Shoggoth girl back up

  Shoggoth Girl


   A few short years following the official end of World War II a fishing boat reported an encounter off an undisclosed shoreline of Antarctica with a German U-Boat. American and Soviet naval forces investigated and discovered a base mining into the ice and rock of the area. The US and Soviet forced engaged them discovering the enemy had gained access to technologies of unknown origin. However these remnants of the third reich clearly had not learned how to properly repair, operate, or replicate the weapons they had found as after a week of conflict they seemed to be running out of the impressive ammunition of the unknown technology and utilizing more standard munitions. The vehicles however proved impossibly agile in the air, and while some air craft were shot down the ground vehicles were far more impressibly armored against assault preventing landing parties or any attempt at a successful air raid. Iit was becoming clear thanks to scouts that these hold outs were increasing their mining efforts, bringing up more of the unknown amunition and pieces of technology that they posed too great a threat to engage in this already hostile environment as they were too entrenched and increasing their military capacity. It was determined should they find a means to manufacture these weapons they'd no doubt reclaim Germany and start the war all over again in earnest; as such a drastic measure was taken, the third use of nuclear weapons in war fare. However this entire conflict for the sake of world peace and national morals was kept off the books in the US, and buried in the Kremlin. The use of a nuclear device in the arctic would be noticed and was declared a nuclear bomb test by the US.

   While the battle and its location can't be found due to being kept off official reports; the nuclear test cover story however was recorded as such; and while the exact location was off by as many miles as they felt they could get away with claiming; due to the expiration date on the documents status as top secret this information is publically available now. With the use of surveying equipment, and satelite imagery the approximate site can be found; while the US and Soviets cleaned out whatever survived the blast and burned or blew up the rest; the underground tunnels were only hidden by landslides set off by explosives; and thanks to the much more advanced modern equipment a much better site has been found that the third reich missed completly hidden away in hard to traverse on foot terrain; but not so much for a modern day helicopter to deliver supplies to and modern snow craft to traverse.

    With all their mining, they had completly missed the entrance located only a few miles away from their base dig site.


   ******

A team of ten ventures through the harsh landscape of Antarctica, each indistinquishable from the others in their bright orange climate suits yet distinct against the nearly monochromatic landscape. Through massive craggy spires they venture, reminiscent of some cyclopean structure erected by unknown hands long ago to mark this place. Despite this the invaders of the past clearly missed it, or at least that is what they thought setting out. Through monolithic black gates the team descends a strange ramp, not a slide, not stairs, a winding groove cut into the rock with rough ridges, the walls indented in circular shallow cuts up to a few feet above a their heads. They are stopped by sheer shock approaching the base of the ramp as a body lies there, face down. The body is not human, at least not entirely in apperance. A mummified body resembling a man wearing torn silver cloth, their head too large for their body, their eyes huge but decayed out from the passage of time. In a long fingered hand the figure is holding a silver broken rod, it resembles a letter D with the curve flat along a straight pole, the curve looks to have been cut through by something. The team exchange hand signals and place a radio transmitting marker by the body, signaling to base something was found, as well an earlier team which had not descended the steps had placed one by the door. This team however hesitates still realizing the position of the body; this four foot tall humanoid had been moving towards the ramp, the rip in the object and the rip in its cloth suggesting something had transpired here to expire this creature to dramatically; this was no burial, as this was no tomb; a conclusion to be had by continuing on, placing glow stick flares and radio markers at anything of interest. The tunnels are massive, there are what appear to be control panels and/or pedestals with writing on them all about seven feet up, all located before more monolithic doors, sealed shut, including a massive circular platform at the far end with one such pedastal in the center. One of the team examines the edges, a man's voice coming over their radios as he speaks, "look here,"

  He shines a flash light along the edges, they are on a platform over a deep shaft, "its an elevator,"

  A woman's voice speaks, "Whomever built this place, I don't think it was our little friend back there. Everything's too big."

   Indeed they had found more of the curved path sloped ramps, every pedastal so far above the ground they'd have to return with ladders to get pictures of them, every door is huge.

   "Its just as homebase expected," comes another man's more high pitched yet Russian accented voice, "what the Nazies found according to Soviet records seemed to be a base built over something else; these aliens, whatever they were, had been trying to dig something else out, something even older than them; the weapons the Nazies found were all digging equipment and vehicles according to the Soviet report. Exploding heat rods, armored equipment, but what they brought back were more akin to heated drills and mining equipment. The best takeaway being new metal alloys."

  "So then," comes another woman's voice, shining a flash light around, "if the all so important aliens really were just like us, digging something else out, then who built this...and why'd they leave all their stuff behind...including a body."

  "Bodies," says the Russian man, "scouts claimed the Nazies had found alien bodies, but had little use for them so dumped them into the ocean."

   "Well then," says a man with a British accent, "best case scenario, they got stranged and starved to death; maybe even turning on each other as supplies ran out. Worst case, they found something they shouldn't have. To be honest given nothing down here looks to be on, active, or alive, I'd say the former is more likely than the later. In either case we need to wrap up, double check the markers and return to base camp.


   -25 years later-

    "You're kidding right? THAT conspiracy theory was true?! The Techno-organic technology that revolutionized organ transplants, robotics, prothetic limbs, even completly changed the face of the pet industry and deep space avatars...among other things...was actually based on alien technology?"

   "In a manner of speaking yes; however we didn't just slap our names on this and release it out into the world. We had top specialists in biochemistry, nano-machines, even cellular botanists and I think more than a few fungi experts, among others of course; looking over the tiny samples we could take from the stasis field without...incident."

  "Incident?"

  "There is a reason the earliest products were living slime for industrial use and pet stores. A large enough sample and it wiggled about and reacted like a living creature, splitting and reabsorbing its self. We more tried to copy it rather than control this directly. An early experiment took too large a piece out and it; well, it tried to free the rest of it."

  "Is it; sentient?"

  "Normally I'd say no; none of the prothestics showed any indipendent thought, and unless designed with a brain neither have any of the replicants, robots, comfort companions, monster mates, and so on. However the recent news events involving the older products, finding a way to duplicate human properties and gain sentience does have us relooking at the template here. The "pet slimes" as they are now dubbed were the most direct copies we ever made; the simplest, most controllable, yet; they still surprised us despite being our own creation only based on this one."

  "It; looks like a Shoggoth,"

  "Indeed, it was dubbed that as well by the exploration crew that found it in Antarctica."

  "Seriously...this isn't a joke, you arn't just hazing me right?"

  "Right, the story, no, this is all real. We arn't going public or anything, but we are hiring your crew to build a containment facility. Our military contractors want to see the original out of stasis, to properly compare to pet slimes. All off world of course. We have all the data here, our experiments have given us a good idea of what its capable of; keeping in mind its mass is compacted in the stasis field, its all in the data.

  ******