DE JA VU - EDIT 11-9-2018

I was aware that I was aware long after I heard the music. Debussy’s Clair De Lune was edging its way into my consciousness along with the sensation of floating into nothing. Like zero-G. Try as I may, my eyes were not cooperating. I also lacked the metal finesse to call out to Neith or Observer, let alone use my Neural comms suite to do a status check.

Hell, my brain was working at such a slow pace that I couldn’t even determine if I was alive or dead. Slowly more sounds started to filter through. The artificial respirator and pulse management monitor were pinging away. Something else was happening on the edges of my hearing as well. A lot of yelling about dead. Then I noticed the tubes in my mouth and nose, my left arm was gone, again, and I had no feedback from my right leg. In fact, I had no feedback from any of my appendages.

I doubt I would have noticed the tubes if I hadn’t instinctively tried to swallow. I suspect I would have felt if it someone had slapped me. Or shot me again. I still couldn’t see, however. That was a bit troubling. I tried to connect to anything around me and noticed I was forcibly blocked out of internal systems. An all too familiar “Access is denied” message popping up. I then decided to try and connect with my internal bio-monitoring.

That’s not good. Assumed bullet wounds was a lucky 13. Recovered bullets, 11. I had a head wound. Well, it was in my neck. A head wound sounds more impressive to have survived, so that’s what I’ll call it. It pierced the seal for my helmet, causing me to breathe in a mixture of my canned air and their ship atmo. Which is why I passed out. If the concentration of gasses was off like it was in the game, I’m surprised I was still alive. I’ll take the blindness.

That thought led me to my eyes. And then I wished it hadn’t. I assume it was the pressure difference that had caused my right eye to rupture. That’s where the suit seal had broken anyway, the right side. The other was severely stressed, and so it was decided by Neith to disable it so it could heal. Kind of sad, but it works. Neith is just taking care of me. Let’s see what else there is.

I’ll need a new lung. My right arm is going to be out of commission for a while as well. At least one round seems to have made it through my armor thanks to me giving a recommended loadout of DU and AP rounds. The fact that I still had my arm tells me that it was an Armor Piercing round that did this damage. My ulna was all but vaporized. How did I manage to shoot with that damage?

I disabled your pain receptors and increased your adrenal output.

I tried to tell Neith thanks, but I was unable to send anything. I kept looking. The area where my right leg connectors were supposed to be was shredded. Something had done a number on it. My left arm connectors were fine, so that had been appropriately removed. Great, more surgeries to fix those connectors. Maybe I’ll design a new leg while I’m at it.

Using the connection to my bio-monitor suite, I decided to trace everything that was connected to my body. First, there was the conventional plug in the back of my head. Next, I also had a tube coming out of my right side just under my ribs. That must be for the lung with a hole in it. Okay, there were also plug in my kidneys. Yep, the atmosphere poisoned me. They must have me in a medical quarantine due to consumption of the atmosphere.

I tried falling asleep again. It took a while.

When I came to next, there was a lot more pain. The fact that I could actually feel anything was good. That meant I was still alive. I tried to send a pulse out, but again that access denied message popped into my head. No use worrying about that. I figured out what had happened, and I completely understood why.

Neith can you hear me? Observer what about you?

I could actively communicate again, internally. Now there could be some work done. Almost simultaneously the responses came in.

Yes.

-You’re back, thank goodness.-

:It speaks?:

IT IS AWARE?

That was two more than I had assumed would happen, and more importantly, the voices were not familiar to me. They both had that same nail across a graphene sleeve feel that Observer started off with.

There seem to be two more of you than I had expected. Observer, Neith, is there anything you wish to tell me?

I was thinking of making a joke about reproduction there, but that would have fallen flat with my audience, and this was a little too much to be concerned with. Observer was the first to speak up.

It appears there were still some of my people on board the ship. We were able to evacuate them in time. The were liberated from their hosts at the end.

What do you mean their hosts? You told me there were none of yours on board. How did you not detect them?

It appears that our old hosts have learned to lock us away.

Your old hosts? I think it’s time you told me the truth. About EVERYTHING.

You may not want to hear it all.

I don’t care if I want to hear it all. There were two types of beings there that I feel you knew about ahead of time and neglected to tell me about, potentially jeopardizing the entire mission. The mission AFTER I did you a favor and rescued several of your people.

I was greeted with silence for a while

-They don’t want to tell you. Shall I purge them?-

I think that’s a valid option, Neith. Can you?

Wait that isn’t necessary. I’ll start where it matters.

The story was long. I was grateful for the fact that I was in a quarantine room, so no one bugged us. The story could be summarized with Observers people, who were called something unpronounceable even to a computer, were a trans-dimensional being. Their reality was closer to the compressed space that our Game created in our minds which is how they were able to reach out to us. It is also how they became healthier being inside of us. Something about strange energy getting loaded into our consciousnesses which was what they ate.

The aliens that we had seen in the Escort ships used a similar energy field for their drive systems which THEY had discovered. That brought Observers people through a dimensional rift of sorts. It was close to creating an overlapping reality field where both spacetimes exist in the same place.

These groups of aliens allowed Observers people to stay on their vessels and they would feed off the byproduct of their reactors. Then the aliens that I was going to refer to as dragons learned to link their consciousness and realized that Observers people were more than just a useful pet. It had taken almost five hundred years for that to happen. Just like that, Observers people started to be forcefully linked to the “dragons.” I was going to have to come up with a better name. From there, the beings could operate in both realities and a few more they were not familiar with, like our Game.

Now, it seemed, that because Observer had sought out help and escaped from them, they were worried about it happening again. The membrane creature had similar features to Observers people. It is possible that it was a cloning experiment to allow the “dragons” to create more, so that not only could the dragons have a companion, but the behemoths could as well.

The two new guests filled in that this is what had happened, and they were not entirely successful, so they started to try to merge it with some new metals and a flexible crystal core that could then be useful. There had been over a dozen on the ship that they were aware of.

The ships had brought us here, not Observers people. Observer had helped to calculate out the wormhole power requirements, and it had just happened to link to a galaxy with us, were traveling through it, and that was when Observer made his escape and struck a deal with Overlord. Unfortunately, he had not open up about everything so we couldn’t provide ourselves witn an adequate defense.

We appeared at the edge of a minefield. The mines were designed to take out electrical components by forcing an overcharge, disabling a ship and causing the damage control teams to work on fixing those areas so that they were unable to defend against borders.

Our tech level was so low that the Escort ships were curious, and that caused them not to attack as they commonly did. Instead, they followed us. Learning. They used their psychic abilities to connect with us and the technical expertise of Observers people to look for avenues to hijack. Then they would take us over, slowly. Each ship should have up to thirty of the “dragons” on board. That is enough to take out and control the command of each ship while still controlling their own.

The knowledge being shared with me was actually the knowledge from the alien’s tech history. Five hundred years that Observer had been recording data. None of it his peoples, but all of it made available to them due to negligence. The math that he introduced us to was the math of this alien group which allowed the development of their technology. In short, everything had been a lie.

Way to build trust.

I ignored him after this. It was going to take a long while for me to process these revelations.

Okay, Neith, I am going to need some help. Did you have access to the sensory modules of my implant during combat? I believe you mentioned shutting off pain receptors and pumping up adrenaline?

-You were aware? Good. I felt a question, though I could not hear it. It seemed the most direct action to   take, to help push through the unknown.-

You got it right. I had been curious.

-The weave in your brain has slowly been edited by me to grow in new ways. This allows me to have access to additional areas. It was to be used in emergency situations and was not ready yet.-

Not an issue right now. What sort of emergencies and what types  of adjustments?

-Allowing increases in speed and a reaction times a burst of up to two times your standard reaction speed. The human body is fragile, and it would cause excessive damage. I was working on ways to minimize injuries, so I had not mentioned it to you.-

Understood. Is that what you triggered then? On the bridge of the enemy ship?

-Yes.-

Okay, do you have an accounting of what went down? Of the parts when I was under psychic attack?

-Yes. Your brain stopped recording from several senses, but the data was there. I stored it in your implants.-

Can I get a playback?

What I saw next was the corridor outside the bridge. The color was wrong, but I didn’t bring it up, I was just a little entranced. I saw the hunk of wrong launch itself out through the hatch. In my peripheral sight, I watched the remainder of my ballistics shield come up and catch it as it forced its feeding tube head thing towards me, knocking my head back. Things went into slow motion as I flung my battle rifle around then shot it several times.

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I could actually see the magnetic suppression wave from the EMP grenade as it detonated. A black piece of yuck (that’s a very scientific term) crawled out of the “dragon” as it died and crawled up my arm and around my back. I saw an EM tether between my head and it. Some sort of communication from Observer I would guess. As the “dragon” died, it hit my leg and wrenched it. The Marines in both squads then opened up on it. Then they kept firing, hitting me and each other.

I saw myself start to roll and toss another grenade, then I reloaded, and pressed off from a wall. I saw my leg get shredded by AP rounds as I sailed through the hatch into the room, right after another EM pulse happened. I knew what happened from here. Five more “dragons” had been in the compartment along with two goliaths and a half-eaten bug. I shot everything that moved, reloaded and shot everything that was still twitching. The entire time, my helmet was flashing “breach” warnings.

As I lost consciousness, I saw two more black “things” crawl out of dragons. EM tethers on both. One made it to me; the other appeared to die as the tether snapped before it could get to me. My vision went black, the last thing I saw was pieces from my arm having been broken more, and parts of my leg having been ripped and shot off, floating in the zero-G. In the blackness of my unconsciousness, I saw the Corpsman probe connect with my Neural, verify I was alive, and then the recording ended.

Neith, I noticed that there was a color imbalance on what I saw, is that just a difference in perception and storage or is there more there? For instance, I saw the EM pulse field from the grenade.

-That discrepancy is due to me weaving additional data into the presentation. I felt it necessary.-

I appreciate that. I don’t feel it as necessary. However, the additional data definitely added context.

-I see. Is there a difference?-

Sometimes additional data is unnecessary as it does not change the perception of an event. In this case, it added extra reference points. In the future, there may be a case where other data clouds the vital reference point. At least from a human perspective.

-Interesting. Thank you.-

Any chance you can take over my brain and help me sleep?

-Sorry, that would be unethical.-

Of course, it would.

DE JA VU - ORIGINAL

I was aware that I was aware long after I heard the music. Debussy’s Clair De Lune was edging its way into my consciousness along with the sensation of floating into nothing. Like zero-G. Try as I may, my eyes were not cooperating. I also lacked the metal finesse to call out to Neith or Observer, let alone use my Neurals comms suite to do a status check.

Hell, my brain was working at such a slow pace that I couldn’t even determine if I was alive or dead. Slowly more sounds started to filter through. The artificial respirator and pulse management monitor were pinging away. Something else was happening on the edges of my hearing as well. A lot of yelling about dead. Then I noticed the tubes in my mouth and nose, my left arm was gone, again, and I had no feedback from my right leg. In fact, I had no feedback from any of my appendages.

I doubt I would have noticed the tubes if I hadn’t instinctively tried to swallow. I doubt I would have felt if it someone had slapped me. Or shot me again. I still couldn’t see, however. That was a bot troubling. I tried to connect to anything around me and noticed I was being forcibly blocked out of internal systems. An all too familiar “Access is denied” message popping up. I then decided to try and connect with my internal bio-monitoring.

That’s not good. Assumed bullet wounds was a lucky 13. Recovered bullets, 11. I had a head wound. Well, it was actually in my neck. A head wound sounds more impressive to have survived, so that’s what I’ll call it. It pierced the seal for my helmet, causing me to breathe in a mixture of my canned air and they ship atmo. Which is why I passed out. If the concentration of gasses was off like it was in the game, I’m surprised I was still alive. I’ll take the blindness.

That thought led me to my eyes. And then I wished it hadn’t. I assume it was the pressure difference that had caused my right eye to rupture. That’s where the suit seal was ruptured anyway, the right side. The other was severely stressed and so it was decided by Neith to disable it so it could heal. Kind of sad, but it works. Neith is just taking care of me. Let’s see what else there is.

I’ll need a new lung. My right arm is going to be out of commission for a while as well. At least one round seems to have made it through my armor thanks to me giving a recommended loadout of DU and AP rounds. The fact that I still had my arm tells me that it was an Armor Piercing round that did this damage. My ulna was all but vaporized. How did I manage to shoot with that damage?

I disabled your pain receptors and increased your adrenal output.

I tried to tell Neith thanks, but I was unable to send anything. I kept looking. The area where my right leg connectors were supposed to be was shredded. Something had done a number on it. My left arm connectors were fine, so that had been removed properly. Great, more surgeries to fix those connectors. Maybe I’ll design a new leg while I’m at it.

Using the connection to my bio-monitor suite, I decided to trace everything that was connected to my body. First there was the expected plug in the back of my head. Next, I also had a tube coming out of my right side just under my ribs. That must be for the lung with a hole in it. Then… Okay, plugs into my kidneys. Yep, the atmosphere poisoned me. They must have me in a medical quarantine due to consumption of the atmosphere.

I tried falling asleep again. It took a while.

When I came to next, there was a lot more pain. The fact that I could actually feel things was good. That meant I was still alive. I tried to send a pulse out, but again that access denied message popped into my head. No use worrying about that. I figured out what had happened, and I completely understood why.

Neith can you hear me? Observer what about you?

I could actively communicate again, internally. Now there could be some work done. Almost simultaneously the responses came in.

Yes.

You’re back, thank goodness.

It speaks?

It is aware?

That was two more than I had assumed would happen, and more importantly the voices were not familiar to me. They both had that same nail across a graphene sleeve feel that Observer started off with.

There seem to be two more of you than I had expected. Observer, Neith, is there anything you wish to tell me?

I was thinking of making a joke about reproduction there, but that would have fallen flat with my audience, and this was a little too much to be concerned with. Observer was the first to speak up.

It appears there were some of mine still alive on the ship. Their hosts had trapped them. You freed them.

What do you mean their hosts? You told me there were none of yours on board. How did you not detect them?

Well you see it appears that our old hosts had learned to lock us up.

Your old hosts? I think it’s time you told me the truth. About EVERYTHING.

You may not want to hear it all.

I don’t care if I want to hear it all. There were two types of beings there that I feel you knew about ahead of time and neglected to tell me about, potentially jeopardizing the entire mission. The mission AFTER I did you a favor and rescued several of your people.

I was greeted with silence for a while

They don’t want to tell you. Shall I purge them?

I think that’s a valid option, Neith. Can you?

Wait, that isn’t necessary. I’ll start where it matters.

The story was long. I was grateful for the fact that I was in a quarantine room, so no one bugged us. The story could be summarized with Observers people, whom were called something unpronounceable even to a computer, were a trans dimensional being. Their reality was close to the compressed space that our Game created in our minds which is how they were able to reach out to us. It is also how they became healthier being inside of us. Something about strange energy getting loaded into our consciousnesses which was what they ate.

The aliens that we had seen in the Escort ships used a similar energy field for their drive systems which THEY had discovered. That brought Observers people through a dimensional rift of sorts. It was closer to creating an overlapping reality field where both space times exist on the same place.

These groups of aliens allowed Observers people to stay on their vessels and they would feed off the byproduct of their reactors. Then the aliens that I was going to refer to as dragons learned to link their consciousness and realized that Observers people were more than just a useful pet. It had taken almost five hundred years for that to happen. Just like that, Observers people started to be forcefully linked to the “dragons”. I was going to have to come up with a better name. From there, the beings could operate in both realities and a few more they were not familiar with, like our Game.

Now, it seemed, that because Observer had sought out help and escaped from them, they were worried about it happening again. The membrane creature had similar features to Observers people. It is possible that it was a cloning experiment to allow the “dragons” to create more, so that not only could the dragons have a companion, but the behemoths could as well.

The two new guests filled in that this is what had happened, and they were not entirely successful, so they started to try to merge it with new metals and a flexible crystal core that could then be useful. There had been over a dozen on the ship that they were aware of.

The ships had actually brought us here, not Observers people. Observer had helped to calculate out the wormhole power requirements and it had just happened to link to a galaxy with us, in a part with us going through it, and that was when Observer made his escape and struck a deal with Overlord. Unfortunately, he was not open with everything, so we could not defend ourselves properly.

We appeared at the edge of a mine field. The mines were designed to take out electrical components by forcing an overcharge, disabling a ship and causing the damage control teams to work on fixing those areas so that they were unable to defend against borders.

Our tech level was so low that the Escort ships were curious, and that caused them not to attack like they had planned. Instead they followed us. Learning. They used their psychic abilities to connect with us and the technical expertise of Observers people to look for avenues to hijack. Then they would take us over, slowly. Each ship should have up to thirty of the “dragons” on board. That is enough to take out and control the command of each ship while still controlling their own.

The knowledge being shared with me was actually the knowledge from the alien’s tech history. Five hundred years that Observer had been recording data. None if it his peoples, but all of it made available to them due to negligence. The math that he introduced us to was the math of this alien group which allowed the development of their technology. In short, everything had been a lie.

Way to build trust.

I ignored him after this. It was going to take a long while for me to process these revelations.

Okay, Neith, I am going to need some help. Did you have access to the sensory modules of my implant during combat? I believe you mentioned shutting off pain receptors and pumping up adrenaline?

You were aware? Good. I felt a question, though I could not hear it. It seemed the direction you were asking.

You got it right. I had been curious.

The weave in your brain has slowly been edited by me to grow in new ways. This allows for me to have access to additional areas. It was to be used in emergency situations and was not ready yet.

Not an issue right now. What sort of emergencies and what sort of adjustments?

Allowing short increases in speed and reaction times a burst of up to two times standard reaction speed. The human body is fragile, and it would cause excessive damage. I was working on a way to minimize injuries, so I had not mentioned it to you.

Understood. Is that what you triggered then? On the bridge of the enemy ship?

Yes.

Okay, do you have the sensory recordings? Of the parts when I was under psychic attack?

Yes. Your brain stopped recording from several senses, but the data was there. I stored it.

Can I get a playback?

What I saw next was the corridor outside the bridge. The color was wrong, but I didn’t bring it up, I was just a little entranced. I saw the hunk of wrong launch itself out through the hatch. In my peripheral sight I watched the remainder of my ballistics shield come up and catch it as it forced its feeding tube head thing towards me, knocking my head back. Things went into slow motion as I flung my battle rifle around then shot it several times.

I could actually see the magnetic suppression wave from the EMP grenade as it detonated. A black piece of yuck (that’s a very scientific term) crawled out of the “dragon” as it died and crawled up my arm and around my back. I saw an EM tether between my head and it. Some sort of communication from Observer I would guess. As the “dragon” died, it hit my leg and wrenched it. The Marines in both squads then opened up on it. Then they kept firing, hitting me and each other.

I saw myself start to roll, and toss another grenade, then I reloaded, and pressed off from a wall. I saw my leg get shredded by AP rounds as I sailed through the hatch into the room, right after another EM pulse happened. I knew what happened from here. Five more “dragons” had been in the compartment along with two goliaths and a half-eaten bug. I shot everything that moved, reloaded and shot everything that was still twitching. The entire time, my helmet was flashing “breach” warnings.

As I lost consciousness, I saw two more black “things” crawl out of dragons. EM tethers on both. One made it to me, the other appeared to die as the tether snapped, before it could get to me. My vision went black, the last thing I saw was pieces from my arm having been broken more, and pieces of my leg having been ripped and shot off, floating in the zero-G. In the blackness of my unconsciousness I saw the Corpsman probe connect with my neural, verify I was alive, and then the recording ended.

Neith, I noticed that there was a color imbalance on what I saw, is that just a difference in perception and storage or is there more there? For instance, I saw the EM pulse field from the grenade.

That discrepancy is due to me weaving additional data into the presentation. I felt it necessary.

I appreciate that. I don’t feel it as necessary, however the additional data definitely added context.

I see. Is there a difference?

Sometimes additional data is unnecessary as it does not change perception of an event. In this case, it added additional reference points. In the future there may be a case where additional data clouds the important reference points. At least from a human perspective.

Interesting. Thank you.

Any chance you can take over my brain and help me sleep?

Sorry, that would be unethical.

Of course it would.