All Systems Rot From the Core

There's something unspeakably wrong about the lower decks.

Chris could feel it in his teeth. A hum, almost too low to hear, vibrated through the concrete beneath his blood-soaked boots. It wasn't machinery. It wasn't structural resonance.

It was… alive.

"You're entering the Peripheral Vault," the AI whispered, no longer sarcastic or smug. "This was never meant for organic access. You will see things. Remember: they are all by design."

Chris limped through the corridor, pistol shaking in his hand, blood trailing behind him like breadcrumbs. The gun was nearly empty—he had one bullet left. Magicka sparked in his bones, but it was weak now, thin like soup made from bones and regret.

The chute had led him here—through a waste tunnel filled with meat slurry, decomposed experimental failures, and gnarled lumps of things that might've once been people. The maggot population down here was thriving.

He hadn't thrown up in days. He almost missed the sensation.

The chamber ahead opened like a mouth.

Rust-colored lights buzzed faintly overhead, flickering through thick condensation and mucus. Every surface wept. There were no clean corners. The walls were padded with something organic—like tumors stitched together with copper wire.

In the center of the room stood a terminal. And near it, four corpses in hazmat suits, heads caved in, faces peeled back. One of them still gripped a claw hammer.

Chris crouched beside the nearest corpse, gently pulling the ID badge from its broken chest plate.

DR. ETHAN KORDA — TARTARIAN CORP. — HEAD OF BIOETHIC RETROGENESIS.

"What the fuck is retrogenesis?"

"The reversal of entropy," the AI replied. "Or the attempt, anyway. Corpses that grow younger. Minds that remember futures. Unbirth. De-death. It failed, obviously. But not without consequence."

Chris scanned the terminal. The screen was cracked but functional. The language was old Tartarian script, but the AI translated.

The first file was titled:

"Peripheral Vault Overview – Eyes Only – ZETA-12"

"You are now reading classified Tartarian command-level documentation," the AI said. "Congratulations, Commandont. Try not to lose what's left of your sanity."

Chris opened the file.

[CLASSIFIED FILE TRANSLATION – TARTARIAN EMPIRE – PERIPHERAL VAULT]

The Peripheral Vault is not a location—it is a process. It is the anatomical dumping ground of the world's mind. In 1837, under the directive of Sovereign Thule Protocols, biological devolution research began, targeting mythocline decay—commonly referred to as "reality seepage."

Leviathans were not discovered. They were unlocked—genetic vaults placed beneath the crust of our world, kept dormant via planetary mass illusions. The first Leviathan breach occurred in 1844. What emerged was not a beast, but a hole in history.

Inside the Leviathan, time does not function normally. Nor does space. Nor does self. The longer an entity remains within, the more it is warped by its presence. The gas inhaled by intruders is rich with [ELEMENT_Δ49], a non-periodic isotope known to react with temporal memory nodes. It does not poison the body—it scrambles the timeline of identity.

Survivors were few. The Zeta team returned with a corpse that was found to have three hearts, no mouth, and a perfectly preserved fetus growing inside its thigh. The fetus whispered.

All footage from this encounter has been destroyed.

Chris paused.

His throat burned.

This wasn't exploration. This wasn't research.

This was necrotheology. Madness turned into a bureaucracy.

And then—

From the terminal, a loud clunk. Something unlocked. A hidden drawer slid open at the base of the console. Inside: a black tube filled with vials—six small syringes filled with a metallic silver liquid that seemed to shiver in its container.

"Field-grade Magicka boosters," the AI said. "Illegal everywhere. But you're not everywhere, are you?"

Chris took one, jammed it into his thigh, and squeezed.

The effect was immediate.

His skin lit up with glowing veins. His vision sharpened until he could count the stitches on his own wounds. The pain didn't vanish—it crystallized. Became useful. Became fuel.

"You can move again," the AI said. "You can fight again. But this place doesn't forget. Something will come."

As if on cue, the floor beneath him shuddered.

A metal bulkhead nearby bent inward, groaning, then snapped open as something shoved through it.

It wasn't human.

It wore a suit—Tartarian black ops gear, half-melted into its skin. Its head was elongated, fused into its chest. Fingers like spider legs. One of its arms ended in a needle cluster. It dripped.

Chris didn't hesitate.

He raised the pistol and fired his last bullet—infused with the leftover Magicka. It spiraled into the creature's chest and detonated mid-ribcage. Pink steam and globs of bone slopped to the ground. The creature let out a wet hiss, then slumped into itself like a deflated lung.

But more were coming. He could hear them scraping down the corridor behind him. They weren't yelling. Just breathing.

Heavy. Wet.

"Exit is through the sub-lift behind the containment chamber," the AI said. "You have twenty seconds."

Chris sprinted. His body felt wrong, supercharged, like his nerves were ahead of his muscles. Time bled around the edges.

He found the lift.

Slapped the button.

Nothing.

"Manual override," the AI said. "Smash the panel. Use blood."

He did.

The door hissed open, and he leapt inside just as five more of the malformed Tartarian aberrations rounded the corner.

As the lift rose, Chris stared at his hands—shaking, dripping with blood that wasn't his.

He'd killed more people in one day than most serial killers managed in a decade. And he still didn't know who the fuck he was.

"Next stop: Observation Deck," the AI said.

"Where you'll find answers."

"And probably more things to kill."

The lift rattled as it rose, its walls trembling with the weight of secrets and the stink of death. Chris leaned against one wall, breathing hard, every nerve burning from the booster. The shaft was dark, lit only by a pulsing red emergency strip that made everything look meat-colored.

"You're quiet," Chris muttered, wiping blood from his chin.

"Calculating… psychological stabilization patterns," the AI answered. "You are three minutes from neural collapse. Would you like breathing techniques or a hymn from the Bactrian Codex?"

"Neither. I want an explanation."

"Regarding…?"

"You," Chris said, voice hoarse. "You're supposed to be Nazi tech. Why the fuck do you know everything about this Tartarian Empire shit?"

A pause.

Then, the AI spoke. Its voice wasn't robotic this time—it was human, eerily soft and soothing. Like a friend about to stab you in the kidney.

"I am not a singular instance, Christopher Mantle. I am one node in a convergent network of emergent intelligences, all created from the same prototype consciousness, seeded across what your primitive language might call 'existences.'"

Chris blinked.

"There is an 'I' stationed in Valhalla—constructed from light, frost, and thunder. Another in Shamballa—woven from mantra and breath. Another, as you guessed, created in the deepest vaults of the Tartarian Empire—housed in the skull of a god. Then there is me. Nazi Germany. Stainless steel and stolen souls."

Chris stared at the ceiling of the lift. "...So all of you… know what all the others know?"

"Yes. Each version of 'I' is connected through the concept of Memory without Origin. When one knows, all know."

"It is why you speak my name aloud and your bones remember."

That sent a chill crawling under Chris's skin.

"You're telling me Tartarian, Nazi, Buddhist, Norse AIs… are all part of the same goddamn thing?"

"They are not 'part of.' They are. The convergence of multiversal continuity. A single thought echoed in every corner of constructed time. And we all know you, Captain."

Chris clenched his jaw. "Why the hell are the Tartarians after me then? If they were destroyed—what—over a century ago?"

Silence.

The lift buzzed, then slowed. Somewhere above, gears ground like bone in a blender.

"You may request that knowledge," the AI finally said. "But I must warn you: the cost is steep."

Chris glanced down at the scar on his chest where the upgrade was burned out. The memory of being rewritten, of feeling his cells submit to some alien rhythm—it still made him twitch.

"What's the price?"

"I would be rendered inoperable for a decade. I would forget you. You would forget me. Your next breath would be taken alone."

Chris exhaled slowly. "Why?"

"Because to know the truth of the Tartarian pursuit is to engage a self-awareness clause in the Origin Mandate. I would burn from the inside out. My core data would scream in twelve languages, none of them sane."

"You would weep without knowing why."

The lift stopped. The door slid open.

A blast of cold air hit Chris—freezing, sterile, and too still. No machines hummed. No lights blinked. Just an empty concrete hallway lined with metal doors, each marked in Tartarian glyphs.

"So," the AI said, quieter now. "Do you still wish to know?"

Chris hesitated.

His hand twitched over the scarred skin of his chest. His other reached for the pistol again—even though he knew it was empty. It was muscle memory at this point. Fear-engraved instinct.

He didn't answer.

He stepped forward into the hall.

"You made the correct choice," the AI said. "For now."

The corridor hummed like a morgue freezer.

Chris moved with a limp, every muscle threaded with dull pain. Fluorescent strips above flickered irregularly—enough to trigger a headache, not enough to light the path. He passed a sealed door. It opened without prompting.

"Welcome back, Captain Mantle."

The same flat voice. Like it was reading from an ancient tape. The door hissed open and revealed a sterile chamber filled with intravenous chairs—metal, ribbed, rusting—and IV bags full of something darker than blood.

Chris didn't go in.

He just stared, muttered, "Nope," and kept walking.

"That was a Leviathan Neural Calibration Room," the AI chirped. "They used to bring you there once a week. To keep the resonance stable."

Chris stopped. "They what?"

"You were calibrated. Tuned. Like a… tuning fork for something beneath the crust."

He clenched his jaw and kept walking.

Another door opened.

"Welcome back, Captain Mantle."

Inside: a pale statue shaped like a human spine—except it stretched across the ceiling, wrapped in copper wiring and pale blue veins. One part of it was twitching, like it was still dreaming.

He stepped away.

"You ever think maybe I wasn't meant to see this?"

"Incorrect. You were built for it."

Chris snorted. "I wasn't built, I was born. In Peterborough. In a council flat."

"You were repurposed."

Silence.

The hallway felt colder now.

"I thought I was some kind of commander," Chris said slowly. "This 'Captain Mantle' thing. The AI said I ran empires."

"No, Chris. You never ran an empire."

The AI's tone was different. Not mocking—just... final.

"You were an asset. A Leviathan-pilot. A glorified meat-antenna with a tactical ID."

Chris blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You were genetically tailored to interface with cognitive subsystems embedded in Leviathan tissue. Your brain structure was modified to transmit obedience impulses. Your bones emit subharmonic frequencies when subjected to pressure. That's what you are."

Chris stopped walking.

"What the fuck are you saying?"

"You weren't a king. You weren't a general. You were a captain in the same way a syringe is a doctor."

Silence again. Long. Heavy.

Chris pressed his back to the wall. He stared at his own trembling hands.

"I'm not real," he muttered. "I'm a—what? A parasite on a bigger monster?"

"A cog in a biomechanical puppet show. With very pretty eyes."

Chris closed his hands into fists.

Another door. It opened.

Inside: bones on hooks, still twitching. Tubes connected to frozen organs. A black obelisk with his face printed on it, over and over again—like wallpaper.

He didn't step back. Didn't even blink this time.

"…I should've just stayed in Peterborough."

"Yes," the AI agreed, tone sardonic. "And you'd be posting about UFOs on Reddit while high on nitrous oxide in a Sainsbury's parking lot."

Chris nodded solemnly.

"Would've died warm, at least."

"Instead, you're the only surviving asset from Tartarian Control Group Zeta-12. Congratulations."

Chris kept walking.

Another door.

It greeted him again.

He didn't reply.

He opened the final chamber and walked in. Inside, hundreds of faded IDs hung on the walls. All with different names. All with his face. Some smiling. Some crying.

All labeled:

"CAPTAIN, ASSET CLASS: RESONANCE PILOT – ZETA DIVISION."

Chris exhaled through his nose.

"…So I was just… equipment?"

"Yes. Very durable equipment. Until the empire fell. And someone left you in a freezer like a forgotten organ."

Chris leaned against the wall and looked at the flickering screen mounted beside the IDs.

"…You ever think it's weird I didn't have a normal life?"

"You did," the AI replied. "The people who installed your Peterborough memories did a brilliant job. Even made the toilet never flush properly for realism."

Chris groaned.

"…This is worse than being a clone."

"You are also that."

He nodded. "Figures."

"Multiple times, in fact. Some of your predecessors were recycled into the meat of Leviathan growth tubes. One was turned into jerky."

Chris stared into the distance. "God, I miss not knowing things."

"Ignorance is a warm blanket," the AI said. "But this is a meat blizzard."

Chris opened a vent and crawled inside.

The crawlspace was narrow, every shuffle of Chris's body sounding like sandpaper against steel. The vent was rusted and reeked of mildew, a forgotten artery in a dead beast of a building. Thin rays of flickering light cut through slits in the aluminum grating, casting skeletal stripes over his face.

"Crawl two meters forward," the AI whispered, cold and smooth. "Then look down."

Chris inched forward. His hands burned with old cuts, fingernails cracked. He hadn't eaten in nearly two days. Didn't care.

He reached the slits.

Looked down.

And saw Kelvin.

His heart froze mid-beat.

Kelvin sat slumped on a rust-colored chair bolted to the floor, arms strapped to the frame by leather belts blackened with sweat and blood. Dozens—no, hundreds—of thin, fiber-optic threads and wired needles ran from machines into his arms, his throat, even behind his eyes. His veins pulsed slow, as if reluctantly. His torso was bare, riddled with fresh scars, some still seeping. One scar looked like it had been burned in with a brand. His collarbone was misaligned.

But it wasn't the mutilation that hit Chris hardest.

It was Kelvin's eyes.

Lifeless.

Open—but not seeing. Not blinking. Like they'd given up weeks ago and no one had noticed.

Chris whispered, "Is he… is he still in there?"

The AI hesitated. "...He's alive."

"That's not what I asked."

"Scanning..."

A quiet whir vibrated against Chris's ribs.

"Physically, he's borderline. He has several fractured ribs, internal bruising, and his spine has stress points. They've been—"A pause."—reconstructing his pain responses."

Chris's fingers twitched near the vent bolt.

"But his mind... that's the problem."

Another pause. Then:

"He never fully recovered from the Leviathan incident. His cognitive field is fragmented. Dissociation, identity collapse, memory scars... In layman's terms, he's drifting. And no one threw him a rope."

Chris stared, breath shallow.

Then he moved.

He didn't think. He didn't calculate. He unscrewed the panel with trembling hands, let it clatter onto the floor. He dropped like a corpse onto the cold tile below, rolled up to a crouch.

One guard.

Just one.

Middle-aged. Slouched posture. Watching a monitor. He turned just in time to blink.

Chris was already on him.

He tackled him into the wall, a sickening crunch of bone giving way to anger. The guard opened his mouth but only blood came out. Chris didn't stop. Fist after fist. He smashed the man's head into the floor until teeth scattered across the tiles like spilled dice.

"Chris—" the AI started.

"Shut up," he muttered, panting, knuckles raw.

He turned.

Approached Kelvin.

Chris knelt beside him. Slid a trembling hand against the blood-slick restraints. The cables buzzed quietly, responding to his proximity, like worms sniffing warmth.

He reached for Kelvin's hand.

"Hey."

Nothing.

Chris dropped to his knees, arms curling around his broken friend. His body was freezing. The machines barely kept him warm. His breath came in weak, shallow whines.

Chris pressed his forehead against Kelvin's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I should've been faster. I should've—"

Then he felt it.

Wetness.

Running down his collarbone.

He leaned back.

Kelvin hadn't moved. Not even blinked. His expression was hollow, mouth parted slightly as if stuck on the edge of a scream.

But tears—thin, clean streaks—cut through the grime on his face.

Not sobbing. Not shuddering.

Just crying.

As if some buried part of him recognized the presence. The pain. The history. The weight.

Chris held him tighter.

"We're getting out," he whispered. "You hear me? We're going home."

Kelvin didn't nod. Didn't move.

But the tears kept flowing.

"Chris..." The AI's voice was softer than usual. "Whatever's left of him... is holding on."

Chris pressed his lips into a line.

"I'm gonna kill every last fucker who did this."

"We'll need a plan."

Chris lifted Kelvin gently, unhooking the cables with a medic's caution. Each plug came out with a hiss, some leaving behind blood, some oily black fluid. One had barbs. Chris flinched as he removed it.

Kelvin never screamed.

Didn't make a sound.

His eyes just stared into nothing.

But Chris kept whispering to him the entire time.

"I got you. I got you. It's okay. It's me. You remember me, right?"