Registered Phenomena Code: 344
Object Class: Alpha-Orange
Hazard Types: Sensory Hazard, Biological Hazard
Containment Protocols
RPC-344 is to be interred in Rochester Central Memorial Park The previous location used for housing RPC-344 is being sanitized and fumigated, with reconstruction estimated to be complete in August 2021.
RPC-344-1 instances and previous RPC-344 staff are to be amnesticized and released with routine, follow-up surveillance conducted yearly.
Description
RPC-344 is the designation given to the memetically active but biologically inert corpse of Rachael Kirame Key, a Russian-American immigrant to the United States of America who died in her home in 1952.
By all records, RPC-344 was a non-anomalous individual prior to her death. Her existing diaries disclose severe grief after a young man by the name of Ray, who Rachael was engaged to for several years, was tragically killed by a tornado one day before their wedding.
RPC-344's death has been deemed by local police as a "Romeo & Juliet" suicide. She was found within her hope chest along with a number of items she had collected over the years. The cause of death remains mysterious, but an autopsy suggested Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. She was found with a note, held in both hands and resting upon her chest. The writing of the note was illegible due to the moisture that had accumulated post mortem.
RPC-344's memetic qualities likely emerged gradually after death, with the current theory being that she had anomalo-genetics that rendered visualization of her skeletal system cognitohazardous. Through a series of mismanaged protocols, RPC-344 ended up in Authority custody, but by those who had been inoculated thoroughly with the memetic hazard.
Her body was kept within a maintenance closet in Site-028 that doubled as a highly illegitimate and unsanctioned “containment chamber”. A small, portable fan was found attached to a pipe in the closet, with the jet pointing upwards. Fresh AA batteries within indicate that the staff routinely changed them to keep it operating.
Numerous cadavers were found in the closet along with RPC-344, and were identified as deceased Authority personnel. Records had seemingly been doctored by site personnel for years, falsifying the legitimate exit of these employees to civilian life. Similar to the conditions of RPC-344's discovery, the causes of death for these individuals are not certain, however autopsies on each invariably reveal enlarged heart muscle due to stress, along with ruptured cordae tendenae, suggesting a similar type of stress-induced cardiomyopathy.
RPC-344 was only partially recoverable upon its second discovery, as those in the closet had before their deaths attempted irrationally to step inside the chest cavity and occupy the empty space therein, pulling at and crushing the sternum. Over time the desiccated tissue of the thoracic and abdominal cavities was reduced into an organic pomace, the pigment of which stains the floor and walls of the closet to this day. This compulsory behavior is assumed to be a component of the memetic effect, although likely an unintended result of something being lost in conceptual translation.
The obituary of Rachael Kirame Key describes her as a faithful, loving, happy individual with an infectious laughter, "a smile that would melt your heart", and someone who people naturally wanted to get to know.
The body of her late fiance was never recovered.
