RECV EDC:    07JAN2019
COMM MODE:   DSN REFLECT
CODED ABST:  D/M/C
CRC:         2820485004      10514
============================================================
Nothing clears your mind like getting kicked in the head. 

About sixty of this planet's long days ago, I had a run-in 
with the local guard. Like most local guards, they don't 
appreciate the homeless, and the homeless don't appreciate 
them. At the time I hadn't eaten for two sleep cycles, and I 
was moody and inconsiderate; I expressed my feelings with my 
fists and the guards repaid in kind, first with their fists 
and then with their heavy boots.

Honestly, The kick to the head, with its resulting loss of 
consciousness, was a welcomed relief after the repeated 
blows to the stomach and external obliques.

After our brief and overly-physical dialogue, the local 
guard was kind enough to titra-bind me and drop me of at the 
brig, where they were a bit more compassionate and I was a 
lot less combative. Without removing the binding, I was 
placed in medical rehab for two of their days. The best part 
was the tube feeding. At least I was no longer hungry.

When I was well enough, I was freed from my chemical- 
mechanical shackles and placed in holding, where I could 
consider my situation. After quite a few days in 
confinement waiting for my trial, I came to the point that 
I had fallen into voluntary poverty and obscurity for: I was 
finally ready to communicate everything that had been 
harrowing my mind in the most acute ways. All that was left 
was to escape- it was a comforting and familiar position for 
me, made even more bright by the prospect of getting a heavy 
weight off my chest.

With patience, tact, and perfect complacency, I allowed the 
local legal system to accuse, try, and sentence me to a 
lifetime of slavery in their largest planetary industry for 
my attack on their local guard. The whole process took one 
morning. I cheerfully worked in their sulfesium mines, 
outperforming the rest of the rabble and placating my 
superiors for a week or two; enough to gain the tiny level 
of trust needed to stage an escape.

From that escape to this terminal is not important. I'm 
stalling, I think. It's time to get to the point of this 
transmission: What happened in the Corporation labs.

If you have my previous transmissions, you already know that 
I was working a legitimate mining contract when I was 
arrested on false charges of skimming, then spirited to a 
lab to become the Corporation's newest test subject. What 
you don't know is how the Corporation had previously placed 
me in confined and solitary work conditions in order to 
complete complex, long-term bioscans, which showed that I 
was a viable test candidate. What I thought were odd work 
conditions were actually a pre-screening phase.

Much of my time in the labs was spent under heavy sedation. 
Clearly, I have nothing to report about those times. 
Eventually, however, I came to a full and comprehensive 
state of consciousness; it was so acute and sudden that it 
felt like falling out of bed in the middle of a dream. 
Instead of landing on the floor, I found myself strapped to 
a table, surrounded by masked scientists, one holding a 
large needle that had apparently just come out of my 
forearm. My head was viced in some sort of contraption so 
that I couldn't move any part of it, couldn't speak or get 
any better view than I had. My senses were heightened; I 
could feel the small stream of blood coming from my right 
basilic vein where the needle had been. 

There was no gentle nurse to stanch the flow with a bit of 
sterile fluff. My mouth started to taste like a cocktail of 
lido-sevofluride and some unknown narcotic, as the injection 
took full effect.

"He must be fully awake for the cerebellum portion- for the 
cerocartographic images be usable."

"Will this alter the parity?"

One of the masked faces turned toward me. My vision was 
painfully amplified, and like an eagle looking at fish 
under the surface of a lake, I almost thought I saw 
compassionate eyes.

"Yes. It will alter the parity, but the scan is complete and 
the subject will be terminated after the final procedure. 
The image-con won't recall this episode, short-term memory 
is independent of the cerocarts."

At the word "terminated" a scream started to rumble in my 
lungs, but was arrested by some kind of brace around my 
trachea that included a needle into my larynx.

"If he's awake, won't he move, when he feels the pain?"

"He will, but his head and neck are entirely immobilized. 

The unknown chemicals that they had used to rouse me were 
overloading my senses. I could identify even the slightest 
variations in the voices around me; so far, two male 
scientists were interrogating one female scientist, the one 
that had looked me in the eyes. Though my head could not 
budge in the slightest, I was starting to become cognizant 
of all the metallic surfaces around me that offered usable 
reflections. Without trying, I formed an image of the entire 
room from the reflections, as if I could see what was going 
on from an out-of-body perspective.

A brusque male voice now took up the interrogation.

"You didn't need to bring him up like that- what was in that 
formula?"

Another voice in the background, mechanical and grating as 
if it was piped in through some archaic low-tech speaker 
system, brought the argument to a close.

"It doesn't matter, it's done, and we have no time. Move 
forward with the cerocarts immediately. Dr. Sossial, you 
brought him up, you can clean up the mess when we're 
through."

The mask with the hidden eyes nodded, and as the others 
moved into position for the work ahead of them, I saw her 
pause for a brief moment. My elevated senses pushed even 
further, driven by a burst of adrenaline, and time slowed. 
Without lifting her arm, I noted in my reflected image of 
the room that she was making a signal with her right 
fingers, and then with her left. Microseconds all told, and 
she had repeated it again, right-then-left.

Darius, if you're reading this, it was the sign of the Xero 
Mods. This scientist, so deeply embedded in the 
Corporation's human experimentation and wetware branch, was 
a purelife-entity extremist. If she was here, and if she was 
in a position of knowledge-dominance even among what must be 
the leading scientists in this field, then I might have an 
opportunity for escape. The room was small, and had one 
exit. There were seven scientists present, counting the 
Xero-mod. The restraints were auto-harness instead of 
individual. I might just have a chance, with help...

All of this I took in and evaluated in the few seconds I had 
between the crackly-speaker-voice's command and the flip of 
the cerocartographer's switch. My chemically-heightened 
senses, which were such a blessing in understanding and 
capturing these very brief moments of consciousness, now 
became a wretched curse as a blazing column of pain was 
thrust in through the top of my neck and straight down my 
spine.

I longed to feel the relief of a scream, but I could make no 
sound. 

No one who has felt that amount of pain can accurately tell 
how long they had to endure it, for such pain always lasts 
an eternity. Even so, the pain ended as abruptly as it 
began, and I found myself still under the effects of the 
injection; I saw the room again. The scientists were slowly 
making their ways to counters, where they were taking off 
gloves and masks, flipping switches and pulling out tubes, 
and dropping various instruments into metal tubs filled with 
a viscous blueish liquid.

"It's done. Finish and mop up, Sossial." came one final 
command from the speaker-voice before a sign-off signal 
blipped. The Xero-mod female was still standing over the 
table. Seconds after the command, she reached over and 
pulled the release on the auto-harness. The body-belts, neck 
and larynx mount, and head mount detached with a hiss and 
lifted promptly and obediently away from my body.

There would be no pleasure, for me, in relating what I did 
to the scientists in that small room- with the exception of 
the Xero-mod, who I left alive. Upon finding myself freed, I 
lept up from the table and realized that the injection had 
not only given me heightened senses, but peaked physical 
performance as well. The Xero-mod stood by as I had my 
chemically-driven revenge on these unknown assailants. At 
the end, she removed her mask and simple said, "run."

Darius, I have to believe you're going to receive this 
transmission. It was you who introduced me- a reluctant 
skeptic- to the Xero mods and their ideals. I always figured 
they were right, but I never imagined that I would caught up 
in their intrigues. You showed me their signs, and explained 
their doctrines, and tried to convince me. You showed me 
the theoretical tech they were fighting against, the 
researched that proved there battle was real.

I didn't care. I didn't see how it mattered: if a being 
decided to mod, that was there choice; if they "stayed 
pure," as you put it, that was also their choice. You warned 
me, Darius, that eventually it would not come down to 
individual choice, but to force.

You were right.

Based on the technology that I encountered, the theoretical 
tech you showed me is no longer a theory. The Corporation 
is working on forced-mod programs, and the mother-of-all 
abuses, the forced transfer of consciousness. The scans they 
described and the machines they were using, even the blue-
bath for the equipment- were just as you showed me they 
would be.

There's just one thing that keeps me in fear at this point, 
and that is the fact that the final scan was completed 
before I could break out. The Corporation has my 
consciousness, Darius, if the process worked. You already 
know that the tech for a willful transfer is available, but 
this extraction tech is different. I'm convinced that they 
made a copy. They were going to copy-and-terminate, rather 
than transfer. It's the only explanation that makes sense, 
but it's weak. I need help. I need someone who can help me 
make sense of it all. And more than anything else, I need to 
make sure the Corporation doesn't have my mind.

I'm afraid to go anywhere, to do anything that I myself 
might logically predict. Find me, Darius, or help me find 
you. I need to know more from the Xero-mods. I'll keep 
looking for you, and I'll try to think of a way to meet you 
that I wouldn't think of, if that's even possible.