=Aten= 
**Station Type:** [[Clusters|Cluster]]
**Allegiance:** [[Planetary Consortium]]
**Primary Languages:** English, Mandarin
The public face of this habitat is the Martian University of New Shanghai, but in actuality its principal funding comes from a shadowy collection of hypercorps and other interests. We’ve found links to [[Cognite]], [[Direct Action]], and the criminal syndicate [[Nine Lives]], among others. Publicly, Aten claims to be working on cutting-edge propulsion systems and new techniques for solar energy collection, but rumors abound that the habitat is heavily involved in military research. We’ve heard strange and disturbing tales: work on weaponizing the Exsurgent virus; development of a simple image that can crash a transhuman mind via a visual cortex input glitch; wargaming forknapped leaders to gain a negotiating advantage. Unfortunately, Firewall knows little beyond the rumors. Security is exceptionally tight and major egocasting restrictions are placed on the habitat’s population of 12,000. Firewall has made at least two failed efforts to infiltrate projects here to learn more.
===Sidebar: Secure Research=== 
//The following file, originating from former MU student Hui Fong’s personal muse, turned up in the data cache of a [[Direct Action]] counter-intrusion specialist.//
Yu, it seems you were right. I’ve spent the last few nights at the lab trying to get access to the fifth or sixth floors in the Molecular Genetics tower with little success. Even the vacuum breach slides from those floors are sealed tight and have sophisticated monitoring equipment on them. Your suspicion that they’re working with some sort of live biovirus? I think you’re on to something. I was poking around in some of the ceiling access vents on the fourth floor and found some shady shit there. Shady, like medical-grade human-nutrient support pipes, the kind they use in body banks to keep morphs alive between users. And heavy-duty Class-C medical containment feeds. I sampled some residue and the analyzer identified it as catacinin, a compound used to kill all major brain functions. They use as part of the process to wipe the brains of biomorphs when it’s absolutely essential that the previous ego be fully eradicated. It’s used for people with high-level security clearance when they resleeve—and also on people the TITANs had gotten a hold of. I hope they’re just doing vaccine research or other preventive care solutions, but why keep it secret?
Everything else we do here, no matter how far away from actual breakthroughs, is trumpeted throughout the inner system. Why keep this place quiet, and the third floor of the uplift center too? I think we’re on to something and I’m willing to chip in to get that journo out here. Maybe she can find out a bit more. At the very least she can poke around without fearing she’ll lose her scholarship. This shit is making me paranoid. I don’t even trust campus security any more. A Direct Action safety contractor came by to check the lab fire suppression gear and I thought he was there to arrest me. I nearly freaked when I saw his uniform.
We need to do something because I can’t stop thinking about this. I’m not sure there’s much else we can do on our own. I know that we’re supposed to say something when we see something—just like the security and safety seminars say—but when it’s two floors in a building? I think someone already knows what’s going down, someone with pull. And while you may be crazy enough to think we can just hack a maker and steal some passcodes to get in, I’m betting they have security hardware beyond our capabilities. Plus we’re looking at serious damage if we got exposed to the catacinin or whatever else may be up there. We need to get a pro, someone who knows what’s up and can come prepared.

[ [[Home]] | [[Setting Information]] | [[Places of Interest]] | [[Sol]] ]