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Registered Phenomena Code: 677
Object Class: Gamma-Yellow
Hazard Types: Organic Hazard, Regenerative Hazard
Containment Protocols: No feasible means of containing RPC-677 have currently been discovered, however, due to its nature concealment is relatively easy. RPC-677 manifestation events are allowed to occur naturally. Upon a subject's death, RPC-677-1 instances smaller than 1 meter in height that do not obstruct structures are permitted to remain untouched. RPC-677-1 instances larger than 1 meter in height are to be removed under the guise of renovations or other mundane construction.
Description: RPC-677 is an anomalous phenomenon involving the spontaneous growth of an instance of RPC-677-1. RPC-677-1 is a member of the species Populus deltoides. The instances have an unusually fast growth rate that depends on many factors, however, the primary factor appears to be the health of the individual RPC-677-1 manifests near. RPC-677-1 will manifest writing on its leaves that appear to come from deceased individuals the subject knew. These notes can vary widely in content, ranging from love letters from a deceased spouse to vengeful hate mail from murder victims. This phenomenon is tied to specific locations but can seemingly attach itself to any individual who enters the area under RPC-677's effect, and affects them until their natural death.
An RPC-677 event has a █% chance of occurring around any individual that will die within the next ██ months and has also previously entered the following locations.
List of RPC-677 active locations:
Within 10 kilometers of the town of Fairbury, Nebraska
A 100-meter radius of the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not!" museum in San Antonio, Texas
█████████, Colorado
Apalachee Correctional Institution, Florida Location mistakingly thought to be an RPC-677 location, confirmed nonanomalous
RPC-677 appears to manifest more commonly around terminally ill individuals rather than individuals who will die through other means such as trauma or anomalous means. After an RPC-677 event has been initiated, an RPC-677-1 instance will begin growing within a 30-meter radius of the residence of the subject affected. RPC-677 often but not always produces a memetic effect exclusive to the subject affected. This effect gives the subject the sense that RPC-677-1 is linked to their death even if they have no prior knowledge of RPC-677. The subject's reaction to this fact seems to be non-anomalous and matches expected reactions to the concept of their own death, with reactions ranging from fear to relief. RPC-677-1 will not disappear after their corresponding individual has died, however, they will lose all anomalous properties.
Recovery Log: RPC-677 was discovered when Authority Agent Arthur Maxwell reported a tree he believed to be anomalous, stating that "It's here for (him)" and that the tree knew he was going to die. When questioned on how he knew this he claimed that he simply sensed it. Agent Maxwell had been diagnosed with leukemia █ months prior and had thus been given leave. Agents were dispatched to the location and discovered an RPC-677-1 instance. Given the likelihood that Agent Maxwell was merely being paranoid, it was deemed appropriate to attempt to remove the RPC-677-1 instance. After this attempt was made the instance grew back at a rate such that it was visible, however agents failed to record the exact rate. Because of concerns over unknown anomalous effects, it was decided that the instance would remain undisturbed and remain under observation. On May 3rd 2███, Agent Maxwell passed away due to his illness and the RPC-677-1 instance was determined to be neutralized.
Approximately 4 months after this event, Researcher Phillip Donnor reported a similar case. The connection was not immediately made as Researcher Donnor was in perfect health, however, 13 days after days after Researcher Donnor reported the phenomenon, he was killed in a containment breach at Site 007.
After this event, a connection was strongly suspected however it was a further 2 years before RPC-677 received RPC classification.
Examples of RPC-677-1 Messages:
I still love you. I hope we can be together soon.
Love, Monica
Notes: Instance appeared at the residence of Damien Anderson, age 78. The Monica the message is supposedly from is his wife who had passed 16 years prior.
It’s not scary, I promise. I’ll see you when you get here.
Sincerely, Your Buddy Mike
Notes: Instance appeared at the residence of Researcher Theodore Evans, who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor 3 weeks prior. The "Mike" in question is believed to be Researcher Michael Garrison who had died in a motor accident 6 years prior.
I never forgave you, I can’t wait for you to rot
From Thomas
Notes: Instance appeared in the cell of CSD-8907. Thomas is believed to be CSD-8907’s 23-year-old son who he killed alongside his wife and daughter. CSD-8907 was terminated after attempting to kill a guard during a test.
Addendum: On September 4th 2███, Head Researcher Alexander Jamison requested that RPC-677 be classified as Gamma-Yellow and that immediate neutralization was recommended. This was requested on the basis he believed that RPC-677-1 was not, in fact, an indication but was directly responsible for the deaths of individuals affected. Request for reclassification was accepted, however, neutralization was denied because of the fact there was little evidence RPC-677 or the -1 instances posed any threat.
On February 26th 2███ Head Researcher Alexander was found to be carrying out an unauthorized attempt at neutralization on RPC-677-1 instances. He was immediately removed from his position.
Document 677/A: The following are text documents recovered from Researcher Alexander’s home computer.
February 14th
Finally got assigned to an actual RPC instead of just managing things or dealing with a ring that shoots popcorn. I would have liked to have something a bit cooler that involved more tests, but honestly I'm just glad to be on something not likely to turn my skin inside out. It's a little boring, most of the guys under me already know how to handle these trees so I don't actually have much to do besides paperwork.
In any case, I think I'm gonna keep this little log, both to keep me busy and so I can look back in the future and maybe see how far I've come, could be fun.
March 16th
Well I guess this shit isn't boring anymore. I've been given more resources and less restrictions, and instructions to start testing the finer details of these trees. Mostly figuring out why they even appear, what rules they go by, that kind of stuff. I'll probably start out by just having the CSDs we got in walk around the affected areas. It would probably be suspicious for some mangy looking guys in orange suits to walk around a museum coughing up a storm so I'm gonna start with the Nebraska location, might even be able to have a CSD move into a house so we can see if living in the location has different effects than entering for 10 minutes.
March 30th
Things are going pretty good. The only complication so far is that one CSD just straight up died on us before the effects could even manifest. I felt bad for him, until I remembered he was a serial rapist. Yeah this job plays with your emotions a bit. Anyway we still have nearly 50 CSDs, 36 of which have some kind of terminal illness so we have plenty of chances to figure things out. We're currently working on getting a house on the edge of town to stick about 6 CSDs in to live in, should be easy enough we have the money and the house is in shambles anyway.
April 6th
Ok so we might have our first major success. There is a small sapling outside that looks to be the right species, and it's growing pretty fast. Technically I need to wait until the messages start showing up to call it a -1, but I'm pretty confident.
April 7th
Well shit. I would like to call today a success but it hardly feels like it. The tree got pretty big, probably like 7 feet, and started getting notes. We had all the CSDs line up to read them and see if any of them seemed familiar, and out of nowhere one of them started bawling. We took the note from him but the handwriting was so sloppy we couldn't really read it. It looked like it was written by a very angry person, the lines looked like they were being pressed very hard into the leaf and it was even ripped at the end like they were scratching it in with all their strength. We tried to get an answer out of him for what it meant but we couldn't. I tried reading his file to figure out the context but there were way too many possibilities. I would guess it's someone he killed but it's hard to imagine that this big dude would be affected by the words of some random guy he beat up. Just left me super uneasy.
April 12th
Ok so there are a shit ton of these things now, I think it must be like how fruit ripening triggers other fruits to ripen. In any case, the CSDs are getting really unpredictable and it's worrying me. Some are getting violent, some are getting super emotional, and a few are just acting emotionally dead. I've read most of the notes they've gotten and Jesus it's a roller coaster. I read one from a guy's mom who seemed to forgive him or something? A lot of them are families disapproving of them. Then I got one that was from a little kid I think, I assume based on the writing and level of English. Jesus fucking christ I don't think I need to tell you the implications there.
April 30th
Things went pretty south. Basically, all the CSDs were getting too dangerous and I guess one of my researchers got antsy so they went behind my back and reported a "potential memetic agent". Absolute bullshit but they came anyway and forced us to put a poison in all the CSD food. Only one guy actually ate, so we had a bunch of them freaking out wondering why he died, so we had to have some guards go in and shoot them before they could piece it together and start fighting back. All that work is gone, and we have a huge mess. Plus now we have to cover up why there was a bunch of gunshots and shit. Me and the rest of the researchers have to go under screening for memetic hazards and stuff now so that's more time away from my work.
June 1st
Ok, we're back on track. The staff is cleared, no memetics detected. We have new CSDs to replace the olds ones. I'm gonna see about getting rid of the old trees.
June 5th
New trees are showing up, I'm trying to convince my boss to see what effects getting rid of the trees has, can't hurt to try.
June 6th
Boss told me no but whatever, fuck it, I'm in charge. Gave the order to start clearing any trees that show up, and I'm gonna extend it to the other RPC-677 sites. Stupid fucking things, dumb ass fucking notes filled with bullshit.
Some fucking CSD came up to me today and said he thought one of the leaf notes was for me. How would he even know that? It mentions my name but that could be anyone, and he shouldn't even know mine. He must have heard it when one of the researchers was talking to me during the down time. I didn't even bother reading the whole thing, I pressed the button and had the guards move him back and had the tree he got it from incinerated.
June 29th
I got laid off the project. Surprised I kept any kind of job in the Authority. Actually, I'm not stupid I know I'll be dead soon enough. Same fucking researcher who reported before told them about me wiping the trees and seeing if I could force them to grow by killing the CSDs.
I should have known, this kind of shit always happens to me.
The tree appeared about a while ago and it's only been getting bigger. Not being able to get around the house is bad but what’s worse is the notes. For every one from my grandma, there's ten more that come from some CSD. I feel horrible I can’t remember their numbers and even worse I never knew their names.
I don’t know what to do. Getting rid of the trees not only didn’t work it lost me the position. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m so scared of dying but I’m terrified of life too.
It would be easy if it was my mom saying she was waiting for me in heaven, or even the CSDs saying they're ready for me in hell. But the thing is I've heard both and know one must be lying.
On July 5th 2███, Researcher Alexander was found deceased in his home. The apparent cause of death was suicide via gunshot. A large RPC-677-1 instance was found breaking through the foundation of the home and taking up a large amount of the living room. Upon investigation, thousands of leaves from the instance were found with handwritten text not matching Researcher's Alexanders handwriting. A transcripted version of the text on the freshest leaf can be seen below.
Please just tell them before it’s too late
