Imposter System

Alexis was able to recover from her shock within a few minutes. She was happy that her dinner didn't end up on the floor. Matt was also fine after a short while since it was more of a surprise than actually painful. However, that didn't mean he wasn't slightly annoyed. Mostly at himself since he forgot that this wasn't a topic normal people could easily accept.

"Well, lets move past that for now. Let me introduce you to Martha. I essentially saved her from being sent to the lower decks to be experimented on."

Matt activated Sense Life and saw Martha was still hiding in the vent like he asked. Alexis was a bit pale from the earlier scare but still followed along. He had brought twice as much water than usual since it had been a while. In order to make sure there were no conflicts, he planned to have Alexis water Martha after him. Matt walked into the secure pen and lowered the shield. Once inside, he began pouring water out into the feeding dish.

Martha was hesitating because of Alexis's presence so Matt created a telepathic channel and reassured her. With that, Martha pushed the vent open from underneath and stepped out. The first thing Matt heard was a gasp. He turned around and saw Alexis covering her mouth. Her face was akin to someone seeing light for the first time in several decades. Martha ignored her and went straight to the water. She started greedily taking it up from her paws.

The water was quickly disappearing so he signaled Alexis to start filling the tray. She quickly came over and started emptying her water container. Martha didn't even seem to notice the change of person and continued to submerge her paws. Once all of the water was taken up, Martha lied down and curled up into a ball intending to nap. Alexis couldn't hold herself back and attempted to pet the cat-like plant.

Matt put a hand on her shoulder to stop her and then used his telepathy to create a connection between Martha and Alexis. Then, he told her to try talking to her for a bit. Matt wasn't sure what kind of reaction Martha would have since he barely understood her. Being chosen as a friend by Martha seemed to be completely random. Alexis nodded and started to have a silent conversation with Martha. Occasionally, Martha would raise a paw and shake it, or lazily blink and look up.

"How's it going?"

"Wow Matt, this is what the commander was looking for? She is really remarkable."

Alexis talked a bit longer with Martha but Matt was started to get strained holding the telepathy up. It was a lot harder to connect with two others. He contemplated investing some more points into his telepathy. Matt still had not unlocked an offensive ability. He was certain that the next evolution of his Dream Walking or Telepathy would become a mental attack. Now that Alexis entered this dangerous situation with him, he wanted more ways to retaliate.

"I can't keep the telepathy up much longer. And it looks like Martha needs to rest after taking in so much water. It seems that she can use the water molecules to drive a nuclear reaction within her body which generates energy for her growth."

"Ah, okay. I'll talk to you later, bye Martha."

Alexis waved goodbye as the telepathy went down. Martha raised her head toward Alexis and shook her paw. Alexis had talked about a lot of things with Martha and she seemed to enjoy new information and pictures. When Alexis saw this gesture, she was hesitant. It looked like Martha was saying 'I allow you to pet me, human.'

Alexis reached out slowly and touched her soft head. The pine needles were a lot less prickly than she thought. They were very soft and not at all unlike real fur. Martha even took the initiative to rub her head on Alexis's palm. This level of cuteness almost caused her to lose control, but Alexis didn't want to scare the poor little plant alien. After gently stroking her leaves, Martha lowered her head and started her nap.

"Ah, it's over already."

Matt rolled his eyes. Martha was truly brilliant in choosing that form. Well, he wasn't sure if that was a choice or related to the genes that were spliced to create such a being. He led Alexis out of the animal area and into the main part of the lab. There were several things he needed to tell her so that they had the same amount of information.

"So I guess I'll start chronologically and then talk about my conjectures…"

Matt explained everything significant that happened so far. The first thing was discovering there was possibly a strange ingredient in the bloody sausages. It was possible that alien ingredients were used. Alexis was much calmer when he mentioned the sausages this time. She thought about it and mentioned that there were some strange things being held in the lower decks but they were mostly experimenting. As far as she knew, there had not been any actual aliens sneaking onto the ship or being smuggled in.

The next issue was the Dr. Lisinger, Shephard, and the supposed faction controlling the ship behind the scenes. Alexis didn't know about the specifics, but ever since she entered the Second Strike force on Earth all those years ago, she was told that there would be a superior whose authority was higher than the captains. The two of them seemed to agree that the person in mention was probably Shephard. When she learned that Dr. Lisinger was looking for a 'subject zero,' she had no clues.

"You think that perhaps there is another parasite out there amongst the crewmen?"

"I think that Shephard or Dr. Linsinger think that. The identity of subject zero must be related to the experiments in the lower decks."

From the documents in the simulation, they both discovered that the metal used to make the combat suits was actually from that ancient alien derelict. Dr. Stein must have been one of people in charge of learning it's origins and how to grow it. Matt felt that the organism that makes up the metal must have close ties with Earth's fungi. He could sense that from his speech the last time they talked. Matt had intended to meet with him but decided to lay low for now.

Alexis talked about the combat suits in detail since she had seen them in person. She described that currently there were only four working advanced suits and many models being researched. The most common one was the 'Space Marine' model used to train soldiers in controlling the suits. The next one was the 'Stealth Suit,' however she didn't know the details about that one besides its name.

Matt, on the other hand, knew exactly what that suit was. In the game, the Stealth Suit allowed for the user to turn invisible for short durations. This was described in the tooltip as bending and refracting light around the wearer. Cloaking technology wasn't unheard of in their current era. There were news articles in the past about advancements in the technology for use in observing animals in nature without disturbing them.

The next suit was referred to as the 'Pyrotechnician.' As the name suggested, it was capable of releasing very powerful flames. Alexis didn't know the science behind it, but the suit was the bulkiest of the four. It had two large tanks on it's back that carried the mixture used for the ammunition. Matt was a big fan of this suit in the game since it was a hard counter to the swarming strategy. It also had very high defenses so it was not easy for anything but the transformation path to defeat it.

The final suit Alexis described as being the most imposing one. She didn't know what it was, or what it did. Whenever someone would test it, it seemed like nothing was happening yet the dummies exploded. She also had never learned the name of it. However, there was a very impressive logo on the suit.

Matt asked her to draw it and went to retrieve a pen and paper for her. While digging through his lab coat, he discovered the two pills he had planned to test. He stuffed them in his pockets and returned to where Alexis was. What she drew was a circular pattern made up of squares. There was also some sort of image in the center that she wasn't able to completely draw. However, Matt recognized this logo and crumpled the paper in frustration.

'Weaponized Biosuit: ESP. The only suit that completely counters the mind flayer path. Of all of the suits, even the Nuclear Suit, would have been better. Why did they have to have this suit researched so early.'

Matt had a sudden insight and looked over in Martha's direction. He remembered the countless plants that had been grown with her seeds. It dawned on him that the Biotronic Brain was not the only thing Martha was being researched for. Project Synapse was likely the child project of the weapons project for the same technology.