Books » Stolen Intelligence »

Fragment

Chapter 7

Book: Stolen Intelligence.
Introduced in: Season of the Drifter.
Download Image

ACCESS: RESTRICTED
DECRYPTION KEY: 73XK5V2PG1$AUN-326
REP #: 12059-INCID-LUN
AGENT(S): FEN-092
SUBJ: Affidavit regarding Incident #12059

1. Last week, I was deployed by IKO-006 for routine surveillance of the quarantined zone outside the Hellmouth. Hive populations remain low and grow ever lower thanks to the efforts of a small contingent of veteran Guardians who have made their homes on Luna.

2. Around 1900 hours yesterday afternoon, I began to experience a crushing headache and excused myself from patrol to recuperate. Though I originally intended to lay down for a nap, I fell asleep instead, and experienced multiple vivid dreams over the next 11.5 hours. In all of these dreams, I was trying to catch up with agent ERI-223 in a crowd. She was always out of reach, whether by 200 m or 20 m. I had the sense that I needed to speak to her.

3. When I woke, I found that my headache had not improved. I prepared my armor and exited my bivouac to find a single stationary Thrall crouched nearby. It stood as I approached, but made no motion to attack me. I fired one shot, killing it immediately. Upon stepping forward to examine its corpse, I saw a solid black fragment of an unknown material embedded in its chest cavity. The fragment resembled a flake or a shard of some larger object, not dissimilar to a high-gain photovoltaic panel.

4. I requested that my Ghost perform a standard material analysis of the fragment but neither one of us could confidently identify its qualities or provenance; that analysis is attached to this report as Analysis #1.

5. I requested that my Ghost attempt to contain and transmat the fragment for quarantine on my jumpship. He was unable to establish a Light link with the object, describing the fragment as "slippery" and "tiring" to try to catch hold of.

6. I used the barrel of my sniper rifle to touch and then work the fragment out of the Thrall's corpse. Using my rifle, I turned the fragment over and examined it from multiple angles. I requested that my Ghost run another deep scan of the object; that analysis is attached to this report as Analysis #2.

7. We concluded that the material seemed to be inert and that it did not seem to be part of any complex device or mechanism.

8. At this point, I broke protocol and did not request additional backup. Instead, I picked up the fragment by hand and immediately experienced a vivid hallucination: I stood over VIP #0704's shoulder as she dressed a seven-inch gash on agent ERI-223's thigh. Both #0704 and ERI-223 were dressed for combat. Hundreds of fragments of the unknown material hung in the air around us, apparent shrapnel from the wreckage of a nearby ship of unrecognizable make and model. ERI-223 looked directly toward me and said, "Патетическая."

9. The duration of the hallucination was approximately seven seconds. At its conclusion, my headache disappeared. My Ghost and I held our position for the next thirty minutes, then collected the body of the Thrall and the fragment for transportation. I delivered myself and my cargo to quarantine and experienced no further mental disturbances while detained.

MESSAGE ENDS