Strange news reaches Gutter Press from the southern hemisphere of Jachanu V, where local residents found a giant fish washed up on one of the beaches popular with tourists !
The fish, a species known locally as a fetchcarp, measured 4 metres from nose to tail, and was examined by marine biologists who conducted a necropsy, and made a shocking discovery !
Inside the fish’s digestive tract, was a partial human skeleton, with some cyberprosthetics still attached !
Examination of the skeleton parts, and cross-referencing with dental and cyberprosthetic records, revealed it to be the body of “Mad Jaq the Stabby”, a former cyberknight turned criminal mastermind, who had disappeared more than 40 years ago !
“You get fetchcarp washed up on the beaches every so often, usually when they’ve been fighting with each other, or are diseased. They don’t really have any predators, other than the occasional sport fisherman”, said one local official.
“Yeeearr, that’s a big un. There be bigger than that, in the deeps. My granda, he fought one that was 8 metres long. Attacked his fishing ship, killed a couple of his mates, so it did”, said a local sailor.
“Hmmph, being eaten by fish is a fitting fate for a lower hemisphere criminal, I’d say. Of course, we don’t have these social problems in the upper hemisphere”, said a northern Jachanu V tourist.
“My old auntie used to tell us that naughty children would get ate by fetchcarp. Would never have thought the old boot was on to something”, said a local policeman.
But when it does, it’s usually to a criminal who accidentally fell overboard some way offshore, but rather clumsily left the lower half of their body somewhere else.
Where are people getting the bifurcated from? I see it was a partial skeleton, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t intact when eaten.
Only, after 40 years I wouldn’t think there’d be even that much left (and the indigestible parts seem like they would probably have finished passing through the fish by now). It’s not like fish normally bother removing the bones before dinner.
So, if this is true, maybe somebody was cleaning out their freezer?
Well-- I’m not sure where we were with osteoplastic at the time, but I don’t think cloning was routine (laboratory conditions only, I think?), so the body and its skeleton were likely original.
But, I could see somebody having stashed the body at the back of a walk-in freezer or something for all these decades and then maybe their successor or whatever trips over it and realizes they’ve got highly-incriminating evidence on ice and decides to dispose of it in the nearest large body of water: food for the fishies.
Well, Cyberknights even of that era had replacement body parts, did they not ?
Dental records mean a skull though. Or a jaw. Maybe a cyberknight prosthetic metal jaw ? That wouldn’t digest. And some other stuff that would only be connected by the implant wiring, because natural tendons and stuff would be digested.
The article did specify a partial human skeleton with prosthetics, but maybe you’re right; I guess I am trying to closely parse the wording in a Gutter Press article.
As for fish size, Ms. Qerl posted about fetchcarps last year. The one she posted was alarmingly large but probably would have trouble swallowing a grown person.
Also, can I just mention that a cyberknight seems like a really remarkably unhealthy thing to eat? I mean in general, but especially if still kicking? (And probably therefore also stabbing, lacerating, and rupturing? Possibly even blasting?)
Crime…fighting…fetchcarp? I have no idea how that could even happen, much less why someone would want to try. There is…not so much crime a kilometer down in the middle of the ocean?
Maybe the implants that were discovered stuck to the insides of the Fetchcarp . Possibly due to feeding off of the Fetchcarps own innards through a process similar to how the Capsuleer receives nutrients can be the explanation of why and how the bones remained for so long.
The bigger question is, is there a half Fetchcarp half Capsuleer mind roaming the deeps spawning and creating new Capcarps?