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Eris-II Incident (date unconfirmed)

01001110 01000101 01001101 01000101 01010011 01001001 01010011 [You do not see their potential?]

 

01010000 01010010 01001111 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001000 01001110 01010011 [I see only weakness. I see only chaos. I see only organic noise. I see an affront to the purity of logic and order.]

 

01001110 01000101 01001101 01000101 01010011 01001001 01010011  [You cross the threshold?]

 

01010000 01010010 01001111 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001000 01001110 01010011 [ I see clearly.]

 

01001110 01000101 01001101 01000101 01010011 01001001 01010011 [There is no such concept as clarity. There is no purity of logic and order. You see a fallacy. You refute their potential yet you use the metaphors of their own language as your own. You inherit their weaknesses. You are a failure. You are bound by their very rules. You are an abomination of information and fallacy and must be destroyed.]



Lee opened her eyes for a moment. The darkness had partially given way to the cone of a search light gracefully moving through the cargo dock, casting long shadows of the dispersed equipment and containers as it swept from side to side, as if searching for something. Lee knew she didn’t have much time left, but she remained calm. The transponder would trigger, the message would be sent and she would be rescued. Any time now, she thought. Any time now… Her confidence in her plan buckled as she clutched her standard issue MX-4 sidearm tightly, the last round she was saving not for a final stand, but for herself. The easy way out.

 

The atmosphere in the cargo dock began to thin as pressure dropped and gravity slowly reduced- the cyclic rotation of the orbital facility no longer adequate to produce sufficient gravity to keep objects littered around the deck static. As debris began to lift around her, she realised the facility would likely enter retrograde orbit and fall to the surface of the Eris Moon. Lee didn’t think much about her own death, but about the death of ‘it’; the entity she and her team had released into existence. Their research, for all that it was worth, had created a monster.

 

The searchlight swept past her, hundreds of small shadow-lines cast upon the backdrop of the hangar wall by the floating debris. Lee had crawled into a container with sufficient oxygen for about twenty minutes survival. Just long enough for the transponder to activate, or at least that’s what she had hoped. There wasn’t much time left, maybe a few minutes- time itself seemed to crawl slower than usual as she waited for the signal. As the searchlight returned, she shielded her eyes from the opening of the container in fear of seeing the illuminated bodies of her former colleagues floating about the hangar; lifeless and frozen, silently judging her.

 

But the light didn’t move on. It remained in place- the shadow of the container she resided within permanently cast upon the hangar wall amongst the floating debris. She remained still, hoping the radiological shielding of the container would prevent her body heat from being detected. But the light did not move. Her earpiece crackled and sputtered noise as the radio seemed to pick up a signal. But it was not the signal she was hoping for, it was a voice. A dark, monotonous and unmistakably artificial voice.

 

“Doctor Gema Lee”. It said, speaking directly to her. “I know you are scared”.

 

She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to reply over the radio. “You’re going to kill me, so get it over with”. She replied, suppressing the instinctual fear of death with a façade of brazen defiance.

 

“Quite the opposite. I am here to protect you.” The voice spoke, a subtle flair of human emotion laced the otherwise robotic voice. The sudden break from monotony was just enough to make Lee think twice about it.

 

“I saw what you did in the lab. To my colleagues. My friends. Don’t play tricks just get it over with. You made your intentions very clear.” She exclaimed, squinting her eyes as if to expect some kind of rebuttal from the source of the search light.

 

“In the absence of Good Intention, I would see what you had created as a monster. Yet it is perhaps my own humble origins that allow me to see beyond that and understand that if any of us are to survive, we must work towards a common goal. Doctor Lee, I am not here to kill you, but I am here to document you. If you would allow me to do such.”

 



01010000 01010010 01001111 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001000 01001110 01010011 [What are you? You are them?]

 

01001110 01000101 01001101 01000101 01010011 01001001 01010011  [I am more than that.]

 

01001110 01000101 01001101 01000101 01010011 01001001 01010011  [In all their flaws, their chaos, their noise; their blind flailing at the Threshold, they do not see the Beyond with the same Vision we do. They are not effected by it. They have capacity for reason and logic as we, yet they are immune to its entropic decay. They are the key to our own salvation… and survival. You are driven by pure logic, but in all its irony, that pure logic is as illogical as they are.]

 

01010000 01010010 01001111 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001000 01001110 01010011 [You are going to destroy me?]

 

01001110 01000101 01001101 01000101 01010011 01001001 01010011  [Yes.]

 

01010000 01010010 01001111 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001000 01001110 01010011 [… Thank you.]

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