exsilium | 03

[This is Jaime's first post to the network as Blue Beetle, and the name displayed on the tablet has changed accordingly. For any hackers out there, it can't be linked back to him as he's not actually using his tablet; he's posting directly from his armour.]

Hey. Blue Beetle here. I know that after all this, the last thing we're thinking about is the UE's soldiers, but something's been bugging me. Everyone who was on the distraction team with me, you must have noticed the new soldiers, right? They didn't have anything like them on Elmer's world, and I'm pretty sure that war was an all-hands-on-deck sort of deal. The normal soldiers were really well equipped as it was, but these ones must have been metas. They were stronger, and faster. It was so busy on the field that I don't know whether or not I was seeing ones with different powers or if they all had the same skillset going on, but the ones I noticed could fly and had elemental powers. And they were small. Like children.

[Which is deeply off-putting.]

I'm not sure what their deal is, but consider this a heads-up for what the UE's got in store, and the kind of technology we might find on them. For some reason, I don't think an army full of tiny meta-soldiers is something they just managed to find one day. If any of you ran into them too, I think it'd be good if we could get some sort of list of how much they can actually do. Oh yeah, one last thing. Since we don't exactly have space suits around here yet, if there's any maintenance that needs to be done outside the base, let me know. I'm guessing we don't have a whole lot of people who can breathe out there, and my suit's built for space travel.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"like children"

They had armor and masks on so I couldn't tell for sure. But it looks like that's exactly what they were. Cloned children.

[ "clones" is a word she has some difficulty with, it hits her full in the chest ]

i see. thank you.

No problem. I'll try keeping everyone updated.

[ for more than twenty minutes, it seems this conversation has been concluded, there comes no reply-- ]

were you here in june?

Yeah I was. Why?

the virus, from the ue

my comrades and i tracked down a sleeper agent working from within the hospital

she was stationed in the prenatal and natal wings and [ it's foul, it's foul, this is foul ] specifically targeted the children there, because they were considered "imperfect".

[ ... ]

she talked about choosing genetic makeup of their children before they are even conceived and that it's even possible to genetically modify adults, those soldiers with the masks...

[ children and soldiers, there should be a distinction; she didn't want to remember this, to have to say this ]

i think they may have been working towards this, even then

They targeted children. Babies.

[It takes him a while to say anything more. Every time he thinks that it couldn't get any worse...]

How did this world get so messed up? [Not a question he expects an answer from.]

So the soldiers with masks, she said they're genetically modified humans, not clones?

i don't know if the two are necessarily mutually exclusive, i'm sorry

it was difficult to get her to tell us anything, so i had trouble keeping focused on what she did

Good point. That's what I heard from most of the people assigned on info gathering missions. I was mostly stationed in the hospitals. Is there anything else she said that could be important?

[ there's so much, but surrounded by hazy unknowns, everything needs to be said to the right person to mean something, and she doesn't want to have to utter these words aloud ]

"drastic modifications may result in shortened lifespans".

a flaw, she called it

And they aged them at least seven years over fifteen days anyway.

[What bastards.]

Thank you for telling me.

no. i should have said something sooner.

I'm not sure how much we could have changed in the first place. The important thing is that everyone steps up and shares what they know now. Maybe we can finally be the ones to do something.

we will. that much, i believe.

I do too. Will you want to know what I've got once I've pieced more of the information together?

[Oh, to be someone who could say "no".]

if you could.

Sure. I'll be in touch.

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