The Mission-                    as told by Corpesman Ryan Bohdi Ashwood:

          "Holy cheese, it is hot down here.  
           I mean, yeah.  Command told me it'd be warmer here, but I didn't think it'd be so warm that the fecking water would be in the fecking air.  I mean, blood and guts.... it's got to be, what?  70 degrees.  73!  Man that's hot.  
         Back in the mountains at NEMA, 40-50 degrees is a good day.  You wouldn't even need your thermals.  
        Down here... all I was told was that it'd be warmer.  So I didn't put on my coat.  But I am wearing my thermals.  
       And now I'm drowning in my own sweat!
       Heat aside, this place is very different.  More, uh, diverse.  
       I've seen quite a few sub-species and varying mutant races down here.  
       Ursinus Types: bear folk.  
       Terrae Types: reptile folk.
       Lucanus Types: beetle folk.
       Chlorospaians: humans, but they have chloroform mutation.  Plant folk.  
       This place is great.  Kinda' scary.  But great.
       Back at NEMA, I'd only seen a few.  The Epoch Aliens being the most innocuous.  One named Telal even came with me.  The Epoch are those aliens that you see in all those old black and white pre-Rifts films.  Elongated heads, pale grey skin, hairless, noseless, thin slit for a mouth, 2 holes for ears, really tall and thin, ... they only communicate psychically.  Those are the Epoch.  
        Been here on Earth for a while it seems.  Since 1950.  At first, the NSA was keeping them at Military Base 51.  They moved them to NORAD later than that when the world started to change, and after the Rifts, NORAD, and then NEMA, needed their help.  So we all came to an agreement and co-exist symbiotically.  
        Them aside, we have the odd mutant here and there.  They call them 'Dayers'.  I'm just a corpsman, and don't have access to the science, so all I have to go on is 'when I asked'?  The science division told me that they've spend too much time outside.  
         Hence: Dayers.
         Which I find ironic, since up in the mountains we're always surrounded by volcanic smog and never see the sun.  
         Dayers are human, for the most part.  Most have an odd skin color (orange, pink, dark blue), and/ or hair color, in addition to the one odd thing: 
        Some have hyper-metabolisms, giving them enhanced speed and reflexes.
        Some have over developed proteins in their systems, making them hard as iron, and super strong.
       Some even have warped and extended skeletal structures. You know: horns, tails, additional pairs of arms or legs.  
       I like them well enough.  They're people, same as the rest of us.  But, seeing how the military has a 'shoot-on-sight' policy where they're concerned, they usually hide, or stay well away from our outposts.  The benefits of being a corpsman is I also moonlight as a local physician.   
      Illegal; yes.  But lucrative enough that I can afford a higher education, as well as bribing whoever I have to, in order to help people get by. 
     Which is me.  I live to help people.  
      Now, I like money.  I won't lie.  But thats not what I'm in this for.  I come from a long line of military officers, since even before the cataclysm.  My family has a long standing tradition of improving life for everyone, either through science, medicine, or invention.  I don't care how many eyes and person has or what color they are.  If they're hurt.  I help them.
      Seeing how our barracks tent is about the size of a bus stop, I walk around the camp often.  
      It is a lot nicer here, than the mountains.  
      It's green here.  The ruins are all still standing here.  The houses in the jungle, that were once farms and plantations.  The old service stations that, despite cracks and mold, squat off the sides of broken roads, poison coated treasure houses of food, medicine, and other necessities.  And they're still there and still full, because the local beasts know that people come to these places looking for just that.  
      Now, I didn't think they were serious when they said the local beasts were, uh.... dinosaurs. 
      Then I saw one of those too. 
      Add Allosaurus' and Tyranosaurus' to that diversity list of mine.  But they just sit outside those old buildings that are still full of pre-Rifts goodies, and wait for people to come.  It's like that one old movie Jurrasic Park.  Only lazier.  
      The area we're in is a massive grassy knoll outside the jungle.  There are a few buildings here.  But mostly old cars, and busted up roads.  
     And they are full of plants and mushrooms.  Big mushrooms.  
      Back at the the NEMA Base, I have this vid-game I like to play on an old console my girl Isha fixed up.  You play as a fat little plumber who runs around jumping on mushrooms and dodging vicious plants.  Since bing here, I discovered that the little plumber is onto something.  Jumping on giant mushrooms is bright fun.  
       Commander caught me doing it.  
       Ordered me to do some tests on my own blood work.  Turned out I'm full of spores.  Had to get treated before I started hallucinating and vomiting to death, but jumping on giant mushrooms is still fun.  I'd recommend it to anyone.  
       And not one day goes by when my blood is clean, but now I'm tromping through waist high grass, from my bunk tent, to the command tent to be briefed on our mission.   If I wouldn't be in peril of life, I'd sleep outside.  Locals and veterans say that there are Pteradactyls too.  Kinda' want to see one.  
       Really.   
      Anyway, when I left NEMA, I was told I was going to be collecting medicine samples for the Mountain base.  So far, no one's left me gather a Gut-shot thing!  All I'e done so far is boil in my tent, and try to resist jumping on those dang giant shrooms.  
       Hopefully this briefing goes quickly.  
      And that we get some fans for our tents.  The green grass, vaulting jungles, and still standing old road houses are nice, but I'm cooking in my fecking clothes here. 
     Man, it's hot."