[color=green]Brasilia, Brazil[/color] For the first time in a long, long while, Apolônia was having simple, pleasant dreams - dreams of a triumphant Brazil. She saw hundreds of thousands of people in the streets burning American flags, celebrating the fall of a fascist-capitalist Empire - Mexico City, Bogota, São Paulo, Brasilia, Toronto, Moscow (especially Moscow) - everywhere. She saw herself giving a speech at the Monumental Axis to thousands upon thousands more of cheering supporters, her wickedly clawed hand gripping the podium in front of her. She heard so many of them calling her name, cheering her on... "Conceição! Conceição! President Conceição!" She felt a hand grip her shoulder from behind, jostling her body back and forth. "President Conceição, wake up!" ...And as she turned around, the dream melted away, and she found herself staring her panicked aide in the face. Rubbing her eyes as she swung her legs around and off the side of her bed, she let out a loud yawn, struggling to force herself awake. What time [i]was[/i] it? "What is it?" She asked, glancing at her alarm clock. 2:00AM. Two hours of sleep. This was going to be a long day, to be certain... "I-it's the convoy." The boy sputtered. Her eyes widened in shock, but befor she even had the chance to speak, to express her confusion, he continued. "Kawaguchi was right. 07 noticed a minor containment breach, and-" "Have my scientific staff been informed?" She cut him off, jumping to her feet as she made for the door. The boy rushed to keep ahead of Conceição all the while, panting from exertion. "Y-yes! I... We... They're waiting in the Cabinet Room." He replied as they made their way down the halls, promptly joined by a pair of submachinegun-armed secret service agents that'd been standing guard just inside the door. "Does anyone [i]else[/i] know?" He shook his head. "Not as far as we know. To anyone who saw it, it would've just looked like the truck hit a large bump in the road. It's hard to explain, I... Oh-Seven can explain it better." She didn't doubt that. It was quite likely, in fact, judging by the way Angelo was acting, so panicked she was worried his heart might explode out of his chest. It couldn’t have been too bad, at least - after all, there weren’t soldiers rushing through the halls, the Palace didn’t appear to have locked down, and there weren’t sirens blaring outside, so... The question was, what did the artifact do? Something important, no doubt. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the truth to be revealed to the President. She was quickly ushered into the meeting room ahead of a veritable swarm oh guards, sitting her down at the head of a table that swarmed with the country’s foremost scientific experts - and a general or two, too. Her gaze immediately turned to Kawaguchi, the party in the middle of a vigorous debate... Yet none of them seemed to notice, until the sharp voice of oh-Seven cut through the noise over the room’s speaker system. “Excuse me.” It curtly intoned. “The President has arrived.” All at once they turned toward her, heads moving in perfect unison. She’s cot them in the middle of something important, she reasoned, so... “Oh-Seven, please explain what happened to the convoy.” She said, fully prepared for an overly-detailed explanation. “During the device’s transport, the containment unit’s lid became slightly dislodged for unknown reasons, likely due to the relatively poor quality and design of the Kuomintang’s and Consortium’s containment unit. I detected this disturbance and approximately one-point-six milliseconds afterwards noticed an abnormal distortion in the shape of the truck’s hull at various points, including the sudden cessation of contact between the wheels and the road surface. “The back end levitated.” Kawaguchi interjected, and Oh-Seven proceeded without skipping a beat. “I was then able to direct the convoy’s protection to close and re-secure the locking mechanisms built into the lid, after which the Anomalous Langium Event immediately ceased. We have, thus, been able to deduce that it is likely that something penetrated the opened container and either powered the artifact or caused it to activate. We are uncertain as to the definite cause; however, we have arrived at the determination that it is unsafe to store the artifact anywhere where Langium is present.” Apolonia nodded, bringing her gnarled, clawed hands to her chin in contemplation. Shooting the artifact into the sun (or simply destroying it) wasn’t an option - after all, there was no telling what destroying it could do... But, presumably, the radius it could affect or be activated by langium within was limited, else it’d have carved a hole through the planet by now. Still, there was wisdom in putting it somewhere where very few people [i]were[/i], and where it could easily be made to not be a problem. They couldn’t afford to let anyone else know while it was still in a vulnerable position, so... That left only one option. She nodded. “When is the next cargo shipment to the [i]Stella Maris[/i] departing?” She asked Kawaguchi glanced at her, then at the Agência Espacial Brasileira (AEB)’s Administrator; a middle-aged man who promptly tensed up in anxiety. “In... Two weeks. We may be able to fit the object and its new containment unit onto the rocket, but-” [i]Good[/i] Apolonia thought. [i]They took the initiative.[/i] She held up her hand, gesturing for him to stop speaking. “If you are fully confident you can do it safely, then do it. If you can’t, then you can’t - I’d rather do it another time than risk killing astronauts and sending the artifact god-knows-where. Until then, I want the artifact watched [i]constantly[/i] by a contingent of the Cacadores. More security than this building. All of you, do what you have to do to keep it safe.” She said, scanning over the Generals. The Administrator immediately breathed a sigh of relief, nodding. “There’s another matter, Madam President.” Kawaguchi interjected. "The Langium exhibited a marked response to what we believe was the artifact being exposed. The fairly regular patterns of X-ray emission that most Langium emits suddenly became highly erratic. We're still studying the patterns to discern what significance they might have, but the way the Langium responded to the artifact at present, leads us to believe something beyond the Langium simply powering the artifact was occurring. Beyond that, the X-rays the sample emitted shouldn't have been enough to power such a serious gravitational distortion, so..." "Either our understanding of what's needed to distort gravity on a significant level is inadequate, or the artifact was drawing power from something else." The President interjected, bringing her hands down against the table with a sigh. "Whatever resources you need to figure out what the hell is going on, you'll have them. For all we know, this thing could be a doomsday device. The sooner we know what it does and how it works, the safer we all are." She said, shaking her head in a convincing show of mock-frustration. Perhaps it was a mere pipe dream, but... This artifact could be the key to it all. It could spell the difference between illegal alien dumping, a grave accident, or some sort of twisted experiment. Groaning, Conceição pushed herself to her feet, and made for the door. It could even be the key to humanity's survival, should the bastards return. "Ah, and one last thing - I'd like you to utilize Oh-Seven on this, please."