25: Anamorphics and Other Nonsense

Welcome back to Life in the Void, Overwatch Command. It's me, your favorite radio communications operator, Dr. Harley. Bringing you the latest from Site-107. We are once again upon dry land, Overwatch Command. We had our fun until the clock rolled back, but now it's business as usual. Security and containment are on the hunt for the Dash-1 responsible for the flood, but have found nothing yet. More on this as it develops. In other news, there is a hair stuck to my face, and I am having...

trouble removing it. Hey. Hey. What you doing? I'm bored and Lancaster won't hang out with me because he's busy. Where's Rattiger? In her room. She said she's taking the day because she has sensory overhaul stuff from all the stress with the water. Overload. That's what I said. So you're just here to hang out? Yeah. What do you want to do?

Want to fight or something? I do not want that, no. I'm so bored! It's like three hours till my shift starts and there's nothing to do! Feels, uh, weird. Going back to our regular work after our beach day, huh? Yeah. It's fascinating how much more people are talking to each other nowadays. It's really different than when I first got here. Yeah. I bet you guys never did anything cool like that before the shift. There was some cool stuff that happened every so often.

Prove it. Haven't you heard about the research and records feud? Research and records have a feud. Oh, pull up a seed agent.

Personal log, Dr. Beatrix Klein. As we work on cementing our plans for the control detonation, research is moving forward with some new work regarding anamorphic dash ones. So far, the only one we've encountered in the wild was those boxes in the storage room back before our very first reset. It was built gradually and entirely by the hands of several separate people. No anomalous movement involved.

But we'll see if we can't get a dash two to build one for us if we can get the conditions right. Are you fucking kidding me? There's no way they did that. Hand to God. I literally don't believe you. I was working here when it happened. Records? Records? What did Klein do? Klein wasn't working here when that happened. What? She was here for the mushroom incident. Oh my god, what is the mushroom incident? Okay.

so it started like this research got this little fog machine personal log dr beatrix klein today we attempted to get a dash two to make an anamorphic dash one created it left it alone in the testing chamber with a whole bunch of stackable easily manipulated objects. And guess what? Nothing happened. It didn't do anything. It just...

slithered around the containment chamber and snarled. It didn't even look like it was interested in the objects at all. Which might have been because it didn't have any appendages that could grab objects. But that's beside the point. It barely even looked at the things. It just really complicates stuff.

And this is where engineering comes in. Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me! At the time, the engineers had this, uh, contraption? It's like this little box thing with a motor inside that could make it bounce around all over. Damn it! They had a robot! They had the cutest, dumbest little robot. And it died the most tragic death ever. No! It's been a moment since D1 has done anything of note, but...

I guess that by itself is a little shady. He's been quiet for a long time. I don't like it. Our last interview with him was unproductive. He was being shitty on purpose, vague, talking in circles, being downright mean. But he hasn't been making Dash 1, so that's a plus, I guess. He's in the containment chamber with the objects.

He's been in there for about three hours now. He's messed with a couple of them, but we haven't been able to draw any data from it. Where'd they get that much? I don't know. They ordered it in bulk, I suppose. I heard they used Gravit's black card for it. Marked it as a business expense. Did they get caught? No, of course not. It was Gravit's card. No one's gonna question her. Do you know where that woman's been? No. Yeah, neither do I.

Nobody does. Nobody's going to question why feared medical doctor Gravit bought a hundred pounds of upholstery foam. Stranger things have happened. What things? So security. Nothing from D1. Nothing at all. He was in there, like, all day. Something like six hours. Moved a couple of the objects, but didn't do anything more than look at them. Muttered to himself a little bit. Nothing. Which confirms my suspicion. I hate being right.

Hey, Radiger. Love told me you're feeling a little under the weather. Oh, right. Sorry. Um, how you doing? Anything I can do? Alright, that's good. Still, sorry about that. Yeah, so I was hoping you could consult research on something. I know you've done some poking around with the anamorphic dash ones. I wanted to pick your brain a bit.

But seems like you're out of commission today, so we'll get to it later. Hey, if it's not too much of a hassle, I'd really appreciate it. Sure you're feeling up to it? patronize. All right, whatever. How long do you need to write it all down? I'll give you two hours. Breathing room. Sound good? Just let me know if I can get you anything for your head, alright? They couldn't get the smell out for days. God, at least it wasn't, you know, a worse acid. Yeah.

It burned a bit of the tile, though. I'll point it out to you sometime. Ten molar is really nothing to mess around with. Damn! Still, two days off work while they cleaned it off the stairs. Maybe I should dump some acid down the stairs. Don't do that. Personal log, Beatrix Klein. So now things are a lot more complicated. We've only observed them being built by one or more people over a much longer period of time.

We can say with moderate certainty that dash twos do not create anamorphic dash one instances. Radiger's report suggests that the formation of anamorphic dash ones take the longest since the only one we've observed took an entire cycle. And it wasn't even totally finished. Which means we'll have to engineer a way to test it outside of the containment chamber. Somewhere in the site.

And that, naturally, is going to be a lot more dangerous, unpredictable, hard to remove external variables that could impact our results, and hard to guarantee the safety of our personnel. Of course it's real. I don't think it is. It is. I've been there. Oh, you haven't. Yeah, I have. I got a two-month ban because I kicked someone in the nuts at it. Groove it. Tell me where it is. Well, it's... Well, hey, you just want...

You wanna see it for yourself! Where's the Fight Club, agent? Invite only, nerd! Personal log, Beatrix Klein. Our cameras are basically useless when it comes to catching anamorphics. You have to look at them from just the right angle to see them, and that angle is probably not going to be from the upper corner of the room if we're expecting people to be building them from the ground up. Jeez.

Trying to engineer one of these things to happen while still being able to monitor it could be impossible. Damn it. And we thought looking for regular Dash once was a pain in the ass. How did they not get caught? They did! How do you think I know who did it? Did security catch them? Yeah, but it was during the Security Engineering Alliance. So they were in cahoots the whole time. Okay, so it was before the thing with the dead fish. Yes. Cafeteria table pyramid incident. Ice microchip war.

Then the dead fish thing. Wait, wait, wait. You can't just skip over the ice microchip war.

Didn't think you'd be awake. Night shift. Right. Feeling any better? Yes. Good. Glad to hear it. Can I come in? I've got something to run past you. Yes. Are you going to turn a light on? No. Oh, all right. Well, hey, so you're very perceptive. Research needs to find an anamorphic dash one instance so we can monitor it. You notice a lot of things that other people don't. First one? Yeah, like the first one. Think you could help us spot another? Awesome.

Maybe you can work with them to set up some kind of algorithm or something to detect them. They can rebuild that stupid robot of theirs. What? Nothing. We should do this! No, we should not do that. Why not? We have enough mice, don't we? It's not about the mice. It's about doing the same strategy two times. They'd anticipate it. They'd be expecting it, right? I wouldn't have...

expected a lot of you guys to do stuff like that. You'd be surprised. Everyone's a bit less of a hard ass than they let on. Everyone? Just about. What about Alves? She never even goes to movie night. You remember when we did the little boat race during the flooding? Yeah. She was keeping score on a little notepad. I saw Drew Starr's next to one of the numbers. You're lying. You're making that up. Tell me all you want, but...

People have a natural predisposition for goofing off. And as our time in the void drags on, so builds the urge to do a bunch of stupid shit all the time. We have no gods. and no masters. We have only time and the unlimited machinations of our feverish imaginations. And a bunch of anime DVDs. And a bunch of anime DVDs. I like it! I like messing around with everybody. Good. It probably will not stop anytime soon. We've got to get the 14 Bs together. Do something fun. Play a game or something.

I'm sure Klein has something in that media collection of hers. I don't want to play unless Lancaster's going to be there too. I'm sure he'll agree if we harass him enough. Let's go. Where? Let's go harass him! I'm sick of this shit! Hey, open up! We've come to harass you! Yes? What? I'm kind of busy in here. I'm busy. Shut the fuck up. We're going to hang out tomorrow and you have to go. What are you doing to that pencil?

I'm learning how to whittle. You're supposed to use a knife, dumbass. Well, I don't have a knife. Medical wouldn't let me borrow a scalpel, so this is what I've got. Why would you ask medical if you could use a scalpel to whittle? Shut up. Whatever. What do you guys want me to do? Spend some time with us tomorrow. Open up your apparently incredibly packed schedule. Or else. Or else. Okay, fine. You win. What are we doing tomorrow? I don't know. Something awesome and cool. Sounds great.

Episode 25 was written and produced by Anna McGuire. The voice of Harley is Logan Laidlaw. The voice of Lancaster is Jackson McMurray. The voice of Klein is Tasha Ritter. The voice of Agent Love is Tabby Bardal. The voice of Radiger is Anna McGuire. Original music by Jackson McMurray.

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