Blade's Journal feature - SiN Episodes: Emergence

01/01/2042, 9:25 PM
Damn. The new year again starts off more than inconveniently. Seems to be the way with me and new years, I never get a good one. Freeport was a freaking arena last night and we had to step in again. Lt. Gray was slightly wounded, but I'm more concerned about the new recruits that he trains. If we let them out on the street with this madness going on, I wonder how long they're gonna live. We need more officers, but we need them in their best shape and not being dead is a mandatory requirement for that.

Ever since we've had to close the virtual combat arena, we rely on safe conditions on the streets to perform field training. Last week we had a runner in area 42 and he came right across the training space. I don't need to point out how the guys reacted; we had an instant shooting and three recruits were injured. The problem with such situations is that we want them to keep in mind that violence is a last resort option, even here at HC. Incidents like this are a prime example of how NOT to do it.

There is something going on out there with all these freaks running around; I don't know whether it's the drug market again or something else, but Freeport hasn't seen so much violence in years, ever since the SinTEK incident was closed.
01/09/2042, 10:55 PM
Tonight there was a small fire in a warehouse in sector C where Promexia has their setup. Their billboards are all over the city recently and they advertise products like Incense, a pill that stimulates brain activity... "when you need ideas". Sounds to me much more like placebo, but who knows, there might be something to it. After seeing what "harmless" drugs can do to people a few years ago, I don't know what to think, though.

Promexia seems to be just another universal company, doing business in whatever they can, but pharmacy must be their specialty. That's why it is so weird that we found not a trace of any chemicals in the warehouse except for obvious ones. What do they need that building for if they don't store anything in there?

01/11/2042, 3:08 AM
Dreams. I've had it with them. If they don't stop soon, I might turn myself in to HC's medlab with a serious case of insomnia. I haven't slept through one full night in months and I'm starting to wonder what the hell my mind is trying to tell me. It's always the same pictures I see every night: TV news reporters talking about the fall of SinTEK, vague figures and silhouettes of people moving in on my face, a nuclear explosion over a city, manic laughter, an innocent girl crying. And then, rows and rows of faceless things with legs moving through the streets.
I know these pictures are related to what I lived through in 2037, but I'm tired of seeing them. I could still ram my head against a wall when I remember how she got away. Dammit, I HAD her, right in front of my Mag's barrel! I have no idea how she could have manipulated me into thinking it was okay to lower my weapon on her, but I know now that this woman manipulates each and everybody to get what she wants. I just wish she would stop visiting me every night in my head. The big question is, will she visit us in the future? All the research I did and all the help I got from people outside HC led to nothing but questions. Four tubes, three of them found - by whom? Where's the fourth? And how can we stop her from awakening if the puzzle is completed by somebody?
I just know that I'm going to see her again, and then, above and beyond all the doubts of my past... I know the only way to stop her is to hunt her down and to destroy her.

01/20/2042, 8:15 PM
It's been a quiet week and I'm crossing my fingers that it will stay that way for a while. I have started asking around on the streets about Promexia and I've heard nothing but praise. Something still makes me wonder about them. They have all the stuff and equipment, building after building is constructed or taken over by the guys; they're establishing a full market in Freeport all out of nowhere. I'd sure like to know who's behind it and where the funds come from.

JC has made me aware that our security system isn't up and running as flawlessly as it should. Lately there have been some malfunctions; nothing serious but still something to be investigated. The thing is that we have a 100% failsafe backup system in case there's a problem in the security system's computer network, but the system is malfunctioning whatsoever. The risk of any outside sabotage is practically nonexistent, but I'll keep
my eyes open just in case.

01/26/2042, 1:23 AM
Been up too long again. I'm feeling dizzy and exhausted after working sixteen hours straight. This job is becoming increasingly difficult to manage, but I have to step in for any missing officer and we're missing quite a bit. Positions are always open, but the recruits that make it through advanced training either drop out shortly after or they decide that HC is not their way of life and leave. I know our demands are high, but we can't afford many mistakes or somebody will be killed, just like Davidson. Damn, he was so young and promising, but he kept overdoing it. His parents were informed just two days ago. That's the part I hate most, having to destroy a family just because their kids wanted to help bring justice to this town.

Sometimes I remember my dad and how he loved his job as a police officer. He always said that the gain is worth the risk, but I didn't understand that the night he died. Today I'm following his passion for the battle against crime and the more people are taken by it, the more determined I'm taking it on.

02/02/2042, 8:39 PM
Something is going on in the underground. The street price for Incense has doubled ever since the demand rocketed up to 300%, which gives Promexia about 20% market share just with this drug. I can't imagine the actual public demand being so high; it's just a mind booster after all. I checked the net and looked for any info on Promexia's preferred industrial customers, but I found nothing, so I asked JC to take a look around with the hacking talents of his. Only three days later he came up with something very interesting: only about 75% of the 300% demand for Incense are public; the rest seems to go "overseas" to some laboratory without a name, but something smells about this. I'm not even sure whether "overseas" doesn't just mean "the other side of the Freeport city waters". I have a feeling we will be seeing something happening with Promexia soon. There's more behind that company than meets the eye. Reminds me of something...

02/07/2042, 11:59 PM
Midnight again and I can't sleep. Things are heating up with the runners; they now attack in small groups and various sec-forces have had encounters with them. Most of the time there were no injuries on our side, but there was one case where LavaTEK's grunts were overrun by five of the junkies and one was actually bitten a finger off! After he was brought in for surgery, they discovered heightened adrenaline and serotonin levels in his blood, along with carrier cells of an unknown virus; gross stuff, man. Obviously anything that happened later is classified. Now, my best guess is that the runners aren't normal junkies, they carry a virus or at least the means of producing it when combined with human blood. JC has actually gone as far as theorizing that Incense might contain the carrier cells found in the grunt's body, so either he or the runners are actually Incense users... if it's the runners, we could have another "quiet but harmful" drug case on our hands, just like with Vanity in '36. If this came to light, Promexia would definitely need to recheck what they're growing in their labs downtown.

Speaking of sec-forces earlier, Promexia also has its own team of grunts now patrolling the company's premises and outbound area. It's strange that none of them were available anytime the runners attacked, given the rumors surrounding Promexia now. Some people on the streets claim that they have seen Promexia guards transporting huge truckloads of unknown material to the western waterfront. Ever since 2032 the waterfront hasn't seen any action; it has become a wasteland where anyone could dump their trash and be gone. I just wonder what kind of trash would fill so many trucks and require so many grunts to watch over.

02/10/2042, 5:17 PM
Finally, I got some hours of spare time to relieve the stress of the past week, but I feel sick nonetheless after what JC told me today. He peeked around a little and found results of some tests Promexia conducted to find out more about this virus. He's not sure whether the results are fake or real, but if they are indeed true, Promexia might not be the victim of a chemical coincidence but the very creator of the virus. Our own Dr. Florence interpreted the test results for us and found that the chemical components of Incense actually combine with cells from a user to form a virus and the carrier to spread it throughout the body. Very convenient and efficient, but what the hell would Promexia be up to with that? With all the hype around them during the past week it might just have been a bad joke by somebody; after all, you don't find test results of such importance on the net very often.

If it's really them making the virus, we have a new SinTEK upon us. Who knows what Promexia is after with this, but it can't be good at all.

02/13/2042, 8:08 PM
There was an outbreak alert at the St. Claire Hospital where that LavaTEK guy was brought a few days ago. Two sectors of the building were set on quarantine, but the official statement from the hospital staff downplayed the incident to a technical failure. I wonder whether the three people whose corpses were found 70 meters off the hospital would agree. HC was not allowed to take any of the bodies in for testing since their employers want them preserved for their own investigation team. Man, with every big company around here having their own police force, independent security like us are in for a tough race.

We still got some blood and DNA samples extracted from one of the bodies before they were taken away, and nobody noticed. The samples are being tested in our lab as I'm typing this and I'm already looking forward to what we're gonna find. I bet it will make my day so much better...

On another note, we are upgrading our weapons stock very soon and from what I've seen, the new devices will really help us in delivering some serious pain to organized crime or any further runner attacks. Speaking of runners, we haven't seen many lately but people still report them in seemingly random areas of Freeport. It is still unclear what makes them what they are since there hasn't been one live capture of a runner yet. I hope we will find out soon. 02/14/2042, 1:17 PM Heh, sometimes I wonder whether there's still a god up there listening to me. The lab results are in and they prove just what we thought. The corpses from the hospital carried the "Promexia virus", which has now been officially named XSB, Excessive Serotonin Booster. For all intents and purposes, this virus changes the way the brain works, moving it into a much more passive state that partially disables logical thinking and boosts the instinctive aggression. In practice this explains why runners carrying XSB attack relentlessly; there is a high amount of aggression inside their brain and they have no logical way of dealing with it, so they attack random people without warning. What we have from the hospital corpse indicates that the virus also makes the mind receptive to very high and sequential boosts of serotonin, stimulating specific parts of the brain that seem to work in a logical order. However, an overdose of such boosts could permanently damage neural pathways and shut down the brain, killing the host. Whatever this means, it sounds more like engineered mind control than anything else.

JC "logged on" to St. Claire's databases and searched them for the patient records corresponding to our blood sample. And can you believe it, the guys who died at that hospital were working for Promexia! Now, that explains why their "employers" wanted their own team on the investigation, but why the hell would Promexia inject XSB into their own employees? Unless they have a very good reason to treat lab workers like test subjects.

I don't want to believe it, but Promexia is not another great company making great products. They are a danger to this city and we need to investigate this before history repeats itself
.