X: Rumors in the Night

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The Thoughts of Yong An-Hong: Translated by Alexandra Yuan: Copyright 2205, Centauri University Press: Hanson Harbor, Nova

07/24/2175

Some very troubling rumors have reached my ears in recent days. In them, the President has called high level meetings with the generals and admirals inquiring about the readiness of the Terran Star Fleet in comparison to Grushan and Novan forces. I have been told that he seems eager to attempt an invasion of Nova and reclaim it for Earth. I have lived with rumors great and small since I entered public office; the great project of humanity hasn't changed that. In fact, in ways, the Interlink makes rumors easier to spread. But this, to me, seems different. I had lunch with Ambience CEO Shen Wai-Fun today, and he shared with me that he had also heard these rumors. He said he had spoken personally with Admiral Gottred, who attended the meeting.

If this meeting occurred, then I am very worried for many reasons. Why have I not been made privy to this meeting? It would seem that the President may not trust me any longer. If so, will he dispose of me? I am an elected official; I hope there would be public outrage if he attempted such a thing. The Americans would declare it a constitutional crisis and demand an immediate investigation through Terran Internal Intelligence Commission. Of course, if Shen and Hillman take action on the President's behalf, the world may only think about my ousting for a week before the matter is forgotten. All important matters of state should involve me, at least peripherally, as a matter of course.

This may be in line with the recent failure of my Interlink device. Today, it continued to deactivate as it has done for the past several days. I am becoming greatly concerned with my own health, and the health of my device. Could it be that the malfunctions are related to the President's apparent mistrust of me? It may be so.

Odd dreams have begun to trouble my rest as well. Twice in this week the vision has come to me in the night. In it, I am walking through the grounds of my estate in Shanghai, my childhood home which I have not visited in many years. The ceiling is darkness, like fog. I seem to be searching for something, but I do not recall what it is. As I search, it seems that I am observed by something, a shadowy shape from behind. I try to find out what it is, but it eludes me, drawing me deeper and deeper into shadow. I hear whispering of voices around me speaking in an alien tongue. I try to find my way out of the shadow, but I only wander deeper, and the whispering becomes louder. Then I see fire rise up along the walls beside me; my home is on fire. I run to the window and see Beijing outside me burning; I try to contact the President, the military, anyone who can help, but no answer comes. Then a dark creature appears before me and tosses me out of the window into the fire below.

It is a strange dream, all the stranger because it never varies; three times it has visited me in the past seven. Once I awoke in sweat and fear; the dread has lessened since then. Probably, hopefully it is a result of Interlink feedback, perhaps the same as my device's error.


Personal Journal: William Aucaman

07/24/2175, 6:14 AM

I haven't gotten any sleep yet. Normally, I'm good for all-nighters; I pull them all the time to keep up with my classes and my day to day work, but tonight has been unique in many, many ways. I haven't felt this exhausted since the day my family had to transport grizzly bears from Yellowstone into the Canadian steppes. I don't do sports, and I'm not used to being hunted rather than being the hunter; I can say with absolute certainty that I will never think of killing a deer the same way again.

The sun is starting to rise. Cynthia and Brent are both asleep now; Brent's ribs are giving him a whole lot of trouble, and Cynthia's leg is no better. I'm staying awake because I'm still basically uninjured, although my shoulder is very sore still. But there hasn't been any more activity from the woods, and the creature is still very much dead. It started attracting flies shortly after the sun rose, which is unusual, but maybe something about this species makes it decompose faster or something. It certainly decomposes strangely. When we put it in the cellar, it was three meters tall from heel to horn; now, it's only about two and a half meters. It seems to have grown a pair of wings, like a giant flying squirrel or butterfly, not powerful, I'd say, but able to give it some gliding distance. The limbs have turned all thin and armored. It's almost like looking at a large insect, but with an almost mammalian face. I say this based on what it looks like it might have been before I stabbed its eyes out and Cynthia shot it in the face. The body seems to have changed color too; before, it was black like the inside of a cave, and absorbed any light we shone on it; now, it's an earthy brown, and hairy. I wouldn't have believed it was the same creature if all the wounds hadn't aligned with what we gave it. Its face was virtually blown to bits by the shotgun; it had gaping holes in the shoulder and chest, and stab and burn marks on its lower leg. How this thing was dressed up as the black creature we fought last night I can't imagine.

Cynthia was awake about a half hour ago and I showed it to her then just to be sure I wasn't imagining things. She agreed with me that it was extremely odd, but couldn't say much more than I could other than to add that it might have been very pretty at one time, and I almost agree; its armor and wings catch the light in very strange ways and make it shimmer with rainbows. The fur is mostly brown, but it's very glossy, or it was at one point, I think. And despite the insect-like armor and limb structure, it seems like a graceful creature. I don't know quite how to describe it, and of course I have no way of taking pictures.

When we had left the cellar, Cynthia turned and thanked me for getting her and Brent through the night. I corrected her, of course, and said that luck really had more to do with it than I did. She gave me an odd look.

"What are you talking about?" she said. "You fought the thing every time. You actually carried me away from its reach at one point. You figured out how it was tracking us. None of us would be alive if not for you."

She's only partly right, of course; it was only luck that I blinded it when I did, and it still tracked us after the Interlinks were disabled. I wasn't even the one who killed it. I didn't point that out, though; I've learned that if people really want to give you credit for something, they get annoyed when you correct them. So I just shrugged and said "your welcome, I guess." She laughed and told me I was a strange one, whatever that means. Then she got serious; She told me that she thinks that the creature must be connected to her missing sister; apparently, she had described hallucinations of something similar to the creature that we fought. As soon as we get back into town, she wants to go back out with the police to find her. I never took her for being so tough; I'm just about dead after last night, and she's already talking about going back out into the woods. One has to admire her tenacity.

I suppose we'll have to leave sometime soon. There seems to be a road back into town; it seems pretty long, though, according to the old maps I've been looking through. I may opt to go back through the woods, although it's a less certain way. But I'll give them both a few more minutes to sleep and then we can figure out our route. Once we're there, I think we have to tell the police about the alien; it's dead, but who knows how many more like it might be out there still.


Text Conversation:From Adrian Aucaman: To William Aucaman: 07/24/2175

Mon 7:20 AM

Adrian: Hey, Billy, where are you?

Adrian: I went ahead and ran a lightwave survey of that forest area as the sun came up. It was mostly normal, but there were a couple of oddities. First, there was a lot of fire damage that wasn't there when we took our last survey-not anything major, but just some odd cutting near that stream where the tracks started. And not far from that there was an odd distortion in light pathways, not like a tree or something where light bounces off, but it was like something was physically bending light around a spot about twelve meters in diameter. Like, it bends the light laterally around some point and sends it back on its original path. I've never heard of anything like it.

Adrian: Billy? Are you getting this?

Mon 8:01 AM

Adrian: Billy, Mom and Dad are really worried. Are you there? I want to investigate that light anomaly before it goes away or something.

Adrian: Billy?

[End Text Transaction]



Recording: Police Scanner: 07/24/2175 0805 Local Time

Police robots on location. Cabin in sight.

Confirm; are targets on location?

No visual confirmation.

All right, move in carefully. Suspects are considered armed and dangerous; lethal force is authorized, but we want them alive if possible. All units confirm.

Alfa confirms.

Bravo confirms.

Charlie confirms.

All units confirmed. Fan out and make the approach.

[pause]

Alfa three I have a light on inside.

Alfa two I confirm.

Bravo six movement inside.

Hold Alfa and Bravo. Get under cover they may be aggressive. Charlie continue advance.

Alfa one door is opening. Target identified Brent Calhoun.

Alfa, Bravo, move in!

[Calhoun] Police! Hey! Thank goodness!

Threatening gesture detected.

He's on fast approach!

[gunfire]

Shots fired! Shots fired!

Alfa two reporting discharge. Target rushed us.

Target down! Repeat target down!

Charlie in position.

Alfa in position.

Units confirmed. Breach!

Alfa, breach!

Charlie, breach!

[door smashing]

Main room is clear.

Kitchen clear.

Cellar clear.

Proceeding upstairs.

Bravo four targets sighted, upper bedroom window.

Confirmed. Units converge.

Confirmed. Making approach.

[unidentified sound]

Shots fired! Lost contact with Alfa unit!

Charlie continue approach! Fire at will!

[gunfire]

[unidentified sound]

What is that?

Classified beam weapon technology detected.

Charlie four. Charlie one, two, three are down.

[gunfire]

Bravo taking fire.

Disengage. Withdraw to outdoors. Keep the place surrounded.

Scramble military assault craft, authorization 320MK43.

Charlie disengaged. Holding position.

Issue surrender demand.

Warrant issued for the arrest of William Aucaman and Cynthia Mattingly. We know you're in there. Hand over the classified weaponry and turn yourselves in before you make this worse on yourselves.

[Mattingly] You metal bastards killed Brent!

Voice print confirmed; target Cynthia Mattingly.

Hand over the classified weaponry and no one else needs to get hurt.

[Aucaman] We can do that, but we need you to take your police drones out of the area and let us go.

Voice print confirmed; target William Aucaman.

Negative. Warrant issued for the arrest of William Aucaman and Cynthia Mattingly. Termination authorized. Hand over the weapon or you will be destroyed.

[Aucaman] The weapon has an unstable core. I'll detonate it unless your drones get out of here. Then you won't get any weapon and you'll lose your hardware.

Negative. Intelligence confirms no risk of detonation. Give up, kids. Hawk drones are inbound, ETA two minutes. Surrender now or we blow the whole place.

[pause]

Last chance kids. Hand over the weapons and surrender peacefully or we will kill you both.

[pause]

[Aucaman] Okay. We'll hand over the weapon. Can I toss it out the window?

Negative. Come out with your hands up and we will retrieve it.

[pause]

[Aucaman] Okay. We're coming out now.

Door opening.

Targets identified, William Aucaman and Cynthia Mattingly. Hands raised; they're surrendering.

Take them into custody. Charlie search the house for that weapon. Bravo, secure targets.

Bravo one. Targets secure.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to legal counsel, if you cannot afford a lawyer, the Hegemony will provide one to you.

Charlie four. Weapon is secured.

Mission is successful. Good job, gentlemen. Place remote units on unmanned protocol to bring suspects back to base.

---------------

Hey y'all! Thanks again for reading. Sorry this update  came slower than the others; I've finally hit the spot where I'm going to be producing new material. Updates from now on may be a bit slower, but I promise to have them out at least once a week. Thanks to @misain for reads and votes. If you like this, please do comment and vote and don't forget to add it to get notified when I update. Thanks, the real jonbrain!

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