Professor Bruttenholm and Anna Rieu's romance falters, as Anna's paranoia over the possibility of invasion by other-dimensional proto-human agents blooms. The Professor suspects that the desert sand, fused by the experimental nuclear blasts, has created a crystalline portal, through which the creatures are appearing. The military remove the Ekelandite at Bruttenholm's direction, but he suspects that his direction for them to destroy it might have fallen on deaf ears. Elsewhere, the disturbed Simon Anders has wandered off to kill the monsters. In the mission to rescue Anders, two other BPRD agents are killed, sparking Jacob Stegner's anger at Anders and Bruttenholm alike. As Bruttenholm faces his Stegner's accusations of poor leadership and Varvara's taunts of the failed romance, he heads back to base inconsolable, unaware of the identity crisis taking place there with the young Hellboy.
*Paranoia plagues members of the team as one scientist begins to suspect Bureau members are being replaced by beings from another universe. *Source: darkhorse.com