Chapter Text
AUDIO LOG 11 - APRIL 18, 2015
Audio log eleven. To hell with saying the date out loud, this is getting transcribed anyway. Use the internal system dates if you’re scrubbing through this. Shade can see again, so it’s just me, myself, and I from now on.
Oh, and subject thirteen. It’s here too. Talked with everyone and we all came to the consensus to swivel to neutral-object pronouns when we start to see tangible results. From now on, I’m just focused on the gills. Not the human they happen to be attached to.
Speaking of gills, we’ll be testing those today. I’ve gone and signed out an aquatic entity containment cell- total depth is a little over three meters, definitely less than what we use to train divers, but we don’t need it up and moving around. Quite the opposite, actually.
It’s going to be restrained for the entire duration of the test- full torso and leg cuffs, no bite mask this time though, which I wish we could’ve kept on. Subject’s taken to spitting lately. It’s trying to test what it can get away with.
I, ahem… also liberated some concrete and a filing cabinet from an adjacent office to use as a makeshift weight. The restraints will be tied with a quick-release knot, just in case the subject starts drowning. Which it won’t. But I have a dive team stationed underwater, just in case. Mostly just to get underwater footage.
Tried to make sure the water is extra clean, too- pumped some from the habitation block’s desalination plant, so it’s completely human-grade. If I lose while I’m nearly stepping over the finish line to something as puny as an infection, I’ll throw myself into the Lake of Souls.
Subject thirteen will arrive in a few minutes or so. I’ll pick back up when it gets here.
ATTACHED SECURITY FEED TRANSCRIPT
Gentle, GENTLE! This is several months of work you’re manhandling, here! Treat it like your next paycheck, because it is! Okay, much better. On the count of three:
[Security personnel roughly throw a restrained subject 13 into the pool. Visible struggling and signs of drowning ensue for around 40 seconds, intensifying once it is pulled fully to the pool’s floor.]
Ah, there it goes. No, hold the pole. Poking it won’t make it struggle any less. It’ll feel the need to breathe eventually.
[Attached helmet camera footage from an assisting diver shows subject 13 inhaling several mouthfuls of water. Its gill slits fan outwards, with a negligible amount of mucous and/or debris escaping at first. 50 seconds pass before it lets itself sink to the bottom of the pool, calmly taking breaths for 5 uninterrupted minutes.]
Okay… that’s time. Haul it up. We should be ready to collect samples by the end of this week.
[Divers haul subject 13 from the bottom of the pool and place it onto the observation deck floor. It proceeds to regurgitate several gallons of water before shivering violently, seemingly catatonic.]
AUDIO LOG 13 - APRIL 21, 2015
It…. takes a brave man to admit when he’s fucked up. And I am a very brave man. Always have been.
Something went wrong with subject thirteen. Horribly, horribly wrong. Its body is eating itself alive. When the guards went to check on it, it must’ve been collapsed on the floor for at least half an hour. I… I don’t know what went wrong- maybe it was just my dosages, maybe it was the quality of our samples, maybe it was just… everything.
But either way, we’ve hit a point we probably won’t be able to come back from. At least without incurring significant financial losses.
The subject’s body is already starting to cannibalize itself to reallocate resources. The muscles in its legs resemble those of a lifelong paraplegic. I can see parts of them, and they’re unwinding like an old spool of twine. Patches of epidermis are sloughing off square by square. I can see its spine. The spinous processes of everything below the T-twelve have elongated and pushed clean through the skin.
How it hasn’t died of shock, I don’t know. It still responds to stimuli, albeit barely. Maybe… I could’ve done something before it all went to shit. Cut off the dead limb where it spread, or knocked it out.
But we were too slow, and now all we can do is try to ease whatever process is happening, and hope whatever damage done will repair itself. The only restorative measures I can think of right now are purely hunch-based. Or daresay, philosophical. Not enough to involve the freaks at N.O.S.T., hopefully.
What if this is not an unmaking… but a rebirth? A change like this- birth, that is- would happen slowly, and in a stable nutrient-rich environment. L-like an egg, or the womb. We’ll just have to recreate those conditions and see what happens.
Thank god we have the supplies around to make a close enough analogue of amniotic fluid. I’ve dispatched the team to start filling and prepping a suspension tank. The least we can do is take any pressure off the body as the process continues.
AUDIO LOG 15 - JUNE 4, 2015
Forced rhubarb.
That’s what I think of every time I walk past this thing, drifting in its bloody, cloudy tank. I can hear the cracks of its bones twisting themselves into new shapes. I can only imagine what the changes are, with the amount of dead tissue and bodily enzymes floating around the bottom.
I think it’s trying to make a tail, but it’s hard to tell. Most of its lower body is just… raw skin and a single string of vertebrae wreathed in weak muscle. Brain activities are still reading for normal comatose parameters, so it’s not dead. Just… dreaming.
I wonder what it dreams of? Does it even dream?
AUDIO LOG 16 - JUNE 19, 2015
I’ve made the executive decision to pull subject thirteen- now designated z-thirteen- from the tank early. It’s not just that we’re running out of room, which we are, but we’re hitting an unsustainable growth rate. It’s already on the verge of outgrowing its organs and skeleton. If we leave it any longer, we’ll have to constantly monitor for organ failure- or god forbid, grow new ones.
This thing is… it’s fucking massive. At least eighteen feet long, from the tip of its fluke to its head. Just four hundred pounds of pure muscle and bone. No fat reserves to speak of- must’ve burned up every calorie its body could spare during its… metamorphosis.
The supplemental IV and PICC nutrition didn’t seem to even carry it through the full process either. It’s woefully asymmetrical, as I’d put it. It would’ve had a fourth eye and arm, but they ceased to form altogether. The missing arm is little more than half a humerus wrapped in a few layers of dermis. I can already tell it’s a massive infection risk, so it’ll have to be removed before the brain can recognize any of the neural pathways.
It has two perfectly good hands, and a decent range of motion in the third. Maybe even a hyperflexible range, given that it’s basically free-floating- save for a cartilaginous scapula analogue. We’ll have to do some full motion testing if it ever wakes up.
Someone suggested fitting it with a prosthetic- even just an osseointegrated hook, but we hardly have any excess budget to spare. It’s an LR-P anyways, so why even bother? Just getting this thing back above a starvation weight will take thousands of dollars.
AUDIO LOG 17 - JULY 1, 2015
Z-thirteen has been doing… remarkably well, lately. We pulled it out of a medically-induced coma two days ago and so far, there seems to be no signs of brain damage. Pulling it when we did was a good idea, since its organs seem to be within adequate calculated parameters. It won’t starve to death, but it’ll be sore.
Bone imaging revealed its skeleton to be… a bit of a nightmare. Like someone cut off a human at the pelvis, tried to erase all the superficial bits that could passably suggest a bipedal lifestyle, and then pasted two whales’ worth of vertebrae and ribs onto it. There’s multiple density anomalies in larger bones and some signs of strain around several vertebrae.
Which is bad, if we’re ever going to get it up and moving outside of this room. Its spine is only really adapted for aquatic up-and-down movement, but the only way it’s going to get around is through lateral undulation. Or slithering, in layman’s terms.
It’s really too soon to tell, though. It’s too lethargic to even function, given the lack of excess calories to spare- and all the painkillers it’s currently on. Maybe we’ll be able to start physical therapy once it’s properly weaned off them. Seems like a bit of a waste, in my opinion- I mean, it’s only the third arm that it’s outright ignoring.
But… Dr. ████ insisted on treating it with “dignity”. And she outranks me by the skin of my teeth.
And… I guess I don’t want months of my time and effort to wind up as dead weight. Having the direct evolution of my thesis project wind up as a glorified goldfish in a bowl that floats around all day and gets fed while the rest of us bust our asses.
I HAVE to make this work. I have to.
It’s only sunk-cost fallacy if you ACKNOWLEDGE that it is. We can find a use for it. For fuck’s sake, we’re underwater, and this thing’s a fish. We can train it to hold a wrench, or a gun, or whatever the fuck we need taken care of. Have it scrape parasites off Lucy’s headlights for all I care.
Shade’s going to thank me for this, one way or another.
AUDIO LOG 19 - AUGUST 6, 2015
“Well, the day has arrived. Z-13 has finally recovered enough for us to go through with the gill biopsy procedure. I’ll be giving a play-by-play from the sidelines as the surgery is performed. Phew, never thought this would pan out so well- thank you for trusting me on this, sir. I promise that we’ll have the first transplant trials within the year.”
“Ah, he’s finally here. Z-13, I mean. We have him restrained on the table right now. It was kind of tricky figuring out the restraint situation- we had to chain a few exam tables together and loop his tail through the straps. We also have him loaded up on local anesthetics and a cervical nerve block to keep him still. Y’know, just in case of emergencies.
So, Dr. ████ is sanitizing the area right now. We should be starting the procedure any second now- we’ll start by making incisions on either side of the thyroid, it should allow for easy access to all parts of the gills. It’s important to keep symmetry in mind, so we’ll be taking clippings from both sides. We’ll have to grow the transplant gills piece by piece on a protein lattice, so it’s not advisable to just flip them around.”
“Aaaalright, first incision is done- oh, um. He’s squirming a bit. I thought he was under twilight sedation?”
“The dosage must not have been enough.”
“Hmm. Well, as long as he’s restrained and breathing, we’re in the clear. You may proceed, Dr. ████”
“W-what the fuck are you doing?”
“Oh, that’s subject Z-13 right now. It’s probably the first time you’re hearing his voice. Obnoxious, isn’t he? Unfortunately, he’s back to his old vulgar self. I’ve finally learned what his favorite insult means, by the way! Apparently Huevón culiado means something along the lines of- and pardon my French- ‘fucking shithead’ in Chilean Spanish.”
“Why am I still awake? Fuck, what are you doing to me? Stop! Please, it hurts- I- I can feel it in my neck. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Calm down or we’ll have to sedate you, Z-13.”
“Sedate me. Please- please, just sedate me-”
“Too late for that, unfortunately. We need you awake for this. Besides, we have no idea how we’d even intubate you.”
“Kill me.”
“Quiet, Z-13. Oh- he’s agitated, that’s good. Look at that gill flare. The filaments have really grown in since the past few months, they’re all full and vascularized. Did I mention that he can breathe in both salt and freshwater? I think I forgot to add that to the progress report back in April. Anyways, we’re getting the biopsy now. Don’t mind the clicking, his gill plates keep smacking against the laparoscope.
Ooookay, we’ve got all the samples on the right secured. I’ll have to end this audio recording prematurely so we can work without interruption. We’ll still send the footage from the operating room for your viewing pleasure when we’re concluded.”
BREAK ROOM AUDIO LOG - NOVEMBER 11, 201
L. BECK: Hold on. Look. That’s the guy from ███████’s project.
M. TAYLOR: The fish?
L. BECK: Yeah, look at the face- and the hair. Exactly the same.
NEWS REPORTER: And now, breaking new developments in the case of the Solace murders. The ████████ County District Attorney’s office has just reached a statement posthumously exonerating Sebastian Solace, who was executed via lethal injection this February. Multiple key witnesses have come forward with information definitively proving Solace’s innocence-
L. BECK: Jesus.
M. TAYLOR: Fuck, man. So… we did all of that to an innocent guy?
NEWS REPORTER: All of them have cited ongoing harassment and blackmail as the reason for their silence. Judge █████ ████████ is now under federal investigation, citing a suspicious habit of harsh sentencing based solely on circumstantial evidence. He is currently due to meet with a judicial investigative committee within the following week. Now, the Solace family is looking for answers. How was this allowed to happen, and are there any more families out there suffering from possible judicial corruption?
L. BECK: I didn’t do anything to him. I work security, you know that.
M. TAYLOR: I mean, we’re still complicit.
L. BECK: Do you think they’re gonna tell him?
M. TAYLOR: I hope not. It’ll completely break him.
AUDIO LOG 21 - NOVEMBER 11, 2015
“Well, it’s with a heavy heart that I say this: the project is over. The ethics team has urged me to end all further testing on Z-13 and transfer him to the on-site prison facility for the time being. I’m sure that you’ve seen the announcement of his exoneration. Technically, I’ve been experimenting on and ‘tormenting’ an innocent man, according to some of my colleagues.
Feelings aren’t a valid roadblock for progress- especially for something that’s going to greatly benefit our organization! Whatever. I’ll be taking my long-overdue vacation and heading back to the mainland for a while once everything is wrapped up. At least we’ve gotten everything we possibly could’ve wanted out of him.
Anyway. Log concluded.”