Day Two
NRV Frontier
Two Kilometers East of Severniy Norin
07:00
The largest of the labs on the ship had become the primary control station of the experiment, reconfigured into a wall-to-wall assortment of screens, computers, whiteboards and office chairs.
Most of the equipment had already been tested and set up in secret, and had been hidden before the so-called research expedition. It had only been a matter of bringing it up from the Frontier’s cargo hold and setting the workstations back up, which the technicians and research assistants were more than eager to do. Over a dozen of them manned the various monitoring stations, pouring over the data gathered from the experiment. Some meticulously transcribed conversations between the participants; others watched vital signs and tried to assess the rate of consumption of issued supplies. All of them were completely engaged in their work, hushed conversations occasionally broken by brief moments of excitement or the clatter of keyboards.
The majority of the team were clad in black coveralls, with a white stenciled Janus-Hayes logo emblazoned on the back, and their respective pseudonyms written across the left breast pocket.
Those who had been assigned to the prototypes merely wore their civilian clothing, with little more than a lanyard with an ID badge and a dosimeter as an identifying uniform.
At the far end of the room, a small raised platform had been installed, on which sat a large steel desk and a pair of office chairs bolted behind it. Many of the hastily zip-tied cables throughout the room fed directly into this control station, which was outfitted with four computer monitors. A high-quality microphone had been set up in front of one of the chairs, which almost gave it the impression of an ad hoc studio. The importance of this particular part of the lab was undercut somewhat by the individual half-slumped over their keyboard, head buried in her hands.
Dr. Finch was very hung over.
While Sycamore’s team focused on the Participants, her team watched the Prototypes. To her surprise, they hadn’t been as active at thinning the numbers as the Participants themselves had been. Two of the three Participant-instigated deaths were accidental. By contrast, Vermiculus claimed a single kill of three potential victims, followed closely by the Chimera.
Some of the team stepped out when Vermiculus subsumed its first victim. That was when she'd started drinking. She picked up the pace when she realized that a crackling sound in the footage of the Chimera eating a Participant wasn’t static, but bones snapping. By then her team had returned, more used to its particular brand of violence than Garuda's monster. Still, Finch was the only one who had the stomach to watch as closely as they all needed to. To listen to every crunch. Document each frame.
Someone had to to it. It might as well be her. What a maxim to live by, she thought.
Finch groaned, as a wave of pain crested across her temples. The alcohol had helped dull the feelings of revulsion, and made it easier to buy her own bullshit when it came to why she was doing all of this. There was nowhere to run with what she knew, and who would be after her. At least on this side, she was safe. Her family, her partner - no one would be hunting them to get to her. It was better than the alternative, she kept telling herself.
Much like a hangover, she paid the price for each excuse in the morning when she admitted to herself she was probably just too far into this to stop.
“Hey Erin. Rough night?”
Finch looked up, wincing at the fluorescent lights bearing down above her. Amber was standing nearby, a coffee tumbler in each hand. Finch didn’t recognize her at first, not the least because she’d given herself something of a makeover after shipping off to Severniy Norin.
Like the rest of Finch’s team, she’d opted to wear a simple ID badge and civilian clothes, rather than a uniform. Finch got the impression that short hair and combat shirts were more her thing than the office casual getup that she’d adopted working back at the missile base. Rather than being unsettled by her chameleon-like nature, Finch’s attention was drawn to the pair of coffee tumblers in her hands.
“Y-yeah. I, umm… I may have drank too much.”
“I saw you were going pretty hard at the shift change. Don’t worry, I get it. I brought you a coffee, figured it would help.”
Amber flashed a smile, and set the second tumbler down in front of Finch, who quickly popped it open and took a tentative sip. The confidence with which she said she understood only seemed to confirm Finch's suspicions about her.
Finch returned a smirk, before motioning to the flurry of activity throughout the room. “Oh, you’re delightful. I was… not ready for this.”
Now that every shift had gotten their good night’s rest, the technicians on both teams were scrambling to show off before Dr. Sycamore arrived. To her chagrin, she suspected her presence might’ve accelerated the manic pace of the room.
“Aww. Well, at least it gives you a bit of breathing room, right?”
“If only.” Finch scanned the room, watching the two teams work. Sycamore’s group seemed particularly animated, in anticipation of his arrival. Psychology lingo and terms borrowed directly from Sycamore and Fournier’s work littered their conversations, which were occasionally interrupted by laughter.
Her own team, in contrast, said little. Much of their work was spent reviewing footage from the previous day, and she’d made it clear she expected them to pace themselves with the rough parts. Assuming the experiment continued for a few more days, they had to find ways to compensate for the burnout that was sure to come.
“Shit, that reminds me.”
Setting the now half-empty coffee tumbler down on the desk beside her, Finch reached down to her feet, and produced a large hard case from underneath the desk. As she placed it beside the main terminal, Amber noted the lettering stenciled onto the top of the case.
“SCYTHE? What’s that?”
Finch shook her head, and stifled a joyless chuckle.
“Like every defense contractor, Janus-Hayes loves to give their weapons scary names: Tomahawk, Trident, Hellfire - they went with Scythe for these. It’s dumb, but they suit my purpose. Each carries a thousand-pound thermobaric warhead. An off-switch for all of this shit, more or less.”
“Oooh, the missiles. Of course.”
Finch paused, and reached into the collar of the knit sweater she was wearing, producing a set of keys on a metal necklace. After inserting the first key into the case, it popped open with a satisfying click, as a set of small hydraulic hinges gently unfolded the setup. She grinned.
“My missiles. Thanks again for the coffee. I wanted him to see this when he gets here.”
Finch watched as the device quickly booted to life. A topographic map of the island, complete with a grid layout and a set of tracking indicators, lit up on the screen. Status indicators also occupied the lower fifth of the screen, indicating that all four XRGM-21C missiles were ready for launch.
Beside the screen, a slot for a small key was set next to a small switch labeled ARM. For now, Finch let the key remain dangling from her neck.
Amber peered over her shoulder; she said nothing, but her awe was apparent. In front of Finch were two active screens - the missile control panel, and another featuring a constant video feed of the Chimera, which was sound asleep in the depths of the island’s armory.
“Is that it?
“Mhm.”
“It’s kind of cute.”
“It licked all the blood off itself.”
“Oh.”
Amber took a long sip of her coffee, in an attempt to make the pause less awkward.
“Is it going well? The tests, that is. I’m on the personnel side so I don’t exactly hear much.”
Of course she didn't. Finch gave Amber a bit of a side-eye, communicating at least that she didn’t appreciate being lied to. Nevertheless, she let it slide. It was too early and she was too hung over to troll the likely-spy in their midst. Finch set the now-empty coffee tumbler on the desk, and shrugged.
“Well, the Participants are about as much of a danger to themselves as the Prototypes are. A few of them just died accidentally. Another had a bead on a Prototype and - well, he fucked up. Short answer is they're not doing great.”
Amber cocked her head. “Is that… a bad thing? You know, for the experiment, I mean.”
On the video feed, Finch saw the Chimera kick its legs in its sleep, like a dog - no, like the wolves it had consumed back at the base.
“I... don’t know.”
It was Amber’s turn to shoot Finch a look. She didn’t particularly seem to appreciate being lied to, either. Sighing, Finch clarified herself.
“I’m not a psychologist, or whatever Sycamore’s calling himself these days, so it’s not my place to say. That lil’ guy there - and at least in part, the other Prototypes - that’s all I’m supposed to care about. So far, we’re seeing some new behavior in this environment. Of course, this is just the start, some of my techs are already drawing up tighter tests we can run back at base, shit we might be able to publish and use when or if this goes public. The jist of it is, the Chimera’s displaying the same kind of adaptive increase in intelligence we assumed, but it’s not clear yet at what rate.”
“It’s getting smarter, but you don’t know by how much?”
Finch sat forward, smiling as she began to describe it.
“Exactly! We’re watching it learn, but we don’t yet know the depth of its understanding. When it speaks, does it really understand what it’s saying or is it just imitating what it heard? We knew it could mimic sounds, but now that it’s potentially capable of developing the faculties for language, we’ll have to see if it can start using them. If it does, it going to use them just to hunt, or for something more?”
Scrolling the mouse wheel on the computer in front of her, the drone zoomed in on the Chimera’s face. The two largest of its eyes were darting back and forth underneath their lids. It was dreaming. Finch was enraptured talking about it.
“In the past we didn’t have this much material for it to process; hopefully we get enough data to see if it’s more of a linear or exponential-”
A round of applause cut her off mid-sentence, and she winced at the sound. Then, once again, at the sight.
Dr. Sycamore had arrived, and his staff had stepped back from their tasks and were enthusiastically offering congratulations on the successful launch of the Project. They almost seemed to be standing at attention. Finch noticed several of her staff looking to her reluctantly; offering them a slight nod, they soon joined in albeit less enthusiastically. Nudging the so-called Personnel Manager by her side, Finch whispered to her to leave and meet her at the next shift change.
Amber left past Sycamore, as he made his way towards the control station. The man feigned incredulity, although Finch knew this was exactly the kind of reaction he’d been hoping for from the team. After all, the Director was now wearing a uniform, too: black fatigues with Sycamore - PROJECT DIRECTOR etched on them with a slightly more relaxed design than the coveralls his staff wore.
It was all so deliberate.
Whether or not anyone else thought it was as transparent as she did, Finch couldn’t help but admit it was effective. His staff, for the most part, seemed genuinely excited about what they were doing. The applause was as spontaneous as it was jarring.
There was more than one experiment going on here, more than one game. The only question on Finch’s mind was whether he realized she was playing, too.
“Morning, Erin.”
“Iain. Get a good rest?”
“Oh, not really. I watched most of the footage from my cabin. Kept me up all night, if I’m being honest.”
“With guilt?”
Sycamore held a blank stare for a moment, before wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. She could never tell if his surprise at her demeanor was genuine.
“Curiosity. Some of our indices are holding up to what we expected, but others-”
“Aren’t. I’m shocked.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, Sycamore sat down behind his end of the desk.
“Well then, do you have any theories?”
“I was thinking we could just feed psychologists to the Chimera until it figures out how to tell you that you’re full of shit.”
“You know, we’re not working against each other here. There’s really no need to be at odds.”
“No, but it makes me feel better. Are we doing this, or not?”
He nodded curtly. There was a single microphone, which Finch had tilted in his direction. After an awkward minute adjusting his workspace and thanking a technician who brought him a hot cup of tea, he turned back to Dr. Finch. She noted a brief flash of alarm on his face as he finally registered the presence of the SCYTHE control panel, though he tried not to let it show.
“Alright. Fair division of labour, I guess we can -”
“You can do the talking. I know that’s your thing. I’ll write out the text.”
“Works for me.” He leaned over from behind his desk. “Everyone! If we could have some silence, please.”
The room went silent immediately. Sycamore fixed his gaze on the notes in front of him, and adjusted the microphone. With a push of a button, he began recording the announcement.
As he spoke, she began to type.
