Part 1 Perestroika[/b][/center] [B]Southern Ural Mountains 0312 Local Time[/B] Pyotr said in Russian. He squatted down on his haunches and watched Alexi slowly climb down a metal ladder into a shallow pit. Flood lights rigged above the two men basked the entire area in a bright halogen glow. They were both dressed in jackets and boots with winter caps. Alexi had a pickaxe strapped to his back. Alexi said with a chuckle. Alexi stepped off the ladder and looked down at the ground. The backhoe could only dig so deep in the hard soil. With the first seven feet of topsoil now removed, Pyotr and Alexi would do the rest. He pulled the pickaxe off his back and waited as Pyotr adjusted the floodlights above. Once Alexi had adequate lighting, he started breaking the soil up with the axe. Alexi grunted between swings. Pyotr came down the ladder with a shovel strapped to his back. He removed the spade and stuck it into the earth with a sigh. Tightening his jacket against the cold, Pyotr leaned against the dirt wall of the hole. Alexi wiped the growing sweat from his brow and tossed the axe down on the dirt. He shed his coat and handed it to Pyotr. Pyotr laughed and started back up the ladder. The promised vodka was right where Alexi said it was, a half a pint of the sweet liquid still left inside the bottle. He tossed the the jacket down beside the back and pocketed the vodka. Alexi yelled from the pit. He started back to the hole. The loud, blood curdling shriek from Alexi stopped him in his tracks halfway. His hesitation was only momentary, and he started pounding for the pit. Another shriek from the pit was so loud it hurt Pyotr's ear and buckled his knees. He fell down into the hard dirt. The floodlights above popped off, each bulb breaking one by one before casting the whole area in darkness. Pytor's heart raced as he tried to crawl in the dark, away from the hole and whatever was down there. The screams had done something to him, he couldn't focus and his thoughts were muddled and confused. Something strong wrapped itself around his ankle. He yelled and tried to push away from it, but it was locked in on his leg. The thing pulled and Pyotr screamed as whatever it was dragged him through the dirt. He tried to find any sort of handhold or purchase on the ground as he whizzed by, desperately thrashing out for some sort of lifeline. Pyotr felt himself down into the hole with the thing. He felt like he was falling for a half second before he landed on something. It was wet, squishy, and it had teeth. And that was when the real screaming began. ------- [B]25 Hours Later Mount Rushmore, South Dakota Executive Branch Headquarters[/B] Heavy clouds of cigarette smoke filled the operations room. The six mission control operators sitting behind monitors quietly did their job while the director of operations sat in silence in his wheelchair, puffing away on the unfiltered cigarette wedged into the holder in his mouth. The large global map occupying the front of the ops room showed the entire world in a green glow, with displayed points of interest marked in red. "Bring up POI 8713-12," the director said. One of the operators hit a button. The map on the wall shifted to a display of information and pictures and data. The director watched the data flow by, his brain running calculations and numbers with the speed of a computer. After all the data was finished, a blinking display summed up with the director already knew would be the next step. [B]URAL MOUNTAIN SITE 25:42:10 SINCE RADIO SILENCE POTUS INCIDENT INTERVENTION: RECOMMENDED[/B] The director took a heavy pull off his cigarette and expelled it into the air in a long, billowing cloud. Finally, he spoke to the young technicians monitoring their respective maps. "If any crises pop up while I am away, I am to be told right away. But for now it's business as usual." The electric wheelchair noiselessly glided across the ops room. The door leading to the corridor slid open, and Franklin Roosevelt rolled out of the shadows and into the light. He started tapping buttons on the wheelchair's armrest as it sped down the hall, activating holographic display of the ops board in front of him. Beside the board were names, some listed in red while others were green. He picked three green names and highlighted them to activate their communication feeds. "Attention," he said in a clear and calm voice. "This is Mr. Roosevelt. There is to be a briefing in the conference room in ten minutes. Your presence is required." ----- [B]Subbasement 4 "Nixonland"[/B] "Agnew!" The tall frame of Spiro Agnew shuffled down the dark corridors of Nixon's study. Ancient leather bound books sat on the rows of shelves Agnew passed. Along with the books were jars of organs and small creatures pickled in formaldehyde. A dismembered hand floating in the liquid tapped the glass as Agnew walked by. The former vice-president ignored the hand's taunts and kept walking. The hand twisted itself to show Agnew its middle finger. Agnew came out of the corridor of shelves into the study's rotunda where all the shelves ended. More books and specimens cluttered large wooden tables. A spider the size of a German Shepard scuttled across a table and disappeared under it. Racing after it was a spider of equal size, but it appeared to be made out of ropy vines. Agnew looked at the odd and unusual sights with bored contempt before casting his eyes up. "Yes, sir?" he mumbled in a monotone voice. In the middle of the study, floating cross-legged above the rotunda, was Richard Nixon. The 37th US President's usual suit and tie had been swapped out for a set of dark robes and a hood. He started drifting back down to the ground, finally unfolding his legs just before they were inches from the floor. "Yes," Nixon finally said. "Did you collect the samples I need?" "Yes, sir." Agnew reached into his jacket pocket and handed Nixon three vials. "One vial of pig blood, a lock of hair from a virgin, and the wart from Harry Kissinger's backside." "Good man... especially on that last one." Agnew shuddered while Nixon pocketed the samples into his robes. While his former vice-president shuffled off, Nixon hurried down one of the rows of books to find what he needed. He pulled a book bound in human skin from the shelf and began to thumb through it. "I... have a dream..." Nixon looked up from his reading and sighed. He put the book under his arm and walked through the study towards a large pane of two-way glass. One the opposite side of the glass was Martin Luther King Jr., laid out on a metal slab and mumbling and jerking in his sleep. Sweat trickled down his brow as he opened his mouth to speak. "I have a dream... That the no-god from the no-place has breached the fabric. Yes... I have a dream that three will depart and five will return. Yes, Lord. When the Happy Warrior howls, the man of Hickory shall rise to the occasion... I have a dream that the son of the Republic will be consumed by the gnawing and gnashing teeth of the void. From the mountains of Russia, to the deserts of Africa, from Mississippi to Mongolia, the no-god's darkness will consume the earth. Death at last, death at last, God save us all from death at last. I have a dream... " Nixon stepped away the glass, wiping sweat from his forehead that he didn't know was there. He shook his head and stepped away from the now sleeping King. The communication device on his wrist chirped with an incoming message. [I]"Attention, this is Mr. Roosevelt. There is to be a briefing in the conference room in ten minutes. Your presence is required."[/I] The line went dead. Nixon ran his fingers through his hair with his left while rigging up an transportation spell with his right. When the spell finished, he disappeared from the study in a puff of gray smoke. ------- [b]Chamery, France[/b] The lone figure trudged across the open field, his hands in his pockets. He kept his head down as he climbed up the small, muddy slope. Distant thunder rumbled across the overcast sky from far away. At the center of the hill was a tiny shrine, a cross made from airplane propellers. A plaque attached to the cross explained who was buried there in French. Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt Escadrille 95 Tombé glorieusement En combat aerien Le 14 Juillet 1918 Pour le droit Et la liberté The figure gripped the cross hard and fought back the urge to cry as he remembered a previous lifetime. "Quentin," Theodore Roosevelt said softly. "My little boy... Nearly one hundred years... [i]one hundred[/i]. Not a day goes by that I do not miss you, or your brothers and sisters. I would give anything in the world to see them or you at least one more time, this immortality be damned." [I]"Attention, this is Mr. Roosevelt,"[/i] the commlink on Teddy's lapel said.[i]"There is to be a briefing in the conference room in ten minutes. Your presence is required."[/I] Roosevelt placed a hand on his son's grave and patted it softly. "I'm afraid I have to go, my boy. I will see you soon." Teddy keyed in buttons on his comm. A green aura appeared around him and grew brighter until he disappeared in a green flash. ------ [B]Executive Branch Briefing Room Ten Minutes Later[/b] My fellow presidents," Franklin Roosevelt said to the three presidents in the room. Wedged in between Teddy and Nixon was the scowling figure of Andrew Jackson. "I also called Mister Kennedy to this briefing, but he appears to be... indisposed... We shall--" Nixon scoffed loudly before clearing his throat. FDR stared coldly at Nixon, sucking on his cigarette holder before expelling smoke from his mouth. "As I was saying, we shall endeavor to make due without Mr. Kennedy. Please turn your focus to the far wall." The large monitor on the wall kicked on. Walls of numbers and data cascaded down the screen before the view shifted to a map of Russia. A bright red dot in the southwestern part of the map pulsed. A label identified the pulsing dot as Chelyabinsk. A video beside the map started playing a bright ball of fire falling from the sky before exploding over the Russian countryside. "This meteor entered Russian airspace twenty months ago. The heat from the atmospheric arrival caused a massive explosion that destroyed most of the rock in the process. The majority of the object that made it through the atmosphere ended up in the Ural Mountains and nearby Lake Chebarkul. The Russian government and the global scientific community identified most of the meteorite fragments as ordinary chondrite." Roosevelt waved a hand at the screen. The picture shifted to a zoomed in satellite photo of a piece of snow-covered land with several buildings grouped around each other in a semi-circle. "Our spy satellite Nelson picked this site up after the official inquiry into the meteor was closed. Our operative codenamed PINBALL was sent into the facility to investigate. Through PINBALL's investigation we were able to identify an excavation project funded by one Konstantin Shastin." FDR nodded, the monitor changing to a picture of Shastin, a trim middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, surrounded by other well dressed men as well as Saudi businessmen wearing the traditional Keffiyeh on their heads. Another photo showed shastin with Putin and his inner circle. Newspaper articles on Shastin and magazine covers flanked the photos and painted a picture of extreme prominence and wealth for the Russian. "Shastin is a billionaire. He owns half the oil fields in Azerbaijan, the biggest telecom company in Russia, and is on the Executive Branch's watchlist. Shastin was a member of the Communist Party in the 80's, a member of the Soviet People's Geology Committee. After the fall of the USSR Shastin made alliances with young members of the government, most notably Vladimir Putin. We have reason to believe he has ties to the Secret Soviet Union, and has used his status with them to further his monetary gains. The site was put on immediate observation after PINBALL's discovery. We've been watching as they dig for something in the mountains, something related to that meteor. Almost twenty-six hours ago, the entire site went dark. No radio communication, no traffic in and out, and as far as we can tell no heat signatures from our satellite observations. "Your mission is to travel to the Urals with our science team and investigate the cause of the radio silence. I have assigned you each roles. Cousin Teddy will coordinate and lead the investigation. Mister Nixon will be there in case magic was involved. General Jackson will lead a tactical team to act in support of our field investigators. General Jackson, your team will lead a small scouting party in advance of the science team's arrival, clearing the area for them before they begin their studies. You'll be wheels up and on the way to Russia within the hour. Any questions, comments, or general insight?" "Just one," Teddy said with a grin. "Bully."