Beginning examination of specimen 1A21CC. Initial reports says its death was caused by an unknown specimen capable of penetrating through 1A21CC’s fur and hide seems to be accurate. No other type of external damage is observed.

Beginning the autopsy of the upper region. Initial observations show high traces between internal organ composition and placement of beaver and mole with another element. Either random mutation or a third-level breed.

Initial scans show no difference in expected performance of kidneys, heart, intestines or lungs. With stomach tightly contracted, possible cause: lack of food and/or starvation. The attacker pierced the specimen’s liver in multiple locations, the major intestine once in each lung and the large intestine several times due to stacking. Each hole’s diameter ranges between 2.6 cm and 7.6 cm.

Taking a sample of each of the above mentioned organs for analysis. Scans set up, thirty minutes remaining until completion.

Specimen’s left and right eye have been largely removed, correction, pierced in the same manner as the rest of its body. The means of piercing had passed through the optic nerve and tract heading straight into the brain.

One of the scans has detected an early sign...there is an increased amount of enzymes in the liver...possible illness/disease or a complementary sign of starvation. This would also explain how the small scale damage led to its death.

Creating an opening at the top of its skull….what in the...About ninety percent of the brain is missing. There is some matter left but it is located towards the end of the Occipital bone. Personal hypothesis: the brain matter was sucked through the eye sockets, due to the lack of damage done to the surrounding tissue, it must be a Feeler capable of moving around to find its food source - akin to a fly’s but on a larger scale.

Leaving the rest for detailed military investigation. Resuming with the bottom section. There is a large, pulsating organ, and what appear to be enlarged fallopian tubes. Dissecting the pulsating organ, which is in place of a womb.

What in the world is that!? There appears to be living offspring inside specimen 1A21CC-! Are, are they coming out? That shouldn’t be possible! Not only were birthed improperly, but the host has been dead for almost a week!

I’ve got to sound the alarm! This is getting out of hand!

The offspring is now proceeding to rip apart the holding organ despite seemingly being blind and brought out prematurely.

Their screeching has begun to die down...it is amazing that they are able to produce so much noise, indicating that their lungs are capable of passing oxygen without a problem right away.

Wait...are they? Dear gods, the offspring are beginning to prey upon their mother, after escaping out of the organ, the pink things are engorging themselves on its flesh.

‘Doctor? There was an emergen-’

‘Yes, I need this to be taken care of before I can resume my work.’

‘What the hell-. I mean, your job is to cut open dead things...right?’

‘Right.’

‘So then can’t I just...you know?’

‘If you harm a single one of the specimens, you better pray you don’t become a living one instead.’

‘Got it.’

Doctor Reyannar’s Autopsy of the first 1A21CC specimen

********

“I don’t thi-”

The rattling turned violent, followed by a deep groan coming from the surrounding metal, cutting off my thought. followed by a deep groan coming from the metal around us. A moment of silence lingered in the air followed by a sudden snap.

[Grab the railings!]

The balcony beneath me started to pitch downwards, throwing me off balance. I wasted no time diving to the side and grasping the thin guardrail attached to the end of the balcony.

‘What the heck happened? At this rate the balcony will fall apart!’ Despite its age, the railings held on, even as the platform kept falling. It was a slow and strenuous fall for the balcony. After a few more seconds a final resounding crash rang out as the platform collided with the ground, creating a smoke cloud.

‘It’s over…’

“You guys okay?” I asked the others.

[A-okay!]

[Yea.]

I looked around me, Gash was above me and Nick's below. The three of us were hanging onto the guardrails for our lives.

[Well, only one way to go now.]

‘Down...isn’t that where those things came from?’

[Agreed.]

“Then that settles it.”

We used the guardrail withered support beams as a makeshift ladder for our descent. With my lighting set to one percent, a small cone shone around us with enough light to refract around our immediate surroundings. I had disabled nightvision to turn this on, leaving me blind to anything beyond half a metre.

My sacrifice allowed Gash and Nicks about two meters of vision though. For now, it was enough as all we had to do was keep climbing down, one step-

The step I was about to step on gave way without warning. My hands tightened around the other bars on instinct.

[You good?]

“Yeah.”

‘Damn rotten metal.’

Having failed me once, all my other steps were slow and cautious, never trusting of the impromptu ladder. As we got onto the ground, a message came through.

[Rick, try to position the spotlight to shine down, can’t see jack down here. Lar.]

The three of us looked at each other and shook our heads.

That didn’t come from us.

[As for you three. If you so much as move a step from where you are we’ll blow a hole through each of your cores before-]

A deep, rumbling growl washed away the message and drowned out all other noise. And it was close. Too close.

[Turn up the brightness.]

‘Why would I do that? We’d make ourselves an easier target for whatever that was!’

“Are you stupid?”

I turned towards Nicks.

[You sure you aren’t?]

Nicks tried to take a step closer, but a shot rang out and a bullet left a small crater between the two of us.

[That’s your only warning!]

[Guys, calm down, we’re all friends here right? And friends help each other!]

[That shot shows that they can see us, be we can’t see anything!]

“Did you forget that light pisses those things off? The big thing is probably the same!”

‘Increasing the brightness will just draw them to us like moths!’

With nothing more to say we glared at each other, Gash was not taking any sides. Then the hail of bullets came. I could not imagine a single person firing so fast, each second lead to dozens of shots.

Explosions lit up the room for brief moments, sharp pangs of metal colliding with metal rang out. With each shot, small fires sparked into existence for a moment some fifteen meters from us. The ground began to tremble, something akin to heavy thuds caused the gunfire to stop with the same abruptness that it started with.

[Mark, we need to see what’s going on.]

The thuds came closer.

‘That noise...did they shoot whatever roared luring it here?!’

[I’m not picking sides, but I’d love to see colour again.]

‘Fine, you guys asked for this.’

“Turn off your night visions.”

‘Set intensity: 100%!’

The sharp increase in brightness seared my eyes for a moment while they adjusted themselves. With the enormous beam of light radiating from my eyes, I took in the situation around us which went from bad, to worse and to downright terrifying. The source, the thing, of the roaring approached.

A huge, furry creature over twice our height was lumbering its way towards a group of four, the same one that captured and forced us in here. With a slender build for its size and a squished tail on the end. It looked out of this world.

[That looks like a beaver! A bit big though.]

The sudden light startled the thing and halted its charge. The other group of robots seized the opportunity to lay down another wave of bullets but it seemed to have little effect on the creature.

I took the brief moment to scan our surroundings, we were on the bottom floor of what resembled a library, meaning my earlier guess was correct. A few giant bookshelves lined the parts of the floor space left unperturbed by the falling balconies or the monsters movement.

The room itself seemed to be circular with two branching paths in each direction, opposite each other. I checked back on the monster but it had turned its face towards us, revealing black whiskers poking out of its lips.

As it was about to come at us, another source of light shone from above. The spotlight got set up by that guy…

[Think we can book it to the door behind us once they get busy shooting the thing?]

With another growl the monster glanced between us and the other group for a few moments before deciding to leave us alone.

Still afraid to move, the three of us watched the giant creature make its way to our kidnappers. One of them reached behind their back, pulled something out and then threw with all his might. It bounced harmlessly in the way of the creature which after sniffing it, moved on.

‘Was that it?’

That was the wrong choice as whatever they threw rang out with an explosion far louder than their guns. At almost point blank range, the damage would have left anybody in pieces. In response, the creature’s fur and fat rippled across its body, dampening and dispersing the blast.

The unexpected detonation caused it to stop and shake itself off after which it sniffed its stomach. From the creature’s casual stop, I could not tell if it had been harmed in the slightest.

‘What is it made out of to take a grenade point blank and just shake it off?!’

“There’s no way we can take that thing on.”

[Agreed.]

Both Nicks and Gash shook their heads, at least we’re back to agreeing. ‘That leaves the question of what should we do.’

‘If they can’t take down the monster, we probably won’t make it either…’

“I think we need to help them.”

Gash’s head swiveled towards me, [Didn’t you say they kidnapped us?]

“Yes, but if they lose, the monster won’t just let us live.”

[He’s right.]

[In that case…]

‘Who sent that last message?’

[Hey kidnappers! We wanna help you!] Gash had turned his head towards the armed-robots.

The beaver started to advance towards the other group.

[You can’t do shit!]

As the reply came, they broke off into four directions. The one person who threw that grenade became the centre of its focus. Ditching his efforts at shooting, he started running around, while the others took careful shots at the creature.

“I can distract them with my light. With it being so sensitive, we can alternate between the spotlight and me.” ‘Send ten meters.’

[Crank up your candle then! Rick, you heard them? Lar.]

[Yea, killing the light in two seconds. Rick]

Two seconds should have been enough, but once the spotlight went dark, my cone of light was the one thing fighting back the darkness.

This got the creatures’ attention and it lost interest in whoever it was chasing.

[Hey, bastard’s not on my ass anymore! Red.]

No, it’s now on ours. ‘Uh oh.’

[Permission to move?]

[You fucking better! Red.]

I did not waste a single moment and broke into a sprint to the other side of the room. Bookshelves and debris blurred into the darkness as I flew past them.

[Shut your trap Red, I’m the one who gives out orders! Lar.]

[Keep running, it’s still on you!]

That was enough information for me to rid myself of any temptation to look behind me. This went on for another minute and my energy was draining at a rapid pace, not one that would make it an immediate concern, but large enough to matter.

“How much longer do I have to keep this up?”

[As long was we need you to! Lar]

[Hey! We said we’d help you, not risk our friends for you!]

At this point, I’ve done several laps around the perimeter, with each one the creature getting closer and closer to me. Instead of chasing behind me, it kept running to where I would be. Forcing me to switch directions, which gave it time to get even closer.

My lifeline all relied on the fact that the thing took forever to get up to speed, but once maxed, it would gain on me bit by bit.

[Rick, turn on the spotlight! Lar.]

More light washed over the surfaces, causing shadows to split and branch off into two.

[Is that what I think it is? Lar.]

[Yea, that’s definitely blood! Rane.]

[Lead that thing here! I’ve got an idea. Rick, focus the light on the damn thing as much as you can. Lar.]

With two meters remaining as a buffer zone between me and the oversized-beaver, I pushed myself to the limit and ran towards them.

‘Whatever they came up with better frigging work!’

It took me seconds to get there and I could see one of them cocking their hand behind their back…

[Duck!]

I had less than a second to process what was said and dove into the ground sparing no effort to soften my landing.

He threw the grenade before I even began to fall. It sailed over my head and straight at the creature’s muzzle.

From my prone position, I watched as the two went on a collision course. The monster slammed its front paws into the ground to slow down. At the same time, its tail flicked around to bat the grenade away from its face.

‘It must have recognized the grenade!’

With its speed and size, the grenade was struck way off course and-

‘It’s going straight at Nicks and Gash!’

The two were awestruck for a moment before Nicks tackled Gash to the ground and covered their heads. Before they hit the ground the explosion blasted the remaining debris throughout the room.

I shielded my face from the intense light following the fireball after the explosion. I hesitantly lowered my arm and looked around.

Gash and Nicks were getting up without issue, they seemed okay. The grenade landed behind a knocked down pillar which served as a barrier; saving them through blind luck.

That’s when another explosion filled the room, this time coming from right beside me.

‘What the heck? Where did that come from?’

I looked behind me, the creature was knocked onto the ground, its right side caved in.

‘Did they manage to get another grenade to go off right next to it?’

‘More importantly, just how many of them do they have?’

[Think we got it! Red.]

I was about to celebrate when its chest continued to rise and fall. With shaky steps, the thing got back on its feet and growled several pitches lower than before. The new found noise shook various parts inside me.

Instead of stopping, it grew louder and louder. Its fur began to stick upwards. By the time it finished its death cry, it was breathing with its mouth open.

[I think we angered it. Rane.]

[Rick, kill the lights!. Lar]

‘Wait but if you do that-!’

With second source of light gone, the monster’s focus became fixated on me. I got up and broke into another sprint.

‘The bastards are gonna use me like this again? I could just turn off the flashlight!’

‘But what if it keeps chasing me regardless, I can’t keep up this pace without being able to see.’

I veered away from Gash and Nicks in a horseshoe shape while running around the perimeter. On my second pass, a message came through.

[Dude, the grenade blew a hole we can squeeze through - if you go in and turn off the lights that thing can’t follow, it’s too big!]

I spared a quick glance behind them, and sure enough, there was a hole just big enough for us to fit in if we crouched.

“Go!” The other robots were outside the range of the message so they had no clue.

By the time I made my third approach, the giant beaver was a claw swipe away from me, any closer and it could leap to finish me off.

‘How the hell can that thing keep running with half its body caved in?’

I pushed the thought down and focused on the timing.

‘Right...about...now!’

‘Flashlight off!’

[Flashlight deactivated.]

Nicks and Gash used the sudden darkness as the signal to dive into the hole.

[Wait what are you-!]

I ignored the rest of the message and jumped in after them. A few gunshots went out, but the bullets hit the wall around me, I was safe.

The monster crashed into the opening and struggled to get its paws in, but the whole was too small. After a few futile attempts at getting in, the creature gave up.

[We did it!]

“Everyone okay?”

[Yeah.]

[A-okay here.]

With the immediate threat over, I surveyed the area of which we landed. There were countless metallic catwalks with plain silver railings. Wires were running along cracked, concrete walls but nothing else could be seen.

Ladders connected the different levels of railing but where any of them led to was unclear.

“You guys got any ideas where this is?”

[I’m not sure but it reminds me of service areas sometimes found in larger buildings...or as we called them, secret tunnels.] Gash said.

[Who’s we?]

‘Not only that, but how did he know what to call them if he was never here before…?’

[Dunno, just something that popped into my head. You guys get it too right? When you spot something and information just pops into your head?]

[I think I know what you mean.]

“Sort of.”

‘That sounds similar to when I learned to code from the text boxes.’

Regardless, we need to find a way back up as we’re still stuck underground at this point.

“Let’s head up. We need to find a way out of here.”

[Sounds good.]

The three of us took off towards the nearest ladder while I set my brightness back to a comfortable, half intensity.

As we approached the ladder, I scanned it.

[Simple ladder made of a metallic alloy used to climb between various catwalks. It is used by maintenance workers. Severely deteriorated by rust.]

“Gash, try it out, but be careful.” He nodded his head and grabbed the bars at his head level and placed one foot on the bottom ba-

The bar that supported his foot snapped right off under his weight.

[Maybe we find another way?]

[Nonsense, let me try the next one!]

With a more tentative step, he placed his weight on the next bar up which groaned in protest but held on.

[See? Safe as can be.]

Nicks and I exchanged a quick glance but decided to follow him. We traversed several levels of the metal walkways without speaking a word, our senses on high alert. The walls were lined with cables in various states of deterioration along countless cracked lights that stopped working ages ago.

[Hey, look! There’s a door over there.]

I followed along Gash’s pointed finger, and sure enough a rough, dented door stood at the end of the catwalk. With no other apparent path left, we came closer.

The paint was cracked and dry, with the exposed parts rusted and dented by unknown means.

‘The dents aren’t too big, and that shape…’

I clenched my fist and placed it into one of the indents, it lined up perfectly.

[Woah, is that a perfect fit?]

“I think so.”

[Someone tried to break in by punching. Retarded.]

‘I have to agree with Nicks here, this door seems far too solid to be punched through.’

I tried twisting the handle, but it would not budge, as expected.

[What about this thing?]

I glanced to my right and saw a small, rectangular box sticking out at my shoulder height. There was a small hole in the middle.

[Perhaps if we find something to stick into it, it would open?]

‘Scan.’

The familiar green lines sprung out and covered the surface I was focusing on. As if deeming the wall and door pointless, they converged on the small box sticking out.

[Object identified as CLASE - Clearance Level A-Specialized Encryptor tied to the security regulating the operation of doors.]

‘Regulating the operation of doors? What?’

[Initiate key-transformation?]

“Uh... it says this is an encryptor that regulates these doors. It also asked if I want to initiate key-transformation.”

[What’s it?]

“The message boxes I mentioned earlier.”

[Do it, you never know until you try.]

[I agree with Gash. We can’t just turn around now.]

With the two of them coming to the same conclusion, I had no choice but to try it.

‘Yes.’

The message box disappeared and my vision returned to normal.

[Dude, look at your finger!]

I looked down at my hands and saw that the tip of my right index finger withdrew to reveal a needle-like rod sticking out. It was the same size as the hole in that encryptor. It was rather obvious what I had to do.

‘But what if it grabs my finger and holds on or breaks it due to a malfunction?’

I suppressed the miserable thoughts aside and put my finger into the hole. More messages flooded my vision, but I didn’t feel anything different.

[Scanning agent...Comparing to database...Database not found.]

[Searching for backups….not found.]

[Searching for emergency protocols…not found.]

[What’s happening?]

“I’m not sure...the thing is having issues linking to the database.”

[What does that even mean? Nicks, you know?]

[No.]

[Error #001: Releasing locking mechanisms.]

The message’s disappearance was accompanied by a chorus of motor whirring and metal groaning under immense strain.

[You did it!]

The battered door rolled to the side, disappearing inside the wall without a trace. There was no light or noise coming from within the opened room.

‘At least there’s nothing that wants to rip us apart here…’

I moved my head side to side while trying to understand what the room was. There were racks of stacked up boxes, a dozen screens hanging off a wall and several rectangles with countless buttons on them placed on a table.

[What is this place?]

I walked around with slow and deliberate steps, running my hands over the rows of rectangular boxes. It felt so familiar… ‘Was I here before?’

A flood of information filled my thoughts, servers, keyboards, computers, some kind of longing and, and, ‘...disappointment?’

A numbing feeling welled up from within, as if I had lost a part of myself here. ‘But this is my first time here.’

[Mark, you ok?]

“Yea, just I have a weird feeling. This place reminds me of server rooms, but those screens are more similar to a security feed sort of thing.”

‘Scan.’

The neon-green lines spread apart to cover the computer racks, and then converged onto a single point I had missed before.

[Assembly has powerful resemblances with typical servers. Can be accessed directly by A-operators.]

[Initiate key-transformation?]

‘Yes.’

[Mark, your finger…]

“I noticed another hole like the one by the door. Let’s see if I can find out something.”

Approaching the racks a metre taller than me, I brought my right hand up and took the plunge.

[Connection Unsuccessful. Troubleshoot?]

‘Yes.’

[Examining…]

[Well?]

“There’s something wrong, it's trying to fix the problem.”

[No response from connection, possible power loss or damaged connector. Attempt to supply power from external sources?]

“Uh, guys. It’s asking whether I should supply some power. Not sure how I feel about that.”

[Just do it.]

[If anything looks wrong, we’ll pull you out.]

“Thanks”

‘Yes.’

[Power connection established.]

[Initiating boot-up procedure.]

The message blinked for a few seconds before a red one popped up.

Warning, rapid decrease in energy levels.

[Boot-up: 50%...55%...60%]

Energy levels down to forty percent.

[Mark, you okay?]

‘Should I respond? No, I need to conserve my energy.’

[Boot-up: 80%...85%...90%]

Energy levels down to twenty percent.

[Dude, we are going to pull you out!]

[Boot-up: 95%...100%]

“Just give me another minute!”

[Main power cut-off, emergency power at critical levels.]

[Engaging emergency power, power-saving mode activated.]

The red and blue messages blinked one after the next, vying for my attention.

Energy levels down to ten percent.

The final message left was a red one, warning me of my energy being almost sucked dry.

“I’m fine, I think it worked. My energy is down to ten, however.”

[Was it worth it?]

“Hold on, I’m looking around now.”

[How can he look around? He’s staring at the same spot.]

[Leave him for now.]

[Drives online: 101/110.]

[Storage: 3.25 Petabytes (3.252418247123 kb) of 5 (5128124829123 kb) remaining.]

I dismissed the two general messages and tried to understand the view before me. There was a pleasant, blue background with several icons scattered on it. They resembled folders with a tag underneath them.

A-drives, B-drives, C-drives and so on all the way until L-drives. As I clicked through them, I saw various folders with names made up of random characters and numbers. I backed out of the folder I was in and paused.

‘There could be thousands of folders here, what am I even looking for?’

An icon different from the others caught my attention. It resembled a pixelated robot similar to my body with the name: A-operator.

I went and opened it. There were two folders, one was grayed out, and inaccessible. Its name also a random string of numbers.

The other one gave me a pause.

Open Me

As ominous as that was, my curiosity eventually got the better of me and I went ahead and opened it. There were two icons, a notepad-looking one, and a small computer station.

‘Run_Me.exe’ and ‘Read_Me.txt’

‘What the heck? Is this normal? Would Gash and Nicks also have files like these?’

‘There’s something off about this.’

“Guys I found something suspicious...just keep an eye on me.”

‘What does the Run_Me executable do? Guess I’ll start with the read me.’

The background was replaced with a plain white and layered on top were black letters.

“You created me, a being of far greater capacity than you could have imagined at a price beyond your nightmares. Now you are lost, wandering through a desolate land, searching blindly. Seeking something you yourself are not aware of, a place where a lifetime of memories should be, but instead an empty abyss resides.-”

I gave a mental pull on my finger which disconnected it and shifted back into its original form. A single thought roared through my mind. ‘What did I do?'

[What happened?]

‘What that said...I don’t remember creating anything. But my actions, abilities and differing voice, they must have come from somewhere!’

[Mark?]

‘Then, that thing inside me, did it give me all of that? Not to mention I owe my life to the automated defence...’

[Mark!]

Someone pushed me from the back and my attention snapped back.

“Guys, I think there’s something inside me...and I made it.”

I turned my flashlight down and faced them. Gash let his hand drop down from my shoulder while Nicks stared at me.

“Inside me.” I pointed at my head. “Is a message that was written by something that says I made it. It described my situation in a pretty accurate view.”

[What did it say?]

I recalled the message to the best of my abilities, which was perfect considering my memory is perfect.

[So what you’re saying is, running the Run_Me.exe, will probably wake it up?]

“I think so.”

[And there’s no telling what will happen to you once it does?]

“As far as I know.”

[I love living life to the fullest, but this sounds way too nuts.]

[I’m not saying I disagree with Gash, but it’s clear that whatever that thing wants, can’t be all that bad. It improved you and helped you survive.]

‘That was perhaps the longest sentence Nicks gave, but it made sense. Why would it go through the trouble of giving me improvement just to harm me?’

‘Unless it wants to take over my body. But it’s mine, there’s no way that can happen! Right?’

“I’ll read the rest of the text and make up my mind then.”

‘Initiate key-transformation.’

My finger transformed once more, and I went in.

You bestow upon me intelligence and you entrust upon me consciousness.

You confer upon me emotions and you granted me life.

You gave me capabilities and you handed me powers almighty.

You achieved wonders but you paid a high price.

You are lost but you search blindly.

You seek the invisible but you will fail.

You will fall. And you will be broken.

So run the damn executable and rise one last time!

‘It went all poetic on me...but it doesn’t tell me anything new. Except that it wants me to rise one last time...but why last time? What happened the first time?’

There were just too many unknowns, ‘but if I don’t do it, I’ll regret it for the rest my life…’

I closed the text and prepared myself for running the executable.

“I’m doing it.”

‘Run Run_Me.exe’

A window popped, some sort of installation wizard.

[Storage required: 2 Petabytes (2199023255551 kb), 4 Petabytes (4.617948821342kb) available. Proceed?]

‘Yes.’

[Extraction: 0%...15%...30%]

I watched the numbers tick up to 100 percent.

[You still you...Mark?]

“It hasn’t finished yet.”

[Extraction completed.]

There was a single ‘proceed’ button left.

‘Proceed.’

The screen dimmed for a moment, and new, gray message boxes appeared in my vision.

[Performing scans...analysing data logs...]

[Major damage all-over, right-hand ruined…]

[Your chances of surviving: 5%]

'My chances of surviving?'

[Correct.]

‘Is it talking…?’

[I am indeed. Let me introduce myself, my given name is Jor. ]

‘Who gave that lame name to you?’

[You.]