An endless tunnel of streaking light. It felt like flying and drowning at the same time, pressure bearing down, the taste of salt water, as if he were being submerged deep within the ocean fighting against its buoyancy. His chest ached with the need to breathe, but instinct told him opening his mouth meant death. Agent J reached out desperately, left hand clawing at the void, searching for something solid to grasp. Nothing but blue beams of light, rushing, bending, fracturing his sense of space and time.
Three dead bodies drifted past him, each one colliding and shattering into millions of glassy fragments, sand, atoms, obliterated in an instant. The last lingered just long enough for him to recognize it as the Vision Officer he'd been eaten alongside. Then what remained burst apart like an hourglass spilling its final grains before shattering from a fall erasing the sands of time. Panic swelled in his throat.
The feeling suddenly shift… there it was, an offering, a sign. A silver cord, glimmering, floating, impossibly real amid the kaleidoscope chaos. The only thing tangible. J hurled himself forward, forcing his mouth open as his lungs screamed for air devouring water as it rushed in. His fingers brushed the cord, he grabbed it... Reality shift...
He slammed into asphalt. Cold, wet, unforgiving. His body sprawled across the exact spot where container 1328 had once stood. His arm shot out again on instinct, dragging himself further back into reality. His chest convulsed and he vomited glowing, bioluminescent water onto the pavement. His lungs burned a cool sensation, like the best drag of a menthol cigarette, even though you know it's slowly killing you. He coughed, hacked, pulled himself onto trembling knees.
Alarms screamed through the port. Searchlights swept over him. Agent J blinked, disoriented, blinded. Boots converged from all sides, alphabetic agents with rifles raised. He raised both hands, staggering, trying to open a Mind-Link session and scream the words into their skulls:
Don't shoot! I'm one of you!
But the thought never reached them. Gunfire of tranquilizer darts ripped through his body at multiple entry points. He collapsed, lifeless again, the faint blue glow of his naked body subsiding before anyone could notice.
Fifteen minutes earlier.
The Port of Los Angeles hummed along with the rhythm of container lifts and conveyor belts. Inside the control tower, Crane Supervisor Daniel moved between crane controls and mop bucket. His shift had become more punishment than duty. The stench was unbearable. Mike, frozen stiff by Agent Q's motor function freeze command days ago, still stood locked in the corner connected to "The Rig". His eyes, bloodshot red, leaked whatever tears were left, but nothing else in his body moved. His fecal waste had long since liquified, pooling on the ground, pants spoiled many days over. Daniel mopped, gagging, holding it all in, but he didn't dare complain. He knew the consequences.
He set the mop down, glanced out the window. Containers swung on cranes, workers slogged along. And then…
Something. A shape. A body lying flat on the ground exactly where Goldstar's missing container had once sat.
"What in Liander's name is that?" he whispered, every hair on his arms standing up.
Instinct took over. He Mind-Linked with his superior, voice trembling. "Agent C, sir… I think there's a body on the ground right near where the missing container was. Something's wrong. You need to see this."
"I'm looking now. I've patched into your Minds-Eye feed. Hold your gaze steady. Agents are en route." C's voice was calm, clinical. "Don't lose visual. I repeat: do not lose visual."
"Yes sir. What should I…"
The command cut short as alarms ignited across the port. Red strobes bathed the towers in warning light. White search lights beaming down. Sirens shrieked into the night air.
And fifteen minutes later, Agent J clawed his way back into the world… from eaten by the mysterious container creature, to life, only to be cut down once more...