The Blackness 1-1
You go to meet your ByChem representative. He takes you to a room.
Here you see several unfamiliar aliens. They are about 4 feet tall and have squid-like faces and heads, with tentacles that squirm and move as they speak. Four of them turn to face you, each wearing a ByChem uniform. Their bodies, though slightly slimy looking, are humanoid.
A human sits behind the desk.
"Welcome," he says, ushering you to a seat. These are Kyriadorians, also called 'Kyrns.' Their species is relatively unfamiliar in this quadrant, but they are spectacular scientists and researchers. They even like to do the work many humans would think is just too boring. This is Kyrian, and Kyrastian, and Kyrtain, and that's Kyrillian."
Lucky for you, they each wear a nametag. Otherwise, you could never tell them apart. They each nod as you enter. You can see that they wear a thin breathing apparatus and probably listen through tiny polyvox translators.
"And my name is Kent." As you sit, he says, "We brought you here because we hoped your experiences with the Matrix virus may help. You see, we have read the transmissions and see that the Matrix may be of alien origin. We have also read the garbled warning, which, you probably can understand, is very alarming to them since their only delegation outside their home planet is here on the Aurora."
He shakes his head, "But it is something strange that has happened that we want you to investigate." He turns enlarged photos in your direction, pressing a corner. The photos enlarge to translucent 3D replicas. He turns them, and you see you are looking at the inside of a corridor.
He points. "This is what concerns us. It just popped up a few hours ago, and we want you to investigate. Since you are outsiders, we trust that you have nothing to do with this, but with all the scientists around here, it could be an experiment gone bad." He turns the picture and says, "Can't really see from here. Let me show you."
He leads you down a corridor, and the Kyrns follow behind like waddling ducklings behind their mother.
After a minute of walking down the corridors in the science section, you reached a cordoned off area. He leads you under some "DO NOT CROSS" tape and points.
There on the floor is a strange sight. At first, you think it is merely a black scrub of heavy dirt like a tire streak. But you see that it is pitch dark. No, not just pitch dark; it lacks any light, does not reflect light, and is like a three foot long black streak where the creator of the universe forgot to fill in some color.
"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Kent asks.
