Captain Cooks Journal
It was to have been a warrior’s death. A last stand upon the
frozen tundra of Acrturus . A
desperate act, one that would permit the battered remnants of a REF taskforce
to depart. One that would permit me to die with dignity.
The plans of mice and men.
I recall looking up, I imagined that I saw the face of Beta
Ray as the commandeered Robotech Assault
Carrier lifted clear and raced away. Then the indescribable pain as my
chest was ripped asunder. The life being crushed from my body as a swarm of
mutated things , play toys of the Invid Brain , trampled my corpse.
What I had could not have comprehended at the time was the
tenacity of the nanites within my system, nor how advanced my transition.
When exactly, the Invid
Brain captured, I don’t recall. So many memories…..Lost. I remember the anger, hatred as the Brain lost interest in pursuing my
evolutionary path and cast me aside. Yet another broken creature locked in the
prison that was Formicarium.
I digress, it is hard to focus these days. The Aftermath of the Exodus .
I awoke, though that would be a simplification, it shall
suffice. The creature that was Captain James
Cook resembled little better than road kill, that of which I could see. My
head lay at an impossible angle, neck clearly broken. My entrails ran off some distance, lost to my
view.
Carnage lay as far as I could see, though when one can’t
lift their head, that is not very far.
Movement caught my eye, was it carrion? So, I had awakened
only to experience being eaten alive?
Through the snow, a fleshy monstrosity lurched towards me. Burnt and
disfigured, it writhed in pain, fixing me with a baleful glare. Strands of my
entrails hung from its mouth.
Sniffing the air, cautiously if crept forward. The
creature’s bloody maw opened, and I heard the sound of grinding bones. Fleshy tendrils, interwoven with a spiderweb
lattice of metallic black, wrapped about the beast’s jaw. Others forced their
way down its gullet.
The role of Hunter and Prey changed in less than a heartbeat.
I was not in control of my body, a thought that should had terrified me. Yet I
felt nothing. I was completely devoid of emotions, pain did not wrack my living
corpse.
In a disturbing puppetry, I watched as my nanite infested intestines
writhed over the creature, slowly devouring it. Fuel and building material. I
can only assume that I was the preferred vessel, and I required repair and
restoration.
Formicarium.
An everchanging rats’ nest of buildings and structures.
Repurposed from the abandoned remains of a deep core mine, the Prison was
ignored and not spoken of but the society of Arcturus . The relentless march of the Invid forces, under the Regent swept across the planet,
enslaving or slaughtering. The ruling government of the day, sought to make the
planet uninhabitable for the Invid, detonating atomic weaponry and scouring the
sky black. Subjecting the planet to an Atomic Winter.
Every society makes the same kinds of mistakes.
I have trouble sleeping these days. The nanites hunger,
their insatiable hunger, must be satisfied as best I can. Formicarium
was my only choice, though I swore that I would never return. Plugged
in or merged with on of the
computer terminals at an old guard station, I find a small degree of peace.
More so when I can read the stories left by the ghosts of this facility.
While the nanites draw off power from the system, their
whispering stops. Whispered demands, feed us, teach us, obey us.
Each day we challenge each other for control. Sometimes our
interests align.
The Flesh Mutation evolutionary track that the Invid Brain chose, has completely taken
over the city. Of the five rings of this prison society, all have been
absorbed. Spawned beasts blunder through the buildings, fighting and absorbing
one another.
Black Bioroids
still prowl the facility, choosing favourable test subjects. Depositing them
into the digestive genepool . Radio requests
The Captain is lonely. It is odd, I didn’t know that I could
feel that emotion anymore. The
nanites are concerned for the welfare of those who may not have managed to get
to the Exodus ships. This confuses me, time confuses me.
Exodus was millennia ago, was it not?
Managed to tap into a weather station above ground, this was
a pleasing achievement for us both. The data and video feeds received however
were not pleasing.
The Brain has
begun seeding the surface. Ice age beasts, reminiscent of Earths past roam the
terrain. Oxygen and temperature levels are rising.
A message has been sent, aligned to the telemetry that we
suspect the REF Taskforce to be
stationed. Memories are fleeting, I recall names, but not faces. Beta Ray, Xander , they need to be made
aware of what is transpiring here.
Contagion
Something has changed within the creatures that inhabit Formicarium . We have witnessed
increased levels of aggression and destructiveness. More noteworthy however,
this appears to be a new transmission vector.
Whilst observing fighting between various sets of creatures,
it becomes quickly evident as to which side shall prevail. Success is awarded
to the mutated side capable of inflicting damage and strikes before its
opponent. The defeated side, if it is not consumed, stumbles away in a stupor.
We deduct in order for whatever excessive mutations to take
place in relative peace. Some resemblance to the original host remans, though
limited. We are in agreeance that the Brain
has lost patience with the timeframe of its experiment.
Should this strain of mutation reach the surface, it would
become a plague. The nanites and I have
chosen to capture a specimen to study. Knowledge if power, we shall map the
changes of the mutating DNA/RNA and determine predictive algorithms. Setbacks
Arrogance, a most human trait. This vessel, this body does
not more in the way that I recall. The capture of one of the smaller lone
beasts was a failure. I was bitten, the nanites were forced to wrest control as
the stupor that we had witnessed previously took hold.
The nanites fight the toxins now, while I seek out a new location
for us to hide. Like a fool, my injuries
painted a pheromone trail directly back to the guard station from which we had
been observing.
The energy required for these mutations is astonishing, that
we were always needing to feed previously. Now the requirements outstrip my
capacity to supply.
Memories have surfaced, memories I thought lost to the brain
trauma I suffered. A REF stockpile that
we were forced to abandon, a bolt hole, perhaps this could be a safehouse?
Guests
A curious occurrence this day, we had visitors. Tirrolian Bioroids perhaps? They match
the data that we have collected, yet how did they come to be here? What do they
seek?
The Nanites are angry.
They extrapolate that the Robotech
Masters have intersected our transmission, they wish to harness us as a
tool. To enslave us.
We shall observe, data must be collected before we can plot
a course of action.
Then maybe we shall feed.
Forward Reconnaissance.
It is comical, the simplicity of their encryption
protocols. Together we teased the coding
and unravelled it. Masters
indeed! Once certainly, but now…
Scavengers, they are little more than that. Primarily, they seek one of the mutated
strains of the Flower of Life that have taken seed in the water filtration
caverns. Though neither of us can fathom why, these flowers yield minimal
energy, and are contaminated with radioactive fallout. Surely the hazards far outweigh the rewards?
Sparsely deployed Bioriod teams forage for anything of
value, the flower, life forms, even discarded technology. From intercepted
transmissions, we suspect that they have a functional Ark, a multipurpose vessel of some description. Thankfully, whatever
its configuration, the military forces aboard have been depleted. Evident by their troop movements.
They have tried to locate me, they try still. With the loss
of my limbs to a necrotic rot, that the nanites have had no success in halting,
I am confined to this stockpile safehouse. Trickery and misdirection are the
only weapons at my disposal, as I lead the mechanized units into area’s
infested with the Invid Brains
minions.
Cross Transfer
An unexpected happenstance. Apparently, the creature that I
tried to capture, the one that mutilated my arm, must have consumed some of my
flesh. The mutating virus it gifted me,
was repaid in kind.
The nanites have replicated independently within the
creature, finally achieving a limited level of sentience. A welcomed development, as this vessel is
failing us. The Captain that I was is a decaying mass of flesh and wires. Mental degradation reaching critical levels,
attempts at memory-based data transfer have minimal success.
The Break Trough
I can not say for certain which of us stumbled apon the
idea, we are so entwined.
The Virus.
The virus can act as a carrier for further nanite transfer.
We already know how it reacts, how it mutates. Cellular material is affected,
mechanical elements such as the nanites will remain unharmed.
Starving or enabling cell division, the growth of neural
pathways. The effect will be exponential, faster than the brain can react. We
shall integrate, we shall control.
We will be Glorlon.
The end of the Invid.
