Lore:Recovered Materials, Old Chicago
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Recovered Materials, Old Chicago is a Lore book introduced in Monument of Triumph. Entries are unlocked by collecting case files, which are only available in any destination with an active Distortion event. The entries are transcripts of various Space Age relics found in the ruins of Chicago.
Project Proposal, 1961
PROPOSAL DZ-KJIK19RSNP
…As the Department sets its sights on distant frontiers, we must contend with the problem of survival at extremes. Our colleagues at NASA have seen great success on Project Apollo, but if we are to travel even further afield, we will face conditions even more inimical to human life.
Whether future explorers seek to dive into boiling sulfuric acid or attempt to stretch across higher dimensions, we must equip them for scientific inquiry, communication with native entities—and, above all, their mission to return safely home.
Dr. Victor Falkner
IN RE: PROPOSAL DZ-KJIK19RSNP
Dr. Falkner, ever since I saw you present your work on the Nereida ADS, I knew you were just the sort of man I'd want in the DZ department. I'm glad Purnell agreed—and I'm glad to have you with us.
We're packed to the gunwales with fancy machinery, but remote-operating some contraption from a cozy cabin is no substitute for putting boots down on the seafloor. You understand that, just as much as you understand that no discovery is worth the life of the person in those boots.
Your proposal is approved—it's on the books as Project JUNCTION ADVANCE. Assemble your team and requisition what you need. I have high hopes for you.
Director William Moffat
Magnetic Audiotape, 1962
[Portions of tape have been weathered beyond recovery. Label reads: [illegible] Falkner, DZ; Richard Purnell, DZ'.]
PUR: [unintelligible, 12 seconds] bickering about culture and anthropocentrism. They'll be at it for [unintelligible, 4 seconds]
PUR: What matters to us, to you, is that they recovered three intact survival suits from Diablerets.
PUR: [inaudible, 12 seconds] questions?
FAL: Many.
PUR: The most pressing, then.
FAL: Will I be allowed to see one of the suits?
PUR: See? Vic, you think [unintelligible, 4 seconds] [laughter] You're getting one of them, tubes and all. Not the wet stuff, Bio snatched that up—some kind of silicone-based micro-organism in suspension, they're saying—leave 'em to it.
FAL: I did not believe it likely [unintelligible, 10 seconds]
PUR: Oh, don't get me wrong. Chem, Bio, Tech, R&D—even Primes, for some reason—they all want a piece of the pie, and there's not enough slices for all of us.
PUR: Moffat put the kibosh on giving one to Häkke in R&D at least—guns won't do us any good if we're not alive to pull the trigger, and the director's never liked that guy in the first place. Chem and Tech [unintelligible, 2 seconds] other two.
PUR: The Diablerets suits [unintelligible, 3 seconds], but that's a solved problem for humanity already. We're looking at the next frontier.
FAL: Transdimensional travel.
PUR: Get your people prepped to receive the materials. And just so we're clear, this isn't charity. I'm expecting great things from you, Vic.
FAL: I will not disappoint.
Memoranda, 1966
FROM: Dr. Witosław Ostrowski, SU
Sorry, Vic, didn't mean to leave you hanging. The whole department's been running on too much coffee and too little sleep since it happened—can you blame us? He was one of ours.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
FROM: Karin Clarke, AC
This is a notice that Project JUNCTION ADVANCE will be receiving additional funding. A courier will arrive tomorrow with the paperwork. Please be prepared to set aside some time to complete these documents.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
FROM: William Moffat, D
Dr. Falkner, I am formally ordering your team to narrow its scope to safeguarding human beings suffused in STRANGE MATTER. This is an internal name for a form of extradimensional exotic matter; you'll be read into our classified projects and studies on the subject shortly.
Department Lead Dr. Purnell has already been notified, and you should have been allocated additional funds by Accounting. We'll also be providing additional headcount to support this change in direction. Please consult Dr. Purnell and your colleagues in the SM department with any questions.
If this leaves a bad taste in your mouth, I have it too. I want to make sure you know that this is not standard procedure for projects here. I don't make a habit of ordering experts around their fields.
Regretfully, the circumstances demand it. The evidence suggests that something took Dr. Davis and Agent Yero through STRANGE MATTER. We need to be able to follow them.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
FROM: Dr. Yumei Li, SM
It's the most obvious conclusion. We logged traces of it around the phone.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
FROM: Dr. Yumei Li, SM
Scratch that, it's not just the phone. Human Resources and Security narrowed down the intersection where Davis disappeared. There were traces there too. I'm transferring Napier to your team tomorrow.
Pocket Notebook, 1966
Sample degraded within 4 seconds.
If they were alive when they were taken, they would not have stayed that way for more than a few minutes. The director must know this. Perhaps he hopes to at least recover their bodies.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I see why Yumei is always in Accounting now. STRANGE MATTER lives up to its name. The process of creating it has a steep price tag, and it is difficult to store for any usable length of time. We can barely coax together enough to stay on a slide. I can test pieces, but for a whole suit, I'll have to join Yumei in the queue.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I overheard Conway bragging in the cafeteria. Visibility approved another public patent from his team. The fourth this year alone that they've reverse-engineered from their suit.
I asked him for a material sample to test with. Begged, really. I don't care how much he laughs about it later.
Pride is not a result.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
No tests today. I attended the dedication. The director gave the closing speech—about their lives, their work, and the importance of not leaving our own behind. I could swear he looked at me when he said it. I know. I know.
There were unfamiliar faces in the crowd. Not our people. They approached the director as soon as the ceremony closed.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Althaus's desk has been cleared. I asked around—poached by DARPA for a weapons program based on the ballistics models they developed from their suit.
I see more unfamiliar faces in the halls every month.
The disappearances aren't just an internal affair. They never could have been. The director believes we will reach out into the void and find friends reaching back. Others do not share his hope.
I didn't need Dr. Purnell to explain this to me. I suppose that can be considered progress? I would rather be making progress on this [expletive redacted] suit.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Sample degraded in 9 seconds. At this rate of improvement, even if they are friendly, we will not survive long enough to finish introducing ourselves.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
There was a scene in the main lobby today. A tall, dignified man in a charcoal suit, speaking with gravitas. Security was trying to escort him out, but the director stopped them.
Now everyone who was within a ten-room radius knows about the lawsuit the Davis family is bringing. Legal must be tying themselves in knots.
Before Mr. Davis left, the director told him, "I will bring them back."
Them. Not their bodies. Them, alive and whole. If the director were anyone else, I'd laugh. But he means it.
The new formulas are running. I will not let them down.
Introduction Letter, 1967
Dr. Falkner,
I'm Dr. Annalise Meyers, lead researcher on Project BLUE DOOR. You may have heard of this project before, as a historical curiosity. In the early days of the Department of External Observation, we were given a mandate to build an interdimensional tunneling device, with the aim of establishing faster-than-light communications without violating causality. Our original tests were inconclusive, and the project was mothballed.
Earlier this year, Director Moffat reactivated BLUE DOOR with a specific directive. He believes that something took Dr. Davis and Agent Yero into another dimension. We've since been concentrating our efforts to creating a path to follow them.
This month, we succeeded. We opened a tear, 15 centimeters across, into another dimension. We project that we'll be able to accommodate human traversal in six months.
However, we have a problem, and Dr. Li said you might be able to help. I understand that JUNCTION ADVANCE is having issues sourcing enough STRANGE MATTER to test with.
Well, right now, we've got too much. The tear flooded our testing room with so much STRANGE MATTER, it must be like air on the other side. There were no casualties, but all our equipment was transmuted into iron filings. We need some kind of shielding.
Interdepartmental cooperation normally involves a lot of paperwork, but it's clear that this project means a great deal to the director—all the red tape's been cut for us. We can start tomorrow, if you like.
What do you say? Let's help each other out.
Dr. Meyers
Spiral-Bound Notebook, 1967-1968
EXPERIMENT 1: The tear looked almost innocuous. A floating hole in the curtain of our world. The other side… Dr. Meyers says they are trying to name a new color for it.
20 centimeters. Sample A degraded in 6 seconds. Sample B degraded within 30 seconds. Napier was right: a larger sample mass corrodes more slowly. It doesn't make any sense, but results are results.
Director Moffat was there. He stared at the tear in silence the whole time.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
EXPERIMENT 6: 24 centimeters. Sample degraded in 159 seconds. Yes. Yes, this is promising. A full-size suit might actually perform far better than our smaller prototypes.
Our current problem is materials. The Diablerets suit's joints were strong but flexible, capable of repeated and extended compression without any loss in tensile strength. R&D cannot replicate it. Told me to "find a [expletive redacted] alien rubber tree or [expletive redacted] off."
A diver in the Nereida couldn't scratch their own back, either. Forget dexterity and haptic perception. In fact, maybe we don't even need a viewport—no, Dr. Meyers will object. If I adapt the polymer structure, can I make it thin enough to coat conventional rubber?
Director Moffat came by again to thank us for our hard work. There were dark circles under his eyes, but he was in a freshly-pressed suit. He must have been on his way to another hearing.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
EXPERIMENT 14: 30 centimeters. Prototype degraded in 8 minutes, 32 seconds. Visor and joints failed first, as expected, but I think I know how to improve the glass, at least. It won't be perfectly clear, but the visibility will be acceptable.
Extensive life support is unfeasible. That's fine; we don't need them to stay for long. Ten minutes, perhaps, to get at least three sets of readings. Double that for safety.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
EXPERIMENT 25: Annalise and her team made a breakthrough. 162 centimeters. Prototype degraded in 12 minutes, 19 seconds.
BLUE DOOR has held up their end of the bargain; now it is my turn.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
EXPERIMENT 32: Director Moffat came by the observation room today. He looked at the tear, and told us he would be the first one through.
There was a scattering of nervous laughter. The rest of the team didn't believe him.
Annalise and I, though, we knew. We argued with him for three hours. Long after everyone else had gone home, he finally agreed to have a second. "On belay," he said.
There is not enough budget left in the fiscal year to develop customized suits, and of the team, I am the closest in build to the director. But I would be a poor scientist—indeed, a poor human being—if I would risk someone else's life and not my own.
Magnetic Audiovisual Tape, 1968
[Portions of tape have been transmuted to cesium (inert, despite exposure to air) or burnt through and are unrecoverable. Label reads: EXPERIMENT 33 - DIR. W. MOFFAT & DR. V. FALKNER PARTICIPATING, DR. A. MEYERS RECORDING.]
[A large, mechanical, ring-shaped device sits in the center of a warehouse. A deep, oscillating hum emanates from it. The hum begins to rise in frequency and pitch.]
MEYERS [over loudspeaker]: 40%… 60%… Gentlemen, the test is beginning.
[Two people in large protective suits move towards the device. Each suit has black lettering on the back: the lead suit reads "MOF" while the other reads "FAL." They are tethered by safety lines leading from their suits and connecting to something off camera.]
[A tear opens in the center of the ring. Through the tear, the other side seems to bubble and shimmer, shifting through every color the magnetic tape can capture. Bands of static and visual distortion sizzle across the feed.]
[Visual feed burns out.]
UNKNOWN: [A loud, discordant sound. Though difficult to comprehend at base levels, further analysis has identified audio components drawn from the predator-deterrence call of Dryophytes cinereus, the "gekkering" of Vulpes vulpes, the low-frequency hum of large sand dunes, and Menura novaehollandiae imitating a motor.]
MOFFAT: It's talking to us.
FALKNER: What?
MOFFAT: My name is William Moffat, Director of the Department of External Observations! We mean you no harm. We wish only for the safe return of the humans you took.
UNKNOWN: [A large number of human voices blended into an indistinct chattering crowd.]
MEYERS: Director, this has never happened before. It may not be safe to approach—
MOFFAT: Dr. Nella Davis and Agent Louis Yero have families, loved ones, friends—hoping day after day for their safe return.
MOFFAT: Whatever you need from them, ask it of me instead. They are my subordinates, in my capacity as director—
[The device's hum rapidly changes pitch.]
MEYERS [over loudspeaker]: Gravitational anomalies detected—it's transmuting the gateway!
FALKNER: Already? The shielding, we should have another six minutes—
UNKNOWN: [Roaring.]
[A loud metallic twang. A heavy impact from something large and metallic striking a soft surface. Falkner screams. His scream continues, at the same pitch and volume, for the next three and a half minutes.]
MEYERS [over loudspeaker]: [gasps, stifling a scream]
MOFFAT: Falkner—damn it!
MOFFAT: The line—why won't it—give him back! Give them all back!
MEYERS [over loudspeaker]: Director, oh, God. Director, cut his line and get back! We have to cut power to BLUE DOOR!
MOFFAT: I'm not letting him go!
MEYERS [over loudspeaker]: If you don't, we'll lose you too!
[Visual feed returns.]
[The tear has expanded past the device's boundary; half of the machinery has sunk through it. The air writhes.]
[Moffat stands less than two feet from the tear, feet braced. He grips his own safety line in one hand, and Falkner's in the other. Falkner's safety line leads into the tear. Although the line is taut, Moffat seems unable to pull Falkner back. Instead, he is being dragged towards the tear, inch by inch.]
[Moffat looks into the tear. Falkner's scream continues.]
[Moffat releases his own safety line and plunges through the opening.]
Torn Journal Page, 1968
Dec. 12, 1968 – 21.0°F – 11.6mph, SE – 2.49mi – Overcast
When does heroism become vanity?
I've had a long six weeks to think. Nothing else to do, really—Angie might've trained Medical a little too well, but if I tell her that, she'll put me back on bed rest.
So, when does heroism become vanity? When does determination become mania? When does sacrifice become self-satisfaction? When is enough, enough?
If there's a taller mountain, I have to climb it. Six weeks ago, I called that ambition.
Angie said they won't know if they can discharge Falkner for another ten months. It turned his kidneys to titanium. Heart valve to gallium. Apparently, it treated his early bone cancer though—it's all strontium now.
John told me again that I need to let it go. Angie, too. Stiller, Perlman, Li, Meyers. I know what they're all thinking: Davis and Yero are dead. They have been since the moment they were taken. Nothing of our world can survive in that formless beyond.
I swore I'd bring them back. Is it still for them? Or is it for me?
Fine. Let's say it's just for me, my pride. I don't give a damn. I am never going to let it go. I can't. I won't.
I won't, but Director Moffat, head of the DEO, must. Falkner went with me because I believed, and he believed me. If the only way to get them back is to throw other lives into that tear, let it have them—I won't make that trade. Not ever. I'll unbend the projects I've pointed in that direction. Reallocate manpower and funding. Get back to the mission.
But I'm not letting them go. I will find them, and I will bring them back.
