Alien Shooter Vengeance-ViTALiTY

Alien Shooter Vengeance (c) CDV

Protection ...: SecuROM 7.30

Date ...........: March 2760 Number of Discs .........: 2

GAME NOTES

For the first half of the 21st century, the war on terror
became a global phenomena as more blatant and frenzied
attacks struck deeper into the lives of common people.
Inevitably, the pressure from public outcry to stop the
madness grew to an irresistible level; the military forces
of the world slowly but steadily retooled their outlooks,
weapons, and tactics to combat people who were willing to
die for their cause.

By 2100, the world was more or less at peace, with
continued discord in some regions as modernized military
forces sought to track down and destroy the remaining
terrorist cells that continued to fight and harass
civilian and military alike. Regardless, as this war began
to wane, it slowly moved out of the public's eye, and they
began to pick up the pieces and try to make better lives
for themselves. Not since the years following World War II
had such prosperity been felt across the planet; even
war-ravaged regions received a "Marshall Plan" of sorts,
having their infrastructures built up far beyond what they
ever were before.

As prosperity grew, so too did the ventures of capitalism.
In this day and age, science was the 'new capitalism,'
fueling the growth of amazing new technologies. The first
high-profile ventures into the creation of a viable
fusion energy source, an offshoot of the efforts of the
aging multinational oil companies, began in 2105 in the
United States, with the backing of billions of dollars in
venture and government capital. The International Power
Initiative of 2112, an agreement among nations investing
in the fusion power project, but eventually including many
hundreds of other projects based on energy, radically
restructured how science was to approach new energy
sources. The level of freedom granted to a group of
corporations might have been dangerous one hundred years
ago, but it was felt that today since there was not a
rivalry in the race to find the secrets of fusion power
first, that giving a corporation autonomy to do what it
needed to do would foster creativity and growth on an
unheard-of scale.

It didn't.

Some corporations took the spirit of the intent behind the
International Power Initiative to heart, but a few did
not. Old habits – greed, lust for power – died hard, and
the freedoms that the Initiative afforded caused a
cancerous growth of selfishness to seep into some. One
major corporation founded on the west coast of the United
States in 2116 – M.A.G.M.A. Energy Corporation – was
responsible for tooling some of the machinery that would
harness the power of a fusion reaction.
M.A.G.M.A. – which stood for "Multinational Atomic
next-Generation Millennium Augury" – had one of the more
lucrative and high-end jobs out of all the corporations
formed for this international project. As a result, some
in power saw a potential for creating possibilities out of
the materials provided – possibilities that ended in
massive profit, at any rate. Soon, M.A.G.M.A. had created
dozens of branches throughout its West Coast empire,
creating many massive facilities throughout the northern
California wilderness.

By 2158, the corporations of the world had made
significant progress and were projecting being less than a
generation away from a pure, safe source of fusion energy.
Despite this, a few continued to worry over the carte
blanche given to the corporations under the Initiative.
However, the constant good publicity, as well as secrecy,
around so many of these projects fueled the worry of a few
that would be involved if anything went wrong.

Many of these worriers, including General Francis J.
Baker, commander of the US I Corps in Ft. Lewis,
Washington, wondered how soon the military would be called
out to help clean up the disaster when something big took
out half of the West Coast.

The M.A.G.M.A. Energy Corporation had delved into energy
technologies that created a new generation of laser
firearms, which was still in its infancy but of great
interest to the Pentagon and other governments – including
those terror cells that never fully died. The laser weapon
technology that M.A.G.M.A. was leading was a story that
had been reported throughout the world – and had been
noticed. With such weapons, those in dark places whispered
to each other, we could change the balance of power. We
must do it before the hated oppressors turn them against
us.

Terrorist activity across the globe had declined except in
small, remote areas, far from the west coast of the United
States and even farther from the public's eye. Over that
time, the remaining groups nursed their hatreds and
planned for when the time would be right to reawaken a
global revolution.

Something else had planned, too... something far darker
than anything a terrorist could imagine, something far
more dangerous than any world government could possibly
comprehend. It boiled and rolled in ecstasy over its
discovery, its excitement barely contained at the
expectation of the juicy, warm power awaiting it just
beyond the gate.

On that same May night in 2161, it struck.

Terrorists selected and attacked a relatively
out-of-the-way facility of the M.A.G.M.A. Energy
Corporation, located deep in the rolling forested hills of
northern California, one of the main sites for the
creation of energy weapons. Overpowering the bored gate
guards was a simple task, as was silencing their screams.
The gate slid open, and in they poured. Not having faced
any security breach of any kind for fifty years had made
the security component of these facilities extremely lax,
and no alarm was raised, no steel doors slammed shut.

And then, It came.

The Gate boiled and rolled, deep inside the M.A.G.M.A.
Energy Corporation facility, as hundreds upon hundreds of
employees and family raced and panicked over the alarms
that finally blared in response to the terrorist attack.
It smothered the air around it, sucking those unfortunate
few nearby into its dark embrace, which made it stronger,
larger. A few security personnel, responding to the odd
reports from the scientists and family, men, women, and
children, screaming and running for their lives, found it
at the end of a large vehicular hallway, a black mass that
pulsed like a heart. Tendrils, as dark as night, slid
outward and into the walls, ceiling, and floors, seeking,
touching, killing – feasting. And yet, that was not
enough. The presence of so many carbon life forms would
have made it weep with joy, had it tears to shed. It
released the Host, much as a mother would release a baby
to allow it to crawl across a floor in search of a
favorite toy.

The security guards that were unfortunate enough to be so
good at their jobs as to be there, saw a creeping, rolling
mass of unholy creatures come out of the blackness; some
were spider-like with bladed legs and massive fangs,
others that walked on what seemed to be hind legs,
dinosaur-like, but the most hellish version of any
dinosaur any of them had seen. So many came out that the
ceiling, floor, and walls were black with racing legs, all
seeking the delicious flesh in front of them... the Gate
pulsed with pride as it sought the incredible energy,
sucking it down, feeding its ability to guide the Host
into this world, which would keep the carbons at bay while
it sought to help the Queen turn the planet into a
husk... The terrorists were not stupid. They found the
central security core and sealed the base off from the
outside, to ensure that no scientists would escape; they
knew families were here, knew that they would be excellent
leverage when prying the secrets of the laser weapons out
of them. The screams that filtered in through the complex
had been going on for some time, but nobody noticed one
monitor that showed the alien forms tearing a handful of
security guards apart far below.

The Host spread throughout the complex like wildfire,
feasting upon the humans, tearing through doors and
partitions to get at the soft, tasty meat that cowered in
fear. The Gate continued to eat power, enough to finally
obey the bidding of the Queen, whom it had been studiously
trying to put off as it reveled in the delicious feast of
its own. The Queen would not stand for it, as her children
needed her attention. She stepped through the Gate, much
to the disappointment of the latter, for this meant it
would have to go, to search for a new world while the
Queen assimilated this one. The Gate would be able to come
back if it needed more power, but for now, it was no
longer needed. With a flash of anger, the Gate dissolved
upon itself.

M.A.G.M.A. response teams sent to the facility noted the
gate had been opened; they secured the outer compound and
closed the gate, sealing it, posting guards. They noted
the entrances were locked, and had their tech people begin
to work around the problem. Damn computer problems, they
thought. Meanwhile, they continued to try to raise the
interior, with no result. The calls from the outside
alerted the terrorists, who had made no progress so far in
finding their quarry, at about the same time that part of
the Host boiled up onto their floor. Frantically, the few
hundred terrorists securing that level defended
themselves, tearing the creatures into exploding bags of
bloody jelly, but for every one that fell two more took
its place. The hydra-like mass of evil swarmed over the
terrorists, tearing them limb from limb, consuming in the
process.Outside, the tech guys finally had the doors about
open, when another one finally managed to tap into the
interior's camera system.
Their jaws dropped at the incredible carnage, and watched
helplessly as small groups of skittering, spider-like
creatures chased small knots of people down blood-smeared
hallways...

" Holy God," the officer in charge said. "Err, Gossett, go
ahead and re-lock those doors. We gotta re-stage and call
in some heavy artillery." With an empty feeling in the
pits of their stomachs and their knees like water, they
packed their gear; they numbered twenty men total, half
the complement of this facility, and from what they saw,
they'd need an army to even think about going back in.

Just before the monitors were turned off, a tech guy
caught an image of a bloody teddy bear leaning awkwardly
against a wall. He snipped the image off, his mind reeling
M.A.G.M.A., not having much of a security back-up force to
count on, took the recorded images of inside the facility
and immediately put the call in to the military. General
Baker, who had for a decade been preparing himself and his
men for something, anything, sprung into action. It took
two days to gather a large force armed with the most
modern firepower and body armor the military could
provide. Without higher authority, General Baker led the
column to the south and into the unknown. Reports
continued to filter in during their journey, and other
M.A.G.M.A. facilities went dark. What the hell was going
on?

They arrived a day later, the highway cops along the route
clearing as much traffic as they could. When a M.A.G.M.A.
representative asked what she and her corporation could do
to help, General Baker flashed her a hooded look. "Get
body bags. And all the security personnel you can. Call in
favors, if you have to, get whomever you can and get them
fast." He hesitated, then handed her a list. "Here's some
people that have done some... work for us in the past. I
know them and can vouch for them. You'll have to pay
through the nose, but they're well worth it, trust me."

Nodding vacantly, the representative, still shaken from
the image she saw a few minutes ago of the bloody teddy
bear, pulled her cellular phone out and began to dial
Personnel back in San Francisco. She hoped they'd have the
checkbooks ready, judging from some of these people's
descriptions...

Your phone rings. You ignore it, exhausted from a long
week. Money was getting scarce, and the prospects of
finding a "real" job has kept you up late with worry for
weeks. The phone stopped ringing after the twentieth
ring... paused... and rang again. Growling, you answer the
phone. What you hear barely registers in your
sleep-deprived mind, but your fingers ache in
anticipation. Real work. A real enemy. And General Baker,
he was good people. Finishing the conversation, you hang
up, fire up your laptop, and find the e-mail from
M.A.G.M.A. that includes all the information you need.
Now, if you could only remember if you had plugged your
SUV in for recharging last night...

(www.bytelist.org)