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Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 121/?]
🕑 Added 2024-12-11 02:15:50 +0000 UTC“The specific time and date behind the kill protocol’s delivery, may be the key in unlocking exactly how your world ended.” I continued, garnering a look of contemplative thought on behalf of the felinor. “Or more specifically, the sequence of events leading up to the war, and the extent of the interloper’s involvement within it.”
“Which could shed light and provide some vital context on the interloper’s claims at the whole thing being a ‘setback’, right?” Evina responded, raising both of her fingers as she framed the word ‘setback’ with a healthy dose of passive aggressiveness.
“Indeed.” I acknowledged. “Alongside its plans and intent, of course. Remember — this specific interloper likens itself to be a trailblazer, a deviant, an outsider to the party-line that seems to be nigh-unassailable amongst the interlopers as a species and civilization. It hints at a ‘solution’ to the epochs-long conflict that has dominated the known universe, and it hints at said solution being created in your world. The Vuarks it replaced with your inheritance cycle, being a clear part of that plan. To discover whether or not the nuclear war was another aspect of its plan, or whether the moon base itself was an extension of its aims, would provide us the background we need to better be informed in this final confrontation.”
“Better do our homework before the big showdown, yeah.” Evina acknowledged with a shrug. “On it.” The felinor paused for a moment, before following up our conversation by directing her attention towards Vir. “Erm, Vir, is there any way you could bring up the documents I just looked over?”
“Yup! Here ya go!” The AI responded chipperly, manifesting a small picture-in-picture window across both of our HUDs.
With a thank you and a flick of her hands, the felinor began scanning the pages through a series of anachronistic hand movements.
It was a form of data input that while useful in many regards, typically wasn’t seen in the field. Eye-tracking input was preferable given how it freed up the hands for more mission-pertinent uses. However, it was tricky to get into, and required a fair amount of time investment to truly master.
“Right. It was worth double-checking anyways.” The felinor shrugged, highlighting several empty spaces on the document. “According to my first iteration’s memories, these are where time and date stamps are typically located on any official document-work. Suffice it to say, they seemed to have overlooked that little detail in these docs.”
“Probably in an attempt to purposefully obfuscate the documents just in case the opposing faction gets their hands on it.” I nodded.
“Maybe, yeah. But in any case, all I can really tell from these documents is the chronology of it — that the kill protocol was the last order given.”
“That fact alone is quite telling.” I offered.
“Sure, but when combined with my first iteration’s memories of the weeks and days leading up to the war, all I can say is that there's nothing to indicate the moon being relevant as a catalyst to the conflict. If anything, the whole nuclear war thing happened super abruptly. Like, sure, there was an increase in political infighting and civil unrest in a lot of countries, but that’s just a regular weekday occurrence back when civilization was still ‘civil’.”
“The kill protocol being the last order sent could either hint at it being the last order prior to the nukes flying, or the precipitating factor to the conflict.” I hypothesized. “In any case, the admin center should shed some light on this.” I pointed towards the now-open doors of the aforementioned room, as we both entered without much fuss.
Just as it was in the loading bay, the whole administration center was properly surveyed, scaffolded, and checked for any dangers — active or not — prior to our arrival.
More stacks of papers were arranged neatly at one of the computer terminals, where Evina got to work.
Almost immediately, she’d managed to single out about half a stack worth of documents, labeling the nonsensical papers as ‘junk fat’.
“I’ve gotta say, Lysara. I do appreciate you giving me all of this white collar crap to deal with.” She began abruptly.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, cocking my head as I did so, as I couldn’t really place where Evina was on the sliding scale from passive aggressive to facetious and friendly jabs.
“My first iteration was a massive nerd, working in universities and stuff. She was a geek for all things paperwork, and her life skills were perfect for a life within the civilized world. As a result, I don’t really get much ‘interaction’ with her out of all the iterations I pull from. The apocalypse really isn't the best place to apply those skill sets after all. Save for, of course, situations where you have to decipher old documents, and when more niche pre-war issues are unearthed. But even then, I mostly pull from my later iterations who had more hands-on experience within the trades. Advanced white-collar stuff is just rare for me to really come across. So thanks for reminding me of a part of myself that I don’t really get to interact with normally.” She spoke through a genuinely amiable tone of voice, at least, as much as the translators could imbue it with.
“But yeah, you’re lucky I have my first iteration on the case here, since about half of these documents are junk fat — empty filler meant to distract anyone attempting to crack through the paper trail. Crafted with just enough detail to make you waste your time on them, but obvious enough to someone knowing what they’re looking for to ignore.” The felinor began tearing through most of the documents at a breakneck pace, flinging page after page, and folder after folder onto the chair and floor until she was left with a more manageable stack of papers.
“Right, okay, let’s get into this.” She sighed, before plopping herself down on one of the chairs with a force that would have led to its destruction on normal gravity, but up here, meant that it’d survived the roughhousing.
The flipping of the pages began slowly, but after a certain point, accelerated at a feverish pitch.
This continued until she landed on a particular document, sliding her finger towards a passage that was completely untranslatable.
Her expressions were difficult to discern, a mixture of solemness combined with a curling of her lips that could’ve meant anything from skepticism to disbelief. “Two days.” The felinor announced firmly. “This specific document dates the kill protocol to two days prior to the outbreak of nuclear war.”
“What exactly is this document—”
“It’s a followup order sent as a ‘cleanup’ protocol, meant for the survivors of the kill protocol.” Evina interjected bluntly.
I peered over her shoulder, noticing a peculiarity I had to point out. “But there’s no dates on this one either—”
“Yeah. But there’s context clues. This one doesn’t just discuss the orders in a void, but goes into more details regarding the situation back home. It references the Prime Minister of one of the member states of this whole program being hospitalized due to injuries sustained during a protest. That whole thing was on the news two days before the nukes started flying.”
I nodded slowly in understanding, as Evina sat there, her eyes levelying towards one of the few banners left in near-mint condition — the vacuum of space protecting it from the typical decay and rot one would come to expect from a place this old.
I allowed the silence to continue up to a point, before I finally decided to chime in. “I imagine that the existence of ‘cleanup’ protocols, implies that the governments at home — or at least the ones involved in this project — weren’t expecting or intending for nuclear war.”
“That’s the logical assumption, yeah.” Evina acknowledged with her two hands reaching for her face. “So this means the interloper had its indoctrinated lackeys fire the first shot.” The felinor paused, letting out a dark chuckle in the process. “But it doesn’t mean that this was done to accelerate the inheritance experiments.” She continued sharply, flipping a few pages back to highlight a few schematics that immediately clued me into her intent.
“The nuke you discovered in the interloper’s chamber? I think I figured out what it was there for.” Evina stated in no uncertain terms.
“We initially hypothesized it to be some sort of a security measure in the eventuality of the interloper’s ‘reactivation’. Since we suspected the interloper to be in a state of non-responsiveness during the moon base’s operations.” I offered.
“Well… you’re right. But only sort of.” Evina began.
“Go on?”
“Well, the meaning here is a bit convoluted, but it seems like the nuke was put there with the intent to kill not just the interloper, but the second group as well.” The felinor paused, re-reading several lines, as if to double-check her explanations. “It would seem as if the moon base was more than just a research station, and more than just an archeological dig to find the interloper. No, the government suspected that there was something up here. But they were ready to kill two birds with one stone.”
I wracked Evina’s words in my head for a moment, before it clicked, as experiences and stories from my noble life were suddenly awakened.
“This was an attempt to decapitate both the heart and the head.” I blurted out.
“Mmhmm.” Evina nodded. “They knew that the second group wanted ‘communion’ with their ‘benefactor’. So what better way to get rid of the largest threat to global security, alongside what you’d assume were most if not all of his followers, than by just trapping them and wiping them all out in one fell swoop?”
The felinor’s features suddenly shifted from dead serious, to a small smile, before finally letting out a concerningly unhinged laugh.
“This… this shit is literally the sorta crap you’d see from a Tem Clency novel I can’t…” Evina reached for her visor, shaking her head in the process. “How the frick is any of this even real?”
I immediately reached for the felinor’s shoulder, gripping it tight through the hardsuit.
The slow and gradual slowdown of the felinor’s shivers was enough of a tell that the gesture — thanks to the haptic feedback — worked.
“Please don’t say reality is stranger than fiction, because that crap won’t work on me, alright?” Evina offered through a forced smile, her tone of voice hinting at her hardened mentality, and her strength in dealing with what would’ve made anyone weaker collapse at the sheer insanity of the circumstances.
“I was about to say we can take this slow, and we can move on whenever you’re ready.” I began. “Listen, I understand that this entire situation is insane, but… I guess that’s just the new normal.” I shrugged. “I won’t say I have a way of dealing with it, save for just… taking things one step at a time.”
“Heh. That’s funny… that’s more or less my motto as well.” Evina offered with a half smirk. “The end of the world sorta forces you to take that sort of a mindset.” She shrugged, before moving on through the documents, albeit at a slower pace. “Right, sorry about that. I just needed to quickly get that off my chest.” She spoke just as she took a deep breath. “Right, where was I? Oh yeah, so, circling all the way back to my point. The nuke was there as a decisive decapitation move. However, somewhere along the way, the decapitation plan went awry. Something happened that tipped the second ‘indoctrinated’ group off, and whatever it was, caused the ‘kill protocol’ to be enacted instead of the decapitation protocol.”
“This would explain the chaos in front of the interloper’s chambers.” I stated firmly. “It seemed like a rushed skirmish.”
“Yeah. And since it was so chaotic, I think it’s safe to say that the nukes went flying because either the interloper finally realized it could no longer maintain control, or because it thought this was the only option it had left on the table.”
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Michael Halpern
Tom Clancy referenced...
