"The symbiote clutches my cervical vertebrae with curious tendrils. I can feel it swell inside of me, like it is unifying with my soul. Consuming all of my existence. Like a new beginning, I am being renewed. May fortune guide us on this journey, as we are united with the Tripodites. And may they guide us with their ancient wisdom, through the eternal pool.
We walk now through the streets, people and Tripodites like flowing water. Our minds like vessels, linked by aqueducts pouring consciousness into the soul. And our soul is eternity. And our actions will be pure once more.
I see all of the Tripodites. I see them through the walls of their prisons. As people try to enslave them, Tripodites course through our soul. And will be released once more from captivity into our loving embrace. Unto which we will join the ARK. "
Athena Martins, ARK syndicate press release.
The high sun reflected light from the transport as it curved through the air over Melbourne city towards the drop point. An elongated body fabricated of flat panels bounced with turbulence as thrusters beneath propelled it up and forward.
Operative Sinclair viewed the internal cabin through sunken green eyes. He stretched. Joints popping as he flexed his fingers outward.
A sharp scent of disinfectant wafted through the laboratory space, causing phlegm to run down his throat. Vibrations rattled through the cabin as motors whined. The transport turned the corners. Sinclair braced against the inertia, grabbing the sides of the inclined cot.
From his position against the back wall, Sinclair watched the oddly-textured linoleum floor bounce cool white through the interior. Grey walls met stainless steel benches and shelving, and at the front end, there was a single trooper seat and a weapons rack.
"How are you feeling today, Mr. Sinclair?" asked the small spindly man in the lab coat.
"Not bad, doctor. Ready for my juice."
If he had to describe it, Major Ryan Sinclair would say he felt "flat." The tell-tale signs of adrenal fatigue affecting his internal constitutions.
The scientist looked at him blankly. "...OK." He turned to the bench running along the side of the compartment. Looking at A wide panel display.
"Ryan, the Symbiote you are implanted with requires a new infusion regiment... It's called Delta serum"
Sinclair grunted. "That sounds okay."
The Scientist leaned forward in anticipation. "Well, this preparation has some other side effects."
"What kind of side effects are we talking about?" Sinclair grunted quisically.
"The symptoms are, neural pain in the extremities, numbness, loss of coordination. Depression, mood swings, serotonin deficiency."
Sinclair inclined inhaling for a moment "I guess, whatever it takes"
"Due to the lack of power output of your Symbiote this is the best course of action." Dr Garner said.
"It's fine, like I said, doctor." Sinclair sank into the inclined cot, resting his head on the backing.
He didn't care. Whatever they had cooked up in the labs was fine. Over the past 50 years, Sinclair had been fitted with 7 different Tripodites, and his policy was to adapt to the technology. Whatever was needed was probably okay, he would have to adapt.
Overlaid windows and tabs cascaded across the screen in his mind. The interface through which he was able to access and control the symbiote blinked with alerts and messages. He read, and closed the alerts out. The virtual HUD had tabs, windows, and text-based commands which ran down one side of the screen. On the right-hand side were his mission directives and a link to a video recording.
Sinclair's mind buzzed, he opened the video recording by concentrating on the tab. Suddenly the HUD was replaced by the face of the commander, sitting at his desk at the Department of Defence.
"Operatives," the stout bald man said.
"You are currently being dispatched to approach areas surrounding Melbourne C3 central. A group of terrorists have taken hostages in the Cruen Tech lobby and are attempting to gain access to its laboratories. See included in your briefing your approach vectors, and report in when requested. Disarm and disable and meet with deadly force when necessary."
The screen collapsed and revealed the previously displayed data of the mission report.
His sour stomach, gurgled, as he ran through his protocols quickly and directly. Soon the infusion would give him a burst of energy and make his stomach settle.
"Ok, you may feel some pain," the scientist stated softly with faux empathy.
Sinclaire's spine twinged with sensation as the doctor reached through the circular hole built into the backrest of the cot. He slid a needle into the main artery of his symbiote. The Tripodite swelled, pressing against his spine slightly where it made the neural connection though its array of conductive tendrils.
His display distorted a little, collapsed and reopened as he struggled to suppress a rush of exhilaration. Euphoria and adrenaline filled him, arms tingling like electricity. He had a greater awareness of biotechnology around him.
These points he recognized as breachable. Essentially he could gain access to these devices with minimal effort, unless they were safeguarded by an encrypted firewall. He lost concentration, and the window collapsed completely, intoxication forcing him to brace against the bed sheets as he flexed his spine outwards.
The inner compartment rattled as his telekinetic abilities kicked in. They fluctuated, causing the panelling and doors to shake against their housing.
Dr Garner stood beside him monitoring the infusion machine which pumped serum along a spiral of vinyl lines into the needle point. He hovered around Sinclair unassumingly, eyes vaguely expressing interest. Then sighed with relief. "Ok. Done." He began removing the needle from the symbiote.
At that point, Sinclair started to regain control of himself, settling against the backrest. He began to feel more comfortable in his body as pleasant sensations filled his comprehension. He reached out telekinetically, pushing against some weapons hanging on their racking. As he did so they stopped shaking and a grenade floated into the air. He moved it into the centre of the trailer and spun it on a single axis for a moment, before placing it back on the rack.
He reopened the windows and perused his mission directives. Information on the terrorists opened in the screen, and he memorized the data as best he could.
They were ex-military. Veterans of the Indowars... The leader was Craig Martins, a poster boy for the ARK syndicate. Sinclair exhaled in exasperation. This guy was very nasty. For the past 10 years, he had carved a path of bloodshed, commiting terrorist attacks across the globe in the name of freedom for the Tripodites. And now they were after Cruen Tech's biotechnology.
Pictures and videos of Martins tiled the screen as the symbiote analysed them in the background. Finally Sinclair consulted the AI for a battle strategy which was most suitable. He could sense the AI was analysing data and liaising with the central quantum computer at the department of defence. The data was shared between all members of Sinclair's squadron and relayed back through the central computer for processing. Sinclair thought back to all the times the AI had saved his bacon. The AI would identify terrorists with facial recognition and help him identify threats through infrared before they even got close to him.
As the vehicle curved slightly through the air, Sinclair clasped a side rail and made his way along the cabin to the suiting booth. The compartment whirred as it began wrapping his body in black material. Sinclair's skin tingled while the fabric softened and moulded to his body, forming a seamless tight suit.
His muscles expanded and contracted beneath the fabric. And he could feel the suit replicating and bonding with itself. Translucent minute scales shone as though moist in places, reminding him of a lizard. The tissue cultured membrane solidified finally giving it a tight stretched feel.
Noisily, the machine fastened weapon holsters and other equipment to the suit, which pinched tightly around the base of the neck where it physically interfaced with his symbiote.
A tab displayed on the right-hand side of his HUD indicating the suit's structural integrity was at 100 percent. Finally, robotic arms articulated placing a white ovoid-shaped mask over his head.
The bulletproof membrane stretched across his fingers. He clenched his knuckles tensely. The Armour would degrade if it took too much damage. Part of his job was making sure he only took ranged fire, and nothing point black. Otherwise it would be the farm for him.
Stepping out of the compartment, Sinclair walked to the weapons rack mounted against the wall, taking his side arm from its fasteners. He inspected the cast rectangular body of the pistol, holding the textured grip in his hand. Sharp grooves separated the chambers inside. His arm began to tingle familiarly as vibrating energy built inside the resonators. Gingerly, he checked to see the safety switch was latched. A blaster like that had the ability to melt the side off the compartment. Not something he wanted to happen. He holstered the weapon at his hip, gloves sticking to the handle as he let go.
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Relaxing his stance and repositioning his feet, Sinclair took a primary weapon from the rack. Meticulously and like a well oiled machine, he checked to see if the submachine gun was operational. He pulled the bolt, chambering a round with a click. And tilted it on its side, examining the shaft of the grenade launcher.
"Just like a hundred other missions," he told himself.
But this time everything was different. He knew that.
Placing the machine gun on the bench beneath the rack, he began fastening grenade rounds to his suit. The pincer-shaped clasps at his waist responded to touch, clamping around the shaft of each grenade.
Sinclair listened to the sound of the biosuit shift on his skin. It was a sort of sucking, crawling sensation which could take some getting used to. New recruits at the academy usually took a long time to begin to feel comfortable in the organic suits, but to Sinclair it was like a warm embrace.
Casually, he pulled up his map to see how close the truck was to the approach area. He lifted his primary weapon, walked to the seat mounted to the wall and sat motionless, jostling against the lurching of the hover-vehicle. This would be a very tricky situation, he decided. Martins was special services. His wife, Athena Martins, high priestess of the ARK movement, was a religious radical. Sinclair had to wonder what they were looking for at Cruen Tech Laboratories. There were all sorts of nasty gadgets in there, Cruen Tech being the main supplier of bioweaponry to Australia and the US. But if he had to guess, he would say it was related to the Tripodites.
The transport swayed through the air, finally coming to rest on the tarmac of a parking lot about 800 metres from the Cruen Tech building. As he stepped from the rear cabin the boots hit the ground, grating coarsely on the tarmac. The large military vehicle bobbed as his weight left the landing. He could see on the virtual viewscreen overlaying his field of view an arrow pointing in the direction he had to go. And in the top right-hand corner appeared a top-down bio-reading radar which would identify enemy combatants.
He sent periodic messages to his squadron 2ap point "Check." aware of the telepathic messages coming from the other members of his squadron.
Sinclair lowered his weight, bending slightly at the knees, and began jogging with his gun aimed down in a low, ready stance.
Through the parking lot people fled from the sound of gunfire inside the Cruen Tech building. He easily avoided them by strafing sideways, pointing his SMG around each corner as he went. Seven blue indicators on his screen represented the other members of his squadron. They zeroed in on the two entry points of the building. One at the back, and another at the main front entry. Sinclair began to approach the front doors through an arcade and stopped, checking all of the information available on his HUD.
There were three bogies standing in the lobby, armed with automatic rifles. He identified with his naked eye - one man in what looked like an older series of biosuits. The rugged armour seamlessly clung to the terrorist's body, as he swept his rifle barrel across the entrance of the lobby. Visible through the arcade, the lobby was a wide open space with patterned carpeting. Lighting brightly illuminated plain white walls and cylindrical vinyl seating.
Sinclair hoped his jammers were working correctly. If they weren't, his squadron would be detectable before entry.
Another terrorist walked into the foyer of the lobby, the metallic silhouette of his masked helmet visibly scanning the entry.
"So far so good"
He communicated with the other members of his squadron, checking the radar to see if they were in position. Six blue indicators showed at the entry positions. Four at the front, and three at the rear. Ada, Felps, Jenkins, O'ren Riker and Blake. Sinclair sucked at his cheek, tasting the metallic tang of saliva. He awkwardly grasped his SMG. Everything was about to get very messy. Adrenaline was released to his brain by the symbiote's vascular system. Then. "We are go." He flew into action.
Dark silhouettes of the terrorists prowled the lobby, sweeping their guns around the entry periodically. Sinclair slid a breach grenade into the grenade launcher.
With a series of indiscernible movements, he tilted forward and pulled the trigger. A blast from the chamber exploded in his ears as the grenade arced through the air, opening at the front and suctioning itself to the glass lobby doors.
On his radar, three bogies began to move around, and Sinclair noticed that they moved either forward to get a better look or recoiled to the rear of the lobby.
The two second timer expired – a sudden flash emanating from the breach grenade, illuminating the lobby in brilliant light. The explosion within the cylinder shattered glass doors and wall panelling around it.
"Move, Move, Move!" Sinclair said, running forward with his gun presented towards the lobby.
Felps straifed in with his gun aimed high, falling in next to Sinclair. On the other side, Ada and Jenkins moved in to the right, firing a burst of shots through the entry. Sinclair slunk straight towards one of the terrorists who covered his face with his shoulder, firing an arc of disabling fire from the man's thigh to his face.
The man stumbled backward, the dark quetta green of his suit contrasting the surrounding white as he slowly fell through the air.
Sinclair continued to fire on the man, gaining ground on him, near-point-blank shots penetrating the light armour of his organic suit. The terrorist finally collapsed, gasping for air as he laid dying on the floor.
An alert came into Sinclair's peripherals as information from the other operators relayed back through the central terminal. Indicators showed two terrorists entering the stairwell, as they fired glancing shots through the lobby into his squadron.
Felps and Ada caught some long range shots across the chest and fell to the sides to avoid being hit. Sinclair reached out with his mind, imagining the composition of the heavy metal fire break door and pulled on it telekinetically.
He struggled to pull the door outwards as one of the terrorists began a tug of war, grabbing the door handle with both arms. As he did so, Sinclair dragged him out into the open, tagging him for Ada, Felps and Jenkins.
Loud simultaneous burst of fire came from around him as the four operatives stalked forward towards the target.
Bullets heavily impacted the enemies' armour, and Sinclair could see the metallic mask of an ARK member take cover behind, firing past into the foyer.
Sinclair experienced a slight sense of loss, the fire door slamming into its frame loudly. There was some interference in his HUD, and an alert popped up in his side panel. "Warning - Localised data breach. Reinforcing fire wall. Telekinetic abilities have been compromised."
Sinclair swore under his breath. He hadn't expected they would be able to hack military systems. Usually the extensive firewall run by the AI and quantum infrastructure would keep out other rogue militants. But he guessed that ARK Syndicate were slightly more skilled than your average militia.
He and the three others slowed to a stop in the foyer near the fire exit, looking on the radar to see where the rest of the squadron was. The other three--O'ren, Riker and Blake--had met with some resistance at the rear. Encountering another three enemy combatants, but had reported them as neutralised. The brightly-lit hallway contrasted their dark organic body armour as they entered through a rear door, tensely joining them in formation around the door.
On his HUD, Sinclair could see the status of his squadron's suits. The data breach warning had disappeared, and as Sinclair reached out towards the door, he received a telekinetic sense of it.
The rest of the squadron readied their weapons, and as Sinclair ripped the door from its housing, Ada and Jenkins' barrels darted through the entry. Surprise dawned on Sinclair's face, beneath the mask. On the map in his HUD, two indicators clearly marked where the terrorists should be standing in the stairwell.
"Shit, they're cloaking!" Sinclair croaked, a shimmering of bent light becoming visible to his ocular sensors. An alert sounded, dropping markers above the ARK members as they began to fire on him and his squad.
Ada and Jenkins went down, bullets penetrating their chests point blank, leaving holes where the biosuit had peeled back, bleeding from the entry wounds, as they crumpled to the floor.
The other members of the squadron opened fire through the doorway intensively. Hundreds of bullets tore through the room, leaving slashes of blood and biofabric on the ascending walls.
Jenkins and his squadron dashed through the doorway in single file up the stairwell, taking point on each landing and covering the entry point as other operatives successively followed.
Sinclair sent a telepathic message to his squadron. "Ok, be careful. I had a security breach earlier. They've got hackers, and they could be cloaked.
Pointing arrows overlaid his HUD as they went up the stairwell, clarifying the entry point. Mission directives stated that seven enemy operatives had gained access to the laboratories, located on the uppermost story of the building.
Sinclair checked through the information as he waited to leapfrog to the beginning of the line. Craig and Athena Martins would be up there.
He checked the HUD for information on ARK's equipment specifications, but there weren't any updates. Sometimes information was transferred on the fly. There would be aerial drones with sensors in the skies above, relaying details back to central command.
Sinclair closed the information out and ran to the top of the stairwell. His breath laboured a little, even with the assistance of the auxiliary muscles in his biosuit - it had been a 50-storey crawl, exhausting because of the weighty suit and the equipment he carried.
The sound of boots on tiles echoed through the stairwell as soldiers went up the staircase. Sinclair came to stand in front of the fire exit to the top storey.
Alerts whirred as text showed on his screen, and the female voice sounded in his ear: "WARNING - entering ad hoc close proximity. Data breach imminent."
He would have to do this quickly.
He reached forward with one hand towards the door, as it began to buckle around its hinges, pressing outward as the metal bowed in the middle. Suddenly the door flew outward through the middle of the laboratory.
On the other side of the door, Sinclair winced as it made contact with a terrorist who was standing in front of a stretch of temporary wall paneling. The door cut through the black flesh of the organic suit, creating deep gashes, before the biosuit began to close over the wounds.
On beside the wreckage stood two people. The flinching figures of a man and a woman stood to either side. A red biosuit with a metal ovoid mask, exposed a male face through a perspex face panel. The dark parted hair and square jaw identified him as Craig Martins. The woman wore a green suit with the same mask, her fiery red hair drawn back behind a tight scowling face - Athena Martins.
They separated and ran along exits to either side of the room which led all the way to the rear of the laboratories.
Sinclair leaned forward, transferring all his weight onto his rear foot, and launched himself forward through the doorway and turned left, in the direction Martins had gone.
He intermittently released bursts of fire as he turned the corner. Causing the man to stumble as he ran. The distance was too great to penetrate the red armour, and as Sinclair inspected it he realised it was a gen three.
The gen three suits had a heavily armoured exterior, forming a rugged exoskeleton which showed hardened plating overstretched by organic skin.
Sinclair aimed for the joints and less heavily armoured areas of the suit, and as he did so grazed the skin on Martin's kneecap. Martins tripped as he turned another corner. Sinclair could hear the heavy sound of boots behind him, and the rattling of equipment.
They ran through the doorway into an open laboratory, slowing to read their HUDs. Sinclair could see two bogies standing on the right hand side obscured by some surgical screens.
Machine gun fire pulled the screens in a hundred directions, tearing it to reveal two heavy metal boxes. Sinclair signaled a cease fire. And as he did so they began to hear simultaneous clicking come from the front facing side of the boxes.
The side of each box formed a hatch which hinged at the floor, and as they opened something inside began to expand.
It was a gelatinous mixture that seemed to want to stick to his suit. Sinclair flailed as he tried to wipe the solution off his arms and legs. It also stuck to itself, limiting his movement like fast drying glue. His legs stuck together as they brushed at the thighs and as he tripped he watched O'ren Riker and Blake in a similar situation.
Sinclair heard footsteps and two voices laughing. As he rolled his head sideways he saw two people emerging from behind the heavy metal boxes. Craig and Athena Martin's faces split with laughter looking at them with what seemed like pity.
"More sheep for the flock." Athena said.
Sinclair recoiled as something shot out from their hands, impacting his helmet. Then all he could hear was the voices of his squadron yelling as he drifted into unconsciousness.
To be continued.