Choosing a Path

"Attention!"

Matt woke up the next morning after vigorous exercise to the sound of a horn and Alexis shouting in a commanding voice. She had kept him up much later than his usual bedtime and now was waking him up very early. When he groggily opened his eyes and looked over, she was already completely dressed in her military garbs.

"Lexi, this isn't funny, turn that loud thing off."

"Petty Officer O'Connely, did I give you permission to address me by my nickname? From now on you will wake up at 0600 sharp and refer to me as Lt. Commander. Do I make myself clear!"

Although he wasn't the best at reading people, he saw her slight grin before making a straight face again. With this, Matt figured he may as well play along. Perhaps it will be much worse at training for the next few days so she's trying to prepare him. He rolled out of bed and pushed himself up to his feet. He straightened his back and shouted back to Alexis.

"Yes, Lt. Commander!"

"What are you doing standing around for, you have ten minutes to wash yourself and get dressed. A minute has already passed since you started screwing around."

"Yes, Lt. Commander!"

Matt had the tiredness wash away from him very quickly. Fortunately, he had been exercising recently and, in combination with his improved metabolism ability, his energy levels were high. He quickly began a cold shower while brushing his teeth and shaving. He let the soap wash the sweat off his body and clean his hair while rinsing his mouth with the shower water. With that, he still had five minutes to spare.

The towel only took one pass over his body and a few passes over his hair. Fortunately, Matt kept it fairly short so it would dry quickly. He practically jumped into his underwear and pants and threw on his shirt. The socks were an ordeal but he managed to get them on in record time and wear his boots. He still remembered learning to tie his boots quickly from boot camp and was completely dressed.

Alexis was waiting for him at the door, and when he exited within a few seconds of the deadline, she didn't give him any breaks. They immediately made their way to the military bay in a brisk jog. She followed behind him and made sure he didn't slow down. She naturally worried about how he would transition into the military setting. He always complained about boot camp, so she had planned this to give him a quick shock to help him settle back into the right mindset.

Matt wasn't too worried about the whole ordeal. Although he couldn't use perfect mimicry in their normal interactions, with her taking on the role of a commanding officer, perfect mimicry actually worked perfectly. The original Matt O'Connely must have been very traumatized by military training in the past and these mannerisms were likely buried in his subconscious. Fortunately for the current Matt, he was able to relax while thinking about the benefits from military training while his ability did all the work.

When perfect mimicry was active, he often felt like a little person inside of this person's brain watching everything through his eyes and remotely controlling his actions. Such a feeling was very dissociative but he had gotten used to it. The fact that his existence could literally be described that way helped. There seemed to be some inborn mental resistance to the idea that he was just a parasite living inside of a human pretending to be human. Some would say he was suffering imposter syndrome, but he was actually an imposter so it didn't apply.

The military bay they arrived at was set up with an obstacle course and various other things that Matt couldn't identify. There was already a large unit of soldiers standing in file with a missing spot. Matt quickly filled the missing spot on the outside of their formation and Alexis joined the other commanding officers. While they explained the grueling experience they would get to enjoy today because of the new member, Matt retreated into his own mind to think about his future evolution. If he needed to interfere in the perfect mimicry, he would easily be able to.

The most obvious choice and the best branch in the game is the Faceless Devourer path. Its unofficial name is the transformation path since it is where you acquire skills to disguise yourself among the real crew. Since the point of the game is to find who the parasite is, you don't lose anything by going murder happy and then transforming into people. Another method is letting the crew kill each other by creating scenarios while disguised.

In order for the crew to know if the Parasite has evolved is by upgrading the AI's scanning technology. In the game, this is simple to do. The player controlling the AI just had to dedicate some of it's time and processing into researching better scanning technology. However, in reality this could only be accomplished with new technology. This technology is powerful because the players don't have to be scared of tier one skills and can keep track of the parasites power level.

This is something that Matt will be able to take advantage of for a long time. No one knows that he is actually a parasite. Using subterfuge in order to cause chaos on the ship is a viable strategy. And the best branch to accomplish that would be the transformation path. However, this comes with its own risks too. Being caught transforming is one of the biggest ones. The process to change your body to match someone else isn't instant. In fact, it takes quite a long time.

Because the scale of the game wasn't one to one with real time, he didn't know how long it would take in the real world to transform, but it should be a few hours. The form you take while transform is quite disgusting to say the least. In order for such a thing to be possible he would have to transform in places where the cameras don't reach. The vents were a favorite for players. However, hiding in the vents is still dangerous in its own rights. Another option would be sabotaging the reactor or the cameras directly, but he is a scientist not an engineer.

The Hive Queen was the next favorite. Spamming spawnlings to constantly attack the crewman in a brawl, or just building up a large army while hiding in vents was very popular. If you managed to nurture your spawns enough, they could even get more powerful than you. This army style with powerful generals was a high win rate strategy. However, it had a big weakness. The crew could evacuate the ship after triggering the reactor to meltdown.

In the game, this was considered a player win since they could evacuate to the colonial planet and also kill the parasite. Once the Hive Queen reached tier three; they could no longer retain their disguise. Therefore, the players would be able to successfully wipe out the parasite and reach the score screen at the end. Although this was reality, such a strategy could still be taken. If Matt goes down the Hive Queen tree, he would have to triple his hiding efforts to nurture strong spawns.

There was also the option of using the Hive Queen path to infect all of the crewmen, but this usually always failed in the game due to trolls that gave away their status and outed the parasite. Matt didn't know how a real human would respond to being slowly infected and being taken over, but it must also have its risks. Infecting those he trusted could work, but eventually it would be noticeable. And frankly, as a former human, he didn't want to give up his human appearance.

And finally, the Mind Flayer. This is considered the worst branch in the game due to its low impact and slow play style. A typical game lasted thirty minutes, but with a Mind Flayer parasite, it could last an hour. However, for Matt, the long game was his goal. If four plus years wasn't a long game, he didn't know what was. The less impactful his actions, the stealthier he would be.

Additionally, with the ability to control, read, and alter minds, he could do just as much damage as the Faceless Devourer. Since time was the only limiting factor, he would be practically infallible. The best part about the Mind Flayer tree that made Matt consider it his top choice was the tier three skills. He could transform his consciousness into a corporeal entity and change hosts. He didn't know how this worked in reality, but he imagined that he would become something like a packet of information being moved to a different computer.

The reason this was powerful was because it was the only way to defeat the fully upgraded AI. Being a machine, it had no capabilities to deal with the Mind Flayer's ultimate ability. It was so powerful in fact; it could even gain control of the AI in the right circumstances. This was certainly a branch that was weak at the start but grew much stronger at the end.

'I guess Mind Flayer is my best choice.'