Wednesday, February 22, 2012

October 20, 2013

October 20, 2013


Sometimes absence of data is in itself data.


Colonel Moss is incommunicado.  No one seems to know his whereabouts.  I rarely trust intuition, but this stinks worse than one of the Colonel’s Sweet William cigars.


Must continue to monitor this situation.

October 19, 1013

October 19, 2013


Received a brief, cryptic message from Oxley on his Theta channel.


<<Major breakthrough

<<Can’t leave field to deliver in person

DO NOT trust data link I have here

<<This is too BIG.  Too important

<<Will send through communication on relay hub.

            <<Stand by…>>


NOT our normal communication protocol, so this has to be big.




It’s been more than six hours, still haven’t received anything over the relay.


What has he found?


I’ve decided to wait and see.  Not going to second guess him.  There may indeed be reason to keep this quiet.

October 18, 2013 pt. 4

These late nights spent cracking data are going to catch up with me some day.  Thank goodness for coffee.


Kristin, Dakota, and Teddy seem to be gravitating towards Jake.  In fact, there seems to be conversations going on that either I’m not hearing, or I’m not there for.


I can also observe that they seem to be leaving Shauna and Bryan out.  It’s like junior high school all over again.


Those four are coming up with something that they don’t want us to hear.  Security measures should be increased, because I don’t want them escaping and going out into the world just yet.


Must look into the chance that these four gained abilities beyond our control.  Jake might have gained telepathy.  I’ll believe that though when I believe in precognition and those trolls I talked about last year.

October 18, 2013 pt. 3

Our remaining patients have met our standards and more.


The ones remaining are Dakota-090, Teddy-047, Bryan-135, Shauna-085, Jake-115, and Kristin-056.


Though I am worried.  Shauna and Bryan have stopped at the level we set.  The augmentations were set for a specific purpose.  The other four are still…changing.  Their cells are different than the others.


I have a feeling that some augmentation chemicals – namely the Keres strain – mixed and instead of creating increased Fail rates, it changed their cells even more.  I’ll be damned if Moss and the higher-ups don’t ask for more research.  These four might turn out to be what we needed.


I’ll send all this extra data to Oxley.  See if he can’t make sense of this more than I can.

October 18, 2013 pt. 2

Oxley is obviously gifted with a formidable intellect, but sometimes he can be such a thoroughgoing idiot.  I suspect this situation and the power he thinks he wields are going straight to his head.


Oxley still assures me that the site is still secure.  He insists on continuing with only a skeleton crew of his most trusted people.  And then he tells me he won’t tolerate another “station”.


I simply nodded.


I don’t like this.  Was he fishing?  Or does Oxley actually know what happened there…the real reason for the Houston Station relocation the past year?


Oxley may ultimately prove himself a security risk.

October 18, 2013

October 18, 2013


This is my last official day at this office in Muncie.  The powers that are at FLEETCOM offered me a corner suite in the offices at the local public college.  Difficult environment to work in; surely not their goal.


Ball State University is my new home…until further notice.




[That lie about all of the members of Project Z being all accounted for…will that come back to haunt me?]

October 14, 2013

October 14, 2013


Planning is underway for experimental surgery therapies and rehabilitations for more than 80% of the augmentation washouts.  Several of these protocols may take years to complete.  Scientists predict a survival rate of no greater than 50%, but I suspect the patient’s will to serve – to live again – will radically boost that percentage.


They’ve always exceeded expectations.

September 29, 2013

September 29, 2013

Those ravaged my malformations too serious to continue in the program have been offered various “desk” duties within UFMN, thus allowing them to move on with a semblance of normality.


I’ve assigned Dela to investigate as-yet theoretical therapies that may resuscitate these washouts as fully functioning.  (One protocol loos promising already: the complete bone restructuring and attendant nanografts to effectively replace the skeletal system; this may prove useful, especially for Nancy and Paul.)


I’ll let them adjust to their new jobs for several months before suggesting some of these experimental procedures…by which time the patients will likely be willing to try anything to recover.

September 10, 2013

September 10, 2013


I’ve ordered that NO patients autopsies be performed (noninvasive scans and blood tests are permissible).  Brief funeral services (closed casket) served to help surviving patients attain psychological closure.


Bodies of augmentation washouts are cryogenically preserved, pending further study.  Perhaps one day we’ll discover ways to ameliorate or reverse lethal side effects and revive one, if not both of them.  That is my hope.


Reviving these patients would be fraught with complexities – and not just from technological perspective.  How would they respond to an essentially new world when resuscitated months or even years later?


How could surviving patients react to their comrades’ resurrection?  I certainly can’t predict.


One thing is for certain – UFMN would find a use for them.

August 30, 2013

August 30, 2013

Failures.  As a scientist I’ve been trained to regard a failure as a data point, build a trend from many data, project long-term structures, and learn from my mistakes.


But now every “failure” means some malformation…or an excruciating death.


Was the need commensurate with the risk?  We had to move quickly.  The onset of maturity was the gating factor – that and the pressure from the insurgent threat.


Must move forward.  Find solutions.


I’m sure the vice admiral’s UFMN trauma experts are reporting that I’m not letting go.


They can all go to hell.
August 17, 2013

I divided the final list of augmentations into two categories: those that fall within 12,5% lethal/malformation tolerances, and those with higher failure rates or long-term side-effects that we haven’t adequately studied.
 

v  Accepted protocols:

Ø  1. Occipital capillary reversal
Submergence and boosted blood vessel flow beneath the rods and cones of the subject’s retina.  Produces a marked visual perception increase.

§  Risk: 11% have retinal rejection and detachment.  Permanent blindness.

Ø  2. Muscular enhancement injections
Protein complex is injected intramuscularly to increase tissue density and decrease lactase recovery time.

§  Risk: 5% of test subjects experience fatal cardiac volume increase.

Ø  3. Carbide ceramic ossification
Advanced material grafting onto skeletal structures to make bones virtually unbreakable.  Recommended coverage not to exceed 3% total bone mass because of significant white blood cell necrosis.

§  Risk: 3.8% FAIL rate due to possible mutations and compromised matrix/marrow integrity.  Specific risk for pre- and near-postpubescent adolescents: skeletal growth spurts may cause irreparable bone pulverization.

Ø  4. Catalytic thyroid implant
Platinum pellet containing human growth hormone catalyst is planted in the thyroid to boost growth of skeletal and muscle tissues.

§  Risk: 2% acquire elephantiasis.  Suppressed sexual drive.

Ø  5. Super conducting fibrification of neural derdrites
Significantly increases reflexes.  Increase in intelligence and memory.

§  Risk: 12% contract Parkinson’s disease and Fletcher’s syndrome.


Although the following protocols have unacceptable FAIL rates, they show promise, and may, with future research, be designed within acceptable tolerances.


§  Adrenal thermal metabolase
Enhances adrenal response under physiological distress.  Catalyst, however, breaks down into highly toxic waste products making this protocol eventually fatal.

o   Future research: Possible coenzyme inhibitor?

§  Cyclo-synthetic neural transmission gene sequences
Significant evidence to support increases in intelligence and cognitive markers.  Very high rate of psychotic and antisocial behavior absolutely prohibits the use of this protocol on any patient.

o   Future research: Gradual application over the subject’s early life mitigates side effects? (Long-term studies being quietly arranged; see notes on Operation: TENDRIL.)

§  Leucocytic coprotein complex and microfibrin spindlase
Wound suppression and near instant blood clotting of vascular breaches.  33% of subjects incur fatal clotting.

o   Future research: Unknown

§  Neuron surface viral microphages
Site injection on neural tissues boosts selenium fiber bonding by three orders of magnitude.  Subsequent appliances fall well within acceptable signal-to-noise ratios, making cybernetic augmentation and integration possible.  FAIL rate Unknown, but I am loathe to manipulate neural parameters without more detailed studies.

o   Future research: Pending



Plus, there’s always the Keres strain.


We start the augmentation phase tomorrow.


If only there was a god to pray to.

June 6, 2013

June 6, 2013

I had a rare chance to have a long talk with Jake today.  He is convinced we are about to enter a new, more severe phase of the training.  (How does he know?)


He told me not to worry, that he and his team were ready for anything.


Part of me wants to offer them a choice.  Would any of them refuse?


There really is no choice, is there?  Not for humanity’s sake.  Every day the insurgency grows bolder.  Hundreds have died in defense of the United States since we started this.  I have updates run my revision of Hopkins’s model weekly…the results grow worse.


They must be forged

January 30, 2013

January 30, 2013


The candidates experienced their first casualty today – but not among their ranks.


It was one of their handlers.  He used too much force and overcommitted, using his entire body to pin the candidate.  Number 135 reversed the pin and then used the instructor’s own brawn and mass against him, throwing him, severing the spinal cord at the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae.


Death was immediate.


I saw 135 crying outside the barracks.  I left him alone.


Moss and I concur: no disciplinary action.  Memorial services will be held, all candidates will attend, and then training will resume.


I’ve instructed Moss to emphasize the history of military training – that to simulate combat conditions, lethal force is often employed; that accidents are an inherent risk…perhaps even inevitable.


Moss spoke with 135.  He understands.  He will recover.


This bodes well. There will be many deaths before boot camp is over.

October 20, 2012

October 20, 2012


I just received a bath of after-action reports regarding the fates of the replacements.


Longetivity is well beyond what I’ve seen in laboratory conditions.  Could the effect of their parents attempting to nurture them back to health be a factor?


I’ve assigned JACKBOOT to track this.


I can’t bear the detailed reports of the host’s and parent’s sufferings, and in all to many cases, their deaths and grieving.


I feared this would happen to me.  Something about the parent-offspring relationships debilitates my otherwise objective reasoning, evokes emotions…far more than anticipated.


Several possible leaders are emerging from the pool of patients (and we have yet to witness the aggressive alpha dominance predicted by UFMN’s “specialists”).  Moss and I agree that the top candidates for leadership are Numbers 049, 090, 102, and 115.  Moss says his money is on Teddy.  I refuse to engage in any puerile betting when so much more is at stake than money or pride.  Besides, I already know who will be their leader.


I knew the first day I met him.

October 18, 2012

October 18, 2012


Candidates were given haircuts today.  Number 085 disarmed the master sergeant barber of his clippers before three other attendants were able to pin her down and cut her hair.  Master sergeant said he’d seen feral cats squirm less.

October 16, 2012

October 16, 2012

Phase one of indoctrination under way.  We’re attempting to tell the patients why they were taken…why their mission is critical for the fate of all humanity.


Some already comprehend the magnitude of their task.  One actually asked me if they were “here to save everybody from fighting and killing each other”!


Most understand only pieces.


…and all of them miss their fathers and mothers.


My team of UFMN psychologists assures me that after six months under Moss’s training they won’t even remember their names much less their families.


UFMN grossly underestimates the patients.  Typical.


Working with Moss to continue the indoctrination protocols and education to ensure willing compliance.


We are asking everything of them.  They deserve as much truth as we can stomach to tell them.

October 9, 2012

October 9, 2012


Astonishing!  Every candidate that volunteered has exceeded the selection criteria…and my expectations: superior strength and speed coupled with dazzling intellects and remarkable cognitive absorption rates.  In another time, each could have been the next Alexander, Cleopatra, Hannibal, or Ghengis Khan.


Kristin (Number 056) engineered her own intelligence network at school to spy on the teachers!


Jake (Number 115.  Everyone has taken to calling him Lemmy) had an unprecedented string of forty-three victories over two weeks in a brutal version of a game called Ninja.  Walked away with a chipped tooth.  Over a dozen broken arms, collarbones, and fingers among opponents.


Number 093, John, oddly enough was never located.  Some have suggested limited precognition – but I’ll believe in “trolls under the bridge” before I subscribe to such pseudo-scientific nonsense.




Addendum: Retrieval team Gamma reports that Shauna, Number 085 eluded capture for six hours!  She dodged and sprinted away faster than anyone anticipated.  Fortunately, the girl came forward…believing it all to be an elaborate game to see if she was a candidate for the university’s cross-country team.


We’ve implemented new retrieval protocols.  No more mistakes.

October 7, 2012

October 7, 2012

Since I can’t personally screen every candidate from the United States within a reasonable time frame, I’m delegating much of this responsibility to my team, while I will process candidates in the South and the Northwest.  OMI has provided me with a diplomatic vehicle, along with a dedicated driver, Han, and my young colonel to act as attaché (babysitting comes to mind).


The colonel Moss seems curious, intelligent, and also, so far, adept at keeping his mouth shut – a rare combination of traits.


I haven’t decided whether to recommend him for permanent reassignment to my staff.


There is an ancient saying, “The beginning of wisdom is ignorance.”  So where do we begin to create the ultimate warrior?  With innocence.

October 5, 2012

October 5, 2012


My god, they detonated a bomb in Kansas!


Preliminary radiological analysis indicates the comb was spiked to disperse toxic materials high into the city’s atmosphere.


Thousands dead.


Hundreds more projected to die from the fallout.


Countless birth defects for generations to come.


The Freedom and Liberation Party has claimed responsibility, demanding the CMA withdraw from the state.


How could they commit such an atrocity?  And against those who were supposedly their allies?  They are insane!  They must be stopped!


I have to stop this.

October 2, 2012

October 2, 2012


While I agree with the original direction of Project Keres (even though they recognized the need for nontraditional forces to remove the budding dissident leadership in the United States without massive carnage), their methodology was…unsettling.


·         Keres candidates were volunteers from various UFMN special forces: men and women who were undoubtedly qualified for any military assignment.  But they were much too old to undergo genetic augmentation.  Inserted gene sequences led to subminimal target changes, while the immunosuppressants failed in most subjects, causing rampant, irreversible genetic fragmentation and degeneration conditions.

o   Refinement: Next-generation candidates must have more malleable, robust DNA structure/repair enzymes.  With satisfactory testing of the L-DNA hydroxyl re-polymerase, the most suitable candidate would be before maturation.


·         Keres candidates’ genetic screening was wholly inadequate.

o   Refinement: Generation-II genetic selection criteria are astronomically improbable.  Statistically, over thirty-nine billion DNA records are required.

The largest DNA database is currently the CAA’s US vaccination program.  People tend to avoid registering births and deaths, and even paying taxes…but they eagerly milk the free school vaccination program, which regularly catalogues DNA traces from the disposed injectors. 

Deconvolution techniques can now reconstitute the entire base-pair sequence from such a trace, and I intend to recalibrate my selection criteria to look for markers that will expedite the sifting process.


·         Many Keres candidates exhibited post-traumatic stress disorder or repressed insurgent sympathies.  Some in the latter category refused to participate post-augmentation and were incarcerated.

Sympathies of this sort are likely dormant in most US citizens.  On some level we all identify with these people (the CMA relentlessly churns out propaganda about the “noble” pioneers).

More pointedly, these are the very people we are fighting to protect from a nascent war.

o   Refinements: Total indoctrination is required.

 NOT the brainwashing, however, suggested by several of my counterparts in the intelligence community.

This requires persuasion and acclimation – a lifelong training commensurate with the impart of the Generation-II Keres mission.  Our most efficient agents will be those who thoroughly understand and embrace their orders.

To forge a new breed of Keres soldiers into unrivaled human weapons, we must maintain absolute control over them.


v  Summary: Criteria involving genetic flexibility, a statistically improbably set of DNA markers, and a decade of indoctrination and training leads me to one conclusion: the ideal candidates are young adults.


My logic is sound, but ethical and moral ramifications linger.


So much to reflect on.  I need time to think.

July 11, 2012

July 11, 2012


I sit in my new yet unstaffed laboratory…the racks of matrices and optical routers still sealed in their crates.


My doubts have returned…perhaps some reflection on my original motivations for coming here will help.


It started three years ago when I met the acclaimed Dr. Hopkins at one of those academic social mixers where everyone is charming and trying to impress project benefactors.  Even as a doe-eyed doctoral candidate, I detested these affairs, so when I heard Hopkins describing “the matrix mechanics of the socio- and politico- economic vectors of human expansion,” I couldn’t resist correcting him.  (His ideas were genius; his algorithm implemation obsolete.)


I outlined a corrective matrix calculation, revising the dimensional parameters in my head (he used 7 when he needed 16).


Hopkins – who had been coasting on the lecture circuit after his initial publication – didn’t appreciate the truth, especially from a young upstart.


The vice admiral (then captain), however, took note.


If I had known that Hopkins would commit suicide two years later, I may have been more charitable in my presentation. (Hopkins blamed himself for the very carnage he had predicted – a lesson for all scientists resides therein.)


Three weeks after that, my grant proposal for artificial intelligence control for N-dimensional matrices was green-lit by the UFMN…contingent on the successful testing of a model of their choosing.


Naturally, it was Hopkins’s.


I knew that his flawed model would produce flawed results.  To avoid having this reflect poorly on my technique, I ran my correct 16-dimensional variant in addition to his 7-dimensional version.


Hopkins’s model predicted a breakdown of social disorder in the United States within twenty years unless strict governmental control was established, reinformed by an immediate and permanent military presence.


The resultant vector was correct, but not the magnitude.


I ran more than fourteen hundred simultations, carrying every parameter, and in the best-case scenario the United States would rebel…and rebel soon.


With FTL- capable transports, ANY state could convert such vehicles into weapons of mass destruction.


Minimum effect was thirty years of war and five million dead.  The maximum effect was unbounded.  Interminable war.  Another Dark Age for humanity.


I took the results to the vice admiral.


But he already knew.


They had come to a similar conclusion (a slightly gratifying tidbit given that it had taken them three years of extensive research).


Then why make me do the same calculation?


The United Forces of the Marines and Navy had apparently had their eye on me for years and knew that the only way to convince me to join them was to get ME to convince me.


It worked.  I joined.


How many lives must be spent to save all of humanity?  Is any price too high to pay?  This may be our only solution.


Now, back to work.

July 09, 2012

July 09, 2012


Can’t concentrate today.  Haven’t been able to for the past few weeks.  New ideas, recent insurgent reports, the ubiquitous eye of OMI watching me…how can I NOT be distracted?


Setting up the new lab has consumed the last few months.  I have doubts.  I keep wondering whether this is the best course.


How did I become involved in this?


Hopkins’s report on the city surely led me here, that scarcely begins to tell the story (will clarify my thoughts on this further when I get the chance to breathe!).


I needed to express my thoughts, so I guess this will do.  I’m not one to waste money on fancy coverings.  Writing does help…to get it all in words…out of my head.


I need a place to record my thoughts and the most sensitive research notes as I undertake this project, which I’ve simultaneously desired, been inspired by, and dreaded.  This place is the sum of all these things, so it seems fitting that this journal begins here.


Am I being sentimental?  Yes.  Pragmatic?  Absolutely.


Despite my artificial-intelligence-enhanced data recording and storage systems, I learned long ago that anything stored electronically can be retrieved electronically.


I have no illusions that some within this organization wouldn’t hesitate to employ against me the very intrusion algorithms I helped devise if it suited their self-interests.  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…


And I will.


And so I begin…to learn whether humanity can be saved from itself, and the role I will play in its uncertain destiny.