Encounter 45

The government denies the entire affair, the entire event, but I was there I saw it. I heard it's voice. They will tell you that dimensional fatigue events are rare, and unique events. The creatures that are encountered, they say are animals and errant biological patterns. Aside from parrots and those genetically modded critters I've never met an animal or errant biological pattern that could speak english.

Encounter 45

Classified, level 7 clearance required

Location: Staines, Hunt & Saunders High Energy Research Laboratories, London Scientific Arcology 9

A dimensional fatigue event occurred during a failed test of a matter transference unit, henceforce known as a Teleportation Tank. (The teleportation tank project was intended to develop a method of transferring bulk fluids and compressed gases). Upon the misfire of the system the entity known as Encounter 45 was discovered manifested in the tank, complete with an alien and toxic atmosphere.

Appearance:

Encounter 45 is a large non-humanoid lifeform. It has a central body with a speculated internal layout that would resemble an oceanic bivalve. It has what appear to be three heads, each connected to the body mass with a long, serpentine neck. Each head has a mass of unidentifiable sensory organs. The function of these organs is unknown, but 45 proved capable of identifying different humans present, and was able to tell different androids apart. It is suspected that 45 had an electromagnetic sensory and manipulative ability. It could not vocalize on it's own, and was prone to flailing, slamming it's heads against things, hammering on the sides of the teleportation tank with thick 'tentacles' and producing loud shrill noises, and regularly emitted sprays of a viscious green substance.

The specimen proved fluent in english, and communicated by means of manipulating the output of a freestanding audio speaker. It is suspected that this ability was biological in nature, as parapsychic sensors, and parapsychic observers reported no parapsychic emanations from the subject. This ability seems to have limits, as the creature was not able to manipulate very fine systems, and wasn't able to influence anything more than basic electronics, on par with early 20th century tech.

It was a monster, all the shrieking, and spitting the green goo, and the incessant beating on the tank it was in. Contrary thing it was, if it broke walls, all of it's own air would be let out, and it would strangle, or be poisoned by our atmosphere. But with all that violence and shrieking, it was smart. It wasn't shite for carrying a conversation, it would repeat things you said to it, but it knew about the tech, about teleportation, and genetic manipulation, all sorts of damned black budget things.

SHS and 45

Staines, Hunt & Saunders instead of neutralizing Encounter 45 decided to keep the creature in containment. SHS hooked up the teleportation tank to a modified atmospheric processor, and a cleaning system that used ammonia to clean 45s organic waste out of the tank. Feeding the creature was a simple matter, it consumed most any putrefying flesh given to it.

It had a weakness, it did. It liked children.

No, not as playmates, not as conversational topics, and not even food. It ate their minds. Those heartless monsters would truss up a kid, slap a gas mask on them, and drop them into the teleportation tank. What it did to them thankfully I never saw. But when they came out they were technically alive, but they were dead inside. Their eyes were blank, their souls were gone, their minds, there was just nothing there.

And 45, it was just as jovial as a bloke at the pub, it was like a drunken fool after it ate one of those kids.

They gave it a clone child once, it threw a horrible fit, smashed the body against the tank walls until it was a bloody smear of guts and gore. It had to have a real child, not a copy of one.

The Revelations of 45

45 was a technical genius, and in exchange for a steady supply of it's favorite recreational drug, human children, it would share it's technical ability and expertise. The lion was rather pleased to be living in it's zoo. SHS wasn't a major research company, but it did a large amount of supplemental research and development for other companies, a lab company for hire. By working with 45, SHS made a name for itself as the support tech company that everyone wanted to work with, and fended off several attempts at corporate take-overs.

SHS was eventually nationalized, and became a proprietary holding of the British Crown. After this, 45 was moved from the SHS research center and relocated to a government controlled military base, where again instead of being neutralized, the government continued to feed 45 it's desired diet of rotting fish and children. Instead of assisting with basic research supplementing, 45 started working with the Crown on matters of national defense and security. The number of people who died working with 45 is unknown because aside from it's desire for children, many adults died fulfilling its wants and desires.

Eventually 45 starting wearing out it's welcome. Its revelations became fewer and farther apart, and less valuable. After several decades, it seemed that humans had learned everything of value from 45. The creature was kept for a while, a curiosity that became more valuable as a test subject than as a source of information.

It only took them 25 years to decide to do what they should have done the first day.

45 was killed with an incandescent plasma weapon, the charred corpse was dissected.

And then it was all swept under the rug. The tank was destroyed, the records of 45 were expunged. The people who worked with 45 were either reconditioned, exiled from London, or were simply liquidated. A few of us escaped notice, a few of us resisted the reconditioning, and we have done everything we can to show that for more than 25 years our government was in cooperation with an alien lifeform, one that was hostile to humanity, and that there is no way to know how many children were given to 45 for it's recreational use.

The Conspiracy

Like Roswell, Area 51, and the various other conspiracies, Encounter 45 is an event that few people know about, and when it is brought up, it is laughed off as a joke. The truth is less than thrilling, aside from the horror aspect. In exchange for human lives, Encounter 45 helped with a large number of patents and experiments, almost all of which were involved in entertainment media, mass produced goods, and convenience based products, such as temporary isomagnetic fields keeping juice boxes sealed, and polymorphic algorithms in genetically modified crops. SHS and the British Government attempted to wrest more valuable secrets from Encounter 45, but the being was unable or unwilling to provide military grade weapons technology, and what it knew about viral and genetic engineering was only viable on a number of plant and fungal species. The govt wanted alien death rays and got chocolate flavored mushrooms.

Author's Note: Inspiration drawn from a 5 part episode of Torchwood, regarding Species 456. Details were altered to make the creature fit into the Cosmic Era setting, most notably, the creature surviving more than a few days before being destroyed. It's appearance and behavior jumped immediately out at me as how to properly handle a semi-civilized cosmic horror.