E1M1: The Black Gate

Mars - Cydonia Labyrinthus 1040hrs(Zulu)



Queue Ambient Theme Music

The dust cleared on the Cydonian crater, though far slower than one used to Earth may expect. At just over 1/3 the gravity of Earth the plumes from the explosion cleared a kilometer in height. The explosion itself had thrown the crew 10m from ground zero, relative to the positions they had been standing. As you all came too, hazard indicators from the weather monitoring satellite were blaring. Your equipment had been far flung by the blast. Several groans on the squad channel indicated there were wounded.

"Saber, sensors indicate a large biomass converging on your position. Be advised, the terraforming insects morphology isn't like anything we have back on Earth. There's a chance they may be able to penetrate your suits. Saber? Saber? Do you read? Respond!"

The Identify Friend Foe(IFF) of your situation indicator marked the location of each other member of the team. Including the Commander, who did not appear to have moved at all, still floating 3m above the surface - bathed in a halo of light that even through the thick red dust glowed enough to show the Commander's silhouette at any direction. His arm was clearly broken, it being the closest to the blast. Jack Knifed in a compound fracture. The seals on his suit the only thing that had kept him from having his arm torn completely off. Sign of Life indicator read out Unconscious, Concussed, Bleeding Internally, Crippled Limbs.

The Halo began to attenuate. The HUD marked the light, as a radiation hazard. The rad count jumped 200mSv, a small exposure to ionizing radiations. Though unconscious, the Commander somehow set the limb due to muscular action. SOLI, changed its prognosis. Unconscious, Bleeding Internally, Severe Muscle Strain, Dehydrated, it gave an indication of his Neural Output, Alpha was minimal denoting he was unconscious, delta and theta waves registered an output an order of magnitude above human baseline. The activity was, almost synchronously with The Halo deteriorating - though at its current rate would take hours to normalize.

HUD threat indicator reregistered as The Halo shifted phase once more, it had attenuated from a brilliant indiscernible color - that radiance your brain found so pleasant. Staring at the Halo, with its VITAL PINK aura created instant Narcosis indicators on anyone who could see the Radiance. The HUD upgraded its assessment of radioactivity to Moderate.

Unharmed, you are able to gain your feet easily in the mild gravity in the Martian crater.

McLeod upon checking the status of his squaddies sees a faint signal of Sq. Mellencamp reading 5m below him. A cursory inspection reveals the rubble of a collapse he had nearly been swallowed by. Mellencamp's SOLI signal must have been occluded by the rock above him as it was giving no feedback.

PFC Barnes HUD registers Sq. Nakamura concealed by a cloud of dust. Her SOLI read a single grey readout "Flatline." Cursory inspection showed the cause of death, a chunk of the monolith had penetrated her suit and caused massive damage to her torso. The only mercy is that such a wound would have caused very little suffering.

Pvt. Tseng was buried in rubble not far away from Barnes. Her sign of life indicator read "Unconscious, Suffocating".

While the Martian regolith isn't heavy it soon becomes apparent to McLeod that he will either need tools or assistance to excavate Squaddie Mellencamp. As the loose rubble and scree collapsed back on itself fighting his best effort.

Likewise PFC Barnes finds, even in the reduced gravity the mass of the regolith is too much to move quickly. Insufficient leverage against its mass, and a slip could outright kill Pvt. Tseng.

"Doc! Stop looking at the light. Jesus christ youre strong!" Sgt. Rochenko, the combat medic, was trying to hold Alryn Zand back as the doctor approached the light. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Someone give me a hand over here, Doctor Zand is in some sorta trance. Ah shit!"

Over the comms the squad could hear Rochenko'a radiation alarm blare. "Wake the fuck up Doc! We are getting cooked alive!"

Zand was floating in the blackest sea, on a precipice. Naked as the day he was born. The Commander stood opposite, pointing down. Where his finger pointed 936hz vibrations pulsed, as Zand saw the event horizon of a black hole. The Commander pointed again as if commanding Zand to fall into it.

"Uuw"

The commander looked at Zand, there was no face. A yawning void, with the exact dimensions of the void beneath them. It pulsed in perfect synchronicity. The void itself was taking in Zand, it was like the stare of some dispassionate deity. Seeing in, around, and through Zand.

"Ayk"

No time passes, Zand, deprived of the sense of time searched the blackness, he saw void. The only light was the heat he and the commander emanated. It was stifling being in The Commander's presence. An aura of his magnitude, the palpable presence, the void was not crushing Zand - being in The Commander's presence was.

"Uhh."

He pointed again down into the gaping abyss which was darker still than the space around it. The pulsing of that yawning void could afford to wait. Every instinct Zand had told him he was on the precipice of certain death. The heat radiating from The Commander set Zand's guts to boiling. An irrepressable soundless scream of anguish built from the searing pain.

Adrenaline spiked, cortisol matched it. It hit Zand's brain like a fusion bomb. B Vitamins firing in synaptic tissues, nuclear reactions in the grey and white matter. The effect of time dilation in Zand's trance amplified, as the darkness around him imploded upon itself. Nuclear fire cascaded all around him, its ultraviolet glow so immensely powerful. Stopped as it reached the event horizon. Now bathed in this nimbus of light The Magnificence of the Commander multiplied.

~~~~~

The Halo of Light surrounding the Commander changed. It swallowed light in a band of Ultramarine. Then, there were two of him. At least, a shadowy apparition emerged from the band of darkness. Some event transpired, faster than the eye could register. The Apparition of The Commander was adjacent to McLeod, shovel in hand, clearing backfill as McLeod excavated.

The Rad count leapt to 600mSv.

~~~~~

The Quantum encoding was no easy thing to crack. Interfacing with the Machine, with an old hand, Badger's body slumped into a posture reminescent of the old religions worship and prayer. Fully surrendering his consciousness to the machine he found himself drifting in the vastly more simple aether. ICE attempted to seize him, but the defense protocols on the PGC were immature - Badger was not. Overriding the autohypo injector shot a heavy dose of adrenaline and adrenochrome into Zand's veins. Integrity of the link, detected by antimalware in the device, was expunged instantly. Badger felt the ice cold wash through his central nervous system. He had very nearly met the bandwidth limit of his brain.

SOLI update: "Dehydrated"

~~~~~

Zand found himself reincorporated. He had been disintegrated, three times now, trapped in the time loop. As before everything was black, there was yet the deeper darkness. The Commander pointed insistently into it. The light exploded. The searing pain in his intestines. The silent scream that followed it. The atomization as competing forces simultaneously tore him to pieces and incinerated him for the fourth time.

By the fifth cycle, Zand managed to process all of it. His brain was overclocked, but finally clarity. No time passed. There was no commander. Zand was staring face to face with himself. His shadow glared at him. Holding a spear in his hand. The construct changed. The Zands stood face to face. Wading waist deep in blood, in an arena made of shit and blood stained stone. Surrounded by utter darkness, with a solar eclipse at totality providing dim illumination. Zand was armed as the Other Zand. But the pain in his guts - he was already mortally wounded.

"Wwwaaakkkeee uuuppp Dddoooccc!"

Time dilation had started, The Other Zand lunged, behind him - no through him - a blood stained black gate. The only possible exit. Zand was looking down - he saw his father lying dead in his reflection. His grandfather. A series of men who had the same face, thousands of bodies deep. Each set of dead eyes focused upon Zand. Compelling him to surrender to death. Each of them suffering with him. He knew this because they showed him the beautiful world of fungus, bacteria, and insects that would be his festering corpse.

"But there is nothing in death. And everything in the struggle to live." Something the Commander once said when he was drunk and feeling philosophical.

The tug of death pulled at Zand, equal to the desire to Kill the other Zand. It wasn't fair. The choice to give up and die or to kill yourself. But time, it had stopped, but Zand had not.

Cydonia Labyrinthus 1041hrs(Zulu)

Extreme Weather event:

Haboob



The Gravity pulse had triggered an atmospheric event. While Martian winds are not strong compared to what one may experience on Earth, 60mph winds were nothing to trifle with. Especially when the micronic dust was made of discharging aqueous hematite. The flashes of purple dwarf lightning in the Haboob, crackled and struck the ridges around the site. The dust screeched into the squad, and silence followed. You could see the effect of the wind, you see the raging sand, but the dust swallowed all ambient sound.