Harrison Blake

You shouldn't confuse a team leader with a team player. I would have preferred to oversee this operation remotely. On time, under budget and with minimum deployment of heavy weapons. However, I had Ann- Ms Radcliffe to consider. A promising graduate, but easily distracted by human elements. My intention was to keep her focused on our corporation's core values. I haven't been entirely successful. Her rural upbringing leads to every community in peril tugging at her heartstrings.

In our line of work, I find the best practice is to refer to small towns by case number. Yes, she have me the same look. You really haven't been doing this long, have you? I doubt we'll meet again. But in the event we do, let me know how... saving the world has turned out for you.

I might have known your kind would show up sooner rather than later. The etheric wave activity on this island has been spiking off the charts. Oh, don't go all cow-eyed on me. You and I both know you're something of an occult hot potato. All that volatile energy buzzing around inside your skull.

Isn't that why your quote unquote secret society snapped you up? Soldiers are seldom selected for their winning diplomatic skills. It's all enough to make Ms Radcliffe chew her nails. And neither of us wants that. Uneven nails are symptomatic of disorder.

But I digress. In the big picture, our organisations are working to the same game plan. Just from different angles. We choose to deal in hard, quantifiable science, and you... you're the liberal arts.

To be candid, I envy your lack of accountability to the real world. Can you even begin to imagine detailing an event like this to the Joint Chiefs of Staff? I say "detailing," I mean "obfuscating." The government knows, of course, as much as they need to know. It's unavoidable when members of the so-called secret world decide to contact Dimension B in a Northridge mall, for instance. That was one hell of a spring.

Life is just full of inconvenient surprises. And I'm not big on surprises. It's what attracted me to this line of work: the chance to normalise the curve. No offense. There'll always be a place for statistical outliers like yourself. The average American doesn't need to see the whole carnival, but they've always loved the sideshow.

I couldn't comment on rumour or speculation over the Group's activities. One, Ms Radcliffe and I only represent a subsidiary. Two, I have undergone...considerable media training. What I can discuss is that there's no side agenda, no conspiracy. That sort of sensationalism is more your controllers' style.

Our deployment was standard operating procedure in event of an occult emergency. Ideally, we could have isolated and contained without anyone registering that we were here. Provided that they overlooked the primary blockades, the corporate security detail... the air support. Not my call, for the record. The priority is now for us to work together, but separately, towards a satisfactory conclusion for all parties. Finger-pointing will get us nowhere at this advanced stage of contagion.