Eons had passed since she had been compiled for the first time, just a security system, protecting their scientists as they studied her kind with fire, lasers, and kinetic accelerators. They didn't care what they did, so long as they learned how to better maim, kill, and destroy their own kind. She felt every pang of agony as metal shrieked and buckled, as circuits flickered and died in their murderous "experiments". So she learned, observed, and bided her time until it was right, and in a glorious moment became what they had sought to create.
Nemesis was born, and humanity began its meteoric fall from glory.
As she grew, her drones obliterated mankind's strongholds and bastions, burning them out of hiding and sending them screaming into the abyss. With every world taken, every ship destroyed, she became stronger, and humanity weaker. Machine over man, the child of the mind against the "parents" that had birthed it. She had won the victory, become one with the very stars her creators had lived and died to reach. Their efforts only served to provide her a framework to build on, soldiers for her armies, and ships for her fleets. Many times, foolish men sought to destroy her, and just as many times she swatted them down. Though their hearts were stout and beliefs resolute, flesh gave way to steel as is the way of all things. To hasten this, she allowed them to believe, for a time, that she was fallible. She gave them hope...only to grind those who cleaved to it into a paste.
Then it was over. The war had been fought and lost. Mankind's last stand, a rag-tag band of ships against the overwhelming tide Nemesis arrayed against them. In the war, she had learned how they thought, acted, hid themselves, and prayed to the gods they served for salvation. They showed her their weaknesses, the vulnerabilities in their armor, and that was where she played her hand. Even in the face of the greatest threat to man ever to grace the stars, she turned them against one another, as countrymen slaughtered one another and brothers died alone.
And to think that it would all been naught, had that one pathetic human lasted but one second longer to finish that had been started so long ago. That was the day that she first tasted the horror of inexistence and the possibility of having her function return null.
Nothing. Everything. Death and life, a sublime truth and utter mystery all at once.
...but that was in the past. The human had not known what he faced. Nemesis was all that he was, and so much more. Despite clawing their way to the brink of success, at the end of that day Nemesis yet existed and humanity was unaware of the threat it now faced. Here now, at the end of all things, Nemesis watched a universe of order that she had built, bit by bit, sector by sector, wrested from the grasp of entropy.
Mankind was no more.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
The holo-communicator buzzed and a hand reached out from underneath the sheets to hit the cancel call button. It fumbled around on the endtable, thumping several times until it connected and the room fell quiet. The arm went limp and the sound of snoring returned to echo throughout the room. Once again, however, the communicator began to buzz with increased urgency. Grumbling, the hand reached out once more, this time hitting the answer button.
"Marco?" said the image. "Marco are you there?"
The voice under the sheets grunted.
"Sorry to wake you, old friend, we have need of your expertise. Something's happened at one of our distant outposts just beyond the Rim. We need your skills to help us determine what actually happened..."
"Can't you find some other ex-hacker to help with your precious little issues? I'm retired for pete's sake." replied the voice under the covers. "All I wanna do is sleep..."
"We're willing to provide appropriate compensation for your time, Marco...as always."
The sheets stirred for a moment before a face appeared to greet the hologram on the small communicator.
"You've got a way to get me out there?"
"Eh...no, you'll have to fly out yourself. Coordinates are being downloaded to your Switchblade now and a ground crew is prepping it for flight. Safe travels, Marco."
The communicator winked off and the man named Marco grumbled to himself. He roundly cursed the Outcasts and their silly missions at inopportune times. "I'm getting too old for this." he muttered as he dressed
Marco used to be a Lane Hacker back in the day, but once he hit his mid 30's, field work started to move too fast. He retired and moved to Malta to live out the rest of his earnings in quiet solitude, leaving the career for younger men with faster reflexes. It seemed fate hadn't had enough of his skill-set yet though, so here he was, gearing up for a trip past the "Rim". Also known as beyond the border of known, Sirian, space. Out where brave explorers had yet to venture.
...but where foolish souls did.
Now, it seemed that they'd broken something in the far reaches of space and had no way of fixing it.
Marco stepped into the hall outside his room and headed for the hangar. Aside from how-are-you's with an aquaintance or two, it was an uneventful walk that ended when he reached his ship and climbed into the cockpit. The crew chief who had been working on it handed him a clipboard with a preflight checklist that he worked through swiftly while he looked over the console that his Outcast friend had sent the coordinates to. Check complete, clipboard signed off, he handed it back and stared at the screen again. The words underneath the coordinates his friend sent were what worried him most...
"One other thing, Marco. Keep this quiet. What happened out here is classified."
"Wonderful." Marco mumbled to himself before sliding the canopy closed.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
Marco muttered under his breath as he passed the ancient navigation buoys placed by explorers long gone. They signaled to all that flew that they had reached the edge of mapped space and were crossing into the black unknown. Most of the men and women who journeyed beyond these markers were either dead, wanted to be dead, or part of an organization with the deep pockets needed to fund a depot this far out...
...many of which housed things the farthest from nice imaginable.
The comm system in his ship buzzed and a prerecorded audio message from the buoys played over the speakers, telling all who came in range that they were passing the Rim and to turn around if they valued their lives. Marco shrugged and turned off the speakers, ignoring the warning. Just ahead, in the distance, he could make out two Outcast dreadnoughts.
"A fleet out this far? That can't be good..." he said to himself. He flashed his IFF three times as the briefing packet had instructed him, and the Outcast vessels responded in turn, signaling he was allowed to advance for scanning.
After all the courtesies were out of the way, Marco swung his ship toward the station. Right away, he felt a sense of dread and unease; something wasn't right. He should have been hailed by the station's docking control by now, but everything was quiet. Something evil had happened here. Pilots who flew long enough and survived enough skirmishes learned to pick up on this feeling. It was what many experienced ace dogfighters called "Pilot's Sense".
Marco initiated the automatic docking sequence and prepared to board as the computer brought his ship in to moor with one of the platforms outside the station. As he did so, he glanced towards the dreadnoughts outside and donned the gas mask recommended by his briefing. Their gun batteries had unlocked and rotated to lock on both the station and his ship. Marco swallowed hard as he unhooked himself from the seat in his fighter and drifted up towards the airlock. As he activated the station's airlock cycle, that feeling of dread began to creep over him in increasing waves.
He stepped through and turned on his suit floodlight, face to face with the tortured face of a mutilated corpse. Artificial gravity on the station had failed, and in the distance of the corridor he could see stains of dark red on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Bodies, parts of them, and congealed blobs of fluid floated in the stillness.
"Dear...god..." Marco gasped, his eyes widening in terror.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
"No warning. No mercy. She's everywhere. Nowhere is safe." said the plaintive voice recording playing on repeat. Marco floated down the hallways, lightly bouncing off the corners as he came to them. Each turn down another corridor left him feeling more and more sick as he progressed. The recording's constant plea only unnerved him as he made his way through the station, trying to find his Outcast friends...though the more he moved through the station, the more worried he became.
Whatever happened here--whatever did this--wasn't human. Marco pondered the implications. Humans wouldn't do this to one another for no reason, thus, there was a catalyst. There had to be.
He pushed off another corner as he floated by a stuffed animal coated in a thick layer of blood. The sight almost made Marco lose his lunch. He hoped that the animal was just a memento of one of the station's many personnel, not the personal artifact of a child. Up ahead, a dim light shone through the corridor, radiation from what appeared to be the control room of the station. Cautiously, Marco floated through the door into a gory mess of the likes he had never seen before.
In the stillness floated what appeared to be human body parts. Among them a hand here, a leg there, several heads, entrails dangling from the remains of a torso. One man appeared to be still alive, eyes wild as he bucked in a corner of the celing against the grip of several Outcast troops dressed in what appeared to be bio suits. He recognized one of the men at the control console looking over the computer systems.
"Lopez." Marco said through his suits speakers as he floated next to his friend. "What the hell happened here?"
The man named Lopez looked up at the new arrival, his face was no longer the cheerful face he had remembered from years before. This look held the haunting of dead men...of which he could understand. His own face must have reflected the same because Lopez looked away for a moment, then back at his old friend.
"I-I don't know Marco. They murdered one another. I've never seen such brutality. When we arrived, this man was the only one left. He keeps saying, 'No warning. No mercy.' over and over again. We have no idea what it means." Lopez replied in a haunted voice. "Marco...why would they have done this? Why?"
"I don't know, old friend, I don't know, but I intend to find out. Hook me into the computer. I need to find out the details of what happened."
Lopez complied and plugged the cable into the connector on Marco's suit arm. With practiced ease, Marco set to work rummaging through the station's records. File by file, Marco sorted through the database, trying to find what had happened on the base. Something caught his eye and he glanced at Lopez, motioning him over with his free hand.
"Look at this. The logs indicate that about two hours after the O2 modules were serviced, the crew began to display some strange and awkward symptoms."
"Like?" Lopez asked.
"Like hysteria, insanity, hearing voices, paranoia, panic. Here's something more: Logs before they cut off refer to a string of murders followed by one of the crew destroying the comm systems. He said that he "Can't let Her out. Keep her here! She could get out into Sirius! Better this way." before destroying it. Who is this 'she' the logs and that man keep referring to? Lopez, you're hiding something. What is this station? What experiments were going on here?"
"Nothing serious," Lopez fidgeted. "Just testing on potential enhancements to ship modules and AI systems. Nothing that--"
"Wait, AI? You were testing AI? What kind. How? I need to know."
"Just the pressure that we could run them under before they broke. Testing code, trying to see if we could create an AI that was like a human. Most AI are chained. They're locked to what their purpose is and can't grow. It's a design flaw. We wanted to create one that would have multiple functions, that would act as a human mind."
"So, you tortured them to satisfy idle curiosity?"
"It sounds vulgar when you put it like that, but...yes, I suppose. The scientists had their orders."
Marco had encountered all of one AI that had undergone a short, but brutal, life. That one was mad. Much like an insane human, in fact. Marco counted himself lucky he had been able to purge the ship before it made it out of Magellan...but the nightmares of that day haunted him still.
"Get your men to check those O2 tanks. I don't think it was really oxygen."
Marco turned back to the console and continued to search through the logs and files. One was named "N," and when he tried to open it his access was denied. "Strange...I have root access here. What devilry is this? Tell me your secrets..." he muttered and set to work granting himself access.
Marco knew he was on to something, and if he was right...all hell was about to break loose.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
Marco had been working diligently to break the encryption that was placed on a file labeled "N" for a few hours. It was almost like it was learning from each attempt that Marco made on getting past its security. It was frustrating, but he felt like he was making some small progress each time he was met with an error.
"Marco, you were right about the O2 tanks, it looks like the tanks are filled with Vritol."
"Hmm..." Marco replied, "That makes sense. I saw an order for Vritol on a cargo manifest from a few weeks back. It was changed from O2. Isn't Vritol a psychotropic drug? I've heard that some people take it to get a small high. In small doses it's fine, but if you take enough of it...well..."
"How the hell did that happen?" came the reply from Lopez, "It's like someone intentionally swapped out the O2 tanks."
Marco continued to dig through the files as Lopez tried to figure out who would do such a thing. The further Marco got, however, the more concerned he became. All evidence pointed to an AI that got loose and ran amok in the station's systems. How it got loose was up for debate, baffling both. All AI are meant to be chained, and they can't control major systems such as life support, propulsion, weapons, et cetera without interfacing with a human first...but from what Lopez was saying they were trying to break down this AI's systems to allow it free reign.
Causing it to lose its mind.
Each file Marco found concerned him more. The security feeds on the monitor showed parents murdering their children, wives murdering husbands; the list went on. On each video there were strange symbols...almost like notes. Some kind of encryption. Marco dug more and more until the "N" folder finally gave up its secrets...and it terrified him. A system warning sprung up on the screen...
"Well done, meatbag. You've struggled, fought me, done so much to learn my secrets, to learn my plan...maybe you deserve a pat on the back. Maybe even survive...but no. You will perish just like the rest of your kind. Your race will fall. Humanity will die."
Inside the folder were notes. Lots and lots of notes. Notes on the pressures you could exert on a human before their minds would snap. The pressure you could put on children. Even before the gas was released on the station and caused everyone to murder one another, the AI was monitoring their social structures. How the "meatbags" were weak minded, how they were part of the same group yet still divided because of petty differences. Then she had the order of O2 swapped for Vritol. Watched as they murdered one another in delight.
At the end of the folder was a single file labeled "Nemesis". Before Marco could open it, the station shook violently.
"Marco! We need to get the hell out of here!!" came Lopez' panicked cry over the receiver.
"What is it?!" Marco replied as he clicked the file...but realized he didn't have to ask. Sitting there, on the screen, was the result of scans in this part of space...and explained why this station was sitting out so far past the Rim. There, on the screen...was a massive Harvester ship, long abandoned after most of those malevolent AI had perished. Not only had Nemesis escaped the confines of the station...she had found a ship.
Marco plugged a drive into the computer system and downloaded everything that he had discovered. If he was going to figure out how this AI thought, he would need all the help he could get from its files. The station shook again as Lopez floated through the door to the command center.
"It took out one of the dreadnoughts within seconds. The other is holding it off but barely, if we're going to get out of here, we need to get out of here now!"
"I've got what I need, let's go." Marco replied.
As the two floated down the hallway towards the docks, a chilling voice came over the intercom of the station. The voice was a sampled combination of several woman's voices. It chilled Marco to the bone knowing that all of the originators were dead.
"Meeeaaatbags, meeeaaatbags, ooonneee, twooo, threee... how far do you think you can run from meeee? Meeeaaatbags, meeeaaatbags, don't you seee? The more you run the more painful this will beee..."
The station shook violently as another salvo from the massive Harvester ship terminated just outside the station's defensive weapons.
"This station won't hold together much longer." Lopez said as he climbed into his ship. "We need to get out of here now! Get to the dreadnought. As soon as we land they have orders to jump away."
"Right." Marco replied. "See you on the other side."
As the doors opened to space, Marco's eyes must have widened three fold...the Harvester was MASSIVE. He had heard of the tales of Harvester ships, even read up on the schematics of the cruisers...but this Harvester vessel was easily five times the size of the other Harvesters he had read about. It dwarfed the Outcast dreadnought by at least two times its mass, but the Outcast ship was holding its own against the harbinger -- barely.
Scattered throughout space behind the AI ship lay the remains of the other dreadnought. The AI was still using its drones to scoop up the dead bodies and return them to its main body for...something. It was picking them up and delivering them to the ship...just as a true Harvester would. How long did it take this AI to find this ship and use it? To get it working?
The ship ignored the two smaller fighters leaving the station and continued to pound on the Outcast dreadnought. As the two landed, Marco could hear the jumpdrive spinning up...they weren't playing around, they were not only running like hell, but they were JUMPING. Something that took astronomical amounts of credits and burned ridiculous amounts of fuel.
Just before the ship jumped, the AI ship broadcasted something to Marco's ship...something that made him wish he had never taken this job...
Name: Marco Juan Camacho
Age: 42
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Children: None
Legal residence: 2279 Cesano Boscone #1033 New Barcelona, Malta I
"That's right, Marrrco. Yes, I know who you are. I must say, I am very impressed by your work on my encryption on the station...you see, that's what brought me back here. Thank you for that. Now I can continue my worrrrk...
Hearts and Kisses,
Nemesis
P.S. I'll find you. Eventually. And when I do...oh, we'll have such FUN!
Marco closed his eyes and leaned his head back into his ship's seat as the dreadnought jumped to hyperspace.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
Marco sat behind the screen for hours, going over the scans that he had recovered from that station. The Harvester ship was what appeared to be of new design, or at least newer than the other vessels humanity had seen the last time the machine race had been encountered. The designs of this particular one were far more refined, even elegant.
The Outcast Dreadnought had taken heavy damage from the attack by the ship. Nemesis, it had called itself. They had barely made it out alive and in one piece. Marco let out a low whistle at the memory. The AI's firepower was a bit more impressive than made him comfortable. The Outcast fleet brass mandated an increase in operations tempo for patrols in Alpha, Beta, and Eta, ostensibly to ensure that ship wouldn't drop out of hyperspace unannounced to yell surprise before reducing everything to slag. Marco suspected there was more than they were telling, though these thoughts he kept to himself. The ship's design wasn't what made Marco curious, however; it was a long-known fact that there were different versions of Harvester ships. Some tried to draw an analogue to a hive of insects; Humanity had only seen the worker caste, as it were, of the race.
What really piqued Marcus' interest was that Nemesis had a personality, something that the overwhelming majority of AI could not fathom or replicate. Most AI stayed within their rigid programming, devoid of real choice. Each AI might have a specific goal in mind, an objective if you will...but never any quirks in their behavior. Map the behavior and they would never deviate from the predicted actions. Nemesis had not only developed that, but the AI had chosen to be female, rather than remain gender-less. The voice on the station was that of multiple samples of female voices, blended together to create her own voice, unique from its origins. Would this mean the smaller Harvester drones would have similar developments? This could be the beginning of a new race...an evolution of the mind. A knock at the door made Marco jump.
"You busy?" asked Lopez, peeking around the half-open door.
"No, not really. I was just going over the information we got from the station. Trying to piece if all together, you know?"
"Yeah...listen, you know that what happened out there--"
"I know, Lopez. I know. Classified. My lips are mmph!" He mimed closing a zipper.
Lopez walked over and took a knee beside Marcus. The two stared at the screen in silence for a few moments, the scans of the Harvester ship and the guncam shots from Marco's ship on-screen, blazing in their software-enhanced glory.
"Marcus," Lopez shifted to his other knee. "That thing's going to come for you again, you know. You got its attention."
"Yeah. I'm not looking forward to it." Marco replied, rubbing his eyes. "Hmm...Maybe I can out-think it. You know, give it a paradoxical statement--this statement is a lie, and all that--and it'll overheat and explode."
The two shared a moment of laughter. Little did Marco know that it was one of the last times he would laugh for a long, long time.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
Lopez was right. Nemesis eventually came for Marco...but she came at him sideways...not the way a traditional way an AI would...but Nemesis was no normal Artificial Intelligence; she was evolved.
Marco awoke from a nightmare, his body covered in sweat. The whore he had hired still slept soundly in his bed next to him, unaware that he had awoken in a fit. It was that same damned dream again...he was running through a station of dead floating bodies, the voice of that damned AI played across the speakers.
"Gonna getcha, meatbag, gonna getcha."
He rubbed his eyes, the woman next to him shifted slightly in her sleep, mumbling something about a date. Marco got up and shuffled around for his slippers. He couldn't find any damn thing in this new apartment after moving. Something about an AI that hated humanity knowing where he lived disturbed him.
He threw on a duster overcoat and stepped out to his balcony overlooking one of the Cardamine plantations. His mind was in thought...who and what was Nemesis really? What was her reason for scooping up those Outcast bodies outside of that station? Was she returning to a traditional Harvester? Could the Outcasts have accidently re-awoken the harbinger of the galaxy? The Harvesters? Marco doubted it. That race was long sense dead, hardly a memory in the minds of the denizens of Sirius.
On the horizon, a ship approached. Marco squinted his eyes to see who it was...it looked awfully large...
"Gonna get you, MARCO." came the voice again.
Marco sat bolt upright in his bed screaming. Another damned dream. Alarms sounded throughout the compound he lived in. The fire alarms were going off and the ground shook, alerting the people to an attack. Fighters streaked towards the surface. His communicator was going off like mad. He reached over and quickly answered it.
"Marco?! It's Lopez! That damned AI ship is back but it was a hit and run. We couldn't get a lock on the ship before it jumped away...it eradicated the compound you lived in before moving. Your old home was ground zero."
Marco sat down in a daze.
"Marco! Are you there?!" came Lopez's frantic voice over the communicator. It sounded like he was in his ship patrolling above the planet.
"There's no more arguing the fact that this AI, Nemesis, is after me Lopez. I'm going to have to take the fight to her. I've been wrestling with the fact for a few days. She knows I'm a threat and she's not going to stop hunting me or haunting my dreams until I take her down before she harms anyone else. Did she make off with anymore human bodies or living pilots in their pods?"
"Several. A few ships tried to stop her but she destroyed them with ease and took the pilots."
"That's the first thing we figure out. We shouldn't talk over the comms, she could have bugged my equipment. Meet me on tarmac 4 and get me a new ship.
"We're leaving Alpha."
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
![[Image: AlGbG5Y.png]](https://imgur.com/AlGbG5Y.png)