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High Signal Ratio 950 words They say we’re all for sale these days. The men who built this world put a price on our eyeballs and buddy - they collect. They plastered every inch of our lives with screens, even floating them in midair. You can’t turn your head without seeing a pithy commercial, or an ad to get you to watch a more elaborate series of ads. All day, every day. When they get you cornered in a taxi or a bathroom stall, they scan your face and put on this smooth voice algorithm, like you’re talking to a trusted friend. “All bullshit aside, Ryan,” the smudged screen purrs as I wipe my rear end, sounding too much like my old boss, the one I’d idolized. “Coleman’s the tent for you. You said you wanted to go camping, right?” “No,” I mutter, unlatching the door. “Just searched for it.” I dry my hands on my pants and step outside. Someone took my scooter, the bastard. Not that I had any right to it. Sure, I sat through 12 minutes of ads just to unlock the drat thing, but that kind of payment doesn’t last. As soon as you park it, it’s up for grabs. People don’t really own things anymore, not anybody I know anyways. Work, if you can ever find it, won’t buy you more than trinkets. The high-up men provide a “free” bed, “free” food, “free” transportation. But you gotta play by their rules. You gotta watch the screens, you gotta consume, and you gotta post. They don’t care how much you take, but you gotta make a choice, so the high-up men in their board meeting have a metric to apply. Don’t forget to post! Tell your friends! Spread the word! Lick the boot! No clue if it’s like this anywhere else. There’s no such thing as news in this town anymore. “Big thank you to Crapper & Sons Street Toilets for another stellar evacuation experience. Killer TP as always!” I grit my teeth, shove my phone into my jeans pocket, and amble over to the Lock-N-Buy. After a quick retinal scan, the door hisses open. I bee-line to #884, the only refuge I have for the meager valuables I’ve accumulated over the years. Another scan lances the back of my eyes. The front of my locker tries to entice me into upgrading to a bigger one. The one I have is nowhere near filled. In there, my trusty notepad waits. I sketch with it sometimes, when the mood is right. It's not encouraged. It's been depressing me lately, though - the only subjects I seem to find these days are billboards. I reach past it, for my current obsession - my radio. I delivered a dozen pizzas for it, and it still works like a charm. It still picks up every station with perfect clarity. Some of them even play music, if only for a scant few seconds before the ads break in. And every song they play will come back later as the background music to a beach party scene selling beer. You can’t escape the algorithm. But if you can catch a song at the start, and it speaks to you enough to tune out the ambient screens and shoutboxes? That’s fifteen whole seconds of freedom. I crouch out by the curb, thumb on the dial. I have a method - a way to hear the most music, and the least ads. That kind of thinking can get you thrown in the slammer, if they catch you. My method is simple, but it takes practice - you have to know the position of each music station and be able to dial to it precisely. Then, you have to be able to hear the difference between a song and ad, right away, so you can twist the dial with minimal delay. This is the only thing I've done with my life, and I am the master of it. I dunno if most people would call what I listen to with my method, "music." But I love it. I click the radio on and hear an ad - I spin the dial to a trusty station, 98.5, and catch a few seconds of mambo before an ad cuts in - I spin up to 107.7, but it's an ad, so I have to spin down to 103.1, where I catch a jazz bridge. I've learned to hear what comes out of the space between the channels as music too. It's chaotic, but I'm the conductor. It's my chaos, and that has to be better than the chaos I don't make. I'm spinning down through the low 90's when I hear it. Something I've never heard before. Something impossible. I spin back past it, and zero in. It's a soft sound, but it isn't music, and it definitely isn't an ad. I lose myself in the uniform noise. Now that's a tune-out! Down the street, I catch my buddy Moloko polishing off some Foodbox chow. "Mo-low, you gotta check this out. It's on my ra--" He cuts me off, with a finger raised and his nose in his phone. "Hold up, Johnny, I'm posting." Moloko's older than me, I guess he remembers some stuff from further back, before the high-up men perfected their world. He says it's called "static," and it's not supposed to be there. My heart leaps higher the more he talks. There's never anything that isn't part of the system, not without a cop jetting in to block it off until it gets cleaned up. I watch the sky for hours, listening to the static. But no cops. That night, I fall asleep easy, cuddled up with my radio, and sleep through until morning.
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Dec 16, 2019 05:42
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See archive.
SlipUp fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Dec 30, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 06:53
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Okay submissions are now closed. Time to read your godforsaken scribbles.
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Dec 16, 2019 07:02
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magic cactus posted:Dunlop Crybaby GCB-95 Cry Beast The waves lick the shore more gently when dressed in the orange spill of the sun's late light. Two who were two are now one, and from this new beast issues the gentle scrape of sand, a soft, craggy sound, a huff and puff of one temporary body exploring itself atop millennia of erosive jism. Before, when the two were two, and the sun was high and aloof from the water, the waves clapped petulantly on the shore like a small boy pounding the dinner table in demand of a second helping. Now all is gentle. All is sigh. All is the waver of evening on the calm flank of the ocean. The beast with two backs pitches and back and forth on the sand, mmming and ah!ing in time with the lulling flush of sea against sand. Surf rock undulations of skin and breath slide sultrily into the evening overtop the repetitious tonguing of the waves, sounds slipping and sliding over each other in frictionless braids.
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Dec 16, 2019 08:01
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I foolishly drank to much and fell asleep before finishing my story. Sever my head.
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Dec 16, 2019 15:00
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Yo, you need a hand judging, Cactus? Holler, if so.
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Dec 16, 2019 15:47
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magic cactus posted:Electro Harmonix Bad Stone Phase Shifter Anomalous Amalgam posted:I foolishly drank to much and fell asleep before finishing my story. Sever my head. Not Myself Anymore 929 Words, very late Yanni pressed his hands against his temples as he struggled to explain to Doctor Algaraz the source of his headaches, but he stumbled through an explanation as best he could. “So I get headaches all the time, but these… these are different. It started a few weeks ago. I smelled some oil burning on my engine, so I took it apart. Saw there was water in there, thought maybe I had blown a head gasket. So I cleaned it all up, changed the seals, replaced some stripped nuts and put it back together. The whole time I felt this pressure behind my eyes and it went down into my throat and I just felt… I felt outside of myself like I was about to watch my head explode. I just feel like I’m not myself these days. Like there’s something inside me, trying to get out. I know that sounds crazy…” Doctor Algaraz looked at Yanni through squinted eyes. Pinky through middle-fingers interlocked with index fingers pressed firmly into the tip of his nose causing it to crinkle up like an accordion; thumbs pointed at his face, fluttering up and down impatiently. Yanni looked at the doctor, mouth still open, but unsure as to whether he should keep speaking or not. He decided on silence, and watched the doctor with an expectant stare that quickly turned towards frustration as the doctor just continued to squint at him. “If you can’t hel-“ Yanni started before being interrupted. “I can help you, Mr. Wilkinson. Yes, I can help you.” Doctor Algaraz said eyes suddenly too open, blood-shot and deliberately protruded. Doctor Algaraz unclasped his hands and pointed towards a large machine under a blue cover. “This is an experimental device, but you see… the reason why I decided to take you on as a patient, was because you seem primed for juxtaposition. It’s a natural occurring phenomena and the nurse’s description of your headache… well it fits the bill. I’ve been studying you since you walked in the door and I am certain of it.” “Look… it’s just a headache, doc. I don’t think I can afford whatever that is.” “Nonsense. Free of charge.” Algaraz said moving over to the machine. He pulled the cover from it like a magician performing a trick and carefully folded it, placing it on a nearby counter. Revealed was a helmeted chair with large chambers that resembled sodium lamps, but were filled to the brim with a thick, syrupy fluid that changed from silver to what appeared to be television static depending on how the light hit it. It moved around in the bulbs on its own despite being stationary. Yanni looked at it in awe and was startled when Algaraz’s hand clapped him on the shoulder. “Go on, have a seat Mr. Wilkinson. I promise you won’t feel any pain with the treatment. I’ll even walk you through what’s going to happen.” Yanni wanted to protest, but his head began to throb as stood and Algaraz took the opportunity to guide him to the chair. Yanni kind of slumped into it figuring that anything that could help might as well be worth it, and the doctor did say it would be free of charge… that he was primed for juxta-whatever. Whatever any of that meant. What’s the worst that could happen? Algaraz lowered the helmet over Yanni’s head and his eyes stared into an empty black screen, the faintest bit of light tracing the perimeter of interior lenses built into the mechanism. The pulsing in Yanni’s head stopped and he was able to catch his breath and process briefly what was going on. Then a loud humming started as the machine came to life, and he jerked his hands upwards out of instinct to grab at the helmet, but his wrists were restrained, bound to the chair. “No need for alarm, Mr. Wilkinson, I’m just initiating the extrapolater, we will remove the host from your socket and begin the duplicity.” Algaraz adjusted a dial on the chair as the humming began to take on an undulation that resonated throughout the entirety of Yanni’s body. Yanni opens his mouth to scream, but high-pitched waveforms ring out like thousands of chimes instead. An immense pressure begins building at the top of his cranium. “Excellent, everything is going according to plan, Mr. Wilkinson, you’re going to be just fine.” Then there is a sucking pop like a too full balloon deflating only to be lanced prematurely. The pressure subsides, and Yanni opens his eyes or perhaps they were always open. Sitting opposite him in a plain wooden chair is his opposite, or rather a duplication. Yanni reaches out to him, suddenly not bound or even in a chair. He looks around, startled at the realization. His reflection reaches mimics the movements. He lifts uncertain fingers towards the extracted inner-self and he hears briefly, “Yes… yes.” coming from somewhere, the duplicate and him look up at a geometric sky, but his fingers still touch. In that instant, static consumes his body, flowing over his arms and down his legs, and into his mouth, eyes, nostrils and ear canals, until it has blanketed his organs and every inch of flesh. The machine stops. Yanni opens his eyes, but he’s watching from behind them. He moves to speak, but the words aren’t his own. They are, but not his. Yanni steps out of the chair. “Thank you doctor, my head feels much better.” “I knew it would. You should bring your wife in.” “I’ll have her make an appointment.” “Excellent.”
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Dec 16, 2019 17:01
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Chili posted:Yo, you need a hand judging, Cactus? PM me. Can't hurt to have another opinion besides my own.
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Dec 16, 2019 18:16
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Judgement A small submission pool for this week nevertheless managed to run the gamut from "godawful" to "pretty good". We begin with the losers: rat-born cock, AnonymousAmalgam, SlipUp, and flerp Rat-born cock takes the loser's crown for a submission that is the embodiment of  . That they had the gall to post that late is just salt in the wound. AnonymousAmalgam at least tried. Nevertheless, they should spend their time in exile meditating on the phrase "write drunk, edit sober", or hell, just "write". Flerp's piece confused me, and not in a good way. The story seemed like a cast off from the extremely online prompt a few weeks ago, and the connection to the theme was tenuous at best. SlipUp's tale of a junkie punk ex-dad who fights his demons with the power of rock, while relatively well-written, suffered from pacing issues and using the theme as window dressing. I'll put it this way: in terms of music, I wanted sonic youth. What you gave me felt more like motley crue.On to the HMs for the week: Thranguy, Carl Killer Miller, and SomethingElse. My first few reads of Thranguy's piece, I wanted to place them in the DM's. I could see what they were trying for vis-a-vis their pedal, but like a delay set too short, the individual notes tangled together into a mess that failed to grab my attention. However, after a few re-reads I've since come around on their funny/disturbing vignette. Like Thranguy, Carl Killer Miller actually tried to weave this weeks theme into their piece. I'll be frank: I spent a good while going back and forth on giving you the win. You lost by a hair, as the winning piece had a little more impact to push it over the finish line. SomethingElse had a strong entry, and a solid contender for the win, but what tanked their chances was giving the majority of their piece over to worldbuilding and waiting too late to introduce the radio. Had they polished up and trimmed the world building a little, their piece would have won easy. It takes guts to waltz into Thunderdome and declare you've got the winning story before submissions are even closed, and it takes skill to back that bragging up. Fortunately, Simply Simon had both with A Quiet Cry in a City of Screams. In telling a coherent story with a fleshed out protagonist, and tightly linking it with their interpretation of this weeks theme, they take the throne for this week. There were a few small editing/polish considerations that irked me, but ultimately the writing transcended such concerns and just told a good, interesting story. Take the throne brother, you've earned it. magic cactus fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Dec 16, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 22:20
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Thank you for not beheading me for my disgracefully late submission.
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Dec 16, 2019 22:24
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Just FYI if anyone would like a more robust critique of their piece, I am happy to do so in PMs.
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Dec 16, 2019 22:27
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Thunderdome 385: Getting a Reaction Abstract  This week there will be words that look like what I usually make in the lab (I suck at synthesis). Introduction Alright you starving poets, dirty artists and coffee shop hipster aspiring “artists”, it’s time for the humanities to take a step back into the shadows where they belong, and give the natural sciences their due. Did any of you fucks even publish something? Well, I did, while getting my PhD, so suck it liberailures. This week will be dedicated to hard facts, empirical research, meticulous studies and lab reports written without an ounce of feeling, personality or emotion. That sounds like a boring loving week? Well, why don’t you show me the soft side of hard science then? Prove to me that love can bloom in the laboratory, between beakers and in flasks! Results and Discussion You are going to write a story about Chemistry. Why this science in particular? Because it’s my field, and I can laugh at you with the full force of my academic merits if you get even a tiny detail wrong. But you’re not going to write about a reaction mechanism, are you? Think a little broader. What does chemistry mean to you? Does it just scream “poison” (aka you are very dumb)? Or does it invoke the deep emotional connection between two romantic partners (aka you think entirely in clichés)? Or is it so much more: does it make you think of transformation, of the joy of discovery, of the deep analysis of materials the world has never seen before? Surprise me with what you can make of that! In 1400 words or less. Experimental part However! I’m experienced in supervising wide-eyed helpless freshmen students, Bachelor Thesis candidates with hope still left in them, and something about that always melts my heart. If you’re struggling to find a project to really dig into, need some inspiration for the next step of your scientific career, then hit me up. As a special rule, I’ll assign a specific reaction to you. I’ll give you a name (so you can google it and despair because of too many formulas), what it does (probably using too specialized big words), and why it’s important and what it means (now we’re getting somewhere). Because this will allow you to focus more on your work, it will cost you 200 words, your story will now be limited to 1200. You don’t have to toxx for that but feel free if you think it helps your immersion. Conclusion And now write me some loving good-rear end research papers, the submission deadline for the abstract is Friday, midnight CET/UTC+1, and the submission deadline for the manuscript is Sunday, the same. I might be persuaded to only cut either off after waking up the morning after because Germany is of course way ahead of the US (in time and science). EDIT: I did extend it! Appendix If any of you write non-metric units you’re getting disqualified. Contributing authors Anomalous Amalgam  - Cannizzarro reactionThranguy - Sharpless epoxidation Sitting Here - Wittig reaction kurona_bright - Fenton reaction sebmojo - Paternò-Büchi reaction flerp - Landolt time reaction SlipUp - Ziegler-Natta polymerization magic cactus - Suzuki coupling crabrock - Noble Gas Something Else - Diels-Alder reaction Carl Killer Miller - Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation Hawklad - Grignard reaction Chainmail Onesie - Haber-Bosch process BabyRyoga - Claisen condensation First and corresponding authors Simply Simon - Workgroup leader Yoruichi - Visiting Professor Antivehicular - Postdoc with two Nature papers Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 23:32
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Simply Simon posted:Thunderdome 385: Getting a Reaction In , I'll also sacrifice 200 words for a specific reaction.
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Dec 16, 2019 23:35
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In, I'll take the reaction for 200
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Dec 16, 2019 23:44
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In, gimme that sweet sweet chemistry pls
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Dec 17, 2019 00:05
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In with a reaction
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Dec 17, 2019 00:07
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in, react me
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Dec 17, 2019 00:07
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in give me some reaction that i probably studied before but forgot
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Dec 17, 2019 00:19
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In. I'm gonna put the action in reaction
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Dec 17, 2019 00:21
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IN and asking for a reaction
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Dec 17, 2019 00:24
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chemistry is the most boring science. in.Simply Simon posted:Did any of you fucks even publish something? sure here's my most recent, plz crit http://www.nrronline.org/text.asp?2020/15/6/973/270292 crabrock fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Dec 17, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 01:27
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crabrock posted:chemistry is the most boring science. in. 
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Dec 17, 2019 01:39
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i'm in and i would like a reaction please thank you
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Dec 17, 2019 02:32
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In, with a reaction.
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Dec 17, 2019 04:00
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Oh also like a big budget movie that's bombing in test screenings the Space Opera week is pushed back to Saturday for what I assume are extensive rewrites. Don't say santa never got you anything!
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Dec 17, 2019 04:52
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In. Gimme a reaction.
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Dec 17, 2019 05:08
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In. Gimme some C12H22O11 And yeah, I'll take a specific reaction for 200 words.
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Dec 17, 2019 07:24
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXE2XZ73A_U Alright it's time for the first round of lab assignments! Don't forget that you only have to use this as an inspiration. Anomalous Amalgam posted:In  Cannizzaro reaction: Two of the same compound react to become an alcohol and an acid, a classic example of a disproportionation. Alternatively, two very similar compounds become the desired products in a so-called cross reaction. Thranguy posted:In, I'll take the reaction for 200  Sharpless epoxidation: A stereoselective reaction that’s the centrepiece of many complicated syntheses requiring this kind of selectivity. Why is this important? Look up Thalidomide. Sitting Here posted:In, gimme that sweet sweet chemistry pls  Wittig reaction: Important process (read: also used industrially) to make unsaturated (double) bonds, using a special phosphorus compound as a reagent. kurona_bright posted:In with a reaction  Fenton's reagent: An iron salt and hydrogen peroxide make reactive oxygen species (radicals) that aggressively oxidize a lot of things; important (unwanted) mechanism for cells. Not yet fully understood what's exactly going on even though its discovery was a while ago. sebmojo posted:in, react me  Paternò–Büchi reaction: A strained four-membered ring (okay more like a square) is made from two two-membered unwilling participants by way of irradiation with harsh intensity light. flerp posted:in give me some reaction that i probably studied before but forgot Landolt time reaction: Makes iodine that becomes blue in contact with starch. Concentration dependent formation leads to controlled release, an excellent demonstration experiment: the chemical clock (that's in fact the linked article and video). SlipUp posted:In. I'm gonna put the action in reaction  Ziegler-Natta polymerization: Using a titanium or zirconium catalyst, this makes polyethylene and -propylene, an extremely important process in industry. The polymers are elongated by the catalyst gluing more parts to the end and moving along, like a tiny machine. magic cactus posted:IN and asking for a reaction  Suzuki coupling: Using the rare metal palladium and another element (Boron), this catalytic cycle crafts carbon bonds, allowing for complex synthesis that would otherwise be very difficult. One of an entire family of these Pd-based reactions, all named for their inventors (Heck, Sonogashira, Stille...) using a different secondary element each time. Something Else posted:i'm in and i would like a reaction please thank you  Diels-Alder reaction: A four-carbon and a two-carbon unsaturated compound join together into a six-carbon ring, perfectly symmetrical and stable. Can also be used for a number of different ring sizes and not even rings but this one is the most evocative example! Carl Killer Miller posted:In, with a reaction.  Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation: These reactions can functionalize aromatic rings, allowing rich and varied chemistry to evolve from a strong standard backbone. Hawklad posted:In. Gimme a reaction.  Grignard reaction: One of the most important reactions for organic synthesis. Knits carbon bonds using metals that cause one of the carbons to “umpol”, a German word that means it changes charge, allowing two normally equally charged (and therefore repulsive) carbons to react with each other. Chainmail Onesie posted:In. Gimme some C12H22O11  Haber-Bosch process: Hydrogen and nitrogen produce ammonia which will become fertilizer in the world’s most important chemical process, using about 1% of the total global energy production per year. The activation of the normally very unreactive nitrogen proceeds on the surface of a catalyst that has been optimized extremely well (considering how much this is used) over the decades this has been going on. It has a fascinating history both for industry as well as for the entire human development (because it gave us ubiquitous access to fertilizer). I show a picture of Haber because looking up his personal history, in World War I and regarding his wife, might also be rewarding/depressing.
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Dec 17, 2019 09:41
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I will judge this week
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Dec 17, 2019 09:56
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I'm low on writing time this week, but I'll happily judge.
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Dec 17, 2019 09:59
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Yoruichi posted:I will judge this week Antivehicular posted:I'm low on writing time this week, but I'll happily judge.
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Dec 17, 2019 10:27
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crabrock posted:chemistry is the most boring science. in. quote:sure here's my most recent, plz crit quote:However, new neurons have been reported in many other brain areas, such as The "recent controvery" section is excellent and I feel like it has given me an understanding of the state of the debate despite this not being my field at all. I also empathically agree that a consistent methodology is key for any fundamental research like this, as I face the same issue in my area of expertise: I am a photochemist, and we cannot even agree on which kind of light source to use. It's a big difference if you use a 1000 W Xenon white light lamp, or a single green LED to irradiate a sample. Discounting the fact that I'm sure many labs do not cool their samples, making the idea of a purely light-activated reaction laughable. "Neurogenesis as a therapeutic endpoint" - I take issue with calling the therapeutic goal just neurogenesis, as to my understanding that is a process that occurs naturally. What you are researching is the possibility of induced neurogenesis, in order to cure neuropathic diseases. Hence, I suggest naming it that way (or something akin to "induced") to avoid confusion. "Neurogenesis is heavily regulated by astrocytes" - this is not a very compelling "headline", mostly due to the fact that it's a full sentence and not a bullet point. As you're giving an overview especially into recent insights proving this point, it should be formulated more neutrally, e.g. as "Astrocytes as key Neurogenesis regulators". Other than that, I take no issue with this section. As an aside, I find it interesting that your field considers it necessary to state how you found the articles cited. In all Chemistry reviews I've read so far, it's just assumed that the author(s) are experts on the field and obviously know and have read every paper they cite, and that those are the relevant ones, full stop. You order the dedifferenciation part of the astrocyte section a little weirdly to my layman eye: it seems like the epigenetic changes are a more specialized occurance that are important to mention, but are not close to as well understood, researched and fundamental as the much longer part about transcription factors that follows. I feel like you could switch the order to go from more general to more specialized, but I know that I'm probably just wrong about what is actually more "basic" knowledge here. You do not establish "miRNA" to be the abbreviation for MicroRNA, and while it's rather obvious, it should still be standard practice to state the abbreviation once in the text. It's exascerbated in this case as an actual problem, because the same paragraph talks about mRNA which is different. As you only save three letters, consider not abbreviating MicroRNA at all. Generally, as you're talking about pathways, I feel like an illustration of these paths could massively help the reader to guide them along the various possibilities for the cells' fate you describe. The table on the other hand seems comprehensive, is well made and surely a great reference for future researchers on this topic. As a final ordering critique, I feel like ending with "therapeutic options" would be better than ending with "dedifferentiation risks" - the latter are inherent to the process, while the former give an outlook to what might come from this research. It's in my opinion best to look into the future at the end of an review, and end on a positive note to make your "story" flow better. And generally, I'm happy to have read about the fabled Sonic Hedgehog protein in a scientific journal now. Your turn.
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Dec 17, 2019 11:15
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Simply Simon posted:As an aside, I find it interesting that your field considers it necessary to state how you found the articles cited. In all Chemistry reviews I've read so far, it's just assumed that the author(s) are experts on the field and obviously know and have read every paper they cite, and that those are the relevant ones, full stop. yeah, the journal asked for that after peer review/acceptance and I thought it was weird but also Couldn't. Be. Bothered. so I just threw in some boilerplate poo poo. Simply Simon posted:And generally, I'm happy to have read about the fabled Sonic Hedgehog protein in a scientific journal now. gotta go fast.
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Dec 17, 2019 20:09
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I will write, and spare 200 words for a reaction
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Dec 17, 2019 22:39
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BabyRyoga posted:I will write, and spare 200 words for a reaction  Claisen condensation: Two esters (common aroma compounds) conjoin to become a new product in this very basic, old reaction.
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Dec 17, 2019 23:31
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Story openers for secret santa.... Get your words in if you haven't already! Let's say a semisoft deadline of this coming Monday please!
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Dec 19, 2019 23:09
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Chili posted:Ok butthorns. Anomalous Amalgam posted:Absolutely this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNETjIceLD8 Beneath the Sea 1,513 Words “A spherical pod with a pale woman drifted onto a beach near Cape Cod at 0400 hours and 36 minutes. A signal on the pod alerted NASA as it returned to epipelagic waters. The woman is believed to be Rebecca Hostetler, a junior researcher and aquanaut only recently added to the NEEMO crew. Her identity has not been confirmed, but preceding her arrival were a series of uploads detailing the bizarre demise of the crew of the Pontus Deepsea Research facility. As such, we’ve evacuated the area and setup a military perimeter given the nature of the content on the recovered footage. I’m opening the pod now.” --- [Footage 8. ] Movement in a dimly lit steel corridor just beyond the bulkhead door activated the camera and lights in the small capsule room. A frantic crashing of feet clanging against the latticed steel floors echoed out, and soon after, the blur of a person rapidly coming into focus revealed a woman in a tattered blue jumpsuit. She swiveled her head in a panic at a shadow that spilled into the corridor behind her. She screamed and ran into the room letting the magnetic door slide into place. She fumbled with the keypad as distorted and warbled voices began calling out “Rebecca,” weakly at first in a series of overlapped voices, then more loudly, but with the wrong intonation making it sound more like a question than a name. The woman in the jumpsuit screamed again as the door started to slide back open, but she managed to close it with the correct combination, and it locked. Too many voices shouted out the name “Rebecca” as repeat thuds came crashing into the door. Rebecca slid down onto all fours and scuttled beneath her cot. She covered her hands over her mouth to mask her cries. Eventually the thudding stopped, and moist squelches and strange scraping trailed off somewhere until the facility fell silent. Rebecca hadn’t moved in hours and wouldn’t take her eyes off the door. Her small, unsure movements in that cramped vestibule of a room kept her comm. active. She disappeared from beneath the cot and inched over towards her personal communications display. The camera positively identified her and unlocked the workstation. “Good morning, Rebecca.” She didn’t respond to the computer, and instead set up the file share with the surface. She plugged in a hard drive and began uploading all of the data she has been able to aggregate; Research findings, personal logs, medical reports… everything. The surface needed to know what had happened here. She pulled up the log feed and looked directly into the camera. “This is Rebecca Hostetler, junior researcher on the 8th Klein-Moss Reef expedition. I’ve uploaded all of the data I’d been able to pull from our various workstations so that you can understand what has happened here. There is something down here. Something that has changed the crew. I’m all that’s left…” Rebecca looks away from the camera and covers her mouth to fight back rising bile. “…the coral, the jellyfish, all of it is part of something else. I’m going to try and get to the hyperbaric escape pod, but I don’t know if I’ll make it. It’s out there waiting for me. Take the data and-“ There is a crash against the door that interrupted Rebecca. She screamed again, but quickly regained her composure and crawled into the ventilation shaft leading into the room. The door began to bulge in the frame, and the feed ended several minutes later when the door, presumably, came crashing into it. [Footages 1-3, and 6 are of a personal nature and irrelevant to the study, but will be analyzed further for any evidence] [Footage 4.] Rebecca and two other scientists are in the observation chamber. The camera is angled downward with a ¾ view of each scientist from overhead as they peered one after the other into the viewing apparatus of a microscope in disbelief. Rebecca came over. “It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen. The physical networks within the coral begin to knit closed immediately with any external disruption of its overall integrity.” Another scientist came over, a balding man with a short beard in a dry suit. “Stranger is that the coral seems to be in natural symbiosis with the unclassified scyphozoa that reside in them and seems to spawn them directly forgoing larval states and instead birthing directly from anemone-like protrusions.” “It’s as baffling, as it is beautiful, but it’s unprecedented and completely strange. Our best estimates are that these are remnant ancestral species of cnidaria that have literally been locked in a natural time capsule unearthed during the seismic events of 2026.” Rebecca added. A scientist in the background leaped back from his workstation just slightly out of focus. “gently caress.” He shouted. Rebecca and the other scientist turn towards him and hurry over. The footage ends. [Footage 5.] The balding scientist from the previous footage appears to be in front of his personal work station in a private crew quarter. A claustrophobic vestibule adjacent the quarters of Rebecca Hostetler from footage 8. “This is Danny Erickson, Senior Researcher on the 8th Klein-Moss Reef expedition. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts at using the unmanned submersible to collect samples from the shelf below, we’ve managed to retrieve a sample of soft-tissue coral that exhibits properties unlike any other identified species we’ve ever encountered. It… it shows an almost preternatural proclivity for adaptation.” Danny swallows hard and his eyes lose focus as his face twists up in concerned disbelief. “Junior Researcher, Max Thoreaux sliced his hand open when the tissue of the coral suddenly became rigid enough for the blade to deflect. Some of the blood got on the specimen. There were other samples, it wasn’t a problem… we moved to dispose of it, when it began to change.” “Approximately two hours after we moved the specimen to disposal, it began budding where the blood fell. Tiny finger like protrusions that wriggled like small, jointed worms.” Danny shares an unnerved laugh with the camera, “What is this?” [Footage 7] Max stumbled into the dining common in a sweat, his bandaged hand throbbed visibly and oozed a pus out from the bandages. Rebecca and Danny leaped back immediately as a few others turned to help. The bandages burst open as a researcher got too close, and chitinous, ichor covered claws turned flaccid like ropes before hardening around a researcher’s head and crushing it with impossible ease. Everyone fled as Max entered the common area completely. His gore caked claw shifted towards something soft and limp again as tiny needle teethed orifices emerge from the soft tissue in puckered cups that lapped up the bits of flesh and dislodged viscera. Those same fingers extended like cables, pulling the remainder of the body towards the thing that was once Max and it began to ingest it in full, changing its physical form to accommodate the extra mass, turning into something crustaceous and fungal. It carried itself along the corridors. Screams can be heard coming from several different places in the cramped confines of the facility. The common dining area is quiet, and empty except for the mostly consumed remains of a researcher and the sloughed off exoskeleton that was once Max’s own skin and flesh. [Footage 9.] Rebecca ran down a corridor some hours later towards the pressurized antechamber where the emergency bathyscaphe was docked. A growth of coral and mollusk like creatures had spread all along the interior of the antechamber, and the unmanned submersible used to retrieve the specimens that morning bobbed up and down completely covered in the strange growths as well. Rebecca was misted in the face by one of the many mollusks in the room. She ran her hands over her eyes and mouth frantically as she unsealed the bathyscaphe and lowered herself into it. Her vitals begin to fade as the pod was ejected. A creature came into view completely obscuring the camera and slid down into the waters beneath the open antechamber, but the pod had already gone and the creature returned back to the interior of the research facility. [Footage 10-12 is the creature making its way around the research facility before eventually disappearing into the trench beyond what is visible on any of the cameras in place.] --- The pod unsealed as vents on the exterior normalized the interior pressure. Rebecca gasped and extended her arms from the pod before collapsing into the arms of the agent. Before he could get a positive confirmation on who she was, she began to vomit uncontrollably. Over the agent and onto the ground. In the vomit were tiny jellyfish that pulsed and flailed futilely in the fluids. The agent staggered away, and Rebecca collapsed back into the pod convulsing. Other agents in hazmat suits, equipped with bulky military equipment approached and let loose cones of flame that wash over Rebecca and the pod, reducing them to complete ash in less than an hour. Only scorched earth remained to tell the truth of their failure.
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Dec 20, 2019 06:46
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*tosses dirty knife back and forth between hands*
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Dec 20, 2019 06:46
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Well you're 8 days late. But did sebmojo submit anything?
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Dec 20, 2019 07:53
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Chili posted:Well you're 8 days late. But did sebmojo submit anything? We rescheduled to the 19th. Writing it now, will be an hour or so.
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Dec 20, 2019 08:47
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