Chain 180: Prey

Chain 180: Prey

Location: Talos I
Age: 31
Identity: Morgan Yu (Scientist)
Drawbacks: [+300] The New Yu

[Free]      Software Scientist
[200/1300]  Overclocked Neurology
[500/1300]  Master of the Mind
[1100/1300] Repair, Reuse, Recycle
[Free]      Psychoscope
[Free]      GLOO Cannon
[1300/1300] Looking Glass Display

Waking up in what looks like an apartment is not how I intended to spend this day, especially when all of the smells are wrong. Taking a moment to check my timeline, I found I'm actually on an overglorified sound stage, and am instead on a space station - one which is under attack by aliens, but this is what happens when one decides to do massively unethical research on humans and aliens.

More specifically, for some unknown reason I found myself wearing Morgan Yu's face. Which amused me slightly, but I shrugged and checked my reflection as I made a plan of action. Oh, if I remember the game, that eye should be bloodshot from constant overuse of neuro-mods. Pity that it's brass. I suppose that means the only thing to do is to throw everything far, far off kilter.

Oh, there's a ship that's going to be launching to escape. Too bad its engines failed to ignite, and isn't playing with technopathy through the station's connections fun? So many people on the station need help, and I can make it happen. Technopathy connects me to everything in the station, so I can run between the various Recyclers and quick-print Pantheon drones, then send them out to neutralize the Typhon while escorting humans to safe locations. After all, I have the master key to every door, and I can manipulate everything on board the station at a whim. The Operator that had been programmed had a plan, and this meant something to Morgan Yu, but I am not Morgan Yu.

>"Yes, you are."
"No. Morgan Yu has left the building."
>"I know you've been through a lot today, but come on, stop talking crazy. You're my brother."
"You lobotomized your brother to the point that an eldritch entity from another plane of existence could take over his body and mind. Splicing Typhon with humans? Doing it over and over? How much of him do you think was still human?"
>"That's not how neuro-mods work, the brain resets to the state it was in before the mod was applied--!"
"There are traces left behind, and the user is lessened in its wake. Maybe safe to do a few times, but after three years, he was holding on by a thread. This morning, it snapped. Don't lie to yourself, Alex Yu, you only care about him in the abstract, though more now that you realize he may be lost. Sorry, but Morgan Yu isn't here any more."
>"Then... who, what are you? An emergent personality? Some kind of Typhon corruption?"
"Irrelevant. Here's the short version: you have a nice house, bugs don't usually get in, but you're a kitten that came across a few interesting bugs on the sidewalk and decided to swat at them. The rest of the hive realized those ones were in distress and came over to investigate a potential threat."
>"That sounds... I don't know what to say."
"Now you now have a nest being built right at your front door. If someone doesn't handle it, and fast, they're going to realize that you have a kitchen full of sugar and they're going to swarm inside and take over the house those helpless kittens live in."
>"Do you think we don't know that?"
"Fortunately, even though you've swatted at these rather Lovecraftian bugs... Cthulhu happened to wander by, he thinks you're a bunch of adorable kittens, and he's going to help you not get bitten."
>"Cthulhu. You're serious."
"Well, it's not an entirely inaccurate comparison."
>"That's ridiculous. You're delusional."
"No, what's ridiculous is that there was a mimic on that shuttle that failed to launch, which is why no one can evacuate. You don't drop bugs straight in the kitchen's sugar bowl."
>"Oh shit."
"Indeed."