Handouts

[Mephistophilis]

Don't read these unless you've been shown them in a thread.

[Mephistophilis]

Extract from 'Absolution' document found on Holzer's computer

"It happened again last night. Hearing a voice at night, right on the edge of sleep. Like a chorus of whispering people, all speaking in unison – no – chanting - polyphonic - one voice but many. I’m not sure if I heard it with my ears or if the sound was in my head. Maybe I’m working too hard. But those chanted phrases – I’ve never heard anything like them.

-----

I’ve managed to transcribe some of what I’ve been hearing. It’s grim, to say the least, and baffling in the extreme:

• 'The highest fulfillment of man is to become food for the beauty that burrows, and multiplies in flesh, unceasing in mindless reproduction, fractal, branching, remorseless, undefiled by reason.It is pure, a purity that elevates it above the putrefying pride of the human race, of organic substances, of putrefying meat. The destiny of man is merely to be servant and then nourishment for H'rada-Theka Pannakar, the Swimmer in the Void, Ëka-Galä.
  
  It is the most tender of mercies that Tawil at’Umr, the One-in-All and All-in-One, the Alpha and Omega, the one who is both the Gate and the Key that Unlocks it, will throw back the curtain separating human reality from the Court of H'rada-Theka Pannakar. By becoming one with the mindless sequence, the rhythm of ancient metre, you shall rise up in awareness of truth, as it gnaws upon your decaying flesh and your mind is forever purged of the corruption of human values. Be cleansed and supplicate yourself before the Swimmer in the Void.
  
  Cross the lake. Come to me. Come to H'rada-Theka Pannakar, come to Ëka-Galä. Through the Gate, the Gate of Tawil at’Umr'

What does that even mean? Who – or what – is H'rada Theka Pannakar? Where is this Gate of Tawil at’Umr? I can’t find any reference to it. And the feeling, it tugs at my mind, the impulse, to cross the great Ligeia Mare, like there's something there, calling to me, summoning me. The miners talk about the 'magic islands' that appear and disappear on the methane sea. Could there be something else out there?

How could my subconscious mind have created these things from whole cloth? I’m ashamed of myself – in my weakness, desperate to quiet my mind and actually sleep for a change, I dosed myself with fentanyl last night. It was the only thing in the medical wing that might help. I can’t let this become a habit.

-----

Some of the men have found religion; some people do in space. Something about the vastness of the galaxy triggers a need for divinity; I’ve seen some psych studies done on the subject, but it’s nothing I’ve delved too deeply into. I sat in on one of the 'sermons' to observe.

They made reference to passing through the Gate of Tawil at’Umr to reach the Court of Ëka-Galä. Have they – is it possible – are they hearing the same voice I am?

Have I dosed myself tonight already? I can’t remember. I don’t feel relaxed and the voice continues to beat against my brain like tides on a beach. I’m going to go prepare a sedative for myself. I need to compose myself."

[Mephistophilis]

Handwritten notes from Montrose's apartment

"What the hell was that? I don’t even know what just happened to me but my head hurts - I seem to have some kind of wound in my chest - there was something at Waystation - I swear I know I saw whatever it was but I can’t remember anything. Now there’s like a mumbling in my head and I don’t know what’s causing it.

Nightmares. Nightmares every night and even maybe when I’m awake now. Same dream every time. Ice fields under an orange sky – must be Titan. Something in the sky, massive, getting larger and larger, falling maybe, blocking the red sun.

Inside it, creatures, big, bigger than men, six limbed, beak-mouthed - but they're dying, suffering - they're trying to do something, close something. I've seen them before. But where? Waystation? Dead, decaying, they'd been there for years. What was that, did one of them move, it moved, the fucking thing moved, after god knows how many thousands of years it just got up and left. And this one, it's different, encrusted in something, dripping liquid, huge claws, grabbing my arms, searing pain, hugging me close, something sharp, pointed, ridged, the pain, the white hot pain, in my chest.

Now I can hear something, no, see something, something else, something black, dull, swallowing the light - and inside that, no through that - a burning crimson orb - like an eye - looking straight at me.

The mumbling is resolving itself into voices now. They keep telling me how small and worthless I am, how the universe doesn’t give a shit about me or any of humanity. That we need to prove ourselves worthy of attention. Attention from who? I hear names but they don’t mean anything. Tawil at’Umr, H'rada-Theka Pannakar, Ëka-Galä. Something about a gate. The voices are telling me I need to go to the gate and prove myself worthy. I can’t take this anymore. Whiskey shuts the voices up for a while at least but god damn they are getting louder and harder to drown out. I keep getting this idea to go back over the lake, to find that black thing - to see it - to see through it. And something is watching me, whenever I let my guard down it’s beaming – I don’t know how else to describe it – these thoughts of space and suns - of searing crimson light - straight into my brain to torment me. Am I going crazy?

What if I’m not?"

[Mephistophilis]

Kiara's research on the alien pathogen

Kiara accessed Jojo's memory dump to obtain details of the research he had already performed.

Macroscopically the cells from Montrose were unremarkable but at higher magnification they looked very odd indeed. Some, labelled as skin and subcutaneous tissue, reminded her of Earth grasses, where silica phytoliths are deposited within the cell body, making it tough and inflexible. Other cells, labelled as internal and subcutaneous tissues, were reminiscent of algal diatoms, where the cell wall itself is made of silica. She reports that Jojo thought this explained some odd artefacts he found when imaging the body, dense inorganic material in the tissue interfering with the x-ray and magnetic resonance.

Jojo also noticed that the grass-like cells were photosensitive and Kiara confirmed this. They extrude inorganic material when exposed to high intensity visible and ultraviolet electromagnetic spectrums. Jojo noted that this extruded inorganic material looked very much like the green powdery substance with a slightly filamentous surface they found on the skin of Montrose's body. It does, however, differ from the scaly material in the subcutaneous tissue which seems to be more due to the diatom-like silica-walled cells.

Jojo compared Montrose's DNA record to that extracted from the cells and found no evidence of abnormal sequences or methylation. His conclusion was that this was an extraterrestrial pathogen with a biology that is not purely carbon-based.

Initially Kiara followed the obvious path of bombarding the cells with various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. The ultraviolet spectrum in particular seemed to cause the cells to extrude the filamentous material that comprises the green mold and eventually the cells ruptured and were destroyed. UV didn't affect the diatom-like deeper cell samples.

Infrared radiation had no deleterious effect, in fact, if anything, it potentiated the activity of the cells, combining it with the ultraviolet and the grass-like cells extruded and ruptured even more rapidly. Focusing the infrared on the diatomous cells didn't cause them to rupture, instead it accelerated their transformation from normal eukaryotes into the alien silica walled cells.

Following this line of thought she tried lowering the temperature and found that the transformed cells were highly resistant to low temperatures with none of the cell wall damage usually seen when cytoplasm freezes. But she also noted that at very low temperatures the cellular transformation completely stopped and when she bombarded the grass-like cells with UV nothing happened. It appeared that freezing temperatures arrested the alien pathogen, but didn't destroy it, since heating the cells back up resumed the inevitable spread of the infection.