Cicada 3301
27 Sep 2018Kara waldeN
The K-Cast connected. Kara smiled and waved. She was walking while she ran the Cast, holding the uplink in one hand and looking down into its receptor pools. She wore purple eye protectors and her cheek bones were striped with vivid yellow sunblock.
Above her head was blue sky, stippled with charcoal clouds.
“So, guess where I am?” She asked and waved the Handheld around too quickly to catch anything but an impression of a high tech city full of jungle. Flashes of neon flowers against concrete formwork. Ecology and Arcology locked in a love hate embrace of competition and denial.
“Too late, I’m on Lave!” She said and struck a pose as she answered her own question.
“Ooh, snacks,” she shouted and the Cast slid sideways as she spoke to someone. There were out of focus feet, then a steel drum with a grill where things on sticks roasted.
“Lookit, bugsss,” she enthused, waving the stick in front of the Handheld and the things came into focus. Four large roasted beetles gleamed in a coating of barbecue sauce.
“Mmm, yummy,” she bit down on the first one and it's crunchiness became apparent as the carapace splintered and a wing spiraled out.
“Lave is in the middle of a Cicada bloom at the minute, these little suckers are everywhere,” she said, her mouth full of insect parts.
“They aren't native, the larvae hitched a ride from Sol in some dirt. Stayed undetected for years then, boom, out they came. Seems they can't get rid of them now,” she explained and slurped the remains of the first one off the stick. She seemed thoughtful while she crunched it.
“Good eating though. Actually, that reminds me. I've been meaning to get back to you about that thing. The thing with the Thargoids. Come to think of it, they are lot like the Barbecue round here. Not just because they are crunchy but also because they live in the ground. They've been in the ground for a long time, they stay there and wait. Wait for their predators to die off. Some of the first Probes were found in the ground. Then out comes a thing, an Instar, it's called an Instar, no longer a larvae but not quite a bug. After that they moult and fly around looking for good things to eat and have sex with,” she said and swung the communicator around until a crowd could be seen up ahead.
She turned the view back to herself.
“My target is in that crowd. A real nasty piece of work this one Oub. I better make this quick. Anyway, the Goids are just living a life cycle that's kept them around for a long time. Only thing is, they haven't been having much sex yet, that's because only the ladies are out at the minute. Or the Drones. Not sure which is which, there is still more data to uncover. So when the other ones come out, that's when they get jiggy and fill space with their alien jizz,” she said and made a face as she conjured up images of nebula sized clouds of alien space cum.
“Anyway, some of the guys I've been hunting are using the natural cycle of the Thargoids for their own ends. Problem is they don't realise what they are messing with or what's coming. All the evidence is in a link in this signal. If you break it down with the right tools you can find hidden things and it's pretty clear to me. I warn you though it's a rabbit hole. And pretty trippy too. You will see some things you recognise in those visuals. I think it proves this is all a con. The track is about eight minutes long too so feel free to take your time, wouldn’t want to miss anything. Do some wider searches too, look for the year 3301 and bugs. It was a prime number and these kind of loons like that sort of symmetry”
As she finished speaking her demeanour changed and she focused on something ahead. She tossed the bug kebab.
“Too many similarities for me to ignore. Hidden signals, bugs, crazy little tests. I gotta admit on the surface it sounds like the ranting of a crazy woman and her O-head music but the funny thing is, being out here, all on my own for this long I've never felt so sane,” she said and smiled one last time at the receptors.
Then she brought her hand up with something round in it. Using her teeth she pulled a large, ringed pin from it and something sprang out from the top with a metallic ping.
“It's been good to talk Oub, catch up soon at that bar you like on Citi ok?” She said and lobbed the grenade she had just armed.
There was an explosion and screams.
She brought another grenade up to her mouth and killed the feed.
(Ooc Cicada 3301 is one of the more interesting things to be found on the internet. For a while now I've been thinking there were similarities between the way Cicada presented the "Quest" and the way the search for the Thargoids manifested. Then there's the number too. Why did they choose 3301? It's probaby just a coincidence. Only the truely paranoid would think other wise. Anyway, the link below is something which appeared this year but is believed to be a non genuine copycat. It has been proved to hold secrets but so far no one has found anything relating to the original puzzles. If you do click the link, don't forget to take breadcrumbs so you can find the way back)
Kara's trippy 8 minute rabbit hole. Only a true Psychonaut would think this is anything but meaningless...