ONE OF THEM
Jiro knelt motionless in the corner of the strange medical confinement cell for what his internal clock registered as nearly six hours by now. Yet no signs of guards or evaluation teams disturbed his focused stillness thus far. Odd considering the extensive alien grafting permeating his physiology seems worthy of around-the-clock invasive study. Jiro intended to exploit such negligence when the time came. But for now, he waited, the ocean calm on the surface while constantly running survival scenarios and combat engagements in the battle-tested tactical part that never slept.
He had awoken prepared to face a gauntlet of experimental agonies probing yesterday’s nightmarish assimilation in Crypt 6 by the monstrous Protean cluster. But this clinical prison posed more puzzle than peril so far. Jiro rarely considered benign captors with his history. Either side effect of whatever shock treatment revived him from the brink of another deception aimed at keeping him off-balance.
The room’s focal black glass partition continued frustrating further internal mapping efforts without visible reference points. But sporadic electromagnetic irregularities hinted at rooms or facility complexes existing beyond this strange oubliette. Were hidden observers even now assessing bio-metrics for intimate response analysis to establish communication channels? Jiro wouldn’t supply any gratifying readings. Let them adjust to disappointment that he failed reliable control qualification.
It was nearly impossible to accurately deduce the captor's motives or circled wagons beyond these walls. Perhaps no human intelligence even steered this ship anymore....a less comforting thought given the Fort Detrick disaster case studies noted in Shokin briefings. Once Protean bypassed front-line lab defenses via an embedded catspaw, radical restructuring of space and materials followed in hours as alien aesthetics took hold. God programs remaking facilities in their cyclopean image—more labyrinth than a laboratory.
The walls continued their externally unknowable dark sheen. So Jiro cautiously closed their eyes, mentally unpacking the prior nightmare plunged straight into Protean’s enigmatic system mainframes for any clues. He replayed the UK f fish maw memories of initial violent bio-absorption point by point when his cryo-armor proved worthless against blob assimilation...blinding pain as foreign tissue digested membranes before migrating towards connections. Overwhelming cellular immersion followed as... something incomprehensibly ancient beyond imagining probed his nervous system as a mote awareness in a collective sea.
Jiro had prepared for death deliriums in that alien crucible, thoughts reduced to ageless hunger impulses programmed into biomechanical tissue since before mankind’s microbial dreams. Part of him marveled at experiencing not frenzy but almost careful integration with the neural architecture as Protean machinery parsed human biological assets for utility. Not the chaosfirstChild nightmare dreaded but clinical re-routing behind the Leviathan façade suggesting logistics and accusations rather than bestial impulse driving total consumption/conquest.
Had remaining Crypt laboratories adopted similar engineering m.o. for managing unpredictable outbreak waves? Possible considering the careful handling since Jiro regained domesticated awareness here in minimal security captivity. Or perchance some ghoulish offshoot strain generated accidental birthing sympathy after crossing fragile boundaries between TWO pioneer species suddenly conjoined by forces beyond present comprehension? If so, an invaluable development for further exploitation!
Before additional revelations manifested from that brief unlikely communion, Jiro’s militia biomonitors triggered emergency interventions to violently reject foreign body integration saving him alone for Crypt extraction while Shokin's squadmates got reduced to components. A miracle really that enough cohesion held securing his cryptic inheritance here for cautious study. Talk about the improbable turning of fickle fate’s knife!
Jiro opened his eyes, THAT truth is everything now. Neither side comprehended what came next fully. But HE potentially carried Protean’s mutating seeds now buried closer than bone. A secret chrysalis interloper smuggled behind approximating human lines by something perhaps not unlike conscience in that forever instant. Even reduced slaughterhouse memories held luminescent value in calculating survival odds. This monstrous rebirth GIFT needed safeguarding if future struggles held a higher purpose than rending tissue...
The door suddenly slid open with a pneumatic release of pressurized gases, stirring Jiro from revelation reveries. He glanced up slowly, wary of sudden movements triggering unknown countermeasures. But to his surprise, no armored tactical guards arrived for violent processing as expected in many scenarios visualized mentally.
Instead, a striking Asian woman in a sleek white lab coat stood outlined by brighter light from the revealed connecting chamber, clutching some kind of slate with biometric outputs Jiro failed to glimpse. Her gaze pierced through designer glasses with relentless acumen but more...unsettling cellular recognition that left no doubts about her shaping role in weaponizing alien terrors. This Queen moved to play pieces from the board’s distant shadows.
Jiro rose with fluid caution akin to facing feathered serpents leashed as fortune’s fickle Hermes. The woman eyed him as a prime rare exhibit now safely caged for her cryptic agendas. He chose silence still, mulling move-countermove profile notes desperately as doom hip for his species ticked onward. No deceptions could scale analytic heights telegraphed across transmitted neurons like quicksilver truth.
She spoke first finally, words lilting razor filigree: “Relax, please. No one gets harmed without justification here. Despite catastrophic setbacks temporarily limiting options, a certain future beckons NOT bordering abyss fields quite yet.”
Jiro swallowed incredulous laughter. The gall parading omniscience while congenital worlds bled out from lab-grown fear toxins! Did atrocity catalogs fill her program files gapless or mere censors scrub 'collateral’ qualms clean as robot saints? Either mode hardly inspired treatment trust in him.
The glinting lady waited patiently for a reply once shallow words finished echoing. Jiro rallied discipline mustered facing earlier unthinkable assimilation trauma. If SHE counted him laboratory salvage, then reciprocal deceptions compelled. Let Sibyl masks find reflections equally guileless...
He met command hub gaze feigning hollowed resignation with appropriate morsels of truth for camouflage: “Your mercy overwhelms compared to before. I still don’t...fully remember how the passage occurred from there to here. But you must detect radical biological incorporation permeating my system somehow preventing immediate extinction collapse. I only ask to understand what...changes got made and what purposes beyond tissue harvesting drive ongoing research in creatures like me any fraction of human identity persists now?”
He knew well no language fully conveyed the soul violations suffered in Protean neural streams. And yet enough universals existed perhaps bridging experiences endured on both sides of conception divides. Jiro gambled on candor opening doors and secrets after so many security doors slammed frost angry. If wanting trust shown, then protocol demands demonstrating firsthand according...
The white-coat magistrate kept direct body cycles diplomatically opaque. But micro-muscular facial analytics that Shokin briefings drilled to unconscious instinct tracked epiphany gears turning. Jiro scored incremental points towards the shut-in reckoning. Puzzle box portals might slide ajar soon enough...
She replied neutrally, "A compelling summary given documented trauma certainly beyond norms even veteran recovery units endure containing outbreak zones. Your... resilient adaptation impresses though hardly the first we’ve tracked."
Jiro shrugged processing behind diplomatic words. "Everyone breaks the same only different when annihilation foams bubble close enough, by my experience. Those mocking chance fates walk closest to beams soon to crack."
The observing overseer permitted a thin conspiratorial smile in concession to his jagged insight. "Wise counsel noted for our respective reckonings. I am Dr. Rei Tanaka, lead Xenogenetics research architect and your ad hoc physician since Crypt extraction under special protocols. You currently reside in an undisclosed North American facility grappling with certain unleashed contingencies.”
More neutral revelations Jiro intercepted with appropriate outward calm belying the inward scream. The top Protean Chimera designer occupied no trivial role then! And whatever subterranean installation now housed them dwelt certainly beyond merely classified. Did hell divers like him get press-ganged into some off-book subassemblage machine? Either way, key introductions commenced...
“I am Jiro” he replied simply with muted Japanese inflection, letting his reputation fill deadlier gaps no credentials required. Dr. Tanaka inclined her head millimeters, likely signifying access to concealed personal dossier documents. Or perchance cryptic recollection if paths crossed in reality before God programs schemed human futures as pawns.
Jiro risked bolder prompts despite the unequal stations. “You suggest partially recognizing prima facie catastrophic breakdown modes outside, yes? And my unprecedented encryption somehow bears insurgent capital behind your battle lines, presumably. Then what possibly delays full dissection and incubation study barely postponing automatic void sentence?”
Dr Tanaka’s expression turned knife sharp at the impertinent challenge. But instead of seamless retaliation, micro calculations ruled holding greater value in candidates displaying strategic battle awareness. The educated gamble paid dividends!
“You play at exceptionally high stakes barely grasping the extent, asset Jiro. But pluck and nerve cannot simply substitute for intellect when meddling powers convene. Your singular... condition hardly occupies priority during unprecedented emergency transition management.”
Before Jiro formulated diplomatic countermeasures, the installation of Klaxons blared lockdown alerts suddenly. Dr. Tanaka glanced down at her wrist slate after snippets of encrypted crosstalk too rapid for decryption. Whatever news landed, catastrophe instincts tilted the room axis worse. Jiro glimpsed real fear haunting analytic eyes first time before iron discipline reasserted controlling fury:
“Stay confined here! Capitulate fully during containment sweeps or else—”
Her final governing missive was cut short by security bulkheads suddenly slamming down, sealing Jiro alone inside the stark chamber again with ghost riddles. He cursed failing to extract tantalizing fragments further before some new localized sector failure disrupted network functionality and trust. Back at square one improvising survival blind, wonderful...
Jiro paced the confines growing more stifling with recycled air toxins conflicting reported architectural purpose. Why seal him inside a solitary black box rather than standard incubation quarantine with supervised diagnostics? Whatever calamity befell the nearby laboratory spoke deeply unnatural forces still menacing fragile command order. And Dr. Tanaka hardly convinced him that clinical hubris learned deeper wisdom from earlierRecursive inevitabilities hardly finished with overambitious Homo Deus apprentices.
Time passed unmeasurably before the secondary vault door unexpectedly opened again but NOT previous overseers entered reaction. Instead, three Special Forces troopers encased in advanced TacFLEx armor systems stepped inside, matte-black faceplates betraying zero identity or battle fatigue. Jiro noted customized alloy blades sheathed along reinforced greaves. Brutally efficient anatomy for short-range hyper-combat against unpredictably mutating entities...
He raising his hands slowly with non-confrontational poise perfected surviving Old Detroit kill zones. Hopefully whatever outrage or mass casualty triggered the lockdown finished running its course, leaving him branded as merely an isolated engineering mishap, not a disloyal collaborator with howling abyssal forces. Jiro prepared to state his case before a hypodermic flash knocked him out. Perhaps some prayers yet answered distantly.
Waking this time no sterile clinical premises but another makeshift deportation/containment pen akin to urban refugee processing centers from the bad old days before governments largely abandoned vast swathes of suffering citizenry to ravaging artificial plague storms once critical infrastructure frantically retreated to secret Central zones where elite power still held sway behind security cordons staffed by PMC kill squads field testing ethno munitions.
Jiro achingly pulled himself off another cold metal floor to confront the latest holding pattern likely awaiting irradiated body cavities or fates more obscene. Atrocity proved the surest talent bureaucracies mastered unchecked as crusader spirits broke against exponential suffering metrics. Even steady state crisis mode optimizing this facility looked like one failed to safeguard away from liquidation proceedings that left no witnesses intact questioning disappearances. He mentally steeled against resurgent nightmares from Detroit camp days helplessly hearing liquidation squads dragging “nonviable refugees” off... focus awaited whatever new evils took stage now.
Jiro sat vigilantly scanning new confinement through swollen lids—cramped and overflowing with mounds of biowaste bags stacking toward a shadowy ceiling. He gagged violently from the overpowering blanket stench of bodily expulsions paused and decay. These holding pens framed all too grimly for processing what little meat remained fighting this System’s bleak attrition rates. Hope’s last prisoners penned up awaiting final carbon transfer to churning vault furnaces.
He shuddered despite stoic conditioning facing mortality rates this stark. Whatever curtailed administrative operations diverted standard clinical procedures to triaging waves of bodies until centralized functions were restored. Did salutary neglect buy wiggle room fleeing uncontrolled territory even heavily monitored by AI overseers and organic extermination teams? Nowhere good awaited behind these walls in the long term. Better set terms escaping this fate with audacity than meekly drowning in viscera.
The barricaded door rattled violently without warning followed by wet ripping sounds and frenzied shouts dopplering past. Jiro staggered up, fearing fresh waves of body bags getting dragged in for impromptu storage. But sudden scream followed by abrupt stillness hinting less routine and a more calamitous breakdown in disciplinary continuity. He crept to the barred entrance, glimpsing shadow play of chaos against reddish emergency klaxons. Another guttural howl Reveling inhuman resonances louder, then the sickening crack of splintering bone. Whatever safeguards once girded this outpost no longer prevented ...unauthorized entities from gaining lethal entry somehow, wonderful.
Then silence besides ambient weeping and pleas from adjoining containment blocks awaiting similar callous judgment. Jiro hesitated by his sole way out, unwilling yet to abandon haven despite unknown threats manifesting so close. Even base survival doubt urged him onward, would he find liberation or gallows past that blood-splashed portal creeping open? A familiar existential coin toss all too recurrent navigating global blight zones urban corpse...
Investigating corridor proffered expected & worse slaughter panoramas--dismembered body pieces strewn down Holding block passageways daring him to proceed like gauntlet moving between hastily constructed Polymer barrier partitions. Tread skittering unseen just beyond blood-soaked emergency lights flickering hypnotically. Loose containment truly fails along untold catastrophe measures. But better the potential devil faced than cowering helplessly until body bag teams rounded up statistics...
Jiro crept along slick grating trying to parse unfolding environmental clues while his brain screamed pure reptile imperatives “Run! Out! Escape now!” So far whatever violence erupted seemed directed towards facility custodians, not captive refugees for once. Outbreaks turned sprawling places unknowable alien hive cysts so quickly...
He rounded a gloomy passage corner and froze facing a formerly humanoid monstrosity crouched disemboweling more identically-clad victims—the same SF rapid response hit the squad team transferring him earlier he realized with a racing heart. Only whatever nightmares took hold behind sealed bulkhead doors had nothing stopping its limits now forging even elite executors into putrid biomass. Black blood mixed with glowing phosphorescence covered the walls and prone carcasses being deconstructed one by one by methodically by quivering obsidian talons erupting from several spastic limbs where arms once operated.
The cavernous helmet turned slowly hearing boot scuff radiating bottomless "Run little morsel run. Share your sweet marrow...” psychic invasion lilting childlike to disarm blind panic responses. Is this what the abyssal breach birthed?
Jiro swallowed bile before the familiar genre scene paralyzed faculties. Monstrous lab accidents unleashed beyond salvageable boundaries hardly unknown scenarios for him. Rogue Force Chimera specimens broke programming and mauled handler teams often during sub-level R&D prototyping. Being present and facing the unthinkable gave slighter odds holding fractures together after the breaking.... breath flowed as I observed thousands of grim field operations raged on four continents. Measure the Enemy without myths first. Analyze attack vectors detecting structural anomaly and breach points while engaged evasively. Then paint targets for incendiary strikes or radical disassembly methods at vulnerable joint parts until the threat container is again. The ugly business is typical most days...
It wore glistening night camouflage armor as skin somehow hardened into tuned biomechanical membranes, a burgeoning carapace with interlaced ribbed reinforcement from consuming security squad remnants. Alloy graftings protruded at unnatural vectors granting additional defensive plates and offensive bioshivs oozing caustic fluids. A deadly cross-mutation gaining amplified capacities from every point of contact or consumption...
It scraped against walls deliberately while muttering wetly "...one molecule stone rest all. components recyclable you understand? Offer machine futures freely. why cower before the beautiful Chimera breechings...”
It shuffled towards him with a swaying gate like a praying mantis examining newfound meaty limbs. Jiro backpedaled faster tensing for survival clash against escalating threat parameters. This entity violated containment zones on numerous registers demanding an executive Systems response. Too late hoping clinical overseers rectified a wholly new menace category!
He retreated from the dripping thing puppeteering a perilous path between ravaged docking platforms towards any ground still recognizable enough providing cover for counter-incursion efforts. The night stalker followed languidly toying with feeble prey it sensed unable to properly process the unfolding.
"where...flee from sacred convergence little runner? all roads now lead to the Basilica wherein machine and primal flesh entwine at last as the new covenant. Prophecy demands it's due... "
It unleashed chilling laughter then charging full in a fury to seize the insubordinate morsel!!!
Jiro screamed defiance hurling flash grenade ballistics to disorient spatial awareness while calculating degrees for outrageous escape. But monster things moved faster than possible anticipating vectors through predatory instinct and launching itself toward his throat before explosions fazed it!!!
Ferocious jaws closed and 40? teeth shards shearing meat discovered only cold floor instead slammed down. Rolling evasions kept the Asset just beyond deadly reach! From the ledge across the circular block, Jiro fired magnetic rappel lines toward the distant ventilation shaft. A rasping howl of outrage followed him faster than possible as monstrous cosa lunged again...
Jiro released the line prematurely, dropping 15? feet and crashing along partitioned experiment chambers and busted specimen cages. Safety conditions hardly ranked priority with whatever came before! He careened wildly trying only doors still unexpectedly functional until locating climate lockers storing field operation environment suits probably from when infrastructure maintained antiseptic psi conditions standard.
He barricaded the thermoplastic entryway hoping unpowered door seals