Warm company from a cold and strange place. These are transmissions from Jaran, the facility manager at the Deep Earth Anomaly Department, East Antarctica. The radio may or may not work, but he is keeping a log.
Strange things happen. Figures appear at the edge of the ice. Entities arrive, sometimes out of nowhere. And a facility unit named Ingrid does her best.
time has come to ventilate. Pun intended. Jaran is hiding for a bit, to figure out how, and when, to confront Thomas. Meanwhile, he discovers somewhere new, and spends a few hours in a creative flow with Ingrid. Good ol times.
If you’re hearing these transmissions, leaving a rating helps others find the frequency.
Hey there. This is Jaran. I'm the facility manager at the Deep Earth Anomaly Department, located on a coastal strip in East Antarctica. I'm uh signing in for yet another cold shift. Okay, for for the perpetual logs, uh let me try to sum these few weeks up a bit. Now, at the moment there are two versions of me here at the Deep Earth Anomaly Department. There is me and there is the the other me. And um a few months ago there was a sphere appearing in the sky, visible through the blizzard, even. And at first I thought it was a comet. Uh then I thought it was an extraterrestrial, then I learned that it was some kind of residue linked to experiments being conducted here at the facility. I'm not sure if you can hear it, but um um I don't really mean and dust doesn't go hand in hand, so I'm a bit clogged up clogged up. Uh yeah. There are reasons for it, I will come back to that, but um yeah. There was a sphere, uh, and then Joshua, the man who usually lives out in the tents a few clicks east from here, came to to stay at the facility. Mainly because there is some sort of entity outside roaming around in the blizzard, and uh none of us are too keen on meeting it. And uh I installed Joshua in the labs, and uh you know the labs wasn't being used anyways, and you know, because he's working on a device allowing him to travel faster than light, I thought he might need a workspace. I don't know, the galactic obeyer he called it. Or the go sometimes. Then uh one night as this strange sphere had landed on the ground, it it became it began to emit something, you know, like lights, noises, vibrations, then things started to fly around the facility, the very end of the world kind of vibes, you know. Before all of a sudden Joshua ran into it, disappearing along with the sphere. Also, we have a door here in the basement, a red door with no handles, and uh I I've been trying to figure out what was behind it for quite some time now because I I don't know, it's just mysterious. I've heard knocking coming from it, I heard noises scratching, and I've even seen it being opened, but I couldn't see what was inside. So then, you know, one night I woke up a couple of nights ago actually, in the facility, but instead of walls, ceilings, and floors, there was darkness. An endless pitch black darkness. Then as I I tried to figure out how to get back, Thomas Grind, the the overseer, came, seemingly in a mood to end my existence here on the bottom of the earth. Why, I have no idea, but there was no doubt in my mind about it. So I fled and thanks to all that is holy, I usually wear good shoes to run in, uh a pair of Adidas actually, so I ran through the door, came out on the other side of the red door, which led back here. Back to the facility, back in my own reality. Walls and all. So I'm I'm still not sure what any of that means. Uh doesn't mean the red door leads here? Or if many doors lead to the red door, you know what I mean? It it just doesn't make any sense. However, when I came out on the other side, the duplicate version of me, Yawang the duplicate, slept in my bed. And if he felt even 1% of how I was feeling, I bet he slept like a baby. So I I I let him sleep. Also, I don't think Thomas knows that I'm back or that there are two of us. I'm not sure if uh sure of anything really, but the the fact that Jan is sleeping and not in the body bag tells me he's safe for now. Me, on the other hand, I'm not so sure. Which brings me back to uh the issue with the being clogged. Um because I've been living in the vents for a while, which have been interesting. Very dusty, and I don't I'm I'm not too good with dust apparently. Um you know at first I just lived in the vent. I stole a pillow and a sheet, so it it wasn't too uncomfortable, but however, I had to move because living close to the actual entrance I would receive all the dust and stuff that got ventilated. So I I I ventured inwards. Pretty much intended, by the way. And the ventilation system here is is quite vast. Uh it it is a good system, but not really very very big. So I had to crawl, and uh I'm glad I'm not claustrophobic. Strange thing was though, um that that one day as I tried to find the center of the ventilation system, I found a piece of cardboard on the on the one of the walls, a little bit bigger than the size of a pizza box covering something, so I I removed it to reveal a hole in the ventilation. Behind the hole was uh a room. A very small room. Um it had no windows, no doors, no entrance or exit points uh except a hole in the ventilation shaft. And now a room in itself would be fine. However, this room had a mattress, it had some photos on the walls, small desk with a radio on it, um, a typewriter, a shelf with a couple of books in it, canned food and canned water stacked around the room. So someone made this room and intended to stay there for quite some time. Now I I remember meeting myself a few weeks ago, sitting on my bed, playing the ukulele one uh one uh evening when I woke up, and that version told me he lived in the vents. So I thought, you know, this must be his place. You know, strange thing though, because naturally I crawled inside. Um and when I looked around, it it seemed to have been abandoned for quite some time. Which doesn't make sense if if the the other version of me lived in it. You know, there were spider webs on the desk between the books and between all the canned foods, so they hadn't been touched for a long time. No spiders though. Um so perhaps this is one of the lodgings the fluorescent spiders used to live in. I mean, it makes sense. It was, after all, quite cozy. But then I tried to see if the radio worked. Uh so I said, no, this is Jaran. I said I'm the facility manager at the Deep Earth Anomaly Department located on the coastal strip in East Antarctica. Can anybody read this transmission? Now I wish I knew how to speak static because that was the only reply I received. Pure static. However, there was a case of blank tapes, so I'm actually able to record up here, which is what I'm doing right now. But anyway, I I kept searching the room for stuff and clues about who used to live here, and the photos on the walls were of people I had never seen before. Um one of the photos were in the common room, taken in the common room, but it looked very different from how it is now. One of the people in the photo had a beard the size of a moon, and a skipper's hat and a wool sweater. And uh next to him there there's this lady in a lab coat with round spectacles and a large smile on her face. And uh well, the other photo was a photo of the facility taken from outside from quite far away. And uh the third one, however, was a bit strange. It it was taken in the hallway, and there were four people in in lab coats holding something down to the ground as if they had recently tackled it. And a lady from the other photo with the spectacles and a smile stood next to it, looking into the camera and smiling again. Same smile and all, but in this photo it had a sinister vibe to it. Very, very strange stuff indeed. And old. The photos were old, very old, like old, old. And again, there were no signs of anything resembling anything I would have done if I lived here. So I'm I'm still not sure if that version of me I met sitting on my bed lived or lives here. It's hard to say. Whoever did, they haven't been here in a while, so I I thought I could stay here. Not for very long, but until I figure out how to approach this situation with Thomas Grind and all. I mean This wouldn't be the first time that there were two of me in this facility where both Ingrid and Thomas didn't seem to mind, but I'm still not sure where Thomas's mindset is at at the moment, if if he is still eager to blank me, as it said in the telegram that I found in his office. And seeing as I don't want to hide forever, I'm I'm going to have to find out as soon as morning comes. I think uh I won't introduce myself to myself just yet though, but you know, you know what if it's like particles meeting the the uh antiparticle, you know. What if we both annihilate? That would be the suboptimal to say the least. But I think it's safe to or maybe not safe, but uh I have to talk to Thomas. That seems like the right thing to do. But before I went out again, I went through the canned foods to to do some uh uh what's it called? To log what it was. I wrote down everything and figure out how long I could potentially stay there. There was uh one can of uh green beans, four cans of pumpkin puree, two cans of tuna and oil, eight cans of salmon, five cans of sardines, seven cans of canned chicken, one can of turkey, four cans of canned ham, two cans of anchovies and clams, eight cans of pineapples, five cans of peaches and pears, seven cans of fruit cocktail, and one can of condensed milk. Which is just so close. I was hoping for powdered milk. Which I still haven't received, so I'm starting to think that nobody is getting these transmissions. But uh at least I had food for a bit, you know. So yeah, I after I had done inventory, I conjured some courage and went back down to the facility to have a look, to touch base as it were. So I crawled out back to where I came from, found the other version of me sound asleep in his um my bed, and I snuck quietly out from the room. The facility was quiet, which was quite nice. Quite calmly then I walked over to Thomas' quarters, but I didn't have to get very close to know that he was also asleep because his snoring was like a helicopter approaching. And if I were to ever wake him up from asleep, this would not be the time. So I just went into the common room to borrow a new plate, uh a cup and some cutlery to bring back up to the ventilation room thing. When Ingrid came in. And apparently she has a ton of new jokes. So she said, knock knock, she said, and I said, Who's there? Knock knock, she said, I'm deaf. So yeah, she's a strange bot, really is. I like that. She's cool. But I told Ingrid I couldn't sleep and that I had come in here for some early morning snack, and uh she started putting out different kinds of ingredients on the kitchen counter, and then we spent a couple of hours trying to uh trying out different recipes for pancakes. We made five different ones, each one differed in texture, thickness, softness, color, pattern, and saltiness. And I know what you think, a pancake should not be salty, but just the right amount will make the sweetness flourish. I don't know. It's like uh back in the old days, if you were to have nice flowers and nice crops, you had to put a little bit of poop on there. It's it's not a good um it's not a good metaphor or whatever. Anyways, the pancakes, the pancake that won. The best one we made was the thickest one. I love thick pancakes, but this one is the best I've ever had, let me tell you. Call it a panorama cake, you know, because it hit every taste bud in my mouth. It had all, it had it all. So I wrote the recipe down and I will lock that also. But uh however, I I feel a little bit sick at the moment having eaten too many panorama cakes. I really shouldn't have, but it was hard to stop. Even Ingrid wanted a taste, uh, which I had to stop her from doing. You know, her sense of smell, taste, and sight is artificial, but it still made her uh electronic neurons go wild. But yeah, she understood that it's not good for her. So I'm I still feel a bit bad for having had her helping me out and then not allowing her to taste it, but it's for her best. And she will get over it, I'm sure. Also a little bit disappointed that Thomas wasn't awake. Uh not that I looked forward to meeting him again, but I'm eager to get it over with, you know. I should probably give him a panorama cake. I mean, who can murder someone after having had the best pancake known to mankind? You know? That would be insane. But yeah, after we had finished, uh Ingrid helped me with the dishes before she shot off to some other chore. And um I packed the pancakes, some cutlery, a cup and a plate, a bottle of water and a book before I headed back into the ventilation. So which is where I am right now. My new room in the vents. I have to pop out and sort things out with everyone here soon, but um yeah. This is after all a facility with limited space. If it is to function as a proper facility, the team needs to function properly and I need to sort things out. Uh but right now I have to rest. Sleep off the panorama cakes. And then perhaps I'll introduce myself to myself, explain it all, and um go have a chat with Thomas. I'm confident we will be able to come to some sort of agreement. We have to. I think I will confront him too with the the telegram, you know what does it mean having me blanked. I don't want to be blanked. So I'm gonna um yeah, I'm going to after I've had some sleep, so this is me having brought all of you, oh great divers, up to speed, um, which means that it's time for me to log off. So yeah. This is Jan. Signing off yet another cold shift.
