03 | Text

[khajidont]

[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.

Comments

permatext

[khajidont]

Yeah.

Cloned children.

[voice]

[highfrequency]

That's...

[A pause. He tries to keep the raw emotion from his voice and fails.]

Dammit!

Are you sure?

[khajidont]

[That's one other reason he's not using voice right now, beyond the whole secret ID thing - he can't say he'd be able to contain his emotions either.]

Pretty sure. I couldn't see their faces behind their visors. But they had the bodies and voices of children, not just small adults. They had the same powers as some of the kidnapped Transports, and they were all around the same size.

[He pauses.]

And I have pictures. If anyone needs to see for themselves.

[highfrequency]

...The way they fought... Did it seem like they might be kids and not some some kinda machine or something?

[His voice lacks hope. The UE cloning Transport soldiers wouldn't surprise him. Clones and child soldiers...of course....]

[khajidont]

No, they were alive.

[He almost feels like apologizing.]

[highfrequency]

...I wanna see these pictures.

[khajidont]

Sure.

I'd rather show them to you in person.

[highfrequency]

Roger that. Where are you?

[Not "name the time and place". He sounds urgent. And angry.]

[khajidont]

At the observatory.

[He's just the bearer of bad news, don't punch him, bro.]

[highfrequency]

Right. On my way.

action

[khajidont]

[Jaime wishes dearly for the privacy that his new home had provided him back in Exsilium. Without any sense of privacy on the moonbase, he had resorted to posting to the network sitting in the relative silence and solitude of the observatory where he could talk to himself in peace; though every word shows up as text on the tablet, the Scarab is merely taking down what Jaime says.

Which is the way he likes it - as focused as he's trying to be, there's no hiding some of his distress at the very ideas that are beginning to crop up through his conversations. He takes a deep breath as he waits for Raiden's arrival, composing himself to deal with one very angry soldier.]

action

[highfrequency]

[When Raiden walks in, it's with the gait of a soldier. His expression is grim.]

Show me.

action

[khajidont]

[Hello to you too, Raiden. Good seeing you.]

Uh - right. Sure.

[He raises one hand in the air, and his flat, white fingertips immediately begin to glow. A hologram, tinted blue, is projected from it.

The picture is of one of the soldiers, his - or her - body small and slight, nothing like an adult's, his mouth small and new underneath the black visor. The picture is one captured in the middle of flight, lunging towards Jaime (who had also been airborne at the time) as he had been flying through the air.]

Here's one.

action

[highfrequency]

[Raiden looks at the picture with a mournful gaze.]

...How many were there?

action

[khajidont]

I'm not sure. [Jaime shakes his head, then snaps his hand closed, taking the image away with it. He has more if Raiden truly wants to see them - a perk of being a walking surveillance camera, and he is not going to think about what the Reach was doing with that - but one is enough to get the point across.] It was pretty crowded where I was. I wanna say... more than ten, less than thirty?

action

[highfrequency]

[His eye narrows]

About the same number as the people who were caught?

action

[khajidont]

I don't have an exact number on either one. [He shrugs.] Probably less. Some people who were kidnapped said they heard something about not everyone working out for the UE.

action

[highfrequency]

[Raiden averts his gaze and snarls slightly]

"Not working out"...

Those clones were probably destroyed.

[No....killed... He shakes his head.]

Never even got a chance....

action

[khajidont]

And neither will these ones if they stick with the UE.

[Born just to be soldiers? That's no life. That's no life at all.]