Chapter 5 PROMISSA TERRA

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*Area 555, before Snafu Passed out.

“Richard Owens!” “Present!” “Vincent Miles!’ “Present!” “Christof Micha-”

The yells and the commands of the stern and hardened senior officers were heard while performing a roll call in an open area of the base.

It's been some time since the “Light” incident happened. The Executive Secretariat Oswald, was talking to some officers and his own assistants. “Sir Oswald! we still can't connect to the internet, other forms of communication and contact with other places outside Genesis have been useless, forget about satellites, we can't even contact any of the cities nearby!” “I'd like you to keep trying, double check everything.” “Sir!”

Oswald was tired, really tired, even when faced with dire situations in the past, he always kept his professional composure, yet now he looks like he’d been into a rough session of PT, sweating and all that. He faced to his right, staring in the way of the incoming footsteps.

“Any updates with the portal, Oswald? Are the scientists having some fun?” The Director, Grant Goodman said, his old wizened face barely showing any emotion. “Fun?” Oswald responded. “I don't know, it's not there after all.” “Where'd it go then?” “I don't- I mean, the teams responsible haven't got a clue on what happened to it.” “So it just vanished into thin air?” “That seems to be so.” “Funny this just had to happen the moment I thought of retiring, seems like God’s not done with me yet.” Grant said with a slight chuckle. “Seems like God has a sense of Humor, Sir.” “No rest for the wicked like us huh?” “Ain't that the truth.” Oswald replied, before turning his attention away to speak with the incoming officers.

““No rest for the wicked huh?”” Oswald repeated in his head, truly, this might be the punishment of the old man upstairs, the agency had gotten away with far too much and God noticed.

The numerous men lined up in the open area were all in some form of anxious or something similar. Some of them could barely contain their panic inside of them when they couldn't even call their families on their phones, other's getting irritated with the senior officers not answering any questions on what happened or why they seem to be in an entirely different location.

Of course the senior officers were as restless and anxious as them, all of them were. Some just hid it better, in a life where facial expressions could be turned against you, getting used to controlling each muscle and their purpose and movements were absolutely necessary, and the Director was a master of this craft, Oswald knew this well.

“Sir! I think you need to hear this.” Oswald called Grant. “This is Alex, the pilot of the helicopter we sent out a while ago.” A young man, still wearing his pilot helmet approached the group. “Alex Kanssen, Sir Director.” He said.

“Alex Kanssen, What did you find?” “I-I didn't see it Sir!” “Didn't see what kid?” The young pilot sighed briefly. “I followed the road leading out the base, but after passing the walls the road suddenly cut! It was gone, no trace, no nothing!” “Yes, we know that, what did you see next?” “W-Well I just kept flying to where the small town was supposed to be and-” He paused “Y-You won't believe me when I say this, but it's not there! T-Then the desert Area 555 was in, had started changing to a forest! I swear, I saw a massive horizon of green!” “Were you recording?” “Yeah! Flew over it and got it on camera, after that, Base called me to come back immediately!”

There was a slight moment of silence between the men. “Got any idea where we’re at, Kid?” “N-No, not a clue.” “Is that all you have to report?” Oswald asked. “M-May I just make an observation, Sir?” “Go ahead.” The young pilot shifted his head, staring at the building where the portal was supposed to be stationed at, then at the sky. “Something, I don’t know how or what but something happened right? Probably the portal, now we ain't in America anymore, d-did I get it right? Sir?”

Oswald simply nodded, not saying a word. “You are dismissed.” He then turned to face the Director after the pilot scurried off. “Any updates on the drones?” Grant asked. “Actually, some drone operators reported the exact same thing Alex here said about ten minutes ago, I couldn't believe it myself so I waited for a human eye to actually set sight on the location to properly confirm it.” “I guess we can say for certain that the portal worked?”

Oswald was slightly shocked by the Director's calm exposure. “Uh-Well, I didn't expect it to be like this.” “What's the DS&T’s explanation?” “They still don't have an explanation Sir, their guess is that the portal got overcharged somehow? Similar to a nuclear meltdown, the coolants and supports brokedown after the Originium’s energy output multiplied tenfold, all of the scientists thought this was impossible, so they thought they're equipment were wrong, it wasn't. Then here we are.” “Are we now absolutely certain that we're not on Earth?” “All the evidence so far points in that direction, Sir.” “I see.” Just as the director finished speaking, a man in his early forties, sporting a late 1950s hollywood style haircut and a well kept white beard, approached them.

“Director Oldman!” He called out. “Laurence! Where were you all this time?” “I took care of the visitors and some of the personnel stationed at the west wing.” “Took care?” He took off the shades he was wearing and put them in his suit’s pocket. “I’m sure Oswald here already confirmed it for you, I tranquilized some of the-, let's say, the ones who couldn't accept what happened.” Oswald nodded to him. “I don't blame them, we're the weird ones for not immediately going crazy.”

Laurence reaches out for something in his pocket, pulling out a lighter and a pack of cigs. He looked over to the men and officers. “I already told the rest, how about you? How did you tell em?” He said while lighting his smoke. “We haven't officially confirmed it to them yet.” Oswald commented.

Laurence sighed. “Then, Director Goodman, would you let me have the honors?” The Director shook his head. “No, No, let me do it.” He said while walking over to a security officer with a megaphone in his hand. “Can I borrow that?” “Sir!” “Connect it to the loudspeakers.” “Right away!” He handed the megaphone to the Director, and he stepped up into a small podium that was set up temporarily.

“Ahem, everyone, attention!” The director's old and rough voice echoed throughout the base, the countless faces in the area turned to him as the noise faded into a disciplined silence.

“This is Director Oldman speaking, earlier this morning, a great accident of astronomical magnitude had taken place in the base, and I'm sure you all also already heard what happened. Let me get straight to the point. We are no longer in America.”

He paused for a bit, observing the audience for their reactions.

“It seems you all already knew, good. That will make this easier, as of right now it is confirmed that all of our communications with the world are down, we've sent multiple drones, from surveillance drones to helicopters and we haven't received any signals yet, we've also sent pilots to survey our surroundings, they've returned reports of the surrounding areas have drastically changed, towns and cities near our area are gone. We are alone.”

Some of the audience started chatting with one another, others had a ugly expression on their faces looking like their worst fear had come true.

“Everyone!” Grant’s voice turned them back to silence.

“We are not only not in America, but we're also not on Earth, hell! Maybe we even left the milky way galaxy! That is why I must tell you all, to not panic, why you may ask?” He paused for a brief moment again.

“Because we're not dead yet, because out of all the other places we could've been transported to, it sent us here, a place where we're still breathing and living, fortunate huh? Maybe God himself sent us here, and we're here for a reason. So I implore you all to keep calm and follow orders, I'm confident that all of you that have been working at Genesis signed a agreement that you'd have minimal contact with your family for extended periods of time, just think of this as overtime, besides our engineers and scientists have multiple other test portals and are immediately working to find us a way home. Besides, we are the first in all of humankind to traverse through dimensions, isn't that remarkable? Never in history has this been done! Not even the Moon landing would be as impressive as this, and as Americans, we shall leave our mark and come out of this alive and successful! You hear me!?”

Cheers erupted from the crowd, the Director continued. “So keep your damn wits together and we'll make it out of here alive, and may God bless us all.” He ended the announcement with a small salute and stepped off the platform and handed the mic to the officers, who quickly shut the cheering up and continued on with organizing the workers.

“Excellent speech sir!” Laurence called out, clapping while approaching Grant. “Was that a good enough lie?” “As long as it keeps them in check for even an extra minute, then it will be, I'd be taking care of the non-cooperative ones if you would allow me.” “You may, where's Oswald?” “He's in the drone control room, some officers from the surveillance department called his attention.”

While they were talking, Laurence looked over to an approaching officer and put his shades back on. “Sir Goodman and Sir Lauffey!” “What is it, officer?” “All the men are accounted for, not a single one is missing, what should we do next, Sir?” “I'd like all of them to go back to their offices or dorms and await further orders. Increase security in the base. Make sure not a single soul gets out the gates, Deputy Director Laurence here would supervise you all after.” “Yes sir!”

The officer ran off with light steps and Grant looked to Laurence. “I'll put you in charge of the men.” “Got it, What about you, Sir?” “I’ll be figuring out our next move, I'll check up with Oswald, meet me in the office after you're done.” “Yes Sir!”

Grant left the bearded deputy director behind and walked towards one of the many towering buildings in the facility. The once busy base with people all around is now more akin to a strict compound with men in their offices or residences patiently waiting for orders while security guards and some volunteer MPs that came when the military visited, guarded the gates and patrolled around the open areas.

“Director Sir!” The guards greeted Grant as he entered. “Where's Secretariat Oswald?” “He should be at the central drone control room. Sir.” Grant gave his thanks and headed to Oswald's location. Sliding open the door to the control room, he sees numerous people all busy and working to gather information.

“Sir! Nice words out there!” Said the Secretariat. “Got anything for me?” “I have, take a look at this!” He led Grant to one of the head operators in charge of the numerous drones observing the outside area. A younger man in his early twenties with boxy glasses greeted them.

“What did you find?” Asked Grant. “We've launched 2 surveillance drones with satellite communication capabilities and scanners, which can detect incoming radio frequencies, now take a look at the this.” Grant eyed the monitor which the drone operator pointed at, his eyes lit up.

“That's a distress signal.” “That's right.” The drone operator confirmed. “Long range radio waves that are eerily similar to a CIA distress signal have been detected echoing from the north.” “What's up north?” “A more capable subsonic long range surveillance drone is on its way to investigate where it came from Sir, but so far we've only seen desert and forests.” “What’s sending this signal?” “I think it's one of our agent’s specialized phones, Sir.” Oswald Commented.

Everyone in the vicinity turned to look at him, then back to the screen. “What do you think?” Grant asked the operator. “It's a high possibility, Sir.” “Then, who's sending the signal?” “Ah, we have a good guess sir.” “Tell me.”

Oswald then pulled up a list of names in a spreadsheet document. “Out of all the agents that have been tasked on returning home in the last 2 weeks, only one had not checked himself in, Shelton ‘Snafu’ Bjourne, a SOG unit deep undercover in Hong Kong. I just met him yesterday. The man was supposed to arrive here two and a half hours ago.”

“So, you think this agent also got affected by the light while coming here and ended up somewhere, there?” “That's the theory, Sir.” “Can you contact him?” “We should be, the second drone has specialized cell to radio send and receive communication abilities, we just need it to be closer.” “How long?” “ETA, five minutes.” Just when Grant was about to ask more of the details, one of the operators controlling the drone in the room called everybody's attention.

“Hey! I see something! What is that on the horizon?!” “Slow down will you?!” Another operator said. “Is that- uhh, a mountain?” “No look! It's getting bigger!” The entire room immediately focused their attention to the cameras of Canaan-1, the drone sent to communicate the mysterious signal. “What the! The fuck is that thing!” “Holy! It's massive!”

A mysterious construction of titanic proportion with the height of a skyscraper and outstretched width that seemed to go on for countless miles was in view in the massive tv screen of the room, for all to see its colossal majesty.

“Sending the drone up higher!” “Zoom in the cameras!” “T-This is just a weird looking mountain right?” “There's smoke coming out of it!” “Hey, are those buildings?!” “Am I the only one who thinks its moving?” “Let me control the cameras damn it!” The entire control room was in uproar.

“Jesus Christ.” Oswald muttered to himself. Grant took off his glasses, everyone was staring at the screen in both awe and terror of the unbelievable behemoth of steel and concrete. It's iron beams that stretched as far as the eye could see and the massive collection of dust clouds at the foot of it indicating that it was moving befuddled everyone. Something like this shouldn't be able to exist, it was ludicrous to every person in the room.

“This thing's like ten times that of a supercarrier!” “Go above it!” “On it!” “Hey! There's massive dark thunderclouds up there, man!” “What the- where the fuck did those come from?!” The men were in fierce discussion on how they should go about approaching the moving colossus.

“Are you seeing what I'm seeing?!” The camera zooms closer to the inside of the enormous monument of steel, and what was inside of it shocked everyone in the room. There were roads, buildings, houses, trees, parks and street lights. It was like a whole town was inside of it, No, there WAS a whole city inside of it. But the part that disturbed everyone else is that the entire city was set on fire, like strikes of napalm had set it ablaze. The entire core of the city where government looking buildings were placed was already crumbling into ash as it was wreathed in flames. Then one of the operators noticed something.

“I see movement!” “Zooming in!” “A-Are those fuckin' people!?” “What are they doing!?”

The men exclaimed as the cameras of Canaan-1, the drone, shows hundreds of people at the streets running to the edges of the city, the camera then changes its focus to another group west of the road of the people running away, two different factions with distinctly different uniforms were clashing with one another at the road. The gray soldiers engaging in close quarters combat with the white hooded soldiers, but the gray ones were heavily outnumbered and yet they were still fiercely resisting the white ones. But it was painfully obvious they would get overwhelmed in a matter of minutes.

This time, the room was silent. No words. No one dared to speak. The silence was suffocating. They were all too astonished, or maybe dumbfounded taking in the overwhelming and unbelievable amount of world-changing information presented to them.

“Well gentlemen, it seems we aren't alone.” The Director said, breaking the sharp silence. “S-Sir, what should we do?” Asked a trembling Oswald.

Grant only replied with a short, but concise sentence. “Our friend.”

Oswald immediately recalled the entire reason why they sent a drone here in the first place. “Right!” He turned to the operators. “What's the status of the signal?!” The operators broke free from their frozen state and continued to prioritize the mission, pushing away the implications of this city or whatever it was away to the back of their minds for a moment.

“Sir! We should be able to communicate with the phone now!” “Then do it.” “Will do!”

“Contracting unknown signal in, 3, 2, 1.” The drone tries to connect to the rogue signal. “...” “No response, try again.” “Contacting again in, 3, 2, 1.” “...” “Try again!” “Wilco, Contacting again in- huh?” The drone operator broke his sentence. “What's wrong?” Oswald asked. “Something is disrupting our signals, it's like a fucking jammer had suddenly appeared!” “What? Keep trying, track the source of the signal if you can!” “On it Sir, tracking the signal!"

Oswald lets out a loud sigh, his hand on his forehead. “Continue observing the situation.” “You got it Sir- what the?” The drone’s connection to the base suddenly faltered. “What's going on?” “We're also losing connection to our drone!” The massive monitor in the room suddenly started glitching, the camera showed the sky of the city suddenly darkened, as if there was an eclipse covering the entire city from light and enshrouding it in menacing darkness.

“What the fuck? Is something targeting us?” “Get that drone out of there!” “S-Should we abort the mission?”

As the cameras of Canaan-1 stopped focusing on the streets of the city and started zooming out, the booming roars of thunder were heard. Lightning was seen striking the city in mass like the heavens itself were assaulting the city. Even pieces of flaming rock and stone started descending into the city, crashing into the buildings and streets like a meteor shower while tornadoes of different sizes started forming outside the city,

“Jesus! What in the world?” “We're seeing Sodom and Gomorrah over here!” “Get it out! Full speed!” “What the!”

The entire control room was full of noise again as they tried to save Canaan-1 from the catastrophic disasters that seemed to come out of thin air. Then the room became quiet again as the cameras blacked while the screens showed a massive error sign, and at this moment a white bearded man entered through the door.

“Uh, I'm sorry if I'm disturbed you all, did something happen here?” Laurence said, noticing the weird tension and atmosphere in the room. “Yes." Oswald said. "Something did happen.” The Director replied. “Immediately prepare a team of PMOOs on standby and fuel the helicopters, get everyone on the base alert for a retrieval operation.” “Will do Sir, but, excuse my ignorance but what happened?” “Oswald and the drone operators would be happy to explain it to you.”

Grant faced Oswald next. “We're retrieving that drone and going looking for our agent friend after that catastrophe clears. Make sure the entire base knows what we've discovered. I'm holding an emergency meeting after an hour, make sure to notify all the important people that came with us”

The director walked to the door and left the room with a totally unreadable expression in his face.

Oswald sighs, then stares at the men. “What are you all blanking out for? We've got business here to do gentlemen!” The room replied simultaneously with a “Yes Sir!”

___ (Arknights is not owned by me) A/N

Chapter 4 and 5 were supposed to be just one chapter but it got too long and i had to split them into separate chaps, so here you go. I'm excited to write the actual espionage, tradecraft and whatever goofy stuff the CIA actually does, but stories start somewhere and as of right now they still don't know what an "arts" is so, guess it's gotta wait. Thanks for all you support, be free to point out any mistakes.