Pierce watched as jaws dropped around the room.“Come again, Aleman. Did you say the world was going to end in four days?” Deep Blue’s voice sounded rattled.“That’s what I said. The portals are stabilizing and appearing with more regularity around the world.” Aleman sounded tired, but certain.“Portals?” Pierce recognized the gruff voice of General Keasling.“Yes, General. King accidentally entered one in Chicago and came out again.”“I was only in contact with the portal for a few seconds,” King’s voice came through the speaker as clearly as if he were in the room, and Pierce found himself suddenly missing his friend. “But all I saw was darkness and multiple tangos coming at me before I was swept out by the parachute.”“Yeah, King,” Aleman continued his briefing, “I’ve been giving that a lot of thought and cross-referencing it against all our other data on these things. Everything fired inside the portals hasn’t come back out. Your F-16 crashed into one and we didn’t see a sign of it after that.
