ACS Dreamscape
This page is an archive for a contest entry that was hosted at a special URL. The article has since been ported to the main site as RPC-813.
Registered Phenomena Code: 013
Object Class: Alpha-White (Explained)
Additional Properties: Extra-dimensional
Photograph of an endless bridge within ALTR-N2WU; obtained January 10, 2020
Containment Protocols: A complete transcript of RPC-013 is available for viewing with level 013/0005 clearance. This database entry has been filed in accordance with CLASS 013/0004 CLEARANCE, granting access to documents RPC-013-01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 09, 11, 17 and 18, along with all additional ALTR-N2WU photographs. Contact the RPC-013 Project Head, Dr. Bentham, to request a higher clearance file.
Description: RPC-013 is a series of inter-dimensional transmissions sent as memotic vectors[1] through the infoplane[2] and received through the Labrador Sea memotic singularity1. Once decrypted and analyzed, the transmissions were found to originate from a previously unknown alternate reality (hereby designated ALTR-N2WU), transmitted by Dr. Garsow, an Assistant Researcher who had been lost and presumed dead 28 days prior during the Site-014 incident.
Photograph obtained November 1, 2020
(Full Resolution)
On June 13, 2019, an event occurred in which Site-014 was destroyed by a nuclear blast. At the northern end of Site-014 was room A11-B, the primary experimentation room for extra-dimensional travel. The nuclear blast occurred at the same time that a prototype portal device was being tested, causing a Tera-3 Reality Instability Scenario.
Seen within security footage streamed directly to off-site data storage, the initial shockwave caused the extra-dimensional portal to rupture, generating several spatial distortions within the immediate area. Dr. Garsow and an additional five individuals passed into these spatial distortions before the full blast could reach the room.
The transmissions log Dr. Garsow's attempts to return to baseline reality, along with his experiences within ALTR-N2WU. Despite extensive endeavors, the Authority has been unable to make contact with Dr. Garsow in any capacity.
The transmissions are transcribed below, cataloged chronologically. All content has been left unaltered.
Transmission received: July 11, 2019
test #407
My god, finally. It went through.
My name is Dr. Henry Garsow. I was an assistant researcher on the Portal project. There was a blast—an explosion of some kind. That's the last thing I remember before ending up… here.
I need to make this quick. I'm doing this all from my phone and I'm on 15% battery, dropping fast.
This place is bizarre. Everything feels wrong. Physics defy logic. I may only be an assistant researcher, but I've spent many months burying my head in the ovens of ACS and multi-universe theory—this place definitely has a low coherency level2. This world shouldn't exist and it shouldn't be stable. Yet it does, and it is. Or at least, it's stable enough for human society to exist.
Everything is off here. Topology just doesn't make sense. It's all like an optical illusion, but forced into physical reality. Colors and lighting can be pretty jarring: shadows going the wrong directions, vibrant colors radiating off large areas of land, etc.
You know what, I should be able to send an image. Hold on.
I took this picture a few days ago. That dock looks like it's holding up an entire landmass, fit with houses, trees and cars. It's not even a perspective thing. I went down to the shore and it still looked the same. It's like three different scenes bashed together. The bridge I was standing on didn't even reach the river's other side. It just stopped halfway, no supports or anything. Just… floating.
Phone's at 3%. Sending that image must have drained a lot—should have expected that. I'll get to how I was able to establish communication.
Turns out it's very easy for information to transfer from a low-coherency space to a high one. This would explain why Project Portal has been so fruitless for us, meanwhile we get anomalies coming from low-coherency alt-realities all the time, like it's nothing.
I was able to establish a connection using a radio transmitter and a make-shift, extra-dimensional portal unit. It's all super hacky and involves sending lopsided vectors through the infospace in order to bounce between the infoplanes of individual realities. I had to build the radio myself with bought parts.
Fingers crossed, you'll be able to acquire this world's reality signature and get me out of here. Hopefully these transmissions are enough. If it's not too much to ask, let Bentham know I'm not dead. I know he's working on a different project and probably doesn't have clearance, but please tell him that, at the least.
I've been trying to find a phone charger the last few days, but no one knows what a smartphone is. A chef at a restaurant here thought it was a cheese grater. I placed it on a counter by the kitchen and, a moment later, the chef takes it and tries to grate cheese with it. He got pissed off when I laughed. I snatched my phone back and left the restaurant.
I've been using this phone for days without it running out of charge. Maybe batteries last longer here, for some reason. Or for no reason. Seems like things don't need reasons here. Not any rational ones, anyhow.
1% now, and I wasted precious time telling you about the chef. I'm struggling to stay professional—could be the low coherency getting to me. I need to go find a way to charge this phone.
If this is my last message, you can guess how that went.
Transmission received: July 12, 2019
Alright, I'm back.
Simply placing the phone next to an outlet caused it to start charging, no need to plug it in to anything. I'm getting the feeling any technology I construct is going to be hit-or-miss. It's a miracle I got this transmitter working.
One thing I should mention that caught me off-guard about this place: there's always music playing. Disembodied music, no apparent source, from any location. It feels a bit eerie. No, eerie isn't the right word. It actually feels kind of okay. It doesn't feel out of place at all. This reality is too random and nonsensical for anything to be out of place. I recorded a bit of the music. I should be able to send an audio file. Let's see.
Yeah, sweet. I'm going to continue so you might as well listen as I go.
Attached File
Fair warning, you might need to adjust the volume on that.
I have yet to receive a message back from you, so I must assume that you haven't been able to obtain the reality signature through my transmissions alone. I was afraid of this.
I might have to find the reality signature myself and send it over. It will take a lot of work to set up the equipment, and it'll be ridiculously complicated, but I'll certainly try. What I build will either work like magic, or won't work at all. Hopefully that goes for the final thing and not each individual component.
Hm, I should explain the situation I'm working from.
I fell into this reality onto the bridge I showed earlier. Everything was wrong—in all directions reality was wrong. I felt horrified, disgusted. I fell over onto the pavement, dizzy, heart racing, veins throbbing in my neck. I can only assume it was an anxiety attack. After a few moments passed and I was still alive, I was able to regain my calm and get my bearings.
Across the bridge was a huge cityscape. From where I stood, it looked as though half the city was lit at overcast daylight, the rest at early nightfall. The backdrop sky abruptly transformed from early nightfall to a rich, blue space. I'll send another photo.
Attached File
The bridge on the right of the photo is the bridge I appeared on. I said before that it didn't reach the other side of the river. In actuality, half the bridge swaps in and out of existence at random points during the day. It never vanishes when someone is walking atop. I come back here a lot, just for this view of the city.
Look at that one building near the middle of the photograph, the tall one that looks like two buildings mashed together. It has a balcony on the other side of it, near the top. I'd like to go up there one day. The view must be spectacular.
Anyway: Once calm, I began asking people on the street for information about this reality. They answered my questions without a hitch. No one felt the need to ask "who are you? And why did you appear out of thin air?"
I couldn't be more displaced from home, but even I'm not out of place here. I feel like I'm in accord here, in a weird cosmic sense. That's the only way I can think to describe the feeling—it'd be a very unnatural one back home., but here, it's normal.
Of the people I asked, one helpful lady told me about an apartment building near the center of the city. The receptionist would give me a room in exchange for performing various manual labor tasks. The place was called "The Emrprr". I have no idea how to pronounce that, and neither does anybody else. Everyone pronounces it differently.
The building appears as a medium-sized urban house, colored in strings of reds, oranges and blues. The building is also weirdly small for a supposed apartment complex. I entered into a large room which seemed to encompass the entire inner space of the building. The only thing in the room was a receptionist at her desk.
I went up to the receptionist, and without saying a thing, she berated me with a flurry of questions. "Do you have any physical disabilities?" "How much do you weigh in kiggapounds?" "Are you a real person?"
I answered all of her questions and then she handed me just a half-sheet of paper. It was a contract—a weirdly short one. Only 3 sentences.
"By signing this contract, you agree to do your job in exchange for living space. If you do not do your job, your living space will be revoked. You will be free to take your belongings with you if your space is revoked."
I signed the contract and she escorted me to a door at the side of the room. I swear, the door wasn't there when I came in. It was like an elevator door, with 400 buttons, but each had a random symbol instead of a floor number. She told me to press the little green tree to access my room. I pressed the button and the door slid open. Inside was a cushy little place with just enough space for me to do my research and whatever else. I entered the room.
"Your job starts tomorrow morning. There's a light on the inside of your room. It will light up when it's time. Don't sleep in," she said before closing the door.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the room was something I saw through the window: clouds. The building was in the sky. And the clouds were rapidly ascending—no, the building was descending. It was rapidly falling to the ground.
If this were in baseline reality, I would have been in horrible terror. But this isn't baseline. This is normal. I just stood by the window, watching in awe, waiting to see what would happen when the Emrprr hit the ground.
It didn't hit the ground though. Just before crashing, it warped back to above the clouds. Every time it's about to hit the ground, it warps back up, and begins falling again. A consequence of being in constant freefall is that everything in my room is completely weightless.
The second thing I noticed: the building was falling from a completely different part of the city than the location of the small building I entered from. In fact, I could see the building from my window. I went back through the sliding door, back out to the reception area, out of the building, and looked over to where I appeared to be from the window.
Lo and behold, there it was. A rectangular, concrete building, perpetually falling from the sky. It was tall, too. I counted fifty floors.
Transmission received: July 14, 2019
At this point I'm certain you can't get the reality signature. It's clear I only have two options.
Option one: acquiring the reality signature myself and transmitting it back to baseline so that you can create the portal.
Option two: building the portal myself using baseline's reality signature. In either case, I'll need to construct a Riktor M.I. Reader to obtain whichever signature.
If I send this reality's signature, I won't need to construct a portal myself, but you'll need to finish Project Portal in time. If I recall, the estimate for when we'd develop stable portal technology was… quite a long time from now.
To obtain baseline's signature, I need to use my own matter. If I take too long to create the R.M.I. Reader, my matter will have mixed with that of this reality to the point that no signature can be produced. I only have a couple months before my nails, hair, skin, etc. are useless.
Internal organs could remain pure for longer—maybe I can get someone to cut out part of my liver. I also have my baseline clothes I came here wearing, but I'm not sure how stable they will be in this reality. Material objects seem to be affected much more by the low coherency than humans.
These options aren't the best, but I know I'll get back. I have to.
It's already been a couple weeks here. It's been so hard. I miss home too much, but every day it gets a little easier to keep going. I hope I can get home before a month from now.
Transmission received: July 15, 2019
The Emrprr's jobs have been… interesting. There's usually three or four a week. The first job was to go down to the empty lot underneath the Emrprr and clean up all the broken furniture. Apparently, anything people lob off balconies or out their windows doesn't get warped back up with the building. It smashes into the ground below.
One of my neighbors said there used to be a bakery here, before the Emrprr existed. But there was a zoning issue when they tried to get the Emrprr apartment project through city approval—the city ordered it to be built at the same lot as the bakery.
It would have taken ages to get city management to sort out the conflict, and of course they couldn't just bulldoze the bakery—that'd have to go through city council as well—so, naturally, they built the apartment above the bakery.
Thing was though… the bakery didn't have a roof. That was their whole shtick—they were that one bakery that didn't have a roof. Customers didn't like all the furniture constantly crashing in from above, so the bakery owner put a giant net over the building to catch all the furniture. But that drove off costumers too.
They were coming to the bakery for the open-sky experience. The net ruined that for people. So customers stopped coming and the bakery went out of business. But the old owner is stubborn and won't give up the land rights, so even though there's nothing in the lot anymore, the Emrprr can't put the apartment on the ground.
Cleaning up the furniture rubble is a monthly chore, apparently. I have no idea why all this furniture is dropping, by the way. Everyone says it's a rare occurrence and never on purpose, yet it happens enough to be a monthly chore. Who the hell is throwing entire beds off their balconies by accident?
Transmission received: July 16, 2019
Earlier today, I went into a coffee shop across the street from the Emrprr's reception building. I tried to read the items on the menu, but the text was unreadable. It was a weird, shifting garble. I told the guy at the register, "just give me something average." I'm not much of a coffee person.
He takes a cup of water and pours it into the back of a coffee maker. Then he grabs a little foil of coffee mix and places it into a slot on the thing.
He presses a small, red button on the machine, and a stream of coffee comes out, except it flows upward instead of down. As if gravity was reversed.
And you know what the guy does? He shrugs his shoulders, rolls his eyes, and grabs a mop to clean the ceiling.
It was so mundane to him, like it'd happened a million times before. I say to him, "that must happen a lot."
What he said in reply had me aback.
"This is the first time that's ever happened."
I say: "All these crazy things happen and you aren't the slightest bit afraid? At any moment, something could happen that could hurt you—even kill you, and you don't mind?"
He replies: "Well, it used to be that way. Before the Authority. In the 20s, the government formed a new branch. Anything dangerous that we can't deal with ourselves, they contain or prevent. They call them 'threats and hazards'."
I ask: "Wait, you have an Authority? Do they have portal technology or anything? Maybe they can help me get home."
He answers: "Uh, no. I don't think so. The Authority doesn't do a ton. They just keep things running. You could try find those underground guys, though. I think they do that kind of stuff. 'Nocrop' I think they're called."
"Okay then. I'll keep an ear out for that name," I say.
He made me another cup of coffee and it came out normally this time. It was pretty good. He said it was a Cappuccino.
Transmission received: July 20, 2019
Progress on the R.M.I. Reader is slow, but still going steady.
Trying to get the components to stay together is difficult, and it's getting harder for me to stay focused.
I've been along for the ride a lot of the time, going with the flow of this reality. Everything feels novel and none of it ever gets old.
Most things I missed from home don't seem so important anymore. My job at the Authority, my old neighborhood, acquaintances—I don't need those things to be happy.
Those things can lose me, and things will ultimately work out. But some things I can't lose. I miss Bentham, more than anything.
I hope he knows that. I know I'll be back to see him before long.
I don't know what's going on back home, Ben, but wait up for me.
Attached File
Transmission received: August 2, 2019
You wouldn't believe it. Nucorp Industries is in this reality.
And not just an alternate version of Nucorp like this reality's Authority. This is the actual Nucorp. It's just bizarre. Apparently Nucorp has been colonizing the multiverse.
I found out through a telephone call, just now. Here I'll tell you what they said. I have a pretty good memory.
"Hello! This is Nucorp Industries representative J.J.J. Patricks speaking! The ALTR-N2WU Nucorp Facility is in dire need of test subjects! Pay is fifty Canadian Dollar-Pounds per hour. Testing will involve ALTR-XRR9, ALTR-D2AJ and ALTR-BR1G world entities. Report to the entrance at Seven & Four Avenue for work. Look for the 車庫 garage atop the wall!"
ALTR-BR1G is baseline reality. This must be the same Nucorp. That or two different Nucorps in connection with each other.
I have to go there right now. Getting that reality signature has been… hard. I was starting to think I'd never get it. But this could be another way home.
I'm on Three & Nine Avenue right now. Nucorp should be a few blocks north and one or two east.
Huh. There's this guy on the other side of the road. Some kind of business man, talking on the phone with a company associate… but he has a paper bag over his head.
He keeps bumping into walls and signs because he can't see. The hell is he doing? How has he managed to stay on the sidewalk?
Oh, spoke too soon. He just fumbled out into the street. In the middle of traffic. The dude dodged every car.
I'm heading north. I think I see the place.
Yup, here it is.
Attached File
There's an… elevator button? What is it with this place and elevators.
The garage door slid open. There's an actual elevator inside this time. Only goes down.
Here goes nothing.
Holy shit. The elevator's walls are made of glass. Outside are massive rooms. Huge testing rooms, paperwork mazes, four-dimensional cubicles. Hypercublicles? It's like all the stone underground that should be blocking my view has turned invisible. I can see the entire Nucorp complex. This must be the size of the entire city, all below the surface.
Every room is made with white tiles, marble and plastic. There's Cliché potted plants everywhere—half of them seem to be unearthly species. There's a lot of humans working here, and also non-humans. They must be inter-dimensional beings.
I'm nearing the bottom. There's a person(?) in the entrance room. Some kind of humanoid isopod creature, wearing a business suit.
I've reached the bottom. Oh huh, the isopod can speak English. He says I need to put my phone away.
This is fine. I have a good memory. I can tell you what happened afterward.
Document RPC-013-05 catalogs transmissions received prior to those within RPC-013-04; however, it is contextually apparent that they were transmitted afterward.
Transmission received: August 1, 2019
Isopod Kushim: 'Ello, dandiprat. Would you be here for the testing initiative?
Garsow: Y- You're an isopod.
Isopod Kushim: Ugh. Yes. I am an isopod. And my name is Kushim. Now answer my inquire, froward.
Garsow: Yeah, I am.
Isopod Kushim: Er, are you texting someone? Put that gaud away. You won't be needing it.
Garsow: Uh, alright.
[Garsow sends two last transmissions before placing the phone in his pocket.]
Garsow: So… you're an isopod.
Isopod Kushim: Yes, popinjay. I am an isopod. There's a lot of rooms to fare. I'll have some paperwork for you to fill out at the receptionist room. Hie, follow.
[The walls are opaque, painted a beautiful metallic blue. At the center of the room is a broken desk, collapsed under several heavy stacks of papers. There is a computer beside the desk but it doesn't work. Wood crates of paperwork fill the edges of the room. The papers are colored a tranquil turquoise. Some of the paperwork has overflown and spilled onto the floor, pooling on the ground like puddles. There is text on the boxes, but it's an unreadable mess. The papers appear similar. There is a single doorway on the left side of the room leading into the rest of the facility. The papers do not have any valuable information on them.]
[Kushim exits through a new second doorway and Garsow follows behind.]
[They travel through the doorway into a lengthy hallway. A coarse, glitchy texture maps the walls. The ceiling flickers. The room is illuminated but there are no lights. Garsow peers into each room as they pass through the hall. Most are mundane labs with researchers performing busywork. In the second to last room on the left, there's a rabbit sleeping snugly on a bed. There's a half-eaten carrot beside its right foot.]
[At the end of the hallway, they reach a flight of stairs. A flight of stairs. The stairs are flying and they hitch a ride down. At the bottom is a hallway similar to the first but thinner and with neon green paint in lines across the walls. There are five doors on each side of the hall. Three doors have glass windows; the rest are sealed.]
Garsow: So, uh, you're an isopod, but no one else here seems to be an isopod. What's up with that?
Isopod Kushim: My siblings don't wontedly pore on worthless human matters. Howbeit, as you can see, I lack antennae atop my pate. My only connection to the hivemind—those bastards from Ziusudra tore them off. 'Tween uncles and soil those steed seed soaking saturnists were. It takes nigh a millenia for the antennae to grow back. 'Till then I've got no otherwhere to here for my future.
Garsow: H- Hivemind?
Isopod Kushim: Mother's kin3 stretch the multiverse. I've lost my antennae thrice before, twice when I was still a swain. I'd swash my blade in the infinite taiga, capturing wenches with my stripes against those I tilted with. A statuary carved me and my steed into stone—I slit his throat when the tocsin rang. That varlet deserved a vale for the flux he'd poured atop the statue. Then I felt love for a fizgig fishwife. The wife had more drought than a Saharan. What an embarrass on my existence.
Garsow: What the fuck are you talking about?
Isopod Kushim: Fudge to you, grudgeon. Your virtue is immedicable. You should eat love apples off lead plates like the saturnists.
Garsow: Wait… love apples are tomatoes aren't they? You're talking about how people used to die from lead poisoning by that.
Isopod Kushim: Zounds. Ye aren't dumb as a plowed yoke afterall.
Garsow: Where is Ziusudra?
Isopod Kushim: A sore city that deserves sepulture under quadruple the ice. That dump overbrims with dark, upright grimalkin. I lost my antennae over some corrupt, colloguing star. Incidentally, I was dragged by the breech to this reality as Nucorp fled the negotiating tables. Fourscore dozen years more and I'll be free of this wretched individualism once again.
Garsow: I'll uh… stay away from any Ziusudra then.
[Within the first room on the left is a large moose, substantially larger than any real moose. It seems intelligent, possibly sapient. Someone whispers into its ear. The room is labelled "ALTR-D2AJ".]
Garsow: What kind of work does Nucorp do here?
Isopod Kushim: Paperwork.
[Within the second windowed room is an infinitely big, urbanized library which contains every possible clinical document that can exist. An uncountable number of androids slave away, organizing the endless bureaucracy that can never be resolved. Winged demon-creatures fly through, eating the papers. The androids couldn't seem happier.]
Garsow: What's with the robots in there?
Isopod Kushim: They're iron knaves, manufactured with the portion of moil.
Garsow: Okay then.
[Within the third windowed room is an insane man laughing hysterically at an incredibly funny television show. They reach the reception room. It is remarkably empty, only a desk with an inch-high stack of papers within.]
Isopod Kushim: We're here!
[Kushim grabs the stack of papers from the desk and drops them into Garsow's hands.]
Isopod Kushim: Hie, read all of this.
Garsow: Are you fucking serious? How much is this?
Isopod Kushim: Are you an illiterate horse-coper? Just read it.
[The documents are an incomprehensible mess of jumbled text, yet Garsow is able to fully understand the content. He rapidly flips through all the papers, reading them in full.]
Garsow: There's a lot of stuff about rubber ducks in here.
Isopod Kushim: The E-U-L-A is different for everyone.
Garsow: Listen man, I'm up for anything you can throw at me if you can bring me home. I'm not from this reality. I just really need to get home. Can you please help?
Isopod Kushim: Erm, no. I don't believe I'm able.
Garsow: Please. This is my best shot. You have to do something.
Isopod Kushim: Er, ehm… I see. You're quite the unfortunate one, aren't you? I feel ruth for you, I must admit. Natheless, it would be quite the amount of paperwork to bring you home. Nucorp Industries prides itself on its existence across all of the multiverse, however, true multiversal power is only visionary. Nucorp is an infinite bureaucracy. The chance for any request on cross-reality matters to become entrapped within Inter-Corp Logistics for all of eternity is… substantially high. You cannot conjure me to bring you home, but I can be of some service to you still.
[Kushim takes a chewed wad of gum from his left pocket and sticks it onto Garsow's phone. The gum folds over the entire device as circuitry and metal pieces rise from inside.]
Isopod Kushim: There. You should have a lot more capabilities on that gadget now. And not for a doit. To note, this entire discussion has now been indited in auto-generated text.
Garsow: Wait really? How the hell did it record the conversation before you put that thing on?
Isopod Kushim: Timeline and cross-reality nonsense go hand and hand here. Also, your device is now optimized for cross-reality information throughput. It's hooked up to the infospace properly. It uh, it sends everything in large three-dimensional chunks now, as memotic quaternions. That makes it much more efficient. Your shitty device was trying to send 2D vectors across parallel planes of the infospace, ridiculous. That was taking about a week for each signal to reach home. This new method should take about, erm, five and a half days per signal.
Garsow: Woah. You suddenly don't sound like you're from the 1700s.
Isopod Kushim: Truespeak isn't compatible with scientific converse.
Garsow: Huh. Can the phone receive signals now? If you can't help me get home, surely the Authority at home could.
Isopod Kushim: The Authority? Those bastards are the kine who tore off my antennae. Anyhow, that would require a lot of paperwork too. I suppose I could enter the papers into the system at the least.
Garsow: Thank you sir.
Isopod Kushim: I can't make any promises. If you want to return home, I advise you work on that within your own means.
Garsow: I appreciate your kindness.
Isopod Kushim: Now, about the E-U-L-A. I haven't asked, what is your home reality?
Garsow: I'm from ALTR-BR1G.
Isopod Kushim: Oh, for fu- We're doing testing on entities of that reality for the next dozen sennights. We need entities from other realities for results to be, erm, pure.
Garsow: Well then.
Isopod Kushim: Be on your way. I have no use to suffer you.
[Kushim begins pushing Garsow back through the facility.]
Garsow: Wha- Are you still going to push those papers through?
Isopod Garald: Yes, yes, I will. Just get out of here. I'm expiring from your nerdy voice and ridiculous apparel.
Garsow: My nerdy voice? You sound like a prehistoric wizard.
I have to say, this automatic transcription feature is absolutely amazing.
Also… maybe I shouldn't have worn a Hawaiian-style button-down to the Nucorp facility.
Transmission received: September 15, 2019
I returned to the bridge I appeared on to see the view of the cityscape again. Unfortunately, half the bridge was missing at the time, so I went to a park near the middle of the city instead.
It might be the craziest scene I've seen so far.
Just look at that image. Really get a close look. The more you do, the weirder it becomes and the less it makes sense. This place looks insane but the ground below my feet feels normal. I always have the ground to come back to.
Try to picture yourself being here. It has that nice lakeside fresh air. There's lots of wildlife making noise, and the waves are splashing against the bank.
I'll be back home before long. We had a lot of good times, didn't we? I remember we'd sit by lakes like this one. They were boring normal lakes, but those times were just as unreal.
Transmission received: November 22, 2019
I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I went outside to walk around. It was still twilight. The air was chilly, but comforting. It felt the slightest bit sharp as it entered my nose, but I didn't mind. I noticed something as I walked down a sidewalk near the edge of the city, where the sky was most visible: The clouds were the same as the night before. The pattern that they formed and followed—it was the same. It was the same pattern, every single day. Everything weather-related had been looping all my time here. Temperature, humidity, the chilly air at twilight. It was all so… consistent.
Back home, weather is a chaotic mess. Completely unpredictable. But here, it's the only thing that isn't a chaotic mess? How do you figure that?
I asked around. Everyone agreed that the weather has always been looping, for as long as they can remember. But no one knows why, except for one particular man. His outfit was insane. He wore a bright, purple fedora, carried a candycane for a cane, and wore a popping, pink suit. He told me to follow him. Reluctantly, I did. He took me across the street and into a large building. It was a skyscraper, one of the tallest in the city.
Once inside, he led me to a staircase. "36th floor" he said, and nothing else, then left me to ascend on my own. I walked up the stairs. It seemed like the floor levels were ridiculously far apart. I counted 14 stair loops around the stairwell between level 5 and 6. Sometimes there were fractional levels too. It took actual hours to reach the 36th, yet it never got boring, not for a second.
At the 36th floor, there was a single, rosy wood door. I opened the door and entered into a compact, comfy room. The walls and floor were made of a rich orange wood. There were deep purple drapes on the walls, but no windows behind them. The room was empty except for a lizard, lying face-up on the floor. I think it was a komodo dragon.
Confused, I turned around to go back downstairs and ask the pink suit guy what he expected me to find up here. But then I heard something behind me.
"I AM ZUKU, GOD OF WEATHER!"
I turned back around and saw the fucking lizard standing upright. It shouted again.
"I CONTROL THE WIIIIIIIIND!"
At this point, I activated the auto-transcriber.
Garsow: Are you the reason the weather is always the same?
Zuku: Yes, I am. I made the weather the way it is. I DID IT BECAUSE I FELT LIKE IT. And also because the owner of this building brings me grapes and sushi as long as I keep the weather steady.
[Zuku walks over and opens the bottom drawer of a cabinet, revealing stacks upon stacks of sushi rolls and grapes.]
Garsow: Why grapes and sushi, exactly?
Zuku: ZUKU ENJOYS GRAPES AND SUSHI! ZUKU MUST BE APPEASED. GRAPES AND SUSHI ARE FANTASTIC!
Garsow: So you can control the weather with your mind?
Zuku: WHAT? NO! I control the weather with a machine!
[Zuku punches a hole into the wall and crawls through. After a moment, the entire wall folds to the side, revealing an adjacent room with a large contraption covered with buttons, switches and latches.]
Zuku: THIS IS MY WEATHER CONTROLLER MACHINE!
Garsow: How the hell did you get this?
Zuku: I BUILT IT BY ACCIDENT.
Garsow: I don't see any reason to doubt your claims. Why Does the owner want the weather to stay the same?
Zuku: I've got no clue, friend. You can ask 'em yourself. They're on the top floor.
[Garsow leaves the room and continues ascending the stairs for about fifty more levels. At the top of the stairwell is a double door with a big triangle marking on it. It's the Authority logo, but turned 90 degrees, pointing to the right.]
[The door is unlocked. Garsow heads inside. It's a small meeting room, only one person within. It's the pink-suit man from before. He unzips his suit down the middle, revealing slick, black attire beneath. There are gizmos and machines all around the room.]
Garsow: This is the Authority…?
Global Director: Yes, the Directorate to be precise. I'm the only GD at work today.
Garsow: You just… are in this building? All the doors left unlocked? Out in the open? No secrecy?
Global Director: Of course. Why would we need to hide?
Garsow: It's counter intuitive. If you're locking up all the dangerous anomalies in the world, wouldn't people feel safer not knowing the dangers exist in the first place?
Global Director: I don't follow. Anomalies?
Garsow: You don't- You don't know what an anomaly is?
Global Director: I know what the word means, but you seem to be using it with some special connotation. We saw how you originated here—through a portal. I assume your home universe is very different.
Garsow: Yes, definitely. It's a lot more stable. This place is chaotic. The unexpected is a constant.
Global Director: I take it you worked for an equivalent of the Authority, one much more grand. We've been keeping an eye on you. It's clear you're not a threat, so we've left you be.
Garsow: Of course. I would never harm anyone on purpose.
Global Director: …Did you have a reason for coming up here?
Garsow: OH! Right. I was curious about the weather repeating. In my home universe, weather is chaotic and extremely messy, near impossible to track and predict with total accuracy.
Global Director: We keep the weather consistent so that people feel secure. Storms bring fear; rain brings sorrow. It's human nature. We've gotten rid of all that nasty stuff. We also blast music all throughout the city. It helps especially with keeping people unproductive. And then the third thing we do is destroy all dangerous aspects of our world. We have a thing for that—a big toad with telekinetic abilities. His name is Garkuk and he lives in the basement.
Garsow: Wait, what? Did you say "unproductive"? Why are you keeping people unproductive?
Global Director: This world is a chaotic mess. Productivity breeds conflict, which breeds fear and instability. For a world to be functional, either reality or society needs to be stable. We control what we can.
Garsow: How can you be sure?
Global Director: The magic frog says it can see the future.
Garsow: Huh. You know what, that makes a lot of sense. The productivity thing I mean, not the toad. The magic toad is completely off the wall.
Global Director: Anything else you wanted to ask?
Garsow: Yes, one thing. Why do you keep this all a secret? And why am I allowed to hear all this?
Global Director: I already told you, we don't keep it a secret.
Garsow: Everyone I've asked about the music and the weather have no idea why things are this way.
Global Director: Just because it isn't common knowledge doesn't mean it's a secret. You're just the first person to ask.
What I said earlier about the weather here being predictable—I take it back. It's even crazier than back home.
I went back down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, it was somehow still twilight. By the time I got back to the Emrprr, this music was playing. I could finally fall asleep.
Attached File
Transmission received: December 22, 2019
I didn't think it would happen. I really didn't. But I'm actually getting close to obtaining the reality signature. There's just one problem. I won't be able to send it over yet. I hadn't considered this earlier, but the transmitter works in a digital format. Reality signatures are continuous and infinitely dense. I need a new way of transmitting information.
Transmission received: February 9, 2020
I can hear the waves crashing but I've never seen the sea. If it exists, it's elusive. Perhaps its down one single alleyway that opens out into that vast, blue expanse. I can hear seagulls cawing, always. But there aren't any seagulls. The ocean exists somewhere—I'm certain of that.
Transmission received: May 17, 2020
I went back to the coffee shop today—the one where the coffee came out and dripped onto the ceiling. I could actually read the menu this time. It was still a jumbled mess, but for some reason, I knew what it said. I ordered an Affogato.
Transmission received: June 2, 2020
No one ever dies. Nothing ever ends. This world isn't a place for final conclusions, and I'm okay with that.
I went to the library today. This world has a lot of history. Important people died, civilizations went through and through. Stories had ends. I'm not sure if those things actually happened—if this reality existed before I came here.
There were a lot of books about dreams in the library. You can never remember the start of a dream—you're always in the middle of the story as you experience it. But the beginning of the dream still happened.
If you wake up soon enough after you fall asleep, would you remember how the dream started—the very first moment? I spent all my life unable to fathom the end of experience, death. Now I struggle to remember the start. Maybe dreams aren't real, and neither is this place. I could be in a coma.
Maybe I'm okay with that.
Yeah, I'd be okay with that.
I am okay with that.
Transmission received: July 15, 2020
I spoke to Kushim again. He still thinks I'm unfortunate. He said the papers actually went through, into the system. There was less than a 0.01% chance of that happening. Thing is, it's another 0.01% chance for Inter-corp Logistics to respond. It's a long shot and it might be my last chance. Kushim said their systems run in cycles, and that if I don't get a response before December 24, 2020, then it isn't happening.
If they don't respond, I don't think I'll be coming back.
Transmission received: September 1, 2020
I returned to the bridge I appeared on. I didn't come to see the view of the city like usual. I came to look out beyond the city's bounds, to see where the only road leaving the city goes.
The outside world was a crumpled, moving mess of hills and forests. I could hear waves crashing below me and smell salt in the air, masking the city's traffic and scent. I walked for miles. The road stayed steady as the world around blurred. Then I heard a voice.
Garkuk: Ribbit. You are nearing an impasse, Garsow.
[The disembodied voice has no clear source. Garsow continues down the road.]
Garkuk: There is nothing beyond the city. You are entering the dream's ends. Ribbit. The world only deteriorates from here.
[The voice's sound flutters as it moves behind Garsow. It now has a source. Garsow turns around.]
Garsow: Oh, it's you.
Garkuk: This world has transformed you, but a glimmer of your true self remains. I cannot bring you home. You must make that choice alone. Croak.
[Only the sloshing waves and cawing gulls are audible. A strong, unnatural wind pushes against Garsow's clothes and skin.]
Garkuk: There is another world4, opposite to this one. Reality became unimaginable, inhospitable. The world and everyone around you perished. Yet you clung to life. You were able to live. You were the only one to survive.
Garsow: Why would I survive for a world that doesn't matter?
Garkuk: Your story would have ended, but you chose for it to continue.
Garsow: Why are you telling me this? Stories don't have ends here. That's irrelevant.
Garkuk: His story is to his world. He lives so that his world can too. Your story is to your world, and you know you are not the person at its center. Ribbit.
[Garsow says nothing. The ocean wind continues, relentless.]
Transmission received: October 29, 2020
This place is directionless. Nothing here has or needs a purpose. Life isn't about reaching a conclusion. We all just exist. We all just go along. Stuff happens. We react, or don't. It doesn't really matter. Life is slow here. There's plenty of time to watch the birds go by and smell the air. Nothing'll tell you not to.
I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't want to go home. I should feel guilty but I don't.
I don't truly want to go home, but I know I have to.
I don't understand why I don't feel like a terrible person for doing this to you.
Transmission received: November 2, 2020
Garsow: This is the last transmission I'll be sending. I hope you guys didn't let Bentham read these logs, heh. Knowing him, he'd read them over and over, over and over. I know how easy he hurts.
[Garsow begins to cry but wipes the tears from his eyes.]
Garsow: I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry.
[There's a long pause.]
Garsow: I hope you're okay. Please be okay. Don't wait up for me. Just… be okay.
[Garsow takes the camera out onto the balcony and positions it toward the city outskirts. Grassy hills roll in the distance, folding between and through each other, matter passing through matter in contradiction.]
Garsow: Kushim was wrong. I'm not the unfortunate one after all.
[The undulations surround the city in all directions—a uniform expanse, stretching to the horizon, sweeping and weaving. The road leaving the city rolls over hills and out of sight. The sky is painted dark blue with splotches of purple, clouds of blazing reds—fiery sunsets isolated to fluffy shapes against a sunless sky.]
Garsow: I'm sorry, Ben. Goodbye.
[A presently nonexistent star lights the clouds like torches. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. There's plenty of time to watch the birds go by and smell the fresh air. Nothing'll tell you not to.]
Garsow: I know you need me, but I can't need you.
Attached File
Additional Images are available below.
Obtained September 12, 2019
Obtained November 25, 2019
Obtained September 19, 2019
Obtained November 30, 2019
Obtained December 3, 2019
Obtained December 5, 2019
Obtained December 12, 2019
Obtained December 19, 2019
NOTICE 12-24-2020: Dr. Holt is now head of the RPC-013 project. Please refer to him any requests relating to the RPC-013 transmissions, ALTR-N2WU or Dr. Garsow.