Chapter 4:Nothing's The Same

More questions than answers are revealed

 

I awoke in the same pod after what felt like an instant in dreamless sleep. I found myself surrounded by people, garbed in Alliance outfits, scientific division; they seemed shocked by my awakening. I was about to voice my desire to be released when an electric shock went up my spine. My vision flickered and I fell into the realm of unconsciousness once more.

            When I next awoke I was lying on a metal slab in a pure white room, as I gingerly got up while ignoring the pain in my head I began to notice that the slab I was on was actually a scanning device, designed to show a full detail of the subject’s interior. I swiveled my body and set my feet upon the cold floor, as I looked forward I saw an appalling scene. A man I could scarcely recognize as myself stared back at me, eyes that were shimmering the same blue of a husk, but slightly different in that some of it was still flesh; my skull was changed into a biomechanical abomination, still cloaked in skin but with visible metal cords woven beneath it. The mechanized changes continued onto my shoulders which hardly had any human characteristics, becoming replaced by a blue-black metal that was just as flawless as the metal used on board the dreadnought, the same metal was encroaching upon my arms, which ended in still human hands yet I knew they were changing even as I gazed at them, shifting beneath the surface.  My chest was being replaced just as severely as my shoulders were, being almost wholly consumed by the cybernetic disease.

            I stood and walked to the mirror that showed this scarcely recognizable man. I stared directly into the opposing set of eyes and quietly whispered to that being “why me?”  I could notice tears forming in the barely organic eyes, my eyes, and began to weep, the shock of what had occurred to my body without my knowledge or consent left me paralyzed with grief, leaving silent tears rolling down my cheeks. It was not simply the shock of what happened to me that left me sorrowful, but the simple fact that I could never return to society, not with me looking like this, I would never be able to see my squad or anyone I knew without this curse removed.

            A door on the far side of the room had opened and in it stood the same man who sent me on the assignment that had altered me, Steven Hackett, standing there glaring at me with the same intensity that any solider on a battlefield would glare down their rifle.

            “Commander, we need to talk about what happened on that ship” His voice had not changed since last I heard him.

            “Well sir, how about you explain to me what is going on with me?”

            “I believe the two may be connected, but first I need to know from you, what. Happened. On. That. Ship.” He was obviously angered by my belligerence.

            I had learned long ago to never offend a superior officer, so I laid down my anger and told him the story, everything from the husks that appeared and the voice that trapped me, to the surgery and the unexpected strength I had gained afterwards. I omitted nothing and admitted everything.

            “This explains quite a bit” he spoke as if he had just had a revelation.

            “What do you mean sir?” I was hopeful that he could provide an explanation, and perhaps a resolution.

            “The robotics in you is more advanced than anything we have ever seen, it replaces and changes at the molecular level, improving and changing your body with mechanical material with astounding strength, it’s replaced complete organs and simply modified others, it works like it knows exactly what it must do to make you better. It is completely rewiring you, changing your entire body. We noticed that it slowed down with cryosleep, along with the rest of your bodies functions” He seemed to admire this machine inside my body, which at this very moment was destroying me.

            “How long have I been out for you to learn all this?” as the thought occurred to me

            “About two weeks now.” He spoke very matter-of-factly.

            “How do you know it’s not dangerous? How do you know it won’t kill me? Or send me on some insane killing frenzy?” I was slowly losing my anger as I was realizing that it was not Hackett who was the enemy, it was the ship. The voice.

            “We were concerned about that, so we checked out your brain and the techs said that there was something inside, every single robotic enhancement led to the center of your brain but nothing is there and nothing is developing there, given what you said I wonder if this mysterious ‘voice’ was going to perform a second surgery on your head”

            “So what exactly happened after I was trapped? Is the Metaurus okay? I didn’t get any word before I was put to sleep” I may not have cared as much for the crew as I did for my squad but the men and women on that ship were under my command and I would take their deaths as hard as I would with anyone.

            “Your squad managed to get back on the ship before the husks got to it, they flew off to a nearby outpost where we had stationed reinforcements in case the ship went active, and when they got back the vessel was fully active, several of the ships began fighting so that your squad could get in and mount a rescue mission, they had just got in when they found you. All in all, you were left in there for about 3 hours.”

            “Casualties?”

            “Two ships went down to the dreadnoughts fire, another two went down when you got on board the Metaurus, when you left you were the only survivors and the ship jumped to FTL by the time more reinforcements got there to take it out.” 

            His words gave rise to a fear I hadn’t realized, what if the ship and its master did this to another? What if it attacked the Alliance or the Citadel?  Any number of these thoughts ran through my head as I asked

            “Any idea where it went? It seems nearly impossible for a ship of that size to disappear without a trace”

            “No we don’t, we didn’t want this to go big so no one but our border troops have any idea it even exists”

            This did nothing to ease my worries but I began wondering about everything that I had witnessed aboard the ship, my strength and acrobatics.

            “Sir…When I was on the ship we needed sealed suits to breathe and when I woke up I could breathe fine, and there’s the matter of the strength I had and heightened reflexes. “

            “That’s another part about this machine, it adapts to what its exposed to, when you passed out it strengthened your muscles and bones to give you much greater strength, it also changed certain pain receptors in your brain, this, the reflex boosts and the biotics was done on its own accord but the breathing is something it adapted, it created the air system for you before you woke up so that you would continue to survive. It also discovered that you have gained an immunity to drugs of any sort, which is why you woke up once before now in the tube. We have theorized that it adds systems for you as it exposes itself to technology” He continued to sound envious of this technology

            “Wait! So you are saying that the more technology I touch the more I change?! I don’t want this! I want it gone! Removed!” I was becoming enraged at him wanting to simply ‘study’ me.

            “We can’t remove it without killing you Kael, it’s a part of you now, and the best course of action would be to have you stay here until we fully understand it.” A voice spoke over the intercom, stopping him before he got any further; it was from someone I had not heard before

            “Admiral, see me in here now.”

            Hackett walked out the door like a scolded dog and into an area I couldn’t even guess, I sat back on the slab for the better part of an hour before someone walked in, but it wasn’t Hackett walking in this time, it was an unfamiliar man, wearing a standard Alliance grunt uniform, he was slightly shorter than I was but he had a look of confidence, he gave a brief salute, his hand resting above his dark brown eyes and below his waves of short curly brown hair.

            “Commander Kael, it is my pleasure to meet you, I’m Captain Daniel Hudson. I was hoping we would meet in person” When he spoke I realized it was him who had pulled the admiral out of the room, this unassuming man obviously carried more power than one would think, yet he still saluted me, of lower rank.

            “You wanted to meet me? Not many people want to talk to a man turning into some sort of cyborg.” I spoke honestly and without emotion, keeping any feelings I had hidden beneath any visible signs.

            “Well I’m not most people Kael, I know your situation, can’t necessarily say I have been in it but I have been informed about it. I know that right now you don’t know what to do or where things are going but I am here to help you” He seemed to speak with complete honesty and at the mention of my situation he spoke with a slightly humorous tone.

            “Yeah? Well a lot of people want to ‘help’, most of the time at the end of a knife.” I was not being aggressive with him but I was falling into a defensive position.

            “Again Jason, I am not most people. I work for a group, I know your record, missions you have been on, your feats, the fact that everyone in every group you have ever been assigned to has improved by at least 10 percent when you got there and dwindled to normal when you left. You have something about you Jason, something that I doubt even this metal could change. You are the best the Alliance has, and that’s why I’m here” He spoke each and every word without a hint of flattery, simply stating facts.

            “Ha! The only group I can think of that would take me is Cerberus!”

            “No not Cerberus, too much ‘humanity must dominate, kill all aliens’ for my taste. The group I am from is one no one has heard of unless they are a part of it, only the highest officials in the Alliance even know we exist. We are called Terra Infractus” his joking nature was beginning to affect me, but not negatively

            “Shattered Earth? Strange name for an Alliance group” Latin had been something I had studied in my free time, a long-dead language but I enjoyed it.

            “Good to know your Latin is up to snuff. We name ourselves that because we fight everyday to avoid seeing just that, a shattered Earth. I know you are probably wary of me but we both know that if you don’t come with me you will be studied for ages, this is the only chance you have for working anywhere but here.” The man spoke truth in an unexpected way, he was strange in a way I couldn’t place, but I felt that I could trust him.

            “I don’t suppose I have much of a choice do I? Not if I value my freedom anyway. When do we leave?” I was suddenly eager to get out of there.

            “Right now, I have a ship docked here, already have a mission set up for you.”

            We began jogging out of the still-open door; I let him take the lead of direction.

            “A mission? Where?” I felt my blood quicken at the mention of another mission so soon, part excitement and part fear of what might happen.

            “I will explain when we are on the ship. Its going to be quite a test run.”

            “What do you mean test run?” I was quickly realizing that Daniel was quite quirky.

            “Test run for two reasons: 1: you get to see what exactly you can do. 2: I will be watching you to see how you perform, your style, your execution, etcetera”  Something about the way he spoke left me feeling less like I was cursed, more like this was an opportunity, though I still harbored a rage for the one responsible

            “We better get moving then. I assume you have a plan on how to get me into a normal environment without causing every enemy within the system to hunt me down?”

            “I have an idea but I am still making sure everything is set, I will tell you when we get in the ship”

            We went into his vessel, a small frigate, the SSV Gravelines. A different life with a different body awaited me on the horizon, with challenges I could only guess at. It would be the beginning of a long road