Jump 454: Prey

Jump #454: Prey
>Nine of Swords (Cruelty), reversed: Mental anguish or ill health endured and overcome.
I feel like I get this card fairly often, and it's almost always reversed... interesting.
>Age: 31
Sounds about right for the drawback.
>Location: A simulated San Francisco apartment
>Identity: Scientist
>Drawbacks: (+600) The New Yu, They Came From Beyond Space
I remain uncertain whether The New Yu is an amnesia drawback or amnesia PLUS a power lock. I'm going to operate under the assumption that this is amnesia only.
>Software Scientist (Free, Scientist)
>Master of the Mind (1300, Scientist)
>Repair, Reuse, Recycle (700)
>Psychoscope (Free, Scientist)
>+Speed Scan 001SI (650)
>+Far Scan 002SI (600)
>+ESP Targeting (550)
>+M3CHT3CH DX_2.0 (500)
The psychoscope is nifty, but there are a few common-sense upgrades that ought to be standardized. Scanning faster, from further away, tracking potential targets, and repairing broken devices? Can't go wrong with any of that.
>Nullwave Transmitter (400)
This sounds rather handy. Even if they're one-off devices, I can always make more, or study the design and refine it. Bigger is better, after all.
>Recycler and Fabricator (0)
A novel approach to matter deconstruction and reconstruction. Little creepy in certain respects though - cubes of organic materials? I don't want to think about that.

First thought: What the hell, what kind of moron doesn't get acclimated to their surroundings before they start screwing around with their brain?

Second thought: Oh, me, apparently. Figures. I keep having this... dream.

Third thought: Ha ha everyone is saying the suits are a TranStar uniform. Do you think I'm stupid or something? No one is going to wear that uncomfortable shit planetside.

Fourth thought: Hey, that second coffee cup is a thing, don't touch it! Wait, why is everyone flipping out? Relax- oh hey it's a thing but at least security shot the thing. Wait, what.

As the anesthetic gas floods the room, I hold my breath, hoping to postpone the inevitable. The air is purged and replaced with clean rapidly and I gasp for breath as five men enter the room. "Something is very wrong here," I say to to Marco Simmons as the four security personnel flanking him keep their weapons trained on me. He's wearing a curious helmet and seems to scan me, then tells security I'm clean; they approach me with the obvious intent to subdue me. I can't let this happen.

"Stop being idiots," I tell them, sidestepping. I've already put the pieces together, it's fairly obvious. "The jig's up, and I need to speak with my brother. We're on Talos. There's obviously been a containment failure, so less time you spend dealing with me, the more time you have to contain it. And you'll likely need all available hands." Security glances between myself and Marco, who regards me with a look of distaste, before giving a reluctant nod. "Let's go get Alex," I say, all but taking charge, as the overhead intercom issues an alert for crew to get to muster stations.

I ignore the message that pops up on my phone - I'll check it later.

---

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "God damn it, Alex. I've been doing this for months and you aren't even giving me any days off lately? I mean... Jesus H, I'm sure I agreed to what we've got going on, but surely neural fatigue builds up."

Alex Yu shook his head and glowered. "The neuromods reset your brain to the state it was in at the start of the simulation every time-"

"JUST my brain, you jumped-up idiot savant!"

"-and it's functionally identical every day of testing-"

"You've been running the tests three to four times daily!"

"-so I don't understand what the big deal is!" he finishes.

"The big deal, Alex? The big deal is that you're ignoring the rest of my body and the effects of constantly swapping out mods, and potentially contaminating the results!"

"I don't see what you're so up in arms about. We needed someone with a known baseline and you volunteered."

"Okay. Look, the ethics violations? Fine, gotta break a few eggs, who cares."

"What do you know about--?"

"The important thing is the science. And your recklessness is potentially contaminating the results! Typhon wiped out the last station that was up here, you KNOW we can't let our guard down for a moment! This situation is proof of that!"

"God damn it. Just... just go to your office, Morgan. Once we get containment restored, we'll talk."

"Damned right we will."

---

Five minutes later I was in my office watching a video message to myself while Alex was busy coordinating the defense against the containment failure.

Fifteen minutes later I was sprinting around the station while things began to fall apart.

Thirty minutes later I'd locked down all escape from the station, as any containment failure meant the extinction of humanity.

An hour later I was hotwiring nullwave transmitters to run as long as they had power - the power supply attached to them should last roughly 48 hours - and giving them out to any personnel I came across. Three each to security. Sure, they caused a mild headache to people holding them, but mimics couldn't hide within the boundary of the field.

Three hours later I was rigging up a larger scale nullwave transmitter.

Three hours and fifteen minutes later the station was clear of any typhon except the dead.

Four hours later, Alex and I were sitting down and having a very, very long talk about what to do now - because these were definitely not the only thing in the cosmic ecology.

Eight hours later he'd agreed to reassign himself within the company, ceding control to me after we'd had a very frank discussion about the fact that we were committing systemic crimes against humanity as a business tactic.

Seven days later we finalized a plan for a constellation of satellites meant to engulf the Earth, putting nullwave transmitters up as an orbital buffer.

Three months later neuromods were pulled off the market, the technology studied for other approaches to the same end. Brain damage was, after all, an unacceptable risk.

Six months later, that preparation paid off when the typhon came to the Earth after all, only to run into a bubble that basically lobotomized everything that managed to pass through it - the Apex crashed into the Sahara and was destroyed by impact. The rest didn't even make it that far.

A year later, Alex made a speech at the UN, the world's governments declassifying it all.

---

"Since mankind was young, we looked up at the night sky, at the stars, wondering what's up there. If anyone's listening. When we entered the modern era, Enrico Fermi was one of the first scientists that asked some startling questions; are we alone in the universe, and if so, why? Even if we were limited to the speed of light, any species ought to fill the galaxy up within a few million years. And yet... everything is empty. Silent. Why? Is there some hurdle we have to pass to get to space? Is there some great filter that keeps species from advancing? Carl Sagan thought it was the risk of nuclear self-annihilation. Later scientists thought it was the difficulty of balancing our needs with the preservation of our environment. These are valid concerns, sure.

"But we have found the Great Filter... or more precisely, it has found us. Exterrestrial life. The typhon. We have high confidence that they are not the only life form in the cosmos, but they seem to be attracted to intelligent thought. Consciousness. Religious implications aside, there have to be others that they consume, else how would they have existed up to this point? It flies in the face of everything we know about terrestrial biology, of course. They possess an animalistic intellect at best - if the Earth were an island in the ocean, then the typhon float around looking for a meal. But they aren't sharks - they're closer to a colony of jellyfish. They aren't intelligent enough to really pursue something, but if they come across it they'll wrap it in their tentacles and consume it.

"The question has become something else. We were able to study them, make a countermeasure. But we know that the black ocean of space isn't empty. What else is out there, waiting for us? Is it choked with jellyfish, or will we find other things? Fish? Dolphins? Whales? Sharks? And if we leave in search of others... how likely are we to find other populated islands? Now we know, though. They're out there, somewhere."