First Contact - Second Resurgence Wave Chpt 529.130 I See You

marco your name is marco

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DAY FIFTY-SIX

PERSONAL PROJECT STATUS: CLASSIFIED

CORPORATE PROJECT STATUS: BREAKTHROUGH

A personal note: They're talking about me, I know it.

On the advice of Mister McNugget, we compared the bare bones code the system loaded up against current code. While we could see how things had been layered onto the system, we could not tell what order despite looking for everything.

See, the problem is thus: If you take a bunch of files and one at a time save them as patches you can look at the file creation/modification dates. However, if you copy ALL of the files once you have them all patched and put together, to the new location, all of the time/date stamps for both creation and last access are the same.

This eliminates forensic computer examination to determine the file age.

However, Mister McNugget has a different way of looking at it. Xer is a corporate entity through and through. Joined NSO at the age of twenty-five as a management intern and has clawed xer's way up through the intense fight.

Additionally he has the 'corporate eye' as she likes to put it. It allows xer to examine things and come to his own conclusions that might not be obvious to anyone other than him.

After a couple hours of examination xir began to identify sections of code that were patched in to patch something else.

Xster McNugget has stated that some time after the initial 'skeletal code' was established, corporations or governments began to layer things is. Xir reminded us that she is the direct descendant of General McNugget, who burned Tampa to the ground during the War of the Box, and that although he dislikes it, xe is perfectly capable of looking at things with a corporate military eye.

Another breakthrough is the fact that the Hardware Analysis Team has been working on what all of the circuits in the bare bone system do.

One of the circuits is responsible for phasic transmission. You read that right. Phasic transmission.

Despite everyone know that you cannot transmit phasic energy through electronics, there is a section there that allows the transfer of phasic energy.

However, the circuits are energized and throw the small strange-matter fuses the minute the system is engaged.

The Hardware Analysis Team has posited that the system is engaged with some kind of energy overflow.

To that extent, we activated a repeater in a phasically clean chamber, allowing no leakage in or out.

The system powered up, and the phasic circuitry went live and blew the strange-matter fuses.

The system is capable of making phasic energy record transmissions, but whatever is pushing that signal is overloaded.

A breakthrough, but not one we understand.

DECODE BLOCK? Y/N

>Y

PERSONAL ADDENDUM

Today at lunch Doctor Hermans and I almost confronted one another.

I saw a tiny ant, bright red, crawl out from under his fingernail and onto the table. I crushed it with my middle finger and held it up for him to see.

He turned red at seeing I had seen what he had tried to do. That he had tried to put that ant into someone's food so it would infest them. That I had crushed his minion.

He now knows that I know.

--Marco

DAY SIXTY-THREE

Mister McNugget and I nearly had a shouting match. I referred to him as 'she' for some reason. Which is odd. Mister McNugget is in a male's body, is using the name Carl Susan McNugget, his digital ID visible through your datalink lists his gender as male.

Why did I refer to him as a 'she'?

He then remembered that I am off of my medication and merely gently suggested I take a second to ensure that I correctly gender people.

It felt off to me. I don't know why.

Oh well.

--Marco

DAY SIXTY-EIGHT

Personal Project: No Change

Corporate Project: Stalemate

I know I'm off my medication. That things are different and my perceptions are skewed.

I wish I could examine my previous journal entries, but their under security lockdown.

I could swear that Doctor Nyomn was a male. Yet, there she stands, five foot three, one hundred two pounds (pounds? Why pounds? Why not kilos?), brown hair, brown skin, green eyes. Female secondary characteristics and primary characteristics.

Yet I seem to recall her being a male.

Going off my medication, I don't remember the whispers last time. They're in the shadows, in the dark.

I've taken to sleeping with a night light.

Mister McNugget has asked me if I'm sure I should be off my medication.

I know there is a good reason. My thoughts move faster, I make deductions quicker, I can put logic chains together faster.

Mister McNugget checked my speed test for logic puzzles by comparing results done now to my prior corporate testing. I'm over 275% faster.

I can tell I make him uneasy, but what do you expect?

I have a hypothesis, but it's not able to be proven.

I'd have to create an experimental clone, and I won't do that.

Another note. I've smelled cigarette smoke a few times in the corridors, yet there are no Treana'ad on our research team. I've informed maintenance.

--Marco

you know who you are

DAY SEVENTY-TWO

Yesterday we have a breakthrough, if you want to call it that. I guess you could.

The network started doing rapid data transfers. Really fast ones. For roughly an hour.

Then it went completely dead. Still. All but a single molecule/atom of the spooky matter dissolved away. It then all reformed, and the system began transmitting as normal.

We're not sure why.

The other strange thing is there was a heavily encoded message that appeared on the internal mail server, addressed to nobody, with no origin address. It's from something or someone called "ARCHANGEL GABRIEL" but the message is so heavily encoded even Green Team Three is stumped.

I found half a pack of cigarettes with the label "LUCKY STRIKE" on them in the female bathroom when I went to check the smell of cigarette smoke. I turned them into security and now we're on a low level lockdown.

Mister McNugget had to deal with several dozen of the security personnel breaking open the armory and getting out weapons. There was a full blown firefight in C-Section as the security personnel had to do fire and advance on something. Casualties were bad. Out of sixty men and women who did a sweep and clear of C-Section, twenty-two are dead and nineteen are injured.

Mister McNugget came to my room late this evening, apologizing for interrupting my day off, and handed me an Iron Key of all things. It contains the footage. He asked me took it over, uncharacteristically intense for such a quiet and thoughtful man.

I looked it over.

your name is marco

There is no evidence of gunfire or other violence directed toward the security teams, but each time you can see the effects of gunfire upon the bodies, armor, or shielding of the security personnel.

I saw a secman get his head blown off by nothing and another secman get grabbed, their left arm pulled over their head, and a, and stick with me here, shot them through the armpit and into their chest with the weapon of a previously killed secman.

Despite the video evidence, they were engaged with something.

Something deadly.

There's something going on.

I checked everyone's biometrics and pictures against who I am in here with.

They all match.

So why do I feel something is off.

In closing, after much deliberation, I have decided that it is unethical to create a clone to experiment on.

But what if, stay with me here, what if... I do the experiment on myself.

We still have the capability to cross-sheathe. I can switch to a new sheathe with what I need.

--Marco

DAY SEVENTY-FOUR

I cross-sheathed. I have no standard SUDS, just what we're calling a Gen-Zero SUDS implant and a datalink, Pre-Glassing version. It's bulkier, different circuitry.

It's funny how documentation and exactly how something is done can be lost in such a short amount of time.

While normally I should have been yelled at by Mister McNugget, he didn't seem to care.

While I was being resheathed, there was another firefight in C-Section. A squad got pinned down and massacred. Eight secmen killed.

Security footage is, well, confusing.

Mister McNugget figured it out within viewing sixty seconds of video footage.

The hour long firefight last week? The hour long firefight this week?

They're the same incident.

Somehow, the team from this week opened fire on the team from last week after someone cut the throat of the team leader.

Except, the team leader is alive. They survived having their throat cut.

I viewed the data.

I didn't say anything, although Hermans is looking at me like he knows, with those ants squirming under his skin.

Other than that, there's nothing yet.

--Marco

he knows he knows he knows he knows

DAY EIGHTY-ONE

Earth is gone. Sorry, TerraSol is gone. Something called "System Demi-Dimensional Security System" kicked in, AKA "Bagging" the system.

At last communication with corporate, over twenty MILLION Lanaktallan ships had attacked Fortress Sol.

We've got a problem.

Our only contact is through a superluminal array that communicates ONLY with Terra.

We have no contact.

Worse, we have no FTL.

We're stuck here.

DAY EIGHT-SEVEN

A Screaming One.

Holy shit, I was attacked by a Screaming One.

It happened after a test on the relay system. Mister McNugget has demanded that every testing team is escorted by at least five secmen.

They reinforced the phasic circuitry, upped the p-amperage of the fuses, and turned the system on.

Doctor Relklink began shrieking, frothing at the mouth. He attacked everyone.

He killed half of Phasic Interaction Research, two of the secmen.

Doctor Ulnith beat him to death with an oscilloscope.

I was in the bathroom, in the last stall, making notes, when the lights in the bathroom went out.

A Terran male kicked open the door, stark naked, and attacked me. They were frothing at the mouth, screaming, bleeding from their eye sockets.

I put the heel of my hand into the bottom of their chin and while their throat was exposed drove my stylus into their windpipe before giving them a punch just beneath the sternum to make their heart and lungs forget how to work.

I stood over him and watched him die.

A Screaming one.

A fucking Screaming One attacked me.

ME!

ATTACKED FUCKING ME!

Security isn't sure where they came from. Everyone is accounted for.

Except for him.

I saw Mister McNugget look at me.

He recognized him.

After all, I'd killed him the same way this time too.

--Marco

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your name is marco