When Ingrid Metier came to, she was not in her husband's office. The world felt heavier, and not only because she suspected she'd been drugged. Something that she couldn’t see but felt almost like a membrane pushed in around her, but didn't restrict her movements at all.

While momentarily distracted by the strange phenomena, her son jumped to his feet beside her. He'd already been stirring awake, her lethargic rousing was the push he needed to gain lucidity.

"Mom? What's going on? Where are we?" he said groggily, spinning around in a slow circle to take in the stone walls, a door with a glass opening, the colored portrait of a field at high noon and the edge of a toilet past an open door. His eyes stopped roving when he spotted a soldier through the small glass on the first door he'd spotted.

He checked to make sure that his mom was okay and strode up to the glass. His insistent taps finally snapped the guard's daydream. When the soldier spotted the frosty bloodshot eyes of Marcus Metier staring him down, he couldn't help but shiver before approaching the comm on the door.

"Good to see you are awake, sir."

"Where the hell are we? And why did someone spike me and my mother to all hell?" Marcus said, doing his best to hold his indignation at bay.

"We were ordered to bring you here until you were cleared to join the others, sir," the soldier said, tilting his head in confusion. "Were you not aware?"

"Aware of what?" Marcus said, pressing his fist against the glass. Even with the barrier between them, the soldier flinched.

"I--"

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"I'll take it from here, private." The pristine image of a military man appeared behind the soldier and stared down at Marcus. "You have given us quite the trouble, Mr. Metier. Two of my soldiers were not able to come to this Bunker thanks to the injuries you gave them."

The man's voice was as flat as deflated balloons, but it was one Ingrid recognized. Withdrawing from her own thoughts the woman strode up beside her son to glare. Just to glare.

"Good to see you in good health, Ingrid. I do hope you will be ready to continue your work soon. Humanity will need your efforts."

"Where is my husband, Starden?" Ingrid demanded without preamble.

"You are an intelligent woman, Ingrid. You should know what it means that you are here and he is not."

"Then you best get me out of this room. He needs me," she said, her voice cracking.

"I'm afraid I cannot do--" cracks spiderwebbed through the glass as Marcus cracked his knuckles on it. Blood dripped from his fist but the man did not care in the slightest.

"Where is my father?"

Starden had always been a Florida boy. As such, he'd never even been ice skating before. However, when he looked at Marcus he could only feel like he was skating on thin ice. It was a sensation that infuriated him, to feel it from a man in a cage was more than he could bear.

Before he could dig his grave deeper, a dimpled man strode up to the window. "Might I, sir? I think this won't necessitate your... Uniformed charms."

The general threw a frown at the newcomer, then squinted his eyes at the private. It was a silent admonishment if there ever had been one. With the slightest of nods, the two made their way down the hall and out of sight. The dimpled man sighed heavily before looking up at Ingrid and Marcus.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here first to greet you," the man said.

"Elias, don't give me pleasantries. I want to know what's going on. Where is Raph?"

"Ingrid... I don't know how to tell you this but Raphael is gone. We lost communication with the surface yesterday." He paused as the words caught in his throat. Right before their very eyes, the man aged twenty years. "The crystals… they reached Earth."