Kisi Yeboah floated in her sensory deprivation tank, an oxygen mask covering her eyes and ears to plunge her in total darkness so that she could focus her telepathic powers on the most dire threats that would need the attention of the IMD. With her level of power, she would accidentally open herself up to multiple minds at once, resulting in sensory overload. Cutting herself off from her main senses allowed her to focus on just her telepathy, making her an asset to the team, particularly when it came to surveillance. A wall of monitors spread out in front of her and while she couldn’t see the screens, she was able to psychically pick up on the seriousness of the situations through subtle emotional cues in the voices of the reporters; she would focus her attention to the reports that seemed the most dire. In this case, several news outlets were reporting on the same story: a Swedish lab somehow released a strange figure in what may or may not have been an accident. From inside the tank, Kisi used the control panel to focus all monitors to a single news report. By that time, police had shown up to the area and surrounded the figure who remained standing motionless in the street. The pavement swirled around it and strange matter dripped from the air above and once it hit the ground, it bounced into the air, disappearing into the ether once it got far enough away. The police captain on the scene explained the effect around the creature resembled a Dali painting, which led to other reporters describing it as The Surrealist. It was unknown what the creature wanted and when it spoke, only gibberish came out. Kisi expanded her mind to the area in Sweden where the creature was sighted. Once there, she could see through the eyes of some of the officers surrounding it. She got a clear view of the target and pressed farther, opening her mind to the crystalline humanoid in the middle of the street. She connected to its mind to understand it better but once she did, she flailed her limbs within the tank and her mouth opened in a silent scream. Her vitals signs began to quicken, which sent an alert to Pierce’s office.

Soon, Kisi was taken out of her tank and her oxygen mask removed and replaced by a simple blindfold and cotton in her ears. A few minutes later, she woke up in the IMD infirmary, surrounded by Pierce, Mansoor and a few doctors. “What happened, Kisi?,” Sean asked, “We saw the thing on the monitor. Did it have something to do with this?”

“Not… purposefully… I don’t think. I opened my mind to see what it wanted… it was chaos. Pure subconscious thought without order. It’s… mindless… yet it has thought. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know… but you need to send the Badges there as soon as possible.”

The Cloudburst made its way to Sweden with all field agents with the exception of Kisi. “This lab in Sweden was attempting to study the Nowhere Place,” Mansoor explained as she showed the team a holographic projector in the cabin, “Authorities have not been able to make it inside the lab to determine what happened but we know about the Nowhere Place, at least in theory. It’s supposedly a plane of existence where the subconscious mind goes.”

“Australian Aborigines have something similar called Dreamtime,” Lowanna Jones explained.

“I guess it makes sense for this thing to be called the Surrealist,” Nadeem Alam added, “What else do we know about it?”

“According to police reports, it’s warping reality around itself in a diameter of about fifty feet,” Frakes explained, “The effects of this Warp Field don’t seem to be permanent but the damage is, obviously. It may have killed the scientists inside the lab.”

“How much longer?,” Adrian Klausman asked impatiently.

“Coming up on it now,” Bronson reported, “Oh God!”

The Cloudburst flew in low over the intersection and hovered; below, police cars were overturned, crushed or otherwise torn apart. Deep trenches were dug into the pavement by an unknown force. The police officers were likewise tossed about with many torn to pieces or broken. Jones teleported down to the area first and found one of the few remaining police officers. He was slouched against an overturned car, unharmed but very rattled. She crouched down next to him and spoke in Swedish, “It’s okay, I’m with the Interpol Metahuman Division. What happened here?”

The officer sat up, “It began to move. I don’t think it would have attacked if it weren’t for the dumb rookie. He got spooked and shot it in the back. I’m pretty sure the bullet bounced off but it turned its attention to us and… then this happened.”

“Did you see where it went?”

“East.”

Jones spoke into her earpiece to alert the rest of the team, “I hope you heard that. Target is on the move due East.”

The Surrealist walked aimlessly down an empty street, civilians having already been cleared from the area. Octopus-like tendrils seemingly grew out of the sidewalks, wrapped around cars and hurled them into the buildings to clear a path for it and as it continued on, the tentacles disappeared into the air. The Cloudburst landed at the end of the street but the Surrealist didn’t pay it any mind.

“Good thing it’s slow even by normal standards,” Klausman was the first out of the ship, followed by the rest. “See if you can get its attention,” Mansoor ordered, “I want to see what it can do.” Klausman rushed down the length of the street and even if the Surrealist was paying attention, it wouldn’t have had any time to react. Klausman slammed a fist against its chest at 465mph. The Surrealist tumbled end over end but didn’t make a sound other than its crystal hide scrapping against pavement. “Product is sum zero,” the Surrealist rose to its feet and a round, boulder-like object began to form in the air. “Its attacks are limited to fifty feet,” Klausman told the team as they caught up to him, “The thing is much farther away than that, so if we keep it at a distance, there’s not much it can do”. A white-gloved hand soon popped out of the floating boulder and grabbed a nearby traffic light. Pavement shattered as it was pulled up like a weed being ripped form a garden. A second later, it was hurled through the air at the Badges. “I got it,” Alam gritted his teeth as he struggled to catch the traffic light in a telekinetic field, then he threw it back. As the Surrealist strode toward the team, the flying traffic light harmlessly burst into a strange mist.

“The cop said the Surrealist only started attacking when threatened,” Jones reminded the team, “It acts in a purely defensive manner.”

“We started the fight so we might as well end it,” Mansoor turned to Bronson, “Cannonball.”

“Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown,” Bronson said as he held onto Mansoor’s wrists.

She quickly flew him down the street and released him at the Surrealist who began to erect a brick wall to shield it. As Bronson flew toward it, he curled up into a ball and smashed through the barrier with his invulnerable body. Once he hit the ground, he rolled and kicked the Surrealist in the gut. This was followed by Mansoor dropping from the sky, smashing it into the ground. “Compute the quantum magnitude,” Surrealist said in an echoed whisper as it rose again, never quite conveying any emotion about being attacked.

It was then that a large, pink elephant-like creature appeared and stood on its back legs. It tried to smash Mansoor into the ground but she quickly rolled out of the way and its foot dug into the street. Bronson shot forward with a flying kick that sent it stumbling out of the Warp Field where it disappeared. Next, Mansoor and Bronson noticed what appeared to be bricks materializing above. Jones teleported into the field, grabbed Mansoor, then quickly teleported out as the bricks came crashing down. Bronson was caught by the debris but remained unharmed but briefly pinned down.

“Let’s see what happens when we remove it from the ground,” Alam sent telekinetic energy at the Surrealist and lifted it off the ground. Once the Warp Field was removed, Bronson was no longer buried under bricks, then was able to clear the area. Above, the Surrealist hung in the air, trapped by a wave of crimson energy. “Exponential challis,” it seemed to consider the telekinetic energy holding it before it was turned into a slimy substance that splashed to the ground along with the humanoid.

Once it made a three-point landing on the ground, it began to walk toward them once more. It was Frakes’ turn now as she raced toward its location. Once she got near, she phased through the creature, hardening slightly in order to attack vulnerable parts of the body, only to learn, “There’s nothing inside it.” She phased again and left the area as the Surrealist turned toward her and seemingly began to form large needles in the air, ready to pierce.

Before it could attack, Klausman ran around it in circles as a distraction while Alam charged up a blast. As Klausman ran, he felt the ground shifting and soon found himself running through a gummy substance that gradually slowed him down. “Klausman, clear the area,” Mansoor shouted. The tar-like substance nearly stopped him completely as he turned to leave, then it shot out and stuck to his leg while he tried to dart away at high speed. The sound of the leg being pulled out of socket along with his scream was ear-splitting. He fell face-first into the gummy substance which began to envelope him. Wasting no time, Alam hit the Surrealist with his hardest blast which sent it into the second story of a nearby building, taking the Warp Field with it. Once free of the strange substance, Klausman rolled onto his back in agony, “I can keep fighting!” “You can’t,” Mansoor told him, “We have to retreat.”

Alam used telekinesis to pick Klausman off the ground and they hurried back to the Cloudburst. Bronson started the engines as Mansoor and the others tended to Klausman in the cabin. In the building above, a wide mouth opened and stuck out its tongue with The Surrealist riding on the tip of it. “Ever the principality must coalesce,” came an echoed whisper as it watched the Cloudburst fly away.