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

[khajidont]

How big were the tanks? Big enough to hold adults?

If they really did end up coming from there, that means either the UE managed to control them in time to send them out with the rest of the soldiers or they started trying to kill us the second they got free.

It's gotta be the first one. I didn't see them trying to kill any of their own guys.

[trustycrowbar]

[He tries to think back...]

I think they could have been large enough to hold an average adult, yes. Obviously they didn't bother to wait until they were that size. And I don't know; if they've got tempers like that we might be able to goad them into infighting if we're smart about it.

It's not like these things've had time to adjust socially to the life of a soldier; they were grown in isolated tanks, after all. It's not unreasonable to think that they have the mindset of a human child either since that's the primary source of their genetic stock, but they also possess abilities that even the Masked don't have. Abilities that the UE both finds useful, and despises because it doesn't fit into their regime. It's a volatile combination, and one that we may be able to capitalize on.

[khajidont]

I was thinking more about targeting their tech back in time than targeting the clones. They don't actually know what they're doing.

They deserve a choice.

[trustycrowbar]

That would be better, yes.

[Although that means they wouldn't even be created at all. Hardly a choice, but probably for the best.]

To do that, we'd have to poke holes into several aspects of medical research... we may not like the side-effects. Genetic diseases they've cured may return, for instance. Not that I'm disagreeing with the tactic, because we don't really have a choice, but we should think of the consequences beforehand.

[khajidont]

Oh yeah.

[...he didn't even think about that oh my god how are they going to make a plan time travel sucks so much.]

Have you done this whole time travel thing before?

[trustycrowbar]

In a way I have, yeah. But it wasn't so much a matter of actual travel and velocity, as much as being lifted out of the timestream and sort of dangled, there. I didn't have much of a choice at the time, so it wasn't as though I could build a better method.

[khajidont]

I have no idea what being lifted out of the timestream is supposed to mean.

It doesn't sound fun.

[trustycrowbar]

It's difficult to describe. Just leave it that I was put into suspension, in every single sense of the word.

When I woke up again, twenty years had passed. The results of my actions in the past were laid bare in ways that I couldn't have possibly foreseen at the time. I guess you could say it was good practice for the mechanics of cause-and-effect here.

[That's one generous way to put it anyway.]

[khajidont]

And I thought one year was bad.

Twenty years. That's insane.

[trustycrowbar]

Yes. Yes it was.

One year, you said? Did something like that happen to you?

[khajidont]

Yeah, it did. Have you ever heard of the Bleed?

[trustycrowbar]

No, I haven't. What is that? I can't say it sounds pleasant, whatever it is.

[khajidont]

It only sucks if you don't know what to do with it. It's basically this place in space that connects all the dimensions together. Only time gets kind of wonky there. You can spend a couple hours in there and come out a year later.