top of page

Dead Matter (Pt. 2)



To: Dr. ████, Research and Development

From: Mortfield Ethics Board


Subject: Concerning your inquiries about the utilization of O-2005

-----------------------------------------


Good morning, Dr. █████


Your request for testing with MFA-O-2005 is denied. While we appreciate the potential for solving the ever-expanding power crisis within the Iron Corridor, especially given the unreliable nature of local electrical infrastructure, the potential impact to personnel morale of utilizing O-2005 is not negligible. Your reasoning is sound, but you cannot discount the negative ramifications of using the anomaly.


Consider what the public would say to a power source springing from the death of [REDACTED]? The potential blowback to our organization is catastrophic.


While we do not forbid the study of the object, testing with the anomaly was discontinued for a good reason. At some point in the future, this might change. The matter is being examined by the Ethics Board and Command, but for the foreseeable future, testing is discontinued.


This is not up for debate. The matter will be decided by people with more perspective on the whole picture. Please do not continue to pursue this subject.


Best,


██████ ████████

Mortfield Ethics Board


------------


The containment chamber is only lit by the soft green glow of the interior of the object. The high ceiling and walls made from reinforced concrete reflect the weak light of the tempered glass window.


He stares into that window, the green light playing along his face and torso. O-2005 hums quietly with electrical energy. When he stands here long enough, he can almost hear something in the hum. No voices, no messages from beyond. But the ghost of a melody, the pitch and rhythm always just out of reach.


The containment chamber shakes, causing concrete dust to fall around the object and over his head. Two hundred meters above him, the city of Sarajevo is being shelled. It’s the fourth straight week of shelling by Allied Nation forces. The Eastern Federation had reinforced bunkers, and several logistics bases within the city, built into its framework. With each shuddering blow, the green light increases in luminance ever so slightly. Somewhere above his head, people are dying. And then they come here. They feed the machine. That power wasted as it pooled behind the tempered glass, swirling amongst the dead.


He knows he shouldn’t think this way, but he couldn’t help it. This is nothing short of a god. What else could feed on the passing of life into death? And without anywhere to go, the power simply remained housed within the central chamber.


There wasn’t an upper limit on the capacity from what he understands. The electrical meters on the front housing graduate in size, representing thousands and then millions and then billions of joules produced every time someone dies in the latest pointless battle for territory going on above his head.


Before the testing had been put on hold, they had brought the anomaly here for containment. For years, the cast iron construct had sat in this concrete cell. Bloating itself on the feast of death that happens in any city: An elderly grandfather succumbing to cancer – the victim of a mugging gone wrong, bleeding out in an alley from a knife wound to the stomach – the last breaths of a child as it rolls over in the crib and slowly suffocates. But now, the mundane everyday sorta death has taken a back seat to the raucous thunderclap of the long-range ordinance. Sunrise to sunset, thousands of kilograms of explosives land in apartment courtyards and city streets. Every impact sometimes claiming dozens of lives.


And here it sits, in the cell, in the dark, fattening on those deaths. Such a waste. They were going to die anyway, why not use that tragedy for a better purpose? The construct wasn’t causing these deaths, the war would have happened regardless. Every life lost is another thousand or three hundred thousand joules of energy, swirling in the vat of the construct’s belly. Just waiting to be used.


He's got ideas, theories: on why this works, one how it works. But they pale in comparison to how useful the anomaly could be. Plug the site into it, use the death for productive purposes. The energy of which has never been harnessed before. He could do it. He’s developed a prototype transmitter. Keyed into the specific frequencies of the construct’s energy output. Plug it in, secure the connection, and you could power almost anything.


He’s holding the prototype in his hands right now. Turning it over and over. It’s no bigger than a softball. He thinks back to the latest denial email forbidding him to test with the object. But this isn’t a test, is it? He wouldn’t be measuring anything. This is a practical solution to their problems.


Plug it in. Set up the cascade. Make sure the transmission is secure. The weapons he could power with the output boggle his mind. Powered exoskeletons. Rail canons. No need for resupply.


He stares into the light, ignoring the communication device chiming in his pocket. Probably another useless query about any number of other anomalies contained here at the site. But right in front of him, there’s a solution to their problems. All he has to do is plug in the converter, and start up the transmission.


And then he has. The converter is plugged in and affixed to the housing. It’s power levels read in the green, how could they not? He didn’t make the choice, it just happened. It would be a waste not to see if it works now, wouldn’t it? He owes this to science. He owes this to his colleagues. He owes it to the construct. His silent cast iron god, suckling at the tragedy of death in all its forms. It would be wrong to disconnect it, wrong to not see if all his theoretical technologies could be utilized using the construct. There’s no greater guiding principle in times of conflict.


Waste not, want not.


He bows to the god of green death and turns to exit the cell. He has work to do.


------------



Sources:

Grigori Karpin


Michael Lee-Graham

Antistatic Studios Logo

Copyright © 2024 Antistatic Studios Inc.

All rights reserved.

  • Discord
  • X
  • Youtube
bottom of page