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The Books of Centauri
LAB THREE AFTERMATH, 2ND PART: THE POISON IN THE FRUIT
As we approached, we saw the remains of the Lab Three; The metal spires were torn apart, no facility remained, as didn't any human remain. Lab Three, which once was a great base, was now a pile of scrap metal. All expensive equipment, all brilliant researchers were no more.
Some people say that this was good. They say that at the Lab Three the greatest atrocities, inhumanities and evil experiments were done. Maybe they're speaking the truth - the great Cyborg Factory was here. It is true that it was a huge facility, and all the treatments and tests certainly weren't painless. But do they remember the good sides? Everybody who wanted, and each and every soldier, got heightened senses; accuracy; speed; knowledge straight from the computers; And because of that, they could shoot those pesky mindworms from kilometres away with their chaos guns. Nothing was better against a group of fanatic bible thumpers than an accurate shot from fusion laser.
But The Cyborg Factory wasn't the greatest achievement of Lab Three. I can remember the satellite pictures of this base; The towers were just a small spot in the center of the picture. The small spot, the base, was a few kilometres away from the "Hot Spot", the place where the two rings of The Supercollider merged. The Supercollider was huge. It could accelerete 20g mass to 99.833425% lightspeed. Or 19.9g to 99.992935% lightspeed. This was possible only by using applied relativity, the newest breakthrough at the times when we University started building The Supercollider.
The Supercollider could eat ghastly amounts of energy. We had a so-called "mirror park" not very far away from lab three. It was an area where we had found an malfunctioning unity pod - it created a massive earthquake which caused landmasses to grow over three thousand meters upwards. We built that area full of solar panels, and also echelon mirrors on an efficient pattern. Solar power gave us more energy than nuclear plants on Earth. The supercollider was a great help for our science: I has been calculated that the supercollider facility itself did as much research as all other facilities and scientists in this base.
But, one day, soon after our new genejack factory here was ready, the Planet itself hit back. Our high production and pollution here caused great distress for the fungal network. That's why the mindworms came. I had a live video feed to the University base just when the Night falled on this base.
Fungus grew all around the base. The mirror park was soon overran by the thick red fungus mat. The nearby farms and forests changed quickly into red wastelands, mines and magtubes crumbled under the weight of the all-powerful fungus. With the fungus, came the mindworms. They moved swiftly like wind, their every tendril seemed to hunger human flesh. Even the locusts of chiron came - they quickly flew into the base. The defenders, those demoralized and terrified men, couldn't stop the Menace of Planet. People paralyzed everywhere in the base; The mindworms' PSI force was immense. The whole base stopped, the genejacks started waiting for their death, unable to even be afraid. As the electromagnetic PSI power blew apart both mind and matter, the mindworms came in.
Thousands of people, paralyzed and locked to see death, fear, evil around them, felt as the mindworm babies inside them started eating. The time between the first notice of fungus growth and the coming of the mindworms was only about a few hours.
At the time of the destruction of the southmost parts of the base, the Supercollider's research group did its best to save the base. The only thing they could do to stop the mindworms was to destruct the whole base.
The group leader gave his orders. They were simple: "Use deuterium in the Collider system. Activate it, and destroy the whole base."
The collider system slowly started to suck up energy and take 15.65g deuterium from stores to both accelerators. Lights dimmed in the whole base and all solar panels opened at the mirror park. The velocity was 10% lightspeed... 25% lightspeed... 75% lightspeed...
...
And the mindworm menace was no more.
As we approached, we saw the remains of the Lab Three; The metal spires were torn apart, no facility remained, as didn't any human remain. Lab Three, which once was a great base, was now a pile of scrap metal. All expensive equipment, all brilliant researchers were no more.
Some people say that this was good. They say that at the Lab Three the greatest atrocities, inhumanities and evil experiments were done. Maybe they're speaking the truth - the great Cyborg Factory was here. It is true that it was a huge facility, and all the treatments and tests certainly weren't painless. But do they remember the good sides? Everybody who wanted, and each and every soldier, got heightened senses; accuracy; speed; knowledge straight from the computers; And because of that, they could shoot those pesky mindworms from kilometres away with their chaos guns. Nothing was better against a group of fanatic bible thumpers than an accurate shot from fusion laser.
But The Cyborg Factory wasn't the greatest achievement of Lab Three. I can remember the satellite pictures of this base; The towers were just a small spot in the center of the picture. The small spot, the base, was a few kilometres away from the "Hot Spot", the place where the two rings of The Supercollider merged. The Supercollider was huge. It could accelerete 20g mass to 99.833425% lightspeed. Or 19.9g to 99.992935% lightspeed. This was possible only by using applied relativity, the newest breakthrough at the times when we University started building The Supercollider.
The Supercollider could eat ghastly amounts of energy. We had a so-called "mirror park" not very far away from lab three. It was an area where we had found an malfunctioning unity pod - it created a massive earthquake which caused landmasses to grow over three thousand meters upwards. We built that area full of solar panels, and also echelon mirrors on an efficient pattern. Solar power gave us more energy than nuclear plants on Earth. The supercollider was a great help for our science: I has been calculated that the supercollider facility itself did as much research as all other facilities and scientists in this base.
But, one day, soon after our new genejack factory here was ready, the Planet itself hit back. Our high production and pollution here caused great distress for the fungal network. That's why the mindworms came. I had a live video feed to the University base just when the Night falled on this base.
Fungus grew all around the base. The mirror park was soon overran by the thick red fungus mat. The nearby farms and forests changed quickly into red wastelands, mines and magtubes crumbled under the weight of the all-powerful fungus. With the fungus, came the mindworms. They moved swiftly like wind, their every tendril seemed to hunger human flesh. Even the locusts of chiron came - they quickly flew into the base. The defenders, those demoralized and terrified men, couldn't stop the Menace of Planet. People paralyzed everywhere in the base; The mindworms' PSI force was immense. The whole base stopped, the genejacks started waiting for their death, unable to even be afraid. As the electromagnetic PSI power blew apart both mind and matter, the mindworms came in.
Thousands of people, paralyzed and locked to see death, fear, evil around them, felt as the mindworm babies inside them started eating. The time between the first notice of fungus growth and the coming of the mindworms was only about a few hours.
At the time of the destruction of the southmost parts of the base, the Supercollider's research group did its best to save the base. The only thing they could do to stop the mindworms was to destruct the whole base.
The group leader gave his orders. They were simple: "Use deuterium in the Collider system. Activate it, and destroy the whole base."
The collider system slowly started to suck up energy and take 15.65g deuterium from stores to both accelerators. Lights dimmed in the whole base and all solar panels opened at the mirror park. The velocity was 10% lightspeed... 25% lightspeed... 75% lightspeed...
...
And the mindworm menace was no more.
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