I am not completely terran? The question continued to circulate through my mind over and over. What a ludicrous statement to question. There is no possible way.
“How? How did this happen? I mean, *pause* the telepathy. What are you talking about? Why the voices?”
The man in the hindmost seat spoke up.
“In the early years of the twenty-third century there was a young man named Doran Routhe. He was a prosperous new scientist for the United Powers League. “
“Yes I know who he is. Listen I am not asking for a history lesson about why you and I are here today,” I interrupted.
“Please,” he shot back, “let me finish.”
I sighed and made a motion for him to continue.
“It is true that Routhe is responsible for the colonization of these outer worlds, but there is much more to him that is not known to most or has deliberately been disregarded.”
He paused to reflect then started again. “Before sending the first of the new terran race on the Nagglfar, he performed experiments on the disposable prisoners. Most of these so called trials were of genetic splicing and modification. He secretly continued research on human DNA that had ironically been prohibited by the very government he worked to empower. The UPL of course had no knowledge of this,”
I questioned, “in other words playing god?”
He diverted his eyes elsewhere. “ Yes in a way”
Another man, with a higher squeaky voice, spoke up, “in hopes of creating an incredibly intelligent psycho-kinetic race, he worked countless hours improving and manipulating DNA to a heightened performance. Most of his work was left undone due to illness and other stipulations, we are not really even clear on the specifics of the illnesses. “
“Wait, how do you even know this information?”
“All of the information we have on Dr. Routhe and the covert research he had performed was secretly downloaded in to the ATLAS mainframe by Routhe himself, before the first were sent off. Our agents have taken on countless missions to retrieve this information for our extensive use”
These people were really starting to disturb me, “OK, what in the name of the confederacy does this have to do with me?”
Another man began to speak, “You say you hear voices, am I correct?” he bluntly asked.
I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. “Yes, yes you are correct. Back on the planet, one of your men said that he could hear them too. Wait a second what is going on. You mean you really know what these voices are? How do you know this? How do you hear what I hear?”
“Please if you just listen all of this can be explained as well”
I slammed my fist on the table, “that’s all I have been doing! Listening! You tell me where to go and I go! You tell me what to do and I have done. I don’t even know where I am!”
“OK first things first. I am vice chancellor Canington. The other men that gather before you are the principal members of the Stratus Court, or SC for short. The ship you are on is a flag ship of the NSO, the New Stratus Order. We are a group of individuals who have created an underground resistance against our enemies for our own distinctive gain. The confederacy is flawed and we can not afford to put our trust in it, thus an enemy, so we have fashioned our own ‘confederacy’ in a way.”
“Does the confederacy know about you?” I said raising an eyebrow.
“They have no knowledge what so ever that we exist.”
I thought it somewhat hard to believe that the government of our race who controls almost every known thing in these sectors wouldn’t know about a group so powerful. I decided it was best to leave that to my own imagination, at least at this moment.
“Now like I was saying, the confederacy has full access to the medical records of the experimental patients and the journals of Routhe. Finding the work fascinating in the least, they decided, with mass disagreement from many influential government officials, to continue what Routhe had started. “
“This was the beginning. “
“They began using what little knowledge of bimolecular structures they had of the species 1573.”
“The zerg?” I questioned
“Yes, the confederacy tampered with DNA from that of the overlord strain in hopes of finding a way to speed up the research that had already begun on project ghost. Desiring to create a new terran with such psionic potential, that it would be possible to take control the zerg themselves in the same manner that an overlord looks over a brood.”
“Not knowing what kind of effect the splicing of zerg and terran DNA would have on a Terran they decided that the risks were justifiable and the experiments continued. They raised many infants in tubes until a mature enough stage and then implanted them with artificial memories and sent them to different sectors of the confederate empire. Since then they have been monitoring the several they could keep tracks on in hopes of noticing some signs of that other DNA progressing out in these subjects.”
Canington pulled out a cigar and a match and proceeded to light it. As he struck the match the smell of bio synthetic sulfur filled the air. I could see the glow of the cigar across the table as his eyes centered directly on to my own. Smoke started to slowly ascent around his face. As it cleared, he took a breath and proposed to speak. “In other words sir, YOU are one of these subjects.”
I had a feeling the conversation was coming to this but it still hit me like a plasma blast to the chest. “You’re kidding, there is no way in hell I am a fuckin zergling or overlord or whatever the hell it is you think I am!”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to take our word on this. We have made no mistake,” he said as he took another puff on his cigar.
“But you can do what I can! How I mean how does that explain the voices?”
The man in the back spoke again, ”Those voices are not created by us or you or anyone else on this ship. Those are the voices of the Overmind itself, giving orders to the cerebrates and overlords. The DNA has given you that ability to hear what they are communicating. Every man you see in this room is as the same as you. Not born of a mortal man and women; not able to grow up living a normal life; not having the memories of a person who has existed. We are but a fabrication of the confederacy. A freak experiment that should have never been. And for the confederacies’ sins, we must, and more importantly you must be tortured with the impure thoughts of the evil itself.”
This was all coming in to fast now. I didn’t know what to think. I knew the scenario was justifiable but it was so unreal that all I could do was sit there with my mouth open and deny all that they had proposed.
I began to speak again when my voice was interrupted by a page over the COM link.
“Chancellor we have reached orbit over Taras IX”
”Excellent,” he replied back, “hold orbit and we will meet you on the bridge. Gentlemen, I beseech you, let today be a day remembered for as long as the NSO lives.”
Everyone began to leave the room and I started to follow, “What’s going on?” I asked one of the quieter men in the back.
“Now the real tests begin”
I shuttered at that statement. I began debating whether I wanted to know what was really gonna happen next. I didn’t…
