RECV EDC: 07JAN2019
COMM MODE: DSN REFLECT
CODED ABST: D/M/C
CRC: 2820485004 10514
============================================================
Nothing clears your mind like getting kicked in the head.
About sixty of this planet's long days ago, I had a run-in
with the local guard. Like most local guards, they don't
appreciate the homeless, and the homeless don't appreciate
them. At the time I hadn't eaten for two sleep cycles, and I
was moody and inconsiderate; I expressed my feelings with my
fists and the guards repaid in kind, first with their fists
and then with their heavy boots.
Honestly, The kick to the head, with its resulting loss of
consciousness, was a welcomed relief after the repeated
blows to the stomach and external obliques.
After our brief and overly-physical dialogue, the local
guard was kind enough to titra-bind me and drop me of at the
brig, where they were a bit more compassionate and I was a
lot less combative. Without removing the binding, I was
placed in medical rehab for two of their days. The best part
was the tube feeding. At least I was no longer hungry.
When I was well enough, I was freed from my chemical-
mechanical shackles and placed in holding, where I could
consider my situation. After quite a few days in
confinement waiting for my trial, I came to the point that
I had fallen into voluntary poverty and obscurity for: I was
finally ready to communicate everything that had been
harrowing my mind in the most acute ways. All that was left
was to escape- it was a comforting and familiar position for
me, made even more bright by the prospect of getting a heavy
weight off my chest.
With patience, tact, and perfect complacency, I allowed the
local legal system to accuse, try, and sentence me to a
lifetime of slavery in their largest planetary industry for
my attack on their local guard. The whole process took one
morning. I cheerfully worked in their sulfesium mines,
outperforming the rest of the rabble and placating my
superiors for a week or two; enough to gain the tiny level
of trust needed to stage an escape.
From that escape to this terminal is not important. I'm
stalling, I think. It's time to get to the point of this
transmission: What happened in the Corporation labs.
If you have my previous transmissions, you already know that
I was working a legitimate mining contract when I was
arrested on false charges of skimming, then spirited to a
lab to become the Corporation's newest test subject. What
you don't know is how the Corporation had previously placed
me in confined and solitary work conditions in order to
complete complex, long-term bioscans, which showed that I
was a viable test candidate. What I thought were odd work
conditions were actually a pre-screening phase.
Much of my time in the labs was spent under heavy sedation.
Clearly, I have nothing to report about those times.
Eventually, however, I came to a full and comprehensive
state of consciousness; it was so acute and sudden that it
felt like falling out of bed in the middle of a dream.
Instead of landing on the floor, I found myself strapped to
a table, surrounded by masked scientists, one holding a
large needle that had apparently just come out of my
forearm. My head was viced in some sort of contraption so
that I couldn't move any part of it, couldn't speak or get
any better view than I had. My senses were heightened; I
could feel the small stream of blood coming from my right
basilic vein where the needle had been.
There was no gentle nurse to stanch the flow with a bit of
sterile fluff. My mouth started to taste like a cocktail of
lido-sevofluride and some unknown narcotic, as the injection
took full effect.
"He must be fully awake for the cerebellum portion- for the
cerocartographic images be usable."
"Will this alter the parity?"
One of the masked faces turned toward me. My vision was
painfully amplified, and like an eagle looking at fish
under the surface of a lake, I almost thought I saw
compassionate eyes.
"Yes. It will alter the parity, but the scan is complete and
the subject will be terminated after the final procedure.
The image-con won't recall this episode, short-term memory
is independent of the cerocarts."
At the word "terminated" a scream started to rumble in my
lungs, but was arrested by some kind of brace around my
trachea that included a needle into my larynx.
"If he's awake, won't he move, when he feels the pain?"
"He will, but his head and neck are entirely immobilized.
The unknown chemicals that they had used to rouse me were
overloading my senses. I could identify even the slightest
variations in the voices around me; so far, two male
scientists were interrogating one female scientist, the one
that had looked me in the eyes. Though my head could not
budge in the slightest, I was starting to become cognizant
of all the metallic surfaces around me that offered usable
reflections. Without trying, I formed an image of the entire
room from the reflections, as if I could see what was going
on from an out-of-body perspective.
A brusque male voice now took up the interrogation.
"You didn't need to bring him up like that- what was in that
formula?"
Another voice in the background, mechanical and grating as
if it was piped in through some archaic low-tech speaker
system, brought the argument to a close.
"It doesn't matter, it's done, and we have no time. Move
forward with the cerocarts immediately. Dr. Sossial, you
brought him up, you can clean up the mess when we're
through."
The mask with the hidden eyes nodded, and as the others
moved into position for the work ahead of them, I saw her
pause for a brief moment. My elevated senses pushed even
further, driven by a burst of adrenaline, and time slowed.
Without lifting her arm, I noted in my reflected image of
the room that she was making a signal with her right
fingers, and then with her left. Microseconds all told, and
she had repeated it again, right-then-left.
Darius, if you're reading this, it was the sign of the Xero
Mods. This scientist, so deeply embedded in the
Corporation's human experimentation and wetware branch, was
a purelife-entity extremist. If she was here, and if she was
in a position of knowledge-dominance even among what must be
the leading scientists in this field, then I might have an
opportunity for escape. The room was small, and had one
exit. There were seven scientists present, counting the
Xero-mod. The restraints were auto-harness instead of
individual. I might just have a chance, with help...
All of this I took in and evaluated in the few seconds I had
between the crackly-speaker-voice's command and the flip of
the cerocartographer's switch. My chemically-heightened
senses, which were such a blessing in understanding and
capturing these very brief moments of consciousness, now
became a wretched curse as a blazing column of pain was
thrust in through the top of my neck and straight down my
spine.
I longed to feel the relief of a scream, but I could make no
sound.
No one who has felt that amount of pain can accurately tell
how long they had to endure it, for such pain always lasts
an eternity. Even so, the pain ended as abruptly as it
began, and I found myself still under the effects of the
injection; I saw the room again. The scientists were slowly
making their ways to counters, where they were taking off
gloves and masks, flipping switches and pulling out tubes,
and dropping various instruments into metal tubs filled with
a viscous blueish liquid.
"It's done. Finish and mop up, Sossial." came one final
command from the speaker-voice before a sign-off signal
blipped. The Xero-mod female was still standing over the
table. Seconds after the command, she reached over and
pulled the release on the auto-harness. The body-belts, neck
and larynx mount, and head mount detached with a hiss and
lifted promptly and obediently away from my body.
There would be no pleasure, for me, in relating what I did
to the scientists in that small room- with the exception of
the Xero-mod, who I left alive. Upon finding myself freed, I
lept up from the table and realized that the injection had
not only given me heightened senses, but peaked physical
performance as well. The Xero-mod stood by as I had my
chemically-driven revenge on these unknown assailants. At
the end, she removed her mask and simple said, "run."
Darius, I have to believe you're going to receive this
transmission. It was you who introduced me- a reluctant
skeptic- to the Xero mods and their ideals. I always figured
they were right, but I never imagined that I would caught up
in their intrigues. You showed me their signs, and explained
their doctrines, and tried to convince me. You showed me
the theoretical tech they were fighting against, the
researched that proved there battle was real.
I didn't care. I didn't see how it mattered: if a being
decided to mod, that was there choice; if they "stayed
pure," as you put it, that was also their choice. You warned
me, Darius, that eventually it would not come down to
individual choice, but to force.
You were right.
Based on the technology that I encountered, the theoretical
tech you showed me is no longer a theory. The Corporation
is working on forced-mod programs, and the mother-of-all
abuses, the forced transfer of consciousness. The scans they
described and the machines they were using, even the blue-
bath for the equipment- were just as you showed me they
would be.
There's just one thing that keeps me in fear at this point,
and that is the fact that the final scan was completed
before I could break out. The Corporation has my
consciousness, Darius, if the process worked. You already
know that the tech for a willful transfer is available, but
this extraction tech is different. I'm convinced that they
made a copy. They were going to copy-and-terminate, rather
than transfer. It's the only explanation that makes sense,
but it's weak. I need help. I need someone who can help me
make sense of it all. And more than anything else, I need to
make sure the Corporation doesn't have my mind.
I'm afraid to go anywhere, to do anything that I myself
might logically predict. Find me, Darius, or help me find
you. I need to know more from the Xero-mods. I'll keep
looking for you, and I'll try to think of a way to meet you
that I wouldn't think of, if that's even possible.
