Chapter One

The unseen, the unheard

March 18th, Sunday. 8 AM. 125 S.A.

Kolsay Lake, Almaty. Kazakhstan.

The chirping of the birds was quite loud that morning in spite of the cold weather.

The morning sun was tinting the whole landscape green and white with a warm orange hue, tearing the few clouds in the sky. The snow had melted on the trees, but there was still plenty on the ground due to the fact that nightly snowfalls were still occurring.

Nikolai sighed wistfully, wagged his big gray tail, and looked around as, with long strides, he finished crossing the new log dam that had been formed only a couple of days ago. The last thing he wanted was for the gelid waters to wet his tail.

He was now on the east side of the lake.

On the other shore, to the west, Nikolai could see teams still moving around, collecting samples from the lake shores and some of the military robots guarding the site.

The work of sample retrieval and site clearance continued unabated. Everyone was very interested in the development that the situation at Kolsay Lake took after the creature/fungus/alien escaped from the site, leaving the case with more questions than answers.

"Come on! What are you doing?" asked a female voice in an animated tone, which made Nikolai turn his eyes to the front.

The girl just pulled a lollipop out of her mouth, with her delicate webbed-fingered hand, covered by a black tactical glove.

Nikolai's research partner, Hinata Cronwell, also known as Dr. Kohi, was a dark-skinned fey girl, who could easily be mistaken for a short-stack girl, with a prominent forehead and snub nose, along with two sparkly brown eyes. She had a headband, which kept her light brown hair, slightly wavy, combed back.

She was dressed in a black tactical coat, with enough pouches to carry an entire lab in. What was striking though was, that despite the cold, she was wearing a white dress, that appeared to be of a very thin fabric for the cold morning breeze. In addition, she was Nikolai's boss in the Department of Anomalous Events Research and Teratology Studies at the Nevermore Institute.

Although it couldn't be said that Nikolai didn't attract attention either. He was another fey, at least a little over six feet tall and slender in appearance, with disheveled hair, a goatee, and gray eyes. Nikolai's ears were peculiar in that they were not only pointed, but they were slightly different in shape from those of his companion. They were a more sharper and pointed a little higher. They could move and, at the moment, one was attached to his skull while the other, tilted at a slightly unnatural forward angle, seemed to listen attentively to the sounds of the environment. He was dressed all in black with a jumpsuit full of pouches, and was carrying two heavy suitcases of sampling equipment with a mini-lab.

"Have you heard or smell anything?" Hinata asked again, tilting her head slightly, and putting the lollipop back in her mouth.

Nikolai sniffed the air as if trying to smell something strange and then looked at her. "I just wanted to make sure those giant deer aren't around." His voice sounded bored and with a nasal-tone.

"You don't need to sniff like a dog, they're almost visible in the sunlight."

"Only at certain angles," Nikolai added, not quite sure, as he continued to search with his eyes, this time in the direction of where they were headed.

"Well? Are they around?"

"No... I just hear the sound of water... escaping like our life…" Nikolai said, sighing again in a sad voice.

"We are in the middle of nature. Not in the lab. Field work, you like that, don't you?"

"Yes… in this nonsense we're standing on, at least… the view is pretty," he said, sighing again and Hinata had the impression that Nikolai's soul was leaving his body and getting lost in the higher layers of the atmosphere. At that moment she was glad she had not told him about the final message left by the missing scientist.

Hinata looked at him doubtfully. "Did you take your anxiolytics and antidrepressants?"

"Yes. I even had a cup of tea on the ship."

"Give yourself another dose. I don't want to turn around and find you've hung yourself from a tree when I wasn't paying attention." Hinata sighed, as she set off again, following the lakeshore.

Severe Depression. Of all the things a fey could bring back from the Other Side, mood disorders were listed as one of the most delicate afflictions. And that was exactly what Nikolai suffered from.

Although he had excellent skills to have become a field agent, his sudden mood swings, which could drag anyone around him into a supermassive black hole of gloomy thoughts -with some philosophical overtones- had made him think twice about the idea of investigating cases, where a certain objective detachment was required to carry out the investigation. Besides, Nikolai was no ordinary fey either. The ears and the huge furry tail, along with his striding gait, made him easily recognizable to anyone who knew enough about fey species.

An oboroten. More specifically, a Volkolak.

Still, Nikolai possessed good skills in fields such as microbiology and forensic science. So Hinata thought it would be a good idea to take him out of the lab to do some research. After all, the department she was in charge of was a three-person department. Her, Nikolai and the new guy, Shin Aogami.

A couple of weeks after Shin's shocking arrival, she had personally recruited him to be part of the small team. It hadn't been a bad idea at all. The lab and research department was a huge place for only two people to run. While Shin worked as a field agent with Mai, it wasn't a bad idea to have someone who had views that were perhaps a bit outdated for the time, but with more than enough experience in the field of finding and dealing with oddities of all kinds around the world. That and they were both more than interested in having a specimen as rare as Shin, whose studies had proven that, while he was not a fey, his nature was in itself much rarer. If it had been up to Hinata, she would have put him in a display case in the lab.

Be that as it may, this was an opportunity to both of them to get off the island, and collect samples in the field, instead of waiting for other teams to take them. They could spend a few hours at the site and then return to the island at sunset.

They arrived just a couple of hours ago, in one of the mini transport ships, and during all that time they were been briefed on what happened with the soldiers on site, and with the FRT teams. Hazmat was still there and hoped to extend her stay a couple of more days. Meanwhile Mai and Shin were in Astana, waiting to put matters in order to head to their new destination.

"We're going the right way, aren't we?" Nikolai asked.

"Yes, it's this way exactly."

They both had their Neurowires with all the positions marked from the strange event that had taken place. But the reports of possible anomalies on the ground, regarding the mysterious meteorite made them doubtful. Even more so if what Hazmat, who was still on the other side of the lake, told them was true, and there was no reason to doubt it. After all, there it was in the twenty-page preliminary report that Mai had written on the case. There might be a slight possibility that this case had something to do with a mysterious cult that Nevermore had been investigating for a long time.

"It's a shame Shin isn't here. I wanted to ask him more about the fungus."

"Call him later, those two must be getting ready to go to France on Tuesday, for the ceremony on Wednesday."

"Ceremony... it's nothing but politics to make it look like the Council is running things."

"Don't say it like that, he's our partner."

"I don't mean him, I mean the council. Besides… partner... of work. He was barely with us for a month before he started working with Mai. He was supposed to spend more time with us to help with the studies."

"He's still catching up. He has a lot of studying to do. Swallow over two hundred years of science since he disappeared is not easy, more if you do not have a neural assistant."

"I'm sure he might be swallowing something else too."

Hinata turned and looked at him with a look of circumstance. "Don't be nasty."

"I'm sorry... some people's luck really depresses me."

"Do you have a crush on Mai?" Hinata asked, in a mocking voice.

"No at all. I'm simply referring to the fact that you could be working with the one you like... and twice as much, starting next week."

"You haven't talked to Fisi, like Justin told you?"

"No, she's still in Johannesburg. There's nothing to talk about. It's water under the bridge," Nikolai admitted, his voice muffled.

They both stopped in front of some trees and looked out into the deep forest.

"This way," Hinata pointed.

They arrived to one of the markers that Mai marked as the place where they were attacked by the deer. On that part of the lake there were still a few stubborn logs left on the shore, which the water had not been able to wash away. But, beyond that, there were hardly any marks left on the ground of the encounter and the battle that took place. Not to mention the earthquake that occurred afterwards, which had modified some parts of the land adjacent to the lake.

During the past nights it snowed heavily and that covered again the tracks of the animals. Although that was not what mattered to them at the moment.

They continued on their way for several minutes, going uphill into the forest, until finally they could make out the place they were headed for.

It was the mysterious place with the tree that Mai described in her report, with the strange reliefs marked on the bark. Three in bas-relief, and the one in high relief of the creature that Mai had fought on the other side of the lake.

The mushroom filaments were still there, but no longer looked the way Mai and Shin had found them.

Nikolai opened the suitcases he was carrying and unfolded the portable lab. After putting on their gloves, they both began to take samples from the site. From the bark of the main tree, to the surrounding trees, and even the ground, which samples they put on the corresponding plates. Later they could examine everything in detail, and compare the results with the samples Shin left, to check the changes that occurred after the explosion when the gigantic core shot skyward.

There was something that bothered Hinata about the report. It didn't seem to make much sense what Mai had reported about how the core had been shot into the sky. Did the core have some form of propulsion of its own? No matter how she saw it, a geothermal explosion would never be enough to make something escape the atmosphere. Although, considering that they were faced with the absurd on a daily basis, it wouldn't be unusual for that thing to have some sort of propulsion attached to its ass. Hinata was thinking about it because of a certain accident that had occurred at one of the construction stations. The accident at the lake had happened at the same time and in a angular position quite close to what happened at that station.

If the core had exploded in the lake, the altitude of the fragments would have been impressive, but never enough to cause a fragment to reach space. Or had the accident at the station been a coincidence?

Hinata was operating tiny drones, that were in charge of rendering the entire area and creating a 3D model of the site. She thought she would be able to quickly find results of the carved animals, comparing the results with the main database of the island, but was surprised when only a few results were returned. Almost all of them recent and involving the search that had been conducted by another of the departments. She guessed that perhaps some other section in charge of studying symbology might be more aware of it when Mai reported it.

"So it has nothing to do with the cult?" Nikolai asked.

"It's too early to think that. Let's see what Rein and Naomi say later," Hinata said, shrugging.

Nikolai was at that moment taking samples of the fungus, which were found surrounding the high relief of the mysterious creature. The filaments, now dark gray in color, practically turned to dust each time he took samples. As if now that they did not respond to the lake's core, they had lost all their properties and were nothing more than ash. It almost seemed incredible to them that it was the same place that appeared in Mai's personal observations.

The final destruction that Mai reported was more present on the other side of the lake, but on that side everything was calmer.

The morning sun was streaming through the trees and bathing the forest in a warm light. Beyond the strange landscape, and the destruction on the edges, it looked like an ordinary forest full of life, now that the birdsong had returned.

The horror that inhabited the place for so long disappeared, and it was as if a veil had been lifted over the entire region.

Or perhaps it was too soon for that.

Nikolai put the final samples in the Petri dishes and looked at his partner. Hinata was looking up, with her eyes fixed on the tree.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Hmm…" She found herself collating Shin's report through her Neurowire. He wasn't as good at report writing as Mai, but one thing he did do was put notes on every single thing that caught his eye. While it wasn't the right way to file an official case report, it was the way he did it. And for that matter there was something that had caught Hinata's attention. Nikolai crouched down to her level eyesight and tried to observe what she was staring so intently at.

On the bark of the tree, about five meters off the ground, and above the high relief there was something abnormal there. Nikolai straightened up and took a closer look. Although he was a little over two meters tall, he still couldn't make out what it was. It looked like an indentation in the bark that due to the coloration of the wood must have been produced recently.

Hinata took off her boots and with her bare feet, also with webbed toes, and helping herself with her hands, began to climb up the trunk as if she were a spider. Although, given the shape of her feet and hands, it was more accurate to say that it was a frog, since Hinata had fey characteristics associated with artic frogs.

Nikolai from below changed his sad face to one of concern, when he saw Hinata three meters above him. "Where is your underwear?"

"I like the breeze," was all her reply.

"…"

"Stop looking at me down there. Look at this."

Given that she was in Nikolai's field of vision, it was a somewhat complicated request to carry out, but he tried to concentrate on what she was indicating.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. In the report, Shin said he noticed the mark above the high relief, but because they were looking for clues to the missing scientist he didn't think much of it."

It was a hole about twenty centimeters long, by another ten centimeters wide and about five centimeters deep. As if it had been carved into the wood. The outer edges denoted that the bark had been molded over the years around it, but inside it was different as if it were fresh wood. There were some parts on the edges of the hole that showed that, whatever it was, when it was removed, some pieces of the bark had been skipped and were fresh marks.

Shin put in the report that he had mistaken it for deer foot marks. Certainly Hinata could see that there were hoof marks around the hole that corresponded to the animals. Perhaps a piece of the mysterious meteorite had been there.

"Pass me the multi-reader," she said to Nikolai. And then one of the small drones also flew to the spot to scan it and render a detailed model of the cavity.

Hinata took the small multi-reader tube that Nikolai handed her, that looked more like a marker pen, and passed it over the bark to see if it detected anything. After a few seconds the result appeared projected on her Neurowire. [0 results from the surface. 7 results of normal radiation, 1 result of anomalous gas projection with 2 results of radiation readings]. Hinata ran the final result and, getting more detailed results, was surprised when the coordinates appeared at two points behind her, a little off the ground height.

"This can't be right," Hinata said.

She frowned and jumped to the ground, while Nikolai followed her with his eyes wondering what it was all about. Hinata took another object, similar to a radio from the suitcase, and walked a few meters away as she turned it on.

There was no doubt, there was a weak signal of gases and radiation at two points away from the tree. Hinata turned on the radio-like object and activated one of the sonification subroutines. For several seconds nothing happened and Nikolai began to move one of his feet nervously.

"Can you tell me what this is about?"

"Shhhh!!!" Hinata cackled grumpily. After almost two eternal minutes she finally stopped the sonification and pressed play.

They were both used to seeing things that would make more than the average person's hair turn white, but they couldn't deny that the sound they heard gave them goosebumps.

It was a kind of guttural sound that spread out with pulses that came and went, and to Nikolai it reminded him of the sounds of sea creatures underwater, although there was something in that sound that was eerie. The sound only lasted about ten seconds, but Hinata ran it twice more and opened her brown eyes wide. She darted to the suitcase and picked up a small beige can and sprinkled it in the space where she had been standing.

A new shiver ran down their necks.

The cloud of special detection particles stopped in mid-air and slowly took on a violet hue with tiny purple sparkles. It slowly drew around it a vaguely humanoid but disembodied silhouette. There was nothing there, though clearly the cloud of particles was drawing a silhouette.

Hinata went a few meters further and did the same. A new silhouette appeared.

"A teleporter?" asked Nikolai.

"N-no," Hinata hesitated and for the first time that day felt a chill run through her skin. "Do you know what this sound is?"

"Some kind of creature?"

"No. Sonification simply translates sounds from the environment that are below the audible range. We wouldn't be able to hear it unless the spectrum is compressed."

"What is it?"

"If the result is correct. This is the signature of a black hole. More specifically the radiation and residual gases from the evaporation of a black hole."

Nikolai for the first time today put a grimace on his lips that could be understood as an attempt at a smile. "I know everyone likes to make jokes about me being a black hole but, you want me to believe that there was a black hole right here in the middle of this forest?"

Hinata threw the multi-reader at him. "See for yourself."

Nikolai caught it in the air and in his brain the results appeared. [Hawking radiation of quantum range with fall amplitude in 10 meters. Full Ghost Radiation Scattering predicted in 4 days].

"Isn't this a mini black hole?"

"It's not our area, but I think one of those would barely produce any effects due to its small size. I think we'd better ask Oxy later."

"Is this about the bubble problem?"

"Yes, it is an impossibility because of the Planckian size, or even if it were with the mass of a proton, it would have a greater amount of energy, but because of the short lifetime it would be impossible for it to be producing microwave radiation at this level, we would not have to detect it."

“Unless it's a Dark Event... I think it would be best to quarantine this area," Nikolai said with concern. "On the other hand if we were even talking about a major black hole we wouldn't be having this conversation, because we would have all gone to shit on the planet by now. Right?"

"Exactly, if you want to quarantine a black hole of mass like that of the sun I recommend that you extend the radius millions of kilometers," she said sardonically. "On the other hand, look at the radiation fall-off. If the reading is correct the effects will wear off in a few days."

"Those gases aren't the same as the effects of the fungus, are they?"

"No. It has nothing to do with it," Hinata said, and watched as the drone that was scanning the scene approached.

The small floating ball projected a hologram. It had generated a model of the possible shape of the object in the hollow of the tree. It was a simple round convex shape. Maybe some kind of rock. Maybe it was a fragment of the meteorite after all, although if it was it didn't explain why the filaments hadn't reached it.

They both looked at each other not knowing what to say, until Nikolai broke the awkward silence, looking at the two ghostly shapes marked by the spray, which were slowly beginning to fade.

"Shin wrote in the report that, on more than one occasion, he felt that he felt they were being watched, but he attributed it to perhaps the creature and the core in the middle of the lake being aware of each other's presence through the mycelia web.”

"Well... he was wrong. There really was someone here with them. Or maybe before. According to the readout this happened on the same day."

"They were being watched. But by who? Or what?"

Hinata then turned and looked at the hollow above the strange creature in the high relief.

"And what was up there? Whatever it is, it's been removed recently."

"Do you think someone tried to hide something before they got here?"

"I don't know. But I don't like it at all. What if what was up there was part of the cult? Or something else?"

The horror that lived in the lake left, perhaps returned to one of the abysmal depths of the cosmos from whence it emerged.

But, right there ,another manifestation occurred in the same day. And neither Mai, nor Shin, were able to realize it.