Bury Me on Falsador-5.

Chapter 1: Watcher.

Renetami Enterprises Asset Liquidation Department (V CLASS CLEARANCE REQUIRED)

Subject: Keptech(tm) Journameter, model year 2785

Origin: The May 2920 Tullamore Corp Acquisition and Liquidation

Description: Recovered from storeroom 87A of Tullamore Corp's Far Galactic Division, 291 Tailway Street #102, Svetlinka Gorod, Kepler 22b. The journameter recounts the personal logs of Tullamore Corp junior associate Jay Karetny, describing his experiences during their 2790's push into the Andromeda Frontier. Since this expansion directly led to the circumstances allowing us to seize their standings, we request that it be designated a Special Value Item. Furthermore, we request a transfer from Asset Liquidation, which is not equiped to evaluate a Special Value Item, to Research Investment. We would also like to pursue a transparency request with Intelligence and Discovery, as the Junior Associate Jay Karetny is not mentioned in any openly available databanks. Although it serves as an important record of Tullamore Corp's mismanagement, we suggest that its scientific value outweighs its operations value, as modeled by the Renetami Formula of Evaluation, page 921 of the Renetami codal conduct lexitext.

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KEPTECH-LOGME_VERS1.0904

JOURNAMETER(tm) PERSONAL DUAL MODE RECORDING DEVICE

00.03GB/15.99EB

2793_0628_0537

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Thursday, June 28th, 2793

5:37am [STANDARD SOLAR TIME, PLEASE SET TO LOCAL]

I had another Kepler dream last night. Its like I can't stop dreaming about it, no matter what I do to take my mind off the whole idea. I was standing out in the wilds, not a hab tower in sight. Just bare rolling valleys, greener than anything you can find in any Earthen ecology. A kind of indulgent dark green, tuffs of grass hueing over eachother with so many different shades, all crossing and combing. The vines started crawling, tying around my legs. Before I knew it I was accelerating, deeper and deeper into the forests. It was all blurring past me, treebark and bushes didn't even have their shape anymore. The forest got darker and darker. Then I woke up. And now I'm back here.

6:02am

close one. I almost forgot to send off the daily report to my supervisor. I mean it wouldn't really matter, I can only send out data from here. Can't recieve it. Even if he wanted to chew me out he couldn't, unless he hopped on a transport and came face to face with me. the hab doesn't have that capability, which is fun. Real fun. They said I would have full comms bredth here, I asked that stupid fucking corporate drone on the way here and he said don't worry about it. I don't know why I keep trusting the words of these suited up freaks. From Kepler to Andro, They've all got the same modus. This terminal might as well be running UNIX, the whole hab has got to be hundreds of years old. I don't know what kind of ancient warehouse they pulled this pod from, probably some far flung manufacturing system all the way out in q15 of Emdubs. Would probably be really cheap, considering no one wants to pass the Novachain to get there. Alright, I gotta get breakfast, I wanna be out for watch before 8 today.

6:57am

thats better. Opened up the blinds too, if just for the routine. Falsador is the same as ever. Dark, purple, glowing. All that crisscrossing glowing whatever, bright magenta curls going up twenty meters, coming down into black soil. I think the trunks might be brighter today, sometimes they fluctuate in their light levels. Haven't found out why, though. I was thinking a little more about the hab thing, while I was making coffee just now. This hab tower is some mass produced stamped plastisteel conveyor line affair, indistinguishable from one another. Probably made lightyears away, some factory system filling out warehouses by the hundreds. A real habitation standard, peppered all throughout the galaxy. So someone must be in this exact same hab as me, same walls. Same chair, maybe even sitting in the same spot as I am right now. And by extension, someone must have pressed that button at the same exact time, exact same place as me, getting the same breakfast order piped in from the overhead supply. Maybe even thinking about someone like me, exactly like them, thinking the same thoughts at this exact moment. And I would never know about it. I wouldn't have a clue.

Alright. Time to suit up.

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KEPTECH-LOGME_VERS1.0904

JOURNAMETER(tm) PERSONAL DUAL MODE RECORDING DEVICE

00.07GB/15.99EB

2793_0628_0802

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*SYNCING WITH GENERAL LABOR PROTECTIVE SUIT MODEL K398*

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*SYNC COMPLETE. PLEASE SPEAK TO CONFIRM VOICE DETECTION OPERATIONAL.*

*...*

*VOICE. DETECTED. BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING.*

8:02am

Okay, I mean its kind of cheating to use an autotranscriber than writing everything down, but I'm the boss here. What I say goes. I'm the CEO of Tullamore Corp, afterall. I'm just doing a Peter the Great kind of deal. Thats just the kind of King I am, and I make sure all my serfs and peasants are equipped with two way broadband connectivity, so that they aren't stuck watching turn of the century theater movies that the last habdweller left on local storage. Because I'm a nice King.

Alright enough screwing around, feet on the ground. Well not really ground, just some kind of dark spongey mess. Like a foam pad but only vaguely biological. You can drop coffee mugs off the hab tower ten meters high and it will bounce back like nothing. I haven't tried myself yet, with my kind of luck I'm betting it calcifies right before my feet hit the ground. But I imagine it would be fun.

I have to get to Tower Ten today. Mark down any new ammonia pools I see on the way, then spend the night in Tower Ten. Wake up, do it all again tomorrow. A 16 week contract. Sixteen weeks. For two points above minimum wage.

*VOICE. DETECTED. BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING.*

9:35am

They told me I was going on firewatch. Thats what the posting said on Tullamore's career nexus. Intergalactic Firewatch. Big letters right on the front. I really should have said no, sitting on that transport to Andro while that fucking handler "cleared up any miscommunications". I'd call him soulless but they're on such a high line slurry of colaktophin and Fertropol I doubt it would even register. But apparently- Ugh, hold on.

Sorry, pathing took me right up the side of a hill. Had to get on all fours, its so hard to grab this damn stuff. I don't know why I didn't just go around. I'd probably have to explain myself in my writeup, every step I make out here is tracked. I'm seeing a lot of pocmarks, but no ammonia yet. Didn't see any yesterday either. Anyway.

So apparently in some database, these big magenta curlythings got assigned a "Tree" indicator. I asked to see it for myself. He turned the tab to me with the datalog highlighted: "these structures, while resembling trees, do not seem to perform any processes in relation with the surrounding environment. They should not be considered trees by any future surveyors." I looked him straight in the eyes, thinking it was some kind of joke. Thinking that if I gaped at him enough that he would look back with an Oh Shit look on his face. And . But no, he just kept looking at me with a glassy eyed expression. Everyone else on the shuttle got to go to a giant oxygenated forest farm. I was the last one in the ship. I asked him why we can't go back and find a suitable planet. He said it was 500 parsecs to the nearest organized settlement, and furthermore Tullamore would never accept a mission pivot without the error data being corrected first. It would have to go through some branch that will talk to another branch until someone patches the indicator from a 1 to a 0. A bunch of figures were jumping around his eyes, and when they went back to normal he told me its apparently more efficient not to correct the datalog and to continue with the mission. I asked him how much more efficient.

0.0019% more efficient.

And then he dropped me off here. Some poisoned nitroxide burping hellrock. Told me to spot ammonia instead of fires. Gave me a new intel debrief that he was clearly just reading from wikipedia off his tab. And that was that. He looked a little proud of himself while he was leaving, the colo was probably wearing off. A couple of errant thoughts about his commission pay going up. Or maybe the colo strain they have lets those kinds of thoughts through now. I dunno.

If I could afford it, I'd be on a 24/7 coloktophin cocktail too. Would atleast block out any memory of this contract.

12:40pm

Stopping for lunch. Tired. I'm maybe a third of the way there, still haven't spotted anything of note. Sandwich. Smoked turkey flavor. Its all the supply box has. Also Pocari paste for the electrolytes. I usually mix it with water, but I want to save whatever I have right now. I miss veggies. Back on Kepler you could find them anywhere. Bochimers, kolakes, you could pick em right off the trees and no one would bother you. I never got why the standard Earthen diet is all prepacked grain and protein. Maybe they don't know either, like some ancient knowledge lost to time and no one knows why they still do it like that. Just that it would rock the boat to interrogate why.

Like I get that you need something with an indefinite shelf life, out in the void like this. But there has to be a better solution than reconstituted simulacra day in day out, whens the last time anyones even seen a turkey? Guess its easier to mass produce. Seems to be the common theme. Back before the family moved to Sveti, we used to dry chifets in the oven till they were flat and crispy. You could survive off just that for days, even ten years down the line. Meat was a lot rarer, though. But still, atleast it wasn't labgrown.

Anyway, I'm gonna talk more about Falsador because there isn't anything else to talk about, I already blahblah'd enough about Kepler yesterday. So ya, this system is bizarre. Real bizarre. Its been a month and I still can't get fully used to it. Five planetoids circling around a center mass, each is hardly a thousand miles in diameter. Must be a pretty small sun at the center, right? Well you'd be wrong. There isn't one. Theres only this giant, pinkish glowing orb. Its the size of a sun sure, but it doesn't give off light like one. Falsador Prime is what they call it, atleast on whatever datalogs I can scrounge from the hab towers. You have to be within a lightyear or two just to barely make it out. You could probably see the microplanets before prime, a little black pinprick against the faraway nebulae. It never dims, never fluctuates, just gives off this low lumen pink glow all day every day. Even when night falls, the curlgrowths still shine steadily, as if Falsador prime never set at all. Theres not a lot else known about the Falsador system. Tullamore R+D claims that they discovered Falsador prime is responsible for all the growths on its moons, but hell I could have told you that.

Well thats that. Back on the trail.

1:35pm

I still can't get over how smooth this stuff is. Push on it, knock on it, its like theyre giant pillars of glass sprouting up from the ground. I forgot if I wrote it down, that when I sliced a piece off with my knife, it was completely uniform on the inside. no capillary system, or any sign of developed life. Its hard as glass and slices like jelly. I don't know what it could possibly be. Maybe its a fungi? And this is just the fruiting body of whatever is down there.

Oh for fucks sake, the pathing is taking me straight through the coral. This stuff is so annoying to navigate, give me a minute.

...

Ya, I'm still not going down that cave to find out though. Uncover whatever ancient god is sprouting this shit from his eyelashes. Hell I don't even want to go to tower 5 anymore. I'm just gonna skip it next time, its all out of donuts anyway.

6:05pm

I want to punch Tullamore execs right in their stupid fucking faces. Route was supposed to be done an hour ago and it says I still have THREE FUCKING HOURS to go. I swear to GOD if they try to dock my contract for inefficiency. ITS THEIR FUCKING ROUTING ALGORITHM. I know they'll try, oh my GODDD I know they'll try. I'll get up in their faces over it. Ya, I'll cut right through their colo slurry, they put their hands on me? Its OVER for them, I'll smack their jaws into next week. I'll put those bitches on the floor, it'll be the first time those corporate drones will EVER have to deal with the consequences of their god damn actions in a way they can't just weasel out of. Load me up with a million lawsuits, I don't fucking care. I'll put the fear of god into those glazed over suits.

Ya... but they'd probably have some geeked out bodyguards. And they'd read my cortisol levels before I could even get close to them. Then they'd pneumetic press me to the ground, crush my skull. Write me off as another disgruntled hostile ex-employee. Fed wouldn't even look twice at my case. Just another tick in the number book. And thats if they even try to dock my pay in person, which is stupid. Its all netmail these days. Hell I didn't even see a single face when I got my last contract. Not when it started, not when it ended. I was actually kinda surprised when the Tullamore rep wanted to meet in person, thought it was some kind of scam at first. In a way, guess it was...

No ammonia pools yet, in case you were wondering. Just these fields of half-spheres dotting the horizon. As far as Tullamore tells its of no concern to them. I assume, anyway. Made of the same stuff as the trees, uniform magenta jelly. You can pick them up, lift em right up like a rug. They're not connected to the ground or anything. You can lift them, but can't move em. Its like they're velcro'd to the floor. Sproutlings, maybe? I doubt forestry knowledge is of any use here.

Alright fuck this, I'm taking a break. I know I'm only supposed to take two and a lunch, but this is getting ridiculous. I've still got miles left before tower ten. Wish I brought more water.

...

I wish I was still around when they needed tree tenders on Kepler... Missed the ship by a few years for that. I thought maybe if I got my forestry degree and tried then I could find something, but no. Not if you don't know someone in the fed or the corps. Could volunteer with the parks and rec nonprofs, if I could stomach the waiting list. And the embarassingly small area of study. Don't get me wrong, parks in Svetlinka are nice, the nonprofs do a really good job maintaining them. But even the big ones, you would walk for ten minutes in any direction, and you'd be back in the highrises. The noise dome could block out anything from the outside in, but only as long as you were underneath it. Outside the neurodrums it may as well have been gone forever. Whatever bits were left on the outskirts that survived the first soc drop all got bought up by the C class for quiet ranch homes. You couldn't even step within a hundred feet of one before getting stopped by a privsec goon Believe me, I know. Why are they the only ones that get to have some peace and quiet? Cuz they had the money to buy it?

This is making me depressed. I'm gonna get back on the route, I really just wanna fall asleep right now, I'm that tired. Might pick up the pace, I could really use some water right now.

8:31pm

-upid FUCKING OVERENGINEERED COSMIC COFFIN. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?! LEAVE IT TO TULLIMORE YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARDS.

Lockout. The tower is LOCKED. OUT.

No power! So now the door won't open! You CAN restart the generator to GET power! But the control panel is inside! And you can't get inside withouWHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS ONE UP????? WHAT MORON IN ENG NO YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK THIS. ITS NOT EVEN WORTH THINKING ABOUT, JUST SYSTEMIC FUCKING DUMBASSES ALL THE WAY DOWN.

oh fuck Tullimore, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUUUCCCCK TULLIMORE. I HAVE A TEN HOUR HIKE BACK TO TOWER NINE NOW. OH MY FUCKING GOD.

You know what???? fuck this. FUCK. THIS. I'm done!!! That's it!!! And you know what else? I see two from here! Two ammonia pools, big ass fucking lakes! Bubbling away! Ain't marking that. You can go to HELL Tullimore. I want you to BLEED. I hope you pricks blow your fucking heads off over this half of a half percent off your bottom line.

What the hell. What the HELL. Am I doing here?!?!?!?

No, that's it. I'm not having it one goddamn bit. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of ALL of this. WHY am I out here??? What? So I can get money to keep living at my HOME????? Where I don't even wanna fucking BE anymore?????

No more reports. No more hiking out in this toxic hellhole swamp backwater cosmic magenta clownhouse. I'm sitting my ass down in Tower 9 watching 2010's reruns for the next ten weeks. And I ain't taking a single step outside unless its on a transport ship.

I wonder if theres anything I can steal out of the towers. Might be able to smuggle a few fission bats out, if I can find a kit in one of these towers. Could get a couple hundred creds for those if I find the right buyer. Would atleast cover for the wages they're no doubt gonna rob from me once the transport comes back. Hell I'll go hab to hab and rip fizz out of every wall they have. At that point I could flag down a shootstercraft going cross and offer to split the profits, sidestep getting on a Tullamore transport altogether. I bet these parasites wouldn't even notice.

12:27am

Tired... so tired... god I'm tired. Oxygen, recharged. Recycled. Same breath over and over for hours and hours. I swear the ground is getting spongier... My boots sink in and I lift them out, over and over.

The magenta is hurting my eyes, I never get a break. I still got about half way to go. Need to keep moving.

3:36am

See it... Tower nine. A little bit more. Need to rest. Can't talk. too tired. I am completely depleted of energy. The tree is humming, kinda, against my back. Feels nice. But can't sleep here. Just sitting, a little bit. The top parts are waving back and forth. Hang on theres no wind here. Theres barely even an atmosphere, how can there be-

*VOICE DETECTED. BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING.*

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Chapter 2: Listener.

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KEPTECH-LOGME_VERS1.0904

JOURNAMETER(tm) PERSONAL DUAL MODE RECORDING DEVICE

0.11GB/15.99EB

2793_0629_0437

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Friday, June 29th, 2793

4:37am

IT STABBED ME. IT STABBED ME IN THE ARM.

THE AIR. THE AIR IS BURNING.

OH GOD IT BURNS.

5:00am

THE MED BOX. I NEED THE MED BOX RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

Please please please oh god I need help. I need SERIOUS FUCKING help. That slimey purple shit is all over my arm. Its cut up bad. Real bad. I can't feel my fingers, I can't even move them. I already shoved an antidote stim into it, I loaded myself up with a shit ton of morphine from the med box but I still can't feel anything but pain. God this is bad. this is really really really fucking bad. I gotta get this purple shit off me, every time I grab it my arm shoots out again. God I can barely talk.

I can't die here. I don't wanna die here. It'll be okay. I just really need to sterilize.

6:10am

It won't stop burning. I scrubbed at it for an hour, this purple jelly shit kept sloshing off in layers, its like oil and syrup combined and it sticks to everything and every time I fucking touch it its like I'm being stabbed again. I don't know if I got it all off, I am really really hoping the antidote isn't expired. I think its interacting with something in my blood, or maybe its from the ammonia in the air outside I don't know. I'm not bleeding anymore, bandaged it shut. It still won't stop burning. Its big, its half an inch deep all down my bicep. Every time my left arm moves at all it starts again.

6:15am

My distress beacon is on. I have confirmation, the outer lights are flashing red. Transmitter is at full strength, had to shut off all the lights and appliances for the power. I activated the Tullamore distress relay too, before the terminal went off. I don't know how much good it'll do. I've used up half the morphine already and its still unbearable. I haven't seen another jump signature since I got here, but someone has to be passing by. They just have to. God I hope someone comes soon.

6:31am

My fingers are white and I don't know what to fucking do. They were flush or maybe I just didn't recognize cuz they were covered in blood, maybe I didn't notice till I got in the shower that they are bone white. They're bone white and I don't feel a thing in them. Everything is going by too slow. I can't remember how much blood I lost, its all hazy. But it must have been a lot. It all went by so fast and now its too slow. Too slow for comfort. I've been up for a whole day but if I go to sleep right now something tells me I'll never wake up.

6:38am

Went digging through the med box. I don't think its been opened since this thing was manufactured. Everything here is so old, paper is all yellow and the plastics crumbling, The Antidote vial was the only thing made this decade. Theres... theres a drip bag of syntszol at the bottom. God this shit was outlawed decades ago but its my only option right now. I'm gonna try to hook it up, somehow. Maybe it can get the blood flowing again. Flash bind whatever sinew I have left, I think my nerves are damaged. Oh god I don't know what to fucking do. The instructions say it needs to be diluted but fuck that, I'm not turning the water machine back on. I need every shred of electricity going into that beacon.

Someone has to come. Someone has to be out there, someone being sent here just like me. Its only probability, I can't be the only one out here. Okay, enough stalling.

7:05am

Its in. Atleast I think it is, Its hard to tell but I think its flowing into my arm. I am really really scared right now. Theres a giant pit in my chest and its not going away. Every drop from that bag is another dice roll. I know whats going to happen, I've seen the photos. I've read the testimonies.

Oh god I don't know how it'll interact with morphine. Or the antidote. Or the treesap. I really hope I got all of it off, I don't know whether it was the air or the tree that did it but I just really want it to stop. Right now I just have to stay awake.

8:31am

nothing outside has moved. Its completely still. Falsador Prime is staying high up in the air. I don't understand, it should be night by now. If the rotation of the planet is screwed then I'm really screwed in a way I can't even understand yet. The emergency lights are still flashing. It should be visible from orbit. And from farther too. It should be.

The morphine is gone. I can feel it wearing off.

Saturday, June 30th, 2783

6:05am

I didn't consider how lonely it is with all the machines turned off. Theres no humming from anything, just silence. Not even Kepler nights were this quiet. There was always some kind of animal, or the wind running through the grass. Even when the soc drop hit and the megas went up, the city kept on some kind of audio baseline, at all times. Its so suffocating here, I can't even play anything on the terminal. Not if I want the beacon operating at full capacity. The only thing inside is nothing. The only thing outside is Falsador.

At any rate, the syntszol is working believe it or not. I can feel the tips of my fingers again, but cant move them at all. Its progress though, atleast. I'm beginning to think those lawsuits were a bunch of

My BONES MY FUCKING BONES ITS CRACKING MY BONES IN HALF STOP OH GOD STOP STOP STOP STOP.

Friday, July 5th, 2783

10:01am

I'm lucid enough to talk again. The syntszol took its course, five days of bone crushing and vomiting. My throat burns, it burns horribly. I've been throwing up stomach acid for the last three days. It all burns. If anything its gotten worse. Breathing is sucking in daggers. I can feel it, whatever it is. I don't know whats the lingering effects of the syntszol or infection anymore. Lying in bed, can't eat anything. Can barely move. Every time I open my lungs they crackle apart. I haven't slept in days, I just keep passing in and out. The only way I know time is passing is the clock on the journameter. If I put this on my desk when I got back I don't think I'd be able to even get to it right now. I can't even reach for new bandages, once the first wrap soaked through. Its that pink slime again. It keeps oozing out, it never stops. Why doesn't it stop. Why doesn't it ever stop. My bed is soaked with it and it burns, it burns so badly. I don't know what to do. The first few days it hardened into a sheet and is greasy all over everything, I have to hang my arm over the side of the bed just so I won't be covered in it. Now its just pooling on the floor. A puddle of pink slime getting bigger, bigger with every passing day. It glows in the magenta light.

Falsador Prime hasn't set in days. Its lighting up everything it can, its all in a purple glow. The hab has never been this dark before, everything is casting a shadow in its presence and it just stares at me, stares at me all day and all day. When I wake up its there, when I pass out its there. I don't think anyone is seeing the distress lights any time soon. For all I know the beacon is broadcasting straight into prime and not reaching a damn thing.

Saturday, July 7th, 2783

3:50pm

Still here. Barely. All I can do is cough and cry.

I had a dream last night. Or a hallucination. It was real, it was from my memories. I was sitting in my room at my terminal, the family's old apartment on Deshovy street. And the screen had my old OS on it from when I was a kid, Copperhead Minot with the aero revival theme. It was before Renatami bought them out and kruined it to high dev and back. All my old tabs were open, first gen Zhivanet sites. God that machine, that apartment... I haven't seen it in years. But I could touch it. I could feel the keyboard and strain at the glow of the terminal. If I wasn't sure then I could mistake it for some kind of fleeting dream. But I know I was there. I basically spent my whole life there. Sveti developed fast, way too fast. By the time I grew up it was all faster than any pay I could get, everyone coming from the embdub to live it up in Kepler, get a taste for the offworlding and xeno eco cuisine. Xeno to them anyway.

They couldn't point it out on a star map ten years ago and now they were the reason I couldn't afford to stay. The Tullamore career Nexus was just about the only way I'd be able to get off Kepler, even though I never wanted to. It was either that or keep living off my family even though I had a degree. I really, really, really should have just stayed with them. Kepler is dead, all thats left are my memories of it. And I want to be thinking about Kepler right up to the end. I don't think I have a lot of time left.

Friday, July 12th, 2783

11:02pm

Its keeping me alive. I think I really fucked up. I fucked up really really badly. The infection wants to kill me and the syntszol is keeping me alive, but I think I know what to do. I'm going outside and I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to open the airlock and take a lungful of Falsador air, because theres no way the syntzsol can keep that from killing me. Its going to burn my skin immediately, its going to burn me from the inside out but I don't care anymore. I can't live like this, I can't keep going on. I'm sick of dealing with the pain and the grease and the fucking burning slime coming from everywhere, I don't even want to be rescued anymore I just want it all to stop. My veins are glowing, I can feel it pulsating, fighting against the binds of my muscle. The antidote was a failure. I have enough strength to get to it, I think. The door, or the power up switch and then the door. I'll keep the distress beacon at half power, I won't need it where I'm going, wherever that is. Tullimore Corp: Rot in hell. Each and every one of you is uniquely responsible for my murder. I am going to hitch a ride on your transport, when you inevitably come down here to count the cost, whenever the hell you decide to show up. If not me then my ghost. And I am going to haunt the shit out of you. You took Kepler, you took my life, but you're NOT taking me. Live afraid, you parasites. If you want any chance of peace you'll bury me on Kepler 22b. Svetlinka Gorod, facing Dvorre park.

This was Jay Fyodorovich Karetny. Keplarian, Always and Forever.

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*VOICE DETECTED. BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING.*

12:01am

I can breathe. I'm not coughing anymore. The glowing stopped. The burning stopped. My eyes are clear, the puffing has subsided. The tendrils are glowing and my left arm doesn't hurt anymore.

I'm dead. Clearly, I'm dead. I have to be. Although I don't want to think for a second that this is what the Afterlife looks like. So no. This isn't real. This is some kind of fever hallucination, my body is flooding my brain with chemicals making the last few seconds before death into several comforting minutes. I'm standing barefoot on Falsador-5 right now, in my sleepclothes. Its soft, it gives slightly, like a foam yoga pad. It doesn't feel all that permeable. The air tastes sour, but its not burning my lungs. I'm taking big giant breaths and nothing is happening. My left arm, its recovered fully. In a matter of seconds of stepping outside. I can feel the tips of my fingers and roll them back and forth in my hands. I intended to walk out here and die within a minute or two. I prepared myself, my sole intention for the last 30 minutes has been to end my life. Under no circumstances of understanding should this be happening, so why is this happening?

Its a waking dream. It has to be, like feeling the keys of my old terminal and the rubberex floors of the megaflat on my feet a few days ago. they squeeked around under my toes, the same as the ground does now. Its the same thing, that one felt just as real as I do standing here right now, out in the open. How did it end? In the memory I ended it by going to my old bed and falling asleep. When that happened, I woke back up wrapped in my slime sheets in the hab tower. If I do that now, something tells me I won't wake up in this world. I'm not sure if this is all in my head, if I'm still wheezing on the side of the bed, the journameter recorder plugging away at my last dying words.

Okay. Time to go back to the tower. Fall asleep for the last time, I won't put it off any longer. Jay Fyodorovich Karetny. Forester.

Saturday, July 13th, 2783

2:52am

None of this feels real. None of it lines up with any known framework. The second I walked back in it all started all over again, I couldn't make it ten steps to the bed before running back out onto the observation deck, into the atmosphere. I can run again, and

Breathing oxygen set my lungs on fire. Breathing oxygen set my lungs on fire breathing ammonia makes them normal again. breathing oxygen set my lungs on fire... breathing o

3:00am

NO. FUCK. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

IT DOESN'T WORK. WHY DOESN'T IT FUCKING WORK. I SHOULD BE DEAD RIGHT NOW.

I TRIED. I FUCKING THREW MYSELF OFF THE TOWER, FULL SPEED. ITS A HUNDRED FEET HIGH. I RAN OFF THE EDGE AND JUMPED OVER THE RAIL, HEAD FIRST INTO THE GROUND. NOTHING. NOT A DAMN THING. FUCK FUCK FUCK.

Whats happening??? Oh god whats happening... I don't want this. I don't I don't I don't. I need to figure out a way to kill myself and I need to figure it out FAST. Whatever is happening its not going to end well.

Sunday, August 4th, 2783

5:00pm

Bad idea. very, very, very bad idea.

I remembered that cave, by tower five. It had an exposed surface, near the entrance. Flat rock. If I threw myself off tower five and aimed for it, I could ha

Sunday, August 13th, 2783

3:05am

Its making me black out. I can't even record it, I can't think about it. Whatever it was, I'm afraid of checking the last entry. Every time I think about it again my thinking gets hazier, like I'm suddenly really drunk and about to pass out. I can check the 13th's, last 13th. And reading it makes me feel tired all of a sudden. clicking to the 4th and next thing I know a week has gone by. I don't even really wake up, I just come to lying on the ground, and my eyes are glued to the stars like they never closed at all.

What have I done.

3:23am

I'm really afraid of going back to the hab. There aren't any protocols for depressurizing it, not without administrator privleges. The distress beacon is still on. Its flashing still, up there.

I wanted the pain to end but this isn't what I had in mind. I should be dead right now.

3:40am

Touching the treegrowths with my palm. They hum, slightly. There is the tiniest vibration coming from the trunk. The distress beacon can glow all it wants to but no one is ever coming to find me. What exactly is it? I've got no home to go back to, I know that much.

I'm feeling tired. Gonna sit down for a little while. When was the last time I ate? I don't feel hungry anymore. I'm pretty sure this is the tree that stabbed me. I don't know whats come over me, I just really need to lie down right now.

9:50am

I can't stand up. Its like I'm velcroed to the ground but theres no give, no corner that I can pull apart from. Its itching, and its digging into my legs. I'm trying to look around but all thats in my vision is Falsador Prime, hanging high above me. My head won't turn either. The ground is moving, bobbing slowly up and down. Undetectably slowly, but theres a rhthym. I close my eyes and I can see myself on a floating dock on Vishet Lake. And the grass under my feet tickles a little bit, the air is thick with heat and the blazing sun lights everything up in a radiant green. And its all far away from here. My last thoughts on this existence will be of Kepler. Whatever this is, whatever its doing, its not going to take that from me.

Wednesday, October 5th, 2783

1:55am

I don't even know if the journameter is recording, I haven't looked down to check. Just staring, staring out at Falsador Prime. I stopped counting the days. I don't know how long ago I've been sat here.

Its been digging into me. I can feel it under my nails, on my fingers and toes. Something has been reaching underneath each one, wrapping around my fingerbones. Climbing up, inch by inch, deeper into my arms. Every inch it splits into me taps my nervous system. They are on the very edge of miserable agony, but never crossing over. Its heavy on the spinal cells, grabbing it but never squeezing the life out of them. Its only showing that it can. I haven't closed my eyes since I sat down. Something's been reversed in my brain. Every time I try to, they shoot back open. I'm not allowed to turn my head, either. My retinas have deteriorated a lot. Falsador Prime is sweeping in colors now, they travel up to down in waves across its surface, like static. Or radio waves. I cannot describe the colors, only that they spin my thoughts into singular walled oneness if I try to focus on them.

Oh, the distress beacon is steady. Glowing steady. I can see it out the corner of my eye. No more flashing. That means someone's scanned it, attempting relay. Is it green? Is that what green looks like to me now? It changed shades. Its staying the new color.

2:02am

I can stand. But thats all its letting me do. I tried taking a step towards the hab tower, fell flat on my face. Didn't hurt at all, was just a shock. Its keeping my feet anchored in place. As if my feet are a part of it now.

2:07am

Only sometimes. Theres a direction, out from the tower. Its one of the pathing routes, I remember this. Its the last one I ever did. Every time I try to change direction, it binds my feet to the ground and I fall down again. And it never hurts, the ground gives right before impact.

I don't even know why its giving me the illusion of choice. Any and all movements are not my own anymore. I can look down at my feet, they are void black. But its not necrosis, the skin is soft and full of sensation. It looks like the flesh of It. My nails are glowing slightly.

5:15am

Having to walk this again, I'm trying to form an image of myself. What I was doing, what my thoughts were. But when I try to imagine it, theres just a blank form walking through the coral. Blackfeet are trudging through the trails, anything and everything before this is both a lifetime away and barely a second. My name is Jay Karetny, Keplerian.

...

Its taking me to the half spheres. I can see it in the distance. Each one is a different shade of color, I can see them pulsating, its creating a far off rainbow effect. They're glittering in waves, sometimes in pinpoint thrashes.

I don't want to go there. for some reason I know exactly whats going to happen. Its pushing itself towards the front of my mind, no matter how much I want to push it away.

Okay. I stopped, a few hundred feet before it starts. I stopped and nothing is happening. My feet are glued to the ground again, and nothing else has changed.

I could just lie down here. Lay down and not move. It can't do anything about that, can it?

Monday, January 10th, 2784

9:01pm

Is that it? Am I really out of memories to live in so soon? Either we've reached an end or this planet has won. Both have the same result.

Every time I try to think about it again, it only looks like Falsador. I can't see green anymore, in whatever way it must have looked. Its not even in any of my memories anymore. My retinas have been reprogrammed, and it delves deeper from there into the synapses. I'm trying. I really am. I close my eyes and try to imagine those roaring fields, try to remember all of the dreams and real memories combined, to try and make some kind of uneditable nexus of it all. But then the strain begins, and my eyes shoot back open. And all thats left in my mind is the curled fungal growths reaching up from a smooth solid ground.

My thoughts feel filtered, like only some of them are allowed to go through to the gray matter. Is it due to the sight affect, or has it always been like this?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2784

4:42pm

Whatever it wants to tell me, I'll listen. I've tried not breathing, I thought maybe it was the one thing it overlooked. But no. Its done something to my lungs, I don't think they're there anymore. Theres nothing moving air up and down when I breathe. Maybe if I tried right at the outset, right when this all began, but no. I don't think I'm allowed to die.

5:20pm

Every step I make is haggard, Its not letting go so easily. Each time I raise my foot I want to give up again, lie down. I have to tear up with my knees, the ground suckered to the bottoms of my heel and foot. Sometimes I'll lose direction, and I have to tug and tug my legs up until they give again, the difference between where I need to go and where I can't is becoming less and less defined.

I know whats at the end of this road. And I have nothing left to go back with. Its bad enough I have to keep moving, why does it have to make it even harder?

9:00pm

There. I'm surrounded on all sides. Its a myriad of colors and shades and contrasts that I've never seen before. I'm getting lost, staring at them.

No where left to go. I can move freely now, freely in any direction. I could go back. But something tells me I always knew that wasn't an option.

My name is Jay Karetny. Its in my throat.

Friday, March 15th, 2790

11:45am

She has shown me the path forward. It dragged me out onto the soil, crevaces between the half spheres. I could feel it at the base of my neck, inching closer and closer and closer into my brain. The soil is strange on my corpus. It began drilling. My skull was slowly cracking in two. It hurt but I understood why.

Monday, February 1st, 2803

2:35pm

I plug in to Her. Or really She plugs into me. She's been around for a long, long time. Longer than kepler, longer than humans. longer than life. And Shes got a whole lot to say, if you listen to Her. If you're chosen to listen to Her. And you can only listen to Her in a real special way, not with your ears. You have to listen with your nerves, with your synapses with your neurons. you have to let the little tendrils hook in through your fingernails and up your radial into your corpus. It hurts, like hell it hurts. It hurts like nothing I've known before. But thats how you recieve the message. The mucus in your throat picks up little vibrations, and the pads on your feet likewise. She'll speak to you, alright.

I have no more ribs, or stomach. Its all flat, from my groin to my chin. The bones of my spine are still there, only glassy, poking through the back. My skin is dark and smooth, it looks like the soil. I don't know what my face looks like, I don't really care to.

I saw them, some time ago. I can't remember when. It was the Tullamore people, they came down, I watched them from the coral. They walked around for a little bit, went up the tower. They went back down, got into their ship and left. And now it is only me and Her.

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POWERING ON

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WELCOME USER jayfkar1

KEPTECH-LOGME_VERS1.0904

JOURNAMETER(tm) PERSONAL DUAL MODE RECORDING DEVICE

0.98GB/15.99EB

2857_1129_1201

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*VOICE DETECTED. BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING.*

Sunday, November 29th, 2857

12:01pm

That was a bit of a flash in the face, seeing that name across the screen. I almost forgot I was even carrying this thing, I've had a lot more to focus on lately than making records. There was never really a life for me back there. Just some kind of constructed illusion, mass delusion on top of mass delusion, made stronger by the collection of people pushing the narrative. I'm reading through the journameter, well I was a few minutes ago. Just flipping through the past entries. Read every one of them. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them, the way he went on, god. What a blind fool. I can hardly believe it was us who wrote that, but as far as I can tell it wasn't. They were all written by someone else, FOR someone else. I don't see his grand vision, and honestly I don't much care to. Theres hardly a sight of progress in any of his thoughts. What a waste of a man, what a waste of Vessel.

I've seen a lot more uniforms touch down. The Tullamore people here and there sure, but new uniforms. New empires. They fight, advance, retreat, die out, revive, replace one another. The suits change but nothing underneath them does. Thats what seperates us from them.

I dont think I'll be needing this anymore. Little piece of old reality tech. We're in the new world now. I don't feel like speaking words anymore, it lags behind far more than you could ever percieve. So much is bound in what you cannot touch or see. I'm not dying any time soon, I've been told that much. Haven't aged a day, in howsomany years this thing says I've been here. If anything, I've been made stronger with every revolution. Shes special like that. But hey, to anyone reading this, if by some fate my lifeforce is plucked away, due to Her will or others. Do me a favor, please?

Bury me on Falsador-5.