6.29.3472

8:33

A soft beeping alerted me to Subject 01's elevated heartbeat.

I looked over the banks of medical information as I tried to assess 01's condition; elevated heartbeat, increase in body temperature by 0.6 degrees, flood of dopamine. I glanced down at the most recent medical logs as I saw the medical readings begin to level out to normal. I had tasked Aldmia with recoding any similar spikes. There had been several. This collaborated what our accessed Protectorate files claimed – this was the work of the parasite, 01-A, nearing maturity.

I frowned.

An invasive parasite that acted on the reward systems of their hosts. I had seen this before – there were several organisms across Citadel space that hijacked their hosts nervous system entire or altered their behavior to propagate themselves. The amazing "zombie varren" fungus of Tuchanka's southern continents came to mind.

I stood up and made my way over to the observation window, looking down at 01. All the medical information that had been displayed at my desk appeared along the smart glass, but I paid it no mind. Instead I simply looked at my subject.

Young. Born Raelono, Praios 3, 3343 at 18:83, age 129. I scowled, someone had noted that 01 would have a birthday next month. This was probably Edaari's work, she always had a habit of fraternizing with the subjects. I deleted the notification. If it isn't related to medical matters, it was irrelevant. 01 might expire long before then, in any case. I asked Aldmia to send a note to Edaari asking her to refrain from such behavior in the future. I suspect she'd ignore the message.

Healthy. Old files from the training programs rated 01 in the upper 64 percentiles for physical strength. Genetic screening showed no abnormalities and medical records showed no chronic health issues. The standard enhancements offered to members of the armed forces further improved on a strong immune system.

01 was asleep. If one focused solely on her outward appeared no one could fathom why they were locked in a quarantine room.

But the hideous growth within betrayed 01 as a ticking biological time bomb.

It is a shame that my government is choosing to waste time and resources, both materiel and personnel, on probing Protectorate space. Three years of clandestine operations and we'd learned so little. And what little we learned was of almost no use to us. If it were up to me, Citadelan society would simply pull out of the Carcosa system and leave the Protectorate to their piddling little patch of space. But the Matrons were enamored with the strange and exotic, so they spent the lives of our girls on Lluvia while the four-eyes built up their pirate fleets in the Terminus.

I don't agree with their decisions. But the facts are that 01 is a soldier, and soldiers are expendable. That being the case, I shall do everything I can to make sure 01 is still useful. And that means harvesting the creature inside her.

I wondered what the Director had planned for it – perhaps it would be shipped off-world for study or experimentation. Perhaps it would be sent to Zone Six's weapons program. That seemed likely. If the Protectorate was not willing to share the secrets of anima weaponry with the rest of the galaxy, we would take it for ourselves. Or perhaps I was not told the full extent of Protectorate involvement in this operation. Perhaps it would be sent back to their world, for them to deal or dispose of it. Perhaps that was for the best.

Monsters belonged with monsters.

Aldmia noted another spike in temperature. 0.4 degrees. Same with the dopamine.

I ask Aldmia to list the exact time and date of all of 01's episodes and then cross-referenced this with the Protectorate files.

Soon.

9:96

I can't help but hum along to the music. I can still remember the first time I saw the Song of Sasia, when my mothers took me to the music house for my fifteenth birthday. Seeing the heroine Sasia kiss Princess Sanantae under the glow of element zero clouds is forever etched in my mind, one of the most influential moments of my life. I should make the effort to get seats for the current production on Nevos, maybe in time for the spring show-

Oh, 01 is hyperventilating.

Aldmia calls my attention to several readouts, but I don't need them. I can see 01 beyond the observation window, clearly in distress as fluids pour out of her, her temperature spiking far beyond any previous episodes.

It is time.

I made a gesture and Aldmia sprang into action – the VI activating the machinery inside the observation room. Graspers and clamps, retractors, drills, tissue-glues, scopes, suction hoses, eezo-manipulators, artificial nerve extensions and all other medical tools whirled and whizzed above 01, a cluster of mechanical machines that reminded me of some the arachnid creatures encountered during the Rachni Wars. Behind her a row of machines hummed and churned, chemical fabricators and artificial stomachs churning liquid concoctions necessary for life saving operations.

I hit a button on my omni-tool, synchronizing the implants along my arms to those of the telepresence machine that was lowered before 01. I moved my arms in all manner of movements, the machine before 01 copying me exactly. Then my office lit up, holo-projectors recreating a life-size image of 01. 01 said something to me, or at least, she directed her words at me through the tele-presence link. I didn't listen or respond, as that was not my job. Aldmia could handle 01's questions. I reached out and touched 01, placing "my" hands over her body. The machine hands of my operator transferred data into my implants and those to my brain. I could "feel" the body of 01 on my fingers. Warm. Sweat.

Things beneath her skin moved.

Liquid filth gushes from her, greeting the world.

Greeting me.

Even though 01 is nothing more than a holographic representation, olfactory and aural simulators allow me to smell and taste the full effect of her condition. I am still disgusted and recoil. Down in the observation room the telepresence machine recoils away too.

01 attempts to insult me, finding some amusement in my reaction before she spasms in pain.

01 cannot see my smile.

Pain is a wonderful teacher.

Maybe the pain will teach her to abandon her degeneracy.

13:81

I am sitting in front of 01's hologram. Hours have passed, hours filled with 01's heavy breathing ringing in my ears, her gasps and cries, the stench of her sweat and filth and the sight bloated veins bursting through her skin.

I can excise this invasion right now, I have the tools and I have the training. The surgery would be simple, quick, clean. With luck, 01 might survive.

But the Director has stayed my hand. She wishes to see this creature in action, wishes to see 01-A tear its way out of 01 on its own free will. The scientific data collected will be quite valuable.

The Director also informs me that Dr. Dalila attempted a similar surgery to the one I had envisioned on her own test subject, 02. Both 02 and 02-A expired during the operation. 04-B was successfully extracted and under observation. Dr. Dalila is an experienced surgeon, with nearly a century working in the field. That she failed so catastrophically is alarming. I ask Aldmia to forward me the post-operation report, since I know it will be a fascinating read. Dr. Dalila is such a wonderful writer.

She has such a wonderful way of sneaking in her wit into everything she writes.

So, instead of moving ahead and perhaps repeating her mistakes, I will wait. Aldmia is recording everything while I dictate my thoughts into my omni-tool.

I mute 01's hologram, as her pained noises are being picked up in my personal recording.

15:72

01-A is here.

It greets me with a crown of blood, mucus, pus and feces and a chorus of screams and tears.

I reach forward, holding onto the thing as it continues to tear out of 01, a torrent of vile liquid following behind as it finally bursts free, parasitic link trailing behind it.

I hold it in mechanical hands as it begins to kick and move.

Pink and bloody.

Male.

Human.

I want to vomit.

16:21

I finish my report to the Director, who informs me that 01 and 01-A will be moved to another location, one equipped with the appropriate medical facilities. I do not ask if the Protectorate is involved in this operation, both because I am not interested and because I suspect I do not have the appropriate security clearance. The Director congratulates me and gives me my new orders. Soon, a team will be arriving to relieve me, afterwards I am on leave for the foreseeable future with the understanding that I may be reactivated if complications arise with 03, 03-A, 04 and 04-A. The Director also recommends that I meet with Dr. Dalila and discuss our procedures. I promise to do so, since I am eager to compare notes and learn from our experiences. The Director once again congratulates me before her connection shuts down.

I am left with Aldmia.

I do not want to look past the observation window at 01 and 01-A.

I ask Aldmia to turn the opacity on the observation window to maximum, blocking them from my view.

I sit back down in my desk and think of my mothers, Sasia and Princess Sanantae.

I look over the recordings Aldmia took of the operation.

16:29

I am greeted by a team of asari masquerading as technicians headed by an agent whose name I was too tired to remember. Aside from a few of them gawking as they entered the observation room, they were perfect professionals. The room and equipment were dismantled in minutes, 01 and 01-A hidden in cryo-pods disguised as shipping containers. Were anyone to walk in on us they would only see a doctor discussing the newly operational server room with a few computer technicians.

There is only one thing left to do.

I call over the agent in charge, as well as her second in command as a witness. They both pat me down and search me for any unauthorized devices or files on my omni-tool. Aside from my own voice recordings, which had been approved by the Director, they find nothing. These searches are degrading, I have worked with the agency for centuries. Longer that the lives of some of these girls. But I bite my tongue and allow them to do their job, just as I have done mine. I am cleared.

The operation, or at least my involvement in it, is officially over.

I walk out of the room I had just spent the better part of three days in and into brightly lit hallways. They are mostly empty. A few people greet me. Not by my real name of course. None of the people in these halls are part of my agency, so all they know about me is my fabricated identity. Still, it does warm my heart to hear the affection they use when they call "my" name. I promise to attend a party some of the staff are hosting on the 30th. I sincerely look forward to it.

Out in the hallway I see one of our girls holding hands with a human.

I frown at the two.

The poor naïve girl sees my frown and gives me a look before turning to her lover and kissing him on the cheek.

She asks me if I have a problem with what I see.

I don't answer her. Goddess willing, she's turn from her life of filth and marry a proper asari woman. Goddess willing, she'll turn away from our society's illness of miscegenation. Goddess willing, she won't go through what 01 went through.

I walk outside and greet the cold bitter weather of Lluvia.

18:91

I could not sleep. This is not surprising, considering all that I had seen and heard and done. I stared down at my glass of wine, the cool blue color doing little to calm me.

I put the glass down as I accessed my implant's application through my omni-tool. Small-scale cybernetic implants like mine are often "implant and forget". You rarely think about them and maintenance is so minimal as to be non-existent. But, and most people are not aware of this fact, they are occasionally updated for a variety of reasons – reducing interface lag between the neural connections, or adaptions to improved software. But those updates are small in file size. Kilobytes at best Megabytes at worst. Usually nothing more than half a gigabyte or so. Hence, implants have small memory chips of about half a gigabyte or so – more than enough for the average person.

And more than enough for a few seconds of video recording.

More than enough to catch the birth of 01-A.

I took an awful risk smuggling this recoding out. Aldmia could have easily discovered my actions were she monitoring all the data streams between her systems and those of my implants. But I knew she wasn't. In the first place, she wasn't designed for such a thing. Medical programming was at the core of her software, with any espionage or security systems only added on as an afterthought. Secondly, I was masking the video recording through my voice recording. Even if Aldmia's meager programming were monitoring me, she did not have the intelligence to discern my actions.

The agency is easier to fool. I have worked there for centuries. Longer than some of their agents' lifespans. I was beyond anything but obligatory security checks.

I consider what to do with this recording.

I stand and make my way to my apartment window, a hard rain beating against the glass.

I think about my mothers.

I think about Sasia and Sanantae under glowing clouds.

I think about the girl I saw in the hallway.

I think about her question, if I had a problem with what I saw.

I stare out at Lluvia. At the humans and the asari mixing and fucking and giving birth to abominations.

"My problem is that you are blind to the plague of vermin you invite into our wombs."