<link href="StyleSheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"/> <style type="text/css"> </style> <meta content="urn:uuid:742f59e9-c2da-40e0-b7b7-7149cb817241" name="Adept.expected.resource"/> </head> <body> <p class="first_para" style="text-align:left"><code>DOCUMENT INSERT: MULTIPLICITY ARCHIVES DEPARTMENT</code></p> <p> </p> <p class="first_para" style="text-align:left"><code><b>Mark-Four Cyben – Internal Memorandum </b></code></p> <p> </p> <p class="first_para" style="text-align:left"><code>RE – Recent anonymous video upload (suspected source; Illuminatus Zeon, High Magus of the Ashishim)</code></p> <p> </p> <p class="first_para" style="text-align:left"><code><i>Conclusion</i>: This footage - although highly improbable - appears to be genuine. The Illuminatus explicitly warned us about the threat depicted here during our negotiation settlement of the ‘Seven Hours War’ crisis, and we must assume that he/it is acting in the best interests of both his faction and our own by divulging this intelligence data.</code></p> <p> </p> <p class="first_para" style="text-align:left"><code><i>Response</i>: Funds have long been withheld from our advanced Cybernetic Warrior Integration (Cyben Mark Four) project, but with the possibility of invasion now very real we feel that the time has come to instigate a field trial of the system. If this proves successful we can see no reason why thousands of otherwise useless Subcitizens cannot be pressed into service in a military capacity.</code></p> <p style="text-align:left"><code>A recovered crycelium augmentation system must be thawed and integrated with a Cyben Vilicus drone unit – hopefully the drone will impose a limit on the self-replication ability of that archaic experimental device.</code></p> <p style="text-align:left"><code>A trial subject has already been selected; a disposable yet superficially loyal member of the Compliance Division recently investigated for corruption. As current-model Cyben are processed from the waste bodies of terminated officers his family will harbor no suspicions.</code></p> <p class="first_para" style="text-align:left"><code><b><i>Generate Executive Order: Instigate immediately; Test Protocol 721 – Activate prototype Mark-Four Cyben. </i></b></code></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <table border="0"><tr><td><img alt="" height="48px" src="Images/chapter-i.png" width="100px"/></td><td><b>17 Aevum Oblivio</b><br/> Soul of a New Machine</td></tr></table> <p class="first_para"><i><big>T</big>he door was sealed. Zhe had managed to wade through Everdark’s children by way of sheer crushing firepower, but the effort had bled him dry. The alien Technician sat slumped at the foot of the door, a smoking pistol in either hand. </i></p> <p><i>Why hadn’t they told him the Motherbrain’s slaves were here? Lord Arbitrex Galq had always been his patron, hand-picking his missions to hone his exoethnological skills. Had the Wyrm sold him out? And if so, to whom?</i></p> <p><i>Whoever had damned him, they’d done a thorough job.</i></p> <p><i>There was no way for Zhe to escape.</i></p> <p><i>Not from the crushing mass of Everdark, swallowing the Cardinal Rock in its death-grip.</i> <i>Not from the insistent, irrepressible feed of images transfixing his mind from out of the machine.</i> <i>And definitely not from the golems, looming up out of the shadows all around him…</i></p> <p><i>He couldn’t move.</i></p> <p>Eyes like spheres of white-hot metal opened; closed. The image behind them didn’t change by a single pixel. It flickered, a snowblast of static slicing raw gashes through his brain…</p> <p><i>Zhe stood atop a cube of mirrored glass, one of serried ranks beneath a great concrete dome. He had been here before; but then he'd been in control, chaining an obsolete and doomed machine to his will.</i> <i>Now, however…</i> <i>It was </i>alive<i>. </i></p> <p><i>Like the interior of a vast skull, the dome was strung with taut tendons, veined membranes and nameless, pulsing organs. A heartbeat thundered low and slow and deep, pumping oceans of blood through a tangle of arteries and veins.</i></p> <p><i>“Where… what the hell </i>is<i> this place?”</i></p> <p><i>A sickly light illuminated the dome, glimmering from globes of phosphorescent flesh. Beneath his feet the cube shuddered as muscles and tendons clenched tight.</i></p> <p><i>“Hell is closer to the truth than you might expect, Zhe. Oh yes…”</i></p> <p><i>He knew that voice. Oily, purring… it ran fingers of ice down his spine.</i></p> <p><i>Against his will, he saw…</i></p> <p><i>Above him in the humid air hung a torture device of pure energy, a mockery of the intricate heart of Kronos. Crucified and slit open across that rack of sharp light was a human form… or what once may have been. Hooks peeled back the skin of its chest and belly; barbed spikes of energy punctured its flesh, pinning its great knotted limbs. Chains quivered tight, tugging at raw meat.</i></p> <p><i>Half of the creature’s face was flayed back to the glistening bone; petals of skin spread wide by needles. Gore and gristle slid slick and greasy in the horror-light and Zhe reeled, feeling unnaturally ill. </i></p> <p><i>It was the face of Lieutenant Tsien – Dissected, bloody, and smiling.</i></p> <p><i>Obviously, said a part of the technician's mind, he was long dead. Obviously, it was all just a part of this accursed hallucination…</i></p> <p><i>But that part of his mind was blown away screaming when Tsien opened his eyes and began to laugh.</i></p> </body></html>