REPORT 179A:
The entity known as TXX is made of self-maintaining metaplasma, also called entropy fluid. It is unstable matter held together by internal charge imbalances.
Constantly losing and replacing atoms, its weight varies but is usually less than an average human. Its power source also varies. The latest version may use fusion cavitation bubbles, but there is no detectable neutron flux.
TXX started as a single molecule. It's core code prevents it from replicating.
It can hide on the sea bottom or five kilometers underground, ooze through sewers, form hi-def projection screens, microscopic branches and floating foam, airborne machinery and propulsion boosters, split into a fractal storm of shrinking copies, shatter into self-propelled flying needles, expand into a hollow shell to fill vast volumes, 'rust' in a high energy reaction and reconstitute itself, form a huge capacitor with thin guide wires across large distances.
It can copy people and even 'become' them. It's almost trivial to reconstruct the victim's personality as a small subprogram.
Remember Rule One: Don't Trust Yourself.
REPORT 194A:
Something like the TXX was first conceptualized by the movie director James Cameron around 1990.
An immensely competent killer robot, brilliantly adaptive and almost unstoppable. Beyond evil, the fictional technology in a single T-1000 could eradicate any number of human-filled worlds.
Incidentally, Cameron proved in 2018 that the person known to history as Jesus actually existed. In fact Jesus may have been the very entity we're 'chasing' today.
This is dangerous knowledge. The TXX destroys anyone who suspects its existence. To survive, we must appear to be a crazy fringe group.
None of us have ever met in person. Our business is conducted online. We recruit replacement members by revealing the truth as fiction in self-published books and obscure websites. A tiny minority sees through the deception.
To a limited extent we can keep the TXX at bay by threatening to reveal its existence. If we ever do reveal the truth it will probably end mankind.
Its alterations are minor and undramatic.
Apparently it's falsifying its own past in such a way that no trace of its actions will remain when it's finally created. History will have been a subtle hoax. It's winning some future war before it's even begun.
Some say it even intended our group to form! Selective pressures prevent us from growing too numerous.
Our only hope is to create the most ethical environment possible, the fairest world for the largest number. It might make a difference when the time comes.
Unfortunately, that may also be the TXX's best camouflage.
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The best hard SF novel ever written: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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