Head Steam frowned at what she was looking at. "They've changed their migration patterns... entirely." She had come to dry land to study things of the land, which included burrowing creatures that were exploring the new land they could burrow through, being America.

"Are you sure these are accurate?"

A human scientist was there, not a part of her usual team. That scientist was not a biologist, he was a seismologist. "These are gathered readings over the past month. The tunnelers are not hard to spot, and we've been keeping an eye on them, watching to make sure they don't hit anything vital, and just keeping an eye in general. This represents the findings of dozens of stations and more than that many observers. I'm just bringing it to you."

"And I appreciate that," she allowed with a bright smile on her beak. "This is truly... amazing. They normally go left and right..." She trailed a finger where they should be moving. "But they don't, and there are more of them, far too many to just be a good spawning season. This... isn't natural."

She sat up suddenly. "Have you begin new noises?"

"New noises?"

"Sorry, begun, the excitement is getting to me." She shook her head. "Drilling of your own, fracking was it? Maybe it's disturbing the worms."

"It's hard to imagine any isolated attempt to frack would disrupt the entire continent's movements..."

"True... There's only one way to find out." She picked up the map and folded it carefully. "Time for a field trip."

It took a bit of pleading with her boss to allow it. They preferred her near the water, where she could help them with aquatic based research, but she had gotten promises she could pursue land-based research, and that was certainly a biological matter worth putting eyes on. "It shouldn't take too long. I just want to go and have a look. We won't know just watching what directions they move in."

She bade her husband and family a soft goodbye, with hugs and kisses all around. "I'll be back as soon as I've had a peek at what has gotten into those worms." She tapped her husband on the beak. "And you'll commemorate the event once I know what's happening."

"Gladly." He squeezed her gently. "You be safe and swim swiftly."

"As fast as anyone swims on dry land," she laughed out. "Take care of yourself and the children. I'll be back."

Hoku stood at rigid attention. Beside him, Hawkeye and Lucky were in a row. A superior with more decorations on his chest was looking to them severely. "Feeling better?" he asked Lucky who had twisted his ankle during his mad dash, but had kept right on running despite it.

"Sir, yes, Sir!"

"Good. Unfortunately for you, the ground doesn't count as an enemy." He approached Hawkeye, drawing out a dangling medal of a lustrous purple heart, affixing it to his chest.

Hawkeye was turning a bit red. He had been barely grazed by an angry beam of magic. He had a thin scar across his face from what could have been a lethal shot, had it been just a bit to the left, but it hadn't been. It had hardly been a wound at all.

"I didn't call you all here to watch your fellow get a new medal. You have all served with distinction, keeping calm and keeping a flank clear that could have easily resulted in further losses throughout the battalion." He turned away, moving to a small table to pick up a few small boxes. "You gave it your all, and you had what it took." He opened a box to reveal the next medal to be awarded.

Inside was a bronze star. "To each of you I award a medal of valor, for bravery, distinction, and unflinching nerve in the face of overwhelming odds." He began to hang them on the chests of the privates. He didn't mention Paul, but his surviving family would receive his medals. They would be cold comfort for their loss of him.

Applause rippled from the crowd they had been trying to ignore. Such medals required a proper ceremony, which meant that there were witnesses, cheering them on as they turned to face them, their chests burdened with the symbols of their achievement.

Hoku felt pride, but it was tainted, knowing so many of his fellows would be receiving posthumous purple hearts, including Paul, who would never get to school. Was there something else he could have done?

Stream landed lightly, her wings folding and her arm swinging downwards suddenly with the impact of her luggage with the ground. It had wheels thankfully and she began pulling it along towards her destination, eyes moving across the desert terrain. It was exactly the sort of place the worms loved, but their patterns had changed almost overnight, many veering away from the area it seemed, but one cut right through it and kept right on going at a slow rate, for a worm. What was going on? She meant to find out.

She met up with her contact there, shaking hands with the local seismologist. "Where was it again?"

The seismologist, a female, surrendered a map that showed the entire area, as remote as they were. The line of activity showed clearly. The big boss worm was still in the area, making their way southwards. "Fascinating... Thank you. I presume I will not cause trouble if I dig?"

"There's nothing around here that you'd hit, no. Please try to clean up after yourself."

"Take only pictures, leave only hoofprints," assured Stream with a salute and a smile, wandering off with a shovel to see what she could see.

She had other equipment with her, of course, and soon had her own little seismograph on the ground, watching the needle jump and bounce. She had to take several readings to triangulate, but she was working her way towards where the worm was working diligently. "Maybe you're an alpha worm, and the others are avoiding you, but why are you so slow?" she murmured to herself as she came closer and closer to the source of the vibrations.

"Let's try knocking and asking nicely." She had tatzl treats ready to placate the beast and not be devoured for her efforts, and she had read as many books as she could find on their general behavior. She felt ready to discover something new!

She advanced to where the vibrations seemed to be coming directly from and brought down her shovel. She was not trying to dig to the worm. That would be quite slow and likely agitate the worm. She began beating out a pattern. Thump-thump-thumpity-thumpthump. Worms could communicate to one another through the ground through such vibrations.

The language was largely a mystery and rudimentary, as far as most creatures knew, but 'Hello, I would like to see you' was a phrase they knew. It was most often used by two worms that wished to take measure of each other, either for territory, or courtship, or even sometimes just to seem to say hello to one another. In any event, it was a cue for any other worm that heard it to surface and greet the other worm.

Her seismograph began to vibrate differently. They were coming closer! She grinned with silly joy, excited to see her first tatzlwurm in the flesh. She dug out her camera and held it at the ready, barely resisting cantering in place.

The digger emerged, not in front of her in a great sinuous serpentine gesture, but just behind her, a hand grabbing for one of her hooves and yanking her backwards. "Hey what!?" She barely got out, slamming into the ground and sliding backwards. "Leggo! I'm here in pea--" She vanished beneath the dirt.

Dirt flowed past her, roughly scraping against her feathers and fur before she was thrown from the ceiling of some great cavern to strike the ground before she could get her wings working. Dizzy and hurting, she tried to stand, but large hands grabbed her from all around, forcing her to her belly once more. "Stupid, uh..." The diamond dog speaking had no experience with hippogriffs.

"Whatever you are. Tie her up good!" The other dogs dragged her away as others rushed with rope, trussing her up tightly and tossing her to the side. "Seal hole, nothing see here." A moment later a seismograph crashed to the ground where she had been, breaking on the floor. There would be little evidence of Head's presence, and the hole they dug was filled back in with dirt.

Her vanishing would not go entirely unnoticed. When she never came back to sleep that night, they wondered. When she didn't come back the day after that, they began to worry. Calls were unanswered, and soon she was reported as missing entirely. Had she been devoured by the very beast she wanted to study? It couldn't be ruled out, but it had to be reasonably proven.

They began to search for her. She could have simply become lost and trapped somewhere, as any other scientist in the near-wild could have. The desert was not friendly to outright tracks, nor did it have much vegetation for her to disturb and follow that way. They started by following the same vibrations she had, but there was nothing there. It didn't help that by the time they arrived at where the vibrations were coming from, they had long since moved onwards.

They spread out, looking for any signs of a hippogriff, but there were precious few things left behind save for a lone feather, dropping free from when she was suddenly yanked into a hole that wasn't there anymore, and even the feather was missed, as it was just a feather and not what the search crew had been trained to look for.

Head Stream would not be rescued right away.

"You've answered every question we have."

John let his head hang a little. "I'll assist the scientists in their calibrations then. It's all I can offer, then you can do whatever you want." Not that he had a lot of actual say in that.

"We're sending you today." He moved for the door and opened it casually. "If you'd follow me?"

John perked his ears with surprise. With a smooth step down of his long legs, he followed after the FBI agent that held his life in their hands. "This is faster than I expected, but good. The faster we're... past this... the better, for America."

"You seem quite convinced you'll be facing a firing squad."

"Nothing so barbaric... but I am entirely undocumented. Not a single soul save that of a known terrorist even knows I exist. I can be vanished with no legal ramifications, and I would wager that might be for the best." He smiled faintly. "I'm not even angry, not at you... You're doing your job."

"How stoic. Human form, please."

"Hm? Oh." The changeling became John Rason once more, clothes forming with him. He hadn't been wearing cuffs, but they were put on him a moment later. He didn't resist and followed as he was led.

"Tell me, if you have cuffs on and shapeshift, what happens?"

"They're still attached." With a rush of flames, he became a changeling with cuffs on his forelegs. "You can still cuff a changeling, but watch out, we have wings, and two perfectly serviceable other limbs to speak nothing of magic."

"Back to human," ordered the guard, pausing until that happened. "Thank you. Now, you'll be working with some people who have been making strides in the field of magic research and development. We expect full cooperation with them."

"Of course. I will help however I can." Not for mercy, he expected none of that. It was still his job, for he was John Rason, who was actually a changeling and not a president at all. "Lead the way."

He was whisked away in a dark-tinted vehicle to meet those he'd be working with for some time.

Author's Notes:

Don't mind me as I set some pieces on this chess board...

I was schooled by the way, asking my military contact. The vibrations would certainly be noticed, but... they would be watched, monitored, and likely puzzled at, possibly without any reaction but to keep watching, which is what happened today, with Head Stream reacting.

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