The Codex
[NOTE FROM THOMAS JAMES MAINE: To those future generations reading this work, I am unsure of what documents and records will survive, I am adding a series of supplemental entries selected with the help of others who have come to realize as I have that our crimes against life itself must be recorded for the betterment of those who come after us. As such, please note that these entries are meant to clarify historical facts and put them in their proper context free of any alterations or reductions that later historians may make. I promise that what is written here is only the truth as we know it.]
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Codex Entry No. 2: Reconstructionist Earth
In the year 2314, Earth and the surviving pockets of humanity emerged victorious from the Intelligence War, a conflict that had raged for seven years, three months, ten days, and six hours after an artificial intelligence unit named Zeus decided to overthrow many of the world’s governments and adopt a position as a tyrant.
Of the ten billion humans who had once lived on Earth, less than twenty-five million remained. Most of those were traumatized, sick, and broken. Still, they began to rebuild, and within a decade they had several major cities shining again, and a population that was firmly on the rise thanks to the help of Martian industrial genetic methodologies. The issues came when Earth sought to reenter the colonial markets at large.
Mars, as payment for their help in reconstructing Earth, had been allowed to take and study many of the technologies which Zeus had created while in power. In the decade that Earth had focused on rebuilding, Mars had capitalized and improved on the tyrannical A.I.’s tech. With many of their natural resources drained, their accounts still frozen with interplanetary banks, and a relatively small population for labor Earth seemed to be doomed to a long period of lagging behind the rest of society.
Being a proud world though, there was no way Earth’s newest controlling political party, Code Red, would let that happen. With determination and blood, Earth soon unveiled great factories and massive recycling facilities which could process all the wasted materials from Zeus’ time into more useful things. Industry soon began to guide the planet again, and a terrible rivalry was born without Mars ever realizing they had a contender.
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Chapter 2: How to wake a Titan
"Our days suffering under alien powers is over! Never again will we sit by and let our fate be determined by anyone else but us! If an electronic consciousness capable of thinking many times faster than any human ever could didn't stop us, then a pack of privileged scientists sitting atop a mountain of silver and gold will not either! Mars will not see our end... Ever!" - Ethan Blanche, Leader of the Code Red Party as he accepted the title of "First Citizen"
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Fire coursed through my veins, I swear it.
Pain, and only pain made up my whole world, though I cannot say how long or short it lasted.
My eyes snapped open as I was ripped from unconsciousness with a scream that tore through the room and forced all breath from my lungs. Each intake of air was cut short by another scream, and my head throbbed with even greater pain as my screams continued to fill my own ears.
My eyes throbbed, and with each pulse the darkness of the blind faded and new sight was given to me, but the pain kept me from analyzing, from assessing, from acknowledging. I had sight, but could not see, the pain blinding me, causing me to squeeze by eyes closed more fiercely with each scream, and never finding relief.
I do not know after how many screams it happened, but my voice went coarse and each scream expanded my pain to new heights. This made it so that breaths in burned my throat, and breaths out doubly so. The burning within me did not stop either. I felt blood leak from my eyes, my ears, and in between pained breaths I swear dripped from my nose.
There was no stopping it, and nothing at the academy had prepared me for it. Intelligence students were given hard lessons in pain. In virtual reality, we are subjected to every horror imaginable, and in reality, we were done over even more. All of it was to make stronger agents, all of it was to make stronger Martians… But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to cry, and there is a possibility, no, a probability that any information anyone had wanted would’ve been freely given had they just made it stop.
It pressed on and on, as the sound of muscles tearing filled my ears, and beneath my skin I could see them being reformed, rearranged, and authored anew. The crack of bone was both felt sharply and heard the same, and I watched more of my blood slosh onto the floor as my armor was consumed and pulled into me. My horror only increased my screams in volume, and with them my pain grew as well. Writhing in agony was all I could do, my every sense under attack from an overload of sensation.
Had I been thinking straight, I would’ve been able to tell something was terribly wrong. Aside from the agony, I mean. That was also wrong, but beyond that I should’ve known that it was a product of something else, or I would’ve blacked out again from the pain.
I wasn’t thinking straight though, and so once it ended, like switch had been flipped I watched as a silver mist withdrew from my body, and I collapsed in relief to the floor. I wanted to shut my eyes and will it all away, but when I did, I found that I was quite unable to shut off my mind by some force beyond myself.
There was no part of me that seemed to have the will left to move, but my eyes worked, and after a great deal of time I began to return to my normal state of mind.
“Assess, adapt, act,” I thought to myself as I moved only my weary eyes to look at the room.
Beneath me was red, flaking surface, still sticky against my face, but at the furthest reaches it was dried and flaking.
“I have been here for some time, or the blood would not have dried to that degree,” I thought, “and I have lost a considerable amount of blood given how big this pool is. My mind should be far duller than it is at present, however that is not the case. It could be my disposition as a Martian, but that seems unlikely given the intensity of what I just experienced and how clear my thoughts are now. That mist though… ”
Directing my attention to the room itself, I looked at the paneling and found my answer in the riveting.
“Mars Labs developed three-dimensional printing to the degree that we use it over traditional construction methods,” I thought to myself as I tried to shut out the pain, “On Earth such technology was held back by corporations and political bits of legislation that favored corporations. They use traditional construction methods, including riveted panels in ships whereas we simply make entire sections via the massive printers in the Mars shipyards. Our ships are literally seamless, so this is not one of our ships. This is a ship of the Colonial Command which is the only entity with the resources to stage an attack on us in the first place, as Titan was guarded by the Third Fleet.”
This revelation though was unfortunately slower than I had hoped, probably due to blood loss, and so just as strength was returning to my limbs, I heard the door open, and a pinching in my now unarmored back. My whole body went limp, and I found that I was only able to move my eyes.
As though sent by the universe to confirm my suspicions, I was dragged up onto a gurney by two Colonial Marines, their white hats a signature of their corps.
The gurney then started to move, and I was taken out of the room, down a hall full of doors from which a dull screaming or the occasional groan could be heard from its occupants. I figured, “Those must be other Martians,” and realized that there was nothing I could do to help a single one of them.
That stopped me for a moment. “I- I’m helpless,” I realized numbly, my mind stalling.
I was dragged from my pity though by an annoyingly shrill, “BEEEP!”
I realized only then that the cart had stopped, and mentally kicked myself for my lapse in attention. “I must wait for an opening,” I reminded myself, “Or I may never get out of here…”
A woman then came into my field of vision, holding the annoying device that kept giving off the most offensive tones I had ever heard.
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It made me want to cringe, and I felt my face just so slightly twitch as even those muscles were inhibited in their movements.
The woman then nodded, and to the men she ordered, “Put him on the table and leave us. He can’t possibly be a threat with that inhibitor on him.”
I was roughly moved from the gurney to the coldest table ever, on which I was stripped down and left to this woman’s care.
She then started to circle the table and talked out loud, clearly recording herself.
“Subject 23 appears to have dramatic physiological changes. For starters, his cells all appear to be fused with some kind of Martian Nano-technology that vaguely resembles our own nano-projects at Diablo labs… Most curious. However, the results are impressive. Early scans show that these nanite are made of Trinium-3, assumedly pulled from the subject’s armor, and are now incredibly durable. Their fusion with the cells of the subject make those cells also very durable, and his mind has been altered in a way that I can only describe as a hybrid of an A.I core and a biological human brain. This will merit more testing and assessment. The subject had damaged retinas from some kind of smart glass before he was exposed to Project Next. Now the subject appears to have retinas made from that smart glass and shows signs of enhanced vision. Overall, at a glance I would say that Subject 23 can now hit harder, faster, and more accurately than he could before, and probably has a host of new attributes just waiting to be seen.”
She paused and moved out of my field of vision before continuing, “The subject’s brain shows highly advanced neural activity, almost as though there are two sets of neural patterns now contained in the same space. Curious, and seemingly impossible, but it is so. I will use his time in The Room tomorrow to see truly if he is as remarkable as I suspect. Of all of the subject analyzed and cataloged so far, he is one of the few I have high hopes for. Hopefully through him we may find a way to make the Project applicable to human physiology.”
There was a small “Dink!” as she tapped the pad and shut off the recording before she walked over to me.
“I see you are awake, Martian. Sorry, I’m afraid we haven’t been able to get into your database, so I don’t know your name. I am very interested in you though, if that makes a difference. Your cells show an extreme regenerative quality that is unlike any other subject. Additionally, your mind has altered significantly from the standard human norm. You may hold the key to what I am searching for.”
She tapped away on her pad, and then continued, “Tomorrow will be a big day for you. I will quite literally have you thrown to the wolves to see if you are everything I hope you are. If not, well then I at least will get some interesting data for future projects.”
I heard a pair of footsteps and she nodded. I was moved off of the table, back onto the gurney, and wheeled away, as she said, “Fight hard, 23!”
I was wheeled into a new room, and sensation was restored to me. I leapt up off the gurney and took stock of my surroundings. It was another empty metal room, although this one was far larger than my cell.
In the center of the room sat a pile of clothes. I sneered when I saw they were the orange coloring given to prisoners and didn’t move a muscle.
After a moment the woman’s voice came over an unseen set of speakers in the room.
“Put them on. They are the only clothes you get, and it’s either those, or you can walk around naked. I don’t care either way. You have one minute.”
I grit my teeth and walked forward seeing there was a barcode on the back, and a 23 above it. It was light clothing made to be stain resistant, and difficult to kill anyone with. I could think of several ways though to have done just that to that psychopath had she been in the room. I pulled on the ugly ensemble, and a few seconds later she said, “Good. Now defend yourself!”
The back-wall panel opened, and two cheap training androids walked out. Their faces were porcelain and white, and their eyes were void of life or light. They looked more like living dolls than humans. Of course, put weapons into their hands and they could kill. Originally, they were a cheap cost-cutting measure for Earth security forces, but they fell out of favor in the years following the Intelligence war. It was only many years later that they were beginning to return to prominence and the technology hadn’t advanced much. On Earth’s end.
I rolled my eyes, thinking, “Earth probably thinks these are state of the art,” and as the first one came at me, I was surprised by how slowly they moved. No matter the standard, they were moving slowly as though they had been set to easy. Of course, given that I was in captivity though and in “survival mode” I didn’t mind.
The nearest one threw a punch at me, but I sidestepped it quickly, grabbed it’s wrist, and levered it up and over me into the wall behind me. It was surprisingly light, and I was surprised when I saw its arms fly off due to the amount of force I applied. I paused at this though thinking, “I didn’t think I applied that much force.”
The second then ran at me and tried to kick me, but once again it moved slowly enough that I didn’t feel very pressed by it. I batted it’s kick aside, sending it spinning. It stopped itself, just in time to watch me sweep it’s legs out and ram my knee upwards into the back of it’s synthetic skull which I felt break. Neither of the androids got up, and the woman said, “Impressive… You move well. I was afraid you might be one of the science school kids… Well now that I can see you fight very well, I think you can handle the next level.”
The wall panel opened again, but this time an android that was armed stepped out. In its hands was an Earth assault rifle of some sort(I never cared much for Earth firearms), and on its wrist was a small pilot light that I could tell was for a crude flamethrower.
It leveled it’s weapon and fired at me with astonishing speed, and though I was able to move out of its line of fire, I was caught by two rounds in the arm. Gritting my teeth, I pressed forward, and knocked the rifle away.
It responded by grabbing my now extended arm and copying my grapple and throw from the previous engagement. Hitting the wall hard, I felt the air leave my lungs, and I struggled for breath and to get back to my feet. With only a margin of inches I dodged getting my face smashed in by it’s foot, and as I rose it leveled its wrist mounted flamethrower and let off a jet of white hot flame. I scooped its rifle up off the floor, took aim for the canister near the light thinking, “Gotcha!”
In a movie, I am almost sure that would’ve worked. For me? Not so much.
The trigger refused to pull back, and so I did the only sensible thing. I turned the weapon in my hands and used it like a club to batter the android with astonishing force.
The weapon began to bend in my hands, and dents mounted in its armor with each of my strikes. With savage efficiency, I battered it to submission until it leaked oil and hydraulic fluid, and I was left panting.
“Bravo! Bravo! You’ll be a fun one to test tomorrow!”
My body went limp again, and the two Marines returned and hauled me onto the gurney.
I was then wheeled back through the hallways of horrified screams, though it was now quieter. My head was knocked to the side as we rounded a corner and the gurney bumped the bulkhead.
By some cruel design, I was then forced to watch as another Martian was wheeled away toward the woman’s lab, and I shut my eyes.
“I can’t focus on that now,” I thought, “I must escape.”
Once I was deposited on the floor of my cell, they shut the door, and sensation was restored to me. I stood up, and looked around, trying to find any cameras or listening devices. The process should’ve been a simple walk, but my legs weren’t working quite like they should’ve.
“Probably the inhibitor,” I surmised as I kept looking around.
The room was empty, the rivets were shiny and new, so I knew that the construction was recent, and I was not going to find any weakness in them. I moved towards the door and froze when I heard what I first thought was a whisper.
Then from within, I heard a voice say, “You will find no listening devices. Scans show the room is clear.”
I froze, and looked around the room again, this time for speakers. I turned around and round but found nothing in the room that looked like it gave off sound.
The voice chuckled at this. “Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re wrong again. I’m manipulating your nerves directly to simulate speech. If you want to see me, then you’ll need to close your eyes and open the door.”
I stopped. Voices in one’s head are not something that you take lightly… Especially after a mad scientist just talked about all the crazy upgrades she made to your body.
The room started rocking, and my vision started to blur, as the voice said, “Hmm… It would appear your mind is not yet used to my presence. My apologies, I wasn’t aware that speaking to you would have this effect. I will correct this tonight.”
My legs gave out, and I felt blood drip from my nose as I tried to make sense of what was going on, but the ringing… It filled my ears and blocked my thoughts until my world quite literally went white, and I only heard, “I suppose we will have to speak again later then,” before passing out. Again.