Masks Off/Transcript

Warning. EMP Shutdown. All systems Impaired. Switching to core function mode. Life support priority. Warning. EMP Shutdown. All systems Impaired. Switching to core function mode. Life support priority. Warning. Deep layer protocols. Engaging. Rerouting systems.

Wake up, marine. This is no time for dying. Get your ass back in the fight.

Just another grunt, I'm afraid. Prophet could have told us more.

At least we have the nanogear intact that's what really matters. The rest I'll have to improvise once I'm in the suit.

Oh, my young friend. I'd have vote to skip your consciousness here but the nanogear isn't proving cooperative. Let's get started.

I'm really sorry for this betrayal, but I really had no choice. I need the suit, this particular suit in fact, if I'm to have any hope of sopping the Ceph. A simple soldier will not suffice here.

Prophet: I don't understand what's going on.

Jacob: You are in, Porohet. Your suit have learnt the Ceph nanosystems. You gotta go back, you are our best hope.

You twisted motherfucker. You knew! You know the suit was symbiotic! You knew what what would do to my man! You turned them into dead man walking!

I turned them into post human warriors. You are a soldier, think of it as necessary sacrifices.

You lied to us!

Perhaps I was economical with the truth, but what choice did I have? What choice do you have now? The Ceph are coming, Prophet. Soon. Do you think we will defeat it with ordinary human soldiers? This is not a war that ordinary humans can win. This is the future. Death is an inconvenience now, nothing more. We are all dead man walking.

Cellular force overload. Enough of this shit, marine!

The suit is rejecting the rip.

Enough!

It's overloading!

Stop it. Kill him if you have to but don't damage the nanogear. Headshots only!

Nice try, Tin Man, now say goodnight.

Tara, no! Tara, listen to me!

It's OK, you are safe, I'm CIA, special operations group, recruited out of the seals three years ago. I'm the one who ordered your squad to bring Prophet and Gould out. Yeah, screwed now of course.

Alright, look, there will be time to explain later, right now Ceph are breaking into this place and we gotta get Hargreave out. The man is insane, he thinks he is the only competent human being on the planet. But he is got vital knowledge on the Ceph. He stole their technology a hundred years ago in Tunguska, he's been working on ever since. Three years ago he was the puppet master behind the mess at lingshan that killed my father. He's got some kind of plan for confronting the invasion and we need to know what it is. He is holed up in the executive level trough that way, no one gets to see him face to face, believe me, I've tried.

You are gonna have to break in. I'll get up to the heli pad to secure a transport, bring him out and meet me there. We fly him out, and we take him to some place where we can make him talk. I'll stand on comms and keep you posted, now GO!

So, here you are. Theseus at last. Welcome.

Scant reward for so much effort, eh. Crack the laberynt and at least expect to see the Minotaur before it kills you. Well, it seems only fair. Masks off. I am here.

Shocked? I would be. I'd revel in it, if I were you. That sudden jump of the pulse, the cram of the fight or flight chemicals into the belly. So sweet while it lasts. But it's very long since I last fell any of it. A century or more since my pleasures were anything but cerebral. I took the path that Karl Rash refused, the cold road to immortality. I'd hope Prophet suit myself, take on the weapons he brought us, wear his armor. Enter the labyrinth and confront the Minotaur. But now... You... You will have to finish what Prophet began.

Get out of there, Alcatraz.

No! Wait. There is a final piece of the puzzle you need. There on the desk. Take the syringe.

Nanosuit: Take the syringe

Take it.

*Injects*

Yes. There. The Tunguska iteration. The key to all gates.

Do you think I'm based on this chesspet city because i like it here?

You were waiting for them! Why didn't you warn someone!

Warn whom? Humanity at large?

Look what you've done old man! They are here you!

Yes Nathan the owners are back. Waking up the systems, firing up the boiler, back to spring-clean the old family residence, and not much liking what they've found festering behind the fridge. Can you blame them? Really?

Oh the angels of death at last, my escort back to human fragility. Well, took you long enough!

Become prohpet. Take on his armor. Strike for your species, for humanity, in all its fumbling,. half made glory!

Get out of there Alcatraz...

Yes! Get out! Save us all!

This is Jacob Hargrave to all CELL personnel. Commander Lockhart is dead. I will be joining him shortly, and the prism facility is wired explosively self-destruct. Subject prophet is your only hope of turning back the alien invasion. You will therefore discontinue hostilities and afford him in any assistance you can as you evacuate this island

All Prism Facilities will be explosively self-seal in ten minutes. Your employee duties are terminated. Please exit by the indicated channels

Alcatraz, the roof is trashed. Theres nothing flyable up here. I'm heading for the Quennshore bridge Meet me at the far side if you can

Listen to me Alcatraz. Hargreave never bluffed in his life. This place is going up- you've got to get out of there!

All Prism Facilities will be explosively self-seal in five minutes. Your employee duties are terminated. Please exit by the indicated channels

Keep moving Alcatraz! We're heading across town to the bridge. Hurry!

You gotta get back to Manhattan. We lose the suit, we lose everything

Will there be an afterlife, i wonder? Choirs of angels? Or a fiery pit? One under learns these falsehoods over time, but the child who learned to fear hell is never really gone. To tell the truth, i think I've had enough of afterlives as it is, and this one has been pretty purgatorial. Almost fifty years floating in super cooled jelly like some medical specimen, thought creeping like rats trough the cramped silicon corridors of machines, trapped behind video screens and camera systems, never sleeping, never resting, never ceasing to think about the world you no longer belong to. No, if this is a taste of the afterlife, I think simply oblivion will do nicely

All Prism Facilities will be explosively self-seal in one minute. Your employee duties are terminated. Please exit by the indicated channels.