Part 1

"I was the first.

"That landed me in a military hospital, and shortly afterwards meant that I was secreted here under the Rockies while various people tried to work out what I had become. It's taken me a while to work that one out too, and it may yet be too late.

"I said what I had become, perhaps I should more correctly say, we. Lieutenant John Anderson ceased to exist as a lone man two years ago. And so now I sit here in front of you, doing what? Giving my version of the events? How much do you want to know? Do you wish me to deliver a monologue in proper British form or something more real? It's your show General; I am your 'guest' in this facility after all."

The figure in British Naval uniform paused and took a sip of water from a glass lifted from a nearby table. He looked relaxed, only a hint of tension around his eyes belying any anger or trepidation. A large double wheeled tape recorder span nearby, taping the conversation, and an army scribe tracked spidery shorthand across a spiral bound notebook, her hair tied back in a severe looking bun under her standard issue khaki hat. The only other person in the room, an army General who sat on an identical khaki coloured armchair, motioned him to continue and then spoke.

"This is your account Lieutenant, please be as candid as you want."

The naval officer paused and then placed his glass back on the table, the relaxed look being replaced with a look of distaste and frustration as he spoke anew.

"Oh we will. You see, we are largely unencumbered now by John's sense of discipline, be it due to his Protestant upbringing, British stiff upper lip or innate national pride. You forget General, John is now something different. But, there is a lady present, so we will try to conduct ourselves with a modicum of decorum. That is something at least that our two races do have in common.

"Now, where were we? Ah yes, under the Rockies although we seem to have jumped a little step forwards. As this is for the purposes of record and history perhaps we should give a more complete account of what has gone on, before this transcript is sealed in the vaults of history in places where only the CIA or military dare, or are allowed, to tread. To try and assist you madam scribe, I shall henceforth use the singular to prevent further confusion. I shall also address myself directly to you in order to try and present a full account of events, as you are probably unaware of most if not all of what I am about to say.

"For the benefit of the records I shall give you a brief précis of my history although I'm not sure whether it will help at all, however I have to start somewhere.

"I was born John Augustus Anderson, on 13th May 1919: I hold the rank of Lieutenant in the British Navy, and am a British citizen now illegally held prisoner by the American government. I mentioned being British, but I am also Scottish and damn proud of it, although I suspect that's a moot point for you Americans. Prior to my incarceration here I was a member of an elite dive team the Navy sent on covert or dangerous operations. As a younger man in World War 2 I was a Commando and led raids on the Japanese before the bombs were dropped. At the end of the war I transferred to the navy special dive team. Given all that's happened since then, I suspect I may not have been someone naval command wanted around as I was often considered a little maverick for their tastes.

"At the time of the 'incident' which I will describe shortly, I was part of the UN peace keeping force that was assigned to help the South Koreans. It was mainly you Yanks, but we Brits had a few ships out there too as did the Australians, Canadians and French to name but a few. For some obscure reason never fully explained to me by my own command I ended up with the crew of an American submarine, one of only two divers, and the only Brit on the crew. I saw many strange things while diving, but nothing beats what I saw that day as we cruised towards the 38th Parallel to monitor what was formerly the demilitarised zone or DMZ if you prefer the acronym.

"I, along with many of your own men, thought that the fighting would cease forever following the bombs dropped on Japan near the end of World War 2 and the signing of the treaty at Incheon shortly afterwards in what became South Korea. How wrong we were. I hoped I'd never see the area around the DMZ again but peace seems a transitory thing and only five years later we were back as part of a UN peacekeeping force; this time fighting the combined might of North Korea and China.

"For three interminable years we watched the explosions from the sea, sometimes causing them ourselves, as we meandered backwards and forwards across that damned line inscribed in the sand by you and the Russians, a line that now formed the backdrop to the Korean War.

"It was early in February '53 when everything changed for me though. The submarine had popped up to surface to pick up communications one night, a fairly regular occurrence. Almost immediately the sub dropped back under the ink dark sea and we'd felt it surge forwards under full power. A few minutes later, once we were under way, the Commander of the sub called me in to his cramped quarters and I found out what had caused the action.

"Radar stations had picked up two fast moving objects coming in from high altitude north of Korea. One hit the sea to the west of the 38th Parallel, one on the other side of Korea in northern held territory. Fearful of Russian involvement despite Stalin's assurances to the contrary and hoping desperately that nuclear weapons weren't again going to blight the earth, we were dispatched to intercept the westernmost missile.

"When we arrived at the location, there was nothing distinguishable on the surface of the sea through the periscope, so my small team was dispatched to try and see if we could find any sign while the submarine surfaced to attempt to locate any surface debris.

"We found something, but it wasn't a missile.

"The sea was relatively shallow where the impact zone had been recorded, the waters crystal clear in the winter months. I say we found something, but they found us first. Before Corporal Clarke and I knew what was happening we were surrounded by small glowing creatures that looked a little like octopi but had a larger head and a shining plethora of varied appendages. I completely forgot about Clarke as one drifted serenely into my outstretched hands, I was spellbound. They seemed almost transparent and glowed with an inner light that constantly changed and pulsed. Large black eyes looked into mine and a connection was instantly formed on some sort of empathetic level. These things, whatever they were, were in trouble and needed help.

"I looked over at Clarke to see if the creatures were having the same effect on him and immediately realised all was not well, his body was covered in the 'octopi' and he was convulsing. As I watched, his visor imploded and a stream of bubbles desperately raced toward the elusive sky above as his air supply was terminated. I may have shouted or screamed or some such, I honestly don't recall now. All I remember after that moment is the 'octopus' that I cradled in my hands expelling a sudden jet of water to launch itself toward my face. Before I knew it, my own visor had cracked and the ocean enveloped me in its deathly embrace as shining appendages filled my vision.

"I awoke a short time later, heaving up guts full of seawater and vomiting copiously into the bottom of the inflatable naval skiff that had picked me up. A young midshipman by the name of Brock was looking at me open-mouthed and I realised that I was covered head to foot in the shining creatures, several score of them clinging to the diver's suit that protected my body against the pressure and cold of the sea.

"Find a bucket," I called to him hoarsely. "Fill it with water; tell the Commander that these creatures require no food, just light, any light. This is to be treated as Top Secret.

"Then I collapsed again.

"When I awoke for a second time, I was in a hospital, but this time I was not alone. Although there were no other humans in sight, another presence was with me, in me, exploring my mind and body, melding with my senses and organs, intertwining itself with me and filling my being. That is when John Anderson as a singular organism died. Not under the sea as Clarke had done or indeed as I thought I might do one day. John Anderson died, but in doing so became so much more.

"The creatures we had inadvertently rescued were dying when we found them, the pressure of the water killing their frail bodies as they'd left their doomed survival pod to try and fight their way to the surface. They had ejected from their crippled spaceship way above Earth orbit, but had been attacked as they tried to escape, their pod being damaged sufficiently so that they couldn't fully control the landing, thus ending up in the sea. As we appeared, they were dying and panicked, trying to link with Clarke too quickly, subsequently killing him. The symbiant now co-habiting my body had managed to suppress its panic for long enough to take over my body without blasting apart my mind and had driven me to the surface in order to save its fellows who had desperately clung to my rapidly ascending body. Once there however, it was trapped, the action of taking over my body melding it irrevocably to me as it had taken over my brain.

"That accidental meld had saved my life. As soon as it realised that it was trapped, it mended the damage caused by my rapid ascent, removed the water from my lungs and did all it could to help my ailing body. As I recuperated in crisp cotton sheets, the remaining 'octopi' swam happily in a nearby fish tank, glorious sunlight streaming onto their bodies, but safe and trapped for the time being. That information was somehow made plain to me via the creature that was fast becoming an integral part of me.

"Army psychiatrists and surgeons examined me and concluded that I was fit and healthy despite my near drowning; then they X-rayed me and discovered my little friend. The X-rays showed a shadowy figure that seemed to crouch over and within my brain tissue, becoming part of my brain, tendrils of its being melding into my spinal column and senses. In a moment of whimsy, and following a typical misreading of appallingly written Doctor's notes, I called him Brian. When I mentioned this to the army doctor who examined me, it took him but a few moments to realise that it was a misreading of 'brain' and meant that he left me with a rare smile on his lips. And so, Brian and John became the dual creature known as Bron. Unoriginal perhaps, but that's the forces for you. 

"As soon as the doctors concluded I was fit for travel, we were shipped out, along with the light refreshed 'octopi' to America and a secret bunker under the Rockies. My status as British citizen was ignored by the CIA and American military, and I hate to think what happened to the young midshipman and others who witnessed Brian and his friends' arrival. That is another question that I suspect will remain unanswered."

The seated man looked over at the General opposite him and raised a questioning eyebrow. The man with his polished three stars, crisply pressed uniform and standard issue handgun waved him on and shrugged, declining comment. Bron took another sip of water and then once more addressed the uniformed lady scribe.

"As the Korean War continued unabated, eventually stabilising once more around the 38th and passing backward and forward over the now ironically named DMZ, we were studied, probed and catalogued endlessly. As Brian and I began to meld still more, we found we could feed more and more detailed information to our captors – there was no point doing otherwise we realised – and try to answer the myriad and continual barrage of questions that were aimed at us.

"It was around this time that other effects began to manifest. The melding meant that I became able to do many tasks far more effectively than I'd ever done before, Brian's melding seeming to connect more areas of my brain or perhaps make it work more efficiently: a catalyst to thought perhaps. My IQ jumped, my historically average mathematical ability developed rapidly and my recollection of anything I read was virtually photographic. Then other things began to manifest.

"Internal conversations with the far more scientifically advanced Brian noted that their race could communicate telepathically and if temporarily connected to another one of their kind could regenerate tissue to some extent, but that that was the limit to their 'powers'. The melding of our minds and beings meant that we could take those abilities further, allowing us to manipulate objects, move things; bend, warp and break materials.

"Never use the word 'break' in front of the military or CIA, it gets them excited.

"Without fully realising the ramifications of their actions, the CIA summoned the 'best of the best' in a typically knee jerk reaction, their 'potential useable weapon' radar homing in on us like a tramp on a bag of chips, or French Fries if you prefer. From the forces, the world of science and various other disciplines, many people were brought to meet us. Brian was asked whether his fellows would like to do on purpose what he had done by accident with me, and so a new hybrid race was born deep under the Rockies. We became Homo Galacticus, a new race spawned from the symbiosis of man and alien. I was their mentor and, as I changed more as the days went on, Brian and I instructed them as to what they should expect and the changes that might manifest. Every single one of the new members of this small and unusual race of man was different however, just as Brian and I were different from other members of our race. Those differences also manifested in the new and differing abilities that we found ourselves exploring and the way we interacted with both each other and the environment around us.

"As the Melds developed, we were given space to explore what we could do, a vast cavern hewn out of the living rock below the Rockies and lit like a huge amphitheatre. I suspect we all knew we were on show and being observed but we didn't really care at the time. We turned into children in many ways, except that we ourselves were the toys. As our abilities changed and grew, we explored what we could do both with ourselves and whatever materials had been provided to us. We were all so different in so many ways. The more scientific amongst us seemed to understand energy and how to control the elements and carried out endless experiments with materials and their powers. Others learnt to control the way they looked, or their shape and form. Some developed extreme telepathic ability and others increased their innate strength, agility or toughness.

"All of us were connected mentally, enabling us to perform efficiently either singly or as a unit, being able to communicate over some distance or through various materials, some even being able to transmit pictures like an internal movie. It was extraordinary. I've never connected with another being as completely as I did with my new fellows. Soon, special friendships developed and although we all got on well, some of the Melds were naturally drawn to each other or into small groups.

"Perhaps due to our naval backgrounds, I found myself spending a lot of time with a keen young Navy Seal called Martin. He was one of those gentle giants you come across in life sometimes. His meld partner was also more laid back than a typical member of the Anou race and the two of them combined enhanced Martin's natural rugby player build to produce an immensely muscled Meld who continued to grow to well over 9ft tall. He was nicknamed Megaton by one of the others in reference to his sheer size and power, a name that Martin shyly accepted with a smile. He was virtually indestructible too, something that most of the rest of us most definitely weren't.

"We'd all quickly discovered that to a greater or lesser extent we were generally still human in frailty, despite our enhancements, but it took us some time to discover Megaton's weakness. Eventually we did though: light, or rather the lack of it. His symbiant had melded with him in such a way that he still had the other species' innate dependency on some form of light to give energy, but given Martin's physique also a huge amount of food. We only found this out when we had been exploring some of the others' abilities to see in the dark in some of the side tunnels of the complex. We had spent the night in complete darkness and in the morning he was catatonic. One of the better minds among us worked out what had happened, and when he was exposed to light again he became responsive and he didn't seem to need that much light to maintain his energy levels at a high. After the event it took him several days to get back to full strength though. From that moment on, we spent a good deal of time working out our individual weaknesses; these varied from simple things like pollen allergies to an aversion to various metals or other substances, all of which became immensely magnified due to the meld.

"Meanwhile, the war continued...