1.21
Cameron didn’t get a good look at the planet Qal’Gar when the Fenris pulled into the system from slip space. Nor did he have time to take in the landscape when they landed planet side, before he and Logan were escorted from the ship into a docking tube that led into the Syl-Tech Biotechnical Research Laboratory. Even as the guards ushered them and a few other pairs of pilots into a sterile conference room, illuminated by a bright white light, he was dissapointed to see there were no windows in the room, only three milk white walls, and a large black screen that functioned as the fourth. The only evidence he used to get a grasp of the area of operation was from the briefing packed he’d read on the trip to the planet describing a lush tropical rainforest and the attire of the other pilots, all of which were wearing clothing similar to Logan, a mixture of combat fatigues or cargo pants with compression shirts.
It was at that point, that he realized the eyes on him now, as more than a handful of people were observing his strange attire of a tunic and trousers, looking out of place and out of time amongst the hardened soldiers.
“I really need to get a change of wardrobe…” He said softly, loud enough that only Logan could hear as he spied a gaggle of pilots pointing in his direction, chuckling with amusement. He sighed and turned to look at Logan who’s nose was deep inside of the briefing packet for what must have been the third time today.
“Are you listening?” He asked, to which Logan replied with a nod.
“Yes…” Logan said drolly, not looking up from the packet, “I heard you clearly. You want to look like a pilot and not some backwater bumpkin.”
Cameron’s eye twitched in annoyance, and he ground his teeth, letting out an annoyed grumble, his eyes trailing down to the packet where Logan had it flipped to the initial overview with the words containment breach circled in red ink. He raised any eyebrow, speaking up voice his curiosity, “Why are you reading that, anyway? We’ve been over it like five times before coming here.”
Logan slowly looked up, his face passive as responded, “I’m trying to formulate a plan.”
“You don’t think the person who put this all together has a plan?” Cameron shot back, looking incredulous.
“I’m sure they do,” Logan said, skepticism evident in his voice, “But, I’m also sure it’s a shit plan.”
“And what makes you think that?” Cameron asked, looking around the room. “I mean, this place seems pretty high tech, I’m going to assume they’re smart enough to put a tactical plan together.”
“Yes, they are,” Logan began, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But they’re going to plan on getting back what they want, not making sure we survive. To them that just means they have to pay us. Why the hell would they care what happens to a bunch of mercs as long as the job gets done?”
Cameron’s eyes go wide in understand as he nodded, following along, “So you’re making an exit strategy in case things go south.”
Logan nodded in confirmation, before his eyes went back to looking at the packet, his voice rising back to its usual volume. “I just can’t figure out what the hell it is that breached containment.”
“Perhaps I can be of use in answering that question.” A tinny metallic voice, devoid of emotion rang out behind them, drawing all eyes to the doorway where… something stood. It was humanoid, that much was for certain, with a masculine voice and silhouette that remained hidden underneath a series of flowing white robes, sterile in appearance and devoid of dust or stains. But that was where the similarities ended. Its head and hands, being the only body parts visible, appeared to be made of an opaque gray plastic. The head was bald and smooth, lacking any facial features, replaced instead with a series of colorful lights blinking periodically underneath the casing, as copper circuitry pulsed rhythmically around the head and neck.
All was silent as everyone stared at the figure, to which it responded with a silence of its own, its head turning as it slowly scanned the room. After several awkward moments it spoke again, the lights inside of it pulsing in tandem with every syllable.
“You seem… shocked,” It said, cocking its head to the side as if to study the group, “Does my appearance frighten you? Or is it mere confusion?”
“I think a little of both,” A nasally voice rang out from Cameron’s left, and the figure nodded curtly.
“Understandable. I assume you were expecting someone more… biological?” The being asked, as Cameron and everyone else nodded in answer. It gave another curt nod, stepping through the threshold and causing the door to slide shut with a low-toned hiss.
“Acknowledged. I apologize for any confusion… allow me to introduce myself,” It said, walking across the room and approaching the wall screen, all eyes following it as it did so.
“My name is PR-04X1, but you may call me ‘Proxy’. I am here as a representative of the Syl-Tech Corporation. None of our directors were available to speak with you at this time, so I have been assigned as your… proxy. Heh.” It’s blinking light flashed yellow as it made an attempt at a joke.
“Hold on a second now,” A gruff, bear of a man with matted, wild, neon red hair chimed in, leaning forward in his chair, speaking in a rumbling baritone. “I’ve read the briefing front and back, and everything points to yall’s fault for this… containment breach. Yet Syl-Tech can even bother to show up here in person, instead making us do business with a glorified calculator?”
“You must be new,” Another man responded to the red heads outburst. He was lean and toned, with shoulder-length blonde hair hiding half of his face and spoke in an amused and pompous tone, “To think a company listed on the galactic fortune five hundred is going to send a chairman down here for a few Alpha classes and a bunch of Squires. Absurd.”
The red head sat back for a moment and crossed his arms muttering to himself something that sounded like, “I was just asking…” before Proxy held up its hands to silence the murmurs, it’s glow taking on a calming baby blue.
“Gentlemen, allow me to assure you that my presence here does not a lack of understanding as to the severity of this situation on Syl-Tech’s part. It is quite the opposite. In actuality, the fact you are all gathered here is proof that we at Syl-Tech will take every precaution necessary to write a wrong caused in one of our labs. Allow me to also note, that Syl-Tech does not claim responsibility for this breach and in fact places all blame with the ex-employee who was present at the time of the breach. Syl-Tech has acted in good faith to handle this incident after said ex-employee was unable or unwilling to do so, due to physical expiration.”
Cameron leaned over, eyes still on Proxy as he whispered into Logan’s ear. “What the hell does physical exp-”
“They killed him,” Logan shot back in a hushed growl, answering Cameron’s question before he could finish.
“Oh.”
“Now, if there are no more questions,” Proxy said, clapping its hands together as the wall screen glowed to life. “Allow me to start with a presentation.”
As the lights dimmed and the wall screen hummed to life, the once corporate and serene environment was replaced with one of anxiety and a twinge of fear, when a monster appeared on the monitor. It was a still image of a creature in a high walled enclosure, with height lines marking the walls. It was a solid mass of bulging muscle underneath a coat of shiny black fur. The beast was hunched over, supporting its weight on its knuckles, its head cresting at the seven meter line. Four large tusks protruded from a maw of jagged teeth as it stared death into the camera with blood-red eyes. But the worst part for Cameron, was that he could swear the creature was… smiling.
“May I present to you Simiiformes Stygius,” Proxy began, speaking in a tone devoid of all emotion, “Or as we here at Syl-Tech call it; The Stygian Silverback.”
The screen dimmed before brightening once again, showing another slide, this one of the Silverback’s anatomy with side-by-side figures depicting, bones as wide as an adult human, and overlapping suite of a fibrous taught muscle, respectively.
“An amalgamation of the Silverback Gorilla from earth and cocktail of local predatory fauna,” Proxy continued, “These creatures were the result of genetic engineering seeking to fill a need, primarily, how can poorer planets who can’t afford A.R.M.S. pilots protect themselves? We at Syl-Tech sought to solve that issue and in our search, we settled on the concept of a biological A.R.M.S. unit so to speak.”
Another slide transition came in dead silence as most were too shocked to speak. The new slide depicted certain organs and steroids that were used in creating the beasts, as Proxy continued his spiel, the concept sounding more absurd and terrifying with every item listed.
“Its hide is fireproof, plasma proof, resistant to all forms of bladed instruments, and houses bodily fluids that are toxic to human touch. It’s grip strength is strong enough to crush diamonds, and has enough bite force to chew through tungsten. Lastly, it has been engineered to function without brain activity for up to two minutes, meaning that even if it were to be decapitated, the creature could theoretically take vengeance on it’s killer before fully expiring.”
“By the stars,” One of the mercs off to Cameron’s left said, loud enough for all to hear. “Can the fuckers breath underwater?”
“That was a planned feature for after beta testing,” Proxy said matter-of-factly, looking back toward the screen that showed a series of graphs and pie charts.
“If you’ll look here, you’ll see the average cost of your standard Alpha class A.R.M.S. pilot. Naturally this is just a standard rate, but variations can apply depending on contract length or complexity. If you’ll look over here, you’ll see that because of production costs and sustainability thanks to cryogenics, we can offer our product at a thirty percent discount while maintaining a sixty percent higher profit margin when compared to your standard mechanical units. At least, that was the plan, until about two days ago.”
There was one final slide that appeared, this one showing a large hole in the creature’s enclosure, leading to the outside world. Blood splatter coated various spots along the wall, staining its white color to a sickly scarlet hue.
“One of our monitors, the people in charge of keeping the creature fed and contained, accidentally opened the barrier, revealing the outside world. Now up till this point, the Silverback had only seen the inside of it’s enclosure from birth till now. It wasn’t aware of anywhere else, we can only assume that seeing the outside for even the briefest of moments caused it to go into a confused tantrum, as only a few moments after the mistake had been rectified, it was banging on the walls, attempting to get out. We sent in a team of animal experts to hopefully tranquilize the beast, but as you can see, the results were… unsatisfactory.”
The slide show ended, with the final image fading to a dark black as the lights came back on, and Cameron looked around, seeing a myriad of emotions on display. There was shock, trepidation, anxiousness, and a cold, calloused, calm that was shared by a few pilots, one of them being Logan who leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, speaking aloud for the first time since Proxy had entered the room.
“So, just so I understand this correctly,” He began, his deep growl of a voice sounding even more annoyed than usual, “You and your organization decided to undercut the fleet and Alpha class pilots by creating a giant fucking demon gorilla, and whore it out to poor free space planets, but before you could do that, one of your employees screwed up and showed the abomination that its little terrarium wasn’t the only place around, and it decided to go for a little stroll. You all tried to tranq it, but instead of just having a giant hole in your building, you have a giant hole and five corpses. So now, you call in the very people you were trying to undercut in the first place to clean up the mess that was made in the process of trying to steal our livelihood. Am I missing anything?”
“Only that there is a time limit on this contract,” Proxy said, not bothering to correct Logan’s statements. “The government of Qal’Gar has done us a favor by keeping news of the containment breach out of the local media due to the fact that the island is uninhabited as far as we are aware. But the warned us that this would only last so long before they would intervene with their own forces. Should that happen and Syl-Tech’s involvement become known, our credibility in this sector will be non-existent as will be your pay. As of this very moment, you have approximately twelve hours to find and terminate the creature in order to complete the contract in full.”
A series of groans and jeers erupted from the crowd, but Logan simply stared at the faceless representative, before, with a shrug, he stood and stretched with Cameron following his lead.
“Sounds about right,” Logan said unenthusiastically, grabbing the briefing packet and pushing his chair in. “Well we ain’t got all day. Let’s go hunt us a monkey.”
“Gorilla,” Proxy said in a casual neutrality.