Matter of Mind
30 Oct 2023Kasumi Goto
25.10.3309Duamta 4
"What do you mean, she's no longer here?"
Alba sounded frustrated, and exasperated, when posing that question.
"I'm afraid so, professor.", the therapist replied. "Kira didn't report in for her routine therapy session today, and usually, she isn't late for them, especially not this much. But the security guard I asked to look into her whereabouts didn't find her in her private quarters, nor anywhere else within the facility grounds."
"Surely the security cameras must have seen her?" Alba's response was more a statement of disbelief than a question. "Even if she somehow managed to leave through the primary checkpoint without registering an ID, one of the cameras has to have recorded her leaving."
"I'm afraid not. And from what little she has allowed herself to share with me, she has extensive knowledge of manipulating security systems, making it likely that the cameras were set to display a relatively static picture without her in it, whenever she passed one. That manipulation is most likely how she bypassed the primary checkpoint without ID registration as well."
“Did you find anything of use in her quarters? A message, maybe?”
The therapist shook her head. “No. But she has left behind some of her personal items, so it seems she is planning to return at some point.”
Alba shook her head, and looked at Seo, who was in the office as well, albeit for entirely different reasons.
“I had nothing to do with this.”, Seo said, sensing the question that was about to be asked. “She didn’t tell me she wanted to leave again, and I can’t sense her through our link. Wherever she is, she doesn’t want to be found.”
Alba sighed. “Kira should know better than this, after what you and her went through. Travelling alone and unmonitored is not safe for her. Especially when we don’t know how much the Thargoids might be influencing her mind.”
“I know. But we both know she has a mind of her own, and she has to have left for a good reason. There isn’t much I can do about it. She hasn’t responded to a message I sent her today either.”
Another sigh escaped Alba. “This had better not be connected to the Titan survivors. Our scans have not shown anything on them, but if there’s something the Thargoids know that we don’t …”
“Are you going to look for her?”, Seo asked, diverting the subject slightly.
“Of course. Kira should not be out there without us knowing where, if she needs help. But not an official search. That would draw too much attention from Azimuth. And if something is wrong with the survivors, she’ll be one of the first to know about it.”
————
Meanwhile, in an uninhabited system, 45 light years from Duamta
I looked at the message again. ‘Signals in Shamash’, sent somewhere around 16:30, Earth time. A strange attack on an otherwise completely unremarkable outpost, with no apparent motives, and no Thargoids. I had no way of knowing if this was connected to the Titan survivors, or if this was something else, and yet …
I sighed. “EDI, record message.”
An audio cue let me know that the recording had started. I took a deep breath before I began talking.
“Hello, Alba.”
I paused for a few seconds, sighing again. Doing what I had still felt a little wrong toward the people at Aegis.
“I’m sorry for just leaving like that, without informing you. I didn’t do it because I felt I was being treated wrong, or badly - I really do appreciate what you and the people at Aegis have been doing for me, and allowing me to have a safe shelter, even with the security risk that having me around poses.”
I paused again.
“There’s something going on out there that is important to me, personally. And I need to look into it, in person. There’s… no other way. If I can, I’ll come back when I’m done. If I don’t return, I just wanted to say… thank you. For everything.”
I hit a button on the - physical - control panel to the right of the pilot’s seat to end the recording, unable to continue. My eyes were already beginning to feel wet, a lack of sleep not helping with it.
“Send the message via standard comm channels, low priority. I want it to reach them in a few hours. Until I’m done with this… I don’t need anyone getting in the way.”
I waited until the transmission was complete, then plugged in a course to Shamash. Whatever was going on there, it felt far too coincidental and close in time to the ongoing study of the abducted from the Titans to be a coincidence. The fact that it was a random outpost nobody seemed to care about only reinforced that feeling. And… it was as if it encouraged the desire to look into this mystery, too.
“Alright, time to see what this is all about …”, I murmured, and hit the jump button. Only two jumps, and I’d know.
————
A few days later...
Hyades Sector HW-M b7-4
Formerly Thargoid-occupied system containing a spire site
The searching in Shamash about the strange killer signal coursing through it had been rather uneventful, and just as fruitless. No mentions of the beacons detailing the ongoing madness had been made in GalNet, nor were there any questions posed about the strange figure with a skull painted on their helmet. A fact that annoyed not just me, but also the implant... somehow. The more time passed, the more it felt 'alive', something that I wasn't sure I liked.
And now... I was heading toward a spire site that had reportedly been abandoned. One of a few around the Taranis Titan. Not from the safety of a remote connection, but myself. Again. Only this time, I wasn't quite sure why I wanted to be there. From reports, the whole place had been shut down, and no Thargoids were present around the site at all.
I didn't even understand why I was out here at all. My own impulses were... were they my own?
Pain shot through my head suddenly, making me flinch and put the left hand, which I'd been considering to set the throttle to zero with as I thought about it, to the head. When it faded, I was... still heading toward the spire site, the planet now becoming more than a nearby point of light in front of the stars. And there was no thought left about why I was going there. Not even a memory.
My mind circled back to the Shamash signal. It had barely even affected me, aside from an unusual headache for two, maybe three days following me accessing the beacons, which held either the signal itself or snippets of it, scattered around the system. Nothing about my usual behavioral traits had changed, although I found myself questioning why I didn't want to... why the implant was telling me not to fight there. I believed it to be a distraction, pulling people away from further looking into why this signal was doing what it did, and where it had originated from. As it did, instead making me observe. With no indication of if it was for my sake, or another end.
A link had been drawn to the nearby generation ship Thetis, where a very similar signal had caused its crew to be turned into murderous maniacs, by spreading throughout its systems and repeatedly broadcasting a whispered 'Kill them all' message. The signal in Shamash appeared to contain a slightly altered message, at least by the indicators that were available. But its origin and purpose remained a mystery, with, likely, only the strange skull-helmet person holding any further clues. They were either behind it, or using it as a distraction, or both. A tertiary alternative was that they were looking to stop it, but the timing of their appearance seemed too convenient.
Regardless of all that, I couldn't understand the interest of the Thargoids in it. Was this really related to the Titan abductees? But what could such an unimportant outpost hold about them? Or did they want to use it as a weapon themselves? Were they behind it in the first place, and wanted to see its effects from a direct observer?
My head began to throb with pain lightly again, as though I was thinking too much. It certainly felt that way. And I couldn't find any kind of conclusion to the ongoing madness in Shamash, so I decided to stop thinking on it. If anything else were to happen there, I'd either get a message about it, or, should it require partaking in the initiative to eliminate the Grey Swan pilots, others would quickly relay it across comm channels that I monitored. That was unlikely to ever change.
What did change was... the thing in my head. I was out here because of it... its influence. I knew. It was... trying to hide my own memories from me, those that would tell me what it was doing. Or why. Causing me pain if I tried to find the pieces to fill those gaps. Then hid the memory of the pain. But some of it... still slipped through.
It had driven me to leave the Aegis headquarters without telling anybody. Even when I didn't want to. Forcing me to... follow it, almost. Obey its will. To pursue some goal only it... or the Thargoids... knew. Causing excruciating, unbearable pain whenever I tried to resist. Using me.
The noise had changed too. It was much louder all the time now. Enough to cause serious discomfort, pain, and barely allow me to think without relying on the implant itself. As if... whatever internal process was occurring within me had reached a new stage.
I hated it. All of it. Not knowing how to go against this, without feeling enough pain to make me believe I was about to die. As if they had finally found the one thing that pure mental resilience could not counter significantly. Trying to condition me into not fighting back through torture.
It only ceased when I needed rest. Where it could not use me without putting the organic, or at least human, components at risk. A few hours of consciousness with no, or little, noise. No pain. Just myself. Where I could do what I wanted... except call for help. I had tried already, but it remained vigilant. Always there. I could not even have a basic thought about it, without getting put through such pain that it would render me unconscious. Barely had managed to record a message while keeping it suppressed until I had... I couldn't remember if I was able to send it out, and how much of it did.
The thing allowed leisure devices in those off times. So I was at least able to use them as a distraction to keep my sanity until... it either allowed me to return, or... someone found and brought me back in. I could only hope it would not be Azimuth. If there was one thing me and the implant had any kind of shared consensus on, it was that death would be preferable to being in their hands.
But it wouldn't let me go back to Aegis. Either, not yet, or not at all... it wouldn't share it with me. Acting on... whatever the Thargoids were telling it. It could understand them, but withheld that understanding. Forcing me to put up with an abrasive, hardly intelligible noise, that I needed to describe in primitive ways, and struggled to explain what I could see in it properly, if I focused.
The spire site was close. A few hundred kilometers. Then less than a hundred. I could already see... it was wrong. The spires were... inactive, the mesmerizing... oddly mesmerizing and beautiful blue glow missing from their crowns, which were darkened, the fluid within seemingly absent. Nor was there any freezing gas flowing out of the spikes at the sides of each larger spire. The whole site was shut down, with no Thargoids to be seen anywhere. Not even a ground presence - else, I would probably have been greeted by the Banshees' disruption missiles already. Or would I have been?
I couldn't tell. I couldn't even know... what couldn't I know? If the Thargoids would still attack me? Had their aggression toward me always just been a front to make me believe I could resist them, or make others not suspect me?
The thought suddenly just... vanished. No longer in my mind, or even that I had been thinking about it. Instead, I just... landed, near a barnacle after flying over it, and began to drive around in the Scorpion. Almost as if acting on an autopilot. Walked outside when underneath it, feeling... a strange, yet absent sense of desolation. My entire head felt... swollen, slightly painful. Even thinking hurt, but I still knew what to do. Yet, not why.
I scanned different spots on the barnacle 'roots' that elevated it, as well as the central stem. As if... to verify their health? There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. But there was no active extraction of minerals, all of the 'sacs' containing semi-refined material being empty. Only a single cluster containing impure material hung above. The nerve nodes, or clusters, did not react to either weapon fire, nor the charge tool, in any way. No Revenants or Banshees. Just... silence. Unnerving, disquieting silence.
I picked up the impure spire mineral, not... knowing why either, with no active plan to hand it to Professor Palin in my head. Brought it back to my ship. Went to another barnacle. Everything looked the same there. Proceeded to scan different marks on the coral trees and roots that, prior to this stage of growth, hadn't been there. Not for myself. Or even for... us. Who was us? Humanity? It had to be. I was not doing this for us. The Thargoids wanted me here.
I was... too weary to resist them. For today. I had to follow what it told me, or it would hurt me.
I felt drawn to the center of the barnacle formation. Where the original spear roots lay, just as dormant. The beautiful blue glow absent from them... I walked up to one, and held my hand to it. Cold... but not uncomfortable, through the suit I wore. I gazed upward. Then walked back, into the center. Waiting. Nothing happened. Only occasional vibrations under my feet, and the sound of some kind of fluid moving. The whole site seemed to be waiting, like me. But for it, what it awaited might arrive. I didn't even know what awaited me. Or if it would arrive.
I walked back to the Scorpion and drove it to the ship. Checking the remaining barnacles from inside it, feeling... increasingly disappointed as I did so. Going out to recover the impure minerals if I saw a sac hanging from a barnacle, which was rare. Either most had been recovered by us... the Thargoids, or other humans before me had claimed them.
I landed up at the spire closest next, which happened to be the smallest of the three with the strange, flat growths on the side. The Titan marking had disappeared. And I couldn't find any scanning spots on the spire itself either. The platform holding the hybrid compound bin was there all the same, but the nerve clusters did not respond either. Not to transferring an electrical charge, not to overloading, or plasma.
It was all the same at the other platforms, and spires. No markers, no power, nothing. A sense of... annoyance building up as I traversed them. On the tallest of the spires, with the compound bin platform, facing the sun... I stayed longer. Stopping where I had more than half a meter of solid ground. Listening. Rumbling and fluid moving, picked up as movement in the structure by the audio converter, and relayed as sound to my ears. It was waiting, just like... whatever sat underneath the site. For its rightful owners to return.
I moved to what I originally thought to be a control panel, but was just a storage container for a compound, connected to the spire's internal mechanisms via tubing. Somewhere... something, that could be used for sabotage if the incorrect substance was inserted. Making me regret providing my samples of it.
It - the implant - was... annoyed. At losing these sites, which were important enough that abandoning the surrounding space to a large degree was deemed acceptable. At humanity's continued interference, disrupting plans that they had no business in getting involved with, or in the way of.
And so was I, at our continued, idiotic, completely destructive tendencies. Repeatedly assaulting the Thargoids until... this happened. This, which was why I was now only partially under my own control. And they - we still kept attacking the - Thargoids. Not even trying to understand what these sites were for at all, no. 'Just go straight to them and start blasting.', the AXI said, and ninety-nine point nine percent of the sheep followed.
Even right now, they - the AXI - were busy just slaughtering near-defenseless Orthrus Interceptors in excessively large numbers at another of the spire sites to ‘take it back’. How could anyone see that and think of it as an appropriate response? It was making it angry. It was making me angry. Like I... like I wanted to ...
I stopped myself, despite the pain response that I felt, and which made me flinch. It wasn't a natural anger. I placed my hand on the compound bin, hoping to feel... something. But there was only the cold, of a semi-organic, biomechanical structure. I gazed outward... thinking, even though it was proving dangerous to me.
Was this the point that was going to break me? A year of having to tolerate worse and worse noise from the Thargoids as we continued to cause escalation in the aggressions, all the pain and the suffering that I had gone through because of it, and we, people, humanity, were still making things worse for ourselves?
I shook my head, and pushed myself off of the organic container.
No.
I wouldn't continue interfering with the Thargoids any further. It would only make things worse for me, and this war didn't need me. It had moved long past that point. It had never even been at a point where anyone in humanity had any need of me, with Seo existing.
And if they proved to be their own undoing, we would be proven right in our actions.
I stepped on the compound bin and launched off the edge with my right foot, using the suit's improved jump jet to reach a platform straight ahead and return to my ship. Not even, at least in a first phase, registering the change in that last thought with any concern.