NationStates Jolt Archive

Vespeterium Minor; Alcraz Labs: Yanuerry 5th 1237 NE (New Era)

The report from an explosion tore through the air miles above Alcraz labs. The papers on the desk jumped at the impact. John Tyrer didn't jump. He was too used to war by now to find the noises it made remotely shocking. Instead, he looked up with some mild interest.
'Sounded nuclear' he remarked with the air of somebody commenting on the weather.
In fact, he might as well have been. One hundred and twenty seven years ago, humans had come here to Vespeterium Minor to escape the chaos of the collapsing Arborian Empire. Immediately, they had come into conflict with the natives, the Acchans. Full scale war had broken out ninety-five years ago and was still being waged. The bloody attrition had resulted in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons being used by both sides. That had driven the humans underground. Unfortunately the Acchans, descended from cockroaches, seemed unaffected by the contamination and still roamed the planet above. Neither side had yet learned how to share.

Tyrer did jump, however, when a glass hit the wall and shattered somwhere near his head. Placatingly, John raised his hands. 'Gabriel. I'm sure the President will change his mind......'
'He won't change his mind.' Gabriel Alcraz growled dangerously. 'The stubborn moron says that my plan is immoral. The man that has been using nukes against the enemy for twenty-three years calling me immoral!' He let out a fierce laugh. His eyes burned.
Gabriel Alcraz was an extremely unpleasant man in many ways. He was cold, ruthless, immoral and seemed to despise everything and everyone. Arrogant, mocking and ride, Alcraz also happened to be the greatest scientific mind not only on the planet, but in the entire system.
Turning those piercing eyes on Tyrer, Alcraz morosely stated. 'I need your help. I wouldn't ask anybody else.'
Tyrer believed him. He was the closest thing that Alcraz had to a friend. The two went back years.
'What do you want me to do?' Tyrer asked.
Alcraz looked somewhat dubiously at Tyrer before he continued. 'I'm going to finish the experiment. I need you to lie for me.'
Tyrer stared at him. 'Holy shit Gabriel, they'll string you up.'
Alcraz shook his head. 'Let them try.' he stated. 'We are on the egde of a great scientific leap. I am on the cusp of creating the final stage of evolution. History will be my judge. My children must live.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------Six Months Later

Sweat dripping from his brow, Gabriel Alcraz smiled. On the scientist, the motion looked unnatrual, almost corpselike. 'We've done it John. By Graharan's Ghost we've done it.'
Tyrer nodded in satisfaction. He'd come to regard this project as almost one of his own. The more he looked at it, the less...... repulsive it became. The creatures that now resided in the glass tubes before him were as much his children as Gabriel Alcraz'.
'This is the future John.' Alcraz stated. 'This won't just end this war, it can end all wars. We've created a master race.' The science man smiled again. 'Speaking of which, I'd like to show you something.'
Alcraz walked over to the giant lever that controlled much of the power in his lab. Grunting, he pushed it to full power. A shrill screeching filled the room as a large cage materialized. Inside was a creature resembling nothing more than a giant insect. Though the humans had spent the past ninety years fighting the Acchans, not many had seen one. Most of the human fighting was done by flinging missiles and lasers and plasma beams through the air. Tyrer recognized the creature on sight.
'Gabriel, they're going to kill you if they find you've got that thing down here.' he warned.
Seeming the realize that it had an audience, the Acchan began to rasp and rant in its own language. The translators that both men possessed allowed them to understand.
'How dare you!' it snapped. 'Even you humans must have standards, I am Chief Gerloputoreptoy and I demand that you end this inacchaan treatment immediately.
'Shut up.' Alcraz ordered bawdly. He then turned to Tyrer. 'Just imagine it John. A species that can alter its very DNA, can evolve, can take of the attibutes and traits of other species.' Then, to Tyrer's horror, Alcraz opened the cage. The Acchan let out a terrible roar and charged toward them. Alcraz merely laughed. 'All it takes, is a touch!'
When Alcraz grabbed the Acchan, it screamed. Smoke wafted from beneath Alcraz's hands, and he too began to scream. Tyrer watched in horror as the Acchan began to burn and then, merely and simply turned to ash. Alcraz fell to the floor.
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One Month Later; the Presidential Manor

Gabriel Alcraz smiled as he glanced at the President. He was very pale, and yet seemed much more determined this time. President Michael Offro shook his head. 'I am not going to change my mind Gabriel.' he stated resolutely.
'Oh, I'm not here to discuss terms anymore.' Alcraz smiled. 'I'm merely here to show you...... something.' Very slowly, Alcraz reached down for his briefcase. Very slowly he unlocked it. And when he opened it, gas spewed forth.
'What the hell!!!???' snapped Offro.
'It's Crasial Gas.' stated Alcraz. 'Very nasty. Undetectable. Can get in through your skin and into your lungs. I believe you used it to no effect against the Acchan some time ago. They seem to have a resistance to such weapons. It's currently pouring through the ventilation system.'
'Are you insane!' snapped Offro, though he didn't seem to have the power to stand. 'That'll kill everybody!'
'That's the plan.' stated Alcraz.
'It'll kill you.' Offro wheezed.
Alcraz held up a hand. The plam was a discoloured blue and seemed to be split from his thumb across. 'I'm no longer simply human.' he stated. 'Perhaps you'd like to meet my children.
The door opened and in walked two creatures. They both seemed to resemble humans, though not as much as Alcraz. For one, they both seemed a pale version of that discoloured blue on Alcraz's hand. Secondly, they both seemed to have taken on the insectoid antennae of the Acchan.
'The anntennae are a side effect of the Acchan donation unfortunately, but they don't look too bad.' stated Alcraz. He cursed himself as he realized the man that he was talking to was dead.
Walking outside the office, Alcraz bumped into Tyrer, who was in a large gas proof suit. 'You look ridiculous.' said Alcraz, but then shrugged. His old friend didn't want to be transformed.
'Where to now?' asked Tyrer.
Alcraz smiled. 'To the surface.' he stated. 'It's time to expand.'
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The Hybrids are a new species and one ready to join the interstellar community. Respond to this if you like, though this was an intro. I will be making/joining responsive threads soon.

The Surface of Vespeterium Minor; Sevecar 12th 1238 NE

Gabriel Alcraz was not a happy man. He had never been one to take bad news well, and the news that John Tyrer now gave him was as terrible as he could imagine.
'Gabriel, the Hybrids are dying.' whispered Tyrer through the large rubberized suit that he wore to protect him from the nuclear fallout of the surface.
'That is impossible.' snapped Alcraz. 'All of the Hybrids out here have absorbed Achaan subjects. They should be resistant against all this.' His wave encompassed the ruined landscape.
'It's not that.' replied Tyrer. 'They simply can't deal with the fluctuations of their DNA. They're failing. The ones who aren't dying are mutating rapidly. We can't go on fighting the Acchan like this. The Hybrids aren't strong enough.'
Alcraz swore violently. 'Come with me.' he said to Tyrer, and turned and walked away wordlessly.

Alcraz Labs; Underground City

The former Underground City that had housed the human race of Vespeterium Minor for seventy years was now no more than a tomb. John Tyrer didn't like to think that he had been involved in the deaths of the thirty-three million people that lived here, though he had gone along with Gabriel Alcraz while he poured Crasial Gas into the ventilation system. The city was dead, but some lfe lingered on in the Alcraz Lab. Tyrer liked it here. The gas had long since vanished and he could finally remove the massive suit that he had to wear on the surface.
Gabriel Alcraz placed his hand over his eyes is something close to despair. In a man so confident in himself, that was unnerving. Sitting before him was one of his mutating creations, the Hybrid. No longer in the human form in which it had been created, the creature was now devolving. It now resembled nothing more that a horribly scarred infant. It's legs were rotting away and its arms were increasingly becoming uselss. The antennae that the creature had picked up from absorbing the Acchan DNA was increasingly becoming the primary mode of interaction and movement. The Hybrid was dying.
And so it seemed to John Tyrer, when he placed a hand on his friends shuolder and said 'I'm sorry Gabriel.'
The scientist had bet everything and lost. He had murdered so many people for a failed experiment. But instead of looking bleak, Alcraz merely smiled an entirely crooked smile.
'We still have work to do.' he stated. 'I need you to leave this planet and go to Alpha Arovaz. I need you to take a sample from there. Bring it back here. Alive.'
Tyrer rolled his eyes. 'It's over Gabriel. The experiment failed.'
'It was NOT a failure.' snapped Alcraz. 'Just please, do as I as I ask and you'll see.'
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Seven Weeks Later; Alcraz Labs

John Tyrer looked awestruck. 'Holy Harrada, what is this?' he asked.
Gabriel Alcraz smiled. 'It's the future John.' he stated. He had said that before about his creations, when they were merely in the flesh. Now......
Now, before Tyrer stood a cybernetic shell, seven feet tall and in the shape of a human. Where its face should of been was a ghastly visage of human emotion. The upturned mouth seemed crooked, and the eyes were hollow and endless.
'What is this?' asked Tyrer.
'It's a life support suit.' stated Alcraz. 'I did some research and it turned out that in the flesh the mutations were too much for the DNA to take. However, inside these suits the Hybrids can function and are kept alive and from devolving further by the cellular reconstruction module. It keeps the whole process in balance.'
Tyrer looked at him. 'And what about you Gabriel?' he asked.
Alcraz held up a discoloured blue hand. 'I'm fone.' he stated. 'It seems the that the Hybrid cells that I implanted counteract somehow with some of my more human cells. Now look.'
Alcraz opened the chest compartment on the life support suit. Tyrer gasped at what was before him. It was a Hybrid, but it had devloved further since Tyrer last saw it. It no longer had arms or legs, but instead a sprawling mass of flesh leading from where the limbs had formerly been. It's neck had vanished, as had any hair. It was now a truly vile shade of blue. The antennae on top of its head twitched around the levers that controlled the cybernetic suit. It had no mouth, no nose and only one darkly purple eye. It also seemed to have developed a mebrane sack on its belly.
'What the hell is that?' asked Tyrer.
Alcraz smiled. 'They can no longer touch to absorb, but they've developed a new way. That sack contains a series of powerful tentacles. Any creature that they wish to absorb, they merely drag into that sack and then feed from their DNA.'
Tyrer looked dusgusted.
'Did you bring what I asked you to?' asked Alcraz.
Without taking his eyes off of the creature before him, Tyrer nodded.
'Good.' said Alcraz. 'Bring it here.'

The creature in question was a Burdal. The Burdal had been one of the member species of the Arborian Empire, and formed a small domain of their own when the former collapsed. It looked like a giant squid brought onto the land. When it saw Alcraz, it made violent squealing noises.
'It really wasn't easy.' said Tyrer.
'I can imagine.' answered Alcraz. 'The Burdal have a stong psychic link with one another. They must have known you'd grabbed one as soon as you did it.'
Tyrer nodded wearily. 'Getting off that planet was hell. Twenty saucers following me. Eek.'
'Oh but such use we can have from this.' Alcraz smiled. 'You see, as we are at the moment, Hybrids can only absorb individually. But if we have this strong link, then if the one who possesses it gains a new attribute, it can be transferred.'
'How the hell would that work?' asked Tyrer.
'Lets find out.' smiled Alcraz. Without warning, he turned and grabbed the Burdal. It screamed louder this time as smoke rose to be replaced by flames. Witrhin minutes the Burdal was in flame, and after a moment longer, it was nothing but dust. Alcraz meanwhile fell to the floor and screamed as though is terrible pain. He may well have been, his DNA was shifting again.
This was the second time that Tyrer had seen this, and he did not rush to Alcraz's aid as he had before. The scientist would only berate him when he recovered.
When Alcraz finally stood, he was horribly pale, as he had been before. He also held his head.
'John.' he murmered. 'I can feel....... I can feel all of the Hybrids here.' he screamed again and clutched his head. 'Yes. I can see it now. We need to be unique. It's the only way to survive. We have to go back to the surface. We have to kill all of the Acchan. Then we have to destroy the Burdal. We can't have others sharing our gifts.' He winced again.
'Do you realize what you're saying Gabriel?' asked Tyrer.
Alcraz nodded. 'It's time that we let the Universe know that we exist.'