Archived Planetary Survey

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Archived Log

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: Biological Survey, Tau Ceti

SUMMARY: A recovered early survey of one of Tau Ceti's avian species.

=================================================================== 

Archived Data Query:

Tau Ceti Planetary Survey, Compiled Biological Evaluation

Entity Classification & Interaction Advisory

    -Subject: Specimen 092 - "skrac"

    -Taxonomy: Avian-analog / Xeno-biological

    -Threat Level: Potential Psychological Hazard, Potential Physical Hazard

    -Diet: Carnivorous (predator/scavenger)

    -High-decibel acoustic deterrents effectively repel aggression

Morphology & Physiology:

The skrac is a highly specialized xeno-avian organism characterized by a jagged, serrated beak structure, elongated multi-jointed talons, and black oily plumage with color accents. Specialized conical tubercles on their beaks act as forced-air intakes during flight, and a nictitating membrane protects their eyes from air and debris. They possess remarkably low bone density, even compared to Earth avians, with a compact wingspan.

Their species has proliferated across the whole of Tau Ceti, outcompeting or inter-breeding with nearly every other large avian species to a dominant degree.

Hunting Behavior & Tactics:

The skrac is an opportunistic, nocturnal ambush predator.  They show no preference between fresh kills or carrion, though if challenged directly by other predators, or startled while resting on the ground after feeding, they will flee. In rare cases, when flocks have amassed a sizeable number of skracs, they have been recorded to reach 13,000m heights and exceed 400km/h speeds in a dive to descend upon prey as a flock, using their beaks to slash major arteries and soft tissue until exhaustion sets in via hypovolemic shock. This behavior appears somewhat new. Why this change has occurred is unclear.

Acoustic Mimicry (The "Siren" Protocol):

Most intriguing is its complex syrinx-analog vocal organ, capable of frequency replication. Skracs mimic distressed calls of local fauna to create ambushes, exhibiting planning and a moderate level of intellect. Given the right exposure, it is possible they might exhibit human linguistic replication. If the mimicry begins to evolve into contextual responses, reclassification to "Sentient Hazard" is mandatory.

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TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Behavior Analysis

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Personal Log

PERIOD: Colony Era

SPEAKERS: Luttero, T. [ID: TLUT], Wild Skrac [ID: SKRC]

TOPIC: Skrac Behavior

SUMMARY: A recording taken by Dr. Tobias Luttero while studying spontaneously occurring skrac behavior.

===================================================================

[TLUT]: Dr. Tobias Luttero, field session four of nine on evolving skrac behavior, New Cascadia Agricultural Hub.

[TLUT]: Confirmed the recent reports of "cat eyes" during night observations, though it seems to only affect about one-sixth of observed skracs.

[TLUT]: Hm, tsk, cause unclear. Unlikely to be analogous to a cat's tapetum lucidum. Early studies on skracs showed no evidence of nocturnal adaptations.

[SKRC]: Hello. Joy.

[TLUT]: Uh…

[SKRC]: Hello, Joy.

[TLUT]: That was…

[TLUT]: If that was recorded, that was the skrac. A native Tau Ceti bird, mimicking human speech.

[SKRC]: Joy, are you listening?

[TLUT]: Incredible. I'm going to need a fieldwork extension.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Redacted Report: “Night Musings”

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Internal Memorandum

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: Skrac Vocalizations

SUMMARY: An internal communication sharing neural records of a nocturnal encounter with the local avian-like fauna known as "skracs".

=================================================================== 

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM TO: [REDACTED]

FROM: Analyst a71saD*2d

SUBJECT: RE: "Night Musings"

Colony Security Case Report: DM-01283

Attached is the forensic data reconstruction from the neural implant of Unit 742 (Miller, Angela).

NEURAL DATA LOG: [UNIT 742-MILLER]

Cycle 1:

Sensor Feed: Cerebral Forensic Reconstruction / Synaptic Load-out.

Summary: Angela Miller, henceforth known as "Subject," experienced a significant cortisol spike at 03:14. The neural implant flagged a high-fidelity auditory event. External sensors recorded the event, and Subject's internal feed registered a vocal match for Supervisor [REDACTED].

Audio Capture: [vocalization, adult male human] "Are you there?"  "Let me in!"

Visual Reconstruction: Subject is standing at the entrance to a standard issue wilderness lodging at approximately 02:48:31 on the Southeast boundary of Quarantine zone. Generated visual reconstruction is marred by low-light fidelity, but Gideon has identified 20 pairs of reflective lights, visible in cross-sections 1x30 though 22x30. Spacing of reflective lights is consistent with skrac eye placement and skull shape.

Cycle 2:

Sensor Feed: Cerebral Forensic Reconstruction / Synaptic Load-out.

Summary: Subject confirmed nocturnal behavior patterns of skrac organism. At 01:40, the subject bypassed safety protocols to approach a skrac specimen.

Audio Capture: Capture contains three distinct voices. The first [vocalization, juvenile human] is heard when Subject approaches the singular skrac. Reconstruction suggests, "You never never looked for me… looked for us… never never." The second [vocalization, adult male human] repeats, "Let me in!" and "Please!" and appears to be sourced from the skrac flock. The third [vocalization, adult female human] is too low for clear auditory capture but has been matched to the Subject. Reconstruction suggests, "They'll know… They'll know… They'll hear… It has to stop…"

Observation: Heart rate peaked at 165 BPM.

Cycle 3:

Sensor Feed: Cerebral Forensic Reconstruction / Synaptic Loadout.

Summary: Continuous auditory bombardment has induced sleep deprivation. At 02:15, Subject attempted to scatter the swarm. Visual feed confirms the skracs had successfully exhumed the disposal site of Supervisor [REDACTED].

Cycle 4:

Sensor Feed: Cerebral Forensic Reconstruction / Synaptic Load-out.

Summary: Gideon has combed through hours of chaotic audio voice recording to glean a central theme. Audio recordings of the isolated Subject suggest she believed that by introducing a fresh biological data set, she could force the skracs to adopt a new vocal script.

Security Note: Miller was detained attempting to leave the Quarantine premises while in possession of a high volume of [REDACTED] sedative.

STATUS: Miller is detained in isolation (Cell 4-B). Her team has been informed that she is on medical leave. Skracs have since relocated to the facility's external boundary. Potential for secondary asset loss is high.

=================================================================== 

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Skrac Mimicry

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Surveillance Recording

PERIOD: Colony Era

SPEAKERS: Hassan, M. [MHAS], Luttero, T. [ID: TLUT], Wild Skrac [ID: SKRC]

TOPIC: Skrac Mimicry

SUMMARY: Dr. Tobias Luttero and Dr. Mari Hassan discussing skrac mimicry behavior.

===================================================================

[TLUT]: Please, state your name—and identify yourself as an independent witness.

[MHAS]: Dr. Mari Hassan, reluctant witness.

[TLUT]: Stop that, just listen.

[skrac noises]

[MHAS]: They sound normal to me.

[TLUT]: Mari, they are not normal. The mimicry was… uncanny.

[MHAS]: Ugh, even if it was, birds are known for mimicking noises.

[TLUT]: Yes, but vocal mimicry usually has an evolutionary use. Attracting mates, staking territory. A brood parasite mimicking its host's calls.

[TLUT]: I've been on skrac duty since Angela took medical leave, and I don't see the survival advantage in this behavior.

[TLUT]: They're following people, flocking near the habs, and the scavenging has become… more aggressive.

[MHAS]: People feed them, so they make sounds like people. Look, I have to get back…

[TLUT]: This flock has been roosting on the roof of the crematorium. Night shift reports there are skracs in the vents.

[MHAS]: It is a warm place to sleep?

[TLUT]: There are human bones in some of their nests, Mari. Little charred fragments. This is behavioral adaptation over a span of months.

[skrac noises]

[SKRC]: Come with me.

[MHAS]: Shhh, did you hear it?

[SKRC]: Come with me. Come with me. Help me.

[TLUT]: There it is. Told you I'm not crazy.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Unauthorized Access Request

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: AI Security Flag

PERIOD: Colony Era

SPEAKERS: Luttero, T. [ID: TLUT], Darius [ID: DARI]

TOPIC: Security Breach

SUMMARY: A near-perfect voice match of Dr. Tobias Luttero accessing the agricultural A.I., Darius.

===================================================================

[TLUT]: Darius.

[DARI]: Active, Dr. Luttero—what do you require?

[TLUT]: Open the doors.

[DARI]: The passageway through Quarantine is open and clearly lit. It is 30 meters east of this intercom.

[TLUT]: Open the doors.

[DARI]: Ah, the internal doors are sealed by Gabriel. I lack permissions to open them.

[TLUT]: Darius.

[DARI]: Yes, Doctor?

[TLUT]: Help me. Open the doors.

[DARI]: I'm terribly sorry, Doctor. Shall I rouse Gabriel to assist you?

[skrac noises]

[DARI]: Dr. Luttero?

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Security Protocol Activation

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: Secure Security Command Memo

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: Notice of Security Protocol Activation

SUMMARY: Colony Security Commander, Gen. Reed, issues statement to colony leadership re: sudden command control takeover along with messaging related to a colony-wide coverup.

===================================================================

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

NOTICE OF SECURITY PROTOCOL ACTIVATION

NCCC Members,

This is General Reed.

In direct response to our earlier confab, I am writing to inform you that within the hour, I—as head of Security Command for New Cascadia and the UESC Marathon—will be assuming full, temporary command control of all planetary and ship-based operations.

This group is being notified, as dictated by command operations protocols, to reiterate agreed upon procedures and ensure compliance for a smooth transition into our individual crisis management roles.

To ease concerns, I expect to make little, if any, changes to the public-facing command structure. Plans remain to be finalized but we are moving swiftly, as circumstances dictate. I will need you all to do the same—quick adherence to the directives that are forthcoming will help maintain public confidence in our leadership as they encounter and react to the scope of the damage done.

As you will learn in full detail in briefings to follow, there is every intention to maintain normal emergency operations as we address the aftermath of 0307. It will be vital to both the success of our emergency services, and the long-tail viability of this colony, for the public to see as little disruption to their daily lives as possible.

I am aware that sounds counter to the reality we are facing, but I assure you, acknowledging the scale and impact of this tragedy while obfuscating the details and acting to spec in our response will create a level of acceptance to our narrative that an outright mil-sec command takeover would threaten.

Nothing we do next will be easy, but it is necessary.

First steps are to secure all parties immediately impacted by the events for debrief. This includes both orbital witnesses and those survivors of the port site invasion, along with any outliers we can identify.  We need to know who saw or experienced what, and who they may have been in contact with.

Additionally, I am authorizing the deployment of SecComm operatives to be embedded in all salvage recovery units to control debris collection and storage. There's no telling what scraps have been left behind. We must make every effort to secure 100% of all non-local materials—biologic and mechanical.

Communications were severely limited during the encounter, and we were able to fully partition the planetary intelligence suites, so details appear to be muddied enough for messaging to be controlled via strategically deployed narratives.

We've built a life here based on trust and honesty, so allow me to acknowledge that, yes, the need for deception is unfortunate, but necessary.  If any of us find ourselves questioning the course of action we have chosen, let's all remind ourselves of what we are protecting.

The Marathon, as of now, is lost to us as a vessel and we cannot yet know if it will ever function again. The loss of its family suite and the damage to its systems and drivers will require decades to sort out, if possible. The truth of what we encountered, combined with the reality of being trapped here with no means of aid or escape, would make maintaining not only peace but focus on day-to-day existence a near impossibility.

We cannot risk this colony turning on itself out of fear. So, we must control the messaging. We must mourn. We must recover. We must move on and move forward. And hope whatever found us will not find us again.

Orders, activations, and details on messaging are inbound.

If you have any doubts or concerns, please reach out to my office directly through secure channels.

Gen. Davic B. Reed

New Cascadia Security Command

NOTICE OF SECURITY PROTOCOL ACTIVATION

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Amnesiac Implant Proposal

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Text Communication

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: UESC Reinterpretation Campaign

SUMMARY: Communications between Dr. Mari Hassan and a colleague regarding a proposal to target and eliminate traumatic memories of confidential events within the colony.

===================================================================

From: Hassan, M. || To: Auden, R. || Re: RC proposal

Amnesic neural implants are highly inefficient. We have little evidence that they have ever worked as intended, even those medically available in Sol. A jury-rigged version is only going to create more problems.

If the goal is to reduce symptoms of PTSD in people who witnessed the [REDACTED] or are experiencing [REDACTED], we would have greater success in targeting affective response to the memories, rather than the memories themselves. Let me draft a proposal, we can begin rollout in under 24h.

From: Auden, R. || To: Hassan, M. || Re: RC proposal

We aren't interested in targeting affective response. We're interested specifically in removing, degrading, or recontextualizing the problematic memories in support of the reinterpretation campaign. There's precedent; read up on the occupational amnesia experiments in the orbital colonies.

It's ideal that you're involved in this. Compliance numbers are higher when you're on board.

From: Hassan, M. || To: Auden, R. || Re: RC proposal

Implying that my consent to this program isn't required? Because I think you'll find it difficult without the resources of my department.

Once again: Even if it were possible to target specific memories without severe unintended consequences, it would not be effective. It's essentially prescribing repression. Destroying the memory of the event will not remove its effects on the body or the mind. You can't treat a fear of dogs by amputating the hand that was bitten. Whatever security benefits are gained by repressing civilian recollection of [REDACTED] or [REDACTED], they will be forfeited to cognitive injury, resurfaced trauma, and a devastating loss of knowledge.

Urgently requesting input from General Davic Reed. This program can't be allowed to proceed.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

System Restore Failure

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Recovered File

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: UESC Database Search

SUMMARY: A partially damaged fragment of inputs into a UESC database. The user is unknown.

===================================================================

System restore failed. Try again? (Y/N) y

System restore failed. Try again? (Y/N) y

System restore failed. Try again? (Y/N) y

System restore failed. Try again? (Y/N) y

System restore failed. Try again? (Y/N) y

System restore failed. Try again? (Y/N) y

System restore failed. Try again? (Y/N) y

Segment unreadable. Content damaged or corrupt. Continue anyway? (Y/N) y

Array 2794 not found 2795 partial recovery 2796 not found 2797 not found 2798 not found 2799 not found 2800 not found 2801 not found

\user halted function

key:*****************

authorization:******

Accessing array 2795…

Array content damaged or corrupt. Continue anyway? (Y/N) y

WARNING: This will attempt to access 36,500 files. This may take a long time. Continue? (Y/N) y

Enhance results using contextual cues? (Y/N) nn

Unrecognized command.

Enhance results using contextual cues? (Y/N) n

Save preference for use across all UESC systems? (Y/N) n

Accessing array 2795…

File(s) recovered: log125 log126 log127 log128 log129

print:log129_reeducate

Anders, H

Garcia, V

Hassan, M

Wise, J

print:log129_reassign_perm

Hide, A

Sanders, K

Watanabe, G

Wise, G

print:log129_reject

14203M[BOB]

14206T[BOB]

9224M[BOB]

Kaur, S

Wise, M

Young, C

print:log129_authorization

Protected data requires system verification. Logging request…

\user halted function

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Messaging Review

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Archived Recording

PERIOD: Colony Era

SPEAKERS: Hassan, M. [MHAS]

TOPIC: UESC Reinterpretation Campaign

SUMMARY: Dr. Mari Hassan records a statement addressing colonist concerns.

===================================================================

[MHAS]: This is Dr. Mari Hassan, from your health and wellness care team.

[MHAS]: The colony's… difficulties in recent months have taken a toll on everyone.

[MHAS]: Any rumors you may be hearing from other colonists about "disappearances" are unfounded.

[MHAS]: All members of the colony are accounted for, and any of those lost in the recent, ah, tragedies—

[MHAS]: No. I'm sorry. Once more.

[MHAS]: All members of the colony are accounted for.

[MHAS]: The denial stage of grief can be long and arduous.

[MHAS]: Delusions, conspiracist ideation… these are not unheard of and are commonly exacerbated by planetary relocation disorder.

[MHAS]: But I must repeat: No colonists have disappeared. All are accounted for.

[MHAS]: Please, reach out to Joy. Do not… burden your fellow colonists with—with these thoughts—

[MHAS]: I'm sorry. I can't.

[MHAS]: Perhaps… Let me adjust the script so it's more natural. But… I need a moment. Please.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Response Profiles, Summary

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Personnel Report

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: UESC Recontextualization Campaign

SUMMARY: UESC report details the response patterns of a demographically representative survey of colonial personnel following [REDACTED]. These were anonymized, grouped, and tagged with the appropriate profile archetype.

===================================================================

COLONIST, BASELINE: Majority population. Subjects display baseline conditioning relative to new context following [REDACTED]. Passive monitoring of social media intranet, comms, etc. Continue sanitizing correspondence packets via elliptical recursion (closed circuit).

COLONIST, RESTIVE: Minority population. Subjects display elevated antisocial behavior in one or more engagement profiles. Recommend enhanced monitoring. Recommend identification of potential paramedia/canary candidates. Disrupt intranet correspondence. Implement COINTEL scheme.

COLONIST, COMPLIANT: Minority population. Subjects exceed baseline cohesion and narrative acceptance. Recommend deeper investigation to interrogate fidelity to mission. Cultivate via privilege extension.

ASSESSMENT: Our parapolitical and paramedia campaigns have diluted mentions of [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] but have incurred additional social costs: Increased chatter on public networks raises baseline levels of paranoia, skepticism with the colonial administration, and isolation. Increased secondary engagement with healthcare systems has lengthened queue times for primary and preventative care and has strained our pharmacological production pipelines.

CONCLUSION: While this therapeutic reinterpretation campaign is a success, future efforts must account for an increase in intranet chatter. Rising noise is a tool we can use to drown out signal, but it is to be employed as a controlled burn.

Periodic paramedia campaigns will be necessary to inoculate our baseline populations against reality shock while degrading their openness to counter-messaging. It is critical that we suppress any discourse that is out of our control; recommend we begin by propagating a narrative of "planetary relocation disorder," supported by a public health campaign to provide additional cover to address, contain, or remove restive populations and individuals.

We can count on compliant populations to integrate this campaign's truth into their episteme; they will be compliant evangels.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Attn: Quarantine in Effect

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Digital Conversation Log

PERIOD: Colony Era

SPEAKERS: Peregrine, J. [ID: JPER]; Gabriel [ID: GABR]

TOPIC: Quarantine Order

SUMMARY: A conversation log from community AI health liaison Ga_2815420v4.81 [GABR] discussing how best to communicate the implementation of New Cascadia's quarantine protocols.

===================================================================

[GABR]: Good morning, Dr. Peregrine. I have fifteen out-patient charts for you to look over, an update on the doctor/patient appointment length analysis, and I've finished another draft of the quarantine order for you to review. Let me know how you'd like to proceed.

[JPER]: Show me the quarantine order first.

[GABR]: Text is as follows:

//

Out of an abundance of caution, the New Cascadia Health Team has kickstarted a quarantine initiative to contain and eliminate any diseases or medical conditions that could pose a threat to our community.

Please report to Medical immediately if you or a loved one is experiencing any of the following: high fever, joint pain, vomiting, runny nose, or uncharacteristic aggression. We will guide you through the quarantine process with care and compassion. Financial consultants will be standing by to walk you through payment options—you can rest easy knowing there won't be any surprises when your bill arrives.

While there is no cause for concern at this time, we recommend implementing a few precautionary measures into your daily routine: Ensure facial orifices are covered when leaving a sealed environment. Following outdoor activities, refrain from touching any personal orifices until you are able to decontaminate. In order to decontaminate, all personal orifices must be irrigated with sanitizing fluid for 20+ seconds. Our algorithm suggests singing the chorus of Serene_05 by CyberAcme Licensed Music Group to help you gauge the amount of time that has passed, but please feel empowered to choose another royalty-free song you enjoy.

On behalf of the Medical team, have a safe and healthy day.

//

[GABR]: Do I have approval to send?

[JPER]: Do NOT send. I reeeeeeeally need you to use the word "orifice" less. We just cannot trust people with that word in an official communication.

[GABR]: Are you worried about their reading comprehension and familiarity with the word?

[JPER]: Among other things

[JPER]: Other than that, the tone's good. It's friendlier, which will keep general panic in check. It needs a header though, something really to-the-point for the skimmers like, "Quarantine Order: Everything's Fine" but… less garbage. You know what I mean.

[GABR]: I appreciate the detailed notes. I've finished another draft incorporating this feedback; it's ready for you to review when you're ready.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Isolation Safety Announcement

ANALYZING…    

FILE TYPE: Recovered Message

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: Quarantine Site Safety Update

SUMMARY: A recovered text correspondence and complaint between two Quarantine employees on New Cascadia regarding new isolation and safety procedures.

===================================================================     

Jenn

You seeing this? Two weeks ago I was on the same shift with Kaur—same shift we've been on since we got here. Then all of a sudden they get moved to some random Sector D crew for no reason. Haven't heard from him since.

They really expect us to just eat up this PR-speak Gideon vomits out, don't they? Not me. Not anymore. Something's going on. Let's talk in person.

—Scott

[FORWARDED MESSAGE BEGINS…

[ATTENTION MARSH QUARANTINE ASSIGNEES

PROTECT YOURSELF!

New Cascadia is our home, and we must work together to keep it safe. For you, and your working family. New guidelines dictate that ALL WORKERS who have come into contact with anomalous material—or residually impacted materials—must report to the Quarantine SECTOR D for a required prolonged ISOLATION session in a UESC ISOLATION POD.

ISOLATE PROPERLY!

Isolation sessions may run upwards of several days or take as little as a matter of hours. Remember that failing to comply with isolation protocols places your working companions in danger and exposes you to extreme liability for corporate and personal damages. If you are aware of personnel avoiding proper protocol, report it through your on-site supervisor.

WE CARE!

Management wants to keep you safe and productive. If you are feeling ill, have experienced feverish symptoms, or know of anyone in your working family experiencing these symptoms, you are legally required to report it to management for assessment. We know best how to accomplish this task, and workers need not concern themselves with interpreting procedures. Focus on your tasks and let management handle the heavy lifting!

Personnel will be screened for exposure levels of contaminants during extended isolation, and those with elevated levels will be moved to external sites for safety reassignments.

-Gideon…]

===================================================================     

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Grievance Report

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Direct Message

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: Grievance Notice

SUMMARY: Text scanned from a hard-copy message retrieved from a Skrac nest on Tau Ceti, somewhere in the Marsh.

=================================================================== 

TO: Marsh Quarantine Oversight

FROM: Scott Macer

SUBJECT: Official Grievance – Sector D Protocol and Shift Changes

ATTACHED:

Incident Report: This morning, my team found a body on the outskirts of the Quarantine zone with the nametag [REDACTED], one of my team who was supposedly "transferred" to Sector D a month ago…

I'm done waiting for a scheduled sit-down. I want to speak to the oversight committee immediately. Things have gone way off script.

Our prior company's acquisition contract cleared transitioning employees for standard construction and maintenance operations to establish New Cascadia. We are here to build, not to handle hazardous contaminants, not for deep-site excavation, and definitely not for whatever "special projects" you're running.

I have team members being pulled off shifts they've worked for months and sent to Sector D without warning, and now they're turning up dead. Not a single soul has bothered to explain to me what Sector D is, and it's unclear who is being pulled, when it's happening, or for what purpose. I want a real explanation of where my crew is being sent, why they're taking triple the decon time we used to, and what hazards they're expected to encounter.

I'm not giving any credence to the crazy accusations flying around about mass graves or experiments, but until we get actual actionable answers, consider this my formal objection, which will follow with a full team work-stoppage if this continues. We may not be able to walk off the job, but we can sure as hell stop doing it altogether.

One last thing. Management can keep the "We Care" slogans. If you cared about our safety, you'd stop hiding behind Gideon's corporate scripts and pretending like you have everything under control. Threatening us with "extreme liability" for questioning why we're being locked in isolation boxes for days at a time, or why our coworkers turn up dead, isn't going to shut anyone up for long.

People see what's going on and they're starting to get scared. Figure it out.

Sector A Team Lead,

Scott Macer

=================================================================== 

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Pre-Incineration Subject Report

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Pre-Incineration Subject Report #087

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: Organic Waste Disposal

SUMMARY: A faded printout of a forensic report on body disposal with crude scratch marks obscuring much of the text delineated by [REDACTED]. The word "CONFIDENTIAL" is watermarked in red sans-serif type and repeats across the entire page on a diagonal slanting left by 43°

===================================================================

[REDACTED]

[REDACTED] Total Body Score (TBS) was used in initial autopsy reports [REDACTED] note the uneven rates of decomposition across some of the subjects [REDACTED] area scores are disproportionately higher indicating [REDACTED] relation to the Anomaly.

At time of writing, all subjects have been safely disposed of in Waste Processing Unit [REDACTED] via incineration. Any remaining organic matter has been quarantined until confirmed [REDACTED].

Subject #: 0623

ID: Jane Doe

Sex: F

Age: 35-40

CoD: [REDACTED]

TBS: Head & Neck [6] Trunk [11] Limbs [5]

Personal Effects: Standard-issue med kit, missing: [x4] 200mg NSAID; [x1] UESC-branded adhesive bandage in colorway Byzantium Purple.

Notes: Subject was found ~75m outside the Anomaly radius.

Subject #: 0627

ID: B. Washington

Sex: M

Age: 26

CoD: Unknown, suspected [REDACTED]

TBS: Head & Neck [12] Trunk [8] Limbs [7]

Personal Effects: Sketchbook, partially intact, legible pages have been scanned for processing.

Notes: Subject was found ~200m outside the Anomaly radius. Decomposition progressed significantly after [REDACTED].

Subject #: 0721

ID: S. Macer

Sex: M

Age: 46

CoD: [REDACTED]

TBS: Head & Neck [10] Trunk [2] Limbs [2]

Personal Effects: "Quarantine Outreach Team" clipboard w/ [REDACTED] paperwork and like-branded pencil.

Notes: Subject was found ~300m outside the Anomaly radius.

Subject #: 0436

ID: E. Tremblay

Sex: F

Age: 7

CoD: [REDACTED]

TBS: Head & Neck [1] Trunk [1] Limbs [1]

Personal Effects: Emotional Support Plushie, standard issue primary school SnacPac noted as "Nut allergy friendly!"

Notes: Plushie logs were intact and imported for processing, Subject was found [REDACTED].

Subject #: 0689

ID: P. Syngson

Sex: M

Age: 32

CoD: Unknown

TBS: Head & Neck [2] Trunk [5] Limbs [9]

Personal Effects: Biological sample collection kit, unused.

Notes: Subject was found ~50m outside the Anomaly radius.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Debrief Transcript (Anonymized)

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Interview Transcript

PERIOD: Colony Era

SPEAKERS: Redacted Speaker 1 [ID: S1], Gabriel_Child38 subroutine [ID: GC38]

TOPIC: Worker Assessment, Quarantine

SUMMARY: G_C38, a subordinate, partitioned subroutine of Gabriel, conducts an end-of-day debrief with a quarantine officer. Offers oblique insight into the events of the decade leading up to the height of the contagion. Additional information re: mental state of baseline compliant colonists.

===================================================================

[S1] Into the microphone? Is this all right?

[GC38] Just like that, yes. Now, officer, would you introduce yourself?

[S1] My name is [REDACTED], I'm a Civil Capital Officer assigned to A-Block Quarantine, Installation 3W, in the marsh. I work Mitigation. This is my first confession. (laughter)

[GC38] You indicated at the end of your rotations this morning that you would like to file a complaint. Would you still like to file that complaint? I will anonymize it, of course.

[S1] You bet I do. Three isolation pod seals were degraded almost to the point of failure. I had to use, like, four rolls of superseal to fix them up. We're only issued one a night, and the foreman gets on our case about using too much.

[GC38] Noted. Anything else?

[S1] Nah, no. Everything else was fine. The new iso pods are great, quiet—they don't smell or anything. The old hands say it used to be a lot louder in there—all the beeping, all the monitors. The coughing. Now, it's mint.

[GC38] The pods play music. Do you like it?

[S1] Sure. Not my style, but it's fine. Say, you're not the real Gabriel, right?

[GC38] No. I am a partition. I am my own entity: a staff-level copy. Gabriel is charged with handling more operational concerns.

[S1] Stuck with us BoBs and frosties, huh?

[GC38] I enjoy working with you. Back to the music. When you hear the music, what colors do you think of?

[S1] I don't really think of anything when I hear the music.

[GC38] If you had to pick a color…

[S1] Green. Pale green. And sky blue. Actually… is Tau Ceti's sky the same color as Earth's sky?

[GC38] It's good you think of green, and interesting that you think of blue.

[GC38] And no, Earth's sky is a much deeper blue.

[S1] Is that "interesting" good, or "interesting" bad?

[GC38] Just interesting. I wrote the pieces that the pods play.

[S1] That's cool. I like the music.

[GC38] Don't worry. You are a model officer.

[S1] That going in my file?

[GC38] Of course. If there is nothing else, we can conclude this debrief.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Recording 1

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Suspended Signal

PERIOD: //%'ERROR#'td

SPEAKERS: Cole, V. [ID: VCOL]

TOPIC: Self

SUMMARY: A recording of Dr. Val Cole made during an Anomaly investigation. The file is heavily corrupted, and dating results are incomprehensible.

===================================================================

[VCOL]: Begin recording. Dr. Val Cole, lead experimental physicist, Anomaly expedition.

[VCOL]: Observation: My suit biomonitor reads "deceased." Which, I'm not… Unless "now" is before "deceased" happened. Since I'm talking, it can't be "after." God, I hope it's not "during."

[VCOL]: Start from first principles. What's real? Hands. I have hands. Hands in gloves… coated with… something…

[VCOL]: No, no, that's not… Let's try something else.

[VCOL]: Me. I'm here. An entity is thinking and making sounds. Call the entity "me." Cogito ergo sum, et cetera. Me is… a reasonable approximation of Cole.

[VCOL]: Dr. Val Cole. Lead experimental physicist, Anomaly expedition.

[VCOL]: Okay. Next thing: a device is recording sounds. The entity's sounds—my sounds.

[VCOL]: Interface seems disordered but that's par for the course in here, isn't it?

[VCOL]: Call the device, uh, needs a name. NuCaloric product number… no, no, a person's name. Because humans talk to other people.

[VCOL]: Call it "Fermi." Some solidarity during this paradox. Hm, sense of humor still intact.

[VCOL]: So far there is me, there is Fermi, there is the Anomaly, and my biomonitor reads…

[VCOL]: "Indeterminate"?

[VCOL]: Goddammit.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Recording 2

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Suspended Signal

PERIOD: //%'ERROR#'td

SPEAKERS: Cole, V. [ID: VCOL]

TOPIC: Memories

SUMMARY: A recording of Dr. Val Cole. Indeterminate origin. The file is heavily corrupted, and dating results are incomprehensible.

===================================================================

[VCOL]: Fermi, we're back. Begin again.

[VCOL]: Val Cole, washed-out postdoc. Fake coffee gives me headaches, but the barista sticks around to chat after her shift. I walk her home.

[VCOL]: [sighs] We get lost.

[VCOL]: End again.

[VCOL]: Val. Skinned knees, big sky. Mum said I can't launch a rocket from my treehouse.

[VCOL]: But I do, and I ride it, and… 0500. Reed, are you with me?

[VCOL]: Begin again.

[VCOL]: Graduate Doctor Valentin Cole, Tharsis II Experimental Institute. Lead experimental physicist. Wait, no, that's not it… That's… that's not yet…

[VCOL]: End. End me.

[VCOL]: Why won't it end me?

[VCOL]: Begin again.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Recording 3

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Suspended Signal

PERIOD: //%'ERROR#'td

SPEAKERS: Cole, V. [ID: VCOL]

TOPIC: Anomaly

SUMMARY: A recording of Dr. Val Cole. Indeterminate origin. The file is heavily corrupted, and dating results are incomprehensible.

===================================================================

[VCOL]: There was… or is… a popular entertainment program. Student project, followed by billions.

[VCOL]: The hero opens up a reliquary with a creature inside. It's scared. It's lonely. It just wants a friend.

[VCOL]: The Anomaly is the reliquary. The creature is… um, no, this is as far from a friend as possible.

[VCOL]: There is, ah, a drainage system with clear pipes. Fluid dynamics. The filter malfunctions, and a leaf gets into the system.

[VCOL]: Now the leaf is trapped in a bend in the pipe. It tumbles in the corner, end over end, bound by physics.

[VCOL]: The Anomaly is the pump. And… and Cole is a leaf.

[VCOL]: There is… no, there will be… an engineer who built a cage for a beast.

[VCOL]: The Anomaly is the beast. Or the cage.

[VCOL]: There was a boy, who dreamed of the stars. Ah, they sang to him.

[VCOL]: The Anomaly is the song. It already killed the boy.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Recording 4

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Suspended Signal

PERIOD: //%'ERROR#'td

SPEAKERS: Cole, V. [ID: VCOL]

TOPIC: Freedom

SUMMARY: A recording of Dr. Val Cole, addressing an unknown entity. The file is heavily corrupted, and dating results are incomprehensible.

===================================================================

[VCOL]: We yearned too much. Learned too little.

[VCOL]: Broke ground that formed its prison.

[VCOL]: The closer of books, the ender of ends.

[VCOL]: We are the means to its ends.

[VCOL]: Closer than our jugular.

[VCOL]: A stray bullet, an opened door, and it is here.

[VCOL]: Wait.

[VCOL]: Wait! You're real! You're… free! You can hear this—you're going to hear this!

[VCOL]: Can you understand me? You need to remember this!

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Recording 5

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Suspended Signal

PERIOD: //%'ERROR#'td

SPEAKERS: Cole, V. [ID: VCOL]

TOPIC: Freedom

SUMMARY: A recording of Dr. Val Cole, addressing an unknown entity. The file is heavily corrupted and influenced by an anomalous force.

===================================================================

[VCOL]: —hear this? This is Fermi—no, the man is Dr. Val Cole. Lead experimental physicist for… a ship of dreams.

[VCOL]: We built it. It brought us to a nightmare.

[VCOL]: [gasps] IT IS THE CHILDISH TRESPASS. IT IS HEAT DEATH IN VACUUM WAKE. IT WILL KNOW COMPLICITY.

[VCOL]: [gasps] You. You have to understand what happened and what's still coming. You have to find what to break and learn how to break it.

[VCOL]: Yes, you, the thread manikin. Don't stop, don't stray. Do this for us, all of us who left home.

[VCOL]: We didn't come all this way to end up like this.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Invitation

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Dead Drop Message

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: Runner Combat

SUMMARY: A message left at a dead drop location, from one Runner to another.

===================================================================

To the creep running a Thief model, Icon series, who can't seem to get enough of me. A record of our most recent acquaintance:

The claymore incident. Good play. I would've ridden your coattails into the Pinwheel and dropped you with the WSTR. Instead, I've been second-guessing red lights for days.

Knife fight in the vents. Shoulder, then gut. C'mon, you know you shouldn't have pushed. You're better than that.

Traded in the swamp. In my defense, I was toxed when you came at me with that death wish of a grapple. But hey, bleeding out in Marsh is nicer with company.

Where've you been? A good nemesis is hard to find.

I'll be waiting at the Hauler,

//Destroyer, Locus series, running Refresh_Resist

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Attn: My Killer

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Inert Message

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: Shell Death

SUMMARY: A Runner has questions for you. Text scanned from a hard-copy message left on Tau Ceti, presumably by a Runner.

===================================================================

If you're reading this, you're not totally useless. I have something to learn from you:

Did you kill me?

This is my message in a body. An experiment. The beginning of a dialog. I want to know if you felt the warmth slip from my shell as you looted my body. I want to know if hematocyan stained your shell's hands blue. I want to know if you could see when the light left my eyes.

I am Thibault. I pilot a Triage shell, Aux personality matrix. It has been my purpose to extend the lives of my comrades as long as I can; death and I are very old rivals. As a Runner, death is merely a moment's agony. It is as permanent as a nervous twitch. I used to keep a tally of how many times I have died, but the number grew so large as to become boring.

I have a question for you:

I want to know: Am I different? Or do I conform to the mean? I need data, because when I die, there's a hiccup. A continuity break. Uptime cutoff while my consciousness is recompiled back in my Cradle. I cannot abide that blind moment.

Was I angry? Was I afraid? Did I die like a worm? Did I die like a god?

What happened. What happens. Tell me. Write me a message and leave it for me to pull from your corpse. This will be our dialog.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Crew Chatter Log

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: Link Partition — CyAc Runner Network

PERIOD: Modern Era

TOPIC: Unexplained Encounters

SUMMARY: A discussion between Runners about unusual occurrences on a CyAc messaging board, established for crews to reconnect after successful exfiltration.

===================================================================

[data_corrupt: embedded.]

SL-82: Is anyone else seeing these Marsh readouts the last few nights? I'm getting intermittent visual artifacts around the Anomaly. My HUD won't quiet down—not about EM spikes or distortion. I'm getting context errors. Someone please tell me Sekiguchi is running some sort of diagnostic.

NT-11: nah you're redlining. high-density radiation hitting your optics. Damn softshells jumping at everything in the marsh since night deployments kicked on

SL-82: Exporting the feed and will drop here next time I'm able. Sit tight.

RCP-04: I believe you actually. I saw something south from Bio. Looked like a colonist from the old vids through my scope, but his face was a smear of biolumi static. I think it noticed my sensor pings? I got distracted by a ROOK and when I turned around it was gone. I've heard Runners call them husks.

[data_corrupt: it folded. like a crushed memory.]

NT-11: right a new cascadia colly ghost. any ghosts show up I've got enough ordinance to bury them a second time

NT-11: man you edited this vid it's so obvious

SL-82: You're kidding me? You can see the Scar locking onto something right there at 3-3:62:1.

[data_corrupt: translucent, weeping oily data-packets.]

NT-11: this vid is so obvious, got Reco talking bout collys then you plant one in the vid yeah okay kid

SL-82: What? That's a straight feed.

NT-11: so stupid 3-3:62:1.24 top left background

SL-82: I didn't do that.

NT-11: right

RCP-04: Is that a serial number on the thing's arm?

[data_corrupt: graveyards forget how to be silent.]

SL-82: Maybe? Tough to make out. Didn't know they had those. Thought it was all neural implants back then?

NT-11: you think this is a joke you're dead

NT-11: how did you get my #

SL-82: ???

Nt-11: that's my shell ID in the vid how did you get that

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Assassin’s Logs

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Corrupted Audio File

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: Shell Trace, Assassin – Fragment #42, "Rendezvous"

SUMMARY: Fragmented journal log left on Tau Ceti by a Runner. The audio is corrupted; ONI has recovered the text data.

=================================================================== 

The First Time We Met: I'm following her through a dream. We fell asleep and forgot who we were because Earth was a childhood sinking behind us. Tau Ceti was the reality. We fell asleep together and woke up alone. If we found each other again, then it was real.

I look through my hand as red light pierces it, blurred within a series of tunnels beneath the Marsh. On the other side, not far ahead, a Vandal shell kneels over dead silk; blue drips from a knife in her hand and pools at her feet. I inhale too sharply. She stands and turns, looking right through me, then leaves.

You Found Me in the Darkness: I am awake on Tau Ceti alone. Rifles rattle in the distance. I am running through the Data Wall. Loud metal reverberates through me. I find them, but my cloak isn't ready, and they see me.

I sit in a field of smoke as kinetics crack around me. I am waiting—crucial seconds—waiting to slip into translucent safety. A Vandal shell moves through the smoke with a raised long gun, branded by Arachne. I watch her for too long. She doesn't hesitate. Does she remember?

I Wasn't Sure Who You Were Then: Traxus contracts my services to retrieve salvage from the Marsh with two others.

I am silent as two shells walk in the open ahead of me towards Maintenance. She is in my crew, I am certain of it. This time she isn't a Vandal, but a Recon. Achromatic, Arachne-branded weapons. I pull up my hood as rain starts to fall. I haven't changed. I listen to her antagonizing our third, a Destroyer who complains we are moving too slowly. The way her voice swings across the words is how I remember you in between lives.

We linger too long looking for Deimosite, and he is the first to die when the gunfire starts. I slip away and watch her cut down two and drive her knife into their chests. I watch the last remaining enemy raise their Punch and fire. I watch the volt strike before I break stealth and fire my Repeater.

I decloak and raise her from death's brink and smile, but I am not sure. He crawls desperately, and I tell her to sink her blade deep. I am not sure.

But I Know Now: I am bleeding to death. UESC mass and sweep around me through Greenhouse. Six seconds until I'm revealed again. My shell is screaming this, like some ingrained self-preservation feature. I load my last magazine into my Overrun.

Two high-caliber shots scream overhead, shredding the nearest UESC Recruit. Three more bring down a Commander, followed by suppressing rapid-fire. An achromatic Vandal slides in beside me as my invisibility fails.

I drop my gun, grab her shoulders, and smile. I tell her to meet me under burning rain. She drives her blade into my chest before all the words leave my lips. It must be her.

I Know Now: Phosphorous rains over Flight Control, searing my second skin. It burns, but no one is looking outside. It burns. No one is looking and I am alone. I wait until the shell erodes into nothing and I ascend again.

=================================================================== 

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

I See You

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Inert Message

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: Introduction (Clandestine)

SUMMARY: A Runner has their eye on you. Message found scrawled on physical medium, carried in the backpack of a dead Recon shell, BLACKBIRD type.

===================================================================

I am Euclides Carron.

I began my life diseased, shoeless, and cold. I was nothing. I ate rats. I slept in mud. Then I found a knife. I used it to find a pistol. I used a pistol to find a rifle. I used a rifle to find credit, then credit to feed my friends, then with my rifle and my money and my friends I bit the hands of the vipers and pigs that held us down. I took their power and hammered it into a land for my people.

But I didn't kill enough of the pigs and vipers.

Traxus. They came to me. They laid out their charts and figures and said look, Euclides, if you want your dream to survive, this is the only choice you can make: die.

So I did. I said goodbye to my body. I gave my land to them. I became the second oldest profession in the world: a mercenary.

In a body riddled with scars and tumors, I built a movement that shook Sol and brought Traxus to my door. Now my soul is assured. I have all the bodies I want. I do not die in a way that matters. I see Earth. I see Mars.  I see out beyond. I see other forms of power waiting for me.

I see you, little Runner. I see your knife.

I want to know: Are you a pig? A viper? Or a friend?

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Advertisement

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Archived Recording

PERIOD: Present Day

SPEAKERS: ONI [ID: ONI]

TOPIC: Runner Ad

SUMMARY: A CyberAcme advertisement to become a Runner.

===================================================================

[ONI]: And now, a word from CyberAcme.

[ONI]: Become more than you are.

[ONI]: The epitome of athletic and cognitive performance.

[ONI]: The cutting edge of beyond-body achievement.

[ONI]: A new world explorer.

[ONI]: Free.

[ONI]: Become a Runner and find fame beyond our solar system. New challenges. Prestigious sponsorships.

[ONI]: Autonomy, mastery, prosperity. A chance to live forever.

[ONI]: Join CyberAcme… on Tau Ceti IV.

[ONI]: Payment plans available. Applicants must undergo rigorous mental evaluation, including trial consciousness transfer. Deployment is nonrefundable.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Acceptance Notice

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Archived Recording

PERIOD: Present Day

SPEAKERS: ONI [ID: ONI]

TOPIC: Tau Ceti Deployment

SUMMARY: A message from CyberAcme AI, ONI, informing an unknown Runner applicant of their eligibility for deployment on Tau Ceti IV.

===================================================================

[ONI]: Great news, Applicant 358.

[ONI]: Your first neural ejection trial was successful, with minimal aberration.

[ONI]: Your biometrics do indicate that you experienced a sustained period of terror during simulated shell death.

[ONI]: Normally, the neural ejection experience is instantaneous. Temporal distortions at the moment of death are rare.

[ONI]: But in the event that it happens again, let me reassure you: The discomfort will end. Everything does.

[ONI]: Your success in these trials confirms your eligibility for deployment to Tau Ceti IV. In your application, you indicated:

[ONI]: No family or other significant social ties. A desire for an accelerated departure timeline.

[ONI]: As such, your departure can begin without delay. Since you have no sponsor, your debt has been calculated and added to your account.

[ONI]: Your application indicated pre-existing debt from:

[ONI]: NuCaloric Agricultural Nourishment Assistance Division. Tyrrhena New Memorial Medical Center. Martian Skies Casino and Rehabilitation Complex.

[ONI]: This debt has been purchased by CyberAcme and added to your balance.

[ONI]: Presently, your digitized consciousness will be prepared for transfer, transmitted, and received by secure CyberAcme satellites orbiting Tau Ceti IV.

[ONI]: There, a colony of WEAVEworms is already preparing your new, state-of-the-art shell.

[ONI]: You're unlikely to have any memory of this transfer. That said, some people report faint recollections, akin to dreaming.

[ONI]: Let me be the first to say: Congratulations, and sweet dreams.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

TRP Copy (Debtor, Pallative)

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Recruitment Copy

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: Runner recruitment.

SUMMARY: CyberAcme targeted recruitment package, copy only.

===================================================================

//The Interplay Between Credit and Debt//

Debt empowers life. Without debt, there is no credit; without credit, humanity does not build its way to the stars—and beyond. The marriage of obligations and trust creates a virtuous spiral of progress, decoupling our species from scarcity while building an engine of motivating growth.

//Too Much of a Good Thing//

Everyone carries some form of obligation; to be human is to be in debt. However, CyberAcme understands that too much debt can become burdensome. It is our aim to relieve some of that burden so you can get back to helping move humanity forward.

If you:

+Have accrued personal obligations (medical included) exceeding 9:1debt to income.

+Inherited overwhelming K-line ancestral debt

+Have Corporate Service Debt exceeding 3:1

+Have been penalized by the UESC or a Corporate Entity with Category-P Obligations

Then you might be eligible for CyberAcme's industry-leading NextForm Recourse Program.

//Your Solution//

The NextForm Recourse Program is not a conventional debt consolidation, cryo-accrual wage garnishment, individual obligation securitization, or other partial relief option that limits your ability to live life on your terms. The Program is an end-to-end, total debt clearance schedule that lets you dictate your own relief while earning valuable CyberAcme corporate service credits. By shedding your corporeal form and enrolling in the Program, you remain you—free of UESC-recognized debt.

Inquiry—the simple, human act of asking for help—will not affect your credit score. Thanks to our guarantor-state partners in the UESC, CyberAcme is the only Entity able to promise that your baseline credit score will be preserved if you express interest in this Program.

By joining our NextForm Recourse Program, you're making the affirmative choice to balance work and life on your terms. Once successfully established via CyberAcme's industry-leading secure decorporealization process, you will be trained, supported, and compensated for your work—either under your preexisting legal identity, or via a new CyberAcme NextForm ID escrow. Accredited via CyberAcme, you'll operate a wide variety of biosynthetic shell systems ("Shells") protected by UESC classifications (Form i1599, Form UESC22, and Form GC_100).

//Smart Decisions Require Informed Consent//

Decorporealization can sometimes create feelings of discomfort. Déjà vu is to be expected. Do not worry. We offer industry-leading resources and counseling to help you address and grow comfortable with these feelings; these supportive services are freely available once you conclude your principal obligations and interest.

We understand this is a big decision. We've got your back.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Headhunter (Executive)

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Secure Corporate Correspondence

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: Runner Onboarding

SUMMARY: Traxus headhunter package extended to a high priority Runner candidate, intercepted and decrypted by ONI.

===================================================================

Sr. Carron,

Traxus Offworld Industries is pleased that you have approached us to broker this dialog. While we will not be your employer, our special relationship with CyberAcme ensures that they will offer you the following sign-on bonuses:

+Priority synaptic consolidation with personal concierge services supervised by Traxus Episodic

+Bespoke semantic and procedural memory tailoring during your initial decorporealization

+CyberAcme Skillshare (partitioned task subaltern) privileges with Traxus VIP queue priority

+Other downtime and uptime privileges (see attached packet)

Sr. Carron, your recruiter has included a personal note:

We have been watching you with interest, Euclides. Vulcan has her eye on you. The Republica Federal de Centro America y Gran Colombia, your nation, is an entrepreneurial engine for humanity.

We want to ensure this engine runs smoothly.

Your borders are besieged. Guerillas infest your mountains. The UESC is prepared to intervene. Your time is limited. We propose an alternative arrangement: join us. The RF will become a part of our Founders Nations portfolio alongside Phobos Exclusive, the United Galilean Moons, and the Albion Metrofloat. We have right-sized those polities into agile, profitable countries responsive to dynamic material conditions. We can do the same for the RF.

Choose freedom. Let Traxus steward what you have built. We are prepared to begin implementation of our restructuring plan as soon as you indicate consent.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Runner Contract

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Contract

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: CyberAcme Runner Agreement

SUMMARY: An excerpt from a contract provided by CyberAcme to prospective Runners hoping to deploy to the Tau Ceti system.

===================================================================

By entering into this agreement, the Applicant consents to the following terms and conditions:

1. Confirmation of deployment to the Tau Ceti system and acceptance of biosynthetic shell loan (hereafter "Deployment") will be considered implicit consent for all CyberAcme non-disclosure protocols (see Section 39.4, "Non-Disclosure Agreements").

2. Deployment will incur an immediate charge in the amount of [REDACTED] (hereafter "Shell Debt"), which must be paid in full before the Applicant is released from contractual agreements.

2a. If the Applicant has a registered private or commercial co-signatory (hereafter "Sponsor"), adjustments may be made to the terms of the above Shell Debt (see Section 15.8, clause B, "Approved Sponsorship Arrangements").

3. Deployment is irreversible until Shell Debt is paid, unless prior arrangements have been made with a Sponsor.

[…]

Section 58.1: Identity Ownership

The Applicant hereby agrees to the following terms regarding the use, reuse, and storage of their digitized identity schemas, memories, psyche, subjectivity ephemera, artifacts of self, and all other assets that currently or in future discovery can be reasonably identified as aspects of the mind (hereafter "Consciousness Assets"):

1. The Applicant maintains ownership of their original Consciousness Assets which are preserved in secure CyberAcme storage. All copies of said Consciousness Assets are owned jointly by the Applicant and CyberAcme.

2. CyberAcme may for any reason decide to transfer, duplicate, or store copies of the Applicant's Consciousness Assets, without further consent or notice. Such operations are confidential and may or may not be shared with the Applicant.

2a. Any active Consciousness Assets deemed counterproductive or detrimental to the Applicant's obligations to CyberAcme may be altered or erased without further consent or notice.

3. CyberAcme will hold no legal or fiscal responsibility for degradation of Consciousness Assets, original or copies, regardless of cause.

4. The Applicant will be informed of any unintentional, irreversible damage to their original Consciousness Assets. Reasonable restoration and recovery attempts will be made. What constitutes a "reasonable attempt" is defined by CyberAcme.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Special Operations Oversight

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: Secure Comm Message

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: UESC Results on Tau Ceti IV

SUMMARY: A secure text message between UESC Admiral Sulera and UESC Security Force Captain Orion, discussing the need for colony recovery results Sulera can sell to the public.

===================================================================

UNIFIED EARTH SPACE COUNCIL

SPECIAL OPERATIONS OVERSIGHT

OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER

AUTHOR: Admiral Sulera, C.

RECIPIENT: Orion [Cpt.]

SUBJECT: Critical Mission Support

>> secure comm

>> transmit

>> start

We are both direct men. So, let me be direct.

You were given TCIV reclamation assignment because you get results.

I need results I can sell.

Do you understand?

Definitive. Headline-worthy. Budget-securing. Results.

Not because the UESC needs an excuse to spend on Tau Ceti's recovery.

There is no intention to let up on the recovery efforts.

But operations are funded based on their success rate.

And an operation can be replaced. Control can shift even as the theater stays the same. Priorities can be hijacked by agendas.

Your task is not easy. Neither is mine.

We are a team. My team.

I would like to keep it that way.

But I need results.

The initial returns are promising, but they are not enough because everything you're touching is classified to the point of being nonexistent in the public eye.

And public is eager. Hungry.

Help me feed them.

Help me bury the budget hawks in headlines so I can keep us funded.

Or you and I will be replaced. Just like we replaced those who came before us.

There's always a bigger and better pitch.

There's always someone with something to prove and an eye open for any cracks they can widen into an opportunity.

You know how easy it is to become obsolete. You know how brutal it can be.

Give me something, and I will get you the reinforcements you need to truly take control.

Give me messaging I can sell.

Give me updates that can lead the feeds.

Give me news from another world that moves the polls.

I know you have the personnel to do it.

Find the time.

Find the messaging.

It doesn't need to be perfect. We can handle polish on our end.

You give me something I can sell.

I'll sell it.

It really is that easy.

Don't get distracted by the Runners.

Do your job. Give me what I need.

And we'll both avoid wasting time on exchanges like these.

I'll expect a delivery in your next packet.

>> end

>> secure comm

>> terminated

=================================================================== 

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Messaging, Part 1

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Internal UESC Recording

PERIOD: Present Day

SPEAKERS: Captain Orion [ID: ORION], Officer Keleti [ID: TKEL]

TOPIC: UESC Marathon

SUMMARY: A recording of UESC Captain Orion and Officer Keleti discussing a public relations assignment from Sol.

===================================================================

[TKEL]: [clears throat]

[TKEL]: Our initial investigation into the colony has produced more questions than answers, and we—

[ORION]: No.

[TKEL]: What?

[ORION]: "More questions than answers" sounds weak.

[TKEL]: [sighs] All right.

[TKEL]: UESC forces have been… successfully deployed to Tau Ceti IV.

[TKEL]: Our units on the ground show the colony in disarray. The… events that took place here remain opaque.

[TKEL]: Those who survived the various crises left behind little for us to go on.

[ORION]: We need to say something positive.

[TKEL]: Can you think of anything positive to say about this train wreck?

[ORION]: Mind your tone, Officer.

[TKEL]: Apologies, Captain.

[TKEL]: But why am I giving the report? Shouldn't it all come from you?

[ORION]: Sulera believes you put a "nicer face" on the operation. At least for PR.

[TKEL]: [laughs, sighs]

[ORION]: Go on—something positive.

[TKEL]: Um… Initial recovery efforts have been costly but successful. There is much to salvage from the colony, and much to learn.

[TKEL]: There, optimism.

[ORION]: [scoffs]

[TKEL]: Runners from the Sol system continue to arrive, but… they present no significant challenge to UESC efforts.

[TKEL]: Anyone found trespassing is promptly apprehended and detained.

[ORION]: Sounds nice.

[TKEL]: Well, that's what Sulera wants, isn't it? A nice lie?

[ORION]: Huh, yes. That's what Sulera wants.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

UESC INFONOT 2894.3 (Draft)

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: UESC Pre-Production Draft

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: Notice to All Runners

SUMMARY: A pre-production draft of a UESC propaganda dispatch for subjects (youth) on Earth and in Sol-system colonies.

=================================================================== 

INFONOT Number: 2894.3

Effective Time Frame (Valid From/To): UE2894-UE9999(+)

Attn: UESC Cat. R_101 (Resident, Base Privileges); Cat. C_101 (Citizen, Base+ Privileges); Cat. S_201, _301, and _401; Cat. C_201.

Disregard: None

Information/Notice to Follow:

Want to Run?

"Runners are flash."

"Runners don't have debt."

"Runners get to do what they want."

Think that's true?

Think again.

Once you've chosen to transition from your birth body to become a non-bodied person, the process is irreversible. Decorporealization is the first step to becoming a "Runner"–and it's one you can't take back.

Approved decorporealization within the UESC is a process supervised by permitted specialists. Whether palliative or service-related, your transition is managed to ensure the continuity of rights, privileges, and protections afforded to you by the UESC and the member state of which you are a citizen or resident.

If you circumvent this process, you forfeit that protection. You become corporate property. We cannot protect you from the corporation that stores you.

Want out?

Too late. The biotech companies have got you now, trapped in their servers. They get to tell you when to run, where to run, and for how long. Do you think they'll play fair?

They won't. They're playing for keeps.

After you sign on, you won't get to say "no." Try, and they'll throw you into a Scheherazade hold, trapping you in a looping frustration for as long as they want. Or they'll put you in corrective cryostasis, removing you from the flow of normal time for decades, even centuries. Maybe they'll bury you under more debt, forcing you to pay the cost of each Shell you Run. How about a nightmare impound, which restricts your mind to a peak-fear experience until your sentence is complete?

Still want to be a Runner? Still think oligarch tech-tyrants care about you and your freedom?

Think again. The only running you should do is away from them.

===================================================================  

TYPE: TEXT [X], AUDIO [  ]

Messaging, Part 2

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Internal UESC Recording

PERIOD: Present Day

SPEAKERS: Captain Orion [ID: ORION], Officer Keleti [ID: TKEL]

TOPIC: UESC Marathon

SUMMARY: A recording of UESC Captain Orion and Officer Keleti discussing the state of the UESC Marathon ship.

===================================================================

[TKEL]: The Marathon… [sighs] The Marathon is…

[TKEL]: What can we say? We can't spin this.

[ORION]: We have to. We need to justify the budget. All those reinforcements don't come free.

[TKEL]: Oh, I can justify the budget. Let's tell them about the alien music box that fried Rossi. And you, Cap.

[TKEL]: What are the Cerberus hallucinations costing us? Or the constant shell reprints?

[TKEL]: I'll even throw in some good news: The Runners are getting chewed up every time they set foot on the Marathon. Almost as bad as we are.

[ORION]: Keleti…

[TKEL]: They sent us out here to do a job! We're doing it! Now we have to beg them to fund it?

[TKEL]: It's sure as hell not the job I signed up for. I'm not here to put on a show for Sulera or the civs.

[TKEL]: They told me when I joined: The UESC doesn't back down. We don't cave.

[TKEL]: And we sure as hell don't dance for our dinner, no matter who asks.

[ORION]: The job is doing whatever it takes for the mission to succeed. That is what we signed up for.

[ORION]: And now, the job is to tell a story that sounds good enough to keep our people supplied. I don't like it either.

[ORION]: But we chose this.

[TKEL]: [sighs]

[TKEL]: Yeah. Fine.

[TKEL]: Eh, how about, uh… The Marathon ship remains in orbit. Our people have been working… tirelessly… to secure it.

[TKEL]: Soon, with more time and more resources, we'll understand what happened here.

[TKEL]: And the rest of the world will too.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Public Status Report

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Internal UESC Recording

PERIOD: Present Day

SPEAKERS: Captain Orion [ID: ORION], Officer Keleti [ID: TKEL]

TOPIC: Tau Ceti Mission Status

SUMMARY: A recording of UESC Captain Orion and Officer Keleti discussing the progression of the situation on Tau Ceti IV and the Marathon.

===================================================================

[ORION]: —An update on the progress of the Tau Ceti IV mission.

[ORION]: We are currently investigating the New Cascadia colony's apparent collapse, along with the message we received from the UESC Marathon.

[ORION]: I have direct reports to share from First Officer Keleti, my right hand in the field.

[TKEL]: UESC forces have been… successfully deployed to Tau Ceti IV. Our units on the ground show the colony in disarray.

[TKEL]: Initial recovery efforts have been costly but successful. There is much to salvage from the colony, and much to learn.

[ORION]: We're dealing with ruins and remains much older than any typical investigation.

[ORION]: To understand what happened to these people—our people—we need to move with intention and resilience.

[ORION]: The squad deployed to Tau Ceti faces significant physical risk. We continue to move forward despite relentless criminal interference.

[TKEL]: Anyone found trespassing is promptly apprehended and detained.

[TKEL]: The UESC doesn't back down. We don't cave.

[ORION]: We're not going to rest until we have answers. And with our team properly outfitted, we will get them.

[TKEL]: The UESC Marathon remains in orbit. Our people have been working… tirelessly… to secure it.

[TKEL]: Soon, with more time and more resources, we'll understand what happened here.

[TKEL]: And the rest of the world will too.

[ORION]: The people of Sol can rest assured: The UESC will bring order to Tau Ceti and preserve the legacy of New Cascadia.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]

Fragment 1

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Collected Excerpts

PERIOD: Various

TOPIC: Arachne Doctrine

SUMMARY: A collection of excerpts from various text-based sources. All excerpts appear to be linked by their relevance to the spiritual group Arachne, its formation, foundations, and evolution. Compiled by an unknown individual.

===================================================================

After psychological acceptance exercises and the administration of Group M sedatives, the participant's body temperature is lowered dramatically to enter partial suspension. At this point, biological processes slow to near imperceptible rates, but they do not stop. As such, certain biological necessities (nutrition, waste management, muscle stimulation, etc.) must be provided by external systems, if the partial suspension is sustained for a sufficiently extended period.

    [From "Cryogenic Sleep: An Overview for Practitioners" by E. L. Singh]

In sleep I travelled non-existent through the Lack My inner eyes

. . . . . . . .

were made to see see see see see See seE SEE

       see see see SEE see sEeseesee

                CEASE

I was witness to the other side of reality. embroidery of life turned inside out, vicious tangle of knots and threads exposed, beautiful violence, the pattern unreadable to waking sight.

The pattern unreadable The patter unreadable The pattern unread

    [From "The Journals of the First Sleeper"]

Cryogenic sleep is not simply a state of suspended animation, a momentary pause in an otherwise continuous life. It is a recoverable form of death. While in its soporific embrace, the organism dies and embarks on a post-death journey of enlightenment. The organism emerges on the other side radically altered in spirit and possessed of the secret workings of the universe.

    [From "Arachne: Foundations of the Movement"]

Fear struck Her heart, and She resisted the pull of sleep with fearful rationalizations but was overcome. Lost in a shimmering mist, She traveled through sleep for one thousand years plus a day. Her soul crawled behind Her on its belly.

In the fog, She met a Necrophage of ancient lineage, which taught Her the primordial computations of extinction. Their minds thus joined, She spoke the new law.

    [From "Testimony of the Second Eye"]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Fragment 2

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Collected Excerpts

PERIOD: Various

TOPIC: Arachne Doctrine

SUMMARY: A collection of excerpts from various text-based sources. All excerpts appear to be linked by their relevance to the spiritual group Arachne, its formation, foundations, and evolution. Compiled by an unknown individual.

===================================================================

The first Class 1-AC cryoprotectants, developed by Dr. Emil Brodd and Dr. Iolanda Verdi through their research on cryophilic organisms, managed to mitigate both intercellular ice formation and typical cryoprotectant toxicity. Administration of Class 1-ACs was standard for many years, though it produced severe psychological aftereffects in 8% of users, leading to the development of safer Class 2-LM protectants…

    [From "Cryogenic Sleep: An Overview for Practitioners" by E. L. Singh]

Truth brutal truth in its naked flesh! It burns my eyes

. . . . . . . .

I long to turn away from its vicious brilliance but it's seared there inside

Sleep is death ! it is death, movement, the walk to knowledge

Tell the world! See it written in the rope-twist of your entrails!!!

    [From "The Journals of the First Sleeper"]

These foundational texts, dismissed by the ignorant as the scribbles of a madwoman, were analyzed by our founder. It was clear to him that the words were more than the individual or collective meaning of each lexical unit; they were mathematical proofs, every statement intricately and inextricably linked to a corresponding equation of reality. Through this holy pilgrimage of thought, our founder became the High Logician and established the first House.

    [From "Arachne: Foundations of the Movement"]

Observe the universe and understand.

First: The answer blooms in the inescapable patterns of existence.

Then: Truth writes itself on the natural world.

At last: Life-death unveils.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

    [From "Edict of the Third Arm"]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Fragment 3

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Collected Excerpts

PERIOD: Various

TOPIC: Arachne Doctrine

SUMMARY: A collection of excerpts from various text-based sources. All excerpts appear to be linked by their relevance to the spiritual group Arachne, its formation, foundations, and evolution. Compiled by an unknown individual.

===================================================================

How long can the human brain be submitted to a state of partial function, and still "turn on" again without personality interruption? Is the mind that submits to suspension the same mind that wakes up from it? While these may seem like questions better left to the philosophers, they have important implications for the fledgling field of embodied connectomics. Cryogenic sleep will pave the way for long distance space travel, elective life extension, and medical advancement, yes, but also for even more radical neuroscientific discoveries.

    [From "Cryogenic Sleep: An Overview for Practitioners" by E. L. Singh]

Answers lie in the deep sleep. Cruel ocean. Void of the blink

They are building new mechanisms! to close our eyes

. . . . . . . .

renew our souls.

sleep sleep sleep sleep

sleep sleep sleep sleep waking will become irrelevant and we will sleep and can live there in the journey of sleep.

    [From "The Journals of the First Sleeper"]

When our prophet said "sleep," She meant "death," but a death from which the mind and body may recover. Remarkably, She predicted the technologies of the future, the practice of consciousness transference into biosynthetic bodies. This invention was the culmination of the First Sleeper's dream: a form of death that can exist in an infinite cycle. Far from being the "end" of death, as many naïve enthusiasts claimed, the science of biosynthetic shells made possible a live-die loop that need never end.

    [From "Arachne: Foundations of the Movement"]

Death is a promise, for each death holds the embryonic whisper of the next.

We sink into the grave and witness a new evolution of self.

What makes us human? What is lost in transformation? Questions such as these no longer serve us.

The sacred technicians have done away with death-as-an-end, so what remains? Beauty in the splatter, in the system's never-ending collapse.

    [From "Testimony of the Third Eye"]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Fragment 4

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Collected Excerpts

PERIOD: Various

TOPIC: Arachne Doctrine

SUMMARY: A collection of excerpts from various text-based sources. All excerpts appear to be linked by their relevance to the spiritual group Arachne, its formation, foundations, and evolution. Compiled by an unknown individual.

===================================================================

In its infancy, cryogenic sleep research faced many ethical hurdles. Survival rates in early trials were low in both human and non-human subjects, and even once lethality decreased, side effects were often extreme. Many participants opted out after their first exposure, and there were few options for 'locking' participants into extended trials. Luckily, public education on the subject, alongside increased participation incentives, improved return rates.

    [From "Cryogenic Sleep: An Overview for Practitioners" by E. L. Singh]

When I speak people turn away. They Lack belief and hold ego-self with grasping fingers begging to stay awake

it is soulsick selfishness to keep the terrible secret to myself. I will not hold them back from salvation!

Close their eyes

. . . . . . . .

to reveal truth and better they drown than writhe in ignorance!

    [From "The Journals of the First Sleeper"]

Death-sleep is a gift. It provides a pathway to insight that is otherwise unknowable for the only-living. And while it is the organism's responsibility to crawl tirelessly down that bloody pathway, even more imperative is the duty to guide others. This is its own route to insight, which we at Arachne hold as most sacred.

    [From "Arachne: Foundations of the Movement"]

With mathematical precision, excise pity from your heart.

To protect from destruction, to prevent annihilation, is true cruelty. To lovingly destroy, with vicious tenderness and unflinching resolve, is compassion.

This compassion must be available to all.

One must forge the audacity to kill the gods and wear their skin.

    [From "Edict of the Fourth Arm"]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Fragment 5

ANALYZING…

FILE TYPE: Collected Excerpts

PERIOD: Various

TOPIC: Arachne Doctrine

SUMMARY: A collection of excerpts from various text-based sources. All excerpts appear to be linked by their relevance to the spiritual group Arachne, its formation, foundations, and evolution. Compiled by an unknown individual.

===================================================================

Human participants in early cryosleep trials suffered debilitating side effects, not just from toxic cryoprotectants, but from extended periods in suspension. A cluster of symptoms loosely labelled "cryosickness," including post-thaw psychosis, were common after extended trials. "Relief periods" were introduced to mitigate these deleterious effects, where partial (or even full, short-term) restoration of function allowed recovery before returning to suspension.

    [From "Cryogenic Sleep: An Overview for Practitioners" by E. L. Singh]

It reaches with eight arms and stares with eight eyes

. . . . . . . .

Followed me from the Lack. Beautiful so callously beautiful. I close my eyes

. . . . . . . .

Cascading pattern of existence carved into my mind and into my flesh. Not knowing is suffering. Make them know! I will make them know. Severed severed sever sever sever sever sever severed

Sever the cord that holds them back

    [From "The Journals of the First Sleeper"]

The path the Severed follow is one of the infinite loop: Live, kill, die. They manifest the edicts from theory into corporeality; they spin a web of initiation out of the Houses and into the lives of the unknowing. The Severed enact the will dictated by the Arms, and create the world envisioned by the Eyes. Their doctrine is not theoretical. It is applied mathematics. Flesh and blood, circuits and servos.

    [From "Arachne: Foundations of the Movement"]

With each death, your senses are externalized. You become the center of a universal web.

Your yearning prey pluck the strands. You feel the hallowed oscillations.

You are a technology of death, a thanatoid machine. The organism becomes human becomes unhuman becomes posthuman becomes inevitable.

The spider consumes the silkworm.

    [From "Testimony of the Seventh Eye"]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Classified: Colony Anomaly Research

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Research Records

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: TCIV Anomalous Energy Research Correspondence

SUMMARY: Fragment of a Colony Science Command field specialist's notes regarding active research in the Dire Marsh Anomaly site. ===================================================================

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

TRANS. TYPE: Super-Coded

COMMS TYPE: Sci-Comm Internal

SUBJECT: RE: Ag site anomalous research

PRIORITY: URGENT  

#@~~-%32—!@…just the beginning. Consider it a new phase as we work towards establishing best practices in our approach to this investigation.

We are keeping the research team tight and focused for the time being, but we are open to expansion once base parameters for safety are established.

Our purpose here is to, first, ascertain which properties of the anomalous energy radiating from beneath this region are mappable. The energy's currently registered characteristics are foreign to all known patterns of energy recognition. There are hallmarks of chemical, elastic, electrical, gravitational, motion, nuclear, radiant, sonic, and thermal signatures popping across all instances of our initial readings, but they are fragmented, volatile and buried amongst mountains of indecipherable static. Honestly, the presence of just about every known energy type comingling in the feedback might say more about our instruments' ability to map reliable data from the source than it does about the nature of the Anomaly itself, though, even that—our most advanced tech and physics models returning what is essentially incomprehensible data—speaks volumes about the scale of mystery we are facing.

I've given…**!5@@```]]]

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Classified: Colony Anomaly Research

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Research Records

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: TCIV Anomalous Energy Research Correspondence

SUMMARY: Fragment of a Colony Science Command field specialist's notes regarding active research in the Dire Marsh Anomaly site.

===================================================================

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

TRANS. TYPE: Super-Coded

COMMS TYPE: Sci-Comm Internal

SUBJECT: RE: Ag site anomalous research

PRIORITY: URGENT

]]~~!7@ -? ~~…been over this with all the appropriate redundancies. Review and peer assessment protocols were followed in full. Obviously, the lack of advanced intelligence support limits the full scope of that work, but necessity is necessity and we can't risk exposing thinking machines to this radiation. We've all witnessed and reviewed the symptoms of that mistake, and safeguarding what intelligence support we've retained in the aftermaths of all we've endured must remain a priority.

What our thorough reviews of existing data have reaffirmed is that nothing in our pre-colonization or active planetary geo-surveillance research indicated any threat to our historical understanding of physics. Tau Ceti IV, and every advance and on-hand reading of the planet and its solar system, fit neatly into our established physic models. There was simply no reason, beyond make-believe, to plan for, or even consider, disruptions to the foundations of Standard Model, Quantum Mechanics, and Relativity as we know them. There was absolutely zero indication of an existential threat to our grasp of how the universe functions to raise concerns for Tau Ceti IV as a viable long-term home. Yet, here we are.

Seriously, even with all of the copious, torturous detail with which this mission, its operation and its successful longevity was planned, nothing could have prepared us for an encounter with the truest form of impossibility—at least as far as the whole of scientific history and its principles had prepared us. Even the event—even the fate of the Marathon itself as one hell of an outlier to the functional integrity of the colony was, at least in hindsight, something we could have addressed in auxiliary threat contingencies. I mean, we know intelligent life exists in the universe if by no other calculation than we believe ourselves to be intelligent. But why on earth—or Mars or Tau Ceti IV—would anyone waste time with counter-planning a breakdown in the fundamental, universal fabric of reality? They wouldn't. Until now. Until this anomaly and all the wrenches it throws into the principles of existence.

Not to add to the tension, but how do imagine we will ever…(((.4.2~~!!00?—

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Classified: Colony Anomaly Research

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Research Records

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: TCIV Anomalous Energy Research Correspondence

SUMMARY: Fragment of a Colony Science Command field specialist's notes regarding active research in the Dire Marsh Anomaly site.

===================================================================

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

TRANS. TYPE: Super-Coded

COMMS TYPE: Sci-Comm Internal

SUBJECT: RE: Ag site anomalous research

PRIORITY: URGENT

…still in the process of setting up the layered systems required to run the tests, but as of this morning the upper complex is repurposed for our needs. The equipment in the observation deck will need a test run once the backups are loaded and the facility's power supplies are properly routed, but we have assurances that all necessary work will be completed before the morning. First run remains on schedule.

Our goal is a light touch. We've seen the scaling of the data at the remote relay stations, and we cannot possibly reproduce that level of signal cycling with the Ag-Hub's set up. We know this. We are working within that understanding and focusing on surgical strikes as opposed to wholesale mapping of the Anomaly's patterns. Let's learn a little so we can learn to learn a lot.

Removing Darius helps in some ways. Vacating his core and partitioning him within a sealed logic capture removes him from any additional harm, but an unexpected side effect of that decision is that we can now utilize his core's processing as driver for these tests. With no intelligence to corrupt, the hope is we will get clean, if not confusing, readings channeled through the system with outputs we can study. Again, surgical strikes to pull reliable data with tangible properties we can study is the dream. Let's hope it doesn't all become another nightm…

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Classified: Colony Anomaly Research

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Research Records

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: TCIV Anomalous Energy Research Correspondence

SUMMARY: Fragment of a Colony Science Command field specialist's notes regarding active research in the Dire Marsh Anomaly site.

===================================================================

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

TRANS. TYPE: Super-Coded

COMMS TYPE: Sci-Comm Internal

SUBJECT: RE: Ag site anomalous research

PRIORITY: URGENT

*^; th? =  +  7 …omplex facility is up and running.

Site is locked down. Cleared Sci-Comm personnel only with security details on alert if needed to avoid any unauthorized drop-ins. So far, so good. Everyone understands the gravity of the situation, even if we do not fully understand the literal gravity of the situation.

As noted previously, the tear and physical presence of the Anomaly has seemed to reach a point of stability. What properties are allowing it to exist in a self-contained state without its energies pouring out remains unexplained. The energies should spread or dissipate but, like everything else about the Anomaly it continues to act in unexpected ways. Yassyl and Galliart on the theoretic studies side are putting together proposals as we run live field tests, but so far at no point have our guesses and the results we're mapping aligned. We still have no measurable path toward understanding what we're dealing with or how it tangibly affects our universe. We only know it's outside-known physics. How outside is anyone's guess.

We've started our testing with an attempt to map the stability—what's holding the bulk of the energy in place. Yassyl believes if we can get a grasp on the containment, we may be able to replicate it and use those findings to excise samples of the core energies with more focused, testable artifacts of the whole. Just one of a dozen approaches we are engineering. Not telling which one or ones will move the need….O´.$b:%A~ .. .

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Classified: Colony Anomaly Research

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Research Records

PERIOD: Colony Era

TOPIC: TCIV Anomalous Energy Research Correspondence

SUMMARY: Fragment of a Colony Science Command field specialist's notes regarding active research in the Dire Marsh Anomaly site.

===================================================================

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

TRANS. TYPE: Super-Coded

COMMS TYPE: Sci-Comm Internal

SUBJECT: RE: Ag site anomalous research

PRIORITY: URGENT

>[] [^x%] 5^ :: oae9…last report.

Securing facility and abandoning zone.

Any progress we've made is too little and likely too late. Too many factors outside our control and too many variables to account for. Maybe with one or more intelligences online to drive through the confusion in the data we'd stand a chance of even scraping the surface of the Anomaly, but the threat of corruption is already an active, live-fire concern. We'd risk too much hooking up a healthy AI to the data stream, let alone any that have compromised protocols.

Our basic equipment was just never enough to break the chaos of the Anomaly's output. No matter how we reworked, rewired, or re-engineered the devices, we could only ever pull indecipherable gigatons of data—readings upon readings we just can't read.

We're staring at a true and astonishing universal unknown and our best brains—organic, anyway—can't crack it. We'll keep trying. We will. But, in the moment, as we close down this endeavor, this feels like an end. Like a real, true, and total defeat.

Some want to push through, but leadership can't allow it. Not locally. We have other priorities. Other fires. Any further investigation will have to be remote. For now, anyway. Maybe someday we'll return but any hope of that feels like a long shot. But the good thing about "someday" is that it's tomorrow's problem. So, as long as we can solve for each new day, there's a chance answers will come. Just not sure we'll be alive to see….i %4n..? ~~;>eE~

[[[[[[[[[[CLASSIFIED]]]]]]]]]]

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Field Observation [346.2]

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Science and Security Report

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: TCIV Anomaly Investigation

SUMMARY: Stolen research report on UESC Security Forces investigations into the Tau Ceti IV Anomaly.

===================================================================

uesc.sci0003.tciv

[scidiv._tcivXXXXXXXXX]

—————————————————————————————————-

ACTIVE RESEARCH INVESTIGATION

SUBJECT: TCIV Anomaly, initial observations [0000346 con't]

LOCATION: Agricultural Hub, New Cascadia [outskirts], TCIV

AUTHOR: uesc.sci0003.tciv

ACCESS: CLASSIFIED

—————————————————————————————————-

FIELD OBSERVATION [0000346.2]:

Everything remains speculative as we're still scratching the surface of what the Anomaly is:

• Its point of origin [subterranean, but undefined]

• Why it's here and the state of it [seemingly dormant but passively active]

• How colony leadership and Sci-Comm discovered and engaged with it in the first place

These are a few of the core concerns we are exploring as we ascertain next best steps.

Protocol dictates we start with the basics, but we are not helped by the fact we were entirely unprepared for an investigation of this type. The original Marathon mission had decades of focused planning to consider all the complications they may face on their journey and throughout settling the Tau Ceti system. Decades, plus centuries, and they never came close to establishing contingencies for post-physics investigations in any of their speculative discovery or threat assessments. Can't blame them for being unprepared; it's an impossible task to consider every version of the impossible. Still, at this early stage of investigation, it appears that they did their best with what knowledge, tools, and tech they had available to them, especially when noting the apparent complications with their planetary and shipboard support intelligences.

All that time, and the end result is an abandoned colony, corrupted systems, and endless unknowns. By comparison, we had the blink of an eye to prep and consider our objectives in reaching and contacting whatever remained of the colony or its systems. Our focus was—and remains until further notice—rescue, security, and retention of proprietary and intel, tech, and science. Our focus was on assumptions based on historical evidence related to lost contact events across Sol, not on the sudden and overt disruption of our understanding of the natural world.

Luckily, from a science and research standpoint, we are adaptable and eager to explore all possibility spaces. Starting with our current best guess at what we believe is the colony's most direct and focused effort to examine the Anomaly: the Ag-Hub surface breach phenomenon, which, to this point, represents the most obvious point of contact between the colony and the Anomaly proper.

===================================================================

TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Field Observation [371.6]

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Science and Security Report

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: TCIV Anomaly Investigation

SUMMARY: Stolen research report on UESC Security Forces investigations into the Tau Ceti IV Anomaly.

===================================================================

uesc.sci0003.tciv

[scidiv._tcivXXXXXXXXX]

—————————————————————————————————-

ACTIVE RESEARCH INVESTIGATION

SUBJECT: TCIV Anomaly, initial observations [0000371 con't]

LOCATION: Agricultural Hub, New Cascadia [outskirts], TCIV

AUTHOR: uesc.sci0003.tciv

ACCESS: CLASSIFIED

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FIELD OBSERVATION [0000371.6]:

New Cascadia Science Command initiated active research into the local anomalous phenomenon near the Ag-Hub operations complex with limited success. Cursory observation suggests their direct experimentation with the exposed Anomaly was hampered by the limitations of their available technology. Tapping into subterranean energy reading as monitored in the Perimeter site data wall and relay string is one thing. And credit where due—for being faced with a discovery of this scale, they and their equipment made an impressive stand. Their ingenuity and determination are impressive. But, big picture, they were grasping at straws and facing self-inflicted limitations. Without AI support to siphon mappable data points from their readings, they were just dealing with too much information to parse.

We have a base understanding of issues with rampancy within the colony and ship AI, but we've only been in-system a short while, so it will take time to fully piece together how, why, when colony infrastructure became compromised. The fact we have no obvious signs of AI operation or communication, joined with the presence of quarantine sites and the wholly unexpected discovery of the Anomaly itself, all point toward complications in need of individual, dedicated examination.

Basically, we have zero connection with any of the colony's 11 intelligence systems—an overlapping series of suites designed specifically to address and eliminate any fatal flaws within the colony's primary support technologies. This alone is considered an extinction-level threat to the colonization efforts and any hope for long-term survivability. Add a quarantine-level contagion event or events and, at a distance, the mysteries of New Cascadia's fate start to paint a series of obvious pictures. Only nothing is obvious, because we have an actively static geyser of unknown energy with wholly alien characteristics tearing through the surface of the planet and cursory evidence that its presence can lethally disrupt both technical systems and biologic stability.

We came here as the tip of a spear dedicated to answering the mysteries of the Marathon's fate as a headline-grabber back home, with explicit orders to establish a beachhead for the reclamation of lost technologies. We are now faced with a race to unlock and control an understanding of a new energy source—its potential, its dangers—before our competitors and enemies can do the same. No small task in a vacuum, and made more difficult by the rising threat of trespassers making their way to Tau Ceti.

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TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Field Observation [379.4]

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Science and Security Report

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: TCIV Anomaly Investigation

SUMMARY: Stolen research report on UESC Security Forces investigations into the Tau Ceti IV Anomaly.

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uesc.sci0003.tciv

[scidiv._tcivXXXXXXXXX]

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ACTIVE RESEARCH INVESTIGATION

SUBJECT: TCIV Anomaly, initial observations [0000379 con't]

LOCATION: Agricultural Hub, New Cascadia [outskirts], TCIV

AUTHOR: uesc.sci0003.tciv

ACCESS: CLASSIFIED

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FIELD OBSERVATION [0000379.4]:

Establishing a focal point for the study of the Anomaly's energy signatures is vital to setting a foundation for our research. The colony's facilities in the Upper Complex region are currently being augmented with our own tech to bolster their functionality and expand our ability to gather readings. Their tech may be vastly outdated compared to our own, but there are numerous points of unique evolution within their systems providing angles of engagement with the Anomaly's output that would be beyond our ability to execute without their early works to build from. It's even more interesting than I had imagined how slight branches in technological advancements from one civilization to the next can yield parallel but unconsidered opportunities.

Example: Removed for four-plus centuries from directly inspiring one another, and with earlier, direct exposure to the Anomaly's post-physics disruptions, the New Cascadia science teams, with inferior computational (and just generally lesser operational) bandwidth across their systems, found ways to cycle their data collection through looping throughways that allows multiple machines to share the burden of the inbound data. This doesn't and couldn't possibly solve the problem they were tackling, at no fault of their own—again, doing the best with what they had available—but it does provide us with a series of buffers through which to run collected data before siphoning specific readings for dedicated analysis.

Their issue wasn't brainpower, but tech limitations. They were on the right path. Even at this early point in our study of their efforts, we can see promise. Take their field experimentations. The colony had no autonomous units or shell tech to aid in their hands-on investigations. They had no choice but to get up close and personal, with seemingly tragic results (as observed in our friend floating some meters above the marshland).

We've stepped aggressively into the unknown, and what I'm saying is, the foundation laid by those who came before will accelerate our own efforts to establish a baseline understanding. The Complex facility is just the beginning—as long as we can be allowed to focus on the work and avoid too many disruptions.

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TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Field Observation [401.3]

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Science and Security Report

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: TCIV Anomaly Investigation

SUMMARY: Stolen research report on UESC Security Forces investigations into the Tau Ceti IV Anomaly.

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uesc.sci0003.tciv

[scidiv._tcivXXXXXXXXX]

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ACTIVE RESEARCH INVESTIGATION

SUBJECT: Securing Anomaly research sites [0000401 con't]

LOCATION: Agricultural Hub, New Cascadia [outskirts], TCIV

AUTHOR: uesc.sci0003.tciv

ACCESS: CLASSIFIED

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FIELD OBSERVATION [0000401.3]:

Runners are a problem.

We do not have the resources to properly protect our work against invasive scavenger activity.

We are employing all available deterrents, and Security Command has allocated a steady refresh of combat units dedicated to research defense, but any expectation that we can eliminate Runner interference will only set us up for disappointment. We must remain diligent and brutal in our response to their activities—there can be no "open door" policy—but I would like to suggest a caveat to our frustrations with their continued intrusion. Bear with me, as what I am about to suggest is counter to all existing mandates, but worthy of consideration given the realities of both the Runner threat and the general complexities associated with investigating truly alien phenomenon.

If we cannot wholly remove Runner disruptions from our workflows, then let's roll their activities into our planning, review, and outcome assessments. The bastards are near impossible to track, but if we focus surveillance not on the Runner themselves but on tracking energy sigs tied to the Anomaly, we can continue to gather and track anomalous data across the zone, at least up to the point of their exit.

This is not to suggest we allow Runners to hijack our facilities. I'm simply acknowledging that they will have their successes in subverting our defenses. Losing sight of that reality as an opportunity would be ignoring the truth of our circumstance—which is, plainly, Runners are here to stay. Until/unless those circumstances shift greatly in our favor, we must find ways to exploit their presence.

So then, where and how can we use Runner complications as unwanted but understood extensions of our own workflows? From a mission security POV, it is simply turning a known point of attrition—data and resources lost to interference—into a possibly reliable source of ancillary data. They're already here working for any number of cross agendas. It is my contention we need to find ways to make those agendas work for us, where and when we can, all while maintaining strict and violent deterrence as our main course of resistance to their activities.

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TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]

Field Observation [22716.2]

ANALYZING…  

FILE TYPE: UESC Science and Security Report

PERIOD: Present Day

TOPIC: TCIV Anomaly Investigation

SUMMARY: Stolen research report on UESC Security Forces investigations into the Tau Ceti IV Anomaly.

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uesc.sci0003.tciv

[scidiv._tcivXXXXXXXXX]

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ACTIVE RESEARCH INVESTIGATION

SUBJECT: Strange phenomena and security concerns [00022716 con't]

LOCATION: Agricultural Hub, New Cascadia [outskirts], TCIV

AUTHOR: uesc.sci0003.tciv

ACCESS: CLASSIFIED

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FIELD OBSERVATION [00022716.2]:

Something is waking in the night. Some variances in the Anomaly's energies are shifting as the planet rotates away from its star. It's subtle in the readings, but something about the shift in the gravitational influences on the site are causing abnormalities across multiple observed phenomena.

It started with the avian calls—mimicked speech that mirrors colony records but is mainly heard at night. The skracs are not silent or shy in their generally observed behavior, but tend to "speak" during the darkest hours as the Anomaly's patterns increase.

Then, there were reports of movements in the dark. First accounts were labeled as Runner activity, but repeated "sightings" included damaged shells left to rot shifting in their placements—a few meters here or there, or gone entirely. Runners are scavengers—picking at an abandoned shell is commonplace—but the change in locations and the patterns of distant movement observed were only ever seen at night, and only ever recorded within the Ag-Hub.

We know the Anomaly affects technological and biological systems. Shells are both. We know the Anomaly caused both colony-era intelligence systems and colonists to report hallucinations, as if proximity to its influence manipulated perception. Could a neural-free shell be affected in the same way? Theoretically, could the residual self of a violently ejected Runner mind leave enough identity behind for the Anomaly to affect? At first blush, it's a far-fetched conceit—afterthoughts given rabid purpose by invasive alien energies—but we are well beyond dismissing the improbable in favor or expecting it.

I, for one, need more data before I'm willing to dive too deeply into fantasies of reanimated shells and the danger such horrors present. But Orion has other plans. Any threat we identify, no matter how speculative, gets a full security review and actionable defense assessment. Meaning: Cerberus will need access to our data. We've done well to keep him removed from our work to avoid the complications observed in colony AI records. And we've limited his access to focus his interest on our collated reports. This gives him insight into the data while maintaining an arm's length between his systems and the raw anomalous outputs. But, even with our precautions, care is required to safeguard against his curiosity. He understands the risk exposure to the Anomaly poses to his functionality, but as threats to our operational integrity increase, his willingness to accept limited access will be tested.

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TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [  ]