Hey, all. Duchess here. Liquid Len's request for some early access information to tide our traffic over has thankfully been approved, though he can't be the one to post it, as he has some.. professionalism issues to sort out. (Between you and me, I don't blame him. It's hard to keep stoic in the face of... well, I'll stop babbling and just show you.)

Artist's rendition of a manifestation

FOSSIL-TYPE HADES

Physically, FT-HADES has no primary or standard form. Instead, FT-HADES takes on the shape of, as has been recorded so far, the deceased. The Fossil has only been reported as manifesting as one "body" at a time, though circumstantial implications suggest it is prone to acquiring large populations of human followers (henceforth "worshippers," according to the Monomyth Theory).

FT-HADES is not known to directly assault or otherwise intend harm to any form of life, though it is also likely not necessarily protective (fond?) of us. It rarely engages in known forms of communication. Instead, it has only been recorded as travelling, whether on foot or otherwise, in directions of no yet discernible pattern. All attempts to follow FT-HADES have failed.

The Monomyth Theory

Proposed by researcher Foam, inspired by Joseph Campbell's application of the philosophies of James Joyce to the art and culture of ancient civilizations, the Monomyth Theory concludes that FT-HADES has been responsible for a sizeable portion of all literal religious beliefs throughout recorded history.

"Seeing the dead walk among the living would cause anyone to question the nature and meaning of life, no matter what their cognitive and emotional development may be. The actual specifics of the religious beliefs would then be up to the individual in question." (McIntyre, Walton, "The Ghosts Whom Humanity Escaped: FT-HADES and Religious Inspiration Through History", pp. 57- 60)

If you should come across what you believe to be the walking dead, make no attempts to interact with it. Do not look directly at it for prolonged periods of time. If you believe you are under serious threat, contact your local authority, and they will put you through to your nearest branch of the Topography Genera Center.

Biblio:

• McIntyre, D. (2011). The Ghosts Whom Humanity Escaped: FT-HADES and Religious Inspiration Through History. Genera Essays, 1(7), 54-79. Retrieved December 26, 2011, from TopGen CIDPubDB.

Artist's rendition

FOSSIL-TYPE RED DEATH

One of the most elusive Fossils, FT-RED DEATH physically resembles a red-robed humanoid of roughly seven feet in height and indeterminate build. Its robes have been identified as the type worn in English renaissance theatre, complete with "bird-like" beaked mask. What FT-RED DEATH's appearance under the costume may be, if any, is unknown.

Reports of FT-RED DEATH are rare, but there may be a correlation between sightings and contracting idiopathic illnesses; another possible correlation exists between sightings and brief loss of control of motor skills and/or limb coordination.

Due to the speculative nature of the reports, we cannot confirm or deny any of the claims of danger, or even that this Fossil truly exists. All the same, caution is advised.

Over the course of the first part of this report, responses will be given to the eight signature experiments that seemingly produced results that should not be (and continued to produce these results even after a thorough five-year examination of the equipment and after several thousand repeats of the experiments). 

The aim of this article is to submit, for criticism and exterior analysis, the findings from operating the dark particle accelerator Fossitron. The Fossitron is designed in order to validate the existence of "FOSSIL" particles, bringing the field one step closer to the confirmation of Rainbow Gravity Theory.

This article shall present a comparative introduction to the wide reach of implications brought about by the results of the experiments, including: The microcosm of quantum mechanics, expanding to the practical physics of day-to-day life, and the theoretical ramifications for the field of astrophysics.  

The results and their implications will be put into context of recent unanswerable incidents, discussing a definitive scientific answer to the paranormal, the supernatural, the cryptozoologic, the widespread delusions of mankind historical and contemporary.

This report, which has already been spread throughout the most weighty of scientific and academic circles in the form of bootleg journalism, finally makes its public release under the Topography Genera Publishing Database on May 8th, 2012. This was the original basis for our planned website: it would have featured an interactive citable hypertext edition for free reading, discussion boards, and a subscription service for easy access to all future studies exploring the field that Dr. Milgram has opened up.

While we are no longer planning on offering that online service, we still intend on covering the field that, thanks to this report, has changed the face of scientific views already, months before its actual public release.

We hope you are as excited as we are!

Artist's rendition of FT-SMILE's eyes

FOSSIL-TYPE SMILE

FT-SMILE physically resembles a hairless feral human pale in skin tone. Features distinguishing FT-SMILE from other humanoid entities include, 1) hollow eyes that emit a faint red glow in the dark; 2) jagged hands resembling masses of broken bone; 3) several rows of teeth; 4) and a lack of any visible reproductive organs.

FT-SMILE crawls on all four limbs, using its "broken bone" hands to gain great traction and climb vertical surfaces. FT-SMILE has been known to attack, and it does so methodically, choosing a victim by criteria unknown, hiding nearby and waiting for the victim to fall asleep, before producing a sound reminiscent of "whispering" as it uses its hands and teeth to puncture the skin so that vital organs can be devoured, possibly for sustenance.

The current lead of investigation on FT-SMILE focuses on a claim made by an eyewitness who claims to have survived a nocturnal attack. The eyewitness, who wishes to remain anonymous, states that in their dreams they heard whispers that loosely formed words in their mother tongue. However, the exact words will be withheld from this document on the reason that they relate to Topography Genera Center research.

Conclusions from Test FTS0033

In Test FTS0033, trained and armoured Topography Genera Center field agents, with the consent of              (citizen of         , UK, projected to be FT-SMILE's next target), waited in hiding for FT-SMILE to reveal itself for the attack, at which point they shot one (1) industry-standard "HARPOON"-branded dart at its upper back torso with intent to wound.

FT-SMILE roared and lashed out, handicapping two field agents but leaving the initial victim alone, before fleeing out of the house and into the nearby woods.

Several days later, the Topography Genera Center received reports of FT-SMILE sightings now featuring "... a stick or somethin poking out of its back, and it were limping bad. [sic]"

The sources for our research come from a wide selection of places: Firsthand research such as from Doctor Cloud, reports submitted to us from university labs, police reports sent our way, and-- much as it struck me as absurd when I first heard this-- from blogs. Regular ordinary blogs made by regular ordinary people.

My supervisor, who goes by the code name of Mordecai, explained it to me like this: Blogs are the modern day equivalent of many different things. They're diaries, they're advertisements, they're magazines, they're journals, all of which can be scanned through and processed for meaning.

One of my jobs here at the Genera is as a blog elf. I'm one of those who are paid to read blogs and file any useful information, even anything I suspect could be useful like the sighting of some weird incident. If it's not found to be Fossil-related, we often turn it over to the authorities.

Of course, then there's the religious blogs. Always a risky venue. Can I say I have the power to decide whether one person's Jesus is actually FT-HADES, or whether a family member's Out Of Body Experience that put them on the strait and narrow with God may have been caused by a nearby gathering of FT-PASSACAGLIA? It's risky, it's all risky. But sometimes I find a religious blog, or in this case a student's project blog regarding religion, that is much less ambiguous.

This is Hell and Earth (blog link withheld for privacy). Apparently, some kid in the American northeast has been doing a report for his class regarding old scriptures: the eponymous Hell and Earth passages. I haven't heard of them either. But that's what this blog is for. Here are some more screenshots.

That's all the posts that are up right now.

Now, this isn't exactly the first time I've heard about religious scriptures being heavily influenced by Fossils (that's the whole conceit of Foam's Monomyth Theory), but it's pretty damn specific. Especially considering we also have an FT-SELKIE and FT-LARKS. I'm not sure, but I think we might have an FT-LAZARUS too.

I'll get back to you on that. In the meantime, enjoy these screenshots.

Our fiscal year has just ended, and the slow trudge of workers turning in their financial reports has been reduced to the swift trickle of stragglers. This strikes me as a perfectly good time to talk about the layout of a Topography Genera Center!

There are four buildings in the overall Genera grounds. One of which, at the very front, is a simple multi-story car park, but I doubt you're reading this update to learn the juicy details of that place. Beyond the car park, standing as two mundane man-made mountains in the mist of an English morning, are P1 and P2. Identical in layout inside and out, they still manage to make up the backbone of the Genera's organizational structure. Both P-buildings are made up of several floors of offices (known as the Central Information Department), with adequate regulated medical and security areas in all the necessary places. I don't happen to know the architect, but I get the feeling he would grumpily if not un-nostalgically declare to his family members that mankind has made no substantial advancements since Modernism. The Central Information Department is where we handle.. well, all the information. We have the necessary servers to hold databases full of research, journals, and memos, we handle the phones, we manage finances, we take care of PR, and we read your blogs.

Beyond that triad of thrills, there's the real reason anyone gives a care about the Genera: A tiny guard station followed by a one-mile-long indoor corridor before entering the Goliath warehouse-like complex that is the Fossil Research and Experimentation Department. You could call it FRED. Or, if you're the sort of person who receives any company whatsoever, you could call it Fossil Research. I don't go down to those labs very often-- hell, I don't recall ever setting foot in there-- and word is on a need-to-know basis, but I still hear the occasional. Fossil Research is where the labs are, it's where our higher-ups work, it's where you go when you get the right kind of promotion, it's where the juicy secrets are. I wouldn't be surprised if they have Fossitrons lined up, millions of quid's worth of humanity's real achievements, ready to activate at a moment's notice if not just activated indefinitely.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is where your money is going: Into science. Don't worry about any ideas of your taxes going towards paying me to read blogs; only Fossil Research receives that. CID is paid for by the same private funding it's had since before the grant.

Speaking of blogs! There's one circulating the blogosphere called Jordan Eats Normally Now; evidently it was the diary of a teenager who ran into what looked to me like FT-LAZARUS and FT-OVER THERE. I've just finished reading through it today (you don't realize the "job" part of "be paid to read blogs" until you're scouring through pages and pages of a 10-year-old rambling about Paper Mario games), and I've sent it along to the departments responsible for actual legwork.

I'm bringing this up for an important reason: Some are whispering about an "EAT" Fossil, saying that the beast lurking in the blog's depths is something we haven't documented. We take these concerns very seriously. Under any other circumstance, we would be filling out forms, performing investigations, taking samples, running tests under microscopes, filming PSAs, all in the interest of giving you the most information we can about some water bug called "EAT." But this shows all the signs of FT-LAZARUS (or FT-HADES, except for the very direct nature of the entity's interaction as shown in the blog's videos).

This is good news, though! FT-LAZARUS is a Fossil whose respective Genera documentation is comprehensive. We can handle this, unlike if it were some vague unknown threat.

And this is what my job is, just another example out of thousands every day: It is my trained judgement that filters out the Fossils from the accounts. I like to think I use some kind of future vision to spy where the FT-BUREAUCRATIC RED TAPE is going to appear, and then I apprehend it justly with my scissors of coherence. I am the saviour of bureaucracy, along with my many coworkers.

Apply today!

That previous post was not mine, disregard it, whoever recorded my private telephone conversation will have to answer for it.

Let me take this opportunity to inform you of a Fossil appearing in Jordan Eats Normally Now that we do have in our records.

Taken from aforementioned blog

FOSSIL-TYPE MONOCHROME

FT-MONOCHROME, like FT-RED DEATH, is one of the most enigmatic. Its appearance, in full, is a shadow without origin. It often appears humanoid. Sometimes it doesn't.

The truth is, we have little idea what FT-MONOCHROME does. In laboratory conditions, FT-MONOCHROME has been observed manipulating objects, which means that it is not necessarily just an absence of light but that it has some corporeal "body." But I digress.

Whether FT-MONOCHROME is dangerous or not is uncertain. If you see any manifestations of FT-MONOCHROME, consider calling your local authorities, but the Topography Genera Center suggests leaving it alone unless provoked.

It's my thirty-second birthday! I guess. To be honest, once you get past twenty-five, the years just blend together. Today's post would have been brought to you by Duchess, but she's a little busy sorting out personal issues. Me, I don't have personal issues; evidently, any attempt I make to even make a personal phone call is taped and broadcast on this blog for all to see. So with that in mind, I shall be the one to give you this inside look at Regarding Terrestrially Ambiguous Entities.

(image not specified)

FOSSIL-TYPE PASSACAGLIA

FT-PASSACAGLIA physically resembles a mold-like fungus. Inhalation or ingestion of FT-PASSACAGLIA's spores can have the effect of a potent hallucinogen.

FT-PASSACAGLIA's status as a Fossil, rather than a typical fungus, falls primarily onto the reasonings of the higher-ups. Questioning of the higher-ups can result in memory loss, sensory malfunction, brain damage, and identity removal. Operate at own risk.

If you or a loved one should come into contact with FT-PASSACAGLIA, please contact your local authorities at once. Be safe.

Hello. It's been quite a while since I've made a post on this blog, hasn't it?

Lilith tells me, however, that I should make a post about the progress I have had on my side of things. I've been catching up on what Len has been doing and it's.. about what I'd expect.

Anyway, after gaining clearance to Level 8, I have made enormous strides on Project GEARBOX, our work with Fossil-Type HOMUNCULI. I believe Len has already shown the blog I emailed him, the so called Machine Gospels. That was written by one of our, well, subjects.

I have moved on from Project GEARBOX, however, and am now being placed onto a new project. I do hope it goes well. I am half-sick of shadows, after all.

Liquid Len probably feels the same, now that I think about it.

Headaches. Violently ill. I don't remember the conversation posted earlier (again, without my permission). Mordecai tells me I should just post more of my favourite music. With summer coming around the bend, I guess this is as appropriate as any:

This was the Sunsetters' second album, just before We Excavate. This is Summer Sucks. Over twice as long as their first album, this one saw the band perfect the sound introduced in their debut and expand it into compositions of classical complexity.

The whole album sticks to the Sunsetters' little horror story theme, telling a sort of rock opera in five songs about a boy who fears the oncoming "summer" despite some clowns' assurances that it'll be fun.

1. The Inferno Begins
2. Pig Bruiser
3. Found the Fountain of Mab
4. Tired Anthem
5. Clowns Who Set The Sun

 sink or swim.

error

I have been authorized by the higher ups to post these recordings. They are part of the standard employee psych evaluations.

_{"TRUE HEROISM IS MINUTES, HOURS, WEEKS, YEAR UPON YEAR OF THE QUIET, PRECISE, JUDICIOUS EXERCISE OF PROBITY AND CARE--- WITH NO ONE THERE TO SEE OR CHEER. THIS IS THE WORLD." - THE PALE KING}

Hello, all!
It felt so weird, walking down that long hallway for the first time. I'm told they made the hallway to FR so long just in case a Fossil ever escaped. Of course, I've recently been told this is a myth. I have no idea why the hallway's so long, and I doubt anyone here does. But anyway, it's so weird. I'm a scientist now!
A scientist!
My first order of business as a big-time Genera scientist was to get set up in my own personal office. I have an office now. This is intense. I have a nameplate and everything. I'm not what you'd call a "higher-up" or anything yet, though; I still have superiors of my own. Why, I'm hardly even that high on the science ranks.
That's another thing: There are actually science ranks. And I'm now on them. I'm a scientist.
I've been doing wonderfully scientific things, like making caffeinated science coffee and drinking it in my big-time personal office chair. It's a swivel chair and everything. I've been surfing the world wide web and trying to figure out why the blog servers are glitchy. Ours, that is. That was my first assignment: Look into the blog servers. They've been glitching up lately, you see. And it's my job to find out why. (Little to no progress. The problems must be on              's end. I'll make a few phone calls.)
After that, I was finally introduced to some of the other scientists. So far, I've met Churchill, Barrel, and Foam.
Chuchill is this short guy with glasses and a lab coat. His job is to transcribe the reports for Fossil experiments. See, when they hold experiments here, usually what happens is the head scientist will dictate the details of the test and Churchill will be there to write the report down. The head scientist is the one who signs the reports (and gets all the credit).
Barrel is the cook. Big guy, interesting guy. From West Sussex, used to run a restaurant in Bognor Regis. I think I've been there on holiday once.
Foam's a researcher, pretty much famous around here. Her journals on the Monomyth Theory have gotten her much respect. And she shows no signs of wanting to rest on her laurels! She wants me to help her with something involving FT-PASSACAGLIA. If she's involved, it must be big!
..though in retrospect, a lot of the stuff I've been doing so far has just been paperwork. I mean, I'm sure it's very scientific paperwork! But it doesn't feel that great yet.

I received an email from Wiseaufan01 with a link to a blog. It's one I had overlooked in my work; I'd dismissed it as fiction and filed it accordingly. Hell, I still think it's fiction. But I've taken to reading it in my free time. As leisure.

Tale of the Lost Vikings seems to be a blog kept by someone running from Fossils. He doesn't give a name, but I'll refer to him as "Lost Viking."

Lost Viking has clear interaction with FT-TINDALOS, FT-SMILE, FT-LARKS, and FT-HADES, as he mentions them specifically by name.

Moonchildren

I needed shelter last night, so I took refuge in an abandoned house. I admit that I know very little of the local laws, so I didn't realize squatting was strictly prohibited, and that caused trouble in the morning when a Winkler almost caught me. But I wasn't expecting Winklers; I had been seeing Moonchild graffiti in the area. Moonchildren tend to flush out authorities.

If you don't know the sign of the Moonchild, I will present it for you.

The sign is usually just the symbol without the name, but the name sometimes pops up as well. The Moonchildren are an odd bunch, coming out at night and usually focusing their efforts on policemen. They were founded by an anarchist named Shevanel, and they're a really nice gang to be in the vicinity of. They follow the Code of Abacab almost religiously.

So seeing this sign around, I didn't expect the Winklers storming into the house looking for loiterers. Luckily, I woke up in time and sneaked out.

As much as I have doubts of commenters, I feel the need to ask: Does anyone know of any safehouses in the Oklahoma area? Preferably around the southeast; there's less reported Farmer patrols around there. Anyone that wouldn't mind a Prisoner?

Proxiehunter24 June 2012 at 16:39

Oklahoma is out of my area, but you could try looking for the Runner Sign marking a safehouse. It's a stylized house (in other words a triangle on top of a square. You're unlikely to see any doors or windows on it.) enclosed in a circle. If any of the local Runner comunity will talk to you they can tell you what color the Runners are using at the moment - a little trick they developed after some Servants decided to leave false signs. Local Runners or allies will cycle to a new safe color every so often. Those in the know will be able to identify signs of the wrong color as either false or possibly outdated.

This post is what officially got my attention. There's talk of being kidnapped and taken to a pond, and they spraypaint "EAT" on his body. Just like the vandalism in Doctor Cloud's report, and just like the name of FT-LAZARUS in Jordan Eats Normally Now.

I've compiled a new report and sent it to Mordecai.

Tale of the Lost Vikings, fiction or not, refers to many real-world things that it's important to clarify.

If Fossils were all like FT-HADES and FT-MONOCHROME, enigmatic albeit relatively harmless, they'd at best be a scientific curiosity. But there are those like FT-SMILE that are outright dangerous. This is why the world's governments regard our research so highly and why we take this stuff so seriously. Before the Genera, if your family was killed by something you couldn't explain, it would have caused even more harm to go to the authorities or the media about it; you were claiming serious things based on paranormal, ultimately unprovable, causes. Your best bet would have been to go underground, off the radar-- you would become a Runner.

There are Runners in virtually every nation, with so many subcultures that to keep track of it all would be a logistical nightmare (albeit an anthropological goldmine). Thankfully, Tale of the Lost Vikings prepares us with enough clues to figure out its local slang.

I can hear you now. "Can't you help these people?" Yes, we certainly can, but you can't help those who refuse your help. Runners are predisposed not to trust the Genera. They have their own term for us, one that seems to have stuck worldwide: "Willow Farm." So named because we are where humans go to be transformed. Apparently. Shrug.

My way of seeing it is that they don't trust us because we're an authority figure. We take their until-now personal, possibly religious, experiences with the unknown, and we attach didactic labels and policies unto them. "That thing you thought was a demon that had attacked you for supposedly omen-like reasons, all of the ways it has changed your life and who you are as a human being in attempt to interpret it? It's FT-SMILE or FT-TINDALOS, and there are these specific explanations for it seen in figure 3..."

A Week's Worth of Words

Time skips a beat when you have nowhere to go, and sleeping alone presents whispers none should be subjected to.

I was wandering with a pack of loners who didn't know of my Prisoner status before we found a group of travelers running the opposite way. They didn't stop to tell us why, but when we reached the next town and saw this scrawled on a building, we didn't have to wonder:

This is the mark of the Birchman, beast of the woods. Few travelers take this creature lightly. The Birchman takes all you know and will either spare you with a slaughtering or deem you cruelly enough to operate with your mind. Exactly what the Birchman does, none are sure. It seems to exist purely to inspire fear.

So, valuing our lives, we went the other way. Had a campfire that night, exchanged stories. One of the people I was traveling with was a woman of around forty or so, called herself a Prophet of War. Now, if she is to be believed, I'm greatly ashamed to have lost contact with her, but I'll get to that. This Prophet had actually once been a Farmer before (what Scarecrow refers to as) the Invisible Touch descended upon it, so she was able to quit her job before it was too late. Her input was fascinating.

Willow Farm, before the Invisible Touch, was feared even by the Fossils, as alarming as that sounds. It was a formidable organization, holding science above madness. The Prophet told us the names of two men who were a part of the entity responsible for the Invisible Touch, two men who Scarecrow had rumoured to have been planning on assassinating: Troy Breppo and Peter Yildirim. What we can do with this information, I don't know. I'm actually one of the cynics in this field, as I don't believe much can be done to reverse the Invisible Touch in the slightest, but there are some of us who are admirably optimistic about the ordeal. Either way, it's at least worth writing down, and who better to transcribe it than a Prisoner?

On that front, I've seen Hades since he assigned me this title. It was on a quiet street two nights ago, shortly after we'd already lost the Prophet to the Larks. He was watching from the trees. I don't think the others spotted him, or else they would have surely said something, so I just kept quiet. That night, we lost another traveler. Died in his sleep. It wouldn't be too far a stretch of me to suggest it was the work of Hades.

..yes, we lost the Prophet to the Larks. She had been pursued by them for a number of years, and they had finally won. We tried to grab her feet and pull her down to solid ground, but even that was more a desperate gesture; we knew what we were up against. She was gone within seconds, and she was torn apart faster than we could look away.

As for the most recent event of the week, as I said, I had to sleep alone last night. The undead came knocking on our safehouse door late in the evening, and if I'd have been the one to answer, I wouldn't be writing this right now. It became a massacre with two of us holed up in the bathroom, barricading the door with our bodies. She looked at me, I to her, and as she asked how they found us, she saw through my regret-stained guilty eyes. "You're a Prisoner, aren't you?" I had to hide my tears. Within seconds, rotting limbs broke through the wood of the door and grabbed her breast, clawing away at her screaming skin.

The hole in the door was widened, and she was pulled through whole. She ceased fighting back, and I want to believe that was death that caused it.

The mob dispersed shortly after, but I still slept on the bathroom floor. I woke up the next day with fine cuts circling my eyes, red outlines marking the targets. My dreams, I can't remember. The whispering, I can't forget. Smile had penetrated my sleep and marked his prey.

"Fly away, you sweet little thing, they're hot on your tail. Haven't you heard? They're going to change you into a human being." "Our throats can't stop singing, the Scarecrow is watching. It will rain, fall so slow. It will rain down here." "Your Invisible Touch means nothing. Ceesrais, seas will rise, see seas rise, see Ceesrais. My Invisible Touch means everything."

So first, we have the blatant FT-BIRCHMAN mention, the FT-LARKS, the FT-HADES, and FT-SMILE. There's more lingo in there that I don't understand: "Prophet of War," "Invisible Touch."

Really, it's just alarming to see a blog that's talking so much. I only wish it was more local so I could meet this guy or something. Not sure what we'd talk about, but.. well, I'm sure we could help him deal with the Fossils. If it's real, of course.

The thing is, the Topography Genera Center has dealt with Fossils before. As in, saved people's lives. We are not bad guys, okay? We do our studies because we want to help. I wish I was allowed to post some of our juicier stuff; Canute tells me there's a study talking about how to get FT-TINDALOS out of your life and they actually found a definitive answer. I'm pretty sure that file's classified because, as definitive as it is, it's still not 100% certain yet and the Genera doesn't want a wave of reports of deaths because it turns out we were wrong.

But I digress. I'll go back to my busy blogging.

Stumbled upon this gem during my blogosphere travels. I highly advise reading it for yourself.

This could be a prank. My escapades with "EAT" are certainly public knowledge by now, and it wouldn't take much for someone to come up with a blog like this specifically to play at my paranoias.

Of course, the stuff about our North branch seems the most blatantly suspect. Because of this, just.. just consider this to be another one of those examples of the high creativity output of the internet.

Well, Mordecai finally had had just about enough of my persistent requests, so I had a toasty suspension waiting for me. And when I got back, I had this waiting for me too, floating about in the blog's drafts.

Just another oddity to blog about, I suppose.

The Lost Viking has put up more posts.

He had a run-in with FT-SELKIE. He mentions being taken to "Oper," which coincidentally is the name of the city Selkie has in Dipere's Our Apocalypse. Of course, Topography Genera Center research has found no conclusive evidence to the existence of Oper, and our policy prohibits us from relying only on anecdotal evidence.

..but still. Nothing says I can't personally believe in what the Lost Viking says.

_{Without a gate to hide behind, she prepared to be taken by the Larks. She had made her decision; as painful as her death would be, she would much rather die by Larks than by the dwelling silence rising in her performing mind.
Do not fear the dark outside your window, for the worst hides somewhere more familiar.}

Julian Dipere, Our Apocalypse. Just finished reading it.

Work has been monotonous. I've gotten so used to this boring life that I don't even know if time's passing anymore. I'm beginning to feel like there's a dark inside my memory.

The Lost Viking's back. He's out of Oper, though if we'll ever really hear much about it, I don't know.

My life's been ranging between "batshit boring" and "comfortably numb." As you can tell, the blogging universe has been hit with radio silence for many months now; there's been so little to do! I want to post more Fossil reports for you guys, but I need Mordecai's OK now if I want to post anything official.

So my daily schedule has become "Wake up, force myself to go to work, sit in this cubicle for hours doing fuck-all and having no way of complaining without risking more goddamn trouble, read books, if I get sick go to Doctor Cloud, eventually go home, go straight to sleep." And I'm one of the Genera's unlucky bastards who has to work on weekends. Why the hell do they want me to work on weekends when they don't actually ask me to do anything? Fuck if I know.
..fucked if I don't.

Anyway. Lost Viking's back. Yay.

Lost Viking posts again, this time rather pertinent.

If this account can be believed (and Topography Genera Center policy requires me to remind you that it most likely cannot), the higher-ups aren't the only ones the Night Owl is threatening.
And that "Cremator" fellow sounds familiar.

no entry to my mind for you

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Just had this sent in from an anonymous source. Possibly that person from the phone call?

Checking Wikileaks shows that it's not actually there. Was it taken down?

I'm back from another suspension. This time, I was suspended for several months. This is getting ridiculous. I'm sensing that my job here won't last much longer. Oh well.

I asked Blackcap about Duchess when I saw him. He looked at me with a slight smile and said, "Who's Duchess?"

I got an email on my company email. At first, I thought it was spam, but we never get spam in our company email accounts; the higher-ups are very good at that. It just contained the link to a blog, a blog I have the feeling I shouldn't share. But fuck it, I'm posting my findings in screenshots. What's the worst they can do, suspend me?

The blog is titled Property of the Night Owl, and it contains the following posts:

I'm keeping an eye on this blog. It might be a fake, might not be from the Night Owl character at all, but considering the threat to the higher-ups and their apparent lack of responding to those demands, I'm.. more wary of doubting it.

Still doesn't explain where Duchess has been for the past several months, though.

It's great to know that not even a visit to the pub can be free from recording ears. It's also great to be constantly reminded that this blog is not entirely my own. What's also great is to see these recordings transcribed as if they were from my perspective.

Everything is great. Everything is grand. Everything is fossils buried, heads in the sand.

Someone else has something to say too, and they pinned it to my wall in place of a memo from the higher-ups:

Fuck you.

I'm starting to notice the seagulls more. They flock around this town as it's a few miles from the Channel. I like the way they look when they caw, so oblivious to the world below. Why worry about a job when you have the skies? Why worry about the rut your life has been in for years when you can just fly away, when your only life is one of eating what you can find and perching on rooftops? They soar past my window, just out of reach of this prisoner behind bureaucracy's bars.

Maybe the bars extend further than that. Maybe I am my own prisoner too.
I wish I knew how to be able to tell.

Today I guess I'll talk about another Sunsetters album.

That's No Entry, their fourth album, whose art has been cropping up from time to time as if to mock me. It's an album about conspiracy and the types of people who believe in them, though it's also about messages and death. The band refuses to talk about the plot of this one, unlike with their other albums.

The music is all over the place, very glitch-y and often ambient but linked by a consistent doomy sound that the Sunsetters had brushed with over the course of their previous albums.

A strange note about this album is its liner notes include a code that fans were able to crack, and it leads to this blog called Fuguetory. It seems to be about some deranged madman who believes a god lives in his head, that we all wake up after we die, and that this rebirth is a bad thing.

..I mean. The truth is recently I've found my thoughts turning to Fuguetory more and more often. The idea that life is a purgatory and that it never ends, that's.. starting to resonate within me.

the figure in my dreams
always with his back turned
a hulking figure
bigger than me
stronger than me
one hand behind his back
one hand saluting the black
If Duchess dreamt of Lotophagi because Lotophagi was in her head
then what does it mean for me to dream of him?
Mordecai can't be right.
He was dying, he had a Fossil in him.
He can't be right, he must have been mistaken, delusional?
Did Mordecai dream of Lazarus?
You want Fossil pages so badly, well, what if I told you we never had any records?
There's no filing system.
No art servers.
It's a blank slate.
Just like me.

FOSSIL-TYPE CREMATOR is a well-respected officer, a general of the eternal war against time itself. He protects the universe from factors that should not be. He cremates them. Wipes them from existence. Makes them not be.

Behind his darkened glasses, the glasses I cannot remember, he has no eyes.

On this Earth, he has no enemies.

If you see FT-CREMATOR, do not attempt to contact the Topography Genera Center. The Topography Genera Center will have already found you. But you won't remember.

"By the way," Blackcap said as Mad Man Moon threw me into the blank room, "you're still required to perform your job." And that is why I have a computer in here. Because they like to mock me.

Hello! I'm Liquid fucking Len. That is my only name. I talked to Mordecai. He invited me over to his house. I went. Then I watched him die. They stuck a syringe in him. He wouldn't tell me who. He said Lazarus chose this time to strike. I watched as he contorted in his chair in his crummy little apartment that was even smaller than mine-- the higher-ups really didn't care about him. And as he gave way to become another vessel of FT-LAZARUS, he told me "Jeremy Luther" isn't my real name. That it was his idea to give me to "the Cremator."

I'm hardly even a person. I hadn't even thought about why I never have much to say. I'm a blank slate. Is that why the Genera hired me, and why they refuse to let me go?

But hey! Since I'm still required to do my job and all, my job that has no true description, my empty canvas of a profession, I guess all I can do is give you blogs. So here's a blog for you. Take it. It's called Home of the Birds. It isn't very long. Read up on your Rutherford. Read up on your Lazarus. Your Selkie. Your Larks. Your Cremator.

That's what felt so familiar.

All the Fossil names come from Rutherford plays. Even the Lost Viking killing off Smile.

But hey! No! You guys want more Fossil pages? Hey, I'll do more Fossil pages for you! Let me do another Fossil page!

FOSSIL-TYPE SELKIE is an inanimate object from Hell. She's a china doll who lives. She manipulates. She controls. She makes innocent people suffer. But she gets her just desserts in the end. We all do.

If you or anyone you love comes into contact with FT-SELKIE, fucking give up.

My cell was five floors below the ground level of General Genera. According to some sort of policy, maps and other such forms of direction are only to be distributed for the upper, "public" levels. No one can tell me what's in the private levels of any of the buildings, nor how to get anywhere. All I have is hearsay. All I know is that Hell's Kitchen is somewhere.

I'm not entirely sure what drove me to find that prison. Perhaps it's the only lead I'm aware of. Perhaps I feel obliged to know the truth of what awaits all Runners in the end.

I began my search by heading upstairs and leaving the building. Every face I passed either stared in stunned silence or looked away, hiding their eyes.

I saw Croakie with coworkers by the water cooler, discussing some fiscal reports with the most bored of tones. One of them dropped their water entirely as they saw me.

I passed by Duchess's old desk, now the station for some new face-- eyes glazed, glued to the computer screen, going over spreadsheets that were surely longer than any blog I've ever read. The placque on the desk simply read "David" and there were no photographs of family or ornaments of personal value.

I paid a visit to what was once Mordecai's office and was alarmed to find it was now a cramped and damp storage closet.

On my way out of the building, Demure called me over. Congratulated me on the clearance. Called me a special case. I asked him how he still had a job here. He smiled and stared into my eyes in such a way that I'm still not quite sure if he was really looking at me at all.

I entered the checkpoint guarding Fossil Research's only entrance and was not prompted for any identification or even intentions. The guard simply watched me, curious, as I passed through.

The walk through the indoor tunnel took about half an hour. I couldn't help but feel a touch of paranoia and dread every time I passed an air vent. Luckily, the trip was uneventful. Gave me time to think of more things to ask the higher-ups when I had the chance.

I had only just stepped into that cold warehouse that was the main Fossil Research building when I heard a familiar voice passing by on the way out. It was Doctor Cloud, discussing something with a woman I did not know. I tapped him on the shoulder, and when he saw me his face gained twenty years and it felt even colder.

"It's been a while, doctor," I said.

I received no reply. Cloud winced ever so slightly, and then told the woman that he would get back to her. She walked on without him.

Doctor Cloud took me into an unused office and shut the door. He sat at the desk, trying his hardest not to play with his hands. I sat in a chair in front.

"You must have questions for me."

I hadn't actually thought of it, so I shrugged. "I have questions, yes."

He nodded. Withdrew his head a little. Sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"I'm looking for Hell's Kitchen."

"It's not what you think."

"Then enlighten me."

He paused before answering. "It was Birchman's idea."

"The Fossil?"

"It's not the only point of cooperation between the Genera and Fossils, believe me."

"I didn't think it was." I leaned forward. "Where can I find it?"

"Below."

"How far below?"

"Six floors."

"And how far down does this place go?"

"Fossil Research or the prisons?"

"The building itself."

His eyes looked away. "The building goes down another two stories from there. The prison makes up two floors, starting six floors down."

"And what's the eighth floor?"

He looked back at me. Paused. "I don't personally know."

"Don't you hear rumours or anything?"

"I don't pay any mind to rumours, Len."

"No, of course not. You're all business."

"You don't know anything about me."

"I've read your blog."

"Only the opening posts. You've never had clearance to read the rest, and you never will." He cleaned his glasses.

I decided to pursue a different line of inquiry. "Alright. What can you tell me about the higher-ups?"

He glanced at me from out of the corner of his unseeing eyes. "That's a pretty broad question."

"Who is at the top?"

"No."

"You don't know?"

He put his glasses back on and kept a stoic face. "I do know. The answer to your question is No."

"What have you got against me, doc?"

Clenched his fists. "I answered your question. Don't get defensive."

"I'm being defensive? You're the one evading my questions!"

"One: I'm not. Two: Perhaps I am not entirely emotionless here because this situation is just so like you."

"One: Yes, you are. And two: What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He pointed a finger at me and raised his voice. "You've always been the higher-ups' special case! Do you have any idea the kinds of things I had to do in order to even get to my current position? And meanwhile you're ascending through the ranks-- no, transcending the ranks despite your utter unworkable inactivity and I can't even ask my bosses why without risking my job, such as is the nature of this place." He cut himself off, withdrew his hand, and looked away.

I remained silent for a while. Thought my position through. "Yes. You're right." Looked him in the eye. "I apologize." Waited.

His arms were crossed. After my apology, he looked at me, raised his eyebrows, gave another sigh, and then waved it all away. "I understand your own frustrations. You didn't exactly ask for any of this, and for so long you've been kept in the dark. Which is why, despite my own moaning, I do ultimately wish to assist."

"So... do you have any information about.. well, my 'position?' Why I've been kept in the dark? Who I may have been before my, uh.. cremation?"

"I know a little. We have few records of your original identity-- few records I can access, anyway-- but from the looks of it you were just an ordinary entity. A JOE, as we sometimes say. An average JOE. It was your.. cremation that turned you into a special case."

"But surely I can't be the only one in this whole organization who that had happened to?"

"Of course. Most cremations go smoothly. We give the workers new identities, new jobs. Even if things don't work out, we may send them here for experiments."

"Charming."

He rolled his eyes and continued. "But your case was.. well, I only know so much. I only have an educated guess."

"Please."

"Right. If I had to, say, make a guess, I'd suggest that you were specially chosen. Marked, even. By someone..." he gestured upwards with a finger.

"Randomly?"

"If you like. They had to choose someone; that someone just happened to be you."

"But what was I chosen for?"

"Now, this is the part I find most curious:"

I leaned forward ever more.

"I don't know."

I let him have his pause. There had to be more. Had to be.

"Well."

Knew it.

"There have been snippets. The occasional misfiling of a document. Sometimes my inbox receives reports, proposals, indices, that were meant for someone else. And sometimes I overhear Lilith or Doctor Walls discussing something over the phone. They're often mundane, all of it, but then sometimes a misfiled proposal might have a redacted signature, a report may have an absurd budget, a phone conversation may become a little too hushed. And, of course, out of all of these, a few project names I have noticed popping up again and again. 'Project: SUNSET.' 'Project: VELVET SERENE.' 'Project: ADD A DIGMIT,' or something along those lines."

"That last one rings a bell."

"Your name, in particular, comes up the most with Project: SUNSET. It's related to some change of management."

"..am I going to become a higher-up?"

"I don't know."

I had one more question. I made it quick. "Do you know anything about EAT?"

"It's come up in my research, but I can't say I've learned anything definite."

"Thank you for your time, doctor."

When I left the office, he was still sitting there. Looked miles away in thought.

Conversation with Doctor Cloud left bad taste in mouth. My first good look at the Fossil Research interior overwhelmed me. Sixty-five pillars without marking held up the massive warehouse-like roof. I counted forty cubicle offices, sixteen of which had doors-- such as the space where Cloud and I had our chat. Ten large white cubes took up most of the remaining space, which I understood to be isolated testing chambers. On that day, the Genera was packed. Scientists of all backgrounds were either hard at work on their research or typing on industry-standard computers. Some men in blue business suits and black sunglasses stood at perfect intervals from each other, keeping their eye on goings-on. Only a few people I saw wore reflective jackets.

At each corner of the room was a metal staircase heading downards, offering access to the many floors below. I found the first five floors, counting the ground level, to be identical in layout and size. The further down I went, the more populated the labs were, until at the fourth floor down I had trouble spotting the floor amidst all of the foot traffic. The staircases all ended at this floor.

In the centre of that fourth floor, I saw the biggest concentration of blue-suited sentinels. I inched my way to them, through the swamp of scientists, and asked if I could speak with any of them.

One turned his head to look at me, the others remaining as statues. Now that I was this close, I could see that all were identical in appearance, including facial structure and body shape. The one looking at me said nothing, just nodded.

"Who are you guys?" I asked.

He still said nothing, though I did notice a business card sticking out of his top suit pocket. I reached in, expecting any reaction at all, and took it out.

"What's this, then? What's parliament doing here?"

Still no response. I didn't even see any earpiece or walkie-talkie or anything on these men. Instead, I pulled aside the nearest scientist and asked.

"Oh, it's some new policy. Businesses legally require one Black Mask per APTP."

"And what, might I ask, is an APTP?"

The scientist, whose name tag I now read as 'Artilleryman,' looked at me like I was joking. "Average Person Threatening Phenomenon. Y'know, like a nuclear reactor, or a piece of construction equipment that's particularly known to be dangerous when on the fritz."

"Or a Fossil." I got the picture.

"Yeah. The thing is, even the most dangerous businesses only require as much as five Black Masks. We have the unions to thank for that."

I took another look at this group of suited men, counted about a dozen. "So how many does the Genera have?" But Artilleryman had already moved on.

I didn't remember that policy being passed, but then, I hadn't exactly been out much recently, had I?

Out of curiosity, I circled the Black Masks, observing them individually and collectively best I could. They were, indeed, all identical in every way, and I could spot no sign of electronic or other method of communication. All they were was a bunch of G-men with hands behind their backs and feet slightly apart, placed at perfect intervals from each other, covering all angles of the facility. In this group, there were exactly thirteen.

I decided to try a different angle. I asked a Black Mask, I think it was the one I'd initially approached, where I could find the Hell's Kitchen.

All thirteen looked at me with expressions unchanged.

Three stepped out of place, revealing that behind all of them was another metal staircase heading down into the deeper depths of Fossil Research.

Before I could step down, one Black Mask grabbed the front of my shirt and leaned over to my ear. I heard a whisper that sounded more like a muffled roar:

"Liquid Len?"

I nodded and tried not to sweat.

He held on for a few seconds before finally letting go and returning to his initial guarding position, and I cautiously took my first step into uncharted Genera.

Before I continue with my investigative account, I realize that today is the fifteen-year anniversary of a true classic. It would be most unlike me not to bring it up.

The first album to be released under the collective name of Sunsetters, titled The Mythology of Empathy, was not a rock opera or even a concept album but a simple compilation of standalone songs. Its tracklist was as follows:

1: "Drowning Under the Influence," short and conventional rock. Subject ambiguous, but said to be inspired by lead singer's parents. Father drowned while drunk, mother developed mental problems and eventually rendered comatose.

2: "Burning Books," also containing a short interlude titled "Blood of the Queen," is a short metal song about a blind librarian mad at the world for ambiguous reasons.

3: "Hidden in the Trees," a fairly lengthy metal song about a narrator who must serve his gods in their incomprehensible fight against each other, all while coming to terms with his own fading humanity. The liner notes say this song is dedicated to "S. Barbour."

4: "Memento Mori," the continuation of "Hidden in the Trees," an instrumental round of doom metal representing the narrator's acceptance of death.

5: "Perfection," a repetitive and aggressive hate-letter to a controlling and abusive figure.

6: "Is This All?" a subdued and primarily acoustic piece mourning something lost.

The first thing I noticed about that place was the air, cold enough to hurt. The second was the size, even bigger than any of the warehouses above, and most of this was empty space-- blue space, lights shining, illuminating this chamber in a ghastly blue glow. Like a freezer, one big industrial freezer.

It was a prison, alright. All of the four walls were made up of prison cells, with catwalks placed at every row and aisles of staircases to go between. There were constant calls, the cries of the damned and processed. I had reached the sixth circle of Hell, the cold graveyard of the living, the slaughterhouse for those who tried to run from a system so complex that it would take eight blogospheres just to describe it. It would take a blog of this length, over a hundred posts and fifty-thousand words, to write down every name the system has been called. And not one of them is the one it identifies as, its true name, the name that no amount of words can adequately hit, the name we all share and long to be called when we're deep in a fitful sleep, seeking calm, seeking truth, seeking peace, knowing only when we're close to death that we will find it inward rather than out there, over there, not over there, rather in here, in here, where our gods who are no more gods than they are fossils-- remnants of a time when... ... ... ... ....-- where our gods cannot touch, cannot reach, cannot see for the fire, in here, but does a system even have an "in here," or as an abstract complex can a system only act, the broom of our system, the lip mop the drip drop, the real world the wheel word. Not one of them. In here.

Ordinarily I'd delete all that. I'm prone to wandering, and if you think of that as a betrayal of who you think I really am, know that it's only a symptom of my affect. But the experience I had, seeing Hell's Kitchen for the first time, it's one that fills me with dread at the thought (the but). I want to.. convey it.

For this was the Hell's Kitchen of local legend, of contemporary apocrypha. Here was that which summarizes an entire generation, that place over there, not in here.

Do you get me?

As I passed cell after cell of the emaciated modern human, I wondered so many things. Why was I not in there? How did the Genera evolve into this impersonal entity that removes every scrap of dignity-- of agency-- from those it was supposed to protect? How did the world even.. allow this? Was this a flaw of science? Of bureaucracy? Of modernity? Of industry? Of money? Of humanity? Of our gods? Who did this fall down to? Who did this? And how much of this was my responsibility? I read blogs when I was in the same complex as all of this. I kept reading tales of this, and yet I did not even ask. I was not allowed to. But I also knew that I could not be fired.

One last question that did not enter my mind at the time but does now, looking back: Was I sure I wasn't in prison?

I did very little of note while down there. I watched. Most prisoners slept or otherwise rested. Some wrote or drew. Oh, what I'd give to be able to read the literature of those dead souls, to place their pictures in a gallery and sell them for millions of dollars, giving all to the respective artists. Could they buy their freedom? Would the higher-ups let them?

None looked at me. I suppose they were used to Genera workers patrolling the cell blocks.

Further down the staircases, as Doctor Cloud had said, was another floor of cells. Both were packed. Where did all of these people even come from? How is any of this legal?

I did not stay in the seventh floor very long. Instead, I looked for access to the eighth. In between two random cells, in place of the expected cell (I believe it would have been 20-104-H), was an elevator like one would find in a mineshaft. It had one button. I pressed it and took one last look at the scene above.

I do not know how long I rode that elevator. It took me down a depth of 905 feet; I know that much. There was scant light, which might go without saying.

Not even Doctor Cloud knew what lay there on the eighth floor of Fossil Research. When the elevator finally hit the bottom, I expected no less than an unfathomable mouth of madness. Instead, I got a cathedral that presumably spanned 905 feet in height. Or, rather, a hundred feet of stone lay between the cathedral and the prison; I was told that one later. So I suppose that would make it 805 feet? I'm not surprised at this realization. My feeling is something a little darker, with less hope.
The walls were the same sterile white as was the rest of the Genera. In fact a lot of the decor was reminiscent of the facilities above. An entire alcove consisted of filing cabinets, water coolers, fake plants, clocks, whiteboards, and other such office features. This was as much a church of the modern office as it was a church to.. well, I'm getting to that.

In place of pews, I found desks with swivel chairs and a computer for each one, all positioned to face the altar-- a podium in front of a projector screen displaying an ever-scrolling ever-updating command prompt armed with code. Holy code, the script of scripture.

Above it all, in the towering depths upward and in place of stained glass, were blurred glass windows showing into little offices, hundreds of them, covering the entire circular expanse and presumably the entire way up. These were the offices of the higher-ups. And at that moment, every office was occupied-- at every window, I could see a higher-up looking down into the church itself, looking down at me. Watching me with full attention.

The actual church, with all its desk-pews, was empty. I was alone and entirely watched.

I sat down at the nearest desk and looked on the computer. There was nothing. The operating system had been installed many years ago but every file and program was the default. These were all just for show.

But that didn't sound right. The only ones who had clearance to this very out of the way corner of the Genera were those who had pressing reasons to be here, those who came to work. Who did they need to show?

Finally, I took a look at the scrolling code on the projector screen and tried to make sense of it.
It was gibberish. None of it was even in the language recognized by any computer I knew.

That was when the voice spoke.

"Hello, Liquid Len."

It came from the code. I thought I could see a humanoid outline, a bust, made up of the scrolling symbols, but I was likely matrixing. The voice was undeniable, though.

"Welcome to the Topography Genera Center East's head office. My code name is Weightless. How may I help you?"

It was so well-rehearsed, so pitchless, like the pinnacle protohuman more than any individual. It was the perfect voice for the environment.

Finally I spoke. "Hi, Weightless. I understand I have clearance to have all of my questions answered now?"

"Absolutely! We extend our sincerest apologies for the less-than-ideal quality of your experience with the Topography Genera Center East's management so far. In return for your patience and continued cooperation, we hope to establish a working relationship that is more transparent. Would you like to know more?"

"Yeah, I would."

"Our plans for your future role within the Topography Genera Center is one of total equality. You will answer to no one but yourself. All we will ask of you is to maintain the blog provided to you. Does this sound fair to you?"

"I guess."

"Is there something you would rather have?"

"I dunno. Today's been a really stressful day; I don't know if I'm really ready to answer that question."

"Of course."

Then came the pause, the most human part of the conversation thus far.

I remembered what I had come down there for to begin with: "Actually, I have some more questions to ask you."

"Please do, Liquid Len! Your input matters to us."

"First, I want to know about Hell's Kitchen. Why are you keeping so many prisoners?"

"We ensure that lodging conditions are no worse than they would be outside of the Topography Genera Center, we do not require any individual's cooperation with research if they do not consent to it, and testing is never indefinite. Under these conditions, we do not agree that they are 'prisoners.'"

"Then what are they to you?"

"We do not have a word for what we consider them. The closest term is 'children,' or perhaps 'residents.'"

"Could you possibly.. stop, uh, lodging them?" I figured it was worth a shot.

"Understand, Liquid Len, that we do not entirely do this by choice. It is more a necessity than anything else. We require children. We learn from them, they keep us alive, we keep them alive and teach them in return."

"..may I ask who 'we' are?"

"We the Topography Genera Center."

This wasn't answering much. "Alright, what about the Black Masks? Can you tell me about them?"

"It is as Artilleryman told you: It is required, by United Kingdom law, to station one Black Mask agent per Average Person Threatening Phenomenon. Considering the nature of our research, parliament agreed that we require a considerably larger number of agents than, say, a nuclear plant does."

"Because of the Fossils?"

"Because of the Fossils, precisely."

"When, exactly, did this policy become official legislation?"

"The Black Mask Act was passed fairly recently; exactly three weeks have passed. For the record, I have orders to only answer five more of your questions, and then I'm going to put this questioning on hold; is that alright?"

"I mean. Sure."

"Excellent. Good luck getting your questions in order."

"Thanks? Here's one: What happened to the North branch, are we going to do anything to reclaim it?"

"The Topography Genera Center North was a failed experiment. We have held a tribunal amongst ourselves to weigh the results of the experiment, and it was deemed a unanimous 'Dangerous Failure' that requires immediate abort. The site shall be decommissioned in the coming months."

"That's good. So you guys have a way of dealing with EAT?"

"I'm sorry, could you repeat the question or perhaps rephrase it?"

"In order to decommission the North branch, I assume you guys have a plan for neutralizing the threat inside? The fake Genera workers, the things that perform terrible things on unconsenting people? EAT?"

"I'm afraid I still don't understand."

"Okay, uh.. are you guys aware of EAT? Like, do you have a file on it or something?"

"There is a FOSSIL TYPE-EAT, yes, but that was a misfiling and has since been rectified. EAT is no threat. EAT is not our problem. The problem in the Topography Genera Center North is FT-PASSACAGLIA, which has contaminated the ventilation and thus rendered all research unreliable."

"I.. now I don't understand. I want to know, from your own mouth: What is EAT?"

There was a longer pause here before Weightless responded. "You do not have access."

"I have access to all of the information you know!"

"You were granted access to the entire Topography Genera Center database. Your question does not fall under that. You do not have access. I do not even have access to that."

"This is bullshit."

"Your questions are up, Liquid Len. Now I must ask you to make a decision: I'm offering you co-management of the Genera. All you would need to do is blog and only blog."

"And if I refuse?"

Something that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. "Why would you want to refuse?"

I was about to answer when I figured out the threat. Weightless was playing a dangerous game, as was I-- and I was at the disadvantage, as I hadn't even recognized the game until too late.

Weightless continued. "It doesn't matter what you blog, only that you write. If your run as co-managing head is deemed successful by our review board, the next step will be a drastic-- and, in my opinion, much needed-- restructuring of the entire Topography Genera Center hierarchy. As you can see, this job offer is a vital experiment, and as such we have gone out of our way to accommodate you to the best of our abilities."

The computer at my desk, giving me a start, displayed a text document-- a contract for me to print out and sign.

I looked at it, not even reading it, just feeling the world close in on me that little bit more. In the corner of my eye, the scrolling prompt on the projector screen got that little bit more complex in its patterns.

It came down to this.

Blog, or die.

Blog updates:
wiseaufan01 brought my attention to the Moonlit Knight:

I received a formal invitation to the "compromise meetings" on the lower levels. I was escorted by several Black Masks. We rode that long elevator ride in silence, and before I entered the B8 cathedral, I noted that there were buttons implying even lower levels than this.

Seated at the desks were characters I don't know if I expected to see but certainly was not surprised at the sight of: A large bald man in military coat, a perfect marble woman, a clockwork mechanism devoid of discernible shape, a suited man without a face, and NO standing at the podium facing everyone. This was a meeting of the Fossils.

The whole party looked at me as I walked in. I took a deep breath and followed the Black Masks to my desk, the closest one to NO.

NO thanked me for attending and introduced me to the rest: "This is the co-manager of all Topography Genera Center operations." He did not look the least bit wet, despite riding the same tidal wave as FT-HADES had.

The Cremator spoke first. Said he recognized me. Said I don't strike him as manager material.

NO assured him that my promotion represented new directions in the Genera's infrastructure. "Now then, shall we begin?"

The Cremator replied again. "Let me speak for everyone. I understand their concerns. I agree with them. You have been stepping on toes you shouldn't step on. Now you kill Hades. Hades was good man. We hear you plan on taking this further. We don't like this. Don't like it one bit. You are Night Owl, correct?"

I spoke up, at first out of confusion, but then once I'd realized that I had exclaimed louder than intended and that everyone was looking at me again, I followed it up: "I mean. Is he the Night Owl?"

NO smiled. "If I were this terrorist, why would I hide in such plain sight?"

Selkie groaned at this. "There's nothing 'plain' about your hiding place. C'mon. Why do you always want to play games?"

Cremator again: "I apologize. Did not mean to pose it as question. You are the Night Owl. Your plans for life cannot be allowed. I will not allow it."

I'm sure NO cringed, even if he recovered instantly. "You may have your opinions. That's why I called you here: We can find a compromise that suits everyone best. Have you heard of how we're accommodating Homunculi? Similar incentives can be yours too if you listen to reason."

The clockwork mess, which I take to be FT-HOMUNCULI, found a voice to call its own, screeching the word "Yes."

NO again: "Would it make you feel better, Cremator, if I informed you that Hades is alive and well?"

"Prove this."

On the screen behind the podium, scrolling code gave way to a live video feed of a cell in Hell's Kitchen, where the godly Viking lay, unconscious but clearly breathing.

The Birchman and the Cremator stood up, hands on desk, staring in outrage at the feed.

NO then smiled and asked the Black Masks to take me back to my office. "He's seen all he needs to see. Now the rest of us can talk business."

I see more Black Masks every day. Some guard my office door now. They won't tell me why. It's likely my life is in danger. But it already was. Blog or die.

There's only so long I can blog, though, isn't there?

I don't do anything.

I can't even pretend I'm interested in finding answers anymore. Selkie's alive? Huh. Wow. Not dead? You don't say. The Night Owl ran the Genera? Still runs, really. Yeah, my heart's not in it.

Look. You guys want me to blog. Here's a blog. Blog blog bloggity blog.

The fate of my life hangs on posts on Blogger.

What can you really say about the value of a life, then? Am I a man or an identity?

Am I dead or merely blogging?

Blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog

I tried leaving my office. NO was there, shoving me back inside, and he came in with me and shut the door.

He says something about a "project digmit." It's complete. The greatest weapon under Genera control. A living breathing Fossil, manufactured by our best scientists.

"Not even the Birchman stands a chance against this."

I asked if FT-BIRCHMAN is supposed to be a particularly formidable Fossil. I mean, more so than the others.

"There's a reason why the story we spread among the Runners was one of someone standing up to him."

"And that is?"

"If unchecked, he can destroy worlds."

I don't even feel threatened. Or surprised.