- datafile recovered from Olympus Tribune archive
Mark - I appreciate the thoroughness so your investigation in following up the Freak Alley collapse, but including this interview in your article will only serve to create panic. This guy may sound sincere, but how come the people you interviewed after their treatment at Beaulac Clinic couldn't corroborate his statements? I don't care if he;s a technician instead of a slummer - who says techies don't get drugged up? Check with the guy again after the docs take a look at him and see if he hasn't;t come off his high by them
- Carolyn

- fucking thing was an Aberrant or I'm a gorilla. It came up out of the all right about there - see where the bits are still falling down? The really fucked up thing is that there's nothing back there. No other complexes, no service corridors, nothing. I mean, if you go back far enough, you hit the ass end of Freak Alley, but that' way the hell down there. No, that's supposed to be solid rock - has to be; I hear the clinic's meat locker sits right over it.

Anyway, I'm out here the day after this whole place just drops in on itself for no reason, right? Real safe. S'posed to inspect the lines through here in accordance with the new regs about pirate burrows and unauthorized feeds - even the president, bless her skinny butt, got antsy after Freak Alley can down - and the wall over there just vaporizes. Poof. Looked like something out of the kids show - what is it> - Strike Force Psion. Yeah, that's the one. I'm all the way across the corridor and it's like I'm standing in front of an oven, so I duck and over, screaming to Jesus the whole time. The heat dies down after a second and I look up like a stupid fucker.

The monster's standing there. Looks human enough, sorta, but it's got these weird swellings in its arms and legs, and its shoulders are hunched over like there's something living in them, trying to claw its way out. Bits of the thing were glowing, too, and wisps of steam and smoke were coming off it. Behind it, the rock looked melted, and the tunnel it'd made went way the hell back and up. Yes, I'm sure - up. No, not quite the same place where the tunnel was collapsed already; sort of around it.

So I start screaming to God again that I'm gonna die, and the thing steps right over to me - and it talks! Tells me to shut up, so I do. And then it looks me up and down, and laughs, and says, "I'm not going to hurt you. Trust me, I'm a doctor." It smiles at me and - this is the unbelievable part - asks me directions - to the clinic. So I point and say, "Looking for something to make those swellings go down, huh?" 'cause at this point I'm pretty sure it's not going to wax me. The thing looks at me and says, "Something like that." Then it walks back into the hole and the blasting noise starts up again, and I get the hell out of there.

I dunno; when Freak Alley came down, it might've shook something loose from the pits of hell. Maybe it wasn't an Aberrant; didn't have a big squid head like I've seen on the news. I never saw one of the Chittie Bangs - right, Chirtra Bhanu - in action; maybe it was one of them. Did they glow, or have weird bumps? Naaahh, couldn't have been bioware. This thing was naked and it wasn't toting anything the Devil didn't give it. Whatever it was, I sure hope I never see anything like it again.