A Neo-Atomic Tango Thru a World of Dreams

..."We must recall the historical circumstances in which the decision was made to develop the Azathoth Bomb. Giant Japanese Majins and Gojiras crashing through Asia. Vast squadrons of Nazi juggernauts blitzkrieging Europe...And their undersea leviathans, preying on shipping..."

  "Have you ever seen a modern leviathan, Elwood?"

  "Yes. I witnessed one...feeding. At the base in San Diego." Doughty could recall it with awful clarity - the great finned Navy monster, the barnacled pockets in its vast ribbed belly holding a slumbering cargo of hideous batwinged gaunts. On order from Washington, the minor demons would waken, slash their way free of the monster's belly, launch, and fly to their appointed targets with pitiless accuracy and the speed of a tempest. In their talons they clutched triple-sealed spells that could open, for a few hideous micro-seconds, the portal between universes. And for an instant, the Radiance of Azathoth would gush through. And whatever that Color touched - wherever its unthinkable beam contacted earthly substance - the Earth would blister and bubble in cosmic torment. The very dust of the explosion would carry an unearthly taint.

excerpt from The Unthinkable by Bruce Sterling

It is with but the last few remaining shreds of my sanity that I, Xenophone, am able to write this TRUFAX post to The Alt-Historian...

There's a blurry photograph of a concrete box inside the file, snapped from above by a high-flying U-2 during the autumn of '61. Three coffin-shaped lakes, bulking dark and gloomy beneath the arctic sun; a canal heading west, deep in the Soviet heartland, surrounded by warning trefoils and armed guards. Deep waters saturated with calcium salts, concrete coffer-dams lined with gold and lead. A sleeping giant pointed at NATO, more terrifying than any nuclear weapon.

Project Koschei.

.....

After a few minutes, Roger's hand is still. He leaves his cigarette in the eagle-headed ash tray and picks up the intelligence report again. It's a summary, itself the distillation of thousands of pages and hundreds of photographs. It's barely twenty pages long: as of 1963, its date of preparation, the CIA knew very little about Project Koschei. Just the bare skeleton, and rumours from a highly-placed spy. And their own equivalent project, of course. Lacking the Soviet lead in that particular field, the USAF fielded the silver-plated white elephants of the NB-39 project: twelve atomic-powered bombers armed with XK-PLUTO, ready to tackle Project Koschei should the Soviets show signs of unsealing the bunker. Three hundred megatons of H-bombs pointed at a single target, and nobody was certain it would be enough to do the job.

And then there was the hard-to-conceal fiasco in Antarctica. Egg on face: a subterranean nuclear test program in international territory! If nothing else, it had been enough to stop JFK running for a second term. The test program was a bad excuse: but it was far better than confessing what had really happened to the 501st Airborne Division on the cold plateau beyond Mount Erebus. The plateau that the public didn't know about, that didn't show up on the maps issued by the geological survey departments of those governments party to the Dresden Agreement of 1931 -- an arrangement that even Hitler had stuck to. The plateau that had swallowed more U-2 spy planes than the Soviet Union, more surface expeditions than darkest Africa.

excerpt from A Colder War by Charles Stross

This Xenophone TRUFAX submission to The Alt-Historian is readable by personnel with GOLD JULY BOOJUM clearance only.

SECRET: GOLD JULY BOOJUM level clearance ONLY 

Project Koschei DOSSIER - IMAGE FILE 4 of 12: Блок управления Слуга* ("Servitor Control Unit" or SCU) based on T-54 chassis as fielded by 2nd Guards Engineering Brigade. Towed trailer (not shown in image) carries 5K gallons (est.) of acid & alkali formulations which are sprayed & layed down in paths to guide servitor towards target area.

* the tern Слуга ("Servitor") came into use at 1963 inception of Project Koschei. All documents obtained prior refer to entities as shoggot'im.

SECRET: GOLD JULY BOOJUM level clearance only 

CORONET June 16 1946 (Y-Day plus 107) Camp Kelly, Honshū: A grim reminder from the 227th Medical Support Unit to the U.S. First Army's Forward Support Troops - the so-called "Dead Men Walking".  Developed at Miskatonic University by Dr. Herbert West, Atabrine's ability to revivify the deceased and - with continued doses - keep them in fighting condition enabled US forces to offset the horrific casualty rates suffered during DOWNFALL, the invasion of the Japanese home islands.