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Nikola's Journal ("Data Log A")


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Reorganized this a bunch into "chapters" so that its easier to keep track/flip through

Data Log A: (Nikola's perspective)

Spoiler


Cycle 10-20:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 10: Printed today. Was assigned to medicine and research. Everything comes naturally and feels familiar somehow. There's something missing here I can't quite grasp.

Cycle 13: Had my first patient today. Symptoms included significant respiratory distress and excessive production of mucus. Thought it was a bad cold at first, but quickly realized it was something else. Quickly found a treatment plan that seems effective and the others and I agreed to refer to the condition as 'slimelung.'

Cycle 14: Patient improving. He complained a bit about the mining work he's been working on (believed to have caused the slimelung exposure) but says someone new got printed today who could help with the digging.

Cycle 15: Finally managed to remember everyone's name. The two girls are Ellie and Nisbet, though I don't see them pass through this area much. My patient who left yesterday is Abe. I am Nikola. The kid who got printed yesterday is named Joshua apparently.

Cycle 20: Assigned research has been completed. They got someone new to do the rest of the research so I have more time to focus on my medical work.

 

 

Cycle 30-50:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 30: The printer has been behaving oddly lately. Sounds like the extruding system overheated for some reason. They had me try to reverse engineer what was left of the genetic material used in the machine to see if I could replicate it.

Cycle 33: The formula I created seemed to work fine in the machine. A girl (Ada) got printed today without incident.

 

Cycle 40: A serious yet absurd incident occurred again with the printer today. Didn't seem to be an issue with my formula or the extruder this time. Someone got too close to the machine and it spliced him into the person it was printing. Amazingly they both survived the incident, but they're under my care for the next few cycles to make sure all organ systems are functional.

Cycle 43: The boys have gotten accustomed to their situation fairly quickly. They've coordinated their bodies and schedules so that each takes turns eating, sleeping, etc, while the other can still do other activities. They have difficulty moving still, but seem content enough working on the same floor as the medical ward.

 

Cycle 44: Unidentified fluids have been leaking out of the printer today. Someone sent in a sample for testing today, but it doesn't have the same chemical makeup or consistency as my formula. The engineering team has been working on it all day and keeps bringing odd things they find to me even though I have no clue what most of them are.

 

Cycle 50: I could hear blaster shots from a few floors down today. I assumed it was a rogue hatch again, but rumors have gotten around that it was something much bigger. Nisbet brought Abe in, apparently oxygen deprived. Assumed it was the slimelung again at first but his delirious state told me otherwise. Nisbet wouldn't say anything of what happened. Joshua came by at one point later and tried to hide in the quarantine unit. He was visibly shaking and I felt awful but had to kick him out.

 

Cycle 51-61:
 

Spoiler

 

Cycle 51: I hadn't been by the printer in a few days. Whole area's a mess. There's bits of half-eaten meallice everywhere. Someone will have to get the custodian down here soon.

Cycle 52: Another odd incident with the printer. One of the unswept meallice ended up fusing with the poor girl who got printed today. Of course they brought her to me because of how I helped out the boys. From the waist up she looks perfectly healthy, but her entire lower section has been replaced with the fleshy, larval body of a meal louse. On closer inspection, it appears that the worm's digestive system has completely replaced what would have formed of her duplicant digestive system, but she appears to have no ill effects from this at the moment, save for a large appetite.

Cycle 53: The girl's name is Eya. Like the boys, she's gotten used to moving around fairly quickly. 

Cycle 54: I did a test of my formula again. It appears that all of us and the creatures here are formed from an identical base substance. This may be why the girl and the worm fused and still managed to stay functional. 

Cycle 55: I've been feeling uncomfortably apprehensive lately. I feel like I'm missing something important here, but nothing is really giving me a clue as to what.

Cycle 56: I don't know what to say. Joshua came to me today and said he was scared of Eya. Said she looked like the monster that ate Nisbet and Abe last week. I thought I misheard him, or that he'd gone crazy or something. I'd seen Nisbet yesterday, afterall. Wouldn't I have heard of this? He had trouble elaborating. Then I remembered how he had been so terrified after Nisbet had brought Abe in. I hadn't really paid it any mind before, but they had both seemed rather...slimey. Perhaps that was part of what had made me think slimelung initially.

Cycle 60: Eya's teeth seem a bit...pointy.

Cycle 61: Had Eya come in for testing today. I compared the genetic material of her lower portion to that of a standard meal louse and her standard half with a few samples from volunteers. Everyone printed after cycle 33 appears to have similar genetic anomalies. I am worried the formula may be to blame. The sample taken from Eya's lower portion seemed to match the standard meal louse, though there seemed to be an extra genetic component I couldn't quite pinpoint.

 

Cycle 70-75:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 70: Last harvest had low yields. Everyone's been forced to ration what we have and the printer's been temporarily disabled so we don't get any more mouths to feed. Everyone's tense. People keep coming to me as if I'm the therapist. Just cause I'm a doctor doesn't mean I have the right skills to address psychological issues.

Cycle 73: Amazing how quickly things can descend into madness. Half the food supply went missing last night, and everyone quickly bandwagoned on blaming the few dupes known for stress eating. Nisbet's been rallying the other colonists on a policy of prioritizing efficiency and work over all leisure activities to increase chances of survival. She seems to have also self-appointed herself leader of the colony, at least for the time being.

Cycle 74: So the Chef Ashkan has narcolepsy apparently. Many have started accusing him of sleeping on the job, which resulted in him having a mental breakdown in which he went on a loud rant about basically everything before one of the more aggressive dupes punched him and several people had to restrain both of them. The food still has to be made, and I can sense some people are considering drastic measures.

Cycle 75: Never in my ...er, 65 days of existence could I have conceived of  I hope for the sake of this colony and everyone in it that I never have to perform that procedure again. I've prescribed the cook oxylite, or at least to hold onto a little piece of it at all times in case of emergency. As for Eya... You can tell she's frightened. Quite honestly everyone else is too. Except for Nisbet, whos recent behavior is concerning me almost as much, if not more than, anomalous predatory instincts. She watched the whole procedure, and kept giving me this look as if I should have just let it happen and not interfered.

 

Cycle 80-84:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 80: Maybe I just don't get out very much, but there don't seem to be many people around lately. Abe still stops by sometimes, but this part of the colony doesn't get as much foot-traffic as it used to.

Cycle 82: There was an earthquake? Or at least what felt like one, last night. I'm fairly certain asteroids don't get earthquakes. Everyone seems to be alright, at least from what I've heard, and no one's been brought in for medical treatment, but apparently there's been some sort of incident related to neutronium and the mines.

Cycle 83: Unfortunately, everyone was not alright, but you can't exactly give medical treatment to someone who's dead. Apparently there was a cave-in during the tremor the other day and someone, I believe it was Burt, was trapped and suffocated before he could be dug out. Someone offered to make a grave, but Nisbet told everyone it was unnecessary. I don't know if she thought it would count as a grave if he was already buried, or if she has some other idea, but everyone is very off-put by the situation in general.

Cycle 84: Someone decided to be the undertaker anyways and built Burt a grave. They tried to retrieve his body, but couldn't find it anywhere. I'm not one to jump to conclusions, but Nisbet seems a very likely culprit. What anyone would want with a corpse is anyone's guess, but it probably isn't anything good.

 

Cycle 85-88:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 85: People in the mines have been discovering odd things lately. Large deposits of the impenetrable mineral neutronium have begun appearing in places they hadn't been a cycle before. Today someone found the ruins of what looked like some sort of office/laboratory space and found information that confirmed all duplicants and inhabitants of this asteroid are formed of a same base substance. Apparently the bio-printer was at some point capable of printing more than just duplicants, which gives me more information as to what may be causing the genetic anomalies. If the device was pre-programmed to print different organisms, and said device was corrupted as ours seems to have malfunctioned, it is highly possible that it is making errors in cloning our DNA. The person who found the ruins also found what looks to be blueprints of several creatures I have never encountered. I may want to do genetic tests again, especially on Eya.

Cycle 86: I ought to get out of the medical bay more often. There are many new faces around the colony and it's bound to take me ages to remember all those names. Was good to get some exercise I suppose. Couldn't find Eya anywhere, and most everyone else was too busy to let me test on them.

Cycle 87: Went down to the printer today to do some tests. A couple of duplicants were by it already, as it appeared the machine was ready to print someone new, and they wanted to pick the new person. While they were discussing, I overheard something that made me stop cold. (paraphrased, of course):

"We can't print anymore binge-eaters. They made it a rule after the food shortage of Cycle 70."

I hadn't really paid it much mind, especially from being so preoccupied with the incident with Ashkan, but I never heard how we had come back from that. No instructions had ever been sent out for rationing, and I never heard of anyone dying of starvation, or of a sudden discovery of a food stockpile. It also occurred to me that both Eya and Ashkan were binge eaters, and I couldn't recall seeing either of them since cycle 78.

Cycle 88: Went to the data archives to see if I could find any more information as to what happened with the food shortage. I wrote some data down from the cycle reports that seemed relevant:
 

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*the .5 likely is in regards to the Rowan and Max who had been accidentally fused together on cycle 40. I assume they are considered as 1.5 duplicants.

** there were no death reports for any of these days. From the data it looks more like these people were erased from the records.

I find it highly likely that at least some of the unaccounted for duplicants in the data died during the food shortage. Why it was covered up, I cannot say for certain, but I do feel like the two removed from cycle 78 were likely Ashkan and Eya. I would like to at least know what happened to them. I will try to continue this search tomorrow.

 

Cycle 89-90:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 89: Decided the best person to ask would be Ellie. I can't say I fully trust her "information," especially since she seems to be good friends with Nisbet (who I am still highly suspicious of), and her known habit of spreading rumors, but I know she can't keep her mouth shut about anything, so if she knows something she's supposed to keep secret, it certainly won't stay secret for long.

Huge lead here, much better than I hoped for. Ellie said that after so much of the food went missing, Nisbet had decided to separate the binge eaters one-at-a-time from the colony to see if anything would happen that would reveal the culprit. (I assume the idea was if a ton of food went missing again, it would rule out whoever was locked separate, and vice-versa) Since none of the food went missing afterwards, and the binge eaters had already been separated, Nisbet had decided to set up a strict rationing system for them so that no food could get wasted. Something had gone horribly wrong, but Nisbet hadn't told Ellie as to what exactly happened. I'll need to probe deeper into specifics at some point, but I can't say I can think of a way to do that without asking Nisbet directly.

Cycle 90: One of the people who'd been exploring the old laboratory ruins brought me more files they found related to the pod and the genetics of the creatures aboard this asteroid. While I initially found interest in the base files regarding the genetics of more common creatures (such as the hatch and puft), there were a few files on creatures that were unfamiliar to me. It's likely that at least some of these other creatures have been seen by other colonists that get out more, but one particular file made me very uneasy.

The file of note contained several blueprints of several worm-like creatures, one of which was the meallouse, though the document listed the creature as "prionus mellonella larvae". The two other creatures depicted looked much larger. Both had notes regarding utility as "population control" and "waste/corpse disposal" but most of these notes had been scribbled out or cross-referenced with morbs and hatches as a viable replacement. One of these creatures looked something between a louse and a lightbug, but much larger with an angry looking face and a large, crooked maw. The second looked much the same as a meallouse, though it seemed almost, if not bigger than, the size of a duplicant, with a large, almond-shaped head. 

The last of these was the one that worried me most, not simply because it had been considered as a way to dispose of corpses, but also that one of the notes hastily written besides it read:

Will gladly eat live duplicants instead of dead ones if given the opportunity. We have morbs and hatches for waste removal, we have no need for this creature, especially with such a liability.

For the sake of this colony, I very much hope this doesn't mean what I think it does

 


Cycle 91:

Spoiler

 

Glad I made the decision to make this document portable, as I doubt I would be able to access it now if I hadn't. I've been locked in a room with Eya, who is fortunately alive, but seems to be trying to stay as far away from me as possible. I told her I wasn't a threat, but she still hasn't come out of the corner she's hiding in.

I suppose it was a mistake to ask Nisbet directly, but I just couldn't help but take the most direct route to get to the bottom of all this. She led me into this room, said something to the likes of "figure it out yourself" and then left with the door automatically locking behind her. I checked access permissions and it looks like its a one-way door for everyone but Nisbet, effectively making it a small jail cell with her as the warden. I considered attempting to deconstruct the walls of the place, but it seems multitools will only function properly on tasks that have been officially assigned.

It just occurred to me that Nisbet was implying that something in this room would have an answer to what happened. This must be the room she had kept the binge eaters in, but Eya's the only one here besides me.

Oh.

 

Took me a while to get Eya to let me get closer to her. She seemed to relax a bit when I made it clear I had some inclination as to what was going on, though she still glanced nervously at herself from time to time. I told her about the file on the large worm creature and what it likely meant for her and her current situation. She nodded silently and looked at the floor, muttering something about having no control over it. When I asked her to elaborate, she teared up a little and explained what had happened as best as she could:

After the incident with Ashkan, he and Eya were put with the other three binge eaters who had already been confined. Turner had been the first to be confined, and was already somewhat delirious from hunger and stress by the time Eya was brought in. Devon and Bubbles had also been confined prior to her arrival, but they seemed more lucid overall (though Devon would mutter about bread and toast from time to time). Turner snapped sometime around cycle 80, and, convinced that Eya was technically edible considering her lower half was meallouse, came at her and tried to consume her tail. (it should be noted that rations were given during this time, but they were too small and infrequent to be fully satisfying). Eya had no memory of what exactly happened next, but as soon as she came back to her senses, Turner and Devon were gone, and Ashkan and Bubbles had horrified looks on their faces. Once Eya had fully realized what had happened, she panicked and asked Ashkan and Bubbles for help, but both of them were convinced she wanted to eat them too and refused to go anywhere near her.

Ashkan tried breaking down the door until Nisbet returned with more rations. She was quick to notice that two dupes were missing, and very quickly realized that none had escaped, despite the large, Ashkan-shaped dent that was now in the door. Bubbles admitted to eating a very large quantity of food the night so much of it disappeared (Eya seems to think this was to try to convince Nisbet to let at least one of them out), but her unwelcome feast still did not account for the other 25000-some kcal that went missing. Nisbet refused to release any of them, even as Ashkan's pleas began to rise in both volume and pitch.

Eya's account of the next few cycles was a bit much for me to think about, much less transcribe to this document. To be trapped in a room this small for 6 cycles, knowing what was likely to be their fate, knowing that the only person who could free them had no intention of doing so.

To make things even more disturbing, Nisbet's convinced Eya she's done the colony some sort of favor by staving off starvation by doing to the other binge eaters what they would have otherwise done to the food supply. While that may be partially correct in theory, Eya seems to be about as disturbed as I am, and it's even more clear at this point that Nisbet's moral compass is likely damaged beyond repair.

I fashioned a sort of makeshift neck snare for Eya out of a few stray pieces of wire I found. It should be loose enough to be comfortable, yet tight enough to prevent the consumption of anything larger than a ration bar. Eya seemed to relax a bit after I equipped her with the device, and I can sense that both of us hope that it works as intended.

 

 

Cycle 92:

Spoiler

 

I've survived the night, though I was unable to sleep on the hard tile floor, especially with my mind preoccupied with the situation I had found myself in. I'm a bit exhausted and hungry and will need to find a way out of here soon, especially if the snare isn't actually functional.

I noticed something unusual while Eya was sleeping. It appears her mouth contains a sort of toothed proboscis that is only visible when she is unconscious. I think there may be a connection between dupe consumption and Eya's unconsciousness, as she seems to have lapses in memory prior to consumption.

I would have preferred not to have needed to test the snare, but it works. Got too close to the proboscis while examining it and was very soon engulfed by the thing. It tried to pull me down her esophagus and most likely would have succeeded had the wire snare not been there to prevent my head from passing through. Eya woke up during the middle of this process and managed to get me out, though she had a large bout of coughing afterwards.

The door's been propped open. I don't know how, or by whom, or how I hadn't noticed it earlier, but a multitool had been shoved between the opening of the door to prevent it from shutting. The opening was too small for Eya to get through easily, but it was just about my size. I approached the doorway and found a note attached to the multitool. It read:

Stay away from Nisbet until lunchtime. Make sure she doesn't see you. Leave Eya or you'll both get caught.

I explained to Eya what was going on, and she didn't seem to mind that I was leaving without her. She probably still felt bad for what had happened earlier, though I really don't feel like any of this is her fault.

I checked on my stuff and made sure everything was as I'd left it. I decided to check on Eya shortly before lunch and found the door was no longer propped open. I propped it back open with my own multitool and went to see how Eya was doing. She looked like she had eaten recently, which concerned me at first, especially when I realized the snare was missing, but Eya explained that the same person who had propped the door open had come in to feed her some sort of fruit, though the snare had to be removed because Eya had trouble swallowing. When Nisbet came to check on Eya, she saw that she was well fed and assumed I had been consumed. Nisbet had tidied the place afterwards, discarding the snare and some sort of plant material left from the fruit.

Eya muttered something I didn't quite catch, then handed me a weighted parcel of some sort. She told me to give it to Banhi, but didn't elaborate on what it was.

I went off to the mess hall to grab something to eat, as I realized I hadn't eaten anything for the last cycle or so. As soon as I heard Nisbet's voice, I backed up and stayed along the wall, but remembered that the note had said "until lunchtime." Sure enough, the mess hall was full of people, with the schedule showing up as the colony's equivalent of mid-day. Nisbet was facing the other direction so she hadn't seen me yet, though she seemed to be preparing to give a speech to everyone who had already taken their seat.

Spoiler

Idk how i would get this to fit with the current format of this story, so I decided this segment would fit better as more of a transcript format:

Nisbet clears her throat.

Nisbet: Attention everyone, I have a quick announcement to make. As some of you may have noticed, there have been a handful fewer faces in the colony as of late. Numerous rumors have been spreading around, some of which include tales of giant and otherwise predatory beasts that could easily destroy our colony or make any of us their next meal. I'd like to put these rumors to rest...some of them are true.

duplicants muttering

Nisbet: While most of these creatures don't appear to be a threat for the time-being, there has been one exception. Much like a meal-louse but large enough to eat one of us in a single gulp, this monster was thought to have been exterminated soon after it was deemed a threat. However, due to possibly-intentional damage to the printing pod that produced all of us, the remains of this vile creature ended up fusing into one of our own, creating something that looked like one of us, spoke like one of us, but most certainly was not, in fact, one of us on the inside.

Ellie: Worm-girl!

More muttering

Nisbet: Yes...'worm-girl,' more formally known as "Eya." Regardless of what you want to call it, this worm-in-dupe's-clothing has already consumed five of our own.

nervous muttering

Hassan: Eya ate people!?

Banhi: But who? I haven't seen Bubbles in like, a week. Is she ok? Is-

Everyone begins talking at once, drowning out Banhi. Nisbet fires her multitool at a ceiling lamp, causing it to fall onto the middle of the table with a loud crashing noise. With everyone's attention again, she regains her composure and continues speaking.

Nisbet: I have already captured and confined the creature, and do believe I have found it to have several possible uses. For those of you asking who we've lost, however, I am sorry to inform you all that its victims include Ashkan, Bubbles, Turner, Devon, and, most recently, Nikola, who was eaten last night while secretly trying to release this dangerous creature back into the colony.

Ellie: I saw him messing around with the printing pod a few times. He probably made that monster on purpose, to... like...because he's evil or whatever. Cause if this happened because the printing pod was messed with, then, yeah.

Nisbet: Yes..thank you again for your...input. Now, as I was saying, some data that's been collected suggests that this creature could have some beneficial uses, such as disposing of corpses, food scraps, and unproductive colony members. Therefore-

Nikola angrily pushes through the door and the crowd to confront Nisbet.

Nikola: What is the meaning of all this!?

Nisbet: (Through clenched teeth, trying to keep a false smile) Oh, Nikola, you're alive. Thank. Goodness... How did you manage to escape from that monster?

Nikola: (accusingly) What monster? You? You're the one who's been-

Nisbet grabs him and pulls him aside.

Nisbet: (quietly) We'll discuss this later. (back towards the group) Nikola's still a bit confused after such a close encounter with death, I'm sure he'll be able to make more sense after a nice talk later, hm? 

She shoots Nikola another fake grin. He frowns.

Nisbet: While the colony currently does not have any shortage of food or oxygen, I would like to take this time to express a new colony policy to ensure our overall survival. In times of shortage, any member of this colony not carrying their weight, or otherwise consuming more than their fair share of food or oxygen, will be subject to disciplinary consequences, including spending some quality...bonding time... with Eya.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. People seemed to be... agreeing... with Nisbet, or at least anyone who didn't agree weren't making any attempts to show it. A few hounded Nisbet and I with various questions, most of which weren't easily answered, but soon enough most of the dupes had returned to their tasks. Nisbet was still discussing something with Ellie, and as I sat alone at my spot at the table, Banhi quietly approached me and sat besides me. She was silent for a moment before asking if what Nisbet had said about Bubbles was true. I nodded and remembered the parcel Eya had given me. I gave it to Banhi and watched as she opened it. Inside were two standard duplicant gloves and a round object that looked like a large coin. Inside one of the gloves was a folded up, handwritten note.

Spoiler

Banhi: This is Bubbles' handwriting. The gloves must be hers. And... this looks like one of the belt buckles our suits have.

Nikola: What about the note, what does it say?

Banhi: Where did you get this?

Nikola: Eya told me to give it to you. 

Bahni: The note...Bubbles knew she probably wouldn't make it out. She's... saying goodbye. *sniff* She and Ashkan realized the gloves and buckles were the only non-organic parts of their suits and...those would be the only things left of them if they were... eaten. But that I shouldn't try to blame this on anyone. That Eya can't control it and Nisbet's just misguided. What does she mean about Nisbet?

Nikola: Nisbet trapped all the binge-eaters together during the food shortage. When she realized Eya had eaten people she did nothing about it and still kept them together after the shortage ended. She locked me in the same room yesterday hoping I'd be consumed as well.

Banhi: Is Eya still there?

Nikola: As far as I know, yes.

Banhi: I want to talk to her.

Banhi read the note to me and asked to see Eya. I obliged.

We went back to Eya's cell and I propped the door open once again. Eya explained to Banhi some of what she had told me earlier, but her story was interrupted halfway through by the sound of the metal chain link door slamming shut. Nisbet stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes squinted, and kicked the multitool that had been keeping the door open down the hallway.

Spoiler

Nisbet: I told you to keep your mouth shut until we discussed things privately.

Nikola: I don't believe you used those exact words. 

Nisbet: The colony needs to run smoothly for our own survival. We can't have dissidence, it-

Nikola: It's gone to your head. Being in charge. You think sacrificing people you don't like to a giant worm will solve the colony's problems.

Nisbet: Now, lets say I let Eya free to go about her business around the colony. You know she tried to eat Ashkan even before they were confined together. It would only be a matter of time before an incident like that happened again, and who knows what that would be like. There could be an angry mob. She'd be killed. If we can control this, it's much more beneficial, more predictable. We can use the worm as a tool. Much more efficient.

Nikola: People are still dying. Because of your choices.

Nisbet: Ignoring that last statement, I have a quick question I've been meaning to address. Who, exactly, fed Eya earlier? No one's missing so she can't have eaten a duplicant, but none of the food's unaccounted for either.

Eya: I don't know her name. She gave me these round fruit-things and-

Nisbet: Was her suit pink, by any chance?

Eya: I mean, sorta, but-

Nisbet: That's not an officially designated color. All dupes have blue, green, red, and yellow suits, unless wearing special protection such as a sweater. I don't know what she is, but I don't think she's one of us. Even less so than...you are. 

Eya: She looked like a dupe though.

Nisbet: Was it not about two cycles ago that I locked her in here with you? How is she still alive? Did you not eat her?

Eya: I mean, I did, but she didn't seem to care at all. Kept saying something about "making a new one." When I saw her today I thought someone had reprinted another copy of her but she remembered everything that happened so that can't be true.

Nikola: It may be possible that her memories are stored separately from whatever her physical form is.

Nisbet: That still means she's not a duplicant. That just means she's something else controlling a duplicant.

Banhi: How does anything about this "mystery dupe" justify your reasons for indirectly feeding people to whatever's inside Eya?

Nisbet: It's what's best for the survival of the colony as a whole. You're only complaining because it doesn't favor you.

The grin on her face emanated such malice that no one did much more than stare as she left down the hallway. Stuck in this room again, no snare to make us feel at least somewhat safe. At least Eya had eaten earlier, so we still had some time to find a way out of this situation. Perhaps this "mystery dupe" would prop the door open again when no one was looking. I suppose I could use this time to study Eya some more, since I at least have someone to help me if anything goes wrong, which it hopefully doesn't, because we don't have any plan B this time.

 


Cycle 93 A:

Spoiler

 

Did a basic exam on Eya earlier. Most of it didn't come up with anything conclusive, but the oral exam seemed to suggest the proboscis is nested inside her mouth in such a way that it sits just behind her existing duplicant teeth. Her lower jaw and several upper teeth are missing, likely due to the proboscis' placement within the mouth. Her tongue appears normal from a distance, but is much more sticky and elastic than I anticipated. I'm not sure what this means at the moment.

I had to put a pause on the examination as Eya was beginning to feel slightly hungry and she wanted Banhi and I to stay as far away as possible for safety.

The peculiar duplicant Nisbet had mentioned, supposedly the one who fed Eya and left the door propped open, came to join us, apparently of her own volition. She brought two more of the fruits Eya had mentioned. She hadn't bothered to prop open the door, and the fruits were only enough to satiate Banhi and I, so I began to question the intelligence of this dupe that seemed so helpful before. Surely Eya will lose control of her hunger soon and one of us will be her next victim. We could have escaped if the door was propped open. Or even fed Eya fruits had she brought extra. Foolish really, dangerously so.

The odd dupe is staring over my shoulder as I write this. I would like her to leave, please. Thank you.

She has explained that the small food supply and letting the door close behind her were intentional and part of some convoluted "master plan" she had devised. She said something about being "technically immortal like this," and assured us she didn't mind sacrificing herself (her "vessel") for this plan, as she needed to print a "new one" anyway, because that would make it easier to take care of Nisbet. She then explained that she intended to feed her "current form" to Eya, in order to protect us from the worm, get rid of said "form," and to allow us to actually witness the process in order to document and better understand it, as none of the witnesses as of yet had survived to explain what happened in detail. Eya and Banhi didn't seem particularly thrilled with this plan, though it seemed clear enough that Eya probably didn't have much of a choice. She assured Eya that it hadn't hurt when she had "died" the first time, otherwise she probably wouldn't have come up with this plan, and that it would be better than consuming someone who wasn't "immortal."

I still haven't gotten this girl's name. It's a pain to write like this.

I suppose the dupe was right after all. Observing the process was very insightful, albeit disturbing. It appears that Eya gets nauseous and lightheaded several moments before actually going unconscious as the worm takes over, which is an important note as it means we will have a recognizable moment of warning before Eya becomes a real threat. Her prey remained concerningly talkative for several minutes afterwards, happily discussing relatively morbid calculations on how long it would take for her to suffocate. Eya, by contrast, was completely silent, with a queasy look on her face, especially after the internal voice had been silenced. Banhi lost it and went into the corner to sob as quietly as possible, and I could see that Eya was tearing up a bit as well. I tried to keep my composure for Eya's sake, and she choked on her words as she tried to explain that she had known they would stay alive for several minutes afterwards, but really tried not to think about it too much, which is why she had avoided mentioning it before.

I'm not sure how long it would have taken for us to calm down after that experience had nothing occurred to distract us, but only a few minutes had gone by before a low hum began to come from somewhere else in the colony. The hum grew louder, to the point that the walls were vibrating with the noise, and a secondary high-pitched metallic droning sound joined the initial humming. As the sound began to fade again, panicked voices could be heard from down the hallway. Several terrified dupes ran past and one hid with his back against the door, curled in a nervous ball. I recognized the dupe as Joshua, who I called over and instructed to prop the door open. He hesitated at first upon noticing Eya, and mentioned something Nisbet had said in her speech. I assured him it was fine and Eya said she was still planning to stay inside. Joshua opened the door and Banhi and I were finally able to leave. I asked him what had happened, and he had no idea other than other dupes had been freaked out so he figured it would be best to freak out too.

I decided to walk towards where the sound had initially come from. Banhi followed, but Joshua continued going the same direction as the other frightened duplicants. Finally we entered a room where everything looked significantly damaged. Two holes had been torn into the walls, though an odd, adhesive barrier was blocking whatever was on the other side. As I inspected the room, Banhi noticed someone hiding under what was left of a research desk. It was Ellie, even more distraught than Joshua had been, muttering something mostly incoherent about Nisbet. It took us a few minutes to calm her down to the point she was intelligible, so we could finally understand what she had been saying:

"Giant. Clawed hand. Came from wall. Took Nisbet. Hide."

 

Cycle 93(B)-94:

Spoiler

 

I'm not sure I know what just happened. I seem to be in bed, but I don't recall coming here. Last I remember we were with Ellie and there was some sort of tremor and a tearing noise as something pushed through the adhesive barrier and the room filled with an odd haze.

I checked the timekeeper and it is indeed still cycle 93, though it does seem like a significant amount of time has passed. I figured I should at least check on Eya and see if I can find any clues to what happened around the colony.

Eya is not in the room she'd been locked in. stuck onto the door was a large, bright pink piece of paper that read: Borrowed Eya. Don't worry I'll bring her back. I propped open the door and grabbed what we had left in there.

Highly likely the odd dupe has something to do with this.

I've noticed that some parts of the colony have odd markings on them similar to the markings left near the holes that had been torn in the walls near where we had found Ellie. It almost looks like certain areas have partially melted or otherwise been warped, but all the furniture, equipment, and plumbing/electrical systems look relatively intact. A few things look scuffed or dented, but only the walls have the odd, warped appearance.

Something certainly feels off, and I almost feel like some of these little details might have always been that way, but that my unease is searching for what is making me feel that something isn't right.

 

Cycle 94: Things seem to be surprisingly normal today. Perhaps this is simply because I spent last night in my bed for the first time in several days and feel much better rested than I have been. Not being locked in a room with someone possessed by a giant, predatory worm is also a nice change, especially since I don't have to worry about getting locked in there again either. While I suppose I am still worried about Eya (and Nisbet, though to a much lesser extent considering what she's put me and so many other colonists through), not being in imminent danger myself has been a nice change. A few colonists are certainly uneasy, especially Ellie, who has alternated between punching random things and cowering under furniture, but the colony as a whole is still running perfectly fine.

 

Cycle 95-96:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 95: Someone at lunch today said they discovered a system of pneumatic tubing that started at the edge of the colony and extended far beyond. They insisted it hadn't been there last cycle, and was much too large to have been built that quickly. No one else seemed to recall working on it either, but they insisted the pipes looked brand new and didn't look like any part of the ruins.

A couple colonists decided to find out where exactly all the tubes led. Ada came back first after exploring the tubes on the eastern side. She said that things seemed much more metallic than she had expected. At the end of the pipe there was a small room with a door-sized hole in the wall, though the hole was blocked by something cold and fluffy that she wasn't able to get through. It took much longer for Frankie to return, and many of the other colonists seem to think he hit his head somewhere on the way, as nothing of what he had claimed to see made any real logical sense. He claimed to see a giant kitchen with a huge beast of a dragon that would stand taller than if everyone in the colony tried standing as a straight line on top of each other's heads. 

We're on an asteroid, not in the walls of some giant fantasy castle. Some of the colonists do seem to think there is some truth in the story, what with Ellie's insistence that a giant clawed hand came from the wall and took Nisbet, and that Frankie brought "floor scraps" from the supposed kitchen that admittedly tasted much better than the food we had at the colony.

Cycle 96: The odd dupe is back. I asked her about Eya, and she admitted she had taken her somewhere safe. Eya had been pretty terrified at first, especially since she hadn't recognised Pink's "true form" initially (I needed a simpler way to refer to the odd dupe, so I decided to call her "Pink" due to the unusual color of her uniform. It's a bit silly, but much better than calling her "the odd dupe" all the time). Pink said that Eya had gotten used to the situation pretty quickly, especially since she wasn't being forced to eat her peers anymore and realized that Pink's "true form" wasn't a threat. I tried to get Pink to clarify more on what she meant by her "true form," but she remained vague in her explanations. She did finally make a major slip-up as I asked about Nisbet (whose abduction I was starting to think was also related to Pink somehow since she said she was going to "take care of Nisbet" shortly before she had been taken away). She said her dog had tried to eat Nisbet several times, but that Nisbet was otherwise doing fine asides from continuous aggressive fear responses. She trailed off when she noticed my knowing glare. I told her Ellie's account of the clawed hand, and the rumor about a large dragon. She laughed in a way that seemed both genuine and nervous before giving in.

Spoiler

Pink: I'm not a dragon. I don't know where you guys got that from. There's some weird creatures around here for sure though. Might'a seen one of them.

Nikola: What are you then? My best guess from what I know is that you must be what captured Nisbet, or at the very least you know what did.

Pink: Claws... I mean, I haven't cut my nails in a while, they're probably long enough to look like claws at a glance, especially from the perspective of something small.

Nikola: And how... large are you? Or I suppose, how small are we?

Pink: I can't really give you an exact measurement cause all our units of measurement have the same names and mean totally different things. But like, three inches, I guess? Small enough that I could hold Nisbet in one hand. You things are like chubby lilliputians.

Nikola: And what do you look like, exactly?

Pink:(gesturing to herself) Like a bigger, less-chubby version of this? With normal clothes.

Nikola: and how do you make yourself the way you currently are?

Pink: Me and one of my friends do all this crazy high-tech VR stuff. He reverse-engineered the organic printer you guys have but nothing we tried printing with ours would actually be alive unless we put in this little remote-control microchip thing on them and controlled the things ourselves. Whenever I feel like it I just print one out, put the little chip in it, and put the headset on. Sometimes I have to get carried over to where your colony is if I don't move it over there before I plug in. Makes me feel small and squishy. Which is kinda fun and cute I guess. I went snooping around the colony and Nisbet caught me being suspicious and problematic and threw me in with Eya which is how I got involved with all this mess. Decided it would be better for me to handle Eya and Nisbet myself and get the colony moved to a better location.

Nikola: You moved the entire colony!?

Pink: Not all at once. It was kinda this big process but we sedated everyone so we could work without anyone noticing.

Whatever Pink is, it is most certainly a much larger creature than any of us. If she and whoever she worked with moved the entire colony, it would explain the gap of time between finding Ellie and waking up in bed, and also the odd warping and changes to the colony as a whole. I still don't know what Frankie meant when he said he saw a "dragon," but his story seems more plausible now if Pink is really as large of a creature as she says she is. Pink went off somewhere while I was writing this, so I suppose I will have to find things out on my own until I see her again.

 


Cycle 97:

Spoiler

 

Frankie's convinced a few other colonists to go on expeditions with him to acquire more bits of food from the "dragon's kitchen." Most of what usually gets brought back are stale and/or burnt tidbits that don't really taste much better than our normal fare, though Frankie insists that he knows how to get to the "good stuff" now.

Every once in a while the colony will lightly shake as if something large is moving nearby. It makes me think. Are we not on the asteroid anymore? Or is it much larger than we thought? Or are we much smaller than we thought? Even though I feel some security knowing that whatever is out there is separated from us by a thick metal wall, something makes me uneasy just knowing we are "small."

Frankie's expedition has returned early, in horrific shape. Only one member of the party was able to speak, with two others coughing uncontrollably and Frankie twitching in a concerning manner. All four of them had red or blistered skin. The one who could talk said that the "dragon" had seen them and attacked them. At first I thought the skin damage might be from getting singed by fire, but I quickly noticed everyone's hair and clothing was still intact and did not appear singed in the slightest. I then realized that their skin was indeed burned, but it had not been burned by fire.

These were chemical burns.

I instructed everyone who had been exposed to take a thorough shower as I tended to Frankie. I tried to wash him as well as I could before placing him in the nearest med bed. I treated him as best I could for what I suspected to be inhalation of an aerosol toxin of some form and managed to stabilize him. He is still unconscious, but the twitching has stopped and his breathing has gotten more regular. The other three duplicants regained their ability to speak and explained to me that they had tried to get into what seemed like a huge pantry and attempted to collect food from it, but were seen by the large dragon-like creature. It grabbed a large cylindrical object that one of the dupes confided "looked like a big can of roach-spray," and the four of them were quickly engulfed by a burning mist. Frankie had been hit directly and hadn't had time to react so ended up incapacitated fairly quickly. No one seemed to know exactly what had happened next, partially due to blurred vision, partially to adrenaline, but they had managed to grab Frankie and rush back to the tube system before any further harm could occur.

Roach spray. I suppose from the perspective of giants we'd look nothing more than odd-looking vermin trying to steal bits of their food.

I need to find Pink. I don't care if she's my size or not. I need to talk with her and get to the bottom of this.

I'm going to go through the tubes and see what I can find.

I spent a while trying to figure out where each pipe led. Nothing of what I saw makes me think it is possible for us to be on an asteroid, at least not anymore. I ended up following a pipe that led to a room similar to what Ada had described, though the hole no longer seemed to be blocked by anything, fluffy or otherwise. I gingerly stepped through the hole and found myself standing on a very large, very cluttered work desk. Several notes had been handwritten, with a couple bearing handwriting similar to the note I had found on the door to Eya's room. Misc objects and papers covered in sketches were scattered on the remaining space on the desk.

While wandering the desk to see what bits of information I could glean from the strewn papers, I heard a faint thud from somewhere across the room. There was a cabinet stocked with giant-sized glass implements, notably beakers and other chemistry-related tools. Something was moving about in a beaker on the lower shelf. I had to squint for a moment to make out what it was, and realized it was another duplicant. Though I could barely make anything out, I could see enough to recognise that it was Nisbet. She seemed to be periodically ramming herself into the side of the beaker closest to me, making the thudding noise I had heard. She hadn't seen me, however, and this seemed to be an attempt to knock the beaker over so that she could escape, though neither the cabinet nor the table I was currently standing on had anything around to safely climb down from them with. As I was looking for a way down, I heard another thud, followed by what must've been a yelp from Nisbet and a large crashing noise. I spun around to see her trying to pull herself out of a pile of glass, on an outcropped shelf several shelves below where she had been a moment before. Clearly something else had also heard the noise, as loud footsteps began coming our direction, heavy enough to gently shake what I was standing on. A section of the wall slid away as a large humanoid, much like a duplicant though with more complex and elongated features, burst into the room and rushed over to Nisbet and what remained of the beaker. It delicately removed Nisbet from the glass rubble and turned my direction. I hid as best I could behind an oversized plastic bottle several times my height as the creature cleared a space on the desk and placed Nisbet firmly but gently onto the table, pinning her down with two clawed fingers. Was this creature Pink?

It began to make vocalizations that were very clearly some sort of speech, though I couldn't make out any words. I could at least tell that it was trying to ask Nisbet to keep still, as she was still kicking and pushing against the fingers. The two adjacent fingers managed to pin her hands down, effectively immobilizing her arms, as the free hand reached for a pair of tweezers about as long as I was tall. It continued trying to persuade Nisbet to relax in its deep hum of a voice, as Nisbet began making her own, much less calm vocalizations, yelling at the creature to let her go. I heard a quiver of pain in her voice, and realized she must have been injured by the glass. I creeped out from my hiding spot to try to get a better view. Sure enough, the tweezer held a reddened shard of glass and dropped it on the table. I had a clear view of the gash in Nisbet's sleeve. She tried to squirm again after the creature tried to put a large puff of gauze on the wound. I yelled at Nisbet to stay still, quite a bit louder than I intended, and got the attention of both Nisbet, who was silent but breathing heavily, and the creature trying to treat her wound. I stared frozen as I made eye contact with the large figure. I could see now that it was definitely female, and it did bear some resemblance to Pink, even with the unusual facial features. She smiled at me sadly, then glanced back down to Nisbet, slowly lifting her hand away from the injured duplicant.

I rushed towards Nisbet and got her to sit up as I examined the injury more closely. The giant abruptly sat up and rushed towards a different part of the room, though I was too preoccupied in my examination to see where she went. The cut was not as deep as I had expected, which was good, but Nisbet was still clearly in a lot of pain and I needed something better to clean the area with to prevent any sort of infection. The giant thumped back into a chair next to the desk holding two bottles and a plastic purse about as large as I was. She placed the bag where we were sitting and unscrewed both of the bottles, placing the caps alongside the bag and filling them with their corresponding liquid. The second liquid had a strong, familiar odor that indicated it was isopropyl alcohol. The first liquid had come from an opaque bottle, leading me to believe it was likely hydrogen peroxide, which, while I understood why it had been brought, would not be usable for such a deep wound. I tried to use gestures to ask the large creature for clean water, which took a moment to communicate clearly, but soon enough a capful of water sat alongside the others. As I flushed the wound with water, Nisbet winced, but managed to finally speak to me through clenched teeth.

Spoiler

Nisbet: Why. are you helping me? I left you for worm-food. Twice. Don't think that helping me is gonna make me change my mind about anything. 

Nikola: I was assigned to do medical work. I am doing medical work. It may not be in my best interest to tend to someone who's imprisoned me twice, but I am going to do my job regardless because it's the right thing to do.

Nisbet: Shut up. Not everything's a black-and-white moral question of right and wrong. If those duplicants hadn't been...removed.. from the colony, we could've all starved. You know this. Survival doesn't care about sentimentality. 

Nikola: I know that you didn't initially mean to get rid of them when you put all the binge eaters together. It just... happened. But after the first two died you should've at least tried to do something about it.

Nisbet: Can't exactly go back and fix that. *wince* Besides, if we need to reduce the population to survive again? No one's gonna volunteer for that willingly.

Nikola: The pink duplicant did.

Nisbet: In case you hadn't noticed, the pink duplicant is just a little homunculus this creature towering over us right now likes to parade around as whenever she feels like, and just prints out a new one whenever she feels inclined. The pink dupe knows she's immortal *wince* in an expendable way and has nothing to lose by sacrificing herself like that.

Nikola: Stay still. I'm almost done with this suture. 

I finished dressing the wound as Nisbet talked. She ranted about Pink and how she had been treated like some sort of small pet after being captured. Though she clearly felt offended by this, I truly couldn't think of any other way a creature as large as Pink would treat a creature as small as us that would be more optimal. Heck, she could have easily made a meal of us had she felt like it, or tried to exterminate us like the "dragon" had. I helped Nisbet stand up after the procedure was done and she immediately tried moving her bandaged arm, causing her to wince and stagger back. I explained that she would need to keep it as still as possible until it healed. As we walked back towards the hole I had come through, we were almost immediately blocked by Pink's large hand. We looked back to see her shake her head and point down at Nisbet. Nisbet stays. Both of us frowned. Nisbet started to protest but I put a hand on her shoulder and walked towards Pink.

I explained as best I could that I would need to come back and tend to the injury regularly if Nisbet was to stay with her. I suggested some other way to keep her contained besides any glass container again, as that was what had caused the injury to begin with. Pink seemed to understand, and cleared off another space on her desk next to the hole. She grabbed a pencil and drew a rectangle on the desk and the wall, then motioned as if she was going to put a box there and mimed like she was using a multitool towards the invisible box. I assumed she was asking for duplicants to construct an area where she could still keep tabs on Nisbet but that it would be easier for me to visit and tend to the injury. Nisbet didn't approve of this plan and tried making a break for the exit, but Pink quickly grabbed her by her collar and pulled her back. Pink motioned that I was free to leave, and I glanced back at Nisbet before slipping back into the wall.

I'm not sure how Pink expects the colonists to build something on her desk without panicking about her size or Nisbet's confinement but I suppose it's a workable solution.

 

Cycle 98-100:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 98:

Realized last night that the whole incident with Nisbet had completely distracted me from the entire reason I had gone through the tubes to find Pink in the first place. I still had not seen or gotten any concrete information on what the "dragon" is. Frankie is still recovering from exposure to the chemical, but everyone else is back to normal, save for some persistent itching and swelling.

I plan to go through the tubes to find Pink later so I can finally ask for more information on things, not just about the dragon but about what she's been doing with Nisbet and Eya and where we are and what she even is.

There were a lot of people in the tubes today, which surprised me at first, but I realized that at least some of the activity must be due to construction on Nisbet's cell. Not exactly sure how the command was issued, but it was issued nonetheless. By the time I got to Pink's desk, the room was nearly complete, but no one had noticed the size of the desk they were standing on because the view had been obscured by what was probably a large cardboard box. Unfortunately there was no way to actually get around this barrier, so I'll have to come back once construction is completely finished.

 

Cycle 100:

Construction is finished and the barrier is finally gone. I figured I would check on Nisbet's arm before anything, especially since it would give me something to do if Pink wasn't around. Interestingly enough, part of the cell wall is glass, probably by Pink's request so she can observe Nisbet.

Nisbet's arm is doing much better. Still no sign of Pink so I've been having some small talk with Nisbet, though she's mostly been giving one-word answers. Apparently Eya's on the desk somewhere, and Pink had almost tried to force Nisbet and Eya to be roommates in the cell, then quickly changed her mind when Nisbet pulled her gun multitool in Eya's face. I went to search the desktop for Eya, and found that it had been cleared off.  

Eya was asleep in a plastic tray lined with cloth like a nest. Though I wanted to talk to her, I didn't want to interrupt her rest and figured I would wait until Pink showed up. 

It took a bit of waiting for Pink to show up, nearly pushed through what must've been the door to the room by a large, furry beast large enough to make even Pink seem small. I thought she might be in danger at first, then realized the creature was pushing her in a sort of rough-but-playful way. She got knocked into the table hard enough to wake Eya up and yelled at the animal to leave her alone and it finally slinked back out of the room, but not before slapping her in the face with its long tail. She came back towards the table, smiled, and gave Eya and I a small scratch on the head, which was somewhat startling. We tried to talk to each other, but the most we could get was Pink repeating back what I said instead of talking in her deep vibrating hum. Pink gave up and went into the other room to do something. When she came back she had a bunch of strange equipment and a large pair of black goggles that seemed heavy and impossible to see through. After she had set the equipment up, she placed something the size of a duplicant on the table and put the goggles on. It took me a moment to realize that the object on the desk was indeed a duplicant, and that it was Pink's duplicant form. She twitched a bit and stood up, stretching as if waking up from a long nap, though her larger self barely moved in her chair. She opened her eyes and smiled at me.

Spoiler

Pink: Yeah, hey, sorry about that. Easier to talk when we're the same size cause it's hard to understand those cute squeaking noises.

Nikola: Pardon?

Pink: For some reason you guys sound different depending on how big I am. I think it's something about how sound travels or whatever.

Nikola: I had noticed that you make a sort of low, vibrating hum when you try to talk.

Pink: Is it kinda like when you're underwater or you have your ears muffled and someone tries talking to you?

Nikola: I suppose it's like that, yes. I assume you sound the same to yourself then?

Pink: Yeah. But when I'm not small you guys sound like this.

Pink proceeds to make squeaking noises by biting her lower lip and humming.

Nikola: I can understand how that would, uh... make communication difficult. 

Eya gets out of her bed and approaches them.

Eya: Hi Nikola, hey Warper.

Nikola: Hm?

Pink: Oh yeah I uh, guess I never properly introduced myself. It's not my real name but everyone calls me Warper, and you can too, if you want.

Nikola: (muttering) Here I've gotten used to referring to you as "Pink."

Warper: Why, because my shirt's fuchsia?

Nikola: I, yes...

Warper: anyway, you wanted to talk about something?

Nikola: I have quite the list of questions right now, though I suppose a couple just got answered. A simple one would be a good start. Where are we right now?

Warper: It's called the LUDUS, it's basically this really big space ship thing. I guess I don't have a whole lot to compare to it size-wise, but it's pretty big regardless, especially for you guys. As to how you guys got here, I really don't know. Lambert does maintenance stuff and found you guys in the wall. We had to relocate the colony eventually cause it was at risk of causing structural damage, so I went snooping to learn more about you things and figure out the best way to relocate the colony without hurting anyone. We attached it to the wall in the other room. The actual process of moving you guys was a little complicated but I think we talked about that a little already. 

Nikola: Indeed. Now, this dragon I mentioned before, it attacked and injured several colonists a few cycles ago. I personally did not see it, so I'm only calling it a dragon because that's what the others have been calling it. That creature bothering you on your way in here didn't seem to match the description, but do you have any ideas on this?

Warper: Did it eat or try to eat any of them?

Nikola: No, I don't believe so.

Warper: Yeah, then it's not him. Entropy doesn't really hurt things, he just likes shoving things in his mouth.

Nikola: Is he the "dog" you said tried to eat Nisbet?

Warper: Dog is a much easier word to say than trying to describe him, yeah. He looks like one from the front at least.

Nikola: The only other information I have on the encounter was that it was some sort of chemical weapon, likely an aerosol pesticide considering the circumstances, and that it was in some room that looked like a large kitchen.

Warper: So someone sprayed toxic stuff near the food, in the food preparation area, in a circulating air system. In other words, someone's a giant idiot and is going to be hearing from me and probably the director as soon as I figure out who it is.

Nikola: So I guess you'll take care of that then. I was going to ask how Eya is doing, but I suppose she can tell me herself now that she's here.

Eya: I haven't been hungry at all, and the worm part of me hasn't taken over and tried to eat anyone, either. Warper lets me eat almost whatever I ask her to bring, and even the little scraps she gives me taste a-maze-ing. Better than what we had at the colony at least.

Nikola: The colony's food certainly hasn't gotten better. Especially since you uh, ate our main chef...

Eya looks down guiltily.

Eya: (softly) I know.

Nikola: Now, Warper, was it? What do you plan to do with Nisbet? How long are you keeping her here?

Warper shrugs

Warper: At least until the arm heals. I didn't want her to cause any more problems with the colony, but I guess it won't really matter as long as Eya's with me.

Nikola: So you're keeping Eya then.

Warper: For the time being.

Eya: That's ok. 

Nikola: I suppose the only things left to ask about is what you are and how you were able to reverse engineer a printing pod to make a version of yourself at our size.

Warper: I'm human, and you guys are, at least from what I understand, genetically modified mini-humans.

Nikola: Duplicants.

Warper: As for the reverse engineered bioprinter, which Lambert shortened to "3DOP" for "3D Organic Printer," I wasn't directly involved in the process, so I'm not completely sure what he did to make it. I've had to use something similar before, but the one I used is big enough to clone me, albeit a dead version of me, and I had to use it to escape from a bunch of evil scientists who wanted to mess with my stuff and experiment on me. Long story, anyway. I think he cross-referenced a blueprint for one of the bigger scale printers with your printer and then used what he had to make his own version. The small one I used to make mini-me here was a prototype, but I think he wants to make a bigger one when he has the chance.

Nikola: May I see the prototype?

Warper: Sure, but I'm gonna have to switch back to get it.

It was much easier for us to communicate at the same size, and we went over a few details on where we were, what Pink is (it turns out her name is 'Warper'), what she plans to do with NIsbet and Eya, and how she printed herself as a duplicant. In order for her to show me their printing device ("3DOP"), she had to switch back, which caused her duplicant form to ragdoll onto the desk surface. The device is much the same size as the printing pod, though more rectangular in shape. She plugged it into a computer and let me look at the interface. Unlike our printer, which is doubtlessly damaged and probably corrupted, the 3DOP has a much wider selection of what can be printed. Not only are there more genetic blueprints, both for duplicants and creatures, there is a feature that alters specific traits for individual blueprints. There was even a catalogue of all the duplicant templates. The buttons were just the right size for Warper and I to be able to use them, so she allowed me to browse a little once I figured out the controls. My heart sank a little as I browsed through rows of familiar and unfamiliar faces. I already knew this was how it worked, of course, but actually seeing your face and name up on a screen like a recipe ready to be made was just unsettling. Next to my blueprint was one for Nisbet, and to the left there was an entry that looked very much like Eya.

I called Eya over and showed her the image, and asked if she had been printed with the name Eya. She shook her head and said that that was just the first sound someone had made when they realized she was half worm. The blueprint had the girl's name listed as "Moon." I wondered if this was supposed to be Eya's real name.

Warper had to leave for some reason and took her stuff and her duplicant with her. She said something that was probably a rushed apology before putting it all away and leaving the room.

I suppose I'll have to come back yet again tomorrow and see if I can glean any more information from any of this. I certainly have enough to work my head around in the meantime.

 

Cycle 101-102:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 101:

Warper spent some time creating a device that will allow us to communicate at different sizes. It's basically a microphone and speaker she had collected from scrapped electronic parts and hooked up to work with her computer. She said that the hardware was easier to set up than the algorithm used to change the pitch and tone of the sounds to be understandable, but her friend Lambert (who I believe was the same one who built the 3DOP) had helped her set everything up.  

It seems that one problem with the 3DOP is that the organisms it prints remain in a vegetative (if not dead) state unless implanted with a microchip that allows them to be "remote controlled," effectively meaning they have no real consciousness or cognitive function on their own. At first I considered that perhaps we were remotely controlled as well, but Warper assured me that this was a flaw with their printer and not something inherited from copying from ours. She showed me her duplicant and parted the hair on its scalp so that I could see the antennae protruding from her skull. I hadn't seen anything of this sort on me or any other duplicants, so I asked Warper what made her certain the colony's dupes were independent beings. She said she had "multiple reasons" for being certain, partially based on the blueprints they had recovered from the printing pod, partially from an X-ray she did of Eya. She added that like the gloves and belt buckle, Eya wouldn't have been able to digest any sort of computer chip, so if there had been any, they would have been found. 

I offered to go back to the printing pod and see if I could find some way to fix the problem and spent the greater half of the day going back and forth between the Pod and the 3DOP, troubleshooting, cross referencing my notes, Warper's data, and the information found in the abandoned colony, as well as lots and lots of trial and error. The solution ended up being somewhat more simple than we had expected: if the printing surface is electrified at just the right voltage, the printed organism will become autonomous. We spent most of our tests trying to print lightbugs, as they were smaller and simpler than some of the other printing options. Many of our initial voltage tests ended up frying the things instead of giving them life, so the whole work area smelled of burnt insect. We finally got a living lightbug out of the process, but both of us were too tired at this point to continue further with trying to print other animals, much less try to print a duplicant. We agreed to reconvene in a couple days (Warper had other things to attend to) and try finishing our tests then.

 

Cycle 102: Nisbet's arm has healed enough that I removed the sutures and replaced them with fresh bandages. Nisbet's comments were much the same as before, primarily defending herself from what she did to Eya and the binge eaters, as well as complaining about her situation and insisting Warper was a danger to the colony.

 

 

Cycle 103:

 

Spoiler

 

I saw Banhi at lunch again today. She let me sit next to her and we ate silently for a bit. I considered telling Banhi about the device we were working on and how perhaps it could be used to print another Bubbles, but decided to keep silent since I didn't want to bring up any bad memories and wasn't sure how to explain that I was collaborating with a giant. Finally Banhi broke the silence.

Spoiler

Banhi: I miss her. It's not even so much the dying part, but thinking about stories of things we did, things that used to make me happy, and now I just feel empty instead. Does that make sense?

Nikola: I suppose it does. 

Banhi: Now that Nisbet's not around, I thought maybe we could print binge eaters again since no one's enforcing that rule but... I've been checking the printer every day, and none of the options have ever been Bubbles. I know that if we brought her back it still wouldn't be the same, since she wouldn't remember but... I just want to see her again so I can pretend she was never gone. You've done stuff with the printer before. Can it be forced to print? Is that possible?

Nikola: Maybe not with ours, but there is something we can try, though we haven't fully finished testing it.

Banhi: We?

Nikola: Warper, the pink duplicant. Remember how Nisbet went on about how she wasn't really a duplicant, just something pretending to be one. Well, she was right, but the creature that Warper really is...is very large. She was what scared Ellie so much, the thing that grabbed Nisbet and took her away. She won't hurt you, but I don't know how comfortable you are with working with a creature with hands as large as you are.

Banhi: If it means getting Bubbles back...I'm ok with that, I can handle it. And Warper, she has a way to print a new Bubbles?

Nikola: It's a bit complicated but I can explain a bit on our way over there.

Banhi seemed desperate to get her friend back, and practically read my mind with the printer idea. She was willing to visit Warper and try to use the 3DOP, though I realized I wasn't sure if Warper wanted to keep herself secret or not.

Warper wasn't there when we reached the printer, but I had enough time to explain and go through all the details on what we could try to do with it. Warper came in and stopped when she saw Banhi, and approached slowly, perhaps to try not to startle her, but it seemed to have the opposite effect by giving Banhi's jaw more time to drop towards the floor. Banhi made a sound that could only be described as a combination between fear and excitement, and finally drew up the courage to go closer to Warper and touched her outspread hand. Banhi grinned nervously and came back towards me as Warper set up the communication device and the 3DOP. Once everything was put together I explained to Warper what Banhi wanted to do. She said that she still wasn't sure if the device was capable of reliably printing living organisms, but that Banhi was free to try. We told Banhi how to use the 3DOP and navigate the DNA catalog. I considered going to check on Eya or Nisbet, and noticed that Nisbet had been watching us through the windows of her cell. Eya was asleep again, and I decided that I was probably more needed where I already was. Banhi wanted Bubbles' clone to be as much like the original as possible, and insisted on spending extra time selecting the traits she knew her friend had, even the bad ones.

Finally she was satisfied and had a blueprint selected to print. Fortunately the print worked perfectly, though it took a bit longer to calibrate and print compared to the colony's printer. Banhi ran to her printed friend and hugged her. Bubbles blinked before hugging back, though she looked somewhat puzzled. They stood awkwardly for a moment before Banhi decided to talk her friend back into existence.

Spoiler

Banhi: Bubbles. It's me. I know you probably...don't...remember me, but you're back now,  and I missed you, and-

Bubbles: We were friends. Something happened...

Banhi: But it's all ok now. I can tell you about all the things we did together, and then you can remember all of it. And everything will be normal.

Bubbles: But where are we, and who are you, and... what happened to me? Why can't I remember anything.

Eya gets up and pulls herself out of her small, nest-like bed and comes towards them. Banhi stares directly at her and Bubbles turns around to look.

Eya: Bubbles, you were braver than Ashkan was. Even when you knew you weren't going to make it out. All you wanted was for Banhi to know the whole story. And I guess now you need to know the story too.

Banhi: (somewhat nervously) No, we don't need to get into that. 

Nikola: Banhi, she needs to know. You can't just keep it from her even though it's something you don't want to think about. It'll be better for both of you to get it out now.

Banhi sits down and sighs.

Banhi: Okay, but I'm not going to be the one to say it.

Eya: We were locked in a room together. There were five of us. There was a food shortage and we were suspected of eating the food supply. I was the only one who made it out. You were the last of the others. I- you died, and-

Banhi: I missed you. You were my best friend. I wanted to bring you back somehow.

Bubbles: I don't understand. Who took the food supply? Did we starve?

Eya: N-no. And I don't know who took the food, I think it was multiple people but- it never really mattered. I couldn't control it. I don't want people to be scared. I don't want to be scared. Turner attacked me, Devon didn't put up a fight. You and Ashkan wouldn't come near me. You realized I didn't do it on purpose, but it was too late by then.

Bubbles: You killed them? Or..?

Nikola: To put it simply, Eya was accidentally merged into a giant predatory worm that takes over her consciousness when it needs to feed and it consumed everyone else who had been confined.

Eya: After Nisbet made it clear she wasn't gonna let the rest of us out, we realized that without a way out, Ashkan and Bubbles were probably going to be eaten as well, especially after Nisbet forced me to eat a corpse in front of them.

Nikola: I nearly forgot about Burt. That must've been what happened to his body.

Eya: Ashkan discovered that the gloves and buckles were left over after he was... *mumbling* and Bubbles decided she would take off her gloves and buckle and write a note for Banhi so that she would at least know what happened to her in the likely event she didn't make it. After it was her turn she talked to me a little bit about how she hoped Banhi would be ok without her. 

Bubbles: But Banhi missed me and wanted me back. And didn't want to think about what happened... so she cloned me to try to put things back to normal?

Banhi: I didn't want you to know because I thought it would be easier to go back to normal that way. I ...wanted to pretend nothing had ever happened in the first place, that you'd just gotten amnesia or something.

Eya: I didn't want to hurt anyone.

Bubbles: Nisbet doesn't seem very nice. What happened to her?

Nikola: Well, the giant behind... did Warper leave? Didn't think something that big could be so quiet.

Bubbles: Is this a giant desk?

Nikola: That bit of the story's a bit more complicated. But Nisbet's being kept in the cell over there. She certainly doesn't like being stuck in there too much but I don't think she's quite learned her lesson yet.

After Eya recalled more of her side of the story, Bubbles decided to talk with Nisbet. Banhi went with her, but I stayed behind with Eya and tried to figure out where Warper went off to. Eya continued to mutter and apologise for things, and added some anecdote about how Ashkan said several times that he was the one who makes the food, not becomes the food, and how it was kind of sad and ironic at the same time. I wish I could find a way to make Eya feel better about all this, but I don't know if this is the kind of thing people can get over that easily.

 

Cycle 105-106:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 105:

Banhi and the new Bubbles have been getting along well enough, and Banhi's been catching her up on what they did together before. Nisbet's arm's completely healed at this point so I removed the bandages. There wasn't even a scar left over, which surprised me, but I suppose it's possible that we have some sort of regenerative property I was not aware of since that type of wound is not very common. Nisbet was in a better mood than usual, so I suppose she had been extra grumpy due to discomfort, though I still feel she is simply pretending to be more cheerful to convince us to let her out now. I guess Warper did say she might let her out after the arm heals, but that's still up to her to decide.

As soon as I saw Warper again, I mentioned that Nisbet's arm was healed completely and asked if she had decided on how long to keep her. Warper gave me an odd look and said she still intended on keeping her there for the foreseeable future since she didn't trust her not to cause more morally questionable problems. We did more tests on the 3DOP capabilities, but it ran out of ooze more quickly than anticipated. Warper insisted that the 3DOP had had enough material to print out at least twice what we had, so we tried to figure out what could account for the disappearance. Warper insisted that the only way it could have gone missing was if someone had used it to print without permission. She seemed ready to blame Nisbet, but I reminded her that Nisbet was still confined and couldn't have been able to do it. She narrowed her eyes and muttered something too far away from the translation device for me to understand. The only people who know about the printer besides Warper and I who could have used it are Banhi, Bubbles, and Eya, but I don't know what motive any of them would possibly have, and Eya doesn't seem the type to use something like that without permission. I suppose Warper's friend "Lambert" could be responsible, but if it is him it isn't much to be worried about since he's the one who created the 3DOP in the first place.

Warper was about to leave, but stopped and turned back to tell me one last thing: she had noticed that one of the cafeteria staff looked very much like a dragon, and she was very much going to tell them off at the next opportunity.

 

Cycle 106: 

Even though my patient's arm has healed, I still figured I'd stop by the giant's desk regularly since it seems somewhat routine for me at this point. After all, we are still testing the 3DOP, and maybe Warper needs my help making more "ooze" since so much of it since there seemed to be a shortage.

Warper had asked her friend if he had used the printer by any chance, which he hadn't. She still seems to be convinced Nisbet has something to do with it, which I still don't quite follow, but she immediately switched back to a freshly-printed duplicant form (the one she had been using before degraded apparently, though she didn't elaborate) once she had gotten more "ink" into the machine. Almost as soon as she was off the printer, she explained to me that she was going to interrogate Nisbet, and that she had asked Lambert to install more translation/communication devices around the colony so it would be easier to get in touch in the future. Eya was curious as to what was going on and followed us to Nisbet's cell. She stayed outside as Warper and I entered Nisbet's room.

Spoiler

Warper: Do you know why I'm here?

Nisbet: No.

Warper: (pointing towards the 3DOP) Did you see anyone use the machine outside over there?

Nisbet: I saw you come out of it just now.

Warper: And before then?

Nisbet: You guys did something with it the other day.

Warper: (gesturing towards Nikola) Switch places with Eya. I wanna try something.

Warper asked Nisbet a few general questions, but made me switch places with Eya before continuing her interrogation. I wasn't exactly sure why, and Eya seemed confused as well. 

Spoiler

Eya: What's going on?

Warper: Just figured you two should have a chat.

Eya: ...why?

Nisbet: Why don't you have legs?

Eya: Because...I...wait.

Warper: (muttering) Called it.

Warper: (to Nisbet) Can I see your arm?

She pulls apart the tear in Nisbet's sleeve to see no sign of injury.

Warper: Nikola...

Nikola: Yes?

Warper: You said the wound healed, not that it stopped existing.

Nikola: I assumed it was-

Warper: Do you realize what's happening here? This Nisbet did not show any sort of fear response towards Eya, and didn't seem to know about her either. She also does not have a scar. Injuries are not genetic, and printed duplicants will not have scars, nor will they have any shared memories. The amount of ooze missing from the 3DOP is approximately the amount that would be needed to make a duplicant.

Nikola: If you're saying Nisbet printed herself and used her as a replacement, that still doesn't explain how she got out.

Warper: Duplicants do not handle stress well. Some go off and cry in a corner, some eat way too much. This specimen (sarcastically, gesturing to herself) has the lovely ability of emitting gastric fluids over everything, and I believe you and Nisbet are both.... very good at breaking things. I'm sure being imprisoned wouldn't be the most calming thing, and as soon as there isn't an injured arm to account for, it would be very easy to break down a door or through a glass window.

Nikola: But there's no sign of damage.

Warper: Easy. Anything that gets damaged is automatically set up for repairs, right?

Nikola: Indeed.

Warper: Then whoever was closest at the time probably got assigned to repair it and went ahead and did it. Probably even the fresh Nisbet.

Nikola: Do you have any way to deduce the original Nisbet's whereabouts?

Warper: That I do not. The best I can say is keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Also another reason it would be good to have some communication devices inside the colony.

Seems Warper was right in her suspicions about Nisbet having something to do with the 3DOP. We agreed to keep the second Nisbet where she'd been, but since neither of us could think of where she might be, our best plan for now is to see if we can find the original Nisbet before she causes any more problems.

 

Cycle 108-109:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 108:

Warper decided to keep Nisbet's clone in the same cell she had kept Nisbet, and has started doing different examinations on Eya to see if theres any way Eya can keep her worm side under control, even when she's unconscious or feeling hungry. It seems that the proboscis-like organ that functions as the worm's mouth is attached to her neck in such a way that when it extends it puts pressure on the veins and arteries in her neck, thus restricting bloodflow to her brain and likely the reason behind her falling unconscious as the worm becomes active. Since it is nearly biologically impossible for her to regain control once unconscious, she can only try preventing it from extending before she faints, and cannot retract it on her own. Warper tried getting Eya to fast to see how well she could retain control while hungry, which no one else seemed to think was a good idea. Warper decided instead to try to make a better version of the neck snare that would be more comfortable for Eya. Eya agreed to wear it even though she still has difficulty eating with it on, probably since her lack of a lower mandible makes it harder to chew already.

Cycle 109:

Ellie's been acting odd the past couple days, I have a feeling she's been in contact with Nisbet, which would mean she's still around the colony somewhere. She seems to be rallying other colonists similar to how Nisbet had and seems to be taking on a sort of leadership role as well, though she hasn't outright declared herself a leader like Nisbet had. Some of the colonists have been giving me nervous glances, while Ellie herself has been shooting me suspicious glares. If Nisbet has indeed been talking with Ellie, I'm sure she hasn't told her anything good, and it's highly likely Nisbet is planning something even less good.

I had second thoughts but I decided to approach Ellie about it (though I said nothing about Nisbet). She certainly had been talking with Nisbet since she rambled about a few things she wouldn't have known about unless someone had told her (and there's a good chance that her skewed account of Nisbet's biased account of what's been happening has been spread around the colony as well, which gives good explanation as to why colonists have been treating me differently.). Ellie offered to have an arranged colony-wide meeting tomorrow to give me a chance to tell my side of the story, but that I would have to bring Eya with me. Though I have a bad feeling about this, I suppose it's the best option I have for now.

 

 

Cycle 110:

Spoiler

 

I convinced Eya to come with me for the meeting as Ellie had requested. Warper was nowhere to be found, which I decided was likely for the best (or perhaps worse) as Warper would likely object to me bringing Eya back into the colony.

Somewhat as I had expected, when I arrived, the mess hall was filled with what must have been the majority of the colony members, if not all of them. Some were eating, others were muttering amongst themselves as Ellie looked around with a somewhat smug expression. As she spotted Eya and I enter the room, her eyes narrowed and the murmur in the room quieted. 

Spoiler

Ellie: You guys showed up after all. Was beginning to think you were too chicken cause you knew everyone was gonna be mad at you for being evil. Cause I mean, you basically have a duplicant-eating monster as your pet, you befriended like this huge, crazy-looking giant who kidnapped my friend, and then helped said giant trick the colony into building a prison for my friend after you kidnapped her.

Nikola: For the record, I did not take any part in imprisoning Nisbet or helping construct the room she was kept in.

Ellie: But you admit to everything else then? 

Eya: (muttering) I'm not a pet...

Ellie: (gesturing to the room) Y'see? People not believing what I said about what Nisbet said. When have I ever lied to you?

Liam: Kinda a lot...

Hassan: Ok, but what if they're both lying? What if this is some weird conspiracy, hoax, whatever to hide what really happened to the binge eaters who went missing? I mean, Nisbet said Eya ate Bubbles, but Bubbles is still clearly sitting with us at this table so-

Banhi: We had to reprint her!

Hassan: Ok, so then if Eya really did eat people, why? And I wanna hear from Eya on this because she can clearly talk even though some people (glaring at Ellie) keep talking about her like she can't hear them.

Eya: I didn't want to. Nisbet made me. She locked us all in a room and didn't feed us anything and then I blacked out and then there were fewer people in the room and I wasn't hungry anymore...

Hassan: So Nisbet forced you to eat people then...?

Ellie: nno! Nisbet put Eya and all the other binge-eaters together because the colony was low on food and we were all gonna starve if the Binge eaters had access to the food. How was she supposed to know Eya was being controlled by a cannibalistic worm?

Nikola: She did not initially realize the threat Eya posed to the other duplicants, but she was very well aware of it in time that she could have saved Ashkan and Bubbles had she chosen to. Instead, she chose to keep them imprisoned, and attempted to imprison me as well once I started asking questions.

Ellie: What, are you trying to say that Nisbet was using Eya to off people?

Hassan: Didn't she explicitly threaten colonists with being forced to spend time with Eya after announcing that Eya ate people? Ellie, I get that she's your friend and all, but Nisbet kinda seems responsible for some bad things based on what people are saying.

Ellie: Well, maybe it looks bad, but... this isn't just about what Nisbet may or may not have done or whether she was nice about it! She thought it would help the colony overall, even if things or people had to be sacrificed to protect the rest of us. We're basically stuck in a set of small rooms, with limited food and oxygen, surrounded by weird giant creatures that can kidnap, poison, and potentially eat us, and we already have creatures closer to our size that will definitely eat us. And whatever's inside Eya is very much dangerous to be anywhere near, even if people avoiding her "hurts her feelings."

Joshua: But... she's not gonna, like, eat anyone right now, right?

Nikola: We have safety precautions in place. Plus, you're on the complete opposite side of the room whereas I would be the first to know if anything went wrong. As long as all safety protocols are followed, there should be no danger to anyone in her vicinity.

Hassan: And what exactly are these protocols?

Nikola: Eya is currently wearing a snare-like device that prevents objects above a certain size from being consumed. It has been tested and it does indeed work.

Eya: It's not very comfortable, but I can go to a safe location to remove it temporarily when no one's around so there wouldn't be a danger.

Hassan: Do you have control over it though? It doesn't seem like you're, er, eating them on purpose, right?

Eya: Of course not!

Nikola: The internal anatomy of how her duplicant and worm halves are connected prevents her from staying conscious if the worm is active.

Ellie: Show of hands, who's willing to let the person who "accidentally" ate people back into the colony?

(several duplicants raise their hands, most of the others squirm in their seats uncomfortably)

Ellie: And who's willing to be her roommate?

(all of the hands go down)

Nikola: No one ever said she was coming back into the colony. I simply brought her with me because you asked me to. What exactly is the purpose of this meeting other than to catch the rest of the colony up on what's been happening?

Ellie: I don't know. Nisbet just said I should convince you to bring Eya to the colony today temporarily, and when you came to me asking questions I was like, "hey, let's just get everyone involved so we can get some conversations going."

Nikola: So, this was Nisbet's idea. The same Nisbet, mind you, who is indirectly responsible and unremorseful for the deaths of multiple colony members.

(Ellie scoffs, duplicants start to murmur)

Eya: (muttering) Maybe we should go.

Nikola: We can't just leave in the middle like-

Banhi: You guys should go if you're worried about something. I know enough about what's been happening that I can fill everything else in.

(Nikola glances between Ellie, Eya, Banhi and the crowd before sighing)

Nikola: Ok

The meeting was rather unhelpful, especially as it seemed to have developed from Nisbet's interest in distracting us and Ellie's interest in causing drama. The colonists at least have a slightly better idea of what's going on, and people seem slightly less worried about Eya and I, but my thoughts are too focused on what Nisbet may be up to to think about how Banhi will be able to explain the rest and how this will pan out for the colony later.

As we approached the entrance to Warper's desk, we could hear Warper rummaging about the room. She was making vocalizations, and though she was her fully-sized self, I could understand enough to tell that she was worried about something. As soon as she saw us, her tone and volume changed to some mixture of frustration and relief, though with still a hint of panic. Eya and I had to cover our ears as her volume increased, and finally she had calmed herself down enough that she got us to come towards the translation device so that she could talk with us. She was worried that Eya had been missing and mad that I had brought her with me without telling her, but what was still bothering her was that in our absence, the 3DOP duplicator had vanished. Warper was blaming herself for possibly misplacing it, or maybe her friend had borrowed it, but I think deep down all of us had a pretty good idea who was behind its disappearance.

Nisbet.

 

Cycle 115-117:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 115: 

It's been a few days since Warper's printing pod went missing, with no form of evidence as to its location. Warper's friend (who i believe is named Lambert, though I've never actually met him) hadn't done anything with it, and said he could try making another one when he had the time and resources, but that that probably wouldn't happen for a while. There's been no sign of Nisbet either, though I suspect that is for the best for now.

Cycle 117:

I saw an unusual looking device on Warper's desk today that i at first thought was perhaps a new version of the bioprinter, but when I asked, Warper explained that the device was a bootlegged teleporter she had to confiscate from a pair of students. I wanted to ask more about what this place was and what extended beyond this room, and what her involvement was with these "students," but I figured that would be a line of questioning for another time. The teleporter was much too small to teleport anything Warper's size, and seemed to be designed for moving items, but it would certainly fit anyone my size, though I suspected that trying to use it for travel would be a bad idea.

I hadn't really checked on Eya since the colony meeting, which i now realize was a bad idea, as when I checked on her today, she seemed incredibly lethargic and hardly moved when I came up to her. I asked her to describe her symptoms, and she explained that she didn't really feel sick or unwell, just incredibly sleepy and a bit stiff, especially her worm half. She said she had a decreased appetite as well, but she attributed this to the fact that she had eaten a ton of Warper's snacks in the days prior, and her stomach probably just needed time to recover. I'm a bit concerned about this change in appetite, but as long as she wears the snare and no one's around too much, everything should be fine if the worm does become active.

 

Cycle 118:

Spoiler

 

Hassan was asking me about Warper earlier, and seems to be rather curious, or perhaps skeptical, about her and her size. I was debating whether I should allow him to come with me to the desk, but apparently word has gotten around enough that practically everyone in the colony wants to come see things for themselves so it's somewhat inevitable now that, for better or for worse, a large quantity of duplicants are going to confront a giant.

Momentum in the colony has started faster than anticipated, and people are already headed for the transit tubes that lead to the desk. I suppose I will have to join the crowd to make sure nothing bad happens with this turn of events.

Warper isn't here at the moment. I'm hoping the colonists will get bored enough before she returns and be satisfied with seeing the scale of the objects in this room. Or perhaps be scared enough to leave. Warper wasn't upset when I brought Banhi here, but I can't imagine I'll be able to explain my way out of this.

Warper may not be here, but I noticed that the strange dog-like creature I've seen with her before is here. I hadn't noticed him (I believe I remember Warper referring to it as a "he") until he lifted his head to look at all the colonists on the table. He seemed smaller than I remember him being, but it was still certainly the same creature, and he was still certainly big enough to be a danger to all of us who were on the table. Warper had said that he had tried to eat Nisbet, I believe. This might be worth warning the colonists about.

I suppose I had overestimated the intelligence of my peers in my attempts to alert the others of the creature hungrily watching us. Instead of leaving for safety, a good number of the colonists decided to get closer for a look. This made the odd canine get up to come towards us, surprisingly quickly considering the creature had no hind legs. Still no one bothered to flee at this point, though I could tell people had become more nervous on the creature's approach. He lifted his head so that it was on the same level as the desk. Some of the dupes had started to come to their senses and began backing away, but a few stood transfixed inches away from the creature's snout. He lifted up a paw and before anyone had time to react, he pinned one of the petrified dupes onto the table and dragged them towards his mouth. Warper fortunately was nearby at this point, and managed to rush in, free the duplicant, and wrangle the furry serpent before any harm could be done.

At this point, most of the colonists who had stayed on the table stood in silent shock, though it was impossible to determine if they were more surprised by the attack or by the giant that had come to rescue them. A couple dupes had gone to assist the one who had been grabbed, who I now realized was Gossmann. She seemed shaken but otherwise unharmed. 

As I looked around at the rest of the crowd, I noticed someone on the far side of the desk, holding something long and pointy, staring at the crowd with an incredibly frustrated and disappointed look.

It was someone I had hoped not to see.

It was Nisbet.

----

As Nisbet approached the crowd, I tried my best to anticipate what she had planned. Her expression told me that whatever she had been planning had probably gone wrong. I now realized that the sharp object in her hand was some sort of cutting tool, probably stolen from Warper. The crowd hushed and turned towards Nisbet as the colonists started to notice her. Her expression calmed, still angry, but more determined than frustrated now.

"Put the entire colony in danger, why don't you." Nisbet said, shooting me a sideways look. Before I could defend myself, she continued.
"What on earth could you hope to gain from bringing so many people into such a hazardous area?"
"Uh, in his defense, the fact that so many people are here is primarily my fault," Hassan chimed in from the crowd. A few other dupes muttered something guiltily.

"It's ok though, that one giant saved us," Gossmann responded, pointing to Warper, who was watching silently from across the room, seemingly trying to assess the situation. Nisbet rolled her eyes.

"Ah yes, the same giant who gassed, kidnapped all of us and relocated the colony to be closer to other dangerous giant creatures, imprisoned me, infiltrated and bugged the entire colony, and then fed herself to Eya to get rid of some of the evidence and assisted freeing traitors to the colony after I captured and imprisoned them. I'm sure that giant totally has our best interests in mind."

"Regardless of how much of that is true, she still saved Gossmann from that huge dog thing," Hassan argued. "Why would she try to protect us if she didn't care?"
Nisbet shook her head.
"That dog thing? That monster is her pet. And she seems to think that we are her pets too. She cares about us probably about as much as someone would care about pacu. Wouldn't really want the dog to eat the fish, but if a few go missing, oh well..."

Warper started trying to sneak towards Nisbet, an attempt that almost immediately failed as the majority of the crowd turned to look at her as soon as she moved towards them. She continued moving towards Nisbet even with everyone's eyes locked onto her, and grinned sheepishly as she noticed me in the crowd. She stopped as Nisbet pointed the sharp tool in her direction.
"If you're wondering why I have such a weapon with me, I assure you, I have no intention of harming any of you. This beast, on the other hand, knows that if she tries in any way to capture me that I will gladly assist in removing her extra fingers."

I hadn't really paid attention before, but as she said this I noticed that Warper did indeed have more fingers than us. And even with the size difference, and even though she probably couldn't understand us, it was clear that she was wary of the object Nisbet was holding. Nisbet continued as Warper moved towards her computer, probably planning to use it to communicate with us.
"I could have easily taken care of that creature that attacked Gossmann myself. In fact, I initially grabbed this spear-like device to protect you all from it, but the giant got there first."

As if on cue, Warper pulled on a set of headphones and slid the modified microphone towards Nisbet. Nisbet rolled her eyes.

"The giant wants to hear what I'm saying apparently. Who knew something so big could be so hard of hearing?" Nisbet responded sarcastically. Warper glared at her, then looked as if she had an idea before moving towards the other side of the room. She attempted to open the cabinet with glass beakers she had used to contain Nisbet before, but the cabinet was evidently locked.
"Oh, and if you're wanting to try to capture me in some beakers again, I stole the keys to that cabinet earlier."

Warper's expression narrowed. Nisbet smirked and turned towards the crowd. Whispering, she asked "What do you guys think would happen if I yelled into this microphone?" Before she received an answer, she brought her mouth as close as possible to the microphone before emitting a high-pitched screech. Warper reacted almost immediately, swiping off her head phones, turning around angrily, and throwing the headphones towards the crowd, narrowly missing Nisbet and instead crashing into Warper's laptop. 

"You all know how it can be when some of us get angry and start destroying things. Imagine how dangerous a giant could be at even mild levels of anger. If those headphones had hit someone, they could have died!"

"Yeah, but unlike you, Warper hasn't actually killed anyone yet," Banhi objected.
"And that attack was clearly provoked," I added. Some duplicants in the audience started to mutter in agreement. Warper slowly went back to her computer and set up her own microphone. Nisbet continued.

"What if she gets hungry, hmm? I haven't seen Eya around for a while, wouldn't be surprised if she got cooked up like the meallouse she is."
"Eya is literally right behind you," I responded, sighing and walking past her to the tray Eya slept in. She barely responded as I pulled down the soft cloth to reveal her face. A few curious dupes came to get a closer look.
"She hasn't been feeling well the past few days," I added. "But as you can see she clearly has not been eaten."

Warper's voice crackled through the desktop speakers as she slumped into her swivel chair.
"I've missed the majority of what's been said, but I still feel like I should probably defend myself at some point. Not to deflect away from whatever's going on with Eya right now, of course. My guess is that if the worm thing is some sort of larva, she's probably pupating."

Pupation was never something I had considered with Eya's health, as my medical training obviously focused on duplicants rather than on invertebrates. It made sense though, with her large calorie intakes and sudden stiffness and lethargy. 

Warper continued talking, but I missed the first part of what she said since I was busy thinking about Eya.
"Considering how my day is going, I think I have a fairly good idea about what's going on right now." Warper paused. "Nisbet here's been planning things for a while, it seems. Not that any of you care, but a lot of things have gone conveniently missing, and Nisbet even admitted to stealing the keys I needed to get the tools to capture her. Now-"
Nisbet interrupted.
"I didn't steal the keys to protect myself, I stole them so you wouldn't be able to capture any dupes!"

"Yeah that sounds believable, coming from the person who trapped 5 of her colleagues in a room in the hopes they'd either fast or starve, then continues to shift the blame on others after all but one of them died." She paused, possibly waiting for a response from Nisbet, but Nisbet was busy thinking about something.
"My guess is that you had this all set up today to try to make yourself seem better and make me seem like a terrifying monster. Stealing my exacto knife was a nice touch, but I think you were hoping I would stay busy long enough for you to go through with your actual plan. You wanted to take on the big bad wolf yourself. And the fact that you seemed so confident that you could handle him on your own makes me somewhat suspicious."

"What are you suggesting then? That she had some trick up her sleeve? That it was staged somehow?" Hassan asked from the crowd.

"I can't say anything for sure, but one thing I know that Nisbet neglected to mention is that Entropy, the big wolf/snake/dog, is capable of speaking."
"Do you have a way to prove this?"
"Possibly, but I think he's mad at me right now and probably won't cooperate. Either way, my guess is that Nisbet set it up so that she could redeem herself by saving whoever Entropy attacked, and tried to plan it so that I wouldn't be around to save them instead or catch her. The exacto knife would not have been enough to actually fight Entropy, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if she had figured out how to communicate with him and then gotten him to agree to some sort of scheme, though I have no idea what she would have done to convince him to help her."
"You guys can't possibly believe this!" Ellie scoffed. "I'm all for spreading rumors, but what kind of sporechids would you have to be on to believe this nonsense? Even if that big creature could talk, how could anyone hope to negotiate with it without getting gobbled up?"
I expected someone to respond to this, but even Warper was silently pondering something. Finally Hassan broke the silence.
"Does it really matter if Nisbet staged it or not? She's still basically responsible for people's deaths regardless. And what's her motive right now anyways? Does she want to lead the colony again or just rejoin it? Convince us that she's the only one who can protect us and that the giant lady and her dog are bad?"

Warper frowned.
"She tried to feed me to Eya too, by the way. I have this thing that lets me appear as a dupe, kind of, but I can't use it right now because Nisbet stole it. I might be bigger than her, but she's a force to be reckoned with, especially when she's holding sharp objects. Yea, I captured her and kept her away from the colony, but that was after I had seen her feeding people to Eya first-hand. Whether she actually thought getting rid of people that way was actually helping the colony, she tried to get rid of me, Banhi, and Nikola simply for knowing about what she was doing and thinking it wasn't ok. And honestly, I get Nisbet's reasoning behind what happened initially, but that's not a morally responsible way to do population control. I don't know what I would have done in that situation, but I probably wouldn't have fed my coworkers to a giant freaking worm."

Nisbet stepped onto what must've been a large pad of sticky notes and addressed the crowd.
"I think that's enough speculating about me and my decisions and motives. Why don't I just tell you myself."
She flipped the sharp tool around and stabbed the sharp end into the pad of sticky notes, resting her arms on the handle.
"I was one of the first members of this colony. At the beginning it was just me, Ellie, and Abe. We welcomed those who came from the printer at first, as we needed more hands to create an environment we could survive in. Things were fine at first, though a monstrous worm invaded the colony relatively early on and ate Abe. I tried to get Joshua to help me fight the creature off, but he was too nervous to use his weapon properly and I ended up being eaten as well. Fortunately, we were able to kill the creature from inside it, and everyone was fine, though I don't think Joshua ever really... recovered mentally from that. The colony grew even more, to the point where there were so many of us that certain vital resources like food and oxygen became scarce. I knew we would have to do something quickly to solve the problem before we all suffocated and starved. Once I realized that the worm had partially survived as a duplicant, I came up with a solution to the overpopulation issue. Perhaps it wasn't the most morally correct option, but it would certainly be preferable compared to allowing the colony to slowly die. Since we were already low on food, I separated the ones I found to be the most gluttonous and kept them in a room with Eya. As expected, the worm awoke and consumed all of them over several cycles."
"So you did it on purpose." Hassan stated. "You just admitted to purposefully wanting to feed them to Eya. Ellie's been trying to convince everyone it was some sort of accident, but I think Nikola was right when he said that you were the real monster."
Ellie and Nisbet both frowned. Ellie started playing with the curls in her hair nervously. 

"Well, Nisbet also said that she realizes now it wasn't the most morally responsible thing, but it still helped the colony. I'm sure she wouldn't do it again." Ellie defended. Hassan scoffed.

"She also indirectly made it sound like all the newer members of the colony are some sort of burden, and called all the people she indirectly killed 'gluttonous,' which doesn't sound particularly apologetic."
"And don't go throwing Joshua under the bus like that. Everyone knows he's a pacifist," someone added from the crowd.

"You wanted to get rid of me as soon as you realized I was questioning what happened with Eya," I added finally. "You found it very convenient to trick me and lock me away with Eya, and clearly hoped I would be eaten like the others you locked up. It didn't matter that I was the colony doctor. It only mattered that I knew too much and you didn't want others to find out about what you did. And when I survived and told Banhi, you tried to lock both of us up again. Who knows how many people you would have tried to lock up if Warper hadn't intervened and captured you."
Nisbet's expression intensified as she pushed the blade deeper into the pad of paper.
"Everything would have been fine had that giant not gotten in the way. Both of you were asking much too many questions. We could have all gone about our business and they would be none-the-wiser, and things wouldn't be complicated, and I wouldn't have to sneak around and get Ellie to do things for me because everyone else is too appalled to talk to me. And maybe I can't do anything about that giant, but I can think of something I can do about you." She yanked the blade from the papers, pulled back and aimed the weapon like a spear towards my forehead. I ducked as it whizzed through my hair and imbedded itself in the wall. Someone behind me yelped. I turned around to see Nisbet's clone clutching her arm, a gash in her sleeve in approximately the same place Nisbet had been cut by the glass. The cutting tool was still in the wall behind her. Warper rushed towards the desk and grabbed a rubber band from the table and gently grabbed clone Nisbet, wrapping the band around her arm as a tourniquet. I started towards them to assist in first aid, but stopped as I heard a commotion behind me. I turned to see Nisbet running away as a portion on the crowd came towards her angrily. She made a beeline for the bootlegged teleporter Warper had confiscated and activated it by punching several buttons on the side before swinging the door to the capsule shut. A couple duplicants tried to pry the door open but soon the device started to glow and hum, until it suddenly emitted a bright flash of light and stopped. Nisbet was gone.
Warper put down the clone and rushed towards the teleporter, hands still messy from trying to do first aid, and turned off the device and unplugged it.
"There. Now she can't come back," Warper's voice crackled through the speaker. I turned back to the injured Nisbet and treated the wound with Warper's assistance. The cut was not as deep as the wound the original Nisbet had sustained, though it was still bleeding significantly. My patient panted heavily as I finished the suture and put a tight bandage on the cut. Several duplicants helped her to her feet and they slowly brought her towards a place she could sit. The rest of the group either stood in silence, murmured to themselves, or walked quietly back towards the tube system. My mind was still buzzing with thoughts about Warper and Nisbet and the sharp object that had narrowly missed my head. Perhaps I've gotten jumbled in trying to write everything down. I suppose I'll be able to think more clearly tomorrow.

 

Cycle 119-120:

Spoiler

 

Cycle 119: 
I haven't seen Warper since she dismantled the teleporter yesterday. She seemed like she wanted to be done with the whole situation with Nisbet and seemed convinced Nisbet hadn't survived whatever was where she had ended up, primarily since faulty teleporters have a high likelihood of sending their cargo to the immense void of space. And even if she had survived, Warper wanted to make sure the teleporter couldn't be used to bring her back here to cause more problems. 
Eya is still spending the majority of her time sleeping, and even though I haven't examined her, I think Warper's pupation theory may be correct.

The rest of the colony has mostly gotten back to normal, though a lot more curious duplicants keep making trips to Warper's desk. I've recommended that they not travel through the tubes without good reason considering the dangers present outside the colony, but so far nothing has gone wrong.

Cycle 120:
Warper was correct! Eya and I were equally surprised when she was finally able to get out of bed and found that no longer was her lower half a larval worm,  but a beetle thorax. Most exciting for Eya, she finally has legs for the first time, though she still has difficulty balancing. It looks like the thorax may have wings as well, but Eya is having enough trouble trying to figure out how to walk that I figure she isn't quite ready to try flying even if that is a possibility. Even with fasting for several cycles, Eya doesn't seem to be particularly hungry, or at the very least seems to have a reduced appetite, though she happily ate the food I brought her from the colony.

Still no sign of Warper anywhere. Haven't heard and loud footsteps or other noises lately either. Never had the chance to ask her more about this place.

 

 

 

 

Warper's Perspective:

 

Spoiler

It had been a couple days since several students started complaining of odd noises coming from the walls. Warper hadn’t thought much of it at first. A huge metal spaceship was bound to make some odd sounds from time to time. A couple students seemed to think there was something crawling around in the walls. It reminded her of back home, when her mother would insist there were rats in the walls, though Warper herself had never heard anything. But now she could hear them too. Squeaking and metallic scratching noises. The sounds were faint, but they were loud enough to give her insomnia, which meant they were officially a problem. She wondered if there could be rats in space. But the LUDUS, a shiny new royal flagship on its maiden voyage, seemed too clean to get vermin. 

 

She figured the best thing to do would get Lambert to investigate. The robot’s main job was doing electrical work in the walls anyway, and if there really were rats, they’d probably start chewing on the wires.

 

It didn’t take long for him to find an anomaly in the hull. Something had imbedded itself into the side of the ship, large enough that, had it been going the velocity of a normal space rock, could have torn a hole the size of a truck clean through the entire vessel. Since this meant it was incredibly unlikely that the object had been encountered while cruising, it was most likely something encountered while using a jumpgate, which meant the object was most likely from another universe of origin. All sorts of odd things were bound to happen when messing with spacetime, and even though jumpgates were much more stable than most forms of space-warping travel, it seemed to be the most plausible thing. 

 

The object was almost entirely surrounded by some incredibly hard, dark-hued mineral that even Lambert’s best tools couldn’t make a scratch in. However, there were several cracks in the surface just big enough to drill between, though it would take forever to try to crack the thing like an egg. It seemed like there were holes in the side of the object within the wall that were larger, so Lambert went about making some small probes and drones to try to view what was inside. Warper wasn’t sure what an extra-dimensional rock would have to do with whatever was making the squeaking noises, but Lambert discovered a connection fairly quickly.

 

“Warper, there’s uh… like… tiny people in this thing.”

“What?” She rushed over to the viewing screen for a closer look. Sure enough, small humanoid creatures seemed to be going about their day, communicating with each other through various hums and squeaks.

“gfgfhhs they’re so small,” Warper sputtered, grinning. “And adorable.”

“This thing’s still causing significant structural damage. I’m gonna need to remove it.”

Warper frowned.

“If you move it you might hurt the lil people in there. Maybe we can figure out a way to get them to come out first.”

Lambert sighed.

“Fine, I’ll try to get more information about what those things are and why they’re inside this. You have to be the one to figure out how to get them out though since you’re the one who cares.”

 

Oddly enough, for a while Lambert ended up paying more attention to the creatures inside the object than Warper did. She was supposed to be working, after all, and there were many aspects of life on a spaceship that could easily get distracting. 

 

Once she finally found time to focus on the little people again, Lambert had already spent enough time studying them to realize that they were coming from some sort of biological printer that was apparently able to synthesize bioink from passively absorbing fluids in its vicinity. These humanoids had then set up a small civilization contained entirely within the rock structure.

 

Warper had used bioprinters before, though she’d never used one to print out a fully-functional organism. Lambert had already collected extrusion data and template information and was fairly confident he could reverse engineer something similar if he had a separate bioprinter to start from.

 

Warper knew where she could find a bioprinter the right size, and figured since the things were so expensive she would be best off “borrowing” one from someone who wouldn’t notice.

 

It didn’t take long for Lambert to plug in the data and program the machine to be able to print the templates he had downloaded, but unfortunately none of the creatures they tried to print with the device were brought to life. Lambert suggested that Warper could dissect them, but Warper insisted that trying to get the thing to print stuff alive would be more useful. They ran out of bioink fairly early on in their experiment, so Warper went to get more while Lambert tried to solve the living thing issue. By the time she got back, Lambert had created some sort of neural implant that he had put into a printed creature and was able to somewhat bring it to life and control it. It gave Warper an idea.

“What if we customized a genetic template for those humanoids and set up the little implant thing so that we could hook it up to like a VR headset instead of just the controllers. Then I could control my own little humanoid and it would be small enough to get inside the rock and I could try to get more information about them in person.

“That shouldn’t be too difficult to set up,” Lambert agreed. “We’ve got a ton of extra VR stuff in the Basement. Editing a blueprint might be more work, and we’ll still need to figure out how to get through that black rock stuff eventually.”

“Get whatever hardware you think we’ll need and see if you can find an easy way to modify the templates and I’ll work on getting DNA samples from myself and see if there’s a special way to break through the rocks.”

 

It didn’t take long for Warper to collect genetic samples from herself and get them to Lambert, which meant she had more time to work on the odd mineral surrounding the boulder. If the object was from another universe, she suspected the material surrounding it could be another type of anomaly mineral, which meant that the right type of vibrational energy should be enough to send it back to its universe of origin. If the energy was kept in a concentrated form, it could be used to drill away sections of the barrier enough to remove it. The trouble would be finding the right tools for the job.

 

She tried several lasers and saws she didn’t think that Lambert had already tried before getting together some devices that might have a better chance of cutting through. She was able to knock off a few loose pieces, but didn’t have much luck in denting the more solid sections of rock. She considered amplifying the vibrations, but was worried about damaging the stuff inside. A more promising idea was to use a transdimensional device, probably a handheld one, to cut through the stuff like a knife and send it to wherever else in pieces. Opening portals inside objects tended to break them apart, even if made of a sturdy material. She chose one of her smaller dimensional carvers, a device about the size and shape of a linoleum knife, with buttons and a small LCD display for input and coordinate data.

She turned the device on and carefully carved a warp in spacetime into the resilient mineral. The carver didn’t last long on a single charge, one of the bigger downsides to smaller tools, but the distortion seemed to do its job, breaking away a piece of rock about the size of her fist. Behind it appeared to be more stone, but of a more ordinary composition that would be much easier to drill through.

She got out one of the more standard tools she had used earlier and carefully dug a tunnel as far into the rock as she could.

She peeked into the hole and saw a dim glow of light somewhere at the end of the tunnel. The strange little civilization was in sight.

 

When she got back to check on Lambert, he had already put together another neural implant and had set up a bunch of VR equipment in the lab. A computer had been set up to display the printer data, which Lambert was currently in the process of modifying. He looked up at Warper as she came in.

“I’ve almost got this all set up. I used your DNA to make the thing look a little more like you. Hopefully it’ll print out right.”

Warper leaned in towards the computer to take a look.

“Is it possible to change the color of their little shirts?”

Lambert shrugged.

“Probably? What color do you want it.”

“Fuchsia, hot pink, FF00FF. I don’t know, pink just seems like a good fit.”

Lambert spent a few more minutes making adjustments before finally telling the printer to print.

“I got a hole drilled into the rock,” Warper mentioned as the printer continued. “We could probably put the little printer guy in right now and walk around from there.”

Lambert nodded but didn’t respond.

 

The tiny clone seemed to print fine, with a bright pink shirt and comparatively long brown hair of a similar cut to Warper’s own hair. How exactly the machine could determine hair style from a genetic sample didn’t exactly make sense, but Warper was pleased with the result regardless.

 

Lambert went about attaching the neural implant into the clone and instructed Warper on how to turn on and start up the VR setup.

She sat down on the desk chair and carefully fit the head display onto her head as the screen flickered on.

 

 

Warper opened her eyes. In front of her was herself. Well, her real self anyways. She looked up at herself and grinned with excitement to see that the vessel she now propelled was absolutely tiny compared to who she actually was. She pressed her newly-printed hands into her cheeks.

"I'm so smoll," She giggled, squishing her cheeks further. She looked at her reflection on her phone, which was now larger than she was. 

 

She looked up at Lambert, who nodded and got up from his seat and approached her small form. She let the robot grab her gently in his rectangular fingers and carry her over to the tunnel she had dug into the stone. Even though the creatures living in the wall were adorable, and even though she now looked like one, she needed to figure out a way to relocate their little colony before they caused any real damage to the hull.

She crawled through the tunnel and eventually found herself in a tiny little corridor. It was quiet and empty, dimly lit by a few bulbs. She walked down towards one end of the hallway, but jumped as a voice yelled down at her from the other end.

"Hey! This area's off-limits!"

She turned around to find a red-haired lilliputian coming down the hall towards her. Warper smiled sheepishly as she saw that this particular female did not seem particularly pleased with her presence.

"Sorry, I'm just new. I got lost."

The red haired girl raised an eyebrow, then flicked her fingers in a way that pulled out a 2D holographic display showing a list of all the members of the colony. Warper could see there were around 25 faces.

"You're not on the list," the girl responded coldly.

"Oh, well, I just got printed, maybe it hasn't updated yet," Warper offered. She hoped the sweat she started to feel wasn't visible.

"It updates automatically," the redhead responded, scrutinizing Warper up and down, then pausing to think. She looked as if she suddenly had an idea, but Warper felt like something wasn't right.

"Oh, there you are," she said abruptly, closing the list before Warper could look at it. "I have a job for you, actually."

Warper sighed in relief and followed the red-haired humanoid.

They got to a mostly empty room, which was somewhat unkempt. Someone appeared to be sleeping in the corner.

"Make this room bigger. Deconstruct the wall there." the girl waved dismissively at the wall. "Then dig out whatever's behind it and build a new wall.

Warper realized she wasn't exactly sure how to do this.

"Uh, what do I use to-?"

"Your multitool, of course. Just hit the button by your glove right there."

Warper hit the side of her glove and jumped back as a large, weapon-like device suddenly appeared in her hands.

"Like that."

Warper could tell the redhead was getting somewhat impatient, and did her best to destroy the wall and dig out the area behind it as quickly as possible. She glanced back.

"Good, now build the wall back there with the stuff you dug up."

It took Warper a minute to figure out how to build the wall, but once she figured it out she was able to build it back up fairly quickly.

"There we go. Was there anything else or-" She turned around to see that the red-haired girl was gone. She went towards the door but found that it was locked.

"Did she just leave?" She heard a noise behind her and turned around to see that whoever had been asleep in the corner had woken up and was coming towards her. It was another female, though instead of legs her lower half looked like a larva of some sort. A tiny fang protruded from her upper lip.

"She locked you in," the girl muttered. "No one ever leaves here after the door closes behind them..."

"Sorry to ask, but what's with the larva stuff? Like, your legs..."

"It's a mistake. I got printed like this," She frowned and looked down at her squishy abdomen.

"Did she lock you in here because of that?"

"Kind of... Nisbet... locks people in here that she... wants to get rid of. Like, if she doesn't trust them, or they did something bad, or..."

"Well I guess I was snooping around where I wasn't supposed to be, which is a little bit of both of those things." She walked closer to the unusual creature. The girl tried to back away from her, scrunching up her abdomen, but was too squishy to actually get much farther away.

"You shouldn't get that close to me. The worm part might wake up."

Warper paused, confused.

"The worm part? Like, you're two creatures fused together? And the other half is dormant right now?"

She nodded.

"My... name's Eya," She muttered again, looking down at the floor.

"Oh, well my name's-"

"No no no!" Eya interrupted. "Don't tell me your name. It'll only make things harder..."

"Harder for what?"

"No one ever leaves here. Do you understand?" Eya teared up a little.

"So you're saying that I'm gonna die, and that's why you don't want my name. You don't want to get attached?"

Eya nodded.

"But, there aren't any skeletons here or anything. Just some gloves and stuff around. And from what I understand, I'm the one who's gonna die, not you? How exactly are people dying in here...?"

"I...it...we...eat them..." Eya stumbled over the words, shaking.

"Ah...lovely..." Warper said with sarcasm. This was certainly not how this reconnaissance was supposed to be going. She would probably have to get as much information as she could before getting eaten, and then would have to print out another little clone and try again. 

"You're not scared?" Eya asked, apparently surprised.

"Eh, maybe a little. Not really what I expected, but wouldn't be the first time I've been eaten alive. More of an inconvenience than anything."

"You've... been eaten alive before? And survived?"

"I mean, yea, technically. This would probably be the first time I'd ever get...digested, though. But I can just, like, make another one and come back."

"You mean get reprinted?"

"Yea."

"But duplicants don't retain their memories when they get reprinted."

Warper smiled.

"I'm a bit of an exception to that."

Eya seemed both hopeful and confused.

"So...even if I eat you, you won't die?"

"Nope. And I think once I figure out what's going on here, I might even be able to fix all of this."

"Fix?"

"I can get you out of here. And take care of that girl that keeps locking people in here with you. And I'll be the last...duplicant? that you'll ever eat."

"You won't hurt Nisbet though, right? I don't want anyone to get hurt. Even if they're doing bad things."

"Oh no, don't worry about that. I'll be careful. But I want you to tell me everything. How this all started. Why Nisbet is forcing you to eat people."

Eya did her best to explain what had happened; that there had been a food shortage and all the suspects were locked up together, that one of them tried to eat her and triggered the worm into eating him and another duplicant who was locked up, and how eventually the last two who were left with her were eaten as well, and how Nisbet had refused to help. Warper could tell that Eya felt guilty about what had happened, and tried to make her feel better, but it wasn’t long before the worm woke up and Warper got to experience first hand what had happened to the duplicants in Eya’s story. The worm didn’t seem to be able to see very well, so Warper was able to dodge it for quite a while, but she knew that there wasn’t a way out of here for her, and eventually allowed the worm to feed once she was satisfied she had learned all she needed to know about the creature. It had grabbed her with a sticky tongue like a chameleon’s, which was probably a useful adaptation to have for such an otherwise slow creature. Once Eya had woken up again, she apologized profusely, and Warper did her best to reassure her that it wasn’t her fault and that everything would be ok, before the little remote controlled clone lost consciousness and Warper was back to using her normal human body.

She slowly took off her equipment and sighed. Things were always more complicated than they needed to be.

She got up to go to Lambert and found him still waiting at the hole in the asteroid. When he saw her, he got up angrily and walked towards her.

“You just disconnected it? We’re not gonna be able to get it back out, and we can’t reconnect it from inside.”

“It got eaten,” Warper responded flatly.

“…what?”

“There was some like, mutant one i got locked in a room with for being suspicious.”

“How is it that we can’t manage to do anything without something trying to eat you??”

Warper shrugged.

“Bad luck?”

“Why don’t we just get rid of it then if they’re forcing each other to cannibalize people then?”

“What? No, nono, that’s not it. I’m pretty sure only one of them’s forcing the mutant one to eat people. We can’t just yeet them all out into space because one of them’s a bad person. There’s a red-haired one, Nisbet, who caught me snooping and tricked me into getting locked in with the mutant one, Eya. Eya said that Nisbet had locked 5 of them together after the food supply ran low, cause i guess some of them were known to stress eat. And Eya’s lower half is this worm monster thing that takes over when she’s hungry and it ate everyone else and then me just now.”

“You were able to communicate with them? But they were just making weird squeaking noises.”

“Yea, it was weird, when I was in there they were just speaking english. Maybe the fact they’re so small makes it sound higher pitched or something normally. I didn’t really think about that at first.”

Lambert looked at the meteor as if he was thinking about something, but didn’t respond.

“I used one of my dimensional carvers to break up the rock. It might take a while but you should be able to break more chunks off.”

Lambert nodded.

“…Would you be willing to make another of those little remote clones for me?” Warper asked.

Lambert frowned.

“That thing took a while to make.”

“Well, yeah, but you know what you’re doing this time. It’ll be faster. And I’m not gonna be dumb enough to get locked in the room with the monster girl again.”

Lambert raised his eyebrow. Warper sighed.

“It’s gonna take a while for me to cut off more of the black rock anyways,” Warper continued. “I already made a dent so it should go by faster too.”

Lambert reluctantly agreed.

 

 

It took a while to dig out one whole side of the rock, but once it had been cleared, Warper had a better idea of exactly how large the colony inside was. None of the colony had been exposed, save for the tunnel she had dug earlier, but all the rock inside was the same softer minerals like sandstone that would be much easier to dig through. If she was careful enough, she could probably dig around the colony enough to remove it in one piece, but she’d still probably need to remove everyone inside first for their safety.

She wore away at the softer rock until she was able to make out the outline of the colony and cleared away some debris that had formed around the tunnel she had made. She wasn’t sure how much further she should dig, as she didn’t want to damage the colony or scare the little people inside to death. Warper decided that despite his unpredictability, Entropy might be good at assisting with what she needed next. The serpent-like canine was able to see in infared, which meant he might be able to figure out exactly how big the colony was and where it was inside the rock based on the heat signature. On top of that, his gaseous venom could induce drowsiness, which could be useful for knocking the duplicants unconscious so she could collect and move them without causing mass panic. This wasn’t even including his anomalous supernatural abilities, with changing size and phasing through walls holding potential for easier access and surveillance of the colony.

Entropy agreed to help and seemed to be rather curious about the whole thing, but Warper was still wary, as his habit of shoving warm blooded animals into his mouth would very much not be an asset to her endeavors.

Entropy remained fairly well behaved while helping and was able to pinpoint certain areas of the colony so tat Warper could dig around them. He also confirmed that there were approximately 25 colony members like Warper had seen on Nisbet’s list. Warper wasn’t quite ready to let Entropy explore the colony, partially because she still didn’t trust him, but also because she planned to do that herself once Lambert had set everything up with the clone. She figured she could bring a little pad of paper like a sticky pad and map out the colony while being as inconspicuous as possible.

Lambert was impressed with the progress Warper had made, and suggested they work on figuring out where to put the colony and colonists before excavating too much more. Warper pointed out that this was something he could work on while she explored, and he agreed. She also suggested that instead of waiting for her by the colony, he should stay with her human self so that they would be able to communicate in case she needed anything.

Warper went back into the colony after setting up the clone and decided to check the room she had been trapped in previously. She cautiously approached and peeked through the chain link door to see that someone else had been locked in the room with Eya. The duplicant had spiky blond hair, and unlike Eya and Nisbet’s red shirts, his shirt was a dull yellow color. Eya appeared to be sleeping, but the other dupe appeared to be examining her curiously. Suddenly the worm awoke and began trying to eat his head. Warper flinched and looked around frantically for a way to help without getting stuck in the room again. She remembered her multitool, and summoned the device, ramming it in the door to prop it open. By the time she had gotten the door secured, she looked up to see that Eya had managed to wake up in time to free the other duplicant, and her help was no longer needed. Warper moved away from the door so she couldn’t be seen and debated what to do next. She figured it would be best to avoid interacting with the colony members just in case Nisbet found out about her presence and locked her with Eya again, but still wanted to help the duplicant in the room with Eya. The door was jammed open, so he’d be able to get out as soon as he noticed it. She decided to use one of the sticky notes she had brought to map out the colony and wrote a note on the paper to avoid Nisbet but leave Eya where she was. She stuck the note onto the multitool and walked away quietly to survey the base. She figured she would check back on Eya later once the other duplicant had left.

The colony was more vast and populated than Warper had anticipated, making it almost impossible to avoid detection. She ended up staying more on the outskirts where there was less traffic, but still passed a few colony members on the way. They seemed too busy to pay her much mind, so Warper figured that as long as she didn’t run into Nisbet or any overly curious dupes that she would probably be fine.

Once Warper had finished mapping the perimeter of the base and all the areas that seemed to be low traffic, she decided to check on Eya again. The other duplicant was gone, but her multitool was still next to the door, though it was no longer propped open. She peeked through the door and saw Eya, who looked up once she felt her gaze.

“You’re back. You were the one who propped the door open earlier, weren’t you?”

“Yep. I told you I’d be back, didn’t I?”

“I kinda started to think you’d only said those things so I wouldn’t feel bad about eating you..” Eya muttered, looking down.

“Nisbet hasn’t forced you to eat anyone else already, has she?”

“Well, she tried to feed Nikola to me, but you kind of helped prevent that.”

“Is he the spiky haired one I saw in here earlier?”

“Yeah. He got pretty lucky.”

Warper began trying to prop the door open again but Eya interrupted.

“You probably shouldn’t come back in right now, I’m feeling a little hungry and weird and I don’t want the worm to come out and eat you again.”

“I can get you food,” Warper offered. Eya seemed to perk up at the idea. Warper smiled and went back towards the tunnel she had dug. Once she was inside, she spoke to Lambert through her human form.

“Lambert, you there?”

“Yea. What’s up?”

“Can you get some like, grapes or something? Need to make sure the worm thing gets fed so no one gets eaten.” 

“Uh, yea sure. Bring it to the tunnel thing you dug?”

Warper nodded.

She switched fully back to the duplicant and walked the rest of the way to the entrance. A few minutes later Lambert came back with a bunch of white grapes and tore off a piece that would fit in the tunnel and handed it to Warper.

Warper brought the grapes back to Eya and propped the door back open. Eya was excited to try the fruits, but was unable to swallow them. She explained that the dupe that was with her earlier, Nikola, had made a snare around her neck to prevent her from swallowing him, which is part of how he was able to survive. Eya was resistant to taking off the snare, as she didn’t want to risk eating anyone else, but also didn’t want to go hungry, so she allowed Warper to remove it. She ate all the grapes very quickly, and thanked Warper for the food, but neither of them were fully sure how to put the snare back on. Right when Warper had started trying to secure it, she sensed that someone was nearby, and hastily dropped the snare and went out the door. She apologized to Eya, who seemed very concerned about not having the snare secured, but Warper was more worried about getting seen by Nisbet. She pulled the multitool out of the doorway and hid in the tunnel entrance. She stayed just far enough down the tunnel to be hidden in the dark but still have some view of the hallway. Sure enough, footsteps approached from down the hall and the red-head Warper was increasingly disliking came into view. Nisbet approached the doorway to Eya’s cell and peeked inside. She seemed pleased to see that Eya was alone.

“How’d that doctor taste, hm?”

Eya looked down at the floor and shifted uncomfortably. Nisbet smirked and entered the room.

“Where’d all this mess come from?” Nisbet questioned, kicking at the grape stem and what was left of the snare. Eya stayed quiet. Nisbet shrugged and picked the stem and snare up and tossed them out into the hallway.

“It really is a shame,” Nisbet added. “He was rather smart, but a bit too smart for his own good. Asking too many questions. If he wasn’t so curious he wouldn’t have had to die.”

Eya sniffled and glared up at Nisbet. Nisbet smirked again.

“It’s not like I can just let you go without food.”

Warper glared from the dark of the tunnel. As a human it would be easy to deal with Nisbet, it was only a matter of finding the right time and a way to get her hands inside the colony. 

Warper decided she needed to switch back to being an average human and had Lambert retrieve the clone from the tunnel. They decided to keep it in a temporal freezer to preserve it, as neither of them were really sure how well it would last when not under some form of control. She briefed Lambert on what had happened and explained that they would need to find a good spot to relocate the colony soon and that she planned to deal with Nisbet as soon as possible. She shared the crude map she had made of the colony perimeter as well.

“The wall along the lab office is mostly hollow,” Lambert offered. “We’d probably have enough space to relocate the colony. But if we rush it, we might damage stuff or freak out the little people.”

“At this point it’s for their own good,” Warper pointed out. “Giants moving their house around might be scary, but being eaten by a big worm is probably worse. Plus we can just get Entropy to knock ‘em out with the neurotoxin he produces and then get him to collect them. If they’re unconscious they won’t get as freaked out.”

“Giving them high doses of natural sleep gas probably isn’t good either…” Lambert pointed out.

“The venom is designed to incapacitate, not kill. They might be small but the vapor is diluted enough they should be fine. It’ll probably only knock ‘em out long enough for us to move the colony. Entropy knows what he’s doing.”

Lambert sighed and shrugged.

“As long as you know what you’re doing I guess. I’ll work on getting the wall ready for them.”

At some point while they were getting ready, a student came by, apparently looking for Warper’s help with something. Evidently he had gotten distracted by what they were doing, and offered to help, though Warper had to make sure he would be willing to keep it secret. It probably wouldn’t be too big of an issue for others on the ship to know about the colony, but since Warper already wasn’t on the best terms with the ship’s captain, she figured that the fewer people knew about all this, the better.

The student and Lambert found an prepared a space in the office lab’s wall large enough to fit the colony. Some piping in the wall had to be rerouted around the area, but Warper thought they could use the extra piping left over as a travel network, as it would make it easier to get into the colony if she could enter from the desk directly. As Lambert and the student made some final preparations, Warper had Entropy do a survey of the colony with his thermal vision to get tabs on where all the colonists were. Most of the colonists were busy and moving around quite quickly, but Entropy reported that there were a total of 5 duplicants, a group of 3 and a group of two (in separate sections of the base) who appeared to be stationary. Based on where the group of three was and Entropy’s description of the group, Warper was pretty sure that the three were in Eya’s cell and included Eya, which meant that either two duplicants had been locked in with her, or that one of the dupes was Nisbet and was in the process of locking someone in. As for the pair of dupes on the other side of the base, Warper was unsure, but she was certain one of the 5 dupes was Eya and had a feeling Nisbet was one of the others. Part of her wanted to get Entropy to just sedate everyone and get it over with, but the fact that someone was probably stuck with Eya made her nervous. She’d probably need to go into the colony before they did anything with it, and she kind of wanted to deal with Nisbet and Eya herself.

“I’m gonna go back in with the clone and make sure there won’t be any setbacks coming from inside. When I give the signal, we start.”

She grabbed a couple grapes and put them into the hole before switching back to the duplicant and entering, taking the grapes with her to help whoever was inside with Eya. 

Sure enough, as soon as she got inside she could hear voices coming from Eya’s cell. She peeked through the doorway to see who was inside and saw Eya with the spikey-haired dupe from earlier, as well as another she didn’t recognize. She wanted to help them, but felt it would be better to get tabs on Nisbet first since it seemed that they weren’t in any immediate danger. She hid the grapes in the tunnel entrance and headed towards where Entropy had detected the pair of dupes. Warper could be wrong about her hunch of course, but if Nisbet wasn’t with the group of three, she was probably one of the duplicants in the group of two. She reached a metal doorway and could hear voices on the other side. She put her ear against the door and detected Nisbet’s voice along with another female she didn’t recognize. While she wanted to hear what they were discussing, she wanted to prioritize making things easier for her future human self. If she could trap Nisbet in the room, assuming it only had one door, which seemed likely given the room’s location in the colony, it would be much easier to capture her and deal with her when the colony was getting transplanted. The other duplicant in there with her might suffer mental collateral damage from seeing a giant, but Warper figured that catching Nisbet was still priority. Exactly how to trap Nisbet in the room would be its own challenge.

The doors in the colony seemed to have some sort of permissions-based lock system that Nisbet had used to create the cell for Eya. If Warper could find a way to hack this system, she’d be able to lock them both in. She examined the door for a couple minutes before uncovering a small panel next to the door. It took her a moment to pry the latch open, but inside was exactly what she needed. The interface contained a list of all the colony members, including their names and face, alongside an interactive door permissions column that could be used to limit travel for all or specific colony members. She found Nisbet in the list and removed her door permissions and was satisfied before remembering the other duplicant with her. As long as the other duplicant had permissions, they’d be able to open the door and leave. Warper didn’t know who was with her, so her best bet would be to block access to anyone attempting to use the door. She eventually decided to lock the door completely. Satisfied that the door was sufficiently locked, she rushed back to check on Eya and the dupes trapped with her, grabbing the grapes before coming in. 

In her rush she had forgotten about the door and froze as she heard it clank shut behind her. She grinned awkwardly as she saw all three of the duplicants staring at her.

“Hi….”

“You let the door close on you,” the blond one who Warper was pretty sure was named Nikola stated disappointedly. “We could have gotten out.”

“You’re the duplicant Nisbet mentioned, aren’t you?” the other duplicant questioned. She had dark skin and a double-bun haircut that reminded Warper of toy ears.

“I can’t say I know who Nisbet was talking about if I wasn’t around for that conversation…” Warper offered.

“Yeah, Banhi, she’s the one Nisbet was talking about,” Eya answered, a tone of disappointment in her voice similar to Nikola’s. Warper walked up to the blond dupe and noticed he was jotting something down on an electronic tablet of some sort. She peeked over his shoulder to get a better look, but backed off once she sensed he was uncomfortable with her presence.

“So if I’ve got this right, you two are Nikola and Banhi?” Warper asked. They nodded.

“And you are?” Nikola interrogated.

“I- it’s not really important who I am, Eya said she didn’t want my name anyways.”

“I only said that cause I thought the worm was gonna kill you!” Eya defended.

“Well, considering we’re stuck together again…”

“And who’s fault is that?” Nikola responded accusingly.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control. I brought grapes.” 

“You…what?”

“Grapes. Fruit. These things.” Warper picked up the grapes and offered them to Banhi and Nikola. They both grabbed one but seemed confused.

“This food is insufficient to sustain all four of us,” Nikola pointed out. “As soon as Eya goes hungry that worm will eat one of us.”

“Oh that,” Warper waved dismissively, then froze for a moment and shuddered as she realized what she was about to offer up.

“Don’t worry about the worm, it’ll be fine. All part of the master plan.”

“I’m sorry, you want the worm to eat one of us?!” Banhi asked incredulously.

“Well, er, me specifically… see, Eya might’ve mentioned that she’s…eaten me before and, well, I’m technically immortal like this, so it won’t be…that much of a deal if it happens again.” Warper paused as she realized how pissed off Lambert would be when he realized a clone had gotten eaten again.

“I-I mean, for you guys, you’re all actually in this room right now. For me, this body is just a vessel, it’s not actually me. I’ll have to print a new one eventually anyways, and I’ll be back to my actual self soon so I can deal with Nisbet, since I can’t really do that in my current form anyways.”

“And why didn’t you just leave the door open?” Banhi asked. Nikola inspected the grape he had been handed before carefully taking a bite. Banhi glanced at him and did the same, then looked back to Warper expectantly.

“Things in this colony are gonna get complicated pretty soon, so it’s better if everyone stays put. I didn’t have enough grapes for all of you, and I need to get rid of this form before it degrades, so I figured it would be best just to let Eya eat it. I mean, no one besides me has survived or witnessed it, so it might be important for you to know what happens when the worm wakes up since it might help you survive.”

“How are you going to make certain that the worm consumes you as opposed to either of us?” Nikola asked, still scrutinizing Warper thoroughly.

“Proximity,” Warper responded. “The worm is gonna go for whoever’s closest. As long as you two stay far away it should be fine.” She walked over to Eya as Banhi and Nikola backed away cautiously. She sat down in front of Eya and leaned back so that her head rested on the front of Eya’s abdomen. Eya glanced down at her nervously.

“…Are you sure?” Eya asked.

Warper considered for a moment. Her only other option was to disconnect the duplicant, which would be the equivalent of randomly “dying” in front of them, after which point it would still be eaten, which meant there was no scenario in which it wouldn’t be eaten. While she didn’t exactly want to experience getting swallowed whole by Eya again, she knew that she’d be able to give the other two duplicants useful information, even if they might get mentally scarred in the process.

“It’ll be fine, it didn’t hurt before when I ‘died’. I’m basically immortal. I wouldn’t have come up with this plan if it hurt.”

She glanced at the other two duplicants to see that they seemed somewhat intrigued yet wary. Nikola was holding his tablet as if ready to start taking notes the second she got consumed. Warper tensed as she could hear the worm start to move inside Eya. Eya groaned and started to look queasy. She tried to steady herself but it was clear that she was starting to fight waves of nausea. 

“It’s- gonna come out,” Eya gagged. Warper stared directly ahead and shuddered. She was very much starting to regret this decision, but there wouldn’t be any turning back now. A sudden shift of expression from curiosity to disgust and horror on the two other dupes’ faces told her without looking that the worm had won out against Eya again and was now hanging with its open maw directly above Warper’s head. 

Suddenly everything became dark and slimey. The worm was faster this time, consuming its prey within moments, leaving Warper laying quietly in the gooey blackness.

Finally she heard concerned muffled voices. Warper had to strain to listen in, but she could make out what was being said.

“It can just… eat people whole??” Banhi gasped. Warper couldn’t see her expression but she could sense her fear despite the difficulty hearing.

“Nisbet did say the creature Eya was accidentally fused with was able to eat duplicants ‘in a single gulp.’” Nikola stated, apparently still primarily curious despite the circumstances. “Some of the data that was collected from the ruins implies that the worm was initially intended to dispose of corpses, but that it had a habit of eating duplicants regardless of if they were dead or not and was removed from whatever experiments they were conducting due to liability.”

“Uh, speaking of being dead…” Warper spoke as clearly as she could. There was a pause outside that most likely meant they had heard her. “I’m not yet.”

More silence. Finally Nikola spoke.

“There can’t possibly be enough oxygen in there to sustain life for an extended period of time.”

“I know, there isn’t.” Warper responded. “Last time it was only a few minutes before my clone ran out of oxygen and went unresponsive. My guess is I probably only have a couple minutes left this time too.”

Eya made a quiet noise of distress.

“They… stay alive in there…for several minutes?” Banhi asked. “So everyone else who was…eaten…was still conscious afterwards, and had to just accept that… including…. Bubbles.”

“I’m sorry,” Eya breathed. “I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to upset you guys any more than you were already but….”

Warper could sense her duplicant fading.

“It… at least it doesn’t hurt?” Warper offered. “I know it doesn’t mean a whole lot coming from me since I’m the only one who can survive it, technically. Not gonna last a whole lot longer in here.” She paused. “But don’t worry, I’m gonna deal with Nisbet before Eya gets hungry again so you won’t be stuck in here much longer.”

“You talked about dealing with Nisbet before,” Eya noted. “What exactly are you gonna do?”

“As soon as I’m back in my real body I’ll…well, she won’t get hurt or anything but she’ll certainly start to rethink everything she’s done. Just… things might get kinda weird and maybe scary for you guys today but try not to freak out too much.”

“That is incredibly unreassuring and vaguely unsettling,” Nikola stated. “Somehow the vagueness of that response is more disturbing than the fact you are currently communicating with us from inside a digestive organ,” he continued.

“I’m not great at explaining things,” Warper admitted. “Just my true form might scare you guys I guess. But I feel…slow….I think there isn’t any more air..”

She could hear Nikola try to say something in response, but the connection she had on the clone started to fail. Soon she was back in her real body, sitting quietly with the headset on her head. She took it of and got up to head back to the room that contained the colony.

 

 

When Warper entered the room, Lambert, Entropy and the student were waiting for her. Lambert looked her up and down and gave her a disapproving look upon noticing the absence of the clone, but Warper ignored him.

“Gimme the saw. We’re cracking this thing open now.” She grabbed the cutting tool from Lambert and traced her finger along the edge of the room Nisbet was inside. Surely she’d noticed the door was locked by now.

“You can’t just cut it open like that, there are a couple of those creatures in that room still,” Lambert pointed out.

“If they’re smart, they’ll get out of the way,” Warper grimaced and turned on the blade. The saw cut into the wall, letting out a metallic whir that shook the rest of the rock. Dust and sparks blew from the wall. As she cut around the perimeter, the saw jammed on something hard, forcing her to cut around it. She was careful to only push the saw as deep as the wall was thick, as even though she was rushing the process, she still didn’t want to hurt the two duplicants inside. Finally the cuts were deep enough she was able to remove two sections of wall to reveal the room inside. She peeked inside to find Nisbet standing protectively in front of the other duplicant. Both of them appeared to be shaking, though Nisbet was holding a multitool that seemed to be a weapon of some sort. Neither of them appeared to be harmed. She didn’t want to deal with Nisbet if she was armed, but the multitool was most likely magnetic. She grabbed a stick magnet from the toolkit and stuck it into the room. A noise that sounded like a tiny weapon firing emanated from the room. She looked inside and stuck the magnet onto the multitool. Nisbet squeaked and tried to hold on to the weapon as the magnet grabbed a hold of it, but Warper was able to easily shake her off and remove the magnet with the multitool still attached. She handed the magnet off to Lambert before shoving her hand inside the hole. Several panicked squeaks emanated from the room as she pinned Nisbet to the floor with her hand and grabbed her. Warper pulled her hand out of the hole and grinned. Nisbet struggled against her grip, and was much stronger than Warper had anticipated, but she was used to holding small animals and kept a firm but gentle grip on the terrified duplicant. She glanced over at the others.

“I need you to remove the door in that room. It’s locked and we need airflow in order for Entropy to sedate the other ones. Cover up the holes with tape in the meantime. I’ll take care of this one.” She felt a light pinch on her finger and glanced down to see Nisbet attempting to bite her. Her small round teeth were too blunt to break skin.

“Vicious,” Warper said sarcastically. “Who knew something so tiny could be so angry.” She looked back up at the others.

“Also, there’s one of them that has a larva body instead of legs. Keep that one separate I have plans for her too.” She left the room to go find something to keep Nisbet in. Nisbet was still squirming in her hand and squeaking angrily.

“You’re just such an angry smoll,” Warper cooed. “I’m not gonna hurt you. But you did some pretty bad things so big scary giant’s gotta put you in meany jail.” She entered the cluttered storage room and glanced around for a usable container. She found a bird cage on one of the shelves that seemed to be the right size, though it would take up a bit of space on her desk. She decided it was good enough, and carried the cage and Nisbet back into the lab office. Nisbet continued to bite and squirm, prompting Warper to pull the duplicant up to her face.

“Look, I don’t know what you think you’ll achieve by getting out of my hand. It’s quite the drop and you’d just hurt yourself. As for the biting, I’d rather you not, since it should be clear to both of us that it doesn’t hurt, so you’re basically just licking my finger, which is gross.”

Nisbet stopped squirming for a moment and stared at her, but it was unclear if she actually understood. Warper entered the office and placed the cage on the desk and put Nisbet inside it. She locked the cage door and went back to the room where the colony was.

Once she got back, Entropy had already sedated and collected all of the duplicants from the colony and placed them in a large plastic bin. He trotted up to her carrying Eya gently in his mouth and dropped her into Warper’s hands.

“This’s the one you were talking about, right?” Entropy asked.

“…yeah, uh. Thanks,” Warper responded. She noticed that the fact Eya had eaten recently was visibly obvious and looked away. She turned towards the bin and peaked inside. She counted 23 colonists, which meant that including Eya and Nisbet, the colony had 25 members like Warper had estimated. Lambert recovered some kind of data bank while he and the student were relocating the colony that included detailed information on all 25 members. It seemed like some of the colony members had specified roles assigned to them. Banhi and the duplicant who had been locked in the room with Nisbet were researchers. Nikola appeared to be some sort of doctor. Nisbet herself hadn’t been marked with any particular role, which Warper thought was odd since she seemed to be some sort of authority figure that was running the whole thing. Warper took Eya back to the office and placed her in a plastic tray after lining it  with a soft fabric.

 

Lambert and the student started transporting and transplanting the colony into the designated section of wall. Lambert had figured out that each duplicant had a corresponding bed, and had each one marked so they could place the unconscious dupes in the correct ones later on. In the meantime, Warper and Entropy brought the sleeping dupes into the lab office. Nisbet was pacing in her cage nervously, occasionally squeaking something angrily at Warper. Unfortunately for Nisbet, it was much more adorable than it was intimidating. Warper unlocked the cage and reached her hand inside to grab Nisbet. Nisbet dodged and tried to run away, but Warper cut her off and grabbed her. More angry squeaking. She pulled Nisbet up to her face and tried to speak as calmly as possible.

“Look, I know you can’t understand me right now. I’ll figure out a way to fix that soon. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Nisbet didn’t seem to get much calmer, and glanced down at the bin full of unconscious dupes. She clearly couldn’t tell that they were still alive, and became even more stressed out and aggressive than before. 

Warper pulled her other hand up and gently pet the angry duplicant on the head. Nisbet tried to bite her at first, then tried to escape the finger, before finally giving up and calming down enough that Warper was able to stroke her head. She sat down and continued to try to calm Nisbet. She wasn’t sure how long she was there, but Lambert came in and announced that the colony had been completely relocated except for the wall of the barracks area, and that the sleeping dupes should be returned to their beds before installing the wall so they’d all wake up in bed before the sedative wore off. Warper agreed and put Nisbet back into the cage before bringing the bin into the new room and helped put all the dupes in their corresponding beds. She stuck a sticky note onto Eya’s room in case anyone came by once they woke up since the hole from where the tunnel was was still exposed. Lambert finished fixing up all the holes in the colony and closed the wall back up so that only a small latch where the tunnel used to be was visible. Lambert cleaned up the room where the colony had previously been and prepared the area for vacuum purging so he would be able to remove the rest of the meteor and repair the hull without losing oxygen or pressure to the void of space. In the meantime Warper decided to look through the information they had collected while keeping an eye on her two new humanoid pets. After some length of time, she noticed movement in the tray she had put Eya and saw that the dupe was slowly starting to wake up. She seemed rather dazed and understandably confused. Nisbet squeaked to get her attention and Eya looked up at the cage. Nisbet made another series of squeaks and pointed towards Warper. Eya looked up at Warper, still evidently half-asleep, but seemed equally confused and frightened by her size. She stared at her for a moment before suddenly seeming more aware and seemed to recognize her as the weird duplicant from earlier. This was probably partially since she had more context as to what was going on from what they had been told before getting sedated, as opposed to Nisbet, who had zero context as to why any of this was happening and was much more distressed. Eya seemed to explain the situation to Nisbet by exchanging squeaks. Nisbet seemed to be less fearful after the discussion, but also seemed to be a tad bit angrier. Warper had to attend to other things, so she placed some grapes inside the cage and in front of Eya and went off to do her other tasks.

 

Warper had gotten sidetracked with her other duties, and was unable to check on the duplicants until close to bedtime. Eya seemed fine, but both of the dupes were out of food so Warper brought them more grapes. She would need to vary their food eventually, but she was too busy to produce tiny entrees for them any time soon. Nisbet seemed desperate to use a restroom, though there weren’t really any around her size, so Warper grabbed her and dropped her in a sink basin.

“Just go or whatever, I don’t feel like cleaning up after you.”

She left her in the sink for several minutes until she figured the dupe was probably done before returning. Nisbet seemed to be trying to find a way out, but kept slipping down while trying to scramble up the sides.

“You gotta wash up first,” Warper said, turning the faucet on before Nisbet could react. The dupe made a surprised angry squeak as she was drenched in cold water. She glared at Warper as the human picked her up and dried her off with a washcloth before bringing her back into the cage. Warper noticed that the dupe was starting to shiver from wetness and sighed. She grabbed one of the reusable hot pads she used as Entropy’s “treats” and activated it before placing it next to the cold dupe. As soon as Nisbet could feel the warmth, she snatched the pack and hugged it like a pillow and the shivering subsided.

“How do you manage to be both evil and cute?” Warper muttered. She tried to think of a way to communicate with them effectively, but gave up and went to bed instead.

The next morning, if you could call it that, since the void of space didn’t exactly have the proximity to a celestial body that could determine a visible difference between night and day, Warper got up and went to have breakfast. She considered that her new “pets” might want breakfast too. She rummaged through storage until she found a couple thimbles flat enough to use as cups, and filled each with milk after filling her own bowl with cereal as well. She brought everything into the office and placed a thimble in front of Eya and another inside the cage. She grabbed a few pieces of cereal and placed them as neatly as she could next to the thimbles. There wasn’t really anything to use as plates, so they would have to make do with the desk and floor of the cage. Both dupes seemed confused for a moment, though Eya started to sample what was given after she saw Warper take a bite of her cereal and seemed to process that the crumbly mess and strange white liquid were food. Nisbet refused to eat until Eya and Warper had both finished.

“You just wanna be grumpy, don’t ya?” Warper muttered. She shrugged and removed both thimbles once they had been emptied.

She had to work today, but she figured she’d check in with Lambert before starting.

“So, colony seems to be fine in the new spot?”

“Yea,” He nodded. “I vacuum sealed the damaged area and did most of the repair and removal work already on the hull.”

“And everyone woke up ok?”

“From what I can tell, yea. They seem a little sluggish from what I’ve seen though, will probably wear off soon.”

“Do you think you could make some sort of access tunnels between the colony and the office so I can travel there easier if I want to explore as a dupe again without you needing to carry me there each time?”

“I.. suppose. There are ventilation pipes in the wall near the colony I could revert. They’re designed to circulate air around, so it won’t matter if they have a couple more holes.”

Warper nodded.

“And could I by any chance get another dupe now? I promise it won’t get eaten this time. I need a way to communicate with the two I’m keeping in the office.”

“I might be able to work on a translator eventually. I can probably get another clone set up later, but I need to do some other things first.”

“Fair enough, I gotta get to work too.”

 

Sometime after work Warper was able to find Lambert again and remind him to make another clone for her. While she waited, she grabbed more snacks for the dupes and arranged stuff on the desk so that she could be closer to the cage to talk to Nisbet. Finally the clone was ready and set up, and she was back on the desk as a duplicant. She greeted Eya first.

“Hi there. Sorry about all this crazy stuff. I hope I didn’t scare you too much.”

“Whatever that big loud noise was, it scared everyone really bad.”

“Hmm? You mean the drill when I first went to get Nisbet?”

“I think so, yea. It took me a while to recognize you…you’re so….big,” Eya breathed. 

“But once I put it all together, cause of what you said about taking care of Nisbet, I kind of understood a little better.”

“Oh good, the two monsters around here conspired to kidnap me, fantastic,” Nisbet stated with loud sarcasm from the cage.  “What are you planning to do with me, hmm? Eat me?”

“Why…would I do that?” Warper responded with confused annoyance.

“It seems like everything bigger than a dupe around here likes eating dupes. And you can disguise yourself as one of us as much as you like but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re hundreds of times bigger than us!”

“What besides Eya was eating dupes? And wasn’t the fact she was eating dupes in the first place your fault?”

“…Before Eya there was a bigger worm. It ate Abe and I but I killed it and we escaped. The leftovers…became Eya.” Nisbet looked down with an emotion Warper couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“You do understand that’s the only reason you’re here, right? Because you were forcing Eya to eat people and that’s not ok. The fact that I’m not a dupe is kind of irrelevant.”

“Did Eya happen to mention to you why those duplicants were locked away? Or did she neglect to mention that we were all about to starve to death and those individuals had stolen and eaten the majority of our food rations. If the population hadn’t been reduced, everyone would have starved. It was only logical to cull the ones responsible.”

“What about the two you locked in with Eya yesterday? Are there so many thieves that you have to sacrifice over a fifth of your population to the belly of a worm?”

“They got locked in for the same reasons you did,” Eya responded quietly. “They were curious and Nisbet didn’t want them to find out about what happened, or at least not live long enough to tell anyone.”

Nisbet glared at Eya, then turned her attention back to Warper.

“Did you really think I’d believe that all of the people Eya ate were food thieves, especially since I was one of the people you fed to her!?” Warper asked. Instead of answering, Nisbet had her own question.

“What even are you? You’re like, almost like a dupe, but massive and stretched out, with that thing in the middle of your face.”

The description and the confused look of disgust on Nisbet’s face made Warper laugh.

“You mean my nose?” She snickered. “That’s not exactly a humans-only feature. But I guess that’s something you little creatures lack, isn’t it? As for ‘massive,’ I’m pretty average size for a human.”

“So you’re a human, then?”

Warper shrugged and nodded.

“You’re speaking english, which is a human language, which makes me pretty sure you little things are some sort of human genetics experiment. I mean, granted, english has spread to a few other planets along with other human stuff, and I don’t think you’re even from this universe, but I’m pretty convinced some humans somewhere created all of you in a lab and printed you out with a fancy little organic printer they designed.”

“Listen here…human,” Nisbet interjected angrily. “I’m not some experiment, I’m not some ‘little thing,’ or ‘little creature.’ I am a duplicant.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong here, but all of you were created from a bioprinter. Someone had to create the bioprinter. Even if the one you were all printed from wasn’t the first printer, the first iteration of the machine was not created by a dupe.”

“Even if it wasn’t created by a dupe, that doesn’t mean it was made by humans.”

“I don’t have any DNA samples on hand from any of you, but I’m sure if I tested any of them you’d all have a significant amount of human DNA. And regardless, you’re still tiny, and I’m still gonna describe you as such. You’re all incredibly adorable.”

Nisbet’s glare deepened. 

“You can’t just keep me in a cage like this! I’m not a pet! And what did you do with all the other colonists? Last time I saw them they were all unconscious in a bin!”

“Relax, all I did was relocate the colony. It got imbedded into the side of this spacecraft and we had to move it before it caused more damage.”

“So we’re in, like, a gigantic rocket?”

“Well, spacecraft, yes. Rockets are the things that get it all up into the sky. As for whether you’re a pet or a prisoner, it’s a matter of perspective.”

Nisbet continued to be visibly upset. Eya listened but didn’t speak up.

“Look,” Warper began. “Basically, you’re locked up because you did bad things. Eya’s here because she has a dangerous issue she can’t control.  I’m not going to hurt either of you. I’m going to do my best to keep the colony safe and keep you both fed. If you need to use the restroom, tell me.” She sighed and turned off the headset, grabbing the limp clone and getting up to bring it to the temporal freezer. As she left, Lambert came through the door and explained that he was going to start working on the access tunnel system she had asked for to connect the desk to the colony. She nodded and continued walking.

The temporal freezer was a large device very similar to a walk in fridge. However, instead of preserving food by being cold, temporal freezers manipulated time dilation to slow the process of decay itself. Since the clone was, at best, in a vegetative state, if not dead, freezing it temperature-wise would kill any living tissue in the clone and make it unusable. But keeping it frozen in time would prevent any sort of cell decay or degradation, even if the clone was dead. This would give the clone more use before needing to print another. 

After putting the clone in a good spot, she went back to work on her official tasks on the spacecraft.

At some point while Warper was busy in the work office, Entropy came in with something in his mouth and dropped it on her desk. Warper glanced over and saw that it was Nisbet, who seemed disoriented and was trying to get to her feet.

“W-…what?” Warper muttered, confused.

“She escaped. I caught her trying to get away,” Entropy explained.

“She got out of the cage?”

Entropy nodded. Warper groaned.

“Lambert was in there earlier getting the access tunnel ready. He should’ve seen her escape.”

Entropy tilted his head but said nothing. Warper glanced down to see that Nisbet had fully stood up and was trying to find a way to escape. She quickly pinned the dupe under her hand and picked her up. Unsurprisingly, this was met with much angry squeaking and squirming.

“I’ll put her back and figure out how to lock the cage better,” Warper muttered. She got up and went to the lab.

“The cage is for your own good,” Warper explained to Nisbet, even though she knew she couldn’t understand. “You’re lucky Entropy can only eat thermal energy and not meat or you wouldn’t survive being a snack. And while I don’t think anything else on this ship would want to eat you, you could easily get stepped on or get stuck somewhere dangerous. Eya’s not in a cage cause she doesn’t seem to be capable or interested in moving very far.”

Warper got to the lab and found the cage to be intact, though the door was ajar.

“That’s pretty impressive for you to unlatch that thing yourself,” Warper noted. “The latch is super stiff and you’d need to push really hard to get it open. But I can tell you’re pretty strong from how hard you keep pushing on my hand.”

She put Nisbet back in the cage and re-latched the door before looking for a better way to keep it secured. She found some wire she could wrap around the door for now, and decided that would be acceptable. She gave the dupes more food before tying up the door, and went back to her other work.

 

At some point she ran into Lambert again, who announced that he had finished the access tubes, but was unaware of Nisbet’s escape when Warper mentioned it to him. If she had escaped when he was there, it was possible that he was too focused to notice, but it seemed more likely that she had made her escape when no one was around to avoid getting caught. Unfortunately for her, Entropy's thermal vision had bested her attempts to hide.

 

For a while things seemed uneventful with Nisbet and Eya, so Warper decided it would be good to check on them verbally and actually use the tunnels she had asked Lambert to build. She got the duplicant set up on the desk and switched over to being small before approaching Eya and Nisbet.

 

“Hi there, haven’t really talked to either of you in a while, at least not in a way you could actually understand.”

Eya nodded. “You never actually gave us your name, I don’t think.”

“Oh, right. Well, it’s Warper, at least you can call me that I guess.”

Nisbet made a disdainful grunt from somewhere in the cage. Warper glanced up. The redhead looked away.

“How do you manage to be this grumpy?” Warper mused. Nisbet humphed again.

“I’ve been kept in a cage and babied by a giant for several cycles. Plus, that big dog thing of yours ate me. There’s not a whole lot going great for me right now. I’d be better off running the colony like before.”

“Yeah, but would the colony be better off?”

Nisbet glared but said nothing. Warper shrugged.

“Anyways, I’m gonna snoop around. If you don’t wanna get eaten by a bored lupent again I’d advise staying in that cage.”

 

She walked into the hole in the wall that connected to the tubes. Inside the hole was uniform enough to seem like a small room. A pipe big enough to slide through opened up into the room, which Warper assumed was the access tunnel Lambert had connected to the colony. She wiggled into the opening and crawled through the pipe. A light air current came through the pipe, but was not strong enough to push her back. Presumably with enough pressure in the right areas it would be a faster method of travel. Eventually she ended up in a room that was attached to the same hallway as the room Eya had been kept in. She slid out of the pipe and got up and went deeper into the colony. She wasn’t as nervous as she had been the last time she came, as she didn’t have to worry about avoiding Nisbet, and even though she wasn’t supposed to be there, she figured the rest of the colony would probably be too busy to notice a stranger. For the most part she was right, though a few gave her some odd looks. She noticed a few non-dupe creatures wandering the colony that she somehow hadn’t discovered before. She got distracted by one of the creatures while walking and ended up crashing directly into a dupe that was probably also distracted.

“Gah! Watch it, will y-“ The dupe stopped mid-sentence. Warper recognized the dupe as Nikola.

“You…” Nikola finished.

“Sorry about bumping you like that. I got distracted by the….whatever that is.” She gestured to the creature as it walked past.

“The hatch…?”

Warper gave a confused nod.

“If I understand correctly, you…remember all of what happened with Eya? Despite..”

“Yes,” Warper confirmed. “I reprinted again.”

“And where is Eya?”

“…safe.” Warper wasn’t sure if she wanted to bring any more dupes into the whole picture yet. She figured Nikola was probably trustworthy, but if too many of the colonists found out that a giant human was getting involved in their colony and that they were all the size of rodents it could send all those tiny brains into existential crises.

“But you couldn’t have gotten another dupe printed that fast, could you? How did you get Eya out of the colony.”

Warper paused.

“Well, I did have to use my…true form, which I think might have freaked her out a little, but once she figured it out she seemed to do ok. She’s not being forced to eat anyone anymore at least.”

“And Nisbet is missing as well. I believe I heard you say something before getting eaten along the lines of ‘taking care’ of Nisbet.“

“I- she is also safe. A bit grumpy and my dog keeps trying to eat her but she’s ok. She’s pretty aggressive and keeps trying to attack me when she gets a chance, she’s probably a bit freaked out…” She stopped as she saw Nikola scrutinizing her suspiciously.

“There was a witness to what happened to Nisbet. She said a massive clawed hand came from the wall and grabbed Nisbet before carrying her away.”

The other dupe. Warper had completely forgotten about the dupe Nisbet had been standing in front of protectively when Warper had gone to grab her.

“There have also been rumors of large creatures outside the colony, one of which has been described as a dragon,” Nikola continued. He seemed both skeptical and serious about this claim, which confused Warper enough that she laughed a little. The fact that he had connected the dots with Nisbet meant that Warper probably wouldn’t be able to hide what she was from him very well, and decided to be as honest as possible without saying too much.

“I’m… not a dragon. I don't know where you guys got that from. There's some weird creatures around here for sure though. Might'a seen one of them,” Warper responded. The ship had a wide variety of inhabitants. Humans were a bit of a minority, and Warper herself only knew of a couple others. None of the people she knew really resembled a dragon, however.

“What are you then?” Nikola questioned. “My best guess from what I know is that you must be what captured Nisbet, or at the very least you know what did.”

As Warper had suspected, Nikola had done a good job inferring what had happened to Nisbet. Telling the truth would probably be the most straight forward thing to do.

“Claws... I mean, I haven't cut my nails in a while, they're probably long enough to look like claws at a glance, especially from the perspective of something small.”

“And how... large are you? Or I suppose, how small are we?”

Warper thought on this for a moment before responding. The data Lambert had found from the colony had measured everything in familiar units, but the actual measurements were significantly smaller than the data. It was likely that despite the units having similar names, they represented different quantities.

“I can't really give you an exact measurement cause all our units of measurement have the same names and mean totally different things. But like, three inches, I guess? Small enough that I could hold Nisbet in one hand. You things are like chubby lilliputians.”

Nikola contemplated this, and eventually decided to ask Warper how she was able to use the duplicant form. She explained as briefly as possible how the VR setup worked and how she used it to control the customized clone, as well as a basic rundown on what had happened with Nisbet and that they had moved the colony. Nikola seemed rather incredulous about her moving the whole colony, which was understandable considering how large it must have seemed from his perspective.

Nikola paused for a moment and seemed to want to ask another question, but instead he pulled out the tablet Warper had seen him use and began writing something down in it. She peeked around to get a look at what he was writing, and it appeared to be some sort of log or journal. She decided to move on while he was writing in case he started asking too many extra questions, as he was too preoccupied to see her leave. 

She continued around the colony to get more information and found some more unusual creatures around. They seemed to be moderately beneficial to the colony, and decided she would go through the colony’s data banks to find more data. Sure enough, there was an archive of “critter data” that Warper collected that would have more information on the lot of them. After she got the data, she went back to the lab and switched back to being a human. She got more food for the two dupes on the desk before going off to do other things.

 

The next cycle she dropped some food off for the dupes again for breakfast and went to work. Once again, she was interrupted by Entropy dropping a disgruntled redhead dupe onto her desk.

“….You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Warper groaned.

“She got out again,” Entropy offered.

“I can see that.”

She paused and watched Nisbet get up.

“You aren’t just taking her out of the cage to eat her, are you?”

Entropy shook his head. “She’s doing it on her own.”

Warper sighed and grabbed the dupe again before going into the lab to look at the cage. The door to the cage had been bent open, completely destroying the hinges.

“How in the?-“ Warper said in confused exasperation. “You completely destroyed the door and you’re like 3 inches tall.”

Nisbet, despite not being able to understand, seemed to give a slight smirk. Warper had already suspected that Entropy was telling the truth, mostly because he was a horrendous liar, but the dupe’s expression confirmed that the little creature was somehow strong enough to bend the metal of the cage.

“Agh, what am I gonna do with you?” Warper muttered.

“I can just eat her again,” Entropy offered. Warper glared.

“No more eating dupes. I’m trying to get her to be more cooperative and she hates me enough already, if you keep eating her it’s just gonna make it worse.”

Entropy opened his mouth as if to protest but stopped.

“What about …your sleeve?”

Warper grinned and tried not to laugh.

“Ok, that’s cute, I’ll give you that, but that would also be distracting as heck to have a tiny person crawling around in my sleeve and I’d never get anything done.”

Entropy seemed to ponder something but didn’t give anymore ideas. 

“I’m just gonna find something to put her in for now and either find another cage or try to fix the one she broke,” Warper decided aloud. Entropy nodded and left the room.

 

The lab office was an average sized, L-shaped room that was used to house extra chemistry lab equipment. Though there was space to do work, Warper was the only one who ever really used the space for such purposes, which is why she had figured it would be a decent spot to keep the dupes, especially since no experiments were usually done in the room that could fumigate it. 

She found a large mixing beaker that would probably be sturdy enough to house the squirmy humanoid temporarily and pulled it off the shelf before putting the duplicant inside.

“Stay,” Warper commanded as she set Nisbet gently in the beaker and returned it to the shelf. She went off back to the storage room to see if she had any other good containers or cages for the dupe. She found several containers that were the right size and shape, but if Nisbet was capable of destroying a metal cage, the other options probably wouldn’t fare well either. She started pondering what to do before she was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass coming from the other room.

She let out an expletive.

“Please don’t be what I think that is,” Warper groaned before sprinting back to the lab office.

The door slid open and sure enough, the shattered remains of the beaker were on the counter below the shelf and sprayed across the floor. Nisbet was laying in the center of the pile in apparent shock.

“Little, no-“ Warper said while rushing over to the counter. She hoped the dupe hadn’t been seriously injured from the glass, and grew more anxious as she spotted a small bit of blood on the glass. 

“It’s ok,” Warper reassured as she gently lifted Nisbet out of the glass. As she picked her up, she saw that most of the duplicant’s injuries were surface level, save for a shard of glass sticking out of the clone’s right arm. Warper sighed in relief.

“You’re not exactly smart for flinging yourself and a glass beaker off a shelf, but you are incredibly lucky. If that glass had broken any differently you could’ve been impaled.”

Nisbet made a pained squeak and tried to struggle against Warper’s hands.

“Easy, little. You’ll hurt yourself more. It’s gonna be ok, just relax,” She knew that Nisbet probably couldn’t understand, but she hoped the tone at least was coming across. 

She cleared a space on the desk and put a paper towel down to help with the blood before placing Nisbet onto the table. She kept squirming against Warper’s hands despite Warper’s attempts to calm her. She finally pinned the dupe with her left hand and tried to pull the glass out with her fingers but realized it was too messy to get a good grip on the glass. She grabbed a pair of tweezers and started to pull out the glass. The dupe let out another squeak of pain.

“It’s ok, you’ll be ok. Just stay still.”

The squeaking got angrier but Warper was finally able to remove the shard. She grabbed a small puff of cotton to try to stop the bleeding, but Nisbet started squirming again as she tried to apply it. Warper heard another squeak, but it hadn’t come from Nisbet. She stopped and looked over to see another duplicant on the desk watching them. It was Nikola. She stared at him in surprise for a moment before glancing down at Nisbet. She vaguely remembered something about Nikola having a medical role in the colony, and realized that it would probably be better for Nisbet to get treatment from someone her own size. Warper slowly dropped the tweezers and backed away from Nisbet. She hoped her size wasn’t too intimidating to the small doctor. As Nikola started to assist Nisbet, Warper looked around for something that could be used as miniature medical supplies. She found a travel-size sewing kit in one of the cluttered drawers and bottles of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol that could be used as disinfectant. She filled the bottle lids with their liquids and brought all the items over to the desk and placed them besides Nikola. She noticed some tape and a tissue box on the desk and pushed them closer in case they could be used as bandages. Nikola looked at the two bottle caps with concern before looking back up to Warper. He stood up, pointed to the two caps, shook his head and mimed as if he was taking a drink of water. Warper wasn’t sure at first what he was asking, but realized that he must have been asking for water instead of disinfectant. She brought a cap of water over and placed it next to Nikola again. He took the water and used it to rinse Nisbet’s wound, then began disinfecting a needle from the sewing kit and the skin around the gash. He slowly started using the thread to sew the wound shut, as he and Nisbet started to discuss something indecipherable to Warper through squeaks. She watched them with curiosity as Nikola stitched up the cut and used strips of tissue as bandages. It occurred to her that he must’ve found the desk through the access tunnels and was probably less freaked out than expected since she had already notified him of her large size previously. As he finished treating and dressing the wound, Nisbet got up and tried to move her arm, which caused her to wince in pain. Nikola sqeaked something else to her and they both started walking towards the hole in the wall.

“No no no,” Warper started, putting her hand between them and the hole and shaking her head as they looked back. “Nisbet’s gotta stay here.” She pointed to Nisbet to help communicate her intent. The two exchanged some concerned squeaks before Nikola approached Warper and tried to explain something to her with more squeaking. She considered getting the clone out so she could actually understand what was being said, but realized that if she did she wouldn’t be able to block Nisbet from using the exit so decided against it. A translator would have been more helpful, but she didn’t have one, so she could only do her best to decipher the dupe’s body language for now. The best she could guess was that he was explaining that Nisbet needed more medical attention. She figured that Nikola could always come check on her even if she stayed on the desk, but that she would need a better cage first. She knew that the duplicants had some sort of priority system that would notify them of tasks that needed to be completed, including building things, and considered the possibility of somehow manipulating this system to get them to build a cell for her. She decided to try her best to illustrate to them that she wanted to build a room to hold Nisbet and grabbed a pencil from her desk, tracing the borders of where she figured such a holding cell would fit best. They seemed to understand, though Nisbet tried to make a break for the exit and needed to be grabbed. Once Warper had a firm hold on Nisbet, she did her best to gesture that Nikola was free to leave. She would still need to figure out how to make the dupes make a room for her, but she still needed a temporary way to confine the troublesome dupe.

 

She decided that, for the meantime, she would have to restrain Nisbet with something like rope or string rather than keep her in a cage, though Nisbet seemed to be less strong after her injuries. She made the dupe a bed out of a tray like she had for Eya, and tied a harness around Nisbet’s shoulders and chest as securely as she could. Nisbet made a few squeaks in protest, but didn’t struggle as much as she had before. Warper tied the other end of the string around what was left of the cage but left it loose enough that Nisbet could still walk around on part of the desk.

She managed to get Lambert to look through the data he collected to see if there was any way to get the colony to build a cell for Nisbet without them realizing what it was for or that there was a human around. Though it took a few hours to figure it out and a few more hours to actually design and hack the colony’s construction and priority system, they had enough time to get everything done and had fairly few roadblocks.
Warper asked him again how the translation device was coming, but Lambert explained that even though he had gotten the hardware set up pretty easily, he was still working on coding a program that would be able to convert human speech and dupe speech to each other without considerable lag.

 

 

 

 

 

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On 12/8/2018 at 8:01 PM, MF99K said:
On 12/8/2018 at 8:00 PM, watermelen671 said:

So wait is this real lore? Or fanfic?

joshthink.thumb.png.86b57cda4597c69468b91b053a66f236.png

fanfic

Is there a section for posting fanfiction on these forums, or can it simply be posted in the AML topic?
I can't find anything of FF or AO3 for ONI. ;_; 

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4 hours ago, TurtleKitty said:

Is there a section for posting fanfiction on these forums, or can it simply be posted in the AML topic?
I can't find anything of FF or AO3 for ONI. ;_; 

i mean people have posted fanfic in the category before so it should be fine

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Cycle 89: Decided the best person to ask would be Ellie. I can't say I fully trust her "information," especially since she seems to be good friends with Nisbet (who I am still highly suspicious of), and her known habit of spreading rumors, but I know she can't keep her mouth shut about anything, so if she knows something she's supposed to keep secret, it certainly won't stay secret for long.

Huge lead here, much better than I hoped for. Ellie said that after so much of the food went missing, Nisbet had decided to separate the binge eaters one-at-a-time from the colony to see if anything would happen that would reveal the culprit. (I assume the idea was if a ton of food went missing again, it would rule out whoever was locked separate, and vice-versa) Since none of the food went missing afterwards, and the binge eaters had already been separated, Nisbet had decided to set up a strict rationing system for them so that no food could get wasted. Something had gone horribly wrong, but Nisbet hadn't told Ellie as to what exactly happened. I'll need to probe deeper into specifics at some point, but I can't say I can think of a way to do that without asking Nisbet directly.

Cycle 90: One of the people who'd been exploring the old laboratory ruins brought me more files they found related to the pod and the genetics of the creatures aboard this asteroid. While I initially found interest in the base files regarding the genetics of more common creatures (such as the hatch and puft), there were a few files on creatures that were unfamiliar to me. It's likely that at least some of these other creatures have been seen by other colonists that get out more, but one particular file made me very uneasy.

The file of note contained several blueprints of several worm-like creatures, one of which was the meallouse, though the document listed the creature as "prionus mellonella larvae". The two other creatures depicted looked much larger. Both had notes regarding utility as "population control" and "waste/corpse disposal" but most of these notes had been scribbled out or cross-referenced with morbs and hatches as a viable replacement. One of these creatures looked something between a louse and a lightbug, but much larger with an angry looking face and a large, crooked maw. The second looked much the same as a meallouse, though it seemed almost, if not bigger than, the size of a duplicant, with a large, almond-shaped head. 

The last of these was the one that worried me most, not simply because it had been considered as a way to dispose of corpses, but also that one of the notes hastily written besides it read:

Will gladly eat live duplicants instead of dead ones if given the opportunity. We have morbs and hatches for waste removal, we have no need for this creature, especially with such a liability.

For the sake of this colony, I very much hope this doesn't mean what I think it does.

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(guys, feel free to comment feedback or whatever, I feel like I'm talking to myself here sometimes lol)

 

Cycle 91: Glad I made the decision to make this document portable, as I doubt I would be able to access it now if I hadn't. I've been locked in a room with Eya, who is fortunately alive, but seems to be trying to stay as far away from me as possible. I told her I wasn't a threat, but she still hasn't come out of the corner she's hiding in.

I suppose it was a mistake to ask Nisbet directly, but I just couldn't help but take the most direct route to get to the bottom of all this. She led me into this room, said something to the likes of "figure it out yourself" and then left with the door automatically locking behind her. I checked access permissions and it looks like its a one-way door for everyone but Nisbet, effectively making it a small jail cell with her as the warden. I considered attempting to deconstruct the walls of the place, but it seems multitools will only function properly on tasks that have been officially assigned.

It just occurred to me that Nisbet was implying that something in this room would have an answer to what happened. This must be the room she had kept the binge eaters in, but Eya's the only one here besides me.

Oh.

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Cycle 91 (cont):

Took me a while to get Eya to let me get closer to her. She seemed to relax a bit when I made it clear I had some inclination as to what was going on, though she still glanced nervously at herself from time to time. I told her about the file on the large worm creature and what it likely meant for her and her current situation. She nodded silently and looked at the floor, muttering something about having no control over it. When I asked her to elaborate, she teared up a little and explained what had happened as best as she could:

After the incident with Ashkan, he and Eya were put with the other three binge eaters who had already been confined. Turner had been the first to be confined, and was already somewhat delirious from hunger and stress by the time Eya was brought in. Devon and Bubbles had also been confined prior to her arrival, but they seemed more lucid overall (though Devon would mutter about bread and toast from time to time). Turner snapped sometime around cycle 80, and, convinced that Eya was technically edible considering her lower half was meallouse, came at her and tried to consume her tail. (it should be noted that rations were given during this time, but they were too small and infrequent to be fully satisfying). Eya had no memory of what exactly happened next, but as soon as she came back to her senses, Turner and Devon were gone, and Ashkan and Bubbles had horrified looks on their faces. Once Eya had fully realized what had happened, she panicked and asked Ashkan and Bubbles for help, but both of them were convinced she wanted to eat them too and refused to go anywhere near her.

Ashkan tried breaking down the door until Nisbet returned with more rations. She was quick to notice that two dupes were missing, and very quickly realized that none had escaped, despite the large, Ashkan-shaped dent that was now in the door. Bubbles admitted to eating a very large quantity of food the night so much of it disappeared (Eya seems to think this was to try to convince Nisbet to let at least one of them out), but her unwelcome feast still did not account for the other 25000-some kcal that went missing. Nisbet refused to release any of them, even as Ashkan's pleas began to rise in both volume and pitch.

Eya's account of the next few cycles was a bit much for me to think about, much less transcribe to this document. To be trapped in a room this small for 6 cycles, knowing what was likely to be their fate, knowing that the only person who could free them had no intention of doing so.

To make things even more disturbing, Nisbet's convinced Eya she's done the colony some sort of favor by staving off starvation by doing to the other binge eaters what they would have otherwise done to the food supply. While that may be partially correct in theory, Eya seems to be about as disturbed as I am, and it's even more clear at this point that Nisbet's moral compass is likely damaged beyond repair.

I fashioned a sort of makeshift neck snare for Eya out of a few stray pieces of wire I found. It should be loose enough to be comfortable, yet tight enough to prevent the consumption of anything larger than a ration bar. Eya seemed to relax a bit after I equipped her with the device, and I can sense that both of us hope that it works as intended.

 

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Cycle 92:

I've survived the night, though I was unable to sleep on the hard tile floor, especially with my mind preoccupied with the situation I had found myself in. I'm a bit exhausted and hungry and will need to find a way out of here soon, especially if the snare isn't actually functional.

I noticed something unusual while Eya was sleeping. It appears her mouth contains a sort of toothed proboscis that is only visible when she is unconscious. I think there may be a connection between dupe consumption and Eya's unconsciousness, as she seems to have lapses in memory prior to consumption.

I would have preferred not to have needed to test the snare, but it works. Got too close to the proboscis while examining it and was very soon engulfed by the thing. It tried to pull me down her esophagus and most likely would have succeeded had the wire snare not been there to prevent my head from passing through. Eya woke up during the middle of this process and managed to get me out, though she had a large bout of coughing afterwards.

The door's been propped open. I don't know how, or by whom, or how I hadn't noticed it earlier, but a multitool had been shoved between the opening of the door to prevent it from shutting. The opening was too small for Eya to get through easily, but it was just about my size. I approached the doorway and found a note attached to the multitool. It read:

Stay away from Nisbet until lunchtime. Make sure she doesn't see you. Leave Eya or you'll both get caught.

I explained to Eya what was going on, and she didn't seem to mind that I was leaving without her. She probably still felt bad for what had happened earlier, though I really don't feel like any of this is her fault.

I checked on my stuff and made sure everything was as I'd left it. I decided to check on Eya shortly before lunch and found the door was no longer propped open. I propped it back open with my own multitool and went to see how Eya was doing. She looked like she had eaten recently, which concerned me at first, especially when I realized the snare was missing, but Eya explained that the same person who had propped the door open had come in to feed her some sort of fruit, though the snare had to be removed because Eya had trouble swallowing. When Nisbet came to check on Eya, she saw that she was well fed and assumed I had been consumed. Nisbet had tidied the place afterwards, discarding the snare and some sort of plant material left from the fruit.

Eya muttered something I didn't quite catch, then handed me a weighted parcel of some sort. She told me to give it to Banhi, but didn't elaborate on what it was.

I went off to the mess hall to grab something to eat, as I realized I hadn't eaten anything for the last cycle or so. As soon as I heard Nisbet's voice, I backed up and stayed along the wall, but remembered that the note had said "until lunchtime." Sure enough, the mess hall was full of people, with the schedule showing up as the colony's equivalent of mid-day. Nisbet was facing the other direction so she hadn't seen me yet, though she seemed to be preparing to give a speech to everyone who had already taken their seat.

Spoiler

Idk how i would get this to fit with the current format of this story, so I decided this segment would fit better as more of a transcript format:

Nisbet clears her throat.

Nisbet: Attention everyone, I have a quick announcement to make. As some of you may have noticed, there have been a handful fewer faces in the colony as of late. Numerous rumors have been spreading around, some of which include tales of giant and otherwise predatory beasts that could easily destroy our colony or make any of us their next meal. I'd like to put these rumors to rest...some of them are true.

duplicants muttering

Nisbet: While most of these creatures don't appear to be a threat for the time-being, there has been one exception. Much like a meal-louse but large enough to eat one of us in a single gulp, this monster was thought to have been exterminated soon after it was deemed a threat. However, due to possibly-intentional damage to the printing pod that produced all of us, the remains of this vile creature ended up fusing into one of our own, creating something that looked like one of us, spoke like one of us, but most certainly was not, in fact, one of us on the inside.

Ellie: Worm-girl!

More muttering

Nisbet: Yes...'worm-girl,' more formally known as "Eya." Regardless of what you want to call it, this worm-in-dupe's-clothing has already consumed five of our own.

nervous muttering

Hassan: Eya ate people!?

Banhi: But who? I haven't seen Bubbles in like, a week. Is she ok? Is-

Everyone begins talking at once, drowning out Banhi. Nisbet fires her multitool at a ceiling lamp, causing it to fall onto the middle of the table with a loud crashing noise. With everyone's attention again, she regains her composure and continues speaking.

Nisbet: I have already captured and confined the creature, and do believe I have found it to have several possible uses. For those of you asking who we've lost, however, I am sorry to inform you all that its victims include Ashkan, Bubbles, Turner, Devon, and, most recently, Nikola, who was eaten last night while secretly trying to release this dangerous creature back into the colony.

Ellie: I saw him messing around with the printing pod a few times. He probably made that monster on purpose, to... like...because he's evil or whatever. Cause if this happened because the printing pod was messed with, then, yeah.

Nisbet: Yes..thank you again for your...input. Now, as I was saying, some data that's been collected suggests that this creature could have some beneficial uses, such as disposing of corpses, food scraps, and unproductive colony members. Therefore-

Nikola angrily pushes through the door and the crowd to confront Nisbet.

Nikola: What is the meaning of all this!?

Nisbet: (Through clenched teeth, trying to keep a false smile) Oh, Nikola, you're alive. Thank. Goodness... How did you manage to escape from that monster?

Nikola: (accusingly) What monster? You? You're the one who's been-

Nisbet grabs him and pulls him aside.

Nisbet: (quietly) We'll discuss this later. (back towards the group) Nikola's still a bit confused after such a close encounter with death, I'm sure he'll be able to make more sense after a nice talk later, hm? 

She shoots Nikola another fake grin. He frowns.

Nisbet: While the colony currently does not have any shortage of food or oxygen, I would like to take this time to express a new colony policy to ensure our overall survival. In times of shortage, any member of this colony not carrying their weight, or otherwise consuming more than their fair share of food or oxygen, will be subject to disciplinary consequences, including spending some quality...bonding time... with Eya.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. People seemed to be... agreeing... with Nisbet, or at least anyone who didn't agree weren't making any attempts to show it. A few hounded Nisbet and I with various questions, most of which weren't easily answered, but soon enough most of the dupes had returned to their tasks. Nisbet was still discussing something with Ellie, and as I sat alone at my spot at the table, Banhi quietly approached me and sat besides me. She was silent for a moment before asking if what Nisbet had said about Bubbles was true. I nodded and remembered the parcel Eya had given me. I gave it to Banhi and watched as she opened it. Inside were two standard duplicant gloves and a round object that looked like a large coin. Inside one of the gloves was a folded up, handwritten note.

Spoiler

Banhi: This is Bubbles' handwriting. The gloves must be hers. And... this looks like one of the belt buckles our suits have.

Nikola: What about the note, what does it say?

Banhi: Where did you get this?

Nikola: Eya told me to give it to you. 

Bahni: The note...Bubbles knew she probably wouldn't make it out. She's... saying goodbye. *sniff* She and Ashkan realized the gloves and buckles were the only non-organic parts of their suits and...those would be the only things left of them if they were... eaten. But that I shouldn't try to blame this on anyone. That Eya can't control it and Nisbet's just misguided. What does she mean about Nisbet?

Nikola: Nisbet trapped all the binge-eaters together during the food shortage. When she realized Eya had eaten people she did nothing about it and still kept them together after the shortage ended. She locked me in the same room yesterday hoping I'd be consumed as well.

Banhi: Is Eya still there?

Nikola: As far as I know, yes.

Banhi: I want to talk to her.

Banhi read the note to me and asked to see Eya. I obliged.

We went back to Eya's cell and I propped the door open once again. Eya explained to Banhi some of what she had told me earlier, but her story was interrupted halfway through by the sound of the metal chain link door slamming shut. Nisbet stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes squinted, and kicked the multitool that had been keeping the door open down the hallway.

Spoiler

Nisbet: I told you to keep your mouth shut until we discussed things privately.

Nikola: I don't believe you used those exact words. 

Nisbet: The colony needs to run smoothly for our own survival. We can't have dissidence, it-

Nikola: It's gone to your head. Being in charge. You think sacrificing people you don't like to a giant worm will solve the colony's problems.

Nisbet: Now, lets say I let Eya free to go about her business around the colony. You know she tried to eat Ashkan even before they were confined together. It would only be a matter of time before an incident like that happened again, and who knows what that would be like. There could be an angry mob. She'd be killed. If we can control this, it's much more beneficial, more predictable. We can use the worm as a tool. Much more efficient.

Nikola: People are still dying. Because of your choices.

Nisbet: Ignoring that last statement, I have a quick question I've been meaning to address. Who, exactly, fed Eya earlier? No one's missing so she can't have eaten a duplicant, but none of the food's unaccounted for either.

Eya: I don't know her name. She gave me these round fruit-things and-

Nisbet: Was her suit pink, by any chance?

Eya: I mean, sorta, but-

Nisbet: That's not an officially designated color. All dupes have blue, green, red, and yellow suits, unless wearing special protection such as a sweater. I don't know what she is, but I don't think she's one of us. Even less so than...you are. 

Eya: She looked like a dupe though.

Nisbet: Was it not about two cycles ago that I locked her in here with you? How is she still alive? Did you not eat her?

Eya: I mean, I did, but she didn't seem to care at all. Kept saying something about "making a new one." When I saw her today I thought someone had reprinted another copy of her but she remembered everything that happened so that can't be true.

Nikola: It may be possible that her memories are stored separately from whatever her physical form is.

Nisbet: That still means she's not a duplicant. That just means she's something else controlling a duplicant.

Banhi: How does anything about this "mystery dupe" justify your reasons for indirectly feeding people to whatever's inside Eya?

Nisbet: It's what's best for the survival of the colony as a whole. You're only complaining because it doesn't favor you.

The grin on her face emanated such malice that no one did much more than stare as she left down the hallway. Stuck in this room again, no snare to make us feel at least somewhat safe. At least Eya had eaten earlier, so we still had some time to find a way out of this situation. Perhaps this "mystery dupe" would prop the door open again when no one was looking. I suppose I could use this time to study Eya some more, since I at least have someone to help me if anything goes wrong, which it hopefully doesn't, because we don't have any plan B this time.

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I guess my main feedback here is that Banhi is immediately kind of accepting of her best friend's death. Sure, she suspected already, and you can't spend too much time dwelling on her grief, so you did pretty well with implying that she was choking up a bit while talking. I dunno, maybe giving at least one break in the conversation between her and Nikola would help make her grief more believable.

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3 hours ago, ResettePlayer said:

I guess my main feedback here is that Banhi is immediately kind of accepting of her best friend's death. Sure, she suspected already, and you can't spend too much time dwelling on her grief, so you did pretty well with implying that she was choking up a bit while talking. I dunno, maybe giving at least one break in the conversation between her and Nikola would help make her grief more believable.

I think the idea is that she still doesn't quite believe or accept it, especially since two of the duplicants Nisbet thought Eya had killed don't seem to actually be dead. The note convinced her somewhat more, but the fact that no one actually saw it happen (since Eya was unconscious during the process) has given Banhi an excuse to stay in denial for the time being.

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Cycle 93: Did a basic exam on Eya earlier. Most of it didn't come up with anything conclusive, but the oral exam seemed to suggest the proboscis is nested inside her mouth in such a way that it sits just behind her existing duplicant teeth. Her lower jaw and several upper teeth are missing, likely due to the proboscis' placement within the mouth. Her tongue appears normal from a distance, but is much more sticky and elastic than I anticipated. I'm not sure what this means at the moment.

I had to put a pause on the examination as Eya was beginning to feel slightly hungry and she wanted Banhi and I to stay as far away as possible for safety.

The peculiar duplicant Nisbet had mentioned, supposedly the one who fed Eya and left the door propped open, came to join us, apparently of her own volition. She brought some miscellaneous examination equipment (including my prototype X-ray goggles, which I didn't think anyone knew about) and two more of the fruits Eya had mentioned. She hadn't bothered to prop open the door, and the fruits were only enough to satiate Banhi and I, so I began to question the intelligence of this dupe that seemed so helpful before. Surely Eya will lose control of her hunger soon and one of us will be her next victim. We could have escaped if the door was propped open. Or even fed Eya fruits had she brought extra. Foolish really, dangerously so.

The odd dupe is staring over my shoulder as I write this. I would like her to leave, please. Thank you.

She has explained that the small food supply and letting the door close behind her were intentional and part of some convoluted "master plan" she had devised. She said something about being "technically immortal like this," and assured us she didn't mind sacrificing herself (her "vessel") for this plan, as she needed to print a "new one" anyway, because that would make it easier to take care of Nisbet. She then explained that she intended to feed her "current form" to Eya, in order to protect us from the worm, get rid of said "form," and to allow us to actually witness the process in order to document and better understand it, as none of the witnesses as of yet had survived to explain what happened in detail. Eya and Banhi didn't seem particularly thrilled with this plan, though it seemed clear enough that Eya probably didn't have much of a choice. She assured Eya that it hadn't hurt when she had "died" the first time, otherwise she probably wouldn't have come up with this plan, and that it would be better than consuming someone who wasn't "immortal."

I still haven't gotten this girl's name. It's a pain to write like this.

I suppose the dupe was right afterall. Observing the process was very insightful, albeit disturbing. It appears that Eya gets nauseous and lightheaded several moments before actually going unconscious as the worm takes over, which is an important note as it means we will have a recogniseable moment of warning before Eya becomes a real threat. The rest of the process was oddly similar to another invertebrate feeding procedure, that of the cone snail, though there clearly was no venom involved, as her prey remained concerningly talkative for several minutes afterwards, happily discussing relatively morbid calculations on how long it would take for her to suffocate. Eya, by contrast, was completely silent, with a queasy look on her face, especially after the internal voice had been silenced. Banhi lost it and went into the corner to sob as quietly as possible, and I could see that Eya was tearing up a bit as well. I tried to keep my composure for Eya's sake, and she choked on her words as she tried to explain that she had known they would stay alive for several minutes afterwards, but really tried not to think about it too much, which is why she had avoided mentioning it before.

I'm not sure how long it would have taken for us to calm down after that experience had nothing occurred to distract us, but only a few minutes had gone by before a low hum began to come from somewhere else in the colony. The hum grew louder, to the point that the walls were vibrating with the noise, and a secondary high-pitched metallic droning sound joined the initial humming. As the sound began to fade again, panicked voices could be heard from down the hallway. Several terrified dupes ran past and one hid with his back against the door, curled in a nervous ball. I recognised the dupe as Joshua, who I called over and instructed to prop the door open. He hesitated at first upon noticing Eya, and mentioning something Nisbet had said in her speech. I assured him it was fine and Eya said she was still planning to stay inside. Joshua opened the door and Banhi and I were finally able to leave. I asked him what had happened, and he had no idea other than other dupes had been freaked out so he figured it would be best to freak out too.

I decided to walk towards where the sound had initially come from. Banhi followed, but Joshua continued going the same direction as the other frightened duplicants. Finally we entered a room where everything looked significantly damaged. Two holes had been torn into the walls, though an odd, adhesive barrier was blocking whatever was on the other side. As I inspected the room, Banhi noticed someone hiding under what was left of a research desk. It was Ellie, even more distraught than Joshua had been, muttering something mostly incoherent about Nisbet. It took us a few minutes to calm her down to the point she was intelligible, so we could finally understand what she had been saying:

"Giant. Clawed hand. Came from wall. Took Nisbet. Hide."

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On 12/31/2018 at 3:28 PM, MF99K said:

(guys, feel free to comment feedback or whatever, I feel like I'm talking to myself here sometimes lol)

Oh I'm sorry, I'm enjoying the story but I don't always have something to comment ^^;

I'm fine with your use of the chatboxes. Sometimes it's easier to get a point across with dialogue than the usual format of the story.

I like how deep and interesting this story is getting. Definitely caught me off-guard since I wasn't expecting such complexity. But despite the long data logs, I find myself reading every word and interested to see where the story is heading next ^_^

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Cycle 93 (?):

I'm not sure I know what just happened. I seem to be in bed, but I don't recall coming here. Last I remember we were with Ellie and there was some sort of tremor and a tearing noise as something pushed through the adhesive barrier and the room filled with an odd haze.

I checked the timekeeper and it is indeed still cycle 93, though it does seem like a significant amount of time has passed. I figured I should at least check on Eya and see if I can find any clues to what happened around the colony.

Eya is not in the room she'd been locked in. stuck onto the door was a large, bright pink piece of paper that read: Borrowed Eya. Don't worry I'll bring her back. I propped open the door and grabbed what we had left in there.

Highly likely the odd dupe has something to do with this.

I've noticed that some parts of the colony have odd markings on them similar to the markings left near the holes that had been torn in the walls near where we had found Ellie. It almost looks like certain areas have partially melted or otherwise been warped, but all the furniture, equipment, and plumbing/electrical systems look relatively intact. A few things look scuffed or dented, but only the walls have the odd, warped appearance.

Something certainly feels off, and I almost feel like some of these little details might have always been that way, but that my unease is searching for what is making me feel that something isn't right.

 

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