RPC Authority

Event Log 193.1

Date: ██/██/████

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[BEGIN LOG]

[04:36 - 04:37] RPC-193-2 is incorporated and active as part of Site-014 Machine Shop 3E's NCCB system. Prior work orders indicate it was being used to construct structural components for ongoing renovation work on the containment system for RPC-███.

[04:37 - 04:40] Site-014 nuclear fail-safe detonates, leading to power loss and substantial damage to Machine Shop 3E. Notably, the NCCB is partially crushed by a collapsing ceiling element, causing damage to RPC-193-2 which distorts the device's upper arm and causes it to enter a permanently active state. Elevated radiation levels within Machine Shop 3E begin to alter the size and intensity of RPC-193-2's coherency field at random. Machine Shop 3E radiation warning and suppression systems activate.

[04:40 - 04:46] Machine shop staff become aware of the risk posed by RPC-193-2's uncontrolled low-coherency field. Machinists Y██████, U█████ and A█████████ attempt to use the NCCB's safety equipment to deactivate RPC-193-2.

[04:46 - 04:48] Machinist U█████ is killed when RPC-193-2 causes the floor beneath her to assume a liquid state.

[04:48 - 04:51] Machinist Y██████ is killed by internal coherency damage to his stomach, liver, and kidneys.

[04:51 - 04:52] Machinist A█████████ succeeds in manually removing RPC-193-2 from its NCCB and partially inserting it into its Insulated Secure Container (ISC) before succumbing to severe coherency disjunction injuries¹ to the hands, arms, face and chest.

[04:52 - 04:53] Junior Machinist Yaron, now the only conscious survivor in the Machine Shop, closes the ISC using his personal identification codes but fails to fully activate its air filtration system. The structure of the ISC contains RPC-193-2's coherency field but does not adequately protect against radioactive contamination penetrating the container.

[04:53 - 05:10] Accelerometer and limited positioning data from the ISC indicates that Junior Machinist Yaron exits the machine shop with the ISC, heading in the direction of the nearest Site-014 exit.

[05:10 - 05:15] Junior Machinist Yaron addresses the ISC data logger directly, apparently in an attempt to explain his reasoning for exiting the Site. Data is corrupted by subsequent radiation and low-coherence exposure.

"…going to get this thing [unintelligible] open air where [unintelligible] lower radiation emissions, uh- keep the field from getting any big [data loss] …could bond the whole damn Site together."

[05:15 - 05:19] The ISC is placed on the passenger seat of a general-usage van stored on level 2 of Site-014's main parking garage. Audio feed records the engine starting. Junior Machinist Yaron drives the van out of the Site-014 parking garage, apparently hitting or grazing against debris and the walls of the exit tunnel in the process. It is believed from subsequent investigations of the parking garage that at some point the van hit a structural post hard enough to shatter the passenger-side window. The resulting impact jars open the improperly-sealed ventilation system in the ISC.

[05:19 - 05:20] ISC positioning data reveals that the vehicle has exited Site-014 and is travelling away from the Site in a southeasterly direction. The ISC's radiation sensors detect increasing levels of airborne radiation.

[05:20 - 05:36] The van reaches the outskirts of ████████. Radiation levels in the ISC continue to rise.

[05:36 - 05:38] ISC data recorder registers a spike in radiation, then ceases to function, likely due to a sudden drop in localized coherency.

[05:38] Due to the rapidly-decreasing coherency within the van, Junior Machinist Yaron loses control of the vehicle, exiting the road and subsequently crashing into the side of a local McDonald's restaurant. The 103-km/h impact kills Yaron instantly and ejects the ISC through the exterior wall of the restaurant with enough force to cause it to partially open, fully exposing the active RPC-193-2 to the interior of the structure.

[11:21] Authority disaster response teams arrive at the restaurant following the detection of an unusually strong radiation source.

[END LOG]

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Closing Statement: RPC-193-1 has since been recovered, undamaged, from its storage locker.

Excerpt from Investigation Log 193.1

Date: ██/██/████

Team: Mobile Specialized Team Echo-8 - "Plague Doctors"

Captain: E8-Cap

Members: E8-1, E8-2, E8-3

Foreword: Due to the levels of ambient radiation in the area surrounding Site-014, Echo-8 members were equipped with Level 3 Hazardous Material suits³, scintillation detectors, and were following all standard Authority protocols for operations in areas of dangerous ionizing radiation. Team members had chosen to forgo wearing personal video recorders to save weight, and due to the open sightlines around the area of operations.

At this point in time, the site had only been observed from a distance, and no efforts had been made to measure the coherency of the area.

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[BEGIN LOG]

E8-2: Looking at give or take 120 microsieverts per hour⁴- do you confirm?

E8-1: Same on my end.

E8-3: Confirm. Let's try to be in and out of here in the next 20 minutes, folks.

E8-2: Okay, initial report… nothing they didn't already pick up on the long-range cameras. It's a McDonald's. Van crashed through one wall.

E8-3: Lots of dust everywhere, but that's to be expected- and they're sure no civilians have left the building?

E8-1: You heard the brief. Not a peep from this place for the past two, three hours at least.

E8-2: Well, someone's still inside. You see that? Something's fogging the glass, but that was definitely movement.

E8-3: You getting this, Command?

E8-Cap: Clear as day, E8-3. Infrared is pulling up some serious temperature fluctuations from inside the building, could be the source of the condensation on the windows.

E8-1: Jeez, it must be freezing in there.

E8-2: Eh, could be dust on the panes- gonna get closer. Shit, you see that?

E8-Cap: Clarify, E8-2.

E8-2: The whole building's kind of… melted. Like it's gone runny and fused with the ground.

E8-1: No way that's heat damage, though- shit, look at those cars- the tires are, uh…

E8-3: Like they turned to slush and just started seeping into the asphalt. Command, be advised that there may be more than just radiation at work here. I, uh- I don't know what this is.

E8-Cap: Do you wish to proceed? Your call, E8-3, but we're recommending you pull out before things get worse.

E8-3: If there's the possibility of people still alive in there, I think we're obligated to proceed.

E8-Cap: Understood. I'm moving a pickup team to the edge of the safe zone.

[E8-1 moves to investigate one of the vehicles in the parking lot.]

E8-1: The tread is part of the asphalt- they're fused or something. And, uh… yeah, we got a body in the front seat.

[E8-2 moves to join E8-1 by the vehicle.]

E8-1: Jesus, poor woman- her hands are, uh, they've gone… into the steering wheel.

E8-2: Definitely some kind of spatial anomaly going on here- but something powerful enough to fuse matter like that would be obvious, right?

E8-Cap: We're not recording any unusual EM activity that would be indicative of a spatial or dimensional distortion on our end, E8-2.

[E8-3 attempts to open the front doors of the restaurant, but appears to be unable to move them.]

E8-3: It's not condensation: it's a thin layer of something on the inside of the windows. Could be dust, but it's spread too evenly. And I'm still seeing that movement.

[E8-2 and E8-1 join E8-3 by the front door.]

E8-2: There is a big hole in the side of the building.

E8-1: That van⁵ looks wedged in there pretty good, but I bet we could squeeze around it. Just don't tear your suit.

E8-3: All right, let's give it a try- but if we run into any obstructions, we pull out and send a drone in instead. This is rubbing me the wrong way.

[Video of the exploration team taken from the edge of the safe zone by the recovery team dispatched to assist them reveals that, for approximately 0.2 seconds, E8-2's silhouette appeared heavily distorted on the recording before returning to normal.]

E8-2: Did you just-?

E8-1: Come again?

E8-2: Never mind. I think I got some sweat in my eye. Let's, uh… let's keep moving.

[The team approaches the crashed van, gathering around the hole in the wall of the restaurant. E8-1 leans briefly against the van's side door while E8-3 attempts to probe the debris surrounding the crash.]

E8-3: I think if we shift some of this rubble, we might just…

[Video recording shows E8-1 briefly sliding into the body of the van, which appears, for two frames, to be glowing intensely.]

E8-1: Oh fuck. The hell was that?

E8-2: Are you all right?

E8-1: I don't know- maybe a muscle spasm or something in my arm?

E8-2: You think radiation, maybe…?

E8-1: No, this was like a cramp. But, uh- do you- do you see that?

[E8-2 vanishes from the footage for 0.4 seconds. E8-1's head appears to be detached from his torso.

E8-Cap: We're getting some strange multispectral readings here. Recommend again that you get out of there, E8-3.

[E8-3 steps back from the van, and appears to be having some difficulty keeping his balance.

E8-3: Sure. Yeah. I'm, um. I'm getting some odd, uh… some odd colours in my vision whenever I look too closely at that van and, uh, hold on-

[Video recording shows a large, transparent crystalline structure, protruding from the space between the wall of the restaurant and the crashed van. It partially intersects and passes through all members of the exploration team for 0.3 seconds.

E8-2: Benedictions of benedictions of benedictions of the light which in time will not become to have been what we once were- oh god, fuck what the hell was that? What did I just-?

E8-1: Holy shit, Command, are you seeing this? These, uh- these red- what is that, it's so bright, so slippery but then down it goes and we run and follow under the trees where they eat and sing and prognosticate on outcomes-

E8-Cap: What in the hell is going on in there?

[At this point, observation equipment began registering intense visual and spatial distortions surrounding the members of the investigation team. E8-2's left leg was observed to separate from his body, while E8-1's body began producing brightly flickering fractal patterns. E8-3 was observed being followed by a rapidly-rotating column of red triangular objects, which repeatedly passed through his extremities whenever he moved. These effects are consistent with the exposure of high-coherency matter to areas of intensely low-coherency space.]

E8-3: I- fuck- Dave- E8-2 is- but- why won't the movement of the patterns of the light at the summit in time and the place where we were look at the snow the red snow-

E8-1: -out of here!

E8-2: -zond zond zond zond zond and when they strapped me to the chair the doctor made me watch him take Father's face apart and put it back together wrong and we were there, there in the train station, and he said he was him but he wasn't, he was someone else, and then the lightning and it was there in the window, its face bloodied burlap-

[E8-1 and E8-3 begin dragging E8-2 back to the perimeter of the contaminated area, where they are assisted by the recovery team. The coherency effects subside as they leave the parking lot.]

[END LOG]

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Closing Statement: Members of the exploratory team all showed symptoms consistent with brief exposure to a low coherency environment.⁶ E8-1 and E8-3 were treated for minor coherency disjunction injuries. E8-2 suffered severe disjunction dactyly⁷ and the loss of his left leg. Subsequent AECT investigations of the area showed localized and shifting pockets of low-coherence space which were too small to produce the usually obvious signs of unstable reality, but still large enough to cause negative effects in the surrounding matter.

Investigation Log 193.2

Date: ██/██/████

Team: Mobile Specialized Team Uniform-1 - "Through God's Eyes", India-13 ("Squirrel on a Stick")

Captain: U1-Cap

Members: U1-1, U1-2, I13-1

Foreword: MST Uniform-1 came equipped with a specialty-built AECR capable of operating under high-radiation conditions.

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[BEGIN LOG]

I13-1 Dufresne: The, uh… the hazing at the edge of the vision, that's normal?

U1-1 Bryakov: That's normal. Whole area seems to be below ACS 3.7, 3.8- visual distortions are normal. Nothing permanently harmful.

U1-2 Imbemwe: Hold up. Area 'round that car is a slogger.

I13-1: A slo-?

U1-1: Area where all matter is fluid- know that feeling in a nightmare where it feels like you can't move fast enough?

I13-1: That but real? Fuck.

U1-1: Yeah, they're nasty.

I13-1: So you've got, like, a whole lexicon for this?

U1-1: Dippers, tripups, stretchways, red snow… lots.

I13-1: Do I want to know?

U1-2: No, and you're not cleared anyway. Hold. Detector just dropped down to somewhere below ACS 3. Dufresne, mark this perimeter- no one goes past this without a coherency suit.

I13-1: Don't worry, I don't need much convincing. We'll handle the clean-up from here. Good luck.

[U1-1 and U1-2 utilize a fire axe to cut open the door of the restaurant, which has become bonded with the wall surrounding it.]

U1-2: Well goddamn. Can't say I've ever seen one of those before.

U1-Cap: What do you see?

U1-1: It appears to be a, uh- a mass of some kind- there's a sort of pit where the restaurant floor should be, and this big, rolling lump of… of stuff.

U1-Cap: Can you clarify?

U1-2: It's made of, well- meat. I see bits of human tissue, but also what might be concrete, restaurant furniture, electrical wiring- there are a few self-serve terminals, or what's left of them sticking out of one edge.

U1-Cap: And it's… animate?

U1-2: It's just sort of… writhing, I guess.

U1-1: No obvious movement in our direction. I think this is more than just a stapler, Command. The ACS readings I'm getting from this thing are quite low. If I had to guess, I'd say that 193-2 is, well- inside there somewhere?⁸ I'm not sure if you're picking this up, but it's making some odd noises.

U1-Cap: Nothing on our end.

U1-2: Hold on, let me boost the suit gain- see if you can hear this.

RPC-193-A⁹: WELCOME TO MCDONALD'S, PLEASE SELECT A MENU OPTION

U1-2: It sounds like the text-to-speech setting on the menu computers. The option for blind people.

U1-Cap: And is it saying anything… intelligible?

U1-1: I don't know if we're going to get anything coherent out of it unless we can somehow decode that mess of a computer.

RPC-193-A: ONION RINGS

U1-2: "Coherent"? Hah. We could always ask it to say, uh… "Fries" for yes and "Shake" for no.

U1-1: What, and "Big Mac" for "I don't know"?

U1-2: Why not? We've communicated wi-

RPC-193-A: FRIES FRIES FRIES

U1-1: …spooky.

RPC-193-A: SHAKE

U1-2: Oh my God. Do you think it-?

RPC-193-A: FRIES

U1-1: Command, do you follow? Bryakov, keep it talking.

U1-Cap: The research team is getting every word. Careful in there, U1-1.

U1-1: You can understand me?

RPC-193-A: FRIES

U1-2: There was an… an accident. Were- are you human?

RPC-193-A: BIG MAC

U1-1: Are you in pain?

RPC-193-A: SHAKE SPICY CHIPOTLE SIDE SALAD

[END LOG]

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Closing Statement: Members of the Site-015 Research division trained in PROCSE¹⁰ instructed U1-1 and U1-2 in establishing, via yes-or-no-questions, that RPC-193-A was capable of reading written English but not capable of producing any phrase not stored in the memory of its computer text-to-speech database.

With assistance from other members of Uniform-1, U1-1 and U1-2 then constructed an "alphabet grid" using a variety of on-site materials. RPC-193-A was able, via gross body movements, to spell out the following phrases:

FLASH IN SKY

BIG BOOM

ARE PEOPLE HURT

CAN WE HELP