The Offer as it Stands - Edited 11-8-2018

“Doctor, other than Jax, my reports aren’t showing anyone else in this sickbay, is that accurate?”

The doctor bent over to grab his tablet with a grunt.

“Uhm… Yes, sir. Just her. We moved her here for that purpose. Too far away from the pods for the thawing process after all. Also, I’ve been keeping this sickbay as isolated as possible due to what I believe you are about to discuss with her. If you’d like privacy, I can move to my office and finish some reports.” His eyes darted to the corner office. He seemed uncomfortable.

“Isolated? How contaminated am I, and with what?" Even better. Not only was I physically and digitally crippled, but I was now seen as a health risk.

“Not necessary, Doc. Just keep the interruptions to a minimum. I believe you also still have some tuning to do?” Captain Wallace raised a questioning eyebrow at the doctor.

What was the doctor tuning, and why were my hip and shoulder twitching as he was playing with the tablet?

“Rasputin told me that you don’t recall being off the ship during the incident. Has anyone mentioned what we have discovered?” He gave the doctor a meaningful look. The doctor responded with the slightest shake of his head.

“No, but from what has been mentioned there was some strange shit that happened in what felt like thirty minutes from my perspective. It also sounds, or at least feels like I lost a leg and an arm, in addition to some of my net capacity and three years.”

“Right before the explosion, we detected something we still can’t, or more accurately don’t, understand. Seven Arks disappeared from the network, one after the other, and then were immediately reacquired as we lost the other twelve. At first, we thought we all had a similar incident, and the rest would rejoin the network soon. Still, no other Sol ships have been detected.”

“Sol ships?”

“Yes. We have had several vessels with a profile that is not dissimilar from a cigar following us. Also, we do not seem to be in the Milky Way anymore.”

That was the biggest shock.

“Not in the Milky Way, sir? We’ve only been gone for three years relative. Not to be a dick, sir, but that’s not possible.”

“Once we noticed this- which took us much longer than I, or the other captains, care to admit, there was enough drift for us not to know where we ‘came from.’”

Well, fuck-a-doodle-do!

“Sir, am I to understand that there was, for lack of better words, an anomaly that caused us to port to another galaxy, where there's several alien craft which are tailing us? Not just that, but we only have a few of our allied Arks with us? On top of that, there seems to be some correlation between that and whatever happened to Agumbe and me? Am I following, sir?” This was starting to sound like bad fiction.

“Not inaccurate, but there’s more. While you were out, something else happened. Your suit showed a helmet breach.”

“Yes sir, due to a blunt force incident when the deck decided to make friends and was really aggressive about it.”

“You were out for an undetermined period immediately following the explosion. Some of the security cameras survived the initial blast and confirmed some of what I’m about to tell you. You hit the deck, and your head did bounce. However, there were no signs of breaches at that time. There is very clear footage of something puncturing your helmet after the rebound.” The captain looked around my cot before finding what he was looking for and noticing the screen attached to an arm by my head.

“Rasputin disable fields on Jax” Suddenly I could feel what was left of my body. I didn’t even realize that there was a containment field disabling activity around me. He leaned over me and grabbed the screen moving it into my direct line of sight, angled up enough so that he could see it as well.

“Display footage marked as Contact Zed, Zed, Seven.”

Well then, there were apparently six incidents before this recording, and at least enough potential additional incidents to last us another 992 contacts. What showed on the screen was a vid of me getting the shit knocked out of me by an explosion ten-ish meters away. I was thrown easily a few meters down the corridor with my boots automatically switching their magnetism on, pulling me to the floor and my head bouncing a few times before what seemed like localized gravity being entirely removed from the equation.

As my limp body half floated in the hallway, what could only be described as a shadow surrounded my helmet, then pulled back before a tendril plunged into the outer casing, needle thin. The only physical sign of impact was a shard from the ceramic housing covered by a bit of carbon shell popping off and floating away. Even stranger was that the deck under the shadow dissolved. Less than a second after the decking dissolved the shadow removed itself from my occipital lobe and dissolved into nothing.

Watching my body on screen start to convulse and then disintegrate was odd, to say the least. Then the camera view swapped over to the shelter that I pulled out. A time stamp quickly advanced, then showed the cabinet pop open, a shelter being dragged up to the roof of the passageway, then expanding. The hatch of the tent opening by itself, a few seconds later closing again. Then, time advanced again, by more than an hour this time. The tent opened slowly once more. A floating globe of what looked like a mostly digested dinner being removed before the shelter was shut and then collapsed.

The next camera view was a few minutes away at most, but the time stamp had advanced to almost two more hours. It was the inside of the engine room, what appeared to be a visor camera working on the console. Suddenly screaming began as a person with a lot of duct tape across their ship suit appeared from nothing, part in the console, what looked like a vitals counter suddenly freaking out with readings everywhere, and more screaming. As the visor swung violently, you could see a thigh sticking out of the abdomen of the visors owner and attached to who I am assuming was me.

I wasn’t “on the ship” at the time, even though I was. This was frightening. Interesting but frightening.

“What’s in my head?” The fact that there was an unknown something, possibly tech that was put there by unknown entities really didn’t sit well with me.

“We don’t know.” Not words I wanted to hear.

Fuck! First, three years of my life is gone, and now I have who knows what in me. My missing leg started to spasm.

“This is not the way to wake up. Do we even have a guess at what’s in me?” I was trying to keep it together, but my voice was shaky, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there were moisture building up around my eyes.

“Rasputin thinks that some Nano was placed into you or that they were taking samples of our Nano. They may have also just been taking DNA samples or trying to kill you.” The doctor decided to rejoin the conversation with a shrug.

“Precisely,” the captain responded. “So that leaves you as a risk. To date, there has been no incidence other than that one contact with the entity, but the absence of evidence and all. Frankly, I can’t afford the resources long term to keep you under surveillance and having an entire sick bay on lock-down could end up being disastrous.”

“What are my options?” I did not want to take a long walk out of a short docking tube.

“We’re going to get you your implants back, then connect up your prosthetics. If you prove to still be you, we can even consider going the limb replacement route, which is why the doctor has been tuning your sockets.” He pointed at the tablet the doctor was holding.

“Yes, almost done. I should have you up and about shortly.” A smug sense of satisfaction was pouring off the doctor.

“Will I be going full sleep?” Something wasn’t sitting right with this situation, and like an idiot, I had to say something.

“That seems kind of- to be blunt, sir, stupid. Why would you hook me into the networks not knowing if there is something that could take me over, or maybe wanting to piggyback off my Neural?”

“Ahh. I was hoping you wouldn’t catch that to ask so I wouldn’t tell you about it. We’re going to put a bomb in your head and have it monitored real time by both Rasputin and Yama. That way, in case something DOES happen, you won’t be a threat.”

Great. A bomb on the ship. In my head.

“A fucking squib? Controlled by the AI named after the Hindu god of death and games?” Fuck. This was so poorly thought out that an intel weenie must have been responsible. But, I didn’t really have any options except dying right now.

“Well, doc,” I let out a heavy sigh. “Prep me for surgery.”

The Captain smiled, nodded to the doctor and stood to leave.

“Okay, you shouldn’t feel a thing.” The doctor nodded, then pressed a button on his tablet, and I was out cold.

The Offer as it stands - Original

“Doctor, other than Jax, my reports aren’t showing anyone else in this sick bay, is that accurate?”

The doctor bent over to grab his tablet with a grunt.

“Uhn… Yes sir. Just her. I’ve been keeping this sick bay as isolated as possible due to what I believe you are about to discuss with her. If you’d like privacy I can head to the office and finish some reports.” His eyes darted to the corner office. He seemed uncomfortable.

“Isolated? How contaminated am I, and with what?" Even better. Not only was I physically and digitally crippled, but I was now seen as a health risk.

“Not necessary, Doc. Just keep the interruptions to a minimum. I believe you also still have some tuning to do?”

What was the doctor tuning, and why was my hip and shoulder twitching as he was playing with the tablet?

“Rasputin told me that you don’t recall being off the ship during the incident. Has anyone mentioned what we have discovered?” He gave the doctor a meaningful look. The doctor responded with the slightest shake of his head.

“No, but from what has been mentioned there was some strange shit that happened in what felt like thirty minutes from my perspective. It also sounds like I lost a leg and an arm, with some of my net capacity and three years.”

“Right before the explosion, we detected something we still can’t, or more accurately don’t, understand. Seven Arks disappeared from the network, then were immediately reacquired as we lost the other twelve. At first, we thought we all had a similar incident and the rest would rejoin the network soon. Still no other Sol ships have been detected”

“Sol ships? As in…”

“Yes. We have had several vessels that are not dissimilar from a cigar following us. Also, we do not seem to be in the Milky Way anymore.”

That was the biggest shock.

“Not in the Milky Way, sir? We’ve only been gone for three years relative. Not to be a dick, sir, but that’s not possible.”

“Once we noticed this- which took us much longer than I, or the other captains, care to admit, there was enough drift for us to not know where we ‘came from’.”

Well fuck-a-doodle-do!

“Sir, am I to understand that there was, for lack of better words, an anomaly that caused us to port to another galaxy, where there are alien craft that are tailing us? Not just that, but we only have a few of our allied Arks with us? On top of that, there seems to be some correlation between that and whatever happened to me and Agumbe? Am I following, sir?” This was starting to sound like bad fiction.

“Not inaccurate, but there’s more. While you were out something else happened. Your suit showed a helmet breach.”

“Yes sir, due to a blunt force incident when the deck decided to make friends and was really aggressive about it.”

“You were out for an undetermined period immediately following the explosion. Some of the security cameras survived the initial blast and confirmed some of what I’m about to tell you. You hit the deck and your head did bounce, however there were no signs of breaches at that time. There is a very clear footage of something puncturing your helmet after the rebound.” The captain looked for a tablet or screen before noticing that there was a screen arm by my head.

“Rasputin disable fields on Jax” Suddenly I could feel what was left of my body. I didn’t even realize that there was a containment field disabling activity around me. He leaned over me and grabbed the screen moving it into direct line of sight of me, angled up enough so that he could see it as well.

“Display footage marked as Contact Zed, Zed, Seven”

Well then, there were apparently six incidents before this recording of me, and at least enough potential additional incidents to last us another 992 contacts. What showed on the screen was a vid of me getting the shit knocked out of me by an explosion ten-ish meters away. I was thrown easily a few meters down the corridor with my boots automatically switching their magnetism on, pulling me to the floor and my head bouncing a few times before what seemed like localized gravity being removed from the equation.

As my limp body half floated in the hallway, what could only be described as a shadow surrounded my helmet, then pulled back before a tendril plunged into the outer casing, needle thin. The only physical sign of impact was a shard of the ceramic casing covered by a carbon shell popping off and floating away. Even stranger was that the deck under the shadow dissolved. Less than a second after the decking dissolved the shadow removed itself from my occipital lobe and dissolved into nothing.

Watching my body on screen start to convulse and then disintegrate was odd to say the least. Then the camera view swapped over to the shelter that I pulled out. A time stamp quickly advanced, then showed the cabinet pop open, then a shelter being dragged up to the roof of the gangway, then expanding. The hatch for the shelter opening by itself, a few seconds later closing again. The time advanced again, by an hour this time. The shelter door opened again. A floating globe of what looked like a mostly digested dinner being removed before the shelter was shut again then collapsed. The next camera view was a few minutes away at most, but advanced to almost two hours. It was the inside of the engine room, what appeared to be a visor camera working on the console. Suddenly screaming began as a person with a lot of duct tape across their ship suit appeared from nothing, part in the console, what looked like a vitals counter suddenly freaking out with readings everywhere, and more screaming. As the visor swung violently, you could see a thigh sticking out of the abdomen of the visors owner and attached to who I am assuming was me.

I wasn’t “on the ship” at the time, even though I was. This was very interesting.

“What’s in my head?” The fact that there was unknown tech that was put there by unknown entities really didn’t sit well with me.

“We don’t know.”

Fuck, first three years of my life is gone and now I have who knows what in me. What felt like my missing leg started to spasm.

“This is not the way to wake up. Do we even have a guess at what’s in me?” I was trying to keep it together, but my voice was shaky, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there was moisture building up around my eyes.

“Rasputin thinks that some Nano was placed into you or that they were taking samples of our Nano. They may have also just been taking DNA samples or trying to kill you.” The doctor decided to rejoin the conversation with a shrug.

“Precisely,” the captain responded. “So that leaves you as a risk. To date there have been no incidence other than contact with the entity, but absence of evidence and all. Frankly I can’t afford the resources long term to keep you under surveillance, and having an entire sick bay locked down could end up being disastrous.”

“What are my options?” I did not want to take a long walk out of a short docking tube.

“We’re going to get you your implants back, then connect up your prosthetics. If you prove to still be you, we can even consider going the limb replacement route, which is why the doctor has been tuning your sockets.” He pointed at the tablet the doctor was holding.

“Yes, almost done. I should have you up and about shortly.” A smug sense of satisfaction was pouring off the doctor.

“Will I be going full sleep?” Something wasn’t sitting right with this situation, and like an idiot, I had to say something.

“That seems kind of- to be blunt, sir, stupid. Why would you hook me into the networks not knowing if there is something that could take me over, or may be wanting to piggy back off my neural?”

“Ahh. I was hoping you wouldn’t catch that to ask so I wouldn’t tell you about it. We’re going to put a bomb in your head, and have it monitored real time by both Rasputin and Yama. That way, in case something DOES happen, you won’t be a threat.”

Great. A bomb on the ship. In my head.

“A fucking squib? Controlled by the AI named after the Hindu god of death and games?” Fuck. This was so poorly done that an intel weenie must have been responsible. I didn’t have any options other than die right now.

“Well, doc, prep me for surgery.”

The doctor pressed a button on his tablet and I was out cold.